2008 - Eliezer Segal - Aristeas or Haggadah. Talmudic Legend and the Greek Bible in Palestinian...

8/13/2019 2008 - Eliezer Segal - Aristeas or Haggadah. Talmudic Legend and the Greek Bible in Palestinian Judaism

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xplorations inSecond Temple Judaism

dited by Wayne O McCready and deleReinhartz

Minneapolisortress Press


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wri te rs were the led rather than the leaders . But i t is scarcely possible to assert thiswithout falling into a circular argument about what is center and what is periphery.Rather, we can see Greek-speaking Jews as sharing honorably in common Judaismand as linked to those other Jewish worlds of Palestine and of the Diaspora through acommon dedication to Scripture, albeit expressed in their own ways.

The constraints oflivingas aminority demand protection of traditions; self-imposedboundaries are sought and constantly redefined. Adherence to the Bible was a tool forthis purpose for Greek-speakingJews, fromwhich other rools could be derived. et thereis no reason to think that Diaspora Jews huddled around their Torah-or, rather, theirnomos Fat ftom it. While the Gteek Bible catered to theJewish identity of HellenizedJews, it also, and patadoxically, provided the intellectual route by which MediterraneanJews became mote Hellenized, because it ensured t ha t t he entirety of their lives,including theirreligious lives, could be lived in Greek. The Greek language gaveaccess rothe world. Greek-speakingJews perhaps lived with Torah, rather than fully or throu hTorah. Paradoxically again, it was the spread of the Jesus movement that opened newopportunities in the Diaspora tor a moretotalizing brand of text-centered existence; yetthis came now with a radical redefinition of what such an existence entailed.

ezer Segal

Scholars of rabbinic literature from the Talmudic or late classical era have greatlyvalued E. P. Sanders s artempts to rescue rabbinic texts f rom abuse a t the handsof theologians, New Testament scholats, and historians of Second Commonwealthpolitics and society. It is no t s imply a marter of calling a rt en ti on to the negativepresuppositions that are oft en a tt ached to such terms as Pharisees or ritual. 2His contributions extend to a more substantial scholarly recognition that the extantcompendia of rabbinic teachings, all of which postdate the second century C.E., wereno t treatises on theology or chronicles of their authors or protagonists times. Forthat reason, they provide little if any evidence for the doctrines of the early churchor the life of the hisrorical Jesus. It is unfortunate that Talmudic Judaism has no tleft us a P au l or an August ine , a Josephus or a Eusebius. Artempts to reconstructhistorical narratives ou t of specialized works devoted to the minutiae of legal debatet rhetorical preaching c an be undertaken only with extreme caution.;

By way of illusttation of these methodological perils, I turn to a familiar passage fromrabbinic literature that claims to preserve histotical information about an importantmilestone in the development of Judaism in the thi rd century B.C.E. I wil l a rgue tha tthe failure to take into account the distinctive purposes and literary character of rabbinic


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traditions hasled to fUndamental errors in the historical conclusions that were drawn fromthis text.

The rabbinic text is a legend about the circumstances surrounding the translarionof the Torah into Greek and the supposed emendations that were introduced into thatdocument by rhe sages charged with that translation. The tradition is preserved innumerous versions, whether in the form of briefallusions or exhaustive lists of verses, inworks emanating from the tannaitic, amoraic, and medieval eras.

4Thetradition, in its various vetsions,wasexaminedwith characteristic thoroughness

by Emanuel Tov in an article that appeared in 1984. Tov undertook a detailedcomparison of the rabbinic traditions and the extant Greek versions of the LXX. Heclassified the variants into different types and proposed reconstructions of rhe Greektexr that underlay the rabbinic Hebrew versions. After noting rhe many disagreementsbetween the rabbinic versions and the standard LXX, he arr ived at a far -reachingconclusion:

The surprising thing is that two-thirds of the biblical passages in the listwere changed in the course of the textual tradition of the LXX, and if this isreally so, then clearly the original text of the LXXcomplerely differed fromthe translation known to us from the manuscripts.6

Tov s clear preference for the rabbinic tradition, which is containedin works redactedhalfa millennium or more afrer the composirion of the LXX of rhe Pentateuch, over themanuscripts of LXX itself, was srartling. The reasons for my surprise, and rhe objectionsI have to Tov s judgment on this matter, will form the basis for the present essay.

