Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism

elements of ancient jewish nationalism David Goodblatt argues that nationalism can be found in the ancient world, contr...

Author: David Goodblatt

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elements of ancient jewish nationalism David Goodblatt argues that nationalism can be found in the ancient world, contrary to the widespread view that it is a modern phenomenon. He argues that concepts of nationalism compatible with contemporary social scientific theories can be documented in the ancient sources from the Mediterranean Rim by the middle of the last millennium b.c.e. In particular, the collective identity asserted by the Jews in antiquity fits contemporary definitions of nationalism. After the theoretical discussion in the opening chapter, the author examines several factors constitutive of ancient Jewish nationalism. He shows how this identity was socially constructed by such means as the mass dissemination of biblical literature, the retention of the Hebrew language, and the priestly caste. The author also discusses each of the names used to express Jewish national identity: Israel, Judah, and Zion. David Goodblatt is Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego, where he holds the Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies. Previously he taught for more than a decade in the Jewish History Department of the University of Haifa and was the Louis L. Kaplan Professor of Jewish History at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Babylonia and The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity.

Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism david goodblatt University of California, San Diego

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521862028 © David Goodblatt 2006 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2006 eBook (NetLibrary) ISBN-13 978-0-511-25061-3 ISBN-10 0-511-25061-4 eBook (NetLibrary) hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-86202-8 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-86202-7

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For Keren, Michael Moshe, Grace Ayelet

Contents

List of Abbreviations

page ix

Preface

xiii

1

Theoretical Considerations: Nationalism and Ethnicity in Antiquity

1

2

Constructing Jewish Nationalism: The Role of Scripture

28

3

Constructing Jewish Nationalism: The Hebrew Language

49

4

A Kingdom of Priests: The Priestly Component in Ancient Jewish Nationalism

71

5

Israel Nationalism

108

6

Judah Nationalism

140

7

Zion Nationalism

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8

Conclusions: Jewish Nationalism – What Rose and What Fell?

204

Bibliography

211

Author Index

243

Index

251

vii

List of Abbreviations

AASOR AB ABD ABRL AGJU

Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research Anchor Bible Anchor Bible Dictionary Anchor Bible Reference Library Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Julentums und des Urchristentums AJ Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae AJSR Association for Jewish Studies Review ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt BA Biblical Archaeologist BAR Biblical Archaeology Review BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research b.c.e. Before the Common Era BCH Bulletin de Correspondence Hellénistique BJ Bellum Judaicum BJS Brown Judaic Studies BJSUCSD Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego CA Josephus, Contra Apionem CAH Cambridge Ancient History CAJ Cambridge Archaeological Journal CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly c.e. Common Era CHI Cambridge History of Iran CHJ Cambridge History of Judaism CII Corpus inscriptionem iudaicarum CRINT Compendia rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert ix

x

DJPA DSD EI EJ ET GLAJJ GCS HAR HSCP HTR HUCA IDB IEJ INJ JAOS JBL JDS JESHO JH JJS JQR JRA JRASS JRS JSNT JSOT JSOTSS JSP JSPSS JSQ JSSS JStJ JTS LCL LSTS MGWJ NC NEA NEAEHL

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

M. Sokolov, Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period Dead Sea Discoveries Eretz-Israel Encyclopedia Judaica English translation M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism Die griechische christliche Schriftsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte Hebrew Annual Review Harvard Studies in Classical Philology Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Interpreters’ Dictionary of the Bible Israel Exploration Journal Israel Numismatic Journal Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Judean Desert Studies Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Jewish History Journal of Jewish Studies Jewish Quarterly Review Journal of Roman Archaeology JRA Supplementary Series Journal of Roman Studies Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament JSOT Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha JSP Supplement Series Jewish Studies Quarterly Journal of Semitic Studies Supplements Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal of Theological Studies Loeb Classical Library Library of Second Temple Studies Monatsschrift für die Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums Numismatic Chronicle Near Eastern Archaeology New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

NEB NT NTOA NTS OTL OTP PEQ PG RB REJ RQ RStR SBL SCI SDB SHCANE SNT SP SR SSEJC STJD STR TDNT TDOT ThWAT ThWNT TSAJ TSJTSA UF VT WUNT ZAW ZDPV ZNW ZPE

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New English Bible Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus New Testament Studies Old Testament Library J. H. Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Palestine Exploration Quarterly Patrologia Graeca – J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologia Cursus completus: Series graeca Revue Biblique ´ Revue des Etudes Juives Revue de Qumran Religious Studies Review Society of Biblical Literature Scripta Classical Israelica Supplements au dictionnaire de la bible Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East Supplements to Novum Testamentum Studia Philonica Studies in Religions/Sciences Religieuses Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity Studies in the Texts from the Judaean Desert Studies in Theology and Religion Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Theologisches Wörterbuch des Alten Testament Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism Texts and Studies of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America Ugaritische Forschung Vetus Testamentum Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift der deutschen Palästina Verein Zeitschrift für Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

Preface

The present book is the result of a decade’s worth of research and reflection. Several sources inspired my interest in the topic of ancient Jewish nationalism. One was the work of Fergus Millar that culminated in his book The Roman Near East 31 bc–ad 337 (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1993). Another was (partial) exposure to the mass of social scientific research on collective identity, ethnicity, and nationalism. Once I began pursuing this interest, I benefited greatly from the work on the topic by Doron Mendels, Shaye Cohen, and Seth Schwartz. As the reader will see from the footnotes, numerous other scholars contributed through their publications to the advancement of my project. My primary focus will be on the province of Judah (Yehud, Ioudaia) of the Achemenid, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid empires, on (nominally) independent, Hasmonean–Herodian Judah, and on the Roman province of Iudaea. Occasionally I will also look at the situation among the Jews of the Diaspora, and occasionally I will take the discussion into the later Roman period. The later period will also come into play in the final chapter where I discuss theories of the “fall” of Jewish nationalism after 70 or 135 c.e. Given my focus on Judah and its residents, I considered using the phrase “Judean nationalism,” rather than “Jewish.” The ancient languages all had only one word to denote the human subjects of this study: (in the singular) Hebrew yehudi, Aramaic yehudai, Greek Ioudaios, and Latin Iudaeus. These languages did not have separate words to distinguish “Judean” from “Jew” as English and French, for example, do. The result, for the contemporary reader, is a certain ambiguity. Modern scholarship has devoted much effort to teasing out the various connotations of the above-mentioned terms in the ancient sources.1 1

Compare the similar problems raised in trying to understand the meaning of the terms “Syrian” and “Arab” in ancient literature and noted by Kevin Butcher, Roman Syria and

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Some of the relevant literature is cited in Chapter 5, note 23, and Chapter 6, note 10. My practice has been to translate the ancient terms by “Judean” and thereby preserve the ambiguities of the original. This seems preferable to risking an incorrect and possibly anachronistic resolution of the ambiguity. In light of this practice, consistency seems to require that I speak here of “Judean nationalism.” The decision to use the phrase “Jewish nationalism” resulted from sensitivity to a different ambiguity. I refer to the overlapping of Judean and Israelite identities. As Chapter 5 discusses, the ancient Judeans also saw themselves as Israelites. So too did Jews in subsequent eras. Consequently the nationalism of ancient Judeans could and did invoke the name “Israel.”2 To allow for this ambiguity I have retained “Jewish” because it can imply either “Judah” or “Israel” or both. The details can be followed in Chapters 5 and 6. To the phrase “Ancient Jewish Nationalism” in the title of this book, I have prefixed the words “Elements of.” This is to make clear that the book has no pretensions to being a comprehensive treatment of the subject. And if I make no claims of exhausting the topic of ancient Jewish nationalism, all the more so is this true regarding other nationalisms in antiquity. Some readers and reviewers (if there are any) will undoubtedly criticize me for insufficient attention to comparative material. It is true that after Chapter 1 my focus narrows almost exclusively to the Jews. My explanation is that I found more than enough in Jewish history to keep me busy and fill these pages. Those with the relevant expertise will more fruitfully address analogous questions of the existence and nature of the collective identities of other peoples of the ancient world. A series of case studies or monographs on the collective identities of various ancient peoples will then permit a synthetic study of nationalism and ethnicity in antiquity. As Ted Kaizer put it in a broader context, “Local studies must remain the starting point for research on the Classical Levant, but the contributions they make have wider implications. Research into particular localities and regions is fundamental to supplementing our understanding of the Near East as a whole, and comparisons between these different perspectives enable us to improve continuously on the wider picture.”3 Finally, one of the many lessons I learned years ago from my mentor Jacob Neusner

2

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the Near East (London: British Museum Press and Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2003), pp. 270–2. In part, the relation between the two terms is analogous to the relation between the terms “Persia” and “Iran,” discussed by Josef Wiesehöfer in the preface to his Ancient Persia from 550 bc to 650 ad (trans. Azizeh Azodi; London/New York: I. B. Tauris, 2001), pp. xi–xii. Ted Kaizer, “The Near East in Hellenistic and Roman Periods between Local, Regional and Supra-Regional Approaches,” SCI XXII (2003), p. 295.

PREFACE

xv

is that scholarship is a cooperative venture. This narrow study, then, is my contribution to a larger effort involving others. Portions of this book are revisions and updates of material previously published in various venues. Chapters 1 and 2 develop ideas first explored in “Judean Nationalism in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in D. Goodblatt, A. Pinnick, and D. R. Schwartz, eds., Historical Perspectives: From the Hasmoneans to Bar Kokhba in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Fourth International Symposium of the Orion Center, 27–31 January 1999, (Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 2001), pp. 3–27. Chapter 4 incorporates material from “Priestly Ideologies of the Judean Resistance,” JSQ 3 (1996), pp. 225– 49. Chapters 5 and 6 build on research published in “From Judeans to Israel: Names of Jewish States in Antiquity,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 29 (1998), pp. 1 –36. And Chapter 7 reprises “Ancient Zionism? The Zion Coins of the First Revolt and Their Background,” International Rennert Guest Lecture Series 8 (2001), and “The Temple Mount: The Afterlife of a Biblical Phrase,” in R. E. Friedman and W. H. C. Propp, eds., Le-David Maskil. A Birthday Tribute for David Noel Freedman (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), pp. 91 –101. I am grateful to the following for granting me permission to use these materials. For the first and third items listed I thank Brill Academic Publishers. For the third item I am grateful to Mohr Siebeck. I am indebted to the Board of Overseers of the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies for allowing me to use the fourth publication listed. And finally, I thank Eisenbrauns, Inc., for permitting me to use the fifth item. Over the several years of work on this project I have benefited from the help of many people and institutions. To the individuals, I cite the words of the inscription from the late antique synagogue in Jericho: hyqydx lk ![ hyyj rpsb @whty bwtky . . . @wthmv [dyd

As to the institutions, I wish to acknowledge the following. For allowing me to present my research in its earlier stages to a large body of specialists in Jewish studies from all over the world, I am indebted to the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies, the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies at Bar-Ilan University, and the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I also wish to thank the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies for enabling me to spend several months of research and writing at Yarnton Manor on a Skirball Fellowship. Above all I am grateful to my academic home, the Department of History at the University of California, San Diego, for its willingness to allow me to teach subjects not exactly at the forefront of mass student demand while granting abundant

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PREFACE

opportunities for research. The Judaic Studies Program at UCSD, through the Endowed Chair in Judaic Studies, provided generous financial support for all aspects of my work. What I owe my wife, Sasona Kieval Goodblatt, goes beyond words. But one debt that can be mentioned here involves our three children, to whom this book is dedicated: Keren, Michael Moshe, and Grace Ayelet.

1

Theoretical Considerations: Nationalism and Ethnicity in Antiquity

H

istorians of the jews in antiquity have often used the words “nation,” “nationalism,” and related terms when writing of their subject. In some cases this was a conscious choice. For an author committed to the Zionist cause like Michael Avi-Yonah, referring to the Jews in antiquity as a nation in 1946 had an ideological motivation.1 But even authors innocent of such commitments show no hesitation in using these terms. Three late twentieth-century illustrations of this phenomenon will suffice here. E. Mary Smallwood’s The Jews Under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian has long been a standard survey. A glance at her index shows a considerable number of entries under “nationalism, nationalist, Jewish in Palestine.” Martin Goodman, in his Ruling Class of Judaea, puts “Jewish nationalism” in quotation marks when speaking of the treatment of this subject by other scholars. But he goes on to mention the Jews’ “hopes for national restoration” without qualification. Finally, Erich S. Gruen discusses embellishments and rewritings of biblical narratives by Hellenistic Jews in his Heritage and Hellenism. He concludes that these fictions “display a strong sense of identity and national 1

See Michael Avi-Yonah, In the Days of Rome and Byzantium (Third Edition; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1962), p. 10 [Hebrew]. Other twentieth-century authors used the terminology of “nation” from equally ideological positions. An example of a non-Zionist ideological historian using it is Simon Dubnow. See the recent summary of his position in David H. Weinberg, Between Tradition and Modernity. Haim Zhitlowski, Simon Dubnow, Ahad Ha-am, and the Shaping of Modern Jewish Identity (New York/London: Holmes & Meier, 1996), pp. 185–216. This position seems to have influenced Salo Baron, who echoes Dubnow when writing of “the emancipation of Jewish nationality from state and territory.” See Salo W. Baron, A Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), Vol. I, pp. 25, 31, 93–6, 237. Like Dubnow, Baron paid a lot of attention to the history of nationalism, including in antiquity. See especially his Modern Nationalism and Religion (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1947), pp. 7–8, with references to older literature in n. 6, p. 275.

1

2

ELEMENTS OF ANCIENT JEWISH NATIONALISM

self-consciousness.”2 In addition to these examples of casual and occasional usage of such concepts, I am aware of three monographs devoted to Jewish nationalism in antiquity from the beginning, middle, and end of the second half of the twentieth century. They are William Farmer’s Maccabees, Zealots and Josephus: An Inquiry into Jewish Nationalism in the Greco-Roman Period (1956), Wilhelm In der Smitten’s Gottesherrschaft und Gemeinde: Beobachtungen an Frühformen eines jüdischen Nationalismus in der Spätzeit des Alten Testaments (1974), and Doron Mendels’ The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism (1992/97).3 As common as these concepts are in historiography on the Jews in antiquity, their use has its problems. In the preface to the second edition of his book, Doron Mendels notes that “some of my readers were uncomfortable with the term ‘nationalism.’”4 The reasons for this discomfort are not hard to find. Over the past century the social sciences have devoted considerable attention to the notions of nation and nationalism. Even though there is a wide variety of opinions, there is also a broad consensus that these are modern phenomena. Thus, to cite a recent study, “Most scholars agree that nationalism is a creature only of the past 200 years of history.”5 Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson, to cite two influential students of the subject, differ on the nature and origins of nationalism but agree that it cannot be found before the early modern era. This conclusion was not the product of late twentieth-century thinking. The great nineteenth-century orientalist Ernest Renan asserted, “The idea of nationality as it exists today is a new conception unknown to antiquity.”6 Even those who argue that nationalism has premodern roots concede this point. 2

3

4 5 6

See E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews Under Roman Rule from Pompey to Diocletian. A Study in Political Relations (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 20, Photomechanical Reprint with Corrections; Leiden: Brill, 1981 ), p. 588; Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea. The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome a.d. 66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 17, n. 30; Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism. The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Hellenistic Culture and Society XXX; Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1998), p. 188. William Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots and Josephus: An Inquiry into Jewish Nationalism in the Greco-Roman Period (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956); Wilhelm In der Smitten, Gottesherrschaft und Gemeinde: Beobachtungen an Frühformen eines jüdischen Nationalismus in der Spätzeit des Alten Testaments (Bern: Herbert Lang and Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang, 1974); Doron Mendels, The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1992; Second Edition, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997). Mendels, Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, p. ix. Michael Hechter, Containing Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 24. See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (Revised Edition; London/New York: Verso, 1991 ). Renan is quoted by M. Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation. The Construction of National Identity (New York: Paragon House, 1993), p. 42.

NATIONALISM AND ETHNICITY IN ANTIQUITY

3

Walker Connor, while stressing the “tribal” origins of nationalism, admits there were no real nations until the nineteenth century. Anthony Smith, who emphasizes the ethnic origins of nations, avoids the latter term when treating earlier periods and uses “ethnie” instead. And John Armstrong prefers to speak of “proto-nationalism” or “precocious nationalism” when discussing premodern times.7 If the preceding views are correct, then using a term like “nationalism” when writing ancient history is inappropriate and misleading. The point is made explicitly by Richard Horsley in an essay about the Judean revolt against Rome in 66 c.e. For many scholars this revolt is a parade example of ancient Jewish nationalism. Horsley disagrees. He notes, “While some peoples may have a certain awareness as ethnos, ‘nationalism’ is a modern concept that is anachronistic when applied to ancient societies.”8 Even Mendels, echoing Renan, conceded in the original edition of his book that we cannot speak of nationalism in the ancient world “in the sense it has in modern times.” He defended his use of the term by noting that historians of antiquity frequently use terminology that originated in more recent times.9 Unfortunately he refrained from attempting to define what nationalism might mean in the context of antiquity. In any case, Mendels says, he will deal “with the issue of ethnicity, which will for convenience be called here ‘nationalism.’” Ethnicity is not defined either, though from the continuation it appears to involve the way “peoples” differ from one another “in terms of language, territory, history, culture and religion.”10 In the second edition he still insists that the concept of “nationalism” is applicable “in many of its aspects to the world of antiquity.” And he still appears to merge the latter concept with that of ethnicity.11 The belief that the concept of ethnicity is less anachronistic that that of nationalism may derive from the work of A. D. Smith.12 The thrust of Smith’s 7

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10 11 12

See Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford/New York: Blackwell, 1987); idem, National Identity (Reno/London: University of Nevada Press, 1991 ); John A. Armstrong, Nations before Nationalism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982). Richard Horsley, “Power Vacuum and Power Struggle in 66–7 ce,” in Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman, eds., The First Jewish Revolt. Archaeology, History and Ideology (London/New York: Routledge, 2002), p. 87. Compare the remarks of John P. Meier, “Is There Halaka (the Noun) at Qumran?” JBL 122 (2003), p. 151. He observes that “our vocabulary may be anachronistic” as long as “our concepts and affirmations” are not. Mendels, Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, pp. 13–14. Ibid., p. ix. See n. 7, this chapter. Mendels, Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, p. 27, n. 1 cites an earlier book of Smith.

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works is summed up in the title of one of his books, The Ethnic Origins of Nations. That is, nations may be modern phenomena, but ethnic groups have a longer history. So concepts like “ethnic identity” and “ethnicity” may be appropriate when discussing the ancient world. Irad Malkin makes the point explicit: “Whereas nationalism is certainly a modern phenomenon, ethnicity is not.”13 Whatever the inspiration, the use of the concept of ethnicity has become fairly common among a number of ancient historians. In a lecture delivered in 1999, Frank Walbank looked back at his article from 1951 on the problem of Greek nationality. He observed, “Certainly ‘ethnicity’, however we define it, has taken the place of ‘nationality’ as a historian’s tool for interpreting Greek history and trying to understand how Greeks saw themselves.”14 Indeed there have been several recent studies on ethnicity in both Greek and Jewish antiquity that show considerable theoretical sophistication.15 Perhaps an argument from etymology is at work, at least on some

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Irad Malkin, “Introduction,” in idem, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Cambridge MA/London: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2001 ), p. 16. Frank Walbank, “Hellenes and Achaians: ‘Greek Nationality’ Revisited,” in Pernille FlenstedJensen, ed., Further Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis (Historia Einzelschriften 138; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2000), p. 19. The date of the lecture appears on p. 31, n. 57. Koen Goudriaan, Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt (Amsterdam: Gieben, 1988); Catherine Morgan, “Ethnicity and Early Greek States: Historical and Material Perspectives,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 37 (1991 ), pp. 131 –63; P. Bilde et al., eds., Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt (Studies in Hellenistic Civilization III; Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1992); J. M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); idem, Hellenicity. Between Ethnicity and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Siân Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity. Constructing Identities in the Past and Present (London/New York: Routledge, 1997); the essays collected in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity ; see also Butcher, Roman Syria, pp. 270–334, though this author prefers to speak simply of “identities” rather than ethnicity; E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries: The Deuteronomistic History and the Creation of Israelite National Identity, SBL, Semeia Studies (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993); idem, Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations: A New Approach to the Formation of the Pentateuch (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997); Kenton L. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel. Prolegomenon to the Study of Ethnic Sentiments and Their Expression in the Hebrew Bible (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998); Gary G. Porton, Goyim. Gentiles and Israelites in Mishnah-Tosefta (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 288–98; Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness. Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley/ Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1999); A. I. Baumgarten, “The Jewish People in the Second Temple Period as an ‘Imagined Community,’” in I. Gafni, ed., Center and Diaspora in the Second Temple Mishnah and Talmud Periods (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 2004), pp. 17–36 [Hebrew]. Modern scholarship on ethnicity also informs some recent work on Jewish identity in the ancient diaspora. See for example D. Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Stangers (Swansea: Duckworth with the Classical Press of Wales, 2000); Maren R. Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture (TSAJ 86; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001); Gideon Bohak, “Ethnic Continuity in the Jewish Diaspora in Antiquity,” in John R. Bartlett, ed., Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (London/New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 175–92; Carl R. Holladay, “Paul and His Predecessors in the Diaspora: Some Reflections on Ethnic Identity


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level. We recall the assertion of Horsley that the concept of nationalism is anachronistic in the ancient context, although some peoples were aware of themselves as an ethnos. The terms “ethnic,” “ethnicity,” and so on derive from this Greek word, which was widely used in antiquity to refer to groups of people we might classify as ethnic or national entities.16 But the Latin natio, whence our “nation,” can make the same claim. Clearly we must take a closer look at the definitions of the two concepts. How is national identity distinguished from ethnic consciousness? And isn’t ethnicity as modern a category as nationalism? If so, why would its application to antiquity be any less anachronistic? The literature on ethnicity now rivals that on nationalism.17 Definitions of both concepts abound, but so does confusion. In fact, each term is used in a variety of ways. In contemporary American English “nation” tends to be

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in the Fragmentary Hellenistic Jewish Authors,” in John T. Fitzgerald, Thomas H. Olbricht, and L. Michael White, eds., Early Christianity and Classical Culture. Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe (SNT CX; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), pp. 429–60. Note also M. Liverani, “Nationality and Political Identity,” ABD, Vol. 4, pp. 1031 –7; and the collected papers of Steven Grosby in his Biblical Ideas of Nationality Ancient and Modern (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002). As the titles suggest, both are comfortable using the term “nationality.” On the specific problem of the “ethnogenesis” of Israel, see Israel Finkelstein, “Pots and People Revisited: Ethnic Boundaries in Iron Age I,” in Neil Asher Silberman and David Small, eds., The Archaeology of Israel. Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present (JSOTSS 237; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 216–37: David Small, “Group Identification and Ethnicity in the Construction of the Early State of Israel: From the Outside Looking In,” ibid., pp. 271 –88; Niels Peter Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition (London: SPCK and Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998); Avraham Faust, Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance, forthcoming. See further Chapter 4 in this book. The point is more or less explicit in Uffe Østerg˚ard, “What Is National in Ethnic Identity?” in Bilde et al., eds., Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, pp. 31 –2, though he also allows use of the term “nation.” For a detailed treatment of one example of ancient Greek usage, see Christopher P. Jones, “s and s in Herodotus,” Classical Quarterly 46 (1996), pp. 315–20. For general orientation, see Marcus Banks, Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions (London/ New York: Routledge, 1996). There are also several studies comparing the two concepts. For a brief overview of recent research, see Thomas Spira, “Ethnicity and Nationality. The Twin Matrices of Nationalism,” in Daniele Conversi, ed., Ethnonationalism in the Contemporary World. Walker Connor and the Study of Nationalism (London/New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 248–68. Among the full-length studies are Paul R. Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (New Delhi/Newbury Park/London: Sage Publications, 1991 ); Thomas H. Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism. Anthropological Perspectives (London/Boulder, CO: Pluto Press, 1993; Second Edition, London/Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002); James G. Kellas, The Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity (Second Edition; New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998); and Peter Krüger, ed., Ethnicity and Nationalism. Case Studies in Their Intrinsic Tension and Political Dynamics (Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1993). For a sense of the extent of social scientific literature on the two concepts, see Thomas Spira, ed., Nationalism and Ethnicity Terminologies. An Encyclopedic Dictionary and Research Guide (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1999), Vol. I. This volume runs to 757 pages, and two more volumes are forthcoming!

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used in the sense of “state, country” with “nationality” having the sense of “citizenship in a state.” Relying on the model of the United States, such citizenship has nothing to do with race, geographic origins, religion or culture. In contrast, an ethnic group is commonly understood to be a subdivision within the body of citizens. Membership in the ethnic group is based precisely on such factors as race (e.g., African Americans), geographical origins (e.g., Polish, Samoan), religion (e.g., Jews, Muslims), and culture (e.g., the category “Hispanic” – though there is considerable overlap between the cultural criterion and the previous three).18 In this usage “ethnic group” appears to have replaced the older term “race,” which was widely applied to such groups as the Jews and the Irish before World War II, when it was discredited by association with Nazi practice.19 Be that as it may, other languages reserve terms derived from the Latin natio for what Americans would call ethnic or cultural categories. Examples include German Nazionalität. For citizenship in a state, German has the self-explanatory Staatsangehörigkeit, “state-belonging.” Similarly, internal passports issued by the USSR distinguished between grazhdanstvo, citizenship, and natsional’nost, ethnic-cultural affiliation.20 Thus in the United States the nation transcends ethnicity, while in Germany and Russia it equals ethnicity. A third option in common discourse allows nationality to include either state citizenship or ethnicity, adding modifiers to specify which of the two phenomena is meant. Thus some distinguish between “political nationalism” and “cultural nationalism.” Interestingly enough, this approach appears in the work of Salo Baron, one of the greatest twentieth-century historians of the Jews. For obvious reasons the concept of a kind of nationalism without sovereign political institutions seemed a good fit for the stateless Jewish people.21 A detailed application of distinction between political and cultural nationalisms in the context of ancient Jewish history appears in the work of Moshe and David Aberbach. They argue that the suppression of the revolt

18

19 20

21

A further variation emerged in the concluding third of the twentieth century: the ethnic group as a marginal, deprived, or oppressed group. See, for example, E. Cashmore, Dictionary of Race and Ethnic Relations (Third Edition; London: Routledge, 1994), p. 106. See Bernard Lewis, The Multiple Identities of the Middle East (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1998), pp. 16, 46. See Lewis, Multiple Identities, pp. 15–16. Modern Israel also distinguishes between “citizenship” (ezrahut) (e.g., Israeli) and “nationality” (le’um) (e.g., Jewish or Arab). On the Russian terms, see the discussion in Banks, Ethnicity, p. 23. See Baron, Modern Nationalism and Religion, pp. 7–8; idem, Social and Religious History, pp. 27–8. Mendels, Rise and Fall, p. 15, distinguishes between “the ethnos (people, nation) and a political state.” On p. 22, he uses the term “political nationalism” in the sense of “statehood.” The nonpolitical nation would presumably be characterized by cultural nationalism.


7

against Rome in 70 led the Jews to focus their identity on factors such as religion, language, and sacred texts. As they put it, Largely deprived of the territorial, social and political bases of their nationalism, the Jews were forced to base their identity and hopes of survival not on political but on cultural and moral power. . . . The forced split between political and cultural nationalism was a major factor in Jewish survival.

This development, they suggest, is “a possible antecedent of the modern nationalism of defeated peoples.” The Aberbachs ignore the kinship element in Jewish identity, ignore precedents from the Persian and Hellenistic eras, and overstate the effects of the suppression of the revolt in 70. On the positive side, they provide a detailed exposition of the distinction proposed by Baron and show how nationalism can survive the loss of state institutions.22 A related dichotomy contrasts “modern nationalism,” democratically encompassing all the citizens of the state, with “ethnic/tribal nationalism.”23 A less judgmental version appears in some recent theoretical discussions. Eriksen, for example, distinguishes between “ethnic nationalism” and “polyethnic or supra-ethnic nationalism.” And Krüger similarly contrasts the “ethnic nation” and the “political nation.”24 However, one wonders whether these distinctions do not reflect a blurring of the concepts of “state” and “nation” as they are commonly used in English language discourse. The political, polyethnic, or supraethnic “nation,” or the “nation of all its citizens,” is simply a state not organized on an ethnic 22

23

24

See Moshe Aberbach and David Aberbach, The Roman–Jewish Wars and Hebrew Cultural Nationalism (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire/London: Macmillan Press and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000). The quotes are from p. 5 and p. 4, respectively. The theoretical inspiration for their approach appears to come from John Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (Hemel Hempstead, Herts/Winchester, MA: Allen & Unwin, 1987). See Y. Lior, “Baderekh la’etniyut [= “On the Way to Ethnicity,” Review of Yig‘al Elam, Yahadut bastatus qvo],” Ha-aretz, March 9, 2001, p. B 15 [Hebrew]. “Nationalism” is the Hebrew le’umiyut. Lior’s approach is typical of anti-Zionist and post-Zionist Jewish and Israeli intellectuals. Some of these intellectuals apply the dichotomy not to nationalism, but to the state. Thus Sammy Smooha distinguishes between a “multicultural civic democracy” and an “ethnic democracy.” One of his articles where he elaborates on these concepts, “Ethnic Democracy: Israel as an Archtype,” Israel Studies 2 (1997), pp. 198–241, appeared in a special section devoted to “The State of the Israeli State.” That these concepts apply to the state is explicit in the title of the article by As‘ad Ghanem, “State and Minority in Israel: The Case of Ethnic State [sic] and the Predicament of Its Minority,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21 (1998), pp. 428–48. See the discussion immediately preceding it in the text. See Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 119; Krüger, Ethnicity and Nationalism, “Introduction,” p. 10.

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basis.25 Using the word “state,” rather than “nation,” for the political organization would avoid confusion. Further confusion results when the same definition is proposed for both ethnicity and national identity. For example, Walker Connor writes, “A nation is a group of people characterized by a myth of common descent.” He acknowledges his dependence on Max Weber’s definition of ethnicity: “We shall call ethnic groups those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent, . . . it does not matter whether or not an objective blood relationship exists.” This suggests the two terms are synonymous. Connor’s definition of “nation” is not original with him. He cites an old European joke that runs, “A nation is a group of people united by a common error about their ancestry and a common dislike of their neighbors.”26 In any case, in view of the same definition for both terms, it is not surprising that Connor admits his terminological combination “ethnonationalism” has “an inner redundancy.”27 Mendels also used “nationality” and “ethnicity” interchangeably, as noted above, though he apparently defines ethnicity in terms of culture rather than kinship. Other similarities between definitions of ethnicity and nation emerge from the quotations cited earlier. Those quotations all acknowledged the subjective and artificial nature of the belief in a shared identity that constitutes nationalism. Contemporary definitions of ethnicity as socially constructed also acknowledge the invented character of the concept.28 Similarly, the psychosocial dimension of ethnicity emphasized by contemporary scholarship has parallels in recent discussions of national consciousness. I refer to assertions that the origins of ethnic consciousness lie in self-differentiation from others, or from “the Other.” The same is argued for the origin of the 25

26

27 28

Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 7, suggests that in “academic discourse” nationalism is the demand that the political boundaries of a state be coterminous with the cultural or ethnic boundaries. On this view, which Eriksen himself does not share, nationalism is simply the political expression of ethnicity. See there, pp. 117–19. See further discussion later in the chapter. For Connor’s definition, see Ethnonationalism, p. 75. He discusses Weber’s definition of ethnic groups and of nation there, p. 102, citing Max Weber, Economy and Society, 3 Vols. (New York: Bedminster, 1968), Vol. I, p. 389. The joke is cited by Connor, p. 114, n. 10, from Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Its Alternatives (New York: Knopf, 1969), p. 3. Connor, Ethnonationalism, p. xi. See the comment of Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 8. Compare George A. De Vos, “Ethnic Pluralism: Conflict and Accommodation,” in George A. De Vos and L. RomanucciRoss, eds., Ethnic Identity: Creation, Conflict and Accommodation (Third Edition; Walnut Creek/London/New Delhi: Altamira Press, 1995), pp. 24–5. For national identity as socially constructed, see also both Gellner and Anderson, passim.


