Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 129, No. 3 (Fall 2010)

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Author: General Editor: JAMES C. VANDERKAM

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129 3 2010

JOURNAL OF

BIBLICAL LITERATURE FALL 2010

VOLUME 129, NO. 3

JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Flight of the Fugitives: Rethinking the Relationship between Biblical Law (Exodus 21:12–14) and the Davidic Succession Narrative (1 Kings 1–2) Jonathan Burnside

418–431

Why Did Hannah Ask for “Seed of Men”? Michael Carasik

433–436

Elaborated Evidence for the Priority of 1 Samuel 26 Steven L. McKenzie

437–444

When More Leads to Less: Overstatement, Incrementum, and the Question in Job 4:17a Richard Whitekettle

445–448

A Note on Peshitta Job 28:23 Brian J. Alderman and Brent A. Strawn

449–456

A Comparative Note on the Demand for Witnesses in Isaiah 43:9 Shalom E. Holtz

457–461

Mattathias and the Jewish Man of Modein Benjamin Edidin Scolnic

463–483

Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and the Compositional History of 1 Enoch Randall D. Chesnutt

485–505

The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25–34 Candida R. Moss

507–519

A Disconcerting Prayer: On the Originality of Luke 23:34a Nathan Eubank

521–536

[Table of Contents continued on p. 417.] US ISSN 0021-9231

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JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY THE

SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (Constituent Member of the American Council of Learned Societies)

EDITORIAL BOARD Term Expiring 2010: BRIAN BRITT, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 MICHAEL FOX, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 STEVEN FRAADE, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8287 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 CATHERINE MURPHY, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA 95053 EMERSON POWERY, Messiah College, Grantham, PA 17027 ADELE REINHARTZ, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada SIDNIE WHITE CRAWFORD, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE 68588-0337 2011: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 JAIME CLARK-SOLES, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275 STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA 23173 ROBERT HOLMSTEDT, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1C1 Canada ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR MARGARET Y. MACDONALD, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS B2G 2W5 Canada SHELLY MATTHEWS, Furman University, Greenville, SC 29613 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 MARK REASONER, Bethel University, St. Paul, MN 55112 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ, United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542 PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205 2012: DAVID L. BARR, Wright State University, Dayton, OH 45435 COLLEEN CONWAY, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ 07079 MARY ROSE D’ANGELO, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 J. ALBERT HARRILL, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405 PAUL JOYCE, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3LD, United Kingdom ELIZABETH STRUTHERS MALBON, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0135 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway CAROLYN SHARP, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520 BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, The Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, NY 10027 LOUIS STULMAN, University of Findlay, Findlay, OH 45840 DAVID TSUMURA, Japan Bible Seminary, Tokyo 205-0017, Japan MICHAEL WHITE, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 Editorial Assistant: Monica Brady, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556 President of the Society: Vincent Wimbush, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711; Vice President: Carol Newsom, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322; Chair, Research and Publications Committee: Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5 Canada; 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$180.00 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 Hebrew font used in JBL is SBL Hebrew and is available from www.sbl-site.org/Resources/default.aspx. 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

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EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL General Editor: JAMES C. VANDERKAM, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

Journal of Biblical Literature Volume 129, no. 3 (Fall 2010) [Table of Contents continued] Closed-Minded Hermeneutics? A Proposed Alternative Translation for Luke 24:45 Matthew W. Bates

537–557

“What Women Were Accustomed to Do for the Dead Beloved by Them” (Gospel of Peter 12.50): Traces of Laments and Mourning Rituals in Early Easter, Passion, and Lord’s Supper Traditions Angela Standhartinger

559–574

A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context: An Early Christian Writing Exercise from the Archive of Leonides (P.Oxy. II 209/p10) AnneMarie Luijendijk

575–596

Christian Ancestor Worship in Rome Ramsay MacMullen

597–613

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JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 418–431

Flight of the Fugitives: Rethinking the Relationship between Biblical Law (Exodus 21:12–14) and the Davidic Succession Narrative (1 Kings 1–2) jonathan burnside [email protected] University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TH, England

The flight of the fugitives Adonijah and Joab to the “altar of the Lord”1 in 1 Kgs 1:50–53 and 2:28–34, respectively, presents something of a challenge to biblical scholars who have struggled to explain the relationship between this aspect of these events in 1 Kings 1–2 and the practice of asylum seeking at the “altar of the Lord” in Exod 21:12–14. This is reflected both in the lack of consensus on the subject and in the problematic nature of the positions that have so far been advanced. A spectrum of views can be identified, as follows. At one end are scholars who see the narratives of Adonijah and Joab as straightforward applications of Exod 21:12–14 (including James K. Bruckner, Brevard S. Childs, John I. Durham, William H. C. Propp, Nahum M. Sarna, and Keith W. Whitelam).2 However, the I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers who engaged with this paper and made constructive comments. Biblical quotations are from the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanakh, unless otherwise noted. 1 1 Kings 1:50–51 refers to Adonijah’s flight to “the horns of the altar,” although the location of the altar is not explicitly stated. However, 1 Kgs 2:28 refers in similar fashion to Joab’s flight to “the horns of the altar,” and this is said to be located at “the tent of the Lord” (2:29). This indicates that the altar was located next to the sacred tent that David pitched for the ark in Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:17; Martin J. Mulder, 1 Kings [trans. John Vriend; Historical Commentary on the Old Testament; Leuven Peeters, 1998], 80). 2 Bruckner, Exodus (NIBCOT 2; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008), 200; Childs, The Book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 470 (referring to Joab); Durham, Exodus (WBC 3; Waco: Word Books, 1987), 323; Propp, Exodus 19– 40: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 2A; New York: Doubleday, 2006),

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Joab and Adonijah narratives could be straightforward examples of Exod 21:12–14 only if they dealt with fugitives who were “on the run” following a fresh killing, since this is the focus of the Exodus passage. Yet plainly this is not the case, either for Adonijah or for Joab. There is no indication that Adonijah has killed anyone (despite Nathan’s warning to Bathsheba in 1 Kgs 1:12 and Bathsheba’s own plea for protection in 1:21). And while the battle-weary Joab has plenty of blood on his hands, the deaths of Abner (2 Sam 3:27) and Amasa (2 Sam 20:10), which are presented as sources of blood-guilt by David and Solomon (1 Kgs 2:5-6, 31-33), are long past. As a result, it is inadequate to claim that the succession narrative simply illustrates Exod 21:12-14. Moving on through the spectrum, we come to scholars who acknowledge the differences between Exod 21:12–14 and the succession narrative but who at the same time maintain that there is a connection, even though they are not too clear what it is (e.g., Martin Noth).3 Thus, Anthony Phillips blandly remarks that the only examples in the Hebrew Bible of persons seeking asylum “concern political refugees and not criminals,”4 a position that at least recognizes the disjuncture, even while glossing over it. Simon J. De Vries and J. W. Wesselius go further, characterizing the Adonijah and Joab stories as examples of the abuse of the custom of asylum, although there is not too much to choose between the claim that the stories are perverse examples of the application of Exod 21:12-14 and the claim that they are not illustrations of that passage at all.5 Percy S. F. van Keulen simply leaves the matter open, claiming that “[t]here is no clear indication that Exod. 21:14 is presupposed in the narrative, either in MT or in the LXX-version,” while Bernard S. Jackson views the relationship between Exod 21:14 and the slaying of Joab as “not clear.”6 From here it is only a short move further along the spectrum to scholars who deny any kind of relationship between the succession narrative and the biblical legal texts. Thus, Pamela Barmash and Martin J. Mulder (like Phillips) character-

20; Sarna, Exodus twm#: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 12; Whitelam, The Just King: Monarchical Judicial Authority in Ancient Israel (JSOTSup 12; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1979). 3 Noth, Exodus: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster; London: SCM, 1962), 180. 4 Phillips, Ancient Israel’s Criminal Law: A New Approach to the Decalogue (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970), 100. 5 De Vries, 1 Kings (WBC 12; Waco: Word Books, 1985), 29; Wesselius, “Joab’s Death and the Central Theme of the Succession Narrative (Samuel IX–1 Kings II),” VT 40 (1990): 336–51, here 338. 6 Van Keulen, Two Versions of the Solomon Narrative: An Inquiry into the Relationship between MT 1 Kgs. 2–11 and LXX 3 Reg. 2–11 (VTSup 104; Leiden: Brill, 2005), 30 n. 6; Jackson, Wisdom-Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 162.

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ize Adonijah and Joab as examples of “political asylum”; however, (unlike Phillips) they see this as evidence that these cases are completely unrelated to Exod 21:12– 14, a view shared by Åke Viberg and Jeffrey Stackert.7 In this article I would like to propose a new way forward. I shall argue that Exod 21:12–14 is both normative and operative in the stories of Adonijah and Joab. At the same time, however, I shall argue that this relationship is not straightforward. In doing so, I hope to provide an account of this relationship that not only acknowledges the continuity and disjuncture between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kings 1–2 but also explains it. Part of the reason why this has not previously been recognized is that our assumptions about the nature of biblical law have, very often, lagged behind the praxis of biblical law (that is, its accepted practices and customs), as reflected in the biblical texts. Jackson has argued, persuasively in my view, that biblical law is best understood in “narrative” rather than “semantic” terms (see section I below), an approach that, I believe, can be fruitfully applied to Exod 21:12– 14. I shall argue further that the typical case of asylum seeking in Exod 21:12–14 is that of the person who is accused of homicide. However, this does not mean that asylum is restricted to such persons. Other persons could also be granted access to asylum provided they are close to the “narrative paradigm,” such as a fugitive in a nonhomicide, but capital, case. I shall argue that Adonijah and Joab represent “hard cases” for Solomon since both, in different ways, are positioned at some distance from the paradigm cases of Exod 21:12–14. By exploring Solomon’s judgments in these cases—according to which one fugitive benefits from asylum and the other does not—we can reach not only, I hope, a more plausible account of the relationship between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kings 1–2 but also a more creative understanding of the relationship between biblical law and biblical narrative.

I. “Semantic” versus “Narrative” Readings of Asylum Modern scholarly assumptions about how to read biblical law are often based on the values of modern liberalism, particularly the “rule of law” (the belief that adjudication should be governed by laws and not by people). The dominant paradigm of “conventional meaning” today is “literal meaning,” which is closely tied, as its name suggests, to writing.8 A literal or “semantic” reading of any rule sees it as covering all cases that may be subsumed under the meaning of its words. This often 7

Barmash, Homicide in the Biblical World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 72–73; Mulder, 1 Kings, 80; Viberg, Symbols of Law: A Contextual Analysis of Legal Symbolic Acts in the Old Testament (ConBOT 34; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1992), 123–24; Stackert, “Why Does Deuteronomy Legislate Cities of Refuge? Asylum in the Covenant Collection (Exodus 21:12– 14) and Deuteronomy (19:1–13),” JBL 125 (2006): 23–49, here 25 n. 3. 8 Jackson, Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law (JSOTSup 314; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 14.


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amounts to paraphrasing the legal rule and substituting one set of words for another. However, there is another way of thinking about language and legal rules, and this is to adopt a “narrative” approach. “Narrative” meaning consists of typical stories or images that are evoked by the use of words. It arises in the context of a group that shares the social knowledge necessary to evoke those images without needing to “spell them out.”9 Whereas a semantic interpretation asks, What is the literal meaning of the words?, a narrative approach asks, What typical situations do the words of this rule evoke? It is an “imagistic” approach rather than a literal one. Jackson has demonstrated that the cognitive structures that go into reading the text of biblical law are narrative, not semantic.10 This distinction between “literal” and “imagistic” approaches is an important one in practice and fundamentally affects how we understand, for example, Exod 21:12–14. Rules that are read literally cover all cases that may be included under its language. By contrast, rules that are understood imagistically apply only to the typical cases they bring to mind.11 Under this approach the farther the real-life case is from the “typical case,” the less likely it is that the rule applies and the more room there is for negotiation between the parties.12 This is because the narrative image represents the “core” of the message. The farther one departs from the typical case, the less sure we can be that the message is intended to apply or would be regarded as applicable by the audience.13 The question is no longer whether the dispute is “covered” by the literal meaning of the words of the rule but whether the dispute is sufficiently similar to the picture evoked by the rule to justify its use in order to resolve the problem. Significantly, questions of relative similarity evoke intuitive judgments of justice to a greater 9 Social knowledge refers to our knowledge of social situations; it is informed by our social and historical context, which we normally take for granted (and see Bernard S. Jackson, “Law, Wisdom and Narrative,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts; La narrativité dans la Bible et les textes apparentés [ed. G. J. Brooke and J.-D. Kaestli; BETL 149; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2000], 31–51, here 45). 10 See generally Jackson, Wisdom-Laws; for this particular claim, see 24–25. 11 We can take a simple example, such as the formula “eye for eye, tooth for tooth” in Exod 21:24–25. One of the classical arguments against this rule (posed by Plato and others) was the following: What happens if a one-eyed man puts out one of the eyes of a two-eyed man? This objection assumes a literal reading; that is, it assumes that the rule applies whatever the circumstances of the parties. A literal application of the “eye for an eye” rule would mean that the offender’s eye must be taken, even though this means that he will be completely blind, whereas his victim was made only half-sighted (Jackson, Studies, 285). An alternative approach, preferred by Jackson, is to read Exod 21:24-25 narratively (ibid., 286). The typical offender is pictured as a two-eyed man, which means that the case of the one-eyed offender is far removed from the typical case. 12 Jackson, Studies, 75–82. 13 Bernard S. Jackson, “Modelling Biblical Law: The Covenant Code,” Chicago-Kent Law Review 70 (1995): 1745–1827, here 1767–68.

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degree than literal interpretations. Questions of similarity are evaluative questions (How justifiable is it to treat these cases as similar?).14 If the real-life case is sufficiently similar to the typical case, or narrative paradigm, then the rule applies even though the real-life case may not fall within the literal meaning of the rule.15 All this is relevant as we turn to consider Exod 21:12–14. A semantic approach to the biblical laws of homicide would claim that refuge at the horns of the altar is available for the unintentional killer—and only to such a person.16 Homicide is thus a necessary condition of seeking asylum. This is the approach (unwittingly) taken by scholars such as Barmash, Mulder, Stackert, and Viberg, who claim that the episodes involving Adonijah and Joab cannot have anything to do with Exod 21:12– 14 because this rule confers protection only for unpremeditated killings.17 If it is the case, however, that the biblical legal collections seem to provide us with a series of “paradigm cases,” then the picture begins to look very different. Exodus 21:12–14 consists of stereotypical images that draw on social knowledge of who is, and who is not, a legitimate asylum seeker. They suggest that the typical image of an asylum seeker is “the person accused of a homicide.”18 But because this 14

Jackson, Studies, 82. Jackson’s approach is compatible with certain well-observed features of the ancient Near Eastern legal collections. First, the casuistic form of ancient Near Eastern law consists of variations on a given case (e.g., the organization of Laws of Hammurabi 248–52 and cf. Exod 21:28–36). Such variations encourage receivers of the law to explore analogies in deciding whether a law is relevant to a particular situation and, if so, in what way. It prompts reflection on similarities or differences, depending on the situation in question. Second, a narrative approach is compatible with the presentation of individual cases in an associative sequence as examples of what Raymond Westbrook calls “concretised experience,” which combine to form a “critical mass of paradigms” (“The Character of Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in A History of Ancient Near Eastern Law [ed. Raymond Westbrook; 2 vols.; Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 1, The Near and Middle East 72; Leiden: Brill, 2003], 1:1–90, here 13). It is possible to see how these legal materials could have been applied appropriately by ancient judges in “narrative” terms, that is, through an approach based on analogies and images that become clear in the context of shared social knowledge relevant to these situations. However, not all scholars would agree that this narrative approach is an appropriate form of legal reasoning for interpreting any, or all, of the ancient Near Eastern legal collections. Even Westbrook himself is somewhat ambivalent on the subject. Although he generally claims that the legal collections “offered contemporary courts and rulers a middle ground between a vague sense of justice and mechanical rules” (ibid., 22), it is clear from elsewhere that, according to Jackson, Westbrook envisages “a model of a legal system strongly influenced by modern jurisprudence” (Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 16). For a discussion of the differences between Jackson’s approach and that of Westbrook, see Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 10–16. 16 Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 123–25. 17 Barmash, Homicide, 72–73; Mulder, 1 Kings, 80; Stackert, “Why Does Deuteronomy Legislate Cities of Refuge?” 25 n. 3; Viberg, Symbols of Law, 123–24. 18 This raises the question why being accused of homicide should be the typical case of seeking asylum in biblical Israel. The question is worth asking, given that the ancient Near East knew 15


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is only a stereotypical image, it does not necessarily mean that asylum is restricted to such persons.19 Being accused of homicide, then, is not a precondition of asylum. This means that other persons also could be granted access to asylum provided they are close to the narrative paradigm. They could include, for example, the person who is in mortal fear for his or her life (e.g., a fugitive in a nonhomicide, but capital, case). As a result, Jackson claims that there is no reason why, for example, the owner of a homicidal ox could not have taken advantage of asylum, even though the case is “so far distant from the paradigm . . . that the offender may have felt confident enough to stay at home and negotiate rather than run for his life.”20 Equally, one could imagine people seeking asylum in noncapital cases (such as theft) if, for whatever reason, they too are in fear of their lives. Naturally, the farther one moves away from the paradigm, the less likely it is that asylum will be available but, at the same time, the less likely it is that asylum will be required. In this respect, the application of biblical law is similar to the practice of asylum elsewhere in the ancient Near East; it was available for a wide range of persons and circumstances, not just unpremeditated killings.21 To sum up, we are not obliged to adopt a semantic reading of Exod 21:12–14. On the contrary, we are entitled to take a narrative approach, in which case the application of the text is not restricted to homicide. This creates new possibilities for construing the relationship between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kings 1–2.

of a whole range of asylum seekers, including runaway slaves and artisans, runaway military and civilian captives of war, deserting soldiers and indebted peasants, to name but a few (see Amnon Altman, “On Some Basic Concepts in the Law of People Seeking Refuge and Sustenance in the Ancient Near East,” ZABR 8 [2002]: 323–42, here 323). Being accused of homicide was only one reason for going “on the run”—and presumably not the most common one. So what was it about this example that made it stereotypical within the social knowledge of biblical Israel? I have argued elsewhere that the narrative of Moses finding refuge from Pharaoh in Exod 2:11–22 is repeated on a much larger scale in Exodus 14–15 and that Israel’s flight from Egypt into the desert of Sinai can be seen, inter alia, as a large-scale example of asylum seeking (Jonathan P. Burnside, “Exodus and Asylum: Uncovering the Relationship between Biblical Law and Narrative,” JSOT 34 [2010]: 243–66). In addition, there seem to be notable structural similarities between these two narratives of asylum and the biblical laws of asylum (Exod 21:12–14; Num 35:9–34; Deut 19:1–13). This in turn confirms that the biblical laws of asylum should be seen as paradigm cases and that these narrative paradigms (which include Exod 21:12–14) draw on the exodus narratives as part of their social construction. It also helps to explain why the biblical laws of asylum are typically concerned with homicide rather than with other forms of asylum seeking commonly found in the ancient Near East, because this element is present in the exodus narratives. Israel saw itself not simply as a nation of escaped slaves but also as a nation of successful asylum seekers. 19 This is because, as Jackson notes, “a narrative typification is not a definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” (“Modelling Biblical Law,” 152). 20 Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 126. 21 Altman, “Refuge and Sustenance in the Ancient Near East,” 323.

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II. New Proposals for Making Sense of Adonijah’s (1 Kings 1:50–53) and Joab’s (1 Kings 2:28–34) Flight to the Altar We begin with Adonijah’s flight to the altar (1 Kgs 1:50–53). Barmash claims that there is no link between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 1:50–53 because “Adonijah is not portrayed as ever having killed another person.”22 As we have seen, however, this is to adopt a semantic approach to the text when in fact a narrative approach has greater plausibility. If Exod 21:12–14 is a narrative paradigm, then being accused of homicide is the typical reason for seeking asylum but it is not the only one. Therefore, it may well be within the scope of Exod 21:12–14 for Adonijah to seek asylum at the altar when the trigger for his doing so is taking part in a failed coup. Of course, Adonijah’s case is at some distance from the paradigm of the successful asylum seeker (Exod 21:13) because he is not a killer (so far as we can tell), and this is what makes it a “hard case.” Consequently, the relevant question (as we saw in section I) is: How justifiable is it to treat this case as similar to that involving a killer? Or, to put it another way, Is Adonijah’s case sufficiently similar to the narrative paradigm of Exod 21:13 to justify his gaining the benefit of asylum? In Solomon’s judgment the case is sufficiently similar. Adonijah is indeed able to benefit from asylum in this particular case (1 Kgs 1:53). It seems that, although Adonijah does not fall within the paradigm of Exod 21:13, a number of features of his case are sufficiently close to the paradigm to justify granting him asylum (see table on pp. 426–27). Crucially, Adonijah is said to be in fear of his life, being “in fear of Solomon” (1 Kgs 1:50) and “the sword” (1 Kgs 1:51). This suggests that the salient element of the typification is fear for one’s life and not just the reason for the fear. This is not surprising. I have argued elsewhere that mortal fear is a central element of the exodus narratives of asylum, as they relate to Moses (Exod 2:11–23) and Israel (Exodus 14–15) and that these narratives are part of the social knowledge that informs the narrative paradigm of the biblical laws of asylum.23 Adonijah is thus sufficiently proximate to the social stereotype of the legitimate asylum seeker. It is also relevant that Adonijah does not conform or approximate to the image of the illegitimate 22

Barmash, Homicide, 73. Burnside, “Exodus and Asylum,” 247, 249. In the narrative of Moses’ asylum seeking (Exod 2:11–23), Moses is said to be “frightened” (2:14), which, in the light of v. 15, which speaks of Pharaoh’s desire to kill Moses, clearly refers to mortal fear. Similarly, in the narrative of Israel’s asylum seeking (Exodus 14–15), Israel is said to be “greatly frightened” (14:10) while Moses tells the people, “Have no fear!” (14:13; cf. 2:14, which uses the same verb in relation to Moses). The fear is explicitly that of being killed (“Was it for want of graves in Egypt that you brought us to die in the wilderness?” [14:11 and again in 14:12]). 23


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asylum seeker who cannot benefit from asylum (that is, the premeditated killer). As a result, we can challenge and qualify Stackert’s claim that “no particular extant legislative corpus is normative” in 1 Kings 1–2.24 Exodus 21:12–14 does govern expectations of what ought to happen in the case of Adonijah; however, the normative force of the text functions narratively and not semantically. There are several advantages to this reading of Adonijah’s flight to the altar. The first is that it addresses the objections of commentators who claim that there can be no connection between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 1:50–53 on the grounds that “[w]hen Adonijah flees to a sanctuary he is seeking refuge from his political predicament, not from committing a homicide.”25 The approach I have outlined takes full account of Adonijah’s reasons for seeking asylum in explaining why it is possible to see a link between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 1:50–53. Another advantage of this reading is that there is no need to invent an additional category of persons such as “political offenders” to whom Exod 21:12–14 might be taken to apply (per Phillips) or not to apply (per Mulder), especially when it is anachronistic to suppose that biblical law functioned at the level of abstract and conceptual distinctions between “political asylum” and “asylum for homicide.”26 Furthermore, it means that we can also dispense with explanations that rely on vague distinctions between “innocent” and “relatively innocent” asylum seekers, which accordingly see Adonijah’s success at the altar as an “abuse” of asylum (per De Vries).27 Adonijah finds safety at the altar even though he is a pretender to the throne, not because he abuses the practice of asylum but because his case is sufficiently close to the narrative paradigm of Exod 21:13 to justify similar treatment. Next, we turn to Joab’s flight to the altar (1 Kgs 2:28–34). At one level, Joab’s case is similar to that of Adonijah inasmuch as Joab, like Adonijah, seeks protection as a result of a failed plot against Solomon. As a result, the comments made above in relation to Adonijah have some validity in relation to Joab. Again, in Joab’s case there is proximity to the narrative paradigm of the successful asylum seeker because Joab is in fear for his life. This is implicit in the MT (1 Kgs 2:28); however, it receives greater emphasis in the LXX, which contains an expanded version of the Solomon narrative.28 Here Joab sends the following message to Solomon: “Because I am afraid of you I have fled to the Lord” (3 Kgdms 2:29b).29 Van Keulen claims 24

Stackert, “Why Does Deuteronomy Legislate Cities of Refuge?” 25 n. 3. Barmash, Homicide, 73. 26 Phillips, Ancient Israel’s Criminal Law, 100; Mulder, 1 Kings, 78. 27 DeVries, 1 Kings, 19. 28 The justification for deploying the LXX material in this context is that the LXX raises hypotheses that can be tested in the light of our discussion of the MT. 29 Van Keulen argues that “there are strong indications that this passage goes back to a Hebrew original” while conceding that “the Hebrew background of the passage as such does not allow [us] to draw conclusions regarding its text-historical value” (Two Versions, 32). 25

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Recurring Elements in Narratives

Asylum at divinely approved altar

Narrative account of 1 Kgs 1:50-53 (Adonijah)

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

There is a death (actual/ alleged homicide)

Asylum seeker

Place of asylum

Flight to place of asylum

Pursuit of asylum seeker

Person accused of homicide

Yhwhapproved altar (Exod 21:14)/ tabernacle

“a place to which he can flee” (Exod 21:13)

Implied in Exod 21:13

Adonijah (1 Kgs 1:50)

Implied in 1 Kgs 1:50

Joab (1 Kgs 2:28)

Solomon “sends” Benaiah after Joab (1 Kgs 2:30)

Death of a human being (Exod 21:12)

N/A

Narrative Deaths of account Abner of 1 Kgs (2 Sam 3:27) 2:28-34 and Amasa (Joab) (2 Sam 20:10)

Adonijah

Joab (1 Kgs 2:28-35)

Grasping the horns of the YHWHapproved altar located at “the tent of the LORD” (1 Kgs 1:50-51; 2:28) Grasping the horns of the YHWHapproved altar located at “the tent of the LORD” (1 Kgs 2:28)

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and Typifications of Asylum #6

#7

Risk of being overtaken

Fear of being killed




Adonijah “in fear of Solomon” (1 Kgs 1:30) and “the sword” (1 Kgs 1:51)


Joab “in fear” of Solomon (LXX 3 Kgdms 2:29b)

#8

#9

Deliverance for (factual/ Avenger/ legally) gô'ēl innocent haddām person


N/A

Solomon, in Joab’s case (1 Kgs 1:51; 2:29)

Deliverance for “accidental” and “spur-of-the moment” killer (Exod 21:13)

Deliverance for Adonijah (1 Kgs 1:51-52)

N/A

#10

#11

No deliverance for legally Deliverance guilty from the person Lord No deliverance for “premeditated” killer (Exod 21:14)

God “assigns” the place of asylum (Exod 21:13)

N/A

Implied by location at “the tent of the LORD” (1 Kgs 2:28)

No deliverance for Joab (1 Kgs 2:29-34)

Joab claims to have “fled to the LORD” (LXX 3 Kgdms 2:29b)

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that this “is to be understood as an implicit confession of guilt: Joab’s fear discloses his bad conscience.”30 However, if Exod 21:13–14 presents paradigm cases, then Joab’s communication to the king makes greater sense. Joab is claiming that he should be treated as a legitimate asylum seeker because he is in fear for his life. This is the salient aspect of the typification of the legitimate asylum seeker, and it is one of its defining characteristics. No wonder Joab wants to make it clear. Van Keulen overlooks this, claiming that Joab’s message is entirely redundant: “[t]he logic of the narrative does not warrant the scene at all.”31 Yet from a narrative perspective, the scene is absolutely vital. Being in mortal fear is central to the image of the refugee. Joab is staking his claim to being (like Adonijah) a legitimate asylum seeker. This does not, however, mean that Joab is necessarily out of danger. For at another level, Joab’s case differs from that of Adonijah because, unlike Adonijah, Joab has a history of killing. According to the Davidic narratives, Joab is accused of the premeditated killing of Abner (2 Sam 3:27) and Amasa (2 Sam 20:10). On his deathbed David makes it clear that Joab “killed them, shedding blood of war in peacetime” (1 Kgs 2:5). To put it more technically, in David’s view, the fact that Abner killed Joab’s brother Asahel on the battlefield (2 Sam 2:18–23) did not provide Joab with grounds for a legitimate blood revenge.32 Accordingly, Joab’s killing of Abner results in liability, or bloodguilt. This is relevant because the paradigm case of Exod 21:14 presents the premeditated killer as the stereotype of the illegitimate asylum seeker. No matter if Joab is in fear for his life, if he falls within the paradigm of the illegitimate asylum seeker who is a premeditated killer, he will not be able to benefit from the altar’s protection. The complicating factor here is that because of Joab’s personal status in David’s army, the accusation that Joab was guilty of the premeditated killing of Abner and Amasa was not squarely addressed during David’s lifetime (2 Sam 3:28–30).33 The typical cases of Exod 21:12–14 concern a recent killing, not killings that took place decades earlier. It is this that makes Joab’s flight to the altar a hard case, requiring wisdom (cf. 1 Kgs 2:9). Consequently, the question is (as we saw in section I): How justifiable is it to treat this case as similar to that involving a premeditated killer? Or, to put it another way, is Joab’s case sufficiently similar to the paradigm case of the unsuccessful asylum seeker in Exod 21:14 to justify depriving him of the ben30

Ibid. Ibid., 33. 32 A. A. Anderson, 2 Samuel (WBC 11; Dallas: Word Books, 1989), 60–61; R. P. Gordon, 1 & 2 Samuel: A Commentary (Exeter: Paternoster, 1986), 220. B. Kedar-Kopfstein notes: “the one who killed in combat [should be distinguished] from the one who killed in peace time” (“Dam,” TDOT 3:234–50, here 243). Contra P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., who claims that “Joab has exercised his duty as Asahel’s kinsman and avenger” (II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary [AB 9; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984], 118). 33 “David was simply too powerless, politically and militarily, to implement the obvious punishment on Joab” (Anderson, 2 Samuel, 62). 31


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efit of asylum? (see table). In Solomon’s judgment, Joab’s case is sufficiently similar, and so he is not able to benefit from asylum (1 Kgs 2:34).34 It has been argued by some scholars, such as Wesselius, that “[Solomon’s] grounds . . . for condemning Joab to death were weak, to say the least” and by others, such as G. Schley, that “[Joab’s] execution was a judicial murder.”35 From a narrative perspective, however, it is possible to see why Joab was held to be sufficiently proximate to the social stereotype of the illegitimate asylum seeker, despite the passing of time. Again, the key issue is pointed up in the LXX, which refers to “the blood of his unrighteousness” in 1 Kgs 2:32a, as opposed to “his blood” in the MT. The LXX makes clear that the “blood” refers to the blood shed by Joab in killing the two army commanders and not, as might be the case in the MT, to Solomon’s desire that Yhwh should turn back onto Joab’s own head the blood that Solomon sheds by having Joab executed.36 Van Keulen suggests that the variant LXX reading “highlights Joab’s guilt and in doing so may help justify Solomon’s behaviour.”37 I agree, but I would nuance Van Keulen’s argument to suggest that the LXX version emphasizes the legitimacy of Solomon’s judgment by highlighting the salient aspect of the stereotype of the illegitimate asylum seeker (and hence Joab’s proximity to that paradigm). As in the case of Adonijah, there are advantages to this reading of Joab’s flight to the altar. The first is that it addresses the objections of commentators who hold that there can be no connection between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 2:28–34 on the grounds that “[Joab’s] supposed crimes had been committed many years previously.”38 The approach I have outlined takes full account of the unusual circumstances of Joab’s case in explaining why there is in fact a link between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 2:28–34. A further advantage is that it enables one to give proper weight to Joab’s own reasons why he is seeking asylum. Viberg argues, “The striking fact is that it is the fear of the wrath of Solomon that makes Adonijah run for the altar, and not that he has killed unintentionally.”39 Viberg presents this as evidence of the lack of connection between Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 2:28–34, whereas in fact I have argued that the presence of mortal fear can establish a claim to asylum, 34

Alexander Rofé (“History of the Cities of Refuge in Biblical law” in Studies in Bible, 1986 [ed. Sara Japhet; ScrHier 31; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986], 205–39, here 208) cites Weismann (1913; to which I have not had access), who sees the Joab story as “an example of the rescinding of the altar’s absolute protection of murderers.” However, on a narrative reading, the application of the paradigm would prevent the premeditated killer from benefiting from asylum at the altar. Jackson claims that Joab’s execution was compatible with Exod 21:14 in that his killings were premeditated (Wisdom-Laws, 162). 35 Wesselius, “Joab’s Death,” 338; G. Schley, “Joab,” ABD 3:853. 36 Van Kuelen, Two Versions, 34. 37 Ibid., 33. 38 Wesselius, “Joab’s Death,” 338. 39 Viberg, Symbols of Law, 122.

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notwithstanding the absence of a killing. Finally, the approach outlined also allows us to characterize the nature of asylum in Exod 21:12–14 and 1 Kgs 2:28–34 more accurately. For Viberg, “[w]hat [Joab] is claiming is not . . . so much the asylum which is open to the one who has killed unintentionally, but instead a more general form of asylum at the altar.”40 However, the idea that there are different forms of asylum, with Exod 21:12–14 restricting “customary law,” seems to presuppose an overly complex approach to institutions in biblical Israel.41 My reading is simpler: Joab is appealing to the same form of asylum as that of Exod 21:12–14 and whether he benefits from it depends on his proximity to the paradigm case. If it was well known that the paradigm of the illegitimate asylum seeker was the premeditated killer, then why did Joab, who was well known to have killed premeditatively, bother fleeing to the altar asylum in the first place?42 We should probably start by acknowledging that the use of the sanctuary by the guilty is not surprising. Exodus 21:14 even expects that altar asylum will attract premeditated killers.43 Anyone can flee to an asylum; the question is what is going to happen to them afterwards.44 It is not the case that one can go to a place of asylum only if one is justified in fleeing there. In addition, we should recognize also that the social practice of asylum had a political or tactical dimension. Joab might have been counting on the fact that, since no action had been taken against him in David’s lifetime, Solomon might not see him as being close to the paradigm of the recent, premeditated killer. There was a chance that his distance from the paradigm would mean that he would not be treated the same as an illegitimate asylum seeker. If so, it was a political miscalculation. This assessment of Solomon’s judgment does not, of course, require that we view him purely as a dispassionate arbiter of legal norms and interpretive practices. As someone who is presented as being in a power struggle at a time of regime 40

Ibid. Ibid., 123. 42 See Viberg, who asks: “if Joab was aware of this accusation and that the law in Exod 21:12– 14 was applicable, why did he take refuge at the altar, knowing that it would be of no avail?” (Symbols of Law, 123). 43 Jerome T. Walsh observes that Solomon ignores “the legal stipulation that the victim be removed from the altar lest the sanctuary be defiled by the execution” (1 Kings [Berit Olam; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996], 59). It can be argued, however, that Exod 21:14 does not contain a prohibition against slaying at the altar. Timothy M. Willis notes that the word order in Exod 21:14b “puts the phrase ‘from my altar’ at the beginning of the apodosis, emphasising it. The sense of the entire verse seems therefore to be: ‘. . . even from my altar shall you take him’” (The Elders of the City: A Study of the Elder-Laws in Deuteronomy [SBLMS 55; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001], 120). In other words, not even presence at Yhwh’s altar is sufficient to protect the premeditating killer. This being so, Solomon’s actions may be seen as consistent with Exod 21:14, rather than a violation of the law. 44 This raises the question of who adjudicates and on what basis (for which, see Jackson Wisdom-Laws, 141–47). 41


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change it is reasonable to suggest that, in the early part of Kings, Solomon is driven by a degree of self-interest and political calculation. Indeed, it could even be said that, just as Adonijah and Joab sought to apply the law loosely for their own reasons, so too Solomon’s application of the law may have been motivated by a variety of factors, legal and otherwise, in the fast-moving rush of events. Nevertheless, the point remains that Solomon’s decision to lean in the direction he did was possible only because the interpretation he chose made sense in the context of Israel’s legal reasoning, even though it may well have been influenced by his own political needs. To conclude, in this article I have argued, against a number of scholars, that there is a relationship between Exod 21:12–14 and the Davidic succession narrative, while at the same time observing, against a number of others, that this relationship is not straightforward. In addition, I have tried to offer some clarification on what the nature of this relationship might be in ways that are consistent with what we find elsewhere about biblical law and the practice of asylum seeking in the ancient Near East. I have argued that the two cases of asylum seeking described in the Davidic succession narrative are “hard cases” because they are both removed, in different ways, from the paradigm cases of the successful and unsuccessful asylum seekers presented in Exod 21:12–14. Adonijah is judged to be sufficiently close to the paradigm of the legitimate asylum seeker, while Joab, despite having reasons similar to Adonijah’s, is judged to be proximate to the stereotype of the illegitimate asylum seeker. Thus, the stories of Adonijah’s and Joab’s flights to the altar provide us with valuable practical examples of how an adjudicator might assess the legitimacy of claims to asylum and help us to think more carefully about the relationship between biblical law and biblical narrative.

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JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 433–436

Why Did Hannah Ask for “Seed of Men”? michael carasik [email protected] University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104

What was Hannah praying for? More specifically, how are we to explain the phrase My#n) (rz in 1 Sam 1:11? In plain terms, we of course understand that Hannah was praying to have a child. Our text has set this up as the basic point on which the plot of the story turns. As soon as the main characters—Elkanah and his two wives, Hannah and Peninnah—are identified, we are informed (v. 2), “Peninnah had children, but Hannah did not.” The setting of the story is the family’s annual visit to Shiloh for worship and sacrifice. There is no reason to assume that the trip was made on the occasion of a yearly pilgrimage festival. The phrase Mymyh xbz, “annual sacrifice” (v. 21), simply refers to the sacrifice made annually by Elkanah and his family, which provided the setting of the events of vv. 3–19. Indeed, the course of the story would seem to argue against a public festival. There is no one on the scene but Elkanah’s family and the high priest, Eli, and the latter seems to have plenty of time on his hands. All we are told about him is that he is sitting on his priestly throne at the entrance to the shrine watching Hannah mutter to herself. This is not what we would expect the chief priest to be doing on the busiest weekend of the year. If the festival was indeed a public occasion, our chapter’s narrow focus is all the more evident. For our story is about one thing and one thing only: Hannah wants a child. But the phrase with which she makes her request falls into a little-discussed category of biblical texts: those in which the process of exegesis runs in reverse. We ordinarily must understand a writer’s words in order to interpret his meaning, but we sometimes find ourselves with a sense of what the writer must mean, though it has not been clearly expressed. In such cases our task is to explain how the writer’s unusual choice of words was indeed meant to convey the meaning that we somehow intuit. My instincts say that this category is larger than we would like to admit, and that by the nature of the beast there must be examples where what we all “know 433

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it means” is actually wrong. I intend to suggest here that Hannah’s request is one such case. The difficulty arises because—if I may step for a moment into my role as a professor of Biblical Hebrew—the phrase My#n) (rz means, and can only mean, “human offspring.”1 Indeed, the medieval interpreter David Kimhi does offer as one of his comments on this phrase the suggestion that Hannah was praying for a child who would not resemble a monkey or a eunuch. But the story has provided no reason that Hannah should fear an outcome of this kind. Others of the medievals join Kimhi in a further suggestion that what Hannah wanted was a child who would be a real “man”—righteous (as My#n) are called in 1 Kgs 2:32), prominent (1 Sam 17:12), and wise (Deut 1:13). The common understanding of the phrase among modern interpreters—from Henry Preserved Smith in the ICC a century ago to Jan P. Fokkelman in 1993—is that Hannah wants a son.2 Bible translations too, from “a man child” of the KJV to “male seed” of Robert Alter3 make the same assumption. Certainly neither this nor the hope that her child would be a worthy man is an absurd request, but according to the logic of the story neither of these is the request that Hannah is making. This is not to say, of course, that Hannah did not want a child who would grow up to be righteous, prominent, and wise. She might even, if pressed, have expressed a preference for a male child. Elkanah’s rhetorical question, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” (v. 8), could be interpreted as support for this (though it need not be).4 But this says nothing about what Hannah herself wants, and the narrator (in vv. 2 and 4) has carefully avoided framing the child’s sex as the focus of the story. What Hannah wants is a child, plain and simple. The careful interweaving of two chains of consecutive verbs—one describing what happened every year when Elkanah and his brood went to Shiloh, and one 1

Most of the examples in CAD Z, s.v. zeru 5a, sometimes cited in connection with this expression, seem to contrast it with the possibility of divine offspring, confirming this interpretation. 2 Henry Preserved Smith notes that My#n) (rz “does not occur again” but adds, “That she means a male child is evident” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel [ICC; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1909], 10). J. P. Fokkelman calls it “a unique expression which is difficult to interpret in any other way than as referring to abundant male descendants” (Narrative Art and Poetry in the Books of Samuel: A Full Interpretation Based on Stylistic and Structural Analyses, vol. 4, Vow and Desire (I Sam. 1–12) [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1993], 37, emphasis added). 3 Robert Alter, The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 5. 4 On Elkanah’s question, see Yairah Amit, “‘Am I Not More Devoted to You than Ten Sons?’ (1 Samuel 1.8): Male and Female Interpretations,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. Athalya Brenner; Feminist Companion to the Bible 5; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 68–76.

Carasik: Why Did Hannah Ask for “Seed of Men”?

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describing what happened on one particular occasion5—demonstrates that the action of our story begins where it does because Hannah has reached the end of her rope. That is, Hannah had in fact given up on having a child in the ordinary human manner, and—driven to distraction by Peninnah’s taunting and by her own despair—she has finally determined to use the occasion of her annual visit to the shrine of God to ask for help. Beyond the obvious presumption that God could be turned to as a last resort in any personal crisis, it is clear that this would be particularly so in the case of female barrenness. In Genesis 30, Rachel is in exactly the same case as Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. “She had not borne Jacob [any children]” (Gen 30:1), while his other wife, Leah, had done so. She says to him, “Give me sons! If you don’t, I’m going to die!” (ibid.). He responds angrily, “Am I in place of God, who has prevented you from being fertile?” (v. 2). The narrator of the book of Ruth explains the sequence of events as it would naturally be presumed to occur: “Boaz took Ruth as his wife and had intercourse with her. The Lord granted her conception and she bore a son” (Ruth 4:13). The first birth of a human child, in Gen 4:1, establishes the pattern: “Now, the man was intimate with his wife Eve and she conceived and bore Cain. She said, ‘I have created a son with the Lord.’” In all three of these examples, the clear understanding is that the birth of a child is the result of a combination of two factors, sexual intercourse and divine intervention.6 That Hannah too is requesting divine intervention to give her a child is obvious on the face of it. I am suggesting that what Hannah asked for in the original telling of this story was not My#n) (rz but Myhl) (rz, a child that would be given her by God. The difficult phrase My#n) (rz is an artifact, placed in her mouth by a kind of Tiqqun Soferim, a reflexive correction of Hannah’s request by a scribe who (perhaps) misunderstood it and (certainly) found it uncomfortable. Two comparable examples in the MT come instantly to mind. The first is Deut 32:8, “When the Most High separated the peoples and gave the sons of Adam their territories, he fixed the boundaries of people in proportion to the number of the Israelites.” It has long been understood that the expression “the Israelites” (l)r#y ynb) is a scribal revision of an earlier phrase, “the divine beings” (Myhl) ynb).7 The second example, just a few pages along from our verse, is 1 Sam 3:13, where the punishment of Eli’s family is predicated on the fact that “his sons cursed to them [Mhl] and he did not rebuke them.” Here too the awkward, 5

IBHS 33.2.1c (550); Amit, “‘Am I Not More Devoted,’” 68 n. 2. On this sort of “divine intervention” within the ordinary course of conception and birth as “a ‘natural’ miracle,” see Uriel Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives (trans. Lenn J. Schramm; Indiana Studies in Biblical Literature; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 279 n. 56. 7 For detailed discussion, see Jeffrey Tigay, Deuteronomy Myrbd: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation (JPS Torah Commentary 5; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 302–3 and 513–15. 6

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even ungrammatical idiom of cursing “to” someone, found nowhere else in the biblical text, is an artifact of scribal correction. What the text originally said was that Eli’s sons had cursed “God” (Myhl)).8 I have found no textual remnants of such an original reading in our verse; 4QSama, tantalizingly, has only the final M of the word. But the difficulties of the phrase My#n) (rz disappear if Hannah, too, was seeking Myhl) (rz—not a child who would be a god, but a child given to her, through a “natural miracle,” by the God of Israel. Eli appropriately replies to her, Ktl#-t) Nty l)r#y yhl)w (v. 17). He clearly intends a pious wish, “May the God of Israel grant your request.” But the author knows that we readers will realize that Eli’s utterance, unwittingly, is prophetic, perhaps even performative: “The God of Israel will grant your request.”9 Such divine intervention was indeed appropriate for the birth of the hero that Hannah’s son was destined to become. Moreover, it would read quite naturally in the folktale genre to which the original version of this story belonged—or which, at least, the story is mimicking.10 At some later stage, a tradent overread Hannah’s request, (perhaps) misinterpreted it, and corrected it out of existence, leaving us with the absurd phrase My#n) (rz. Such verses as Gen 32:29; Judg 9:9, 13; and Isa 7:13 contrast My#n) with Myhl) in a way that shows how natural such a change would be from a scribal perspective. It has long been understood that this chapter’s thematic use of the verb l)# points to Saul, not Samuel, as the child whom Hannah is to bear.11 From a folktale perspective, the miraculous birth of a future king would seem to suggest that both Hannah’s original request and that put in her mouth by the emendation (as later interpreted) were fulfilled. 8

See the discussion in, e.g., P. Kyle McCarter, Jr., I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary (AB 8; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 96. This example is noted in Mek. Beshalach 6 to Exod 15:7, “the oldest list” of such corrections; for fuller discussion, see Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 66–77. (Fishbane does not discuss 1 Sam 1:11 in this context; his remark on p. 186 that “Samuel was not the first fruit of [Hannah’s] womb” is puzzling.) 1 Samuel 1:11 is not in the lists of tiqqunei soferim in W. E. Barnes, “Ancient Corrections in the Text of the Old Testament (Tikkun Sopherim),” JTS 1 (1900): 387–414; or Carmel McCarthy, The Tiqqune Sopherim: and the Other Theological Corrections in the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament (OBO 36; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981). 9 Putting the subject first eliminated the need to attach the conjunction to the verb, which would have demanded either a converted perfect or w + jussive, making the desired ambiguity impossible. 10 Our story’s beginning, “There once was a man” (1 Sam 1:1), in contrast to Josh 1:1; Judg 1:1; and 2 Sam 1:1, is clearly a folktale beginning. See Michael Carasik, “Three Biblical Beginnings,” in Beginning/Again: Toward a Hermeneutics of Jewish Texts (ed. Aryeh Cohen and Shaul Magid; New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2002), 1–22, here 10. In Stith Thompson’s categorization of folktales, this sort of story would fall under theme T540, “Miraculous birth”; the 540 number puts it in the 500–559 category of “Supernatural Helpers” (Thompson, The Folktale [New York: Dryden Press, 1946], 499, 483; see further 86 and 340). 11 See Carasik, “Three Biblical Beginnings”; and the commentaries.

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 437–444

Elaborated Evidence for the Priority of 1 Samuel 26 steven l. mckenzie [email protected] Rhodes College, Memphis, TN 38112

The two stories about David’s declined opportunities to kill Saul in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 constitute a long-standing crux interpretum for biblical scholars.1 No one, to my knowledge, doubts that the stories are related in some way, but the nature of their relationship is a matter of considerable disagreement.2 Beginning with Julius Wellhausen, many scholars have seen the version in ch. 26 as the older of the two.3 But perhaps just as many have pointed to ch. 24 as the older account.4 The 1 For an overview of the issue and scholarly positions on it, see Walter Dietrich and Thomas Naumann, Die Samuelbücher (EdF 287; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1995), 102–8. See also Robert P. Gordon, “David’s Rise and Saul’s Demise: Narrative Analogy in 1 Samuel 24-26,” TynBul 31 (1980): 41. 2 In a forthcoming article, Marc Zvi Brettler provides a detailed comparison showing the similarity of the two stories in structure and vocabulary and phraseology (“The David Tradition,” in Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIA [c. 1250–850 B.C.E.], vol. 2, The Texts [ed. Lester L. Grabbe; Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 521; European Seminar in Historical Methodology 8; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2010]). 3 Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (1885; repr., Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1973), 264–65; Henry Preserved Smith, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Books of Samuel (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1899), 229–30; Hans-Ulrich Nübel, Davids Aufstieg in der frühe israelitischer Geschichtsschreibung (Bonn: Rheinische-Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversität, 1959), 47–50; Hans Joachim Stoebe, “Gedanken zur Heldensage in den Samuelbüchern,” in Das ferne und nahe Wort: Festschrift Leonhard Rost zur Vollendung seines 70. Lebensjahres am 30. November 1966 gewidmet (ed. Fritz Maass; BZAW 105; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1967), 211–15; G. B. Caird, “The First and Second Books of Samuel,” IB 2:1011; P. Kyle McCarter, I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction, Notes, and Commentary (AB 8; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 385–87. 4 Karl Budde, Die Bücher Samuel (KHAT 8; Tübingen: Mohr, 1902), 161–62; Hannelis Schulte, Die Entstehung der Geschichtsschreibung im Alten Israel (BZAW 128; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1972), 129; Timo Veijola, Die ewige Dynastie: David und die Entstehung seiner Dynastie

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arguments on both sides are often impressionistic or laced with assumptions rather than appealing to specific features of the respective texts. Thus, Wellhausen asserted that ch. 26 was older because it was shorter and more pointed, and Hans Joachim Stoebe disagreed with Klaus Koch about which of the two chapters preserves the traces of a genuine hero saga that would have been passed on orally by David’s men. A third approach, popularized by Koch’s influential treatment, assumes that the two stories derive from oral variants of an original, single episode.5 An exception to this general neglect of specific features was a well-crafted 1998 article by Cynthia Edenburg.6 The article laid out five categories of evidence for what Edenburg termed “author devised interrelations” and then argued from those categories that the story in ch. 24 was dependent on ch. 26 rather than both stemming from a single older tradition. She concluded, however, that both stories were written by the same author, who used them to highlight the keystone tale of David’s encounter with Abigail (ch. 25), which anticipates the dynastic promise (2 Samuel 7) and ties it to refraining from wrongful bloodshed. In this brief article, I wish (1) to elaborate one of Edenburg’s key arguments and thereby to affirm her basic conclusion about the direction of dependence from ch. 26 to ch. 24; (2) to offer a text-critical explanation for an observation she makes about the narrative of ch. 24 that further supports her view of the direction of dependence; and (3) to demur from her conclusion regarding common authorship of the two chapters and to propose a slightly different explanation for their function individually and together in the larger narrative.

I In ch. 26, after taking Saul’s spear and water jug, David retreats to the opposite hilltop, which, the text informs, is far away (qxrm), leaving a great distance between them (Mhynyb Mwqmh br [v. 13]). From there, he calls out ()rq) to Saul’s army and to Abner, who does not recognize his voice and asks who is calling (again

nach der deuteronomistischen Darstellung (AASF B 193; Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1975), 91 n. 73. Veijola (pp. 90–95) assigns 24:18–19, 20b–23 to Dtr, but he believes that they are additions and that the underlying story is older than the one in ch. 26. 5 Koch, The Growth of the Biblical Tradition: The Form-Critical Method (trans. S. M. Cupitt; London: Black, 1969), 137–48. Koch, however, also asserted that the version in ch. 24 was the earlier of the two. Koch’s analysis is roundly criticized by John Van Seters (The Biblical Saga of King David [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009], 175–80), who accepts ch. 24 as the original story but believes that ch. 26 is a revisionist version of it and part of what Van Seters calls the “David Saga”—a late Persian, antimonarchical addition to the Deuteronomistic History that includes what is traditionally known as the “succession narrative.” 6 Cynthia Edenburg, “How (Not) to Murder a King: Variations on a Theme in 1 Sam 24; 26,” SJOT 12 (1998): 64–85.

McKenzie: The Priority of 1 Samuel 26

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)rq [v. 14]). David’s scolding of Abner leads Saul to recognize the voice so that he asks, “Is this your voice, my son David?” (v. 17). David answers in the affirmative. Then, in the course of his speech to Saul, David employs a pun on the word for calling, alluding to himself as “the calling bird in the mountains” (Myrhb )rqh [v. 20]). Thus, the verb )rq in ch. 26 serves to bring out elements that are crucial to the story—the distance between David and Saul, Saul’s effort to recognize David, and even David’s harmlessness to Saul as a bird in the mountains. In ch. 24, David also calls out ()rq) to Saul after he emerges from the cave (v. 9). But here there is no real need for him to do so, since there is no indication of any great distance between the two men. This “ungrammatical” (see below) use of )rq becomes more apparent as one realizes that the entire scene in ch. 24 assumes that David and Saul are in close proximity. David bows down and lies prostrate while speaking to Saul (vv. 10–16), showing that the two are quite close to each other. In addition, the story demands that the missing garment piece be small, since Saul does not notice that it is missing until David points this out. Hence, David’s display of the garment piece to Saul (v. 12) in turn requires that the two of them be close. Furthermore, David goes on to deliver a lengthy speech calling Saul his “father” (v. 12) and mentioning that Saul has marched out seeking his life (vv. 13, 15). These items make his identity quite clear. The proximity of David to Saul and the clarity of David’s identity make Saul’s subsequent question, “Is this your voice, my son David?” (v. 17), senseless in this context, such that the only reason for the question is that it has been lifted directly from its original context in ch. 26. Edenburg notes Saul’s inappropriate question in v. 17 as an example of “‘ungrammatical’ actualization of a common element,” by which she means a feature that is at home in one text but out of place or nonsensical in another.7 Consideration of the broader narrative context—the calling motif and the relative proximity of the characters to each other—shows that the “ungrammaticality” of ch. 24 is not limited to one or two elements but pervades the entire tale. In fact, previous arguments for the priority of ch. 26, though they do not use the term “ungrammatical” in this sense, make the same point by highlighting the extremely unrealistic setting of the encounter of Saul and David in ch. 24 in contrast to the relatively realistic one in ch. 26. Stoebe, for instance, observed that in ch. 24 Saul is completely oblivious to the potential danger from wild beasts and unaccompanied—in fact his men are not mentioned after v. 2—when he enters a cave where David and evidently all of his men (about four hundred according to 22:2!) are hiding.8 Similarly, Hans-Ulrich Nübel pointed out that David, who takes care in ch. 26 to put himself at a distance from Saul before he calls to him, in ch. 24 shows no reluctance about drawing near to Saul.9 (Again, Saul’s army has disap7

Ibid., 77. Stoebe, “Gedanken,” 213. 9 Nübel, Davids Aufstieg, 48. 8

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peared from the scene in this story.) Nübel also added considerations regarding the peculiarity of Saul’s question about David’s identity in 24:17 by noting that the story in ch. 24 does not take place at night or presuppose that it is dark, as does the one in ch. 26, and that in contrast to 26:17, in 24:17 David does not answer Saul’s question and confirm his identity.10 Stoebe’s observation is especially important as a counter to Schulte’s contention that the original story in ch. 24 was limited to vv. 3–5a, 7–8, that is, without the references to David cutting off a piece of Saul’s garment and the conversation between the two. Even for such a curtailed version, the setting is unrealistic. Schulte’s position on 24:5b–6, however, indicates that these verses deserve special consideration, and it is to them that we now turn.

