Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 124, No. 4 (Winter 2005)

Journal of Biblical Literature VOLUME 124, No. 4 Winter 2005 Some Neglected Aspects of Israelite Interment Ideology SA...

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Journal of Biblical Literature VOLUME 124, No. 4

Winter 2005

Some Neglected Aspects of Israelite Interment Ideology SAUL M. OLYAN

601–616

The Birth of the Lemma: The Restrictive Reinterpretation of the Covenant Code’s Manumission Law by the Holiness Code (Leviticus 25:44–46) BERNARD M. LEVINSON

617–639

Questions about Eve’s Iniquity, Beauty, and Fall: The “Primal Figure” in Ezekiel 28:11–19 and Genesis Rabbah Traditions of Eve DAPHNA ARBEL

641–655

Discerning Trajectories: 4QInstruction and the Sapiential Background of the Sayings Source Q MATTHEW J. GOFF

657–673

A Woman’s Unbound Hair in the Greco-Roman World, with Special Reference to the Story of the “Sinful Woman” in Luke 7:36–50 CHARLES H. COSGROVE

675–692

Syntactical and Text-Critical Observations on John 20:30–31: One More Round on the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel D. A. CARSON

693–714

Imitatio Homeri? An Appraisal of Dennis R. MacDonald’s “Mimesis Criticism” KARL OLAV SANDNES

715–732

Psalm 22:17b: A New Guess JAMES R. LINVILLE

733–744

Where Did Noah Place the Blood? A Textual Note on Jubilees 7:4 WILLIAM K. GILDERS

745–749

Book Reviews 751 — Annual Index 795 US ISSN 0021–9231

JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE

SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (Constituent Member of the American Council of Learned Societies) EDITORS OF THE JOURNAL General Editor: GAIL R. O’DAY, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 Book Review Editor: CHRISTINE ROY YODER, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 Associate Book Review Editor: TODD C. PENNER, Austin College, Sherman, TX 75090

EDITORIAL BOARD

Term Expiring 2005: BRIAN K. BLOUNT, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542 TERENCE L. DONALDSON, Wycliffe College, Toronto, ON M5S 1H7 Canada PAMELA EISENBAUM, Iliff School of Theology, Denver, CO 80210 STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211 A. KATHERINE GRIEB, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA 22304 JEFFREY KAH-JIN KUAN, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA 94709 RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 ALAN F. SEGAL, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 GREGORY E. STERLING, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205 2006: THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 PAUL B. DUFF, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 CAROLE R. FONTAINE, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 JUDITH LIEU, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom MARTTI NISSINEN, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Finland KATHLEEN M. O’CONNOR, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 EUNG CHUN PARK, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60645 VINCENT L. WIMBUSH, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711 2007: MOSHE BERNSTEIN, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 JO ANN HACKETT, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 ROBERT KUGLER, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219 TIMOTHY LIM, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 2LX Scotland STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 STEPHEN PATTERSON, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO 63119 EMERSON POWERY, Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37312 ADELE REINHARTZ, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada RICHARD STEINER, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 SZE-KAR WAN, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 Editorial Assistant: Christopher B. Hays, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 President of the Society: Carolyn Osiek, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX 76129; Vice President: Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304; Chair, Research and Publications Committee: James C. VanderKam, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556; Executive Director: Kent H. Richards, Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. The Journal of Biblical Literature (ISSN 0021–9231) is published quarterly. The annual subscription price is US$35.00 for members and US$125.00 for nonmembers. Institutional rates are also available. For information regarding subscriptions and membership, contact: Society of Biblical Literature, Customer Service Department, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333. Phone: 866-727-9955 (toll free) or 404-727-9498. FAX: 404-727-2419. E-mail: [email protected]. For information concerning permission to quote, editorial and business matters, please see the Spring issue, p. 2. The Greek, Hebrew, and transliteration fonts used in this work are available from www.linguistsoftware.com, 425-775-1130. The JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (ISSN 0021– 9231) is published quarterly by the Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. Periodical postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Society of Biblical Literature, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

JBL 124/4 (2005) 601–616

SOME NEGLECTED ASPECTS OF ISRAELITE INTERMENT IDEOLOGY

SAUL M. OLYAN [email protected] Brown University, Providence, RI 02912

Canaanite and Israelite burial practices have been of serious interest to archaeologists and to archaeologically and contextually oriented biblical scholars of late, with significant articles, monographic studies, and essay collections appearing since the early nineties.1 Studies have typically focused on such topics as the classification of types of tombs and the contents of tombs, age/sex interment patterns, and changes in burial practice over time. A few investigators have devoted attention also to aspects of burial ideology. Grave goods have been analyzed for what they might tell us about beliefs in an afterlife or about ancestor cult practices. 2 The relationship of the tomb to Sheol has been explored through analysis of biblical texts in conjunction with material remains.3 But for all this recent interest in burial practices and the ideas that

1 See, e.g., among archaeologists, Elizabeth Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead (JSOTSup 123; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992); Rivka Gonen, Burial Patterns and Cultural Diversity in Late Bronze Age Canaan (ASOR Dissertation Series 7; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992); and the essays in Graves and Burial Practices in Israel in the Ancient Period (in Hebrew; ed. Itamar Singer; Jersualem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi/Israel Exploration Society, 1994), particularly Gabriel Barkay, “Burial Caves and Burial Practices in Judah in the Iron Age” (pp. 96–164). A noteworthy older survey is Ephraim Satran, hrwbq, rbq, Encyclopaedia Biblica (9 vols.; Jerusalem: Bialik, 1950–88), 7:5–24. 2 Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 72–108; Theodore J. Lewis, “How Far Can Texts Take Us? Evaluating Textual Sources for Reconstructing Ancient Israelite Beliefs about the Dead,” in Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (ed. Barry M. Gittlen; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 174, 175–76; Wayne T. Pitard, “Tombs and Offerings: Archaeological Data and Comparative Methodology in the Study of Death in Israel,” in Sacred Time, Sacred Place, 149–50. A brief but useful survey is David Ilan, “Grave Goods,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East (ed. Eric M. Meyers; 5 vols.; New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 2:433–34. 3 E.g., Nicholas J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old

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undergird them, certain aspects of interment ideology remain for the most part unexplored.4 It is my purpose in this article to bring into relief two of these neglected dimensions of Israelite burial ideology. I will begin by reconstructing a rough hierarchy of burial, from most desirable to least, based mainly on the evidence of biblical texts.5 Even a cursory review of biblical descriptions of interment suggests that an honorable burial in the family tomb was clearly the kind of entombment most to be desired, while abandonment of the corpse on the field was the worst possible outcome after death. But between these extremes biblical texts suggest a number of other possibilities: honorable burial in a substitute for the family tomb; honorable burial in someone else’s family tomb; and various forms of dishonorable burial. Drawing on various classes of evidence, I will suggest some possible explanations for why burial in the family tomb was preferable to any other outcome according to many biblical texts. I will then take up the issue of the movement of remains of the previously interred dead, and how such transportation might be viewed as salutary, innocuous, or harmful, depending on the context of the action. I will also consider what concrete effects, if any, lack of burial or hostile transfer of remains from a tomb might have been thought to have on the dead themselves. Though biblical texts are not an unproblematic window into the everyday beliefs and practices of historical Israelites, they are by far our richest resource for reconstructing a hierarchy of burial.6 They are also of importance when considering

Testament (BO 21; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969), 139–40; Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Culture (2 vols.; London: Humphrey Milford; Copenhagen: Povl Branner, 1926), 1:460–63. A number of scholars draw on both biblical representations of burial and material evidence to reconstruct interment ideas and practices. See, e.g., Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices; Barkay, “Burial Caves and Burial Practices,” and recently, Lewis, who argues for an approach that draws upon both material and biblical sources (“How Far Can Texts Take Us?”). See also Pitard’s characterization of eclectic scholarship, which utilizes a variety of data (“Tombs and Offerings,” 146–47), and Ron Tappy’s thoughtful discussion of the challenges inherent in using both biblical and material evidence (“Did the Dead Ever Die in Biblical Judah?” BASOR 298 [1995]: 65). 4 A full treatment of interment ideology that recognizes as much as possible regional/local and diachronic variation and draws on both material remains and texts, is still a desideratum for those who study death ways in ancient Israel. Obviously, when I speak of an Israelite interment ideology, I do not mean to suggest that a single, uniform set of ideas about burial was common to all Israelites through time and space; that the contrary was the case is suggested both by material evidence and by texts. 5 Nonliterary material evidence is, in the main, not particularly helpful for reconstructing this specific aspect of burial ideology, though it is crucial for reconstructing other aspects, as noted above. 6 On the limited utility of the biblical text as a source for reconstructing religious belief and practice, see Saul M. Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton/London: Princeton University Press, 2000), 13–14. Unfortunately, extant biblical evidence of interment lends itself neither to the development of a diachronic perspective nor to uncovering local or regional differences in burial ideology. Thus, for a biblically dependent aspect of burial ide-

Olyan: Israelite Interment Ideology

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the range of possible meanings associated with moving the remains of the dead, and so they will be used here, in conjunction with epigraphic and other material evidence, with appropriate caution.7

I A hierarchy of burial types, from most desirable to least, may be reconstructed in rough outline from the various biblical texts that speak of entombment. I have identified five distinct ways in which a corpse might be treated after death. The first is honorable burial in the family tomb. This is clearly the outcome most to be desired for oneself or one’s family and friends. It is open to all persons, without regard to how the individual has died or the condition of the corpse.8 Texts suggest that burial in the family tomb is so important that male kin or others bound to the deceased by formal ties will expend great effort to transport the corpse to the family tomb, even if the death occurs at a distance.9 When David’s nephew Asahel dies in battle at Gibeon, David and Asahel’s brothers bring the body to the family tomb in Bethlehem (2 Sam 2:32). Similarly, the corpse of King Ahaziah of Judah, who had been killed by Jehu’s order, is conducted by his servants from Megiddo to Jerusalem for burial (2 Kgs 9:28), as is that of King Josiah by his servants after he is killed by Necho of Egypt (2 Kgs 23:30). In a fourth example, Samson’s brothers and other male kin bring his mutilated corpse up from Gaza to the family tomb in Danite territory

ology such as hierarchy of interment, only a rough reconstruction lacking local/regional and diachronic nuance is possible. 7 On the use of biblical evidence along with epigraphic data, nonliterary material evidence, and comparative data from surrounding cultures to reconstruct Israelite belief and practice with respect to burial and other aspects of death and the afterlife, see especially the balanced and helpful recent discussions of Lewis, “How Far Can Texts Take Us?” and Pitard, “Tombs and Offerings.” 8 Suicides, those who die in battle, and those who are executed are buried in the family tomb as readily as those who die of natural causes according to biblical texts (see, e.g., 2 Sam 17:23; 2:32; 1 Kgs 2:34). Likewise, mutilated corpses may be so buried (Judg 16:21, 31; cf. 2 Sam 4:12, where Eshbaal’s head is buried in the Saulide branch tomb in Hebron). On the material evidence for the interment of decapitated bodies and skulls, see Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 71. On suicide in biblical narrative, see Ludwig Wächter, Der Tod im Alten Testament (AzTh 8; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1967), 89–97. 9 On the burial responsibilities of the son and other male kin, see Gen 49:29–31; 50:5–6; Judg 16:31. On the obligations of non-kin bound by a formal relationship to the deceased to bury the deceased, see 2 Kgs 9:28. In 2 Sam 2:5, David describes the burial of Saul and his sons by the men of Jabesh Gilead as an act of covenant loyalty (dsj) performed by the Jabeshites for their lord Saul. The Jabeshites, however, do not inter Saul and his sons in their family tomb in Benjamin, but bury them with appropriate honors in Jabesh (e.g., the text mentions that they fasted for seven days).

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(Judg 16:31). The same behavior is represented in P’s ancestral narrative. There, Jacob charges his sons to bury him in the family tomb in Canaan, along with his male and female ancestors: “I am about to be gathered to my people. Bury me with my ancestors, in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is by Mamre, in the land of Canaan, the field that Abraham acquired from Ephron the Hittite as a tomb site. There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah” (Gen 49:29–31).10 Joseph and his brothers fulfill their father’s wish, transporting his corpse from Egypt to Canaan for interment (Gen 50:13). The desire to be buried in the family tomb may shape economically significant personal decisions, as 2 Sam 19:38 illustrates. There, Barzillay the Gileadite, David’s loyal servant, refuses the king’s offer of a pension in Jerusalem with the excuse that he is old and wants to die in his city near his parents’ tomb, presumably to guarantee that he will be buried in it.11 Not to be buried in the family tomb is cast as a punishment by various texts. The disobedient man of God from Judah who eats and drinks in Bethel is told in an oracle of YHWH that as a result of his rebellion, his corpse will not be buried in the family tomb (1 Kgs 13:22). Similarly, the Chronicler makes a point of noting that sinful kings of Judah such as Jehoram, Joash, and Ahaz were not buried in the tomb of the kings in Jerusalem (2 Chr 21:20; 24:25; 28:27), in contrast to favored rulers such as Jehoshaphat and Josiah (2 Chr 21:1; 35:24). The ideal burial takes place in the family tomb and honors the dead through appropriate disposition of the body and the performance of mourning. Idioms of honor (e.g., verbal forms of the root dbk) are sometimes used to describe such rites (2 Sam 10:3; 2 Chr 32:33; Sir 38:17; cf. Isa 14:18). After burial in the family tomb, honorable interment in a substitute for the family tomb seems to be most desirable according to our texts. We learn of such arrangements in several texts. When Saul’s kinsman and military commander Abner is murdered by David’s nephew Joab, David embraces the role of lead mourner in the absence of Abner’s male kin and buries Abner with honors in a tomb in Hebron: “Then David said to Joab and to all the people who were with him: ‘Tear your garments, put on sackcloth, and lament before Abner.’ As for King David, he walked behind the bier, and they buried Abner in Hebron. The king lifted up his voice and wept toward the tomb of Abner, and all the people wept. The king sang a dirge about Abner . . .” (2 Sam 3:31–32). Abner’s tomb, though it is not located in Benjamin and has no connection to Abner’s family’s

10

All translations in this article are my own. LXXL kai tafhsomai en suggests a Hebrew Vorlage with b rbqaw, “that I might be buried in,” as noted by P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary (AB 9; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 418n. 11


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patrimonial landholding (hljn), effectively becomes a branch of the family tomb when the head of the murdered Eshbaal, son of Saul, is buried there sometime later by David, who executes the murderers who had brought him Eshbaal’s severed head (2 Sam 4:12).12 The burial of Eshbaal’s head in Abner’s tomb suggests that it is desirable that the remains of kin be together in death, even if they are separated physically from the family tomb and patrimony. Other examples of the creation of a branch of a family tomb at a distance from the patrimony include the burial of Saul and his sons together under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh-Gilead (1 Sam 31:13) and the establishment of a royal tomb for David and his descendants in the City of David at the time of David’s death (1 Kgs 2:10). Northern kings follow the same pattern of burial in the capital city according to several texts (e.g., 1 Kgs 16:6, 28). That the honorable burial of Saul and his sons in Jabesh is clearly less desirable than their interment in the family tomb in Benjamin is indicated by 2 Sam 21:12, where David’s apologists, attempting to portray him in the best possible light, present him moving the bones of Saul and Jonathan from Jabesh to the family tomb in Benjamin.13 The royal tombs in Jerusalem and the northern capitals Tirzah and Samaria may be an exception to the pattern of family tomb priority evident in the story of the movement of Saul’s and Jonathan’s bones. After all, capitals such as Jerusalem and Samaria were royal landholdings, purchased or conquered by royal predecessors. Therefore, kings were buried on their own lands, rather than those of another, as was the case with Saul and his sons.14 When their descendants died, they would be buried with them.15 Thus, in a number of respects, the royal tomb would come to resemble the family tomb. A third type of honorable burial is attested in 1 Kgs 13:30, a text that describes the interment of the disobedient man of God in someone else’s family tomb after his violent death. YHWH had already informed the man of God through his host, the old prophet, that his corpse would not be buried in his family tomb in Judah (1 Kgs 13:22). After the man of God is killed by a lion in the countryside, the old prophet retrieves the corpse and brings it back to Bethel for burial with honors in his own family tomb: “He went and found his 12 On the probable location of the family tomb on or near the family’s landholding, see Lawrence E. Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985): 23; Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 115, 148; and recently J. David Schloen, The House of the Father as Fact and Symbol: Patrimonialism in Ugarit and the Ancient Near East (Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant 2; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001), 346–47. Hanan Brichto brought into relief the link of tomb and inalienable patrimony (“Kin, Cult, Land and Afterlife—A Biblical Complex,” HUCA 44 [1973]: 1–54). 13 On the apologetic casting of this narrative, see McCarter, II Samuel, 445–46. 14 Note, however, that these lands acquired by rulers were not the equivalent of the family patrimony. 15 Certainly their successors would be buried in the royal tombs, if not other kin as well.

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corpse cast in the road. . . .The prophet lifted up the corpse of the man of God and laid it to rest on the ass, and brought it back to the city in order to lament [him] and to bury him. He laid the corpse to rest in his own tomb, and they lamented over him, ‘Woe, my brother’” (1 Kgs 13:28–30). As honorable as the funerary rites described clearly are, the man of God’s burial in the family tomb of the old prophet in Bethel is, nonetheless, inferior to interment in the family tomb according to this text, since it is the denial of burial in his own family tomb that constitutes the man of God’s punishment from YHWH. This burial type differs from interment in a substitute or branch of the family tomb in that the tomb in question here belongs to another family, the outsider is simply added to the family dead buried there, and (presumably), none of his own kin are buried there with him. Dishonorable forms of interment constitute a fourth burial category, inferior to all types of honorable burial, but evidently preferable to nonburial. In 2 Sam 18:17, David’s rebel son Absalom, who was killed by David’s servants, is cast (^l`, hiphil) by them into a pit in the forest, after which his corpse is piled over with stones. Several other texts from the Deuteronomistic History describe similar interment rites for dead enemies or covenant violators. In Josh 8:29, the king of Ai is hanged on a tree until evening; then his corpse is brought down and thrown (^l`, hiphil) at the opening of the city gate, where it is piled over with stones. Similarly, the corpses of five Canaanite kings are hanged for a day and then thrown (^l`, hiphil) into a cave that is sealed by a pile of large stones (Josh 10:26–27).16 There is also the narrative of the execution of Achan and his dependents after his violation of the rules of holy war. They are stoned, burned, and piled over with stones (Josh 7:25–26). Uriah the prophet’s corpse is cast (^l`, hiphil) into the “tombs of the people” after his execution by King Jehoiakim (Jer 26:23).17 King Jehoiakim himself will not be lamented at his death according to YHWH’s oracle in Jer 22:18–19; instead, “in the grave of an ass he will be buried, dragged (bjs) and cast (^l`, hiphil) outside the gates of Jerusalem.” Finally, the corpses of the northern pilgrims murdered by Ishmael ben Netanyah are cast (^l`, hiphil) into a cistern in Mizpah, apparently without any burial or mourning rites (Jer 41:9). Aside from the absence of conventional funerary honors and rites of mourning, these dishonorable forms of burial have several common characteristics. First, most of these texts speak of the corpse being thrown (^l`, hiphil) into the burial place, clearly a ritual act of disrespect and disregard; it is an act 16 In both Josh 8:29 and 10:26–27, the narrative shows Joshua and Israel following the law of Deut 21:22–23, which mandates the execution of a sinner and the hanging of his corpse on a tree until sundown, after which the corpse must be buried. 17 The expression ![h ynb yrbq occurs only one other time, in 2 Kgs 23:6. It is unclear exactly how these tombs would have differed from the tombs of the elite.


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specifically associated with animal burials in Jer 22:19.18 This is to be contrasted with use of the verb jwn in the hiphil (“to set at rest”), an idiom used several times in one narrative of honorable interment for the treatment of the corpse (1 Kgs 13:30).19 Several texts speak of the casting of stone piles over the corpses of dead enemies or rebels, evidently a dishonorable rite of burial. In addition, the burial places themselves appear to be dishonoring to different degrees. An ass’s grave—whatever this might have been—is presumably more dishonoring than a nonelite tomb, a forest pit, or a cistern. All must have been viewed as inferior to the family tomb and its honorable substitutes. Finally, the least desirable treatment of the corpse is not to bury it at all. Nonburial is a paradigmatic curse in treaty contexts: “Your corpse shall be food for all the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth, with none to bury” (Deut 28:26).20 One text speaks of the throwing of the exposed corpse onto a field of symbolic significance, using language (^l`, hiphil) that is similar to that of many narratives of dishonorable burial (2 Kgs 9:25). Descriptions of nonburial frequently include the notation that the dead will not be mourned or lamented and that the corpse will be mutilated by fowl and beasts. Jeremiah 16:4 is typical of such texts: “They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. Like dung upon the surface of the ground they shall be. . . . Their corpse shall become food for the birds of the heavens and for the beasts of the earth.” Though a lack of lamentation is characteristic also of biblical representations of dishonorable burial, mutilation of the corpse by birds and beasts is a uniquely horrible characteristic of nonburial, emphasized in many of its biblical and extrabiblical descriptions. While enemies expose the corpse to the depredations of beasts and fowl (Ps 79:2), family, friends, and allies do what they can to prevent mutilation (2 Sam 21:10) or at least to mitigate some of its damage through appropriate interment and mourning rites (e.g., 1 Sam 31:8–13). Why was burial in the family tomb more desirable for the corpse than any other outcome according to biblical texts? Descriptions of such interment are often accompanied by idioms such as “to be gathered to/come to/lie down with one’s ancestors/people,” suggesting that burial in the family tomb was thought 18 The act of dragging (bjs) the corpse in Jer 22:19 ought also to be understood as dishonoring. It is elsewhere associated with the behavior of dogs toward unprotected, exposed corpses (Jer 15:3). 19 See 2 Kgs 23:18, where Josiah commands that the interred bones of the man of God who prophesied Bethel’s destruction be left at rest: wytmx[ [ny la `ya wl wjynh. Not surprisingly, the verb jwn and derivatives such as the noun tjn, “repose,” are also used of the repose of the dead. See, e.g., Qoh 6:5; KAI 34:5; 35:2. 20 See similarly Esarhaddon’s succession treaty in Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, NeoAssyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAA 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988), 49 (6:481– 84).

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to bring the deceased into some kind of proximity with dead kin.21 Was this simply a physical proximity (i.e., the bones of the deceased end up with the bones of other dead kin, as tombs seem to indicate),22 or do these idioms suggest something about the nature of the deceased’s afterlife? This is not a question that can be answered definitively given the evidence that survives, though I suspect that idioms of proximity to the ancestors are intended to suggest something about familial social relations in the afterlife.23 Even if my surmise is correct, it is not clear from surviving texts what exactly the nature of the relationship with the ancestors might have been for one who was buried in the family tomb, nor how that relationship might have differed with a different kind of burial (e.g., burial elsewhere, or no burial at all). We simply do not know enough about the familial dimensions of the Israelite afterlife to say very much 21 For examples of each of these expressions, often used in narratives describing a death followed by burial in the family or royal tomb, see Gen 15:15 (^ytba la awbt htaw); 25:8 (la #sayw wym[); 2 Kgs 20:21 (wytba ![ whyqzj bk`yw); 22:20 (^ytba l[ ^psa ynnh). See also Tromp’s discussion of two such idioms (Primitive Conceptions of Death, 168–71). Tromp, following B. Alfrink, believes that the P idiom wym[ la #san means that the deceased has joined dead kin in the underworld; in contrast, following G. R. Driver, he argues that the Deuteronomistic expression wytba ![ bk` means that he has died “a customary, usual death.” Wächter argues that both expressions originally meant burial in the family tomb (Tod im Alten Testament, 72). It seems unlikely to me that these expressions have a different sense, given their similarity in form and usage. Whatever their exact meaning, they speak of the recently deceased joining dead kin in some manner, whether physically or in spirit. For further discussion, see Karl-Johan Illman, Old Testament Formulas about Death (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1979), 43– 45. 22 On secondary burial in Judean family tombs, see the discussion of Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 36–37, 42– 43, with citations, and the older general survey of Eric Meyers, “Secondary Burials in Palestine,” BA 33 (1970): 2–29, esp. 10–17. Like most commentators, I assume that these tombs are for lineages, though this has not been proved (for the assumption, see, e.g., Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 148; Byron R. McCane, “Burial Techniques,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East, 1:386). 23 Though these idioms occur in narratives of burial in the family tomb (e.g., Gen 25:8), it must be acknowledged that this is not exclusively the case (e.g., Deut 31:16; 32:50). Therefore, it seems unlikely that physical proximity is at issue when these idioms are used. That the afterlife has social dimensions is indicated by a variety of West Asian (including biblical) texts. In Isa 14:9–10, dead kings in the underworld receive and converse with the “King of Babylon,” apparently while the music of his funeral still plays above (^ylbn tymh ^nwag lwa` drwh). See also the various descriptions of the interactions of the underworld’s denizens in texts such as “Ishtar’s Descent to the Netherworld” (Riekele Borger, Babylonisch-assyrische Lesestücke [2nd ed.; AO 54; 2 vols.; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1979], 1:95–104); “Nergal and Ereshkigal” (Hermann Hunger, Spätbabylonische Texte aus Uruk [3 vols.; Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1976], 1:17–18); and the Gilgamesh epic (Andrew R. George, The Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic: Introduction, Critical Edition and Cuneiform Texts [2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003], 1:634– 46 [tablet VII]; 728–34 [tablet XII]). Ruth 1:17 may suggest that burial together in the same tomb means no separation of spirits in death. As noted previously, idioms such as –tba ![ bk` and –m[ la #san, used of the deceased even when not buried in the family tomb, must suggest something other than simple physical proximity of remains with those of dead kin.


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about this issue.24 Nor do we know much about Israelite ancestral cult practices, though I believe there is sufficient evidence to assume that some combination of feeding and memorializing rites were routine after burial among at least some Israelites, perhaps at the locus of the tomb, perhaps with some regularity.25 It may well be that the importance of burial in the family tomb, evi24 Some West Asian texts, including biblical materials, suggest that aspects of the social relations of the dead in the underworld mirrored life. E.g., dead kings sit on thrones in Sheol (Isa 14:9); dead warriors descend there with their weapons (Ezek 32:27). But note other passages that seem to suggest that status in life might be lost in the afterlife (e.g., Enkidu’s dream of his death and descent to the underworld in the Gilgamesh Epic, where he sees princes transformed into servants). 25 For memorializing the dead, see 2 Sam 18:18, which suggests that it was routine for a son, after his father’s death, to set up a pillar and invoke the father’s name. However, the text neither indicates how often such invocation might have taken place, nor whether it took place at the locus of the tomb. For feeding the dead, see Deut 26:14; Tob 4:17; and Sir 30:18. The latter two—admittedly late—texts specify the tomb as the locus for delivery of food to the deceased. There is much archaeological evidence that may bear on the question of ancestral rites for the dead at the tomb. Remains of food, oil lamps, cooking pots, bowls, and other articles that might have been tied to such rites have been found in various kinds of tombs, and some of these items have even been found in individual burials (e.g., Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices, 72–81, 105–8). It is possible that some or all of these things were placed with the corpse at the time of interment, as items found with individual burials suggest; but it is also possible that food (and other?) items were deposited as offerings, possibly at intervals, later on. In any case, it seems likely that at least some of these items were intended for the dead to use or consume in the afterlife. On the interpretation of grave goods, see further the works cited in n. 2. Some cuneiform texts suggest that the place of buried remains is the locus for ancestral rites. See, e.g., Ashurbanipal’s assumption that removal of the bones of the kings of Elam from their tombs and their transportation to Assyria would result in termination of their ancestral rites (kispÈµ naµq mê uzammešunuµti; for the text, see Maximilian Streck, ed., Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh’s [3 vols.; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1916], 2:56 [lines 74–76]). Note that other Mesopotamian materials do not presume that such rites necessarily occurred at the place of burial. Frequently, the home is assumed to be the primary locus, even without evidence of intramural burial (on this, see the discussion of Karel van der Toorn, Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria & Israel [Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1996], 58–62). An older but still useful survey of the cuneiform evidence is Miranda Bayliss, “The Cult of Dead Kin in Assyria and Babylonia,” Iraq 35 (1973), 115–25; she summarizes evidence for both the royal and nonroyal cults. In the West Semitic cultural sphere (including Israel), ancestral rites may have occurred in local shrines as well as at the tomb (van der Toorn, Family Religion, 217–18; van der Toorn cites texts such as KAI 214:17–18 and KTU 1.17 I 25–33 to support his argument for ancestral rites at local sanctuaries in the West Semitic cultural sphere). On the Israelite and Ugaritic evidence pertaining to such cults, see especially Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit (HSM 39; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) and more recently, “How Far Can Texts Take Us?” 186–205. Like most specialists, I understand acts such as providing the dead with food and invoking their names to constitute ancestor veneration, which itself may assume that the dead can act as benefactors or enemies of the living, depending on how well they are treated (contrast Brian B. Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996], 10, who argues that feeding the dead assumes that they are weak rather than powerful, and so unable to affect the living). I note, however, that Israelite (including biblical) evidence for the abil-

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denced in a variety of texts, is directly related to the need to perpetuate the relationship of the deceased with kin both living and dead. It is possible that interment in the family tomb was necessary in order to allow living relations to perform ancestral rites at (regular?) intervals, given the proximity of the family tomb to the kin group and their patrimonial landholding (hljn).26 Likewise, as noted, such burial might have been required for the deceased to have uninhibited social relations with other family dead in the underworld. Other forms of honorable burial might have been less desirable because they simply could not provide the advantages of interment in the family tomb. Burial in a substitute for the family tomb, located away from the family’s property holding, might have allowed for social interaction of dead family members interred together in the afterlife if more than one family member was buried there (e.g., Abner and Eshbaal), though interactions with other dead kin buried in the family tomb might have been inhibited in some way. In addition, regular ancestral cult observances at the tomb by surviving kin would be difficult to guarantee in such a situation if kin remained settled at a distance. As for a deceased person buried in another family’s tomb, we do not know what kind of social interactions with his own kin he might have had in the afterlife, nor do we know whether he would have received any ancestral offerings from the surviving kin of the family in whose tomb he was buried.27 As with the deceased person buried in a substitute for the family tomb, it would be difficult for his own kin to perform regular ancestral cultic rites for him at the tomb, given their physical separation from it. In short, the reasons for the family tomb’s importance vis-à-vis other forms of entombment remain unclear, though some reasonable speculation is possible regarding the potential role of ancestral rites at the tomb and the social needs of the dead in the underworld in making burial in the family tomb such a priority for the dead and their survivors. But even here, we are frustrated by our ignorance, for we cannot say whether ancestral rites necessarily had to take place at the locus of burial, we do not know how frequently they occurred, nor do we know anything about how burial itself affected familial relations in the afterlife, if at all. Given the possible kin-related explanations for the importance of burial in the family tomb, we can now ask why lack of burial is cast as the worst possible ity of the dead to act beneficently or malevolently is lacking, though such data are well attested in surrounding cultures (see, e.g., Lewis, “How Far Can Texts Take Us?” 191–94, who notes examples from Egypt and Mesopotamia). 26 On the relationship of the patrimony to the family tomb, see the literature cited in n. 12. 27 Cuneiform sources bear witness to offerings by non-kin to unrelated, troublesome spirits; such offerings were apparently initiated because of the spirits’ hostility (see Bayliss, “Cult of Dead Kin,” 119).