9

nation, already implied in the joke cited in the previous paragraph.29 Even the debates concerning ethnicity reproduce the debates over nationalism. Thus for both concepts we have disagreement between “primordalists” and “instrumentalists.” And some suggest that “core/periphery” tensions contribute to the creation of ethnicity, while others have them play this role for national identity.30 What then are the differences between ethnic identity and national consciousness? Is it that the nation does not rely on a belief in shared kinship? Instead, following Anderson, national identity involves “an imagined political community.” By the latter he means that “members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”31 But how different is this sense of commonality from socially constructed kinship ties? That difference, if it exists, shrinks even more when we recall how premodern societies were ready to assimilate outsiders through “adoption” and related procedures (see later). In other words, kinship was to a certain extent a metaphor for community. Be that as it may, the “imagined community” sounds like a deracinated, partially demythologized version of the subjective belief in common descent. Whether it results from a belief in shared DNA (to use modern terminology) or something else, it is the sense of community and shared fate that counts. And the latter is common to both the ethnic group and the nation. Let us look at other attempts to differentiate between the two concepts. Eriksen argues that when an ethnic movement demands its own state, “the 29

30

31

See Østerg˚ard, “What Is National in Ethnic Identity?” pp. 35–6; F. Barth, “Introduction,” in idem, ed., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1969), pp. 11, 13f. Compare Smith, Ethnic Origins of Nations, p. 11, where the distinctions ancient peoples drew between themselves and others provide “striking parallels” to modern notions of national identity. See J. M. Hall, Hellenicity, p. 175, nn. 10, 11, for literature attributing the emergence of Greek ethnic or national consciousness in opposition to the Persian empire, and Shaye Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, pp. 105–6, on the role of opposition to the Seleucids in the emergence of the Judean ethnoreligion. For a suggestion regarding an earlier period, see P. Machinist, “The Rab Saqeh at the Wall of Jerusalem: Israelite Identity in the Face of the Assyrian ‘Other,’” Hebrew Studies 41 (2000), pp. 151 –68. Hall himself takes a much more nuanced position, suggesting, on pp. 172–89, that it was the concept of the barbarian that emerged from the Persian wars. For Hall’s own suggestion regarding “the ethnogenesis of the Hellenes,” see there, pp. 125–71. For ethnicity see the references in Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, p. 17, n. 50, and p. 19, n. 59. For nationalism see Østerg˚ard and Anderson. In general see Banks, Ethnicity, p. 154, who favorably cites Eriksen on the “parallelism between the theories (and manifestations)” of ethnicity and of nationalism. Anderson, Imagined Communities, p. 6.

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ethnic movement therefore by definition becomes a nationalist movement.”32 This suggestion seems to be based on the American usage that interprets “nation” in the sense of state. As we saw earlier, there are other understandings of “nation,” allowing us to speak of “nations without states.”33 Thus adopting Eriksen’s distinction could lead to confusion. Kellas suggests other distinctions. In his view the ethnic group is “more rooted in social psychology” while nationalism has “explicitly ideological and political dimensions.” The former is more clearly based on common ancestry; the later, more defined by culture. Ethnic groups are exclusive; nations, inclusive.34 The first two sets of distinctions sound relative rather than absolute, and this raises the problem of how and where one should mark the dividing line. The third distinction seems to be contradicted by many instances of exclusionary nationalism. Connor suggests a different way to distinguish between the two concepts. Actually, he comes very close to equating ethnic and national groups. Yet ultimately he restricts the latter phenomenon to modern times. Nations can only appear when “a sufficient portion of a people has internalized the national identity so as to cause nationalism to become an effective force for mobilizing the masses.”35 This seems to suggest that national identity and nationalism can exist before a nation. A nation emerges only when national identity and nationalism are sufficiently widespread. Perhaps we can avoid using the concept to define itself by substituting the term “ethnic” for “national.” That is, Connor seems to suggest that an ethnic group evolves into a nation when ethnic consciousness achieves a mass audience. Krüger adopts a similar position. He concedes that the movement from “ethnic consciousness with political intent” to “the development of nationalism and a national movement” involves only “a gradual change.” What marks this transition is when ethnic consciousness moves from being the preserve of an intellectual elite to a broader “social basis” and finally to a “mass movement.”36 These ideas owe a lot to Anderson’s notion of an imagined community constructed by mass print media in a vernacular, compulsory standardized education, and the like. But

32 33 34

35 36

Eriksen, Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 7, and compare p. 119. See, for example, Monserrat Guibernau, Nations without States. Political Communities in the Global Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). Kellas, Politics of Nationalism and Ethnicity, p. 3. He does note, “it is often possible to trace the origin of nations and nationalism to ethnic groups and their ethnocentric behaviour.” Connor, Ethnonationalism, pp. 223–4. Krüger, “Introduction,” Ethnicity and Nationalism, pp. 12–16.


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in this case the difference between ethnic identity and national consciousness sounds like a difference in quantity, not quality. Further, it ignores the ability of premodern societies, noted by Anthony Smith, to mobilize the masses for political and military activity.37 This ability means Connor need not restrict the nation to the modern era. Smith sets forth his own ideas on the difference between an ethnic group and a nation. And he does so while devoting considerable attention to ancient history. The main features of each concept as he defines them are set side by side.38 National identity 1. An historic territory, or homeland 2. Common myths and historical memory 3. A common, mass public culture 4. Common legal rights and duties for all members 5. A common economy with territorial mobility for members

Ethnic community 1. 2. 3. 4.

A collective proper name A myth of common ancestry Shared historical memories One or more differentiating elements of common culture 5. An association with a specific homeland 6. A sense of solidarity for significant sectors of the population

From these lists we see the first two items in national identity incorporate items 5, 2, and 3 from the definition of an ethnic community. Item 3 in national identity deals with culture, as does item 4 for the ethnic group. The difference is that with the nation we deal with “mass, public” culture. But Smith himself noted how premodern social groups could engage in mass mobilization. Perhaps they could also create some kind of mass culture. The same is true for the remaining two items unique to the definition of national identity, items 4 and 5. Could premodern societies arrive at something approximating common legal rights and duties and a common economy. A case in the affirmative could be made, as Smith concedes in the case of the Jews. Though emphasizing his reservations, Smith admits “a closer approximation to the ideal type of the nation among the Jews of the late Second Temple period than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world.” And he adds that this “must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a 37 38

Smith, National Identity, p. 44. Ibid., pp. 14, 21.

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form of religious nationalism, before the onset of modernity.”39 I would prefer to drop the qualification “religious” before “nationalism.” As Smith himself notes, a religious component in the memories and culture of nationalities is fairly common in the modern era. In any case, what we see here is the distinct possibility of finding premodern groups that meet the criteria for a nation (not just for ethnicity), with the Jews providing perhaps the clearest example. This is almost precisely the conclusion of Garvin. He notes, “Something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well, the ancient Jews, the classical Greeks, and the Gaulish and British Celts of Caesar and Tacitus being obvious examples.”40 Our discussion so far demonstrates the difficulty in distinguishing ethnicity from national identity. We can illustrate this with examples from recent studies of ancient Israel. Sparks, in his Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, has no problem with using the concept of nation in the Ancient Near Eastern context. He argues that nationality can be based on political, cultural/religious, or ethnic factors, the latter restrictively defined as based on (a belief in) kinship. None of the latter three elements are necessary components of national consciousness. Thus he claims that ancient Assyrian and Egyptian nationalism lacked or minimized ethnicity while stressing the political. By contrast both Greece and Israel stressed kinship and culture or religion, while lacking or minimizing political features.41 In practice, the ethnic, cultural/religious, and political were often intertwined. Indeed the very attempt to distinguish among them is often not sustained. Thus Sparks argues that in the Demotic Chronicle Egyptian national identity was “monarchic and nonethnic.” He then goes on to argue that this identity involved the abhorrence of “foreign rule” and “looked forward to the restoration of native Egyptian kingship.”42 But do not the concepts “foreign”

39

40 41

42

Ibid., pp. 48–50, with quote on p. 50. Regarding “common legal rights and duties and a common economy,” see the comments of Hayim Lapin, Early Rabbinic Civil Law and the Social History of Roman Galilee. A Study of Mishnah Tractate Baba’ Mesi‘a’ (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), pp. 239–41. Lapin notes, among other tendencies, an egalitarian principle in rabbinic civil law based on Jewish ethnic identity. Of course, as he emphasizes, this is an idealized legal tradition. Tom Garvin, “Ethnic Markers, Modern Nationalisms, and the Nightmare of History,” in Krüger, ed., Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 67. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, pp. 1 –2, and p. 18, n. 52, for his definition of ethnicity as based on (a belief in) kinship. Assyrian, Egyptian, and Greek national identities are treated in Chapter 2, pp. 23–93. The remainder of the book treats Israelite and Judean identity. On the nature of Israelite national consciousness, see p. 16. Ibid., pp. 90–1.


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and “native” imply a sense of Egyptian identity based on ethnicity? Similarly, by speaking of the “national gods” of Judah, Ammon, and Moab are we not combining ethnic and political elements with religion?43 In fact, Sparks concedes the close connection among the various forms of group identity by resorting to such neologisms as “ethnoreligious” and “ethnopolitical.”44 A similar approach informs Shaye Cohen’s The Beginnings of Jewishness, which treats the period following the one examined by Sparks. Discussing the term “Judean/Jew,” Cohen distinguishes the original “ethnic-geographical” meaning from subsequent political and cultural/religious connotations. He eventually defines late Second Temple Jewish identity as being “ethno-religious” in character.45 These distinctions obviously have heuristic value as well as the benefit of precision. However, disagreements over definitions and usage can cause confusion. How shall we distinguish the “ethnopolitical” from concepts such as “ethnic nationalism” or “cultural nationalism”?46 And if we follow Smith’s observation of the frequent role of religion in nationalism, how then shall we mark off the “ethnoreligious”? In light of questions like these, the conclusion reached by Spira appears justified. In a survey published in 2002, Spira noted, “Scholars have not succeeded . . . to identify at which point ethnicity and nationality diverge.”47 So even if we assume, with Spira, that there is a difference, it has yet to emerge clearly. Aside from these kinds of difficulties, there is a problem of a different order. One wonders if we seek a precision that does not exist and never existed in reality.48 If so, then trying to impose artificially fine distinctions distorts rather than clarifies. For all these reasons I 43

44 45

46

47 48

Ibid., p. 144. A similar criticism appears in the review of Sparks’ book by Bryan Jack Stone in BASOR 317 (2000), p. 92. Stone notes that Assyrian texts distinguish between Assyrians and other peoples. This means “one’s birth identity was important to the authors . . . suggesting that there was some sense of ethnic identity.” Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel, pp. 146–8, 192–3. Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, p. 137. And note the title of this chapter: “From Ethnos to Ethno-religion.” Cohen acknowledges his debt to Armstrong for the concept “ethnoreligious.” The terminology and its applicability to the Jews in antiquity was anticipated by Salo W. Baron. The latter speaks of “the ethnoreligious unity of [the Israelite] people,” in his Social and Religious History of the Jews, I, p. 338, n. 43. In his Modern Nationalism and Religion, pp. 7, 215, he uses the term “ethnic-religious nationalism” and applies it to both the Jews and the Greeks in antiquity. Compare Garvin, “Ethnic Markers, Modern Nationalisms, and the Nightmare of History,” in Krüger, ed., Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 67, who defines nationalism as “a cultural phenomenon with political consequences.” Spira, “Ethnicity and Nationality,” p. 248. For the ancient world compare the comments of Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion. Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 12–14.

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share the view of George De Vos. He asserted, “Strictly speaking, nationality is indistinguishable from ethnicity.”49 Consequently, I shall speak of “ethnic or national identity” or use the terms “ethnicity” and “national identity” interchangeably.50 But if there is no real difference, then the arguments against using the concept of nationalism in discussing antiquity apply also to use of the concept of ethnicity. In fact, voices have been raised against using the concept of ethnicity to avoid the anachronism allegedly involved in speaking of nationalism in antiquity. For example, Colin Renfrew echoes Renan on nationalism when he argues that the Greeks had no concept of ethnicity in the modern sense. And Roger Just is “skeptical about whether a discourse of ethnicity can be attributed to Greek antiquity.”51 Responses to these reservations have also appeared.52 Nevertheless, it appears that the concept of ethnicity is not an automatic solution to the problem of anachronism. It may not be possible to distinguish between ethnic identity and national consciousness. And even if it is possible, the concept of ethnicity may be no less anachronistic in the ancient context than the concept of nationalism. At this point, then, we must see if we can develop definitions of these ideas that are applicable to ancient society. My starting point is the discussion of Østerg˚ard. He neither suggests a distinction between ethnicity and national identity nor denies the existence of the concept of nation in antiquity. What he does do is distinguish “modern national discourse” and “modern national and ethnic identity” from their ancient analogues. He writes, “the discourse of national identity has changed to such a degree that it has become impossible for us today to understand what was implied in the language of the ancients or for them to understand the real universality of the discriminating discourse of modern national and ethnic identity.”53 That is, usage has changed so much that it may mislead to use the same term in both premodern and modern contexts. Interestingly, the editors of the volume in which his article appeared presented a more positive version of his conclusion in their introductory summary. They wrote, “His message is that . . . the [Barthian] concept of ethnicity may in fact be 49 50 51 52 53

De Vos, “Ethnic Pluralism,” pp. 24–5. As noted earlier, Mendels also took this position, though without any theoretical discussion. Compare the way Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism, p. 8, speaks of “ethnicity and nationalism” without distinguishing between them. Colin Renfrew, “From Here to Ethnicity,” CAJ 8 (1998), p. 277; Roger Just, “The Historicity of Ethnicity,” CAJ 8 (1998), p. 279. See Hall, Hellenicity, pp. 16–19. Østerg˚ard, “What Is National in Ethnic Identity?” p. 38, and compare p. 35. Banks, Ethnicity, p. 130, appears to make the same point. In his critique of A. D. Smith, Banks notes it is unlikely that we can know “what the sentiments of affect were between people long dead.”


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fruitfully employed in the analysis of ancient societies too, even though this use is widely different from the one made by the ancients themselves of the concept of ethnos.”54 I would take this a step further. First, I see no reason to drop Østerg˚ard’s reference to the “national” aspect of ancient discourse. And I am more optimistic about the possibility of understanding what the ancients meant in their ethnic and national discourse and of narrowing the difference between modern and ancient usage. Let us begin with the latter point. Østerg˚ard contrasts modern national discourse with pre-modern dichotomies like Greek versus Barbarian, Christian versus Gentile, and “civilized” (European, Chinese, etc.) versus uncivilized. In modern discourse, by contrast, national identities are not such “totalizing” binary categories. Instead, people who identify themselves as members of one nation implicitly recognize other nationalities as belonging to comparable categories. They may assume their nation is superior but do not deny others the right to belong to a different national group. It is this combination of “universality” and reciprocity that constitutes “the gulf that separates the concept of modern national identity from that of antiquity.”55 The problem with this argument is that the Greek–Barbarian dichotomy is not the only ancient analogue of modern national identity. And the Jews–Gentiles dichotomy is rather different, despite Østerg˚ard’s listing of barbaroi (barbarians) and goyim (gentiles) as parallel categories.56 The latter Hebrew word of course literally means “nations.” Used as an antonym to “Jews” or “Israel,” it means “[members of ] nations [other than Israel].” However, the near exclusive use of goy as the binary opposite of “Jew” begins only with Rabbinic Hebrew. In Biblical Hebrew the singular goy can be and is used of Israel/the Jews as well. The most famous example of such usage is probably in Exodus 19:6 where Yahweh promises the Israelites that they will be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (goy qadosh).” But if this instance is famous, it is far from unique. Indeed usage with reference to Israel or Judah appears in the Bible from Genesis through Second Chronicles. The many biblical precedents guaranteed that application of the term goy to Israel was familiar to postbiblical authors,

54

55

56

The editors, “Preface,” in Bilde et al., Ethnicity in Hellenistic Egypt, p. 10. “Barthian” refers to the definition of ethnicity by the Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth. See n. 29 in this chapter. Østerg˚ard, “What Is National in Ethnic Identity?” p. 35. Garvin, “Ethnic Markers,” p. 67, also appears to believe that modern nationalism has a universalistic aspect lacking in the ancient varieties. He writes there, “Nationalism as a cultural phenomenon with political consequences is far older than the modern universalized version.” Østerg˚ard, “What Is National in Ethnic Identity?” p. 36. Others have also drawn this parallel; for example, see Baron, Modern Nationalism and Religion, pp. 7–8.

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including the rabbis. For example, a phrase from II Samuel 7:23, which is repeated in I Chronicles 17:21, “who is like your people Israel, a nation (goy) unique on the earth,” was incorporated into the Sabbath afternoon amidah prayer.57 If the Jews themselves constituted a goy, then calling non-Jews goyim could not have the same force as Greeks calling others barbaroi. Additional evidence supports the view that Jews viewed other nations as belonging to the same category, however superior or special they may have felt their own group to be. Amos 9:7 has Yahweh declare that he brought the Philistines from Caphtor and the Arameans from Kir to their current territories, just as he had brought the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan. Other biblical passages, such as Micah 4:5, indicate a belief that even the worship of other deities by other nations was legitimate. Each nation had its own god and was entitled to follow that god. Indeed it was Yahweh himself, according to Deuteronomy 4:19, who assigned other objects of worship to the different nations.58 In the future, some hoped, all the nations would recognize Yahweh as the one, true God, but that did not necessarily entail their becoming Israelites. They could retain their separate identities as different nations. Finally, Chapters 10–12 of Daniel assign heavenly “princes” (often referred to as “guardian angels”) equally to Persia, Greece, and Israel.59 All these ideas imply the reciprocal recognition of other nations, alleged to be unique to modern national discourse. The second issue implicitly raised by Østerg˚ard is whether we can know what the ancients meant by their national discourse. I believe we can. We have written sources from antiquity that at the very least disclose the views of the 57

58 59

For the text of the prayer see S. Baer, ed., Seder Avodat Yisra’el (Tel Aviv: Or Torah, 5717; original edition: Rödelheim: Lehrberger, 1868), p. 262 [Hebrew]. For biblical usage consult the dictionaries, concordances, and encyclopedias. A. Cody, “When Is the Chosen People Called a gôy?” VT 14 (1964), pp. 1 –6, asserts that the use of the term for Israel ends by the Hellenistic period. However, the evidence adduced earlier in this discussion shows that this usage had a post-biblical afterlife. For a late biblical example see Daniel 12:1. Note D. J. A. Clines, ed., The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), Vol. II, s.v. goy, p. 329. It claims that the word “rarely” appears with reference to Israel. It appends to this statement a list of sixteen instances of such usage – a list that is not exhaustive! An interesting case occurs in Psalms 33. Verse 12 applies the singular goy to Israel after Verse 10 had applied the plural goyim to the other nations. The point to keep in mind is that there are many nations but only one Israel. So it is logical that most occurrences of the word, and all occurrences of the plural form, would refer to other nations. For rabbinic usage see Porton, Goyim, passim. See Goodman, Mission and Conversion, pp. 52–8, for ongoing Jewish tolerance of gentile paganism (outside the Land of Israel) in Second Temple times. On the variety of biblical and postbiblical ideas concerning non-Israelites, see Robert Goldenberg, The Nations That Knew Thee Not. Ancient Jewish Attitudes toward Other Religions (New York: New York University Press, 1998), passim.


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authors of these texts (or of their employers). When we look at their discourse about collectivities we would call “nations” or “ethnic groups,” we find themes very reminiscent of modern national and ethnic discourse. A much-discussed example appears in Herodotus VIII, 144. In this passage, whose dramatic setting is the Persian invasion of 480–79 b.c.e., the Athenians are reassuring the Spartans that they will not abandon the anti-Persian coalition. The Athenians explain that they would never make common cause with the destroyers of the temples and statues of the gods. Further, There is our common Greekness [ ]: we are all one in blood and one in language, those shrines of the gods belong to us all in common, and the sacrifices in common, and there are our habits, bred of a common upbringing.60

Some modern commentators believe Herodotus has an ironical intent. Intra-Greek warfare in more recent times hardly reflected such a commitment to Greek solidarity. Indeed there are those who argue that the idea of a “panhellenic” identity emerged in response to Athenian claims of distinctiveness and attempts at hegemony in the second half of the fifth century b.c.e.. Others suggest that the sentiment attributed by Herodotus to the Athenians reflects the emergence earlier in the century of a sense of Greek identity in opposition to the Barbarian other represented by the Persians in the war of 480–79 b.c.e.61 For our purposes what counts is that a Greek author, writing in the third quarter of the fifth century, imagines a definition of “Greekness” consisting of kinship (= common blood) and shared language, religion (shrines of the gods and sacrifices) and customary practices. The latter three items can be collapsed into the single category of culture. And this combination of kinship and culture is presented by our ancient author as relevant for political action and military mobilization of the masses in defense of a homeland. Leaving aside the question of ironical intent and what Herodotus himself may actually have thought, the surface meaning of the passage is crystal 60 61

Translation of D. Grene, The History. Herodotus (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 611. The literature on this passage is extensive. See the discussion in C. W. Fornara, Herodotus. An Interpretive Essay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971 ), pp. 85–6. For more recent treatments see P. Cartledge, “We Are All Greeks?” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 40 (1995), pp. 75–82; Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, pp. 44–7; idem, Hellenicity, pp. 189– 94; David Konstan, “To Hellenikon ethnos: Ethnicity and the Construction of Ancient Greek Identity,” in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, pp. 32–6; Rosalind Thomas, “Ethnicity, Genealogy and Hellenism in Herodotus,” in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, pp. 213–18. Compare Baron, Modern Nationalism and Religion, p. 8, who emphasizes the religious component in Herodotus’ definition at the expense of the other factors.

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clear. And to me it sounds very much like “modern national (and ethnic) discourse.” Admittedly, modern theorists emphasize some nuances. One is that the shared kinship and shared culture may be imaginary (in whole or part) rather than real. The blood ties may be fictive, and the cultural continuities, artificial. The belief that members of the group are related and share customs, language, and religion distinctive from those of their neighbors may be inculcated rather than empirically deduced by individuals. To use modern terminology alluded to earlier, the sense of national or ethnic identity is “imagined” and “socially constructed.” The emphasis on this aspect may be modern, but the ancients were often aware of the artificial or fictive nature of claims of common kinship or culture.62 Similarly, ancients were aware that the kinship group was not impermeable to outsiders nor was the shared culture monolithic and unchanging. They simply did not emphasize this as much as modern theorists do.63 The invocation of both genetic and cultural factors raises the question of the relative weight of each of these components. Is one of the two more important or decisive in determining membership in the collectivity? Hall maintains that he can trace a shift in the relative importance of the two factors over time, at least in some authors. Such a development is already apparent in the passage from Herodotus. Hall believes that a purely ethnic concept of Greek identity, by which he means one based solely on kinship, emerged during the sixth century. The definition in Herodotus “promotes the cultural criteria (including language and religion) to the same level as kinship.”64 Even more, Hall argues, the cultural factors are now presented as outweighing the kinship factors. The apparent triumph of culture over kinship is attested in another famous passage. In his Panegyricus 50, Isocrates, writing about half a century after Herodotus, asserts, 62

63

64

See for example Herodotus’ account of the Ionians as discussed by McInerney, “Ethnos and Ethnicity in Early Greece,” in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, pp. 58–9. And for a likely case in the Jewish world, see the discussion of the Hasmonean claim of kinship with Sparta in Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism, pp. 253–68. For modern literature on this point, see the sources cited by Hall, Hellenicity, p. 10, n. 16. For those Greeks who stressed the cultural aspects of “Greekness,” people could become Greek or equally cease to be Greek. An example of the latter possibility appears in Dionysios of Halicarnassus 1.89.4 regarding the Achaeans near Pontus, cited by Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, p. 132, n. 63. The openness of the Jewish group to outsiders joining is famously illustrated by the biblical example of Ruth and above all by the later concept of conversion. On the latter see Goodman, Mission and Conversion; Christine E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities. Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). And note Philo’s comments on converts cited later in this chapter. Hall, Hellenicity, p. 193.


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So far has our city left other men behind with regard to wisdom and expression that its students have become the teachers of others. The result is that the name of the Hellenes [ ] no longer seems to indicate an ethnic affiliation [s] but a disposition [ ]. Indeed, those who are called ‘Hellenes’ are those who share our culture [ s] rather than a common biological inheritance [ ! s].65

Needless to say, classicists have long debated the import of these words. Some understand Isocrates to extend the designation “Hellene” to whoever adopted Greek culture. Others say he is restricting the appellation only to those who share Athenian culture. Hall accepts the latter interpretation but takes it a step farther. For him the definition of Isocrates “emphasizes the point that Hellenicity is something that can be taught and learnt – a matter of enculturation rather than the destiny of birth.”66 Some students of ancient Jewish identity have also discerned a trajectory in which ethnic or national identity changes from a matter of kinship to one of shared culture. Shaye Cohen notes a shift in the character of “Jewishness” in “From Ethnos to Ethno-religion,” to cite the name of a chapter from his book The Beginnings of Jewishness. That is, the original “ethnic-geographical” meaning of the term “Judean/Jew” was supplemented in the Hasmonean era by cultural and religious connotations.67 Moshé Bar-Asher notes a similar development attested in the Book of Esther. The term “yehudi” there “ne désigne plus seulement le provenance géographique ou l’origene familale et tribale, mais s’applique a` quiconque appartient a` un groupe, a` un people dont les members sont unis par un réseau complexe de croyances, de lois et de coutumes.”68 Martin Goodman suggests a similar trajectory in the history of Jewishness from ethnicity to religion, a transformation accelerated by the policy of the Roman emperor Nerva.69 For Cohen and Bar-Asher, at least, the ethnic component does not disappear. And some interpreters of Isocrates would argue that the same is true for him. He can be understood to mean that 65

66 67 68 69

Translation of Hall, Hellenicity, p. 209. Compare that of F. W. Walbank in his “The Problem of Greek Nationality,” Phoenix 5 (1951 ), pp. 45–6 [= Selected Papers in Greek and Roman History and Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 5]. See the literature cited by Hall, p. 209, n. 172. Hall, Hellenicity, p. 209. Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, p. 137. Moshé Bar-Asher, “hrybh @vwvb hyh ydwhy vya Il Y Avait A` Suse Un Homme Juif,” REJ 161 (2002), pp. 227–31. The quote is from p. 231. Martin Goodman, “Nerva, the Fiscus Iudaicus, and Jewish Identity,” JRS 79 (1989), pp. 40– 4. See the dissent of Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society 200 b.c.e. to 640 c.e. (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001 ), p. 188.

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even though Greek blood is not a sufficient condition for being recognized as a Greek, it is still a necessary condition. That is, even while giving expression to “Athenian chauvinism,” Isocrates does not deny the importance of Greek descent.70 In fact there are some indications in ancient Jewish sources that the kinship factor remained dominant, even during and after the periods when the shifts noted previously took place. According to Cohen, II Maccabees marks a turning in the evolution of the meaning of the term Ioudaios by emphasizing the cultural/religious aspect of Jewish identity.71 But passages in the same book appear to privilege the element of blood relations. Thus II Maccabees 4:13 blames Jason for “the height of Hellenism” and the adoption of “foreignness” (" s). For this he is condemned as “impious and no high priest.” But the author does not say “no Judean.” Despite the adoption (in the author’s eyes) of a gentile lifestyle, Jason is still a Judean. This is because no one could doubt his birth pedigree. This approach appears in later tradition as well, long after the developments noted by Cohen, Bar-Asher, and Goodman. One exemplar is the famous dictum from Bavli Sanhedrin 44a. The context is a discussion of the incident in Joshua 7 where Akhan violates the herem. Verse 11 is quoted, where God tells Joshua “Israel has sinned.” Rabbi Abba bar Zavda (late third–early fourth century) comments, “Even though he has sinned, he is [still] an Israelite” (Af al pi shehata, yisrael hu). A popular proverb is then cited to illustrate this view, “a myrtle standing among the willows – its name is myrtle and it is called a myrtle” (asa deqa’e be hilfe asa shmeh ve’asa qero leh). The myrtle’s identity is determined by its biology. Even if it lives among the willows and acts like a willow, it is still a myrtle. So too, kinship, not behavior, is determinative of Jewish identity. A Jew may be a bad Jew, but he is still a Jew. Other sources that appear to focus on culture and practice do not really deny the primacy of blood. I begin with the famous report by Josephus that Mattathias Antigonos, the last Hasmonean king of Judea, called Herod a “halfJudean” (#

s). As the passage makes clear, the epithet alluded not to Herod’s behavior, but to his Idumean ancestry.72 Perhaps more indicative of culture determining identity are references to what we would call cases 70 71 72

See Suzanne Sa¨ıd, “The Discourse of Identity in Greek Rhetoric from Isocrates to Aristides,” in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, pp. 282, 285. Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, pp. 105–6. AJ 14:403, Ralph Marcus in H. St. J. Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. VII (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1933), pp. 660–1. Compare Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, p. 18: “Antigonus is commenting not on Herod’s religiosity but on his pedigree.”


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of apostasy. III Maccabees 1 :3 mentions Dositheus son of Drimylos, who was a Judean by genos. That is, he was one by birth. Then he abandoned the ancestral customs and beliefs. But did he thereby cease to be a Judean? A parallel case is that of Tiberius Iulius Alexander. Josephus (AJ 20:100) compares him unfavorably to his father, the Alexandrian Jewish leader (and brother of the philosopher Philo) Alexander. The son “did not stand by the practices of his people,” tois . . . patriois . . . ethesin.73 At AJ 18:141 Josephus mentions another case where Jews by blood abandoned Jewish practices. He refers there to some of Herod’s descendants who “abandoned from birth the observance of the ways of the Jewish land and ranged themselves with the Greek tradition” (ta Hellesi patria).74 Now it is probable that the author of III Maccabees and Josephus considered these people not to be Jews anymore. However, they do not say this explicitly. Moreover, we must be wary of polemic hyperbole. Modern times have witnessed defenders of tradition denying the Jewishness of reformers. For all we know, Philo’s nephew and Herod’s descendants continued to regard themselves as Jewish. And others might have seen them as sinful or bad Jews, but still Jewish – in the spirit of Abba bar Zavda. Finally, the exceptions should not determine the rule. As interesting as these cases of people on the margins are, they are not the norm. Another indication of the ongoing importance of the kinship factor is the way sharp ethnic boundaries might be drawn right through shared behaviors or cultural features. One example from antiquity is the Judean–Idumean divide of the Hellenistic era. Most scholars agree that by this time both Jews and Idumeans spoke Aramaic and used it for literary composition and legal documents. A good illustration of the shared culture is the Idumean marriage contract, dated by its editors to 176 b.c.e, which is strikingly similar to the Aramaic ketubbot used by Judeans.75 Yet these common cultural factors did not prevent at least some Judeans from sensing a firm boundary between the Judean and Idumean peoples. Not far removed chronologically from the aforementioned Idumean document is the passage in Ben Sira 50:25–6 (Geniza Ms. B) expressing hatred for three “nations” (Hebrew goy, Greek ethnos), including “the inhabitants of Se’ir” (i.e., the Edomites/Idumeans). Another one of

73 74 75

Translation of Louis Feldman in H. St. J. Thackeray et al., Josephus Vol. IX (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1965), p. 443. Translation of ibid., p. 95. Esther Eshel and Amos Kloner, “An Aramaic Ostrocon of an Edomite Marriage Contract from Maresha Dated 176 b.c.e.,” IEJ 46 (1996), pp. 1 –22. On Jewish use of Aramaic for literary purposes, see Ben-Zion Wacholder, “The Ancient Judaeo-Aramaic Literature (500–164 bce). A Classification of Pre-Qumranic Texts,” in L. H. Schiffman, ed., Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), pp. 257–81.