II It is often pointed out that David’s act of cutting off a piece of Saul’s robe in 24:5b-6 is the equivalent of his taking Saul’s spear and water jug in ch. 26. Careful consideration of the respective functions of these two deeds in their contexts reveals another instance of Edenburg’s “‘ungrammatical’ actualization of a common element” in ch. 24. The spear and water jug play an important role in ch. 26, as they prove that David had the opportunity to kill Saul, since he removed them, particularly the spear, from beside Saul’s head.11 Since Saul and his army were sound asleep, the spear and water jug constitute proof that David was in their camp with the opportunity to kill Saul. The garment piece, however, is superfluous in its story (ch. 24), since the very fact that David emerges from the cave Saul had entered shows that the latter was vulnerable. The evidence from 24:5b–6, however, is mitigated by the common recognition that these verses are out of place and fit better following v. 8a. Edenburg herself notes that 24:7 ought to follow directly after 24:5a, and she attributes the incongruity to the author of ch. 24 copying 26:11 out of context.12 More often, though, 24:5b–6—along with v. 12, which refers to the speech about the garment—is regarded as an interpolation rather than an integral part of the story in ch. 24.13 As indicated above, the appeal to 24:5b–6, 12 as an interpolation is a strategy employed 10

Ibid., 49. This is also a clear reversal of roles from earlier stories in which Saul tried to kill David with his spear (1 Sam 18:10–11; 19:8–10). Edenburg believes that the water jug is borrowed from the incident in 2 Sam 23:13–17 (“How [Not] to Murder a King,” 81–82), but no vessel is mentioned in the latter text. 12 Edenburg, “How (Not) to Murder a King,” 76. 13 So Smith, Samuel, 217–18; also Jakob H. Grønbæk, Die Geschichte vom Aufstieg Davids (1. Sam. 15–2. Sam. 5): Tradition und Komposition (ATDan 10; Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1971), 165–67. McCarter states that, in view of the absence of textual evidence, Smith’s suggestion “carries much conviction” (I Samuel, 383–84). 11


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by scholars such as Schulte to preserve a core of the story in ch. 24 that is prior to the one in ch. 26. Here, however, the evidence for a text-critical explanation has not been fully appreciated.14 The relevant (consonantal) text in 24:5–8 (Eng. 24:4–7) as it currently stands in the MT reads as follows:

Ntn ykn) hnh Kyl) hwhy rm)-r#) Mwyh hnh wyl) dwd y#n) wrm)yw5 trkyw dwd Mqyw Kyny(b b+y r#)k wl ty#(w Kdyb [Kby)] (Kyby))-t) .+lb lw)#l-r#) ly(mh-Pnk-t) .lw)#l r#) Pnk-t) trk r#) l( wt) dwd-bl Kyw Nk-yrx) yhyw6 xy#ml ynd)l hzh rbdh-t) h#()-M) hwhym yl hlylx wy#n)l rm)yw7 .)wh hwhy xy#m-yk wb ydy xl#l hwhy Mq lw)#w lw)#-l) Mwql Mntn )lw Myrbdb wy#n)-t) dwd (s#yw8 .Krdb Klyw hr(mhm [MT 5; Eng. 4]The men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall to do him as it seems good to you.’” Then David went and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul’s cloak. [MT 6; Eng. 5]Afterward David was stricken to the heart because he had cut off a corner of Saul’s cloak. [MT 7; Eng. 6]He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to raise my hand against him; for he is the Lord’s anointed.” [MT 8: Eng. 7]So David scolded his men severely and did not permit them to attack Saul. Then Saul got up and left the cave, and went on his way. (NRSV)

According to the present MT, David’s men suggest that he take advantage of his opportunity to kill Saul (v. 5a), but David expresses his absolute refusal to harm Yahweh’s anointed (v. 7) and scolds his men for the suggestion (v. 8a) only after he himself has arisen and cut off Saul’s garment hem, subsequently feeling guilty about it (vv. 5b–6). Transposing vv. 5b–6 after v. 8a yields a more logical sequence. Thus, David responds immediately to his men’s suggestion (v. 5a) by refusing to harm Yahweh’s anointed (v. 7) and scolding them for the suggestion (v. 8a). At that point, he arises and cuts off Saul’s hem, but even this mild “assault” on Saul convicts David’s conscience (vv. 5b–6). The text with the transposition reads as follows.

Ntn ykn) hnh Kyl) hwhy rm)-r#) Mwyh hnh wyl) dwd y#n) wrm)yw5a Kyny(b b+y r#)k wl ty#(w Kdyb [Kby)] (Kyby))-t) xy#ml ynd)l hzh rbdh-t) h#()-M) hwhym yl hlylx wy#n)l rm)yw7 .)wh hwhy xy#m-yk wb ydy xl#l hwhy 14 4QSama is not extant at this point. Andrew Fincke’s reconstruction (The Samuel Scroll from Qumran: 4QSama Restored and Compared to the Septuagint and 4QSamc [STDJ 43; Leiden: Brill, 2001], 19) is erroneous in indicating a fragment of v. 6 bearing the word Pnk. His own discussions of the column (p. 94) and drawing of the plate (p. 294) do not corroborate the reconstruction.

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lw)#-l) Mwql Mntn )lw Myrbdb wy#n)-t) dwd (s#yw8a .+lb lw)#l-r#) ly(mh-Pnk-t) trkyw dwd Mqyw5b .lw)#l r#) Pnk-t) trk r#) l( wt) dwd-bl Kyw Nk-yrx) yhyw6 .Krdb Klyw hr(mhm Mq lw)#w8b [MT 5a; Eng. 4a]The

men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall to do him as it seems good to you.’” [MT 7; Eng. 6]He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to raise my hand against him; for he is the Lord’s anointed.” [MT 8a: Eng. 7a]So David scolded his men severely and did not permit them to attack Saul. [MT5b; Eng. 4b]Then David went and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul’s cloak. [MT 6; Eng. 5]Afterward David was stricken to the heart because he had cut off a corner of Saul’s cloak. [MT 8b: Eng. 7b]Then Saul got up and left the cave, and went on his way. (NRSV)

The transposed text indicates how vv. 5b–6 probably came to be misplaced. The similarity of lw)#l at the end of v. 6 and lw)#-l) at the end of v. 8a (both underlined above) provide a ready mechanism for parablepsis. This homoioteleuton likely occasioned the accidental loss of 24:5b–6 from their original location after v. 8a. At a later time, the loss was recognized, perhaps because of v. 12, and vv. 5b–6 were reinserted, albeit erroneously, in the position they now occupy.15 The plausibility of this scenario is strengthened by a consideration of v. 12, which clearly presupposes vv. 5b–6 but for which there is no indication of misplacement. All three verses (vv. 5b–6, 12), in short, constitute an original part of the story in ch. 24 and are not an interpolation under the influence of ch. 26. Rather, they are another indication that the entire story in ch. 24 is a recasting of the one in ch. 26.

III There are several weaknesses with Edenburg’s conclusion that chs. 24 and 26 were written by a single author. The two stories do not presuppose each other or show any awareness of each other’s existence and even stand in tension with each other at points.16 In addition, Brettler notes that the model of composition proposed by Edenburg is unprecedented in the Bible.17 Still, her point that the two sto15 So also Peter R. Ackroyd (The First Book of Samuel [CBC; London: Cambridge University Press, 1971], 187–88), albeit without an explanation of how the haplography would have occurred. Brettler (“David Tradition”) observes that David’s cutting off of Saul’s hem before his refusal to kill Yahweh’s anointed in ch. 24 constitutes a unique change in structure at this point in that story vis-à-vis the one in ch. 26, and this is a further indication that David’s act in 24:5b–6 has been misplaced. 16 See Koch, Growth of the Biblical Tradition, 142. 17 Brettler, “David Tradition.”


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ries contribute to the larger narrative structure and collaborate on its message is well taken and calls for a reassessment of the role of the two stories in Samuel as a whole. The narrative sense behind the story in ch. 26 is to have David demonstrate that he is not a threat to Saul and not guilty of treason, as Saul has been led to believe, so that Saul will desist from pursuing him (26:18–20). The proof lies in the fact that David visited Saul’s camp and did him no harm. There is no need for anyone to accompany David into the camp, so that Abishai functions to deflect even the thought of killing Saul from David and as a sounding board for David’s refusal to harm Yahweh’s anointed (26:9–11).18 Chapter 24 adds nothing new in this regard, and Edenburg is correct that it serves primarily to add emphasis on several points— Saul’s instability, the role of divine providence in providing David two opportunities and in protecting him against Saul, and, as alluded to in Abigail’s speech, kingship as a result of divine promise rather than bloody usurpation.19 Edenburg’s explanation may be revised slightly in one respect and extended in another. First, ch. 24 adds an element of disparagement in the portrait of Saul that accords with the postulation of separate authorship. There is symbolism at work in the items taken by David in the two stories. The spear and jug, particularly the spear, in ch. 26 represent Saul’s kingdom. David has the opportunity to seize it by assassinating Saul but refuses to do so.20 Saul’s robe has also been interpreted as a symbol of the kingdom based on 1 Sam 15:27–28 and 1 Kgs 11:29–31.21 However, the comparison is not entirely apropos, as the garments in these texts belong to prophets rather than to kings. Further, in the present story David takes only a piece of the robe rather than the entire garment. While the author may well be borrowing the robe motif from other passages, the scene here with its concern for not harming Yahweh’s anointed and David’s subsequent regret at his act (v. 6) suggests that the robe is being used to represent Saul’s person. David’s use of a weapon to cut it, then, is a mutilation of some sort, and the depiction of Saul exposing himself by “covering his feet” indicates that it is a symbolic emasculation.22 Considering that Saul is already being portrayed in the extremely denigrating and vulnerable posture 18

Contra Van Seters (Biblical Saga, 180–86), who argues that the author mentions Abishai and Ahimelek the Hittite in 26:6 in order to show that David’s army in the wilderness consisted of professional mercenaries and that the principle of not violating Yahweh’s anointed really concerns David himself as the anointed one. 19 Edenburg, “How (Not) to Murder a King,” 78–79. 20 Van Seters notes the symbolism but tries to spin it to fit his reading of ch. 26 as parody: “In this story, David returns Saul’s spear to him, the symbol of his power as a defiant rebuke, because against David it is useless” (Biblical Saga, 182–83). 21 E.g., Grønbæk, Die Geschichte vom Aufstieg Davids, 164–65. 22 “Feet” here may be a double entendre playing on the euphemistic use of the word for genitals. If so, by covering his feet, ironically, Saul uncovers his “feet.”

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of defecating, part of the motive for the addition of ch. 24 must have been the utter defamation of Saul.23 Chapters 24 and 26 together anticipate Saul’s death in 1 Samuel 31 and contribute to a case built in 1 Samuel 24–31 advocating David’s lack of involvement in his death. Thus, chs. 24–26 make the point that David did not kill Saul when he had the chance and that his acquisition of the throne came through divine promise rather than bloodshed. Then, 27:1–28:2; 29 present David remaining loyal to Saul even in the service to the Philistines. Chapter 28 shows that Saul’s death was determined by Yahweh beforehand, and chs. 30–31 make clear that David was far away from the battlefield where Saul was killed. Thus, chs. 24 and 26 together are an integral part of the forceful apologia for David that constitutes the final section of 1 Samuel. 23 It is difficult to find a comparable explanation for the addition of ch. 26 if ch. 24 is prior, as Van Seters believes. David’s refusal to harm Yahweh’s anointed—a reference to David himself in Van Seters’s conception of the “David Saga”—is already voiced in ch. 24 and need not be repeated. The implication that ch. 26 may have been composed to portray David as the aggressor is countered by his refusal to harm Saul in the narrative.

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 445–448

When More Leads to Less: Overstatement, Incrementum, and the Question in Job 4:17a richard whitekettle [email protected] Calvin College, Grand Rapids, MI 49546

In Job 4–5 Eliphaz tries to convince Job that he has done something wrong and that his suffering is divine punishment for that wrongdoing. In the course of doing that, he asks the following question in Job 4:17a:1

qdcy hwl)m #wn)h Can a human being be righteous Nm God?

There are three main interpretations of the preposition Nm in this question. First, the preposition is thought to mean “more than.” Thus, “Can a human being be more righteous than God?” (hereafter the greater-than rhetorical question).2 Second, the preposition is thought to mean “before, in the presence of.” Thus, “Can a human being be righteous before/in the presence of God?”3 Third, the preposition is 1 There is a parallel question in 4:17b (rbg-rh+y wh#(m M), “Can a human being be pure Nm his Maker?”). For ease of presentation, I will discuss only the question in v. 17a. Everything said

about it applies also to the parallel question in v. 17b. 2 E.g., Robert L. Alden, Job (NAC 11; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1993), 87–88; Gerald H. Wilson, Job (NIBCOT 10; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 47. 3 E.g., A. S. Peake, Job: Introduction, Revised Version with Notes and Index (Century Bible; Edinburgh: T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1904), 81; E. Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (trans. Harold Knight; London: Nelson, 1967), 52; H. H. Rowley, Job (NCB; London: Nelson, 1970), 55; Marvin H. Pope, Job: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (3rd ed.; AB 15; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 35, 37; Francis I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1976), 114; Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985), 113, 116; David J. A. Clines, Job 1–20 (WBC 17; Dallas: Word Books, 1989), 107, 112, 132.

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thought to mean “in relation to/in comparison with.” Thus, “Can a human being be righteous in relation to/in comparison with God?”4 Although it is sometimes acknowledged that the greater-than meaning is the more usual or ordinary sense of the construction,5 most scholars reject the first interpretation in favor of the second or third. They do this for the following reason. Since God is the standard of righteousness, it is obviously impossible for a human being to be more righteous than God, and Job never suggested, claimed, or considered that it was possible or true, for himself or for any other human being. Since Job does not then actually believe that a human being can exceed the righteousness of God, there is no need for Eliphaz to address this matter through his question. Consequently, the preposition Nm must mean something other than “more than,” and the question must be something other than a greater-than rhetorical question.6 In arguing against the greater-than interpretation of the question in Job 4:17a, scholars have assumed that the only way to understand the greater-than rhetorical question is as a statement/refutation of an actually held belief. And since there is no such belief, there can be no such question. It is possible, however, to understand the greater-than rhetorical question not as a statement/refutation of an actual belief but as a rhetorical ploy that makes use of hyperbole or overstatement. That is, Eliphaz and Job both know that a human being cannot be more righteous than God, and Eliphaz knows that Job knows this. However, Eliphaz asks Job whether this obviously impossible thing is possible because asking the question achieves a certain rhetorical purpose. Assuming, then, for the moment that the question is a rhetorical ploy that uses hyperbole or overstatement, what would the ploy be?7 In order to answer this question, note first the context in which the question appears. Eliphaz’s goal is to persuade Job that, despite his essential righteousness (4:6), he is flawed and has done something wrong. To do this, Eliphaz creates a contrast between God and human beings (4:18–19). God is held up as the stan-

4 E.g., Samuel Terrien, “Job: Exegesis,” IB 3:939–40; Carol A. Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 140; Katherine J. Dell, “Job,” Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (ed. James D. G. Dunn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 344–45; Samuel E. Balentine, Job (Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary 10; Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2006), 110–12, and Sidebar “The Syntax of Job 4:17” on CD-ROM. 5 Walter L. Michel, Job in the Light of Northwest Semitic (BibOr 42; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1987), 1:94–95; Terrien, Job, 939; Dhorme, Commentary, 52; Pope, Job, 37; Andersen, Job, 114; Habel, Book of Job, 116; Clines, Job 1–20, 112, 132. 6 Peake, Job, 81; Terrien, Job, 939–40; Dhorme, Commentary, 52; Rowley, Job, 55; Andersen, Job, 114; Clines, Job 1–20, 132; Balentine, Job, 111. 7 My argument in support of the greater-than interpretation is based on the rhetorical function of the question, something that even those who support this interpretation do not consider. I will not also investigate here the arguments made in support of the second and third interpretations.

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dard of righteousness, and human beings are described as falling short of that measure (the arrow indicates both textual order and a descending scale of righteousness): 4:18

God

God’s Righteousness

4:19

Human Beings

Less than God’s Righteousness

Between God and human beings Eliphaz interposed angels, indicating that they reach a level of righteousness that is less than that of God, and that human beings reach a level of righteousness that is less than that of angels. Thus, Eliphaz formed the following graded series of items, or incrementum (i.e., a series of items that moves from the lesser to the greater or vice versa), in Job 4:18–19: 4:18

God


4:18

Angels


4:19

Human Beings

Less than Angelic Righteousness

One rhetorical effect of a graded series of items is to push the end items in such a series into opposition with each other or to bring the gap between them into greater relief by illustrating and enumerating the expanse that separates them with the intervening items in the series.8 Thus, in order to draw Job’s attention to the fact that, as a human being, he does not match the righteousness of God, Eliphaz formed a graded series of items to create a sense of the moral distance that exists between God and a human being. This, then, is the rhetorical context of the question found in Job 4:17a. As seen in the following diagram, the greater-than rhetorical question extended the graded series to a hyperbolic fourth level: 4:17a

Human Being

Can a human being be more righteous than God?

4:18

God


4:18

Angels


4:19

Human Beings

Less than Angelic Righteousness

8 Jeanne Fahnestock, “Series Reasoning in Scientific Argument: Incrementum and Gradatio and the Case of Darwin,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly 26 (1996): 15–18. For an analysis of the rhetorical function of progressions elsewhere in the Israelite textual record, see Yairah Amit, “Progression as a Rhetorical Device in Biblical Literature,” JSOT 28 (2003): 3–32; Richard Whitekettle, “Forensic Zoology: Animal Taxonomy and Rhetorical Persuasion in Psalm Fifty,” VT 58 (2008): 404–19.


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Scholars have found that one rhetorical function of a hyperbole or overstatement is to elicit a “corrective response” from an audience.9 That is, a person who recognizes something as an overstatement will mentally correct the overstated idea down to the proper level. Neither Job nor Eliphaz believed that a human being could be more righteous than God. Thus, when Job was asked whether this was possible in 4:17a, he would have recognized that it was a hyperbolic impossibility. He would, therefore, have responded by making the following downward correction in his mind: “No, a human being cannot be more righteous than God; a human being’s level of righteousness is not that high.” Having been compelled by the greater-than rhetorical question to move a human being in a downward direction on a scale of righteousness, Job would have been primed to continue this downward trend via the graded series of items in vv. 18–19. In the course of that series, Job was led to see that, in Eliphaz’s thinking at least, a human being belonged down past God, down past the angels, at a level of righteousness that was dramatically described as being amid the dust and moths (v. 19). Thus, the greater-than comparative question in v. 17a, as an intentionally hyperbolic question, would have strengthened Eliphaz’s efforts to generate in Job a keen sense of the moral distance between God and himself. It did this by drawing Job into the measuring and mapping of that distance, and by slanting his thinking about where a human being should be located on that map in a downward direction. This downward orientation disposed him then to follow along over the course of vv. 18–19 with the descent of a human being to a very low level of righteousness. In conclusion, note the following. First, a greater-than/hyperbolic rhetorical question would make a clear and strong contribution to Eliphaz’s goal of getting Job to acknowledge that a human being such as himself falls short of the righteousness of God. Second, since it adds a fourth level to the series, a greater-than/hyperbolic rhetorical question would fit the rhetorical context of a graded series of items perfectly. Third, as is often noted, a meaning of “more than” for the preposition Nm would be the more usual or ordinary sense of the construction. Together, these three things make a strong case for reading the rhetorical question in Job 4:17a as a greater-than rhetorical question: “Can a human being be more righteous than God?”

9

Penelope Brown and Stephen C. Levinson, Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 4; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 217– 20; Robert J. Fogelin, Figuratively Speaking (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 13, 16; Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr., The Poetics of Mind: Figurative Thought, Language, and Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 391–94; Herbert L. Colston, “‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It’: Overstatement, Understatement, and Irony,” Metaphor and Symbol 12 (1997): 44–45.

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 449–456

A Note on Peshitta Job 28:23 brian j. alderman [email protected] Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37320

brent a. strawn [email protected] Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322

The Peshitta of Job (P-Job) preserves a unique reading in Job 28:23 that has not been fully appreciated nor, evidently, properly understood. This reading is important in several respects, not the least of which is that it offers another example of how even the smallest of text-critical differences can have a significant impact on the structure and interpretation of larger semantic units.

I. Job 28:23 in the Peshitta and the Versions The reading of the Peshitta of Job 28:23 is as follows: mtl d 'lh' hw bynn 'wrhith. whwyw ydv dwkth.1 This may be provisionally translated: Because it is God who bynn its ways; and it is he who knows its place.

To judge from secondary treatments (see further below), the form bynn (Nnyb) has occasioned some difficulties, perhaps owing to the low frequency of the root bwn (Nwb) in Syriac.2 In context, however, it is clear that bynn can be analyzed only Thanks to several readers, including Lewis Ayres, Shane A. Berg, Roberta Bondi, Luke Timothy Johnson, and also the anonymous reviewers of JBL, for helpful comments. 1 For the critical edition, see L. G. Rignell, ed., Job (Old Testament in Syriac, Part II, Fascicle 1a; Leiden: Brill, 1982), 34. 2 The Arabic cognate bayyanna occurs frequently in Christian Arabic texts as well as in the Qur’an.

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as a pael perfect third person masculine singular of Nwb with a first person common plural suffix—hence, bayyĕnan, “he has made known to us,” or, perhaps better, “he has made/caused us (to) know.”3 The pael here is best understood as causativefactitive (cf. MT’s hiphil), but it is the suffix that is intriguing—especially as it is lacking in the other versions as well as in some secondary discussions of this verse in P-Job.4 With regard to the versional evidence, the following are noteworthy: MT:

hmwqm-t) (dy )whw hkrd Nybh Myhl) God understands its way and he knows its place.

LXX: ὁ θεὸς εὖ συνέστησεν5 αὐτῆς τὴν ὁδόν, αὐτὸς δὲ οἶδεν τὸν τόπον αὐτῆς. God has well-ordered its way and he knows its place. OL and Vg.: Deus intellegit viam eius et ipse novit locum illius. God understands its way and he knows its place. 3 “To make known” in Syriac is typically expressed by [dy (aphel), with Nwb often meaning “to show, make clear, eludicate.” The former possibility was not an option in P-Job 28:23, however, given the parallel line and the use of (dy there. For whatever reason, the Peshitta evidently wanted to follow closely with cognate terms. 4 If one wanted to analyze the form without the suffix—as implied in George M. Lamsa’s idiosyncratic and widely criticized translation (see p. 451 and n. 11 below)—one would have to posit a type of paiel or, in this particular case, a *pailal form, on analogy with the unusual forms (perhaps loaned and/or frozen) of hymn (√hmn/ 'mn) and/or the reduplicated stems of hollow verbs in other Semitic languages (e.g., Hebrew or Ugaritic). Despite the low frequency of bwn in Syriac, such an analysis is most unlikely. 5 The LXX apparently read Nykih' for the MT’s Nybh. Despite a few Hebrew manuscripts that read Nykh (see G. Gerleman in BHS), it is clear that the LXX is in error here in light of the parallelism. See Samuel Rolles Driver and George Buchanan Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job (2 vols.; ICC; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921), 2:197. Symmachus reads more rightly συνῆκεν—a term that is used to translate verbs such as h)r (2 Sam 12:19) and (dy (Exod 36:1), but also and especially lk# (e.g., Deut 29:8; 2 Kgs 18:7) and Nyb (e.g., Isa 1:3 [hithpael]; Ps 48:21; Neh 8:8 [hiphil]; cf. Ps 48:13 [MT: Nyly]). The verb συνίστημι, on the other hand, in this particular form (συνέστησεν) is found only with verbs of command: dqp (Gen 40:4) and hwc (Num 27:23; 32:28). Moreover, outside of Job 28:23, συνίστημι translates Nwk only once: συνεστήσαντο in Ps 106:36 (MT: wnnwkyw). Other LXX manuscripts contain slightly different readings at Job 28:23. Note, e.g., συνεστησεν without ευ (no. 339) or εσυνεστησεν (perhaps an inner-Greek error for εὖ συνέστησεν?). See Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum, vol. 11, pt. 4, Job (ed. Joseph Ziegler; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 334; and Frederick Field, Origenis Hexaplorum quae supersunt (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1875), 2:50 and n. 30.

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hrt) ty 9Mykx )whw 8hxrw) 7Nyybt) )hl)

God understands its way, and he knows its place.

Scholars working on Job have generally neglected the differences between the Peshitta and the versions at this point. Moreover, even the treatments that do exist are often erroneous or misleading. Consider, for instance, George M. Lamsa’s translation of P-Job 28:23: “For only God understands the way of it, and he knows the place thereof.”11 Lamsa’s rendition of the verse (which here apparently simply follows the Authorized Version, as often in his popular, nonscholarly translation) reflects an impermissible understanding of bynn.12 J. Payne Smith also mistranslated the verse (though admittedly not with respect to bynn): she took the suffix on 'wrhti h to refer to God (“His ways”) rather than Wisdom (“its [or her] ways”).13 Her 6 11QtgJob (11Q10) col. 13 (frg. 11 ii) line 4 preserves part of the verse, but it is broken and quite different: ]cy )wh wr) hb (see Florentino García Martínez, Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, and Adam S. van der Woude, Qumran Cave 11.2: 11Q2–18, 11Q20–31 [DJD 23; Oxford: Clarendon, 1998], 112–13; pl. xi). Nothing corresponds to hb in the MT, and it may be that 11QtgJob changed “her way” to just “her” (ibid., 113). With reference to the broken verbal form, most recent studies believe the c is certain (see ibid., 112–13; Michael Sokoloff, The Targum to Job from Qumran Cave XI [Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture; Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 1974], 53). Among the proposed readings are rcy (“he created”), Pcy (“he cares”), or )pcy (“he spies”). Either way, the root is unusual, since elsewhere in 11QtgJob Hebrew (dy is rendered by its Aramaic cognate. 7 Four manuscripts read Nyybty) (an orthographic variant); a fifth reads Nybt); and a sixth reads Nyybty. See David M. Stec, The Text of the Targum of Job: An Introduction and Critical Edition (AGJU 20; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 189*. 8 At least seven manuscripts read the emphatic form ()xr) or )xrw)). Another originally read hyxrw), which was subsequently corrected to hxrw). Another manuscript reads hyybt), apparently harmonizing. See Stec, Text of the Targum of Job, 189*; cf. Céline Mangan, The Targum of Job (ArBib 15; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991), 66. 9 Three manuscripts read (dy. See Stec, Text of the Targum of Job, 189*. 10 Six manuscripts read the emphatic form ()rt)); two were subsequently corrected. Another manuscript reads hyrt). See Stec, Text of the Targum of Job, 189*; cf. Mangan, Targum of Job, 66. 11 George M. Lamsa, Holy Bible from the Ancient Eastern Text (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1968), 577. For criticisms of Lamsa generally, see Gösta Rignell, The Peshitta to the Book of Job: Critically Investigated with Introduction, Translation, Commentary and Summary (ed. Karl-Erik Rignell; Kristianstad: Monitor, 1994), 14. However, G. Rignell’s own translation is equally unsatisfactory: “For it is God who makes understand its ways, and he knows the place thereof ” (ibid., 216). Despite this infelicitous rendering, which neglects to translate the suffix, Rignell does analyze the verbal form correctly (ibid., 223; see below). 12 See n. 4 above. 13 J. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary: Founded upon the Thesaurus Syriacus of R. Payne Smith (Oxford: Clarendon, 1903; repr., Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998), 38. But

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translation apparently derives from her father’s earlier lexicon.14 Other lexica give little or no attention to the use of bwn in Job 28:23.15 Secondary treatments, too, are rare or nonexistent. In her fine work on translation technique in P-Job, Heidi M. Szpek mentions 28:23 in several footnotes but does not deal explicitly or extensively with the verse.16 In his monograph on P-Job, Gösta Rignell offers only the briefest of remarks: “P begins the verse with: lfm wh ahlad> Nybih' is understood causative and P has, with suffix for 1. pers. plur.: Nnyb> The meaning is thus essentially changed.”17 Rignell does not, however, discuss the implications of this reading for the text’s interpretation. In addition to Nnyb, a few other differences between the Peshitta and the MT in Job 28:23 deserve mention—even if these others are at least somewhat less significant. Only the most obvious are listed here:

· The Peshitta introduces the verse with a plus: Lfm + d (“because”). · As commonly in P-Job, the Peshitta shifts from the MT’s singular hkrd (“its way”) to a plural form: htjRwa (“its ways”).18

· Another common difference between the Peshitta and the MT is what Szpek calls the “verbal tense adjustment”—present here in the Peshitta’s treatment note that her text lacks the supralinear dot indicating the third person feminine singular suffix (her text is vocalized as 'alāha haw bayyĕnan 'ôrĕhiāteh) that is present in the critical edition. 14 See R. Payne Smith (Thesaurus Syriacus [2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1879–1901], vol. 1, col. 468), who lists Nwb in Job 28:23 as pael with the general meaning intelligere, discernere fecit, demonstravit, and who gives the following translation for Job 28:23 (vocalized there as 'alāha h[a]w bayyĕnan 'ôrĕhiāteh): ostendit nobis Deus vias ejus. He goes on to list the verb’s attestation in the pael in Job 6:24 (Ynwnyb, indicate mihi; MT: yli w@nybih)f and lists the feminine pael participle (anybm, demonstrat; MT: Mn'ybit)%; in Job 32:8. The only other instances Payne Smith provides are extrabiblical: yhynwnybnd, ut eum demonstrent, ut quis sit indicent in Ephrem; and Mdm alw wnyb, ne quid haesitaverunt in Eusebius of Caesarea. 15 E.g., Karl [Carl] Brockelmann (Lexicon Syriacum [2nd ed.; 1928; repr., Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1995], 68), who defines the pael of byn as intelligentem fecit, docuit, locating it in Job 6:24; 32:8. See now Michael Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon: A Translation from the Latin; Correction, Expansion, and Update of C. Brockelmann’s Lexicon Syriacum (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns; Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2009), 141. 16 See Heidi M. Szpek, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Job: A Model for Evaluating a Text with Documentation from the Peshitta to Job (SBLDS 137; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 65 n. 7, 75 n. 25, 81 n. 44, 101 n. 108, 102 n. 109. 17 Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 223. 18 Szpek (Translation Technique, 65 and n. 7) notes that there are over one hundred examples of this kind of shift from the singular in the MT to the plural in the Peshitta. She attributes the change to language difference: “P prefers explicitness over against the Heb. collective usage of a singular or stylistic usage of a plural. The effect on meaning, however, is still synonymy with variation only in structure or literary style” (p. 65).

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of the MT’s (dy. While the Hebrew often uses the word in the perfect tense, the translator of the Peshitta frequently employs the participle.19 In most of these cases, there is no great difference from the meaning of the verse in the MT.20 But, as Rignell notes, the meaning of v. 23 is “essentially changed” with the Peshitta’s choice of bynn for the MT’s Nybh. Before saying more about this change, a word on the alignment of the Peshitta’s reading is in order, especially given ongoing discussions of the Peshitta’s relationship to the versions.21 First, it is obvious that the Peshitta is not reading with the LXX, which either had a minority Hebrew reading in its Vorlage or, more likely, simply misread Nybh as Nykh.22 The OL and Vg. apparently read Nybh, but do not reflect the causative sense or the suffix found in the Peshitta. Neither does the Targum, which reads a verbal form without any suffix. So, while Symmachus, the OL, the Vg., and the Targum have rightly understood the Hebrew hiphil of Nyb as without significant semantic difference from the qal,23 the Peshitta has taken the causative sense common to the hiphil very seriously, perhaps because the translator could not countenance implying that God “came to understand the ways of wisdom.”24 But, once the Hebrew hiphil becomes the Peshitta’s pael, the resulting causative-factitive sense inherent in the pael stem demands an (indirect) object. “God makes known its ways” . . . but to whom? With a very slight modification, perhaps influenced by v. 28 (see below), the Peshitta

19

Ibid., 81 and n. 44. The exception, of course, is the plus Lfm + d (see further below). 21 The most extensive treatment is found in M. P. Weitzman (The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction [University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 56; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999]), who argued that the Peshitta is—generally speaking—a translation from a Hebrew text close to that of the MT (see similarly Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, esp. 5, 363, 380, though he posits intermediate stages of various kinds in the production of the Peshitta). 22 The misreading option becomes increasingly likely in light of Symmachus (see n. 5 above). 23 See, e.g., Jer 9:11 (qal) vs. Mic 4:12 (hiphil). Of course, the hiphil of Nyb can have a causative meaning (e.g., Isa 28:9, 19; Ps 119:27; etc.). See further HALOT 1:122–23 and compare how P-Job translates the hiphil forms in Job 6:24; 32:8 with that in Job 36:29. 24 Cf. P-Gen 22:12. For a typology of differences between the MT and P-Job, see Michael Weitzman, “Hebrew and Syriac Texts of the Book of Job,” in Congress Volume: Cambridge 1995 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 66; Leiden: Brill, 1997), 381–99. For the role of exegesis and ideology in P-Job’s translation, see esp. Szpek, Translation Technique, 42–44, 100–103, 145–47, 150–52, 263– 64, 269. These frequently led to various sorts of additions (including additions of pronouns) in P-Job. Szpek appears to believe that implicit to explicit exegesis led to the addition of the suffix in P-Job 28:23, though she cites the text only in a list of text references in a footnote (p. 102 n. 109). For the addition of verbal suffixes in P-Job, see also Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 374–75. 20

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adds the first person common plural suffix25 and arrives at a suitable answer—one that is perfectly sensible, even justifiable, given the use of the hiphil in the Hebrew Vorlage.26

II. The Significance of P-Job 28:23 for Chapter 28 It remains to say something of the meaning and significance of the Peshitta’s reading. In general, it seems clear that, according to ch. 28 as a whole, humanity’s relationship to Wisdom is understood quite differently in the Peshitta than in the MT. Consider, first, that in the MT,

Myyxh Cr)b )cmt )lw hkr( #wn) (dy-)l No one knows its [i.e., Wisdom’s] value, and it is not found in the land of the living. (28:13)

But P-Job claims: l' yd v 'nš v zh. wl ' mštkhi ' 'l' 'n b'tr' dhiy' No one knows its treasure and it is not found except in the place of the living.27 25

One might perhaps posit interference, since the only instance of a verbal formation ending with Ny- in Job 28 is v. 23’s Nybh: could the Peshitta have (mis)understood this Ny- à la the pronominal enclitic -(y)n in Syriac? Or might it simply be a visual error—a double translation of the final nun? (For dittography in P-Job, see Szpek, Translation Technique, 101, 103.) In light of the interpretation offered below, it seems most likely that the Peshitta’s translation is an interpretive move rather than a mechanical error. See Weitzman, “Hebrew and Syriac Texts of the Book of Job,” esp. 382–86. For language interference generally, see Hans Henrich Hock, Principles of Historical Linguistics (2nd ed.; Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), 472–85, esp. 476–79; also Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (2nd rev. ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress; Assen: Van Gorcum, 2001), 128–29, 259–60. 26 In this way, the hiphil could be seen as ambiguous. For the role of ambiguity in P-Job, see Szpek, Translation Technique, 44–45. 27 See Weitzman, Syriac Version of the Old Testament, 223, for a discussion of this verse in the context of theological changes in the Peshitta with regard to eternal life, indicated here by the exception clause ('l' 'n) and the phrase “the place of the living” (see also Job 30:23; cf. 19:25; 42:6). Note also Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 220: “With only unimportant divergences from the Hebr., P comes to a differently [sic] interpretation. . . . P comprehends ‘the country of the life’ as alluding to another existence. There is wisdom. . . . Evidently P reflects in his interpretation the comprehension of his own time, probably Christian, of the life to come” (see also pp. 369–70). Rignell correctly notes that the exceptive 'l' 'n depends on the Peshitta’s understanding of the text and not “of course . . . on another version” (p. 220). It could be debated, however, that the Peshitta’s interest in the afterlife (if it is that), is solely attributable to a Christian provenience. See esp. Weitzman (Syriac Version of the Old Testament), who has argued for an originally nonrabbinic Jewish origin for the Peshitta. For a scenario that permits both Jews and Christians to have been involved in the production of the Peshitta, see Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 366–67.

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Furthermore, according to P-Job, while Wisdom is hidden from the eyes of all the living (v. 21), destruction and death ('bdn' wmwt' [v. 22]) have still heard rumor of Wisdom because (mtil d-) God is the one who causes us to understand its ways (bayyĕnan [v. 23]). Wisdom, which is otherwise inaccessible, is thus made accessible by God to humans. This is perhaps best seen in the Peshitta’s rendition of v. 28: w'mr lbrnš': dhilth d'lh' hy hy hikmt' wlmsti' mn byšt' bwyn' And he [i.e., God] said to humanity, “The fear of God, that is Wisdom, and to turn aside from evil is understanding.”

Thus, instead of claiming that God alone knows Wisdom and that no human being can find it, as the MT suggests (v. 13), P-Job 28 claims not only that God knows its place (which is among “the living” [v. 13]) but also that God is responsible for conveying that knowledge to human beings (v. 23).28 This perspective is reflected also, of course, even if belatedly, in the MT in v. 28:

hnyb (rm rwsw hmkx )yh ynd) t)ry Nh Md)l rm)yw He said to humanity: “Look, the fear of the Lord is Wisdom, and to turn aside from evil is understanding.”

However, with its alternative reading in v. 23, P-Job makes this point more emphatically and places it earlier in the chapter.29 Indeed, the point is signaled already in the exception clause in P-Job’s rendition of v. 13—that wisdom “is not found except ('l' 'n) in the place of the living.” No translation technique for this exception clause was discovered by Szpek; it seems to reflect, therefore, not translation per se but rather interpretation, evidently for exegetical and ideological reasons.30 Such reasons are present also in the plus at the start of v. 23—humans know about the Lord’s wisdom because (Lfm + d) God has made it known—which paves the way for what follows, especially the suffix of Nnyb, which makes the text’s interpretation quite personal in focus and tone (“God has made us know”). We might note, finally, that the differences found in v. 23 lead to two significant results for the understanding of ch. 28 as a whole in the Peshitta:

28 See also P-Job 32:8: šryr'yt rwhi' 'yt bbrnš'. wnšmth hw d'lh' mbyn' lhwn, “surely there is a spirit in humanity, and the breath of God causes them [pael participle] to know.” Also of interest is P-Job 42:3, where Job confesses that God has shown him (hiwytny; cf. MT yt@id:g%Ah)i what he did not understand (dl' 'tbynt; MT Nyb) )lw). 29 Hence, the “misdirection” that David J. A. Clines sees as crucial in the MT’s version (Job 21–37 [WBC 18A; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2006], 920, 926), which is not revealed until the very end of the chapter (v. 28), is quite absent from the Peshitta. The suspense is cut, as it were, in PJob already in v. 23. 30 See n. 27 above. See also Szpek, Translation Technique, 102: “The majority of verses in which a suffix is added can be attributed to explicit exegesis.” See also her n. 109 there (see further n. 24 above).

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Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010) 1. Verses 23 and 28 become an inclusio,31 the middle of which discusses God’s knowledge of Wisdom (vv. 24–27)—a discussion that is now framed by statements regarding God’s general ability (v. 23) and specific action (v. 28) in imparting this knowledge to humans. 2. Verse 28, the closing and climactic verse, becomes an example—perhaps the example par excellence—of how God “makes us know” (bynn) Wisdom (v. 23): namely, by saying to or telling ('mr) humanity (brnš') that Wisdom is the fear of God (dhli th d'lh') and that understanding is turning away from evil.

III. Conclusion Internal evidence and external evidence combine to make it unlikely that bynn in P-Job 28:23 reflects a variant in its Hebrew Vorlage against the MT or some other ancient text tradition of Job.32 Even so, the reading of P-Job at this point is not without interest or significance. First, it attests to a reading that diverges slightly but significantly in content, not just detail, from the MT and the other major versions. Furthermore, it does so in a way that is consistent with other, more minor alterations in P-Job and in a way that is simultaneously a permissible and possible (though not entirely felicitous) interpretation of the Hebrew text. Finally, it presents an interesting theological (re)reading of this enigmatic chapter in Job—one that, at the very least, should take its place in the ever-widening discussion of the afterlives of the biblical text.33 31

Cf. the segmentation of the chapter in various editions. The most common structuring is a tripartite schema into vv. 1–11, 12–19, 20–28 (BHS, NIV, NJPS [Tanakh]; cf. NJB) likely on the basis of: (a) the repetitions in vv. 12 and 20 regarding the place of wisdom and understanding (Peshitta: hki mt' and swklh in both places); and (b) the repetition of the mention of the living/alive in vv. 13 and 21 (hiy' and hiy, respectively). But note also the tendency among several translations—however they choose to structure the preceding material—to arrange vv. 23–28 as a unit (NASB, RSV, NRSV, REB; cf. NAB; see also Clines, Job 21–37, 919–20). The Peshitta’s reading in v. 23 supports and reinforces this type of analysis, which would at least set vv. 23–28 off by themselves, perhaps as a subunit within vv. 20–28. 32 See Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 216–24, esp. 217, 221–23, for additional differences between the MT and P-Job 28 that depend not on a different Hebrew Vorlage but on the Peshitta’s translation technique (a major point in Weitzman, Syriac Version of the Old Testament; idem, “Hebrew and Syriac Texts of the Book of Job”; also Szpek, Translation Technique) and/or “doubled translations” (Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 221). 33 See Weitzman, “Hebrew and Syriac Texts of the Book of Job,” 399: “Seldom . . . can the MT be corrected confidently on the basis of P. P is valuable rather as a record of interpretation, showing how—and how well—the Hebrew text was understood.” See similarly, but from a different angle, Rignell, Peshitta to the Book of Job, 382: “One could dare to declare, that the Syriac version of Job’s book already has given what it can for the understanding of the very often obscure text of Job’s book. A continued close scrutiny of the Peshitta can contribute to a characterization of the version as such, but it can hardly bring a solution to the mystery of the Hebraic Job text.”

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 457–461

A Comparative Note on the Demand for Witnesses in Isaiah 43:9 shalom e. holtz [email protected] Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033

Recent studies have demonstrated the particular value of Neo-Babylonian litigation records for elucidating matters of law in the Hebrew Bible, both in actual legislative passages and in Job’s metaphoric lawsuit.1 The Akkadian records attest to the workings of actual courts of law, and thus furnish a crucial supplement to the relative dearth of Israelite sources on court procedure.2 The purpose of this brief communication is to point to a parallel between the Neo-Babylonian litigation corpus and an apparent legalism in Second Isaiah. The existence of this parallel anchors Isaiah’s well-known courtroom scenes in a contemporary legal reality. The imaginary legal situations are known from actual legal texts, and Isaiah’s language could well have been language used in an ancient court. Isaiah 43:9–13 forms a court scene that describes the case between God and It is my privilege to dedicate this note to my teachers, Professors Barry Eichler and Jeffrey Tigay. Versions of this note were presented at a session in their honor at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies in Washington, D.C., as well as in a lecture at the University of Chicago Divinity School in February 2009. I am grateful to the audiences at both these forums for their comments, as well as to my father, Professor Avraham Holtz, who read earlier drafts. Abbreviations of references to Assyriological material follow CAD, P, vii–xxvii. 1 On the legislative material, see Bruce Wells, The Law of Testimony in the Pentateuchal Codes (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für Altorientalische und Biblische Rechtsgeschichte 4; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2004). The study of Job is F. Rachel Magdalene, On the Scales of Righteousness: NeoBabylonian Trial Law and the Book of Job (BJS 348; Providence: Brown Judaic Studies, 2007). 2 Wells, Law of Testimony, 3–4; and Magdalene, Scales of Righteousness, 3–4. In another context, Wells aptly notes that all (not only Neo-Babylonian) ancient Near Eastern legal documents of practice (rather than so-called law codes) allow for “a process of reasoning from the known to the unknown” (“What Is Biblical Law? A Look at Pentateuchal Law and Near Eastern Practice,” CBQ 70 [2008]: 231–32).

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the foreign nations regarding the question of “proof of prediction.”3 In 43:9, the prophet, speaking on behalf of Yhwh, challenges the nations as follows:

wn(ym#y twn#)rw t)z dygy Mhb ym Mym)l wps)yw wdxy wcbqn Mywgh-lk tm) wrm)yw w(m#yw wqdcyw Mhyd( wnty All the nations assemble, let peoples gather! Who among them can proclaim this? Let them foretell us first things! Let them produce their witnesses, so that they may be vindicated, Let them hear, and declare, “It is true.”

The second half of the verse records a demand for the nations’ witnesses, phrased in the third person: wqdcyw Mhyd( wnty (“Let them produce their witnesses, so that they may be vindicated”). Although one might identify an ironic, dismissive tone in this phrase, Claus Westermann characterizes it as part of an actual, earnestly spoken “summons” (Vorladung); the nations are offered an opportunity to vindicate themselves by producing witnesses.4 In the end, the summons goes unanswered and the nations’ cause remains without support.5 Yhwh, on the other hand, is able to support his position by presenting the Israelites, who serve as witnesses (43:10, 12). For parallels to the demand for witnesses in Isa 43:9, one may point to several Neo-Babylonian texts that require the presentation of witnesses to establish a claim. These texts usually begin with the phrase U4 X-kam2 ša2 ITI Y PN1 mukinnēšu ibbakamma ana PN2 ukân . . . (“On day X of month Y, PN1 shall bring his witnesses and prove, against PN2, that . . .”).6 This clause ends with a record of the charge that the summoned individual (PN1) must prove against the opposing party (PN2).7 At 3 Anton Schoors, I Am God Your Saviour: A Form-Critical Study of the Main Genres in Is. XL–LV (VTSup 24; Leiden: Brill, 1973), 224. For general discussion of this passage, see, in addition to serial commentaries, Joachim Begrich, Studien zu Deuterojesaja (1938; repr., TB 20; Munich: Kaiser, 1963), 46–48; Menahem Haran, Between Ri 'shonôt (Former Prophecies) and Hi adashôt (New Prophecies): A Literary-Historical Study in the Group of Prophecies Isaiah XL– XLVIII (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1963), 46; Schoors, I Am God, 222–27; and John Goldingay, The Message of Isaiah 40–55: A Literary-Theological Commentary (London/New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 197–205. For examination of the relationship of Isa 43:8 to this pericope, see John Goldingay and David Payne, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (ICC; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 280, 283. 4 Claus Westermann, “Sprache und Struktur der Prophetie Deuterojesajas,” in Forschung am Alten Testament: Gesammelte Studien (2 vols.; TB 24, 55; Munich: Kaiser, 1964, 1974), 1:136– 37. 5 Goldingay, Message, 199. 6 For general discussion of this type of text, see Shalom E. Holtz, Neo-Babylonian Court Procedure (Cuneiform Monographs 38; Leiden: Brill, 2009), 133–43. Examples include Nbk 361, 363, 365, 366, 419; OIP 122, 34; YOS 7, 192. 7 The use of the term “summoned individual” assumes that these texts functioned as a type of summons. According to Wells, they are actually “conditional verdicts” that require a defendant

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the level of formulation, one should note the following three parallels between the Hebrew and the Akkadian: (1) the expression of the demand is in the third person (rather than in the imperative); (2) the term for witnesses is followed by a possessive suffix that refers to the named individual (Heb. Mh-, Akk.-šu); and (3) both employ verbs (wnty, ibbakamma)8 that, together with the possessive suffixes just noted, suggest that the summoned individual must arrange for the witnesses to appear before the court. These similarities, however, are not strong enough to point to any inherent connection between the texts. Since courts in all places and at all times rely on witnesses to prove cases, it is entirely possible that Isaiah’s heavenly court and its Neo-Babylonian counterparts on earth would have arrived, independently, at similar expressions of the same requirement. If, however, one looks beyond the similarly worded demands, one finds that the Neo-Babylonian records do furnish a situational parallel to Isa 43:9. The Akkadian documents regularly include penalty clauses that govern both success and failure in proving the case. In some texts, failure to prove the case results in a penalty imposed on the summoned individuals themselves. This implies that the summoned individuals have raised the claim against the opposing party in order to clear themselves. If they do not prove their case, they are responsible for the penalty. If they do succeed, the opposing party must make the payment and the summoned individuals are clear. This situation may be illustrated by examining Nbk 366. The text, pared down to its basic elements, reads as follows:9 a-di U4 1-kam2 ša2 ITI GAN mPN1 lu2mu-kin-ne-e-šu2 a-na uruu2-pi-ia ib-ba-kam2-ma a-na mPN2 u2-kan-ni ša2 . . . ki-i uk-tin-nu-uš za-ki ki-i la uk-tin-nu-uš a-ki-i u2-il3-tim ŠE.BAR u H~ AR.RA-šu2 a-na mPN2 it-ta-din By 1 Kislimu, PN1 shall bring his witnesses to Opis and prove, against PN2, that . . . If he [PN1] proves (the case) against him [PN2], then he [PN1] is clear. If he [PN1] does not prove (the case) against him [PN2], then he [PN1] shall pay PN2 barley and its interest in accordance with the debt note.

(PN1, the “summoned individual”) to present a corroborating witness in order to avoid a penalty (Law of Testimony, 108–26, esp. 123–24). For additional discussion, see Holtz, Court Procedure, 162–65. The specific function of the text does not affect the suggested parallel to the biblical formulation. 8 The verb paqādu is used in a similar manner in Nbk 183:4. 9 For discussion of the particulars of this text, see J. Kohler and F. E. Peiser, Aus dem babylonischen Rechtsleben (Leipzig: E. Pfeiffer, 1890–98), 1:12–13; Paul Koschaker, Babylonischassyrisches Bürgschaftsrecht: Ein Beitrag zur Lehre von Schuld und Haftung (Leipzig: Teubner, 1911), 46–48; and Wells, Law of Testimony, 176–78.

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A dispute between two men, PN1 and PN2, about a debt of barley lies in the background of this text. PN1 is the guarantor of a debt owed to PN2 by a third individual. PN2 has apparently attempted to collect the debt from this third individual but has not met with success. Thus, PN2 has turned to PN1, the guarantor, in order to collect. In the wake of PN2’s demand for payment, PN1 has claimed that the debt has been properly paid,10 in order to avoid payment. This text is issued as a response to PN1’s claim. The text requires PN1 to present witnesses in the city of Opis by a particular date. It goes on to state that if PN1 is successful, he will be “clear” (zaki). If, however, PN1 is not successful, then he must fulfill his duty as guarantor of the debt and repay PN2. The situation of the nations in Isa 43:9 is similar to that of PN1 in Nbk 366.11 By producing their witnesses, they may be vindicated. In terms of the texts themselves, the Hebrew phrase Mhyd( wnty corresponds to the Akkadian mukinnēšu ibbakamma, while the word wqdcyw corresponds to the word zaki. These correspondences are too general to demonstrate that the Hebrew and the Akkadian are directly linked in any way. Nevertheless, the existence of analogues to the verse’s metaphoric situation from actual legal texts suggests that the verse is modeled on just this kind of legal action. If so, then it is only a small step to confirming that Isa 43:9 incorporates the terminology that would have been used by an actual court of law. Apart from clarifying the general legal situation imagined by the metaphor in Isa 43:9, the identification of the parallel provides insight into the reading of the verse. Specifically, the verb w,qd@Fc;yIw: (wĕyisdi āqû) has been called into question. Although there is good Hebrew evidence in favor of the Masoretic pointing, Joachim Begrich and others have proposed that instead of the MT’s G-stem form, the text should be repointed to w,qd@ ic;yAw: (wĕyasdi īqû), a C-stem form.12 This emendation changes the subject of the verb from the nations to their witnesses. In the Neo-Babylonian texts, however, the witnesses are not described as “clearing” the summoned individual, even if that is the ultimate result of their testimony. Rather, it is the summoned individual who is described as “clear” (zaki). In light of the Akkadian evidence, the Masoretic reading, with the summoned nations as the subject of the verb, is entirely plausible. 10 The lacunae in the text hamper the determination of PN ’s specific proofs of proper repay2 ment. See Koschaker, Bürgschaftsrecht, 47–48; and Wells, Law of Testimony, 177–78. 11 Nbk 227, Nbk 266, and YOS 6, 153 also include a clause that states that the summoned individuals are “clear” (zaki) if they successfully prove their case. These texts, however, do not begin with an explicit demand for witnesses, as Nbk 366 does. 12 Begrich, Studien, 1:47 n. 155; Karl Elliger, Deuterojesaja (BKAT; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 307; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 40–55: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 19A; New York: Doubleday, 2002), 223. For a defense of the MT, see Goldingay and Payne, Isaiah, 285.

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In addition to this textual matter, the analogy to the Neo-Babylonian documents also sheds light on Yhwh’s role in the verse. It is well known that in prophetic adaptations of courtroom imagery, Yhwh is depicted as both plaintiff and judge.13 The use of the first person plural wn(ym#y (yašmîvūnû) supports understanding Yhwh depicted in this verse as judge in the heavenly council.14 Comparison with the Neo-Babylonian texts confirms this interpretation. The Neo-Babylonian texts were formulated by the adjudicating authorities, or at least with their involvement, as a record of their demand for witnesses.15 The analogous language in Isa 43:9 indicates that Yhwh is speaking not as a plaintiff but as a judge issuing the order for the litigants to present their witnesses. 13 For literature, see Michael De Roche, “Yahweh’s Rîb against Israel: A Reassessment of the So-Called ‘Prophetic Lawsuit’ in the Preexilic Prophets,” JBL 102 (1983): 563 n. 3. 14 See Frank Moore Cross, Jr., “The Council of Yahweh in Second Isaiah,” JNES 12 (1953): 275 n. 4. For the suggestion that Yhwh plays the role of plaintiff in Isa 43:9, see Goldingay, Message, 198. 15 See the discussion of some of these texts in G. van Driel, “The Rise of the House of Egibi: Nabû-ah}h}ē-iddina,” JEOL 29 (1985–86): 55.

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JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 463–483

Mattathias and the Jewish Man of Modein benjamin edidin scolnic [email protected] 1809 Whitney Avenue, Hamden, CT 06517

According to 1 Maccabees 2, the Maccabean revolution begins with one crucial moment, Mattathias’s act of defiance in Modein. When the father of the Hasmonean dynasty kills the Seleucid official and a Jewish man who is willing to participate in a pagan rite, he attempts to rally those of his people who are still faithful to their God and religion to take history into their own hands. This famous story is the subject of a brilliant reading by Shaye J. D. Cohen, who argues that the religious and cultural identity indicated by “Jewishness” was not yet present in 1 Maccabees and that Mattathias’s victim was not Jewish but Judean.1 This interpretation fits with Cohen’s overarching theory that the Greek term Ioudaioi had a geographical (“Judean”) but not a religious or cultural (“Jewish”) dimension before the late second century b.c.e. Since the scholarly consensus is that both 1 and 2 Maccabees were written in that era, these works may provide evidence of this shift.2 Cohen offers 1 Macc 2:15–26 as a parade example of his theory that there was no “Jewishness” in 1 Maccabees and that it existed only as of the writing of 2 Maccabees; thus it is fair to begin with this case before dealing with the general proposition that there is no “Jewishness” in the book. I will argue that Cohen’s interpretation of this passage is quite problematic and that the person whom Mattathias kills is a Jewish man of Modein; that Modein is in Judea; that 1 Maccabees does use the term Ἰουδαῖοι (Ioudaioi) for Jews, adherents of the Jewish religion, and not merely for “Judeans”; and that the concept of “Jewishness” as delineated by Cohen begins at least as early as the writing of this book.

1 Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Hellenistic Culture and Society 31; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 88–89. 2 Thomas Fischer, “Books of Maccabees,” ABD 4:441–42.

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I. The Incident at Modein (1 Maccabees 2:15–26) I will review the text before outlining Cohen’s arguments and responding at length. The king’s officials in charge of enforcing apostasy came to the town of Modein to make them sacrifice. Many Israelites came up to meet them, and Mattathias and his sons were brought into the gathering. The king’s officials addressed Mattathias as follows, “You are a respected and distinguished leader in this town, supported by sons and kinsmen. Now be the first to come forward and obey the command of the king as all the gentiles have done, as well as the people of Judah and those who have been allowed to remain in Jerusalem. In return, you and your sons will be raised to the rank of the Friends of the King, and you and your sons will be honored by grants of silver and gold and many gifts.” (1 Macc 2:15– 18)3

Seleucid officials involved in the persecution of the Jewish religion come to the town of Modein. Since the townspeople seem to be unwilling to participate in the pagan rite, or because the officials have met this kind of resistance in other towns, they attempt to bribe the priest Mattathias to set an example and “be the first to come forward” and obey the king’s command; the townspeople will certainly follow their leader. When Mattathias defiantly and eloquently refused, a Jewish man came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice upon the altar in Modein in accordance with the king’s decree. When Mattathias saw this, he was filled with zeal and trembled with rage and let his anger rise, as was fitting; he ran and slew him upon the altar. At the same time he also killed the king’s official in charge of enforcing sacrifices, and he destroyed the altar. (2:23–25)

In explaining his position that Mattathias’s victim was not “Jewish,” Cohen argues the following points: 1. Modein was outside of Judea;4 when the officials state that “all the gentiles . . . as well as the people of Judah [οἱ ἄνδρες Ἰουδα] and those who have been allowed to remain in Jerusalem” (1 Macc 2:18), they imply that all of Judea has already submitted to the persecution. 2. The usual translation of ἀνήρ Ἰουδαῖος cited above, that the worshiper is “a Jewish man,” is incorrect; instead, he is a “Judean” man. 3. The officers brought the Judean man in tow from Judea to Modein. He is a double stranger, a man from Judea, outside of which Modein stood, and a religious renegade. 3 All translations are from Jonathan Goldstein, I Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 41; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976). 4 Or at least, Cohen says, “near its outermost limits.”