Let us begin with a presentat ion of the tex t under discussion, as it appears f i egill h 9a-b:

King Ptolemyassembled seventy-two elders, and placed them inside seventytwo rooms without disclosing to them the reason why he had assembledthem. He approached each one individually and said to them: Wrire for methe Torah of your master Moses.The Holy One instilled counsel into the hearts of each one, and they allarrived at a single consensus.Theywrore for him:Go d createdin the beginning (Genesis 1:1).Let me make man in the image, after the likeness (Genesis 1:26).And on the sixth day God finished and he rested on the seventh day(Genesis 2:2).Male and female he created himlit 7 (Genesis 5:2).Come, let me go down, and there confUse their language (Genesis 11:7So Sarah laughed to her relations ?; Genesis 18:12).8

Aristeas or Haggadah: Talmudic Legend and the Greek Bible I Segal jFor in their anger theyslayed men, and in theirwantonnessthey hamstrunga stable (Genesis 49:6).So Moses rook his wife and his sons and set them on a carrier of persons(Exodus 4:20).The t ime rhat rhe people of Israel dwelt in Egypt and in other lands wasfour hundred and thirty years (Exodus 12:40)..


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elders, evidentlybelong to the earlier stratum, perhaps from around the seventh century.The Midrash Haggadol and the Yalqut Shim oni while useful as textual witnesses to thedocuments that are anthologized therein, are nothing more than late compilations inwhich passages from the Talmud and Midrash are organized according to the sequenceof the Hebrew Bible. They cannot under any circumstance be counted as rabbinic worksin their own right. Although these observations might strike some readers as obvious,they have proven to be stumbling blocks to somedistinguished scholars.1?

When a tradition appears in diverse forms in different rabbinic collections, theversions found in the Babylonian Talmud are unlikely to represent the original or evenan ear ly form of that tradition. Of the various rabbinic compendia the BabylonianTalmud is t he mos t removed from the main wellspring of haggadic traditions, theland of Israel. It was also the last of the classical rabbinic works to undergo its finalredaction, perhaps no t until close to the Islamic age.is Despite the skepticism withwhich we customarily approach Babylonian haggadah, in the present specific instancethere are good reasons no t to dismiss its account of this story. First, ir is introducedby the formula tanya ( it was taught ), thereby indicating tannaitic provenance.Second, it is hard t o f ind a r ea son to suspect that it was invented by the Talmud sredactors. Third, its agreement with the Letter Aristeas and Philo further enhancesthe story s claims to authenticity.

Nevertheless, we would do well to reconsider the connectionbetween the two partsof the Babylonian pericope, and to askwhether the two components arecomplementary,or even if they reflect a consistent approach. This question in and of itself will notnecessarily sparka revolutionary change in the historiography of the Septuagint, or in thehistory of rabbinic thinking. Nonetheless, the separation of the text s two componentshas implications for several important issues.

One such topic concerns the rabbis attitudes toward the Septuagint. Conventionalwisdomin almosttwocenturiesofhistoricalwritingwouldhave it that theJewishsagesof theTalmudic eraweremoved byovert hostilityto theAlexandrian Greek version of theTorah,whether because of its adoption by the Christian church or because it is not sufficientlyfaithful ro the Hebrew syntax to allow for sophisticated midrashic interpretation. Atfirst glance, our Talmudic passage, taken in its entirety, would no t support such a pointof view, since its main point is to show that the elders were imbuedwith the Holy Spiritwhen performing their task; the activity of the Holy Spirit is evident particularly in theirdepartures from the Hebrew.2 If, on the other hand, the l is t of narratives is no t seenas connected originally to the narrative about the translators, the passage upholds theconventional understanding of the rabbis stance toward the Septuagint.21 At the veryleast, the list of alterations can be described and characterizedwithout imposing on i t theassumptions of the preceding passage from the Babylonian Talmud.

A second issue concerns the homilet ical point of the l iterary uni t. Rabbinichaggadot are no t usually known for theirthematic complexity. Since theyare frequentlyrooted in homilies that were delivered before synagogue congregations, they are likely

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haggadic genre andthat determine the appropriate ways for basing historical conclusionson them.

The most rudimentary literary analysis of this tradition will observe that i t c an besubdivided into two main parts:

1. A narrative framework that is similar in its main outline to thewell-known storyof the Letter AristeasJO-or to be precise, to thesupplements provided by Philo Mos2.25-44)11 concerning the seventy-two elders who were assembled by the emperorPtolemy, andwho were given the supernatural inspiration thar allowed them to produceidentical Greek translations.12

2. Lists of biblical verses for which the translators versions differed from theestablished Hebrew text.

The final product gives the impression that the two segments constitute a singleunified entity, such that the miraculous status of the translation, as established by thenarrative, is demonstrated by the existence of the variants. That is to say: if the translatorshad arrived at a unified translation only with respect to the verses that were translatedliterally from the Hebrew, then theirachievementwould not necessarily have been graspedas a supernatural one, since it might be argued that their agreement merely reflects theiridentical Vorlage However, this cannot be argued about the cases when their translarionsconstitute departures from the Hebrew original. For how would so manytranslators havearrived at the same translation ifnot through miraculous means? It therefore appears thatthe two components of the haggadah are interdependent and mutually complementary.13