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the three targets of the author’s hatred was “the foolish nation that dwells in Shechem.” This refers to the Samaritans, who were probably even closer culturally (and perhaps genetically) to the Judeans. I shall refer shortly to the letter from the Samaritans to Antiochus IV. Eliciting this letter was the apparent inability of the Seleucid officials to distinguish between the Judeans and the Samaritans. Yet for all the extensive cultural similarity, both of these groups clearly saw themselves as distinct goyim/ethne/nations. The preceding discussion indicates that the belief in shared blood continued to be important for ancient Jewish ethnic/national identity, despite an alleged enhancement of the behavioral component. And in evaluating passages that appear to privilege culture, such as the one from Isocrates discussed earlier, one must allow for rhetorical exaggeration and not always take statements at face value.76 Still, it may be the case that some Greek thinkers did in fact conclude that culture rather than kinship was determinative for Hellenic identity. But it is important to note the context in which they reached that conclusion. The point of departure for the argument of Isocrates, for example, is the assumption that Greekness is based on both kinship and culture. He mentions the traditional importance of birth and the existence of a common nature, but he also refers to a common Greek way of thinking and education/culture. The assumption that both of these factors define Greekness could be considered the “default” position. Against this assumption, some ancient authors emphasized one or the other of the two factors or even may have denied the importance of one of them. Nevertheless, the view that both kinship and culture determine ethnic national identity continues to inform Greek “discourse on identity” down into the second century of the Common Era.77 As already noted, even some of the scholars who find analogues to the view of Isocrates in ancient Jewish sources, such as Cohen and Bar-Asher, admit the continued significance of the blood relation. Certainly the opinion that ethnic or national identity was a matter of both kinship and culture is attested among ancient Jewish authors. One example is in the letter the Samaritans purportedly sent to Antiochus IV. The Samaritans explain that they differ from the

76

77

See the caveats of Thomas, “Ethnicity, Genealogy, and Hellenism in Herodotus,” in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, pp. 215, 217. She asserts that the previously discussed passage in Herodotus may not represent or exhaust its author’s understanding of ethnicity. Compare the comments of Goodman, Mission and Conversion, pp. 14–15, 74–5, on apparently universalizing tendencies in Philo. See Sa¨ıd, “Discourse of Identity,” pp. 275–99, and especially her concluding sentence on p. 295. Compare Greg Woolf, “Becoming Roman, Staying Greek: Culture, Identity and the Civilizing Process in the Roman East,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 40 (1994), pp. 129–30. Contrast the view of Hall, Hellenicity, pp. 209–26.


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Judeans “both in race (s) and in customs (s).”78 Another illustration appears in the comments of Josephus about the constitution established by Moses. At one point he writes, “To all who desire to come and live under the same laws with us, he [Moses] gives a gracious welcome, holding that it is not family ties (s) alone which constitute relationship, but agreement in the principles of conduct.” At first glance this seems to mean that lifestyle rather than birth is determinative. But the construction is “not only . . . but also” ($ . . . , "% &). That is, both kinship and culture count. And the immediate context, before and after this sentence, indicates that the sharing of lifestyle does not grant full membership in the community.79 Even Philo appears to have believed that Jewishness is not just a matter of culture. In discussing his views Birnbaum speaks in terms of “philosophy” and politeia. However, I believe the substance of her analysis coincides with my distinction of culture and kinship. She writes that for Philo, “Judaism . . . is more than a philosophy, and being a Jew encompasses more than adherence to Jewish beliefs and practices. Commitment to the Jewish is clearly important. . . . the Jewish signifies not just those laws and customs but also the body politic of the Jews.”80 For me that “body politic” involves real bodies and their (presumed) common genetic origin. The intertwining of kinship and culture in the case of the Jews also emerges from the testimony of an outsider. I refer to Tacitus’ comments on people of non-Jewish origin who adopt Jewish practice. Those who do so not only renounce their “ancestral religions” and adopt practices like circumcision but also are taught “to disown their country (patria), and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account.”81 This is the pejorative view of a non-Jew not particularly well disposed toward the Jews. But Jewish sources agree that becoming Jewish involves not only cultural or religious changes but also a change in patria and family. Philo is particularly explicit on this point. He 78

79

80 81

AJ 12:261, translated by Marcus in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. VII, pp. 134–5. For discussion defending the authenticity of this letter, see M. Stern, The Documents on the History of the Hasmonaean Revolt with a Commentary and Introduction (Second Edition, Corrected and Expanded; Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hame’uchad, 1972), pp. 52–3 [Hebrew]. The document itself in Hebrew translation and with notes appears there on pp. 60–6. The authenticity of the letter was already defended by E. Bi(c)kerman(n), “Un document relatif a` la persécution ´ d’Antiochos IV Epiphane,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 115 (1937), pp. 188–223. CA 2:210, translation of H. St. J. Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. I (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1926), pp. 377, 379, with Greek text on pp. 376, 378. For a different assessment of this text and others on the relative importance of kinship and culture from Isocrates on, see Cohen, Beginning of Jewishness, pp. 132–5. Ellen Birnbaum, The Place of Judaism in Philo’s Thought. Israel, Jews and Proselytes (BJS 290; SP Monongraphs 2; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), p. 230. Historiae, V, 5, 1 –2. Translation of C. H. Moore, cited by Stern, GLAJJ, Vol. II, p. 26.

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explains the pentateuchal injunction to love the ger by noting that proselytes have abandoned “their kinsfolk by blood, their country (patria) [and] their customs.” Consequently “all the members of the [Judean] nation (ethnos)” are enjoined to love the proselytes as “friends and kinsfolk ('s).” Similarly in another passage, Philo observes that having left “their country, their kinsfolk and their friends for the sake of virtue and religion,” proselytes should not be denied “another citizenship [() ] or other ties of family [*] and friendship.”82 He thus agrees with Tacitus that the behavioral change dissolves the ties of kinship and blood. And Philo seems to add that the Jewish ethnos should establish a new, if fictive, kinship for the convert. Similar sentiments may appear in rabbinic tradition. The mid-secondcentury master Yosi son of Halafta appears as the author of the statement (see B. Yev. 48b and parallels) that “a convert is like a newborn child [ger shenitgayyer keqatan shenolad dame].”83 This could be construed to mean that the convert is “born again,” this time as a member of the Jewish people. To be sure, one branch of rabbinic tradition maintained a distinction between born Jews and converts. For example, Mishnah Bikkurim 1 :4 forbade converts to recite the prayer formula “God of our fathers.” But another school of thought, cited in Yerushalmi Bikkurim 1 :4, 64a, permitted this because the convert could claim the fathership of Abraham.84 Another source, Tanhuma Lekh Lekha, 6, stated, “Abraham is the father of converts.” While this probably means only that Abraham was the original convert and hence model for all subsequent proselytes, it also could be taken literally. Such a literal reading may be the source of the much later tradition that has converts adopt the patronymic “son of Abraham our father.”85

82

83

84

85

The first passage is from On the Virtues, 102, text and translation in F. H. Colson, G. H. Whittaker, and R. Marcus, Philo, Vol. 8 (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1939), pp. 224–7. The second is from On the Special Laws, I, 52, in Colson et al., Philo, Vol. 7, pp. 128–9. See also Special Laws IV, 178, in Colson et al., Philo, Vol. 8, pp. 118–19, for conversion involving a break with “kinfolk, parents, grandparents, ancestors and blood relations.” See the discussion in John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Dispora. From Alexander to Trajan (323 bce–117 ce) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), pp. 408–9. For a discussion of this theme, see Gary G. Porton, The Stranger Within Your Gates. Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), Chapter 9, pp. 166–76. For a discussion with sources and literature, see Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, Chapter 10, pp. 308–40. For a brief summary of the ethnic status of converts in rabbinic tradition, see Sacha Stern, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1994), pp. 88–95. I follow the suggestion of C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology (New York: Schocken Books, 1974), p. 574.


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The fact that adopting the culture of a group entailed establishing a new kinship relation shows the tenacity of the idea that blood and behavior belong together. This idea informs the appeal of the Ionians to Marcus Agrippa in 14 b.c.e. as reported by Josephus, AJ 12:125–6. Asking that the Jews not enjoy citizenship rights in their cities, the Ionians argued that if the Jews were their kinsmen ('s), they should worship the same gods as the Ionians do. Further evidence of this concept in ancient thinking about ethnic or national identity is the common Greek designation of the culture of an ethnic group as “ancestral” as in “the ancestral customs” or “the ancestral laws.” That is, the culture is connected to the physical forbears of the group. In modern terminology, it is genetic. We saw an example of this usage earlier in the cases of “apostasy,” where individuals allegedly abandoned the ancestral practices. Sometimes authors writing in Greek even omit the substantive “laws” or “customs” or the like and refer simply to ta patria, “the ancestral things.” Josephus provides some clear examples of this usage. Introducing his account of the Jewish sects at AJ 18:11, he writes, The Jews, from the most ancient times, had three philosophies pertaining to their traditions [ton pateron], that of the Essenes, that of the Sadducees, and, thirdly, that of the group called Pharisees.86

As this passage shows, ta patria are to be distinguished from paradosis ton pateron, the tradition of the fathers. At AJ 13:297 Josephus had told us that the sects disagree over this tradition. The Pharisees accept it, but the Sadducees reject it.87 But here ta patria is precisely what all the sects share, however they might disagree on interpretation and details. Another example of this usage occurs in AJ 19. Josephus details how Agrippa I compares favorably to his grandfather Herod the Great. At 331 Josephus writes, He [Agrippa] enjoyed residing in Jerusalem and did so constantly; and he scrupulously observed the traditions of his people [ta patria]. He neglected no rite of purification, and no day passed for him without the prescribed sacrifice.88 86 87

88

Translation of Feldman in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. IX, p. 9. Though less explicit, the same disagreement is suggested at AJ 13:408. Josephus relates there how Salome Alexandra reinstated the regulations in accord with the tradition of the fathers that John Hyrcanus had abrogated. Again, this is to be distinguished from “the ancestral things.” Feldman in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. IX, pp. 369, 371. On the religious practices of Agrippa I and Herod, see D. Goodblatt, “Agrippa I and Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” JH 2 (1987), pp. 7–32.

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Thus ta patria includes the laws of purification and the temple cult. In other passages Josephus uses the phrase to allude to sending money to the Jerusalem temple, pilgrimage to the temple, and prohibition of a woman being married serially to two brothers.89 A final example has a more general meaning and appears to refer to what we would call Judaism. Thus in AJ 17 Josephus describes the establishment of a military colony in the Trachonitis by Herod. The core of the colony is the Babylonian Jewish cavalry commander Zamaris and his troops. Josephus adds in 17:26 that settlers from all over, men devoted to “ta patria of the Jews,” joined the colony. On the other side of the issue, at AJ 18:141 Josephus characterizes the apostasy of some of Herod’s descendants as the adoption by the latter of “the ancestral things of the Greeks” (ta Hellesi patria). Again, the connection of the behavioral expressions of Jewish identity to the ancestors reminds the reader that kinship and culture go together. The results of my consideration of the theoretical issues are as follows. My starting point is that the concept of a nation can and should be distinguished from that of a state. The very term “nation-state,” if it is not tautological, implies this distinction. Modern history reminds us that there are national groups without their own states and states containing several national groups. This was also true in antiquity. Further, I find it difficult and not helpful to distinguish ethnicity from nationality. So I shall generally use only the later and related terms. The definition I adopt here for “nation” and its derivatives is both in accord with modern scholarship on national consciousness (and ethnicity) and is firmly anchored in ancient sources. The latter consideration clears us of the charge of anachronism. Essentially I adopt the (implied) definition of Herodotus, adding only the contemporary emphases on the subjective and socially constructed character of the phenomenon. By national identity I mean a belief in a common descent and shared culture available for mass political mobilization. By shared culture I mean that certain cultural factors are seen as criteria for, or indications of, membership in the national group. Which cultural factors are singled out as criteria or indicators may shift over time.90 Also, the kinship or the cultural factors or both may not in fact be

89 90

See AJ 16:167; 173; and 18:136. For a survey of Josephus’ usage, see K. Rengstorf, A Complete Concordance to Flavins Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 1979), Vol. III, pp. 358–60, s.v. patrios. Hall, Hellenicity, p. 9, with literature cited n. 14, summarizes a distinction between the criteria or “core elements” that determine membership in the ethnic group and the secondary indicia or “surface pointers.” The latter are an “operational set of distinguishing attributes that tend to be associated with membership in an ethnic group.” They include what I have referred to as the cultural factors such as language, religion, and customary behaviors. Hall defines the criteria as “a putative subscription to a myth of common descent and kinship, an association with a specific territory and a sense of shared history.” Note that the last two items are actually


27

shared. What counts is that people believe they are and are ready to act on that basis.91 Finally, by nationalism I mean the invocation of national identity as the basis for mass mobilization and action. My purpose in this chapter was to justify the use of the concepts of national identity and nationalism in the study of ancient Jewish history. I believe the preceding discussion establishes the legitimacy of this use by scholars in this field. If so, we need no longer resort to neologisms such as “ethnoreligious” that in themselves are not completely transparent. At the other extreme, we need no longer limit ourselves to such general terms as “group identity” that are so broad as to be vacuous. Instead we can benefit from the associations and comparisons evoked by the term “nationality” and its congeners, as well as from modern theoretical treatments of these concepts. Thus most of the issues I shall address in the following chapters are ones that come up in discussions of modern nationalism. These include the social construction of ancient Jewish nationalism (in Chapters 2–4) and the names used to organize or express that identity (in Chapters 5–7).

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cultural factors. This shows that the distinction Hall proposes between criteria and indicia is not identical to the distinction between kinship and culture. This definition is very close to Jones’s definition of ethnicity. She writes, “Ethnic groups are culturally ascribed identity groups which are based on the expression of a real or assumed shared culture and common descent (usually through the objectification of cultural, linguistic, religious, historical and/or physical characteristics).” See Jones, Archaeology of Ethnicity, p. 84. Compare the “Definitions” following p. xii there. See also the comments of Naomi Janowitz, “Rethinking Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity,” in Mitchell and Greatrex, eds., Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity, pp. 205–19.

2

Constructing Jewish Nationalism: The Role of Scripture

A

s we saw in chapter 1, both historians and social scientists have noted the existence in ancient Jewish society of something that looks very much like nationalism. Or to use more recent jargon, they have noticed discourses that sound very much like modern national discourse. In other words, and in view of the definitions discussed earlier, belief in a shared kinship and a common culture was widespread among ancient Judeans. Assuming as I do that this observation is correct, the following question arises. How could such a belief achieve an audience large enough to make mass political mobilization possible? It is unlikely that family traditions went back far enough, or extended broadly enough, to lead thousands of people spread over a fairly extensive geographical area to believe they were all related. And as to culture, all indications are that Judeans shared not only the general material culture of the area but also the language and customs of most of their neighbors. We noted above that Aramaic was the common spoken language of most inhabitants of the area including many or even most Judeans. And Judeans, like their neighbors, used Aramaic for legal documents and for much literary production as well.1 And, to cite another cultural marker, male circumcision was not unique to the Judeans.2 Yet despite similarities such as these, many (most?) Judeans believed they constituted a nation distinct from their neighbors. Where could such an idea have originated? Or, to use contemporary terminology, how could such a belief have been socially constructed in a premodern society?

1 2

For details on the role of language, see Chapter 3. Neighbors of the Judeans for whom the practice is asserted in ancient sources include the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, Phoenicians, Arabs, and Ethiopians. See the evidence in William H. Propp, “The Origins of Infant Circumcision in Israel,” HAR 11 (1987), p. 355, n. 1.

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THE ROLE OF SCRIPTURE

29

Pondering this very question, namely, the sources of Jewish “national identity” and their “nationalist movements of a strikingly modern kind,” Fergus Millar suggested the following, among others: the possession of a text, the Bible, which was both a national history and a source of law; a national language, Hebrew; a system of law . . . ; social institutions, such as schools, synagogues and Sabbath worship.3

Millar is speaking of the first and second centuries c.e., and some of the “social institutions” he mentions may not have existed earlier. In fact, some are questionable even for the first and possibly the second centuries as well. I shall return to this issue later. But everything in Millar’s list before the “social institutions” does appear in Second Temple times. And they all flow from the first item: “a text, the Bible.” Strictly speaking, one cannot refer to “a text” in the singular. First, debate continues over when the twenty-four books of our Hebrew Bible (= the Jewish Tanakh or Christian Old Testament) achieved “canonical” status. Second, the Jews in antiquity used scrolls, rather than codices. So the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible could not have been contained for them between the covers of a single book. For convenience’s sake, however, we may continue to use the term “the Bible” as a shorthand for the books included in it. It was the Bible (and related literature), then, that provided the foundation and the building blocks for constructing the beliefs in shared descent and common culture. First, the contents of these books provided the “national history” mentioned by Millar. The stories about the patriarchs and the tribal eponyms in the Pentateuch established the shared physical ancestry of all Israelites. And the books that treated later history explained the connection of the residents of Second Temple Judah with the founding fathers and mothers of the Israelite people.4 Second, these same books serve a source for a sense of shared culture. Among the “laws” found in them were what emerged as distinctive cultural markers of Jewish identity including circumcision of male infants, avoidance 3 4

Fergus Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture in the Roman Near East: Greeks, Syrians, Jews and Arabs,” JJS 38 (1987), pp. 147–8. Compare the comments of Thomas Willi, “Late Persian Judaism and Its Conception of an Integral Israel According to Chronicles: Some Observations on Form and Function of the Genealogy of Judah in I Chronicles 2.3–4.23,” in Eskenazi and Richards, eds., Second Temple Studies 2, pp. 146–62. This “genealogical” content of the literature that eventually formed the Bible is generally ignored in the otherwise enlightening treatment of the “enculturating” role of ancient Hebrew literature by David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart. Origins of Scripture and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Carr, p. 285, goes so far as to argue that by Late Antiquity rabbinic tradition produced a “transnational” system of enculturation in the “people of Israel.” It is unclear to me how socialization into the people of Israel could lack a genealogical/ethnic/national component.

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of pork, observance of the Sabbath, and endogamy.5 Further, these books saved the Hebrew language from sharing the fate of Phoenician, Edomite, and other languages that were swept away by Aramaic. Even those who didn’t speak Hebrew might still write, or read, or at least hear Hebrew and see it. I shall discuss the significance of the use of Hebrew in greater detail in the next chapter. And paradoxically, the existence of the Hebrew books enabled people to believe that their shared culture could exist in other languages. We recall that the defense of “Judeanness” in II Maccabees was written in Greek.6 The existence of a Greek translation of the Pentateuch and other books made possible the conception of a genuine Judean culture in Greek. Similarly, parabiblical literature composed in Aramaic, such as the Genesis Apocryphon, the Enoch literature, and the Levi materials, could also be considered part of Judean culture. The transposition of biblical books into other languages by translation, rewriting, or supplementation provided a Judean vocabulary for those languages. Thus the Bible provided materials for the construction of a national identity. Indeed, some have asserted that accomplishing such a construction was the motivation for the composition of its components in the first place. That is, at least some biblical books were created in an effort at “ethnogenesis.” This view has been worked out in detail by Mullen in a pair of monographs. The theme of his first book appears in its subtitle, “The Deuteronomistic History and the Creation of Israelite National Identity.” The “Deuteronomistic history” comprises the books of Deuteronomy–Joshua–Judges–Samuel–Kings, which many Biblical scholars consider a single, edited work drawing on earlier sources. Mullen suggests that this work was created in the period of the Babylonian Exile in order to shore up a threatened Judean identity. In a second book Mullen turns his attention to the Tetrateuch, the four books (Genesis– Exodus–Leviticus–Numbers) preceding Deuteronomy. This composition, he argued, was compiled during the Persian era in order to create a “group ethnic identity.” Eventually it was prefixed to the Deuteronomic history, creating what David Noel Freedman has called “the primary history,” while when joined with Deuteronomy alone it formed the Pentateuch.7

5

6

7

These practices caught the attention of Greek and Latin authors. Note, for example, the references to Sabbath observance, abstention from pork, and circumcision in Juvenal, Satires XIV, 96–106. Tacitus, History V, 4–5, also mentions these three along with endogamy and some additional items. And note the author’s recurrent emphasis on the use of Hebrew by his protagonists. On this topic see Jan Willem van Henten, “The Ancestral Language of the Jews in 2 Maccabees,” in Horbury, ed., Hebrew Study, pp. 53–68. Mullen, Narrative History and Ethnic Boundaries; idem, Ethnic Myths and Pentateuchal Foundations. Assertions that biblical books were composed to aid in ethnogenesis appeared before


31

Whether or not the biblical books were composed in the first place in order to create an Israelite identity is a question best left to others. This is not the place to debate the origins of the Bible. I simply note how the theories alluded to have as their premise the (potential) contribution of biblical texts to national consciousness, even if that contribution was one of maintenance rather than creation.8 Since my focus is on Second Temple times, we also need not resolve the debate over how much (if any) of the Bible antedates the Babylonian Exile of 587/6 b.c.e. Nor shall I discuss the possible evidence for manifestations of national identity in preexilic Israel.9 What cannot be ignored here is the theory that the Bible is a creation of the Hellenistic era. On this late dating, one could not use the biblical books as evidence for Judean nationalism as early as the Persian era. My impression is, however, that the Hellenistic dating of the entire Bible remains a distinctly minority position.10 Consequently the assumption behind my argument is that the “primary history” existed before the Hellenistic period. The contents of this “history,” then, were at least available by earlier Second Temple times for the construction of a national identity. Whether they were in fact used for this purpose is a separate question that requires further investigation. The existence of a body of written literature asserting a common genealogy and embodying components of a common culture, like the biblical books, is not by itself sufficient for the creation of a national identity. As was noted in Chapter 1 , so long as the belief in shared descent and culture is limited to small circles of the elite, nationalism does not emerge. What students of the phenomenon look for is a mass movement. This is why recent theoreticians of nationalism require widespread literacy with access to material printed in a vernacular language – at least prior to the age of mass communication by radio, television, and audio or video recording. However, as Millar and Smith realize, dissemination of the shared culture and national language could take place before printing. This is why Millar adduced “social institutions, such as

8

9 10

Mullen, but in less detailed form. See for example Philip R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel (JSOTSS 148; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), pp. 114, 117–18. For the “primary history” and the separation out of the Pentateuch, see David Noel Freedman, “The Formation of the Canon of the Old Testament,” in E. B. Firmage et al., eds., Religion and Law: BiblicalJudaic and Islamic Perspectives (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), pp. 315–31. See for example Ilana Pardes, The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000); R. Christopher Heard, Dynamics of Diselection: Ambiguity in Genesis 12–36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah (SBL Semeia Series, vol. 39; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001 ). See for example Kenton L. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998) and other works cited in Chapter 1, n. 15. See the essays in Lester L. Grabbe, ed., Did Moses Speak Attic? Jewish Historiography and Scripture in the Hellenistic Period (JSOTSS 317; European Seminar in Historical Methodology 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001 ).

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schools, synagogues and Sabbath worship” when he sought to explain the existence of a Jewish nationalist movement in antiquity. Similarly, Smith invokes “the rise of the synagogue and the Pharisees” to explain this phenomenon.11 These institutions would allow widespread dissemination of the ideas in the Bible. But how ancient and how pervasive were these institutions in antiquity? Can we trace them back even to late Second Temple times, let alone to the Persian era? The schools and synagogues invoked by Millar and Smith are, in fact, difficult to trace back into antiquity. This is especially the case regarding schools. Many years ago I reviewed the evidence for the existence of a network of Jewish elementary schools or, alternatively, community-supported teachers in pre-70 Judah. I discussed at length the two rabbinic texts that are the basis for the claim that some such network existed. A source appearing in Yerushalmi Ketuvot 8.11, 32c, attributes to Simeon son of Shetah an ordinance that “the children should attend school.” Rabbinic tradition portrays Simeon as a contemporary of the Hasmonean monarchs Alexander Jonathan and Salome Alexandra. Based on this we can date him to the early first-century b.c.e. Another source, at Bavli Bava Batra 21 a, attributes to Joshua son of Gamala the ordinance that teachers should be appointed in every town and district to teach children beginning at age 6 or 7. This person is commonly, though not universally, identified with the well-known Joshua son of Gamala who served as high priest in 63–4 and was killed about four years later by the Idumean faction during the Judean revolt. I concluded that there is no reliable evidence to corroborate either tradition, neither in rabbinic literature nor in sources from Second Temple times. Perhaps more importantly, the Second Temple sources that do refer to education among the Jews never mention a network of elementary schools or publicly supported teachers as the means by which children learn. Instead they refer to other educational practices, such as private tutors for the wealthy and, most commonly, instruction by parents in the home. A striking instance of silence concerning schools in a context where we would expect them to be mentioned is the famous apologetic passage in CA 2.175–8. Here Josephus asserts a universal knowledge of Jewish law by his compatriots. In contrast to other peoples, he writes, should anyone of our nation be questioned about the laws, he would repeat them all the more readily than his own name. The result, then, of our thorough grounding in the laws from the first dawn of intelligence is that we have them, as it were, 11

See Millar, “Empire, Community and Culture in the Roman Near East,” n. 3; Smith, National Identity, pp. 49–50.


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engraven on our souls. A transgressor is a rarity; evasion of punishment by excuses an impossibility.

And how was this thorough grounding beginning with the dawn of intelligence accomplished? Josephus had already explained a few lines earlier. For ignorance he [Moses] left no pretext. He appointed the law to be the most excellent and necessary form of instruction, ordaining, not that it should be heard once for all or twice or on several occasions, but that every week men should desert their other occupations and assemble to listen to the law and to obtain a thorough and accurate knowledge of it, a practice which all other legislators seem to have neglected.12

The failure of Josephus – who lived over a century after the floruit of Simeon son of Shetah and was a contemporary of Joshua son of Gamala – to mention schools in an apologetic context such as this is, to my mind, a very loud silence. And the evidence of Josephus accords with what can be gleaned from Philo and other sources. From all of this, I concluded that the only common educational institution among the Jews of antiquity, aside from parental instruction (and private tutors for the wealthy), was the public reading of scripture.13 The absence of a network of schools is reinforced by the consensus that Judean society in antiquity was no more literate than the surrounding cultures. In other words, the vast majority of Judeans were illiterate.14 But this 12

13

14

The first quote is from line 178; the second is from line 175. English translation by Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. I, pp. 363, 365. To lines 176–7 compare the similar language used by Josephus in his description of the septennial reading of the Torah, ordained in Deuteronomy 31 :10, at AJ 4:209–11. See David Goodblatt, “The Talmudic Sources on the Origins of Organized Jewish Education,” Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel (Haifa: University of Haifa, 1980), Vol. 5, pp. 83–103 [Hebrew], English Summary, pp. vi–vii. Recent independent confirmation of my skepticism concerning the rabbinic sources and my assertion of the role of parents appears in Catherine Hezser, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (TSAJ 66; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), p. 94 and p. 95, n. 92. Hezser has apparently not seen my article. I take this opportunity to note that the article, which went to press while I was abroad and so was never proofread by me, suffered errors of omission and commission at the hands of the publisher. On the limited extent of literacy in general, see William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1989), with pp. 281 –2 on Judah. For more on the Judeans, with results compatible with those of Harris, see Me’ir Bar-Ilan, “Scribes and Books in the Late Second Commonwealth and Rabbinic Period,” in Mulder, ed., Mikra, pp. 33–4, and idem, “Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the First Centuries c.e.,” in Simchah Fishbane, S. Schoenfeld, and A. Goldschlager, eds., Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society, Vol. II (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1992), pp. 54–5 [n.v.]. The results of these preliminary and partial investigations have since been confirmed by the exhaustive study of Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (TSAJ 81 ; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001 ). For a somewhat different view see the comments of Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the

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need not mean that they were therefore denied access to biblical (or other) traditions. Mass communication through nonprint media did not have to await the invention of radio and television. The potential of mass oral culture in antiquity is increasingly recognized. Public performances of poetry, drama, religious ritual, and so on could reach large audiences and did not require those audiences to be literate.15 Public reading of scripture would be another instance of oral mass media. The question now is whether we find evidence of this phenomenon in Second Temple Judah beyond the rhetorical and apologetic assertions of Josephus. How common was public reading from biblical texts? How far back can we trace its history? The practice of publicly reading passages from the biblical books may have something to do with the emergence of the synagogue institution. Certainly it became a central feature of the synagogue service by Late Antiquity. However, the origins and early history of the synagogue are much debated, and no consensus has emerged. Few would claim that the procedures in the synagogues of Late Roman and Byzantine Palestine should be projected back to Second Temple times. For our purposes here we may avoid these issues. Instead we can treat the evidence for public reading of scripture without always resolving the question of its institutional context.16 Public reading from biblical texts

15

16

Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 48–9, 121 –2, 129–33. The latter sees an expansion of literacy during the Hasmonean era. This claim seems to me to need further documentation. Such documentation is available in Alan Millard, Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (New York: New York University Press, 2000), pp. 154–84. Millard makes a case for the widespread presence of books and writing throughout Judah/Iudaea, but he does not hazard an estimate of the percentage of people able to read. See Rosalind Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Susan Niditch, Oral World and Written Word. Ancient Israelite Literature (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996). With respect to the public reading from scripture, compare the role of oral performances of Homer in ancient Greek education. See Kevin Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). On the continuing role of orality in post–Second Temple Judaism, see Martin S. Jaffee, Torah in the Mouth: Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism 200 bce–400 ce (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 ), and Y. Elman and I. Gershoni, eds., Transmitting Jewish Traditions: Orality, Textuality and Cultural Diffusion (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2000). See Lee I. Levine, “The Second Temple Synagogue: The Formative Years,” in Levine, ed., The Synagogue in Late Antiquity, pp. 7–31 ; Lester L. Grabbe, “Synagogues in Pre-70 Palestine: A Re-assessment,” JTS 39 (1988), pp. 401 –10; Paul V. M. Flesher, “Palestinian Synagogues before 70 c.e.: A Review of the Evidence,” in D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher, eds., Ancient Synagogues. Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery (Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1995), Vol. 1, pp. 27–39; Lee I. Levine, “The Nature and Origin of the Palestinian Synagogue Reconsidered,” JBL 115 (1996), pp. 425–48 [Levine’s views are now available in his The Ancient Synagogue. The First Thousand Years (New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press, 2000)]; Rachel Hachlili, “The Origin of the Synagogue: A Re-assessment,” JStJ 28 (1997), pp. 34–47; Donald D. Binder, Into the Temple Courts. The Place of the Synagogues in the


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is depicted in the Bible itself. Even if we assume these accounts are fictions, they still indicate what their authors imagined as possible. And that imagining likely reflects reality outside the text. In other words, I assume these descriptions are based on actual practices in the time(s) of the authors. Watts assumes these accounts reflect preexilic realities. He argues that what he calls “Israel’s tradition of public law readings” shaped the literary forms of the laws in the Pentateuch during the monarchic period. And he suggests that the practice may have become obsolete in the Second Temple era.17 Runesson accepts the more common later dating of our biblical books. He argues that the biblical passages indicate the introduction of public reading and teaching of scripture took place at the time of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Artaxerexes I. In fact, he asserts that the public reading of scripture was introduced to help in “the creation of a national identity.” We recall the arguments of Davies and Mullen (see note 7 in this chapter) that the biblical books were composed for purposes of ethnogenesis. Runesson explains how these efforts reached an audience beyond the literate elite. And, he continues, from the fifth century b.c.e. on public readings can be documented in our sources.18 To my mind, neither Watts nor Runesson gives sufficient weight to the apparent lack of regularity or frequency of the practice according to the biblical depictions. The case of II Kings 23:1 –3 seems to be a one-time event. The public reading of the Torah ordained by Moses at Deuteronomy 31 :9–13 is to take place only once every seven years during the festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles). Interestingly enough, there is no reliable evidence that this ceremony actually took place in Second Temple times.19 The description in Nehemiah 8–9, set in the fifth century

17 18

19

Second Temple Period (SBL Dissertation Series 169; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999), pp. 390–404; S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, pp. 215–25; Anders Runesson, The Origins of the Synagogue. A Socio-Historical Study (Coniectanea Biblical New Testament Series 37; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2001 ); and Birger Olsson and Magnus Zetterholm, eds., The Ancient Synagogue From Its Origins until 200 c.e. Papers Presented at an International Conference at Lund University, October 14–17, 2001 (Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series 39; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003). For a judicious summary of the problem see Erich R. Gruen, Diaspora. Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 119–23. J. W. Watts, “Public Readings and Pentateuchal Laws,” VT 45 (1995), pp. 540–57. And see pp. 540–4 for a survey of the relevant biblical passages. For the biblical passages see Runesson, Origins of the Synagogue, pp. 240–4, with his analysis on pp. 245–303. His argument is presented in briefer form in his “Persian Imperial Politics, the Beginning of Public Torah Readings, and the Origins of the Synagogue,” in Olsson and Zetterholm, eds., Ancient Synagogue, pp. 63–89. For his survey of the evidence concerning the Hellenistic period down to 37 b.c.e., see Runesson, Origins of the Synagogue, pp. 304–38. Despite two references in rabbinic sources to first-century instances of this practice, I remain skeptical. See the discussion in D. Goodblatt, “Agrippa I and Palestinian Judaism,” pp. 10–11, and especially n. 31 on pp. 26–7.