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outcome after death. As with dishonorable forms of burial and even individual honorable interment outside of the family tomb, lack of burial meant that the remains of the dead would never share physical proximity with those of other deceased kin. It is possible that it inhibited contact with dead kin in the afterlife, though this must remain uncertain, given our poor understanding of the familial dimensions of the Israelite afterlife. In addition, unburied remains might have proved to be an impediment for ancestral rites if such rites were required at the locus of the deceased’s remains (normally, the tomb). In contrast to all buried remains, including those interred dishonorably, unburied corpses were subject to mutilation by birds and animals, which was certainly a source of dishonor to the dead and their survivors, and may have also affected the afterlife of the dead in some way, though this too remains uncertain.28 There were probably other singular features of lack of burial that made it uniquely unappealing as an outcome after death. It is possible that at least some Israelites viewed lack of burial as an impediment to the spirit’s rest in the afterlife.29 This idea is attested in cuneiform texts, as is well known. Gilgamesh 12.151 describes the fate of the spirit of the uninterred: “His ghost is not at rest in the underworld” (et\emmašu ina ers\etim ul s\alil).30 Ashurbanipal claims to have imposed a lack of repose on the spirits of the kings of Elam by destroying their tombs and removing their remains to Assyria (et\emmeµšunu laµ s\alaµlu eµmid).31 The same idea is present in a curse in Esarhaddon’s succession treaty.32 One cannot prove that this notion of an unsettled afterlife for the unburied was current in Israel, though it would help us to make sense of the deep and abiding concern attested in many texts to bury one’s own dead and the role of exposure of the corpse on the field as a paradigmatic curse in treaty contexts.33 28 The dead in the underworld may have retained their appearance at the point of death. On this, see the medium’s description of Samuel’s ascending ghost in 1 Sam 28:14 as an old man wrapped in a robe. On spirits in the underworld with the appearance of physical mutilation, cf. Vergil, Aeneid 6.494–99. 29 Brichto seems sure that Israelites believed that the afterlife is negatively affected by lack of burial (“Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife,” 36–37). Unhappily, extant evidence does not recommend such confidence. 30 George, Babylonian Gilgamesh Epic, 734. 31 See Streck, ed., Assurbanipal, 2:54, 56 (lines 70–75). 32 Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, 57 (6:638–40). 33 This interpretation of the significance of nonburial has been rejected by some, who cite texts such as Gen 37:35, where Jacob, mourning for Joseph who he assumes is dead and unburied, speaks of him as if he were in Sheol (hla` lba ynb la dra yk; for this view, see, e.g., Samuel E. Loewenstamm, twm, Encyclopaedia Biblica, 4:758 and Moshe Greenberg, Ezekiel 21-37: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 22A; New York: Doubleday, 1997] 670). Although some Israelite circles may have believed that burial was not a necessity for a settled afterlife, a view perhaps reflected in Gen 37:35, other groups might well have had the opposite view, as I have suggested. From a comparative perspective, it is interesting to note that Homer bears wit-

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Journal of Biblical Literature II

The movement of the remains of previously interred dead is the second neglected aspect of burial ideology that I would like to consider. There is textual evidence that transportation of remains may be viewed as a salutary, fully legitimate deed, as an innocuous action, or as an act of great hostility, depending on who is moving the remains and for what purpose. I would like to identify contexts in which such movement might be positively understood, contexts in which it might be seen as having no particular significance, and contexts in which it might be negatively understood. I will also consider the possible effects transfer of remains might have had on the dead themselves. It is clear that the remains of the interred dead could be moved legitimately in certain contexts by certain persons. Texts tell of the sanctioned removal of remains from one tomb to another, and material evidence attests to (apparently) legitimate movement of bones within a tomb. 2 Samuel 21:13–14 is the best biblical example of the salutary transfer of remains of the interred dead from one tomb to another. In this narrative of David’s apologists, the execution of surviving Saulides by the Gibeonites, made possible by David’s active cooperation, is cast as a necessary remedy to a three-year-long famine in the land brought on by Saul’s earlier act of oath breaking.34 For our purposes, what is significant in the story is what David does with the bones of Saul and Jonathan. After seven surviving Saulides are executed by the Gibeonites, David collects the bones of Saul and Jonathan from the elders of Jabesh-Gilead and has them transported to the family tomb in Benjamin, where they are buried, along with the remains of the Gibeonites’ victims. Given the apologetic agenda of the narrative, there can be no doubt that David’s transfer of the bones of Saul and Jonathan was intended by the author to be taken as a positive act and even an act of loyalty, not unlike his efforts to have the executed Saulides interred in their family tomb.35 As mentioned earlier, the narrative is also suggesting indirectly that honorable burial in the family tomb is a superior outcome to honorable burial in a substitute for the family tomb, possibly for reasons having to do with ancestral cult observances and the social dimensions of the afterlife. Regular ancestral observances at the site of the remains by living members of the kin group would certainly have been made possible by the transfer of Saul’s and ness to the idea that the corpse must receive burial in order for the spirit of the dead to enter the underworld (Iliad 23.82). 34 See McCarter, II Samuel, 444–46, with citations, on the apologetic cast of this narrative and its covenantal dimensions. On the type of execution described by causative of the verb [qy (![yqyw, !y[qwmh), see McCarter’s note on p. 442 and Robert Polzin, “HWQY> and Covenantal Institutions in Israel,” HTR 62 (1969): 227–40. 35 See McCarter, II Samuel, 445.


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Jonathan’s remains to their family tomb. Perhaps such a change of locus would have improved the afterlife of Saul and Jonathan, though this must remain uncertain. In short, David’s acts as narrated in 2 Samuel 21 may have been intended to bring concrete benefits to the dead as well as make him look good and further distance him from the execution of the seven Saulides. A second example of the sanctioned movement of the remains of the interred dead is the kind of secondary disposition of bones observed in various Judean tombs from the Iron Age.36 In this case, remains are moved to a different location within a tomb, in contrast to their transfer from one tomb to another, as in 2 Samuel 21. Typically, bones in a bench or cave tomb are moved away from the locus of primary interment to another location within the tomb (e.g., under the bench or at the back or sides of the cave). Since such removal represents a fairly widespread pattern, it seems very likely that it was viewed as a legitimate act that did no harm to the dead; perhaps when it was performed with care, it was even beneficial for them in some way we do not understand. Practically speaking, it was necessary to make room for new burials.37 Those transporting the remains of the dead were very likely surviving kin, though we can only guess about this, given the nature of the evidence. It is possible that such removal of bones within the tomb was a typical familial responsibility, not unlike ancestral rites such as invoking the name of the dead or providing food offerings. Along with these examples of sanctioned and even salutary movement of remains by family and friends are cases of transfer understood as hostile acts. Jeremiah 8:1–2 prophesies the future removal of the bones of Judean leaders from their tombs as a punishment: “On that day,” oracle of YHWH, “they shall bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, and the bones of its princes, and the bones of the priests, and the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the dwellers of Jerusalem from their tombs. And they shall spread them before the sun, the moon, and all the host of heaven whom they loved and whom they served, and after whom they went, and whom they sought, and to whom they bowed down. They shall not be gathered, nor shall they be buried; they shall be like dung on the surface of the ground.”

The honorably interred elite dead of Judah shall be reduced to the status of the unburied through the exhumation and spreading of their remains outside of the tomb. This, according to the text, is a fitting punishment for their worship of 36

On this, see the citations in n. 22. Meyers notes the oddness of Judean secondary burials in light of evident concerns that the dead not be disturbed. He does not believe that moving bones in the tomb was a “harsh” act , “since emphasis is on joining one’s fathers in the very same grave” (“Secondary Burials,” 2, 15, 17). Careful secondary disposition was likely not understood as disturbing to the dead. 37

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gods other than YHWH. Isaiah 14:19–20 is similar in thrust. In this text, the previously interred “King of Babylon” shall be cast out of his tomb (tkl`h htaw ^rbqm); separated from other buried kings, he shall be like an unburied, trampled corpse, because of his acts of violence against his own people. As with Jer 8:1–2, the removal of honorably interred remains without their reburial is a hostile act understood as a punishment for dead offenders. Both texts use expressions of dishonor for the dead whose fate it is to be stripped of an honorable burial by their enemies (e.g., b[tn rxn, “an abominated shoot,” or l[ @md hmdah ynp, “dung on the surface of the ground”). As with other passages that narrate dishonorable burials, a form of the verb ^l` (passive in this instance) is used in Isa 14:19, this time to describe the act of hostile, dishonoring removal of remains from the tomb.38 A concern to protect the interred remains of the dead from unwelcome disturbance and hostile transfer by tomb robbers or enemies is widely attested in burial inscriptions from a variety of locales in West Asia, including Judah. Burial epigraphs often include a statement that there are no valuables with the dead and a warning to would be tomb robbers or others not to enter the tomb, or disturb or remove the remains of the dead. Formulaic curses typically reinforce the warnings. The fragmentary Royal Steward inscription (KAI 191), from Silwan, near Jerusalem, is not atypical of this genre.39 Dated to about 700 B.C.E. on paleographic grounds, the text, inscribed on the lintel of the tomb, reads as follows: This is [the tomb of ]yahu who was over the house. There is no silver or gold here. Only [his bones] and the bones of his female slave with him. Cursed be the person who will open this.

tmx[w [htmx[] !a yk [2] bhzw #sk hp @ya tybh l[ rà why[. . . trbq] taz taz ta jtpy [3] rà !dah rwra hta htma.40 To this Judean epigraph one might compare similar Phoenician or Aramaic burial inscriptions on sarcophagi or tombs from the first millennium which 38 I cannot agree with those scholars (e.g., Brichto, “Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife,” 25) who view the king as never having been buried. The text seems to suggest rather that his burial was reversed; that ultimately he was unburied, becoming like those never buried (e.g., sbwm rgp). The expression ^rbqm tkl`h htaw, “As for you, you have been cast out from your tomb,” suggests this rather than the idea that the king was never buried. Cf. the similar use of the hiphil of ^l` with @m in Lam 2:1 (lar`y trapt $ra !ym`m ^yl`h) and Ps 22:11 (!jrm ytkl`h ^yl[), suggesting removal from one locus to another. On this, see further my article “Was the ‘King of Babylon’ Buried before His Corpse Was Exposed? Some Thoughts on Isa 14,19,” forthcoming in ZAW. 39 On this inscription, see Nahman Avigad, “The Epitaph of a Royal Steward from Siloam Village,” IEJ 3 (1953): 137–52. 40 For the most part, my restorations follow Avigad’s sensible suggestions (“Epitaph,” 143). On issues of paleography and dating, see ibid., 149–50.


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claim that no precious metals are present with the deceased and which curse anyone who might enter the tomb or open the sarcophagus illegitimately (e.g., KAI 13:3–8; 14:4–12, 20–22; 226:6–10; cf. KAI 1:2, which contains only the curses on those who would open the sarcophagus).41 Some of these inscriptions also curse those who would remove the remains of the dead to another place (KAI 14:5–6, 7–12; 226:8–10). The curses in such inscriptions include the death of the invader’s children, lack of burial for him, and no resting place for him among the dead. Inscriptions speak of illegitimate or hostile entry resulting in the disturbance of the dead (zgr, e.g., KAI 13:4, 6, 7), suggesting that the repose of the spirit in the underworld might be affected by unwelcome interference with physical remains and the place of burial.42 Clearly, transfer of the remains of the dead could be understood positively, neutrally, or negatively depending on who is doing the moving and why. Kin, friends, and allies may move bones or other remains if the intent is to benefit the dead in some way or at least not to harm them. Remains may be transported to a different tomb and reburied if the new burial improves on the original interment (2 Samuel 21). Bones may be collected and moved within a tomb, presumably by kin, to make room for new burials. It is possible that careful transportation of remains within the tomb was understood to benefit the dead, though this must remain uncertain. In any case, it seems unlikely that it did any harm to them, given the extent of the practice. Tomb robbers and enemies, on the other hand, were not welcome to enter the tomb, and warnings and curses in tomb epigraphs were meant to keep them out. They could dishonor the dead by removing honorably buried remains from the tomb and leaving them unburied. Worse, it is possible that their actions affected the afterlife of the dead in negative ways. Just as a lack of burial might have had concrete effects on the afterlife of the dead, so, too, might the hostile invasion of a tomb or the exhuming of its remains. Removal of remains could have resulted in the termination of ancestral rites and possibly the disruption of familial relations in the afterlife. Also, the spirit of the dead could have been made restless in some way as a result of exhuming remains. Two neglected aspects of Israelite interment ideology have been the focus of this investigation: hierarchy of types of burial and the range of meanings associated with moving the remains of the previously interred dead. A rough hierarchy of burial types, from best to worst, may be reconstructed on the basis of biblical texts. While honorable burial in the family tomb is most desirable and abandonment of the corpse to fowl and beasts is the worst possible outcome after death, a range of other possibilities, some clearly more attractive 41

Many scholars have noted these parallels. Forms of the same verb are used of disturbing or rousing the dead in the underworld in a number of biblical texts (e.g., 1 Sam 28:15; Isa 14:9). 42

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than others, emerges from a review of pertinent evidence (honorable burial in a substitute for the family tomb; honorable burial in someone else’s family tomb; various types of dishonorable burial). The reasons for the desirability of interment in the family tomb remain unclear; it is possible, however, that such burial was required for the dead to interact in an uninhibited way with dead kin in the afterlife and for ancestral rites from living kin to take place at (regular?) intervals at the site of the remains of the dead. Lack of burial would have dishonored the dead and may also have inhibited the performance of ancestral rites by living kin; in addition, it may have interfered with the relations of the dead with kin in the underworld. As for the movement of the remains of the entombed dead, it is clear that the meaning of such action is determined wholly by its context. Transportation of bones may be understood as a salutary deed, an innocuous action, or a hostile act, depending on who is doing the moving and for what purpose. It might have affected the afterlife of the dead, either positively or negatively, though this remains uncertain.

JBL 124/4 (2005) 617–639

THE BIRTH OF THE LEMMA: THE RESTRICTIVE REINTERPRETATION OF THE COVENANT CODE’S MANUMISSION LAW BY THE HOLINESS CODE (LEVITICUS 25:44– 46)

BERNARD M. LEVINSON [email protected] University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455

The jubilee legislation of the Holiness Code contains a previously unrecognized restrictive reinterpretation of the Covenant Code’s law requiring manumission of the Hebrew slave (yrb[ db[) after six years of service. This case has important implications for contemporary pentateuchal theory. It sheds important new light on the question of the dating of the Holiness Code relative to the other literary sources, which has been reopened during the last quarter century. The reasons why this case has, until now, escaped the attention of scholarship are equally significant. Failing to recognize the reuse of two technical idioms relevant to manumission law, the Septuagint translator of Lev 25:44–46 misconstrued the syntax and punctuation of his Hebrew Vorlage. That ancient misunderstanding has had a lasting impact on how this unit has subsequently been understood. Once the text is seen in its own light, the sophistication of its reworking of earlier law becomes evident. The techniques for legal reinterpretation employed in Leviticus 25 include the use of the Wiederaufnahme and pronominal deixis. These techniques, as well as their larger goal of textual reapplication, reveal emergent forms of methods that are commonly associated with more formal exegetical literature of the later Second Temple period. That they occur here in a text that presents itself as revelatory rather than as exegetical, however, raises a series of fascinating hermeneutical issues. This article was first presented as a guest lecture at the Faculty of Theology, University of Zurich, generously hosted by Konrad Schmid (Lehrstuhl für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft und Spätisraelitische Religionsgeschichte), and benefited from discussion there. For very helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript, I would like to thank Gary Knoppers, Arie van der

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Journal of Biblical Literature I. The Citation and Restriction of the Covenant Code’s Manumission Law

As is well known, the Covenant Code begins with a law governing the manumission of male slaves (Exod 21:2–6), which is then followed immediately by a law prescribing a separate protocol for female slaves (21:7–11).1 The shared topic of both laws is the interrelation between property law (slavery and indenture) and family law (marriage, children, and inheritance).2 The protasis of the law for male slaves establishes the general legal condition (A): “If you purchase a Hebrew slave (yrb[ db[ hnqt yk), six years shall he work but in the seventh he must go free” (Exod 21:2).3 A series of subconditions then explores possible permutations of this simple condition. Was the individual involved single or married at the time of beginning his indenture? If he was single but given a wife by the master, to whom did any progeny that result from this union belong when the slave is manumitted in the seventh year (Exod 21:3–4)? Then an important alternative to the apodosis is considered, whereby the indentured slave declines manumission and elects to become a permanent member of the household (B): yTib]h'a; db,[,˝h; rm'ayo rmoa;A!ai˝w“ 5 yn:B;Ata,˝w“ y˝Tiv]aiAta, y˝nIdoa}Ata, w˝yn:doa} /˝vyGIhi˝w“ 6 .yvip]j; axáe alø tl,Dil plus transitive, is summarized in the next verse using the qal with b- construction: &ral]; Isa 14:3 [pu>al]; Jer 22:13; 25:14; 27:7; 30:8; 34:9–10; Ezek 34:27). Helmer Ringgren et al. clearly recognize the two distinct uses and provide further literature; see “db'[; >aµbad,” TWAT 5:982–1011, esp. 988–89 = TDOT 10:376– 405, at 382. See also A. W. Streane, The Double Text of Jeremiah (Massoretic and Alexandrian) Compared Together with an Appendix on the Old Latin Evidence (Cambridge: Deighton Bell; London: George Bell, 1896), 182. Surprisingly, this semantic issue was overlooked by Ingrid Riesener, Der Stamm db[ im Alten Testament: Eine Wortuntersuchung unter Berücksichtigung neuerer sprachwissenschaftlicher Methoden (BZAW 149; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1979). 13 Other scholars have recognized the extent to which this unit sharply departs from legal precedent but have construed it more narrowly in terms of the rejection only of Deuteronomy’s manumission law (Deut 15:12–18). See Alfred Cholewinåski, Heiligkeitgesetz und Deuteronomium: Eine vergleichende Studie (AnBib 66; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1976), 245; and, incisively, Grünwaldt, Heiligkeitsgesetz, 329–30. Grünwaldt provides an excellent analysis of the extent to which Lev 25:39–43 (his reconstruction of the law’s original layer) reworks and transforms both Deut 15:12–18 and Exod 21:2–6 (pp. 329–30; and 333). He does not recognize the reuse noted here, however. 14 The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments, Revised Standard Version (New York: T. Nelson, 1952), 106 (emphasis added). 15 Note the extended discussion of this alleged syntagm by Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27, 2171–72. 16 The term hzja is fundamental to the religious conception of the land-holding as a divine grant found in both the Holiness Code and the Priestly Code. The omission of such a key term from the appropriate volume of TWAT is puzzling. It raises doubts about whether the conception of the-

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lute state twelve times.17 This is the only case where the absolute noun is followed by any form of !lw[ ( l ). 18 Conversely, there are a total of fifty-four inflected forms of hzja.19 In thirty-two of these cases, it occurs inflected with a pronominal suffix.20 Various idioms that place the noun in construct (as nomen regens to a following nomen rectum) account for the remaining twenty-two inflected forms of hzja.21 The idiom !l;/[ tZ"jua} accounts for three of these cases, with one of them in this chapter (in Lev 25:34).22 There is no other construction in Biblical Hebrew that binds the noun hzja (whether absolute or inflected) to any form of !lw[. On the basis of normal usage, it is most reasonable to expect that the idiom “permanent possession” would employ the construct phrase !lw[ tzja, as attested earlier in the chapter (Lev 25:34). The fact that the absolute noun hzja is never construed with or modified by the adverbial phrase !l[˝l, “forever,” except for this one disputed case, raises questions about whether the text has been correctly understood. The implications of this analysis are inescapable. Semantically speaking, the conjunction of the two words here represents a “non-sequence” that has been incorrectly construed as a real idiom. That nonsequence has acquired an independent life of its own, however, in the reception and interpretation of the text since antiquity. More accurately, the absolute noun hzja should conclude the clause in which it is found: !k,ynEb]li !t;ao !T,l]j}n"t]hiw“ hZ:jua} tv,rad meal portion of the raz nihyeh. The participle signifies that the divinely ordained natural order to which the raµz refers exists throughout the entire historical continuum. 4Q417 1 i 3–4 uses hyh in the nip>al three times, once in the mystery that is to be. The other two occurrences appear to refer, respectively, to the past and present, forming a tripartite division of time: “Gaze [upon the mystery that is to be and the deeds of old, from what has been to what exists through what] [will be] . . . [for]ever” (hmw hyhn hml !dq y`[mw hyhn zrb ]fOb‚h‚w ‚ !¯ l[w[] . . . [hyhy] [hmb hyhn) (cf. 4Q418 43 2–3).32 4Q418 123 ii 3–4 associates a threefold division of time with the mystery that is to be: “Everything that exists in it, from what has been to what will be in it (w‚b hyhy hmw hyh hml hb hyhnh lwk) . . . His period which God revealed to the ear of the understanding ones through the mystery that is to be.” The comprehensive plan of God that orchestrates reality is valid from creation to judgment. This explains why the raz 30

Matthew J. Goff, “The Mystery of Creation in 4QInstruction,” DSD 10 (2003): 163–86. Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994). 32 Elgvin, “An Analysis of 4QInstruction,” 259; DJD 34, 157. 31

Goff: 4QInstruction and the Sayings Source Q

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nihyeh is at the root of moral instruction. The mystery that is to be provides the addressee with knowledge of the full extent of God’s dominion over the created order. 4QInstruction demands conduct from him that is in accordance with this larger truth. Heavenly revelation can be said to provide, or at least encourage, worldly wisdom.33 It is not impossible that 4QInstruction is a product of “apocalyptists” who extensively reworked a composition of practical wisdom. But it is unlikely. 4QInstruction is a very fragmentary composition, comprising several hundred small texts that are often in poor material condition.34 It is difficult enough to discern the text in its present state, much less posit different strata. The mystery that is to be is essential to the pedagogy of the document. Often in apocalypses a heavenly vision is revealed to the seer and interpreted for him by an angel. This is the case, for example, in the book of Daniel. By contrast, in 4QInstruction no angel helps the addressee understand the mystery that is to be. The addressee acquires knowledge from the study of revealed wisdom. He is exhorted to “gaze” (fbn) upon,35 “examine” (`rd), “meditate” (hgh) upon, and “grasp” (jql) this mystery.36 The theme of revelation cannot be separated from the educational and eudaemonistic goals of the document. 4QInstruction is the best example available of a Jewish wisdom text with an apocalyptic worldview.37 4QInstruction is not the only Qumran wisdom text that is reminiscent of the apocalyptic tradition. 4Q185 is a sapiential text with beatitudes (1–2 ii 8, 13).38 It exhorts one to acquire wisdom in order to have long life, as in Prov 3:16–18: “Find her and hold fast to her and get her as an inheritance. With her are [length of d]ays, fatness of bone, joy of heart, rich[es and honor]” (4Q185 1–2 ii 12). The text also reminds its addressee of judgment implemented by the angels: “Who can endure to stand before his angels? For with flaming fire 33

Contra García Martínez, “Wisdom at Qumran,” 9–10. DJD 34, 17–19; Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 161–71; Torleif Elgvin, “The Reconstruction of Sapiential Work A,” RevQ 16 (1995): 559–80. 35 4Q416 2 i 5 (par 4Q417 2 i 10); 4Q417 1 i 3, 18 (par 4Q418 43 2, 14). See also 4Q418 123 ii 5. 36 See 4Q416 2 iii 9 (par 4Q418 9 8), 4Q418 43 4 (par 4Q417 1 i 6), and 4Q418 77 4. See Torleif Elgvin, “The Mystery to Come: Early Essene Theology of Revelation,” in Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (ed. F. H. Cryer and T. L. Thompson; JSOTSup 290; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 113–50, esp. 133. 37 John J. Collins, “Wisdom Reconsidered, in Light of the Scrolls,” DSD 4 (1997): 265–81. 38 Daniel J. Harrington, Wisdom Texts from Qumran (London: Routledge, 1996), 35–39; Hermann Lichtenberger, “Eine weisheitliche Mahnrede in den Qumranfunden (4Q185),” in Qumrân: Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu (ed. M. Delcor; BETL 46; Paris: Duculot, 1978), 151– 62; idem, “Der Weisheitstext 4Q185—Eine neue Edition,” in Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought, 127–50; Thomas H. Tobin, “4Q185 and Jewish Wisdom Literature,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism and Christian Origins (ed. H. W. Attridge et al.; Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 145–52; Donald J. Verseput, “Wisdom, 4Q185, and the Epistle of James,” JBL 117 (1998): 691–707. 34

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[they] will judge” (1–2 i 8–9).39 The central feature of the Book of Mysteries (1Q27, 4Q299–301) is a description of eschatological judgment: “when the begotten of unrighteousness are locked up and wickedness is removed from before righteousness, as darkness is removed before light. (Then,) just as smoke wholly ceases and is no more, so shall wickedness cease forever” (1Q27 1 i 5–6).40 This composition also appeals to higher revelation (lines 3–4; 4Q299 8 6). It has been argued that Mysteries is not a wisdom text; nevertheless, it is an instruction with prominent sapiential terms (e.g., lk` and h[d in 4Q299 8; cf. 4Q300 1a ii–b) and forms, such as rhetorical questions (1Q27 1 i 8–12; 4Q299 8 5).41 The work also offers some practical advice (1Q27 1 ii 2–8). The Book of Mysteries is a wisdom text with an eschatological perspective that appeals to higher revelation.42 The Treatise on the Two Spirits (1QS 3:13–4:26) has an apocalyptic worldview, containing a highly dualistic and deterministic conceptualization of the natural order.43 The text is explicitly an instruction and in that sense can be understood as a wisdom text, or at least as influenced by the sapiential tradition: “The Instructor should instruct and teach all the sons of light about the nature of all humankind” (3:13).44 Wisdom and apocalypticism are not mutually exclusive traditions, as Kloppenborg and others have observed.45 Sapiential influence is evident in apocalypses (e.g., 1 En. 42), and the testaments draw on both traditions. The main contribution of 4QInstruction to the issue of wisdom in relation to apocalypticism is that the work establishes that in the late Second Temple period a wisdom text could have an apocalyptic worldview. Ben Sira actively discourages

39 John Strugnell, “Notes en marge du volume V des ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan,’” RevQ 7 (1970): 163–276, esp. 272. 40 DJD 20, 31–123; Dominique Barthélemy and Jósef T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1 (DJD 1; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), 102–7. See also Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination, 93–120; Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “Your Wisdom and Your Folly: The Case of 1–4QMysteries,” in Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 69–88. 41 For the argument that Mysteries is not a wisdom text, see Giovanni Ibba, “Il ‘Libro dei Misteri’ (1Q27, f.1): testo escatologico,” Hen 21 (1999): 73–84. Consult further Collins, “Wisdom Reconsidered,” 276; Harrington, Wisdom Texts, 72–73. 42 This position is presented in more detail in Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming), ch. 2. 43 Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination, 121–70. 44 Collins, “Wisdom Reconsidered,” 277; Harrington, Wisdom Texts, 76; Jean Duhaime, “Cohérence structurelle et tensions internes dans l’Instruction sur les Deux Esprits (1QS III 13– IV 26),” in Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 103–31. 45 Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 145; Collins, “Wisdom, Apocalypticism, and Generic Compatibility,” in Seers, Sibyls, and Sages, 393–401. Daniel J. Harrington aptly writes regarding Q that “to isolate the sapiential elements from the apocalyptic elements and then to reconstruct the wisdom tradition shorn of apocalypticism does not fit with what we know about wisdom teachings from Qumran and elsewhere in first-century Palestine” (Wisdom Texts from Qumran, 91).


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the speculation of mysteries (3:21–24; cf. 34:5).46 4QInstruction never associates wisdom with the Torah or the national identity of Israel in the manner of the Jerusalem sage.47 4QInstruction’s differences with Ben Sira give an impression of the diversity of wisdom texts in this period.48 4QInstruction is not the only sapiential text from this era with features reminiscent of the apocalyptic tradition. 4QInstruction, Mysteries, and other late Second Temple compositions provide evidence of a sapiential trajectory that is characterized by influence from the apocalyptic tradition.49

III. Trajectories of Wisdom in Relation to 4QInstruction and Q Q contains material that can be classified as apocalyptic. The document affirms the future judgment (e.g., 3:7–9; 10:13–15) and the promise of rewards after death (6:23), exhibits a concern with the angelic and demonic realms (12:8–9; 11:14–26), and has a profound sense of imminent eschatology (10:9– 11).50 Q 17:23–37 describes the eschatological woes associated with the advent of the Son of Man. In terms of genre, some parts of Q are reminiscent of traditional wisdom. This is evident, for example, in its use of beatitudes and aphorisms (e.g., 6:20–22; 11:9–13). 51 In terms of content, influence from the sapiential tradition in Q is evident in its adaptation of personified Wisdom (7:35; 11:49–51).52 Kloppenborg has put forward the well-received thesis that the formative layer of Q is a sapiential collection of six instructions.53 This material is clearly 46

Randal A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach (SBLEJL 8; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995).

47 Therefore 4QInstruction does not accord with the shifts in the wisdom tradition laid out by

Gammie with regard to the Torah and national identity. Note, however, that the mystery that is to be has been associated with the Torah. See Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination, 48. 48 Daniel J. Harrington, “Two Early Jewish Approaches to Wisdom: Sirach and Qumran Sapiential Work A,” JSP 16 (1997): 25–38. 49 Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 232. 50 Kloppenborg, “Symbolic Eschatology,” 296. He grants that Q material is “consistent with apocalyptic idiom” but prefers the term “symbolic eschatology” rather than “apocalyptic.” See also idem, Excavating Q, 388–98; Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity, 139–63. 51 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 14. 52 Ibid., 162–70; James D. G. Dunn, “Jesus: Teacher of Wisdom or Incarnate Wisdom?” in Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Wisdom in the Bible, the Church and the Contemporary World (ed. S. C. Barton; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 75–92; Patrick J. Hartin, “‘Yet Wisdom Is Justified by Her Children’ (Q 7:35): A Rhetorical and Compositional Analysis of Divine Sophia in Q,” in Conflict and Invention: Literary, Rhetorical, and Social Studies on the Sayings Gospel Q (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 151–64; Hermann von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen im Neuen Testament (WMANT 64; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1990), 267–90. 53 Kloppenborg lists these texts as (1) 6:20b–49; (2) 9:57–62; 10:2–11, 16; (3) 11:2–4, 9–13; (4) 12:2–7, 11–12; (5) 12:22–31, 33–34; (6) 13:24; 14:26, 27; 17:33 (Formation of Q, 342–45). This

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pedagogical, containing admonitions and other sayings designed to provide instruction on various topics, including judging (6:37–38) and proper prayer (11:9–13). The later stratum of Q is characterized by interest in judgment (e.g., 11:29–32).54 This redaction criticism has led to the simplistic view that Q is the product of a “sapiential” community in line with traditional wisdom that was transformed later by apocalyptic circles.55 Kloppenborg aptly observes that distinguishing sapiential and apocalyptic elements in Q is not the key to its redactional history.56 In terms of content, both of the strata he delineates contain material that appears to be influenced by the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions.57 His six wisdom instructions include the expectation of rewards after death (6:23) and the conviction that eschatological events are imminent (11:9–11). The secondary layer, which is characterized by judgment (3:16b–17), attests the motif of personified wisdom (11:49–51). The wisdom of Q, whether one refers only to its six instructions or to the work as a whole, has an eschatological perspective.58 Kloppenborg has argued that Q contains a radical form of wisdom that is at odds with traditional wisdom, offering a rejection of the current state of the world (cf. 9:58; 14:26– 27; 17:33). This can be understood as a move from the “wisdom of order” to the “wisdom of the kingdom.”59 Tuckett has expressed caution with regard to this view, writing that classifying Q’s content as “wisdom of the kingdom” runs the risk of the term “wisdom” becoming “such an inclusive catch-all term that it encompasses almost anything.”60 list is given with minor variations in Robinson, Critical Edition of Q, lxiii; Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 146. See also Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity, 69–75. Piper has argued that there is a “wisdom redaction” of collections of aphorisms in Q. See his Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 61–77, esp. 65. Consult further Kirk, Composition of the Sayings Source, 14–16, 61–62; Yarbro Collins, “Son of Man Sayings,” 374–75. 54 Kloppenborg, Formation of Q, 322–25. 55 This opinion is associated with Burton Mack. See his The Lost Gospel: The Book of Q and Christian Origins (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 37–38; idem, The Christian Myth: Origins, Logic, and Legacy (New York: Continuum, 2001), 35. Kloppenborg has rejected this conclusion, arguing that his compositional scheme is based on literary criticism rather than subjective definitions of wisdom and apocalypticism (Excavating Q, 382). 56 Kloppenborg, Formation of Q, 379–85. 57 Dieter Lührmann, Die Redaktion der Logienquelle (WMANT 33; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969), 103. 58 Charles E. Carlston, “Wisdom and Eschatology in Q,” in Logia: Les paroles de Jésus—The Sayings of Jesus: Mémorial Joseph Coppens (ed. J. Delobel; BETL 59; Louvain: Peeters/Louvain University Press, 1982), 101–19; Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 379–85; idem, “Symbolic Eschatology,” 306; Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity, 328; von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen, 197–266. 59 Kloppenborg, Formation of Q, 319; Walter Grundmann, “Weisheit im Horizont des Reiches Gottes,” in Die Kirche des Anfangs: Für Heinz Schürmann (ed. R. Schnackenburg et al.; Freiburg: Herder, 1978), 175–99. 60 Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity, 353.