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4. This non-Modeinite Judean has come to town with the officer to tell everyone else how they should worship. Thus, the sin of the man is not just pagan worship and the profanation of the altar but also being an exemplar of apostasy. The man is an outsider and an adherent of paganism, and it is no wonder that he would be “unwelcome in Modein.”5 To emphasize the first point, Cohen states that the persecutors already have imposed their will on all the people of Judea and are now on the outskirts of Judea or even in Samaria: “This is the simple implication of 1 Macc. 2:6.”6 The last part of ch. 1 (vv. 54–64) might seem to support Cohen’s position, for it describes not only how the “abomination of desolation” was built upon the sacred altar in Jerusalem and the martyrdom of those who clung to the Torah and the observance of circumcision, but also how even “in the outlying towns of Judah they built illicit altars, and at the doors of the houses and in the squares they offered illicit sacrifice” (vv. 54–55). Cohen could say that the persecution in Judea is the subject of ch. 1 and that ch. 2 is about the persecution outside of Judea. There is another way, however, to read these chapters. Chapter 1 describes the persecution in some detail, how Antiochus sends “letters by messengers to Jerusalem and the towns of Judah” (1:44) to prohibit the practice of Judaism and to decree the erection of pagan altars: “Letters to the same effect he wrote to all his kingdom, and he appointed officers to watch over all his people and sent orders to the towns of Judah to offer sacrifices in every town” (1:51). Chapter 2 then moves from the general to the specific, describing what happens when the general decree is enforced in the specific place of Modein. The unity of chs. 1 and 2 can be seen in the fact that the incident in Modein echoes what ch. 1 relates about the “king’s officials,” “illicit altars,” and “sacrifices.” The Jewish man who steps forward is an individual example of the “many Israelites” who “accepted his [Antiochus’s] religion and sacrificed to idols” (1:43), the “many from among the people” who “gathered around the officers” (1:52). Mattathias leaves Jerusalem because of the persecution only to find that it has followed him to Modein. The incident involving Mattathias should be seen as part of the ongoing narrative concerning the persecution of those Judeans who continue to practice Judaism. According to our passage, Mattathias the priest is recognized as a leading figure in Modein. The officials address Mattathias at the public gathering: “Now be the first to come forward and obey the command of the king.” When Mattathias rejects this entreaty, “a Jewish man came forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice upon the altar in Modein in accordance with the king’s decree.” Since Mattathias does not come forward, another Modeinite (not a stranger) does. One reason for Mattathias’s rage is that a man from his town is about to break ranks with the rest of the community. If the man is who Cohen says he is, a “renegade” Judean from 5 6

Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 89. Ibid., 89 n. 61.

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Jerusalem “who had made a covenant with the gentiles,” Mattathias would not have cared as much; the man already had left the traditional fold. The text explicitly says that the man is “Jewish” to make the point that he has always followed the Jewish religion and is only now about to become a renegade supporter of Gentile ways. For Mattathias, this means that the apostasy due to the persecution has hit home and that the entire future of his people and his faith is at stake. He cannot but act. Erich Gruen writes that Cohen’s reading “flattens the tale”;7 it ruins the whole point of the story. When Mattathias kills a Seleucid official of the persecution and a Jewish man of Modein who is prepared to participate in a pagan rite, he strikes out at two symbols of the external and internal forces that the Maccabean revolution would fight and eventually defeat.

II. Was Modein in Judea? Again, if Modein was outside of Judea, the man who is willing to offer the pagan sacrifice in 1 Macc 2:23 is a Judean as opposed to the other men of Modein, who are not. Cohen states: “Modeïn, the site of the dramatic confrontations, was outside Judaea (narrowly defined).”8 He joins other scholars who have suggested that Mattathias flees from Jerusalem to Modein because it is outside the political boundaries of Judea.9 The theory is that the town, some seven to twelve miles east of Lod, was part of the Samarian district of Lod (Lydda), as it was until 145 b.c.e., when it became part of Judea in the time of Jonathan (1 Macc 11:34; 10:38; cf. 2 Macc 13:13–14). In an article in this journal, Seth Schwartz states that Modein “was in the foothills on the far northwestern fringe of Judea, or perhaps more likely on the far southwestern fringe of Samaritis.”10 Referring to an article by Joshua Schwartz and Joseph Spanier,11 S. Schwartz calls the family of Mattathias “peripheral” partly because of the location of its geographic base: Modein was “in the western area of a border zone between Samaria and Judaea.”12 I wonder, however, if the article by J. Schwartz and Spanier proves the point that Modein was in the border zone of Judea and Samaria or in Samaria itself. 7

Gruen, review of The Beginnings of Jewishness, by Shaye J. D. Cohen, JQR 92 (2002): 596. Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 89. 9 E.g., Gustav Beyer, “Die Stadtgebiete von Diospolis und Nikopolis im 4 Jahrh. n. Chr. und ihre Grenznachbarn,” ZDPV 56 (1933): 234. They assume that Modein is modern Midya; see F.-M. Abel, Géographie de la Palestine (2 vols.; 3rd ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1967), 2:391. But see below. 10 Seth Schwartz, “A Note on the Social Type and Political Ideology of the Hasmonean Family,” JBL 112 (1993): 307. 11 Joshua Schwartz and Joseph Spanier, “On Mattathias and the Desert of Samaria,” RB 98 (1991): 252–71. 12 Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 b.c.e. to 640 c.e.: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 33. 8


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Schwartz and Spanier build on earlier theories, such as that of Michael Avi-Yonah, who suggests that Mattathias flees to the Gophna Hills, east of Modein, which border on the desert of Samaria (2:28).13 Bezalel Bar-Kochva expresses the suitability of the Gophna Hills in our context.14 Schwartz and Spanier’s contribution is to make the case that those “who went down to dwell in the desert, seeking Justice and Vindication, they and their children and their wives and their cattle, hard pressed by the persecutions” (1 Macc 2:29–30) do not flee to the Judean desert (as has usually been assumed) but to the desert of Samaria. The refugees go to the desert with their flocks to live, unlike Mattathias and his followers, who leave their possessions behind to begin armed resistance from the mountains (2:28). The Seleucids easily massacre these desert dwellers when they do not defend themselves on the Sabbath (2:31–38). Schwartz and Spanier distinguish between the desert dwellers of this passage and the Ασιδαῖοι (Asidaioi) who join Mattathias and his men after they react to the massacre by declaring the permissibility of defensive warfare on the Sabbath (2:42). As opposed to those who, in speculating that the Asidaioi should be identified with the Essenes or proto-Essenes who lived in the Judean desert, assume that the desert dwellers go down to the Judean desert, Schwartz and Spanier argue that the Asidaioi should not be identified with the Essenes and that the desert dwellers may have gone down to the desert of Samaria.15 Schwartz and Spanier say that those who flee to the desert of Samaria are Judeans from Mattathias’s region of Modein who do not want to take up armed resistance; they go to the desert to live in peace.16 This accords well with our text, for if we read 1 Maccabees 2 as it is written, the following sequence is apparent: 1. Mattathias assassinates a Seleucid official and a Jewish participant in a pagan sacrifice in Modein. 2. Some from the area of Modein go with him to the mountains to fight, and others flee to the desert of Samaria to live. 3. The Seleucid authorities react and massacre the desert dwellers in that desert.

13

Avi-Yonah, Essays and Studies in the Lore of the Holy Land (in Hebrew; Tel Aviv: M. Nyuman, 1964), 57. 14 Bar-Kochva, Judas Maccabaeus: The Jewish Struggle against the Seleucids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 196. Goldstein agrees: “It is likely that Mattathias fled to mountains in or bordering on the district of Samaria; cf. II 15:1” (I Maccabees, 236). This fits with Josephus’s statement that Judas finds refuge in the hilly terrain in the Gophna district after the battle of Beth Zacharia (J.W. 1.45). 15 The Asidaioi were a powerful group of leading Judean citizens, not Essenes; see Joseph Sievers, The Hasmoneans and Their Supporters: From Mattathias to the Death of John Hyrcanus I (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 38–40. 16 See John Christopher Dancy, A Commentary on I Maccabees (Blackwell’s Theological Texts; Oxford: Blackwell, 1964), 86.

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The juxtaposition of Mattathias’s followers and the so-called desert dwellers in the passage may indicate that they all come from the same region. It may be that Mattathias’s anguish when he hears of the other group’s fate is especially intense because they did not follow him into the relative safety of the mountains. According to Schwartz and Spanier, Mattathias seems to hear the news quickly because of the proximity of the Gophna Mountains and the desert of Samaria. Many clearly Jewish (and not just Judean) people flee to places where the persecution has not yet struck. The region in which Mattathias lives seems to be filled with people for whom traditional Judaism is sacred. It is likely that Mattathias and the desert dwellers seek refuge from the persecution in Judea in the mountains and desert in or bordering on the district of Samaria, but this does not make Modein a town in Samaria. On the contrary, Modein seems to have been a town in Judea filled with people who were religiously and culturally Jewish and who either became fighters against or refugees from the persecution of Jewish observance. Schwartz and Spanier’s article argues against Cohen’s conclusion that Modein was not a Jewish town in Judea. In his book on Lod, J. Schwartz states, “Modeïn and the surrounding hills of the northeastern Shephelah were Jewish and perhaps even in Judaea,” and “in any case . . . all of the ancient sources consider the Modeïn area to be Jewish and not Samaritan, and none make references to Samaritans.”17 While noting J. Schwartz’s conclusion, S. Schwartz says, nevertheless, that it is “perhaps more likely” that Modein was “on the far southwestern fringe of Samaritis.”18 We can test whether Modein was in Judea and whether it was Jewish by examining the available archaeological evidence.

III. Archaeological Theories about the Site of Ancient Modein What evidence do we have about the location of ancient Modein? 1. 1 Maccabees 13:25–30 mentions the pyramid tombs of the Hasmoneans in Modein, with “carved ships, intended to be seen by all who sailed the sea.” This makes visibility of the tombs (but not the carved ships themselves) from the Mediterranean Sea a factor in the site identification of ancient Modein.19 17

Joshua Schwartz, Lod (Lydda), Israel: From Its Origins through the Byzantine Period, 5600 b.c.e.–640 c.e. (BAR International Series 571; Oxford: Tempus Reparatum, 1991), 49, 56 n. 7. 18 S. Schwartz, “Social Type and Political Ideology,” 307. S. Schwartz repeats his argument with J. Schwartz in more explicit terms in Seth Schwartz, “John Hyrcanus I’s Destruction of the Gerizim Temple and Judaean-Samaritan Relations,” Jewish History 7 (1993): 22 n. 22, where he says that “Modein . . . may have been in Samaritis.” 19 See J. Schwartz, Lod, 61–65.


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2. The Mishnah refers to Modein as the first place on the road to Jerusalem where pilgrims could purchase earthenware vessels for their temple offerings. Modein’s proximity to the holy city meant that the town’s potters were careful to maintain ritual purity, and thus their utensils were suitable for use in the temple (m. Hi ag. 3:5). 3. The Talmud describes the town as an average man’s journey to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount: “from Modi’im to Jerusalem is fifteen miles” (b. Pesahi. 93b).20 It was thus only fifteen Roman (13.8 statute) miles from Jerusalem, the religious and political center of Judea. 4. Eusebius reports that Modein was “near Lydda” and that the monuments of Mattathias’s family could still be seen in his time (ca. 263–ca. 339 c.e.) (Onom. 132.16). 5. The sixth-century c.e. Medeba map has the legend: “Modein, which today is Moditta, wherefrom were the Maccabees,” presenting Modein and its neighboring villages. Sifting this evidence, we will look for a site that is around fourteen statute miles from Jerusalem and was connected to it on a pilgrimage route, one that is near Lydda (Lod), one that is at least close to a height from which the sea is visible, and one that was large enough to have surrounding villages. In view of these requirements, the identification of the site of ancient Modein has been the subject of various hypotheses in modern times. While the area in question seems to have been almost totally destroyed over the centuries by invasions (and possibly by an earthquake), there are three sites on the edges of modern Modein that are plausible candidates to be the ancient town: Midya, Umm el-‘Umdan, and Titura. Until recently, the consensus of modern scholars, including J. Schwartz, has been that Midya (today Tel al-Ras near the Arab village of Khirbet el-Midyah), in the hills eight miles east of Lydda, is ancient Modein.21 Yet all that has been discovered at the site is traces of an Iron Age settlement and some Hellenistic remains;

The situation addressed in the Mishnah (m. Pesah.i 9:2) concerns a man who has not been able to observe the festival of Passover at the proper time because he was unclean or on a long journey (Num 9:9–10). Modein is a way station for pilgrims going up to the temple for the pilgrimage festival of Passover. Rabbi Aqiba, whose statement initiates the whole discussion, lived in Palestine ca. 50–132 c.e. and seems to have been associated with Lod (see J. Schwartz, Lod, 93); he would know the distances involved. Rabbi Aqiba states that a long journey is one that is from Modein and beyond and the same distance in all directions from Jerusalem. 21 J. Schwartz, Lod, 61–65; so Avi-Yonah: “The identification of er-Ras near the present village of Midye with historical Modiin is undisputed” (Avi-Yonah, The Madaba Mosaic Map, with Introduction and Commentary [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1954], 61); so also T. R. W. Longstaff, “Modein,” ABD 4:894–95: “The town [of Modein] is confidently to be identified with modern Ras Medieh (M.R. 150148).” 20

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the earliest substantial settlement was in Byzantine times.22 The site is eighteen to nineteen statute miles from Jerusalem, farther than the 13.8 statute miles of the talmudic citation. A more plausible candidate is Hurvat Umm el-‘Umdan, found on the southern edge of modern Modein and thus closer than Midya to Jerusalem.23 The excavators found a fifty-nine-acre site of a Jewish village with public structures, including perhaps the earliest synagogue for which we have evidence, constructed during the Hasmonean period, apparently toward the end of the second century b.c.e.24 The town lay in proximity to the central Roman road that connected Lod with Jerusalem. The strongest candidate to be the site of ancient Modein, however, is Givat Titura (Khirbet el-Burj). Titura is closer to Jerusalem than the other possible sites and, at 1,030 feet above sea level, may be interesting in terms of its view of the sea to the west. According to Shimon Gibson, the site is very prominent and archaeological remains were found over 175 acres.25 Similarly, Ran Shapira states, “On Titura Hill there was a real city, Umm al-Umdan is only a village. During the Hasmonean period there was a huge settlement on Titura Hill. This fact is of importance, because the Hasmoneans tended to construct monumental buildings, out of a desire to prove their greatness.”26 Excavations have yielded a huge number of water cisterns, as well as several mikvaot, far more than would have been needed for the local population. The baths may have served pilgrims preparing themselves for a visit to the temple.27 This suggests a strong relationship between Jerusalem and this site, which, if it is Modein, was hardly a peripheral town in an obscure border region. Thus, since J. Schwartz published his monograph in 1991, the archaeological search for Modein has moved literally in another direction, to the east, closer to Jerusalem and the heart of Judea. Cohen and S. Schwartz may say that ancient Modein was to be found in a border zone or a corner of Samaria, but the evidence points to a Jewish town that both geographically and religiously was not as far from the center as they indicate. I fully understand that many of the structures in the sites I 22

Abraham Negev and Shimon Gibson, eds., Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (rev. and updated ed.; New York: Continuum, 2003), 341. 23 Shlomit Wexler-Bdolach, Alexander Onn, and Yehuda Rapuano, “Identifying the Hasmonean Village of Modi‘in” (in Hebrew), Cathedra 109 (2003): 69–89. 24 Ran Shapira, “The Hasmoneans Were Here—Maybe,” Haaretz, December 26, 2005. 25 Shimon Gibson, “Landscape Archaeology and Salvage Excavations in Modi‘in,” ASOR Newsletter 49, no. 1 (1999): 16-17; Negev and Gibson, Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, 341. 26 Shapira, “Hasmoneans Were Here.” 27 While ritual baths are found in all Jewish communities, one mikveh has two doorways, implying very high traffic. One hundred and twenty cisterns on the hill probably served pilgrims using Modein as a rest stop.


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prefer for ancient Modein may have been built somewhat later than the time of Mattathias (160s b.c.e.). Modein may have become an important town because of its Hasmonean connection. Still, Modein seems to have been a very Jewish town, serving Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem from farther away and thus not on the outskirts of Judea. Minimally, the evidence presented here puts the burden of proof on those who would say that Modein was not in Judea and not filled with Jews.

IV. Ancient Textual Evidence about Modein I will briefly review and contest three textual arguments that have been used to prove that Modein was in Samaria. The first is that the initial military response to the revolt comes from the Seleucid governor of Samaria, Apollonius (1 Macc 3:10; Josephus, Ant. 12.261, 287). This is taken to indicate that Modein was within the borders of Samaria.28 I would argue that the Seleucid force under Philip in the citadel in Jerusalem was preoccupied with local pressures and that the next nearest large force was to be found in Samaria.29 This military response does not mean that Shechem was more closely tied politically to Modein. The second argument is that Modein became a part of Judea only in the time of Jonathan (145 b.c.e.) when the nome of Lydda was taken from Samiritis and annexed to Judea (1 Macc 11:34; cf. 10:38).30 My response is that if Lydda became a part of Judea only in 145 b.c.e., it does not mean that Modein was ever in Samaritis. As J. Schwartz states, “It is likely . . . that it was Demetrius I who first combined the Modiin and Lod regions into one administrative unit.”31 The third textual argument that Modein was in Samaria is from 2 Maccabees. When Judas prepares to encounter the Seleucid force, his army is in Modein, which is taken to be outside of and protecting Judea: In a closed meeting with the elders, he [Judas] recommended marching out and deciding the issue with the help of God, before the king’s army invaded Judaea and seized control of the city. Having entrusted the outcome to the Creator of the universe, Judas exhorted his men to fight nobly to the death for laws, temple, city, country, and national institutions. He pitched his camp near Modein. (2 Macc 13:13–14)32

This passage may be interpreted to say that Judas wants to fight the Seleucid army “before” it comes to Judea. Jonathan Goldstein suggests that Jason of Cyrene may 28

Sievers, Hasmoneans, 27 n. 1. Goldstein, I Maccabees, 245; idem, II Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 41A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 525. 30 Sievers, Hasmoneans, 27 n. 1. 31 Schwartz, Lod, 50. 32 2 Maccabees, which omits Mattathias’s name and the incident at Modein, mentions Modein here as if the reader knows that it is a significant place. 29

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have been working with a tradition that Judas prevented enemy armies from ever successfully encamping in Judea.33 It is difficult to accept, however, that there was a tradition that the enemy armies never encamped in Judea. The point here is not where the Seleucid army encamped but that Judas encamped near Modein, where he had strong local support to furnish personnel and provisions. This passage only reaffirms that Modein was a base for Judas, even in the most dangerous situation, because it was so fiercely Jewish. Did the elders with whom Judas confers, presumably a Jewish provisional council, meet and live outside Judea? On the basis of this passage, there is no reason to think that Modein was outside Judea. Modein is a Jewish town, and even if it could be considered to be on the border of Samaria, or in Samaria, it is filled with Judeans/Jews. Indeed, 2 Macc 13:13–14 can be the basis for the opposite argument, that Modein was in Judea because the regional base Judas defended in his battles “lay in the mountains within the quadrilateral defined by Gophna, Modein, Ammaus, and Jerusalem.”34 The Maccabees fight defensive battles in Judea, not Samaria.

V. The Samaritan Memorandum to Antiochus IV Of great significance for our attempt to determine whether Modein was a town in Judea or Samaria during the time of Mattathias is the official correspondence between the Samaritans of Shechem and Antiochus IV. According to Josephus, Antiochus IV grants the Samaritans their request that they not be included in the persecution of Judaism because they are of different origins from the Judeans and are quite willing to live according to Greek customs and to rename their temple for Zeus Hellenios (Zeus Xenios in 2 Macc 6:2). Since Mattathias’s action is a response to the fact that that persecution has come to his town of Modein, and since the incident occurs after Samaria has been officially exempted from the persecution,35 Modein must have been within the borders of Judea. If Modein had been in Samaria, as some scholars think, the king’s official would have been in contradiction of his king’s explicit decree. If one should suggest instead that the incident came at some point during the time between the request and the king’s answer— that the incident was indeed the impetus for the Samaritan plea for exemption—I could respond that if Modein had been in Samaria, if it had been the hotbed of revolution, the exemption would not have been granted and the wrath of Antiochus would have come down hard on this province as well. The Samaritans claim that they are Sidonians, not Jews, to distance themselves from those subject to the persecution in Judea: 33

Goldstein, II Maccabees, 456–57. Goldstein, I Maccabees, 236; see his maps on pp. 528–35. 35 See the chronology in Goldstein, II Maccabees, 116. 34


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To King Antiochus Theos Epiphanes, a memorandum from the Sidonians in Shechem. Our ancestors, in response to drouths in the land, followed an ancient religious tradition36 and adopted the practice of observing the day which the Jews call the Sabbath and also founded an unnamed shrine on the mountain called Garizein and offered there the appropriate sacrifices. (Josephus, Ant. 12.258–59)

They explain that their ancestors who lived in Samaria needed to appease the gods of the land in a way that their own cultic practices could not. Any polytheist, including Antiochus IV, could understand the need to stop a famine by adopting the religion of the land. In what Goldstein calls “a fine piece of ambiguous writing,” the memorandum states that they observe “the day which the Jews call the Sabbath.”37 They admit that they keep the Sabbath but distance themselves from the Jews, Elias Bickerman suggests, by implying that the Sabbath goes back in time to a period before the Jews.38 To paraphrase: “We keep the Sabbath but it is not our name for the day. Don’t confuse our worship of this sacred day with Jewish worship.” Goldstein disagrees and thinks that the Greeks would be able to see this disclaimer as a falsehood.39 He is thinking in terms of the reality of religious history, but Bickerman understands the nature of the document involved, an effort to create space between Samaritans and Jews. The document uses the word Ioudaioi here, which could potentially mean the ethnic designation “Judeans” or the religious term “Jews,” as we shall discuss below. The memorandum implores Antiochus IV to understand that they are Sidonians and not Jews and states, to paraphrase again: “Your punishment of the Judeans should not affect us because we are not Jews, no matter what our religious practices seem to be. We had nothing to do with their rebellion against you and your official Menelaus. Please leave us alone and we’ll be good subjects of your empire and follow your ways.” Their entreaty continues: Accordingly, we ask you, our benefactor and savior, to order Apollonius the meridarchés40 and Nicanor the royal agent to cease harassing us by holding us to be implicated under the charges brought against the Jews though we are foreign to the Jews both by descent and by our way of life. We also ask that our unnamed temple be called the temple of Zeus Hellenios. . . .

36

I use Goldstein’s translation here (II Maccabees, 523) over that of Ralph Marcus (Josephus, vol. 9, Jewish Antiquities, Volume V, Books 12–13 [LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998], 133) because Marcus renders the Greek deisidaimonia as “superstition,” indicating that the group observed the weekly ritual while thinking that it was only a superstition, a most improbable scenario. Deisidaimonia can also mean “religious belief ”; see Goldstein, II Maccabees, 530. 37 Goldstein, II Maccabees, 531. 38 Bickerman, “Un document relatif à la persécution d’Antiochus IV Epiphane,” RHR 115 (1937): 188–90 = Studies in Jewish and Christian History (3 vols.; AGJU 9.1; Leiden: Brill, 1976– 86), 2:123–25. 39 Goldstein, II Maccabees, 530. 40 The governor of the district.

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The “charges brought against the Jews” were that they followed their traditional understanding of their religion. Bickerman’s theory is that the persecution, through the decree of Antiochus IV, really was the work of the high priest Menelaus, who wanted to reform the practices of Judaism and to forbid important commandments such as circumcision, the Sabbath, and the daily offering in the temple in Jerusalem. To obey these commandments would constitute disobedience to the king; the Samaritan memorandum wants to separate its writers from the disobedience that is being charged against some of the Jews in Judea. They are saying, “We may practice the Sabbath but our practice does not constitute disobedience to Antiochus.” If Bickerman’s theory were correct and the persecution were the work only of the reformers in Judea and not the Seleucids, why would the Samaritans, in another province, feel compelled to write to Antiochus at all? They should not have been afraid of Menelaus. Bickerman attempts to establish a close relationship between Judea and Samaria in which Samaria was somehow under the control of Menelaus and thus subject to the same laws as Judea. Bickerman points out that, when Antiochus places Philip over Jerusalem in 169 b.c.e., he also places Andronichus over Gerizim: “Antiochos . . . went so far as to leave officials in charge of maltreating our race: at Jerusalem, Philip . . . and at Mount Gerizim, Andronikos; and in addition, Menelaus, who was worse than the others inasmuch as he lorded it over his companions” (2 Macc 5:22–23). I would argue that the dual appointment might reflect the opposite conclusion, that the two provinces were distinct political entities with two different sets of political officials.41 Andronichus might well have been the predecessor of Apollonius the meridarchés or one of his subordinates. Still, it does seem that we have two political officials but one politically appointed religious authority, Menelaus, who rules over both regions in which the “race” of Jews lived. That Jason of Cyrene sees the Judeans and the Samaritans as one ethnic group may reflect something important about the historical relationship of these groups.42 Goldstein resists such conclusions by describing the simultaneous appointments as the typical action of a king passing through a region of his domain.43 Furthermore, we know that the Samaritans were not under the control of the Judeans until the time of Jonathan, when he was given such authority: “The three nomes44 which are to be taken from the territory of Samaria and annexed to Judaea, shall be annexed to Judaea in the sense of complete union, so as to be subject to no other authority than the high priest’s” (1 Macc 10:38). Regardless of whether the king saw the two regions as one, the Samaritans clearly felt the need to say that they were not Jews despite their obser-

41

Goldstein, II Maccabees, 525. S. Schwartz, “John Hyrcanus I’s Destruction of the Gerizim Temple,” 9–25, esp. 14–16. 43 Goldstein, II Maccabees, 525. 44 Aphairema, Lydda, and Ramathaim; see also 1 Macc 11:34; Goldstein, I Maccabees, 410–11. 42


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vance of the Sabbath and sacrifices, which seemed “Jewish” in character. Their request is based on the statement that these practices do not indicate that they are Jews and that they are Sidonians. The king’s reply (Josephus, Ant. 12.257–64) is that they are not implicated in the charges against the Jews because they choose to live according to Greek ways. It is interesting that, even though the Samaritans confess to the charges against them (that they perform Jewish practices), the king acquits them. Thus, the charges against the Jews in Judea are not that they are Judeans but that they refuse to live according to Greek ways. Another inference from these documents is that the persecution was not just that of Menelaus and his reform party against conservative Jews but also that of Antiochus against those who maintained traditional religious practices. The Samaritans had to insist that they were Sidonians, not Judeans, that Greeks could understand how their Jewish practices developed historically, and that they were willing to worship as good Greeks and therefore should not be persecuted. Since Josephus’s prejudice against the Samaritans is well known (Ant. 12.257),45 one could see this document as a mere polemical invention of the author; it makes the Samaritans seem disloyal and cowardly.46 Yet Bickerman has proved the authenticity of this set of documents with a number of interesting arguments.47 Chronologically, these documents fit perfectly with the implementation of the persecution of the Jews in Judea in December 167; they are dated 167/166 b.c.e., exactly when the Samaritans should have been concerned for their own welfare. In fact, this is a case where Josephus, for all his elaborations and intentional changes of the text of 1 Maccabees, actually adds to our knowledge of the historical record.48 The point is that it is only with the era of the Maccabees that there is a schism between the Jews and the Samaritans, whether because the Samaritans split themselves off in order to avoid the Antiochene persecution or because of their “nonparticipation in the Maccabean revolt.”49 The salient fact here is that the Samaritans were not included in the persecution of the Jews. If Modein were in Samaria, why would it not be included in this dispensation? For Cohen and others to be correct, the Antiochene persecution had 45

See Louis H. Feldman, “Selective Critical Bibliography,” in Josephus, the Bible and History (ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 420. 46 Seth Schwartz, “The ‘Judaism’ of Samaria and Galilee in Josephus’s Version of the Letter of Demetrius I to Jonathan (‘Antiquities’ 13.48–57),” HTR 82 (1989): 388. 47 Bickerman, “Un document relatif à la persécution,” 105–35. The objections of Uriel Rappaport (“The Samaritan Sect in the Hellenistic Period,” Zion 55 [1990]: 386–93) are countered by S. Schwartz, “John Hyrcanus I’s Destruction of the Gerizim Temple,” 23–24 n. 35. 48 Louis H. Feldman, “Josephus’ Portrayal of the Hasmoneans,” in Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith (ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers; SPB 41; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 42 n. 4. 49 Morton Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (Lectures on the History of Religions n.s. 9; New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), 191–92.

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to be so intense that it spread over the border zone of Judea into Samaria, even though this contradicts the king’s decree.50 Modein was in Judea.

VI. Jewishness in 1 Maccabees My intent is not to disagree with Cohen’s theory that, until the end of the second century b.c.e., Ioudaios meant an ethnic/geographic “Judean” and not the religious/cultural “Jew.”51 Instead, I would push Cohen’s dividing point back several decades and claim that it was the persecution of Judaism in the 160s b.c.e. that caused religiously conservative Judeans to feel the urgent need to claim “Jewishness” for themselves. The symbolism of Mattathias’s killing of the Jewish man at Modein was to draw a proverbial line in the sand that said, “To be Jewish is to follow the religion of the Jews, the covenant of the Torah.” My point is that by time of the writing of 1 Maccabees, rather than the somewhat later 2 Maccabees, the term Ioudaios could be used for a “Jewish man” and not just for a “Judean.” If one reads a translation of 1 Maccabees, one can gain the impression that the term “Jews” appears more often than it actually does in the Greek. Even in Goldstein’s very fine translation, the word “Jews” is often inserted where it is not literally found (1 Macc 2:36; 4:20, 28; 5:13, 16, 17, 23, 27; 6:6, 7; 8:22, 25; 9:11, 18, 40). He clearly felt the need in these cases for a term to identify explicitly the group implied in the Greek text. There are five verses in 1 Maccabees 5 alone where Goldstein makes this identification, at least partly because the chapter concerns the battles between Judas and “the nations roundabout” Judea over, ostensibly, the welfare and safety of the Maccabees’ religious and/or ethnic and/or political compatriots. A translator may do this to impart the meaning of the passage, but a study of the term Ioudaioi must be more precise. Still, Goldstein’s method leads us to a thought about the missing “Jews.” The Gentiles, according to at least the beginning of the chapter (5:1-2), persecute the Jews of their areas: “When the neighboring nations heard that the altar had been built and the temple restored as it was before, they were furious and plotted to wipe out the descendants of Jacob who lived among them. Accordingly, they began to perpetrate murders on our people so as to exterminate them.”52 Following this dramatic introduction, however, this theme is not consistently found in the passage.53 If the author of 1 Maccabees 5 wants to empha50 Sievers holds that Modein was not affected by Antiochus IV’s response to the Samaritan petition because the area was filled with Ioudaioi (Hasmoneans, 27 n. 1). 51 Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 82. 52 While Ioudaioi does not appear here, we do find “descendants of Jacob” and “our people.” For references in 1 Maccabees to “Jacob” in addition to 5:2, see 1:28 (“the entire house of Jacob”); 3:7 (“and joy to Jacob”); and 3:45 (“joy departed from Jacob”), all poetic texts. 53 Seth Schwartz, “Israel and the Nations Roundabout: I Maccabees and the Hasmonean Expansion,” JJS 42 (1991): 26; cf. Goldstein, II Maccabees, 435–36.


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size the theme of rescue and revenge, it is striking, for instance, that he does not tell us of the outrage perpetrated on the Jews of the town of Joppa, described in the parallel text of 2 Macc 12:3–9. Still, if Judas did not consolidate his gains and prepare for a new Seleucid military effort (1 Macc 4:35) and instead marched, at least in theory, to those neighboring areas to rescue Jews and bring them back to Judea (5:23), there must have been an urgency to his actions. Why do the Gentiles initiate these attacks at this particular point in time, after Judas has rededicated the temple in Jerusalem? Why did they not do so after Judas started to win victories over the Seleucids (1 Maccabees 3)? At that earlier point, the same “neighboring Gentiles” reported news of Judas’s battles and feared him (3:25– 26). What is different now, especially since the Seleucid general/minister Lysias has returned to Antioch after offering amnesty and religious freedom to the Judeans earlier that year?54 One possibility is that the neighbors’ antipathy stemmed from the fear of being conquered. But there was no need to have such fear at this point, after the amnesty and presumed peace, and there was every expectation that the Seleucids would remain in control of the region for a long time to come—as, indeed, they were. The forces of the neighboring nationalities attack the Jews not just for being people who come from Judea; obviously, they always had been from Judea. According to 1 Maccabees, the attacks took place at this time because of the success of Mattathias and Judas, a success that included not only victories over the Seleucids but religious actions such as the resanctification of the temple and forced circumcision. The attacks on the Jews, therefore, were not political. They were about Judaism, not about being Judean. Israel Shatzman thinks that there was a strong religious dimension in Judas’s response: “the war took on another aspect: it was directed against the gods of the Gentiles, as Judas demolished and set in fire temples and places of cult of the enemies.”55 It would be helpful for my argument if Shatzman were right, for it would indicate that the neighbors’ attacks on the Jews of their area must have had a religious component to warrant this religious response. Yet let us consider whether Shatzman overstates his case. In 1 Maccabees 5, the Maccabees fight against (1) the descendants of Esau in Idumea of the Akrabattene (v. 3); (2) the Baeanites (vv. 4–5); (3) the Ammonites (vv. 6–8); (4) the Gileadites (vv. 9–13, 24–54); (5) the Gentiles of Galilee (vv. 14–23); (6) the men of Jamnia (vv. 55–62); (7) the descendants of Esau in the south (v. 65); and (8) the men of the land of the Philistines (vv. 66–68). Shatzman’s statement of antipagan motivations on the part of the Maccabees can be seen in at most only two of the

54

Goldstein, I Maccabees, 165–66. Israel Shatzman, “Jews and Gentiles from Judas Maccabaeus to John Hyrcanus according to Contemporary Jewish Sources,” in Studies in Josephus and the Varieties of Ancient Judaism: Louis H. Feldman Jubilee Volume (ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen and Joshua J. Schwartz; AGJU 67; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 242. 55

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eight conflicts. In the Gilead campaign, Judas burns the pagan temple in Carnaim only because his enemies have taken sanctuary there (v. 44).56 In the parallel account in 2 Macc 12:26, Judas marches against the “shrine of Atargatis” at the fortress called the Karnion. The author of 1 Maccabees 5 could have emphasized the antipagan polemic in a much clearer way. In the eighth conflict, Judas went to Azotus and “destroyed their altars and burned the graven images of their gods and plundered their town” (v. 68). While this may be a matter of one enemy destroying everything in the other enemy’s town out of triumphalism rather than religious zeal, it is possible that to destroy a pagan temple is to make a religious statement. Although I cannot follow Shatzman in stating how overtly antipagan Judas’s actions are, I return to the thought that the neighboring nationalities attack the Judeans at this point because of the religious actions of the Maccabees in Judea. Those nations have a concept of Jewishness that they detest, and the Maccabees have a concept of Jewishness that drives them to march all over the country to battle the enemies of their people. Not only do they bring their fellow Judeans home to Judea; they bring them home to observe their religion with their people: “Throughout the march Judas gathered up the stragglers . . . until he reached the land of Judah. They went up to Mount Zion in gladness and joy and offered burnt offerings because not a man of them had fallen up to the time of their return in peace” (1 Macc 5:53–54). The Maccabees go to save these other Jews who are in trouble not just because they come from Judea but because they practice Judaism, a religion different from that of those nations among whom they live. Malcolm Lowe states that “in the ancient Mediterranean world almost every people had its own national religion, so that to be a member of that religion was in a sense to have that nationality.”57 It is not an easy matter to distinguish between the geographical/ethnic and the religious/cultural aspects of an ancient people. Cohen’s focus on the term Ioudaioi may be too narrow to determine whether “Jewishness” existed at a particular time. When the author of 1 Maccabees states that Judas and the Maccabees went to the aid of other “Israelites” or “the descendants of Jacob” or “our kinsmen,” he uses terms that may indicate the very religious and cultural sense of peoplehood that is the subject of the inquiry. Cohen states: “The narrator usually designates the heroes of the book as ‘Israel’ or ‘those of Israel.’”58 It is true that in 1 Maccabees “Israel” often means the Jewish people or those faithful to the Jewish God and Judaism. But Israel does not necessarily indicate the favored subset, as can be seen in examples such as these: “lawless men arose in Israel” (1 Macc 1:11); “many Israelites took delight in his [the king’s] form of worship” (1:43); “lawless and ungodly men of Israel” (7:5); and “a group of factious 56

Just as Jonathan will burn the infantry of Demetrius II’s general Apollonius who flee to the temple of Dagon in Azotus (Ashdod) in 1 Macc 10:83–85. 57 Lowe, “Who Were the Ioudaioi?” NovT 18 (1976): 107. 58 Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 87.


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and wicked men of Israel” (10:61). Since Israel also can mean the subset of the Judeans that is condemned in 1 Maccabees, I would argue that the term means Jews—not just Judeans but those who are or should be religiously and culturally Jewish. There are functional equivalents of what Cohen calls the later use of the term Ioudaioi that do indicate “Jewishness” at an earlier point than he would allow. The term Ioudaioi is not found in 1 Maccabees 5, but the concept of Jewishness can be found in a chapter where Gentiles attack Judeans for the religious actions of their new leaders. The author of 1 Maccabees exhibits this sense of religious/cultural Jewishness.

VII. Ioudaioi in Demetrius’s Decree In the decree of Demetrius I in 1 Macc 10:26–45, designed to turn the support of the Judeans/Jews away from both the Hasmonean Jonathan and the Seleucid pretender Alexander Balas, we find no fewer than six references to the Ioudaioi (10:23, 25, 29, 33, 34, 36). The forces of Demetrius I, son of Seleucus IV, killed Judas and defeated his army in 160. In 152, the rivals to the Seleucid throne both offered the high priesthood to Jonathan. After Jonathan sided with Alexander Balas, probably because, as Demetrius feared, he had a memory of what Demetrius had done to his brother Judas and the people in general (1 Macc 10:5), Demetrius offers this message, granting important rights to the Judeans/Jewish people.59 Demetrius writes over Jonathan’s head directly to “the nation of the Jews,”60 who he says have been loyal (if this were true, he would not be making these offers),61 granting “many exemptions and rewards,” including the value of half of the crops from Judea and the three nomes. Jerusalem is to be made sacred and exempt from taxes. All Ioudaioi who are prisoners of war62 are to be set free without ransom, and they and their cattle will be exempt from taxes.

59 It does not matter here if the document is authentic, only what the term Ioudaioi, whether written by Demetrius I or the author of 1 Maccabees, means in this context. See esp. J. Schwartz, Lod, 57 n. 16; cf. S. Schwartz, “ ‘Judaism’ of Samaria and Galilee,” 378 n. 3; and Jerome MurphyO’Connor, “Demetrius I and the Teacher of Righteousness (I Macc., X, 25–45),” RB 83 (1976): 400–420. 60 Carl L. W. Grimm, Das erste Buch der Maccabäer (Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apokryphen des Alten Testamentes 3; Leipzig: Hirzel, 1853), ad loc. 61 Another possibility is that this letter could have been written when Bacchides made a treaty with Jonathan (1 Macc 9:70–72). See Robert Doran, “The First Book of Maccabees,” NIB 4:125. Yet that treaty was made with Jonathan, and the document here seems intentionally to omit any reference to him. 62 After all of the wars in which the Judeans had been engaged, there must have been a considerable number of prisoners of war. In the Letter of Aristeas (12–27), which may be the source for 1 Macc 12:11–18, the liberation of Jews forcibly deported to Egypt is an important theme.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010) All Jewish festivals and Sabbaths and new moons and appointed days, as well as the three days before a festival and the three days after a festival, shall be days of freedom from sales taxes and of exemption, for all Ioudaioi of my kingdom, during which time no one shall have power to collect money from or harass any of them for any reason. (1 Macc 10:34–35)

Business will be difficult for Jewish people immediately before and after a festival, especially if a pilgrimage is involved, but their Gentile neighbors will not necessarily appreciate these facts. Three nomes from Samaria are to be annexed to Judea and will be ruled by the high priest. The expenses of the temple in Jerusalem and its renovation will be paid for through different mechanisms, including the tribute formerly taken from temple funds, money that had come into the temple treasury from all male Jews in the world. For my purpose here, the point is that Demetrius speaks about all of the Ioudaioi throughout his kingdom, that is, not only in Judea but also outside of it in the Diaspora, who have had problems in practicing Judaism. One does not enact a law unless it is to forbid something that has been going on. Demetrius has been informed that Ioudaioi have had issues with Gentiles over their religious practices. These were not just Judeans but Judeans who practiced Judaism; in other words, Jews in the religious/cultural sense. Cohen lists this reference as one to “Judeans” and not to “Jewish” people, but I would suggest that in 1 Macc 10:33-34 Ioudaioi refers to Jews and that we thus have another example of this usage along with that found in 1 Macc 2:23.

VIII. Ioudaioi in the Honorary Decree for Simon Another set of examples of Ioudaioi in 1 Maccabees is in the honorary decree for Simon (14:25–49). Cohen calls these examples of the narrative of 1 Maccabees, but if 14:29–49 does not constitute a primary “Simon document” it is at least an authentic document that has been “adapted and embedded”63 in 1 Maccabees with an introduction by the author. An artificial creation of the author would not contradict the narrative on several points.64 The question of whether we are reading a document or a narrative is important. If the instances of Ioudaioi meaning “Jews” are in three authentic documents incorporated into 1 Maccabees, they constitute attestations of this use of the term earlier than the writing of 1 Maccabees. If the Simon document is from 140, the decree of Demetrius I to Jonathan from 152, and Antiochus’s edicts to the Samaritans from 167/166, we find evidence of the use of 63

Jan Willem van Henten, “The Honorary Decree for Simon the Maccabee (1 Macc 14:25– 49) in Its Hellenistic Context,” in Hellenism in the Land of Israel (ed. John J. Collins and Gregory E. Sterling; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 116–45. 64 Sievers, Hasmoneans, 116–18.


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Ioudaioi as “Jewish” in primary documents that reach back to the time of Mattathias in the 160s. The term Ioudaioi occurs six times in this passage: 14:33, 34, 37, 40, 41, and 47. The first of these references reads: “he [Simon] fortified the towns of Judaea, including Beth-zur on the border of Judaea, where previously there had been an enemy arsenal, stationing there a garrison of Jews.” Joseph Sievers correctly comments: “In other occurrences of Ioudaios in the decree (vv. 34, 37, 40), Jews or Judeans seem to be meant, but with reference to the garrison of Beth-zur, the term clearly refers to law-abiding (pro-Hasmonean) Jews as opposed to apostate (former?) Jews (14:33; cf. 10:14).”65 (1 Maccabees 10:14 states: “Only in Beth-Zur remained some of those who had deserted the Torah and the commandments; the place served as their refuge.”) I agree with Sievers and Cohen regarding vv. 37 and 40: the assumption that Ioudaioi refers to Judeans, as opposed to the Seleucid force, seems correct in these two verses: “Simon stationed in the citadel Jewish soldiers and fortified it for the sake of the safety of our country and our city; he built higher walls around Jerusalem” (14:37). “Indeed, he heard that the Romans had given the Jews the titles ‘Friends and Allies (and Brothers)’ and that they had treated Simon’s ambassadors with honor” (14:40). I would add 14:4766 to their list: “Simon accepted and agreed to serve as high priest and to be commander and prince of the nation of the Jews and of the priests and to preside over all.” I disagree, however, concerning 14:34: “he [Simon] also fortified Joppe by the sea and Gazara on the border of Azotus, previously inhabited by our enemies, settling Jews there; whatever was needed for removing impediments to pious Jewish life in those towns, he provided.” Goldstein’s translation here is unique, but his explanation is interesting: “See 13:47–48. The Greek word epanorthōsis (literally, “correction”) surely translates a Hebrew word hkšr (the procedure of making kosher).”67 1 Maccabees 13:47–48 speaks about Simon’s siege and conquest of Gazara, from which he expelled the pagan inhabitants. If Simon, the high priest, who could be rendered unclean by contact with idols, was to build a residence in Gazara, elimination of all impurity from the pagan city was necessary: “After removing all impurity from the city, he resettled it with men who observed the Torah” (v. 48). Thus, Goldstein’s apparently idiosyncratic translation of 14:34 seems correct, and we have a valuable use of Ioudaioi not as Judeans but as religious Jews. Another, even more intriguing case, as Sievers has noted and S. Schwartz understands,68 is 14:41: “Therefore, be it resolved by the Jews and the priests: that 65

Joseph Sievers, “The High Priesthood of Simon Maccabeus: An Analysis of 1 Macc 14:25– 49,” Society of Biblical Literature 1981 Seminar Papers (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 317 n. 14. 66 Some scholars think that the document ends at v. 45; others at v. 49. See Sievers, Hasmoneans, 121 n. 74. 67 Goldstein, I Maccabees, 505. 68 Sievers, “High Priesthood,” 317 n. 14; S. Schwartz, “Israel and the Nations Roundabout,” 30 n. 53.

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Simon be chief and high priest in perpetuity until a true prophet should arise.” Are the Ioudaioi here lay leaders as opposed to the priests? Sievers notes that the term does not refer here to all of the members of the assembly, as it does in v. 28, where there is a “great assembly of priests and people and chiefs of the nation and the elders of the land.” In 14:41, Ioudaioi does not include the priests; we are reminded of Neh 11:3; 1 Chr 9:2; and 1QS 9:11, which speak of what traditional Jewish usage would call “Israelites,” those who are not priests or Levites. Sievers’s answer is more interesting: “It more likely means a restricted influential group with some official standing, as in several instances in Nehemiah (2:16; 5:1, 17).”69 I think that Sievers is somewhat too specific and that the term refers here to the non-priestly Jewish community. Still, Ioudaioi means different things in this decree: the Jewish Judeans in 14:33 and 34; the Judeans in 14:37, 40, and 47; and the Jewish community (or its leaders) in 14:41. We have here an important set of examples of the fluidity of the term in 1 Maccabees.

IX. Conclusions In response to Jason’s rebellion and in pursuit of internal Judean anti-Jewish and external Hellenistic goals, Antiochus IV decreed the persecution of Judeans who observed Judaism in Judea. This persecution helped to form “Jewishness” in the religious/cultural sense. I do not say that the events of the 160s “created” Jewishness; if the Samaritans were also seen as Ioudaioi because of their religious practices and not because they were Judeans, as demonstrated in their plea to Antiochus, then there was a use of Ioudaioi in a religious sense before the Antiochene persecution. Antiochus IV accepts the logic that one can observe Jewish rites without being Jewish and that only Judeans in Judea who observe Judaism should be persecuted. Mattathias is the first leader of the Judeans who fights against this persecution. When Mattathias kills a Jewish man of Modein, a village in Judea, he says, in effect, “If you are a Jewish Judean faithful to monotheism, join our battle against paganism from the outside and the inside. I am at war with Judeans who are not Jewish. I will forcibly circumcise their sons when they decided not to do so out of fear or willing complicity. I will bring an ad hoc solution to the problem of warfare on our Sabbath. I will rededicate the temple and purify it from the very pagan defilement that the Samaritans accepted. I will define what Judaism is.” Since the heirs of Mattathias and the other “Jewish” Judeans not only survive the crisis of the persecution but go on to win and achieve power over the future of the people and the religion, they become the “Jews.” Their use of the term Ioudaios evolves accordingly during this period. They write the history in 1 Maccabees 69

Sievers (“High Priesthood,” 317 n. 17) refers to Smith, Palestinian Parties, 152, 264 n. 17.


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according to their understanding of who was truly Jewish in the era of the persecution. 1 Maccabees uses the term Ioudaioi for Jews, adherents of the Jewish religion—and not merely for “Judeans”—not only in 2:23 but also in the documents recorded in 10:33–34; 14:33, 34, and 41, documents that are actually earlier than the narrative of 1 Maccabees. The term Ioudaioi is not found in the narrative of 1 Maccabees 5, but the concept of Jewishness can be found in this account of how Gentiles attack Judeans for the religious actions of their new leaders. The author of 1 Maccabees also used functional equivalents of Ioudaioi that exhibit this sense of religious/cultural Jewishness. Cohen’s focus on the one term Ioudaioi may be too narrow in determining when “Jewishness” began.

New and Recent Titles T DEUTERONOMIC HISTORY AND THE THE BOOK OF CHRONICLES B Scribal Works in an Oral World Sc

Raymond F. Person Jr. R 5I 5IJTWPMVNFSFDPOTUSVDUTUIFSFMBUJPOTIJQCFUXFFOUIF %FVUFSPOPNJD)JTUPSZBOEUIFCPPLPG$ISPOJDMFT CVJMEJOH % POSFDFOUEFWFMPQNFOUTTVDIBTUIF1FSTJBOQFSJPEEBUJOHPG PO UIF%FVUFSPOPNJD)JTUPSZ UIFDPOUSJCVUJPOPGPSBMUSBEJUJPOBM UI TUVEJFTUPVOEFSTUBOEJOHUIFQSPEVDUJPOPGCJCMJDBMUFYUT TU BOEUIFSFBTTFTTNFOUPGUIFSFMBUJPOTIJQPG4UBOEBSE#JCMJDBM BO )FCSFXBOE-BUF#JCMJDBM)FCSFX ) Pa $26.95 978-1-58983-517-7 218 pages, 2010 Code: 062606P Paper AAncient Israel and Its Literature 6 Hardback edition www.brill.nl An

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CCOLOSSIANS Encouragement to Walk in All Wisdom as Holy Ones in Christ En

John Paul Heil Jo 5I 5IJTCPPLJOWFTUJHBUFT$PMPTTJBOTBTBiDBQUJWJUZwMFUUFSGSPN UIFQSJNBSZJNQMJFEBVUIPS UIFJNQSJTPOFE1BVM UPBO UI JN JNQMJFEBVEJFODFPGNBJOMZ(FOUJMFDPOWFSUT6UJMJ[JOHBUFYU DFOUFSFE MJUFSBSZSIFUPSJDBM BOEBVEJFODFPSJFOUFENFUIPE DF JUEFNPOTUSBUFTOFXDIJBTUJDTUSVDUVSFTGPSUIFFOUJSFMFUUFS JU Pa $28.95 978-1-58983-484-2 242 pages, 2010 Code: 064504P Paper Early Christianity and Its Literature 4 Hardback edition www.brill.nl Ea

4PDJFUZ PG #JCMJDBM -JU 4PDJFUZPG#JCMJDBM-JUFSBUVSFt10#PYt8JMMJTUPO 75 1IPOF UPMMGSFF PSt'BY 0SEFSPOMJOFBUXXXTCMTJUFPSH

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 485–505

Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and the Compositional History of 1 Enoch randall d. chesnutt [email protected] Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA 90263

Among the ancient Greek papyri preserved in the Sackler Library at Oxford University is a small cluster of fragments that has not received due attention for its bearing on the compositional history of 1 Enoch. Recovered from an Oxyrhynchus rubbish dump and published by Arthur S. Hunt in 1927, the five fragments, all inscribed recto and verso, were designated P.Oxy. 2069 and dated to the late fourth century c.e.1 Based on the opening of heaven and the descent of an angel or other emissary envisioned in frg. 1, the largest of the five, Hunt labeled the manuscript an “apocalyptic fragment” but ventured no further identification. In support of this general characterization he cited apparent references to the day of judgment and seventh heaven in frg. 3r and two allusions in frg. 3v to the Red Sea—a scene of destruction perhaps intended as a type of the judgment. More than four decades elapsed before a direct connection between the “apocalyptic fragment” and any known apocalyptic work was perceived. As late as 1970 the two reference works by Albert-Marie Denis on Jewish pseudepigrapha extant in Greek could do no better than classify P.Oxy. 2069 among “fragmenta anonyma”2 or “fragments erratiques” under the general heading “les fragments grecs de pseudépigraphes anonyms.”3 Finally, in 1971 Józef T. Milik recognized in these fragments the Greek counterpart of lines known in Ethiopic from 1 Enoch 77–78 and

1

Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XVII (London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1927), 6–8. Denis, in Apocalypsis henochi graece, edidit M. Black. Fragmenta pseudepigraphorum quae supersunt Graeca (ed. Albert-Marie Denis; PVTG 3.2; Leiden: Brill, 1970), 233–34. 3 Denis, Introduction aux pseudépigraphes grecs d’Ancien Testament (SVTP 1; Leiden: Brill, 1970), 303–4. 2

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85–87 and in Aramaic from 4QEnastrc (4Q210) and 4QEnf (4Q207).4 Having thus identified the text, Milik could draw upon the Ethiopic and Aramaic parallels as well as related materials in these languages and in Greek to fill in the lacunae. Without recounting the details of his reconstruction and copious comparison with related texts, we may summarize his three most significant conclusions as follows: 1. Fragments 1 and 2 preserve parts of the Enochic Book of Dream Visions (frgs. 1r–2r = 1 En. 85:10–86:2; frgs. 1v–2v = 1 En. 87:1-3). 2. Fragment 3 preserves parts of the Enochic Astronomical Book (frg. 3v = 1 En. 77:7–78:1; frg. 3r = 1 En. 78:8). 3. Fragments 1 and 2 belong to a different codex from frg. 3 even though all three appear to have been copied by the same scribe.5 Subsequent scholars have generally embraced the first of these conclusions, cautiously echoed the second but hesitated to build confident conclusions on such scant data, and perpetuated the third by default simply because Milik is the only scholar since the editio princeps of 1927 to have rendered an opinion on the matter. In what follows I contend that the first two conclusions are essentially correct while the third is the one that is problematic and must be challenged. Before we take up these points in turn, two preliminary matters should be noted. First, it is important to observe that Milik never actually saw the papyrus fragments under discussion nor even any photographs. By his own account, after a futile attempt to locate the materials at Oxford, he declared them hopelessly lost and resorted to Hunt’s 1927 transcription for his investigation.6 Although the published transcription is adequate for identifying the fragments and attempting some provisional restoration, it is no basis for the paleographical and codicological analysis requisite to Milik’s third conclusion summarized above. Nevertheless, his claim that the fragments corresponding to 1 Enoch 85–87 from the Book of Dream Visions and those corresponding to 1 Enoch 77–78 from the Astronomical Book came from different codices has gone unquestioned for forty years,7 as conse4

Milik, “Fragments grecs du livre d’Henoch (P. Oxy. XVII 2069),” ChrEg 46 (1971): 321–43. Elsewhere Milik wrote: “it is not quite certain whether there is a single codex or two volumes copied by the same scribe” (The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments from Qumrân Cave 4 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976], 76; so also idem, “Problèmes de la littérature hénochique à la lumière des fragments araméens de Qumrân,” HTR 64 [1971]: 372). However, as we shall see, it is the opinion expressed in his 1971 article on the Oxyrhynchus fragments that has carried the day. There he insisted “avec certitude” that the fragments come from different codices and declared this “un fait établi” (“Fragments grecs,” 343). 6 Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 321. 7 See, e.g., the Leuven Database of Ancient Books where, under Milik’s influence, frgs. 1, 2, and 4 are catalogued separately from frgs. 3 and 5 (http://www.trismegistos.org/ldab/); the former are numbered LDAB 1087 and the latter LDAB 3178, although in both places all the fragments are 5

Chesnutt: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and 1 Enoch

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quential as this claim is for our understanding of the shape of the Enochic corpus in the fourth century. Now that the papyri unavailable to Milik are readily accessible at Oxford as well as in high-resolution digital photographs, the conclusions he bequeathed to us should be reassessed.8 Having recently spent many hours in Oxford’s Sackler Library poring over these fragments, with the expert support of the outstanding team of papyrologists there,9 I offer the present study to redress this need. A second preliminary matter does not pertain directly to Milik’s seminal article but has to do with the paleographic dating of the fragments. It now appears that the late-fourth-century date postulated without comment by Hunt and taken for granted by scholars ever since can be lowered somewhat. Without any axe to grind in Enochic studies, the papyrology consultants mentioned previously make a compelling case for an early-fourth-century date based on kinship with the “severe style” of script that peaked in the third century and degenerated in the fourth. The paleographical affinities of the fragments are with the latest stages of this style and fit best in the early rather than the late fourth century.10 If this date holds, any information that we can glean from P.Oxy. 2069 about how the Enochic corpus was configured at the time will predate the Ethiopic compilation by at least one century recognized to have come from the same scribe. So also Joseph van Haelst, who catalogues frgs. 3 and 5 as #576 and frgs. 1, 2, and 4 as #577, and notes that the latter “appartiennent à une autre codex, mais ils ont très probablement été copiés par le même scribe que celui des fragments 3 et 5” (Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens [Série Papyrologie 1; Paris: Sorbonne, 1976], 202–4). Kurt Aland catalogues the five fragments together but notes Milik’s judgment that they derive from two codices (Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri [PTS 18; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976], 390). To cite but one specialist in Enochic studies, George W. E. Nickelsburg refers to Milik’s view that the fragments derive from separate codices and says only, “If this is correct, they tell us nothing certain about the shape of the Greek Enoch in the fourth century” (1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2001], 13 n. 37). 8 Loren T. Stuckenbruck suggested the same in a brief comment that first sparked my interest in this manuscript (“The Early Traditions Related to 1 Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Overview and Assessment,” in The Early Enoch Literature [ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins; JSJSup 121; Leiden: Brill, 2007], 42 n. 5). 9 Special thanks are due to Drs. Dirk Obbink, Maria Konstantinidou, and Daniela Colomo for their expert assistance, both during my time at Oxford and in correspondence since. I am also grateful to the Seaver Research Council of Pepperdine University for funding my stint in Oxford as a Fellow of the Harris Manchester College Summer Research Institute, and to Dr. Kelley Coblentz Bautch for reading an early draft of this article and offering helpful suggestions. 10 E.g., the copyist regularly drafted a minimal omicron, whereas later in the fourth century one would expect a full-sized omicron like the sigma and the epsilon. I am indebted to Dr. Maria Konstantinidou for sharing with me her paleographical assessment, on the basis of which, in my judgment, an early-fourth-century date should now be assumed as the point of departure for future investigation.