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b.c.e., might be taken to imply a yearly occurrence. But even so, it would appear limited to Jerusalem. A yearly public reading from biblical texts in Jerusalem calls to mind the public reading of sections from Leviticus by the high priest at the Day of Atonement ritual as described in Mishnah Yoma 7:1. Other early evidence for public recitation of scripture is also inconclusive regarding the frequency and diffusion of this practice. Thus Hecataeus of Abdera writes about the high priest as follows: It is he, we are told, who in their assemblies and other gatherings announces what is ordained, and the Jews are so docile in such matters that straightaway they fall to the ground and do reverence to the high priest when he expounds the commandments to them. And at the end of their laws there is even appended the statement: “These are the words that Moses heard from God and declares unto the Jews.”20

Neither “announcing” (+) ) nor “expounding” (() ! ) need imply that the high priest was reading from a text. On the other hand, Hecataeus was not so well informed that we must pay such close attention to his choice of verbs. Certainly one could construe the passage to describe a public reading from the Torah. And the plural “assemblies and other gatherings” could suggest some regularity in the practice. However, the presence of the high priest would seem to limit the reading to the vicinity of the Temple, as in Nehemiah 8–9. Many scholars make the reasonable assumption that the translation of the Torah into Greek during the third century b.c.e. implies the practice of a public reading, but I am not aware of any explicit evidence for this assumption. The Letter of Aristeas 308, 310 – probably from the second century b.c.e. – does report that at the completion of the translation the finished work was read out to the assembled Jewish community. However, there is no indication that this was or became a regular practice.21 I Maccabees 3:46–60 describes the assembly 20

21

Translation of F. R. Walton as cited in Menachem Stern, GLAJJ, Vol. I, p. 28. Like most scholars, I assume this passage comes from the historical Hecataeus of Abdera who wrote at the end of the fourth century b.c.e. Daniel R. Schwartz, “Diodorus Siculus 40.3 – Hecataeus or Pseudo-Hecataeus?” in M. Mor et al., eds., Jews and Gentiles in the Holy Land in the Days of the Second Temple, the Mishnah and Talmud. A Collection of Articles (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2003), pp. 181 –97, raises serious doubts about the authenticity of the attribution. He suggests this passage is the work of a Jewish pseudepigrapher during the Hasmonean era. If I understand him correctly, he dates the actual author to the second century b.c.e. Even on this later dating, the passage could be an important testimony given the lack of evidence on regular public reading of scripture before the first century c.e. Sidney Jellicoe, The Septuagint and Modern Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 55, lists the assertion that the translation was “undoubtedly for use in synagogue worship and instruction” as part of the “wide consensus” in Septuagint studies. See there pp. 47–52


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of the forces of Judah the Maccabee at Mizpah before the fateful battle with Nicanor. Verse 48 could conceivably refer to a public reading from the Torah. However, the Greek is difficult and lends itself to other interpretations. For example, the passage may mean that a Torah scroll was displayed, but not read from. Above all, this was a singular event.22 It is not until we reach the first century c.e. that we have clear statements asserting regular public reading of scripture. Both Philo and Josephus refer to weekly readings on the Sabbath. Some of the descriptions of what occurs at the gatherings every Sabbath are vague, for example at Life of Moses 2.216, Embassy to Gaius 156, the account of the Therapeutae at Contemplative Life 30–33, and that of the Jews of Ionia at AJ 16:43. In these passages we find references to studying the ancestral philosophy or being instructed in the laws. They likely do refer to public reading of scripture, but we cannot be certain. Fortunately, other texts are more explicit. Thus at Hypothetica 7.10–13 Philo recounts how Moses ordained assemblies every seventh day to hear the laws read.23 Equally clear in referring to reading out loud from scripture every Sabbath is Philo’s account of Essene practice in All Good Men Are Free 81 –2. Similarly, in On Sleep 2.127 Philo has a contemporary opponent of Egyptian Jewry’s Sabbath observance allude to their reading out loud (" ,s) from the holy books in their synagogues. And in the previously cited passage from CA 2.175, Josephus expressly mentions the assembled hearing the laws. Since the last four sources undoubtedly describe weekly public readings from the Torah, it is likely that the first four do also. But of the eight references, six describe the Diaspora. The description of the Essenes in All Good Men Are Free does refer to Judah, but it concerns a small group with unusual customs. As Josephus put it (BJ 2:128), the Essenes had unique forms of piety. Interestingly enough in light of the widespread view that the people at Qumran were Essenes, the Qumran texts themselves do not attest a weekly public reading

22

23

on the date of Aristeas. Compare R. J. H. Shutt, “Letter of Aristeas,” OTP, Vol. 2, p. 9, for something of a recent consensus on the second-century dating. See the discussion in J. Goldstein, I Maccabees (AB 41 ; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), pp. 261 –2. See the various translations for other options. That the scroll was simply displayed is the view of Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, p. 59. He notes the absence of the scroll in the parallel at II Maccabees 8:12–20. One may compare the exhortations before battle in the War Scroll from Qumran at 1 QM X–XVIII. Verses from the Pentateuch are quoted in the verbal exhortation, and the high priest reads from two apparently sectarian books. But there is no reference to reading from biblical texts. And compare the comments in 7.14 with those expressed by Josephus in CA 2.177–8. For a recent survey of the passages in Philo describing the Sabbath assemblies, some of which are cited in the following, see Jutta Leonhardt, Jewish Worship in Philo of Alexandria (TSAJ 84; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001 ), pp. 74–95.

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of scripture.24 The Rule of the Community calls for an institutionalized form of daily study. Thus 1 QS 6:6b–7a requires continuous study of the Torah, in shifts, wherever there are at least ten members of the group. And 7b–8a ordains that “the Many” should spend a third of each night “reading the book” along with legal discussion and “blessing together.” While we would normally assume that Josephus describes the situation in Judah in the CA passage, many assume that the encomium of the Torah in this book relies on an Egyptian source. And this is aside from the clearly apologetic and probably hyperbolic tone of the passage, and the fact that it was written after a quarter century of residence in Rome.25 Thus we still lack unambiguous evidence for a common practice in Judah. Unambiguous testimony to public reading in Judah does appear in the famous inscription of Theodotus. This recounts how the latter built the synagogue for, inter alia, “the reading [" ] of the law and the teaching of the commandments.” The inscription thus suggests that such reading was a regular function of the institution. However, the dating of the inscription to before 70 is common but not unanimous. More importantly, we are dealing with a Graecophone synagogue in Jerusalem.26 How indicative its practices are of other synagogues in Judah remains to be established. For contrast note the

24

25

26

Such a practice might be indicated by 4Q264a = 4QHalakha B 1 4–5. However, the text is fragmentary. See the discussion in n. 23 in Chapter 4. For general discussion of the issue, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Early History of Jewish Liturgy,” in Synagogue in Late Antiquity Levin, eds., pp. 33–48; idem,”The Early History of Public Reading of the Torah,” in S. Fine, ed., Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction During the Greco-Roman Period (Baltimore Studies in the History of Judaism; London/New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 45–56; Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (trans. J. Chipman; Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1994); Daniel K. Falk, Daily, Sabbath, and Festival Prayers in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 1998); Runesson, Origins of the Synagogue, pp. 331 –7. And note Michael Fishbane, “Use, Authority and Interpretation of Mikra at Qumran,” in Mulder, ed., Mikra, p. 344, who states that “as yet there is no indication of a synagogue lection” at Qumran. For the view that Josephus uses an Egyptian source, see Daniel R. Schwartz, “Josephus on the Jewish Constitution and Community,” SCI 7 (1983–4), p. 47, with literature cited there, n. 59; compare Albert I. Baumgarten, “The Torah as a Public Document in Judaism,” SR 14 (1985), p. 18, n. 8. And see the latter for the hyperbole in Josephus’ account. For the view that the Judaism reflected in Josephus’ later works was the Diaspora variety, see Daniel R. Schwartz, “Review of Schröder, ‘Väterliche Gesetze’: Flavius Josephus als Vermittlen von Halachah an Griechen und Römer,” SCI 17 (1998), p. 249. See Lea Roth-Gerson, The Greek Inscriptions from the Synagogues in Eretz-Israel (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1987), pp. 76–86. On doubts concerning the date of the inscription, see Flesher, “Palestinian Synagogues Before 70 c.e.,” p. 33, n. 21, and, more extensively, Howard C. Kee, “Defining the First-Century ce Synagogue,” NTS 41 (1995), pp. 481 –500. For a rebuttal and strong defense of a pre-70 date, see John S. Kloppenborg Verbin, “Dating Theodotos (CIJ II 1404),” JJS 51 (2000), pp. 243–80.


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evidence of Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities 11 :8. This work is commonly assigned to first-century Judah and assumed to have been written in Hebrew. In his additions to the fourth commandment, the author asserts that the only activity permitted on the Sabbath is praising God in assemblies. Granted, the addition echoes Psalm 107:32. But had the author felt Torah study was central to the Sabbath gathering, he could have found another verse.27 Were we able to rely on it, Luke 4:16–30 would provide additional evidence for Judean practice. The account in Verses 16–21 describes how Jesus attended synagogue in Nazareth one Sabbath. He was given a scroll of Isaiah from which he read out loud to those assembled. However, the parallels at Mark 13:54–8 and Matthew 6:1 –6 lack the circumstantial detail of Luke and simply mention Jesus “teaching” in the synagogue. This same vague description recurs in the account of Jesus teaching in the synagogue of Capernaum at Mark 1 :21 –8 // Luke 4:31 –7 (the partial parallel at Matthew 7:28–9 comes at the end of the Sermon on the Mount and does not involve a synagogue setting). Similarly, the summary account of Jesus’ activities in the Galilee at Mark 1 :39 // Matthew 4:23–5 // Luke 4:44 (see variants) refers simply to his “teaching” or “preaching” in the synagogues. Thus the specific reference to reading from a book is unique to Luke. The same author also refers to public reading from scripture on two occasions in Acts. At 13:14–16 we read how Paul was invited to speak in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch on the Sabbath “after the readings from the Law and the Prophets.” Then, in the account of the “apostolic council,” James (the brother of Jesus) is quoted at 15:21 as saying, “Moses . . . has never lacked spokesmen in every town for generations past; he is read in the synagogues Sabbath by Sabbath.” While the setting here is Judah, as it was in Luke 4, we may wonder how much knowledge the author had of Jewish practice in the homeland half a century before he wrote. My own suspicion is that the Lukan descriptions reflect the practice in the author’s own community and/or in the Graecophone Jewish diaspora.28 The latter is also the likely background for Paul’s reference, in II Corinthians 3:15, to the Jews “reading Moses [" , -./s].”

27

28

On the provenance of this work, see most recently Frederick J. Murphy, Pseudo-Philo. Rewriting the Bible (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 6; and H. Jacobson, A Commentary on Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatem Biblicarum with Latin Text and English Translation, 2 Vols. (Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1996), pp. 199–211. While agreeing on a Hebrew original and Palestinian provenance, Jacobson argues for a dating after 70. A later date would, I think, strengthen the contrast. For a similar view see Kee, “Defining the First-Century ce Synagogue,” p. 490. For an attempt to defend both Luke 4:16–21 and Acts 15:21 as reflecting the way things were done in Iudaea, see Runesson, Origins of the Synagogue, pp. 213–21.

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The evidence surveyed appears to me to attest the custom of regular public reading from scripture in the Diaspora by the beginning of the Common Era. But unambiguous evidence for this practice in first-century Judah is minimal. The scanty evidence would seem to make it difficult to assume that the custom was widespread in the latter land.29 And for earlier Second Temple times we have only a few biblical and other passages reflecting at most an occasional, sporadic practice of public recitation of scripture. Given the absence of schools in ancient Judah, as argued earlier, only regular public reading of the Bible (or recitation of the contents of biblical and related literature) could fill the role of a mass medium needed to disseminate a socially constructed national identity among the people. And our sources do not clearly attest such a practice before the first century. Making matters worse, the surviving literary sources tell us very little about collections of books in Second Temple Judah. As Shavit has noted, the literary sources do not mention public or temple libraries. II Maccabees 2:13–14 attributes the assembling of a collection of books to both Nehemiah and Judah the Maccabee, but it provides few details. While the passage describes the documents assembled by Nehemiah, it does not do so for those collected by Judah. Nor does it state where these collections were kept. Perhaps the author envisaged some kind of temple library, but he does not say this explicitly. The idea or reality of a temple library may lie behind the references in Jubilees 45:16 and in the Testament of Qahat to a collection of books possessed by the patriarchs and passed on to Levi and his descendants. As is well known, rabbinic literature assumed authoritative copies of the Torah were held at the temple. One source speaks of a single copy of the Pentateuch, another of three. But no wider collection is mentioned.30 29

30

The evidence adduced here has been surveyed by many others, but without sufficient attention to the provenance of the various testimonies. See, for example, the section on “Bible Reading Before 70 c.e.” in Charles Perrot, “The Reading of the Bible in the Ancient Synagogue,” in Mulder, ed., Mikra, pp. 149–59; Levine, “Second Temple Synagogue,” pp. 16–17; Schiffman, “Early History of Public Reading of the Torah,” pp. 45–56; Runneson, Origins of the Synagogue, pp. 213–31, and see pp. 193–213 for a survey of evidence from the Mishnah that Runneson believes reflects first-century realities. Levine, “Second Temple Synagogue,” p. 15, asserts that “the reading of the Torah and the accompanying rituals constituted the main and, at least in Israel, exclusive function of synagogue worship.” This is a possible, but not a necessary conclusion from the evidence. My reservations about what the evidence shows were first expressed in D. Goodblatt, “Judean Nationalism in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” pp. 16–19. For similar reservations see Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, pp. 218, 221 –5, 241. See Y. Shavit, “The ‘Qumran Library’ in the Light of the Attitude towards Books and Literature in the Second Temple Period,” in Michael Owen Wise et al., eds., Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), pp. 299–317. However, Shavit does assume the existence of both libraries and significant


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The explicit testimony of Josephus appears to support the presence of a single copy in the temple. His account of the triumph celebrated by Vespasian and Titus at Rome lists the spoils from the temple displayed in the procession. He mentions the golden table, the lamp stand, and then, in BJ 7:150, “the law of the Judeans” (0 s 1 23). Josephus subsequently adds in 162 that while the golden items from the Temple of the Judeans were consigned to the Temple of Peace, “their law” was deposited in the imperial palace. Presumably by the term “law” Josephus means the Torah or Pentateuch. His use of the singular suggests a single copy, though that single copy might involve several scrolls.31 Elsewhere Josephus alludes to other texts deposited in the Jerusalem temple: a “writing” ()4) at AJ 3:38; “a [in one manuscript: the] book” (556) at 4:303; and “documents” ()) at 5:61. The third passage concerns Joshua stopping the sun, as reported in Joshua 10:12–15, so it obviously is not from a copy of the Pentateuch. But the way the first two texts are described, they are also unlikely to allude to passages from the Pentateuch even though both concern Moses. Certainty is impossible, and various suggestions have been made concerning the nature of these texts.32 But the AJ 5:61 passage is

31 32

numbers of readers. Compare Michael Owen Wise, “Accidents and Accidence: A Scribal View of Linguistic Dating of the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran,” in his Thunder in Gemini and Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine (JSOTSS 15; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), p. 142–4, on the possession and circulation of books and on libraries. For possible archeological evidence of a library, see Yizhar Hirschfeld, “The Library of King Herod in the Northern Palace of Masada,” SCI 23 (2004), pp. 69–80. On the attribution of a collection of books to Judah the Maccabee at II Maccabees 2:13–15, see the discussion in Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools. The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), pp. 174–82. For the Testament of Qahat see Emile Puech, “Le Testament de Qahat en Araméen de la Grotte 4 (4QTQah),” RQ 15 (1991 –2) p. 33, Frag. 1 ii 9–13. And see the comment there, p. 47 at line 12, on the priestly connection. On master scroll(s) in the Temple, see Mishnah Mo‘ed Qattan 3:4 and the sources cited by Hanokh Albeck in the supplementary note to this passage in his Shishah Sidre Mishnah (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1958), Vol. 2, p. 508 [Hebrew]. On the basis of these sources modern scholars have assumed that rabbinic literature attests the existence of a Temple library. See, for example, Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (Second Edition; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962), p. 22. Further discussion of the rabbinic sources can be found in Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Three Scrolls of the Law That Were Found in the Temple Court,” Textus 2 (1962), pp. 14–27, and Solomon Zeitlin, “Were There Three Torah-Scrolls in the Azarah?” JQR 56 (1966), pp. 269–72. See Menahem Haran, “Sifre torah vesifre miqra bame’ot harishonot lasefirah hanosrit,” Shenaton lamiqra uleheqer hamizrah haqadmon 10 (1986–9), p. 93 [Hebrew]. Surveys of scholarship on these passages can be found in the recent editions of Josephus. ´ See Flavius Josèphe, Les Antiquités Juives Livres I a` III, Texte, traduction et notes par Etienne ´ Nodet (Deuxième e´ dition; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1992), p. 153, n. 1 at 3:38; Volume II, Livres ´ IV et V (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1995), pp. 129–30, n. 7 at 5:61; Flavius Josephus, Translation and Commentary, Vol. 3: Judean Antiquities 1–4, Translation and Commentary by Louis H. Feldman (Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 2000), p. 241, n. 78 at 3:38, p. 465, n. 1042 at 4:303.

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sufficient to establish that the holdings of the temple were not limited to a single copy of the Pentateuch. Possibly relevant in this context are the “sacred books” (5 5 7)) [two manuscripts have this in the singular] given as a gift to Josephus by Titus when Jerusalem fell according to Life 418. Some assume that these books came from the temple collection. However, others suggest they were looted from synagogues or private homes.33 The existence of a library in Alexandria may be implied by the letter at II Maccabees 2:15. After reporting how Judah had collected books scattered during the war, the author offers to supply his addressees with any books they might need. But even if the author is referring to the (re)stocking of a library, it is unclear whether that library is private or public. Since the named addressee is “Aristobulus tutor of King Ptolemy,” the author might even be thinking of the royal library. That is, this passage might be an analogue to the story of the Septuagint. In any event, given the ongoing uncertainty about the authenticity and date of the letter in which these lines occur, we cannot learn very much from them.34 A collection of books in Judah may be implicit in the description of the Essenes by Josephus. He alludes to their books three times. At BJ 2:136 he tells of their interest in “the writings of the ancients” (% ), especially those concerned with spiritual and physical well-being. Further on, at §142, Josephus tells how initiates swear to preserve “the books of their sect” (% /s 7)s $ 5 5). Finally, at §159, he reports how some of the Essenes claim prophetic ability based in part on being well versed in “the holy books” (55 s 7)'s). All this does suggest a library of some kind, but the description is not specific with regard to the identity of the books, their number, or their location. Not only are references to the existence of libraries in Judah rare, Second Temple sources hardly mention even possession of individual copies of books. I have already cited II Maccabees 2:14 and its references to “books scattered”

33 34

The first view is that of Jonathan P. Siegel, The Severus Scroll and 1QIsa (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), p. 53. For the second view see Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, p. 241. The authenticity of the letter has been defended by Ben-Zion Wacholder, “The Letter from Judah Maccabee to Aristobulus. Is 2 Maccabees 1 :10b-2:18 Authentic?” HUCA 49 (1978), pp. 89–133, and Thomas Fischer, Seleukiden und Makkabäer (Bochum: N. Brockmeyer, 1980), pp. 86–7, 184, 216. Joseph Sievers, The Hasmoneans and Their Supporters from Mattathias to the Death of John Hyrcanus I (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), pp. 6–7, suggests a date between 124 and 60 b.c.e.; Jonathan Goldstein, II Maccabees (AB 41 A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), pp. 157–67, suggests 103 b.c.e.; and Elias Bi(c)kerman(n), “Ein Jüdisches Festbrief Vom Jahre 124 v. Chr. (II Macc. 1 :1 –9),” in idem, Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 2, pp. 136–7 [originally published in ZNW 32 (1933)], suggests our letter dates between ca. 60 b.c.e. and 73 c.e.


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during the war. I Maccabees 1 :56–7 refers to the destruction of Torah scrolls and the execution of those found in possession of such scrolls during the Epiphanian persecutions. Both references are too general to be very helpful. Neither tells us who possessed the books that were scattered or destroyed or how common such possession was. The same is true of the report in Josephus, BJ 2:228–31 // AJ 20:113–17. During punitive actions under Cumanus (48–52 c.e.) against villages several miles north of Jerusalem (AJ) in the Bet Horon area (BJ), a soldier found a copy of the Torah in one of the villages and destroyed it. This stirred up so much outrage that Cumanus had the soldier executed. While these passages indicate that a Torah scroll could be found in a rural village, it also seems to me to suggest that possession of such a scroll was not all that common. Indeed, the rarity of the scroll might explain the extreme reaction of the Jews to its destruction. In any event, it is not clear that the scroll was owned by an individual, as opposed to the community.35 The scroll of Isaiah from which Jesus read, according to Luke 4, presumably belonged to the Nazareth synagogue. Similarly “the laws” (8s s), which the Jews took with them when they fled Caesarea, must have belonged to the local synagogue. Otherwise the Jewish leaders could not have been charged with improperly removing “the laws” from the city. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether this phrase at BJ 2:291 –2 refers to one scroll or many. Finally, we already mention the “sacred books” Josephus received as a gift from Titus at the fall of Jerusalem. Whatever their source, these books now became the personal possession of Josephus. Given the circumstances, however, it is unlikely that we can generalize from this. What we have seen so far is that the literary sources say relatively little about the availability of books in ancient Judah. If scrolls of biblical books were rare and expensive, then the likelihood that public reading of biblical texts was common in the first century, let alone in earlier times, diminishes.36 Fortunately we are no longer totally dependent on the literary sources. The caves at Qumran have yielded over nine hundred manuscripts, of which about two hundred, or 22 percent, are manuscripts of books in the Hebrew Bible.37 To this number, one may add at least some of the manuscripts containing excerpts

35 36 37

Note the language at AJ 20:115 in MS E: 5s s. This might suggest a reverence more appropriate to a communal possession. Compare the comments of Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, pp. 240–1, concerning the first and second centuries. See E. Tov, “Categorized List of the ‘Biblical Texts,’” in Tov, ed., Texts from the Judaean Desert, p. 167. For a list of all the texts from Qumran, see E. Tov with the collaboration of S. J. Pfann, “List of the Texts from the Judaean Desert,” in Tov, ed., Texts from the Judaean Desert, pp. 29–89.

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or abbreviations of biblical texts.38 The significance of this evidence depends in part on how we understand these finds. If Golb is right, what we have found are the remains of several libraries from Jerusalem. In this case the finds may not be representative of the country as a whole. Jerusalem was the religious and intellectual capital of the country, so we would expect it to be a center of book production, possession, and collection. In the countryside, scrolls might have been hard to come by. And relatively broad dissemination of the contents of the Bible might have been limited to the metropolis. Even on the consensus view, that the scrolls were collected by the group that lived at Khirbet Qumran, we may not be able to generalize from the size of the collection. Whether we identify them as Essenes or not, the Qumran community seems to be an eccentric, fringe group. Their collection of several hundred scrolls might not be representative of the Judean population as a whole. Stegemann’s modification of the consensus view might allow additional conclusions. He argues that the Essenes constituted a large, countrywide movement and that Qumran was the movement’s center for book production. Thus the Qumran library was a sort of reference library for the movement and its publishing arm. Stegemann goes on to explain the composition of the library: Some manuscripts were master copies, some were worn-out copies withdrawn from use, some were the subject of special study, while those occurring in many exemplars were for communal study.39 On this view one would have found copies of books known to us from Qumran in the possession of Essene communities throughout the country.40 As long as 38

39

40

See E. Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated Biblical Texts from Qumran,” RQ 16 (1995), pp. 581 – 600. The exegetical and parabiblical texts give further, if indirect, evidence for the diffusion of the biblical texts. See the “Appendix. Chronological List of Qumran Exegetical and Parabiblical Writings by Date of Copy” in J. Trebolle-Barrera, “Qumran Evidence for a Biblical Standard Text and for Non-Standard and Parabiblical Texts,” in Timothy H. Lim, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls in their Historical Context (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), pp. 104–6. Compare the “List of Paleographically Dated Texts from Qumran” in Brian Webster, “Chronological Index of the Texts from the Judaean Desert,” in Tov, ed., Texts from the Judaean Desert, pp. 378–434. For a convenient summary see Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools, pp. 166–8 and the literature cited there. For rebuttals of Golb, see, for example, James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 95–7; Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 64–5. And see Stegemann, ibid., pp. 51 –5, for the purpose of the Qumran settlement, and pp. 80–5, for a description of the nature of the scrolls collection. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, pp. 93–8, argues that the sects, including the Essenes, may have comprised a significant percentage of the adult male Judean population. On the other hand, he believes that the sectarians were concentrated “in and around Jerusalem.” On this view, even Stegemann’s theory might not be evidence for wide dissemination of scrolls throughout the country.


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these issues are unresolved, our ability to generalize from the Qumran finds to a broad diffusion of books seems limited. One way out of this impasse is to invoke the survival ratio. This is the ratio of texts surviving into our day to the total number of texts produced in antiquity. Estimating this factor for Roman Egypt, Keith Hopkins suggested that the survival ratio could be less than 1 :10,000!41 That is, only one ten-thousandth of the written materials produced survives. Conversely, we can assume the existence of ten thousand times the number of texts that have come down to us. And this is for a country in much of which conditions for the survival of organic materials like papyrus and animal skins are much better than they are in most of Judah. Even if we reduce the ratio by half, we would still conclude that the 900 manuscripts from Qumran could reflect the circulation of tens of thousands of manuscripts! For example, the thirty or so exemplars of the book of Deuteronomy found at Qumran would suggest the existence of 150,000 copies, and the fifteen of Genesis, 75,000 copies. Even taking into account the fact that these copies span three centuries of production, these are still astronomical numbers. This is especially true when we recall that sober estimates of the population of Jewish districts of the country give a number of half a million.42 Even 25,000 copies of Genesis for a population this size means one copy per twenty souls, most of whom were not literate. These extraordinary results suggest that the survival ratio we are using must be off kilter. But unless we are willing to assume that the Qumran collection constitutes a large percentage of all the scrolls in circulation in first-century Judah, as the Golb thesis might allow, then these finds suggest the existence of thousands of scrolls in the country. And such a large number in a small, predominantly

41

42

See Keith Hopkins, “Conquest by the Book,” in J. Humphrey, ed., Literacy in the Roman World (JRASS 3; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1991 ), p. 133, n. 2. For a similar, if less quantified, argument that explicitly applies outside of Egypt as well, see Millard, Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus, pp. 33–41, 128–31, 172. Among other factors, Millard notes the amount of “paperwork” generated wherever Roman military forces were stationed. See M. Broshi, “The Population of Western Palestine in the Roman-Byzantine Period,” BASOR 236 (1979), pp. 1 –10; idem, “Methodology of Population Estimates; the Roman-Byzantine Period as a Case Study,’ in A. Biran and J. Aviram, eds., Biblical Archaeology Today, 1990: Proceedings of the Second International Congress on Biblical Archaeology (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1993), pp. 420–5. For a dissenting view arguing for much larger numbers, see Z. Safrai, The Economy of Roman Palestine (London/New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 436–7. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” p. 141, suggests a population of “well over a million” for Judea, of whom 10–15 percent were literate. The resultant estimated reading public of 100,00 to 150,000 seems much too large both in terms of the lower population estimates cited earlier and the lesser degree of literacy assumed by the scholarship cited in n. 14 in this chapter.

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nonliterate population would make widespread public recitation much more likely. Reinforcing this deduction from the Qumran finds is the accumulating evidence of scrolls from other sites. From the late first century there are the seven biblical scrolls found at Masada. They include one manuscript of Genesis, two of Leviticus, one of Deuteronomy, one of Ezekiel, and two of Psalms. These texts were probably the possession of people not connected with Qumran.43 Also reflecting different communities as well as a time frame three generations later are eleven biblical manuscripts from places of hiding and refuge during the Judean revolt led by Simeon son of Kosiba between 132 and 135 c.e. The caves at Nahal Hever yielded five biblical scrolls: two copies of Numbers, one each of Deuteronomy and Psalms plus a copy of the Twelve (= “Minor Prophets”) in Greek.44 A copy of Genesis was found at Wadi Sdeir (= Nahal David) and one of Numbers at Nahal Se’elim.45 And the caves of Wadi Murabba’at yielded at least four biblical scrolls. There is one manuscript whose remains included sections of Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers, plus single copies of Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and the Twelve. The first named might have contained the entire Pentateuch.46 If we apply our minimalist survival ratio of 1 :5,000 to these last eleven, then we must imagine over 60,000 scrolls of biblical book circulating in the early second century. And because the refugees all appear to have come from a limited geographical area, those 60,000 scrolls circulated not in the entire province of Iudaea, but just in part of the 43

44

45

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The texts were published by S. Talmon in “Hebrew Fragments from Masada,” Masada VI. Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–1965 Final Reports (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1999), pp. 31 –97. While at least two other manuscripts found at Masada appear to have been brought there by people affiliated with Qumran and/or the Essene movement, the Masada biblical scrolls do not show affinities with the Qumran bible scrolls, neither in orthography nor in variety of text types. See ibid., pp. 148–9, 24–6. The four Hebrew scrolls are 5/6 Hev Numa , XHev/Se Numb , XHev/Se Deut, and 5/6Hev Ps. They were published by P. Flint in J. Charlesworth et al., eds., Miscellaneous Texts from the Judaean Desert (DJD XXXVIII; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), pp. 133–66, 173–82. Walter C. Bouzard, Jr., “The Date of the Psalms Scroll from the Cave of Letters (5/6HevPs) Reconsidered,” DSD 10 (2003), pp. 319–37, argues that the four Hebrew scrolls may have been deposited by refugees from the revolt of 66–70 c.e. If so, they no longer attest conditions in the second century. Moreover we can no longer assign them to the same village or town milieu that is the source of the Bar Kokhva era deposits. Indeed, Bouzard suggests they could have come from Jerusalem. Still, they attest manuscript finds independent of Qumran. For the fifth text see E. Tov, The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr) (DJD VIII; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). Sdeir1 Gen was published by C. Murphy in Charlesworth et al., eds., Miscellaneous Texts from the Judaean Desert, pp. 117–24. 34Se Numbers was described by M. Morgenstern in ibid., p. 209. All were Published by J. T. Milik in P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. De Vaux, Les Grottes de Murabba‘at (DJD II; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961 ), pp. 75–80, 180–205.


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subdivision of Judah (as opposed to the subdivisions of Galilee, Samaria, Peraea, etc.). And this occurred at a time when the population of Judah is unlikely to have exceeded 150,000!47 Again, these results are so extraordinary that there must be something wrong with the survival ratio we are using. Still the evidence does suggest a wider diffusion of texts than we might have assumed on the basis of our literary sources. Moreover, the refugees in question appear to have come from towns and villages. If biblical scrolls were so readily available in places like these, they must have been even more accessible in the large cities. The archaeological evidence from late first century (Qumran and Masada) and early second century (caves with refugees from the Bar Kokhba revolt) Judah thus suggests that biblical scrolls were fairly plentiful and widely diffused. Why were so many texts needed in an overwhelmingly nonliterate society? The most probable explanation is that many of these manuscripts, like many or most ancient books, were performance texts. By this I mean they were not intended only, or even primarily, for private use by individuals who read them on their own. Instead the texts commonly were read out loud at public gatherings. To this day, Torah scrolls are used as performance texts. No one takes them home during the week for private study. (To be sure, today other [printed] copies of the Torah are readily available for private reading at home as well as for group study. Obviously this was not the case in antiquity.) The role of books as performance texts was common in surrounding Graeco-Roman society as well as in the early Christian movement.48 A telling example, albeit relating to a much earlier period, is cited by Thomas from a report in Plutarch. The latter reports how the Athenian statesman Lycurgus, in the late fourth century b.c.e., kept copies of the plays of the three great tragedians in a public archive and required adherence to the “original” text. However, the removal of the copies for private consultation was not allowed. Nor were the performers even allowed to read the documents at the archive. Instead a secretary read the texts out loud to them.49 47

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This is the estimate of Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, p. 93, for Judah in the first century. We may assume a decline in population in the wake of the suppression of the revolt of 66–70 and destruction of Jerusalem in 70. On the public reading of texts in the Graeco-Roman world, see Moses Hadas, Ancilla to Classical Reading (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), pp. 50–64. Compare Thomas, Oral Text and Written Record in Classical Athens, pp. 32–4, on books as memory aids. For Christianity, see Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 205–6, 211 –31, on public reading of scriptures in early Christian worship, and pp. 231 –7 for the gradual increase of evidence for private reading, which, however, is not abundant until the third century. Thomas, Oral Text and Written Record, pp. 48–9.