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The phrase “wisdom of the kingdom” is an apt designation for Q material. This assessment is supported by 4QInstruction. The relevance of this text for Q is not that the former text comprises distinguishable sapiential and apocalyptic strata.61 Rather it is that by the second century B.C.E. a wisdom text could have an apocalyptic worldview. In 4QInstruction and Q the two influences come together in compatible ways. Form critically, neither work is an apocalypse. Both draw on the wisdom tradition in terms of genre, using admonitions and other sapiential forms in relation to specific areas of life. With regard to content, the two compositions rely on both the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions. Q can be understood as shaped by a trajectory of the wisdom tradition that was influenced by the apocalyptic tradition. The best example of this kind of Jewish wisdom is 4QInstruction. The similarities between 4QInstruction and Q, however, should not be overstated. For example, they are quite different with regard to the theme of revelation. 4QInstruction constantly refers to the disclosure of the mystery that is to be. Mystery terminology is prominent in the NT, but much more so in Revelation and the letters of Paul than in the Gospels.62 In one Synoptic passage Jesus imparts the “mystery (musthvrion) of the kingdom of God” to his disciples (Mark 4:11; Matt 13:11; Luke 8:10; cf. Gos. Thom. 62).63 In Q it may be implied that Jesus’ teachings are themselves heavenly revelations, but this is never stated explicitly. In Q 11:49–51 personified Wisdom gives an oracle that is spoken by Jesus, and he continues the utterance with his own speech. But Q never emphasizes the reception of heavenly revelation in the manner of 4QInstruction.64 The eschatological perspectives of 4QInstruction and Q are also different. The former teaches that judgment will occur in the future: “From heaven he will judge over the work of wickedness. But all the sons of his truth will be accepted with favor. . . . They (the wicked) will be in terror. And all those who defiled themselves in it (wickedness) will cry out. For the heavens will be afraid. . . . The [s]eas and the depths will be in terror, and every fleshly spirit will be laid bare” (4Q416 1 10–12; cf. 4Q418 69 ii 6–9).65 This proclamation 61

Contra Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 130. Romans 11:25; 1 Cor 15:51; Rev 10:7; 17:7. See Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Biblical Series 21; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968); Béda Rigaux, “Révélation des Mystères et Perfection à Qumran et dans le Nouveau Testament,” NTS 4 (1958): 237–62; Markus Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 129–230. 63 In the verses from Matthew and Luke the word “mystery” is in the plural. 64 Piper, Wisdom in the Q-Tradition, 178. 65 John J. Collins, “The Eschatologizing of Wisdom in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium of the Orion Center, 20–22 May 2001 (ed. G. Sterling and J. J. Collins; STDJ 51; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 49–65, esp. 50–53; Torleif Elgvin, “Early Essene Eschatology: Judgment and 62

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occurs at the beginning of 4QInstruction and establishes a framework for the rest of the instruction. Like the judgment scene of 1 Enoch 1, 4Q416 1 draws on the theophanic tradition.66 Although the composition teaches that there will be a “period of wrath” (4Q416 4 1), it has no sense of impending judgment. Q is less theophanic than 4QInstruction, although fire and sulphur will rain down from heaven when the Son of Man is revealed according to Q 17:29–30. Unlike this Qumran text, Q advocates an imminent eschatology in both of the two main layers postulated by Kloppenborg—“the kingdom of God has come near” (10:9–11; cf. 11:29–32). Both works place proclamations of judgment at the beginning, emphasizing the importance of this theme. 4QInstruction begins with the judgment scene of 4Q416 1 and the first section of the sayings source deals with the figure of John the Baptist and his eschatological proclamations (Q 3:16b–17).

IV. Poverty and Final Rewards in 4QInstruction and Q The theme of poverty is important in both 4QInstruction and Q. The latter work can be understood as having originated in a commonplace, agricultural setting. The putative formative layer of the document does not evoke elements of sophisticated culture but rather simple agricultural images, including the coming of rain (6:35), the cultivation of figs and grapes (6:44), house building (6:47–49), planting, and bread baking (13:18–21). Q 6:20 affirms that some of the intended addressees are poor. They are also to suffer (6:22a; cf. 11:49; 13:34), and the disciples are to refuse creature comforts (10:4).67

Salvation According to Sapiential Work A,” in Current Research and Technological Development on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conference on the Texts from the Judean Desert, Jerusalem, 30 April 1995 (ed. D. W. Parry and S. D. Ricks; STDJ 20; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 126–65. 66 James C. VanderKam, “The Theophany of Enoch 1 3B–7, 9,” in From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (JSJSup 62; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 332–53. 67 It is not clear to what extent the original audience was actually poor or oppressed. See Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 189–96; Tuckett, Q and the Early History of Christianity, 283–323, esp. 322; Ronald A. Piper, “The Language of Violence and the Aphoristic Sayings in Q: A Study of Q 6:27–36,” in Conflict and Invention, 53–72. Although Luke 6:25 is generally not considered part of Q, it is worth comparing to 4QInstruction. 4Q417 2 i 10–12 tells the addressee not to “rejoice in your mourning lest you toil in your life. . . . Is not [joy established for those contrite of spirit?] Or eternal joy for those who mourn?” Joy is contrasted with “mourning,” which is associated with the addressee’s present condition. Luke 6:25b reads: “Woe to you who are laughing now for you will mourn and weep.” In this text, unlike 4Q417 2 i 10–12, the state of mourning is promised for those who are laughing, the opposite of the promise given to the poor. See Robinson, Critical Edition of Q, 54; George W. E.


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4QInstruction grants that some members of its intended audience are poor.68 The wisdom text repeatedly reminds the meµbîn that he is “poor” (e.g., 4Q416 2 ii 20; 4Q416 2 iii 2, 8, 12). Certain texts are designed for farmers (4Q418 103 ii 2–9; 4Q423 3 2; 4Q423 5 5), and artisans who possess !ydy tmkj, “manual skill” (4Q418 81 15, 19). The addressee is recommended to accept beatings (4Q417 2 i 24–27), presumably from creditors, an attitude compatible with Q 6:29.69 For some members of the intended audience, material hardship is a real possibility: “If you lack, borrow, being without m[on]ey for what you need, for he (God) does not lack treasure” (4Q417 2 i 19). This endorses a radical dependence on God for basic material needs that is similar to the recommendation of Q that one should “consider the lilies of the field” (12:27). 4QInstruction, however, does not endorse an ascetic way of life. 70 4Q417 2 i 19 offers a temporary solution during a situation of extreme poverty. In 4QInstruction financial hardship is considered a problem that the addressee must solve. Neither the eschatological teachings of 4QInstruction nor its appeals to revelation presuppose a rejection of the “wisdom of order.” In contrast to Q 14:26–27, the revelation of the mystery that is to be is to encourage the meµbîn to practice filial piety (4Q416 2 iii 17–19). In 4QInstruction the reception of heavenly wisdom serves the eudaemonistic goal of financial and social stability, an aim fully in keeping with traditional wisdom. In both 4QInstruction and Q the eschatological rewards of the intended audience are described in relation to poverty. 4Q416 2 iii 11–12 reads: “Praise his name constantly because he has raised your head out of poverty. With the nobles (!ybydn) he has placed you, and he has given you authority over an inheritance of glory.” This text is enclosed by reminders that he is poor (lines 8, 12). This suggests, as do other teachings in 4QInstruction that deal with the economic difficulties of the addressee, that 4Q416 2 iii 11–12 should not be interpreted literally. Rather, it should be read as a symbolic description of the addressee’s ordained destiny with the angels. In the mind-set of 4QInstruction, it is fitting to describe the angels as “nobles.” The rewards of the elect status of Nickelsburg, “Riches, the Rich, and God’s Judgment in 1 Enoch 92–105 and the Gospel according to Luke,” NTS 25 (1979): 324–44. 68 Heinz-Joseph Fabry, “Die Armenfrömmigkeit in den Qumranischen Weisheitstexten,” in Weisheit in Israel (ed. D. J. A. Clines, H. Lichtenberger, and H.-P. Müller; Münster: Lit-Verlag, 2003), 145–65; Benjamin G. Wright III, “The Categories of Rich and Poor in the Qumran Sapiential Literature,” in Sapiential Perspectives, 101–23; Catherine M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community (STDJ 40; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 163–209; Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “The Addressees of 4QInstruction,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran, 62–75; Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 127–67. 69 Joshua E. Burns, “Practical Wisdom in 4QInstruction,” DSD 11 (2004): 12–42. 70 For more on the theme of radical discipleship in Q, see Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity, 355–91.

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the addressee are presented as a form of wealth, in contrast to his material poverty. His possession of an “inheritance of glory” anticipates the eternal life he will enjoy with the angels after death.71 The addressee is taught that he is in the angelic lot (4Q418 81 4–5). He is given instruction about the “spiritual people” who are in the likeness of the holy ones and distinguished from the “fleshly spirit” (4Q417 1 i 14–18).72 Similarly, the meµbîn is told that he is separated from the “fleshly spirit” (4Q418 81 1–2). In the pedagogical spirit of the composition, angels are revered as ideal students whom the addressee should emulate: “Indeed, would they say: ‘We are tired of works of truth, [we] are weary of . . .’ Do [they] not wal[k] in eternal light?” (4Q418 69 ii 13–14; cf. 4Q418 55 8–11). If the addressee imitates the angels during life he will join them after death. In Q followers are promised a “reward” (misqov") in heaven (6:23), a term that may be used in 10:7 to refer to the material “wages” received by itinerant preachers (cf. 6:35b).73 The heavenly rewards promised to the intended audience are portrayed as a reversal of their current situation, which is characterized by distress and hardship. The “reward” allocated to the poor in Q may include the prospect of joining the angels after death, as in 4QInstruction. It is possible to understand Q 6:35c in this manner: “you will be sons of the Most High (uiJoi; uJyivstou)” (cf. Luke 20:36; Matt 22:30).74 Even if this verse is interpreted in this way, the theme of eschatological fellowship with the angels is more prominent in 4QInstruction. In different ways both compositions use the theme of poverty with regard to the elect who are promised rewards after death.75

V. Conclusion The publication of 4QInstruction provides an opportunity to reassess the varieties of Jewish wisdom during the Second Temple period. This text does not fit the development of the wisdom tradition traced by Gammie. Robinson’s scholarship is useful in terms of understanding Q as a collection of sayings. But 4QInstruction does not accord well with the main criteria of the genre of logoi sophoµn. Nevertheless, this Qumran wisdom text provides an impression of the 71

See further Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 206–14. John J. Collins, “In the Likeness of the Holy Ones: The Creation of Humankind in a Wisdom Text from Qumran,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. D. W. Parry and E. Ulrich; STDJ 30; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 609–19. 73 This word is used in Luke 10:7, whereas Matt 10:10 has the term trofhv. See Robinson, Critical Edition of Q, 170. 74 Matthew 5:45 uses the phrase uiJoi; tou' patro;" uJmw'n tou' ejn oujranoi'". 75 Leander E. Keck, “The Poor among the Saints in Jewish Christianity and Qumran,” ZNW 57 (1966): 54–78. 72


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Jewish sapiential background of Q. Portions of Q are aptly considered sapiential instructions, and they very well could constitute the formative stratum of the work. The “wisdom of the kingdom” of Q represents a departure from traditional wisdom. 4QInstruction suggests that Q, however, does not break from the sapiential tradition. While there are significant differences between 4QInstruction and Q, both draw on the wisdom tradition in terms of genre and the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions in terms of content. Q is in continuity with a stream of the wisdom tradition characterized by influence from the apocalyptic tradition. This trajectory is exemplified by 4QInstruction. The Book of Mysteries also attests this type of wisdom. The instructions of Q suggest that this trajectory had an impact on sapiential texts composed in the first century C.E.76 76 The Letter of James suggests that this wisdom trajectory has influenced the NT aside from Q. See Todd C. Penner, The Epistle of James and Eschatology: Re-reading an Ancient Christian Letter (JSNTSup 121; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

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JBL 124/4 (2005) 675–692

A WOMAN’S UNBOUND HAIR IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE STORY OF THE “SINFUL WOMAN” IN LUKE 7:36–50

CHARLES H. COSGROVE [email protected] Northern Seminary, Lombard, IL 60513

In Luke 7:36–50 an unnamed woman described as “a sinner in the city” weeps on Jesus’ feet, wipes them with her hair, kisses them, and anoints them with oil from an alabaster flask. My purpose here is to clarify the social meaning of the woman’s gestures with her hair in this story.1 A first step is to set forth the stated and implied elements of the woman’s actions. She enters Simon’s house, carrying an alabaster flask of ointment, and walks over to where Jesus is reclining at table. She positions herself behind him near his feet. In view of what she does next, she must have either bent over or knelt to reach his feet. She begins to weep profusely onto his feet and to dry them with her hair. Her hair must be loose at this point to serve as a makeshift towel. For the time being, we will leave open the question of when she unbinds her hair. Kissing his feet, she anoints them with ointment. How would Luke and his readers have interpreted this scene of a woman crouched or kneeling at Jesus’ feet, with her hair undone, weeping, kissing his feet, and pouring ointment over them? 1 A complex traditio-historical nexus links Luke 7:36–50, John 12:1–8, and Mark 14:3–9. The story in John 12 also includes a statement about a woman (Mary, sister of Lazarus) anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair. It is not my purpose here to sort out the traditio-historical relations between these stories or to comment on the narratives in Mark and John. Nevertheless, my study of the meaning of the woman’s gesture with her hair in Luke 7 should prove helpful for efforts to interpret the similar gesture in John 12. Helpful discussions of the relationship between the Lukan and Johannine stories can be found in the standard commentaries. For good summaries of the issues and scholarly debate, see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (i–xii): Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 29; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 449–52; John Nolland, Luke 1:1–9:20 (WBC 35A; Dallas: Word, 1989), 351–53.

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Journal of Biblical Literature I. Modern Interpretation of the Woman’s Gesture with Her Hair in Luke 7

Many commentators hold that the woman is a prostitute, and a common interpretation of the woman’s gesture with her hair is that it shows her to be a sexually promiscuous person.2 But some who are confident that she is a prostitute do not connect her loose hair with her sexual behavior. For example, Walter Radl holds that the woman is a prostitute but sees her undoing of her hair as a spontaneous action in the moment, the purpose of which is simply to dry Jesus’ feet.3 Still other interpreters are cautious or doubtful about whether the woman is a prostitute but nonetheless assume that loose hair on a woman is invariably a sign of immodesty or immorality in antiquity. These interpreters tend to see her intentions as good (she aims to express love, pious grief, gratitude, etc.), even if her actions are socially immodest. Joachim Jeremias, for example, raises doubts about whether we should assume the woman is a prostitute but envisions the scene as involving a disgraceful unbinding of the hair. He chalks this up to the woman’s absorption in the moment: “she was so shocked at having bedewed Jesus with her tears, that she entirely forgot her surroundings.”4 Joseph A. Fitzmyer cautions that the identification of the woman as a prostitute is at best only a plausible inference from the narrative (and not the only possibility). He understands the woman’s actions (tears, kisses, the anointing and wiping with her hair) as “signs of love and gratitude” for forgiveness and observes that the unbinding of her hair “does not confirm her sinfulness” but “merely gives rise to an interpretation of her” (by Simon).5 Darrel Bock sees the unbinding of the hair as an act that “some might think immodest” (in her social context) but it is part of her gestures as a whole, which express humility, devotion, reverence.6 According to Frederick Danker, the woman’s loose hair is 2 See, e.g., Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to S. Luke (4th ed.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1910), 210–11; R. K. Orchard, “On the Composition of Luke 7, 36–50,” JTS 38 (1937): 243–45; Ben Witherington III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and Their Roles as Reflected in His Earthly Life (SNTSMS 51; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 54–55. 3 Walter Radl, Das Evangelium nach Lukas: Kommentar, Erster Teil, 1.1–9.50 (Freiburg: Herder, 2003), 495 with n. 242 and 496 with n. 251. Josef Schmid identifies the woman as a prostitute but makes no mention of her loose hair (Das Evangelium nach Lukas [4th ed.; RNT 3; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1960], 147). 4 Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus (rev. ed.; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963), 126. 5 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (I–IX): Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 28; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 689, 687, 689. 6 Darrel L. Bock, Luke, vol. 1, 1:1–9:50 (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT 3; Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994), 696–97.

Cosgrove: A Woman’s Unbound Hair

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grounds for questioning her character but her actions are “a monument of sacred affection.”7 Other commentators give the traditional interpretation of the woman’s unbound hair as immodest a more intense coloring. They see the unbound hair as part of a cluster of sexually provocative gestures by the woman. Joel Green describes her behavior as “erotic” and therefore “outrageous.” Letting down her hair “would have been on a par with appearing topless in public.” Likewise, her touching of Jesus’ feet is like the fondling that slave girls performed on guests at dinner parties as a prelude to sexual favors.8 The same or similar points are made also by Kathleen Corley (to whom Green refers), François Bovon, and others.9 These interpreters are not saying that the woman’s gestures are meant by her to be erotic, only that they would have been construed that way (e.g., by a character like Simon) and that the public connotations of her actions heighten the drama and underscore the Lukan theme that Jesus accepts the disreputables. A very different take on the story of the sinful woman is found in a retelling of the story by fourth-century church father Asterius of Amasea, who presumably had some sense of the propriety of women’s gestures with their hair in ancient Mediterranean culture: Showing her unworthiness and utmost timidity through her manner and assuming a place to the rear, she did not simply stand but took a position behind his feet, loosed her hair, and made her grieving soul a matter of public business by her actions. Shedding tears on the feet of Jesus with great feeling she begged for mercy. And she poured forth such tears that she wet his

7 Frederick W. Danker, Commentary on Luke: Jesus and the New Age (rev. ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 169–70. Other interpreters who see the woman’s action with her hair as immodest but who are cautious about identifying her as a prostitute include Frederic Godet, A Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke (trans. E. W. Shalders and M. D. Cusin; New York: I. K. Funk, 1881), 228 (he refers to his more detailed treatment of the quasi-parallel story in John 12; see Godet, A Commentary on the Gospel of John [trans. and ed. Timothy Dwight; New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1886], 207); and Fernando Méndez-Moratalla, The Paradigm of Conversion in Luke (JSNTSup 252; New York: T&T Clark, 2004), 106–9. 8 Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 309, 310. He offers no evidence that party prostitutes fondled the feet of the male guests. 9 Kathleen E. Corley, Private Women, Public Meals: Social Conflict in the Synoptic Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993), 125; François Bovon, Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50 (trans. Christine M. Thomas; ed. Helmut Koester; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 294–95. Keith F. Nickle imagines Simon interpreting the woman’s actions as “hanky-panky” (Preaching the Gospel of Luke: Proclaiming God’s Royal Rule [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000], 78).

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Journal of Biblical Literature feet. And wiping her tears with her hair she again displayed her perfectly circumspect humility. (Hom. 13.10.2–3)10

Asterius makes the woman’s act of unbinding her hair an explicit detail of the story and sees it as a gesture of grieving (displaying th;n penqou'san yuchvn11), not as a sign of her loose morals or even as an awkward but forgivable breach of decorum prompted by the unforeseen necessity of drying Jesus’ feet. This is evident not only from his praise of this action but also from the fact that in his retelling the loosing of the hair comes at the moment she places herself at Jesus’ feet but before she starts weeping. Hence, the gesture has its own independent significance as an expression of pious grief for her sin. This ancient interpretation should give us pause about whether the woman’s gesture with her hair (along with her other actions) is sexually provocative or even a lapse in etiquette by ancient Mediterranean standards. To that question we now turn.

II. The Social Symbolism of Women’s Hair and Actions Involving Women’s Hair in Antiquity The following examination of references to unbound hair/unbinding the hair covers many centuries and reveals a consistency of basic attitudes. I have not found any evidence to suggest that for first-century Jews a woman’s unbound hair carried different meanings from what it had in the wider society. Hence, when it comes to applying the results of the survey to Luke 7:36–50, I assume that general Mediterranean social codes are applicable. I am encouraged in this by two things: (1) the fact that the ancient Jewish evidence we possess jibes with general Greco-Roman conventions regarding hair; (2) the fact that Luke and his audience, representing an urban and predominantly Gentile Christianity, are likely to have understood the story in terms of general GrecoRoman social conventions. The typical women’s style throughout many centuries was to wear their hair long12 but to bind it in some way so that it did not hang down loosely.13 Often this involved plaiting or braiding.14 Cloth bands, pins, and combs were used to restrain the hair in a chaste and often ornamental way. 10 My translation. For the Greek text, see C. Datema, ed., Asterius of Amasea: Homilies I–XIV: Text, Introduction, and Notes (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 191. 11 On the use of penqevw as sorrow for one’s sins, see 1 Cor 5:2 and T. Reub. 1:10. 12 See Paul’s observation about this in 1 Cor 11:15. Shorter hairstyles are also in evidence, however, in artistic representations. 13 See “Haartracht,” DNP, 5:40–45. 14 A woman’s plaited hair with a long braid was found among the sad remains at Masada. See Yigael Yadin, Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealot’s Last Stand (New York: Random House, 1966), 54, 56. See also the reference to braided hair in 1 Tim 2:9.


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In antiquity, a woman’s unbound hair (and the act of unbinding the hair) often had sexual connotations. A few examples will suffice to illustrate this. In one popular telling of the story of Medusa, Medusa’s beautiful hair attracts Poseidon, who rapes her, leaving her to be punished by her rival, Jove’s daughter (Athena), who transforms Medusa’s hair into snakes (Ovid, Met. 4.794–803). The wild, unbound hair of Medusa is beautiful, sexually seductive, and dangerous (above all to her!).15 In Shepherd of Hermas (Sim. 9.9.6 and 15.1–3) certain beautiful women dressed in black and wearing loose hair symbolize vices. A certain Phaedra, in a play of Euripides, is torn by adulterous desire. As she begins to speak of her passion, she asks her nurse to unbind her hair (Euripides, Hipp. 198–202). Even more famously, Apuleius, through the voice of Lucius, expresses a sexual fetish for women’s hair and deliciously describes the pleasure he has in watching a servant girl let down her hair for him as a prelude to their lovemaking (Apuleius, Met. 2.17). There is no need to rehearse here all the ways in which men in antiquity (and in later times) projected their own sexually aggressive urges onto women, casting the female as a threat to male virtue because of her allegedly voracious sexual appetite and weak moral nature. The sexual meaning of women’s long, free-flowing hair belongs in part to this ideology. But there are other meanings of a woman’s unbound hair and the act of unbinding the hair. A particularly interesting example is found in the actions of Callirhoe in the temple of Aphrodite in the popular ancient Greek novel Chaereas and Callirhoe. The first time Callirhoe visits Aphrodite, she prostrates herself at the feet of the goddess and prays to her (2.2.7). This is consistent with what we know of ancient Greek customs of praying in shrines: men stood and prayed with arms raised; women knelt.16 The second time, at the very end of the novel, Callirhoe’s actions are described in greater detail. Having been reunited with her husband, she now enters the shrine of Aphrodite to express her gratitude. She places her hands and face on the goddess’s feet, lets down her hair, and kisses the feet of the goddess (8.8.15).17 In this setting, the loving attention to the feet and the letting down of the hair are clearly acts of thankful veneration. A similar gesture (although it does not involve hair) appears in the resurrection-appearance story in Matthew 28, where the women 15 Molly Myerowitz Levine comments: “Transformed from golden to serpentine, Medusa’s head, once unmoored, becomes a reincarnated, infinitely more potent version of the pure female threat” (“The Gendered Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair,” in Off with Her Head! The Denial of Women’s Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture [ed. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz and Wendy Doniger; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995], 94). 16 John Stambaugh, “The Function of Roman Temples,” in ANRW 2.16.1:579. 17 Chariton, Le Roman de Chairéas et Callirhoé (ed. and trans. Georges Moline; Paris: Belles Lettres, 1979), 203.

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fleeing the empty tomb meet the risen Jesus and take hold of his feet in an act of worship (Matt 28:9). A more formal custom of women wearing their hair unbound in acts of religious devotion was part of the Andanian mysteries. According to an inscription dating to 92/91 B.C.E. that gives the rule for the celebration of these rites, female initiates are not to wear “gold, or rouge, or white make-up, or a hair band, or braided hair or shoes made of anything but felt or leather from sacrificial victims.”18 Loose hair goes here with other divestments of culture, implying that the worshipers enter the rites in a pure and natural state. Similarly, the regulations for entering the temple of the goddess Despoina at Lycosura stipulate that women are not to enter with their hair bound (and men are not to cover their heads).19 In Satyricon, Petronius has Ganymede remember the “old days” when people believed in religion and “the mothers in their best robes used to climb the hill with bare feet and loose hair, pure in spirit, and pray Jupiter to send rain” (Sat. 45).20 We also have an ancient law attributed to Numa Pompilius (716–673 B.C.E.) that should a concubine touch the altar of Juno, she must offer a ewe lamb to Juno, approaching with her hair unbound.21 From what we have seen, it appears that for a woman to unbind her hair before a god was a gesture of humility and reverence. A famous story is told, which became a subject of artistic representation, that at the festival of Poseidon in Eleusis, “in sight of the whole Greek world” a beautiful and wealthy courtesan named Phryne “removed only her outer garment, loosed her hair, and stepped into the sea” (Athenaeus, Deip. 13.590).22 This is clearly an act of symbolic self-offering to the god. Athenaeus stresses the modesty of Phryne, and one of his points here is that she does not completely disrobe. But the gesture of self-offering also seems to have sexual overtones, an impression reinforced for us through an additional comment by Athenaeus about this episode. He reports what was probably a common opinion that the artist Apelles modeled his Aphrodite Rising from the Sea on Phryne’s act at the festival of Poseidon, an event the artist is said to have witnessed. Whether he 18 Translation of Marvin W. Meyer, The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook: Sacred Texts of the Mystery Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean World (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987), 53. For the Greek text, see SIG, vol. 2, no. 736 (specific language about hair on p. 403). 19 Leges Graecorum sacrae e titulis collectae (ed. Hans Theodor Anton von Prott and Ludwig Ziehen; repr., Chicago: Ares, 1988), no. 63, pp. 197–99. 20 Petronius, with a translation by Michael Heseltine, revised by E. H. Warmington (LCL; London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 87. 21 Fontes Iures Romani Antejustiniani, vol. 1 (2nd ed.; ed. Salvatore Riccobono et al.; 3 vols.; Florence: G. Barbèra, 1940–43), 13 (#13). 22 My translation, following the Greek text in Athenaeus, The Deipnosophists, with an English translation by Charles Burtin Gulick, vol. 6 (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1950), 186.


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witnessed the event or not, Apelles conceived it in erotic terms, and anyone who thought that Phryne was the model for his Aphrodite Rising from the Sea probably associated the eroticism of Apelles’ painting with Phryne’s famous dip in the sea with unbound hair. Of special interest for us is the possibility that it was customary for women to unbind their hair and step into the sea at the festival of Poseidon at Eleusis or elsewhere, but I have not found any evidence of this beyond the story about Phryne.23 The Matronalia festival honored Juno Lucina, goddess of childbirth. Only women were permitted to celebrate this festival, which required that they untie knots in their clothing and wear their hair unbound to ensure safety in childbirth (Ovid, Fast. 3.245). An ancient notion of sympatheia seems to be involved here, the idea that the untying of knots in clothing and hair will encourage an untying or loosening of the birth canal. Unmarried Roman and Greek girls wore their hair free (see Hom. Hym. 2.176–78) or restrained by a single headband (Ovid, Met. 2.413). In Heliodorus’s An Ethiopian Story, the beautiful young Charicleia, riding from the temple of Artemis in a chariot drawn by white bullocks and clad in a blouse of handmade black and gold snakes, wears her hair long down the back (but the ringlets in the front are controlled and chaste).24 Nymphs have loose hair (see Longus, Poim. 1.4; 2.23) as do maidens in idyllic seascapes (away from society).25 In these settings unbound hair is a symbol of freedom, naturalness (and in this sense freedom from the conventions of society), even wildness.26 Aristophanes portrays the free, wild maidens of Sparta, who, in their unmarried state, frolic with unbound hair like the bacchants (Lys. 1308–13). Ovid speaks of Daphne’s “lawless locks” (sine lege capillos) in Met. 1.477. Warrior women are sometimes described as having free-flowing hair,27 which may symbolize their wildness or fierceness, perhaps through association with Spartan male 23 Such a ritual would be practical only at shrines near the sea and where the geography afforded a beach. The Eleusinian mysteries included bathing in the sea as a ritual of purification. See Hans-Josef Klauck, The Religious Context of Early Christianity: A Guide to Greco-Roman Religions (trans. Brian McNeil; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 100. 24 Heliodorus, Ath. 3.4. Compare the novelist Xenophon’s description of the fourteen-yearold Anthia marching in the local procession at the festival of Artemis: “Her hair was golden—a little of it plaited, but most hanging loose and blowing in the wind” (Xenophon, Anth. 1.2; translation by Graham Anderson in B. P. Reardon, ed., Collected Ancient Greek Novels [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989], 129). 25 Achilles Tatius, Leuk. 1.1.7 (describing girls in a seascape painting). 26 Seneca regarded men’s long hair as natural, belonging to a time before culture when men lived lives nearer to animals. Men shaking out their streaming hair reminded him of noble animals shaking out their manes. See Quaest. Nat. 1.17.7. 27 See Heliodorus, Ath. 1.2, describing the heroine, Charicleia, in her first appearance in a warrior-like pose.