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and perhaps more than two centuries.11 We shall return to this point but turn attention first to Milik’s three conclusions listed above.

I. Fragments 1r–2r = 1 Enoch 85:10–86:2; Fragments 1v–2v = 1 Enoch 87:1–3 The first of Milik’s conclusions is a matter of consensus and need not detain us long. One can quibble about some particulars of his reconstruction, but there is no doubt that frgs. 1 and 2 preserve small parts of the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–95)—Enoch’s second dream vision in which he foresees Israel’s future in a complex allegory with biblical figures depicted as animals and stars. The disastrous intermingling of celestial and human beings that is reported in Gen 6:1–4 and that looms large throughout Enochic literature is played out allegorically beginning in 1 En. 85:10–86:2: Enoch sees a succession of white cattle on earth, the opening of heaven and descent of a star, the star grazing among the cattle, and further tragic mingling of white and black cattle who exchange stalls, pasture, and calves, and begin to moan after one another.12 What remains in frgs. 1r and 2r corresponds closely to this distinctive scenario, as the following synopsis shows:13

11

This assumes the standard dating of the Ethiopic version to the fifth or sixth century c.e. Most Ethiopic manuscripts attest ya’awayyewu, “moan.” Milik’s resoration of βιοῦσθαι, which follows a single Ethiopic witness that reads yahai yyewu, “live (with one another),” seems less likely than βοᾶν or κράζειν, which I have adopted in the translation below. Unable to make sense of moaning or lamenting in this context, Matthew Black, followed by Patrick A. Tiller, suggests that a translator confused the Aramaic (gn, “strike,” or xgn, “butt,” with y(n, “moan” (Black, The Book of Enoch or I Enoch: A New English Edition with Commentary and Textual Notes [SVTP 7; Leiden: Brill, 1985], 259, 365; Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of I Enoch [SBLEJL 4; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993], 94 n. 20; so also Daniel C. Olson, Enoch: A New Translation [North Richland Hills, TX: Bibal, 2004], 188). However, as Nickelsburg points out, the verb ‘awyawa can translate βοάω or κράζω and need not mean “lament” (1 Enoch 1, 367 n. 2c). Indeed, Siegbert Uhlig uses “schreien” to translate the word and takes it as a cry of sexual passion— a fitting image in the context (Das äthiopische Henochbuch [JSHRZ 5/6; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1984], 680). Whether the image is lamentation, violence, sexual transgression, or merely cohabitation of what should have remained separate, in the context it expresses the tragic situation that resulted from the primordial breach in cosmic order. 13 Here and in subsequent parallel texts, the Ethiopic translation is that of George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation. Based on the Hermeneia Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004); the Greek version is my own translation of Milik’s restored text except as otherwise noted; and the Aramaic version follows the restored text and translation by Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997, 1998). Letters enclosed in brackets have been restored. 12

Chesnutt: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and 1 Enoch 1 En. 85:10–86:3 85:10. And they began to bear many white cattle, which were like them, and each one followed the other. 86:1. And again I saw with my eyes as I was sleeping. I saw the heaven above, and look, a star fell from heaven,

and it arose and was eating and pasturing among those cattle. 2. Then I saw those large and black cattle, and look, all of them exchanged their pens and their pastures and their calves, and they began to moan, one after the other.

P.Oxy. 2069, frgs. 1r–2r

489 4QEnf

and [they followed e]ach other, [being many.] [And again] as I looked up w[ith my eyes in] sleep I saw [heaven above me,] and I looked, [and behold one star fell] from heaven [into the midst of] the larg[e] ca[ttle, and it was eating and pastur]ing with t[hem.

[… Again I was lifting my eyes in the dream and I saw the heaven] above [and behold] a star [fell from heaven in the midst of the great bulls and ate and grazed] in the midst of them.

And then I saw t[h]os[e cattle, large and black, and behold, all of them ex]chang[ed] the[ir pens and their] pasture [and their calves,] and [they] began to [cry out for each o]th[er.]

Behold, then [I] saw [those bulls, large and black; all of them exchanged their feeds,] their pens and th[eir bu]llock[s and began to live with each other.

Naturally the fragmentary Greek text lacks some things found in the fuller Ethiopic version, and some of the Greek words and phrases that do remain are generic and suitable for any number of contexts: “as I looked up,” “[in] sleep I saw,” “and I looked,” “from heaven,” and “[they] began to.” However, the sequence of these phrases in the thirteen partially preserved lines in the Greek fragments aligns unmistakably with the narrative of 1 En. 85:10–86:2. This fact combines with distinctive terminology such as “[ex]chang[ed] . . . pasture” to leave little doubt about the identity of frgs. 1r–2r with the Animal Apocalypse. As Milik’s restoration brilliantly demonstrates, even the small traces of surviving text fit perfectly into this Enochic context, and the lacunae afford room for the Greek equivalent of either the established Ethiopic wording or the variants attested in some Ethiopic manuscripts.14 The verso of frgs. 1–2 also corresponds closely to the part of Enoch’s vision that is recounted only a few lines later in the Animal Apocalypse. Continuing the 14 Thus, e.g., at the end of 85:10, where Nickelsburg and VanderKam follow Ethiopic ms group β, group α reads “many,” either as subject (bezuxān) or object (bezuxāna), and the Oxyrhynchus fragment has room for Milik’s restoration of πολλοί with the apparent sense, “many followed in succession.” See Tiller, Animal Apocalypse, 230.

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scenario summarized above from 1 En. 85:10–86:2, Enoch sees many other stars descend from heaven, become bulls, mate with the cows, and beget elephants, camels, and donkeys—all in obvious allegorical imitation of the Watchers’ descent and its tragic consequences as narrated in 1 Enoch 6–8 in the Book of the Watchers. The ensuing hostility among the cattle and their illegitimate offspring causes all the children of the earth to tremble and flee (cf. 1 Enoch 7–8). As the violent horrors escalate to the point that the whole earth cries aloud, Enoch sees seven heavenly beings with the appearance of white men descend to address the problem. Three of these take Enoch by the hand and whisk him away from the generations of the earth to a high place from which he can observe the punishment of the hybrid creatures and the subsequent course of history (cf. 1 Enoch 17–36).15 It is to this last part of the visionary scene, where the earth cries out and celestial beings arrive to intercede, that frgs. 1v and 2v correspond, as the following synopsis brings out: 1 En. 87:1–3 87:1. And again I saw them, and they began to gore one another and devour one another, and the earth began to cry out. 2. And I lifted my eyes again to heaven, and I saw in the vision, and look, there came forth from heaven (beings) with the appearance of white men; four came forth from that place and three with them. 3. And those three who came after took hold of me by my hand and raised me from the generations of the earth, and lifted me onto a high place, and they showed me a tower high above the earth, and all the hills were smaller.

P.Oxy. 2069, frgs. 1v–2v

[and to swallow] each [other an]d all [the earth] began to [cry out. And again as I w]as lifting up [my eyes] i[n]to heaven, I [saw in the v]ision and be[hold I saw comin]g out of heaven [those with the appearance of white] m[e]n; [and four w]en[t forth from there and three with them. And the three who ca]me fort[h afterward grasped] m[y] hand [and raised me up from the] sons of the [earth . . . ]

15 The total of seven heavenly beings (four accompanied by three) is not supported by all Ethiopic manuscripts (cf. Ephraim Isaac’s translation, “1 [Ethiopic Apocalypse of] Enoch [Second Century b.c.–First Century a.d.],” OTP 1:63), but is both well attested here and assumed elsewhere in the Book of Dream Visions (88:1; 90:21–22). See Michael A. Knibb, with Edward Ullendorff, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978), 2:198. These heavenly emissaries are reminiscent of the archangels—sometimes four, sometimes seven—in the Book of the Watchers. On the fluctuation between four and seven in the Book of the Watchers and the functions of these angels in the administration of the cosmos and in guiding Enoch on his otherworldly tours, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 207, 334, 374; Christoph Berner, “The Four (or Seven) Archangels in the First Book of Enoch and Early Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period,” in Angels: The Concept of Celestial Beings. Origins, Development and Reception (ed. Friedrich V. Reiterer, Tobias Nicklas, and Karin Schöpflin; Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2007; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2007), 395–411; and Kelley Coblentz Bautch, “Putting Angels in Their Place: Develop-


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Here, as in frgs. 1r–2r, not all of the surviving words and phrases are distinctive, but their succession parallels in a striking way the sequence of events in the Animal Apocalypse, and the lacunae in each line provide suitable space to accommodate the elements missing by comparison with the Ethiopic text. Verbal correspondence with the Ethiopic narrative is sufficient in quantity and order to clinch the identification even in the absence of distinctive or unusual vocabulary. Thus, where 1 En. 87:1 says that the creatures devoured one another and the earth began to cry out, the characters in the opening lines of our fragment did something (the verb is missing) to one another and all the [earth (or another feminine noun)] began to . . . (the verb is missing). Where 1 En. 87:2 has Enoch look up to heaven and see a vision in which beings with the appearance of white men come forth from heaven, our fragment reports that someone looked up into heaven and saw a [v]ision in which [those with the appearance of white] m[e]n [came fort]h out of heaven.16 And just as Enoch says in 1 En. 87:3 that some of those who came forth took him by the hand and raised him from the generations of the earth to a high place, the narrator in the corresponding point in our fragment refers to “m[y] hand” and describes some action that ends with “from (or of) the sons of the [earth (or another feminine noun)]. Cumulatively these points of correspondence, together with those that link frgs. 1r–2r with 1 En. 85:10–86:2, establish beyond reasonable doubt that frgs. 1 and 2 preserve parts of the Animal Apocalypse from the Enochic Book of Dream Visions. On this point Milik was absolutely correct, and his copious comparisons with other Enochic materials in Aramaic, Greek, and Ethiopic are invaluable.

II. Fragment 3v = 1 Enoch 77:7–78:1; Fragment 3r = 1 Enoch 78:8 The second of Milik’s conclusions summarized above—that frg. 3 preserves small parts of the Enochic Astronomical Book—has not won the general acceptance

ments in Second Temple Angelology,” in ‘With Wisdom as a Robe’: Qumran and Other Jewish Studies in Honour of Ida Fröhlich (ed. Károly D. Dobos and Miklós Köszeghy; Hebrew Bible Monographs 21; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2009), 174–88. 16 Here, however, the correspondence is not as precise as Milik claimed unless we accept as fact his restoration of the end of line 7. Hunt conjectured only τω i .i [. .]οις, but Milik read [ἀ]νθi [ρώπ]οις. i Nothing before the dative plural ending οις is clear, although the slight traces of ink that survive from the tops of the previous letters are consistent with νθ, and ρωπ would fit the following lacuna nicely. If the word is indeed ἀνθρώποις, we should probably restore before it some form of ὅμοιος and assume with Milik an expression something like ὡς ὁμοιώματα ὅμοια τοῖς ἀνθρώποις, “having likenesses like men,” or “in appearance like the appearance of men,” which is of course consistent with Semitic idiom. See, e.g., 4QEnastrb (4Q209) frg. 26.4–5.

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accorded his identification of frgs. 1 and 2 because the surviving text is so meager.17 Nevertheless, the following synopsis reveals striking correspondence between the few words that do survive and the geographical description in 1 En. 77:7–78:1:18 1 En. 77:5–78:1 77:5. I saw seven rivers on the earth, larger than all the rivers. One of them comes from the west (and) pours its water into the great sea. 6. Two of them come from the north to the sea and pour their water into the Erythrean Sea on the east. 7. The remaining four emerge on the northern side toward their sea, (two into) the Erythrean and two into the Great Sea where they empty themselves, but some say into the wilderness. 8. I saw seven large islands in the sea and on the land—two on the land and five in the Great Sea. 78:1 The names of the sun are as follows: the first Aryares and the second Tomas.

P.Oxy 2069, frg. 3v

[into the] Erythrean S[ea ] into the G[reat Sea] much [wat]er wi]ldernes[s] [in the] sea [in] the Erythrean S[ea] [nam]es are call[ed] Margin

The correspondence is even closer than the synopsis reveals if the variants in the Ethiopic textual tradition are considered; thus, at the end of 77:8, where the Ethiopic text translated above has “the Great Sea,” other Ethiopic manuscripts have “the Erythrean Sea,” as does our Greek fragment. The parallel configuration of geographical language strongly suggests that frg. 3v represents a Greek version of 1 En. 77:7–78:1. As to frg. 3r, distinctive wording that would allow certain identification with 1 En. 78:8 is lacking. However, several features consistent with Enoch’s description of the fifteen-day waning of the moon do appear in the fragment, as may be seen in the following synopsis:19 17

Knibb, e.g., finds the identification of frgs. 1–2 with 1 Enoch 85–87 “plausible,” but says of the alleged connection between frg. 3 and 1 Enoch 77–78: “While the identification seems possible, the fragment is too small for much to be made of it” (“The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch? The Textual Evidence for I Enoch,” in Boccaccini and Collins, Early Enoch Literature, 34). In the notes in his own edition of 1 Enoch, Knibb takes frgs. 1–2 into account but not frgs. 3-5 “in view of their very small size” (Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2:20; see also 181). 18 Here again the translation of the Ethiopic follows Nickelsburg and VanderKam (1 Enoch), and the Greek version is my own translation of Milik’s restored text. For reasons discussed below, I do not include here (or in the subsequent translation of frg. 3r) Milik’s maximalist reconstruction, but only those parts that can be restored with reasonable confidence. The full Greek text of frg. 3 as restored by Milik is reproduced later in this study. 19 Again, only those parts of the Greek text that are legible or can be restored with reasonable confidence are included. The speculative and highly suspect nature of Milik’s much more expansive reconstruction of frg. 3, especially 3r, is discussed at length below. The Aramaic fragment, which does not overlap with the Greek but ends almost exactly where the latter seems to

Chesnutt: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and 1 Enoch 1 En. 78:8 78.8. When it is waning, on the first day it decreases to fourteen parts of its light, and on the next day it decreases to thirteen parts of light. On the third it decreases to twelve parts, on the fourth to eleven parts, on the fifth it decreases to ten parts, on the sixth it decreases to nine parts, on the seventh it decreases to eight parts, on the eighth it decreases to seven parts, on the ninth it decreases to six, on the tenth it decreases to five, on the eleventh it decreases to four, on the twelfth it decreases to three, on the thirteenth it decreases to two, on the fourteenth it decreases to one-half of a seventh part of all its light, and on the fifteenth day the entire remainder is exhausted.

P.Oxy. 2069, frg. 3r

493

4QEnastrc, frg. 1, col. 3

[… The first day, one from the fourtee]nth; the second day, one from the th[irteenth; Blank the third day, one from the twelfth; Blank the fou]rth [day] one from the elev[enth …] day of th[e] [lig]ht. Blank. And on th[e] part]s of all th[e day of t[he] [of the li]ght. Blank. And [s]even pa[rts] Margin

The repetition of “in the . . . day of ” in the Greek fragment is consistent with the day-by-day sequence in the Enochic passage. A clear reference to “all of,” two possible references to “aspects of ” or “visible parts of,” and third declension case endings consistent with the genitive φωτός, “of light,” all correspond to the daily diminution of the moon’s illuminated area detailed in the Astronomical Book in terms of “parts” of the full moon. A conspicuous point of contact is the number seven, [ἕ]βδομον, in the last line in the fragment, followed by omicron. Whether one follows Milik in reading [ἕν ἕ]βδομον ὄ[ψεων ὅλου τοῦ φωτός]20 or a

begin, is included here because the language it uses to describe days 1 through 4 of the moon’s waning corresponds closely to that used with reference to days 5 and following in the Ethiopic and Greek texts and figures into Milik’s argument discussed below. For the same reason the whole verse in the Ethiopic translation is provided. 20 Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 339. Supplying ὄψεων is plausible even though only the ini-

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shorter rendition such as Black’s [ἕν ἕ]βδομον ὅ[λου τοῦ φωτός],21 the phrase corresponds to the seven parts of light that remain on the eighth day of the moon’s waning described in the Enochic passage. From this fixed point the preceding elements in the Greek text align well with the Ethiopic text’s description of the moon’s waning from the fifth through the eighth day. There is considerable variation between the Aramaic and Ethiopic texts, and even among the Ethiopic manuscripts, as to how often certain words or phrases are repeated as the fifteen lunar phases leading to a new moon are described in turn (e.g., a verb for “decrease, dimish” and descriptive phrases such as “of the month” after the reference to the successive days, and “of light” or “of its light” following the reference to the visible portion of the moon on a given day in the sequence).22 Therefore, it is hardly surprising that our Greek fragment seems to repeat some such phrases in places where the Ethiopic version translated above does not. With allowance for such variations, the few words that do survive from the six extant lines of frg. 3r align remarkably well with 1 En. 78:8 and create a strong cumulative case that the fragment represents a Greek form of that Enochic passage. Certainty is impossible based on the few legible words in frg. 3r alone; what confirms the identification is the distinctive movement that the fragment shares with 1 Enoch 77–78 from language about topographical and geographical phenomena to language consistent with cosmic and astronomical phenomena. The juxtaposition may appear disjointed but is in fact part and parcel of the Enochic worldview from its very earliest expression in the Astronomical Book: the cognitive mapping of both terrestrial and celestial space and the related natural phenomena serves to underscore the order of God’s creation and provide assurance of divine judgment by revealing the sites and mechanisms related to rewards and punishments that are built into the structure of the cosmos.23 The distinctive progression of thought from earth’s mountains and rivers in ch. 77 to the motions of the heavenly luminaries in ch. 78 provides the perfect precedent for and parallel to the apparent juxtaposition of ideas in close proximity in our frgs. 3v and 3r. tial omicron survives. Hunt’s editio princeps gives upsilon as the uncertain second letter, causing one to wonder whether traces of the upper part of an upsilon or psi now abraded were visible to him. In addition, in what may well be the same word in a parallel expression three lines earlier, the final letter is nu. 21 Black, Book of Enoch, 420. 22 See further below on the complex issue of the relationship between the fragmentary astronomical materials from Qumran and the Ethiopic Astronomical Book. Given the level of variation between the Aramaic and Ethiopic, we cannot assume that an intermediate Greek version would correspond verbatim to either, even when the content matches closely. 23 See George W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Apocalyptic Construction of Reality in I Enoch,” in Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Colloquium (ed. John J. Collins and James H. Charlesworth; JSOTSup 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 51–64, esp. 56; see


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Milik’s further association of frg. 5 with the Astronomical Book is interesting but inconclusive: the few partially legible letters of frg. 5v, λουτ,i may be from an additional occurrence of the expression ὅλου τοῦ φωτός, which Milik restores several times in frg. 3r; and the occurrence of πύ i λη, “gate,” in frg. 5r could be from the description of the gates through which the sun and moon rise and set according to 1 Enoch 79.24 These connections are plausible but rest on too slender data to add anything more than slight cumulative support for relating parts of P.Oxy. 2069 to the Astronomical Book.

III. Two Codices? Milik’s third conclusion—that frgs. 1 and 2 belong to a different codex from frg. 3—will occupy the remainder of this study. Milik adduced two reasons for diverging from Hunt and insisting “avec certitude” that the fragments cannot have come from the same codex.25 One is the different state of preservation and the color variation among the several pieces of papyrus. Here it must be reiterated that Milik never viewed the fragments; his argument rests solely on Hunt’s brief comment that the papyrus of frgs. 3 and 5 is “lighter coloured and better preserved than the rest.”26 Inspection of the fragments confirms Hunt’s basic observation but does not sustain Milik’s deduction and in fact argues decidedly against it. In the first place, color differences among papyrus fragments are not reliable indicators of distinct origins. There are too many factors that affect the color of this natural product— not the least of which is variability in the moistening process by which the curled pieces are flattened for preservation—for us to suppose that different coloration means different codices. Color variation greater than what appears here is not unusual among leaves known to be from the same manuscript, or even between the recto and verso of a single folio. It should also be noted that Hunt apparently used “lighter coloured” and “better preserved” synonymously, for apart from varying degrees of discoloration there is no apparent difference in the surface consistency or relative degradation among these fragments; thus frgs. 1r and 2r are slightly darker, but otherwise no more degraded, than the rest. Milik’s appeal to “la qualité du papyrus et l’état de conservation des fragments 3 et 5, différents de ceux des autres trois morceaux,”27 exaggerated both the degree and significance of quite commonplace variations. also Kelley Coblentz Bautch, A Study of the Geography of I Enoch 17–19: ‘No One Has Seen What I Have Seen’ (JSJSup 81; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 3, 7, 160–61, 190, et passim. 24 Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 341. 25 Ibid., 343. 26 Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri XVII, 7. 27 Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 343.

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Moreover, Milik erroneously assumed that the color patterns observed by Hunt apply alike to the recto and verso of the respective fragments. The assumption happens to be correct in the case of frgs. 3 and 5 but certainly not in the case of frgs. 1 and 2 (nor, apparently, in the case of frg. 4, although here the sample is too meager to say for sure). As is mentioned above, frgs. 1r and 2r are somewhat darker than frgs. 3 and 5, but Milik had no way of knowing that they are also darker than their own verso. Indeed, in terms of the coloration of the papyrus and the clarity of the ink against the lighter or darker background, frg. 1v is much closer to frg. 3 than to its own recto; likewise frg. 2v is much closer in color to frg. 3 than to its own recto. Therefore, the color discrepancies do not line up with the two codices that Milik distinguished. By his reasoning we would have to conclude that frgs. 1r and 1v come from separate codices, as do frgs. 2r and 2v! By thus proving too much, the argument from discoloration proves nothing at all. It affords no grounds for discerning multiple codices and in fact cuts across the particular arrangement by codices that Milik delineated. Milik’s other reason for assigning the extant fragments to two codices was a supposed discrepancy between the length of the lines in frgs. 1 and 2 and those in frg. 3. Because the problematic part of this argument has to do with frg. 3, the Greek text of that fragment as restored by Milik is reproduced here in full.28 Fragment 3v (1 En. 77:7–78:1) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

[ εἰς τὴν] ἐρυθρὰν θ[άλασσαν ] [ ] εἰς τὴν μ[εγάλην θάλασσαν] [ ]τα πολὺ οi.[ ] [ ] να.δiεiιiρ.i [ ] [Καὶ εἶδον ἑπτὰ νήσους μεγάλας ἐν τῇ] θαλάσσῃ [ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς·] [πέντε ἐν τῇ μεγάλῃ θαλάσσῃ καὶ δύο ἐν] τῇ ἐρυθρᾷ θi[αλάσσῃ.] [Καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα τοῦ ἡλίου οὕτως· τὰ πρῶ]τα καλε[ῖται]

Margin Fragment 3r (1 En. 78:8) 1 2 3 4 5 6

[Καὶ ἐν τῇ πέμπτῃ] ἡμέρᾳ τοi[ῦ μηνὸς ἐλαττοῖ ἓν δέκατον ὄψεων] [ὅλου τοῦ φωτ]όiς. Blank. Καὶ ἐν τ[ῇ ἕκτῃ ἡμερᾳ τοῦ μηνός ἐλαττοῖ] [ἓν ἔνατον ὄψεω]ν ὅλου τοῦi[ φωτός. Blank? ] [Καὶ ἐν τῇ ἑβδόμῃ] ἡμερᾳ τ[οῦ μηνὸς ἐλαττοῖ ἓν ὄγδοον ὄψεων] [ὅλου τοῦ φω]τ iός. Blank. Καὶ [ἐν τῇ ὀγδόῃ ἡμερᾳ τοῦ μηνὸς] [ἐλαττοῖ ἓν ἕ]βδομον ὄψ[εων ὅλου τοῦ φωτός]

Margin 28 Ibid., 333, 339. As in Milik’s publication, letters enclosed in brackets are restored by him, and letters with dots underneath are only partially visible and should be considered uncertain.


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By Milik’s calculation the codex that contained these portions of the Astronomical Book averaged around forty-five letters per line, whereas the codex of the Book of Dream Visions partially preserved in frgs. 1 and 2 averaged twenty-eight letters per line.29 This difference would be telling if we actually had a reliable way to calculate the length of the lines in frg. 3—as we have, for example, in the case of frg. 1, where the left margin is visible in 1r and the right margin in 1v. In actual fact, frg. 3 affords us no such luxury. The verso of this fragment preserves parts of seven lines from some indeterminate point within a column, with an average of just over six legible letters per line, and the recto preserves parts of six lines, naturally also in the inner portion of a column, with an average of slightly over six visible letters per line and no more than one partially visible letter on a given line. While the wording and especially the sequence of language in the surviving text justify the identification of the fragment with portions of 1 Enoch 77 and 78, we simply do not know how much is missing before and after each bit of visible text, much less exactly what is missing. Of the forty-five letters per line that Milik estimated, he had to restore thirty-eight or thirty-nine—around eighty-five percent—or at least posit blank spaces with room for that many letters. Even with the best of comparative materials, restoration on this scale is of doubtful value, as Michael A. Knibb wisely cautions.30 To guess that the leaf originally contained forty-five letters per line is reasonable; to elevate this guess to the status of a fact and then cite it as proof that the leaf cannot have come from a codex known to have only twenty-eight letters per line is circular and specious.31 The reconstruction of frg. 3 is especially complicated because there is no other Greek text for comparison and because the Aramaic and Ethiopic forms of the Astronomical Book differ markedly in wording even when their content is similar. It was Milik’s own pioneering work on the Qumran Enochic materials that brought attention to the fact that the Aramaic astronomical work presents a much fuller text than the Ethiopic.32 Indeed, it was Milik who theorized that the Astronomical Book was copied separately from the other Enochic works at Qumran precisely because of its inordinate length and that it constituted one volume of a two-volume Enochic pentateuch, the other part of which contained the Book of the Watchers, the Book of the Giants, the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch.33 Not 29

Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 343. Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2:181. 31 Milik acknowledged that his numbers “resteront forcément assez hypothétiques” and yet considered the conclusion drawn from them about two codices to be “un fait établi” (“Fragments grecs,” 343). 32 Milik, “Le travail d’édition des fragments manuscrits de Qumrân,” RB 63 (1956): 49–67; idem, “Le travail d’édition des manuscrits du désert de Juda,” in Volume du Congrès Strasbourg 1956 (VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957), 17–26; idem, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (SBT 26; London: SCM, 1959), 33; and idem, Books of Enoch, 7–8, 274–75. 33 Milik, Books of Enoch, 4–7, 57–58, 181–84, 227, 310. 30

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before the sixth or seventh century c.e., he maintained, was there a Greek archetype for the Enochic pentateuch familiar to us from the Ethiopic compilation, with an abridged Astronomical Book in the third position and the Parables of Enoch in the second position in place of the Book of the Giants;34 earlier in Greek tradition, an Enochic pentateuch similar to that at Qumran persisted in two volumes, with a long Greek version of the Astronomical Book copied separately from the other four Enochic works.35 In keeping with this understanding, Milik argued that P.Oxy. 2069 frg. 3 represents a long recension of the Astronomical Book corresponding to that at Qumran rather than to the shorter one preserved in the Ethiopic text, and that it belongs to a different codex from the fragments of the Book of Dream Visions just as the Qumran manuscripts of the Astronomical Book circulated independently from other Enochic works.36 Milik’s theory of the compositional history of 1 Enoch has been roundly criticized on many fronts and finds no supporters among current specialists. The flaws in his conjoining the Book of the Giants with other Qumran Enochic works, discerning at Qumran an Aramaic Enochic pentateuch modeled on the five books of Moses as early as 100 b.c.e., and assigning the Parables of Enoch to a Christian author of the late third century c.e. are well known.37 Not as widely discussed but also problematic are his assumptions about the Greek phase of the tradition. While 34

Ibid., 76–77, 88. Elsewhere Milik seemed to allow for a much earlier Greek archetype of the compilation known to us from Ethiopic, with a résumé of the Astronomical Book in the third position, and even said that the Greek translators “were at pains to shorten the voluminous, prolix, and terribly monotonous original” (Books of Enoch, 19; see also 183, 275; and “Problèmes de la littérature hénochique,” 373–74). However, as we shall soon see, whenever actually considering the Greek witnesses, he consistently took pains of his own to construe them as evidence for the same twopart pentateuchal arrangement that he discerned among the Qumran Enochic materials, with a long version of the Astronomical Book as one of the parts, rather than anything approximating a Greek archetype of the Ethiopic arrangement. 36 In the same vein he argued that a reference to the Astronomical Book by the Byzantine chronographer George Syncellus, who in turn drew from the chronicles of the Alexandrian monks Panodorus and Anianus, shows that the book as known in Alexandria around 400 c.e. “still had its long text which faithfully reproduced the Aramaic original” (Books of Enoch, 77; see also 19–20). Similarly, he suggested that the Chester Beatty-Michigan papyrus of the Epistle of Enoch was excerpted from a Greek collection that combined the four Enochic books (Books of Enoch, 57, 76). 37 See, among many others, Jonas C. Greenfield and Michael E. Stone, “The Enochic Pentateuch and the Date of the Similitudes,” HTR 70 (1977): 51–65; George W. E. Nickelsburg, review of The Books of Enoch, by J. T. Milik, CBQ 40 (1978): 411–19; James H. Charlesworth, “The SNTS Pseudepigrapha Seminars at Tübingen and Paris on the Books of Enoch,” NTS 25 (1979): 315–23; James C. VanderKam, “Some Major Issues in the Contemporary Study of I Enoch: Reflections on J. T. Milik’s The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4,” Maarav 3 (1982): 85–97; and Devorah Dimant, “The Biography of Enoch and the Books of Enoch,” VT 33 (1983): 16–19. 35


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the Ethiopic text of the Astronomical Book is, on the whole, considerably truncated by comparison with the Aramaic, we have no way to determine the relative length of the intermediate Greek version(s). Moreover, as Knibb has noted, the major differences between the (long) Aramaic and the (short) Ethiopic versions occur in the synchronistic calendar in 1 Enoch 72–75, whereas frg. 3 of P.Oxy. 2069 relates to chs. 77–78, where the Aramaic and Ethiopic correspond more closely.38 We cannot assume that the Ethiopic abbreviates the Aramaic at every point to the degree that it does in the synchronistic calendar, much less predict where a Greek text might fall on the continuum between the two.39 Milik, as we have seen, was confident that the Greek Astronomical Book was closer to the prolix Aramaic version than to the Ethiopic abridgment; but with equal plausibility one could suppose that considerable abridgement existed already in the intermediate Greek tradition, such as we find, for example, in the Akhmim (Panopolis) Codex of the Book of the Watchers.40 The claim that P.Oxy. 2069 frg. 3 contains an average of seventeen more letters per line than frgs. 1 and 2 and therefore represents a long version of the Astronomical Book that cannot have come from the same codex as the fragments of the Book of Dream Visions must be evaluated on its own merits; Milik’s larger (and highly dubious) scheme creates no a priori presumption in favor of such an estimation. Milik’s proclivity to reconstruct the text of frg. 3 in such a way that it is longer than the Ethiopic text—and at points even longer than the highly repetitive

38 Knibb, “Christian Adoption and Transmission of Jewish Pseudepigrapha: The Case of I Enoch,” JSJ 32 (2001): 410. 39 On the extreme complexity of imagining how the Ethiopic Astronomical Book or Book of the Luminaries developed from the Aramaic, see most recently James C. VanderKam, “The Aramaic Astronomical Book and the Ethiopic Book of the Luminaries,” in Dobos and Köszeghy, ‘With Wisdom as a Robe,’ 207–21. With other scholars, VanderKam doubts that Aramaic and Ethiopic materials are simply grandmother-granddaughter versions of the same work. Developing nascent suggestions by Milik, Otto Neugebauer, and others, he finds it likely that the Ethiopic work amalgamates more than one source of astronomical material, perhaps including not only narrative but also tables with technical data on the movements of the luminaries and calendrical matters such as we find in Ethiopic ms 64 from the Bibliothèque Nationale. The nature of the intermediate Greek traditions, a fortiori, is even less certain. 40 See Knibb, “Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch?” 23–26; and idem, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2:17. Knibb finds some plausibility in the old suggestion by Emil Schürer, followed by M. Black and others, that the numerous omissions and other alterations in the Akhmim text resulted from the haste in which the manuscript was copied so that it could be deposited in the grave where it was discovered (Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi [4th ed.; 3 vols.; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909], 3:269; Black, Apocalypsis henochi graece, 8; and Denis, Introduction, 18). This notion is rejected by Erik W. Larson on the grounds that the manuscript predates the burial at Akhmim by two to three centuries (“The Translation of Enoch: From Aramaic into Greek” [Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1995], 70–71).

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Aramaic in the passage immediately preceding—is palpable. Thus, with regard to the recounting of the lunar phases in 1 Enoch 78, he insisted that the Greek translation in frg. 3r repeats some form of the verb ἐλαττόω, “to diminish,” or a technical equivalent, each time it describes the moon’s waning by one-fourteenth of its light on each successive day until the light is exhausted on the fifteenth day, whereas in the Ethiopic parallel and apparently also in the Aramaic text in 4QEnastrc, the verb appears only once at the beginning.41 In actual fact, no form of ἐλαττόω or any equivalent appears even once in the surviving text; all four occurrences are restored by Milik—in each instance without so much as a single surviving letter or part of a letter. Similarly, Milik asserted that the Greek translator attached the genitival phrase τοῦ μηνός, “of the month,” to the reference to each successive day.42 The fact is that τοῦ μηνός never appears in the surviving text of frg. 3r, although in both lines 1 and 4, ἡμέρᾳ appears to be followed by tau, and the restoration ἡμέρᾳ τ[οῦ μηνός] is likely in these instances. According to Milik, the Greek translator also repeated the phrase ὅλου τοῦ φωτός, “of all (its) light,” after the reference to the visible fraction of the moon on each successive day, whereas the Ethiopic retains only “of its light” in speaking of the first day, “of light” in speaking of the second day, and “of all its light” with reference to the fourteenth day.43 Again, this represents Milik’s reconstructive guesswork; the only parts of this supposed wording that actually appear in the fragment are two case endings consistent with the genitive φωτός, “of light,” and a single occurrence of ὅλου τοῦi in line 3. Milik even postulated a long blank space, with room for about twenty letters, at the end of frg. 3r, line 3.44 The effect is to stretch this line to occupy as much space as the expanded readings proposed for the preceding and following lines. However, once again the speculative nature of the proposal must be recognized; no part of any such blank space is visible.45 To introduce verbiage with no precedent in the Aramaic or Ethiopic versions and in other ways expand the Greek text, and then to claim that the lines thus restored are too long to belong to a codex in which other leaves have fewer letters per line, is simply untenable method. It is evident that Milik was predisposed to enlarge the Greek text because of a prior conviction that the Greek Astronomical Book, like the Aramaic, was too long to be copied together with other Enochic books and persisted in this long form as late as the fifth or sixth century. Absent 41

Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 340. Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Milik speculated that just as the clauses that describe the successive lunar phases are separated by a small space with room for two or three letters (see lines 2 and 5), the whole cycle from a full moon to a new moon may have been divided into two distinct paragraphs separated by this longer space at the end of line 3 (“Fragments grecs,” 340). 42


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such a predisposition, there is no reason to generate such an inflated Greek text of frg. 3r. Apparently less assured of how to reconstruct frg. 3v, Milik restored only a few words or parts of words before and after the visible letters in lines 1–2 and none at all in lines 3–4. Even so, regarding this portion of frg. 3v he stated confidently: “Ce très long passage de la version grecque de l’écrit astronomique attribué à Hénoch a été abrégé d’une manière fort drastique par le traducteur éthiopien.”46 On what grounds, we must ask, could he claim that these lines represent a “très long passage” of approximately forty-five letters per line when his own reconstructed text of the four lines (including the visible or partially visible letters as well as those supplied) totals only twenty-one, twenty-one, seven, and six letters, respectively? The obvious answer is congruity with the lines reconstructed in frg. 3r and the end of frg. 3v. However, as we have seen, the verbose text that Milik restored in frg. 3r is quite arbitrary and no credible benchmark for predicting the length of other lines on the same leaf. As to the remaining lines of frg. 3v, to which we now turn, Milik was more restrained and adhered to the Ethiopic more closely, but even here there are serious doubts about whether the Greek text should be as long as he supposed. Hunt, followed by Milik, was probably correct in reading να.δειρ in frg. 3v, line 4, although after να the letters are only partially visible and it is impossible to be sure. Milik understood these letters to be part of a transliteration of the Aramaic )rbdm, “desert,” which the Greek translator took as a proper noun. This explanation is supported by references to the desert in 1 En. 28:1, where the Akhmim Codex reads μανδοβαρά (with the same extraneous nu as in our fragment), and 29:1, where the Akhmim text has βαβδηρά.47 If the restoration [μα]να[β]δειρα or some slight variation thereof is correct,48 we still do not know what follows and cannot estimate the length of line 4. Milik suggested τὴν μεγάλην and/or a blank space at the end of the line as possibilities.49 The former proposal is without parallel in the Ethiopic text and seems, once again, to be a function of Milik’s determination to lengthen the lines by all possible means. A blank space at the end of the line is certainly possible and would not be unusual before the beginning of a new thought, but the pattern of introducing a blank space whenever one was needed to make room for forty-five letters in the preceding and following lines is circular reasoning and not actual evidence for lines of that length. If, instead of a blank space, we place at the end of line 4 the three words with which Milik began line 5 (καὶ

46

Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 333. Ibid., 335–37. Cf. Josh 5:6, where the LXX has ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ τῇ Μαδβαρίτιδι for rbdmb. 48 Milik also suggested [μα]να[β]δηρα or the shortened form να[β]δηρα as possibilities. 49 Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 337. He made these suggestions in his narrative but incorporated neither into his reconstructed text. 47

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εἶδον ἑπτά, in keeping with the Ethiopic); and if we eliminate ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς at the end of line 5 (restored by Milik from the Ethiopic, where, Ephraim Isaac notes, it may be an intrusion50) and replace it with three words that Milik reserved for the beginning of line 6 (πέντε ἐν τῇ, again restored on the analogy of some Ethiopic manuscripts); then neither line 4 nor line 5 is nearly as long as in Milik’s reconstruction. The complex blend of real and mythical geography in 1 En. 77:8 is too confused in the Ethiopic manuscript tradition to provide a secure basis for retrojecting lines 5 and 6 into Greek. Milik himself acknowledged: “Ce verset est également fort embrouillé dans la transmission manuscrite ge‘ez.”51 The Ethiopic manuscripts vary in the number of islands as well as in their groupings and locations. Most texts are close to that in the translation by Nickelsburg and VanderKam: “I saw seven large islands in the sea and on the land—two on the land and five in the Great Sea,”52 but some manuscripts end the sentence with “two in the Erythrean Sea,” and there are other variations.53 Milik restored the line: [πέντε ἐν τῇ μεγάλῃ θαλάσσῃ καὶ δύο ἐν] τῇ ἐρυθρᾷ θi[αλάσσῃ], “[five in the Great Sea and two in] the Erythrean S[ea].” This proposal is reasonable and accords with some of the Ethiopic data as well as the clear allusion to the Erythrean Sea in the Greek fragment, but it is also a conflationary reading that combines and arranges the variants to create a longer line than could be reconstructed in other ways. Moreover, as is noted above, there may be room for at least part of this restored wording on line 5, so that line 6 need not be as long as Milik claimed. The seventh and final line of frg. 3v, which Milik restored [Καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα τοῦ ἡλίου οὕτως· τὰ πρῶ]τα καλε[ῖται], “[and the names of the sun are as follows: the fir]st is call[ed],” could equally well be restored [Καὶ τὰ τοῦ ἡλίου ὀνόμα]τα καλε[ῖται], “[and the sun’s nam]es are call[ed].”54 Thus restored, line 7 has twenty-eight letters, as compared to Milik’s forty, and is consistent with the length of the lines in frgs. 1 and 2. The point here is not to argue exclusively for any such reading but to challenge Milik’s claim that the lines in frg. 3 are too long to belong to the same codex as frgs. 1 and 2. This claim holds only if we take as the starting point his own reconstruction of frg. 3, which, we have shown, is consistently more expansive than it need be and has all the markings of Procrustean elongation of the text to fit the theory. 50

Isaac, “1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” 56 n. r. Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 337. 52 Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch, 107. 53 Isaac’s translation reads “I (also) saw big islands in the sea and the land—seventy-two in the Erythraean Sea” (“1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” 56). Isaac describes this reading, based on ms A, as “difficult but better.” 54 This reading entails the conventional use of a singular verb with a neuter plural subject and the placement of an attributive genitive before the governing noun—also quite common. 51


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One further comment regarding the codicology of frg. 3 is in order. In view of the meager size of the fragment as well as the divergence between the Aramaic and Ethiopic astronomical materials, Milik—hardly a champion of restraint in other guesswork about frg. 3—wisely declined to estimate the number of lines per page in the codex that contained it.55 As precarious as any such calculation would be, the following is worth considering: if we were to assume that the Greek text that lies between that preserved in frgs. 3v and 3r (from the middle of 1 En. 78:1 to the middle of 78:8) is roughly comparable in length to the Ethiopic (mutatis mutandis for its retrojection into Greek); and if we were to assume further that the codex originally had roughly the number of lines per page and letters per line that Milik calculated for frgs. 1 and 2 (thirty-five lines per page and twenty-eight letters per line);56 then the six partial lines that survive in frg. 3r would fall in the codex precisely where they do fall vis-à-vis the lines partially preserved in frg. 3v, namely, at the very bottom of the subsequent column of text. Of course this codicological fit is hypothetical and proves nothing, but it does illustrate once again that it is not frg. 3 itself or a reasonable restoration thereof—but only Milik’s highly speculative and expansive reconstruction of frg. 3—that is incompatible with frgs. 1 and 2. The failure of Milik’s case for two codices among the fragments of P.Oxy. 2069 does not by itself prove that the fragments belong to a single codex. Indeed, there is no conclusive test by which to rule out a second codex. However, strong circumstantial evidence points to a single codex, and no evidence at all points in a different direction. That the fragments were copied in the same brown ink by the same scribal hand in the fourth century was recognized by Hunt in the editio princeps,57 repeated with approval by Milik,58 and confirmed by my own analysis in consultation with the Oxford papyrologists named above.59 Hunt left no doubt that he considered the fragments to be from the same codex and in fact suggested that they probably represent more than one leaf of that codex largely because he could not see an immediate connection of thought between the apocalyptic language in frg. 1 and that in frg. 3—an apparent disjunction now readily explained by their respective Enochic contexts. Although we know nothing specific about Hunt’s recovery of the fragments from the Oxyrhynchus rubbish dump, the mere fact that he offered no rationale for editing them under one siglum and analyzing them as a unit even when he had difficulty correlating their contents suggests that he did not combine them but recovered them together. Nothing whatsoever in the physical evidence or the orthographical, paleographical, or codicological character of the 55

Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 343. Ibid. 57 Hunt, Oxyrhynchus Papyri XVII, 6-8. 58 Milik, “Fragments grecs,” 321, 343. 59 See the discussion above on the likelihood that the fragments date earlier rather than later in the fourth century. 56

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fragments attenuates the judgment of their discoverer and editor that they come from the same manuscript as well as the same scribe.60

IV. Conclusion In the only published study of P.Oxy. 2069 since the editio princeps of 1927, Milik correctly identified frgs. 1 and 2 with 1 Enoch 85–87 and frg. 3 with 1 Enoch 77–78 but erred in arguing that the two small portions of 1 Enoch thus preserved represent separate codices. His fundamentally flawed argument was driven by his larger thesis about the compositional history of 1 Enoch rather than by anything in the manuscript itself, which he never had the benefit of examining. In view of the strong indications that the fragments belong together, and in the absence of any evidence for a second codex, the fragments designated P.Oxy. 2069 should be considered parts of the same codex. If frgs. 1–2 and frg. 3 indeed share a codicological context and represent the Book of Dream Visions and the Astronomical Book, respectively, there are significant implications for the evolutionary history of the Enochic corpus. Although the fragments are too slight to be of great text-critical value, they do provide our only Greek manuscript of any part of the Astronomical Book and our only evidence in any language prior to the Ethiopic compilation that the Astronomical Book was combined with another of the works that comprise what is now called 1 Enoch. As tempting as it is to construe this combination as evidence of a Greek Enochic corpus—a part of the putative Vorlage for the pentateuchal form familiar from the Ethiopic version—circumspection is necessary. We have no way to know whether the two works were copied together merely for practical reasons or as part of an Enochic or other literary construct. Certainly we cannot assume that the pairing was general practice rather than an isolated case. Neither do we know whether 60

There is no little irony in Milik’s insistence on separating these two fragments that come from the same hand and seem to belong together, for his whole theory of the evolving Enochic literary corpus rests on his equally strong insistence on combining two Qumran manuscripts that other scholars consider separate. Indeed, his primary argument for bringing together 4QEnc (4Q204) and 4QEnGiantsa (4Q 203) into a single scroll is that they appear to come from the same scribal hand. On this combination he builds his hypothesis that by 100 b.c.e. there existed an Enochic Pentateuch in two scrolls, one with the tetralogy of the Book of the Watchers, Book of Giants, Book of Dreams, and Epistle of Enoch copied together, and the other with the Astronomical Book (4QEnastra-d [4Q208–211]) copied separately because of its great length. In addition to the general critiques of this construct mentioned above, see Loren T. Stuckenbruck’s recent studies challenging the use of the Book of Giants in this scheme and the linking of 4Q203 and 4Q204: “Early Traditions Related to 1 Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 47–52; and “4QEnoch Giantsa ar (Pls. I–II),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1 (ed. Stephen J. Pfann et al.; DJD 36; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 8–41, esp. 9–10.


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other works were also included. Nor can we infer a great deal about the community that copied and used these texts of which such scant fragments survive. What we can say with confidence is that P.Oxy. 2069 affords no support for Milik’s thesis that a long recension of the Astronomical Book continued to be copied in Greek independently of other Enochic works in the fourth century and beyond. On the contrary, these fragments show that in at least one community of the early fourth century c.e. a Greek version of the Astronomical Book was copied together with the book that immediately follows it in the later Ethiopic compilation, whatever other combinations or single Enochic works may also have circulated. The joining of these two component parts of 1 Enoch in Greek tradition dates one or two centuries before the Enochic corpus is thought to have been produced in Ethiopic and a millennium before any actual Ethiopic manuscripts preserve such a compilation.

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JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 507–519

The Man with the Flow of Power: Porous Bodies in Mark 5:25–34 candida r. moss [email protected] University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

In the history of scholarship, the story of the healing of the woman with the flow of blood has been treated as just one of many miracle stories that amplify the mysterious powers of the Markan protagonist and underscore the importance of faithfulness. Whether Jesus is viewed as a Hellenistic divine man (θεῖος ἀνήρ), a prophet styled in the fashion of Elisha, or some combination of the two, this passage—like so many other healing stories—serves to demonstrate his δύναμις.1 Scholarly interpretations of the passage have therefore focused on fleshing out the specific details of the woman’s ailment, magical or prophetic parallels to the account, and the relationship of this story to the surrounding narrative concerning Jairus’s daughter. This paper was previously presented in the Disability and Healthcare in the Bible and Ancient Near East section of the 2009 annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature held in New Orleans, Louisiana. I am grateful to Ludger Viefhues-Bailey, Joel Baden, Meghan Henning, Brent Nongbri, and the two anonymous readers from JBL for their insightful comments and suggestions. 1 For the view that Jesus is a θεῖος ἀνήρ, see the classic studies of Rudolf Bultmann (The History of the Synoptic Tradition [trans. John Marsh; New York: Harper & Row, 1963]) and Martin Dibelius (From Tradition to Gospel [trans. Bertram Lee Woolf; New York: Charles Schribner’s Sons, 1935]). For the argument that Mark’s Gospel was composed to combat the view of Jesus as divine man, see Theodore J. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971). For a criticism of these positions, see Jack Dean Kingsbury, “The ‘Divine Man’ as the Key to Mark’s Christology—the End of an Era?” Int 35 (1981): 243–57. For a summary of the controversy with particular regard to miracle stories, see Barry Blackburn, Theios Anēr and the Markan Miracle Traditions: A Critique of the Theios Anēr Concept as an Interpretative Background of the Miracle Traditions Used by Mark (WUNT 2/40, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991). On Jesus as a new Elisha, see Raymond E. Brown, “Jesus and Elisha,” Per 12 (1971): 85–104; D. Gerald Bostock, “Jesus as the New Elisha,” ExpTim 92 (1980): 39–41; and Thomas L. Brodie, “Jesus as the New Elisha: Cracking the Code,” ExpTim 93 (1981): 39–42.

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This article takes its rise from the intriguing suggestion in Mark 5:28–30 that the touch of the woman instigates an unconscious flow of power from the body of Jesus. I will argue that the bodies of the woman and Jesus parallel each other in the sense that both are porous and leak uncontrollably. When viewed in the context of Greco-Roman models of the body, both the woman and Jesus appear weak, sickly, feminine, and porous. In the case of Jesus, this presentation subverts the dominant medical practices that have failed the woman with the flow of blood. Furthermore, it reverses the traditional association of porosity and weakness, both because Jesus leaks a positive, healing power and because this leakage of power points toward his concealed identity.

I. Scholarly Interpretations of Mark 5:25–34 In Mark 5:25–34, a woman who has suffered from a flow of blood for twelve years comes to Jesus in the crowd. Traditional medical solutions have failed, leading her only to grow worse.2 Being unable to reach Jesus she clutches the hem of his garment. Power flows out from Jesus and she is healed. In the history of scholarship, this pericope has attracted the attention particularly of scholars interested in the woman’s gynecological ailment and its relationship to purity.3 These interpre2 It may well have been the custom to call in many physicians—at high cost to the patient— to provide as many solutions as possible. See M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Marc (1911; 9th ed.; EBib; Paris: Gabalda, 1966), 140; and C. S. Mann, Mark: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27: Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1986), 285. For a discussion of potential cures offered to the woman, see William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 192 n. 46. It seems likely that Mark both uses the failure of the physicians as a foil to the efficacious physician services of Jesus and offers a standard critique of contemporary medical practices (so Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus [1937; 17th ed; KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967], 101; and Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007], 280–81). 3 Gerd Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition (trans. Francis McDonagh; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 134; Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Gender and Power in the Gospel of Mark: The Daughter of Jairus and the Woman with the Flow of Blood,” in Miracles in Jewish and Christian Antiquity: Imagining Truth (ed. John C. Cavadini; Notre Dame Studies in Theology 3; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1999), 83–109. For a review of feminist scholarship on the passage, see Mitzi Minor, “Old Stories through New Eyes: Insights Gained from a Feminist Reading of Mark 5:24–34,” Memphis Theological Seminary Journal 30 (1992): 2–14. For a Japanese feminist perspective, see Hisako Kinukawa, “The Story of the Hemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:25–34) Read from a Japanese Feminist Context,” BibInt 2 (1994): 283–93. For the argument that menstruation was not impure or socially isolating in ancient Jewish society, see the fascinating analyses of Shaye J. D. Cohen (“Menstruants and the Sacred,” in Women’s History and Ancient History [ed. Sarah B. Pomeroy; Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991], 273–99; and “Purity and Piety: The Separation of Menstruants from the Sancta,” in Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue. A Survey of History, Halakhah, and Contemporary Realities

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tations have centered on the woman’s femininity, anonymity, and ritual impurity to fascinating effect. The placement of the narrative at the center of the story of Jairus’s daughter (5:21–24, 35–43), in which a young woman twelve years old—the age of childbearing—is raised from the dead, only reinforces the theme of female reproductive abilities. But the specifically gynecological nature of her medical condition and the contrast with Jairus’s daughter have led scholars to focus on her identity as a woman to the neglect of her disability.4 We have received this account as a story about women but have allowed her femininity to wash over her infirmity. Her condition is specifically gynecological, but the focus on the flow of blood causes us to overlook the broader perception of bodies in the ancient world.5 Other interpretations of this pericope have focused on analogous practices in Hellenistic magic.6 The practice of healing via physical touch is not unprecedented. Gerd Theissen draws attention to an anecdote in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla in which a woman, Velaria Mesalla, extracts a thread from Sulla’s garment in the hope of securing a portion of his luck (35.4).7 David E. Aune likewise notes that, in the ancient world, healings could take place by coming into contact with the clothing of a charismatic healer or magician.8 He cites examples in which the sick are healed of [ed. Susan Grossman and Rivka Haut; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1992], 103–50), and Ross S. Kraemer (“Jewish Women and Women’s Judaism[s] at the Beginning of Christianity,” in Women and Christian Origins [ed. Ross S. Kraemer and Mary Rose D’Angelo; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 65–66). 4 The majority of commentaries on the subject rightly group these two accounts together. See, e.g., Joel Marcus, Mark 1–8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 27; New York: Doubleday, 2000), 354–73. For recent studies on infirmity and disability in the Bible, see Jeremy Schipper, Disability Studies and the Hebrew Bible: Figuring Mephibosheth in the David Story (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 441; New York: T&T Clark, 2006); Hector Avalos, Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East: The Role of the Temple in Greece, Mesopotamia, and Israel (HSM 54; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995); idem, Health Care and the Rise of Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996); idem, Sarah Melcher, and Jeremy Schipper, eds., This Abled Body: Rethinking Disability and Biblical Studies (SemeiaSt 55; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007); Saul M. Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting Mental and Physical Differences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Rebecca Raphael, Biblical Corpora: Representations of Disability in Hebrew Biblical Literature (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2008). For a discussion of disease and sickness in the New Testament, see Peder Borgen, “Miracles and Healing in the New Testament: Some Observations,” ST 35 (1981): 91–106. 5 In seeking to broaden the context within which the woman’s condition is understood, I do not mean to suggest that the specific nature of the woman’s condition is unimportant. The flow of blood is evocative as an image and was isolated by ancient Greeks and Jews as a specific medical condition. 6 See S. Eitrem, Some Notes on the Demonology in the New Testament (SO suppl. 12; Oslo: A. W. Brøgger, 1950), 44. 7 Cited in Theissen, Miracle Stories, 134. 8 Aune, “Magic in Early Christianity,” ANRW 2.23.2 (1980): 1507–57.

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disease by touching the possessions or garments of powerful magicians and healers. The statue of a hero, for example, was believed to have the same healing powers as the person it represented. In the canonical NT the closest unrelated analogy for this kind of magical healing via osmosis is found in the summary of Paul’s healings in Acts 19:11–12: “God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them.”9 In this pericope, objects that had come into close contact with Paul were somehow endowed with his healing powers. The story appears to conform to the phenomenon of healing through touch. The most notable expression of this practice is found in the development of the late antique cult of the saints, in which healings and other religious blessings were conferred on pilgrims through physical contact with the relics of the saint.10 Given the popularity of this idea, it would seem that the woman’s motivation in approaching Jesus is to acquire healing through the magical transference of healing powers through Jesus’ garments. Aune, Adela Yarbro Collins, and others have concluded that the healing of the woman with the flow of blood is a simple instance of magical transference of power communicated through touch. This interpretation, which doubtless expresses the underlying narrative framework of the miracle story (cf. Mark 3:10), is augmented by a small but critically important lacuna in the Markan account. The power that heals the woman does not come from the garments but from Jesus himself. In the words of Mark, the power goes out of him (ἐξ αὐτοῦ) not out of his garments.11 We cannot argue that Jesus’ garments were already endowed with power by virtue of their proximity to his body because it is only at the moment that the woman grasps the hem of his garment that power leaves the body of Jesus himself. This is not an act of simple magical transference from garment to woman; the woman’s touch pulls power out of Jesus himself. An alternative, biblically based interpretation is offered by Robert H. Gundry, who notes the parallels between this passage and an incident involving the bones of Elijah in 2 Kgs 13:20–21.12 In this passage a corpse is thrown into Elijah’s tomb, 9 NA27: Δυνάμεις τε οὐ τὰς τυχούσας ὁ θεὸς ἐποίει διὰ τῶν χειρῶν Παύλου, ὥστε καὶ ἐπὶ τοὺς ἀσθενοῦντας ἀποφέρεσθαι ἀπὸ τοῦ χρωτὸς αὐτοῦ σουδάρια ἢ σιμικίνθια καὶ ἀπαλλάσσεσθαι ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν τὰς νόσους τά τε πνεύματα τὰ πονηρὰ ἐκπορεύεσθαι. 10 Julius Rohr, Der Okkulte Kraftbegriff im Altertum (Philologus, Supplementband 17; Leipzig: Dieterich, 1923), 9–15. 11 An analogy to this healing narrative might be the incident in the Acts of Pilate in which a leprous child is healed by the water in which the infant Jesus is washed (B.11 Add). 12 Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 280. See also Marcus, Mark, 359; he cites Exod 17:11–12 as another parallel to this event. As the positioning of Moses’ hands during combat does not relate to healing or physical touch, it does not seem to me especially relevant here.