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In light of the common practice of public readings of books in the ancient eastern Mediterranean area, and in light of the occasional references to such a practice in Second Temple Judah, it seems reasonable to understand the function of the ancient Bible manuscripts as performance texts. And the existence of many manuscripts, suggested by the Qumran evidence, further suggests that public reading of biblical texts was in fact common in Second Temple Judah.50 In his chronological survey of the Qumran texts, Webster concludes, “the biblical texts have a fairly even chronological distribution throughout the period from 200 b.c.e.–68 c.e.” He also notes that in the “Archaic Period” (i.e., 250–150 b.c.e.), the biblical manuscripts comprise the most numerous group of texts.51 So, if my line of argument is correct, we may trace public reading back into the third century b.c.e. What about earlier times? Can we assume the practice was common as far back as the Persian era? At present we lack sufficient evidence. The testimony of Nehemiah 8–9 and Hecataeus suggests at least occasional public readings before a mass audience by the late fourth century and probably by late Persian times. Further, the Qumran manuscript finds showed that the silence or scantiness of the literary sources could be misleading. Just as the scarcity of references to manuscripts in late Second Temple times did not prove that written texts were rare, so too minimal mention of public readings from bible texts need not prove that such events were uncommon in the Persian era. Of course, the relative silence of our sources obviously does not prove that public readings were common. But if we find indications of the existence of Judean nationalism in the centuries before the turn of the millennium, we can suggest how it was constructed. Widespread and regular public recitation of biblical texts would explain how ideas of common descent and shared culture could reach a mass audience. This, I submit, is certainly what was going on by the Hellenistic period. And it may have already been the case, albeit in a more limited way, under the domination of the Achemenids. 50

51

Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” pp. 125–37, characterizes about forty of the Qumran manuscripts as “personal copies.” But this need not preclude their serving as performance texts as well. On the question of personal copies and on the broader issues as well, see Philip S. Alexander, “Literacy among Jews in Second Temple Palestine: Some Reflections on the Evidence from Qumran,” in M. F. J. Baasten and W. Th. Van Peursen, eds., Hamlet on a Hill. Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of His SixtyFifth Birthday (Leuven/Paris/Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2003), pp. 3–24. Alexander emphasizes the evidence for literacy that emerges from the Qumran manuscripts. Webster, “Chronological Index of the Texts from the Judaean Desert,” in Tov, ed., Texts from the Judaean Desert, p. 375, summarizing the data in “Table 5: Chronological Synopsis of Qumran Texts,” pp. 371 –5.

3

Constructing Jewish Nationalism: The Hebrew Language

I

n the previous chapter i alluded to the role of the hebrew language in the construction and preservation of a Jewish national identity. Here I shall address this subject in detail. The connection between language and identity was recognized in antiquity. As seen earlier, Herodotus included common language as one of the components of “Greekness.” Indeed, common language appeared right after common blood, the first item listed. Sharing in that common language resulted in “grecization” according to Thucydides (II.68.5). He distinguished between those Amphilocians who “hellenized” by adopting the Greek language from their Ambraciot neighbors and the rest of the Amphilocians who remained “barbarians.” Half a millennium later, Tacitus included study of Latin as a factor in the Romanization of the Britons during the governorship of Agricola (Agricola 21). For these authors, use of the appropriate language seems to be a necessary condition for membership in, or adoption into, a national group. Other ancient authors, though, added that language by itself was not a sufficient condition for belonging. According to a report in Livy, for example, Achaean ambassadors dismissed the Aetolians as people who merely speak Greek without really being Hellenes.1 The reservations of the ambassadors have their modern counterpart in theoretical discussions of the components of ethnicity. Contemporary scholars recognize that the relation between language and identity is not always simple.2 The complexity of that relation can be illustrated with an example from the Jewish experience. II Maccabees, a book devoted to a defense of Jewish national identity (“Judeanness”) against the inroads of “Greekness,” is written in Greek. Even more striking in the present context is the frequent 1 2

Livy 34.24.3. See Jeremy McInerney, “Ethnos and Ethnicity in Early Greece,” in Malkin, ed., Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, p. 61. See Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity, pp. 143–81, and idem, Hellenicity, pp. 111 –17.

49

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reference to “the ancestral language” as part of what van Henten has called “the patriotic–political message” of the book. That language is certainly not Greek, and most likely is Hebrew.3 So our author emphasized the role of Hebrew as an expression of “national pride” even though Greek was probably his first language and even though he himself may not have known Hebrew.4 With the recognition that the interplay between language and identity may be complex, let us look more closely at the role of Hebrew among Jews in the Second Temple period. We immediately note two major differences from the contemporary situation of the Greeks. While many non-Greeks in antiquity adopted the Greek language, Hebrew never spread among non-Jews. (Even Isaiah 19:18, whatever its historical context and meaning, prophesies only that five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan. It doesn’t envision large, non-Jewish populations adopting the language.5 ) So Jews never had to answer the question of whether speaking Hebrew was a sufficient condition for membership in the Jewish nation. The other major difference was the loss by many Jews of the ability to speak or understand Hebrew. This development must have affected the question whether knowledge of Hebrew was at least a necessary condition for retaining a Jewish identity. Clearly the status of the Hebrew language in Second Temple times needs to be examined in order to clarify its role in ancient Jewish national consciousness. Our survey begins in the Iron Age so as to provide appropriate background. The standard view that Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah seems undeniable. The epigraphic evidence from this period, although far more meager than what is available from contemporary Egypt and Mesopotamia, is still considerable. The standard collections number several hundred items with writing in Hebrew. Many of these were found in controlled excavations.6 Admittedly, some of the finds are without 3 4

5

6

van Henten, “Ancestral Language of the Jews in 2 Maccabees,” pp. 53–68. See the comments of John R. Bartlett, The First and Second Books of the Maccabees. The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 271 –2 at II Maccabees 7:8. The usual interpretation is that the text refers to Jewish inhabitants and perhaps also to “converts” to Judaism. If converts are meant, did they (or were they expected to) assimilate linguistically? I know of no evidence for such an expectation. For a recent commentary see Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001 ), p. 144. See G. I. Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions. Corpus and Concordance, 2 Vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 –2004); Shmuel Ahituv, Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from the Period of the First Commonwealth and the Beginning of the Second Commonwealth (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1992) [Hebrew]; Sandra Landis Gogel, A Grammar of Epigraphic Hebrew (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). For a brief survey see A. Sáenz-Badillos, A History

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provenance, and forgeries abound. This is especially true of the inscribed seals. But with the longer texts consensus on lack of authenticity has usually been achieved.7 Reinforcing the authenticity of the epigraphic data from the kingdoms of Judah and Israel is contemporary evidence from neighboring kingdoms such as Ammon and Moab. These Iron Age texts reveal dialects very similar to that of the Hebrew epigraphic material.8 The epigraphic data also strengthen the majority view that the older strata of biblical literature reflect the language of Iron Age Israel and Judah.9 Finally, the contents of the epigraphic material in Hebrew suggest that the written material reflects the spoken language. The profile of the finds is unlike that for purely literary languages not understandable by the populace, such as contemporary Sumerian. Instead there are letters, accounts, and graffiti. All the evidence, then, points to Hebrew as the spoken and written language of the country through the fall of the Kingdom of Israel in the north and that of Judah in the south. The situation prevailing in Second Temple times is less clear, though there is what appears to be a broad consensus at least on one point. This is the penetration and eventual domination of the Aramaic language.10 At first glance, Hebrew seems to have held its own. As we shall detail later, a considerable body of Hebrew literature comes from this period. To be sure, Jews also

7

8

9

10

of the Hebrew Language, trans. J. Elwolde (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 62–8. See for example Frank Moore Cross, “Notes on the Forged Plaque Recording Repairs to the Temple,” and Israel Eph’al, “The ‘Jehoash Inscription’: A Forgery,” IEJ 53 (2003), pp. 119– 22 and 124–8. Of a different order was the challenge to the Iron Age dating of the Siloam inscription by J. W. Rogerson and P. R. Davies, “Was the Siloam Tunnel Built by Hezekiah?” BA 59 (1996), pp. 138–49. Their argument that the paleography could equally allow a date to the Hasmonean era has not convinced many specialists. See the rebuttal by Ronald S. Hendel, “The Date of the Siloam Inscription: A Rejoinder to Rogerson and Davies,” BA 60 (1997), pp. 233–7. See W. Randall Garr, Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000–586 b.c.e. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985). A briefer but more recent survey appears in Simeon B. Parker, “Ammonite, Edomite and Moabite,” in Kaltner and McKenzie, eds., Beyond Babel, pp. 43–60. See Jo Ann Hackett, “Hebrew (Biblical and Epigraphic),” in Kaltner and McKenzie, eds., Beyond Babel, pp. 139–56. She observes, p. 141, that “even informal epigraphic Hebrew of the monarchic period is very much like S[tandrard] B[iblical] H[ebrew].” See also Avi Hurvitz, “The Historical Quest for ‘Ancient Israel’ and the Linguistic Evidence of the Hebrew Bible: Some Methodological Observations,” VT 47 (1997), pp. 301 –15. For some dissenting views see the essays collected in Ian Young, ed., Biblical Hebrew. Studies in Chronology and Typology (JSOTSS 369; London/New York: T&T Clark International, 2003). The evidence for the spread of Aramaic is concisely presented in E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 b.c.–a.d. 135), Vol. II, G. Vermes and F. Millar, eds. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1979), pp. 20–8. Though additional data have come to light, this account is still valuable. Some of the evidence will be discussed next.

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produced literature in the Aramaic language during this time. In addition to the Aramaic portions of the biblical books of Ezra and Daniel, dozens of purely Aramaic books turned up at Qumran. Still, Hebrew predominates in the literary remains. Thus of the 900 or so manuscripts found at Qumran, about 27 are in Greek, and some 130, in Aramaic. This leaves close to 750 in Hebrew. Using the raw data just cited, at Qumran the Hebrew manuscripts outnumber the Aramaic ones by almost 6 to 1.11 These data may be misleading, however. Many scholars argue that the Hebrew of Second Temple literature betrays strong Aramaic influences. Such influences suggest to them that Aramaic was the spoken (and even the more common written) language of the authors of these works. Reinforcing this argument is the epigraphic evidence. In the epigraphic material the Aramaic finds outnumber those in Hebrew. The finds include both inscriptions and legal documents. Quantification is more difficult because we lack an up-to-date collection of Second Temple epigraphic material.12 However, we can use three corpora as samples or test cases. One comprises the Samaritan inscriptions from the Hellenistic era holy

11

12

For the data see E. Tov, “Lists of Specific Groups of Texts from the Judaean Desert,” in Tov, ed., Texts from the Judaean Desert, pp. 215–16 for the Greek manuscripts from Qumran and pp. 221 –5 for the Aramaic texts. Compare the figures from before publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls was completed in E. Puech, “Du bilinguisme a` Qumran,” in F. BriquelChatonnet, ed., Mosa¨ıque culturelle: Le Bilinguisme dans le Proche-Orient ancien (Paris: Jean Maisonneuve, 1996), pp. 171 –9; Martin G. Abegg, Jr., “The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Peter W. Flint and James C. Vanderkam, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years. A Comprehensive Assessment (Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 1998), Vol. 1, p. 323. And see n. 17 in this chapter regarding the fifteen manuscripts found at Masada of which at least fourteen are in Hebrew! On Aramaic literature composed by Judeans, see B.-Z. Wacholder, “The Ancient Judaeo-Aramaic Literature (500–164 bce). A Classification of Pre-Qumranic Texts,” in L. H. Schiffman, ed., Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), pp. 257–81. Volume II (Asie-Afrique) of J.-B. Frey, Corpus inscriptionem iudaicarum: Recueil des inscriptions juives qui vont du IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ au VIIe siècle de Notre-Ere (Vatican City: Pontificio instituto di archeologia cristiana, 1952), is severely outdated, all the more so earlier collections. It also begins only in the Hellenistic period. Ahituv, Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, extends down to the fourth century, while Davies, Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions, goes to 200 b.c.e. But even Davies leaves out almost three centuries (or over 40 percent) of the Second Temple period. For the Aramaic inscriptions (along with literary texts) from this later period, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer and Daniel H. Harrington, A Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts (Second Century b.c–Second Century a.d) (Rome: Pontifical Institute, 1978); Klaus Beyer, Die arama¨ıschen Texte vom Toten Meer: samt den Inschriften aus Palästina, dem Testament Levis aus der Kairoer Genisa, der Fastenrolle und den alten talmudischen Zitaten: aramais¨ tische Einleitung, Text, Ubersetzung, Deutung, Grammatik/Wörterbuch, deutsch-arama¨ısche Wortliste, Register (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), Ergänzungsband (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994). The DJD series includes a number of documentary texts from the first and second centuries c.e.

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precinct on Mt. Gerizim. Unfortunately the texts are all fragmentary, and none was found in situ. Some four hundred inscribed fragments have been collected. Of these some 360 are in Aramaic (“Jewish”) script. With only one clear exception (#4), the inscriptions in Aramaic script are in the Aramaic language. Conversely, with only one partial exception (#15), the forty or so texts in the old Hebrew script are in Hebrew. So the Aramaic material seems to outnumber the Hebrew by around 9 to 1 !13 Of course, one could argue that Hebrew was less known and/or less used among the Samaritans. So it is particularly helpful that the other two corpora come from Judeans. The second corpus comprises ossuary inscriptions. Secondary burial in ossuaries was a short-lived phenomenon among the Judeans, concentrated in the century and a half preceding 135 c.e.14 The finds originate mostly in the Jerusalem area. In the catalogue published by Rahmani, there are 157 ossuaries with some Jewish script. It should be noted that these texts are generally not formal grave inscriptions incised by a professional. Such material would not necessarily indicate anything about the spoken language of the deceased and their families. Instead, the ossuary inscriptions are mostly informal and nonprofessional, often graffiti presumably written by family members. They are more likely to be diagnostic of commonly used language than formal inscriptions.15 Unfortunately, the linguistic information obtainable from the ossuary inscriptions is limited because often only the name of the deceased is given. Aside from a very few cases, the only clear indication of language is

13

14

15

See Y. Magen, L. Tsafania [sic], and H. Misgav, “The Hebrew and Aramaic Inscriptions from Mt. Gerizim,” Qadmoniot 120 (2000), pp. 125–32 [Hebrew]. The publishers note that the fragments appear to come from different inscriptions. Thus the numbers reflect not just fragments but (on the whole) distinct inscriptions. For the final publication of the Gerizim material, see Y. Magen, H. Misgav, and L. Tsfania [sic], Mount Gerizim Excavations, Volume I. The Aramaic, Hebrew and Samaritan Inscriptions (Judea and Samaria Publications 2; Jerusalem: Staff Officer of Archaeology – Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria and Israel Antiquities Authority, 2004). The authors of this volume do not discuss the issue of Hebrew versus Aramaic in this volume, but only the scripts. See pp. 30–40. See L. Y. Rahmani, A Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries in the Collections of the State of Israel (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority and Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994), pp. 21 –5. Use of ossuaries continued on into the mid-third century, but the numbers are small. Compare the warnings of M. C. A. Macdonald, “Some Reflections on Epigraphy and Ethnicity in the Roman Near East,” Mediterranean Archaeology 11 (1998) [= Graeme Clark, ed., Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean in Antiquity, Proceedings of a Conference Held at the Humanities Research Centre in Canberra 10–12 November 1997], pp. 180–1. Macdonald argues that “formal, monumental inscriptions carved by a professional mason usually tell us little about the language(s) used by the titular ‘author’ of the text.” He believes that even graffiti “are uncertain guides as to the languages of their authors.” However, as products of nonprofessional writers, graffiti seem at least a better guide than formal inscriptions.

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in words like “son,” “daughter,” and “wife.” Rahmani notes that the Aramaic word for “wife” appears twice as often as the Hebrew word (six times to three). The Aramaic words for “son” and “daughter” appear “two or three times more often” than the Hebrew equivalents. My own very rough count conforms to these data. I counted sixty-one inscriptions with Aramaic words exclusively as opposed to twenty with only Hebrew ones.16 Our third corpus is comprised of the 701 Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions found at Masada. It is probable that all these texts date to the period 66– 73 c.e. Here too in many cases the only indication of language is the form of the word “son” or of the definite article. Even these meager indications are lacking in over three quarters of the inscriptions! My rough count of the texts with identifiable elements yielded eighty-five inscriptions with Aramaic elements and seventy-one with Hebrew. This proportion is much closer than what emerged from the previous two corpora. Admittedly the data can be misleading. Appearance of the Hebrew word for “son,” for example, need not indicate that the writer actually had an active proficiency in that language. No one would argue from the title of his poem “Rabbi Ben Ezra” that Robert Browning knew Hebrew. But interestingly enough, there is also a rough parity among the longer, connected texts. The three texts classified as letters, ##554–6, are in Aramaic. On the other hand, the four most extensive jar inscriptions, ##449–52, are in Hebrew. It should also be noted that of the fifteen literary texts found at Masada, fourteen are in Hebrew (the language of one is uncertain).17 16

17

See Rahmani, Catalogue of Jewish Ossuaries, pp. 11 –19, on the languages of the ossuary inscriptions. For the number of inscriptions see p. 12, and for Aramaic versus Hebrew see p. 13. My count ignores a Hebrew–Aramaic bilingual (#24), three inscriptions that contain both Aramaic and Hebrew words (##290, 867, 893), and instances of !lv and !wlv (since this could be a personal name). Compare Seth Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” Past & Present 148 (1995), p. 15, n. 22, who relies on earlier publications of ossuary inscriptions. Of the 177 inscriptions he noted in Frey, CII, Vol. II, he found only 24 that used Hebrew forms. However, Schwartz does not say how many inscriptions had Aramaic forms as opposed to just names with no words diagnostic of Hebrew or Aramaic. Without this information we cannot evaluate the datum he supplies. See Yigael Yadin and Joseph Naveh, “The Aramaic and Hebrew Ostraca and Jar Inscriptions,” in Masada I. The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963–65 Final Reports (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 8–9, on the languages of the inscriptions and pp. 12–68 for the texts. I ignored items ##514–515 that appear to be in Nabatean script. Of the 701 items listed in this volume, most are not identifiable as Aramaic or Hebrew. For example, ##1 –301 contain just letters and no words; ##302–90 have just names without nicknames or patronymics. The same is true for many other items, aside from those with only fragments of words or names. Compare the remarks of Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” p. 15, n. 22. Here too unless one compares the Hebrew items to recognizable Aramaic elements, the data are misleading. For the literary manuscripts found on this site, see Talmon, “Hebrew Fragments from Masada.” One fragment of a manuscript contains what looks like an Aramaic word along with one or two Hebrew words. The text

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The case of Masada is something of an exception, then. It suggests a broader use of Hebrew in nonliterary composition. Perhaps this is a reflection of the ideology of the residents there in 66–73, or of the period of revolt. Hanan Eshel has argued that some of the Hebrew documents from Murabba’at date to the revolt of 66. If so, then the Hebrew revival attributed to the rebels of 132 can also be assumed for the rebels of 66.18 Still, even Masada shows widespread use of Aramaic by the Judeans. So overall these quantifiable corpora illustrate and confirm the conclusions that Naveh and Greenfield reached in 1984. Writing of the Persian era, they observed that Aramaic epigraphic material was more plentiful than the Hebrew data. Almost a decade later Naveh surveyed the entire Second Temple era with an extension to 135. His conclusion was the same.19 The evidence just surveyed shows the predominance of Hebrew as a vehicle for literary expression and the predominance of Aramaic in the epigraphic record. The epigraphic evidence combined with the apparent Aramaic influence on the Hebrew of Second Temple literature has convinced most scholars that Aramaic gradually replaced Hebrew during this era, both as a spoken language as well as the written language used for documentary (as opposed to literary) texts.20 Still subject to debate is how complete that replacement was. The disagreement emerges in the diverse evaluations of the Hebrew used in contemporary literary texts. Was it a purely artificial language heavily influenced by contemporary written and spoken Aramaic.21 Or does it (also) reflect spoken (and written?) Hebrew dialects? The current consensus seems to adopt something of a mediating position. On this view the parts of the Hebrew Bible (and other literature?) that antedate the Persian era supplied

18 19

20

21

is too short and fragmentary to allow any definite conclusion. To the Masada evidence one may compare the corpus of inscriptions from Qumran and Ain Feshka. Unfortunately, the latter body of evidence is more limited in quantity and even less clear regarding the relative uses of Hebrew and Aramaic. See A. Lemaire, “Inscriptions du khirbeh, des grottes et de ‘A¨ın Feshkha,” in J.-B. Humbert and J. Gunneweg, eds., Khirbet Qumrân et ’A¨ın Feshkha, Vol. II. Studies of Anthropology, Physics and Chemistry (NTOA, Series Archaeologica 3; Fribourg: Academic Press and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), pp. 341 –88. On the question of the use of Hebrew versus Aramaic, see there, p. 381. Hanan Eshel, “Hebrew in Economic Documents from the Judean Desert,” Leshonenu 63 (2003), pp. 41 –52 [Hebrew]. See Joseph Naveh and Jonas C. Greenfield, “Hebrew and Aramaic in the Persian Period,” CHJ I, p. 122; Joseph Naveh, “Hebrew versus Aramaic in the Epigraphic Finds of the Second Temple – Bar-Kokhba Period,” Leshonenu 56 (5752), pp. 301 –16 [Hebrew]. The widespread use of Aramaic for inscriptions, especially grave inscriptions, is alleged to provide further evidence of Aramaic as the common spoken language. For an alternate explanation see n. 56 in this chapter. See for example Giovanni Garbini, “Hebrew Literature in the Persian Period,” in Eskenazi and Richards, eds., Second Temple Studies 2, pp. 180–8.

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the model emulated by those attempting to write “classical Hebrew” in the Second Temple era. The differences between the early models and the later imitations can be attributed to the influence of Aramaic and, if they existed, to contemporary written and spoken Hebrew dialects. Whether in fact “Late Biblical Hebrew” (in the literature of the Persian and Hellenistic periods) and “Qumran Hebrew” (mostly in texts of the Hasmonean, Herodian, and Roman eras) also reflect spoken dialects of the language is hotly debated. Similarly, scholars debate whether the Hebrew of tannaitic literature, called “Mishnaic/Rabbinic Hebrew” (primarily second and early third centuries c.e.), also goes back to spoken (and written) dialects of late Second Temple times.22 Let us begin with the question of spoken Hebrew in Second Temple times. In his survey of the epigraphic data from this era, Naveh argues that there is considerable evidence for the survival of Hebrew as a spoken dialect. That evidence includes the occurrence even in Aramaic texts of Hebrew by-names and nicknames and of Hebrew words for everyday items. On the basis of this argument, Naveh asserts the following. “Aramaic gradually replaced Hebrew and became the dominant language. . . . However the Hebrew language (and to a certain extent the [old] Hebrew script) also had a day to day use.” And he concludes, “In Second Temple times the Aramaic language was widely accepted among the Judeans . . . and served as a written and a spoken language. . . . still many continued to speak Hebrew.”23 If we accept these conclusions, then the question of how Aramaic replaced a living Hebrew language (to the extent it did) is even more pressing. 22

23

The literature on these issues is extensive. For an overview of Second Temple and Rabbinic Hebrew, see Sáenz-Badillos, History of the Hebrew Language, pp. 112–201 ; Baruch A. Levine, “Hebrew (Postbiblical),” in Kaltner and McKenzie, eds., Beyond Babel, pp. 157–82. Among the important studies are Elisha Qimron, “Observations on the History of Early Hebrew (1000 b.c.e.–200 c.e.) in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in D. Dimant and U. Rappaport, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls. Forty Years of Research (Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill and Jerusalem: Magnes Press and Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1992), pp. 349–61 ; Shlomo Morag, “Language and Style in Miqsat Ma’ase Ha-Torah – Did Moreh Ha-Sedeq Write This Document?” Tarbiz 65 (1995–6), pp. 209–23 [Hebrew]; Joshua Blau, “The Structure of Biblical and Dead Sea Scrolls Hebrew in Light of Arabic Diglossia and Medieval Arabic,” Leshonenu 60 (5757), pp. 21 –32 [Hebrew]; J. F. Elwolde, “Developments in Hebrew Vocabulary Between Bible and Mishnah,” in T. Muraoka and J. F. Elwolde, eds., The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Ben Sira (STDJ XXVI; Leiden/New York/Köln: Brill, 1997), pp. 17–55; Jan Joosten, “Pseudo-Classicisms in Late Biblical Hebrew, in Ben Sira, and in Qumran Hebrew,” in T. Muraoka and J. F. Elwolde, eds., Sirach, Scrolls and Sages (STDJ XXXIII; Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 1999), pp. 301 –15. Naveh, “Hebrew versus Aramaic,” p. 301 and p. 315, respectively. For reservations regarding Naveh’s argument from onomastic habits, see Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” p. 15, n. 22.

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On the spread of Aramaic, the analysis of Michael Wise is helpful.24 The most common explanation of how Aramaic replaced Hebrew among the Judeans is what Wise calls the lingua franca model. As is well known, Aramaic became a common language and a language of administration beginning with the NeoAssyrian Empire. The process continued during the Neo-Babylonian Empire and reached its peak under the Persians. Under the Achemenids, Aramaic was the language of government and communication in an area that stretched from the Aegean to the Indus.25 The provinces of Judah and Samaria sat almost in the geographical center of this expanse. Thus it is quite understandable that legal and economic documents from here and neighboring areas would be written in the language of empire. So we are not surprised by the use of Aramaic in the Elephantine papyri (including letters addressed to the Judean leadership in Jerusalem), the legal documents found at Wadi Daliyeh that had been executed in the city of Samaria, the economic texts on ostraca from Idumea, and various seals. These items either required government attention or might do so in the future. And once people became accustomed to Aramaic documents, whether as scribes or clients of scribes, the habit could carry over into completely private affairs as well.26 But how would the epigraphic habits of the minority of elites and literates, the ones most likely to leave a “paper trail,” carry over into the spoken language of the mass of peasantry? Naveh and Greenfield seem to be sensitive to this problem when they state their conclusions regarding the linguistic situation in the Persian era. They write, “One may assume that in the cities, especially Jerusalem, the populace was bilingual, but that in many villages Hebrew was the chief language.” Schapes concurs, adding a geographical–political explanation to Naveh and Greenfield’s sociological one. Among the urban elites using Aramaic were the repatriates from Babylonia, where Aramaic of course was the common language. Among the “lower classes” that spoke Hebrew were people who (or whose ancestors) had never been exiled from the land. Consequently the “left behind” population continued to speak the language their families had spoken in the Iron Age (viz., Hebrew).27 But, based on what we quoted earlier, Naveh apparently believed that by the end of the Second Temple era this sociological distinction was less pervasive. Aramaic was no 24 25 26 27

See Michael Owen Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” in his Thunder in Gemini, pp. 111 –19. See J. C. Greenfield, “Aramaic in the Achaemenian Empire,” CHI II, pp. 698–713. This survey includes information on the pre-Achemenid history of Aramaic. Compare Naveh, “Hebrew versus Aramaic,” p. 310. CHJ I, p. 129; Joachim Schapes, “Hebrew and Its Study in the Persian Period,” in Horbury, ed., Hebrew Study from Ezra to Ben-Yehuda, pp. 16–18.

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longer limited to urbanites, while at least some of the elites were using Hebrew! In any case, the question posed by Wise remains without an answer. How and why was Hebrew abandoned? Wise proposes an alternate explanation for the ascension of Aramaic. Though he does not use the term, he describes a centuries-long situation of “languages in contact.” He notes that the Israelite kingdom (in the north) was contiguous to and in contact with the Aramean (Aramaic-speaking) kingdoms from early in the last millennium b.c.e. As the millennium progressed, speakers of diverse Aramaic dialects settled in Cisjordan in increasing numbers. These Aramaic-speaking newcomers arrived under a variety of circumstances. Some (in the eighth and seventh centuries) were deportees from Mesopotamia forcibly transferred by the imperial authorities, while others (in the late sixth and fifth centuries and later) were voluntary immigrants of Judean descent who had acculturated to their Mesopotamian milieu.28 Hebrew speakers became conversant with Aramaic as a result of frequent and longstanding contact with speakers of the latter language, much as Spaniards on the border with France might know French and vice versa. Nehemiah 13:23–4 describes one of the mechanisms by which Aramaic spread. Judean men married women from neighboring territories where different languages prevailed, and many of the offspring of these marriages adopted their mothers’ language. The passage does not mention the Aramaic language, only “Ashdodite” and “Judean.” The latter is generally assumed to mean Hebrew, as in I Kings 18:26, 28. As to the former, opinions differ, but it might refer to Aramaic.29 In any case, it is the process that is of interest here. Through intermarriage and other mechanisms, spoken Aramaic could penetrate not just among the elites, literates, and urbanites but also among the masses of nonliterate peasants in the countryside. Finally, the spread of spoken Aramaic presumably had a reciprocal and mutually reinforcing relation to the increasing use of a written Aramaic, derived from the Achemenid administrative lingua franca. The “languages-in-contact” model provides a more satisfying explanation for how Aramaic became the dominant language among the Judeans during 28

29

Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” p. 13, briefly suggests that “large-scale transfer of populations” may have been a factor in the Aramaization of Syria– Palestine, citing the Aramaization of Meopotamia as a model. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” p. 115, provides an argument for identifying Ashdodite as Aramaic. Compare Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” p. 8, with references to recent commentaries in n. 6 there. Levine, “Hebrew (Postbiblical),” p. 168, suggests it is Phoenician. Anson Rainey, “Syntax, Hermeneutics and History,” IEJ 48 (1998), p. 244, suggests that “Ashdodite” is “the Philistine version of Canaanite” like the dialect on the Ekron inscription published in 1997.

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Second Temple times. The fact that Hebrew speakers were clearly a minority in Cisjordan by the Persian era must have also contributed to the dominance of Aramaic. The question now is, how did Hebrew survive? It is by no means to be taken for granted that it should have. I am not aware of any clear evidence concerning the survival of Ammonite, Moabite, or Edomite into the Hellenistic–Roman eras. On the contrary, what evidence we have suggests a thorough Aramaization. Thus the hundreds of ostraca reflecting everyday life recovered from fourth-century Idumea are all in Aramaic.30 The case of Phoenician provides another example, an interesting one, because its speakers played a much more important role in the Mediterranean world than did the Edomites or Judeans. Briquel-Chatonnet argues that Phoenician had died out (in Phoenicia) as a living literary language by the end of the last millennium b.c.e. Its demise as a spoken language was still earlier, perhaps about 200 b.c.e as Rabin suggests. While the language survived (as Punic) in the former North African colonies, the homeland spoke Aramaic and Greek.31 Why was the fate of Hebrew in Judah (and Samaria) so different? What motivated people to continue to speak or at least write in Hebrew? Can we identify specific areas in which its use was preferred or expected? If so, perhaps we can explain its persistence.32 30

31

32

Parker, “Ammonite, Edomite and Moabite,” p. 47, observes that these dialects were increasingly displaced by Aramaic in texts from the fifth century on. According to B. Porten and A. Yardeni, “On Problems of Identity and Chronology in the Idumean Ostraca,” in M. Heltzer and M. Malul, eds., Teshurot LaAvishur: Studies in the Bible and the Ancient Near East, in Hebrew and Semitic Languages. Festschrift Presented to Prof. Yitzhak Avishur on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (Tel Aviv/Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2004), p. 161, the Aramaic ostraca from Idumea number over 1600. And see there, n. 2, for the 800 or so that have been published. F. Briquel-Chatonnet, “Les Derniers Témoignages Sur La Langue Phénicienne En Orient,” Revista di Studi Fenici XIX (1991 ), pp. 3–21 ; Chaim Rabin, Semitic Languages. An Introduction (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1991 ), p. 42 [Hebrew]. Briquel-Chatonnet, p. 10, minimizes the significance of the (extremely brief) Phoenician inscriptions on the coins of the first two and a half centuries c.e. On the continuance of Aramaic as the spoken language in Southwest Asia down to the Islamic conquests, see Ran Zadok, “The Ethno-Linguistic Character of the Semitic-Speaking Population (Excluding the Judeo-Samaritans) of Syria in the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods – A Preliminary and Tentative Survey of the Onomastic Evidence,” in Yitzhak Avishur and Robert Deutsch, eds., Michael. Historical, Epigraphical and Biblical Studies in Honor of Prof. Michael Heltzer (Tel Aviv/Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 1999), pp. 267–301. The other ancient Near Eastern language that survived and flourished into late antiquity was Egyptian. But this case differs from Hebrew in important ways. First, Egyptian was recognized as a prestige language and used (in certain contexts) even by foreign overlords (Persian, Macedonian, and Roman). Second, Egyptian continued to have a large base of native speakers. For details see John Ray, “Literacy and Language in Egypt in the Late and Persian Periods,” in Bowman and Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, pp. 51 –66.