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warriors who have free-flowing hair. Apollo, in his pursuit of Daphne, dreams of her wild hair being “arranged” (comantur; Ovid, Met. 1.498), which probably refers not only to his desire to see her made up beautifully but also to the symbolism of hair so arranged, namely, as a sign of marriage (to him).28 Marriage required a change of hairstyle for women (not for men). Married women did up their hair with headbands,29 symbolizing the sexual unavailability of the matron to any man but her husband. Accordingly, it was shameful for a married woman to appear in public with her hair unbound, except under certain circumstances to be described more fully below. Before turning to these exceptions, it is important to mention the ritual prescribed in Num 5:18–31 to test whether a woman suspected of adultery has been unfaithful. The accused woman is brought before the priest, who dishevels her hair, places in her hands a grain offering of remembrance, requires an oath from her, and makes her drink a preparation called “the water of bitterness.” The undoing of the woman’s hair looks like an act of shaming designed to mortify her and bring forth a confession. It is to be noted that although the ritual, as a quasi-legal proceeding, does not technically presume the woman’s guilt, it is cast in language strongly biased against her. We find a later version of this ritual in Sot\ah 1.5. The element of shaming is even stronger in this text, which involves not only disheveling the accused woman’s hair but ripping open her clothing to expose her breasts.30 In some social situations, however, a woman whose age or marital status required that she bind her hair and cover her head could expose her head and let down her hair in public without risking censure. Callirhoe in the temple of Aphrodite offers one example (see above). Grieving rituals offer another, as we have noted in Charicleia’s acts of mourning. Plutarch asks, “Why do sons cover their heads when they escort their parents to the grave, while daughters go uncovered and with hair unbound?”31 He finds most plausible the explana28 Metamorphoses 1.498 as translated by A. D. Melville in Ovid: Metamorphoses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 16. See further Myerowitz Levine, “Gendered Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair,” 82–85. 29 Varro, Ling. 7.44 (speaking of the practice of married women to wear their hair on top of their heads fixed by a woolen band). I wish to thank Jennifer Eyl for this reference, found in her paper “Sweeping Sacred Floors with Her Hair: Polybius IX.6 and the Republican Women’s Passus” (paper read at the Bryn Mawr Symposium, October 11, 2003). 30 Numbers 5:11–31 is a complicated passage reflecting a no doubt complicated tradition history. On the passage as a whole, see the contributions by various scholars in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader (ed. Alice Bach; New York: Routledge, 1999), 460–522. These commentators say little about the disheveling of the woman’s hair. 31 Moralia 267 (The Roman Questions No. 14) in Plutarch’s Moralia, with an English translation by Frank Cole Babbitt (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1962), 25.


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tion that in mourning men and women do the opposite of what is usual for them.32 In Xenophon’s An Ephesian Tale, Anthia dishevels her hair in grief over her separation from her husband and his sufferings (Ath. 3.5). Vergil’s Aeneid speaks of women mourning the dead with hair unbound (Aen. 3.65). In Passion of Perpetua 20, Perpetua fixes her loosened hair after being knocked down by a bull in the arena; she does so because she regards it as unfitting that a martyr “should seem to grieve in her glory.”33 She also hastily covers her exposed thigh, a gesture of modesty. The author of this drama does not associate the rebinding of the hair with modesty, which shows how strongly unbound hair calls grief to mind. That is, Perpetua does not need to worry that people will interpret her loose hair in a sexual way because she knows they are more likely to associate her loose hair with grieving. Funerary reliefs showing families in mourning depict women with loose, disheveled hair.34 Ovid describes Aurora (Eos) going with disheveled hair to the shrine of Jove (Zeus) after leaving the funeral pyre of her son, Memnon. With streaming hair (crine soluto), she falls at the god’s feet to beg for Memnon’s safe passage to the next world and for some consolation in her grief (Met. 583–99). Eumolpus in Petronius’s Satyricon tells the story of a virtuous woman from Ephesus who in great grief mourns her husband by loosing her hair and beating her naked breast in the funeral procession. Unsatisfied with these customary expressions of grief (non contenta vulgari more), she takes up residence in her husband’s underground tomb and sets to weeping day and night (subsequently falling in love with a soldier who visits the tomb, and so forth) (Sat. 111).35 The tale is fanciful, but it reveals that for a woman to let down her hair and bare her breasts in public36 was considered fitting as an expression of grief. Here these behaviors, as her own actions in a grieving ritual, carry a very different meaning from the same actions performed on her in a violent ordeal of shaming (disheveling of an accused woman’s hair and ripping open her clothing to expose her breasts in Sot\ah 1.5; see above). Expression of grief through disheveled hair may also explain in part the practice of women to unbind their hair in times of great danger. From Polybius and Livy we have stories about extreme national crises in Rome, when the 32

Ibid., 27. W. H. Shewing’s rendering of in sua gloria plangere videretur. See The Passion of S.S. Perpetua and Felicity M.M., Together with the Sermons of Augustine upon These Saints (trans. W. H. Shewing; London: Sheed & Ward, 1931), 40 (Latin on p. 19). 34 See J. M. C. Toynbee, Death and Burial in the Roman World (London: Thames & Hudson, 1971), 44–47, with notes; plates 9, 10, and 11. 35 See Petronius, p. 268. 36 It is not clear whether the grieving woman in Eumolpus’s story exposes her breasts completely or only partially. Likewise the shaming ritual in Sot\ah 1.5 might involve full or only partial exposure of the breasts. 33

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women of the city of Rome would go from temple to temple sweeping the temple pavements and altars with their unbound hair, supplicating the gods to save the city from invasion (Polybius 9.6.3–5; Livy 26.9.7–8).37 This may suggest a kind of proleptic and supplicatory grief (see below). Or it could be a ritual cleansing of the temples to win the gods’ favor. The latter possibility has a remote parallel in an Egyptian song in which two priestesses symbolizing Isis and Nephthy invite the god Amen-Ra to wipe upon their hair the impurities of his bones when he (daily) reassembles his body.38 Of course, a ritual like that of the women sweeping the pavements and altars with their hair can have more than one meaning and, in many minds, it was no doubt simply “what we do” to avert disaster in a particular situation.39 Livy and Ovid tell us that the Sabine women of ancient Italy endeavored to stop their men from fighting by venturing into the battlefield, where they knelt with disheveled hair and begged for peace (Livy 1.13.1; Ovid, Fast. 213–22). Livy tells a similar story about the mother of Coriolanus, hair torn and disheveled, leading a parade of women to persuade her son from going to war against Rome (7.40.12 referring back to 2.40.5ff.). And Dionysius of Halicarnassus describes Roman women with loose hair beseeching the gods in an effort to ward off an attack against the city (8.22.2). Unbound hair in these passages may be understood as an exhibition of what might be called proleptic grief expressed in advance as a supplication to male warriors and/or the gods to avert war or other disaster. This impression is strengthened by the “Hymn of Demeter,” in which Demeter, upon learning that her daughter Persephone (Kore) has been abducted, unbinds her hair and goes in search of her. Similarly, in Civil War (De Bello Civili), Lucan describes a “grief of foreboding” among the people of Rome (B.C. 7.185–91) and then goes on to depict the married women of Rome, with hair disheveled, looking down from Rome’s high walls on the eve of the invasion, urging on their men (B.C. 7.369–70). We might understand these women as displaying anticipatory grief, which is also an act of supplication to the gods. Unbound hair was also associated with conjury. In the Aeneid a priestess with her hair disheveled summons subterranean powers (4.509–10). Lucan 37 Jennifer Eyl (“Sweeping Sacred Floors with Her Hair”) drew my attention to these passages and those mentioned below describing the Sabine women. 38 See E. A. Wallis Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, vol. 1 (New York: Dover, 1959), 107. I have this reference from Loretta Dornisch, A Woman Reads the Gospel of Luke (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996), 83. Unlike her, I don’t see here a parallel to what the woman does with her hair in Luke 7. 39 Eyl (“Sweeping Sacred Floors with Her Hair”) suggests that women’s unbound hair in these stories expresses a liminal state or situation. In the ancient world a woman’s unbound hair (and her act of unbinding the hair) could symbolize a crossing of the limen between culture and nature, order and chaos.


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portrays the witch Erictho living in deserted tombs, haggard, hair unkempt (B.C. 6.607–18). The sorceress Proselenos appears in Petronius’s Satyricon with unbound hair (Sat. 133). Ecstatic states were associated with loose hair. In both literary and visual depictions (e.g., on vases), Dionysius is typically accompanied by women (maenads) dancing in a frenzied state, their hair flying freely (Euripides, Bacch. 695, 864–65, 927–31). The church father Basil of Caesarea complains about women who celebrate the Easter vigil at the martyrs’ tombs by uncovering their heads and dancing wildly with disheveled hair.40 In the Apostolic Tradition, the instructions laid down for women about to be baptized include that they remove their jewelry and loose their hair (21.5). The Sahidic, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions all explain that the reason for the removal of jewelry is that nothing (or “nothing foreign” as one version has it) should go into the water with the baptizand (who is naked). One interpretation of this is that in the ancient world it was thought that demons took up residence in jewelry. Since bound hair is typically fixed in place with bands, pins, or combs, unbinding the hair would entail the removal of these objects, releasing the demons or at least preventing them from going into the water with the baptizand.41 This fits the parallel instruction in the Canons of Hippolytus, which gives as the reason for women to loose their hair as “for fear that something of the alien spirits should go down with them into the water.”42 A different interpretation is offered by Willem van Unnik, who sees this baptismal instruction as a Christian version of the rabbinic requirement that proselytes undergo baptismal rites in which, in the case of women, unbound hair symbolizes impurity, to be ritually cleansed.43 As he understands it, the church adopted the rabbinic idea of women’s unbound hair as impure and worked it into the meaning of baptism as cleansing from sin. Zwi Werblowsky proposes that the reasoning behind the instruction in the Apostolic Tradition is that bound hair might not receive the full effects of the baptism, parts within knotted hair perhaps remaining dry, which is a rabbinic worry mentioned in the Talmud in connection with women’s monthly postmenstrual washings.44 The regulations for the 40 Hom. 14 in hebraosus, PG 31:445; see also Basil, Sermones de moribus a Symeone Metaphrasta collecti, PG 32:1349. 41 See F. J. Dölger, Der Exorzismus im altchristlichen Taufritual (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1909), 112–14. Dölger draws attention to the claim in Excerpts of Theodotus that in some few cases there is a danger that demons might accompany the baptizand into the water (Ex. Theod. 83), an idea that he combines with a comment in 1 Enoch that demons are the inventors of jewelry (in 1 En. 8 the invention of ornaments is attributed to the fallen angel Azaz’el). 42 Canons of Hippolytus as quoted in Paul F. Bradshaw, Maxwell E. Johnson, and L. Edward Phillips, The Apostolic Tradition: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 113. 43 W. C. van Unnik, “Les chevaux defaits des femmes baptisées: Un rite de baptême dans l’Ordre Ecclésiastique d’Hippolyte,” VC 1 (1947): 77–100, esp. 90–96. 44 R. J. Zwi Werblowsky, “On the Baptismal Rite According to St. Hippolytus,” in Studia Patristica, vol. 2 (ed. Kurt Aland and F. L. Cross; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1955), 99.

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Andanian mysteries and those for the temple of Despoina, referred to earlier, may shed light here. At Andania makeup is also forbidden and simplicity of dress required. Simplicity of dress and absence of jewelry are insisted upon for entrance into the temple of Despoina. These rules, along with the regulation that hair be unbound, suggest that the accouterments of culture (and especially of ornament) are not to be carried into the mysteries. The concern is evidently to effect simplicity, lack of ostentation, naturalness. Many ancient Christians may have interpreted the baptismal regulations along the same lines. Moreover, Christians who reflected on these matters likely had varying understandings of the meaning of the rules about attire and hairstyle.

III. Interpreting Luke 7:36–50 in the Light of the Social Symbolism of Gestures with Hair in the Greco-Roman World My aim in what follows is to delineate reasonable interpretations of the story from an ancient readerly perspective. If the story admits more than one plausible interpretation from an ancient standpoint, then the original meaning of the story is that range of reasonable interpretations that first-century readers could have given.45 Luke’s story provides two explicit interpretations of the woman’s action: Simon the Pharisee’s interpretation followed by Jesus’ interpretation. Before Simon speaks, readers naturally form their own impressions of the woman’s actions. Hence, it may be helpful to analyze the story in terms of three successive judgments about the woman: an initial set of impressions prompted by the description of her in vv. 37–38, Simon’s interpretation of the woman’s behavior (v. 39), and Jesus’ interpretation of both Simon’s and the woman’s behaviors (vv. 40–50). I do not propose this threefold division as anything more than a heuristic approach to understanding the story. Rereading the story—studying it, preaching it, commenting upon it—naturally breaks up the sequence by bringing these three moments of interpretation into a kind of simultaneous interaction with one another. 45 I am not inquiring into Luke’s “intent” in a narrow sense. Nevertheless, for those interested in speculating about Luke’s intent, I recommend the following dictum attributed by J. Louis Martyn to Walter Bauer: “Before one inquires into the author’s intention, one must first ask how the first readers are likely to have understood the text.” See J. Louis Martyn, The Gospel of John in Christian History: Essays for Interpreters (New York: Paulist, 1978), 105–6 n. 169. In my judgment, the closest we can get to Luke’s intent is the range of reasonable interpretations that sensitive original readers/auditors gave (or could have given) his story. For those who are interested in a further elaboration of this approach to interpretation, I have treated the matter in greater detail in Elusive Israel: The Puzzle of Election in Romans (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), xi–xii, 1–25, and 91–96. See also Robert C. Tannehill, “Freedom and Responsibility in Scripture Interpretation, with Application to Luke,” in Literary Studies in Luke-Acts (ed. Richard P. Thompson and Thomas E. Philips; Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998), 265–78.


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First Impressions of the Woman’s Entrance and Gesture In making sense of vv. 37–38, any ancient hearer would have formed a mental picture, just as we do, of the woman wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair. Since it is hard to envision her performing this act with her hair up, ancient hearers will have wondered when the woman let down her hair or at least why her hair is hanging loose so she can use it to wipe his feet. Would Luke and his ancient readers have assumed that she entered Simon’s house with her head covering off 46 and her hair unbound? Or would they have imagined her lowering her head covering and loosening her hair at some point during her actions at Jesus’ feet, whether at the moment when she decides to dry her tears with her hair or earlier, perhaps even at the time when she first positions herself at his feet?47 A first-century hearer could have inferred that she let down her hair as part of her approach to Jesus, or that when she saw that she was getting his feet wet with her tears she let down her hair to wipe them. Either inference is perfectly reasonable. Would some first-century hearers have imagined that her hair was down because she was a prostitute, the assumption being that prostitutes wore their hair in a provocative, sexually solicitous fashion? Little evidence exists on the subject of how prostitutes wore their hair, and the evidence I have found is mixed. Plautus describes a courtesan who impersonates a married woman by fixing her hair with hairbands (Mil. 790–93), but the story of the courtesan Phryne shows that at least some prostitutes wore their hair up and bound when they went about in public. We will see in a moment, when we come to Simon’s response, that the story implies that nothing in her appearance marks her as a prostitute or a sexually “loose” woman. Luke introduces her as “a woman of the city who was a sinner” (7:37). Readers are left to draw their own conclusions about the nature of her sin; prostitution is certainly a possibility (perhaps especially with the mention of the city), but so is adultery or one of the other senses of aJmartwlov" as a social status.48 In any case, her unbound hair does not reveal the nature of her sin. The narrative leaves the possibilities open. 46 Greek and Roman women wore an outer garment with a hood that could be raised or lowered. It covered the head; it was not a veil obscuring the face. Among Jews in the talmudic period both married and unmarried women wore head coverings in public. But there may have been more relaxed attitudes among some Jews and at earlier periods. On the whole matter, see Louis M. Epstein, Sex Laws and Customs in Judaism (New York: Ktav, 1948), 46–52. 47 As we have seen, Asterius took for granted that the woman loosed her hair when she approached Jesus but before she began to weep (Hom. 13.10.3.1). 48 Matthew Black suggests that she as a debtor (An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts [3rd ed.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1967], 181–83). Adolf Schlatter argues that she was likely the wife of a man who did not observe the law (Das Evangelium nach Lukas [2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Calwer, 1960], 259).

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First impressions would also lead first hearers to puzzle about the meaning of the woman’s gestures as a whole: the kissing of the feet, the weeping, the use of her hair to wipe Jesus’ feet, the anointing with ointment. This sequence of actions is open to at least two interpretations: the woman wants something from Jesus and is seeking his favor, or she has received something from him and is expressing her gratitude. A woman with unbound hair kissing a man’s feet at a dinner party strikes some modern interpreters as a sexually provocative display. But a first-century audience would be unlikely to form this impression of the woman for several reasons. First, the woman has not been supplied by the host. Second, the setting is a Pharisee’s dinner party, not a morally lax Greco-Roman banquet. Third, the woman is weeping. In view of the evidence for grieving rituals, expressions of gratitude, and acts of solicitation that we have surveyed, it is difficult for me to imagine the ancient audience reading the woman’s actions in a sexual way. They are far more likely to think (and wonder) along the following lines: Why is she grieving and why does she show her grief in this way? Or what kind of act of grateful devotion is this? Or is it a supplication of some kind? The quasi doublet of our story in John 12 has Mary, in her own home (where her sister Martha and her brother Lazarus are hosting Jesus), anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume and wiping his feet with her hair. This act is clearly one of devotion, a gesture of loving, self-giving affection. (Jesus interprets Mary’s act prophetically as an anointing for his burial.) Let me put the preceding argument a bit differently. Given the conventional social meanings of the gestures and their appearance in the setting of a Pharisee hosting the holy man Jesus at dinner, first-century Mediterranean hearers would not be any more justified than modern readers are in construing the woman’s behavior as sexually provocative or shameful. They would be justified in construing her actions as expressions of grief, gratefulness, propitiation, or pleading. Simon’s Reading of the Woman and of Jesus One test of the preceding is whether it makes sense in the light of Simon’s response. After all, Luke must portray Simon as giving a conventional response, what a first-century Mediterranean man who is also a Pharisee might say in this situation. Simon does not comment directly about the woman; he comments about Jesus, thinking to himself, “If this man were a prophet he would have known who and what kind of woman she is, who is touching him, that she is a sinner” (v. 39). The implication is that the woman, because of who she is (a sinner), should not be touching Jesus. This tells us a lot about whether the woman’s actions are, from a conventional point of view, sexually provocative. Luke’s story implies that Simon does not think they are because Simon says, “if


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this man were a prophet. . . .” In other words, Simon’s view is that although there is nothing in the immediate actions or appearance of the woman to suggest that she is a sinner, a prophet would know her identity by clairvoyance. Assuming that Luke’s portraiture of Simon has verisimilitude (in the eyes of his audience) as a depiction of a strait-laced, morally conservative person, then it is fair to draw the following conclusion. If there is nothing in what the woman does or how she appears to suggest to a Pharisee that she is a sinner, then her behavior and appearance must not seem sexually inappropriate by ancient Mediterranean moral codes.49 And this conclusion is consistent with the way we have already read her actions in the light of our survey. Unbound hair on a weeping woman is naturally associated with grief, supplication, and gratitude. Moreover, we have seen a case where the fact that a woman’s hair is unbound (in her supplicatory grief) is not even mentioned because it presumably went without saying (in the story of the mother of Coriolanus). We learn of her unbound hair only in a later reference recalling the scene. A first-century audience could construe Luke 7 along similar lines. The reference to the woman’s tears and her use of her hair to wipe Jesus’ feet could easily prompt a retroactive picture of the woman entering the scene in a grief-stricken state with her hair unbound. Jesus’ Response The story of the sinful woman has been analyzed form-critically as a pronouncement story (vv. 36–40, 44–47) into which a parable has been inserted (vv. 41–43). Most commentators think that Luke inherited the story in this complex form from the tradition and added a conclusion (vv. 48–50). The effect of this compound is a seeming contradiction between two ways in which Jesus interprets the woman’s actions. The parable suggests that great forgiveness produces great love in the one forgiven. The pronouncement story suggests that great love wins forgiveness. The ending of the narrative asserts a standard gospel refrain, “your faith has saved you,” which restates neither of the preceding two principles, although it does not necessarily contradict either of them.50 One way of partially resolving the apparent contradiction is to take the o{ticlause in v. 47 not in an explanatory sense, as giving the reason why the woman 49 It is also worth noting that Simon does not express surprise at the woman’s presence in his house. This may reflect a custom in the ancient Mediterranean world of permitting uninvited persons to attend dinner parties so long as they remained along the walls, not at the table. For evidence in Jewish settings, see Str-B 4:611–39, 615. 50 Some interpreters think that “your faith has saved you” is closer to “her sins being many are forgiven because she loved much,” inasmuch as in both the order of reception of God’s grace begins with an act by the woman (love or faith), whereas in the parable the implication is that a divine act of forgiveness produces love on the part of the receiver.

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has been forgiven, but in an evidentiary sense, as giving the tokens attesting to a prior forgiveness she had already received. This solution conforms v. 47 to the logic of the parable. It does not, however, reconcile v. 47 to the pronouncement of forgiveness in v. 48. As we have seen, as a woman’s symbolic or ritual gesture, unbinding the hair/unbound hair can be part of grieving, including grieving solicitation of help or mercy. It can also be part of expressions of gratitude. Hence, the woman can be seen as seeking Jesus’ forgiveness or as expressing her gratitude for a forgiveness she has already received in an assumed but unnarrated part of the story. The story as it now stands in Luke concludes with Jesus pronouncing forgiveness on the woman (vv. 48–50). Looking back on the story from the standpoint of this ending, we are justified in concluding that the woman’s actions are pleadings expressing grief for her sin and a desire for mercy. If we assume that the woman knows Jesus’ reputation for accepting sinners,51 then it is also possible to interpret her tears as expressions of pious grief mixed with grateful anticipation of acceptance.52 Jesus also interprets the woman’s actions as gestures of hospitality. This is a surprising and ironic way of construing her behavior, designed to draw a contrast between the Pharisee’s failure to play the proper host to Jesus and the sinful woman’s unwitting fulfillment of Simon’s role. If there is any intrinsic connection between Jesus’ novel interpretation of her actions and the more conventional meaning those actions might carry, it is found in the association of unbinding the hair/unbound hair and kissing the feet with honorific displays toward a person of high status and with veneration of a deity. To judge from a passage in Petronius, having a guest’s feet anointed with ointment (and not merely washed) was a practice of extravagant hospitality.53 Are the woman’s actions not also expressions of love and self-offering, not in an erotic sense but as gestures of devotion? This seems plausible and leads some readers to imagine a prior, unnarrated scene in which Jesus shows mercy to the woman, after which she, once she has collected herself or found opportunity, seeks him out to show a gratitude that has already deepened into love. This 51 Jesus’ reputation for befriending sinners is mentioned right before our story (7:34). We can gather from the woman’s possession of the alabaster flask and her actions with it that she does not meet Jesus by chance at Simon’s house. Moreover, Luke is explicit: she found out (ejpignou'sa) where he was and went with her flask, and so on (7:37ff.). In these ways, the narrative makes clear that the woman sought out Jesus, the implication being that she did so on the basis of his reputation. 52 See Méndez-Moratalla, Paradigm of Conversion in Luke, 111. 53 Guests at a wealthy man’s extravagant dinner party are surprised when he has their feet anointed with ointment midway through the festivities (Sat. 70). This was against convention, the narrator says, presumably meaning that it occurred at an odd time—in the middle of the party and not when the guests first arrived.


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interpretation fits nicely with the parable Jesus tells (the one forgiven much loves much in response) but clashes with the ending of the narrative. Jesus applauds the woman’s actions. He interprets her devotion as the kind of care for him a host should have given. She thus becomes an exemplary figure. Moreover, the suggestion that the woman becomes Jesus’ host, although it is not meant literally, associates her with the women mentioned in the next narrative. They are his patrons, “providing for him out of their resources” (Luke 8:2–3).54 Both the sinful woman and these women take care of him. This construal of the story also fits best with the parable, which implies that the woman’s actions are loving expressions of devotion. It does not fit as well with the interpretation encouraged by the end of the pronouncement of forgiveness in v. 48, which leads us to see her actions as moral grief and a plea for mercy. Both interpretations are reasonable original (ancient) ways to understand Luke 7:36–50, each doing better justice to some aspects of the narrative than to others. The social symbolism of the unbound hair fits either interpretation or any combination of the two.

IV. Conclusion This study has clarified the meaning of the woman’s gesture with her hair in Luke 7:38 by describing the social symbolism of a woman’s unbound hair in the ancient Mediterranean world. When a woman wears her hair unbound/ unbinds her hair, this can be a sexually suggestive act, an expression of religious devotion, a hairstyle for unmarried girls, a sign of mourning, a symbolic expression of distress or proleptic grief in the face of impending danger (and a way of pleading with or currying the favor of those in power, whether gods or men), a hairstyle associated with conjury, a means of presenting oneself in a natural state in religious initiations, and a precaution against carrying demons or foreign objects into the waters of baptism. As these examples show, in certain social situations it is right for an ancient Mediterranean woman to unbind her hair in public, to do “the opposite” (recall Plutarch) of what is conventionally decorous, often (but not always) to express a state of extremity or liminality. These results shed light on Luke 7:38. Along with other contextual clues in the passage, they lead us to conclude that the woman’s gesture with her hair is not sexually provocative, indecent, or even a breach of etiquette. Some firstcentury auditors might have imagined that the woman makes her approach (self-presentation) to Jesus with hair undone (entering with hair unbound or 54 The manuscript tradition attests both “providing for him” and “providing for them,” that is, for the entourage as a whole.

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loosing it when she reaches Jesus’ feet) as a gesture expressing grief, gratefulness, or solicitation (or a combination of these). Other auditors might have imagined that she unbinds her hair at the moment she realizes that she has wet Jesus’ feet. For these auditors the gesture must have looked like an expedient born of the moment but not as something provocative or indecorous. Even as an unplanned act, it fits the overall deportment of the woman toward Jesus. The range of social meanings for the woman’s gesture with her hair lets us find a congruence between her action and either of two main lines of interpretation of the story: (1) that she has been forgiven antecedent to the narrative and comes to show her gratitude and devotion, or (2) that she comes weighed down by guilt, seeking forgiveness and acceptance, which she receives in the end. Perhaps these two interpretations can be combined by imagining that the woman approaches seeking acceptance from Jesus but also assuming that he will give it, that she belongs to the class of people to whom he has already extended God’s forgiveness. In that case, she is grieving, supplicating, and grateful. Whether a comprehensive interpretation of the narrative can accommodate this unifying interpretation or not,55 the woman’s gesture with her hair can reflect more than one state of mind. 55 It has not been my aim to give a comprehensive interpretation of Luke 7:36–50. I have restricted myself to illuminating the gesture of the hair and showing some of its implications for the interpretation of the story.

JBL 124/4 (2005) 693–714

SYNTACTICAL AND TEXT-CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS ON JOHN 20:30–31: ONE MORE ROUND ON THE PURPOSE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL

D. A. CARSON Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL 60015

Debates over the purpose and audience of the Fourth Gospel turn on a plethora of interlocking texts and interpretive stances. One small but vital part is the interpretation of John 20:30–31. More than fifteen years ago, I published an essay under the title “The Purpose of the Fourth Gospel: John 20:30–31 Reconsidered.”1 Some time later that piece was criticized by Gordon Fee, and his response has been adopted in some circles as the last word on the syntactical and text-critical issues that are involved. Other interests have intruded on my attention, but it is high time I responded. I am grateful for Dr. Fee’s arguments, some of which convince me, and some of which I find rather unsatisfactory. Inevitably many will not recall the nature of the disagreement, so for the sake of clarity it seems best to summarize both my argument and Fee’s response, along with a few asides from others, before I advance a few fresh considerations.

I. The Original Essay Although the original essay lightly surveyed some of the broader arguments for the view that the Fourth Gospel was originally written for the purpose of evangelizing Jews and other biblically literate people such as proselytes and God-fearers, the heart of the argument lay in two points, one quite minor, the other major. The minor argument was that regardless of one’s text-critical 1 D. A. Carson, “The Purpose of the Fourth Gospel: John 20:30–31 Reconsidered,” JBL 106 (1987): 639–51.

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decision regarding pisteuv[s]hte (aorist subjunctive or present subjunctive) in John 20:31, very little could legitimately be made of the decision so far as determining the purpose of the book is concerned, since elsewhere in the book both the aorist and the present are used to refer to both the initial coming-to-faith and the exercise of believing on the long haul. In other words, this minor argument was merely an exercise in setting aside as largely irrelevant a frequently argued tense distinction (here complicated by textual variations) that could not be supported by John’s usage elsewhere. But the major purpose of the essay was to call attention to some linguistic work by Lane C. McGaughy and then work out some of its implications for John 20:30–31. In his monograph, McGaughy sets out to determine what is the subject and what is the complement in every instance where the verb eijmiv occurs in the NT.2 His summary is as follows, articulated in three points and four subpoints (and largely using his own words): 1. The subject is that word or cluster that agrees in person and number with the personal ending of the verb. That, of course, is true for all verbs (except where there is a breach of concord), not just for eijmiv. 2. The word or word cluster with head terms in the nominative case is the subject. Once again, of course, this is true for all verbs, except where the verb takes on the form of an infinitive, in which instance the “quasi subject” is in the accusative. Moreover, this rule, though true, is not particularly helpful in distinguishing subject and completion when the verb is a copulative. 3. The subject is determined by its antecedent—which may be linguistic, situational, or merely the topic on which comment is being made. In particular: a. Demonstrative and relative pronouns are subjects (this follows, of course, from what has just been said). b. The subject is indicated by zero anaphora—that is, the subject need not be separately expressed, but the context nevertheless tells us that yeuvsth" ejstivn means “he is a liar” and not “a liar exists.” c. The word or word cluster determined by an article is the subject. d. If both words or word clusters are determined by the article, the first one is the subject. The important rule for my original paper, as for this one, is (3c). After examining every instance of ejstivn in the NT, McGaughy says that all of them fit under these rules, except for five exceptions to (3c): John 20:31; 1 John 2:22b; 2 Lane C. McGaughy, Toward a Descriptive Analysis of EINAI as a Linking Verb in New Testament Greek (SBLDS 6; Missoula, MT: Society of Biblical Literature, 1972).