The apparent integrity of the story, however, is called into quest ion by the factthat the tradition about the miraculous concurrence of rhe seventy-two translators doesnot figure in any rabbinic tradition other than the BabylonianTalmud and works thatderive from it. By contrast, lists of things that our rabbis altered for King Ptolemy atthe t ime that they wrote the Torah for him in Greek (and similar formulations), orthe identifications of particular verses that belong to those l is ts , are cited with somefrequency in the literature, in such diverse collections as the Mekhilta 14 the PalestinianTalmud, classic Palestinian midrashic compendia, and the Tanhumas-without anyallusion whatsoever t o t he tale of the agreement between the translators.15

It should be noted that not all scholars would concur with my claim that the fullstory is limited to the Babylonian Talmud. Historians and biblicists are quick to citeadditional works from the rabbinic corpus that provide independent corroboration ofthe tradition. In this connection, they are likely to bring support from Tractate Soferimincluded among the Minor Tractates of the Talmud; the Midrash Haggadol; or theYalqut Shim oni. These collections, however, are not primary documents of rabbinicliterature, bu t rather medieval anthologies whose compilers were striving to collectdiverse material from the classical Talmudic era. In particular, the provenance andpurposes of Soferim have recently been the topic of intense scholarly controversy. Thereis a growing tendency to date the tractate, or at least sections of it, as late as the eleventhcentury,16 although the opening chapters, which include the tale of the seventy-two

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to focus on a single issue, which is capable of being grasped by the folk who assemblefor such occasions. Indeed, the presence of more than one homiletical topic is often anindication of the composite nature of a given passage, whether compiled in antiquity orfrom the marginal additions by medieval scribes and glossators that werecopied into themain body of the manuscript. As we shall argue later on, the identification of multiplemessages in the passage can assist us in reconstructing the pathways of the developmentof the Babylonian tradition regarding the writing of the Septuagint.

The need to identifY the homiletical point of a rabbinic discourse, as a step towardunwrapping its historical kernel from its ancillary elements, is borne out by the factthat none of the lists of alterations comes closeto being complete. We know of numerousvariations between the Greek and Masoretic texts that f ind no mention whatsoever intheTalmudic traditions.22

It is undoubtedly difficult to use haggadic material for historical purposes, bu t itca n be done. Though he was speaking about Palestinian Jewish history, the principlearticulated by Saul Lieberman in his 1944 article The Martyrs of Caesarea holds forour material as well:

The simple rule should be followed that the Talmud may serve as a goodhistoric document when it deals in contemporary matters within i ts ownlocality. The legendary portions of theTalmud can hardly be utilized for thispurpose. The Palestinian Talmud (and some of the earlyMidrashim) whosematerial was produced in the rhi rd and fourth centuries contains valuableinformation regarding Palestine during that period The evidence is allthe more trustworthy since the facts are often recorded incidentally andcasually.23

In other wOtds, rhe historical credibility of rabbinic sources is in inverse proportionto their explicitly historical objectives.24 Rabbinic sources are of greatest historical valuewhen theyare speaking unguardedly without consciously intending to providehistoricalinformation. Thispremisewillserve us in good steadwith respect to our tradition abouttheemendations introduced by the seventy-twoJewish elders: what they have to teach ustelates more to the generations of the tannaitic and amoraic sages than to third-centuryB.C.E. Alexandria.

The bsence mportantSeptuagintVariantsThe historical nature of the list is furthet cast in doubt when we observe that the list ofvariants does no t contain any halakhic passages and that the Jewish sages never cite theLXX variants in support of normative halakhicpositions. Indeed, there are at least twowell-known examples of momentous translations that do t f igure in the tabbinic list.

Aristeas or Haggadah: Talmudic Legend and the Greek Bible i Segal J6The first is the nonliteral rendering of Lev 23: as te epaurion tes prates ( the morrow ofthe first day ) rather than the morrow of the Sabbath. This reading is consistentwirhthePharisaic and rabbinic methods for dating the Feast ofWeeks, a topic of deep sectariancontroversy during the SecondTemple era. Second, the LXX rendered Exod 21:22-23,dea ling with causing a miscarr iage to a pregnant woman ( ruling that the differencebetween a civil and a capital offense depends on the state of the fetus s development): Ifirbe unformed, heshall be fined but if it is fotmed, then thou shalt give life for life.This is drastically different from the conventional Jewish reading, according to whichthe difference hinges on the fate of the morher s life: And if no harm follows [that is tothe woman], the one who hurt her shall be fined If any harm folJows [to her}, rhenyou shall give lifefor life. The LXX, evidently reRectingan Alexandrian Greek tradition,became the basis for the normative Christian position on abortion.26 If the l is t in ourpassage were the result of a serious, and real, attempt to collect significant variations inthe LXX translation, it could not possibly have overlooked cases like this, which were atthe center of Jewish exegetical concern.