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where it comes in contact with the bones of the prophet and is miraculously revived. The “wonder story” effectively closes the Elisha cycle. The passage has much in common with Mark 5:25–36, and it is likely that there were some in Mark’s audience who read the two stories together.13 It certainly demonstrates, as Gundry notes, that it is not necessary to understand the Markan story as an example of Hellenistic magic or against the backdrop of Greco-Roman medicine.14 At the same time, however, there are a number of important differences between the accounts; in the first place, both Elijah and the man thrown into his tomb are dead.15 Technically, then, the man is not healed—he is revivified (cf. 1 Kgs 17:17–24 and 2 Kgs 4:18–37).16 Second, the mechanics of the healing differ. In the Elisha story, the healing takes place via contact between the bones of Elisha and the body of the man. In Mark, the garments of Jesus serve as a proxy, and the emphasis is on the movement of power that goes out of Jesus and into the woman.17 There are substantive differences between the magical and prophetic instances of healing via touch and the mechanics of the woman’s healing in Mark. Additionally, neither explanation takes account of the parallels between the body of the woman and that of Jesus. In the Markan account, the characterization of the woman’s body contrasts strikingly with that of the body of Jesus. Just as the woman’s body hemorrhages blood, so also Jesus’ body leaks power. Perhaps, then, we should consider the passage in light of ancient models of the body. Evaluating their physiologies within the context of Greco-Roman notions of the body is not determinative for understanding the account, but it does shed light on the ways in which ancient audiences would have understood the passage.

II. Ancient Medical Models of the Body In order to consider the woman with the flow of blood to be disabled, her impairment must be examined within the worldview that would have framed her condition as a disability. In the case of this current study we will turn from the 13 It is by no means necessary to do so. An alternative reading of the Elisha story would see the bones of Elisha as part of a prophetic topos in which the revivification of dead bones anticipates and illustrates the power of God (cf. Ezek 37:1–14). 14 Gundry, Mark, 280. 15 This article is, in part, a study of the body of Jesus. As such, a comparison with the bones of Elisha is in some respects inappropriate. The bones of Elisha are not an intact body, let alone a living person. 16 There appears to be a concrete difference between revivification and healing. See Alan F. Segal, Life after Death: A History of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 145. Avalos does not include this story as an example of healing in Illness and Health Care in the Ancient Near East. 17 The difference between contact with the body and contact with the bones is less striking when it comes to transmitting impurity. See Lev 15:7, 11, 21–22; and Marcus, Mark, 359.

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specific contours of gynecology to the broader context of the body in Greco-Roman medicine. What were the characteristics of healthy and sick bodies in the ancient world? Putting aside for the moment statements about the value of abled and disabled bodies, we must first ask how they were constructed. What are the hallmarks of a sick body in the world that Mark inhabited? In The Corinthian Body, Dale B. Martin argues that two distinct views of the origin and treatment of illness were popular in the ancient world; a theory of imbalance and a theory of invasion.18 According to the former view, an imbalance of the humors caused by moral or emotional imbalance would result in a bodily disease of some kind, which could be remedied by balancing out the difficulty. As the second-century medical writer Galen notes: Health is a sort of harmony . . . for in every instance, health in us is a due proportion of moist, dry, warm and cold, sometimes of molecules and pores, sometimes of atoms or items or minims or isotopes, or of each of their primary elements; but always we function in our parts through their due proportion. (Hygiene 1.3)19

Galen’s description of the healthy body owes much to Aristotle’s preoccupation with balance and moderation. Health is a sense of good proportion, and a balanced, well-regulated body is a healthy body.20 Disease is a symptom of excess, of an overabundance of heat, cold, dryness, or moisture. The cure is brought about through the application of the opposite—for example, administering heat to a cold body. A sick body, therefore, is one that fails to achieve this sense of balance; it is unordered, unbalanced, and uncontrolled. Invasion etiology, by contrast, focuses on the boundaries of the body. The body is a closed but penetrable entity that remains healthy by fending off hostile external forces and preventing them from invading the body. Disease is seen as an alien entity, caused by external factors that invade and pollute the body. This more popular view of disease emphasizes issues of pollution, contagion, and bodily invasion. According to classical medical writers, invasion etiology was common “in the 18 Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Martin’s work is indebted to a number of anthropological studies of disease, most notably Margaret M. Lock, East Asian Medicine in Urban Japan: Varieties of Medical Experience (Comparative Studies of Health Systems and Medical Care 3; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980). To be sure, Martin’s thesis has not met with universal acceptance, but it is of great significance to study of the body. The argument here is not that what was true for Corinth is therefore applicable to Mark. Rather, Martin has identified certain models of thinking, found in a variety of ancient authors, that suggest that porosity and control were of great importance to constructions of bodily health. 19 Robert Montraville Green, trans., A Translation of Galen’s Hygiene (De sanitate tuenda) (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1951). 20 The same interest in balance is evident in Hippocrates’ classic On Affections. For a discussion of the medical theory of the humours, see J. T. Valance, “Humours,” OCD, 733.


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old days” and among the people who believed that disease was the result of an attack by the gods or daimons (Celsus, On Medicine proemium 4). Contagion etiologies such as this were viewed by Theophrastus as superstition or desidaimonia, but their popularity persisted despite the concerted efforts of the more philosophically minded medic.21 While porosity was less of a concern among the intellectual elite, even ancient philosophers maintained that there were a number of poroi, or channels, through which blood and air could flow into the body. As channels, poroi allowed external matter to enter the body for destructive purposes.22 The surface of the body was not a sealed boundary; it was a permeable membrane through which manifold hostile objects could enter the body and wreak havoc in it. Correspondingly, attempts to prevent or alleviate disease are concerned with patrolling the body’s borders, avoiding pollutants, and purging invaders. Boundaries must be regulated and checked and invaders must be fended off. Sickly bodies were those that failed in this effort to remain impermeable. They were porous, and it was this porosity that permitted a daimon or other agent to enter and contaminate the body. Overlaid on the idea of porosity is a particular construction of gender. In the ancient world sexuality was constructed using a sliding scale with male and female at either pole. This male–female continuum was hierarchical, and, predictably, males stood at the top. Aristotle famously writes that women are incomplete males: like undercooked bread, female bodies never achieved the heat, dryness, or impermeability that make up healthy bodies.23 Women are colder: they are moist, squishy, and porous. The interchangeability of feminine and weak is demonstrated in Hippocratic theories of gestation. A hot, dry womb will produce both male infants and strong infants. A cold, wet womb will produce females and weak children.24 Oversaturation and softness are equated with weakness and femininity. Galen’s exposition of the causes of moistening conditions reveals that excess fluid can penetrate the body through bathing or excessively warm air and make it soft. Galen is very concerned to offer detailed advice for men so that they can avoid oversaturation and its feminizing effects. Becoming effeminate means weakness, softness, porosity, and moisture. Galen writes: In moist conditions one must suspect either untimely use of sex relations or weakening of the strength from some other cause; or thinning of the body from excessively gentle massage, or from too much bathing, or from the air of the house in which he lived being warmer than necessary. (Hygiene 5.2) 21

Theophrastus portrays the “superstitious man” in Characters 16.14. See Plato, Tim. 88 c-d, in which Plato describes the particles that enter the body as inflaming or chilling it. 23 Cited in Hippocrates, Acut. 1.34; cf. Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.3. 24 G. E. R. Lloyd, “The Hot and Cold, the Dry and Wet in Greek Philosophy,” JHS 84 (1964): 104. 22

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Galen’s discussion here relates to the soft and moist nature of the feminine body. His analysis is nevertheless applicable to our discussion. Soft, weak, and feminine bodies are vulnerable to external elements. The weakness leads to a “thinning of the body,” and it is precisely this thinning that makes the individual susceptible to attack. Once again, the problem is one of porosity: Galen is concerned that the body will become saturated, feminine, and porous. A soft, thin, feminine body is one that is vulnerable to external attack and forces. In both of these theoretical systems, there is a pervasive concern about the boundedness of the body. Even in ancient writers such as Galen, who were not particularly concerned with invasion, there is considerable anxiety about growing too thin and porous. Weak, porous, feminine, and moist become interchangeable terms for those at the lower end of the somatic scale. In “popular” theories of disease, this porosity becomes threatening. It can pollute, disrupt, and contaminate. Porous bodies are vulnerable to external attack and threaten the subjects and those around them with contagion. To return to the initial question: What are the characteristics of a healthy body in the ancient world? We find that it is impermeable, dry, hot, hard, regulated, and masculine. Conversely, a sickly body is drippy, leaky, moist, uncontrolled, feminine, soft, and porous.

III. Rereading Mark 5:25–34 In the account of the healing of the woman with the flow of blood, the mechanics of the woman’s illness fit perfectly with the model of the porous body so popular in the ancient world. The woman’s condition is such that she has been leaking blood for twelve years. The pathological loss of blood by a woman is described by Mark as a ῥόος, or “flux.” It was this term (or the related noun ῥοῦς) that was used by Greek medics to refer to a diseased gynecological flow of blood.25 The very nature of the woman’s illness is that her body lacks the appropriate boundaries and unnaturally leaks its contents into the world. The image of the prolonged and abnormal twelve-year flow of blood suggests both the sodden malleability of the suffering body and her hyperhydrated feminine identity. In the same way, the portrayal of the woman’s cure also conforms to the GrecoRoman understanding of the healthy body. In describing her transformation, Mark utilizes language of hardening and drying up. The Greek term to describe her heal25

Aristotle, Hist. an. 1.220–23: “Further, of all female animals the human female has the most abundant blood, and menstrual flows are more plentiful in women than in any other animal. This blood if it has become diseased is known as a flux” (trans. Arthur L. Peck, Aristotle, Historia Animalium [3 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965], cited by Yarbro Collins, Mark, 282 n. 149). For a discussion of the “flow” as a disease in Hippocratic medicine, see Lesley Dean-Jones, Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 129–30.


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ing is ἐξηράνθη, from the root ξηραίνω, which, in the passive, literally means “dried up,” “scorched,” or “hardened.”26 English translations usually render this word as “ceased,” presumably to make the event more intelligible for readers, but the Greek implies that the woman’s “cure” is one of bodily hardening and drying. On those other occasions where ξηραίνω is used in the Gospel it means “scorched” or “hardened” (cf. Mark 3:1; 4:6; 9:18; 11:20–21). The drying of the woman’s blood could have a number of meanings. It could simply mean that the abnormal bleeding dried up.27 An alternative suggestion by Kevin Wilkinson takes the scorching more seriously and suggests that the woman becomes menopausal in anticipation of the genderless eschatological kingdom of God.28 Regardless of whether we choose to interpret the healing eschatologically, it is clear not only that the woman’s condition has abated but also that her entire body comes to resemble the healthy body of Greco-Roman medicine. She is hardened, dried, and bounded. The woman’s transition from sickly, effeminate leaker to faith-dried healthy follower parallels the faith-based healings of the Gospel of Mark as a whole. The emphasis on her faith as the agent of her healing is typical of Markan miracle stories in general.29 What is unusual, however, is the mechanics of her healing and what these mechanics can tell us about the porosity of Jesus’ body. According to Mark 5:30, the woman initiates her own healing by pulling power from an unsuspecting Jesus: She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I shall be saved.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone forth from him, immediately turned about in the crowd, and said, “Who touched my garments?” (5:27–30)

According to the narrative, the woman is healed because power flows out of Jesus through his garments to the woman. The flow of power is one that is physical and discernible to Jesus himself. He immediately notes the loss of power and demands to know who touched him. Theological rereadings of this passage have focused on

LSJ, 1190, s.v. ξηραίνω. D’Angelo, “Gender,” 98. 28 Kevin Wilkinson, “‘The Fount of Ηer Blood as Dried Up’: Dessication, Gender, and Eschatology in Mark 5:24–34” (unpublished paper, 2001), cited in Yarbro Collins, Mark, 282 n. 149. 29 While Bultmann categorizes 5:24b–35 as a miracle story (History of the Synoptic Tradition, 214), Dibelius sees the interest in faith in 5:25–34 and classes it as a “less pure type” (From Tradition to Gospel, 43). It seems that this “impure” form articulates precisely Mark’s view of the connection between health and faith as particularly exemplified in his treatment of exorcisms. We should note that the usual translation of πίστις as “faith” overstates the religious character of the epistemological category of “trust.” For post-Reformation readers “faith” carries with it a particularly instrumental religious tone that, for Mark and his readers, πίστις did not entail. 26 27

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Jesus’ ignorance about the loss of power rather than on the body of Jesus itself.30 But the curious flow of power from Jesus can tell us much about the physiological composition of the Markan protagonist. While many scholars have concentrated on the parallels between the woman with the flow of blood and Jairus’s daughter, they have neglected the obvious comparison between Jesus and the woman. In the narrative, the flow of power from Jesus mirrors the flow of blood from the woman. Like the woman, Jesus is unable to control the flow that emanates from his body. Like the flow of blood, the flow of power is something embodied and physical; just as the woman feels the flow of blood dry up, so Jesus feels—physically—the flow of power leave his body. Both the diseased woman with the flow of blood and the divine protagonist of Mark are porous, leaky creatures.31 Using either of the Greco-Roman models of disease reviewed earlier, the Markan Jesus appears weak and sickly. He is unable to control, regulate, or harden his porous body. He is not only acutely porous; he is unable to regulate and control his own emissions. According to both models, Jesus is weak. The nature of his porosity may enable the Markan Jesus to heal others, but his physiological makeup resembles that of the sick and diseased. Even if he is the source of healing, the Markan hero is himself physiologically weak. His powers use the pathways of bodily weakness and illness, uncontrollably leaking through his broken skin. Moreover, in the narrative it is the sickly woman who exerts control over the body of the physician savior. It is the woman who is able to pull divine power out of the passive, leaking Jesus.32 To be sure, this ability is framed using the typical Markan language of faith, but there is no escaping the power that she exerts over his body. This is something of a reversal of fortunes for the physician and patient. Here the disabled woman ably controls the body of the spiritual and physical physician. The mechanics of the healing not only reverse the power dynamic between patient and physician; they also subvert traditional models of contamination. In the words of W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, “Instead of uncleanness passing 30 Eager to demonstrate that the flow of power does not leave Jesus at a deficit, Friedrich Preisigke argued that the power of Jesus was constantly being replenished by God (Die Gotteskraft der frühchristlichen Zeit [Heidelberg Universität Papyrusinstitut, Schriften 6; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1922], 207–8). The efforts of Preisigke point not only to trinitarian debates about emanation but also to the implicit association of porosity and bodily loss. For concern over Jesus’ apparent lack of knowledge, see Gundry, Mark, 280. 31 The use of the terms “leaky” and “drippy” in preference to less pejorative terminology is deliberate. The notion of leaking implies weakness or failure. A leak is a tear in something that should be solid. The more theologically palatable concepts of Jesus “emanating” or “radiating” power render the porosity positively. By using terminology of bodily weakness “inappropriately” to refer to divine power, I intend to underscore the contrast between assessments of human and divine porosity. 32 See Charles E. Powell, “The ‘Passivity’ of Jesus in Mark 5:25–34,” BSac 162, no. 645 (2005): 66–75.


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from the woman to Jesus, healing power flows from Jesus to the woman.”33 Both the Levitical purity laws that had segregated the woman from society and the failure of previous physicians to treat the woman are here rendered impotent. The woman herself controls the leaky physician (see Lev 15:7, 11; Num 5:1–5). The presentation of Jesus as a passive, uncontrollable medical agent has not sat well with many readers of Mark. The Gospel of Matthew removes the troublesome issue of uncontrolled emissions of power altogether: Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. (Matt 9:20–22)34

Matthew’s redaction of Mark reconfigures the mechanics of the woman’s healing. While the woman certainly believes that she will be healed through physical touch, Jesus preempts her actions, turns to face her, and pronounces that her faithfulness has saved her. While the content of Jesus’ saying in Matthew is not notably different from that in Mark, its placement renders her somewhat passive. She is healed by Jesus for her faithfulness, and the embarrassing presentation of Jesus as confused and disordered is avoided.35 That Matthew feels the need to abbreviate the story in this way may well confirm the argument that the Markan narrative is not 33

Davies and Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew (3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 2:130, cited in Marcus, Mark, 367. 34 NA27: Καὶ ἰδοὺ γυνὴ αἱμορροοῦσα δώδεκα ἔτη προσελθοῦσα ὄπισθεν ἥψατο τοῦ κρασπέδου τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ· ἔλεγεν γὰρ ἐν ἑαυτῇ, ἐὰν μόνον ἅψωμαι τοῦ ἱματίου αὐτοῦ σωθήσομαι. ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς στραφεὶς καὶ ἰδὼν αὐτὴν εἶπεν, θάρσει, θύγατερ· ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε. καὶ ἐσώθη ἡ γυνὴ ἀπὸ τῆς ὥρας ἐκείνης. 35 Whatever problems Jesus’ lack of knowledge in the Markan story may have caused for readers such as Matthew, bodily porosity was known to have some advantages in both ancient medicinal and divine contexts. In the case of menstrual fluids, the flow of blood was believed by some physicians to contain medicinal powers. Not only did menstruation function as a κάθαρσις or καθάρδια, carrying away impurities and uncleanliness; menstrual blood served as a component of amulets and medicinal compounds (see, e.g., Pliny, Nat. 28.23.82; and D’Angelo, “Gender,” 89–91). There is, of course, a considerable difference between the assessment of “normal” menstruation and the flux of blood in Greek medical writers, but these examples nonetheless illustrate the premise that “normal” bodily porosity is evaluated positively. The same interest in the positive function of bodily porosity may be found in Bereshit Rabbah, which cites the LXX translation of Gen 1:26–27: “A man with orifices he created him.” Against David Daube, Daniel Boyarin writes that Bereshit Rabbah is less concerned with the primal androgyne myth than it is with the proper function of bodily orifices (the usual meaning of the Hebrew nĕqûbāyw). Boyarin’s argument would seem to suggest that, in some rabbinic circles, properly functioning orifices were part of the created order. See Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (New Historicism 25; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 36 n. 9. I am grateful to Tzvi Novick for this reference.

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a straightforward healing-by-touch miracle narrative. Elsewhere, in Matt 14:36, people beg to touch and are healed by touching the fringe of Jesus’ garment. Matthew may have simply abbreviated the story of the healing of the woman and transferred the element of healing by touch to the later account. Even if this is the case, he still removes the awkward sequence of events in his Markan source and frames both miracles as more straightforward displays of power. That Matthew rewrites Mark in this way indicates that he finds the implicit physiological characterization of the Markan Jesus to be problematic. Even if Mark’s presentation of the body of Jesus has troubled some, it is not necessary to suppose that Mark himself views the porosity of Jesus’ body and the leaking of divine power negatively. Porosity was viewed positively in the context of ideas about divine beings concealing themselves in human form. The epiphany motif, the idea that gods travel the earth in disguise as human beings before revealing themselves in displays of greatness, was a well-established convention of Greek mythology. The human shells that the deities inhabited in disguise could barely conceal their divine brilliance and glory. Descriptions of divine beings traveling in disguise frequently refer to their shining faces and the way that their bodies emanated light.36 The principle of divine light flooding through the confines of the fragile form provides another example of the inability to regulate the boundaries of the body viewed positively as a sign of power. Vestiges of this idea echo in the background of the Markan transfiguration (9:2–8), in which Jesus’ face shines as brilliantly as the sun.37 The woman’s response to Jesus may add further weight to this reading. Following her healing, the woman approaches Jesus with fear and trembling (φοβηθεῖσα καὶ τρέμουσα). This response is, as noted by Ernst Lohmeyer, the standard biblical response to a theophany.38 It is also, in Greek mythology, the appropriate response to the epiphany of a god or goddess. It may well be, therefore, that some readers interpreted Jesus’ porosity as another clue to his concealed identity.

IV. Conclusion Regardless of whether the reader finds the use of Greco-Roman models of healthy and sick bodies convincing, the narrative parallels between the body of 36

See, e.g., Homeric Hymn II (To Demeter), 111–12. On the epiphany motif in the transfiguration, see H. C. Kee, “The Transfiguration in Mark: Epiphany or Apocalyptic Vision?” in Understanding the Sacred Text: Essays in Honor of Morton S. Enslin on the Hebrew Bible and Christian Beginnings (ed. John Reumann; Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1972), 135–72; and Candida R. Moss, “The Transfiguration: An Exercise in Markan Accommodation,” BibInt 12 (2004): 69–89. 38 Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus, 130. To these examples Marcus (Mark, 360) adds 4 Macc 4:10 and Phil 2:12, which connects the presence of God with salvation, as does Mark 5:33– 34. 37


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Jesus and the body of the woman with the flow of blood are unmistakable. It would appear, therefore, that the woman with the flow of blood contrasts with both Jairus’s daughter and Jesus. Many interpreters have read the contrast between the two bodies as an example of divine power washing over infirmity, but it is clearly the woman who is the active agent in her healing. She pulls power from the otherwise passive and unsuspecting Jesus. While the woman becomes dried, hardened, and more masculine, the Markan protagonist qua physician remains porous, leaky, and effeminate. That the body of Jesus is positioned at the center of a “Markan sandwich” about women only underscores his porous femininity. Both Jesus and the woman appear porous, unregulated, and weak. Porosity, however, is not de facto a negative. The leakiness of the body of Jesus and the “fear and trembling” of the woman may have suggested—to those familiar with such myths—that Jesus is divine. The healing of the woman with the flow of blood serves two connected purposes. First, it inverts the traditional medical power dynamic in which a physician imparts healing to a patient. Having abandoned the more mainstream medical practices that had made her worse, the woman pulls power out of Jesus himself. The body of Jesus serves as an alternative health care system—free and accessible— to the expensive and ineffective physicians the woman has already visited. Second, the story implicitly undercuts the association between porosity and weakness so prevalent in the ancient world. The porosity of Jesus serves a positive function; it facilitates the woman’s cure and stands as a marker of a hidden, divine identity. Even if, in the rest of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus acts as a divine physician and cathartic scourge, his own body continues to remain porous and uncontrolled, contaminating others with divine power.

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JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 521–536

A Disconcerting Prayer: On the Originality of Luke 23:34a nathan eubank [email protected] Duke University, Durham, NC 27708

Luke 23:34a (“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”), one of the famous “seven last words” of Jesus, is enclosed by double brackets in NA27 and UBS4, indicating that the logion is known not to be a part of the original text.1 In reality, however, a vigorous debate rages on, with the proponents of the shorter reading tending to emphasize external evidence, and defenders of the longer reading focusing on intrinsic probability. Both sides have claimed victory in the transcriptional arena but have paid little, if any, attention to early Christian interpretations of the prayer, giving this aspect of the debate a regrettably speculative flavor.2 In this essay I shall review the external evidence, arguing that I would like to thank Bart D. Ehrman, Elizabeth A. Clark, and T. J. Lang for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay. 1 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 2 Proponents of the shorter reading include Jason A. Whitlark and Mikeal C. Parsons, “The ‘Seven’ Last Words: A Numerical Motivation for the Insertion of Luke 23:34a,” NTS 52 (2006): 188–204; Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2002), 154; Jacobus H. Petzer, “Anti-Judaism and the Textual Problem of Luke 23:34,” Filología Neotestamentaria 5 (1992): 199–204; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (2 vols.; AB 28, 28A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 2:1503–4; Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (trans. John Bowden; New York: Scribner, 1971), 298–99; John Martin Creed, The Gospel according to St. Luke: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices (1930; repr., London: Macmillan, 1942), 286–87; Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke (ICC; New York: Scribner, 1914), 531, 544–45; B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek: With Notes on Selected Readings (1882; repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003), 68. Proponents of the longer reading include Kim Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 119–23; Joël Delobel, “Luke 23:34a: A

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proponents of the shorter reading have exaggerated their case. Then, after examining the formidable intrinsic evidence in favor of the longer reading, I shall turn to neglected transcriptional evidence that shows that Luke 23:34a was a problem passage in early Christianity.

I. External Evidence The evidence for the spuriousness of Luke 23:34a is both early and diverse. The prayer is missing from arguably the two strongest Alexandrian witnesses, p75 and Codex Vaticanus, as well as from 579 and the Sahidic version. It is missing also from important Western witnesses—most notably, the first hand of Codex Bezae and the Old Latin manuscripts a and d—and from the Caesarean manuscript Codex Koridethi. Finally, it is missing from Byzantine manuscripts stretching from Codex W in the late fourth century to 597 in the thirteenth century. Although it lacks the august company of an early papyrus, the long reading also enjoys early and diverse attestation. Jason A. Whitlark and Mikeal C. Parsons have attempted to characterize the prayer as a distinctively Western reading, claiming that “the evidence for the inclusion of Luke 23.34a is restricted to the Western text prior to the fourth century.”3 Yet the only pre-fourth-century witnesses to the text of Luke are p75 and a handful of church fathers, hardly enough evidence to justify speaking of a variant being confined to a particular text type. Moreover, one of these pre-fourth-century witnesses is Origen (ca. 185–254), whose citations of Luke consistently support the Alexandrian text.4 Whitlark and Parsons dismiss Origen’s Perpetual Text-Critical Crux?” in Sayings of Jesus: Canonical and Non-Canonical. Essays in Honour of Tjitze Baarda (ed. William L. Petersen et al.; NovTSup 89; Leiden/New York: Brill, 1997), 25–36; Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave. A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (2 vols.; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1994), 2:971–81; Joel B. Green, The Death of Jesus: Tradition and Interpretation in the Passion Narrative (WUNT 2/33; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 91–92; Charles H. Talbert, “Martyrdom and the Lukan Social Ethic,” in Political Issues in Luke-Acts (ed. Richard J. Cassidy and Philip J. Scharper; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1983), 109; Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Four Gospels: A Study of Origins, Treating of the Manuscript Tradition, Sources, Authorship, and Dates (1925; repr., London: Macmillan, 1961), 138–39; J. Rendel Harris, “New Points of View in Textual Criticism,” Expositor 8 (1914): 316–34; Adolf von Harnack, “Probleme im Texte der Leidensgeschichte Jesu,” SPAW 11 (1901): 251–66. 3 Whitlark and Parsons, “‘Seven’ Last Words,” 191. Earlier in the article the authors say that “all early evidence for its inclusion prior to the fourth century belongs almost exclusively to the Western text-type” (p. 190; emphasis added). It is not clear what they mean by saying that all the evidence belongs almost exclusively to the Western text, so I have focused on the less ambiguous formulation of their argument cited above. 4 Gordon D. Fee, “The Majority Text and the Original Text of the New Testament,” in Studies in the Theory and Method of New Testament Textual Criticism (ed. Eldon Jay Epp and Gordon D. Fee; Studies and Documents 45; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 205.

Eubank: On the Originality of Luke 23:34a

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testimony, claiming that his “writings evidence many distinctly Western readings,” but they make no attempt to explain why one should presume that Origen used a Western text when writing De Pascha (2.43.7–14) and Homiliae in Leviticum (2.1.5), both of which quote the prayer. Having thus characterized the pre-fourth-century evidence, Whitlark and Parsons assert that the presence of the logion in Codex Sinaiticus is due to mixture with the Western text, citing Westcott and Hort’s claim that “Western readings [in Codex Sinaiticus] are specially numerous in St John’s Gospel, and in parts of St Luke.”5 Surprisingly, Whitlark and Parsons do not attempt to explain why Luke 23 should be considered one of the parts identified by Hort, thereby demoting an important Alexandrian witness to a Western text without an argument. This treatment of the evidence is particularly unfortunate in light of the absence of Western readings in Sinaiticus at the end of Luke, an absence that suggests that Sinaiticus retains its Alexandrian character here. Apart from a few very minor exceptions, such as the omission of ἤδη in v. 44, Sinaiticus never agrees with Bezae against p75 or Vaticanus in Luke 23. Moreover, Sinaiticus disagrees with Bezae on every major variant in Luke 23, and lacks the Western non-interpolations.6 Other Alexandrian witnesses to Luke 23:34a are Codex Regius and the Bohairic Coptic version, as well as Didymus the Blind.7 The Palestinian Syriac version, thought to be based on a Caesarean Vorlage,8 also contains the prayer, as do a number of Western witnesses, including Old Latin versions (itaur, b, c, e, f, ff2, 1, r1), the Vulgate, and the Old Syriac. The prayer is also found in the Byzantine manuscripts A, Y, and Syrpal, and the Armenian, Ethiopic, Georgian, and Slavic versions. Whitlark and Parsons have, therefore, underestimated the diversity of texts witnessing to Luke 23:34a. It must be admitted, however, that Codex Sinaiticus is the earliest manuscript containing the prayer and would seem to be outflanked by p75, which is from the late second or early third century. Yet patristic citations offer a powerful and neglected counterweight to the papyrus. The prayer is cited by Irenaeus (Haer. 3.18.5) and apparently by Marcion (in Epiphanius, Pan. 42.11.6) in the second century, Hippolytus (Ben. Is. Jac. 27.28) in the late second or early third century, as well as Origen (Pasch. 2.43.7-14; Hom. Lev. 2.1.5) in the third and Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 2.23) in the fourth. Ephrem cites the prayer three times in his commentary on the Diatessaron, which suggests that the prayer was in Tatian’s text in the middle of the second century (10.14; 21.3; 21.18). In addition, the prayer is 5

Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament, 151; cf. Whitlark and Parsons, “‘Seven’ Last Words,” 190. 6 See Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 228, 258 n.183. 7 See Bart D. Ehrman, Didymus the Blind and the Text of the Gospels (New Testament in the Greek Fathers 1; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 256. 8 Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 100.

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found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature (Rec. 6.5; Hom. 11.20); Archelaus, Disputation with Manes 44; Apos. Con. 2.3.16; 5.3.14; Didascalia 25; Gos. Nic. 10; and Acts of Philip (ANF 8:500). Moreover, while the significance of Eusebius’s citation of Hegesippus is disputed—a problem to which I shall return—Hegesippus also cited the prayer in the second century, if Eusebius transmitted his source more or less faithfully. As Kim Haines-Eitzen has noted, “These witnesses demonstrate that the prayer was known in the second century in Gaul, Alexandria, Palestine, Syria, and Rome.”9 In sum, the external evidence for the shorter reading is both early and diverse, but proponents of this reading have inaccurately characterized the long reading as Western—it is in fact attested by all four text types including one of the most important Alexandrian witnesses—and have neglected the patristic evidence that counterbalances the antiquity of p75. If we were forced to make a decision on the basis of external evidence alone, however, it would be difficult to offer a decisive answer to this text-critical conundrum.

II. Intrinsic Probability There is only one serious intrinsic argument in favor of the shorter text. Joseph A. Fitzmyer and others have noted that the prayer interrupts the flow of the narrative because the implied subjects of the verbs both before and after the prayer are Jesus’ killers.10 To be sure, the shift from the soldiers to Jesus and then back to the soldiers is a bit abrupt, which could suggest that the saying is secondary. On the other hand, advocates of the longer text agree that the saying is in some sense secondary; ex hypothesi, Luke is inserting a new saying into his version of the Markan passion narrative, and the third gospel is not immune from awkward redaction (e.g., Luke 8:5–15; cf. Mark 4:3–20).11 Fitzmyer also argues that the manuscripts containing the long reading prematurely “introduce a motif of ignorance, which is otherwise found in Acts (3:17; 13:27; 17:30).”12 This claim is question-begging; the ignorance motif is found in Acts alone only if the third evangelist did not introduce it here, and one can hardly expect Luke to introduce this motif before Jesus has been crucified. Indeed, Fitzmyer is hoist with his own petard, for the similarities between Luke 23:34a and the ignorance motif in Acts offer striking evidence that they came from the same author.13 Like Luke 23:34a, Acts 3 links the ignorance of the Jews with mitigated 9 10

Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters, 120. Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 2:1503; cf. Whitlark and Parsons, “‘Seven’ Last Words,”

193. 11

Harnack, “Probleme im Texte,” 257. Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 2:1503. 13 See Eldon Jay Epp, The Theological Tendency of Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis in Acts (SNTSMS 3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 41–63, esp. 45. 12


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culpability and the opportunity to be forgiven: “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out” (3:17–19 NRSV alt.). Raymond E. Brown aptly sums up the significance of this conspicuous confluence of ignorance and the possibility of forgiveness: “the ignorance motif is clearer in Luke-Acts than in any other NT writing. If one is tempted to posit that a copyist read passages like Acts 3:17 and 13:27 and then formulated this prayer [i.e., Luke 23:34a], one has even better reason to posit that the prayer was a formulation by Luke himself.”14 Furthermore, an integral part of the apostolic kerygma for Luke is the idea that all nations wallowed in ignorance until the resurrection of Jesus revealed God’s plan.15 Paul explains the gospel accordingly at the Areopagus: “While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent in view of the fact that he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–31 NRSV alt.; cf. 14:16; 26:9). In Acts, then, ignorance and innocence go hand in hand. Luke’s interest in the relationship of knowledge and guilt can be seen again in his redaction of the parable of the watchful servants (12:35–48; Matt 24:42–51).16 After declaring that the master will punish the unfaithful servant (cf. Matt 24:50– 51), Luke adds: That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded. (12:47–48 NRSV)

Thus, Luke 23:34a coheres not only with Luke’s understanding of the ignorance of Jesus’ killers as found in Acts but also with his particular interest in the relation of knowledge to culpability.17 The Lukan character of the prayer is revealed also by its similarity to the martyrdom of Stephen, who dies with a prayer of forgiveness on his lips. Some commentators have made the transcriptional argument that the similarity of the two prayers can be explained as an attempt to harmonize the two martyrdoms, or to ensure that Stephen does not outstrip Jesus in following Jesus’ own teach14

Brown, Death of the Messiah, 976–77. Green, Death of Jesus, 92. 16 Ibid. 17 Note also Luke’s portrayal of God as one who forgives even before repentance is expressed (15:20; 19:10), Jesus’ instruction to pray for one’s enemies (6:27–29), and Luke’s frequent portrayals of Jesus praying. See Brown, Death of the Messiah, 976. 15

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ing.18 Yet the complete lexical dissimilarity of the two prayers makes this harmonization hypothesis unlikely. As Ehrman has noted, “Scribal harmonizations are rarely (ever?) oblique; they involve word for word, verbal agreements.”19 If Luke 23:34a were based on Acts 7:60, then we must suppose that the scribe was careful to reproduce the concept without the wording, a scenario suggesting that these two prayers are the work of a single author rather than an imitator. The weakness of the transcriptional argument for the shorter text points us back to the intrinsic argument for the longer text; it is unlikely that Luke 23:34a is a harmonization to Acts 7:60, so we must conclude that the long form of the text has in its favor not only the ignorance motif but also a striking resemblance to the death of Stephen. Finally, the style and vocabulary of Luke 23:34a are distinctively Lukan. In Matthew and Mark the vocative πάτερ is never used without a modifier, but Luke uses it this way seven times (not including the verse in question), and two of these instances occur during his passion narrative (22:42; 23:46; see also 11:2; 15:12, 18, 21; 16:24).20 Further, the petition “forgive” (ἄφες) followed by a rationale (γάρ) is exactly the same as in the Lukan form of the Lord’s Prayer (11:4).21 In sum: the intrinsic evidence offers strong—some would say decisive—reason for supposing that Luke 23:34a was composed by the same person who wrote LukeActs. The strength of this evidence is thrown into sharper relief if one considers the alternative: a scribe who assiduously imitated the theology and style of LukeActs, who copied the death of Stephen without using any of Stephen’s words, and who inserted this prayer only into the Gospel of Luke, but never into the other Gospels.22 We turn now to examine neglected transcriptional evidence which offers a more credible explanation of the data.

III. Transcriptional Evidence Since the time of Westcott and Hort, many scholars have opined that no Christian could have omitted something as exquisite as Luke 23:34a. Hort advanced this 18

E.g., Fitzmyer, Gospel according to Luke, 2:1503. Ehrman, “The Text of the Gospels at the End of the Second Century,” in Codex Bezae: Studies from the Lunel Colloquium, June 1994 (ed. D. C. Parker and C. B. Amphoux; NTTS 22; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 112. 20 Brown, Death of the Messiah, 976. 21 Ibid. 22 Harnack argues that “[s]ollen die Worte ein späterer Zusatz sein, so ist es auffallend, dass nicht eine einzige Handschrift ihn im Matthäus- oder Marcustext aufweist, die doch an dieser Stelle mit dem Lucastext fast identisch sind. War das Bedürfniss, an dieser Stelle ein Gebet des Herrn für seine Feinde zu lesen, so gross, so begreift man nicht, warum es sich nur in einem Text geltend gemacht hat” (“Probleme im Texte,” 258). This last point may be an argument from silence, but turnabout is fair play; NA27 cites the absence of the prayer in the other Gospels as evidence of its spuriousness. 19


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argument in no uncertain terms: “Its omission, on the hypothesis of its genuineness, cannot be explained in any reasonable manner. Wilful excision, on account of the love and forgiveness shown to the Lord’s own murderers, is absolutely incredible.”23 Others, most notably Adolf von Harnack, B. H. Streeter, J. Rendel Harris, and Eldon Jay Epp, have suggested that the prayer could have been omitted because of antiJewish bias, or because the siege of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. proved that the Jews were not forgiven, with Epp offering the further observation that the prayer is missing from Codex Bezae, the very manuscript that evinces discomfort with the ignorance motif in Acts.24 The anti-Jewish hypothesis has not persuaded everyone, however, because, as Epp himself admits, it assumes that Jesus was praying for the Jews rather than the Romans or someone else, and also because the hypothesis is thought to be too speculative to overwhelm the external evidence.25 Whitlark and Parsons, for example, reject the anti-Jewish hypothesis because “the assumption here is that the logion is understood to be addressed to the Jews.”26 Similarly, Jacobus H. Petzer turns the anti-Jewish hypothesis on its head, arguing that the logion was actually read as a prayer for the soldiers who crucified Jesus and was added to Luke to increase the guilt of the Jews.27 The evidence, however, does not support this conjecture. After examining early interpretations of Luke 23:34a, I have discovered no evidence suggesting that anyone ever understood Jesus’ prayer to be on behalf of the soldiers. Occasionally commentators universalized the sin of the crucifixion, claiming that Jesus was killed by the human race, but, if a specific culprit is mentioned, it is invariably the Jews.28 Indeed, Christians consistently read the verse as a prayer 23 Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament, 68; see also Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 298; Creed, Gospel according to St. Luke, 286; Plummer, Gospel according to St. Luke, 544. 24 Harnack, “Probleme im Texte,” 251–66; Streeter, Four Gospels, 138–39; Harris, “New Points of View,” 316–34; Epp, Theological Tendency, 45. 25 Epp, Theological Tendency, 45. Metzger, for example, simply avers that the variant “can scarcely be explained as a deliberate excision by copyists who, considering the fall of Jerusalem to be proof that God has not forgiven the Jews, could not allow it to appear that the prayer of Jesus had remained unanswered” (Textual Commentary, 154). 26 Whitlark and Parsons, “‘Seven’ Last Words,” 192. 27 Petzer, “Anti-Judaism and the Textual Problem of Luke 23:34a,” 199–204. He argues that (1) Epp’s study of Codex Bezae shows that the Western text, unlike the Alexandrian text, is antiJewish; (2) Luke 23:34a is a Western reading; therefore, (3) Luke 23:34a is an anti-Jewish addition that attempts to exculpate the Romans by portraying Jesus praying for the Roman soldiers. This argument is problematic for a number of reasons: first, as we have seen, the external evidence for Luke 23:34a comprises all four text types, not simply the Western. Second, Petzer’s assumptions about the Western text are based on Epp’s study of Codex Bezae, but Codex Bezae is one of the manuscripts that omits Luke 23:34a. Third, Petzer offers no patristic evidence that Jesus’ prayer was read as a prayer for the Roman soldiers. 28 See Chrysostom’s universalizing interpretation: “Being crucified he prays for those who crucified him . . . and because of this he came, to be crucified by us” (Cruc. [PG 49:405]).

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for the Jews beginning with the very earliest exegetes (e.g., in the second and third centuries, Hippolytus, Origen, Archelaus, and the Didascalia), and stretching on into late ancient Christianity (e.g., Ambrose).29 In light of the fact that the available evidence suggests that second-century Christians read Luke 23:34a as a prayer for the Jews, it is important to note that the variant originates in the second century, a time of fierce Christian–Jewish polemics.30 In this context, Jesus’ prayer for the Jews must have been troubling to those who, like Melito of Sardis, were convinced that the siege of Jerusalem was divine retribution for Jesus’ death (Homily on the Passover 99).31 In fact, as we shall see below, Luke 23:34a was worrisome to early Christians for this reason and others as well.

Jesus’ Apparent Forgiveness of the Jews Luke 23:34a was problematic for early Christians because it seemed to absolve the Jews for killing Jesus. Ambrose (Job 5.12-13), Jerome (Ep. 120.8.2 [PL 22:993]), Theodoret (Interpretatio in XIV epistulas sancti Pauli [PG 82:241]), Leo the Great (“Sermon 52”), and John Chrysostom (Cruc. [PG 49:405]) downplay this fact by 29 Hippolytus, Ben. Is. Jac. (PO 27:38); Origen, Pasch. 2.43.7–14; Archelaus, Disputation with Manes 44; Didascalia 25; Ambrose, Job 5.12-13. Matthias Blum argues that in Apos. Con. 2.3.16; 5.3.14 and Gos. Nic. 10 Jesus prays for the soldiers (“. . . denn sie wissen nicht, was sie tun”: Zur Rezeption der Fürbitte Jesu am Kreuz (Lk 23,34a) in der antiken jüdisch-christlichen Kontroverse [NTAbh, n.F. 46; Münster: Aschendorff, 2004], 58–66, 193–96). Blum’s main evidence is the attempt to lessen Pilate’s culpability in these texts, which, according to Blum, implies sympathy for the soldiers, and the fact that it is the soldiers who actually affix Jesus to the cross. These arguments are far from decisive: the Gospel of Luke also appears to mitigate Pilate’s culpability and depicts Jesus being crucified by soldiers, and it is notoriously difficult to ascertain the recipients of the prayer in Luke. The identity of the recipients of the prayer in Apostolic Constitutions and Gospel of Nicodemus is at least as ambiguous as it is in Luke, if not more so. In Demonstratio adversus Judaeos the author—once thought to be Hippolytus—provides what may be the only extant example of an early Christian reading Luke 23:34 as a prayer for a specific group other than the Jews. He writes, “In my prayer to you, Lord, I said, ‘Father, forgive them, the Gentiles,’ for it is the time for favor with the Gentiles” (ANF 5:219–20). Yet this reformulation of the prayer arouses suspicion; no Christians thought that Jesus was crucified by “the Gentiles” in the generic sense of the term, least of all the author of this treatise against the Jews. This form of the prayer attempts to displace the Jewish recipients of Jesus’ prayer by changing “for they do not know what they are doing” to “for it is the time for favor with the Gentiles,” thereby changing the prayer of forgiveness for Jesus’ killers to a general word of absolution for the Gentiles. Even if one remains unconvinced by this interpretation of Pseudo-Hippolytus, the dominant mode of early Christian interpretations of Luke 23:34a remains clear. 30 The Epistle of Barnabas, which claims that the Jews had never been the people of God, may be one of the most strident examples. 31 Cf. also Origen, Cels 4.22; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.6; Pseudo-Justin, Quaest. et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos (PG 6:1356).


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admitting that the Jews may indeed have had the opportunity to be forgiven, but their subsequent recalcitrance demands that they be punished anyway. Chrysostom, for example, writes, “What then? Did he forgive them the sin? He did forgive them, if they wished to repent. For if he had not forgiven them the sin, Paul would not have become an apostle; if he had not forgiven them the sin, three thousand and five thousand and many myriads of Jews would not have believed” (Cruc. [PG 49:405]; cf. Acts 2:41; 4:4; 21:20).32 The book of Acts furnishes many examples of Jews who believed and who, therefore, must have been forgiven, but this fact presupposes its opposite: those who did not respond favorably to the preaching of the apostles are not forgiven. Chrysostom expands this argument in In principium actorum. Christ’s prayer secured not forgiveness but a forty-year period during which the Jews could have repented. After quoting Luke 23:34a, Chrysostom writes, For he did not immediately bring the punishment and retribution on them, but he waited for longer than 40 years after the cross. For the Savior was crucified under Tiberius, but their city was taken under Vespasian and Titus. . . . He desired to give them time to repent . . . but since they remained incurable, he led the punishment and retribution to them. (PG 51:111)

Chrysostom thus situates Luke 23:34a within the broad sweep of salvation history. Yes, Christ prayed for forgiveness, and this prayer was answered by forty years of forbearance. History has moved on, however, and the Jews have remained disobedient. Jesus’ prayer no longer has any purchase. Other commentators used intertextual exegesis to deal with the problem of the forgiveness of the Jews. By submerging the narrative of Luke 23 in new contexts, early Christians were able to produce more amenable results than could be wrung from the literal sense.33 For example, in his De Benedictionibus Isaaci et Jacobi, Hippolytus reads Esau as a type of the Jews and Isaac as a type of Christ. In the Septuagintal version of Genesis 27, Isaac feels sorry for Esau when he loses his blessing to his younger brother Jacob. To be precise, Isaac is pierced (κατανυχθέντος) when he sees his son’s misfortune (PO 27:38). The word κατανύσσομαι was commonly used as a metaphor of sorrow, but Hippolytus plays on the literal and metaphorical senses of the word to find a prophecy of Christ’s prayer from the cross: Isaac said this to Esau: “If I have made him your lord, and have made all his brothers his servants, and have strengthened him with corn and wine, what then shall I do for you, child?” Isaac was pierced, and Esau cried aloud and wept. 32

Cf. a similar passage in Ad Corinthios (PG 61:57). I follow David Dawson in understanding “the literal sense” to mean “an honorific title given to a kind of meaning that is culturally expected and automatically recognized by readers” (Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992], 8). The literal meaning of Luke 23:34a in early Christianity was a prayer for the Jews. 33

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Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010) (Gen 27:37–38) The piercing of Isaac is the compassion of the Logos regarding the transgression of the people [τοῦ λαοῦ], for after being bound the savior said on their behalf “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (PO 27:38)34

Hippolytus makes Isaac a type of the one who was pierced and felt sorrow, but, by submerging Jesus’ prayer in the narrative of Genesis 27, he transforms it from a word of absolution to a twinge of compassion for a rejected son; Jesus’ prayer for the Jews procures not forgiveness but the blessing that was withheld from Esau, namely, the opportunity to repent for killing Jesus (PO 27:40). Moreover, Isaac’s prediction that Esau will “live by the sword” signifies that the Jews “will never cease making war and being warred upon by the surrounding nations, as these scriptures themselves make clear” (PO 27:42). Thus, plaited together with the story of Esau’s misfortune, Luke 23:34a warns the Jews of their coming trials and offers them a chance to repent, but does not seek their forgiveness. Similarly, Hippolytus’s near contemporary Archelaus compares Luke 23:34a to Moses’ prayer for Pharaoh: “There, Moses prayed that Pharaoh and his people might be spared the plagues; and here, our Lord Jesus prayed that the Pharisees might be pardoned, when He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Disputation with Manes 44 [ANF 6:220]). This comparison allows Archelaus to acknowledge the compassion of Moses and Jesus while simultaneously casting the Pharisees in the role of Pharaoh, someone who did not receive forgiveness in the end. Centuries later, Ambrose (339–397) links Luke 23:34a and Job 9:5 through their common reference to ignorance.35 By identifying the mountains that God makes old with the old Jewish letter, Ambrose is able to turn Jesus’ prayer into a declaration of the obsolescence of the Jews: What are the mountains which God made to grow old? Moses, Aaron, Josue the son of Nun, Gideon, the prophets, all the books of the Old Testament. Jesus the Lord came; He brought the New Testament, and that which was, was made old. The Christian was made new, the Jew grew old; grace was renewed, the letter grew cold. God overturned the mountains and altered them. Yes, He overturned and subverted the understanding according to the letter and established the comprehension that is of the spirit. . . . And so Jesus made these mountains grow old, and the Jews know it not. Indeed, had they known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of majesty and would never still be pursuing their Jewish follies. They, then, are the ones who know not. For this reason also the Lord Jesus says 34 In context it is clear that when Hippolytus uses the word ὁ λαός he is referring to the Jewish people; for Hippolytus, ὁ λαός are those whom Moses rebuked, from whom Jesus was begotten according to the flesh, to whom Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom, who nailed Jesus to a tree, to whom Peter preached in Acts 2, and who live under the yoke of the law (PO 27:38). 35 “He who makes the mountains grow old and they do not know it, who overturns them in anger” (Job 9:5).


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in the Gospel, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” But they are not excused by their lack of knowledge. (Job 5.12–13 [McHugh, FC])

Job 9:5 links ignorance with obsolescence, and, by placing Luke 23:34a in this context, Ambrose reads Jesus’ words as proof that the Jews had been superseded. This sort of argument will persuade few modern people, but in the early church figural exegesis was no whimsical pastime lacking real socioreligious consequences. The relevant question for our purposes is not the validity of such interpretations, but what these commentators were trying to do with their exegesis. It appears that another strategy for avoiding the exculpation of the Jews was simply to change the wording of the prayer. Beginning during the fourth century with Epiphanius (Pan. 77.7.14) and stretching on into the twelfth, some commentators cite Luke 23:34a with συγχώρησον in place of ἄφες: “Father, yield to them, for they do not know what they are doing” (πάτερ συγχώρησον αὐτοῖς οὐ γὰρ οἴδασι τί ποιοῦσι). According to this form of the text, Jesus prays not for the forgiveness of the Jews but that God would yield or defer to them, allowing them to do their worst. In De perfectione christiana, for example, Gregory of Nyssa (335– 394) catalogues various titles and attributes of Christ and the ways in which Christians ought to emulate them. When discussing Luke 23:34a, Gregory does not mention Christ’s forgiveness and the obligation for Christians to forgive, as one would expect.36 For Gregory, Luke 23:34a demonstrates Christ’s patience: If it is necessary to distinguish the individual colors through which the imitation comes about, one color is meekness, for he says: “Learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart” (Matt 11:29). Another color is patience [μακροθυμία] which appears quantitatively in “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). A sword, clubs, chains, whips . . . [etc.], and all of these terrible things were applied to him without cause, nay, rather, in return for innumerable good works! And how were those who did these things repaid? “Father, yield to them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Was it not possible for him to bring the sky down upon them, or to bury these insolent men in a chasm of the earth . . . [etc.]. Instead, he bore all these things in meekness and patience, legislating patience for your life through himself. (8.1.197 [Callahan, FC])

According to this form of the prayer, Jesus exhibits his μακροθυμία and refrains from smiting his killers, but does not pray for their forgiveness. There is no indication that Gregory himself intentionally altered Luke’s text. Despite the fact that there are no extant manuscripts with this reading, the appearance of this form of the prayer in fourth- through twelfth-century commentators suggests that manuscripts of Luke containing the alternative reading had begun 36

This is particularly striking when one considers the ubiquity of the early Christian notion that Christians ought to forgive as God forgives; e.g., Matt 6:12–15; 18:23–35; Mark 11:25; Luke 11:4; 1 Clem. 13:2; Polycarp, Phil. 2:3; 6:2. Gregory himself discusses the importance of forgiving as God forgives on many occasions, e.g. In inscriptiones Psalmorum 5.76.25.

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circulating in the fourth century, if not earlier.37 This version of the prayer would have been attractive to those who found the forgiveness of the Jews unpalatable, and it may be that συγχώρησον found its way into the text as a gloss of ἄφες. The standard verb for forgiving in the LXX, NT, and subsequent writings was ἀφίημι; συγχωρέω never describes forgiveness in Christian literature.38 Interestingly, however, there was considerable overlap in the semantic range of ἀφίημι and συγχωρέω; both words are used to describe leaving someone alone or permitting someone to do a thing (e.g., Matt 7:4). In all likelihood, then, συγχώρησον found its way into Luke 23:34a because it was suggested, perhaps in a marginal note, that ἄφες αὐτοῖς actually meant συγχώρησον αὐτοῖς, that is, “permit them” or “yield to them,” thereby avoiding the suggestion that the Jews were forgiven. At some point prior to the mid-fourth century this gloss came to replace ἄφες in some texts, and so we have Gregory praising Christ’s patience rather than his forgiveness. One final and particularly vivid example should suffice to illustrate the consternation of early Christians who thought that Luke 23:34a absolved the Jews of killing Christ. Theodoret (393–460) read Ps 59:5 LXX as David’s attempt to dissuade God from forgiving the Jews. According to Theodoret, David “begs the Lord of hosts and God of Israel to leave the Jews to their own devices and transfer all his providence to the nations, illuminating them with the light of the knowledge of God” (Int. in Ps. 80.1308 [Hill, FC]). Having announced this future reality to the nations, David “predicts the Jews’ punishment: ‘Have pity on none of the workers of iniquity.’ Since with the eyes of inspiration he saw the cross, you see, he seemed also to hear the Lord of glory saying, ‘Father, forgive them their sin: they do not know what they are doing.’ Loathing the extraordinary degree of their impiety, he prays that they enjoy no pardon” (ibid.). Theodoret does not say whether he expects David’s prayer to countermand Jesus’ prayer successfully. Indeed, answering this question directly would doubtless produce an unsatisfactory result; surely Jesus’ prayer would trump David’s. Instead, Theodoret leaves the contradictory prayers suspended in their conflict, weakening the force of the prayer of the son of David by juxtaposing it to the prayer of David. Theodoret may not have been willing to expunge Luke 23:34a from his copy of Luke, but at least he knew that David himself loathed the extraordinary degree of the Jews’ impiety, and prayed they would receive no pardon.

Jesus’ Prayer Appeared to Have Gone Unanswered For some commentators, it seemed that God had ignored Jesus’ prayer. Hypatius, the archbishop of Ephesus in 532, stated the problem succinctly: if the Jews were not forgiven, then either “the Christ, though he prayed earnestly, did not 37

According to James A. Brooks, Gregory’s text of Luke has closest affinities with the Byzantine text, but not by a wide margin (The New Testament Text of Gregory of Nyssa [New Testament in the Greek Fathers 2; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991], 98). 38 See BDAG.


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receive an answer, or he did not really pray” (Fr. in Luc. 152). This problem may have been particularly acute because early Christians believed that Luke 23:34a was a prayer for the Jews, but they also believed that the siege of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. was divine retribution for Jesus’ death.39 Hegesippus’s account of the martyrdom of James the Just may be an attempt to solve this problem. According to Eusebius (260–340), Hegesippus (ca. 110–180) wrote that James incessantly prayed for the forgiveness of the people, but the scribes and Pharisees attempted to kill him by throwing him from the pinnacle of the temple. James survived the fall, so they began to stone him. James responded by praying, “I entreat you, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Hist. eccl. 2.23 [NPNF201.126]).40 Some who witnessed this objected, saying, “Stop! What are you doing? The just one prays for you,” but “[o]ne of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom. . . . He became a true witness, both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieged them” (ibid.). Thus, the sacking of Jerusalem was punishment for the death of James, not Jesus, and it was James’s prayer for forgiveness that was ignored by God, not Jesus’. To be sure, this account makes no explicit reference to Luke, and, if Eusebius accurately records Hegesippus’s words, then this is one of the earliest attestations of the prayer. On the hypothesis that Luke 23:34a was added to Luke sometime in the second century, it is possible that in Hegesippus’s day this prayer was a freefloating saying that was assigned to James and eventually also to Jesus. Nevertheless, there is good reason to suppose that this account is not merely a description of James’s death but also an attempt to solve the problems created by Luke 23:34a. Given the widespread assumption that Jesus’ death precipitated the events of 66–70, it is odd that Hegesippus suggests that James’s martyrdom was the cause, making no mention of the death of Jesus. Commenting on the material from Hegesippus, Eusebius goes on to emphasize that it was James’s death and James’s death alone that caused the siege of Jerusalem: These things are related at length by Hegesippus, who is in agreement with Clement. James was so admirable a man and so celebrated among all for his justice, that the more sensible even of the Jews were of the opinion that this was the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them immediately after his martyrdom for no other reason than their brash [τολμηθέν] act against him. (Hist. eccl. 2.23 [NPNF2-01.126 alt.])

There is good reason to suppose that Eusebius is being somewhat disingenuous here; in an earlier section of the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius describes “the mis39

E.g., Melito of Sardis, Hom. on Passover 99; Origen, Cels 4.22; Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.6; Pseudo-Justin, Quaest. et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos (PG 6:1356). 40 Online at http://www.ccel.org. Note the absence of the characteristically Lukan unmodified vocative πάτερ: παρακαλῶ κύριε θεὲ πάτερ ἄφες αὐτοῖς οὐ γὰρ ὄιδασι τί ποιοῦσιν.

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fortunes which overwhelmed the Jews after their presumption against Christ,” arguing that “the misfortunes of the whole [Jewish] nation began with the time of Pilate, and with their daring [τετολμημένων] crimes against the Savior” (Hist. eccl. 2.6 [NPNF2-01.110]). Eusebius concludes: In addition to these the same author [i.e., Josephus] records many other tumults which were stirred up in Jerusalem itself, and shows that from that time seditions and wars and mischievous plots followed each other in quick succession, and never ceased in the city and in all Judea until finally the siege of Vespasian overwhelmed them. Thus the divine vengeance overtook the Jews for the crimes which they dared [τετολμήκασιν41] to commit against Christ. (Hist. eccl. 2.6 [NPNF2-01.110])

Having recorded this common early Christian explanation for the siege of Jerusalem, what led Eusebius subsequently to name the murder of James as the sole inciting incident? In light of the fact that (a) we know Eusebius did not actually believe that James’s death alone precipitated the siege and (b) James is shown dying with a prayer widely attributed to Jesus on his lips, it is possible that the account of the death of James is yet another example of early Christians attempting to explain why Jerusalem was sacked despite Jesus’ prayer for the Jews.