Carson: John 20:30–31

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4:15; 5:1; 5:5c. Each of these five passages makes a christological assertion, and in each instance McGaughy thinks that the anarthrous “Jesus” is the subject. In the passage that is the focus of this paper, then, McGaughy renders the relevant clause, “that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” In an important review of McGaughy’s book, however, Eugene Van Ness Goetchius doubts that there are adequate syntactical or contextual reasons for thinking that there are any exceptions. Compare, for instance, the christological assertions in Acts 5:42; 18:5, 28. Begin with Acts 18:5: . . . diamarturovmeno" toi'" !Ioudaivoi" ei\nai to;n cristo;n !Ihsou'n. This falls within the parameters of McGaughy’s study, and consistently McGaughy holds that Paul bore witness that “the Christ is Jesus” not that “Jesus is the Christ.” Acts 5:28 is similar, though admittedly with text-critical variations. Strictly speaking, Acts 5:42 falls outside the parameters of McGaughy’s work, since the copulative verb is omitted: . . . didavskonte" kai; eujaggelizovmenoi to;n cristo;n !Ihsou'n. Once again, however, we are faced with the need to determine which noun is the subject, and, in line with a rising number of commentators, Goetchius opts for “that the Christ is Jesus.” In each of these contexts, the “given” for the hearers is “the Christ.” The Christian witness is that “the Christ is Jesus.” Moreover, this rendering is supported not only by fair consideration of the context of Acts but by recent work on Greek syntax.3 That brings us to the five finite verbs, all in the Johannine corpus. Four of these are found in 1 John. Some kind of christological aberration stands behind the text,4 an aberration that divided “Christ” or “Son of God” from “Jesus.” Hence the four confessional statements in these verses. There is no particular contextual reason for thinking that “Jesus” must be the subject. In each pair of instances, it makes at least as much sense to understand the “true” confession to be “that the Christ is Jesus” (2:22b; 5:1) or “that the Son of God is Jesus” (4:15; 5:5c). Indeed, if “Christ” and “Son of God” constituted the locus of debate, it might make even more sense to understand them to be the head terms in the confessional utterances. That leaves only John 20:31. Here, too, I argued that Goetchius is right: McGaughy’s rule is stronger than McGaughy himself thinks it is, and so the relevant clause should be rendered, “that the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus.” In the rest of my article, I tried to work out some of the implications of this understanding of the syntax. I offered twelve points that began with the argu3 See Henry R. Moeller and Arnold Kramer, “An Overlooked Structural Pattern in New Testament Greek,” NovT 5 (1961–62): 25–35; and especially the more linguistically compelling work of Jeffrey T. Reed, “The Infinitive with Two Substantival Accusatives,” NovT 33 (1991): 1–27. 4 Despite arguments to the contrary, I am still inclined to think that some kind of protoGnostic movement is in play. I will defend that view in my forthcoming NIGTC commentary. But none of my argument in this paper turns on this conclusion.

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ment that this reading presupposes that the answer is being cast to answer the question, Who is the Messiah? Who is the Son of God? rather than Who is Jesus? It seems to me that my twelve points are still cogent—but they turn entirely on the assumption that McGaughy, improved by Goetchius, is correct and therefore that the translation “that the Messiah, the Son of God, is Jesus” is the only acceptable rendering. If that rendering is incorrect, then my twelve observations are simply irrelevant, mere answers blowing in the wind because unattached to any textual data. Interestingly enough, my ninth point introduced, and dismissed, one of the points that Fee would eventually raise. I wrote: In private conversation, some have questioned whether it is right to rest so much weight on the article with a name, especially the name !Ihsou'" when names in general and this name in particular exhibit notorious complexities in the patterns of their articular and anarthrous occurrence. But the crucial syntactical unit is not the name, with or without the article, but all nominative nouns syntactically linked to ejstivn. The frequency of the construction and the consistent validity of McGaughy’s “rule”—especially so once his own “exceptions” have been judged unnecessary and unlikely—suggest that the syntactical argument cannot be so easily sidestepped.5

But sidestepping it, of course, is precisely what Fee has managed to do. So we must turn to a summary of his argument.

II. The Response of Gordon D. Fee Fee’s essay was first published in the Festschrift for Frans Neirynck.6 Fee tells us that his purpose is twofold: “(1) to suggest that the textual question of 20,31 can be resolved with a much greater degree of certainty than is often allowed; and (2) to propose grounds for believing that the original text (pisteuvhte present subjunctive) is meaningful grammatically for John” (p. 2193). A final lengthy footnote provides his reason for dismissing the evidence from McGaughy.

5

Carson, “Purpose,” 648–49. Gordon D. Fee, “On the Text and Meaning of John 20,30–31,” in The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck (ed. F. van Segbroeck et al.; BETL 100; Leuven: University Press, 1992), 2193–2205. It reappears in the third collection of Fee’s essays, To What End Exegesis? Essays Textual, Exegetical, and Theological (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). In this section, page references to Fee’s article are given in parentheses in the text, according to the page numbers of the original publication. 6


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The Text-Critical Issue On the textual question, Fee summarizes the evidence for 20:31 as follows: pisteuvhte

∏66vid a B Q 0250 892

pisteuvshte

A C D K L rell

Related to this is the reading in 19:35: pisteuvhte

∏66vid a B Y Origen

pisteuvshte

rell

Fee points out that Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary asserts that both readings in 20:31 “have notable early support,”7 but the extended comment that follows has little to do with textual criticism per se. It discusses neither intrinsic nor transcriptional probabilities, but shows instead the meaning each reading would have for the Fourth Gospel. By contrast, Fee points out that the videtur ∏66 is required because the word is partly lacunose, but there is no doubt that the manuscript supports the present subjunctive. That puts the reading clearly in the second century—as does the support of Origen with respect to the similar reading at 19:35. Thus only the present subjunctive actually enjoys “notable early support”; the earliest support for the aorist subjunctive is found in witnesses from the fifth century, admittedly from several textual traditions. Further, in his careful discussion of the likely options that explain the two readings, present and subjunctive, Fee makes a good case that the present subjunctive is the lectio difficilior. I need not review his findings. I think he is right, and the present subjunctive in 20:31 should be taken, by a wide margin, as the most likely reading. The Significance of the Present Subjunctive The second part of Fee’s paper seeks to answer the question, “Is the Present Subjunctive ‘meaningful’?” (pp. 2199–2205). Fee casts his discussion in terms of whether John uses Aktionsart “in a meaningful way” (p. 2199). Before considering the passages with pisteuvw, he prepares the ground by arguing more generally, along the following lines: (a) The occurrence of the aorist subjunctive is not normally very significant. After all, the aorist is the default tense (“what an author would be expected to use if he had no specific ‘kind of action’ in mind” [ibid.]). Moreover, many of the occurrences are in fixed phrases (e.g., 7 Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York: United Bible Societies, 1971), 256.

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twenty-three are passives, eight of them i{na plhrwqh'/). Others, Fee asserts, are “undoubtedly constative” (ibid.), as 1:8, where John the Baptist is said to bear witness to Jesus—certainly without any particular moment in mind. The evangelist could have used the present to indicate that the witness was borne over time, but there was no pressing need to do so. And some verbs appear in the aorist “simply because the sense of the verb is aoristic” (ibid.): Fee lists lambavnw in 6:7, bavllw in 5:7, divdwmi in 1:22; 13:29; 17:2, and the verbs “to eat,” “to die,” “and to raise up.” So even if the aorist were used in 20:31, we should be hesitant about insisting that this would be “meaningful” in some way. “If the aorist were original, it could be ingressive, of course, but it could also refer to the simple act of believing, without making a point of when” (ibid.). (b) But this is not the case with the present subjunctive. True, some verbs carry a “durative sense” (ibid.) and so can be expected to occur in the present tense (e.g., e[cein, or verbs for “to love” and “to bear fruit”). But the present tense is not the default tense, and one should expect John’s choice of it to be meaningful. (c) Strong evidence supporting the thesis that John knew the significance of tense is found in constructions where he uses both the aorist and the present, carefully distinguishing between them (e.g., i{na gnw'te kai; ginwvskhte [10:38]; a{rate . . . mh; poiei'te [5:8]). To show that “John knew the signficance of tense” does not, admittedly, demonstrate “that he therefore always used the present tense with this kind of significance” (p. 2200). So (d) Fee goes on to assert that “John shows a general sensitivity to Aktionsart (ibid.) when he chooses the present subjunctive in i{na clauses. Fee lists a number of examples, both in the Gospel at large and in the Last Supper discourse in particular. (e) That brings Fee to consider two sets of interchanges, which I here set forth as Fee does: First set: 4:34

ejmo;n brw'mav ejstin i{na poihvsw to; qevlhma tou' pevmyantov" me kai; teleiwvsw aujtou' to; e[rgon poihsw ∏66 ∏75 B C D K L N W Q Y 083 l 33 al poiw'

6:38

a A f13 Byz

o{ti katabevbhka ajpo; tou' oujranou' oujc i{na poiw' to; qevlhma to; ejmo;n ajlla; to; qevlhma tou' pevmyantov" me poiw'

∏66 ∏75 B rell

poihvsw a D L 1010 pc (p. 2201) Fee says that in 6:38 the present poiw' makes perfectly good sense, for “while it is true that a (constative) aorist could have given the same meaning” (ibid.), the present tense “suggests that the sentence has to do with Jesus’ earthly ministry


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as a whole” (ibid.): Jesus’ words and works “constitute a continual ‘doing’ of the Father’s will” (ibid.). This way of looking at things, Fee thinks, helps to explain the Byzantine reading (the present) at 4:34. Yet in its own context, the aorist in 4:34 (which Fee thinks is most likely original) makes good sense and is “meaningful” in its own context: the presence of the parallel teleiwvsw suggests that the focus “looks forward to one specific moment, hinted at often in the Gospel, when Jesus ‘finishes’ the will of the One who sent him—namely, on the cross” (ibid). Fee admits that this reading of the pair of texts cannot be judged to be certain (after all, the aorist in 4:34 could be constative), but he thinks that it makes the most sense and respects both the tenses and their respective contexts. Second set: 13:19

14:29

ajp! a[rti levgw uJmi'n pro; tou' genevsqai, i{na pisteuvshte o{tan gevnhtai o{ti ejgwv eijmi pisteuvshte

∏66 rell

pisteuvhte

B C [∏75 lac]

kai; nu'n ei[rhka uJmi'n pri;n genevsqai, i{na o{tan gevnhtai pisteuvshte (no variation)

As UBS has it, the aorist pisteuvshte is deployed in both verses, and in that case, Fee asserts, “there is little to be said” (p. 2202), since the aorist is what one might expect after o{tan gevnhtai. But Fee argues that the UBS reading is “almost certainly wrong” (ibid.). And if the present subjunctive is in fact the correct reading in 13:19, it is entirely appropriate, Fee asserts, because of the object clause, o{ti ejgwv eijmi. “It is not the moment of believing ‘when it happens’ (which alone accounts for the textual variation) that here concerns John, but that the disciples will thereafter continue to believe that ‘I am,’ after what Jesus has said beforehand is fulfilled” (ibid.). By contrast, in 14:29, where the focus is on believing without specifying that crucial object clause, the aorist subjunctive seems most appropriate. Fee concludes: “It is not that [John] is trying to ‘make a statement’ by the use of the present in these texts, but that he shows considerable sensitivity to the subtleties of Aktionsart inherent in the language itself” (ibid.). The texts he has considered so far convince Fee that John displays “nuanced usage” whenever he deploys the present tense with i{na, so at this juncture Fee tests his results by surveying all of the i{na-clauses with pisteuvw. There are eleven of them (1:7; 6:29, 30; 9:36; 11:15, 42; 13:19; 14:29; 17:21;

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19:35; 20:31). Of these, six are aorist subjunctive, and “all refer to general or specific instances of ‘belief’ within the ‘historical’ situation of the narrative” (p. 2203). The remaining five display textual variation, but the present tense “is almost certainly original in each case” (ibid.). In each instance, Fee argues that the choice of the present tense is significant. (a) In 6:29–30, Jesus’ opponents ask him, “What should we be doing (poiw'men) so that we might be performing (ejrgazwvmeqa) the works of God?” The implication is “not that they are asking about what single thing they might do to please God, but what kind of ‘works’ over the long run should they be doing so as to be living in keeping with God’s will” (ibid.). Jesus’ answer, “This is the work of God that you believe (pisteuvhte) . . . ” is therefore not a demand for initial faith in Christ, but a lifelong belief in Jesus. (b) John 13:19 has already been considered. (c) In John 17:21, Jesus prays for those who believe in him because of the word of his disciples. He prays that they may be one, a unity patterned on the unity of the Father and the Son, “so that the world may believe (pisteuvh/) that you sent me.” “On the surface,” Fee observes, “this passage seems a bit more difficult for the position being argued here” (p. 2204). Nevertheless, he insists, once one takes into account “all of John’s linguistic subtleties and grammatical senstivities [sic]” (ibid.), the choice of the present tense fits into the same pattern. In the prayer of John 17, Fee asserts, there are three distinct groups: the disciples, their disciples, and the world. “The world is no longer the arena of salvation (as in 3,16–17), but refers to those who do not—and never will—believe in him (in the sense of having faith in Christ” (ibid.). Here Fee provides a footnote: “Although not so earlier, kovsmo" is used exclusively in a hostile sense in the Abschiedsreden (chaps. 14–17). This has been set up by the clear line of demarcation in the double conclusion to the Book of Signs in 12,37–50” (p. 2204 n. 28). So Fee argues that neither here in 17:21 nor in 17:23 (i{na ginwvskh/ oJ kovsmo" o{ti . . .) is the conversion of the world in view. “The world will continue to be the world, but on the strength of Christian unity, it will have to take seriously that the Father sent Jesus into the world” (p. 2204). This is what the world will come to believe, over time—and hence the tense is entirely appropriate. If we may then take (d) and (e) together: in 19:35 and 20:31, assuming that a present tense is original, and assuming that Johannine usage is consistent with what has already been established, it is best to think of ongoing, continuing faith in both of these passages. Fee is cautious about inferring too much from his argument. It is possible to suppose that John “has written his gospel for the believing community in order that, in light of defections or external pressures, they ‘may continue to believe’—as though the Gospel were intended to keep people from drifting away from faith in Christ” (ibid.). Fee thinks that that case could be made on other grounds, but this much weight cannot be placed on the tense alone. Rather, he is arguing that the present subjunctive in 20:31 “presupposes a doc-


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ument intended for those who are already members of the believing community” (p. 2205). Moreover, this is confirmed by the fact that “those who ‘confess’ Jesus in this Gospel in the language of this sentence (that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God) are not coming to faith, but represent those from within a context of faith, who must be encouraged to a deeper measure of that faith, in the sense of deepened understanding (e.g. Nathanael, Peter, Martha, Thomas)” (ibid.). The Response to McGaughy In his final footnote, Fee says that his conclusion stands over against my article on the purpose of the Fourth Gospel.8 The major flaw in my argument, he asserts, is my dependence on McGaughy (described above). The problem is that McGaughy drew his observations “on the basis of the verb eijnai [sic], without adequate attention to John’s own usage of the article with proper names.”9 Fee is referring to one of his earlier essays,10 where, he asserts, it was “demonstrated that Johannine usage in particular and NT usage in general favors [sic] an anarthrous personal name in o{ti-clauses when the name precedes the verb.”11 This feature has “more significance” than “syntactical links to ejstivn.”12 Subsequent discussion has only occasionally taken up these issues. Robert Gordon Maccini and Derek Tovey follow my arguments; so does Robert T. Fortna, but because he connects 20:30–31 to his reconstruction of the Signs Source, he substantially agrees with my exegesis of 20:30–31 but argues that it is only the Signs Source, and not the Fourth Gospel, that was written with evangelistic intent.13 Some today are at best only mildly interested in such matters, because the focus of their inquiry into John’s Gospel is the nature of its rhetoric, rather than with matters slanted toward historical questions.14 But it is more common, I think, to follow Fee’s arguments. 15 Still more commonly the 8

Fee “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205 n. 29. Ibid. 10 Gordon D. Fee, “The Use of the Definite Article with Personal Names in the Gospel of John,” NTS 17 (1970–71): 168–83. 11 Fee, “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205 n. 29, referring to Fee, “Use of the Definite Article,” 179. 12 Fee, “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205 n. 29. 13 Robert Gordon Maccini, Her Testimony Is True: Women as Witnesses according to John (JSNTSup 125; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 32; Derek Tovey, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel (JSNTSup 151; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 88; Robert T. Fortna, The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 201 n. 474, 323. 14 Perhaps the best example of a commentary with such commitments is Udo Schnelle, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (THKNT; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1998). 15 So, e.g., Andrew T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel 9

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detailed syntactical and semantic issues are simply not addressed, but opinion largely comes down on the side of the view that the Fourth Gospel is addressed to the Johannine community and thus is not evangelistic in scope or intent.16 Doubtless this is a particularly attractive approach among scholars for whom the focus of attention is on the Johannine community. If the document is primarily addressed to the Johannine community, then transparently its primary purpose cannot be evangelistic.

III. Revisiting the Issues It would not be appropriate here to canvas the evidence that has been put forward over the years for the view that John’s Gospel is primarily evangelistic.17 My purpose is narrower: to evaluate the detailed responses set out by Fee (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000), 177; James V. Brownson, “John 20.31 and the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” RefR 48 (1995): 212–16. 16 For instance, the subtantial and admirable commentary on John by Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1215–16, asserts that the issue cannot be decided on the basis of one’s text-critical judgments (though Keener thinks the present tense is more likely), but on the basis of how one reads the entire Gospel. “Undoubtedly John would like to invite faith from his opponents; certainly he wants the closet believers among them to go public with their faith (12:42–43; 19:38–40). But by what means would John get the Gospel into the hands of unbelievers except through the preaching of believers? From the perspective of marketing strategies, the intrinsic probabilities favor a primary audience of believers. But the Gospel itself suggests the same. Throughout the Gospel, many people become initial believers, but their initial faith proves insufficient without perseverance (2:23–25; 8:30,59). John’s goal is not simply initial faith but persevering faith, discipleship (8:30–32; 15:4–7). John’s purpose is to address believers at a lesser stage of discipleship and to invite them to persevere as true disciples” (p. 1216). 17 In addition to the literature I listed in my original article, not only have there been numerous additions, but some debates have been cast in substantially new categories. For instance, if Richard Bauckham and his colleagues are even substantially right, then the canonical Gospels were initially written for a much wider intended circulation than a hermetically sealed community associated with a “Matthew,” a “Mark,” a “Luke,” or a “John” (see Richard Bauckham, ed., The Gospels for All Christians: Re-thinking the Gospel Audiences [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998]). I am inclined to think that the principal negative thesis of this book is largely correct (i.e., that the canonical Gospels were not intended to be read by discrete and rather separate individual communities), but that some of the positive theses are more doubtful. The view that the canonical Gospels were all written primarily for the widest possible Christian audience needs more testing. In particular, Bauckham’s second contribution in the book, “John for Readers of Mark” (pp. 147–71), isolates evidence that Bauckham thinks supports the view that John’s intended readers had read Mark, and that John was therefore writing not for an ostensible “Johannine community,” but for those already familiar with Mark’s Gospel, and thus for wide circulation among the churches. The response of Wendy E. Sproston North (“John for Readers of Mark? A Response to Richard Bauckham’s Proposal,” JSNT 25 [2003]: 449-68) is largely convincing—but it does not address the possibility that John’s Gospel was written primarily with evangelistic purposes in mind. To make matters yet more complicated, some have suggested that although John is writing to Christians, he is doing so to help


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(though I shall also introduce one or two collateral arguments advanced by others). The Text-Critical Issue By and large, I find Fee’s discussion of the text-critical debate on John 20:31 convincing. I suspect that in time many others will as well. With a reasonably high probability, the present subjunctive should be taken as original. I shall assume this conclusion in the ensuing discussion. I am less convinced that Fee is right when he finds the present tense in several other Johannine passages— or, to put it more carefully, Fee sometimes seems to me to overreach the evidence in these other passages in a way he is careful to avoid in 20:31. But to borrow the language of the courtroom: I will happily stipulate to the present tense in all of the relevant passages for the sake of the argument, even though the evidence is most convincing for 20:31. The Significance of the Present Subjunctive Granted the reading i{na pisteuvhte in John 20:31, what significance, if any, can be attached to the choice? (a) Fee’s discussion has, today, a very old-fashioned feel, but this is not his fault. When he wrote, detailed consideration of the relations between tense form and aspect theory was being conducted in journal articles in fairly esoteric places, or in Spanish.18 Certainly such consideration did not hit the mainstream of English-language NT scholarship until the publication of three important books, by Stanley E. Porter, Buist M. Fanning, and Kenneth L. McKay, respectively.19 For instance, Fee’s comment (above) that in 6:38 the present poiw' them, among other things, in their evangelism of their relatives and friends, not least Jews and proselytes (Ben Witherington III, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995], 2, 11). 18 I am not including the sophisticated discussions of aspect theory in linguistic circles largely unconnected with koineµ Greek (e.g., Bernard Comrie, Aspect: An Introduction to the Study of Verbal Aspect and Related Problems [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977]), many of which worked out of Slav languages. Moreover, some essays a century ago focused exclusively on classical Greek texts. The Spanish volume that helped to move the discussion into the field of the NT was the rather cautious work by Juan Mateos, El Aspecto Verbal en el Nuevo Testamento (Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1977). 19 Stanley E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood (Studies in Biblical Greek 1; New York: Peter Lang, 1989); Buist M. Fanning, Verbal Aspect in New Testament Greek (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990); Kenneth L. McKay, A New Syntax of the Verb in New Testament Greek: An Aspectual Approach (Studies in Biblical Greek 5; New York: Peter Lang, 1994). Discussion has moved a considerable distance beyond these seminal works, with numerous voices contributing refinements, corrections, and debate. Of the many

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makes perfectly good sense, even though an aorist could be “constative” and thus have the “same meaning,” is not the sort of opinion that anyone informed by aspect theory would make today. Again, when Fee suggests that because the aorist is the default tense, one should not expect it to be “meaningful,” whereas the present, because it is not the default tense, must be presumed to be “meaningful,” is well-nigh incoherent under aspect theory. Because the aorist under most conditions occurs more frequently than the present, it is less weighted than the present,20 but that is rather different from saying that it is intrinsically meaningless. If this were a different sort of response, it would be worth going through Fee’s essay line by line and observing the kinds of categories that have bred confusion whenever simple resort to Aktionsarten has held sway. What is the difference between a “historic present” and an aorist? If an aorist conveniently labeled “ingressive” or “constative” has the “same meaning” as a presentreferring present tense form, must one not begin to suspect, at the very least, that the labels are not very helpful? (b) Nevertheless, the tenor of Fee’s argument can be cast in categories that aspect theory would approve. Granted that one concludes, on text-critical grounds, that the present subjunctive is found in 20:31, what semantic contribution does the tense make? Aspect theory would respond by saying that, barring certain caveats,21 the present tense pisteuvhte in John 20:31 reflects the evangelist’s choice of presenting this believing as process. He might have chosen to present this belief as something else, but he chose to present it in this way. In this sense, then, the choice of tense in 20:31 is “meaningful.” Had the author chosen the aorist tense, that too would have been “meaningful,” but the meaning would have been different. (c) But then the question (for Fee’s purpose and ours) becomes this: Does John’s choice of the present tense in 20:31, that is, his decision22 to present the works, see especially Rodney J. Decker, Temporal Deixis of the Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark with Reference to Verbal Aspect (Studies in Biblical Greek 10; New York: Peter Lang, 2001), and Stanley E. Porter and M. B. O’Donnell, “The Greek Verbal Network Viewed from a Probabilistic Standpoint: An Exercise in Hallidayan Linguistics,” Filología Neotestamentaria 14 (2001): 3-41. 20 Though weight is determined not only by relative frequency but also by morphological bulk and specificity of meaning. 21 For example, defective verbs that have no aorist, or verbs whose lexis virtually demands that they be deployed in the present or perfect or related tenses, or verbs deployed in peculiar ways owing to an author’s idolect. There are at least eight or ten such potential caveats, but none of them seems to be relevant in John 20:31. 22 Although aspect theory frequently speaks of the author’s “choice” or “decision,” this is never meant in some psychological sense, as if each author makes a self-conscious decision or choice at the occurrence of each tense. The language of choice is retained to make it clear that the tense is tied, not objectively to the kind of action (Aktionsart) such that the kind of action deter-


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believing as process, signal that he is thinking of ongoing belief among people who are already Christians (to use the generic term), as opposed to the choice of an aorist tense, which would have signaled that the author was thinking of initial conversion? This, it seems to me, is where Fee’s argument is entirely unconvincing. He mounts a plausible defense of the “meaningfulness” of the present subjunctive in 20:31 (though that defense could have been made more coherent and credible by the deployment of aspect theory), but then assumes that this meaning “presupposes a document intended for those who are already members of the believing community.”23 This is precisely where the evidence deserts him. Consider afresh Fee’s treatment of all eleven instances where the verb pisteuvw occurs after i{na. Five are present subjective, including the one in 20:31. 1. In John 6:29, Fee is quite right to think of the present subjunctive pisteuvhte as process (I shall use the categories of aspect theory from now on, unless they threaten to confuse the discussion). But the context shows that Jesus is making his demands of unbelievers, of opponents, of those who cannot in any sense be thought of as believers. 2. In John 13:19, the present subjunctive (assuming that is the correct reading) is applied to believers. 3. In the case of John 17:21, Fee’s exegesis is far from convincing. He argues that there are three groups: the disciples, their disciples, and the kovsmo"—but this “world” can never be anything other than the world, and that from the Abschiedsreden on, “world” is used in an exclusively hostile sense. Therefore the demand that the world “believe” (17:21) or “know” (17:23) that the Father has sent Jesus cannot be meant salvifically. We respond: First, almost all studies that seek to demonstrate that John makes both positive and negative use of kovsmo", or even positive, negative, and neutral use of the word, hark back to the much-quoted essay of N. H. Cassem.24 But that essay is deeply flawed. Passages such as John 3:16–17 are not positive instances of “world.” The world in such passages is still the lost world, the guilty world. That is precisely why God’s love in John 3:16 looks so good. John thinks God’s love in sending Jesus is wonderful, not because the world is so good, or even so big, but because the world is so bad. It is doubtful that there is a single passage in the Fourth Gospel where the “world” is ever thought of as intinsically and unquesmines the choice of tense, but subjectively to how an author “chooses” to portray an event or state (even if such authorial choices are very commonly non–self-conscious). 23 Fee, “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205. 24 N. H. Cassem, “A Grammatical and Contextual Inventory of the Use of kovsmo" in the Johannine Corpus with some Implications for a Johannine Cosmic Theology,” NTS 19 (1972–73): 81–91.

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tionably good. The closest one gets to the possibility is where there is a kind of dramatic “setup” in order to magnify the world’s badness—as in 1:10, where we are told that the world was made by the lovgo", but the movement of thought rushes on to the wretched conclusion: the world did not recognize him, even though it had been made by him. In other words, it is very difficult to prove that there is a darkening of the meaning of “world” from the Abschiedsreden on, if there has never been much light that is intrinsic to the world. Second, even within the Abschiedsreden, the disciples were chosen “out of ” the world (15:19). As is well known, the predestinarian strain in John’s Gospel is not of the ontological sort found, for instance, in much later Valentinian Gnostic circles. Neither the disciples nor the disciples of the disciples spring from a category other than the world. The predestinarian strand reflects Christ’s choice of them, a choice that drew them “out of” the world. He did not choose them because they were already essentially non-world. Thus, ongoing Christian witness assumes that fresh converts will come from the world: there is no other quarry. Third, it appears, then, that the Lamb’s taking away the sin of the world (1:29, 34), the Father’s love for the world (3:16), and the Spirit’s convicting of the world (16:7–11) are all of a piece: what is in view is not the salvation of the world qua world, but the salvation of those who are ultimately drawn from this quarry, for in John’s Gospel there is no other (just as in Ephesians, another document with predestinarian strains, all believers were originally children of wrath [3:3]). Fourth, all this suggests that the obvious way to take 17:21 and 23 is to see an ongoing work of witness. The disciples have their disciples, but it is important to see beyond them, and pray beyond them, for the world, so that new disciples will be drawn from this world, in ongoing outreach (as in John 10 other sheep must be drawn in, from other sheepfolds—and this is long before the Abschiedsreden). What this means, then, is that the use of the present subjunctive of pisteuvw in 17:21, though “meaningful,” insists that what is demanded of unbelievers is that they practice faith, that they show faith as process. In other words, the present tense is applied to those who are not yet believers (as in 6:29). 4. In 19:35, assuming we agree that the present tense is to be preferred, the eyewitness bears witness to the flow of blood and water. His witness is stipulated to be true, and all of this is now being passed on, the readers are told, i{na kai; uJ m ei' " pisteuv h te. But who are the “you”? Fee seems to assume that because, in his view, the preceding three instances have believers in view, it is most probably so here. But the evidence is against him, both in the premise and in the conclusion. I am not disputing that these are present-tense forms (though I am not as certain of Fee’s text-critical judgments on these verses as I am persuaded by his treatment of 20:31), nor am I disputing that the present


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tense is semantically “meaningful” (believing as process is in view). What is disputed is Fee’s claim that such belief is not demanded of unbelievers, as part of the appeal to become Christians, that is, to become genuine believers. Of the three passages, in 6:29, unbelievers are certainly in view; almost certainly the same is true in 17:21. Only in 13:19 are believers clearly in view. Whether unbelievers or believers are in view here in 19:35 will be determined by who we think the original intended readers were. It is difficult to discern any grounds on which this verse should be piled onto the “believer” side of the debate. 5. That brings us to the verse in dispute, 20:31. At this juncture, Fee’s accumulated evidence that because the present tense is “meaningful” in the other four cases, it must be “meaningful” here, and this “presupposes a document intended for those who are already members of the believing community,” is in tatters. This is not because no legitimate distinction can be made between the semantics of the aorist and the semantics of the present, but because the present tense forms, in this i{na construction, can clearly be applied to believers and unbelievers alike. With one exception, Fee does not discuss, but merely lists, the six instances of i{na + pisteuvw where the verb is in the aorist tense. Yet here too the results are diverse. 6. In 1:7, the witness of John the Baptist is to the end that all will believe (aorist): the focus is on the action itself, on the act of believing, without the author choosing to specify further the kind of action it might be. The evangelist seems to think of John the Baptist’s witness as calling people to faith in Christ, which witness presumably is addressed, in the first instance, to unbelievers (and that observation must have at least some bearing on whether or not this Gospel has evangelistic intent). 7. In 6:30, the only one of these six passages that Fee does discuss, he is quite right to note that the aorist tense is used after Jesus’ opponents ask for a sign. The only additional thing that needs to be said is that in both 6:29, where the present tense is used (as we have seen), and here, where the aorist tense is used, the people of whom faith is demanded are clearly unbelievers, indeed outright opponents. 8. In 9:36, the blind man is coming to faith; he wants to come to faith. 9. In 11:15, Jesus rejoices that he was not in Bethany when Lazarus died, “so that you [disciples] might believe”—clearly used, then, of those who are already considered to be disciples. 10. In 11:42, Jesus tells his Father that he has prayed as he has in order that the crowd (o[clo") that is standing around (presumably made up of at least some unbelievers) pisteuvswsin o{ti suv me ajpevsteila". This, surely, intends that some come to faith, and the ensuing verses show that some do, and some do not (11:45–46). (Incidentally, this object clause, o{ti suv me ajpevsteila", used here in the context of evangelism, is exactly the same as that found in another of

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Jesus’ prayers, in John 17:21, where Fee argues, as we have seen, that evangelism is not in view.) 11. Finally, in 14:29, the aorist is used of the disciples believing Jesus when the various things that Jesus predicts come to pass. This is probably more than believing certain predictions, but believing in Jesus on the basis of the fulfillment of the predictions. Even so, this is cast in the aorist tense, even though those who so believe are already disciples. In short, without wanting for a moment to deny that there is a semantic distinction between the aorist and the present of pisteuv w , the evidence emphatically shows that it is not exegetically possible to tie one tense to unbelievers who are coming to faith, and the other to believers who are going on in their faith in some durative sense. Both tenses can be applied by John to both unbelievers and believers. Fee’s discussion does not in any way threaten the “minor” point made by my original essay. (d) Fee’s concluding observation, almost off-the-cuff, that people such as Martha, Nathaniel, and Thomas do not really come to faith but “represent those from within a context of faith, who must be encouraged to a deeper measure of that faith,”25 and therefore it should not be surprising if a present tense (with his understanding of “durative” force) is applied to them, is misguided in several ways. First, we have seen aorist tenses applied to the faith of disciples. Second, even though in the historical reality these people were people of faith—that is, they were people “from within a context of faith”—the evangelist, without denying for a moment their religious heritage (see, for example, his comments on Nathaniel), theologically construes all disciples, even the Twelve, as having been chosen out of the world. The change that must take place within them springs not from the fact that they did not have a context of faith and now gain one, but from the fact that, with this turn in redemptive history, with this arrival of Jesus as the One of whom Moses wrote, genuine faith is faith in Jesus. That involves “conversion” (for want of a better generic word) in some sense. There is no way of playing down the importance of this “conversion” without doing damage to John’s theology.26