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One explanation for the retention of Hebrew focuses on its use in the temple to the God of Israel in Jerusalem. As Naveh puts it, “Hebrew dominated in liturgy, both in the temple and elsewhere.”33 I am not sure what the allusion to liturgical activity outside the temple refers to. But the use of Hebrew in the temple is well attested, for example in the singing of psalms, the priestly blessing, and various ritual recitations. (Presumably the same thing was true at the Samaritan holy precinct on Mount Gerizim.) This practice provides one explanation for use of the phrase leshon haqodesh, literally “the language of holiness,” to denote Hebrew. The phrase was previously known from rabbinic literature and has now turned up in a Qumran text. In the explanation just noted, the Hebrew phrase actually means “the language of the sanctuary.”34 Use in the temple explains what Naveh meant when he stated elsewhere that the Hebrew was “an expression of . . . holiness.”35 The use of Hebrew in the Samaritan inscriptions cited earlier conforms to this explanation. The Hebrew inscriptions seem to relate to the priesthood and appear to have been located in the interior of the holy precinct. The Aramaic inscriptions mention laypeople and likely adorned the outer walls. Similarly, the Hebrew texts among the Masada inscriptions can all be connected to Temple affairs and priests. The same logic can explain the use of Hebrew on the monumental tomb of the priestly family of the Sons of Hezir.36 In any case, this explanation cannot account for the broader use of Hebrew that Naveh discerns in Second Temple Judean society, especially in everyday speech by common people. The “church languages” that survive today, such as Latin, Coptic, and Amharic, all go back to spoken vernaculars. But none have continued or been resurrected for common speech. Similarly, one wonders whether the Temple-related character of Hebrew is enough to account for its use in “secular” economic documents. We recall that Hanan Eshel has traced this usage back into the first century, as

33 34

35 36

Naveh, “Hebrew versus Aramaic,” p. 302. For rabbinic literature see, for example, Mishnah Sotah 7:2. The Qumran occurrence is in 4Q464. On this passage see the discussion of Steve Weitzman, “Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?” JAOS 119 (1999), pp. 35–45, with literature cited p. 38, nn. 19 and 21. And see there p. 40 with n. 37 for a discussion of the phrase leshon haqodesh. Add Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” pp. 33–4 with n. 73. The meaning “language of the temple” seems explicit in the Aramaic phrase lishan bet qudsha attested in a Geniza manuscript of the Palestinian Targum and in the Targum Neofiti to Genesis 31 :11. See the references in DJPA, p. 283. At the very least this tells how the targumist understood the Hebrew phrase. Naveh, “Hebrew versus Aramaic,” p. 301. See Dan Barag, “The 2000–2001 Exploration of the Tombs of Benei Hezir and Zechariah,” IEJ 53 (2003), pp. 78–110.

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against the older view that this was an innovation dating to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132 c.e.37 The survival of Hebrew in Second Temple times outside the sacred sphere could find its explanation in a further suggestion of Naveh. He asserts that along with the old Hebrew script the language itself was an expression of “national sentiment.”38 This is a popular view. Often, however, it is invoked with regard to the second half of the Second Temple era. In particular the Hasmonean uprising in 167 b.c.e. is seen as a turning point. According to this view the nationalist impulse evoked by the Hasmoneans led to a new interest in Hebrew that continued through the Bar Kokhba uprising of 132– 135 c.e. Wise is representative of this position. He writes, “Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt, the situation [viz., use of Aramaic as a written language] may have changed, as Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea.”39 Hannah Cotton concurs in her explanation of the use of Hebrew in legal documents from the time of the anti-Roman revolts of 66 and 132. As she puts it, “Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State.”40 However, as some scholars have noted, the nationalist use of Hebrew antedates the Hasmonean era. We shall review the evidence in detail later. For now we can delay the chronological question and simply note the possible existence of a nationalist motivation for using Hebrew. The two explanations Naveh provided for the continued use of Hebrew in Second Temple times, “holiness” and “nationalism,” appear in the work of Seth Schwartz with further elaboration. According to Schwartz, Hebrew owed its special status to its role as the language of the Temple and the Pentateuch. These two products of the Persian era (and Persian patronage) became “the central symbols of Jewish corporate identity.” As the language of Temple and Torah, Hebrew itself became “a subsidiary national symbol, capable of evoking the central ones.”41 Further, knowledge of Hebrew became a marker of social distinction for the “curatorial classes” that supervised the Temple and transmitted 37 38 39 40

41

Eshel, “Hebrew in Economic Documents from the Judean Desert.” Naveh, “Hebrew versus Aramaic,” p. 315. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” p. 117, n. 45. Hannah M. Cotton, “The Languages of the Legal and Administrative Documents from the Judaean Desert,” ZPE 125 (1999), p. 225. The same sentiment appears in eadem, “The Bar Kokhba Revolt and the Documents from the Judaean Desert: Nabataean Participation in the Revolt (P. Yadin 52),” in P. Schäfer, ed., The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered. New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome (TSAJ 100; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), p. 136. The quotations come from Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Israel,” p. 3 and p. 44 respectively.

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the Torah. This analysis is combined with the argument that states that only from about 300 b.c.e. on was the Hebrew language ideologized. In earlier times the Israelites/Jews were not particularly self-conscious about language and tended not to consider it an essential component of their national identity. The change in attitude was the eventual result of the reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the final compilation of the Torah during the Persian domination. Since both projects received the backing of the imperial government, those in charge of them accumulated real power and were able to impose their ideology. Precisely how and when this happened is not clear, though the Hasmonean revolt was at the very least a major milepost in the entrenchment of Temple and Torah as national symbols, with Hebrew basking in their reflected glory. Eventually, as the institutions in which Hebrew was embedded lost real power, the role of the language was reduced to what Schwartz calls a talismanic function.42 That is, Hebrew “became not the national language of the Jews, but the language whose representation symbolized Jewish nationhood.”43 Schwartz’s conclusion that Hebrew became “the language whose representation symbolized Jewish nationhood” conforms to the view of many scholars, including Naveh, Wise, and Cotton. Moreover, his use of the concept of a talisman is suggestive and will be revisited later. However, some details of his reconstruction are subject to dispute. For example, the role of Persian patronage in both the reconstruction of the Jerusalem Temple and in the creation or dissemination of the Pentateuch has been questioned recently.44 If the Persian role was merely one of laissez faire or benign neglect, then the alleged power relationships behind the elevated status of Hebrew must be rethought. Then there is the chronological issue. Schwartz traces the “ideologization” of Hebrew back into the third century, with roots in the Persian era. But those “roots” may have been more fully developed than Schwartz allows. Naveh and Greenfield had already pointed out “nationalist” use of Hebrew language and script in the Persian period, by the fourth century at the latest. In Judah

42 43 44

Ibid., pp. 27, 44. The quote is from ibid., p. 25. On the first point see Peter Ross Bedford, Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah (Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 2001 ). On the second issue see the essays in James W. Watts, ed., Persia and Torah: The Theory of the Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch (Atlanta: SBL, 2001 ). Similar doubts would apply to claims that the Persians supported the preservation of pre-Aramaic languages throughout their empire. Their treatment of ancient imperial languages of high prestige, such as Akkadian and Egyptian, does not necessarily provide a parallel for the case of Hebrew, Ammonite, Edomite, or Moabite.

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the Hebrew forms of the titles “governor” and “priest” appear on the coins, even though the name of the province appears in Aramaic. In Samaria the seal of the governor was in Hebrew and written in Old Hebrew script, even though the documents it sealed are in Aramaic.45 Even more significant is the wealth of Hebrew literature attributable to the era of Achemenid rule. Several books of the Bible explicitly mention figures or events that date after the rise of the Persian Empire. These include Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Haggai, Zechariah, Second Isaiah, Daniel, Esther, and Psalm 126. For these the Achemenid era provides a certain terminus a quo. Scholars debate how much of this material comes from the Persian era and how much from the Hellenistic. For example, all critical scholars agree that the last six chapters of Daniel come from between 167 and 165 b.c.e. On the other hand, most if not all would assign much of the other literature mentioned to the Persian era. Thus the majority of scholars accept the late sixth-century dates of the oracles stated in Haggai and (First) Zechariah.46 Aside from the literature that explicitly mentions the Achemenid background, other sources are also assigned to this era on the basis of a variety of criteria. Many critical scholars assign composition of the Pentateuch, for example, to the Persian era.47 What are we to make of the extensive composition of Hebrew literature in the Persian era? Was Hebrew still a living language and so available for literary composition? If the memoirs of Nehemiah are genuine, it still was spoken in fifth-century Jerusalem. On the other hand, the literate elites presumably would have found it just as easy, if not easier, to compose in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Persian Empire. The diplomatic documents in Ezra, the correspondence prepared in Elephantine for dispatch to Jerusalem and Samaria, and the Wadi Daliyeh papyri all attest the Aramaic skills of the local Israelite/Judean scribes, as does the corpus of literature composed in 45 46

47

Naveh and Greenfield, “Hebrew and Aramaic in the Persian Period,” pp. 122–3. See for example the section “Recent Study of Haggai and Zechariah 1 –8” in Carol L. Meyers and Eric M. Meyers, Haggai, Zechariah 1–8 (AB 25B; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), pp. lxviii–lxxii. For an overview on biblical writings assignable to the Persian period, see Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume 1. Yehud: A History of the Persian Province of Judah (LSTS 47; London/New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 70–106. For an argument minimizing the literary output of Persian Judah on the basis of limited social and political infrastructures, see William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book. The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 165–94. Even Schniedewind assigns Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, the prose framework of Job, the earlier sections of Daniel, and possibly Song of Songs, Esther, and Ecclesiastes to the Persian period. And if Persian era scribes could collect and edit, as he concedes, why could they not also try their hand at composition?

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Aramaic.48 Thus use of Hebrew for literary composition was by no means automatic. It was a conscious and deliberate choice. And if we deal with a choice, then we can look for its motivation.49 Nationalist considerations could provide that motivation, as so many have argued (though in many cases with regard to later periods such as the Hasmonean). This line of reasoning appears even in the more radical scholars who date Israelite ethnogenesis to postexilic times. Garbini is an example. He writes of the community of repatriated exiles in Persian Jerusalem establishing their identity as Israelites, in distinction from both the Samaritans and the inhabitants of the Judean countryside. He continues,

48

49

We saw earlier that Judeans continued to compose and copy literature in Aramaic through the entire Second Temple era. For the period before the Hasmoneans, see Wacholder, “AncientJudaeo-Aramaic Literature,” pp. 257–81. Wise, “Accidents and Accidence,” p. 117, n. 45, notes that composition and copying in Aramaic continued even after the Hasmonean uprising that gave new impetus to Hebrew. Further evidence of ongoing composition in Aramaic comes from the translation of Hebrew literary works into Aramaic. Such translation is best attested for biblical books, a phenomenon that would come to be known as targum literature. Three examples have come to light at Qumran, all datable to the Hasmonean–Herodian era. These are an Aramaic version of Leviticus (4Q156) and two of Job (4Q157, 11 Q10). The Leviticus targum appears in a manuscript possibly going back to the second century b.c.e and, in any case, to the Hasmonean heyday. The Job versions appear in manuscripts datable to the first century c.e. See Webster, “Chronological Index of the Texts from the Judean Desert,” p. 386 (for 4Q156), p. 427 (for 4Q157), and p. 431 (for 11 Q10). One can also cite the Genesis Apocryphon (1 QapGen, 1 Q20, 4Q537, 4Q538), an Aramaic exemplar of the genre of “rewritten Bible.” More important, this text includes direct translation of biblical verses. See the list in Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave I. A Commentary (Second Revised Edition; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971 ), pp. 31 –2. And see there, pp. 14–19, for his dating the composition of this text to the last century b.c.e. and the copying of the manuscript to the end of that century or the first half of the first century c.e. Some scholars believe that the Hebrew version of Tobit is the original and the Aramaic versions are translations. See the discussion of Fitzmyer in n. 55 in this chapter. On the bilingualism of the Judean scribes and the ease with which they could shift between Aramaic and Hebrew, see the comments of Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Israel,” pp. 11 –12. However, as the overwhelming majority of texts and the phenomenon of translation from one language to another indicate, Judean authors were perfectly capable of writing either all in Hebrew or all in Aramaic, the occasional Aramaisms or Hebraisms aside. This responds to the reservations of James Barr, “Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in the Hellenistic Age,” CHJ, Vol. 2, 1989, p. 111. Referring to the beginning of the Hellenistic period, he writes, “There is at this time little evidence of sensitivity on the language issue, of value judgements between Hebrew and Aramaic, between classical and colloquial Hebrew; probably many did not perceive that the differences were substantial.” As argued previously, the more use of Aramaic seems natural and normal, the more use of Hebrew appears a deliberate choice requiring explanation. And how are we to explain the phenomenon of translation from Aramaic to Hebrew, a phenomenon that may date to the early Hellenistic era? Finally, there was the sensitivity to language in Nehemiah 13:23–4 and the ideologization of language by fifth-century Greek authors (to be discussed later). Why wouldn’t this continue into the fourth century and beyond?

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I believe that I have thus identified a primary nucleus of Hebrew literary creation during the Persian period, in the need for self-definition within the group in power, which had taken the place of the monarchy. What had been the literature of the court is now replaced by the literature of the temple . . . in the name of national continuity, the most clear expression of which can be seen in the use of the older Hebrew language which was no longer spoken . . . , and its ideological foundation in the cult of the old dynastic god Yahweh.50

One can dispute whether Hebrew was no longer spoken and disagree over the characterization of these writings as “literature of the temple.” But these disagreements do not affect the main point. Writing in Hebrew was a choice taken in pursuit of national continuity with preexilic Israel, whether real or imagined. The epigraphic evidence for use of Hebrew language and/or Old Hebrew script coupled with the evidence from contemporary literary composition in that language suggests that the ideologization of Hebrew begins in the Persian period. It did not have to wait for the Hellenistic or Hasmonean era. A connection between the Hebrew language and maintenance of group identity is of course implicit in the incident alluded to earlier from Nehemiah 13:23–4. Granted, the continuation of the passage in verses 25–30 focuses on the issue of intermarriage as Schwartz observed.51 But the author of the passage would not have mentioned the linguistic factor if it had not troubled him. If we accept the memoirs of Nehemiah as genuine, then we can date the incident to the second half of the fifth century. It was precisely in the same period that Greek is ideologized. That is, in the fifth century the idea of a common Greek language as indicative of a Hellenic ethnos emerges in the West.52 Even without the Nehemiah passage, we have seen evidence for an analogous Israelite/Judean ideologization of Hebrew by the following century. This is the period of the Judean coins and the seal of the Samarian governor as well as of undoubted literary composition in Hebrew. So just as an idealized notion of a Greek language was an indication of “Greekness” for Herodotus and a means of “grecization” for Thucydides, so too Hebrew apparently became in some way an indicator of “Judeanness” in Achemenid Judah.53 50 51 52 53

Garbini, “Hebrew Literature in the Persian Period,” p. 184. Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Israel,” p. 9. I follow Hall, Hellenicity, pp. 111 –17. Admittedly, an explicit statement to this effect, aside from the uncertain case of Nehemiah 13, does not appear until the Hasmonean era. I refer to II Maccabees and the discussion of van Henten, “The Ancestral Language of the Jews in 2 Maccabees,” in Horbury, ed., Hebrew Study, pp. 53–68. On the possible further ideologization of Hebrew by the Qumran community, see W. Schniedewind, “Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage,” JBL 118 (1999), pp. 235–252; idem,

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On the chronology just proposed, the emergence of Hebrew as one of the indicia of Jewish identity is not much later than the construction of the Second Temple and perhaps simultaneous with the emergence of the Pentateuch. As we saw, Garbini listed both the creation of the Pentateuch and its composition in Hebrew as elements of Israelite ethnogenesis under Achemenid rule. This means that Hebrew was not a secondary symbol basking in the reflected glow of the primary symbols of Temple and Torah, as Schwartz proposes. Rather it was itself one of the important vehicles for constructing and maintaining Jewish identity. This view also points to an alternative understanding of the power relationships behind the ideologized elevation of the status of Hebrew. As Garbini suggested in the preceding quotation, the Persian refusal to restore Judean kingship may have encouraged the emergence of or emphasis on other vehicles of national identity such as language. In any event, the most important conclusion to emerge from the discussion is the conscious use of the language vehicle already in Achemenid times. Composition of literature in Hebrew continues in post-Achemenid times, indeed throughout the Second Temple period. Most scholars assign at least some of the material with a setting in the Persian Empire to the Hellenistic period. The second half of Daniel is a certain case; Esther is a possible one. Chronicles, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes are often assigned to the third century. The most radical scholars assign all the Hebrew Bible to the Hellenistic period as we saw in the previous chapter. Another minority position suggests that some books (or parts thereof) were translated from Aramaic to Hebrew at this time, with Daniel, Ezra–Nehemiah, and Ecclesiastes mentioned as possible examples. Such translation, surprising in light of the presumed dominance of Aramaic, would most probably be dated to the Hellenistic era as well.54 Even if we do not accept these minority views, we have in the Bible a considerable body of Hebrew literature datable from the late sixth century down to the mid second

54

“Linguistic Ideology in Qumran Hebrew,” in T. Muraoka and J. F. Elwolde, eds., Diggers at the Well (STDJ XXXVI; Leiden/Boston/Köln: Brill, 2000), pp. 245–55; and Steve Weitzman, “Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?” See H. L. Ginsberg, Studies in the Book of Daniel (TSJTSA, 14; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1948); idem, Studies in Koheleth (TSJTSA 17; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950); Frank Zimmermann, Biblical Books Translated from the Aramaic (New York: Ktav, 1975); David Marcus, “Is the Book of Nehemiah a Translation from Aramaic?” in Meir Lubetski, Claire Gottlieb, and Sharon Keller, eds., Boundaries of the Ancient Near Eastern World. A Tribute to Cyrus H.Gordon (JSOTSS 273; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 103–10. And compare the case of Tobit cited later in the chapter. There is a Hebrew manuscript of Ecclesiastes from Qumran, 4Q109, dated to the second quarter of the second century. See B. Webster, “Chronological Index of the Texts from the Judaean Desert,” p. 380. If the original was in Aramaic, a third-century date for the translation is conceivable.

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century. To this we can add a corpus of extrabiblical Hebrew literature of which the earliest datable components, such as Ben Sira, precede the latest biblical material in Daniel. The texts discovered at Qumran add dozens of previously unknown Hebrew compositions from the third century b.c.e. through the first century c.e. And thanks to Qumran we may have a certain example of translation from Aramaic to Hebrew in the case of Tobit.55 In sum, we have an uninterrupted tradition of Hebrew literary composition spanning the entire length of the Second Temple period. Though Aramaic apparently was the common vehicle of speech and legal documents, many Judean authors chose to write in Hebrew. Such a choice, evident from the Persian era onward, likely reflects the idea that the national tongue is the most suitable vehicle for national literature. Thus the composition of a sizeable corpus of literature in Hebrew, at a time when Aramaic predominated, is the most significant attestation of the concept of the language as an expression of Israelite/Judean identity. And like the literature, the concept appears throughout the entire Second Temple era. There is some evidence that seems to go against the view that Hebrew was preferred for “holiness” and “nationalism.” One is the Giv’at Hamivtar tomb inscription. The “speaker” in the inscription is a Jerusalem-born priest who emphasizes his Aaronid descent. Despite this priestly theme, the language is Aramaic. The other case is the inscription recording the reburial of the remains of Uzziah king of Judah. In this instance one would assume that nationalist consideration would lead to use of Hebrew. But here too the text is Aramaic.56 One could point out that the first inscription uses the Old Hebrew alphabet, and thus might still reflect nationalist sentiments. Aside from this, and relevant to both inscriptions, is the close relation between tomb inscriptions and legal documents. As noted long ago by H. L. Ginsberg, tomb inscriptions were often modeled on legal documents. This may have been because the inscriptions were intended to establish or attest ownership of the tomb. Healey, in a study of Nabatean tomb inscriptions, provides extensive evidence, including cases where the inscription seems to be copied from a legal document.57 We recall 55

56

57

For the argument that Aramaic was the original language and the Hebrew manuscript is a translation, see Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Tobit (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature; Berlin/ New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), p. 25. Both inscriptions appear in Fitzmyer and Harrington, Manual of Palestinian Aramaic Texts, p. 168, #68 and #70, with references to original publication and literature on pp. 221 –2 and 223–4. See H. L. Ginsberg, “Lenusah ketovet hakukh shebenahal qidron,” Tarbiz 7 (5696), pp. 223– 6 [Hebrew]. Ginsberg adduced comparative material from Nabatean and Palmyrene tomb inscriptions to explain a first-century Judean inscription. On the Nabatean material see John F. Healey, The Nabataean Tomb Inscriptions of Mada’in Salih (JSSS 1 ; Oxford: Oxford University

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that the Achemenids’ use of Aramaic as the language of administration led to its widespread adoption for documentary texts by the subject peoples, including the Judeans. Indeed, use of Aramaic by Jews for marriage and divorce documents continues to the present day. To the extent that tomb inscriptions were considered legal documents, the use of Aramaic even by a priest or the authorities who relocated the remains of a king of Judah is understandable. In sum, these two cases indeed are exceptions that test the rule. But, aside from the many uncertainties regarding the Giv’at Hamivtar inscription, these two exceptions are both explicable and also outweighed by the mass of other data alluded to in the previous discussion. Those data indicate a preference for Hebrew as the language of holiness and nationalism. The ongoing role of the Hebrew language in Jewish national consciousness in the period following the destruction of the Second Temple emerges from some comments in rabbinic sources. One is a tradition attributed to the early third-century Palestinian master Eliezer Haqqappar Berabbi/Bar Qappara. According to this tradition the Israelites merited redemption from Egypt because of four things they did. The four things included not changing their names or their language during their sojourn in Egypt. Note that implication is not that abandonment of Hebrew entailed the loss of Israelite identity. Rather, it would have delayed the redemption. And in another tradition this same master invokes a biblical verse to justify (or recommend) use of the Greek language by Jews.58 Be that as it may, the first tradition does not elevate the Hebrew

58

Press on behalf of the University of Manchester, 1993). He notes that the tomb inscriptions are “legal foundation texts” and “rather like real estate deeds.” See pp. 42, 46, 48. In the Giv’at Hamivtar inscription the “speaker” explicitly mentions that he acquired the tomb by a written document. See Mekhilta deRabbi Yishma’el, Bo 5, ed. Horovitz-Rabin, p. 14, with parallels cited there. A list of parallels with references to more recent editions of the rabbinic texts can be found in the notes to the parallel at Shemot Rabbah to Exodus 1 :28 in the edition of Avigdor Shinan (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1984), p. 86 [Hebrew]. Most Talmudists assume that the full name of the tradition’s author was Eleazar son of Eliezer Haqqappar, though there is considerable variation in the manuscripts between the names Eliezer and Eleazar. The name is quoted here as it appears in Tosefta Yom Tov 1 :7, ed. Lieberman, p. 281. See Lieberman’s comments in Tosefta Ki-Fshutah ad loc., p. 922. That all the names refer to the same person is also the view of H. Albeck, Introduction to the Talmud, Babli and Yerushalmi (Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1969), p. 148. Y. N. Epstein, Mavo’ lenusah hammishnah (Second Edition; Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Magnes Press and Dvir, 5724), p. 24, n. 3 [Hebrew], argues for the identity of Bar Qappara and Rabbi Eleazar Hakkappar Berabbi. For the view that the different forms of this name may refer to different individuals, see H. L. Strack and G. Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (trans. M. Bockmuehl; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), pp. 88–9, with literature cited therein. Add Joshua Schwartz, Jewish Settlement in Judaea after the Bar-Kochba War until the Arab Conquest 135 c.e.–640 c.e. (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1986), pp. 249–50 [Hebrew]. On the term “berabbi,” see M. Sokoloff, DJPA, p. 101 –2. On Eleazar’s praise of Greek, see the interpretations of Genesis 9:27 attributed to him at Bereshit Rabbah 36:8, ed. Theodor-Albeck,

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language to the status of a defining criterion of Jewish identity. Nevertheless, Hebrew clearly has some special status that makes it worth preserving. The same position appears in another famous dictum, this one attributed to the mid-second-century master Me’ir. He is quoted as saying, “Whoever dwells in the Land of Israel, and recites the shema’ [the prayer containing Deuteronomy 6:4] morning and evening and speaks in the holy language will partake in the world to come.”59 The list includes duties that however desirable are not definitive of Jewishness. Clearly those who fail to speak in the holy language are not thereby denied membership in the Jewish nation, no more than those who live in the Diaspora are. So both traditions agree that Hebrew is not a necessary condition for Jewish national identity. Not only was it not one of the criteria of Jewish identity, it even seems not to have even been one of the indicia. After all, both comments imply a situation where most Jews did not speak Hebrew. Nevertheless, the language had some connection to Jewish identity. Here the concept of a talisman, suggested by Schwartz, helps to explain the somewhat ambiguous role of Hebrew as a national language that is not spoken by most of the nation. One definition of a talisman is “anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions.”60 In the case of Hebrew, the mere presence of the language in spoken or written form could invoke the concept of a Jewish national identity. Even if one knew no Hebrew or was illiterate, one could recognize that a group of signs was in Hebrew script.61 One might not understand a set of words heard, but one would still know they were in Hebrew. Those who knew the scriptures only in translation, even if they believed that the translation was as inspired as the original, still were aware that there was an original written in Hebrew. However ignorant one might be of the language, one knew it was the language of the ancestors (cf. II Maccabees). Thus for people who identified as Jews, Hebrew was always “their language” in some sense. If we could ask ancient

59

60 61

p. 342, and Yerushalmi Megillah 1 :8, 71 b. Eleazar is also known for his poetic and rhetorical abilities in Hebrew. This might be related to his campaigning for preservation of the language as a speech vehicle. See Yerushalmi Mo’ed Qattan 3:1, 81 c (and parallels), Bavli Ketuvot 104a, and Yerushalmi Berakhot 1 :4, 3d. Sifre Deuteronomy 333, ed. Finkelstein, p. 383, with parallels cited there. The version in Yerushalmi Shabbat 1 :3, 3c // Sheqalim 3:4, 47c adds an additional practice: eating ordinary food in a state of purity. Random House Dictionary of the English Language, The Unabridged Edition (New York: Random House, 1966), p. 1450 s.v. One extreme example is the minting of rebel coins in the city of Gamala in 66 c.e. The Old Hebrew script used is so crude as to be nearly undecipherable. Local artisans certainly could have produced more legible inscriptions in the Jewish script, but clearly it mattered to them to use the Old Hebrew. See Y. Meshorer, A Treasury of Jewish Coins (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press and Nyack, NY: Amphora, 2001 ), pp. 130–1.

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Jews to list the components of “Judeanness,” analogous to what Herodotus did for “Greekness,” I am convinced that Hebrew would appear on the list. Certainly the existence of the Hebrew, even as a purely literary or artificial language, served to help construct Jewish identity. It was language of the Israelite ancestors, the national literature, and the national religion. As such it was inseparable from the national identity. Indeed, its mere presence in visual or aural medium could invoke that identity.

4

A Kingdom of Priests: The Priestly Component in Ancient Jewish Nationalism

T

he title of this chapter comes from the famous verse at Exodus 19:6. That verse appears in the preliminaries leading up to the theophany at Mount Sinai. When the Israelites arrive at the wilderness of Sinai, Yahweh gives Moses a message to deliver to them. I shall quote the passage (Verses 3b–6) in the fairly literal translation of the Revised Standard Version. Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and tell the people of Israel. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession [segullah] among all the peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation [mamlekhet kohanim vegoy qadosh]. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.

Of interest to us here is how later readers and hearers understood Verse 6. In Chapter 1 I mentioned the Bible’s use of the word “goy” to refer to Israel as well as to other nations. Our passage explains how the Israelite nation will differ from those others as a result of its special relationship with Yahweh. It will be “holy” and “a kingdom of priests.” It is this last phrase that intrigues me, just as it has exercised exegetes. The original meaning of the passage is not our concern. Still, it should be noted that Verse 6 appears to present an instance of synonymous parallelism. That is, “kingdom of priests” has roughly the same meaning as “holy nation.” The first of these phrases involves a construct chain of two nouns. The plural form of the second noun in the chain, “priests,” can function as an abstraction and have the force of an adjective. That is, the Hebrew could mean something like “priestly kingdom,” which is precisely how Jerome renders the phrase, regnum sacerdotale. But in what sense is the entire nation to be priestly? Perhaps the verse envisions “a priesthood of all believers.” That is, within Israel there 71

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will be no distinction between priest and lay. Alternatively, the phrase should be understood as an analogy. Israel’s relation to the other nations will be like that of the priestly caste to the rest of Israel. Just as Israelite priests are holier than lay Israelites because of their special proximity to the deity, so Israel will be holier than the rest of the nations because of its unique relation with Yahweh.1 When we turn to later interpretations of Exodus 19:6, we see rather different understandings. Postbiblical sources do not understand “kingdom of priests” to be in synonymous parallelism with “holy nation.” And instead of interpreting mamlekhet kohanim as a construct chain, they understand it as two, unconnected substantives. Thus in the Onkelos and Fragment targums, Verse 6 mentions a total of three entities: kings, priests, and people. Similarly the Syriac has “kingship and priests [ynhkw atwklm] and holy nation.” The Septuagint is ambiguous. It translates 5 7). The first word can be either an adjective or a substantive. If we take it as an adjective we get something like “a royal priesthood.” This in fact is how Jerome translates the same Greek words when Exodus 19:6 is quoted at I Peter 2:9: regale sacerdotium. However, John H. Elliot makes a persuasive case for the alternative. He notes that in the Septuagint itself 5 is a substantive twenty-three times as opposed to appearing as an adjective only four times. Taking the word to mean “kingdom,” “kingship,” or the like yields an interpretation like that attested in ancient Jewish literature and, Elliot argues, in the quotation of Exodus 19:6 at I Peter 2:9. The second word, 7), mentions a second entity, the body of priests.2 On this view, the Septuagint agrees with the targums in understanding Verse 6 to list three things. Further the Syriac would then essentially be identical to the Septuagint aside from the conjunction “and” that it inserts between “kingship” and “priests.” This postbiblical understanding, which ignores the apparent parallelism, does not resolve the question of how the verse applies to Israel. Are the Israelites kings and priests only with regard to the rest of the nations? Or does the verse assert an egalitarian Israel in which there is no distinction between king and subject, priest and layperson? Recent scholarship has concluded that postbiblical authors did not understand the verse to assert a “priesthood of all believers.” This is the conclusion of Daniel Schwartz, who surveyed both

1 2

For discussion of the passage and the grammatical analysis followed here, see William H. Propp, Exodus 19–40 (AB 2A; New York: Doubleday, 2006), ad loc. John H. Elliot, 1 Peter. A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 37B; New York: Doubleday, 2000), pp. 419–20, 436–7.