Unfairness to the Jews Other commentators worried that Luke 23:34a indicated that the Jews had been treated unfairly. Why did God punish the Jews for a crime they committed in ignorance? Moreover, if the Jews were ignorant of Jesus’ identity, then Jesus must have failed to reveal himself to them adequately. For example, in his commentary on the Diatessaron, Ephrem of Syria (ca. 306–373) warns against allowing Luke 23:34a to lead one to “be presumptuous in relation to his justice or blaspheme his grace [by saying], ‘Why did he come if they did not recognize him, and what was it [to them] if they did not discern [who] he was, and why did he hide himself from the [Jewish] people and reveal [himself] to the Gentiles?’” (21.18–19).42 Ephrem goes on to respond to this objection by arguing that the parable of the tenants shows that the Jews actually did know who Jesus was. Whether Ephrem is responding to an actual “presumptuous” opponent or merely shadowboxing, he fears that Jesus’ prayer will be read as proof that the unbelief of the Jewish people was Jesus’ fault; if the Jews did not know who Jesus was, then surely no one can be blamed but Jesus himself. 41

Note the recurrence of cognates of τολμάω in Eusebius’s descriptions of Jesus’ and James’s

killers. 42

Carmel McCarthy, trans., Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709 with Introduction and Notes (Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2; Oxford: Oxford University Press on behalf of the University of Manchester, 1993), 326 (brackets McCarthy’s).


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Chrysostom also addressed this problem by arguing that the Jews did indeed know they were killing the Christ: For in that passage also he said not, “They know not me,” but, “They know not what they do.” What they did not know, then, was the thing they were accomplishing, the dispensation hidden in that event [περὶ αὐτῆς τοῦ πράγματος τῆς οἰκονομίας]. The dispensation which is being accomplished, and the mystery, they are ignorant of. For they knew not that the cross is to shine forth so brightly; that it is made the salvation of the world, and the reconciliation of God unto men; that their city should be taken; and that they should suffer the extreme of wretchedness. (Ad Cor. Hom. 7 [NPNF1-12.36 alt.])

In other words, Jesus prayed that the Jews would be forgiven because of their ignorance of the punishment they would receive at the hands of Titus. Thus, the Jews remain guilty of killing the Christ, and—with apparently unperceived irony—Luke 23:34a is made to establish the fairness of the siege of Jerusalem rather than questioning it. Similarly, in Quaestiones et Responsiones ad Orthodoxos, a work that has been attributed to Justin Martyr but probably originated in fifth-century Antioch, Pseudo-Justin responds to basic apologetic queries such as “How could there have been three days before the sun was created on the fourth?” and “What happens to babies who die unbaptized?”43 One question concerns the unfairness of God’s punishment of the Jews in 70. Quoting Luke 23:34a, Pseudo-Justin asks why the Jews have been “driven away from their fatherland and scattered into all the earth, and given up to the Gentiles for dishonorable slavery” if Christ prayed that their sin was committed in ignorance: “If ignorance necessitates forbearance, as we are taught by scripture, why were the old Jews, who crucified the Christ out of ignorance, tested by many irresistible and terrible things as Josephus testifies?” (PG 6:1356). Pseudo-Justin answers that the resurrection eliminated any excuse the Jews may have had, but, as Harnack noted, the fact that this question was included in a series of introductory apologetic queries indicates that “der Text gab damals einen schweren Anstoss.”44

IV. Conclusion The external evidence for Luke 23:34a is far from conclusive. Both the short and the long reading are found in every text type, including important Alexandrian witnesses. The short reading is supported by an important late-second- or earlythird-century papyrus, but a good number of second- and third-century church 43 Brian Daley, The Hope of the Early Church: A Handbook of Patristic Eschatology (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press, 1991), 116. 44 Harnack, “Probleme im Texte,” 260.

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fathers testify to the long reading. Moreover, intrinsic probability suggests that the prayer belongs in the text of Luke: the prayer matches Luke’s preferred way of addressing God; its structure resembles that of the Lukan Lord’s Prayer; it resembles Stephen’s prayer for his killers without having a single word in common; and the link between ignorance and mitigated culpability matches a motif running throughout Luke-Acts. Regarding transcriptional probability, it is now clear that Luke 23:34a was a problem passage in early Christianity. We may, therefore, conclude that Harnack and others who suggested that the prayer was omitted for anti-Jewish reasons were on the right track. Note, however, that early Christian consternation with Luke 23:34a stemmed not from anti-Judaism alone but also from the fact that Jesus’ prayer seemed to have gone unanswered, and from a sense that the Jews had been punished unjustly. The discomfort with the prayer explains why the external evidence for both readings is early and widespread; in all likelihood, Luke 23:34a was omitted fairly early, possibly by multiple scribes, while other scribes corrupted the text by changing ἄφες to συγχώρησον. Finally, a word should be said about the relevance of early Christian exegesis of Scripture for textual criticism. Hort warned that in making use of transcriptional probability, “we have to do with readings only as they are likely to have appeared to transcribers, not as they appear to us.”45 Yet Hort’s own confidence that no scribe would have omitted something as sublime as Luke 23:34a illustrates the tenuousness of arguments based on one’s general knowledge of early Christianity, rather than on actual early Christian interpretations of the reading in question.46 The growing awareness of the influence of the social realities of early Christianity on the text of the NT has enriched our understanding of scribal proclivities, but this approach can only be enhanced by more careful attention to ancient exegesis. An example may illuminate the point: as noted above, it has been suggested that early Christians read Luke 23:34a as a prayer for the soldiers who crucified Jesus and that early Christians inserted this prayer into Luke to increase the guilt of the Jews by exonerating the Romans.47 This hypothesis rightly assumes that anti-Judaism could have played a role in the transmission of the prayer, but it ignores a whole class of evidence that suggests that no early Christians understood the prayer to be on behalf of the soldiers. This point need not be controversial; if the goal of transcriptional probability is to determine what a scribe is most likely to have written, it would seem prudent to examine what the scribe’s near contemporaries wrote about the passage in question. 45

Westcott and Hort, Introduction to the New Testament, 27. Ibid., 68. 47 Petzer, “Anti-Judaism and the Textual Problem of Luke 23:34a,” 199–204. 46

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 537–557

Closed-Minded Hermeneutics? A Proposed Alternative Translation for Luke 24:45 matthew w. bates [email protected] University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556

For these words have not been fashionably arranged by me, nor embellished by human technique, but rather David sang them, Isaiah preached them, Zechariah heralded them, Moses recorded them. Do you recognize them Trypho? They are stored up in your Scriptures, or rather not in yours but in ours, for we are obedient to them, but when you read them, you do not understand the “mind” in them [ὑμεῖς δὲ ἀναγινώσκοντες οὐ νοεῖτε τὸν ἐν αὐτοῖς νοῦν].1 (Justin Martyr, Dial. 29.2)

Given the profound hermeneutical implications of Luke 24:45 regarding the relationship between the NT and the OT, critical scholarship has paid surprisingly little attention to this verse in its own right.2 Yet Luke 24:45 gives what must be A word of thanks is due to David E. Aune, Brian E. Daley, and Daniel L. Smith for reading initial drafts of this article and giving valuable feedback. However, my colleague Eric C. Rowe deserves special recognition in this regard since he took a keen interest in this project and served as a sounding board for me at numerous junctures. All of the views expressed in this article remain my own. 1 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. The Greek text is from PTS 47:116. 2 If the indexes in New Testament Abstracts are a fair guide, not a single article has been devoted exclusively to this verse in the last sixty years, and very few to the farewell discourse (Luke 24:44–49). Articles with some bearing on the hermeneutical issues generated by 24:45 include P. Bockel, “Luc 24,45: ‘Il leur ouvrit l’esprit à l’intelligence des écritures,’” BTS 36 (1961): 2–3. Richard J. Dillon, From Eye-Witnesses to Ministers of the Word: Tradition and Composition in Luke 24 (AnBib 82; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1978), 203–20; Hilaire Duesberg, “He Opened Their Minds to Understand the Scriptures,” Concil 30 (1968): 111–21; Josef Ernst, “Schriftauslegung und Auferstehungsglaube bei Lukas,” TGl 60 (1970): 360–74; Augustin George, “L’Intelligence des

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regarded as one of the most important statements in the NT regarding the manner in which Christian readers appropriate the Jewish Scriptures: τότε διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς γραφάς. In modern parlance, the verse has been consistently translated across the major modern research languages as something akin to the following: “Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures” (NRSV), “Da öffnete er ihnen das Verständnis, so daß sie die Schrift verstanden” (Luther [1984]), or “Alors il leur ouvrit l’esprit à l’intelligence des Écritures” (Bible de Jérusalem [1961]). The hermeneutical implications that derive from this reading are simple yet far-reaching. Put quite simply, it was necessary for Jesus to “open the minds” of his disciples in order for them properly to interpret the Scriptures. Apart from Jesus’ special action, their mental faculties were hermeneutically deficient. Moreover, there is a corollary to the need for Christian illumination. As Michael Wolter states regarding Luke 24:45: Jetzt erst und endlich wird das Unverständnis der Jünger aufgehoben. . . . Indirekt wird damit nicht nur gesagt, dass das bisherige Unverständnis der Jünger auf einer Unkenntnis der heiligen Schriften Israels beruhte, sondern auch, dass die Abweisung der Christusverkündigung von Seiten der weitaus überwiegenden Mehrheit des Judentums ihren Grund einzig und allein darin hat, dass sie ihre eigenen Schriften nicht richtig verstanden hat.3

Thus, granted the traditional rendering, not only did the disciples need to have “their minds opened” by the Lukan Jesus, but the corollary to this proposition is that Jews who have rejected Jesus are not able properly to understand their own Scriptures unless Christ should happen likewise to “open their minds.” In this way, seemingly, anyone who has not experienced mental reconditioning by Christ can not properly interpret—and this includes would-be disciples, Jews who have rejected Jesus, and all other non-Christians of whatever variety. A harmonizing explanatory appeal to Paul is not infrequently invoked by Lukan expositors at this juncture. Just as it is true for Paul that only in Christ is “the veil taken away” (2 Cor 3:16) so that the Jewish Scriptures can be read adequately, so also for Luke.4 This principle of “the need for the mind to be opened” in order properly to read the OT extends beyond NT studies proper, impacting relevant subfields such as systematic theology and biblical hermeneutics.5 But is this principle on firm translational ground insofar as it depends on the Lukan evidence? écritures (Luc 24,44-53),” BVC 18 (1957): 65–71; Benjamin J. Hubbard, “Commissioning Stories in Luke-Acts: A Study of Their Antecedents, Form and Content,” Sem 8 (1977): 103–26; Jack Dean Kingsbury, “Luke 24:44–49,” Int 35 (1981): 170–74. 3 Wolter, Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 792. 4 See Frédéric L. Godet, A Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke (1881; trans. M. D. Cusin; 5th ed.; repr., Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 360; George, “L’intellegence,” 65–71; Ernst, “Schriftauslegung,” 192. 5 See, e.g., Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), I.2.514–16; Anthony C. Thiselton, The Two Horizons: New Testament Hermeneutics and Philosophical Descrip-

Bates: A Proposed Translation for Luke 24:45

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In this article I would like to suggest that an alternative translation of Luke 24:45 merits serious consideration: “Then Jesus exposited the Scriptures so that the disciples could understand their meaning [νοῦς]”—that is, under the proposed alternative rendering, the “mind” in question is not a property of the disciples, but rather of the Scriptures. In light of my admittedly nonexhaustive scouring of the secondary literature, I have not been able to find anyone who has suggested this translation in the modern era.6 After presenting the basic syntactical features of Luke 24:45, I will present an overview of the early reception history of this verse in the hope that such an exploration might throw further light on the possibility of an alternative translation. Then, I will advocate for this alternative translation on the basis of Luke’s own usage, general semantic considerations, and context. Should the alternative rendering that I am proposing be accepted, certain weighty hermeneutical implications follow, and this paper will conclude by teasing out some of these implications. However, first I will give a quick summary of the basic syntactical issues in Luke 24:45.

I. The Syntax of Luke 24:45 First, is the proposed alternative translation syntactically feasible? Luke 24:45 reads: τότε διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς γραφάς. Traditionally τὸν νοῦν has been taken as the direct object of διήνοιξεν, while τὰς γραφάς has been made the direct object of the infinitive συνιέναι. The result is: “Then [Jesus] opened their minds so that [they might] understand the Scriptures.” Although it is substantially less probable on the basis of word order alone, there is nothing syntactically objectionable to taking the more distant τὰς γραφάς as the direct object of διήνοιξεν, while reading τὸν νοῦν as the direct object of συνιέναι,7 resulting in the alternative: “Then [Jesus] exposited the Scriptures so that tion with Special Reference to Heidegger, Bultmann, Gadamer, and Wittgenstein (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 93–94; William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993), 82–85. 6 Of course, I am not so bold (or foolish) as to think I am the only one who has ever proposed this translation, but any previous discussion has not entered into the scholarly mainstream. The scope of the secondary literature I surveyed included the major critical commentaries in English, French, and German written in the last 150 years that were available to me (many popular-level commentaries were omitted), as well as New Testament Abstracts. I have also surveyed the monographs that seemed directly relevant, but I am not a Lukan specialist, and I am sure that some literature has inadvertently escaped my attention. 7 The accusative object frequently precedes the infinitive when the infinitive is complementary (e.g., Luke 5:12, 18; 6:39; etc.), a phenomenon that compares morphologically but not syntactically with the proposed alternative construction. A more appropriate comparison is with other infinitives of purpose/result that take a preceding accusative object. A few such examples include 1 Macc 14:23: τοῦ μνημόσυνον ἔχειν τὸν δῆμον τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν (“in order that the citizens of Sparta might have a record”); Rom 10:6: Χριστὸν καταγαγεῖν (“in order to bring

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[they might] understand their ‘mind’”—that is, their “meaning” or “underlying sense.”8 Ιn either translation, the genitive αὐτῶν modifies τὸν νοῦν, but under the traditional rendering αὐτῶν refers to the unexpressed “disciples,” while in the alternative it designates the explicitly mentioned “Scriptures.”9 As I will demonstrate below, there are compelling reasons to question whether the word order should be decisive in this particular case. However, first a look at the earliest reception of Luke 24:45 may help us glean some fruitful information about the potentials and pitfalls of the proposed alternative translation.

II. Brief History of Early Christian Interpretation of Luke 24:45 Here I want to focus on the earliest reception history of Luke 24:45. Commentaries on the entire Gospel of Luke were relatively uncommon in antiquity. Origen treated Luke in fifteen volumes, but his commentary survives in only a few fragments and homilies, none of which covers Luke 24:45. We have extant a relatively complete Syriac translation of a commentary on Luke by Cyril of Alexandria, which is in fact a series of homilies. There is also a commentary in the Latin tradition by Ambrose, as well as a plethora of fragments and other minor works.10 All told, however, Biblia Patristica lists only fifteen references inclusive of Luke 24:45, and just six of these turn out to be directly relevant to this translational question,11 to which a few additional texts that I have come across can be added.12 Christ down”); 2 Cor 6:1: παρακαλοῦμεν μὴ εἰς κενὸν τὴν χάριν τοῦ θεοῦ δέξασθαι ὑμᾶς (“we exhort you not to receive the grace of God vainly”); 1 Clem. 63.1: τὸν τῆς ὑπακοῆς τόπον ἀναπληρῶσαι (“to fulfill the station of obedience”); Origen, Philoc. 2.3: ἡγοῦμαι γοῦν καὶ τὸν ἀπόστολον τὴν τοιαύτην ἔφοδον τοῦ συνιέναι τοὺς θείους λόγους ὑποβάλλοντα λέγειν (“And in fact I think the apostle, in order that [we might] understand this sort of approach, sets down these divine words, saying . . .”)—see also Gen 47:29; 4 Macc 1:6; 10:14; Rom 10:7; 1 Cor 13:2; 1 Thess 1:8; Herm. Sim. 9.6.1. For other constructions showing unusual syntactical positioning of the object(s) around the infinitive consider, e.g., Luke 4:41; Acts 10:47; 17:7; 17:23: ἔχει γὰρ ἀπαγγεῖλαί τι αὐτῷ (“For he has something to report to him”); Rom 4:13; 1 Tim 6:5; Philo, Cher. 1.107; Post. 1.137. 8 For this translation of νοῦς, see below. 9 On morphological grounds either referent is possible, since the first and second declensions are identical in the genitive plural for αὐτός. 10 For discussion and essential bibliography on ancient Christian exegesis of Luke, see Charles Kannengiesser, Handbook of Patristic Exegesis: The Bible in Ancient Christianity (Bible in Ancient Christianity 1; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 344, 351–52. 11 Biblia Patristica (6 vols.; Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975–). The relevant passages are treated below. Those deemed irrelevant are Justin Martyr, Dial. 53.5; 106.1; Ep. Apos. 19; Irenaeus, Epid. 83; Cyprian, Idol. 14; Eusebius, Dem. ev. 3.4.39; Quaest. 10; Comm. Isa. 1.96; Theoph. A 179.19. 12 See below on Cyril, Eusebius, Ps.-Athanasius, and Augustine.


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Irenaeus is the first Christian interpreter who quotes Luke 24:45, but he offers no expanding comments on the text and the Greek is not extant at this juncture (Haer. 3.16.5). The reconstructed Greek text of Irenaeus supplied by the editors of the SC edition is identical to that of Nestle-Aland for Luke 24:45, which is surely correct here.13 So Irenaeus himself does not offer an interpretation of Luke 24:45.14 However, an interpretation is provided by his Latin translator, who probably translated in the early third century prior to Tertullian:15 Tunc adaperuit eorum sensum ut intellegerent Scripturas (“Then he opened their mind so that they might understand the Scriptures”). Since Latin differs from Greek inasmuch as the first declension is not identical to the second declension in the genitive plural, eorum cannot refer to Scripturas, and thus it is clear that the Latin translator of Irenaeus understood Luke 24:45 in the same manner as is prevalent today—that is, Jesus opened the disciples’ minds, not the Scriptures. Another early Latin interpretation is provided by Cyprian in Ad Quirinum 4 (ca. 248). It is widely acknowledged that Ad Quirinum collects testimonia material that hails from a much earlier Greek-speaking milieu.16 Cyprian cites Luke 24:45 as part of the scriptural evidence purporting to show that the Jews were unable to understand the Scriptures prior to Christ. Like Irenaeus, Cyprian does not comment explicitly on Luke 24:45, but its interpretation is revealed by its Latin rendering: Tunc adaperuit illis sensum, ut intellegerent scripturas (“Then he opened the sensus for them so that they might understand the Scriptures”).17 The Latin word sensus is much like the Greek νοῦς, in that both can mean the mental “faculty of perception” but also “the sense or meaning of a word or a text.”18 Ultimately the Latin is ambivalent, but the use of the dative illis (“he opened the sensus for the disciples”) rather than the genitive eorum (“he opened the sensus of the disciples”) may slightly favor the alternative translation I am proposing for Luke 24:45—that is, “he opened the meaning for the disciples.” Lactantius provides two possible interpretations of Luke 24:45, the first in Divinarum Institutionum libri VII 4.20.1 (ca. 303–313). Although the setting in Galilee rather than Jerusalem is puzzling (see Luke 24:33), that Lactantius is referring to Luke 24:44–45 rather than 24:26–27 is likely since the disciples have been gathered “again”: 13

SC 211:306–7. Cf. also Haer. 4.26.1. 15 On the date of the Latin translation, see Dominic J. Unger, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against the Heresies, vol. 1, Book 1 (ACW 55; New York: Newman, 1992), 14–15. A minority adhere to a fourth-century date. 16 Martin C. Albl, ‘And Scripture Cannot Be Broken’: The Form and Function of Early Christian Testimonia Collections (NovTSup 96; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 132–33. 17 Latin text in CCSL 3.1:10. A few manuscripts read aperuit rather than adaperuit. 18 On sensus, see Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary Founded on Andrews’ Edition of Freund’s Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1879), s.v. sensus II.B.2.a; on νοῦς, see LSJ, s.v. νόος III and discussion below. 14

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Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010) discipulis iterum congregatis scripturae sanctae litteras, id est prophetarum arcana patefecit, quae antequam pateretur perspici nullo modo poterant, quia ipsum passionemque euis adnuntiabant . . . . Itaque nisi Christus mortem suscepisset, aperiri testamentum, id est reuelari et intellegi mysterium Dei non potuisset. [In Galilee] he opened the writings of the Holy Scripture, that is the secrets of the prophets, to his re-congregated disciples, which prior to his suffering were certainly not able to be understood, for they announced [Jesus] himself and his passion. . . . Therefore unless Christ had experienced death, the testament could not have been opened; that is, it would not have been possible for the mystery of God to have been revealed and understood.19

Although the periphrastic nature of his interpretation makes any conclusions regarding his understanding of Luke 24:45 tentative, Lactantius does speak of opening the Scripture to unveil the secrets hidden in the prophetic writings rather than opening the disciples’ minds. Thus, this first example gives modest support to the alternative translation. However, a second example from Lactantius De mortibus persecutorum (ca. 317) is less clear, seemingly supporting both the alternative translation and the traditional understanding at the same time: et diebus XL cum his commoratus aperuit corda eorum et scripturas interpretatus est, quae usque ad id tempus obscurae atque inuolutae fuerent. and having remained with them forty days, he opened their hearts and interpreted the Scriptures, which until that time were rolled-up in obscurity.20

Here Lactantius affirms, on the one hand, that Jesus opened (aperuit) his disciples’ hearts (corda), perhaps conflating Luke 24:45 with 24:31, siding with the standard translation. But, on the other hand, he says that Jesus interpreted (interpretatus est) the Scriptures, which would favor the alternative. This second example is perhaps too periphrastic to yield any definitive conclusions, but it slightly favors the standard translation of Luke 24:45 since the correlation of corda with aperuit is the more significant point for our purposes. Eusebius of Caesarea, in his Demonstratio evangelica (written 314–319), provides a particularly critical example in his discussion of Dan 9:24, especially in light of his Greek-speaking milieu. Unfortunately, however, it is not certain that he has Luke 24:45 specifically in view with his allusion: Instead of “And in order to seal up the vision and the prophet” [Dan 9:24], Aquila has made an improvement, it seems, when he says, “And in order to fulfill [τελέσαι] the vision and the prophet.” For our Lord and Savior came not in order to

19 20

Latin text in SC 377:180–81. Latin text in SC 39:80–81.


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lock up, as if to seal up the prophetic visions—which visions were in fact obscure and sealed up long ago. Rather he came, so to speak, as one removing the seals which lay upon the prophetic visions. He both opened [ἀνεῳξέν] and unfolded [ἀνήπλωσεν] them, handing along [παραδιδούς] the meaning [τὸν νοῦν] of the divine writings to his own disciples. . . . Therefore the Christ of God came not in order to lock up “vision and prophet” [Dan 9:24], but rather to unfurl [ἀναπετάσαι] them and lead them forth [ἀγαγεῖν] into the light. Thus, it seems to me Aquila has done better in saying, “in order to fulfill the vision and the prophet” [Dan 9:24]. (Dem. ev. 8.2.30–32)21

If indeed Eusebius is offering an allusive interpretation of Luke 24:45, then this may be an example by a native Greek speaker of a preference for the alternative rendering of Luke 24:45 hereby proposed. Since Eusebius is interpreting some activity of Jesus with respect to the instruction of the disciples, it is noteworthy that among all of the passages in the fourfold Gospels, his words find the strongest linguistic and thematic connection with Luke 24:45, making the allusion probable. In his Commentary on Psalms 125.2 (written 364–367), Hilary of Poitiers gives a translation followed by explicit comments that indicate that he understood Luke 24:45 in the manner represented by the traditional translation: tunc aperuit sensum eorum, ut intelligerent Scripturas (“Then he opened their mind so that they might understand the Scriptures”).22 Hilary makes his stance more explicit with the further statement: “Therefore, that which we understand is not from us, but from [Christ], who has made intelligent those who were ignorant.” Ambrose preached on Luke in 377–378, and the contents of his sermons were worked into a commentary in 388–399.23 Ambrose treats Jesus’ words in Luke 24:45 as an act of consolation to his troubled disciples: Denique et conturbati sunt, ut habes secundum Lucan, et ideo aperuit illis sensum, ut intellegerent ea quae scripta sunt. (Exp. Luc. 10.173) In fact also “they were upset” as you have it according to Luke, so that for this reason “he opened the sensus for them so that they might understand those things which are written.”24

Thus, Ambrose sees the action of Luke 24:45 as Jesus’ comforting response to his grieving disciples. Unfortunately, Ambrose gives very little indication of whether he understands Jesus as opening the disciples’ minds or the Scriptures, so the Latin text he presents is our only guide, and, as in Cyprian above, the dative illis rather than the genitive eorum may tip the balance slightly in the direction of the alternative translation. 21

Greek text in GCS 23:2018. Latin text in PL 9:685. 23 Kannegiesser, Handbook, 1050. 24 Luke 24:45 is cited again in the exact same form and with the same basic point in Exp. Luc. 10.179. Latin texts in SC 29:214, 216. 22

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The commentary on Luke by Cyril of Alexandria (fl. 412–444) is problematic regarding Luke 24:45; it is found in a catena that is ascribed to Cyril, but its authenticity is doubtful.25 Nonetheless, it is clear that this interpreter, whether Cyril or someone else, takes the traditional position on Luke 24:45: Then He opened their mind to understand, that so it behooved Him to suffer, even upon the wood of the cross. Therefore, the Lord recalls the minds of the disciples to what He had said beforehand; for he had forewarned them of His sufferings upon the cross in accordance with what the prophets had spoken long beforehand; and he opens also the eyes of their heart, so that they might understand the ancient prophecies.26

And so (Ps.)-Cyril affirms that it was the disciples’ minds that were opened, which is made especially emphatic by the double metaphor “he opens also the eyes of their heart.” Ps.-Athanasius (ca. 500) echoes the words of Luke 24:45 in his Expositiones in Psalmos 119:131a, but introduces one important modification signaling that he aligns with the traditional rendering rather than the alternative: “I opened my mouth and I drew breath”: Now the [psalmist] requests the expository oracles. Also, for this reason the Savior opened the mind of the disciples in order that they might understand the Scriptures [Διὸ καὶ ὁ Σωτὴρ διήνοιξε τὸν νοῦν τῶν μαθητῶν τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς Γραφάς]. And the understanding which is granted through the words prevents deception through pleasure or glory.27

Here Ps.-Athanasius believes that the psalmist requested that God place oracles in his mouth. And since God granted this request (or so it is assumed), it is equally necessary that God grant the power for these oracles to be subsequently interpreted, which Ps.-Athanasius believes transpired when God opened the minds of his disciples. Note that Ps.-Athanasius forbids the alternative translation by his substitution of τῶν μαθητῶν in place of the αὐτῶν of Luke 24:45. Finally, that infinitely influential theologian of the west, Augustine (fl. 387– 430), provides a fitting climax:

25 R. Payne Smith, ed. and trans., Commentary on the Gospel of Saint Luke by Saint Cyril of Alexandria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1859; repr., n.p.: Studion, 1983), 619. Smith declares, “St. Cyril can scarcely have repeated himself in so confused a manner, and the discussion at hand is scarcely worthy of him,” while noting that the Aurea Catena is sometimes ascribed to Cyril by Nicolaus, but sometimes called anonymous. 26 Trans. Smith, Commentary, 620 (slightly modified). 27 PG 27:501. Traditionally this work has been attributed to Athanasius as a work of his later years, but the attribution has been called into grave doubt by Gilles Dorival, “Athanse ou PseudoAthanase,” Rivista di Storia e Letteratura Religiosa 16 (1980): 80–89; and G. C. Stead, “St. Athanasius on the Psalms,” VC 39 (1985): 65–78. The date of ca. 500 c.e. is based on the suggestion of Dorival but is quite uncertain.


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Tunc aperuit illis sensum. Veni ergo, Domine, fac claves, aperi ut intelligamus. . . . De Scriptures admones, et adhuc non intelligunt. Clausa sunt corda, aperi, et intra. Fecit: Tunc aperuit illis sensum. (Serm. 115.6)28 “Then he opened the sensus for them.” Thus come, O Lord, use your keys, open that we might understand. . . . From the Scriptures you admonish them, but up to this point they do not understand. Their hearts are closed, open, and enter in. He did it: “Then he opened the sensus for them.”

Regardless of whether sensus intends “meaning” or “understanding” on the translational level here, on the theological level Augustine seems to favor the standard interpretation of Luke 24:45. Christ must use his keys to open the hearts (corda) of the disciples; otherwise their minds remain as a locked box, unable properly to interpret the Scriptures. The few quotations and allusions that make up the early reception history of Luke 24:45 give a slightly conflicted report. There are no absolutely clear-cut cases in which Luke 24:45 was interpreted in accordance with the proposed alternative translation “he exposited the Scriptures in order that they might understand their meaning.” However, there are several instances in which the alternative construal is plausible or perhaps even probable. Specifically, the alternative translation is encouraged by Cyprian, Ambrose, Lactantius in Divinarum Institutionum, and especially Eusebius. On the other hand, Irenaeus’s translator, Lactantius, in De mortibus persecutorum, Hilary of Poitiers, Ps.-Cyril, Ps.-Athanasius, and Augustine either explicitly or seemingly follow the standard interpretation. In brief, if the alternative translation that is being put forward in this article is deemed probable on other grounds, it has plausible support in the earliest reception history but does not command the majority.

III. Διανοίγω in Luke-Acts and Beyond The best evidence for the proposed alternative translation is Luke’s own use of διανοίγω with αἱ γραφαί. The verb διανοίγω appears six times in Luke-Acts apart from Luke 24:45. Two of the instances are not particularly pertinent to the discussion at hand, apart from illustrating something of the typical range of διανοίγω when used in the literal sense (Luke 2:23, “opening the womb” [cf. Exod 13:2; Num 3:12; etc.]; Acts 7:56, “the heavens standing open”).29 However, the other four uses of διανοίγω in Luke-Acts are highly relevant, two of which actually occur in Luke 24. Two of the usages support the traditional interpretation (Luke 24:31 and Acts 16:14), at least superficially, while the other two (Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2-3) forcefully undergird the alternative: 28

PL 38:659; cf. Serm. 129.6 (PL 38:723); Cons. 2.74. See also διανοίγω with “the mouth” (Prov 31:25; Isa 5:14; Lam 2:16; etc.) and with “the hands” (Prov 31:20; etc.). 29

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Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010) Luke 24:31 αὐτῶν δὲ διηνοίχθησαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοὶ καὶ ἐπέγνωσαν αὐτόν· καὶ αὐτὸς ἄφαντος ἐγένετο ἀπ᾿ αὐτῶν. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he disappeared from their vision.

Luke 24:32 καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους· οὐχὶ ἡ καρδία ἡμῶν καιομένη ἦν [ἐν ἡμῖν] ὡς ἐλάλει ἡμῖν ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ, ὡς διήνοιγεν ἡμῖν τὰς γραφάς; And they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us when he was speaking to us on the road, when he was expositing the Scriptures for us?

Acts 16:14 Λυδία . . . ἧς ὁ κύριος διήνοιξεν τὴν καρδίαν προσέχειν τοῖς λαλουμένοις ὑπὸ τοῦ Παύλου. Lydia . . . whose heart the Lord opened to heed the things said by Paul.

Acts 17:2–3 . . . καὶ ἐπὶ σάββατα τρία διελέξατο αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν γραφῶν, διανοίγων καὶ παρατιθέμενος ὅτι τὸν χριστὸν ἔδει παθεῖν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ χριστὸς [ὁ] Ἰησοῦς ὃν ἐγὼ καταγγέλλω ὑμῖν. . . . and on three Sabbath days [Paul] debated with them from the Scriptures, expositing [them] and demonstrating [from them] that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, while saying, “This Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you, is the Christ.”

There are two passages that lend some credible support to the standard interpretation, although not in an unambiguous manner. As Luke 24:31 and Acts 16:14 illustrate, in addition to its literal meaning, διανοίγω can be used metaphorically in conjunction with an appropriate anthropological term such as “eyes” or “heart” to denote a moment of intellectual insight. In fact, there are sixty-two occurrences of διανοίγω in the LXX, the NT, Philo, Josephus, and the Apostolic Fathers, nine of which fall into the category of anthropological metaphor for the attainment of intellectual insight.30 In Luke 24:31, it is the “eyes” (ὀφθαλμοί) that are opened, whereas in Acts 16:14 the Lord opens Lydia’s “heart” (καρδία). Thus, these two passages would appear to lend weighty support to the traditional interpretation of διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν as “he opened their mind.” 30 For ὀφθαλμοί, see Gen 3:5–7 (twice); 2 Kgs 6:17–20 (twice); Prov 20:13; and Luke 24:31; for καρδία, see 2 Macc 1:4 and Acts 16:14.


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However, it is striking that there are zero instances, to the best of my knowledge, in all of antiquity of διανοίγω or the related verb ἀνοίγω with νοῦς as the object prior to the fifth century c.e. (excluding, of course, the reception history of Luke 24:45 as discussed above).31 In brief, if Luke does indeed take νοῦς as the object of διανοίγω, then Luke’s usage is a singularity prior to the fifth century c.e. for no other author attests this idiom. Moreover, it is not as if διανοίγω and ἀνοίγω are rare. For instance, these two verbs occur 413 times in the NT, LXX, Josephus, Philo, and the Apostolic Fathers, but the collocation of διανοίγω or ἀνοίγω with νοῦς as the object is never made here or elsewhere, as might perhaps be expected if the traditional translation is indeed correct.32 Thus, “to open [διανοίγω or ἀνοίγω] the νοῦς” is not a common idiom for the attainment of intellectual insight in our literature—in fact quite the opposite—it never occurs apart from the reception history of Luke 24:45. Furthermore, διανοίγω does not involve scriptural exposition in either Luke 24:31 or Acts 16:14 in a fashion that might compare with Luke 24:45. Rather, in Luke 24:31 the eyes of the travelers are “opened” when Jesus breaks the bread—the Scriptures are not in view. Thus, the specific semantic context of 24:31 is quite different from that of 24:45, so we should not necessarily expect that διανοίγω would be used in a semantically comparable way. The same can be said for the “opening” of Lydia’s heart in Acts 16:14. After Paul and his companions talk (ἐλαλοῦμεν) with the women, Lydia responds to the things said by Paul (τοῖς λαλουμένοις). Although Paul presumably did argue to Lydia from the Scriptures, the topos of scriptural exposition is in fact noteworthy for its complete absence in the pericope about Lydia’s conversion. Therefore, the precise semantic context of Acts 16:14 does not compare favorably with Luke 24:45 either. Thus, neither Luke 24:31 nor Acts 16:14, the two texts that provide the strongest exegetical basis for the traditional translation, has an exegetical context that truly compares to Luke 24:45.33 31 The first occurrence of νοῦς as the object of διανοίγω appears to be Joannes Archiereus, Ἰωάννου ἀρχιερέως τοῦ ἐν Ἐβειγίᾳ περὶ τῆς θείας τέχνης (ed. M. Berthelot and C. É. Ruelle; Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs 2; Paris: Steinheil, 1888; repr., 1963), 2:264 line 7 (διανοίγων τὸν νοῦν). Cf., however, Origen, Fr. Hom. Job 2.377 line 8 in J. B. Pitra, ed., Analecta sacra spicilegio Solesmensi parata (2 vols.; Paris: Tusculum, 1884), in which διανοίαι is the object, which is closely associated with νοῦς (pl.). These results are based on my own TLG searches, which were made difficult by the complex morphology of (δι)ανοίγω. Consequently, I am confident, but not absolutely certain, that I was able to evaluate all the occurrences in the TLG database. 32 Nor are there any instances in the NT, LXX, Josephus, Philo, or the Apostolic Fathers in which διανοίγω or ἀνοίγω takes as an object any other noun which falls within the same anthropological semantic domain as νοῦς, such as συνείδησις, διάνοια, νόημα, φρήν, φρόνησις, or ὁρμή, the one exception being σύνεσις in LXX Hos 2:17 (διανοῖξαι σύνεσιν αὐτῆς, “in order to open her comprehension”). See L&Ν §26 regarding the semantic domain of νοῦς, which does not list σύνεσις but probably should (cf. BDAG, s.v. νοῦς). 33 On the exegetical contexts of Luke 24:32, 45; and Acts 17:2–3, see further below.

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On the other hand—and this point is crucial—the two passages, Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2–3, that speak in favor of the alternative translation do so in an emphatic manner. Just exactly as is hereby being proposed for Luke 24:45, the author of Luke-Acts himself explicitly takes αἱ γραφαί as the direct object of διανοίγω in Luke 24:32: διήνοιγεν ἡμῖν τὰς γραφάς (“he opened/exposited the Scriptures for us”). Not only is this so, but Luke uses αἱ γραφαί as the object of διανοίγω not just once, but a second time. In Acts 17:2–3 a correlation between διανοίγω and αἱ γραφαί appears again, where the latter serves as the implied direct object of the former: διελέξατο αὐτοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν γραφῶν, διανοίγων καὶ παρατιθέμενος (“He debated with them from the Scriptures by expositing [them] and demonstrating [from them]”). So Luke himself twice makes the same basic syntactical connection as is proposed for the alternative translation with the same verb and object. Furthermore, not only is there a close lexical link between Luke 24:45 and Acts 17:2–3 in terms of verb and object; there is also a correspondence in terms of the content of the Scriptures said to be “opened.” In Luke 24:46a the content of the Scriptures is “that the Christ is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day” (παθεῖν τὸν χριστὸν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ). The content of the Scriptures “opened” in Acts 17:2–3 is nearly identical: “that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead” (ὅτι τὸν χριστὸν ἔδει παθεῖν καὶ ἀναστῆναι ἐκ νεκρῶν). Thus, αἱ γραφαί is in effect twice made the object of διανοίγω by Luke himself and there is a correspondence between the content “opened.” Would it be surprising if Luke 24:45 should prove to be a third case? Not only is there evidence on grounds internal to Luke-Acts that αἱ γραφαί may have been intended as the direct object of διανοίγω in Luke 24:45, but general semantic concerns point in this direction as well. Although διανοίγω does indeed have the literal and metaphorical senses discussed above, it also has a specialized semantic range that includes activities such as the “opening-up” or “exposition” of a word, phrase, text, or book.34 Although there is a possible instance in Philo,35 the author of Luke-Acts appears to be the first extant author to employ this specialized exegetical meaning of διανοίγω.36 After Luke-Acts, the next clear See BDAG, s.v. διανοίγω 2; LSJ, s.v. διανοίγω III. Philo, Somn. 2.36 (Greek text in Colson and Whitaker, LCL: εἰρήνης δὲ Νεφθαλείμ διανοίγεται γὰρ καὶ εὐρύνεται πάντα εἰρήνῃ, ὡς συγκλείεται πολέμῳ· τὸ δὲ ὄνομα μεταληφθὲν πλατυσμὸς ἢ διανεῳγμένον ἐστί, “Now Naphtali is a symbol of peace, for all things are opened up and expanded by peace, just as all things are closed up by war; so his name is a substitute for ‘expanded’ or ‘having been opened up’”). Whether a specialized expository meaning is intended for διανοίγω in this passage depends on whether Philo is making a play on the symbolic interpretation of the name Naphtali by deliberately using expositional vocabulary to explain its interpretation. The matter is unclear, although I think it somewhat doubtful. 36 Based on my own TLG searches. 34

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example is in Clement of Alexandria, after which the examples quickly multiply in the patristic era.37 Thus, the specialized interpretative semantic field of διανοίγω (“to exposit”) is secure in Luke-Acts on internal grounds and in the subsequent literature. In fact, both BDAG and LSJ assign Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2–3 to this specialized interpretative semantic field.38 In summary, some support for the traditional translation of Luke 24:45 as “he opened their minds” is garnered in Luke-Acts via the similar idioms “their eyes were opened” (Luke 24:31) and “whose heart the Lord opened” (Acts 16:14), but the parallels are inexact. Neither διανοίγω nor ἀνοίγω takes νοῦς as an accusative object in any of the relevant literature, as might be expected if the standard translation is correct. On the other hand, the strongest possible evidence, the characteristic usage of the author of Luke-Acts himself, points in the direction of the proposed alternative translation. In both Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2–3 the verb διανοίγω takes αἱ γραφαί as the object, whether explicitly or implicitly, precisely as is here proposed for Luke 24:45: “Then he exposited [διήνοιξεν] the Scriptures [τὰς γραφάς] so that they might understand their meaning [νοῦν].”

IV. Nοῦς: Lexical Semantics The semantic range of νοῦς is of vital import to this study. The traditional translation takes αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν as referring to the disciples’ minds. The alternative translation being proposed regards νοῦς as the “mind” of the Scriptures. In the lexical analysis below I will show that part of the semantic range of νοῦς synchronically available to the author of Luke-Acts includes νοῦς as the unitive sense or meaning of a word, passage, or text. Unfortunately, nothing can be gleaned regarding Luke’s own semantic preferences with respect to νοῦς because its sole instantiation in the corpus is Luke 24:45 itself. However, the word νοῦς occurs 787 times in the LXX (30), the NT (24), Philo (686), Josephus (37), and the Apostolic Fathers (10). BDAG gives three definitions: “the faculty of intellectual perception,” “way of thinking,” and “result of thinking.” However, in so classifying the meanings, BDAG has excluded an important part of the semantic domain of νοῦς that is well attested throughout the Hellenistic era. LSJ is more helpful in this regard, giving “sense, meaning of a word, etc.,” as a possible gloss for νοῦς and offering examples extending from the fifth century b.c.e. to the Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.15.127.2 (Greek Text in GCS): διανοιχθεῖσαι δὲ αἱ γραφαὶ καὶ τοῖς ὧτα ἔχουσιν ἐμφήνασαι τὸ ἀληθὲς αὐτὸ ἐκεῖνο, “But as pertains to the Scriptures being exposited and to the truth itself being revealed to those who have ears.” Cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Apologetica, PG 35:500; Basil of Caesarea, Enarrat. in proph. Isa. 13.258 (τοῦ διανοίγειν τὰς Γραφάς); etc. 38 BDAG, s.v. διανοίγω 2; LSJ, s.v. διανοίγω III. 37

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first century b.c.e.39 Moreover, although νοῦς is not found within this semantic field in the LXX, the NT, Josephus, or the Apostolic Fathers, it can be readily illustrated from Philo,40 Justin Martyr,41 Clement of Alexandria,42 Origen,43 and many other Fathers.44 One particularly good example that illustrates the semantic field of “unitive sense of a text” for νοῦς is Philo’s idealized description of the expository approach of the Therapeutae: αἱ δὲ ἐξηγήσεις τῶν ἱερῶν γραμμάτων γίνονται δι᾿ ὑπονοιῶν ἐν ἀλληγορίαις· ἅπασα γὰρ ἡ νομοθεσία δοκεῖ τοῖς ἀνδράσι τούτοις ἐοικέναι ζῴῳ καὶ σῶμα μὲν ἔχειν τὰς ῥητὰς διατάξεις, ψυχὴν δὲ τὸν ἐναποκείμενον ταῖς λέξεσιν ἀόρατον νοῦν. Now, their expositions of the sacred Scriptures come about through [accessing] the underlying meanings [concealed] in allegories. For the entire given law code seems to these men to resemble a living being, having on the one hand the literal ordinances for a body, and on the other the stored-up invisible “mind” [or “meaning”] for a soul with respect to the plain wording. (Contempl. 1.78)

Here Philo makes the “underlying meanings” (ὑπόνοιαι) and the “invisible mind” (ἀόρατος νοῦς) of the sacred Scriptures synonymous. They are akin to the soul, the unseen inner part of a human, and are therefore contrasted with the outer part of the man, the body. In this manner they are also placed opposite to the “written law code” (νομοθεσία) and the “plain wording” (λέξις) of the Scriptures. The overlap in semantic range between νοῦς, ὑπόνοια, and a third term, διάνοια, in ancient interpretation has in fact already been well established by others,45 and νοῦς, when used in this fashion, can be suitably glossed as the “underlying meaning.” 39 LSJ, s.v. νόος III, which gives as examples Herodotus 7.162 (οὗτος δὲ ὁ νόος τοῦ ῥήματος); Aristophanes, Ranae 1439; Polybius 5.83.4; Philodemus, Rh. 1.106–7; etc. Cf. also the definition and references given by Johannes Behm “νοέω, νοῦς, νόημα, κτλ.,” TDNT 4:948–80, 989–1022, esp. 952–54, 1.e. 40 Philo, Sacr. 1.71: τὸ γὰρ «μεθ᾿ ἡμέρας θύειν» τοιοῦτον ὑποβάλλει νοῦν, “for the statement, ‘to sacrifice after some days,’ holds this sort of meaning”; Spec. 1.200: ταῦτα μὲν ἡ ῥητὴ πρόσταξις περιέχει. μηνύεται δὲ καὶ νοῦς ἕτερος αἰνιγματώδη λόγον ἔχων τὸν διὰ συμβόλων· σύμβολα δ᾿ ἐστὶ τὰ λεχθέντα φανερὰ ἀδήλων καὶ ἀφανῶν, “Now these things contain the express command, but another meaning is revealed in a riddling fashion through symbols. Now the revealed expressions are symbols of things unrevealed and unmanifest.” 41 Justin Martyr, Dial. 29.2 (see quotation in the introduction above). 42 Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 5; Strom. 1.9; 7.1 (texts in PGL, s.v. νοῦς II). 43 E.g., Origen, Hom. Jer. 5.16 line 10 (text in SC 232); Comm. Jo. 1.31 section 224 line 1 (text in SC 120); for others, see PGL, s.v. νοῦς II. 44 This usage is widespread, being evidenced in Athanasius, Eusebius (as in Dem. ev. 8.2.31 above), Didymus the Blind, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, et al. For additional references in the fathers, see PGL, s.v. νοῦς II. 45 See the brief notice “dianoia, noein, hyponoia,” in appendix 1 of Robert M. Grant, The Let-


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Furthermore, the semantic range of νοῦς as denoting the unitive meaning of a text is certainly not to be understood as restricted to specialized interpretative discourse involving allegory, theoria, and the like—discourse that might be deemed unsuitable for illustrating Luke 24:45. For example, consider this more mundane use of νοῦς from the papyri (dated to 164 b.c.e.): τῶν πρὸς ταῖς πραγματείαις οὐ κατὰ τὸ βέλτιστον ἐγδεχομένων τὸν τοῦ περὶ τῆς γεωργίας προστάγματος νοῦν. because the officials do not put the best interpretation on the meaning of the decree concerning agriculture. (P.Paris 63, line 27)46

Since the “sense” of the apparently ambivalent written decree is the point of contention, an appropriate gloss for νοῦς would seem once again to be the underlying, unitive “meaning” of the text in this example as well. In short, although not acknowledged by some standard NT lexical resources such as BDAG, the semantic range of νοῦς includes the definition “the meaning of a word, passage, or text,” as is attested by relevant literature written before, after, and contemporaneous with Luke-Acts. There is no reason to exclude the “meaning of the Scriptures” as a possible definition of αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν in Luke 24:45. In fact, the probability of this definition is substantially enhanced when Luke 24:45 is situated in the broader context of Luke 24.

V. Luke 24:45 in Context So far four essential points have been established: (1) the alternative translation “he opened the Scriptures so that they might understand their meaning” is not favored by the word order but is permitted by the syntax of Luke 24:45; (2) the author of Luke-Acts effectively twice takes αἱ γραφαί as the object of διανοίγω in interpretative contexts exactly as is proposed for the alternative translation; (3) the verb διανοίγω has a specialized expository field within its semantic domain; and (4) the semantic field entailing the “meaning” of a text is well attested for the noun νοῦς by Luke’s contemporaries in a wide range of literature. What remains is to draw all of the preceding arguments together by examining the context of Luke 24:45. A strong case can be made in favor of the following result: When Luke 24:45 is evaluated in light of its context in Luke 24, the semantic fields required for the proposed alternative translation are seen to be those that are in fact actualized by the author of Luke-Acts. Moreover, additional support for this conclusion ter and the Spirit (New York: Macmillan, 1957), 125–26, which contains numerous illustrations from the primary sources. 46 In Notices et Extraits XVIII.ii (ed. Brunet de Presle; Paris, 1865), cited in MM §3563, s.v. νοῦς, trans. Mahaffy.

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is provided by the manner in which this proposed alternative translation clarifies existing scholarship on the use of the Scriptures in Luke-Acts as a whole.

Luke 24:45 in the Context of Luke 24 Jesus’ rebuke to the Emmaus travelers in Luke 24:25–27 forms the first explicit hermeneutical reflection in Luke 24: O foolish men—indeed you are slow of heart to believe all which the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory? And beginning from Moses and all of the prophets he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures [διερμήνευσεν αὐτοῖς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς γραφαῖς τὰ περὶ ἑαυτοῦ].

Note that it is not the Scriptures themselves that are directly interpreted here but something more oblique: the “things concerning” Jesus “in all the Scriptures.” This first hermeneutical reflection receives additional commentary in 24:32 when the Emmaus travelers recognize Jesus and say: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was speaking with us on the road, when he exposited the Scriptures for us?” (ὡς διήνοιγεν ἡμῖν τὰς γραφάς). Note carefully that this is an explicit reference back to the activity of 24:27. In forging this connection, Luke essentially equates διερμηνεύω, which is a standard exegetical term,47 with διανοίγω, showing that, when the context concerns interpretation of a text, the semantic field of διανοίγω that is in fact actualized by Luke is the specialized expository field outlined above. Subsequently the Emmaus travelers return to the eleven and the others, at which time Jesus says: “These are my words which I spoke to you while still with you, that it was necessary for all the things which have been written in the law of Moses, and the prophets and the psalms to be fulfilled concerning me.” Then he exposited the Scriptures in order that they might understand their meaning [τότε διήνοιξεν αὐτῶν τὸν νοῦν τοῦ συνιέναι τὰς γραφάς]. And he said to them, “Thus it is written that the Christ is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance is to be preached on the basis of his name for the forgiveness of sins to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. . . .” (Luke 24:44–47)

I have presumed the alternative translation here to show how I see it fitting into its immediate context. First, the subject under discussion perfectly suits the specialized expository semantic field of διανοίγω that has been isolated above, with αἱ γραφαί as its object, just as in Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2–3 (discussed above). However, what might not be quite so evident is that, apart from any conclusions that might follow regarding διανοίγω with αἱ γραφαί, context encourages the interpreter to take νοῦς as the “meaning” of the Scriptures rather than the 47

See BDAG, s.v. διερμηνεύω.


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“mind” of the disciples. This is true for both 24:44 and 24:46–47. In 24:44 Jesus is talking precisely about the true meaning of the Scriptures, not the literal text just as in 24:27. In 24:44 the very word “fulfilled” (πληρόω) strongly implies that a core essence, something that penetrates below the surface meaning of the Scriptures, is the topic of discussion. Moreover, that Jesus says that these things were written “about me” (περὶ ἐμοῦ) further suggests that an underlying sense is in view (cf. περὶ ἑαυτοῦ in 24:27). Furthermore, when in Luke 24:46–47 the author goes on to detail the content of the Scriptures, the content so depicted does not match the plain sense meaning of the Scriptures very well.48 As Joseph A. Fitzmyer notes, “it is impossible to find any of these elements precisely in the OT, either that the Messiah shall suffer, or that he is to rise, or that it will happen on the third day.”49 After all, when read for the plain sense, where do the Scriptures say that “the Christ suffered and rose from the dead on the third day?” However, if Luke is not detailing the literal content of the Scripture but rather its νοῦς, its true “meaning,” suddenly Luke’s statement snaps into clear focus. In brief, the context of both 24:44 and 24:46–47 fits the semantic field of νοῦς that I am proposing quite well. In summary, the context of Luke 24 substantially favors αἱ γραφαί as the object of διανοίγω for Luke 24:45, which is being used in a specialized manner (“to open up a text” or “to exposit”), precisely as is found in Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2–3. If this is accepted, then νοῦς must be the object of συνιέναι and refer to a property of the Scriptures. However, even apart from this necessity, the subject under discussion in both 24:44 and 24:46-47 is not the Scripture itself but its unitive underlying sense, which suits the alternative translation of νοῦς (“meaning”) here proposed.

Luke 24:45 in the Context of Scholarship on Lukan Hermeneutics For some time now, a debate has been under way regarding how to classify Luke’s use of the OT as a whole.50 H. J. Cadbury emphasized Luke’s view of God’s 48 There is, of course, ongoing discussion as to whether 24:47 is to be understood as referring to the content of the Scriptures or rather if only 24:46 is so depicted. Joseph A. Fitzmyer would restrict this interpretation to 24:46 since he believes the text to be under the influence of a later Christology and the early kerygma (The Gospel according to Luke: Introduction, Translation, and Notes [2 vols.; AB 28, 28A; New York: Doubleday, 1981, 1985], 2:1581, 1584). However, as Dillon correctly notes (From Eye-Witnesses, 214), this is syntactically improbable. This tension disappears under the alternative translation, for it is not the content of the Scriptures themselves that are hereby presented but their unitive “mind.” 49 Fitzmyer, Luke, 2:1581. 50 For the contours of this debate I am largely indebted to Darrell L. Bock, Proclamation from Prophecy and Pattern: Lucan Old Testament Christology (JSNTSup 12; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 27–46.

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sovereign control of history, and believed that this resulted in a promise–fulfillment scheme with apologetic leanings, a view that was largely endorsed in the influential redactional work of Hans Conzelmann.51 This would be subsequently characterized as a “proof from prophecy” hermeneutic by Eduard Lohse, Paul Schubert, and others.52 And although many would go on to question the precise suitability of this description,53 it remains widely recognized by all that the author of Luke-Acts does read the Scriptures within a framework that stresses divine control over the Scriptures, history, and the present. I submit that the proposed alternative translation captures precisely what these scholars have been expressing, while simultaneously bringing a new poignancy to scholarly descriptions of Lukan hermeneutics. For Luke, the diverse writings of the Scriptures have a cohesive “mind,” a νοῦς, an overarching yet submerged “intelligence” that integrates their diversity and seamlessly weaves the Scriptures and all else into a unified divine economy. Thus, for the author of Luke-Acts, it is not just that the Scriptures “are fulfilled”; it is that they “had to be fulfilled,” so that the underlying purposes of God encased in the Scriptures might come to pass: “O brothers, it was necessary that the Scriptures be fulfilled [ἔδει πληρωθῆναι τὴν γραφήν] which the Holy Spirit spoke in advance through the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16). For the author of Luke-Acts, the “mind” of the Scriptures is nothing other than the “meaning” deliberately breathed into the Scriptures by God, who is the author of the Scriptures, history, and all human affairs.

VI. Summary I have proposed that an alternative translation of Luke 24:45 should be given strong consideration: “Then Jesus exposited the Scriptures so that they might understand their meaning,” rather than the traditional rendering, “Then Jesus opened their mind so that they might understand the Scriptures.” This alternative translation is not supported by the word order and is weakly attested in the earliest church, although it is plausible that a few authors understood it in this fashion. Moreover, I have not found anyone who has proposed this alternative translation 51 Cadbury, The Making of Luke-Acts (2nd ed.; London: SPCK, 1961); Conzelmann, The Theology of St. Luke (trans. Geoffrey Buswell; London: Faber & Faber, 1960). 52 Paul Schubert, “The Structure and Significance of Luke 24,” in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann zu seinem 70. Geburtstag am 20. August 1954 (ed. Walther Eltester; BZNW 21; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1957), 165–86; Eduard Lohse, “Lukas als Theologe der Heilsgeschichte,” EvT 14 (1954): 256–75. 53 E.g., Charles H. Talbert, “Promise and Fulfillment in Lucan Theology,” in Luke-Acts: New Perspectives from the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar (ed. Charles H. Talbert; New York: Crossroad, 1983), 91–103; Martin Rese, Alttestamentliche Motive in der Christologie des Lukas (SNT 1; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1969).


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within modern scholarship. Yet the following eight points speak in favor of the alternative translation: (1) the syntax of Luke 24:45 allows the alternative, so context must be determinative; (2) in Luke 24:32 and Acts 17:2–3 αἱ γραφαί is the object of διανοίγω exactly as the alternative proposes, showing that this syntactical correlation is typical for the author of Luke-Acts; (3) neither διανοίγω nor ἀνοίγω ever takes νοῦς as a direct object prior to the fifth century apart from the reception history of Luke-Acts; (4) the verb διανοίγω has a specialized expository semantic field as is illustrated by Luke-Acts itself and subsequent literature; (5) the immediate context in which Luke 24:45 is found is expository, making it likely that διανοίγω has that specific expository meaning here; (6) νοῦς can and does signify the “meaning” of a text for many of Luke’s contemporaries; (7) the content expressed in Luke 24:44 and 24:46–47 is better described as the underlying “meaning” of the Scriptures rather than the plain sense of the Scriptures, just as in 24:27; and (8) viewing νοῦς as a property of the Scriptures rather than the mental faculties of the disciples provides a surprising yet fitting capstone to previous efforts to describe Lukan hermeneutics. If these eight points are deemed persuasive, certain important hermeneutical implications follow. In the remainder of this article, I will briefly weigh three of them.