25

Fee, “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205. It is difficult not to be reminded of somewhat similar debates over Pauline theology. Convinced of Paul’s deeply Jewish religious commitments, some doubt that “conversion” is the best term to apply to whatever changes take place in him in the wake of his Damascus Road experience. But see now Peter T. O’Brien, “Was Paul Converted?” in Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 2, The Paradoxes of Paul (ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid; WUNT 181; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 361–91. 26


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The Response to McGaughy Fee’s dismissal of my major argument is restricted (as we have seen) to one lengthy footnote. Here, too, his argument is less than convincing. (a) To mention a rather picky point first: Fee says that the “major flaw in [Carson’s] argument . . . is his reliance on L. C. McGaughy . . . [whose] observations are made on the basis of the verb eijnai [sic], without adequate attention to John’s own usage of the article with proper names.” 27 In all fairness to McGaughy, however, in his original study he saw John 20:31, and four passages in 1 John, as exceptions to his own rule. I followed Goetchius in arguing that McGaughy’s rule is better than McGaughy himself thought it was. If Fee is right on 20:31, then I am wrong, but not McGaughy. The “major flaw” in my argument, if there is one, is not in my “reliance on L. C. McGaughy,” but in my extension beyond him. (b) The heart of Fee’s argument turns on his 1970–71 NTS article.28 I had read it many years ago, but I freely admit I did not recall it when writing my essay on John 20:30–31 and the purpose of the Fourth Gospel, and therefore did not take it into consideration. Had I done so, it would not have changed my conclusion, but it would have changed the shape of my argument here and there. This needs unpacking. Fee’s 1970–71 essay is primarily a text-critical study of the definite article with personal names in the Fourth Gospel. The essay is comprehensive and very helpful. His purpose is, first, to isolate various stylistic features where the manuscript evidence is conclusive, and, second, to discern “what appear to be Johannine tendencies where the manuscript evidence is less certain.”29 To this end he examines anaphoric usage, tendencies with certain names, compound names, personal names in oblique cases (whether “Jesus” or other names), before turning to personal names in the nominative case. This section (pp. 173–82) he breaks down into four subsections: (1) personal names in the nominative in a variety of formulae introducing direct discourse, (2) !Ihsou'" verb, (3) verb . . . oJ !Ihsou'", and (4) verb [oJ] !Ihsou'". Only the second of these four interests us, viz., the anarthrous !Ihsou'" before the verb. So we are down to considering about a page and a quarter of Fee’s article. Fee then breaks up this construction (!Ihsou'" verb) into three groups. First, he finds fourteen instances where !Ihsou'" “precedes the verb and is accompanied by a syndetic conjuntion.”30 In half of these, !Ihsou'" follows the conjunction 27

Fee, “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205 n. 29. Fee, “Use of the Definite Article.” 29 Ibid., 170. 30 Ibid., 178. 28

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(4:6; 5:13; 11:41, 54; 12:1, 23; 19:9 [perhaps also 5:17]), and in the other half !Ihsou'" precedes (6:15; 8:59; 9:33, 38; 12:44; 18:4; 19:26). Where it follows the conjunction, it is articular, following the common idiom oJ de; !Ihsou'". This is also the normal idiom in the Synoptic Gospels. But where !Ihsou'" precedes the conjunction, it is always anarthrous (seven instances), and this pattern is found in the Synoptics only in Luke 4:1; 22:48. In other words, in John, apart from the occurrence of the idiom oJ de; !Ihsou'", the name of Jesus is always anarthrous when it precedes the verb. Second, in three instances, !Ihsou'" is accompanied by the intensive aujtov", with two being clearly anarthrous (4:2, 44), and the other one, with divided textual evidence, probably so (2:24). And third, there are nine instances of !Ihsou'" before the verb within a o{ti-clause—the construction in which we are primarily interested, as that is what we find in John 20:31. The manuscript evidence “strongly favours the anarthrous text as the Johannine idiom,” Fee observes, but then adds: “It should be noted, however, that this is not the idiom of John alone, but is consistent through the New Testament.”31 The Johannine passages are 4:1, 47; 5:15; 6:24; 7:39; 9:20; 20:14, 31; 21:4. Fee notes that in each instance !Ihsou'" is the first word after o{ti.32 This, then, is the essay to which he makes reference in his later piece in the Neirynck Festschrift, and which he thinks overturns the McGaughy rule (or, as I would put it, my extension of it to rule out McGaughy’s claimed exception in John 20:31). What shall we make of this? 1. Whatever the tendencies of John’s Gospel regarding the article with proper names, the phenomenon that we are dealing with in John 20:31 is, by Fee’s own admission, “not the idiom of John alone, but is consistent throughout the New Testament.”33 So it is very difficult to see why the McGaughy rule (or my extension of it) should be dismissed on the basis of “John’s own usage of the article with proper nouns.”34 If it is to be dismissed, it will have to be dismissed, according to Fee’s own evidence, on the ground of universal NT evidence. 2. The construction that interests McGaughy is a subset of the structure that Fee is examining, and vice versa. To put the matter another way, the two scholars, McGaughy and Fee, are examining two quite different constructions with a range of substructures, and in some of these substructures there is some overlap—but the amount of overlap is very small. At this point in his argument, Fee is interested in all instances where !Ihsou'" precedes the verb within a o{ti31 Ibid., 179. The extra-Johannine passages he adduces by way of illustration are Matt 2:22; 4:12; 17:12; 19:8; 20:30; Mark 6:15; Luke 9:7, 8; Acts 9:38. 32 Ibid., 179 n. 6. 33 Ibid., 179. 34 Fee, “On the Text and Meaning,” 2205 n. 29.


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clause; McGaughy is interested in all instances of ejstivn as a linking verb that joins a subject and a complement, and, so far as John 20:31 is concerned, the subject and the complement are both substantives, and the construction occurs within a o{ti-clause. This means that of the extra-Johannine examples to which Fee refers, not one of them matches the structure of John 20:31 (though some others in the NT do, not mentioned by Fee): the only two that deploy ejstivn (of those mentioned in n. 31) are Mark 6:15 and Acts 9:38, and neither uses the ejstivn to link two substantives. 3. Similarly, of the nine examples in John’s Gospel, all listed by Fee, four are irrelevant to McGaughy’s construction because the verb is not ejstivn (4:1, 47; 7:39; 11:20). The remaining five, all with ejstivn, are as follows: 5:15 6:24 20:14 20:31 21:4

o{ti !Ihsou'" ejstin oJ poihvsa" aujto;n uJgih' o{ti !Ihsou'" oujk e[stin ejkei' o{ti !Ihsou'" ejstin o{ti !Ihsou'" ejstin oJ cristo;" oJ uiJo;" tou' qeou' o{ti !Ihsou'" ejstin

One of these five, 6:24, has a nonsubstantive as the complement (ejkeiv), so it is not particularly illuminating with regard to John 20:31. In two instances, 20:14; 21:4, Mary or the disciples did not know o{ti !Ihsou'" ejstin (“that it was Jesus”), and so !Ihsou'" is the predicate. Similarly, in 5:15 (o{ti !Ihsou'" ejstin oJ poihvsa" aujto;n uJgih') the context shows that !Ihsou'" should be read in the predicate position—that is, the healed paralytic announces to the Jews “that the one who made him well was Jesus” (or, in more contemporary idiom, “that it was Jesus who had made him well”), not “that Jesus was the one who had made him well.” Indeed, Fee himself recognizes the predicate function of !Ihsou'". In a parenthetical aside in a footnote, he writes, “!Ihsou''" is a predicate noun at v. 15; xx. 14; xxi 4.”35 So Fee acknowledges that three of these five find !Ihsou'" serving as a predicate noun. Moreover one of these three, 5:15, has a substantive for both the subject and the complement. That leaves only 20:31. Here too one finds a substantive for both the subject and the complement. What conceivable reason is there for suggesting that !Ihsou'" must in this instance be the subject term? Fee himself finds no difficulty with asserting that !Ihsou'" in 5:15 is the predicate term. Why does he have difficulty here? The fact that throughout the NT, !Ihsou''" before the verb within a o{ti-clause is anarthrous does not rule out the fact that its anarthrous status in this context also fits the constraints of the McGaughy construction, which understands it to be the predicate noun. One

35

Fee, “Use of the Definite Article,” 179 n. 6.

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could, I suppose, wonder if the construction that Fee identifies is so supervening that it is unnecessary to suppose that the McGaughy construction has had any influence in determining whether !Ihsou' " would be articular or anarthrous. Still, that argument seems a bit feeble when Fee himself happily finds !Ihsou''" to be the predicate noun in three out of the four other possible occurrences (those with ejstivn) in John’s Gospel, and when McGaughy’s construction occurs far more frequently in the NT than Fee’s does. In short, Fee’s earlier essay does not prove that !Ihsou'" in 20:31 must be taken as the subject noun. In fact, his own work shows rather conclusively that there is no good reason for denying it is a predicate noun. Then, when one recalls the strength of McGaughy’s work, with its systematic examination of every instance of ejstivn in the NT, one must advance very strong evidence indeed to set aside the universality of the pattern. That, of course, is why Goetchius, and later I, questioned whether the ostensible exceptions in John and 1 John were real exceptions. We concluded they were not. What is in any case quite clear is that none of Fee’s actual evidence (as opposed to his later claims) weakens McGaughy’s rule in the slightest, nor does it weaken the claim that John 20:31 should not be viewed as an exception to that rule. (c) If McGaughy’s rule embraces John 20:31, it is best to translate the relevant expression as “that you may believe that the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus.” That brings back the twelve observations on what this might mean that I set forth in my earlier essay on this subject. This is not the place to review them again. But perhaps I should mention three further objections (that is, beyond what Fee has said) that have been raised against them, and briefly respond. 1. Taking !Ihsou' " as the predicate nominative in 20:31, in line with McGaughy, presupposes that the controlling question is not Who is Jesus? but Who is the Messiah? Andrew T. Lincoln objects to this thesis on the ground that the Gospel as a whole does not read as if it addresses those who already know what the titles “Christ” and “Son of God” entail and who simply need to be persuaded that Jesus is a worthy candidate for such titles. Rather, again and again, what appears to be at issue is the identity of Jesus, and the implied author is at pains to make clear what it means to claim that Jesus is the sort of Messiah who is Son of God, with all the connotations of a unique relationship to God that the latter designation bears in the discourse.36

36 Lincoln, Truth on Trial, 177–78, with particular reference to Marinus de Jonge, Jesus, Stranger from Heaven and Son of God: Jesus Christ and the Christians in Johannine Perspective (SBLSBS 11; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 84.


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Fair point—provided one does not make it quite so antithetical. In other words, no one is suggesting that John’s implied audience already has a fully Christian understanding of what “Messiah” (“Christ”) and “Son of God” mean. Both categories were meaningful in Jewish circles (and therefore, presumably, also among proselytes and God-fearers), but there can be no doubt that they underwent a semantic enrichment/transformation/clarification under Christian influence. That is why Christian apologists had to demonstrate, among other things, that the Messiah had to suffer and die and rise again. But they did not say, “You folk are waiting for a Messiah. But you are waiting for the wrong category. We’d like to propose something else, an entirely new category of ‘savior.’” Rather, they were saying, “You folk are waiting for the Messiah, and rightly so. But do you not see? If you understand the Scriptures aright, you will grasp that the Messiah for whom you wait had to suffer and die and rise again.” The same sort of argument had to be made by Christians in their evangelism of Jews and proselytes not only with regard to Jesus’ death and resurrection, but also with regard to other christological claims. The same sort of thing is evident in Acts. There, we saw, the best rendering of Acts 5:42; 18:5, 28 is that “the Christ is Jesus.” But who would deny that Luke-Acts is trying to deepen and christianize the assumptions of unconverted Jews and proselytes familiar with the category of “Messiah” (“Christ”)? Thus the fact that John’s Gospel does indeed enrich the categories does not mean that the question Who is the Messiah? is ruled out of court. One cannot escape the syntactical claims of John 20:31 quite so easily. 2. The suggestion of Ben Witherington III (n. 17 above) that even if the Fourth Gospel is written for believers, one of its purposes is to help believers bear witness to Jews and proselytes, is intrinsically attractive, but it does not itself address the question of who the “you” are in 19:35 and 20:31. 3. Finally, one must recall, with Craig S. Keener (n. 16 above), how often John insists on persevering faith. Keener is quite right that this is a major Johannine theme. But in Johannine theology, short-lived faith, that is, nonpersevering faith, is not genuine faith that is sadly truncated; rather, it is not genuine faith at all (cf. 2:23–25; 8:30–31; cf. 1 John 2:19). By not persevering, this faith proves itself to be false. That is one of the reasons why, as we have seen, John’s Gospel can demand faith conceived by the author as process (i.e., cast in the present tense), even when he is demonstrably dealing with unbelievers. So it is difficult to see why the demand for persevering faith must be a sign that this book is written first and foremost for believers. As one who has addressed both believers and unbelievers throughout several decades of ministry, I find myself underscoring the importance of persevering faith to both groups.

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Journal of Biblical Literature IV. Conclusion

As far as I can see, although the text-critical studies of Gordon Fee make a strong case for the present subjunctive in John 20:31, and although he is right to argue that the present tense pisteuvhte is “meaningful,” none of his arguments weakens in the slightest the syntactical claims of McGaughy, nor the extension of those claims to cover the ostensible exceptions. Indeed, his earlier essay on the use of the definite article with proper names in John might even be taken to strengthen those claims. The questions surrounding the purpose of the Fourth Gospel are extraordinarily complex, and I do not want to leave the impression that I think that a couple of essays on one clause in John 20:30–31 settle the matter. Even with respect to these verses, a great deal more work needs to be done on their connection with 20:29, with the entire Thomas pericope (20:24–29), and with earlier signs37—quite apart from what needs to be done on thinking through the purpose of the Fourth Gospel while reading through the document as a whole. On the other hand, I fear that the objections of Fee and a few others may discourage some from reexamining the issue with fresh eyes, feeling that the possibility that John’s Gospel was written primarily with evangelistic intent has been ruled out of court by their work. This essay is first and foremost an attempt to keep the issue open. 37 On the latter, see Hanna Roose, “Joh 20,30f.: Ein (un)passender Schluss? Joh 9 und 11 als primäre Verweisstellen der Schlussnotiz des Johannesevangeliums,” Bib 84 (2003): 326–43.

JBL 124/4 (2005) 715–732

IMITATIO HOMERI? AN APPRAISAL OF DENNIS R. MACDONALD’S “MIMESIS CRITICISM”

KARL OLAV SANDNES [email protected] P.O. Box 5144 Majorstuen, N-0302 Oslo, Norway

In volume 64 of Semeia (1993), Øivind Andersen and Vernon K. Robbins wrote, “Interpreters need to investigate the Gospels in the context of Homeric literature . . . .”1 This task has not been without predecessors, among whom Günter Glockmann is especially important. His search for citations and overt allusions led him from the NT to Justin Martyr in the second century C.E. As for the NT, he stated that “das Neue Testament weder eine Äusserung über Homer noch eine bewusste oder unbewusste Benutzungen der Homerischen Dichtung enthält.”2 In the wake of the introduction of literary studies and narrative approaches in NT exegesis, the Homeric task has gained renewed interest. The scholar who has pursued Homeric influence in NT literature most consequently is Dennis R. MacDonald. He claims that the whole composition of Mark’s Gospel and parts of Acts are conscious imitations of incidents, characters, and plot patterns in the Iliad and the Odyssey.3 In this article I will focus on his presentation of Mark’s Gospel with special emphasis on method and ancient analogies. 1 Øivind Andersen and Vernon K. Robbins, “Paradigms in Homer, Pindar, the Tragedians, and the New Testament,” Semeia 64 (1993): 3–29, here 29. 2 Günter Glockmann, Homer in der frühchristlichen Literatur bis Justinus (TU 105; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968), 57. 3 See the following works by Dennis R. MacDonald: “The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul,” NTS 45 (1999): 88–107; The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2000); Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2003); “Paul’s Farewell to the Ephesian Elders and Hector’s Farewell to Andromache: A Strategic Imitation of Homer’s Iliad,” in Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse (ed. Todd Penner and Caroline van der Stichele; SBLSymS 20; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 189–203.

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To describe his project, MacDonald has coined the term “mimesis criticism”: “No targets for imitation were more popular than the Iliad and the Odyssey, even for the writing of prose. Whereas a form critic compares a narrative in the New Testament to other tales of the same genre as a collectivity, a ‘mimesis critic’ will compare it with earlier texts, one or more of which have served the author as a model.”4 MacDonald has opened a new area of research in the field of Homeric influence on the NT. His approach and the results he claims move far beyond drawing attention to Homeric traces and vocabulary; in fact, he raises anew questions of genre and history versus fiction in NT narratives. The texts are to be viewed “not as aspiring historical reports but as fictions crafted as alternatives to those of Homer and Vergil.”5 It is the task of the present article to assess critically some aspects of MacDonald’s attempt.

I. The Accessibility of Homer The point of departure for MacDonald is the general accessibility of Homer’s writings in antiquity. I restrict myself here to sketching why I concur with him on this. The Stoic philosopher Heraclitus (first century C.E.) defended Homer against accusations leveled against his writings since Plato’s Republic: From the earliest stage of life, our infant children in their first moments of learning are suckled on him [i.e., Homer]; we are wrapped in his poems, one might also say, as babies, and nourish our minds on their milk. As the child grows and comes to manhood Homer is at his side. Homer shares his mature years, and the man is never weary of him even in old age. When we leave him, we feel the thirst again. The end of Homer is the end of life for us.6

Heraclitus here witnesses to the fundamental role played by Homer in encyclical education.7 Dio Chrysostom addresses the question of training a public speaker and recommends that the student familiarize himself with Menander and Euripides, but “Homer comes first and in the middle and last, in that he gives of himself to every boy and adult and old man just as much as each of them can take” (Or. 18.8).8 4

MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 2. MacDonald, “Paul’s Farewell,” 203. 6 Quoted according to D. A. Russell, Criticism in Antiquity (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), 191. For the Greek text, see Franciscus Oelmann, Heraclit Quaestiones Homericae (Lipsiae: Teubner, 1910). Cf. Pliny, Ep. 2.14.3, where it is stated that Homer is the first lesson in school (ab Homero in scholis). 7 Ronald F. Hock, “Homer in Graeco-Roman Education,” in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity (ed. Dennis R. MacDonald; SAC; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001), 56–77. 8 Dio Chrysostom (trans. H. Lamar Crosby; 5 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985). 5

Sandnes: Dennis R. MacDonald’s “Mimesis Criticism”

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Quintilian says that Homer and Vergil were the first from whom the young boys learned to read, but also that these authors were read more than once (Inst. 1.8.5). 9 In other words, Vergil and Homer, in particular, formed a “canon” 10 of texts that the students met repeatedly and at various levels: “Homer’s epics had become the basis for Greek culture. Since classical time they were everybody’s schoolbook (to be more or less retained by memory) and companion for life.”11 Homer was the foundational text of the culture in which many NT texts came to life. This conclusion can be inferred from Philo’s extensive discussion on encyclical education,12 and is supported by Josephus’s writings as well.13 On the basis of this fundamental role of Homer, it makes sense to look for Homeric traces in the NT, and not to restrict oneself to obvious citations.

II. Mark’s Gospel—A Transvaluation of Homer? MacDonald’s reading of Mark’s Gospel in relation to Homer is not initiated by observations of details, although he claims they are numerous, but by narrative patterns, characterization, and plots. An appraisal of his Homeric reading of Mark should, therefore, start with his claim to have identified fundamental narrative patterns.14 An evaluation of all the comparisons involved is beyond the scope of this article; I restrict myself to his claim to have found “the key to Mark’s composition.”15 Like Odysseus, Jesus was a wise carpenter.16 9

The Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian (trans. H. E. Butler; 4 vols; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 10 It makes sense to present Homer’s role as analogous with Torah and the Bible; see, e.g., Margalit Finkelberg, “Homer as a Foundation Text,” in Homer, the Bible, and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World (ed. Margalit Finkelberg and Guy G. Stroumsa; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 75–96. 11 Folker Siegert, “Early Jewish Interpretation in a Hellenistic Style,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, vol. 1/1 (ed. Magne Sæbø; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 130–98, esp. 130–31. The fundamental role of Homer is also demonstrated by Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 12 Peder Borgen, “Greek Encyklical Education, Philosophy and Synagogue: Observations from Philo of Alexandria’s Writings,” in In Honour of Stig Strömholm (Uppsala: Kungl. Vetenskapssamhället i Uppsala, 2001), 61–71. 13 For Josephus, see Louis Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1998), 171–72. See also Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine (TSAJ 81; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 70–71, 77–78, 392–93. 14 The importance of these patterns for MacDonald can be perceived from his introductory statements in Gospel of Mark, 1: “The subsequent reading of Mark would revolutionize my understanding of the gospels, . . . it called into question much of conventional gospel scholarship. . . .” 15 Ibid., 3. 16 The table of contents in Gospel of Mark provides a complete list of the main comparisons

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Both suffered many things. Odysseus gathered his crew and Jesus called disciples; with these associates, who appear to be both foolish and treacherous, they sailed seas. Both opposed supernatural foes. The untriumphal entry of Odysseus to the city of Phaeacians accounts for important details in the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem: “It is in light of this literary tradition that one should read Mark’s account of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Like Odysseus arriving on the shores of Scheria, Jesus arrived in Jerusalem apparently destitute and needing hospitality.”17 Jesus was anointed by an unnamed woman, and Euryclia washed the feet of Odysseus at his arrival home, and by observing his scar, she came to know that her master had returned home. As for Jesus’ death and burial, MacDonald turns to the Iliad (books 22 and 24)18 and Hector’s death: “Mark found the death of Hector and the rescue of his corpse promising prototypes for his Passion Narrative.”19 According to MacDonald, comparisons between the hypotext Homer and Mark’s hypertext are somewhat generous; they are imaginative and not exact. This is due to the “transvaluation,” which provides the perspective from which the analogies drawn must be seen. Mark transformed Homer’s writings in a kind of theological rivalry or “Kulturkampf”: “. . . New Testament narratives should include an appreciation of cultural struggle, transformative artistry, and theological playfulness.”20 Homer’s texts, persons, ideals, and plots are replaced with the more virtuous and powerful stories about Jesus. MacDonald’s interpretation of Mark’s Gospel implies that Mark is involved in a rewriting of Homeric models. Mark not only imitated his models; he emulated them as well. This allows some of the analogies to be elusive and subtle. But this also forms the “Achilles’ heel” of MacDonald’s interpretation. The concept of “subtle emulation” makes the project slippery. For if emulation is a characteristic of the analogies, how can we then be sure that the author intended this analogy, as claimed by MacDonald? With this question we turn to our comments on his exegesis of Mark’s Gospel.

involved; see also his Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 171–72. For the criteria in use, see Gospel of Mark, 8–9; Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 2–6; Mimesis, 2–3. 17 MacDonald, Gospel of Mark, 105. 18 The Iliad (trans. A. T. Murray; 2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993–98). 19 MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 172; cf. idem, Gospel of Mark, 135–47. 20 MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 15; cf. idem, Gospel of Mark, 2–3, 187–90. MacDonald defines transvaluation in the following way: “Transvaluing occurs when characters in the hypertext (viz. the derivative text) acquire roles and attributes derived from a system of values not found in the hypotext (the targeted text)”; see his Christianizing Homer: The Odyssey, Plato, and the Acts of Andrew (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 6; cf. idem, Gospel of Mark, 2.


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The Hero Returning Home? An appraisal of MacDonald’s interpretation can start with what he considers the fundamental narrative pattern discernible in both the Odyssey and Mark’s Gospel. At the center of MacDonald’s Homeric reading of Mark’s Gospel is his claim that the plot of “the returning home of the hero” in the Odyssey is found in the Gospel as well: “Both heroes return home to find it infested with murderous rivals that devour the houses of widows.”21 In Does the New Testament Imitate Homer, MacDonald puts it like this: “Like Odysseus, Jesus comes to his “house,” the Jerusalem Temple, which has fallen into the hands of his rivals, who, like Penelope’s suitors, devour widows’ houses.”22 It goes without saying that the troublesome return home is the plot of the Odyssey. This is a recurrent motif guiding the whole narrative. The story starts with Odysseus longing for his return (novsto") (Od. 1.13).23 Throughout the story he is on his way homeward (oi[kade).24 As Odysseus makes himself known to his son Telemachos, he says: “but I here, I, just as you see me, after sufferings and many wanderings, have come in the twentieth year to my native land (ej" patrivda gai'an)” (Od. 16.205–6; cf. 19.484). This plot reaches its fulfillment in book 23, where it is stated that Odysseus has now arrived at his home (oi\kon iJkavnetai) (Od. 23.7, 27, 108).25 The homecoming of the hero became a motif in ancient literature.26 Is Mark’s Gospel really a story of the hero returning home? This question holds a key position, since MacDonald’s comparisons depend on a recognizable pattern from which details can be discerned as part of an identifiable story. The motif of returning home lends itself as this crucial starting point, but some observations seriously challenge this alleged theme in Mark’s Gospel. The travel motif is embedded more deeply in Luke’s story than in Mark’s. It is true that, beginning in Mark 8, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, but his voyage appears less significant than in Luke, not to mention in comparison with the hero in the Odyssey. In the narrative about the so-called Cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15–17), Mark quotes from Isa 56:7 (and Jer 7:11): “Is it not written: My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?” Jesus might, therefore, be said to call the temple his home here. It should, however, be 21

MacDonald, Gospel of Mark, e.g., 3, 17. MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 172. 23 The Odyssey (trans. A. T. Murray; 2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 24 See Od. 1.326–27, 350; 5.19; 12.345; 13.130–39, 305; 19.85; 24.400. 25 MacDonald fully agrees with this definition of the plot in the Odyssey; hence he frequently speaks of the nostos of Odysseus, the Greek term for returning home; see, e.g. Gospel of Mark, 21–22. 26 See MacDonald, Christianizing Homer, 113–75. 22

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noticed that this appears in a citation from the OT, which is a reminder of the context within which the author intends the reader to understand this incident. Furthermore, the motif of “my house” is not a motif embracing the whole story as it is in Luke’s Gospel. MacDonald claims that there are intriguing parallels between the Cleansing of the Temple and the Slaying of the Suitors in Odyssey book 22. In both instances tables are turned; both groups of rivals are accused of having wasted the house; and both groups are seized by fear. The suitors arm themselves to kill Odysseus, and Jesus’ rivals likewise look for an opportunity to kill him:27 “The surface parallels to the Odyssey are obvious, but, to my knowledge, have been unexplored until now.”28 MacDonald attaches significance to details because he claims that they work within a plot line sufficiently similar in both the Odyssey and Mark’s Gospel to add meaning and significance to minor details. For a person well versed in the Homeric writings, Jesus’ driving out the merchants can well be compared with the driving out of the suitors of Penelope from Odysseus’s house, but the details MacDonald points out hardly confirm that the author intended this analogy. The plot line of a hero returning home hardly works for Mark. The meaning of the incident in the Jerusalem temple is disputed among scholars, but the literary context about the withered fig tree (Mark 11:11–14 + 21) suggests, in my opinion, rather a symbolic destruction or replacement of the temple than its revival.29 If this is so, the comparison with Odysseus who finally embraces his home breaks down. The critique leveled against the temple by Jesus hardly finds an analogy in the mischief of the suitors. Penelope’s suitors took over Odysseus’s house and wasted his property. MacDonald sees here a link to Jesus’ quotation from Jer 7:11: “den of robbers.” This metaphor developed from OT texts (e.g., Jer 7:4– 11; Amos 5:21–24) implies a criticism not for having occupied the temple—as the suitors did—but for using the temple as a place of refuge, a den, when not being involved in expeditions of robbery.30 The metaphor focuses on an aspect that is not there in the Odyssey, namely, seeking refuge in the temple without altering their immoral way of living. Odysseus managed with the help of Telemachos to kill his rivals and thereby to seize his own home again. MacDonald points out that both Odysseus and Jesus were men of suffering. Odysseus was released from his sufferings as he returned home. When he arrived at his destiny, his sufferings ceased. Not so 27

MacDonald, Gospel of Mark, 34–36. Ibid., 36. 29 So also Jacob Neusner, Jews and Christians: The Myth of a Common Tradition (London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991), 97–103; and Jostein Ådna, Jesu Stellung zum Tempel: Die Tempelaktion und das Tempelwort als Ausdruck seiner messianischen Sendung (WUNT 2/119; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 30 Similarly Ådna, Tempel, 274–75. 28


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with Jesus; as he reached his destiny, his sufferings culminated. When he “returned home,” Jesus was finally killed by his rivals. MacDonald claims to have found the plot line in both bodies of literature, the hero’s returning home. This plot line clearly emerges from the Odyssey, and it is Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem and his passion story that in Mark’s Gospel form the counterpart to this plot line. When Mark reaches the climax of his story, MacDonald leaves the Odyssey and turns to the Iliad to find the proper analogy: “Jesus repeatedly imitates Hector.”31 Homer’s story of Hector’s death in the Iliad book 22 provides Mark with a popular analogy that he imitated in an artful way. In the words of Margaret Mitchell: “what began as a Jesus-Odysseus emplotment becomes a Jesus-Hector one.”32 Both heroes had their death predicted, and both were forsaken by the gods who had formerly protected them. That both were forsaken by the gods should not overrule a significant difference between the two of them. Hector was not only forsaken; he was deceived by Pallas Athene (Il. 22.226–28, 247, 276–77, 299); he was blinded by the god. Furthermore, the manner of death of Jesus and that of Hector were indeed different; in Mark’s Gospel the passion is not included in a battle scene. There is in MacDonald’s presentation of the motif of returning home a considerable wavering, which sheds doubt on his claim to authorial intention in Mark’s Homeric imitation. This can be illustrated in the following way: Odysseus Home in Ithaka Penelope’s suitors The suitors are devouring the house of Penelope

Jesus Temple in Jerusalem The rivals, Pharisees and the scribes The rivals are devouring the houses of widows (Mark 12:40)33

This comparison seems at first to be worth noticing, but on closer examination it appears to be unconvincing. In the first place, according to Mark the rivals of Jesus were not those who were driven out of the temple precincts. Jesus threw out merchants and moneychangers, not the Pharisees and scribes. Furthermore, the final point of analogy is too imaginative, the only link between them being the motif of “widow.” The accusation leveled against the Pharisees in Mark 12:40 has nothing to do with the temple, but with greed and the exploiting of widows. This is evident from the plural “houses” (oijkiva"). Mark’s readers would hardly see any connections to the temple (oJ oi\ko") in the plural. There is 31

MacDonald, Gospel of Mark, 132; for the Jesus/Hector comparison, see pp. 131–47. Margaret M. Mitchell, “Homer in the New Testament,” JR 83 (2003): 244–60, esp. 249. MacDonald claims a Jesus/Telemachos and a Jesus/Aeolus analogy as well (Gospel of Mark, 55–62). This leaves a somewhat confused picture of MacDonald’s presentation. 33 MacDonald, Gospel of Mark, 38. 32