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Second Temple sources and those in rabbinic literature. He found that the thoroughgoing egalitarian reading appeared only to be rejected. The most common interpretation in the ancient sources is that Verse 6 speaks of three castes within Israel: kings, priests, and the rest of the people.3 The notion of “a priesthood of all believers” is also absent from I Peter 2, according to Elliot. That idea appears in Christian sources only later. On the other hand, he believes I Peter does not understand Exodus 19:6 to refer to three classes or castes within the Israelite nation. Rather the Israelites as a whole (or the Christians who supercede them) are characterized by royal, priestly, and holy status vis-à-vis the rest of the world.4 What does not appear in the ancient sources is still another option suggested by Jerome’s rendition of 5 7) at I Peter 2:9 as regale sacerdotium, “royal priesthood.”5 On this interpretation, among the factors that will distinguish Israel and make it holy will be the nature of its government. Israel will be ruled by kings who are priests.6 The absence of this interpretation in the literary record is somewhat surprising because, as is well known, Judah did have such a regime under the Hasmonean dynasty. Rulers from this dynasty served simultaneously as high priests and kings from the end of the second century b.c.e. until its fall from power in 37 b.c.e. Moreover, even before the assumption of the title of “king,” high priests had been the highest-ranking native officials in Judah, as will be shown subsequently. Along with many other scholars I believe that this constitutional arrangement has its roots in the Persian era. Moreover, there is considerable evidence for an ideology justifying priestly rule in ancient Jewish sources.7 Admittedly, some other near eastern peoples had “priestly kings.” Assuming Jewish authors were aware of this, then a royal priesthood would not have distinguished Israel from all other nations. But the extent of the phenomenon and Jewish awareness of 3

4 5 6

7

See D. R. Schwartz, “‘Kingdom of Priests’ – A Pharisaic Slogan,” in his Studies on the Jewish Background of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), pp. 57–66. The rest of the article deals with discussions of the phrase in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Elliot, 1 Peter, pp. 449–55. Ibid., p. 437, points out the inconsistency in Jerome’s translation of the same Greek phrase at Exodus 19:6 and I Peter 2:9. M. L. Moran, “A Kingdom of Priests,” in J. L. McKenzie, ed., The Bible in Current Catholic Thought (New York: Herder and Herder, 1962), pp. 7–20, in fact argues for the interpretation “priestly kings” in Exodus. See D. Goodblatt, The Monarchic Principle. Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity (TSAJ 38; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), pp. 6–56. On alleged critiques of and opposition to the Hasmonean combination of kingship and (high) priethood, see David Goodblatt, “The Union of Priesthood and Kingship in Second Temple Judea,” Cathedra 102 (2001), pp. 7–28 [Hebrew].

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it are far from clear.8 And for those seeking scriptural warrants for the rule of the priests, Exodus 19:6 would seem to be a useful source. Surely the amount of midrashic creativity required to adopt this verse to an ideology of hierocracy does not seem great. We cannot rule out the possibility that our verse was interpreted along these lines in sources that have not survived. In a similar way, the evidence for Hasmonean priest-kings appealing to the precedent of Genesis 14:18 is quite limited and could easily have been lost.9 We need not pursue further how ancient Jewish authors understood Exodus 19:6 and the reason they seem to have ignored the interpretation “royal priesthood.” Instead let us return to the alternative, and perhaps the original, meaning of mamlekhet kohanim: “priestly kingdom,” and restore the parallelism of “kingdom” and “nation.” Taken this way our verse provides a motto for the history of early Jewish nationalism. It suggests that Israel became, or at least remained, a nation because of its priests and the cult they staffed. A number of scholars have alluded to this notion in passing. Thus Philip R. Davies observed that in Ben Sira “the cult and priesthood are emphasized as the symbol of national unity and identity.” Further, the centrality of these related institutions helps explain why Antiochus IV’s attacks on them elicited a violent reaction on the part of (some) Judeans a generation or so after Ben Sira.10 Another example of awareness of the priestly role in Judean nationalism appeared in our previous discussion of the Hebrew language. S. Schwartz asserted that as a result of developments in the Persian era the temple and the Pentateuch became “the central symbols of Jewish corporate identity.” And the language shared by these institutions, Hebrew, became “a subsidiary national symbol, capable of evoking the central ones [viz., temple and Pentateuch].”11 The priests were obviously the exclusive curators of the temple, but Schwartz argues that the curators of the Pentateuch included lay experts as well. Still, he concedes the ongoing nexus of the cultic center and the book. For example, he contrasts the Greek Bible of the Diaspora communities with “the Hebrew Bible of the Jerusalem temple.”12 This puts the Pentateuch also under priestly 8

9 10

11 12

Regarding the Persian–Hellenistic–Roman eras, see the references in Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, p. 56 with nn. 71 –3. The classic study of Henri Frankfort, Kingship and the Gods. A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1948), concerns an earlier period and thus could be relevant to the original intent of Exodus 19:6. See Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, pp. 52–5. Philip R. Davies, “Scenes from the Early History of Judaism,” in Diana Vikander Edelman, ed., The Triumph of Elohim. From Yahwisms to Judaisms (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996 [First published Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1995]), pp. 171 –2. See Chapter 3, n. 39. See Schwartz, “Language, Power and Identity in Ancient Palestine,” pp, 29, 43.


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control. I shall return to the role of the priests as “curators” of the Torah later in the chapter. For now it suffices to note the agreement of Schwartz and Davies on the essential contribution of cult and priesthood to the construction of a Jewish national identity in late Second Temple times. The most extensive recent exposition of the priestly contribution appears in the study of Mendels. He also puts this in a comparative perspective. Thus he argues, “the temple and priesthood of the native population played an important role in the preservation of a nationalist awareness in the autochthonous populations of the ancient Near East, a role that continued well into the Roman period.” Bowersock confirms this for the latter era as he notes, “wherever there was pagan provincial opposition to Rome in the provinces, it was normally expressed through the traditional cults. . . . And so at the center of provincial subversion stood the local temples.” This obviously gave the native priests an important position in encouraging what I would call “national resistance.”13 In the case of the Jews, Mendels believes the temple and priesthood were particularly important as “symbols of nationalism” during the years 200–63 b.c.e. However, during the Roman period (63 b.c.e. to 66 c.e.) they lost this role because of a variety of historical circumstances. A brief revival in their importance to Jewish nationalism came during the revolts of 66 and 132 c.e.14 In what follows I shall survey three contributions of the priesthood to the construction of Judean national identity. In my view at least some of these contributions continued beyond the eras mentioned by Schwartz, Davies, and Mendels. First is the role of the priests as preservers and teachers of the national literature. Second is their function as actual rulers of Judah whether as independent authorities or as the highest-ranking native officials. Third is their provision of an ideology of resistance to foreign domination. I begin with their involvement with what we call the Bible. As discussed in Chapter 2, the biblical (and parabiblical) books contain the materials from which a Jewish national identity can be constructed. Consequently, the preservation of this literature and the dissemination of its contents to a broad audience were crucial for establishing and/or maintaining that identity over time. That the priests played a central role in these activities is widely acknowledged, though there is considerable debate about the details. Let us start with the actual 13

14

Mendels, Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, p. 108. G. W. Bowersock, “The Mechanics of Subversion in the Roman Provinces,” Opposition Et Résistances A L’Empire D’Auguste A Trajan ´ (Entretiens Sur L’Antiquité Classique Tome XXXIII; Genève: Foundation Hardt Pour L’Etude de L’Antiquité Classique, 1987), p. 315, and see pp. 294–304 on the role of priests. See Mendels, Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, Chapter 5, “Jerusalem: Capital, Temple and Cult (200–63 b.c.e.),” pp. 107–59, and Chapter 10, “Jerusalem and the Temple, 63 b.c.e.– 66 c.e.,” pp. 277–331.

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physical maintenance of texts. Previously we saw that Second Temple literary sources tell us relatively little about books and libraries, even the collection of texts presumed by many to have existed in the Jerusalem Temple. However, the existence of such a collection is a reasonable assumption. Certain biblical passages portray the sanctuary as the repository of authoritative texts. Thus Deuteronomy 31:24–6 describes how Moses ordered the deposit of the “torah book” he had written next to the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle. In II Kings 22:8 the high priest Hilkiah reports the discovery of the “torah book” in the Jerusalem temple. And Deuteronomy 17:18 represents “the levitical priests” as the source of the “torah” from which a copy should be made by or for the king. From the end of the Second Temple era, we have the testimony of Josephus. Several passages in his writings attest the view that “the physical care and transmission of sacred texts was a specifically priestly responsibility,” as noted by Rebecca Gray.15 However, the mere preservation of the texts, while necessary, is not a sufficient condition for their use in constructing identity. Only their dissemination to a wide audience could create a national consciousness. Did the priests contribute to this endeavor in the period treated here? A variety of biblical texts assign to the priests the role of teachers of torah. They appear as subjects of verbs from the root yrh, whence also the noun torah. Of concern to us here is the applicability of this evidence to Second Temple times, especially from the Hellenistic era onward. A large body of scholarship has argued that the postexilic period witnessed the rise of nonpriestly teachers who eventually broke the priestly monopoly on authoritative interpretation of torah. As Steven Fraade had documented, this view can be considered the consensus position in twentieth-century scholarship. It could draw on evidence from the New Testament, Josephus, and rabbinic literature. A minority of scholars did point out the weaknesses in this view. The rabbinic evidence was late and biased in favor of lay teachers, the New Testament testimony was ambiguous, and Josephus himself asserted a continuation of priestly teaching prerogatives through the destruction of the Second Temple. One compromise position that emerged suggests the presence by the end of this period of competing claims of authority on the part of priests on the one hand and lay teachers on the other.16 Complicating the discussion 15 16

Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine: The Evidence from Josephus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 54 with n. 65 on p. 183. One of the best discussions is the (unfortunately) unpublished paper of Steven D. Fraade, “‘They Shall Teach Your Statutes to Jacob’: Priests, Scribes and Sages in Second Temple Times.” I am grateful to Professor Fraade for supplying me with a copy and allowing me to use it. In note 6 Fraade lists several influential handbooks, monographs, and encyclopedia articles that


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is the frequent identification of the lay teachers as “scribes” and the connection of the latter with the Pharisees.17 Fortunately these complications can be avoided here. The issue of concern in the present discussion is not legal authority, but the reaching of a mass audience. Clarification of this distinction will help advance the discussion. Claims of authority to give instruction from or interpret sacred texts need not entail a desire, let alone actual efforts, to disseminate those texts among the masses. In fact, experts often seek to maintain a monopoly on knowledge in order to preserve their status. Allowing a larger audience direct access to the literature they control would jeopardize their special standing in society. In any case, one must distinguish a passive or reactive role as experts in the ancestral laws and traditions from an active attempt to reach out to the masses. In the first case the experts wait until they are consulted and only then render a reply. This appears to be the model present in the biblical texts, especially when we recall that the noun torah can have the narrow meaning of “instruction [on a specific issue].” Let us take, for example, a pentateuchal passage that mentions the teaching role of the priests. In Leviticus 10:8–11 Yahweh instructs Aaron that he and his sons are not to drink intoxicants when they enter the tent of meeting, they are to distinguish between the holy and the common and between the unclean and clean, and they are “to teach [ulehorot – from the root yrh] the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them through Israel.” The last phrase could indicate a broad educational mandate. On the other hand, the context of distinguishing between holy and common and clean and unclean suggests the more passive role of expert consultant. That is, people who had questions about cultic matters or issues of purity would request an answer from the priests. The role of priests as experts to be consulted on the initiative of questioners appears in connection with legal matters at Deuteronomy 17:11 and in connection with skin disease (“leprosy”) at 24:8. This understanding could also apply in Deuteronomy 33:10, which assigns to “Levi” the task of teaching (from the root yrh) God’s precepts to Jacob and his torah to Israel. Since the other functions mentioned – such as control of

17

assume a shift in torah-teaching authority from priests to laypeople. The authors include such luminaries as George Foote Moore, Bickerman, Hengel, Tcherikover, and the revised Schürer. The list could be extended. Fraade mentions Saldarini, E. P. Sanders, and Rebecca Gray among those who are skeptical of the consensus. What I have termed the compromise position is shared by Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine, pp. 54, 58; Fraade himself; Daniel R. Schwartz, “‘Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites’: Who Are the ‘Scribes’ in the New Testament?” in his Studies on the Jewish Background of Christianity (WUNT 60; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), pp. 88–101; and Runesson, Origins of the Synagogue, p. 339. See the discussion of these and related issues in Christine Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second Temple Period (JSOTSS 291; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998).

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the Urim and Thummim and offering sacrifices on the altar – belong to the priestly caste exclusively, the same must be true for teaching. But that teaching might consist of responding to questions, as in the previously cited passages. That teaching torah was the responsibility of the priests emerges from a trio of verses from the prophetic books. Here too, however, that teaching was the passive or reactive kind. As part of a condemnation of Jerusalem, Micah 3:11 complains, “Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach [yoru from the root yrh] for a price, its prophets give oracles for money.” In Jeremiah 18:18 the prophet quotes his enemies. They insist, “torah shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.” And at Ezekiel 7:26 the prophet foresees that precisely this will happen. He warns, “They shall keep seeking a vision from the prophet; torah shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the elders.” Thus prophets are the source of oracles/vision/the word, counsel comes from the wise or the elders, and judgment, from the rulers. Teaching and instruction, however, are the provenance of the priests. But all three of these passages describe experts who passively wait to be consulted. In Ezekiel, one seeks a vision from the prophet. Similarly, in Micah, disputants bring their case for judgment to a ruler, while people solicit an oracle from the seer. So it is with the instruction of the priests: people come to them. The priests do not seek out opportunities to teach the masses. The role of priests as experts who wait to be consulted appears clearly in two postexilic prophetic passages. In an oracle dated to December 520 at Haggai 2:11, the prophet is instructed by Yahweh to “ask the priests torah.” The question concerns the spread of ritual purity and impurity, and the priests are those with the requisite expertise on the requirements for food offerings brought to the altar. Similarly, in an oracle dated almost exactly two years later, Zechariah 7:1 –3 reports a question concerning the continuation of the fast of the fifth month (commemorating the destruction of the Temple) addressed to “the priests of the House of Yahweh of Hosts” (along with the prophets). Reference to consultation, rather than teaching, could apply to the passage at Malachi 2:4–9. The text condemns dereliction of duty by the priests, and the duty in question is instructing torah. Know, then, that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may hold, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant with him was a covenant of life and well-being, which I gave him; and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True torah was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in integrity and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek torah from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have turned aside from the


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way; you have caused many to stumble by your torah; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you have not kept my ways but have shown partiality in your torah.

The phrase “seek torah” appears to refer to consulting an expert, and “shown partiality” also suggests rulings on specific questions. A final illustration of this kind of instruction comes from Josephus. The historian is recounting the debate in Jerusalem in the summer of 66 c.e. over discontinuation of the sacrifices for the welfare of Rome and the emperor. Such an act was tantamount to a declaration of independence. Consequently, it was urged by those in favor of revolt and opposed by those who advocated loyalty to Rome. The debate was framed in terms of the permissibility of accepting sacrifices from foreigners. At BJ 2:417 Josephus recounts how the loyalists “produced priests acquainted with the ancestral [traditions]” ()/ 8s +)s ) 7)'s) to affirm that previous generations had accepted sacrifices from foreigners. The consultative aspect of torah instruction by the priests, in which the questioner takes the initiative, is thus clear in several biblical texts and still attested at the end of the Second Temple period. Other texts, by contrast, do suggest a more active teaching role. In these cases the priests seem to take the initiative, or at least try to reach an audience broader than individual petitioners. This may already be implicit in the Malachi passage when it refers to “turn[ing] many from iniquity.” Another verse that seems to refer to a broader teaching mission is the prophetic message in II Chronicles 15:3. Set in the reign of King Asa, around the turn of the tenth to the ninth century, it presumably reflects the assumption of the postexilic author concerning priestly roles. The prophet Azariah alludes to a time when “Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching [moreh] priest, and without torah.” The prophetic charge leads to religious reform and a covenant renewal, suggesting that the previously lacking torah was not limited to responses to specific questions of law. The clearest example of a broader concept of both torah and its teaching emerges from another late source in Chapter 8 of Nehemiah. Here it is “Ezra the priest” who brings out “the book of the torah of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel” and reads it out to the assembled people. Clearly this was not just the consultation of a specialist asking for instruction (torah) on a given point of law. The torah is now the book of Moses, and it is communicated to a mass audience. To be sure, it was “the Levites” who “helped the people to understand.” This suggests to some scholars that the priests may have yielded their teaching responsibilities to the lower order of the Levites. A few other postexilic sources also attribute to the Levites the function of “making the

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people understand/wise.” However, here in Nehemiah it is the priest who reads the text out loud. The role of the Levites is still dependent on, and hence subordinate to, the function of the priest Ezra.18 Some ambiguity remains because Ezra is identified as a scribe as well as a priest. One could argue that Nehemiah 8 depicts his role as a scribe, while his priestly status is purely coincidental. That ambiguity is resolved in another source from the early Hellenistic period. Hecataeus of Abdera, it will be recalled, asserted that Moses assigned judicial authority to the priests along with “the guardianship of the laws and customs.”19 He is more specific when he describes the high priest in terms that echo Malachi and verses from the Pentateuch. Thus Hecataeus relates how the people believe that the high priest acts as a messenger to them of God’s commandments. It is he, we are told, who in their assemblies and other gatherings announces what is ordained . . . [and] expounds the commandments to them. And at the end of their laws there is even appended the statement: “these are the words that Moses heard from God and declares unto the Judeans.”

Here too the high priest is clearly doing more than responding to questions of law. Like Ezra in Nehemiah 8, he is teaching the assembled masses. Ben Sira, writing around the beginning of the second century, is unfortunately less specific. The long encomium to Aaron at 45:6–22 contains the following at Verse 17. “In his commandments he gave him [Aaron] authority and statutes and judgments, to teach Jacob the testimonies, and to enlighten Israel with his law [nomos].”20 This verse could be read restrictively as referring to 18

19

20

II Chronicles 35:3 also refers to the Levites “making all Israel understand” (mevinim). II Chronicles 30:22 describes the Levites as “making wise” (maskilim), and Ezra 8:18 refers to a Levite as “a wise man” (’ish sekhkel ). II Chronicles 17:7–9 refers to Levites sent out to teach in the cities of Judah, but they are part of a task force that includes priests and lay princes. See the discussion in Schwartz, “‘Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites.’” He argues that the “scribes” were Levite teachers of torah, though they were affiliated with the priestly party of the Sadducees. Compare Fraade, “‘They Shall Teach Your Statutes to Jacob,’” who suggests that the Levites served as “a mediating bridge and buffer between the priests and laity” but still were part of the temple-priestly nexus. As noted in n. 20 in Chapter 2, Daniel R. Schwartz argues that the passage does not go back to the historical Hecataeus but to a Jewish author of the Hasmonean era. If we accept Schwartz’s arguments, then we lose a testimony from the early Hellenistic period. But the evidence for priestly public reading is so thin that evidence from the Hasmonean era is also extremely valuable. This translation follows the Greek text. The Hebrew in MS B from the Cairo Genizah reads, “And he gave him his commandments and gave him dominion in law and statute, and he will teach his people law and the people of Israel statute.” The repetition of “law and statute” in 17b seems stylistically inferior to what the Greek reflects and so may be secondary. This colon is lacking in the Syriac.


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judicial authority and consultative functions. Moreover the longer encomium to Ben Sira’s older contemporary, the high priest Simeon son of John, at 50:1 – 21 mentions Simeon’s civic activities, cultic functions, and blessing of the people – but not any teaching activities. The portrayal of the high priest reading out the laws to the people in Hecataeus does recur in Josephus. AJ 4:209 mentions the septennial reading of “this torah” at the fall pilgrimage festival ordained at Deuteronomy 31:9–13. The biblical text does not specify who reads the text in the hearing of “all Israel,” but Josephus assigns this role to the high priest. This interpretation contrasts with the later rabbinic position, famously expressed at Mishnah Sotah 7:8, that it was the king who read this portion to the assembled throngs. One could argue that these conflicting interpretations reflect no more than divergent exegeses of the text’s lack of specificity. Josephus presumably relied on the mention of “the levitical priests” at 31:9, the verse immediately preceding the section on the septennial reading. The rabbis, in contrast, may have followed the references to the king copying and reading from the torah at Deuteronomy 17:18–19 as well as the famous case of King Josiah reading aloud from the newly discovered torah text according to II Kings 23:1 –3. On the other hand Josephus might reflect a reality of Second Temple times, namely, the role of priests as readers of scriptures at public meetings.21 Some additional evidence portrays priests reading scriptures out loud before audiences. In his Hypothetica, Philo describes the weekly reading of “the laws” to the assembled people on the Sabbath. He writes, “Some priest who is present or one of the elders reads the holy law to them and expounds them point by point.” Philo may indicate here a preference for a priestly reader while allowing a lay elder to teach if no priest is available. This would parallel what appears in the Damascus Document. CD XII:22–XIII:7 seems to indicate that if there is a learned priest, then he is the first choice to lead a “cell” of the community. If he is not learned, then leadership devolves on a learned Levite. Admittedly, this passage seems to refer to leadership in general, not teaching. The logic however is the same. Philo’s other detailed account of a Sabbath assembly at Contemplative Life 30–33 does not mention priests. Instead Philo only mentions a discourse by an elder in his account of the Therapeutae. This need not contradict a general preference for a priestly teacher, but it hardly constitutes positive evidence. Further evidence for priests as readers at public sessions may exist at Qumran, as Fraade and others have noted. Unfortunately the texts in question are 21

For the scholarship on the contradiction between the account in Josephus and that of the rabbis, see Goodblatt, “Agrippa I and Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” pp. 10–11 with notes 25–31 on pp. 26–7.

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fragmentary, and certainty is not possible. 4Q266 = 4QDamascus Documenta 5 ii 1 –3, restored in light of parallels in other manuscripts, mentions people who should not be allowed to read aloud from the book of torah. Line 5 follows with a reference to “his brothers the priests.” Commenting on this passage, Joseph Baumgarten remarks, “Our text apparently considers the reading of the Torah to be a priestly function.” And he adds that this accords with what Josephus wrote about the high priest and the septennial torah reading.22 The second Qumran text is even more fragmentary. 4Q264a = 4QHalakha B 1 2–3 mentions “the priests sons of/ [Aaron . . . ].” Line 4 then refers to “[a scrol]l of a/the book to [rea]d its writing on the day of [the Sabbath . . . ].” The appearance of the word “Sabbath” in line 7 supports its restoration in line 4. And line 5 has a word that can mean either “they will teach” or “they will learn” depending on the vocalization. So the passage could refer to public reading and teaching by priests at Sabbath assemblies. But it could also refer to private study or readers who are not priests. And still other restorations and interpretations that have nothing to do with public readings are possible.23 One final body of evidence for a priestly role in the public teaching of scripture might emerge from the theory of Flesher concerning the origins of the Aramaic versions, or targums, of the Pentateuch. He argues that these translations, beginning with “proto-Onqelos,” were composed “under the auspices of the priestly elite.” Were there independent evidence establishing this claim, it could support the assertion of a priestly teaching role. However, the argument that the targums originated with the priests is based on the assumption that the priests were responsible for the teaching of the Torah.24 So to then use the priestly origins of the targums as evidence for priestly responsibility 22

23

24

For the text see Joseph M. Baumgarten, ed., Qumran Cave 4, XIII. The Damascus Document (4Q266–273) (DJD XVIII; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 49–50. For discussion see Joseph Baumgarten, “The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the ‘Damascus Document,’ A Specimen of the Recovery of Pre-Rabbinic Halakha,” in J. Trebolle-Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner, eds., The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls – Madrid, 18–21 March 1991 (2 Vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1992), Vol. 2, p. 508. On this and the following text, compare Fraade, “‘They Shall Teach Your Statutes to Jacob,’” n. 19. For discussion see Ebert J. C. Tigchelaar, “Sabbath Halakha and Worship in 4Q Ways of Righteousness: 4Q421 11 and 13+2+8 par 4Q264a 1 –2,” RQ 18/71 (1998), p. 366. Tigchelaar notes the two possible interpretations, but he does not decide between them. For the final publication see Joseph M. Baumgarten, Torleif Elgvin, Esther Eshel, et al., eds., Qumran Cave 4, XXV. Halakhic Texts (DJD XXXV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), p. 54. Baumgarten restores the text so that it refers to “proofreading” a text. See his comments ad loc. lines 4–5 on p. 55. See Paul V. M. Flesher, “The Literary Legacy of the Priests? The Pentateuchal Targums of Israel in Their Social and Linguistic Context,” in Olsson and Zetterholm, eds., Ancient Synagogue, pp. 467–508. See pp. 481 –6 for the evidence Flesher adduces to establish the teaching responsibility of the priests.


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for teaching torah is a circular argument. It turns out that the evidence for priests as those who read out scriptures at public gatherings is rather thin. Certainly there are fewer sources portraying this specific function than there are asserting a general priestly expertise in matters of torah. The evidence about public assemblies where scriptures are read aloud in first-century sources like Josephus, the New Testament, and Philo – with the possible exception of the Hypothetica – does not specify that the readers should be priests. Some Qumran sources do seem to assign this task to priests. One might dismiss this evidence as reflecting the priestly orientation of the Qumran sect. The conclusion would then be that priests normally did not contribute to the diffusion of scripture to mass audiences. While such a conclusion is reasonable enough, much of its force relies on arguments from silence. We saw in Chapter 2 that the available testimony on public reading aloud of scripture is sparse, especially before the Common Era. Against that sparse background the positive evidence about the role of priests seems more significant. That evidence includes Nehemiah 8, the only Persian era source describing a public reading of scripture, and the testimony of Hecataeus, who clearly had Judean informants. It continues with Josephus assigning the septennial public reading of the torah to the high priest. One could further cite the role of the priest Theodotus son of Vettenos in building a synagogue in Jerusalem for “the reading of the Law and the teaching of the commandments.” However, the status of the donor need not imply anything about that of the functionaries in the institution. Perhaps more relevant is the rabbinic rule in Mishnah Gittin 5:8 that priests read first when the torah is read aloud in the synagogues. Of course nonpriests follow as readers, and the Mishnah attributes the precedence of a priest (and then a Levite) to Israelites as a matter of preserving peace. Traditional medieval commentators like Obadiah of Bertinoro and Moses Maimonides explain that the rule precludes priests’ transferring their prerogative to nonpriests. This practice led to conflict as people asked why the priest favored this Israelite and not others. But even though disallowing the priest to delegate his honor avoids this conflict, analogous disputes can emerge when the order of Israelites to be called must be decided. In other words, the Mishnah’s ruling only avoids conflict over who reads first and second. And if there is more than one priest (or Levite), competition even over who reads first (or second) exists. So too there is competition over which Israelite is chosen and, on Sabbaths, new moons, and festivals, over precedence among the Israelite readers. Clearly, then, the traditional interpretation of the passage is problematic. One wonders if the Mishnah’s explanation of priestly precedence – for the sake of peace – may not be secondary. Perhaps this rule is a fossil of a more ancient practice when

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only the priests read, if they were available, with Levites the next choice and Israelites last. This would accord with what the passage in the Hypothetica of Philo implied. Whatever the case with Mishnah Gittin 5:8, one trajectory of tradition running from Nehemiah 8 and Hecataeus through the first-century evidence of Qumran, Philo in the Hypothetica, and Josephus in AJ 4 suggests that priests played a central role in the diffusion of the contents of scripture throughout the Second Temple era. To the extent that this group of sources reflects actual practice, the priests contributed to the social construction of a Judean or Israelite identity. A second contribution of the priests to the creation and maintenance of a Jewish national consciousness was their role as leaders of the nation. Doron Mendels listed kingship, along with temple, territory, and army, as among “the various symbols of nationalism in Judaism.” Elsewhere he suggests a somewhat broader formulation. He writes, “Political authority, independent and sovereign, was perhaps the most important aspect of the nationalistic concept in antiquity” [emphasis in original].25 Here the title “king” is not mentioned. Apparently, then, a major political leader, whatever his title, could be the focus of “the nationalistic concept.” I would go still further and suggest that independence and sovereignty also are not requirements. The masses might not be aware of the degree to which their ruler is subject to others. Even if they are aware that their leader is not completely independent, he could still symbolize the identity of the people under his rule. The modern process of decolonization offers many examples of leaders who became symbols of their nation while lacking sovereign powers and even while in prison. Similarly, a recognized leader of Israel or Judah, even if a vassal to a foreign king and even if lacking any significant political power, could be seen as an expression of or provide a focus for national consciousness. And for most of the Second Temple era those leaders were the priests. That the political rulers of Judah were the high priests is universally conceded for the Hasmonean era. The dynasty came to official power with the appointment in 152 b.c.e. of Jonathan son of Mattathiah as high priest in Jerusalem. His brother Simeon succeeded him and founded a dynasty. Simeon’s grandson assumed the title of king as well. Still all the (male) Hasmonean rulers retained the title of high priest until the dynasty lost power with the fall of Mattathias Antigonus in 37 b.c.e. The priestly title appears on coins of all the Hasmonean rulers who minted. While Alexander Jonathan (Yannai/Janneus) issued some coins with his royal title in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, and Mattathias Antigonus used the royal title in Greek legends; the title of high priest or priest predominates in the Hebrew inscriptions. This is 25

See Mendels, Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism, pp. 5 and 59, respectively.


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symbolic of the importance of the position to the Hasmonean rulers. For this century plus, then, the leaders of the Judean nation were “priest-princes.” Less clear is whether this type of regime preexisted the rise of the Hasmoneans or survived their downfall. An influential and perhaps consensus view answers in the affirmative at least for the earlier era. For example, the widely used handbook of Schürer asserts, The salient characteristic of the Jewish constitution in the post-exilic era is that the High Priest was also the political leader of the nation. At the beginning of Persian rule, this was not yet the case. But it indisputably became so from the second half of that period until the Roman–Herodian domination. The High Priests of the pre-Maccabean as well as the Hasmonean age were not merely priests but also princes.26

Even some who dissent from this conclusion concede that the high priests in Jerusalem achieved political supremacy before the Hasmoneans arrived on the scene. Certainly no other native institution or dynasty appears in our sources as the supreme Judean leader. Occasional references to “nobles,” “elders,” or some kind of council lack the continuity possessed by the high priesthood from Persian times onward. A brief survey of the evidence is in order.27 As is well known, the biblical books describing the Persian “restoration” of Judah at the end of the sixth century portray a diarchy consisting of a scion of the preexilic royal dynasty of David and a descendant of pre-exilic high priests of the Jerusalem temple. The Davidide prince, Zerubavel, is described in some sources as the governor of the province. This, however, is a Persian office. In terms of native Judean legitimacy what mattered was descent from David. In any case, Zerubavel disappears from the scene, and no other Davidides succeed to leadership as far as our sources tell us. At least some of the Persian governors were of Judean descent. Zerubavel and Nehemiah are the most famous thanks to the literary sources, but epigraphic evidence appears to identify others. But, again, the governorship was a position in the Persian administration without native sources of legitimacy. It was imposed from outside by the imperial power. Further, there is no indication of a Judean family retaining the office over time. Such a family might have eventually attained some kind of 26

27

E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 b.c.–a.d. 135), Vol. II (revised and edited by Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1973–87), p. 227. For the original see idem, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, Vol. I (Third–Fourth Edition; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1901), p. 181. The following discussion summarizes the detailed accounts, with bibliographic references, in Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, pp. 6–29, on priestly monarchy and, pp. 57–60, on the diarchy in the Persian era. See also pp. 77–99 on pre-Hasmonean councils and pp. 30–56 on the ideologies justifying priestly monarchy.