VII. Implications First, the most obvious and weighty implication: If Jesus did not open the disciples minds in Luke 24:45 but rather exposited the Scriptures, then it follows that this text does not posit supernatural illumination of the mind as a necessity for understanding the Scriptures. Other texts may do so, but Luke 24:45 does not.54 Does this therefore mean that any person, even a non-Christian, can attain to a proper reading of the Scriptures apart from Christ’s special “opening of the mind”? For Luke, the answer would appear to be yes, although this affirmation must be immediately qualified. 54 The other traditional proof-text for this position, 2 Cor 3:16, is also fraught with difficulties. For Paul the veil does not obscure the meaning of the text directly, but rather it blocks the Jewish listener/reader from seeing the “cessation of the glory.” In my own reading of this text, Moses’ veiling is an enacted parable signifying that the Mosaic dispensation is destined to cease. The transfer of the veil over the heart of the one reading/listening to “Moses” symbolizes the inability of some interpreters to see that “Moses” himself (that is, the Pentateuch in modern parlance and Moses as a character therein) announces the end of his own dispensation, a point that ultimately can be discovered only by receiving the apostolic kerygma with its concomitant guiding hermeneutic. On the other hand, 1 Cor 2:6-16 affirms that the indwelling presence of the Spirit is ultimately necessary for the full comprehension of any spiritual matter, which might presumably extend to scriptural interpretation. For a full discussion, see my tentatively titled The Hermeneutics of the Apostolic Proclamation: The Center of Paul’s Method of Scriptural Interpretation (Waco: Baylor University Press, forthcoming).

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For the author of Luke-Acts, the important point is not whether the “mind” of the reader is opened but rather that someone, whether Christ or another, must serve as a suitable guide to the reader in order to explain the “meaning” of the Scriptures. In fact, Luke expressly acknowledges that a guide is needed: “Then Philip ran to the chariot and heard the eunuch reading the prophet Isaiah, and he asked, ‘Do you understand that which you are reading?’ He replied, ‘How shall I be able, unless someone leads me?’” (πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσει με) (Acts 8:30–31). Thus, one who has not yet been exposed to the “mind” of the Scriptures cannot hope to interpret in a fully adequate manner. Even Apollos, who is able to teach accurately (ἀκριβῶς) about Jesus from the Scriptures while only knowing John’s baptism, must have the “way of God explained to him more accurately” (ἀκριβέστερον αὐτῷ ἐξέθεντο τὴν ὁδὸν [τοῦ θεοῦ]) by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24–26). Moreover, the Beroeans did not search the Scriptures diligently de novo apart from hearing the apostolic preaching, but rather in response to it (Acts 17:11). For Luke, the hermeneutical imperative is that a qualified guide must open the “mind” of the Scriptures for those who have not yet become sufficiently acquainted with the way of the Lord; whether that guide be Jesus (Luke 24:27, 32, 45), Philip (Acts 8:30–35), Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24–46), Peter (Acts 2:14–36; 3:11–26), or Paul (Acts 13:16–41; 17:2–3) is immaterial. Which brings me to my second point. Until now I have referred to the “mind” of the Scriptures in Luke 24:45 as their “meaning” or “underlying sense,” but can we be more precise? What, for the author of Luke-Acts, is the “mind” of the Scriptures? The answer, which can be seen from the passages already explored in this paper, is that it is the core content of the early Christian kerygma: that it is necessary for all the things which have been written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms to be fulfilled concerning me (Luke 24:44) that the Christ suffered and rose from the dead on the third day, and repentance was preached on the basis of his name for the forgiveness of sins to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46b–47) that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead (Acts 17:3)

Compare these statement by Luke with, for example, Paul’s avowedly kerygmatic statement in 1 Cor 15:3b–5: that Christ died in behalf of our sins in accordance with the Scriptures [κατὰ τὰς γραφάς], and that he was buried and that he has been raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas then the Twelve.

Although limitations of space allow me to do no more than state this point in the briefest fashion, I nonetheless submit that for Luke the “mind” of the Scriptures—their unitive “meaning”—is essentially the primitive apostolic kerygma.


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A third and final implication: the basic hermeneutical model adopted by Justin, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and many later (proto-)orthodox fathers finds a strong precedent, perhaps even a vindication, in Luke 24:45.55 Although it would be dangerous and foolish to lump all of patristic exegesis into one mold, it is undeniable that many of the fathers seek after the mind of the Scriptures, frequently understood as a summary of the apostolic kerygma, the rule of truth, the recapitulation, or simply “the creed,” as their fundamental guiding force in biblical interpretation.56 As Irenaeus said regarding proper hermeneutical method in response to his gnostic opponents: anyone who keeps unchangeable in himself the Rule of the Truth [regulam veritatis] received through baptism will recognize the names and sayings and parables from the Scriptures, but this blasphemous theme of theirs he will not recognize. For even if he recognizes the jewels, he will not accept the fox for the image of the king. He will restore each one of the passages to its proper order and, having fit it into the body of the Truth, he will lay bare their fabrication and show that it is without support. (Haer. 1.9.4)57

Now whether these early fathers actually attain to the same “mind” of the Scriptures as Luke is not my point, nor part of my claim. Rather, I want simply to note that, should the alternative translation hereby proposed be found persuasive, there is intriguing continuity in hermeneutical procedure between the author of Luke-Acts and the (proto-)orthodox church. For the author of Luke-Acts, neither inward illumination nor a supernatural opening of the mind is needed in order to interpret the Scriptures successfully, but rather a qualified guide who can introduce the wouldbe expositor to the “mind” of the Scriptures, that is, to the foundational apostolic kerygma. 55 See Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 18: “What has not been explicitly noted before is that all along creed-like statements and confessions must in practice have provided the hermeneutical key to public reading of scripture before Irenaeus articulated this.” 56 On this point, see Young, Biblical Exegesis, 29–45, esp. 43, 122–30; eadem, “The ‘Mind’ of the Scripture: Theological Readings of the Bible in the Fathers,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 7 (2005): 126–41; John J. O’Keefe and R. R. Reno, Sanctified Vision: An Introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2005), 33–44. 57 Trans. Unger, St. Irenaeus, 48 (Latin text in SC 264:150).

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Maranatha Women’s Funerary Rituals and Christians Origins KATHLEEN E. CORLEY

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JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 559–574

“What Women Were Accustomed to Do for the Dead Beloved by Them” (Gospel of Peter 12.50): Traces of Laments and Mourning Rituals in Early Easter, Passion, and Lord’s Supper Traditions angela standhartinger [email protected] Philipps-Universität Marburg, D-35037 Marburg, Germany

In the NT, characters participate in mourning rituals from antiquity, including Jewish rites. Tabitha, after her death, is laid out in her house, and widows keen over her (Acts 9:37, 39). Loud weeping and wailing are heard in the house of the dead daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:38–39 par.).1 Mary and Martha’s neighbors come to the house of mourning to console them (John 11:17) and accompany the sorrowing Mary to the tomb. Others follow in the funeral procession for the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:13). Mourning women follow the condemned Jesus to the place of execution (Luke 23:27).2 During and after the burial of Stephen, pious men raise a loud lament (Acts 8:2). Women are present also at Jesus’ burial (Mark 15:47 parr.) and visit the tomb on the third day (Mark 16:1 parr.) What seems to be missing, at first glance, is mourning for Jesus, but in my opinion this is a misleading impression. In harmony with a number of contributions in recent years I would like, in what follows, to show that mourning rituals and lament traditions are presupposed and theologically reflected upon by some of the Easter and passion accounts. To begin with, let me point to a number of fundamental features of ancient mourning rituals. For the translation of this article, I thank Linda Maloney. 1 In Matt 9:23 with flute players (αὑλητής). 2 Matthew 11:16–17//Luke 7:32 asks for a reaction: “we wailed, and you did not weep.” The heroic Jesus of Luke 23:27–28 asks the daughters of Jerusalem to stop beating their breasts and wailing for him (cf. Hercules in Seneca, Herc. Ot. 1962–76).

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I. Mourning Rituals and Mourning for the Dead in Antiquity Care for corpses and mourning for the dead were the work of women in antiquity, just as in traditional societies in the modern era.3 The mourning began at the moment of death and continued through the burial and at the tomb. Mourning songs and visits to the tomb took place over a long period of time, for example, on the third, seventh, ninth, thirtieth, or fortieth day.4 In this way, contact was maintained with the dead. The custom of offering food to the dead could also be connected to preserving the memory of those who had died.5 In caring for the dead through burial and mourning, it was the purpose of mourning laments to touch those present and give expression to their sorrow.6 This served to catalyze the pain they were feeling, giving space to their grief, and so also offer something to hold on to. Lament for the dead is a genre that existed in ancient cultures and continues to exist in many traditional modern cultures. In the OT, not to be mourned was regarded as a punishment. Mourning was loud and expressive (Amos 5:16). The mourning rites included the removal of ordinary garments, striking one’s breast (Jer 32:9–12; 41:5–6), and breaking the bread of sorrow (Jer 16:6). Prophets call upon women to mourn for the dead.7 Although mourning the dead represents a widespread cultural phenomenon, only a few songs of lament have survived in the literature, and then only in a highly transformed state. The Iliad contains the laments of the women of Troy at the death of Hector (Homer, Il. 24.721–76); the books of Samuel offer us David’s laments for Saul, Jonathan, and Abner (1 Sam 1:19–27; 2 Sam 3:33–34); the Liber Antiquitatum 3

See Eugen Reiner, Die rituelle Totenklage bei den Griechen (Tübinger Beiträge zur Altertumswissenschaft 30; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1938); Wilhelm Kierdorf, “Bestattung,” DNP 2:587– 92; Leo Koep, Eduard Stommel, and Johannes Kollwitz, “Bestattung,” RAC 2:194–219; Alexandra von Lieven, “Totenkult,” DNP 12:707–14. 4 See Emil Freistedt, Altchristliche Totengedächtnistage und ihre Beziehung zum Jenseitsglauben und Totenkultus der Antike (Liturgiegeschichtliche Quellen und Forschungen 24; Münster: Aschendorff, 1928); Ulrich Volp, Tod und Ritual in den christlichen Gemeinden der Antike (Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 65; Leiden: Brill, 2002), 225–27. 5 See section IV below. 6 See Hedwig Jahnow, Das hebräische Leichenlied im Rahmen der Völkerdichtung (BZAW 36; Gießen: Töpelmann, 1923). 7 Jeremiah 9:17–21; cf. 2 Sam 1:24; 2 Chr 35:25; Zech 12:11–14; and frequently elsewhere; see also Silvia Schroer, “Häusliche und außerhäusliche religiöse Kompetenzen israelitischer Frauen: Am Beispiel von Totenklage und Totenbefragung,” in Haushalt, Hauskult, Hauskirche: Zur Arbeitsteilung der Geschlechter in Wirtschaft und Religion (ed. Elmar Klinger et al.; Würzburg: Echter, 2004), 9–34, esp. 13–26.

Standhartinger: What Women Were Accustomed to Do

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Biblicarum has the lament of Jephthah’s daughter Sheila (40:5–7); and 4 Maccabees has a hypothetical lament of the heroic mother (16:6–11). Other examples could be added, but on the whole the findings are meager.8 Thus, lament for the dead is a phenomenon that, while it was undoubtedly practiced by people in the biblical world, is scarcely reflected in the literature. What is said about the content, form, and structures of ancient mourning songs must therefore be augmented by additional sources. Hedwig Jahnow, Margaret Alexiou, and Gail Holst-Wahrhaft have been able, using comparative cultural studies, to demonstrate continuities in the form and content of laments for the dead from Homer through ancient tragedy and the OT and into traditional societies in modern times.9 The problems in the cultural hermeneutics of such initiatives are currently under discussion, because they tend to generalize local and historical peculiarities. But for the question we are pursuing here they are at least helpful because they can fill lacunas of historical knowledge. Modern ethnography can thus help to interpret evidences of a culture that is not well documented in literary and archaeological remains. Ancient evidence, interpreted with the help of ethnographical studies, attests the following basic structures in the mourning songs or songs of lament: • The songs of lament call on other mourning women or nature to act as witnesses and to join in their lament.10

8 Nevertheless, there are a few women’s literary laments, at least in the Jewish-Hellenistic and rabbinic writings. For example, the lament of Jephthah’s daughter Sheila in L.A.B. 40:5–7 takes up some typical motifs from the Greek mourning tradition. In four sections at the beginning the mountains, hills, cliffs, and heaven are called on to witness the lament (40:5). Then Sheila mourns her lost youth and the marriage she has not enjoyed, and, in a modulation of the theme, her mother’s labor in vain. Death will be her (already prepared) marriage with the underworld (40:6). Finally, nature (trees and animals) is again called on to lament and to care for the dead (40:7). Mothers mourn in 4 Ezra 9:38–10:4 and 4 Macc 16:6–11 over the loss of their children, contrasting their labors as well as their former happiness with their present misery. See further T. Job 25. The rabbinic tradition is aware that mourning is primarily the work of women (m. Moved Qat .i 4:1), knows their antiphonal songs (ibid.), and requires that everyone hire at least two flute players and a mourning woman for a dead wife (m. Ketub. 4:4). In the name of Rab, b. Moved Qat.i 28b offers quotations from the mourning songs of the women of Shokenzeph in Aramaic, that is, the common language. For the typical motifs employed here, see Emanuel Feldman, “The Rabbinic Lament: Estrangement and Desacralization,” in idem, Biblical and Post-biblical Defilement and Mourning: Law as Theology (Library of Jewish Law and Ethics; New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1977), 109–37, esp. 129–32. Cf. also Sem. 13:13. 9 Jahnow, Leichenlied; Alexiou, The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Holst-Wahrhaft, Dangerous Voices: Women’s Laments and Greek Literature (London/New York: Routledge, 1992). 10 Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 40:5–7. See Margaret Alexiou and Peter Dronke, “The Lament of Jephthah’s Daughter: Themes, Traditions, Originality,” Studia medievali, ser. 3, 12 (1971): 819–83.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 129, no. 3 (2010) • Antiphonal singing, meter, and dialogical structure shape the form.11 • The contrasting of happiness and unhappiness, then and now, life and death is constitutive.12 • The central theme is the encounter with pain and the misery and feeling of abandonment on the part of the survivors.13 • The circumstances of the death14 and the fate of the dead in the underworld are also described.15 • The lament is an expression of protest against death and its consequences for the survivors.16 • There is often a dialogue between the survivors and the dead. The deceased is called on to console those who remain behind.17 • In some mourning songs the mourners imagine that death has not occurred and that they will meet the deceased person again.18 • Finally, the deceased not only may be called on or summoned up, but also may speak through the mourners and say words of farewell to those who remain behind.19 11

For the underlying antiphonal structure, see Nadia Seremetakis, “The Ethics of Antiphony: The Social Construction of Pain, Gender, and Power in the Southern Peloponnese,” Ethos 18 (1990): 481–511. 12 See Reiner, Totenklage, 15–16; Alexiou, Lament, 131–85, as well as, e.g., Helena’s lament (Homer, Il. 24.762–75), or the mourning for Job’s wife, T. Job 25. 13 See Alexiou, Lament, 110–28. Alexiou points to the modern Greek term for laments, moirologo, which in the first place means “stating (one’s own) fate.” She also shows that one’s own fate had a central place in women’s laments in ancient drama as well as in the present. See also Reiner, Totenklage, 15–16, with examples from ancient drama, as well as the work of Anna Caraveli-Chaves, “Bridge between Worlds. The Greek Women’s Lament as Communicative Event,” Journal of American Folklore 96 (1980): 129–57, documenting mourning songs from Dzermiades on Crete. 14 See, e.g., Hecuba’s lament (Homer, Il. 24.750–56). See also Alexiou, Lament, 165–84; Caraveli-Chaves, “Bridge,” 132–39. The day or moment of death is spoken of often in laments; see Holst-Wahrhaft, Dangerous Voices, 59. 15 Alexiou, Lament, 185–205; Anna Caraveli, “The Bitter Wounding: The Lament as Social Protest in Rural Greece,” in Gender and Power in Rural Greece (ed. Jill Dubisch; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 185–86. 16 Caraveli, “Bitter Wounding,” 181–89. 17 See Anthologia Graeca 7.486: “Often on this her daughter’s tomb did Cleina call on her dear short-lived child in wailing tones, summoning back the soul of Philaenis, who ere her wedding passed across the pale stream of Acheron” (trans. W. R. Paton, LCL); see also Pausanias Descr. 1.43.2; Alexiou, Lament, 108–10. 18 Reiner, Totenklage, 16; Alexiou, Lament, 178–82; Caraveli-Chaves, “Bridge,” 139. 19 Thus in the earliest tomb inscriptions, in which the deceased speaks to passersby in the first person. See Jesper Svenbro, Prasikleia: Anthropologie des Lesens im alten Griechenland (Munich/Paderborn: Fink, 2005), 31–46. Katharine Derderian, Leaving Words to Remember: Greek Mourning and the Advent of Literacy (Mnemosyne Supplements 209; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 76–96.


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In what follows I will investigate the passion and Easter narratives in terms of these basic structures, because on closer examination we notice certain hidden pointers to the mourning songs for Jesus. Thus, in the farewell discourses in the Gospel of John we read: “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn into joy” (John 16:20).20 Beyond this there are narratives that show women caring for the dead (Mark 14:3–9 parr.), at the tomb (Mark 16:1–8 parr.//Gos. Pet. 12.50–13.57), and in dialogue with and about the one who has died (John 11:17–35; 20:16–18). Finally, we can find traces of laments and mourning rituals also in the Markan passion narrative and in the Lord’s Supper traditions.

II. The Influence of Mourning Rituals in the Easter Traditions Care for the Body of Jesus Marianne Sawicki has discovered a mourning ritual behind the story of the anointing at Bethany (Mark 14:3–9//Matt 26:6–13//John 12:1–8).21 This is the locus of the lavish use of expensive, sweet-smelling oil (μύρον; Matt 26:6; Mark 14:3; John 12:3)22 and the motif in John of a woman wiping it away with her hair (John 12:3). Anointing of the corpse and tearing the hair, giving locks of hair, or cutting off the hair are part of the rituals for the dead that accompany the preparation of the body immediately after death.23 In the narrative context of the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and John, the woman is performing a prophetic symbolic action.24 The

There are many analogies in the modern era: cf. Alexiou, Lament, 123–24. Caraveli-Chaves writes: “Ritual lamentation as a whole constitutes a dialogue between the mourner and the deceased, the living and the dead. The forms of direct address from one group to another as well as stichomythic dialogues between them are the concretization of such an interaction between the two realms” (“Bridge,” 141). “The lamenter becomes the medium through whom the dead speaks to the living . . . thus effecting a communal confrontation with death and through it, a catharsis. In her capacity as a mediator between realms, the lamenter affects the entire community” (p. 144). 20 Cf. also the dancing song in Acts John 95: “Grace is dancing. ‘I will pipe, dance all of you!’ ‘Amen.’ ‘I will mourn, lament all of you!’ ‘Amen.’” 21 Marianne Sawicki, Seeing the Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 149–82; see also eadem, “Making Jesus,” in A Feminist Companion to Mark (ed. Amy-Jill Levine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 136–70. 22 Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.66; Lucian, Luct. 11; m. Šabb. 23:5; August Hug, “Salben,” PW 2A 2:1851–66, esp. 1857. 23 Cf. Plutarch, Cons. ux. (Moralia 609C/F); Lucian, Luct. 12; Jahnow, Leichenlied, 15–17; Reiner, Totenklage, 45–46. 24 See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist-Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 198–99.

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end of the story links her action to the proclamation of the gospel. Sawicki sees this as pointing to the context in which the story originated: it tells of the beginnings of Easter faith in the circle of women in Jerusalem.

Visits to the Tomb Visits to the tomb were also part of ancient mourning rituals. As Carolyn Osiek and Antoinette Clark Wire have demonstrated, the narratives of the empty tomb allude to these rituals. This could be an indication that the story has a historical core.25 Wire suggests ancient oral traditions,26 because the narratives of the empty tomb differ greatly in their details. Each Gospel names one specific motive for the women’s going to the tomb. In Mark, the women come to anoint the body of Jesus, which conflicts with his having already been laid in the tomb (16:1; cf. 15:42–47). Matthew therefore corrects to “to see the tomb” (28:1). Luke speaks of their bringing spices, which could point to an offering for the dead at the place of burial (23:56–24:1). John at first mentions no motivation, but later speaks of Mary’s weeping at the tomb (20:11). In the Gospel of Peter, Mary Magdalene comes with her women friends to the tomb “to do what women were accustomed to do for the dead beloved by them” (12.50). They try to enter the tomb “in order to sit beside him and do the expected things” (12.53). But should that not be possible, they want to “throw against the door what we bring in memory of him” (12.54). The Gospel of Peter does not say what they have with them. The Synoptics suggest ointment, oil, and spices, but in antiquity flowers and personal items also were brought to the tomb, or bread, wine, milk, honey, and other foodstuffs.27 The five tomb narratives thus give every indication of being rituals for the dead Jesus. However, they refer to different phases, from the preparation of the corpse (Mark) to delayed rituals for the dead (Gospel of Peter), mourning at the tomb (John), watching at the tomb (Matthew), and finally care for the tomb after burial (Luke). 25 Carolyn Osiek, “The Women at the Tomb: What Are They Doing There?” HvTSt 53 (1997): 103–18; Antoinette Clark Wire, “Rising Voices: The Resurrection Witness of New Testament Non-Writers,” in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical Worlds. Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (ed. Alice Bach, Esther Fuchs, and Jane Schaberg; New York/London: Continuum, 2004), 221–29. 26 Wire, “Rising Voices,” 224–26. Adela Yarbro Collins (“The Empty Tomb and Resurrection according to Mark,” in The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 119–48) thinks otherwise, on the basis of the redactional insertion of the women in Mark 15:40–41, 47; she thinks that the narrative is the invention of the author of the Gospel of Mark. 27 Concerning food for the dead, see Volp, Tod, 61–62. The practice of eating at a tomb continued into the Christian era (ibid., 214–24; and see below).


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These echoes of rituals for the dead by Jesus’ women disciples in Jerusalem, probably historical, are also significant if one presumes, for good reasons, that there was no knowledge of any tomb for Jesus at all. Laments for the dead are, as Mary Rose D’Angelo has shown in a comparison of cultures, by no means dependent on the actual existence of the place of burial.28 In Jewish tradition those who were executed by a non-Jewish state were mourned even in the absence of the corpse.29 Kathleen Corley finds that the formula “raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Cor 15:4) contains the historical kernel of the grave traditions and reflects women’s care for the corpse of Jesus.30 The traditional formula in 1 Cor 15:3–5 thus attests that “Jesus’ followers, especially women, indeed mourned his death, retold the story of his death in song, and memorialized his presence.”31 However we judge the historicity of the empty tomb, the most important point seems to me to be the linkage of visiting the tomb to keep in touch with the beloved dead one and the experience of the resurrection. This is the core of the narrative, independent of the question whether the appearance of an angel to the women or the appearance of the risen One represents the oldest tradition.32 The narratives about the empty tomb attest that there was a Jerusalem tradition that placed the experience of the resurrection in the context of rituals at the graveyard. Laments for the dead remain significant beyond the Easter experience as well. The Fourth Gospel points to this in a number of stories about women at tombs.

Conversations at the Tomb Ethnographic studies show that laments for the dead mediate between the world of the living and that of the dead. There are appeals and addresses to the dead; songs create an imaginary dialogue that includes accusations and quarrels but can also convey information from the world of the living to that of the dead. 28

D’Angelo, “Re-Reading Resurrection,” Toronto Journal of Theology 16 (2000): 109–29, here 118: “The recognition that Jesus’s comrades were unlikely to have known where or even if he had been buried offers an invaluable theological resource to a time in which genocides, disappearances and exile play so large a role. The Jesus whose burial place was unknown and not venerated emerges as the companion of the disappeared.” 29 Semahiot 2:9 makes it clear that many of the relatives of crucified persons did not receive the bodies of the dead. The passage also shows that laments for the dead were possible, and indeed necessary, even without a corpse, or at a mass grave. 30 Corley, “Women and the Crucifixion and Burial of Jesus,” FF Forum 1 (1998): 181–225. 31 Ibid., 217. 32 For an overview, see Roman Kühschelm, “Angelophanie—Christophanie in den Synoptischen Grabgeschichten Mk 16,1-8 Par. (Unter Berücksichtigung von Joh 20,11–18),” in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism. 41st Session of the Colloquium Biblicum Lovaniense (ed. Camille Focant; BETL 110; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993), 556– 65.

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Encounters with the dead are imagined. In some songs of lament, but especially in ancient tomb epigraphs, the dead even speak in the first person through and to the survivors. The Fourth Gospel contains three tomb dialogues. In John 20:11–18 the mourning Mary Magdalene first enters into dialogue with the angels, and then with the risen One himself; the exchange of words between Mary and the risen One reflects the slow process of recognition.33 John 11 contains two other dialogues between women and Jesus at a tomb.34 Here the subject of discussion is the experience of death in light of its having been overcome in Jesus’ resurrection.35 However, the two dialogues proceed in an utterly different manner. Mary’s lament (11:28-37) at the tomb of her dead brother shakes Jesus, disturbs him, and makes him weep (John 11:32, 35, 38).36 The use of the verb ταράσσειν shows that she reminds him of his own death (cf. John 11:33; 12:27; 13:21). Jesus here enters into the lament for the dead raised by Mary of Bethany.37 In contrast, Jesus’ dialogue with Martha (John 11:17–27) contains a theological discussion about resurrection, culminating in Martha’s christological confession. Strikingly, however, Martha’s confession of the resurrection precedes the mutual lament of Mary and Jesus at the tomb. The resurrection faith to which the dialogue with Martha attests thus by no means makes the lament, and Jesus’ participation in it, superfluous. The risen One is in solidarity with those who remain behind in the process of their mourning. The very different dialogues with the two sisters begin with the identical

33

Mary Rose D’Angelo, “A Critical Note: John 20:17 and Apocalypse of Moses 31,” JTS 41 (1990): 529–36. 34 Scholars are agreed that the experience of resurrection is reflected in this story. Rudolf Bultmann discovers behind John 11 an ancient epiphany story (Das Evangelium des Johannes [KEK 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959], 299). Hartwig Thyen, who in contrast to Bultmann sees in John 11 a “palimpsest over synoptic traditions,” finds tomb and resurrection narratives reflected here, e.g., Luke 16:19–31 and Mark 14:3–9 (Das Johannesevangelium [HNT 6; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005], 510–11). 35 See Sandra M. Schneiders, “Death in the Community of Eternal Life: History, Theology, and Spirituality in John 11,” Int 41 (1987): 44–56. 36 Thyen shows that the three emotions Jesus is said to show (ἐμβριμάομαι, ταράσσω, δακρύνω) reflect sorrow at the death of a friend (Das Johannesevangelium, 532–35). Regarding the unusual ἐμβριμάομαι (actually “snored”), he points to the Vulgate translation, fremo (“to be saddened”) and translates “he was deeply moved.” Johannes Beutler shows that there is an allusion here to the lament Psalm 42/43 (“Psalm 42/43 im Johannesevangelium,” NTS 25 [1978]: 33– 57, here 46). 37 See Schneiders, “Death,” 54: “Jesus’ tears are an honest sharing in Mary’s grief and perhaps in her anger at death, the enemy of all life. Jesus, in his most fully human moment in the Fourth Gospel, legitimates human agony in the face of death, an agony he will feel for himself as he shrinks from the passion in chapter 12.”


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address: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32). The address remains ambivalent. It expresses both trust in God, who has raised the dead, and despair in the face of death, with its power to destroy community and to separate. Cries of accusation against the dead as well as against perpetrators, collaborators, nature, and even God are not infrequent in laments for the dead.38 Such a lament can then, ultimately, be observed also in one part of the passion traditions.

III. Lament for the Dead and the Passion Narrative The passion story is one of the oldest narrative traditions in incipient Christianity. In the background of the tradition cited in 1 Cor 15:3–5 is a narrative context, just as is the case with the Lord’s Supper tradition with its location of the meal “in the night in which he was handed over” (1 Cor 11:23). Unfortunately, it is hard to say how close these oral narratives came to the oldest literary tradition of the passion story in Mark’s Gospel.39 But the references to the Scriptures in 1 Cor 15:3–4, in Luke 24:26–27, 30–31, and in the words of institution hint at the role that scriptural interpretation played in their development.40

38 Cf., e.g., Andromache’s reproaches to her dead husband, Hector (Homer, Il. 24.724–45), or the laments of women from Mani (Greece) quoted by C. Nadia Seremetakis, The Last Word: Women, Death, and Divination in Inner Mani (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 75–76: “Hey, you God, from high above where the gun can’t reach you! Why don’t you descend below to talk about rights? We have the most [rights] for we are left without child.” “I began mourning and like a madwoman I screamed ‘God is a merciless criminal to have killed the orphan [her son].’ Relatives advised me, with friends and co-villagers together, not to curse God, for it’s sinful and bad. And I replied to them, ‘This thing that God did on the Savior’s Day, killing the orphan, is this not sinful and bad?’” 39 Most interpreters assume that Mark was revising an older, pre-Markan passion story. Unfortunately, the literary-critical attempts to reconstruct such a document seem to have failed. More recent suggestions for the most part avoid trying to reconstruct the exact wording and pursue the question instead by, for example, comparing the Johannine and Markan passion narratives (see Wolfgang Reinbold, Der älteste Bericht über den Tod Jesu: Literarische Analyse und historische Kritik der Passionsdarstellungen der Evangelien (BZNW 69; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1994) or proceed on the basis of tradition-critical considerations. See Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 621–29. 40 Helmut Koester, “The Memory of Jesus’ Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord,” in idem, From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in Its Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 211–24; and in the same volume, “The Story of Jesus and the Gospels,” 235–50, esp. 237–40. See also Ellen Bradshaw Aitken, Jesus’ Death in Early Christian Memory: The Poetics of the Passion (NTOA 53; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 27–52.

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In addition, it has been suggested that laments for the dead influenced the passion narrative. For Kathleen Corley, it is imaginable that some “oral lament traditions about Jesus’ death may have been transmitted by early Christian men and women. This context may also explain the use of lament Psalms . . . in the development of a written passion narrative.”41 But—because the Markan passion narrative contains no reflection of lament traditions, such as antiphonal patterns or address to the dead—this passion tradition was, in her opinion, completely lost. For John Dominic Crossan, laments for the dead are one of “two equiprimordial processes” that contributed to the origins of the Markan passion narrative.42 According to Crossan, the basis of the passion narrative is scriptural interpretation, but it was female “ritual lament . . . that changed prophetic exegesis into biographical story” and “in the absence of a body and a tomb . . . wove exegetical fragments into a sequential story.”43 The multiple oral performances of the women were not transmitted in the Gospels, however. After the story was written down by Mark, the female ritual laments were forgotten. Songs of lament can, in fact, contain biographical narratives and descriptions of the day of death and the circumstances of the death, but they are significantly different in both form and structure from the passion accounts, as Corley has shown. Nevertheless, the latter suggest the influence of lament traditions at other points. Recently some exegetes have shown that Mark’s passion refers quite specifically to Psalm 22.44 Here the psalm is not used as a scriptural attestation to what has happened, as it is in John 19:24, “So they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it.’ This was to fulfill what the scripture says, ‘They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.’” Nor does it serve as a proof that Jesus is the Davidic messiah or king who speaks in the psalm,45 or that Jesus knew in advance everything that would happen. Such interpretations of Psalm 22 first appeared in the second century, through Justin Martyr.46 41

Corley, “Women and the Crucifixion,” 215–16. John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately after the Execution of Jesus (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 527–73. 43 Ibid., 573. 44 Martin Ebner, “Klage und Auferweckungshoffnung im Neuen Testament,” Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 16 (2001): 73–87; Bernd Janowski, “Die Jüdischen Psalmen in der christlichen Passionsgeschichte,” in Freiheit und Recht: Festschrift für Frank Crüsemann zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Christof Hardmeier et al.; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2003), 397–413; Stephen P. Ahearne-Kroll, The Psalms of Lament in Mark’s Passion: Jesus’ Davidic Suffering (SNTSMS 142; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 45 So Justin, Dial. 97.3–4; cf. 1 Apol. 35.5–7; Tertullian, Marc. 3.4–5; 4.42, 45. 46 Justin is the first to quote a translation of Ps 22:17 (LXX 21:17) in relation to the passion narrative: ὤρυξαν χεῖρά μου καὶ πόδας (“they pierced my hands and my feet”). According to Justin, this verse clearly proves that the whole psalm refers to Christ and no other king, since “when they crucified him, they pierced his hands and feet by thrusting nails through them” (Dial. 107.3). For the problem of translating v. 17, see Naomi Koltun-Fromm, “Psalm 22’s Christologi42


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In the Gospel of Mark, in contrast, the crucifixion scene itself reflects motifs from the psalm. It is striking that it is only the passages of lamentation and accusation from the psalm that are alluded to, but not the statements of confidence. Further, the whole psalm is reflected in reverse order.47 Thus, nothing indicates that the thanksgiving song at the end is given any consideration.48 On the contrary, the crucifixion scene culminates in Jesus’ cry from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry unmistakably pours out sorrow about the suffering, before and against God. Mark’s Gospel leaves open the question whether—and, if so, when—God answers the crucified. Does the tearing of the curtain of the temple indicate God’s response, or is that a sign that the creation joins Jesus in his lament?49 Is the centurion’s comment, “Truly this man was God’s son!” to be interpreted as an acquittal of the sufferer, or is it the final jeer of a Roman soldier?50 Why is there no narrative of the resurrection in this Gospel? To the very end, Jesus remains for Mark “the crucified” (16:6).51 The Markan crucifixion narrative sets Jesus’ suffering at the center. In my opinion, there could in fact be lament traditions behind this structure and its applical Interpretative Tradition in Light of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic,” JECS 6 (1998): 37–57. Moreover, according to Justin (Dial. 98–106), the whole psalm (22:2–24) shows “how he [Christ] showed himself obedient before the Father, how he surrendered everything to the Father, and how, through his prayer to the Father, he was rescued from death; at the same time the psalm reveals who were those who conspired against him and that he [Christ] was truly a person to be clung to in suffering” (98.1). In a verse-by-verse exegesis, Justin thus interprets the whole psalm “in terms of Christ” (99.1). On this, see Judith M. Lieu, “Justin Martyr and the Transformation of Psalm 22,” in Biblical Traditions in Transmission: Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (ed. Charlotte Hempel and Judith M. Lieu; JSJSup 111; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 195–211. It is striking that as regards the manner of death, Dial. 90–91 and 105 do not, as does Dial. 107.3-4 (1 Apol. 35), cite Ps 21:17 LXX but Ps 21:22 LXX: “Save me from the lion’s mouth; and regard my lowliness from the horns of the unicorns.” Here “the horns of the unicorns” represent the cross (Dial. 105.2; cf. Tertullian, Marc. 3.19.5–6). 47 This was first noted by Vernon K. Robbins, who attempts to locate it within a ritual rejection embedded in an ancient royal ritual (“The Reversed Contextualization of Psalm 22 in the Markan Crucifixion: A Socio-Rhetorical Analysis,” in The Four Gospels 1992: Festschrift Frans Neirynck [ed. F. van Segbroeck et al.; 3 vols.; BETL 100; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992], 2:1161–83, . 48 See Hartmut Gese (“Psalm 22 und das Neue Testament,” ZTK 65 [1968]: 1–22), who suggests that Jesus prayed the whole psalm in Mark 15:34. See also Rikk E. Watts, “The Lord’s House and David’s Lord: The Psalms and Mark’s Perspective on Jesus and the Temple,” BibInt 15 (2007): 322: “implicitly an appeal for deliverance and vindication.” 49 See D. F. Fredrickson, “Nature’s Lament for Jesus,” WW 26 (2006): 38–46; and AhearneKroll, Psalms, 219–20. Yarbro Collins (Mark, 759) points to the ambiguity of such signs, e.g., in Josephus, J.W. 6.288–300. 50 See Ahearne-Kroll, Psalms, 220–21. 51 Ebner (“Klage,” 79–80) sees in this the expression of God’s hidden intervention.

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cation. The narrative does not turn aside from suffering. On the contrary, it appeals for suffering-with and lamenting-with the righteous one abandoned by God. Perhaps in this way it produces a cathartic effect like that described by many of those who lament. It is certain, however, that it gives voice and space to each individual lament. Laments for the dead are made up to a great extent of fixed forms and imagery, handed down over centuries from lament song to lament song. They constitute the repertoire from which mourners can draw.52 It is not the composition of Mark’s passion narrative, but the specific role of lament and accusation in the shaping of the narrative that could be due to the influence of laments for the dead. What is of the highest theological importance is that Mark linked his biography of Jesus with this specific passion tradition. In being given written form, the narrative was at the same time transformed. The lament over Jesus’ death became the lament of the sufferer himself. The accusation against the mockers and enemies became narratives about the mocking of the Son of God. The injustice encountered is no longer a subjective experience of the one lamenting, but is objectified in the narrative. In this way the narrative succeeds in giving the lament a place in memory that has endured for millennia.

IV. Lament for the Dead and Words of Institution The passion story contains the Lord’s Supper tradition not only in the Gospels but also in Paul. In 1 Corinthians, the recollection of “the night he was handed over” (11:23) establishes the connection. Moreover, the liturgical actions of breaking bread and drinking from the cup carried out at such times show that the narrative was dramatized.53 52 Our picture of Jewish mourning rituals around the turn of the era is unfortunately insufficient for us to be able to say anything about the role played by the psalms in those rites. Some of the songs of praise from Qumran make use of a psalm. See most recently Heike Omerzu, “Die Rezeption von Psalm 22 im Judentum zur Zeit des zweiten Tempels,” in Psalm 22 und die Passionsgeschichten der Evangelien (ed. Dieter Sänger and Eberhard Bons; Biblisch-theologische Studien 88; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2007), 33–76, esp. 33-37. See also HeinzJosef Fabry, “Die Wirkungsgeschichte des Psalms 22,” in Beiträge zur Psalmenforschung Psalm 2 und 22 (ed. Joseph Schreiner; FB 60; Würzburg: Echter, 1988), 279–317. Yarbro Collins sees the life of the Teacher of Righteousness as the setting for the use of these songs (“The Appropriation of the Psalms of Individual Lament by Mark,” in The Scriptures in the Gospels [ed. C. M. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997], 221–41). She also points to a messianic reading of the psalms by the mourners for Zion (ibid., 237–39). Later midrashes connect Psalm 22 with Esther’s story. See Esther M. Menn, “No Ordinary Lament: Relecture and the Identity of the Distressed in Ps 22,” HTR 93 (2000); 301–41. Ahearne-Kroll (Psalms, 40–214) locates the setting of the psalms of lament used in the passion in the life of David. 53 See Aitken, Jesus’ Death, 48–53; and eadem, “τὰ δρώμενα καὶ τὰ λεγόμενα: The


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The words of institution, repeated four times in the NT, have presented exegetes with a whole series of riddles.54 Because of their christological content, they cannot be traced to the historical Jesus.55 Analogies to a divine figure’s self-gift in bread and wine can be found in Jewish wisdom theology and in the ancient mystery cults.56 The latter, however, contain elements of lament within their ritual dramatizations.57 The memorial formula handed on by Paul and Luke, “Do this in remembrance of me,” has parallels in the context of endowed memorial meals for the dead.58 Eating together is part of mourning rituals as well. The burial is followed by mourning banquets at the grave or in the home of the deceased. We can find indications of eating at tombs in the OT and in ancient Judea.59 Early Christian women Eucharistic Memory of Jesus’ Words in First Corinthians,” HTR 90 (1997): 359–70; see also Helmut Koester, “The Historical Jesus and the Cult of the Kyrios” in idem, From Jesus to the Gospels, 225–34. 54 For details compare Angela Standhartinger, “Die Frauen von Jerusalem und die Entstehung des Abendmahls: Zum religionsgeschichtlichen Hintergrund der Einsetzungsworte im Neuen Testament,“ in “Eine gewöhnliche und harmlose Speise”? Von der Entwicklungen frühchristlicher Abendmahlstraditionen (ed. Judith Hartenstein et al.; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2008), 74–104. 55 See Dennis E. Smith, “Table Fellowship and the Historical Jesus,” in Religious Propaganda and Missionary Competition in the New Testament World: Essays Honoring Dieter Georgi (ed. Lukas Bormann et al.; NovTSup 74; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 135–62. 56 See Philo, Spec. Laws 3.86; etc.; Jos. Asen. 8:15–16; Karl-Gustav Sandelin, Wisdom as Nourisher: A Study of an Old Testament Theme, Its Development within Early Judaism, and Its Impact on Early Christianity (Acta Academiae Aboensis, Ser. A, Humaniora 64.3; Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1986); and Hans-Josef Klauck, Herrenmahl und hellenistischer Kult: Eine religions-geschichtliche Untersuchung zum ersten Korintherbrief (NTAbh n.F. 15; Münster: Aschendorff, 1982), 91–166. 57 See Firmicus Maternus, Err. prof. rel. 22:1; 27:1–2; Clement of Alexandria Protr. 2–3 (12.2; 13.1; 19.2; 20.1). Justin was aware of a similarity between the word’s of institution and some rituals in mystery cults: “For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, ‘This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body’; and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, ‘This is My blood’; and gave it to them alone. Which the wicked devils have imitated in the mysteries of Mithras, commanding the same thing to be done. For, that bread and a cup of water are placed with certain incantations in the mystic rites of one who is being initiated, you either know or can learn” (1 Apol. 66:3–4). 58 See Epictetus in Diogenes Laertius, Vitae 10.18; Cicero, Fin. 2.31. 59 Cf. the mourners’ bread and cup of consolation in Jer 16:6; Ezek 24:17; Hos 9:4; Sir 7:33. Some texts speak of eating with the dead (Deut 26:14; Tob 4:17: “Place your bread on the grave of the righteous, but give none to sinners”). On archaeological evidence for grave goods, and tables and chairs at the graveyard in ancient Israel, see R. Wenning and Erich Zenger, “Tod und Bestattung im biblischen Israel: Eine archäologische und religionsgeschichtliche Skizze,” in “Ihr alle aber seid Brüder”: Festschrift für A. Th. Khoury zum 60. Geburtstag (ed. Ludwig Hagemann and Ernst Pulsfort; Würzburger Forschungen zur Missions- und Religionswissenschaft, Religionswissen-

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went to the tombs of their relatives and of the martyrs to break bread and drink wine, to the disapproval of the church fathers.60 In the Acts of John the believers go on the third day to the tomb of Drusiana, in order “to break bread there” (72).61 Augustine’s mother, Monica, brings pap, bread, and wine to the tombs of the martyrs (Conf. 6.2). Gregory of Nazianzus praises a Christian mother because she will neither sing a mourning song nor call the mourning women nor set out bread of mourning (Or. 15.9).62 Augustine attests that “drunken revels and luxurious feasts in the cemeteries are wont to be regarded by the . . . multitude as not only an honour to the martyrs, but also a solace to the dead” (Ep. 22.1.6).63 Epiphanius considers it an implicit confirmation of the resurrection faith that the Greeks, at their meals at tombs, call the dead by name and say: “Arise, NN, eat and drink and rejoice!” (Ancor. 86.5). In laments the deceased may speak through the mourners and say words of farewell to those who remain behind.64 Further, in Greek and Latin epitaphs collected from gravestones the deceased sometimes asks for food or drink.65 In modern times the eating of the mourning banquet and common meals at tombs has been regarded as eating with the dead.66 The deceased is thought of as present or schaftliche Studien 14; Würzburg: Echter, 1990), 285–303. Some texts oppose this praxis, e.g., Sir 30:18, “Good things poured out upon a mouth that is closed are like offerings of food placed upon a grave.” 60 On this, see Freistedt, Totengedächtnistage, 90–118. 61 It is true that Drusiana has already risen and the Eucharist is celebrated in common. Joyful and jubilant gatherings at the tombs of the martyrs are also attested in Mart. Pol. 18.2–3, likewise a second-century writing. 62 Despite the faith in the resurrection, which they certainly shared, many Christian women continued to mourn at tombs, which John Chrysostom vehemently combated. See Hom. Jo. 11:1–2 (62.4); and Hom. Matt. 9:18 (31.4). 63 Cf. Augustine, Mor. eccl. 34 (75); also Zenon, Tractatus 1.25(15).6.11. 64 See, e.g., Anthologia Graeca 7.568: “Fate carried me off but fourteen years old, the only child that Thalia bore to Didymus. Ah, ye Destinies, why were ye so hard-hearted, never bringing me to the bridal chamber or the sweet task of conceiving children? My parents were on the point of leading me to Hymen, but I went to loathed Acheron. But, ye gods, still, I pray, the plaints of my father and mother who wither away because of my death” (trans. W. R. Paton, LCL). 65 Richmond A. Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (1942; Illinois Studies in Language and Literature 28; repr., Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), 126–29. 66 See Loring M. Danforth, The Death Rituals of Rural Greece (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 105: “Women in Potamia hold that the food distributed at memorial services somehow finds its way to the other world, where it is eaten by the dead. They say that the distribution of food takes place ‘so that the dead may eat’ and ‘whatever you give out becomes available for the dead’! Just as the body of the dead must be destroyed or eaten by the earth in order to pass into the other world, so the food distributed at memorial services must be consumed in order for it to reach the dead. Those who eat the food handed out by the relatives of the deceased substitute for the deceased. By consuming the food they enable it to pass into the other world, where it nourishes the dead.”


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is even the true host.67 The common meal creates a substantial tie beyond the boundary of death.68 This allows us at least to consider the hypothesis that behind the shared bread broken and wine drunk from a common cup stands a cup of remembrance at banquets for the dead, in memory of or in communion with the crucified Jesus. The Sitz im Leben of the words of institution is in dramatizations of the passion and resurrection (1 Cor 11:23). The liturgical celebration “in the night in which he was handed over” was probably shaped by the kind of basic antiphonal structure represented by laments for the dead. We may suppose that there were antiphonal songs by various groups of mourners, contrasts between then and now, a narration of the fate of the deceased and the survivors, and shifting emotions between deep sorrow during the lament and subsequent relief aided by joy in the resurrection. Songs of lament implicitly speak of the experience of resurrection. The deceased has not just disappeared. Contact is maintained through the mourners. The deceased can, in the lament, address words to the survivors, speaking through the mouths of the mourners. The context of the lament for the dead and the mourning banquet can clarify the puzzling words of the dead and risen Kyrios “This is my body” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.” The Kyrios speaks through the mouths of the mourners and, in a common meal, shares bread and wine with them.

V. Conclusion The traces of a lament for the dead Jesus described here can represent something like the “missing link” between the experience of the passion and the Easter joy. Lament traditions constitute the background of the narratives about the anointing at Bethany (Mark 14:3–9 parr.) and the empty tomb (Mark 16:1–8 parr.//Gospel 67

According to Artemidorus Daldianus, a dream in which one invites others to a great symposion is a premonition of one’s own death (Onir. 5.82). In Petronius, Satyricon 65, a late-arriving guest apologizes by saying that he was taking part in a meal for the dead and comments: “But anyhow it was a pleasant affair, even if we did have to pour half our drinks over his lamented bones.” Lucian mocks the practice of feeding the dead “so that if anyone has not left a friend or kinsman behind him on earth, he goes about his business there as an unfed corpse, in a state of famine” (Luct. 9; cf. also Char. 22–23). 68 See Danforth, Death Rituals, 104–5: “Food mediates the opposition between life and death. . . . It is believed to cross the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the dead, to pass from this world on over into the other world where the souls of the dead dwell. These souls are thought to have the same needs as living human beings, yet they are unable to satisfy them without help. They are dependent on the living, and on their surviving kin in particular, to provide them with clothes, light, water, and food. In Greek funeral laments the living are often portrayed as sending food to the deceased. In one lament, for example, the dead woman is told to watch for a basket of food which is being sent to her by her living relatives.”

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of Peter 12.50–13.57). Therefore, Sawicki and others are probably correct in their observation that the Easter experience originated in the context of women’s mourning rituals at least in part. Even beyond Easter, laments and mourning rituals are meaningful to those who remain in the communities. The risen One himself, in John 11, joins Mary’s lament at the tomb. In his dialogue at the graveyard with Mary Magdalene as well as with Mary and Martha he emphasizes God’s solidarity with those who have left their beloved ones. With its broad appropriation of Psalm 22, the Gospel of Mark incorporates lament into its biography of Jesus. With this the Gospel of Mark shows that laments for the dead, including the protests against death that they express, played a part in the earliest liturgical dramatized passion narratives. Lamentation, dirge, and emotions were part of the passion liturgy in Jerusalem in the fourth century c.e. as one can learn from the pilgrim Egeria’s account.69 In the common meal in the context of the dramatically told passion and resurrection narratives, people experience the presence of the Kyrios. Here the risen One speaks to his community and gives himself in bread and wine (Mark 14:22– 25; 1 Cor 11:23–26). This practice might have had its origin in memorial meals through laments, in which the deceased one could address words to survivors through the mouth of mourners. Therefore, dialogues between the keening ones and the deceased might be a key to the origin of the words of institution in the Lord’s Supper tradition. The Gospel of Mark eventually transforms the passion narrative into written tradition. This causes an important transformation. Laments for Jesus become part of the story and the lament of the dying Jesus himself. Unlike the other passion narratives, the Markan account devotes a significant amount of space to this feature. With this, the Gospel of Mark underlines that suffering and death are not a passage to heavenly glory but an emphasis on God’s solidarity with the crucified One and his suffering sisters and brothers. 69

See Egeria, Itinerarium 34; 36.3; 37.7; and Pierluigi Piovanelli, “Pre- and Post-Canonical Passion Stories: Insights into the Development of Christian Discourse on the Death of Jesus,” Apocrypha 14 (2003): 99–128, esp. 126–27.

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 575–596

A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context: An Early Christian Writing Exercise from the Archive of Leonides (P.Oxy. II 209/p10) annemarie luijendijk [email protected] Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544

In this article I present a NT papyrus (P.Oxy. II 209/p10) as part of a known archive. Although scholars have been familiar with this papyrus and its NT text, they have not known its larger social context. The identification of this piece as part of an archive allows a glimpse into the life and social milieu of its owner: a literate man from the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, a flax merchant and a member of a guild, with connections to a church reader. As such, it is the first and only ancient instance where we know the owner of a Greek NT papyrus.

I. The Papyrus and Its Texts P.Oxy. II 209 preserves Rom 1:1–7, the proemium of the apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans. With its Pauline pericope, this papyrus is a constant witness to the text of the NT. It ranks as Papyrus 10 (p10) of the NT papyri and thus belongs I am grateful to Roger S. Bagnall for his help in identifying this archive and for his other valuable suggestions in developing this project. I thank Laura S. Nasrallah, the members of the Papyrological Seminar in New York City, and the anonymous reviewer for this journal for their helpful comments and input. I presented different parts of this paper at the 25th International Congress of Papyrology (Ann Arbor, July 2007) and at the conference “Lire les papyrus du Nouveau Testament avec les autres papyrus d’Égypte” (Lausanne, Switzerland, October 2009) and thank the audiences for their feedback. William P. Stoneman of Houghton Library, Harvard University, kindly sent me digital images of the papyrus in advance of their publication online.

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among that elite group of most important witnesses to the text of the Christian Bible.1 In their Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period, Guglielmo Cavallo and Herwig Maehler described the handwriting of this papyrus as having “rather crude and irregular letters.”2 Underneath the biblical passage a different hand has penned a couple of random phrases in cursive writing. On the back it reads “apostle.” The texts, the first in uncial letters, the second in cursive script, are written in black ink on a caramel-colored papyrus sheet of 25.1 by 19.9 centimeters. Property of Harvard University’s Semitic Museum, the papyrus is presently housed in Houghton Library.3 The sheet has survived in relatively good condition but has suffered some damage as a result of folding and the occasional nibbles of bookworms. Below is my new transcription of the text based on a recent digital photograph of the papyrus. It does not alter the reading of the editio princeps, but shows the (present) state of the papyrus more accurately: A Παῦλος· δοῦλος χρυ ιηυ κλητi ὸς ἀπόστολος· [ἀφ]ωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγ᾿γέλιον i θυ ὃ [π]ρο[ε]πηγ᾿γείλατο διὰ τ[ῶ]ν i πiρωφητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν γρ[α]φαῖς ἁγ᾿είαις περὶ τοῦ υυ αὐτοῦ τοῦ 5γενομένου ἐκ σπ[έ]ρματος Δαυδ᾿ κατὰ σάρκα τοῦ ὁρισθέν · τος υυ θυ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνα ἁγιωσσύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν ιηi υ χρυ τοῦ κυ ἡμῶν δι᾿ οὗ ἐ[λάβο-] i μεν χάριν καὶ ἀ[π]οστολων εἰς ὑπακωὸν πίστεως ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς ἔθνεσ[ι] ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος ιηυ χρυ πᾶσιν 10τοὺς οὖσιν ἐν [Ῥ]ώμη ἀγαπητοῖς θυ κλητοῖς [ἁγ]ίοις χάρις ἡμῖν καὶ ε[ἰρ]ήνη ἀπὸ θυ προς ἡμῶν καὶ κυ χρυ ιηυ

1

Barbara Aland, Kurt Aland, et al., eds., Novum Testamentum Graece (27th ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993): “Appendix I Codices graeci et latini in hac editione adhibiti” (p10). The papyrus ranks among the “consistently cited witnesses of the first order” for the text of the Epistle to the Romans (ibid., “Introduction,” 60*). See also Joseph van Haelst, Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens (Papyrologie 1; Paris: Sorbonne, 1976), no. 490; and Kurt Aland, Biblische Papyri: Altes Testament, Neues Testament, Varia, Apokryphen (vol. 1 of Repertorium der griechischen christlichen Papyri; PTS 18; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), “Var 33 [NT10],” 357–58. A description of the papyrus can also be found in Klaus Junack et al., Die paulinischen Briefe: Röm., 1. Kor., 2. Kor. (vol. 2.1 of Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus; ANTF 12; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989), XXI–XXII. 2 Cavallo and Maehler, Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period. A.D. 300–800 (Bulletin Supplement 47; London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1987), 8 (no. 1a). 3 The inventory number is Ms Gr SM 2218. Digital images of recto and verso are available online at http://hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/collections/papyrus/bibliographies.html (accessed November 13, 2009).

Luijendijk: A New Testament Papyrus

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(blank) (2nd hand in cursive script) Αὐρήλιος Παῦλο[ς . .]νυνισιου τῶν παρὰ γενήματος περὶ τῶν γενημάτων [. . .]ου ἐπὶ τοῦ λογείας . . [.] των (blank) 15χιτ On the verso. .πi[. . .]σηi ἀπόστολος (1st hand) traces of ink

A

lines 3–4 πiρωφητῶν for πiροφητῶν; line 4 ἁγ᾿είαις for ἁγ᾿ίαις; line 6 ἁγιωσσύνης for ἁγιωσύνης; line 8 ἀ[π]οστολων for ἀ[π]οστολήν4 and ὑπακωόν for ὑπακοήν; line 9 after ὀνόματος, leaving out the words αὐτοῦ ἐν οἷς ἐστε καὶ ὑμεῖς κλητοί;5 line 10 τούς for τοῖς; line 11 ἡμῖν for ὑμῖν; lines 11–12 χρυ ιηυ for ιηυ χρυ.

The text is copied sloppily. The writer made several spelling mistakes, as indicated below the transcription. The one variant, reading “Christ Jesus” instead of “Jesus Christ” (lines 11–12) does not contribute in any meaningful way to exegetical or other discussions on the apostle’s longest letter.6 As we will discover, the importance and interest of this papyrus stretch beyond textual technicalities of the Letter to the Romans. The papyrus is an artifact that allows us to catch glimpses into the circles in which it was produced and the people who owned it. The sentences scribbled underneath the passage from Romans in cursive handwriting begin with the name “Aurelius Paulus,” followed by ungrammatical expressions containing the words “produce” and “account” (γενήματος/γενημάτων and λογείας). They may have served to test the pen.7 Incomprehensible as these lines remain, these terms fit in the mercantile environment of the archive to which this papyrus belongs, as we will see next. 4 The papyrus has a lacuna at this spot that has obliterated the top parts of the letters. However, the reading of the omega is indisputable, as its bottom half has survived; it cannot have been an eta. 5 Conceivably, these words were already absent in the Vorlage. The strained handwriting, however, suggests that this scribe omitted them. 6 The expression “Christ Jesus” occurs in Rom 1:1. The ancient manuscripts are divided between reading “Christ Jesus” and “Jesus Christ” in Rom 1:1, but only P.Oxy. II 209/p10 has a different order in Rom 1:7. Grenfell and Hunt already observed this (P.Oxy. II 209, 8; Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri [London: Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898–], ad loc.). 7 See also, e.g., the verso of the Karanis Tax Roll, P.Mich. IV 357 C.