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a considerable wavering in MacDonald’s presentation of the motif of returning home. Home is partly the temple,34 his hometown Nazareth,35 and also Jesus’ eschatological return.36 If the key motif of returning home is so slippery in Mark’s Gospel, it is difficult to think that it was part of an intentional imitation in all the passages mentioned.37 Closely connected to the motif of homecoming in the Odyssey is the revenge sought by Odysseus against the suitors in his house. This is a recurrent theme;38 hence, Odysseus’s name is explained with reference to the evil plans he had for the suitors (Od. 19.407–9).39 The way Odysseus is portrayed is thus very different from the picture given of Jesus in Mark’s Gospel.40 Emulation? The imbalances pointed out above, which could be multiplied, are easily gleaned from Mark’s text. MacDonald sometimes points out such imbalances in his comparisons; however, he accounts for the imbalances with reference to the transvaluative dimension of Mark, that is, his emulation of Homer’s writings.41 Emulation involves development of a model, an imitation that might also involve some kind of rivalry.42 The notion is taken from ancient rhetoric. Is it 34 Ibid., e.g., 42– 43, 110. Jesus’ entry into the temple is compared also to Odysseus’s entry into the palace of Alcinous, the king of the Phajacians (pp. 106–9). 35 MacDonald, Gospel of Mark, 18. 36 Ibid., 53, 113, 190. 37 MacDonald makes much out of a comparison between Eurycleia, who recognized Odysseus’s scar while washing his feet (Od. 19.349–474) and the woman anointing Jesus in Mark 14:3–9 (Gospel of Mark, 114–18). With reference to the position of this incident in the story, MacDonald says, “Particularly telling is that the anointing takes place immediately after the prediction of the hero’s return” (p. 118). The point is that this further strengthens the similarities between Homer’s epic and Mark’s story. In my view, a reference to the motif of returning home has been undermined by the inconsistent way this motif appears in MacDonald’s reading of Mark. 38 E.g., Od. 14.110, 163; 17.159, 539–40; 19.51–52; 20.5–13, 183–84. 39 There is a wordplay here on Odysseus and the Greek verb ojduvssasqai (“to be wroth against/hate”). This point is made also in Od. 5.340, 423; 16.145–47; 19.275. This etymological explanation of his name has a reference both to his being hated by the gods—as a result of which he must suffer evil—and to the evils he plans to bring to others. 40 Mitchell rightly asks what Christian writer would run the risk of associating Jesus with a figure who is depicted in such ambivalent terms (“Homer,” 254). 41 MacDonald attaches particular importance to this criterion, which he also calls interpretability; see Gospel of Mark, 6, 171–73; idem, Christianizing Homer, 6–7, 310–14. 42 See George C. Fiske, Lucilius and Horace: A Study in the Classical Theory of Imitation (University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature 7; Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1920), 43–47. The rivalry involved is clearly expressed by, e.g., Pliny the Elder, Nat. Pref. 20–23, speaking of authors imitating predecessors in terms of a fight and competition (decertere/certere); cf. Cicero, De or. 2.22.90–92 and Velleius Paterculus, History of Rome 1.17.6–7. Public competitions in transmitting and reciting Homeric writings are known, and there were official texts to be


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justified to call upon emulation to bridge the imbalances between Mark’s Gospel and the Homeric epics? This is the question we now approach. Aristotle makes a distinction between emulation (zh' l o") and envy (fqov n o") (Rhet. 1388ab; cf. 1381b). Whereas the latter describes the attitude of preventing other people from possessing, emulation indicates the attitude to be inspired to gain good things for oneself. Emulation is, therefore, one of the emotions rhetoricians should arouse in the audience (Rhet. 1419b). Emulation was also given importance in rhetorical studies in relation to imitating literary works. This was often called paraphrasis. Aelius Theon includes this in his rhetorical exercises and defines it in the following way: “Paraphrasis consists of changing the form of expression while keeping the thoughts.” This happened, according to Theon, by variation in syntax, additions, subtractions, substitutions, or the combination of these (Theon, Progymnasmata 107–8; cf. 62–64, 69).43 Reading and performing exercises on poets and prose, including paraphrasing texts, constituted a large part of literate education in ancient schools.44 Quintilian urges teachers in ancient literature to teach their students to paraphrase Aesop’s fables (Inst. 1.9.1–3). He presents paraphrasis as a process of learning starting verse by verse, proceeding to render their meaning in other words, “and finally proceed to a free paraphrase (paraphrasi audacious vertere) in which they will be permitted both to abridge (breviare) and to embellish (exornare) the original, so far as this may be done without losing the poet’s meaning (salvo modo poetae sensu).” In Inst. 10.5.2–4, Quintilian contrasts paraphrasis with translation. Vertere Graeca in Latinum is a useful exercise, he says, but paraphrasis should not be restricted to the activities necessary to do this: “its duty is rather to rival and vie with the original in the expression of the same thoughts (sed circa eosdem sensus certamen atque aemulationem)” (Inst. 10.5.5).45 This implies that the original is developed and altered. Quintilian used as a control at these occasions; see P. E. Easterling and B. M. W. Knox, The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 1, Greek Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 722. Macrobius (Sat. 6.3.1) says that it is to the glory of Homer (summus laudis) that he is copied by so many striving to compete with him. 43 See George A. Kennedy, Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (SBL Writings from the Greco-Roman World 10; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Some of Theon’s examples refer to how Homer’s writings were paraphrased. By altering the style, Demosthenes repeated himself in such a way that his paraphrasing himself was not necessarily noticed by his hearers. According to Suetonius (Gramm. 5), exercises in paraphrasis were practiced also by grammarians who taught some rhetoric. 44 Morgan gives examples of paraphrasis (Literate Education, 198–215). From her examples we gather that paraphrasis involved considerable changes and manipulation of the texts to be emulated, but that there was still “a highly disciplined autonomy” (p. 208). 45 For the competitive element in imitation, see Longinus, Subl. 13.2–14.3; see D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom, Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in New Translations (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 475–76.

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emphasizes this by opposing teachers who do not permit their students to do this, since they consider it impossible to improve what the poets already wrote. Quintilian is convinced that it is still possible to improve speeches of the orators: melius posse reperiri. It is thus quite clear from Quintilian that paraphrasis or emulation might well improve and change the original, but he assumes that its sensus must be kept and one must exercise control in the process of emulation.46 Quintilian follows the advice given by Isocrates in his Panegyricus, where he says that it is possible to speak about old things (ta; palaiav) in new ways (kainw'"): “it follows that one must not shun the subjects upon which others have spoken before, but must try to speak better than they (a[ m einon ejkeivnwn eijpein) (§8–10, cf. 188).47 Isocrates urges his readers to speak better than those they are imitating. Pliny the Younger wanted to have Cicero as his model in writing (aemulari in studiis cupio) (Ep. 4.7.4–5).48 Since he mentions this in a context in which he says that he took up public offices at an earlier age than Cicero, rivalry is clearly involved. He hopes that the gods will grant him Cicero’s genius (ingenium). Pliny’s practice of imitating famous orators appears also in his Ep. 1.2. Pliny writes to a friend, asking him to read and correct his speech. This speech is written with zh'lo", imitating (imitari) Demosthenes in figure of speech (figuris orationis). The subject matter (materia ipsa), however, resisted the imitation (repugnavit aemulationi) and therefore presented a particular challenge to him. In Ep. 7.9.1–6 Pliny prescribes emulation as an exercise. This exercise starts with translating Greek into Latin and vice versa. When a passage has been read sufficiently to remember both res and argumentum, Pliny urges his friend to participate in a contest (aemulum/certamina), finding out whether the original or the emulation is best (commodius/melius). In this way, authors who are imitated might be outstripped (antecessisse). This happens by leaving things out or adding to or altering the original.49 This exercise is especially difficult and thus also beneficial; it is like grafting new limbs on a finished body “without disturbing the balance (turbare) of the original” (6). 50 The role assigned to imitation and emulation in these examples is certainly more modest than the replacement of the Homeric heroes that MacDonald claims to find in Mark’s Gospel. 46

Quintilian mentions emulation also elsewhere; see, e.g., Inst. 10.2.17–19, 21–22, 25–28. Isocrates, Panegyricus (trans. George Norlin; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928). 48 Pliny, Letters (trans. Betty Radice; 2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). 49 This corresponds to the modi described by Quintilian (Inst. 10.5) or by Aulus Gellius (Noct. Att. 9.9; 13.27); see Heinrich Lausberg, Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study (Leiden/Boston/Cologne: Brill, 1989), 482–84. 50 Cicero says that he daily performed this kind of exercise (De or. 1.34.154–55). 47


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In theory as well as in practice, emulation often implied copying and developing or improving an original, while still retaining traces of the first document. The rivalry involved in this kind of emulation requires exactly this ambiguity to work. Clement of Alexandria bears witness to such ambiguity in his Protrep. 12 (91P).51 His point of departure is his admonition to shun custom (sunhvqeia) like a threatening Charybdis or the songs of the Sirenes (Od. 12), thereby advertising his emulation. His instruction to keep away from custom is soaked in Homeric references. The addressees are urged to flee from “an island of wickedness heaped with bones and corpses” and from the woman, that is, pleasure (hJdonhv), who sings there. The echoes from Od. 12 are obvious as well as advertised in the introduction of his chapter. Clement urges his readers to sail past the song of the Sirenes, and to remain “bound to the cross,”52 and thus to survive, as did Odysseus according to Od. 12:177–79. Then, says Clement, the word of God will guide his readers “to anchor in the harbours of heaven” (toi'" limevsi . . . tw'n oujranw'n), which is a clear echo of the nostos motif in the Odyssey. Here we see an example of Christian emulation at work. While Odysseus had himself bound to the mast of his ship while passing the island of the Sirenes, Clement speaks of being bound to the cross. He replaces the Odyssey’s ijstopevdh (cf. Od. 12.51, 162) with to; xuvlon, thus implying the cross of Christ. The phraseology “harbours of heaven” reveals a similar ambiguity; limhvn is frequently used in the Odyssey,53 while heaven being the goal of the journey implies Clement’s transvaluation. Emulation and transvaluation hardly make sense if they are not recognized. Emulation can work only within a pattern of recognizable imitation; otherwise the comparison can be neither tested nor affirmed, and rivalry can hardly work. From MacDonald’s presentation of Mark’s Gospel, I gather that the nostos motif provides a fundamental intertextual indicator guiding the readers to a Homeric reading of this literature. In order to establish this indicator, MacDonald relies on the phenomenon of emulation, and a subtle one at that. If subtle emulation is called upon already in the process of establishing this point of departure for comparing Odysseus and Jesus, the foundations are shaky. III. Seneca’s Epistulae morales 84 and Intertextuality Seneca’s Ep. 8454 is interesting because it implies imitation of a subtle and concealing kind. The text enters a discussion on exactly this point, and thus 51 The Exhortation to the Greeks (trans. G. W. Butterworth; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 52 Similarly Strom. 6:11/84:1–95:5. 53 LSJ, s.v. 54 Epistles 66–92 (trans. Richard Gummere; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

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demonstrates a contemporary debate on emulation. Furthermore, the text is of interest, since it sheds some light, from a contemporary historical perspective, on “intertextuality.” The letter depicts the philosopher spending his leisure time while journeying with literature. The social context echoes very much that of Pliny the Younger. How to deal with the literature becomes the key question in this letter. Seneca refers to a commonly held opinion (ut aiunt): “We should follow the example (debemus imitari) of the bees” (Ep. 84.3). From various flowers the bees produce honey. Seneca considers this process a helpful analogy to how one should deal with literature. He describes this as a process of producing honey by collecting (colligere/decerpere) and making (facere). The making is described in detail; it is a process of transformation made possible by conscious preserving (conditura) and careful storing (dispositio), aided by a fermentative process (fermentum). Thus, “separate elements are united into one substance (in unum diversa coalescent)” (§4). Seneca notices that he is about to enter a related topic, that of honey production, and therefore turns to applying his illustration. From §5 on, the reading of literature (ex diversa lectione) replaces the role of flowers from which the honey is collected. The key term applied now is separare, indicating a process of sifting and transformation: “we should so blend those several flowers into one delicious compound (in unum saporem varia ille libamenta confundere) that, even though it betrays its origin (unde sumptum sit), yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came (aliud tamen esse quam unde sumptum est)” (§5).55 Seneca adds new illustrations on how elements from different things might form a unity. The food that is digested is changed into a unity. Similarly, members are added into a sum, and a son resembles his father. This resemblance is not in terms of copying a picture (§§6–8). These are illustrations recommending how one should deal with literature. In §8, Seneca renders an objection precisely about the possibility of identifying an imitation: cuius imiteris orationem, cuius argumentationem, cuius sententias? Seneca answers: “A true copy (imago vera) stamps its own form (forman suam inpressit) upon all the features which it has drawn from what we may call the original (exemplum), in such a way that they are combined into a unity (ut in unitatem illa conpetant)” (§8). To this he adds yet another illustration, a chorus with many voices forming a harmonious unity. Seneca’s presentation on how to deal with literature implies that authors, 55 Cf. Macrobius, Sat. Pref. 5. Christian Gnilka has demonstrated the role of the bee illustration in patristic texts (CHRESIS: Die Methode der Kirchenväter im Umgang mit der antiken Kultur: Der Begriff des “rechten Gebrauchs” [Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1984]). The bees were illustrative of both a selective, sifting, and transforming process. This they found helpful to explain how Christians could relate to the classical Greek literature.


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pieces of works, and language become very fluid.56 According to Ellen Finkelberg, Seneca’s illustrations “stress mysterious transformation, or metamorphosis, rather than copying.”57 By implication it becomes difficult to speak of authorial intention when this is so much based on creative emulation. According to Seneca, imitating authors involves a process of digestion where borrowing and idiosyncrasy are united to form a new text. Distinguishing between conscious and unconscious imitation thus becomes very difficult, unless some imitation is broadcasted. Mark’s Gospel being “the honey” of which Seneca speaks, it becomes dubious to claim conscious imitation if no advertising is found in the text.58 Seneca’s epistle demonstrates a contemporary debate on the issue of recognizing the origin of an imitation. He says that even when literature has been digested and has thus become a different thing, the origin (§5) is still betrayed. This implies that the emulation, albeit subtle, somehow is advertised. The more subtle and less advertised—or to put it in Seneca’s terms, digested—it becomes, the more difficult it is to claim authorial intention in a given imitation. This is not to deny that a reader well versed in Homer’s writings might well have found some texts in Mark’s Gospel evoking an emulation of Homeric figures and incidents. This is precisely how intertextuality works when defined in terms of interactions between texts and in relation to readers, rather than an assumed intention of authors. That there is a potential for a Homericinfluenced reading with a certain readership is demonstrated by MacDonald. I think, however, that the extensive memorization of Homer assumed with reference to both Plato (Ion)59 and Xenophon (Symp. 3.5–6)60 is exaggerated if applied generally.61 Knowledge of ancient education certainly substantiates the primary role of Homer, but not necessarily of Homer’s whole text or plot. 56 MacDonald makes a reference to Seneca Ep. 84 to support the level of sophistication of ancient emulation (Gospel of Mark, 6), but he overlooks that Seneca’s presentation seriously undermines his concept of intended emulation. 57 Ellen Finkelberg, “Pagan Traditions of Intertextuality in the Roman World,” in Mimesis, 78–90, esp. 83–84. 58 The way MacDonald addresses the phenomenon of intertextuality, it becomes a relapse into source criticism. A certain movement in MacDonald’s claim to conscious imitation in Mark’s Gospel might be discernible in Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 6, where he answers some of his critics by referring to watching a film: “Some of the changes will be transparent, others more subtle, and others so cryptic that the viewer may never know what the screenwriter or director intended. Even so, the viewer gains a new appreciation of the work simply by being aware of the object of the parody” (cf. Christianizing Homer, 6, “when readers recognize”). This possible selfcritical assessment is not forthcoming in his most recent “Paul’s Farewell.” 59 Ion (trans. W. R. M. Lamb; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). 60 Symposium (trans. O. J. Todd; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). 61 With reference to these writers, MacDonald raises the question whether Mark in his relation to Homer “worked from manuscript or memory” (Gospel of Mark, 7).

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Teresa Morgan makes a distinction between the ideal portrait to be gleaned from the literary sources and educational practices as witnessed in fragments of teachers’ handbooks and pupils’ exercises. These school texts give a complex picture, suggesting that most students had “a repertoire of references and tags which would mark him as a Greek, even before he—or even if he ever— acquired a wider cultural knowledge in which to contextualize it.” 62 This implies that most students familiar with Homer treated his writings eclectically and episodically.63 Knowledge of the Homeric poems in their entirety is not easily demonstrated. Some authors quoted Homer abundantly, but they had probably never read the Iliad and the Odyssey.64 A Homeric interpretation of Mark’s Gospel should account for a more critical use of the literary sources of the elite.

IV. Advertising Hypertextuality In Christianizing Homer, MacDonald says that a “transvaluing text . . . must advertise its hypertextuality, if ever so subtly.”65 As I have pointed out above, I consider this crucial for identifying intended intertextuality, and in his reading of Mark’s Gospel, MacDonald hardly meets the requirement he himself lays down here.66 The hypotext may be advertised in various ways, some of 62 Morgan, Literate Education, 110; see also 118–19, 252–53, 261. MacDonald makes reference to Morgan’s conclusion that Il. 1–2 was by far the most popular text in schools, which he takes as proving the accessibility of Agamemnon’s dream as a point of departure for interpreting Acts 10 (Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? 26). He misses, however, that Morgan’s conclusion substantiates the fragmentary nature of Homeric knowledge among average students; thus also Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001), 194–97. 63 See Jon Whitman, Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity and the Modern Period (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 35–37, who says that the notion of working with the “whole text” developed later. 64 Thus Robert Lamberton, Homer the Theologian: Neoplatonist Allegorical Reading and the Growth of the Epic Tradition (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1989), 193. This is also the conclusion of the detailed investigation of Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, Homer in der Zweiten Sophistik: Studien zu der Homerlektüre und dem Homerbild bei Dion von Prusa, Maximos von Tyros und Ailios Aristides (Studia Graeca Upsaliensia 7; Uppsala, 1973). 65 MacDonald, Christianizing Homer, 7; cf. 6, 310–14. 66 As for Acts, I think MacDonald has a somewhat better case to argue. Part of this story has its setting in geographical areas associated with both the Iliad and the Odyssey. Some distinct Homeric phraseology is discernible; see F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 498; MacDonald, “Shipwreck,” 95. But still, the methodical questions pointed out here call for a more critical use of parallels. In reading MacDonald one is reminded of the caution raised by Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1–13. The OT and Jewish background is advertised through citations, names, institutions, and problems the


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which appear in combinations. In the following I elaborate on examples that MacDonald mentions but which, in my view, militate against his reading of Mark. Vergil’s Aeneid is an outstanding example of an emulation of Homer.67 Vergil draws heavily on the Homeric poems, such as the double action in Olympus and on earth, episodes that clearly recall the adventurous experiences of Odysseus in Od. 5–8, main characters bringing to mind Homeric heroes, and a phraseology recalling Homer’s.68 Vergil’s dependence on Homer was common knowledge among most Romans, according to Macrobius (Sat. 5.18.1).69 In imaginative dialogues on matters of literature, very much in the tradition of Plato’s Symposium, Macrobius elaborates on how Vergil borrowed 70 from Homer and imitated him. Thus, Vergil’s whole work (omne opus Vergilianum) is “a mirrored reflection (speculum) of Homer” (Sat. 5.2.13). Although Vergil does not always equal the genius of Homer, he also improves Homer’s text (in transferendo densius excoluisse) (Sat. 5.11.1). He has appropriated the words of Homer so “as to make them seem to be his own (fecit ut sua esse credantur)” (Sat. 5.3.16). Vergil is making a new story (res nova) out of Homer’s old stories (Sat. 5.17.1). His story is directly linked to Homer’s by telling about Aeneas leaving the destroyed Troy behind. With his eyes fixed on Homer, Vergil emulated (aemulari) him in magnitude, simplicity, presentation, and calm dignity (Sat. 5.13.40). Macrobius presents his Vergil/Homer comparisons as common knowledge. But he is well aware that there are passages in the Aeneid where the author draws in a more sophisticated way on his predecessors71—passages understood only by those who were soaked (haurire) in Greek literature (Sat. 5.18.1). Hence, some of his borrowings are both secret and hidden (dissimulanter quasi clanculo) and therefore difficult to recognize (difficile sit cognitu). This is the practice of subtle emulation, a phenomenon MacDonald calls upon believers were struggling with, and these must be accounted for more sufficiently than MacDonald does. 67 See R. Deryck Williams, “The Aeneid,” in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature II (ed. E. J. Kenney; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 339–57. 68 For a detailed comparison, see Macrobius, Sat. book 5, chs. 2–18; Georg Nicolaus Knauer, Die Aeneis und Homer: Studien zur poetischen Technik Vergils mit Listen der Homerzitate in der Aeneis (Hypomnemata, Untersuchungen zur Antike und zu ihrem Nachleben H7; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979). 69 Macrobius, Saturnalia (ed. J. Willis; 2 vols; Academia Scientiarum Germanica Berolinensis; Leipzig: Teubner, 1963; trans. Percival Vaughan Davies; New York/London: Columbia University Press, 1969). 70 This is described in terms of trahere (Sat. 5.2.2; 6.3.1), mutare/mutatio (Sat. 5.2.6; 3.16), transferre (Sat. 5.18.1; 6.3.1), archetypus (Sat. 5.13.40), imitatio (Sat. 5.16.5). 71 In Sat. 6.3.1 Macrobius says that some of Virgil’s emulations may be taken from Latin authors who had previously transferred texts from Homer to their own poems. This implies that tracing intertextuality might be more complex than an intended copying of one particular text.

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in his reading of Mark’s Gospel. Macrobius thinks of Vergil’s emulation in terms of a process from the obvious or broadcasted toward the subtle. With regard to MacDonald’s interpretation, it is one-sidedly dependent on subtle emulation without sufficient basis in an advertised hypotext. This makes it difficult to consider the Aeneid’s use of Homer as a relevant analogy to a Homeric reading of Mark’s Gospel. If Vergil’s Aeneid is taken as an example of the alleged Homeric emulation in Mark’s Gospel, one is more struck by the differences than by the similarities. “The best exemplar of this genre” is, however, Lucian of Samosata’s A True History.72 This is a satirical imitation of the practice of emulating Homer. Book 1.1–4 is a metatext addressing Lucian’s project. Composing stories with Homer’s Odyssey as guide and instructor (ajrchgo;" kai; didavskalo") was common practice (sunhvqe"), which Lucian now puts on a satirical display: “But my lying is far more honest than theirs, for though I tell the truth in nothing else, I shall at least be truthful in saying that I am a liar” (Ver. hist. 1.4). This introductory metatext clearly advertises the hypotext and leaves the reader well informed on this. He then proceeds to give a parody of a traveler’s tale, which draws heavily on Odysseus’s adventures as well as on other well-known texts. The traveler, who is Lucian himself, sets out on a journey that in the end will take him home. Toward the end of his voyage he approaches his home (aj f iv x esqai me; n eij " th; n patriv d a) (Ver. hist. 2.27). Homer himself, whom Lucian visited in the Elysian Fields, writes a poem in his style and phraseology, about Lucian’s voyage: “One Lucian, whom the blessed gods befriend, Beheld what’s here, and home again did wend (h\lqe . . . ej" patrivda gai'an)” (2.28). On his return home (2.35–36) he is given a letter by Odysseus about his nostos and his longing for Penelope. The two stories thus become parallels and are advertised as such (cf. 1.17). Throughout the story Homer is both cited and alluded to.73 Characters from Homer’s poems appear regularly and are given key roles in Lucian’s own voyage.74 Lucian met with the Homeric heroes in the Elysian Fields (2.14–24). He conversed with Homer about his poems, and he was given the opportunity to watch the Games of the Dead, conducted by Achilles (2.22–24). The Homeric heroes had to fight some wicked people who attempted to free themselves from their punishments among the dead. Homer gave an account of the battle, and this was given to Lucian, who renders only the first line of this poem: “This time sing me, O Muse, of the shades of the heroes in battle!” (Ver. hist. 2.24), 72 Thus MacDonald, Christianizing Homer, 311; see Lucian of Samosata, A True Story I and II (trans. A. M. Harmon; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921). 73 See, e.g., 1.11, 17, 40; 2.32–33. 74 See, e.g., 2.6–8, 15, 17, 19, 25–26.


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echoing the opening line in the Odyssey. Lucian’s journey brings him to places formerly described by Homer, but sometimes he finds out that Homer’s description is to be corrected (Ver. hist. 2.32–33). Both the Aeneid and the True Story teach us that hypertextuality is advertised in different ways. In these writings the emulation is not modest but clearly broadcasted. When this material is taken to provide analogies to Mark’s Gospel, some fundamental differences should be emphasized. In Mark’s Gospel, no metatextual preparation for Homer’s poems, no Homeric names, no Homeric quotations are found. The crucial question is: Does it make sense to speak of subtle emulation when these characteristics of the genre are all absent? There is in Mark’s Gospel no movement from obvious to subtle emulation of Homer’s poems. This does not imply that no hypertext is advertised in Mark’s Gospel. This Gospel does indeed advertise its hypotexts in ways that are more or less identical with both the Aeneid and the True Story, but the reader is directed not to Homer but to the OT. Mark’s editorial OT citation (Mark 1:2–3) works like the metatext in Ver. hist. 1.1–4, preparing the reader for a major hypertextuality to appear in the upcoming story: “In keeping with the role of the opening sentence in literary antiquity, Mark’s sole explicit editorial citation of the OT should be expected to convey the main concerns of the prologue and, therefore, his Gospel.”75 Other OT quotations or allusions abound in the story,76 many but by no means exclusively from the book of Isaiah.77 Names from the OT appear frequently, such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Mark 12:26), Moses (7:10; 9:4, 5, 11, 12, 13; 10:3, 4; 12:19, 26), David (2:25; 10:4, 7, 8; 12:35–36, 37), Elijah (9:4, 5, 11, 12, 13), Elisha (6:15; 8:28), and Abiathar (2:26). These names capture in brief the history of the fathers, the exodus, the Law, kings, and prophets as well as the temple institution—in short, a survey of key stories in the OT. Mark aims at presenting a story that links up with the OT. In this way he brings to mind Vergil’s Aeneid, which was a development of Homer’s poem the Iliad. These are three significant ways in which Mark’s Gospel advertises hypertextuality, and the direction is certainly not to Homer, particularly if authorial intention is here included. The relationship between continuity and discontinu-

75 Rikke E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (WUNT 2/88; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 90. 76 I am here dependent on the NA 27th edition’s list of quotations and allusions. 77 See 1:9–11; 4:12, 32; 7:6, 7, 10; 8:18; 9:34, 48; 10:6–8, 19; 11:9–10, 17–18; 12:10–11, 26, 29–31, 33, 36; 13:14, 24–26; 14:27, 34, 62; 15:24, 34. The importance of Isaiah is emphasized also by Joel Marcus, The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark (Westminster: John Knox Press 1992) and Sharyn Dowd, Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel (Macon: Smith & Helwys, 2000).

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ity with the OT may well be labeled a theologically inspired emulation: “In Mark’s Gospel . . . a commitment to the ‘old, old story’ is retained at the same time that the story itself is transformed by being read in a new way.”78

V. Summary Glockmann was reluctant to find traces of Homeric influence in the NT. His investigation followed in the wake of Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Adolph Deissmann, and Martin Dibelius, who viewed NT literature as Kleinliteratur.79 Scholarship has since then reviewed this picture and found that most writings in the NT are consonant with other ancient literature in ways that justify comparisons and analogies between the two bodies of literature. MacDonald’s contributions are firmly rooted in this new approach. He claims that the Gospel of Mark (and Acts) consciously imitated Homeric poems and provided strategic transformations of an Ersatz Odysseus or Hector. This article questions some of his analogies, and particularly his use of the rhetorical practice of emulation to bridge the gap between the alleged Homeric hypotexts and Mark’s Gospel. I have argued that the practice of imitation and emulation was either modest, in terms of improving or altering the language and style, but still consonant with the substance, or a rewriting and replacement of the model. The Aeneid and the True Story were outstanding examples of this. In both writings, however, emulation was broadcast in ways that alerted the reader. The authors moved between advertised intertextuality and subtle emulation. MacDonald isolates subtle emulation from its advertising context. Subtle and concealed emulation without basis in a broadcast intertextuality cannot make up for slippery comparisons. His reading is fascinating and contributes to a reader-oriented exegesis. But he fails to demonstrate authorial intention while he, in fact, neglects the OT intertextuality that is broadcast in this literature. 78 79

Marcus, Way of the Lord, 203. Glockmann, Homer, 52.

JBL 124/4 (2005) 733–749

CRITICAL NOTES PSALM 22:17B: A NEW GUESS

The first word of Ps 22:17b (Eng. v. 16b) is one of the most vexed lexical problems in biblical interpretation.1 The whole verse reads: 17 aa ab b

For dogs surrounded me; A gang of criminals encircled me;2 [?] my hands and my feet.

!yblk ynwbbs yk ynwpyqh !y[rm td[ ylgrw ydy yrak

The word in question, yrak, appears to mean “like the lion.”3 As many scholars point out, however, this yields little sense for the rest of the line as there is no verb. A wide variety of solutions have been offered over the centuries. Many scholars consider the MT to be corrupt, but there is no agreement as to what the original text said. Some hold that a verb has been errantly omitted from the text, while others argue that the difficult term was originally meant to be read as any of a number of verbs.4 This article attempts a solution by recognizing multiple meanings for yrak. On the one hand, the enigmatic word reads “like a lion,” while, on the other, it may be understood as a verb. Although a number of proposed verbs fit contextually, I hold that Mitchell Dahood and R. Tournay have identified the most likely candidate, yra, with a preposition attached. Dahood translates: “because they have picked clean [my hands and my feet].”5 This makes good sense of the 1

The verse numbers of the MT will be used throughout. The first two clauses are usually called collectively v. 17a (cf. il #qn).6 The result is a rich and mutually supporting web of meanings that, at some levels, builds on variable line divisions. This fluid and complex literary artistry links the verse closely to its context in the psalm. Following my discussion of these issues, I will briefly comment on some other wordplays in Psalm 22. These do not share the complexity of my proposed solution to v. 17b, but I do find a comparably sophisticated example of flexible meanings and sentence structures in Proverbs 31. In short, Psalm 22 offers a brilliant example of the deliberate ambiguity employed elsewhere in the Psalms.7 As is well known, the ancient versions presuppose a verb in Ps 22:17b with the subject being the “gang of criminals” of v. 17aa. The targum presupposes a missing verb: ayrak ^yh @tkn, “they bite like a lion.”8 Some commentators and translators suspect that a verb is implied that allows for the preservation of the MT. The 1917 JPS translation reads: “Like a lion, they are at my hands and feet.”9 Rashi thought that a verb such as “maul” is to be understood and he is followed by NJPS. Mark H. Heinemann, however, holds that a missing or elided verb produces an implausible image of a lion attacking nonfatal parts of its prey’s anatomy.10 This is not necessarily the case, however. Assyrian images often show a human champion attempting to wrestle lions by grabbing them close to their mouths. In one Egyptian battle image, Ramses III is aided by a lion biting the arm of an enemy whom the pharaoh is preparing to assault. When hunting prey, lions typically attack from behind, trying to disable the prey by attacking its hind legs, flanks, or back. Brent A. Strawn argues on this evidence that a reference to hands and feet in the context of a lion attack should not be unexpected. Still, he notes that the predators do not typically eat the hooves of their prey. This seems to be reflected in an image from Nineveh (probably seventh century B.C.E.) of a lion with a severed human hand beneath it (along with a human head). Strawn raises the possibility that a verb might be restored in Ps 22:17, rendering: “Like a lion (only) my hands and my feet.” For other reasons, however, he prefers restoring another verb (see below).11

17,” VT 24 (1974): 370–71; R. Tournay, “Note sur le Psaume XXVII 17,” VT 23 (1973): 111–12. They arrived at their similar, but not identical, conclusions independently. In his earlier Psalms I: 1–50: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 16; New York: Doubleday, 1966), 137, 140–41, Dahood read the word as “pierced.” 6 Kristin M. Swenson also finds the key to our leonine enigma to be this other word (“Psalm 22:17: Circling around the Problem Again,” JBL 123 [2004]: 637–48), but, as will become evident below, we differ on a number of points. Swenson’s article appeared in late 2004, when the present article was still in the review process for this journal. I regret not having it at an earlier stage. 7 See especially, Paul R. Rabbe, “Deliberate Ambiguity in the Psalter,” JBL 110 (1991): 213–27. 8 Vall, “Old Guess,” 47. 9 The Jewish Publication Society translation is reproduced in A. Cohen, The Psalms: Hebrew Text, English Translation and Commentary (Hinhead, Surry: Soncino, 1945), 64. Cohen maintains instead that a verb meaning “to gnaw” was mistakenly omitted. Brent A. Strawn also suspects that a verb has been omitted (“Psalm 22:17b: More Guessing,” JBL 119 [2000]: 439–51). 10 Mark H. Heinemann, “An Exposition of Psalm 22,” BSac 147 (1990): 286–308. 11 Strawn, “More Guessing”, 442–44, and the bibliography there.