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internal legitimacy. However, we have no Judean analogue to the governors of Samaria from the dynasty of Sanballat or the apparent dynasty of governors of Ammon from the family of Tobiah. According to surviving evidence the most powerful Judean family, with which both the Sanballats and the Tobiads sought to intermarry, was that of the high priests from the line of Saddoq.28 This is the family sometimes referred to in modern historiography as the “Oniads” after a recurrent nickname in the family. (That nickname, Onias in Greek or Honyo in Hebrew, derives from the name Yohanan.) The extant evidence, then, points to the dominant leadership role of the Jerusalem high priest. This begins with Joshua son of Yehosadaq in the late sixth century, first in a diarchy with Zerubavel and then apparently by himself. Further likely reflections of priestly supremacy appear in correspondence from Elephantine in the late fifth century and on a silver coin from the middle of the fourth century. At the end of the fourth century, Hecataeus (assuming the attribution is genuine) attests that rule of the nation by the high priest is a long-established practice. And sources describing the Ptolemaic and early Seleucid eras also seem to make the high priest the supreme leader. Certainly this is the impression given by Ben Sira early in the second century. Again the point is not to deny other nodes of political power, alongside the high priest, in direct competition with him, or “behind the throne.” And all this time there was a foreign suzerain represented by a resident official (who might himself be a Judean). But no other family or institution emerges as a rival to the status of the high priest, with an equally accepted internal, Judean legitimacy. So I think Schürer was correct in his assessment. From some point in the Persian era down to the Roman, the leadership of the Judean nation was held by the high priests in Jerusalem.29 The end of priestly domination came with the installation of Herod as king. His Idumean ancestry precluded his claiming descent from Aaron, the prerequisite for service as a priest. But when the Romans deposed Herod’s son Archelaus and instituted direct rule over Judah in 6 c.e., priestly leadership 28

29

For a recent survey on these issues, see Lisbeth S. Fried, The Priest and the Great King. Temple– Palace Relations in the Persian Empire (BJSUCSD 10; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), pp. 156–233. For a list of attested Persian-appointed governors of Judah, see there, pp. 184–7. Fried is extremely skeptical regarding the existence of Persian-permitted autonomy in the province. At the same time she concedes the development of local centers of power that contested centralized Persian administrative authority. Among such centers she notes the Sanballat dynasty, the Tobiads, and the high priests of the Jerusalem temple. Compare the conclusion of Fried, The Priest and the Great King, p. 233. While denying the existence of a theocracy in Persian era Judah, she concedes the following point: “The Jewish community in Yehud certainly constructed its identity and its unity around the temple . . . ; the high priest was their spokesman.” To my mind this comes to the same thing.


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returned at least in part. Josephus asserts this directly. Referring to this at AJ 20:251, he states that “the high priests were entrusted with the leadership of the nation.” Again there were several nodes of power in Judean society, including Roman officials, native magnates, and the Herodian dynasty, which continued to rule outlying parts of “Greater Judah” and was well connected with power brokers in Rome. But once again the leadership element with the greatest internal Judean legitimacy was the high priesthood. The New Testament confirms Josephus’ assertion by depicting “the chief priests” as the dominant force in Judean affairs during the trials of Jesus, Peter, and Paul. From this perspective, the half century of rule in Jerusalem by Herod, his son Archelaus, and his grandson Agrippa was an interlude and exception to the centuries-long predominance of the high priests. If this reconstruction of Judean politics is correct, then for most of the Second Temple era the leadership of the nation was in the hand of the high priests. To be sure, they often were vassals of imperial states. Even when fully sovereign, they could not ignore the limitations of a small country surrounded by regional powers. Nor did the limited tools of the premodern polity allow them to function as totalitarian dictators even when they were at the height of their independence. What I claim is that they were the most widely accepted Judean leaders with the best-founded sources of internal legitimacy. As such, they could serve as a symbol of the Judean nation and as a focus of Judean national consciousness. The fact that they controlled the Jerusalem temple, accepted by almost all Jews the world over as the center of Israelite worship and divine accessibility, reinforced this potential. Simply by virtue of their status and function, the priests contributed mightily to the maintenance of Jewish nationalism. In addition to preserving and disseminating scripture and serving as the ideal and often actual leaders of the nations, the priestly caste may have made still another contribution to ancient Jewish nationalism. They may have developed an explicitly nationalist ideology. In what follows I will focus on two clusters of ideas that played a role in the Judean revolt against Rome in 66 c.e. Despite the reservations of Horsley discussed in Chapter 1, note 8 in this book, most scholars see this revolt as an expression of a Jewish nationalism. An effort to free provincia Iudaea from Roman rule that invoked the name Israel on its coins and used an era “of the freedom of Israel” certainly sounds like what we today call a movement for national liberation. And as I have argued, such a characterization of first-century actors need not be anachronistic. Accepting this characterization, then, the two clusters alluded to earlier can be considered elements of a nationalist ideology. And each of these ideas seems to me to have developed in priestly circles.

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One of the clusters asserts that Israel/the Judeans cannot recognize any lord but God. The other is summed up by the ideal of “zeal.” Both clusters appear in the context of the revolt of 66. The slogan “no lord but God” summarizes the message of a movement founded in 6 c.e. and designated by Josephus as “the fourth philosophy.” The movement still existed sixty years later, led by descendants of one of the two founders. In the context of the revolt (and its immediate preliminaries), Josephus refers to the movement by the derogatory title of sicarii or “dagger men, murderers, assassins.” The other cluster of ideas, involving the notion of “zeal,” appears in connection with one of the groups participating in the revolt. Josephus mentions a group that called themselves the Zealots. Most scholars today agree that the Sicarii and the Zealots were two distinct groups, indeed bitter and bloody rivals. At the same time, several scholars argue that despite their rivalry they shared certain ideas. This claim has been worked out most fully by Martin Hengel. He argues that among the unifying factors in what he calls the “jüdische Freiheitsbewegung” were a “theocratic ideology” and the ideal of “zeal.”30 By “theocratic ideology” Hengel means the claim of the fourth philosophy that Jews can acknowledge no lord but God. I shall discuss each of these concepts in order.

30

M. Hengel, Die Zeloten. Untersuchungen zur jüdischen Freiheitsbewegung in der Zeit Von Herodes I. bis 70 n. Chr. (Leiden/Köln: Brill 1961; 2 Verbesserte und Erweiterte Auflage, Leiden/Köln: Brill, 1976); English translation by D. Smith: The Zealots. Investigations into the Jewish Freedom Movement in the Period from Herod I until 70 a.d. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989). I shall cite from the second German edition and, in parentheses, from the English translation (= ET). On the organizational difference between the fourth philosophy/Sicarii and the Zealot party, see M. Smith, “Zealots and Sicarii, Their Origins and Relation,” HTR 64 (1971), pp. 1 –19, and his references to predecessors such as Lake and Zeitlin. For assertion of a common ideology despite the organizational differences, see M. Stern, “Zealots,” Encyclopaedia Judaica Year Book 1973 (Jerusalem: Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1973), pp. 135–52; and M. Hengel, “Nachtrag: Zeloten und Sikarier. Zur Frage nach der Einheit und Vielfalt der jüdischen Befreiungsbewegung 6–74 nach Christus,” in Die Zeloten, pp. 387–412 (= ET, pp. 380–404), especially pp. 393–4 (= ET, pp. 386–7). To “theocracy” and “zeal” Hengel adds a third complex of ideas: eschatology. However, I am not convinced by his attribution of an eschatological consciousness to the rebels. Stern, “Zealots,” pp. 144–9, speculates that Zadok (Saddoq) the Pharisee, cofounder with Judah the Galilean of the “fourth philosophy,” was the source of the ideas that characterized the Zealot party of 67–70 c.e. That is, he seems to trace the ideal of “zeal” back to the “fourth philosophy,” not just the idea of “theocracy.” See discussion later. The idea of a common ideology was already expressed by Lake, who was credited by Smith with first demonstrating the distinction between the “fourth philosophy”/Sicarii and the Zealot party. See F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, Vol. I (London: Macmillan, 1920), Appendix A, “The Zealots,” p. 422. Lake wrote there, “No doubt the Fourth Philosophy supplied the intellectual attitude from which the Zealots and Sicarii logically started.” On the other hand, G. Jossa, “Josephus’ Action in Galilee During the Jewish War,” in Parente and Sievers, eds., Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period, pp. 265–6, argues for a clear distinction between the ideology of the Zealots and that of the Sicarii. A recent, brief survey of the various Judean rebel groups is D. Rhoads, “Zealots,” ABD, Vol. 6., pp. 1047–50.


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Before proceeding with this discussion, however, attention should be paid to a major study that appeared after Hengel and challenged some of his conclusions. Israel Ben-Shalom argued that Josephus’ account of a new sect, the fourth philosophy, founded in 6 c.e. is unhistorical. The ideas Josephus attributes to Judah and Saddoq belong to the “Zealot–Hasidic” or “Hasidic– Zealot” ideology/tradition/tendency. This in turn goes back not just to the very beginning of Roman domination of Judah in 63 b.c.e. but to the Hasmonean era. Similarly, the various rebel groups Josephus mentions in the context of the war of 66–70 all “drew from that same Zealot–Hasidic tradition whose origin and crystallization was during the Hasmonean revolt.” The claim of a trajectory from the Hasmoneans to the rebels of 66 agrees with the older view of Farmer. And Ben-Shalom’s “Zealot movement” is very similar to Hengel’s concept of the “jüdische Freiheitsbewegung.” New in Ben-Shalom is the argument that the Zealot ideology is anchored in the worldview of the Pharisees, who are the heirs of the hasidim mentioned in I and II Maccabees. And that ideology, Ben-Shalom continues, is best represented in late Second Temple times by the branch of the Pharisees known as the House of Shammai.31 The reconstruction proposed by Ben-Shalom is vulnerable at several points. The invocation of the hasidim as the source of Zealot ideas is problematic. This term, usually translated “pietists” or “pious,” in fact shares with the Latin pius the semantic range of “devoted, loyal.” The term is used to describe a group mentioned at I Maccabees 2:42 and 7:12–17 and II Maccabees 14:6. Several scholars have developed an elaborate history of this group, making it the source of the Essenes and possibly the Pharisees as well. However, others point out that such theories go way beyond the limited evidence in our possession.32 In fact, at least part of that evidence does not exactly portray the Hasidim as hard-line “anti-imperialists” along the line of the Zealots. I refer to the

31

32

See Israel Ben-Shalom, The School of Shammai and the Zealots’ Struggle against Rome (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 1993) [Hebrew]. The quote comes from p. 315. See especially Chapter 4, “Zealotry and the Zealots,” pp. 157–71, but also pp. 93, 109, 118, 124, 126–31, 153–4, 313–15. For Ben-Shalom’s varying the order of the two adjectives, see for example p. 251, where we find both “the Hasidic Zealot tendency” and “the Zealot Hasidic heritage.” For the trajectory going back to the Hasmoneans, compare Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots, and Josephus. On the hasidim as antecedents of the Essenes, see Frank Moore Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (Revised Edition; Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1961), pp. 131 –2, and Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism. Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (2 Vols.; trans. John Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), Vol. I, pp. 175–80. Cross, p. 141, n. 66, suggests the Pharisees also emerged from them. For reservations about such theories that are convincing to this writer, see Philip R. Davies, “Hasidim in the Maccabean Period,” JJS 28 (1977), pp. 127–40. Compare the change of mind of Goldstein, II Maccabees, p. 479, who had earlier shared the view of Cross. Goldstein does not cite Davies.

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group’s willingness to accept the high priest Alcimus and make peace with the Seleucid overlord, as reported in I Maccabees 7. More important, the use of the term “Zealot” to refer to all the anti-Roman or pro-independence groups is confusing because Josephus uses this name to refer to one specific group. The confusion evaporates if we adopt a neutral term like Hengel’s “Judean freedom movement.” Ben-Shalom also does not give adequate attention to the uniqueness of the explicit ideal of “no lord but God” ascribed to the fourth philosophy and the Sicarii by Josephus. Neither the belief that God is the ruler of the universe nor resistance to foreign domination entails rejection of all human lords. Such a rejection is a radicalization that Ben-Shalom cannot explain on the basis of either Hasidic or Pharisaic principles.33 Finally, if the ideas of Judah the Galilean and Saddoq (the founders of the fourth philosophy) were simply those of the House of Shammai wing of the Pharisees, why is only Saddoq identified as a Pharisee? This suggests that Judah was not one. If so, then the assertion that all Zealots were Pharisees (even if not all Pharisees were Zealots) is incorrect. In light of these reservations, I cannot accept Ben-Shalom’s reconstruction of “the Zealot movement.” Rather I accept the statement of Josephus that the fourth philosophy was something new and that it differed from the Pharisees in rejecting all human lords, not just foreign ones. Assuming that the fourth philosophy differed from the Pharisees in rejecting human lords is the easiest way to resolve the apparent contradiction between BJ 2:118 and AJ 18:23. The former passage states that Judah the Galilean founded his own school of thought that had nothing in common with the others. The “others” clearly are the three groups whose description immediately follows: the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. In the latter (and later!) passage, however, Josephus asserts that the fourth philosophy agrees in everything with the Pharisees, except for the ideal of “no lord but God.” On the other hand, Josephus’ evaluation of the work of Judah and Saddoq at 18:9 recalls the claim in BJ 2 that the new school of thought was unlike any other. This evaluation accused the two men of introducing “an innovation and reform in ancestral traditions” (# ) s & 54).34 This contradiction has been variously explained.35 On the simplest level, one could argue that when 33

34 35

See Ben-Shalom, School of Shammai and the Zealots’ Struggle against Rome, p. 129. For a rejection of the view that the emphasis on the kingship of God in Jewish liturgy goes back to Second Temple times and reflects a polemic against gentile suzerains, see Reuven Kimelman, “Again Blessing Formulae and Divine Sovereignty in Rabbinic Liturgy,” in Olsson and Zetterholm, eds., Ancient Synagogue, pp. 320–75. Translation of Feldman in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. IX, p. 9. Compare the discussion and literature cited in Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 83–4, 89–91 (= ET, pp. 80, 86–8).


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the BJ stated the uniqueness of this group, it referred to its refusal to recognize any lord but God. And this was the innovation condemned by Josephus in AJ. On this view there is no real contradiction. Others see the difference between the two accounts as part of a broader pattern of differences between the BJ and the AJ. D. Schwartz, for example, argues that in BJ Josephus carefully censored information about the political involvement of the Pharisees. But by the time he wrote the AJ, he was less careful and let such information slip out from time to time. Thus, in the case of the fourth philosophy, Josephus did not reveal its close relationship to the Pharisaic party in his earlier work.36 However, as noted previously, only one of the two founders is identified as a Pharisee. And we have no indication that their distinctive slogan was of Pharisaic origin. Closer examination of that slogan and its origin is in order. Let us return then to the idea of “no lord but God” attributed by Josephus to the philosophy or movement founded in 6 c.e. by Judah the Galilean and Saddoq the Pharisee.37 At BJ 2:118 this idea is expressed in the following form. We are told how Judah “incited his countrymen to revolt, upbraiding them as cowards for consenting to pay tribute to the Romans and tolerating mortal masters [ s] after having God for their lord.”38 At AJ 18:23 the distinctive ideas of the fourth philosophy are expressed as follows: they have a passion for liberty that is almost unconquerable, since they are convinced that God alone is their leader and master [#,, s]. They think little of submitting to death in unusual forms and permitting vengeance to fall on kinsmen and friends if only they may avoid calling any man master [ s].39

This same basic idea is attributed by Josephus to representatives of the Sicarii, the name he gives to those who continued the movement founded by Judah at the time of the Judean revolt of 66 c.e. One instance is the speech Josephus puts in the mouth of Judah’s descendant, Eleazar son of Ya’ir, on Masada. At BJ 7:323 Eleazar begins his first speech with the following: Long since, my brave men, we determined neither to serve the Romans nor any other save God, for He alone is man’s true and righteous Lord [ s].40 36 37

38 39 40

D. Schwartz, “Josephus and Nicolaus on the Pharisees,” JStJ 14 (1983), p. 169. For a discussion of the reports in Josephus and the scholarship on them, see Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 79–150, 336–44 (= ET, pp. 76–145, 330–37). Contrast Ben-Shalom, School of Shammai and the Zealots’ Struggle aganist Rome, pp. 126–31. Translation of Thackeray, Josephus, Vol. II, pp. 367–9. Translation of Feldman in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. IX, pp. 21 –3. Translation of Thackeray, Josephus, Vol. III, p. 595.

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Another instance is in Josephus’ report on the Sicarii who escaped to Egypt after the suppression of the revolt. According to 7:410, they tried to incite the local Jews to rebel and to regard God alone as their Lord ( s). Similarly, at 7:418–19, Josephus reports how even under torture these Sicarii refused to call Caesar “lord.” Thus Josephus clearly presents the idea of “no lord but God” as the central one of the movement founded by Judah the Galilean.41 What was the source of this idea? Hengel discusses this problem in detail. He suggests that the idea was a radicalization of originally biblical concepts such as the prohibition of other gods in the first commandment and the notion of God as king. The latter in particular was developed in early Judaism under the rubric of “the kingship of heaven [= God]” (!ymv twklm).42 Among other analogues, Hengel also mentions the notion of “theocracy” in Josephus’ account of the Jewish constitution. And in the foreword to the English translation of his book, Hengel asserts that it is “only a step” from the concept of theocracy to the “no lord but God” ideology of the fourth philosophy.43 I believe Hengel is correct in pointing out this connection. What he does not state is the likelihood that the notion of a theocracy is a priestly ideology. The notion appears in the second book of CA. The context is the discussion by Josephus of the political constitution bestowed by Moses on his people. At CA II, 164–5, Josephus writes,

41

42 43

Ben-Shalom, School of Shammai and the Zealots’ Struggle aganist Rome, pp. 313–315, argues that Josephus is inconsistent in his use of the term “Sicarii,” and that not all occurrences of the term refer to the followers of Judah and his descendants. For example, the Sicarii in Egypt, referred to earlier, cannot be followers of Elezar son of Ya’ir because all those people perished on Masada. Of course once we admit that Josephus was not consistent, we cannot learn anything from the inconsistency between the assertions that all the Sicarii died on Masada and that some escaped to Egypt. Moreover, most scholars assume that the Masada story is, at the least, an exaggerated version of the events. So I continue to assume that the escapees to Egypt were affiliated with the party of Elezar son of Ya’ir. Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 84–5 (= ET, p. 88), derives from Josephus three other elements in the ideology of Judah’s movement. They are an invincible love for freedom, the notion that the Judeans must exert themselves before God will help them, and the rejection of the census for religious reasons. As to the first item, I am not sure that this represents a specific ideology. The second point may reflect Josephus’ rhetoric rather than part of Judah’s ideology. See the comments of Feldman in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. IX, p. 6, n. a. The third element, religious objections to a census, was rooted in the Bible and probably commonplace in Judean society. This leaves only the idea of “no lord but God” as unique to Judah. Hengel, Die Zeloten, pp. 93–114 (= ET, pp. 90–110). Ibid., pp. 97–8 (= ET, p. 94), and pp. xiv–xv of the English translation. M. O. Wise, “The Life and Times of Ananias Bar Nedebaeus and His Family,” in his Thunder in Gemini and Other Essays on the History, Language and Literature of Second Temple Palestine (JSOTSS 15; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), p. 62, also asserts that the “no lord but God” slogan “implied the substitution of a theocratic government in which a high priest would serve as the human conduit to the only true king.” He does not cite Hengel.


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There is an endless variety in the details of the customs and laws which prevail in the world at large. To give but a summary enumeration: some peoples have entrusted the supreme political power to monarchies, others to oligarchies, yet others to the masses. Our lawgiver, however, was attracted by none of these forms of polity, but gave to his constitution the form of what – if a forced expression be permitted – may be termed a “theocracy,” placing all sovereignty and authority in the hands of God.

And he continues some lines later, at II, 184–7, For us, with our conviction that the original institution of the Law was in accordance with the will of God, it would be rank impiety not to observe it. What could one alter in it? What more beautiful one could have been discovered? What improvement imported from elsewhere? Would you change the entire character of the constitution? Could there be a finer or more equitable polity than one which sets God at the head of the universe [# 0], which assigns the administration of its highest affairs to the whole body of priests, and entrusts to the supreme high-priest the direction of the other priests? . . . their high office embraced a strict superintendence of the Law and of the pursuits of everyday life; for the appointed duties of the priests included general supervision, the trial of cases of litigation, and the punishment of condemned persons.44

The second passage demonstrates that the theocracy described by Josephus was actually a hierocracy. Rule by God in practice meant rule by the priests. We argued earlier that rule by the priests, and especially the high priest, was the most common internal regime in Judah during the period of the Second Temple. Moreover traces of an ideology justifying priestly rule can be traced back to the period of Persian rule. I think it likely that what Josephus writes in CA is one variety of that ideology.45 And the fact that the theocratic ideal, as presented by Josephus, justifies a hierocratic regime makes it likely that the ideal originated in priestly circles. Why would anyone else be concerned to create a justification for the priestly regime? The assumption of a priestly origin for the section on theocracy is independent of the question of the immediate source of this section. Many scholars believe that Josephus copied it from somewhere else. For example, D. Schwartz argues that the apology for the Jewish law in CA, of which the section on theocracy is a part, is based on an Alexandrian Jewish composition.46 Even if we assume composition in Egypt, 44 45 46

This and the proceeding quotation are the translation of Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. I, pp. 359, 367–9. See Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, Chapter 2. D. R. Schwartz, “Josephus on the Jewish Constitution,” SCI 7 (1983–4), p. 47, with literature cited therein, n. 59. Contrast H. W. Attridge, “Josephus and His Works,” in Stone, ed., Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period, pp. 229–31, with literature cited in p. 229, n. 68.

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this would not preclude a priestly origin for the document. Schwartz himself has argued that priestly influence was pervasive in the Jewish community of Alexandria and has cited instances in Philo where one can assume priestly sources.47 In any case, considerations of cui bono, as argued earlier, point to a priestly source. After all, the passage in CA resolves a major difficulty faced by defenders of the hierocracy. This was the absence of a biblical warrant for such a regime. The passage deals with this problem in two ways. First of all, it traces the priestly regime back to Moses and “the original institution of the Law . . . in accordance with the will of God.” Second, it asserts that priestly rule is actually rule by God himself, and rule by God has ample biblical precedent. Yet another Josephan passage cited by Hengel in connection with the ideal of “no lord but God” may be adduced here (see the first reference in note 34 in this chapter). This is the retelling of “the law of the king” in Deuteronomy 17:14–20 at AJ 4:223–4. Josephus has Moses say the following: Aristocracy, with the life that is lived thereunder, is indeed the best: let no craving possess you for another polity, but be content with this, having the laws for your master [ s] and governing all your actions by them; for God sufficeth for your ruler [#,]. But should you become enamoured of a king. . . .48

According to this, aristocracy is a superior regime to rule by a (human) king. The former is characterized by having God alone as ruler and the laws of the Torah as “lord.” The interesting point is that Josephus on two occasions seems to equate aristocracy with hierocracy. At AJ 11:111 Josephus notes that after the return from the Babylonian exile a form of government existed at Jerusalem that was both aristocratic and oligarchic. And he continues, “For the high priests were at the head of affairs [) )] until the descendants of the Asmonean family came to rule as kings.”49 The second occasion is when Josephus reports on the deposition of Archelaus and the annexation of his territories to the Roman Empire as provincia Iudaea. He explains at AJ 20:251 that the form of government now became aristocratic with the leadership ()) of the nation entrusted to the high priests. The apparent equation between aristocracy and hierocracy has, however, been rejected by D. Schwartz. He argues that by aristocracy Josephus means rule by a council (of elders), while national leadership by the priest was a 47

48 49

See D. R. Schwartz, “Philo’s Priestly Descent,” in F. E. Greenspahn et al., eds., Nourished with Peace: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism in Memory of Samuel Sandmel (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), pp. 155–71; cf. idem, “The Priests in Ep. Arist. 310,” JBL 97 (1978), pp. 567–71. Translation of Thackeray, Josephus, Vol. IV, p. 583. Translation of Marcus in Thackeray et al., Josephus, Vol. VI, p. 369.


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parallel system of government. The latter was not part of his system of constitutions ( ). Schwartz’s argument is based on stylistic considerations in the two passages, other instances where Josephus alludes to aristocracy, and a theory about the meaning of prostasia in the writings of Josephus. I am not convinced by the last point, and thus the first two seem less decisive.50 Moreover, we saw earlier that the ideal, kingless called “theocracy” at CA II turned out to be a hierocracy. One wonders whether this might also be the case with the ideal, kingless called an aristocracy at AJ 4:223.51 Is the regime mentioned in the latter passage, in which the laws are “lord” and God the sole “ruler,” equivalent to a hierocracy? Perhaps when writing AJ Josephus had not yet come upon or invented the word “theocracy.” If we can interpret the AJ passage by the CA one, then we can return to the equivalence of aristocracy and hierocracy. If so, then in both AJ 4:223 and CA II the ideal, kingless regime turns out to be rule by the priests. And this would mean that in both passages hierocracy is tantamount to having no lord but God. It must be admitted that the ideal of rule by God himself does not necessarily entail hierocracy. As is well known, the Bible itself contains an antimonarchic tradition that has no apparent connection with priests (e.g., at I Samuel 8:1 –22 and Hosea 13:9–11). But, as we shall see, it is precisely in a priestly milieu that we find echoes of this tradition in post-exilic times. One would think that the suppression of the Judean state and Davidic royalty in 587/6 b.c.e. would have rendered such a tradition redundant, at least until the Hasmoneans took the title of king at the end of the second century b.c.e. Yet it seems that this antiroyalist sentiment was developed in pre-Hasmonean times, and apparently in priestly circles. A. Rofé has discussed the phenomenon of the Septuagint frequently having 9): where the Masoretic Text has Alm. He argues that the translators must have had a Vorlage in which the latter word had been replaced by aycn. The rationale of this substitution, he suggests, was “to lower the king’s stature in the presence of the only true king, the Lord God of Israel.”52 Rofé traces this attitude back to the antiroyalist sentiment expressed in Ezekiel 34:1 –16.

50

51

52

Schwartz, “Josephus on Jewish Constitution and Community,” pp. 32–4, on aristocracy equaling rule by a council and not hierocracy, and pp. 43–9, 50–1 on the interpretation of prostasia. See the critique of the latter in Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, pp. 40–3. The noun occurs in the works of Josephus only in CA. See Rengstorf, Complete Concordance to Flavius Josephus, Vol. 3, p. 475, s.v. The latter work also uses the term (e.g., in the context of the section on theocracy at CA II:188). So it seems the two terms are used synonymously. A. Rofé, “Qumran Paraphrases, The Greek Deuteronomy and the Late History of the Biblical aycn,” Textus XIV (1988), pp. 169–73. Quotation is from p. 171.

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This was modified by Ezekiel’s disciples, who felt that the state could not get along without some kind of human authority. The result of this modification was the reduction of the king to “merely” a nasi’. Rofé traces the continuation of this idea in sources from Qumran. These insights may be developed further. One expression of the reduction in the status of the king by the disciples of Ezekiel may be the diarchy of Davidide prince and priesthood envisioned in the restoration program of Ezekiel 40–48.53 Certainly a number of texts from Qumran envision a diarchy of (high) priest and Davidic prince, as do other writings from Second Temple times. Given the failure of a Davidic restoration in this period, the net result of such ideas was to legitimate priestly rule.54 Further, rehearsing antiroyalist sentiments would have helped justify the usurpation of the position of the ancient Israelite and Judahite kings by the high priests of the Second Temple era. In any case, the post-exilic era witnesses the development of the ancient antiroyalist tradition of rule by God alone in priestly circles: Ezekiel, his disciples, Qumran. The development of this tradition can go in various directions. One possibility yields the idea of diarchy, which increases the power of the priests at the expense of the (pre-exilic) prerogatives of the king. Another possibility is to call for rule by the priests alone, claiming that such a regime was established by Moses and/or is equivalent to the biblical ideal of divine kingship or “theocracy.” In other words, the chronologically closest analogues to the call for “no lord but God” by the fourth philosophy/Sicarii seem to be in priestly traditions of the Second Temple era. Can we find a conduit for priestly traditions to the fourth philosophy? Was either one or both of the founders of this movement of priestly origin? There is no evidence that Judah the Galilean was. Josephus refers to five members of this family over three generations without once mentioning priestly affiliation. I can think of no reason he would omit such an affiliation were it the case. After all, Josephus did not hesitate to note the priestly status of a number of rebel leaders.55 The cofounder with Judah, Saddoq the Pharisee, is a more likely possibility. Josephus identified the latter as a Pharisee, not

53

54 55

See P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Revised Edition; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), pp. 209–79. Contrast J. D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), p. 143, who denies that “the school of Ezekiel hoped for a diarchy of Davidid and Zadokite.” But even Levenson, p. 115, n. 44, understands that the priesthood is portrayed as a counterbalance to the monarchy. On the history of the idea of a diarchy of Davidic prince and high priest, see Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, Chapter 3. See the details, with reference to scholarship, in Goodblatt, “Priestly Ideologies of the Judean Resistance,” pp. 236–9.


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as a priest. But the latter two affiliations were not mutually exclusive.56 The basis for identifying Saddoq as a priest is his name. As Tal Ilan has noted, the name Saddoq resonated with priestly history. According to Ezekiel, Ben Sira, and the Qumran sect, only descendants of Saddoq, the priest of David and Solomon, could be legitimate high priests. And the name of the Sadducee party is generally assumed to be connected with this belief. Yet Saddoq is extremely rare as a personal name. Indeed, Ilan lists only three other instances besides our Saddoq the Pharisee. Of these three, she considers one legendary: the disciple of Antigonos of Sokho mentioned at Avot Derabbi Natan, Version A, 5:2. In this case, the relatively late rabbinic tradition seems to invent eponymous founders for the Sadducees and for the Boethusians. Another case is extremely speculative. This is the suggestion that Saddoq was the personal name of the individual called the “Teacher of Righteousness” in the Qumran texts. It should be noted that the Sadducee party is commonly associated with the priests, and the Teacher of Righteousness is universally assumed to have been a priest. If we leave aside these two very doubtful cases, the only other Saddoq is the one mentioned in rabbinic sources. This is the father of Rabbi Eleazar son of Saddoq, presumably the Rabbi Saddoq of the legends of the destruction of the temple. And the Saddoq of rabbinic literature is believed by many to have been a priest.57 Thus there may be only one other recorded

56

57

Actually very few named individuals are identified as Pharisees in the works of Josephus. Relying on the listings in A. Schalit, Namenwörterbuch zu Flavius Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 1968), p. 122, I counted only seven. Of these, two are definitely priests: Josephus (Life 12) and Yozar (Life 197). Two are definitely not priests: Jonathan and Hanan (Life 197). And one, Simeon son of Gamaliel (Life 191), is most likely not. With regard to the remaining two, there is no clear indication in Josephus: Pollion the Pharisee (AJ 15:3, 370) and Saddoq. Even if we assign Pollion to the nonpriests, we still have one third of the named Pharisees as priests (leaving Saddoq aside). To be sure, the sample is too small to be significant. We could add the data from rabbinic sources on pre-70 masters, believed by many modern scholars to have been Pharisees. However, this material contains so many uncertainties that it would hardly improve the statistical value of our sample. The sources are collected and analyzed in J. Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, 3 Vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1971). See Tal Ilan, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity. Part I, Palestine 330 bce–200 ce (TSAJ 91; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp. 208–9, with literature cited therein. That the Teacher of Righteousness was a priest appears to be stated explicitly at 4Q171 (4QpPsa ) III 15. See John M. Allegro, Qumrân Cave 4, I (4Q158–4Q186) (DJD V; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), p. 44. On the Saddoq of rabbinic literature and his priestly affiliation, see the discussion of A. Hyman, Toldot Tanna’im Ve’amora’im (3 Vols.; London: Express, 1910), Vol. I, pp. 201 –5 [Hebrew], who distinguishes two Rabbi Saddoq’s: one early in the first century and his grandson at the time of the revolt of 66 (cf. the more noncommittal view of S. Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshutah. A Comprehensive Commentary on the Tosefta [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962], Vol. IV, pp. 735–6). The main argument against identifying Rabbi Saddoq as a priest is from a statement attributed to Rabbi Eleazar son of Saddoq at Tosefta Ta’aniyot 3:6, ed. Lieberman, pp. 338–9. The latter seems to assert that the family was of Benjaminite

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instance of the name in Second Temple times, and that other instance was a priest. There is a third possible instance, but it may not be a personal name. According to BJ 2:451, Eleazar son of Hanan sent three men to negotiate the surrender of the besieged Roman garrison in Jerusalem. The three were Gorion son of Nikomedos, Judah son of Jonathan, and ;

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