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II. Identifying the Archive In their edition of this papyrus in the second volume of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt made the tantalizing remark, often repeated in scholarship, that “the papyrus was found tied up with a contract dated in 316 a.d., and other documents of the same period.”8 This means that they found this papyrus as part of an archive, in Alain Martin’s strict definition of the word, namely, a group of texts deliberately organized by their ancient users.9 But what archive? Grenfell and Hunt did not provide any further clues. They were not particularly interested in the social context of the texts they had unearthed, or perhaps they were too busy editing their enormous find. Modern search engines and old-fashioned historical detective work led to the identification of this archive. A search on the Heidelberger Gesamtverzeichnis (HGV) for documents from Oxyrhynchus that date to the year 316 c.e. gives thirteen results.10 Only two of those documents qualify as contracts: P.Oxy. I 103, a lease of a plot of land, and SB XIV 11278, a contract for the sale of a donkey.11 Grenfell and Hunt cannot have referred to the latter papyrus, for it did not come from their excavations, conducted under the auspices of the Egypt Exploration Society. SB XIV 11278 also does not belong to a larger archive. That leaves P.Oxy. I 103 as the contract found attached to our papyrus. Indeed, the fact that Grenfell and Hunt had already published that contract in the first volume explains their mention of the

8 Grenfell and Hunt, P.Oxy. II 209, 8. Cited, e.g., by Colin H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society, and Belief in Early Christian Egypt (Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1977; London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 5–6; Cavallo and Maehler, Greek Bookhands, 8 (no. 1a); Junack et al., Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus, 2.1:XXII; Raffaella Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (American Studies in Papyrology 36; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 247 (no. 302). 9 Martin, “Archives privées et cachettes documentaires,” in Proceedings of the 20th International Congress of Papyrologists (ed. Adam Bülow-Jacobsen; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1994), 569–77, here 572: “ensembles pour lesquels nous avons de bonnes raisons de penser qu’ils ont été délibérément constitués et organisés par leurs utilisateurs anciens.” The data bank Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt gives this definition: “An archive is a group of texts which were collected in antiquity with a specific purpose. . . . The purpose may even be to discard some items from a larger archive and then throw them away” (http://www.trismegistos.org/arch/about.php [accessed November 13, 2009]). See also Katelijn Vandorpe, “Archives and Dossiers,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology (ed. Roger S. Bagnall; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 216–55. 10 A search for “J(ahr) = 316” and “Ort = Oxyrhynchos,” at http://aquila.papy.uni-heidelberg .de/gvzFM.html (accessed November 13, 2009). 11 The papyrus belongs to the collection of the Università Cattolica in Milan (P.Med. inv. 71.73) and was first published by Carla Balconi, “Contratto di compravendita di un asino,” Aegyptus 54 (1974): 61–63.


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exact date of that document in the second volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Moreover, and also in accordance with Grenfell and Hunt’s description, this lease forms part of a larger archive, the so-called Archive of Leonides, as can be found by searching the database for Papyrus Archives in Graeco-Roman Egypt.12 This archive consists of twelve documents—with the addition of this NT papyrus, now thirteen—relating to the flax merchant Leonides. I have appended a list of the texts in this archive.13 I can further demonstrate this identification of P.Oxy. II 209/p10 as part of the Leonides archive by following a different investigative approach, namely, by checking the date of publication and the excavation seasons. Grenfell and Hunt conducted six excavation seasons at Oxyrhynchus/Behnasa, collecting about half a million fragments.14 Our NT papyrus appeared in the second volume of the series The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, published in 1899. This means that Grenfell and Hunt must have found this papyrus, P.Oxy. II 209, during their first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus in 1896–1897, for their second season of excavating at Oxyrhynchus took place only in 1903. Published in 1898, P.Oxy. I 103 evidently also came with the first batch from Oxyrhynchus. Furthermore, the inventory numbers15 of the papyri belonging to the Leonides archive published in volume 45 of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (P.Oxy. XLV) indicate that these texts were found together during the first excavation season at Oxyrhynchus.16 This confirms conclusively the association of P.Oxy. II 209 with the archive of Leonides. This identification has a slight implication for the date of P.Oxy. II 209 and is especially important for understanding the social context of this NT papyrus, issues to which I now turn.

12

Conducting a search for “Publication = Oxy and 103,” http://www.trismegistos.org/arch/ search.php (accessed November 13, 2009). 13 The archive was published by Susan Stephens in P.Oxy. XLV (1977). 14 Peter Parsons, City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007), 17. 15 Beginning with the publication of P.Oxy. XL (1972), Oxyrhynchus papyri have inventory numbers that reflect the season in which they were found and the box in which they were stored. An explanation for the system appeared in P.Oxy. XLII (1974), xiv: “Note on Inventory Numbers.” 16 Although Grenfell and Hunt did not conduct a stratigraphy of their finds, they noted in their archaeological reports that they attempted to keep together papyri that were found at the same time. Grenfell stated: “Each lot [of papyri] found by a pair, man and boy, had to be kept separate; for the knowledge that papyri are found together is frequently of the greatest importance for determining their date, and since it is inevitable that so fragile a material should sometimes be broken in the process of extricating it from the closely packed soil, it is imperative to keep together, as far as possible, fragments of the same document” (“Excavations at Oxyrhynchus (1896–1907),” in Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts [ed. A. K. Bowman et al.; London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007], 349). Apparently, one of the documents from the Leonides Archive, PSI V 469, became separated from the archive (at what time is unclear) and ended up among the finds of the Italian excavators.

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III. A New Testament Papyrus from a Documentary Archive With only the knowledge that the papyrus was found together with a contract from the year 316, as reported in the editio princeps, scholars dated the papyrus either as “early fourth century” or “fourth century.”17 The additional information now provided by the archival context of the NT papyrus allows for a more precise dating. The dates in the Leonides archive range from 315 c.e. to 334 c.e. (see the appendix). It is unknown when the archive was discarded, but in view of the dates in the archive it is likely that the NT papyrus was written early in the second quarter of the fourth century, that is, in the 320s or 330s. The identification of P.Oxy. II 209/p10 as part of the archive of Leonides has important implications for its “social life.”18 What we have here is a rare instance of a “literary papyrus in a documentary archive.”19 In an article on that topic, Willy Clarysse rightly emphasized that, unlike the division among scholarly disciplines, literary and documentary papyri do not constitute two separate worlds; rather, the people that figure in the papyrus documents were the ones who possessed the literary fragments.20 But only seldom can we catch glimpses of the owners of books 17 According to Junack et al., the date is “sicher 4. Jahrhundert” (Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus, 2.1:XXII; for other examples, see Aland, Repertorium, 1:228, 357). The sixth- or seventhcentury date assigned by G. H. R. Horsley (“AD VI–VII”) must be a slip (“Reconstructing a Biblical Codex: The Prehistory of MPER n.s. XVII. 10 [P.Vindob. G 29831],” in Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, Berlin 1995 [ed. Bärbel Kramer, Wolfgang Luppe, Herwig Maehler, and Günter Poethke; APF Beiheft 3; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1997], 1:473–81, here 481). 18 The expression comes from Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 19 I use here a broad definition of literary texts, following Peter van Minnen, who stated for his research on literary texts in the Fayum villages: “school texts have been included. Ancient schools provided a context for getting acquainted with at least some literature” (“Boorish or Bookish: Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Graeco-Roman Period,” JJP 28 [1998]: 99–184, here 102). NT textual critics disagree about the question whether a school exercise counts as a literary papyrus. For Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, p10 should not feature on the official list of NT papyri, because it is a school exercise: “Unter den heute 96 Nummern der offiziellen Liste der Papyri des NT is auch manches verzeichnet, was eigentlich nicht hierhin gehört . . . ja selbst Schreibübungen (P10)” (Der Text des Neuen Testaments: Einführung in die wissenschaftlichen Ausgaben sowie in Theorie und Praxis der modernen Textkritik [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1982], 95). With more appreciation for a child’s hand, David C. Parker approves of school exercises on that list, writing: “we should not exclude a document on the grounds that it is a child’s writing exercise. If the child made an accurate copy of a page of an ancient manuscript, how happy should we be!” (An Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts and Their Texts [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008], 42). On the borderline status of school exercises between literary and documentary text, see also Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students, 26. 20 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” in Egypt and the Hellenistic World:


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in antiquity. Clarysse cautioned: “One must keep in mind that it is often very difficult to connect literary texts with an archive because we usually cannot base ourselves on internal evidence of the texts, and secondly, that in many cases a person’s papers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa).”21 This dearth of evidence for the owners of literary texts pertains not only to those who possessed classical writings, but equally to those who had Christian texts on their shelves. For most early NT manuscripts, we do not know where they were found, let alone who had owned them. In his article “New Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testament,” Eldon Jay Epp provides a useful overview and discussion of all NT papyri for which we possess more or less reliable archaeological data.22 In a few cases, a known archaeological provenance, ranging from city or village level to building, gives glimpses into the milieu of the texts. Epp calculated that the site of Oxyrhynchus has yielded the majority of NT papyri with a known provenance, and that these “provide an unparalleled opportunity to assess a large number of copies of Christianity’s earliest writings within the literary and intellectual environment of Oxyrhynchus.”23 Other NT papyri have been discovered in or near churches and monasteries—an indication, it seems to me, that they had been used in an ecclesiastical or monastic setting.24 A fragmentary third- or fourth-century papyrus codex with parts of Pauline epistles (p92) was found in ancient Narmouthis (Medinat Madi) in the Fayum Oasis in a building filled with debris near the sacred way (dromos) to the main local temple of Renenutet.25

Proceedings of the International Colloquium Leuven, 24–26 May 1982 (ed. E. Van ’t Dack, P. Van Dessel, and W. Van Gucht; Studia Hellenistica 27; Leuven: Peeters, 1983), 43–61, esp. 43. 21 Ibid., 61. See also van Minnen’s combined archaeological and papyrological approach to materials found at Karanis in his “House-to-house Enquiries: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Roman Karanis,” ZPE 100 (1994): 227–51. 22 Epp, “New Testament Papyri and the Transmission of the New Testament,” in Oxyrhynchus: A City and Its Texts (ed. Alan K. Bowman et al.; London: Egypt Exploration Society, 2007), 315–31, here 322–24. 23 Ibid., 324. 24 NT papyri (reportedly) found at ancient churches or monasteries are p43, p45, p46, p47, p59, 60 61 p , p , p66, p72, p75, p83, and p84. 25 Published by Claudio Gallazzi, “Frammenti di un codice con le Epistole di Paolo,” ZPE 46 (1982): 117–22. He remarks that the codex was “found in the winter of ’69 in the debris that had filled a building west of the dromos of Medînet Mâdi (“rinvenuti nell’ inverno del ’69 in mezzo ai detriti che colmavano un edificio a ovest del dromos di Medînet Mâdi” [p. 117]). The excavation report for 1969 mentions the find of some one hundred Greek papyri, among them a “frammento biblico,” but not the exact location where these papyri were found; see Edda Bresciani, Missione di scavo a Medinet Madi (Fayum–Egitto): Rapporto preliminare delle campagne di scavo 1968 e 1969 (Istituto di papirologia dell’università degli studi di Milano; Milan: Cisalpino–La Goliardica, 1976), 29. I agree with Paola Davoli when she complains about the lack of recording of the specific archaeological context of the papyri in that publication (L’archeologia urbana nel Fayyum di

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Even in those instances of identifiable origin, the actual owners of these manuscripts still elude us.26 With the identification of P.Oxy. II 209/p10 as part of the Leonides archive, we now have a NT papyrus with a known owner. In fact, this is the first and only instance where we can get to know the ancient owner of a NT papyrus. So let us make our acquaintance with this person and some of the people mentioned in his papers.

IV. Leonides, Son of Theon: Merchant and Member of a Professional Association The protagonist of the archive is Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon, resident of Oxyrhynchus City. The newly identified addition to the archive, the NT papyrus, reveals Leonides’ religious affiliation. Given that his business papers contained a piece with the opening verses of the apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans, it seems reasonable to conclude that Leonides was a Christian.27 Further examination of the documents leads to other insights into his background and position in society. Leonides’ appearances in the archive span almost twenty years: the earliest one falls in the year 315, the latest in 334. Leonides was therefore probably born in the last quarter of the third century. We behold his family only in the vaguest contours. The name of his father, Theon, occurs as a patronymic in most documents in the archive, as is standard in official papers.28 His mother remains nameless, also

età ellenistica e romana [Missione congiunta delle Università di Bologna e di Lecce in Egitto, Monografia 1; Napoli: Generoso Procaccini, 1998], ch. 10, “Kom Medinet Madi [Gia, Narmouthis],” 223–52, here 235). Van Minnen noted: “The village had several early churches, suggesting that it was an important Christian settlement throughout late antiquity. The excavated churches, eight in number, were built not later than the seventh century, some already in the fourth” (“Boorish or Bookish,” 139). 26 For the contextualization of a fragment of a third-century Christian copy of the book of Psalms within the archive of Aurelius Isidorus from the Fayum town of Karanis, see Gregg Schwendner, “A Fragmentary Psalter from Karanis and Its Context,” in Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and Canon (ed. Craig A. Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias; Library of Second Temple Studies 13; London: T&T Clark, 2009), 117–36. In third-century Oxyrhynchus, Aurelia Ptolemais’s family possessed a copy of Julius Africanus’s Cestoi, as Bagnall has shown (“An Owner of Literary Papyri,” CP 87 [1992]: 137–40). The Cestoi, however, is not a biblical book and, despite its Christian author, not a Christian text. 27 There are no other indications in the archive that denote Leonides as a Christian. For instance, he does not bear a Christian name, nor do the documents preserved in the archive feature nomina sacra—to mention two common markers of Christian identity. For discussion of these and other markers, see AnneMarie Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord: Early Christians and the Oxyrhynchus Papyri (HTS 60; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008). 28 Theon is mentioned as Leonides’ father in P.Oxy. I 103.4; XXXI 2585.5 XLV 3254.5; 3256.3–4; 3257.4; 3258.5; 3259.7; 3260.4; and PSI V 469.5. In his own letter, P.Oxy. XLV 3262,


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a common feature of such documents, just as we cannot ascertain whether Leonides had a wife and children. One document subtly discloses that Leonides probably came from a somewhat well-to-do family, because the archive includes a letter penned in his own hand with his subscription: “I, the same Leonides, have signed” (ὁ αὐτὸς Λεωνίδης [σε]ση(μείωμαι), P.Oxy. 3262.7). Leonides was thus a literate man, who had enjoyed an education.29 This then indicates that his parents had some means, since they would have paid for their son’s schooling. As we will see later, it appears that Leonides himself also valued education, for he kept among his papers a writing exercise. In addition to these glimpses of Leonides’ religion, family, and education, the documents in the archive provide interesting information about his business activities and social status. In the archive we encounter him, sometimes in partnership with a man called Dioscorus, conducting business in two villages in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome (the administrative region of which Oxyrhynchus City was the capital).30 Most documents in the archive are applications for the lease of land for the cultivation of flax; another records Leonides’ purchase of flax (P.Oxy. XLV 3254). Through these business papers, Leonides emerges as a merchant “engaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre, tow, and perhaps linseed” and a member of the tow guild.31 Leonides even occupied a rotating leadLeonides does not give his patronymic but styles himself as meniarch. The Theon that appears as one of the four meniarchs in P.Oxy. XLV 3261.3 cannot be securely identified. He may have been Leonides’ father but could also have been an unrelated man. 29 On ancient education, see Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students; and eadem, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). On the topic of literacy, see William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker, Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Thomas J. Kraus, “(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further Aspects of the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Times,” Mnemosyne 53 (2000): 322–42; and William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). 30 In the villages of Ision Panga (P.Oxy. I 103; XXXI 2585; XLV 3255, 3257; and PSI V 469) and Antipera Pela (P.Oxy. XLV 3256, 3258–60). A schematic drawing of the upper toparchy can be found in Julian Krüger, Oxyrhynchos in der Kaiserzeit: Studien zur Topographie und Literaturrezeption (Europäische Hochschulschriften 3, 441; Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1990), 51, 273. See also Stefan Timm, Das christlich-koptische Ägypten in arabischer Zeit: Eine Sammlung christlicher Stätten in Ägypten in arabischer Zeit, unter Ausschluss von Alexandria, Kairo, des Apa-MenaKlosters (Dēr Abū Mina), der Skētis (Wādīn-Natrūn) i und der Sinai-Region (7 vols.; Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Reihe B, Geisteswissenschaften 41; Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1984), 3:1181 (no. 149: “Isieion Panga,”); and Jane Rowlandson, Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt: The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome (Oxford Classical Monographs; Oxford: Clarendon; Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 10, 18–19; map on p. xiv. 31 Stephens, P.Oxy. XLV, 129.

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ership position in this professional association, for he functioned repeatedly as its monthly president (μηνιάρχης).32 Guilds, or, better, professional associations, formed strong and colorful pieces in the quilt of ancient local society. These groups provided business advantages for their members and functioned as central points for their fiscal obligations.33 That latter aspect is recorded in one papyrus, when Leonides and three fellow meniarchs take on a compulsory service to furnish newly chosen army recruits.34 This same papyrus also gives an indication of Leonides’ financial situation, as Susan Stephens, its editor, concluded: “If guild officials were selected like other officials at this time on their ability to assume financial burdens, then Leonides may have been a man of some affluence.”35 Indeed, as a member and monthly president of a professional organization, Leonides belonged in social and economic class to a “middling” group in society.36 Onno van Nijf observed: “The craftsmen and traders who formed the core of the demos were, in an economic sense, spread across a broad band of society. Although many of them were poor in the eyes of the senatorial élite . . . they were often, in local terms, relatively well off.”37 32 Leonides’ functioning as meniarch is recorded for the years 324 and 328 (respectively P.Oxy. XLV 3261 and 3262). The precise reconstruction of P.Oxy. XLV 3262.1, μ[η]νιάρχης σιππ... is not clear, but certainly has to do with the tow guild (so Stephens, P.Oxy. XLV 3262, 143). In one lease, Leonides and Dioscorus are called στιπποτιμητ(αί), “tow-valuers” (P.Oxy. I 103.28; trans. LSJ, 1646, with reference to this papyrus). In P.Oxy. LIV 3753, dated March 26, 319, there are also four meniarchs of the tow guild, just as in P.Oxy. XLV 3261. For Oxyrhynchite guilds, see Revel Coles, P.Oxy. LIV, appendix II, “The Guilds of Oxyrhynchus,” 230–32. 33 On “the economic activities of collegia and guilds,” see Onno M. van Nijf, The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman East (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 17; Amsterdam: Gieben, 1997), 12–18. On the fiscal obligations of professional associations, see Jean-Michel Carrié, “Les associations professionnelles à l’époque tardive: entre munus et convivialité,” in “Humana sapit”: Études d’Antiquité tardive offertes à Lellia Cracco Ruggini (ed. Jean-Michel Carrié and Rita Lizzi Testa; Bibliothèque de l’Antiquité tardive 3; Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 309–32. 34 P.Oxy. XLV 3262 and introduction by Stephens, P.Oxy. XLV, 141. On army recruitment, see Jean-Michel Carrié, “Le système de recrutement des armées romaines de Dioclétien aux Valentiniens,” in L’armée romaine de Dioclétien à Valentinien Ier: Actes du Congrès de Lyon (12–14 septembre 2002)(ed. Yann le Bohec and Catherine Wolff; Collection du Centre d’études romaines et gallo-romaines 26; Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 2004), 371–87, esp. 373, 383, where Carrié discusses P.Oxy. XLV 3261; and Richard Alston, Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt: A Social History (London: Routledge, 1995), ch. 3, “Recruitment and Veteran Settlement,” 39–52. 35 Stephens, P.Oxy. XLV, 129. 36 So van Nijf, Civic World of Professional Associations, 243: “in social and economic terms the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seems a particularly apt description.” 37 Ibid., 21 (emphasis in the original). Also: “The members of collegia . . . came from a level of society intermediate between the rich and the poor (plousioi and penetes); they constituted the groups which Aristotle describes as the mesoi, and of which the Romans used the specific term plebs media. We should not, of course, confuse these men with a ‘middle class’” (p. 22).


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The activities of professional associations were not limited to doing business and paying taxes. Rather, in Jean-Michel Carrié’s words: “plaisir et devoir n’étaient pas nécessairement incompatibles.”38 These collegia also offered their members the opportunity to socialize and worship, an aspect that Philip Harland aptly summarized as “honoring the Gods, feasting with friends.”39 Ancient inscriptions evoke rich dining and lavish banquets. A first-century c.e. papyrus with the rules for the collegium of salt merchants in the Fayumic town of Tebtunis contains, besides specific tax- and trade-related issues, the following sternly phrased stipulation that the members should consume alcoholic beverages together: “It is a condition that they shall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beer.”40 Thus the social side of the association was deemed integral to its proper functioning. What about Leonides? The association rules for the Oxyrhynchite tow guild in the fourth century have not survived, but we have ancient parallels in the rules of other guilds that instruct us to envision Leonides as a member of his professional organization: He likely not only wrote memos and closed on land leases, but he must also have participated in its social life through local festivities and meals shared with fellow members.41 What role worship played in those gatherings, and especially worship of what god, remains a fascinating question. Scholars of early Christianity have long pointed out parallels in organization and function between ancient professional and other voluntary associations, on the one hand, and synagogues and churches, on the other. In his Associations, Syn38

Carrié, “Associations professionnelles,” 330. These professional associations involved not only fiscal obligations (“munus fiscal”) but also “sociabilité, convivialité, pratique culturelle” (ibid., 311). According to Carrié, these associations were not voluntary but obligatory in this period (ibid., 312–13, 315, and further). Many associations also had a funerary component, as they took care of a proper funeral for a deceased member; see, e.g., van Nijf, Civic World of Professional Associations, 31–69 (“1: Funerary Activities of Professional Associations in the Roman East”); and John S. Kloppenborg, “Collegia and Thiasoi: Issues in Function, Taxonomy and Membership,” in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (ed. John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson; London: Routledge, 1996), 16–30, esp. 20–23 and 24: “professional associations . . . often saw to the burial of their members.” This funerary aspect attracted the scorn of third-century ecclesiastic writer Commodian, who warned: “What advantage has a deceased from a funerary procession? You will be called to account [sc. by God] if you seek membership of a collegium for this reason!” (Instructions 2.33.8; trans. van Nijf, Civic World of Professional Associations, 31 n. 1). 39 Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 55. Harland provides a wonderful epigraphic example that brings together the various interrelated elements of association life in his discussion of a stele from Panormos (p. 57, with image on p. 56). On banquets and drinking, see also van Nijf, Civic World of Professional Associations, respectively 109–10 and 13–14. 40 P.Mich. V 245.34–35 “Ordinance of the Salt Merchants” (= SB V 8030). See also van Nijf, Civic World of Professional Associations, 13–14. 41 See van Nijf, Civic World of Professional Associations, 131–46 (“3: Reading Ancient Festivals”) and other chapters. Van Nijf based his work mainly on epigraphical evidence from Asia Minor.

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agogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society, Harland explores the analogies between these groups, while John S. Kloppenborg thinks it possible that “some of Paul’s churches began as domestic collegia.”42 The Pauline congregations are, of course, chronologically and geographically far removed from Leonides’ fourth-century Oxyrhynchite tow guild. Oxyrhynchus at this time boasted at least two church buildings for worship and had a bishop.43 Perhaps half of the Egyptian population was Christian.44 I do not know how zealous a Christian Leonides was, but in these early years of the fourth century, a professional association could still provide opportunities for evangelization through networking, the importance of which L. Michael White has demonstrated.45 Therefore it is interesting to see a Christian among the membership. And, as it happens, at least some other members of Leonides’ social circle also appear to have been Christians.

V. Leonides and His Network Besides Leonides, the archive features several other people. Most intriguingly, the NT papyrus itself contains a personal name, scribbled underneath the Pauline section: Aurelius Paulus. Unfortunately, a person named Paul does not occur among the business relations of Leonides mentioned in the other documents. Moreover, the name Paul occurs commonly in this period. Without patronymics or other identifiers, such as profession, it is not possible to spot this Paul in other papyri from this period and thus obtain more information about him.46 Nor is it clear how the name Paul relates to the NT passage on the top of the page. Was it penned in relation to the apostle Paul’s letter quoted above? Was a fourth-century Paul himself the writer of the scribbles, or was he the subject of a document that the scribe was about to compose?47 While this name Aurelius Paulus does not match with any person known, other people in Leonides’ circle have more to say for themselves. 42 Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations; Kloppenborg, “Collegia and Thiasoi,” 23. 43 P.Oxy. I 43 gives evidence of a north and south church in the city sometime after the year 295; see Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord, 19–20. On Oxyrhynchus as a bishopric, see ibid., 95–102 (“Habemus papam”). 44 See Roger S. Bagnall, “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early Byzantine Egypt,” BASP 19 (1982): 105–24 esp. 120, 123. 45 White, ed., Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment: Issues and Methods for Social History (Semeia 56; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). 46 Paul was a popular name for Christian boys, as Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, already remarked in the middle of the third century (apud Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 7.25.14). 47 In school exercises, pupils often penned their name (Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students, 45). Petaus, village scribe of Ptolemaïs Hormu, practiced writing his own name (P.Petaus 121).


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Dioscorus, son of Ammonius, features in three of the archive’s documents. Once he leases land by himself (P.Oxy. XLV 3255), and twice he partners with Leonides (P.Oxy. I 103 and XLV 3256).48 I mention him here because he may be the son of another person in the archive who is both more colorful and more relevant for the contextualization of our NT papyrus: his father, Ammonius. This Ammonius, son of Copres, was another of Leonides’ business partners, and presumably Dioscorus’s father. Together with our protagonist, he leased five arouras of land for cultivating flax in the upper toparchy of the Oxyrhynchite nome in the year 318 (P.Oxy. XLV 3257).49 Interestingly, this same Ammonius appears in another document, which pertains to the confiscation of church property during the so-called Great Persecution (P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673, 304 c.e.).50 In that document, he is identified as “Ammonius, son of Copres, lector of the former church of the village of Chysis.”51 So besides Leonides, at least one other person in this archive was a Christian,52 even a Christian lector, whose task it was to recite biblical passages during worship. Thus, through his business relationship with a church reader,53 we detect another, albeit more indirect, connection between Leonides and Christian

48 The appearances of Dioscorus fall in the years 315–317; in later documents he is absent, for reasons unknown. 49 An aroura is an Egyptian land measurement for a plot about the size of half a soccer field or ca. 2,750 square meters; see P. W. Pestman, The New Papyrological Primer (2nd ed., rev.; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 49. 50 For an analysis of that text, see Luijendijk, “Papyri from the Great Persecution: Roman and Christian Perspectives,” JECS 16 (2008): 344–57; eadem, Greetings in the Lord, 191–210; and Malcolm Choat and Rachel Yuen-Collingridge, “A Church with No Books and a Reader Who Cannot Write: The Strange Case of P.Oxy. 33.2673,” BASP 46 (2009): 109–38. 51 ἀναγνώστης τῆς ποτε ἐκκλησίας κώμης Χύσεως (P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673.8–9). Sarah Pomeroy also interpreted these two instances as referring to one person (“Copronyms and the Exposure of Infants in Egypt,” in Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller (ed. Roger S. Bagnall and William V. Harris; Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 13; Leiden: Brill, 1986), 147–62, here 154 (no. 184). Chysis is a village in the upper toparchy, that is, in the same general area where Leonides conducted his business; see above and n. 30. 52 His son, Dioscorus, was probably a Christian as well, as children tend to take the religion of their parents; see Bagnall, “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change,” 109. Taking a clue from his name, the person called Evangelus in P.Oxy. XLV 3254 may also be a Christian. On Christian names, see, ibid., 105–24; and Luijendijk, Greetings in the Lord, 40–55. 53 Papyrological sources regularly feature Christian clergy doing business, which they needed to do to supplement their church income, as Georg Schmelz noted: “Die meisten Priester, Diakone und niederen Amtsträger in der Chora Ägyptens bestritten ihren Unterhalt aus Zuwendungen ihrer Kirche und, weil diese häufig nicht ausreichten, aus verschiedenen weltlichen Arbeiten” (Kirchliche Amtsträger im spätantiken Ägypten nach den Aussagen der griechischen und koptischen Papyri und Ostraka [APF Beiheft 13; Munich: K. G. Saur, 2002], 203–54, here 203). See also Ewa Wipszycka, Les ressources et les activités économiques des églises en Égypte du IVe au VIIIe siècle (Brussels: Fondation égyptologique Reine Élisabeth, 1972), 154–73.

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manuscripts.54 This scenario opens up an intriguing set of questions. Did Leonides put his literacy to use in a local church, for instance, as lector, just like his business partner Ammonius? And who possessed the codex that served as the Vorlage for copying the passage? Did Leonides own a codex with the Letter to the Romans and perhaps other Pauline epistles? In his Early Christian Books in Egypt, Bagnall notes that “we have little evidence for the private lay ownership of biblical texts at any early date, and even later, ownership of Christian books by individuals may not have been extensive.” Among individuals, Bagnall continues, members of the clergy “were both the persons likely to acquire scriptures for their churches and the individuals most likely to need biblical texts for their own use.”55 That puts the focus on Ammonius, the church reader. In view of the high costs of books, however, Bagnall considers it unlikely that church readers had sufficient income to acquire books.56 He concludes: “Many customers for Christian books were . . . churches and monasteries.”57 Unless the tow guild was very lucrative for Ammonius, allowing him the means to buy a manuscript, we should locate this Vorlage in a church library and imagine that our passage was copied from the church exemplar. Yet, although our Romans passage may have been copied from such a codex, as we shall see, the papyrus sheet itself did not belong to a Bible manuscript intended for reading in church.

VI. Amulet, Pious Penmanship, or School Exercise? Unlike many other NT fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus, II 209/p10 is not the sole surviving ragged page of a once integral manuscript but a largely intact 54 Stephens, the editor of the archive, noted that the names Sarmates and Matrinus occur both in the archive of Leonides and in P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673 (P.Oxy. XLV 3261, note to line 3). A Matrinus features in P.Oxy. XLV 3257.3, 18, and perhaps in 3261.3, and a Sarmates in 3261.4. Does this mean that there is another link between the Leonides archive and that text from the Great Persecution? If that were the case, the two officials responsible for dismantling the church of Chysis would twenty years later be members of the same guild as the owner of a NT papyrus and business partner of the church’s reader. This link, however, cannot be securely established, for these names are not rare and other identifiers are either lacking or do not overlap. In P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673.5, the two men occur as “Sarmates and Matrinus,” with their civic titles, but no further genealogical information, such as patronymics and/or nomina gentilia. P.Oxy. XLV 3261 ranks them as meniarchs (also, the reconstruction of Matrinus in line 3 is very doubtful). P.Oxy. XLV 3257.18 indicates a Valerius Matrinus. 55 Bagnall, Early Christian Books in Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 21. 56 Ibid., 62: “let us imagine a reader (anagnôstês) who received 10 solidi per year. A complete Bible would cost him half a year’s income. Such a purchase would be entirely out of reach. Even an unbound book, a single gospel on papyrus of the sort that cost a third of a solidus . . . would amount to one-thirtieth of a year’s income—in proportionate terms . . . the equivalent of $1,000 today, let us say, for someone earning $35,000.” On the high cost of books, see ibid., 64. 57 Ibid., 60.


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sheet with a short quotation of a NT passage.58 Examining the contents of the archive, one wonders what kind of text this was and what this piece was doing among Leonides’ business papers. The style of handwriting, pagination, and format provide clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise. Grenfell and Hunt described the script as “a large rude uncial” hand.59 Adolf Deissmann typified it as farmer’s handwriting (Bauernschrift)—in my opinion, more an indication of an unfavorable estimation of the peasantry than an adequate description of penmanship.60 In her detailed and influential study on school exercises, Raffaella Cribiore described this as an “evolving” hand with problems in aligning.61 The newly available digital photograph of the papyrus enables the researcher to view from intimately close-by the smudged letters and the writer’s general difficulty in forming the letters. This inexperienced handwriting and the mistakes made in copying prompted most scholars—and I join them—to characterize the text as a school exercise.62 Deissmann, however, proposed that P.Oxy. II 209/p10 had functioned as an amulet for the Aurelius Paulus mentioned in the cursive script below the Pauline quotation, especially in view of the folds in the papyrus.63 Deissmann has a point, as our papyrus indeed shows vertical lines of wear caused by folding, and amulets were typically rolled up into a small package that was worn on the body. Moreover, a host of amulets with biblical texts have surfaced in the papyrological record, an indication of a common practice.64 Nevertheless, this piece was not an amulet. How 58

See also Junack: “sicher gehörte [das Blatt] nie zu einer Gebrauchshandschrift” (Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus, 2.1:XXI). Only one other papyrus contains the opening verses of Romans; it is a page from a papyrus codex, P.Oxy. XI 1354/p26, ca. 600, Rom 1:1–9 (r) and 1:10-16 (v). 59 Grenfell and Hunt, P.Oxy. II 209, 8. 60 Deissmann, Licht vom Osten: Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der hellenistisch-römischen Welt (4th ed.;Tübingen: Mohr, 1923), 204. 61 Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students, 247 (no. 302). 62 For Grenfell and Hunt the papyrus was “no doubt a schoolboy’s exercise” (P.Oxy. II 209, 8). So also Aland: “es handelt sich bei diesem fol mit größter Wahrscheinlichkeit um eine Schreibübung” (Repertorium, 1:357); Cavallo and Maehler, Greek Bookhands, 8 (no. 1a); Junack, Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus, 2.1:XXI; Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students, 246–47 (no. 302). 63 Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, 203 n. 4 and plate on 204: “Ich gebe jetzt, nach längerer Beschäftigung mit altchristlichen Amuletten, der Deutung den Vorzug, daß das Blatt dem unter dem Römertexte in Kursivschrift sich nennenden Aurelios Paulos als Amulett gedient hat. Die Faltungen sprechen wohl auch dafür.” 64 On biblical amulets and criteria for recognizing them, see Theodore de Bruyn, “Papyri, Parchments, Ostraca, and Tablets Written with Biblical Texts in Greek and Used as Amulets: A Preliminary List,” in Early Christian Manuscripts: Examples of Applied Method and Approach (ed. Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas; Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 5; Leiden: Brill, 2010). I thank the author for sending me this piece in advance of publication. An earlier study is E. A. Judge, “The Magical Use of Scripture in the Papyri,” in Perspectives on Language and Text: Essays and Poems in Honor of Francis I. Andersen’s Sixtieth Birthday, July 28, 1985 (ed. Edgar W. Conrad and Edward G. Newing; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 339–49.

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this great scholar reached his faulty conclusion becomes apparent upon examination of the image of the papyrus on which he based his conclusions. Deissmann used the photograph that Grenfell and Hunt had published in their edition and reproduced it in his own book Licht vom Osten.65 The real papyrus, however, differs significantly from the one Deissmann saw on the photograph. His image was cropped and missed the unwritten bottom half of the papyrus. The full piece (some 25 by 20 cm) would make an amulet of unprecedented size, as the preferred format for amulets was long and narrow.66 The sheet was indeed folded, but folding is not limited exclusively to amulets; papyrus letters and other documents in antiquity were also folded. Amulets were often rolled up, creating wear lines that vary in size from small at the beginning of the rolling to larger toward the end. Moreover, amulets do not have page numbers on top, as this piece has.67 In a Christian amulet one would rather expect alpha and omega flanking a cross monogram.68 I interpret the style of handwriting, pagination, and format as clues that this papyrus served as a writing exercise. But before I turn to the specifics, I should address an observation regarding Christian writing exercises made by Cornelia Römer. In her article “Ostraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrie,” Römer cautioned against taking all Bible texts written in inexperienced hands as school exercises. She suggested that Christians copied biblical passages as pious practice, and that only the Psalms were used as writing exercises.69 In a foot-

65

Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, 204, plate. Amulets with one side of 25 or even 40 centimeters are attested. These large-format amulets, however, are all rectangular. For instance, P.Oxy. VIII 1151 measures 4.4 x 23.4 cm; PGM P 15a is 4–5 x 24 cm; PSI VI 719 is 25 x 5.5. cm; P.Cairo Cat. 10696 descr. (= PGM P 5c) measures 6.4 x 26.4 cm; P.Turner 49 (Suppl.Mag. 31) is 40 x 3 cm; P.Iand. I 6 measures 30 x 14.4 cm. “Egyptian parallels for the at times extremely oblong format are numerous” (Robert W. Daniel and Franco Maltomini, eds., Supplementum magicum [2 vols.; Papyrologica Coloniensia 16; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990, 1992], 1:86–87). See also de Bruyn, “Papyri, Parchments,” on format. Junack mentions that for an amulet, the sheet has too much empty space (Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus, 2.1:XXI). 67 The page number forms a clue for Horsley that this piece was a failed copy of a “codex beginning with Romans, given the page number, but which was then discarded and reused,” as an amulet (“Reconstructing a Biblical Codex,” 481). Horsley lists P.Oxy. II 209/p10 among “items [that] may have come originally from codices before being redeployed as amulets” (p. 480). This interpretation does not fully account for the bad handwriting, although one could argue that that was the reason why the piece was discarded. 68 E.g., P.Amst. 26, previously published by P. J. Sijpesteijn, “Ein christliches Amulett aus der Amsterdamer Papyrussammlung,” ZPE 5 (1970): 57–59. Sijpesteijn remarked: “Vor und hinter der ersten Zeile steht ein im Osten übliches Kreuzmonogramm” (P.Amst. 26, 53, note to line 1). 69 Römer, “Ostraka mit christlichen Texten aus der Sammlung Flinders Petrie,” ZPE 145 (2003): 183–201, here 188: “Auch wenn das Verhältnis zum Schreiben in der frühen Kirche nicht so extrem war wie bei den Manichäern, würde ich eher vorsichtig sein, einen Bibeltext, der von 66


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note, she classified our papyrus as a “witness of humble penmanship, not of a student who is learning how to write.”70 Römer makes a valid point, yet it seems to me that the one position does not necessarily exclude the other, that in a Christian educational setting the boundaries between pious copying and school exercise may have been fluid. Nevertheless, as I will show next, this papyrus has certain features that emphasize its educational setting. The papyrus has two items: the section from Romans, to which someone added the documentary scribbles.71 Although we do not have other texts written by Leonides in uncial script to which to compare this papyrus, the exercise may have been Leonides’ own school text, or alternatively someone else in the household may have penned it. Other writing exercises also have been found in private archives; apparently these were pieces that people saved among their papers, just as we today keep our notebooks or our children’s school papers but eventually discard probably most of them. Inspired by Cribiore’s approach of paying attention to papyrological and paleographical details in school exercises, I will show that this papyrus teaches us a lesson in Christian education.72 Examining the manuscript from the top down, I must first address an omission: in other manuscripts, the Pauline letters are customarily prefaced by the designation of the addressees (ΠΡΟΣ ΡΩΜΑΙΟΥΣ, etc.), but our papyrus lacks the

einer ungeübten Hand auf einen Papyrus gebracht wurde, als das Werk eines Studenten anzusehen, der Schreiben lernt. Diejenigen, die sich daran machten, einen biblischen Text abzuschreiben, waren vielleicht nicht gut dafür ausgebildet, aber der Akt des Schreibens selbst gab ihnen das Gefühl, etwas zu tun, was ebenso wichtig war wie das Beten oder das Singen in der Kirche, ein Akt der Demut vor Gott. In diesem Sinne würde ich die wenigen von ungeübter Hand geschriebenen Passagen des Neuen Testaments sehen, welche Cribiore in ihrer Liste aufführt. Allein die Psalmen wurden offensichtlich wie Schultexte zum Abschreiben gebraucht.” 70 Ibid., 188 n. 22: “P.Oxy. II 209 und P.Berol. 3805 . . . möchte ich als Zeugnisse devoter Schreiberkunst sehen, nicht aber eines Studenten, der Schreiben lernt.” 71 Charles Wessely interpreted the hastily written lines of the second item on the papyrus as another school exercise. He suggested reading in the second line of the cursive hand: καὶ τοῦ ἐπιλοί(που) λογείας, adding, “cependant ce travail ne peut avoir pour résultat de donner des phrases entières; les mots ainsi rétablis présentent un sens plus ou moins insignifiant” (Les plus anciens monuments du christianisme écrits sur papyrus: Textes grecs édités, traduits, et annotés [PO 18.3; Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1924], 150, no. 11). Another combination of biblical and documentary text is, e.g., P.Rylands Coptic no. 223b, with Ps 50:3–5 and the beginning of a letter. See Scott Bucking, “Christian Educational Texts from Egypt: A Preliminary Inventory,” in Kramer et al., Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses, 132–38, here 133. 72 For the method, see Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students. I briefly discussed nomina sacra and Christian education in Greetings in the Lord (66–69, with this papyrus mentioned on p. 69) and treat it here in more detail. Bucking presented an overview of texts pertaining to Christian education at the 1995 papyrological congress (“Christian Educational Texts from Egypt”). He does not mention P.Oxy. II 209, but refers to other practices with Pauline epistles.

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title.73 This absence of a title can have several explanations. The Vorlage may not have contained the title, or perhaps the title was placed only at the end of the work, as is the case in other manuscripts.74 Alternatively, our student-copyist may have omitted it when copying from the exemplar, accidentally or purposefully. While the Pauline passage bears no title, an alpha present in the top line of the sheet proves significant for the contextualization of the piece. The letter indicates a page number: alpha, page 1.75 It makes the most sense to take this as evidence that the student copied from a Vorlage that had pagination.76 If so, then this student worked from a codex that began with the Letter to the Romans, and possibly contained more Pauline epistles.77 Such a codex would be a requisite item in most church libraries, among others, for reading during worship. As discussed above, Bagnall considered it more likely that churches rather than individuals had the financial means to purchase these expensive books. Yet in light of the fact that Leonides, the owner of the papyrus, was literate, it remains also possible that he himself or his household owned the codex that served as the exemplar for this piece. The exercise consisted of copying the proemium of Romans, the first seven verses of the letter, which form a clearly delineated textual unit. Why did the student copy this section? For one, it marks the beginning of Paul’s most important and most famous letter, which could be found at the beginning of a codex. Several other writing exercises also display this quite logical preference to start with the opening sections of works, for instance, the Psalms and the book of Job. There is also a writing exercise of Romans 1 in Coptic.78 73 Only one other Greek papyrus manuscript preserves this passage of Romans 1, P.Oxy. XI 1354/p26. Also found at Oxyrhynchus, this page from a codex dates to around the year 600, much later than our papyrus. That manuscripts lists the title: [ΠΡΟΣ Ρ]ΩΜΑΙ[ΟΥΣ]. The beginning of Romans unfortunately has not been preserved in p46, a Pauline codex from ca. 200, but the other letters are prefaced with the indication of their addressees and therefore I assume a title was originally written above the Letter to the Romans also. 74 The thirteen Nag Hammadi codices display an interesting variation in titles and endtitles, see the titological analysis by Paul-Hubert Poirier, “Titres et sous-titres, incipit et desinit dans les codices coptes de Nag Hammadi et de Berlin,” in Titres et articulations du texte dans les œuvres antiques: actes du colloque international de Chantilly, 13–15 décembre 1994 (ed. Jean-Claude Fredouille, Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, Philippe Hoffmann, Pierre Petitmengin; Collection des études augustiniennes, Série Antiquité 152; Turnhout: Brepols, 1997), 339–83. 75 Eric G. Turner observed: “The favorite place for [pagination] is undoubtedly the center of the upper margin” (The Typology of the Early Codex [Haney Foundation Series 18; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977], 76). 76 Alternatively, the number 1 may signal the first exercise. 77 As is well known, the order of the Pauline epistles varies in ancient manuscripts; for a good overview of the evidence, see Parker, Introduction to the New Testament Manuscripts, 249– 56. The oldest extant manuscript of the Pauline epistles, the famous p46 from around the year 200, also started with Romans. 78 For instance, Ps 1:1–2, ed. Rosario Pintaudi, “Frammento di manuale scolastico (LXX, Ps.


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An additional motive probably also played a role in the selection of this passage. I propose that these verses were assigned to allow the student to practice writing nomina sacra, that Christian scribal practice of contracting special words.79 The papyrological record has preserved many school exercises for the alphabet, syllabus, or names. Yet so far, no school exercises exist that exclusively train the student in writing nomina sacra. In this short passage from Romans of only seven verses, as many as eighteen contractions occur for seven different nomina sacra.80 An important benefit of copying this section, therefore, was to gain experience in recognizing and writing this widespread Christian scribal custom.81 Thus, in Leonides’ household, writing constituted not only the bureaucratic language of land 1, 1-2),” ZPE 38 (1980): 259–60 (= P.Laur. IV 140; Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students, 244, no. 295). Verses from Romans 1 appears in a Bohairic school notebook (Rom 1:1–7, 7–8, 13–15). Underneath that passage, the student has penned the opening of the book of Job, see P.RainerUnterrichtKopt, ed. Monika Hasitzka, MPER XVIII (1990), no. 207 (= P.Mich. inv. 926, ed. Elinor Mullett Husselman, “A Bohairic School Text on Papyrus,” JNES 6 [1947]: 129–51). 79 Since nomina sacra are already present in the earliest preserved Christian manuscripts, the scribe of this passage probably did not have to contract the forms, but copied them from the exemplar. 80 With so many contractions in this piece, one opportunity to write a nineteenth nomen sacrum was missed: that for David in line 5 (Rom 1: 3), even though according to Anton H. R. E. Paap, contractions of David are “a rarity, for only 9 out of the 40 sources know it” (Nomina sacra in the Greek Papyri of the First Five Centuries A.D.: The Sources and Some Deductions [Papyrologica Lugduno Batava 8; Leiden: Brill, 1959], 106). Instead of writing δαδ with a supralinear stroke, the student wrote δαυδ᾿ followed by an apostrophe, as if hesitating between the practice of writing an apostrophe after a Hebrew name and that of a nomen sacrum. Some Christian scribes wrote apostrophes after noninflected Hebrew names (see Eric G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971], 13), e.g., P.Yale I 1 (Genesis; second or third century) and P.Bodmer II/p66 (Gospel of John, third century). The Vorlage of our papyrus may have contained the longer form of the nomen sacrum; the scribe of a fourth (?) century manuscript of the Psalms (P.Lit.London 205) wrote δαυδ with supralinear stroke as nomen sacrum. See Aland, Repertorium, 1:115–16 (AT 50) = P.Lit.London 205. The only other NT papyrus with this passage, P.Oxy. XI 1354/p26, significantly later than our piece (ca. 600) has the nomen sacrum for David: δαδ. 81 A striking feature in the Romans papyrus is the preference to write the nomina sacra for “Jesus” and “Christ” with the three letter forms, instead of the more common two letter forms with first and last letter. In 1959, Paap concluded for these longer forms: “ιης . . . is attested through the period we deal with [the first five centuries], but the number of sources decreases as the centuries proceed” (Nomina sacra, 109, overview of forms on 108; for Χριστός, 109–11). According to Roberts, “the form ιης . . . may have been an intermediate form between ιη and ις” (Manuscript, Society, and Belief, 36–37). Larry W. Hurtado interpreted the three-letter form as a “conflation” between the suspended and the contracted form (The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006], 113). See also Scott Charlesworth, “Consensus Standardization in the Systematic Approach to Nomina Sacra in Second- and ThirdCentury Gospel Manuscripts,” Aeg 86 (2006): 37–68, here 38.

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leases and memos; someone also copied a biblical passage and practiced Christian symbols.

VII. Conclusion An interesting feature of this papyrus is that it defies conventional classification according to genre. With its Pauline passage and cursive scribbles underneath about accounts and produce, P.Oxy. II 209/p10 contains both literary and documentary elements. Moreover, its literary component, the biblical quotation, is not a traditional literary text but a writing exercise. The main importance of the piece, however, is that it gives an intriguing glimpse into the social context of a NT papyrus. A private copy of a Christian text, it was penned as a writing exercise from the first page of a codex that started with Paul’s Letter to the Romans and was intended as practice for writing nomina sacra. It was deposited on a trash heap at Oxyrhynchus tied up with official papers from Leonides, the son of Theon. Leonides, the only known ancient owner of a NT papyrus, was a literate Christian from the city. A flax merchant and member and monthly president of the Oxyrhynchite tow guild, he belonged to a “middling” group in society and was probably moderately well-off. He conducted business in the Oxyrhynchite countryside in the first half of the fourth century. Sometimes he partnered with Ammonius, son of Copres, who was a reader in a church during the Great Persecution. While in antiquity some Christian manuscripts were venerated and at the end of their useful lives preserved and buried, others were thrown away like a grocery receipt.82 The archival context of P.Oxy. II 209/p10 thus allows us to see one side of how sacred texts were part and parcel (literally) of ancient society.

Appendix: The Archive of Aurelius Leonides, Son of Theon83 P.Oxy. XLV 3254 Sale of flax crop (312–315): From Aurelius Evangelus to Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon. P.Oxy. XXXI 2585 Lease of 2½ arouras near Ision Panga (315): To Aurelius Dioscorides alias Julianus, from Aurelius Leonides,84 son of Theon.

82 This article is part of a larger research project on the use and disuse of early Christian literary papyri. For a discussion of the discarding of Christian manuscripts as garbage, see Luijendijk, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus,” VC 64 (2010): 217–54. 83 Adapted from Stephens, P.Oxy. XLV, 129. 84 In the edition translated as Leonidas.


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P.Oxy. XLV 3255 Lease of 6⅜ arouras near Ision Panga85 (315): To Aurelia Eutropion, daughter of Theodorus alius Caeremon, from Aurelius Dioscorus, son of Ammonius. P.Oxy. I 103 Lease of 1 aroura near Ision Panga (316): To Aurelius Themistocles alias Dioscurides, from Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon, and Aurelius Dioscorus, son of Ammonius. P.Oxy. XLV 3256 Lease of 13 arouras near Antipera Pela (317): To Aurelius Heron also called Sarapion, from Aurelius Dioscorus, son of Ammonius, and Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon. P.Oxy. XLV 3257 Lease of 5 arouras near Ision Panga (318*): To the heirs of ?, son of Valerius, through Maximus, from Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon, and Aurelius Ammonius, son of Copres. P.Oxy. XLV 3258 Lease of ? arouras near Antipera Pela (319): To Aurelius Dius, son of Zoilus, from Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon. P.Oxy. XLV 3259 Lease of ? arouras near Antipera Pela (319): From Aurelius Apollonius alias Serenus, son of Apollonius, to Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon. P.Oxy. XLV 3260 Lease of 6 arouras near Antipera Pela (323): Gaianus, son of Ammonius, to Leonides, son of Theon. P.Oxy. XLV 3261 Letter to four meniarchs (324): Leonides, Theon, Matrinus (?), and Sarmates. P.Oxy. XLV 3262 Receipt (?) written by Leonides (328): To Comon, son of Thonius, from Leonides, meniarch of the tow guild. PSI V 469 Lease of 14 arouras near Ision Panga (334): To the heirs of Ammonianus from Aurelius Leonides, son of Theon.86 P.Oxy. II 209 School exercise of Rom 1:1-7. *Overlap: P.Oxy. XLV 3257 (318): Leonides and Ammonius, son of Copres, lease 5 arouras of land near Ision Panga. P.Oxy. XXXIII 2673 (304): Declaration of church property by Ammonius, son of Copres, lector of the former church of Chysis. A search for Leonides from Oxyrhynchus in the DDBDP (Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri) gives fifty-four results. Most of the men that share their name with our protagonist can be ruled out based on the date of the text. Three papyri

85 Previously published by S. A. Stephens, “Lease of land, II,” in Collectanea Papyrologica: Texts Published in Honour of H. C. Youtie (ed. Ann E. Hanson; 2 vols.; Papyrologische Texte und Abhandlungen 19–20; Bonn: Habelt, 1976), 535–40 (= P.Coll.Youtie II 80). 86 For the reading “heirs of Ammonianus,” see P.Oxy. LIV, Appendix I, 224, with reference to K. A. Worp, “Two Papyri from the Vienna Collection,” BASP 13 (1976): 31–40, here 39.

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are, however, roughly contemporaneous with our archive from Oxyrhynchus, so that an identification is possible. I mention them here for the sake of completeness but have found no evidence that would confirm that they refer to our Leonides, and I remain very doubtful as to the identification: P.Oxy. XIV 1771, a letter about wine from the late third or early fourth century, features a Theon and Leonides. Could this be Leonides and his father, Theon? P.Oxy. XXXVI 2796, “accounts of expenditure on heating, possibly for the public baths,” dated to the late third or early fourth century, among the men listed is “Leonides, ex-gymnasiarch.” While other men listed in the papyrus have a patronymic, Leonides unfortunately has not. It remains to be seen whether a former gymnasiarch would also be active in a guild. PSI VII 808, “conti,” that is, accounts, from the third (?) century. A Theon and a Leonides are listed, but this Theon is an oil manufacturer (ἐλαιουργός), and the date may be too early.

JBL 129, no. 3 (2010): 597–613

Christian Ancestor Worship in Rome ramsay macmullen [email protected] 25 Temple Court, New Haven, CT 06511

In studying any group of people in the past, it is natural to ask where they were active and how big their community was. For Rome’s fourth-century Christians who are my subject, a good authority to answer both questions was and still is Richard Krautheimer. I remember him well, and two of his younger associates, Alfred Frazer and “Gus” Corbett. He and his team, over the course of forty years from the 1930s on, produced a set of five splendid volumes on the history and construction of the city’s early basilicas.1

I. Proportions Krautheimer was especially struck by the dimensions of the buildings he studied and what they showed about the size of the city’s congregation. From the period before 312, archaeology still can provide no generally accepted example of the socalled house churches, set either in private residences or in commercial premises; nor do we have any remains of the parish churches which got their name tituli from the plaques above their doors, and which gradually replaced house churches. Of early tituli, we know fifteen or more through written sources. Others were gradually added, many in a form still surviving and thus open to our estimate of their

A paper delivered to the conference in Rome celebrating the Centenary of the Pontificio Istituto Biblico in 2009—with my thanks to my hosts for the invitation. 1 Richard Krautheimer et al., Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae: The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome (IV–IX Cent.) (5 vols.; Monumenti di antichità cristiana, 2. Serie, Pubblicati dal Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana 2; Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1937–77)—“instrument de travail de premier ordre” (Louis Reekmans, in Atti del IX Congresso internazionale di archeologia cristiana, Roma, 21–27 settembre 1975 [2 vols.; Studi di antichità cristiana 32; Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1978], 1:310).

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size.2 Their total even at the end of the fourth century remained, as Krautheimer says, “amazingly small,” and they seem to have been, in his words, no more than “modest halls.”3 On average they might have held 250 or 300 worshippers apiece, in their pre-Constantinian dimensions, if they were as large as those postConstantine that survive to be measured. Collectively that would mean around forty-five hundred persons. If this represented the entire Christian population in a city of half a million we can understand Krautheimer’s surprise.4 Was construction limited by a lack of funds? Apparently not. The extent of building is apparent in our sources beginning in 312. With a coreligionist on the throne in that year—and, moreover, one who had in his hand the spoils of a civil war—suddenly the Christian community was rich, and Constantine was more than open to suggestions from their leader about the spending of those spoils.5 A request for a residence, a papal palace adjoining a cathedral church, was predictably submitted and approved6—so also, that this church should be dedicated to the Savior with silver statues of Christ prominent within. It was also natural that a great building should be raised to St. Peter on whose connection with Rome rested the primacy of its bishop. 2 For what follows, see my The Second Church: Popular Christianity A.D. 200–400 (Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplement Series 1; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009), 87–89. For a good review of the titulus list, see Guglielmo Matthiae, Chiese di Roma dal IV al X secolo (Bologna: Cappelli, 1962), 55–77; as Richard Puza explains (“Titelkirchen, römische Titelkirchen,” Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche [3rd rev. ed.; Freiburg: Herder, 2001], 10:54), the earlier eighteen tituli rising to the total of twenty-five by the end of the fourth century then constituted and contained the whole Roman congregation. 3 Richard Krautheimer, Three Christian Capitals: Topography and Politics (Una’s Lectures 4; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 94–96, 102; Krautheimer et al., Corpus, 2:166 and Tav. XIII, plan of S. Lorenzo in Damaso suggesting room for

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Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 125, No. 3 (Fall 2006)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 126, No. 3 (Fall 2007)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 123, No. 3 (Fall 2004)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 128, No. 3 (Fall 2009)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 127, No. 3 (Fall 2008)

Journal of Biblical Literature 1936-3

Journal of Biblical Literature 1938-3

Journal of Biblical Literature 1933-2 3

Journal of Biblical Literature 1939-3

Journal of Biblical Literature 1937-3

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 126, No. 2 (Summer 2007)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 125, No. 1 (Spring 2006)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 128, No. 1 (Spring 2009)

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Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 123, No. 1 (Spring 2004)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 120, No. 4 (Winter 2001)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 124, No. 2 (Summer 2005)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 125, No. 4 (Winter 2006)

Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 123, No. 4 (Winter 2004)

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