Critical Notes

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My proposed wordplay, however, has a lionlike enemy picking through the scraps of its meal, thus accommodating the references to the inedible extremities of the victim. As I will describe below, other aspects of the rich polysemy in Ps 22:17 fill in the gap between the initial encirclement (v. 17a) and the attack’s aftermath (v. 17b). Reading a verb in the place of the MT’s yrak is one of the most common ways to interpret v. 17b and there is some text-critical support for this. A minority of Hebrew manuscripts read wrak and fewer yet have wrk; the final letter in both cases is generally taken to reflect a plural verb ending. The Greek reads w[ruxan, from ojruvssw, which would be translated literally as: “they have dug my hands and feet.” The Greek seems to presuppose the Hebrew root hrk (“to dig”) and is often taken to mean in context something like “they pierced.” Christians have often understood this as a prophecy of Christ’s crucifixion.12 Outside of overt christological contexts, however, this interpretation is quite forced. Many modern scholars have explained the enigmatic Hebrew term of Ps 22:17b as a corrupt or rare form of any of a number of verbs. For instance, Peter C. Craigie explains wrk as a corruption of wlk, derived from the root hlk. He translates: “[my hands and my feet] were exhausted.”13 Other roots are sometimes proposed, one of which can be supported from ancient translations. Aquila’s second edition of his Psalter has “they have bound,” ejpevdhsan, while Symmachus has “like those who seek to bind.” Jerome’s Psalteruim iuxta Hebraeos offers vinxerunt (“they have bound”). Gregory Vall claims that such a meaning admirably fits the context of the singer’s abandonment, his encirclement, and the dislocating of all of his bones (cf. v. 15). Nevertheless, Vall is not convinced of Paulus’s explanation of 1815 for Aquila’s reading. Paulus posits a Hebrew middle weak root, rak/rwk (from an Arabic root kwr, meaning to “bind [a turban]”). Vall rejects the Arabic cognate, thinking that it means “to wind into a ball.” Vall returns to the “old guess” of H. Graetz that the original word was the plural verb wrsa.14 John Kaltner rightly objects to the lengthy series of scribal errors this implies. He also demonstrates that “to bind, tie” is integral to the meaning of Paulus’s Arabic word and asserts that the shift in medial letters to a is not unexpected.15 In v. 16, however, the singer is already laid “in the dust of death,” which suggests that a stronger image than the mere binding of hands and feet would be appropriate in v. 17. A lion appears as emblematic of the enemies in vv. 14, 22. Regardless of the strength of Kaltner’s position, therefore, a predator may still be at large in v. 17b. Strawn senses this and, as noted briefly above, discusses ancient Near Eastern iconography. Although he finds little evidence of a consistent pattern of showing prisoners bound hand and foot, the aforementioned stamp seal from Nineveh showing a lion 12 See Vall (“Old Guess,” 45–48) for a recent discussion of the text-critical data and some examples of Christian accusations that Jewish scribes emended the text to cover up a prophecy of the crucifixion. 13 Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50 (WBC 19; Waco: Word Books, 1983), 196. 14 Vall, “Old Guess,” 46–50, referring to H. E. G. Paulus, Philologische Clavis über die Psalmen (Heidelberg: Mohr & Winter’schen, 1815), 120–51; and H. Graetz, Kritischer Commentar zu den Psalmen (2 vols.; Breslau: S. Schottlaender, 1882–83), 1:228. Vall proposes a metathesis of a and s. The resulting unintelligible wras was further corrupted: k replacing s. This resulted in the minority MT reading whose w was later mistaken for y. 15 John Kaltner, “Psalm 22:17b: Second Guessing ‘The Old Guess,’” JBL 117 (1998): 503–6.

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with human remains is relevant. Pictures of lions and severed animal parts, including hind limbs, have been found, but no images of the cats and human feet. Still, Strawn argues that an image from Wadi-Daliyeh showing a lion standing over the haunches and rear limb of a prey animal may be considered the iconographic equivalent of the psalm’s image, since “it is not atypical in iconographical contexts to find human and animal figures used with similar or identical connotation.”16 As noted above, Strawn reasons that a verb is probably lacking in 22:17b. Based on semantic considerations, he thinks that #rf (“to tear”) is the best candidate among several possibilities. This word makes considerable sense in the context of the later references to counting bones. He also calls attention to a resulting chiastic structure in the center of the psalm if a lion is found in v. 17, and this is a point to which I will return below.17 Strawn’s iconographical evidence, while not decisive, strongly suggests that yrak (“like a lion”) is original. Proposals of a wordplay (or two) can solve the problem of the missing verb, although some would suggest that none is needed after all (see below). In particular, Strawn’s structural observations are valuable, especially if one allows for multiple meanings for key terms. A brief look at vv. 17–19 is therefore instructive. 17 aa For dogs surrounded me ynwbbs; ab A gang of criminals encircled me ynwpyqh; b yrak my hands and my feet 18 a b

I count all my bones They stare, gawk at me ybAwary

19 a b

They divide my clothes for themselves Over my garments they cast lots.

Of initial interest is v. 18. The first three consonants of the word “[they] gawk” (wary) are the three consonants of “lion” spelled in reverse order, resulting in something of a visual pun.18 More importantly, only in v. 18a is the singer obviously the subject of a verb. All the other lines, including v. 17b, according to the most popular solutions, describe the actions of the tormentors. J. J. M. Roberts complains that this leaves v. 18a with no parallel line and makes v. 17 a tricolon whose the third member does not fit well. He proposes instead that yrak be seen as based on a new root hrk (derived from Akkadian and Syriac cognates), meaning “be shriveled.” This makes the hands and feet the verb’s subject and offers a better fit with v. 18a.19 Against this it can be argued that the reading “because they have picked clean” serves the perceived requirements of v. 18a much better and does not require positing a new root. Yet, because of the iconographical evidence presented by Strawn and the other references to lions in the psalm, “like a lion” 16

Strawn, “More Guessing,” 441– 44, 450 (quotation from 443). Ibid., 446–48. 18 This cannot go very far in suggesting that “lion” in v. 17 is original, but it is worth noting nonetheless. The plural ending on “gawk” is the same as the plural ending on the proposed verbs in v. 17b, which are based on the variant readings in Hebrew manuscripts. It is possible that these variants resulted from a copyist skipping ahead momentarily from v. 17 to v. 18 because of the other similar letters and inadvertently changing the final letter of “like a lion” to an apparent verb. 19 Roberts considers other alternatives to make of v.18b an “erratic phrase in an alien context” (“New Root,” 249). 17

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should not be abandoned. The best solution would be to see yrak as doing (at least) double duty. Another defense of “like a lion” can be built on the final word of v. 17a. The parallelism between “encircled” (ynwpyqh, from #qn) and “surrounded” (ynwbbs, from bbs) is clear. #qn in the hip>il has a similar sense in a number of other biblical passages (e.g., 1 Kgs 7:24; Isa 15:8; Lam 3:5).20 In addition, it can have the sense of circling or circumambulating something. In Josh 6:3, for instance, the Israelite men are to walk around Jericho (infinitive, and parallel with bbs) while the ark is carried around the city (Josh 6:11; cf. Ps 48:13). Back in Psalm 22, a gang of ruffians circling a victim (perhaps to strike at a weak point or to catch him off-guard) is not necessarily to be preferred over the victim being “encircled” on all sides by a (presumably large) mob. Yet, as a secondary nuance, it can make sense of “like a lion” if read all together: “circled me like a lion.” This adds an ominous detail to the imagery of v. 17a.21 Such a treatment of yrak cannot stand alone, however. For one thing, moving yrak to v. 17ab disturbs the parallelism there. More seriously, the move leaves “my hands and my feet” completely adrift. It is, however, a fitting complement to “picked clean.” Before turning to that directly, one can uncover another nuance to #qn. Standard reference works recognize two roots for this term. The first appears only in the pi>el and nip>al stems and denotes destruction. Isaiah 10:34 uses #qn to refer to the cutting down of trees (cf. Job 19:26). The second root, whose hip>il stem was discussed briefly above, also appears in the qal stem as “to go in a series” (e.g., Isa 29:1).22 What is interesting, however, is that a few attestations of the hip>il root II seem to occur in contexts in which the pi>el root I meaning of “to cut off” would fit admirably. Leviticus 19:27 employs wpqt to forbid “rounding off ” (e.g., NAB + RSV) the hair on one’s temples. Yet hip>il #qn in this place is actually in parallel with tjv “[do not] destroy” (in context, to shave one’s beard).23 Also noteworthy in this regard is the very difficult Ps 17:9: From the presence of the wicked who assaulted me my mortal enemies who (en)circle me:

ynwdv wz !y[vr ynpm yla wpyqy vpnb ybya

On the one hand, “(en)circle” finds its complement a little later with bbs, “surround,” in v. 11. On the other hand, #qn is in parallel with ynwdv, which is often understood as derived from ddv, denoting violence (hence my translation “assaulted”).24 Although the 20

A period of time and a schedule of ritual are referred to in Job 1:5 and 29:1. “Encircle” cannot fully account for being surrounded by a single lion but, in v. 14, the plural subjects of the verbs are likened to a singular lion. A similar collective singular may be found in v. 17. Moving as a group the gang may be likened to a single predatory animal. 22 See G. J. Botterweck, H. Ringgren, H.-J. Fabry, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (trans. D. E. Green; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 9:64–71. William L. Holladay, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament: Based Upon the Lexical Work of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 245–46; HALOT (Study Edition, 2001), 1:722. Nominal forms appear: e.g., the beating or shaking of an olive tree in Isa 17:6; 24:13. 23 Perhaps one should recognize here a hip>il of root I. 24 E.g., Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59: A Continental Commentary (trans. Hilton C. Oswald; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 244: “done violence.” 21

738


word must be spelled in one stem or another, we might be justified in hearing the basic semantic ranges of both roots.25 Interestingly, the enemies who assault, encircle, and surround the singer in Ps 17:9–11 are, in v. 13, said to be “like a lion” waiting for prey. On the basis of the passages from Leviticus and Psalm 17 I propose that a wordplay between the two roots of #qn be identified in Psalm 22. There is an evocation of violence—in context, perhaps “dismember”— alongside of “(en)circle.” The result is a complex pivot pattern: #qn is parallel to bbs, while, looking forward into v. 17b, it can be both “circled me” and “dismembered me” (like a lion). With the latter, some sense could even be made of the words “my hands and my feet,” which would otherwise be left “cut off” by the removal of yrak from v. 17b and its association with v. 17a. Hence: “A gang of criminals, like a lion, has dismembered me. My hands and my feet! I can count all my bones!” This reading can actually reinforce a proposed solution for v. 17b, that is, that there is an elision of a verb in that line. As Heinemann points out, the phenomenon of elided verbs in Hebrew poetry is well known, but he comments that it is hard to see how a lion might “encircle” one’s hands and feet.26 It may be a case of “form following content,” as Gary Rendsburg puts it—the missing verb highlighting the “suddenness with which the attack comes. We experience the anguish of the psalmist; he is surrounded by enemies, and suddenly, the pounce, and the immediate cry about hands and feet under attack.”27 In my opinion, this suddenness is all the more accentuated if we hear the dismembering of the victim in the same word that reiterates the encirclement. Kristin M. Swenson also finds the key to v. 17b to lie in #qn. She, however, argues that it should be understood as “circumscribe,” based on Josh 6:3, 11 and Lam 3:5. She maintains that the psalmist is expressing terror-stricken paralysis in the face of the attack.28 Against the typical understanding that the verse has three phrases, she understands only two, and she reads #qn in the second phrase. Dogs surround me, a pack of wicked ones. Like a lion, they circumscribe my hands and feet.29 Swenson is correct in pointing out that hip>il #qn has the sense of circumscribe or constrict in Lam 3:5, but Josh 6:3 and 11 certainly have the meaning of “go around.” While the ark circling Jericho is figurative of the inhabitants being trapped inside their doomed city, the more literal sense is of the physical movement of the ark around the city. Even though the image of a fearful paralysis does have an apt contextual fit in Psalm 22, it is not the strongest image possible. In attempting to isolate a single reading for the 25 This is preferable to Jacob Leveen, “The Textual Problems of Psalm XVII,” VT 11 (1961): 48–53, who emends ynwd` to ynwrv, “they eye me balefully,” to make it fit contextually with “encircle” (p. 51). 26 Heinemann maintains that “pierced” is the least troublesome reading (“Exposition of Psalm 22,” 296). For ellipsis or “verb gapping,” he refers his readers to Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York: Basic Books, 1985), 7; and M. O’Conner, Hebrew Verse Structure (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1980), 122–29. 27 Gary A. Rendsburg, “Hebrew Philological Notes (III),” HS 43 (2002): 26. 28 Swenson, “Circling Around,” 642–43. 29 Ibid., 642. She later (p. 647) discusses the first person singular suffix on the verb, which is not evident in her translation.

Critical Notes

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verse, Swenson does not notice the possible connections between “circumscribe” and proposals that yrak is really a verb meaning “to bind.” She criticizes John Kaltner because of his handling of the morphology of the Hebrew and especially the troublesome a.30 Yet peculiar spellings may be the result of a wordplay between words with relatively dissimilar spellings (something I will return to below). While “circumscribe / bind” makes for an intriguing and appropriate image, a stronger sense of violence should also be found in v. 17. Verses 13–15 end with the “dust of death.” Verses 17–19, which pick up a number of key terms and ideas from that earlier passage, end with counted bones and the gambling over clothes. Swenson understands v. 17 to refer to how terror “has effectively cut off” the singer’s options, his strength (“hands”) and ability to flee (“feet”).31 But the violent content of previous lines suggest that what is “cut off” may be far more physical. This is especially so in view of Swenson’s own structural analysis, which puts v. 17 at the center of chiastic structure spanning vv. 13–22.32 Another serious objection to Swenson’s two-line reading is that it breaks the excellent parallelism of the conventional, three-clause line division, which puts synonymous verbs in the final position of each of the first two clauses of the two lines. Rather than move the second verb, #qn, to the start of the next phrase, seeing it as a “pivot” is the better solution, especially if we see the same thing happening with the following word, yrak. As noted above, R. Tournay and Mitchell Dahood independently came to the conclusion that behind this disputed term lay the Hebrew root hra + k. They do differ, however, on a few points. Tournay understands the initial k to be the comparative preposition and the verb to be an infinitive construct of hra. He accepts the minority reading of our term (wrak) and notes that the final w is possible for such infinitives, if less common, than the usual t. He translates, “comme pour déchiqueter (mes mains et mes pieds).”33 Dahood reads the k as causal, the verb as a third person perfect plural with a final radical y, “preserved, as in Ugaritic regularly and sporadically in Phoenician and Hebrew.”34 He suggests that the text should be read as k Èµ (“onto the meat of the altar”) in Jub. 7:4 probably does not accurately reflect the original Hebrew text. Rather, I propose that this no-longer-extant text, in line with biblical prescriptions, indicated that Noah applied blood to the horns of his altar, not to sacrificial flesh upon the altar. Before developing this proposal, however, it is appropriate to elaborate on the reasons for rejecting the present Ethiopic reading. First, as I have noted, nowhere in the Bible or elsewhere in ancient Jewish texts do we find a reference to applying tafj blood—or the blood of any other sacrifice, for that matter—to sacrificial flesh on an altar. Were Jubilees in fact proposing such an unusual treatment of tafj blood, one would expect an explanation or defense of this innovation. Jubilees is notable for its lengthy and vigorous explanations of its distinctive positions on correct Jewish practice.8 Moreover, with every other reference to cultic blood manipulation in Jubilees, it is possible to identify the biblical sources, to explain how Jubilees utilizes and interprets those sources, and to relate Jubilees’ interpretive moves to those of other ancient Jewish texts, most notably the Qumran Temple Scroll.9 This is not, however, the case with Jub. 7:4. Second, a practical objection can be raised to what the Ethiopic text seems to describe. If we accept, for the sake of argument, that the text does represent Noah as applying blood to sacrificial flesh, we must ask, what was this flesh? Lawrence Schiffman cautiously suggests that Noah applied blood to the meat of the other sacrificial animals in the set, which were brought as burnt offerings. According to this interpretation, Noah

Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted, 279. In Num 29:5, Jubilees’ biblical source (see n. 3 above), the goat is explicitly identified as a tafj. 5 As Albeck noted (“Das Buch der Jubiläen und die Halacha,” 21). 6 Translations universally construe the text this way. Note the following English renderings of diba šegaµ zamešwa>: R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: A. & C. Black, 1902), 59 (“on the flesh that was on the altar”); Orval S. Wintermute, in OTP 2:69 (“on the flesh which was on the altar”); VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 44 (“the meat [that was on] the altar”). See also Moshe Goldman, in !ynwxyjh !yrpsh (ed. Avraham Kahana; Jerusalem: Makor, 1978), 1:237 (jbzmhAl[ rva rcbhAl[). German translations are the most literal: Enno Littman, in Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments (ed. Emil Kautzsch; 1900; repr., Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1962), 2:52 (“auf das Fleisch des Altars”); Berger, Das Buch der Jubiläen, 362 (“auf das Fleisch des Altares”). 7 Albeck, “Das Buch der Jubiläen und die Halacha,” 21, 50–51 n. 139. 8 See, e.g., Jub. 2:17–33 (on Sabbath); 3:8–14 (on childbirth purification); 6:17–38 (on festivals and calendar); 15:25–34 (on circumcision). 9 See William K. Gilders, “Representation and Interpretation: Blood Manipulation in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism” (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 2001), 337–80.

Critical Notes

747

slaughtered the goat kid and reserved its blood. He then slaughtered the burnt-offering animals and placed their flesh on the altar. Finally, he took the reserved blood of the kid and applied it to the flesh of the burnt offerings on the altar.10 Schiffman’s interpretation depends on his construal of the rest of Jub. 7:4—“And all the fat he offered upon the altar where he made (zahÚaba gabra) the burnt offering, and the bull, the ram, and the sheep, and he offered up all their flesh on the altar”—and requires translating zahÚaba gabra as “where he had made” the burnt offering. However, the Ethiopic perfect verb gabra certainly need not be read as a past perfect. Indeed, the context speaks against such a translation. We are told that Noah offered up the fat of the kid on the altar, and then we are told that he offered up the flesh of the bull, the ram, and the sheep. The reference to the altar as the one “where he made (zahÚaba gabra) the burnt offering” is simply anticipatory, indicating that all of the offerings were made on the same altar. It is also possible that the Ethiopic is simply the wordy reflection of an original Hebrew hlw[h jbzm (“altar of burnt offering”). Schiffman seems unperturbed by the strange statement that Noah placed blood on sacrificial flesh, and simply treats it as an opportunity to argue that Jubilees advocates burning the meat of burnt offerings before the blood of a tafj offering is manipulated.11 Contrary to Schiffman’s interpretation, the text indicates that the flesh of the burnt-offering animals was placed on the altar after the kid’s blood was manipulated, and after its fat had been offered.12 Thus, the flesh of the burnt-offering animals would not have been on the altar when the kid’s blood was manipulated. Jacques T. A. G. M. van Ruiten identifies the flesh on the altar as that of the goat kid itself, the flesh of the tafj, but without argument or explanation.13 His suggestion is even less compelling than Schiffman’s. Since the kid is a tafj offering, none of its flesh would have been placed on the altar. Rather, as the text indicates, only the kid’s fat was offered (Jub. 7:4b), which is what one expects in the case of a tafj, and this offering of fat took place after the blood manipulation, again what one would expect based on the biblical prescriptions Jubilees seems to assume.14 Thus, it is necessary to conclude that there was no flesh on the altar to which Noah could have applied blood. The above considerations require us to return to Albeck’s suggestion that diba šegaµ zamešwaµ> in Jub. 7:4 is either an incorrect translation or the result of a textual corruption.15 I propose that the original Hebrew reading in Jub. 7:4 was not “flesh” (rcb) but 10

Schiffman, “Sacrificial System,” 222.

11 Schiffman is concerned to identify differences between Jubilees and the Temple Scroll. His

interpretation of Jub. 7:3–4 serves this goal; see “Sacrificial System,” 222–23, 232–33. 12 For this critique of Shiffman’s interpretation, see James C. Vanderkam, “The Temple Scroll and the Book of Jubilees,” in Temple Scroll Studies: Papers Presented at the International Symposium on the Temple Scroll, Manchester, December 1987 (ed. G. J. Brooke; JSPSup 7; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 229; van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted, 279 n. 49. 13 Van Ruiten, Primaeval History Interpreted, 279. 14 See Lev 4:8–12, 19–21, 26, 31, 35; 6:19–23 (Eng. 6:26–30); 8:16–17; 9:10–11; Gilders, Blood Ritual, 127. 15 While he raised these possibilities, Albeck did not pursue them, adopting instead August Dillmann’s suggestion that šegaµ zamešwaµ> is an idiom with the meaning corpus altaris, “the altar itself.” The problem with this understanding is that, as Dillmann indicates, this would be the only

748


“horns” (twnrq). How did “horns” end up as “flesh” in the Ethiopic version? All Ethiopic manuscripts read “flesh,” and it is difficult to see how a corruption of “horns” ( H\ and *G≥ > >) and Greek Translations (2 Esdras and Judith),” 229 VanderKam, James C. See Schofield, Alison Watts, James W., “Ritual Legitimacy and Scriptural Authority,” 401 Wells, Bruce, “Sex, Lies, and Virginal Rape: The Slandered Bride and False Accusation in Deuteronomy,” 41 Westbrook, Raymond, “Elisha’s True Prophecy in 2 Kings 3,” 530 II. Book Reviews

Aasgaard, Reidar, “My Beloved Brothers and Sisters!” Christian Siblingship in Paul (Matthew W. Mitchell) 565 Albertz, Rainer, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. (Lester L. Grabbe) 544 Bautch, Richard J., Developments in Genre between Post-Exilic Penitential Prayers and the Psalms of Communal Lament (Jacob L. Wright) 167 Blickenstaff, Marianne. See Levine, Amy-Jill Blount, Brian K., Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture (Danielle Brune Sigler) 575 Bolt, Peter G., Jesus’ Defeat of Death: Persuading Mark’s Early Readers (William Sanger Campbell) 558 Brown, Michael Joseph, Blackening the Bible: The Aims of African American Biblical Scholarship (Danielle Brune Sigler) 575 Calvert-Koyzis, Nancy, Paul, Monotheism and the People of God: The Significance of Abraham Traditions for Early Judaism and Christianity (Mark D. Nanos) 775 Cameron, Ron, and Merrill P. Miller, eds., Redescribing Christian Origins (James D. G. Dunn) 760 Clark, Elizabeth A., History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn (Willemien Otten) 582 Conrad, Edgar, Reading the Latter Prophets: Toward a New Canonical Criticism (Mark J. Boda) 365 Cook, Stephen L., The Social Roots of Biblical Yahwism (Kenton Sparks) 751 Ehrensperger, Kathy, That We May Be Mutually Encouraged: Feminism and the New Perspective in Pauline Studies (Heike Omerzu) 386 Fischer, Alexander Achilles, Von Hebron nach Jerusalem: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Studie zur Erzählung von König David in II Sam 1–5 (Mark W. Hamilton) 163 Fitzpatrick, Paul E., The Disarmament of God: Ezekiel 38–39 in Its Mythic Context (Françoise Smyth) 165 Fried, Lisbeth S., The Priest and the Great King: Temple–Palace Relations in the Persian Empire (Kenneth A. Ristau) 546 Frilingos, Christopher A., Spectacles of Empire: Monsters, Martyrs, and the Book of Revelation (Robert M. Royalty, Jr.) 571

Annual Index

797

Frolov, Serge, The Turn of the Cycle: 1 Samuel 1–8 in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives (Bill T. Arnold) 533 Goff, Matthew J., The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction (Ian Werrett), 173; (Benjamin G. Wright III) 548 Grätz, Sebastian, Das Edikt des Artaxerxes: Eine Untersuchung zum religionspolitischen und historischen Umfeld von Esra 7,12–26 (Armin Siedlecki) 541 Gray, Patrick, Godly Fear: The Epistle to the Hebrews and Greco-Roman Critiques of Superstition (John A. Bertone) 182 Hill, Charles E., The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Kyle Keefer) 187 Ilan, Tal, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity: Part 1, Palestine 330 BCE–200 CE (Rivka B. Kern-Ulmer) 376 Incigneri, Brian J., The Gospel to the Romans: The Setting and Rhetoric of Mark’s Gospel (Zeba A. Crook) 553 Johns, Loren L., The Lamb Christology of the Apocalypse of John: An Investigation into Its Origins and Rhetorical Force (Robert M. Royalty, Jr.) 571 Kalimi, Isaac, The Reshaping of Ancient Israelite History in Chronicles (Lester L. Grabbe) 758 Kaminouchi, Alberto de Mingo, “But It Is Not So Among You”: Echoes of Power in Mark 10:32–45 (William Sanger Campbell) 558 Kannaday, Wayne C., Apologetic Discourse and the Scribal Tradition: Evidence of the Influence of Apologetic Interests on the Text of the Canonical Gospels (Kim Haines-Eitzen) 381 Kessler, Edward, Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac (Isaac Kalimi) 371 Kowalski, Beate, Die Rezeption des Propheten Ezechiel in der Offenbarung des Johannes (Jon Paulien) 782 Levine, Amy-Jill, ed., with Marianne Blickenstaff, A Feminist Companion to Luke (Davina C. Lopez) 562 Lundbom, Jack R., Jeremiah 21–36: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Carolyn J. Sharp) 361 MacDonald, Dennis R., Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (Stan Harstine) 383 Manning, Gary T., Jr., Echoes of a Prophet: The Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John and in Literature of the Second Temple Period (David Miller) 368 Miller, Merril P. See Cameron, Ron Müller, Reinhard, Königtum und Gottesherrschaft: Untersuchungen zur alttestamentlichen Monarchiekritik (Mark W. Hamilton) 536 Mykytiuk, Lawrence J., Identifying Biblical Persons in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions of 1200–539 B.C.E. (Paul Sanders) 354 Newsom, Carol A., The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (John J. Collins) 170 Nickelsburg, George W. E., Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins: Diversity, Continuity, and Transformation (Pieter W. van der Horst) 176 Nissinen, Martti, Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (Marvin A. Sweeney) 155 Novakovic, Lidija, Messiah, the Healer of the Sick: A Study of Jesus as the Son of David in the Gospel of Matthew (J. R. C. Cousland) 768

798


Økland, Jorunn, Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space (Joseph A. Marchal) 771 Olyan, Saul M., Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions (Louise J. Lawrence) 158 Porter, Stanley E., The Pauline Canon (Ron Fay) 569 Riches, John K., and David C. Sim, eds., The Gospel of Matthew in Its Roman Imperial Context (D. A. Carson) 764 Roskam, Hendrika N., The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in Its Historical and Social Context (Zeba A. Crook) 553 Shields, Mary, Circumscribing the Prostitute: The Rhetorics of Intertextuality, Metaphor and Gender in Jeremiah 3.1–4.4 (Louis Stulman) 538 Sim, David C. See Riches, John K. Smith, Jonathan Z., Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion (Karel van der Toorn) 584 Stanton, Graham N., Jesus and Gospel (Tobias Nicklas) 179 Sticher, Claudia, Die Rettung der Guten durch Gott und die Selbstzerstörung der Bösen: Ein theologisches Denkmuster im Psalter (Gerald A. Klingbeil) 160 Taylor, Joan E., Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria: Philo’s “Therapeutae” Reconsidered (Jorunn Økland) 378 Wagner, J. Ross, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans (Christopher D. Stanley) 778 Wellhausen, Julius, Prolegomena to the History of Israel, with a reprint of the article “Israel” from the Encyclopaedia Britannica (Roland T. Boer) 349 Wright, Jacob L., Rebuilding Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and Its Earliest Readers (Tamara Cohn Eskenazi) 755 Yadin, Azzan, Scripture as Logos: Rabbi Ishmael and the Origins of Midrash (Joshua Kulp) 184 Yee, Gale A., Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (David Jobling) 359

III. Reviewers Arnold, Bill T., 533 Bertone, John A., 182 Boda, Mark J., 365 Boer, Roland T., 349 Campbell, William Sanger, 558 Carson, D. A., 764 Collins, John J., 170 Cousland, J. R. C., 768 Crook, Zeba A., 553 Dunn, James D. G., 760 Eskenazi, Tamara Cohn, 755 Fay, Ron, 569 Grabbe, Lester L., 544, 758 Haines-Eitzen, Kim, 381 Hamilton, Mark W., 163, 536

Harstine, Stan, 383 Jobling, David, 359 Kalimi, Isaac, 371 Keefer, Kyle, 187 Kern-Ulmer, Rivka B., 376 Klingbeil, Gerald A., 160 Kulp, Joshua, 184 Lawrence, Louise J., 158 Lopez, Davina C., 562 Marchal, Joseph A., 771 Miller, David, 368 Mitchell, Matthew W., 565 Nanos, Mark D., 775 Nicklas, Tobias, 179 Økland, Jorunn, 378

Annual Index Omerzu, Heike, 386 Otten, Willemien, 582 Paulien, Jon, 782 Ristau, Kenneth A., 546 Royalty, Robert M., Jr., 571 Sanders, Paul, 354 Sharp, Carolyn J., 361 Siedlecki, Armin, 541 Sigler, Danielle Brune, 575 Smyth, Françoise, 165

Sparks, Kenton, 751 Stanley, Christopher D., 778 Stulman, Louis, 538 Sweeney, Marvin A., 155 van der Horst, Pieter W., 176 van der Toorn, Karel, 584 Werrett, Ian, 173 Wright, Benjamin G., III, 548 Wright, Jacob L., 167

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