The Talmudic ist as a ybridThese omissions from the list suggest that irs rabbinic compilers were motivared not byhistoricalor halakhic concernsbu t byhomiletics. On the basisofhisdetailed examinationsof the respective verses, Giuseppe Veltri concluded that mosr of the examples can bejustified as attempts to resolve exegetical difficulties thar elsewhere in rabbinic workswere discussedwithout explicit connection to the Greek translation. EmanuelTov foundthis conclusion utterly bizarre: t remains difficult, and actually unexplained, how andwhy difficulties in a biblical verse which one or more tabbis present according to somesource should be ascribed to the translarional activity of the seventy translatots. 27 Inthe end, even Veltr i does not call into question the basic historical reliabili ty of therabbinictradition.All heproposes is that a distinction bemade between the actual Greektranslation and a separare interpretative midrash that the elders provided for Ptolemy.This conclusion seems arbitraryand motivated nor so much by the evidence as bya priorcommitment to the historicity of haggadic texts.

Ifone setsaside suchprior commitments, adifferent picture emerges.A goodstartingpoint for an acceptable solution to our problem may be found in the approach adoptedby Rash i t o egillah Throughout his commentary on our story about the seventytwo elders, Rashi repeats the phrase so that they should not say This formula isused to deRect a lireral reading of the verse that would otherwise lead the na ive readerto conclusions that are unacceptable to Judaism.28 In several instances, Rashi goes so faras to spelJ ou t the nature of the heresies that the elders were trying to avoid, principally,the beliefthat there are Two Powers in Heaven, and the possibilityof finding scripturalsupport for polytheistic beliefs.


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Rashi 's claim that the text was intended to counter such heresies can be borne ou tby a close look a tsome of the translations found in the list:

1. Genesis 1:1: God c reated in the beginning The intention is evidently toavoid a reading such as The beginning [bereshit] created God, which wouldhave implied that God was the creature of a priot being. Note that theambiguityal lowed by the Hebrew cou ld not t eal ly be replica ted in Greek, where casestructure very clearly designates grammatical subjects and objects.

2 . Genes is 1 :26: Let me make man in the image , a fter the likeness -The use ofthe first-person plural form has beena long-standingsource of embarrassment forJewish monotheists confronting dualists, pagans, or trinitarians.

3 . Genes is 2 :2 : And on thesixth dayGod finished and he rested on the seventhday -This version, which does in fact agree with the received text of the LXX,was evidently tesponding to a perceived conttadiction in the Masoretic version:either God was finishing thework on the seventh day, or he rested, bu t not bothThe Greek version makes it clear that the creation was completed by the end ofthe sixth day.

4. Genes is 11 :7: Come, let me go down, and there confuse their language -As in1:26, the Hebrew suggests a plurality in the divine.5. Exodus 12:40 : The t ime tha t t he peopl e of Israel dwelt in Egypt and in otherlands was four hundred and thirty years The Greek tradition removes a glaringincongruity between the claim of the verse and the chronology of events inGenesis and Exodus by allowing that the count does not refer s tr ic tly to thesojourn in Egypt bu t in fact begins during the patriarchal era.

This summary lends support to Veltri's thesis thatwhat wehave here is no t an arbitrarycollection of problematic verses bu t a selection of texts with common characteristics.Unfortunarely, it is in the apologetic readings that we are least likely to find agreementwith the Greek tradition of the LXX. The verses in which God is designated as a pluralappear there unaltered. These discrepancies led Tov to question the authenticity of themanuscript tradition of the LXX.

A verydifferent picture emerges ifwetreatthe pericope as a standard haggadic passagerather than a historical record. There is considerable evidence in Talmudic and midrashicliterature that the Jewish sages were sensitive to problematic biblical texts that couldprovide support for heretical or pagan positions. The rabbinic corpus contains severaldisputes between sages and sectarians or heretics, some of which revolve around similarlists of biblical texts that generated polemical arguments. Following are two examples:

1. Y erakhot 9:1 12d):29The heretics [minim] asked Rabbi Simlai: How many deities created theuniverse?

Aristeas or Haggadah: TalmudicLegend and the Greek Bible Segal 7

He said to them: You ask me? Go and askAdam, since it says Deuteronomy4:32) For ask now of the days that are past. Since the day that thegods created man upon the earth is not whar is wrinen, but rathe rsince the day that God created man upon the earth.They said to him: But is it n ot w ri ne n In rhe beginning created God[Elohim a plural noun form] ?He said to them: Does it say bar u [the plural verb form]? What is writtenis bam [the singular form].Said Rabbi Simlai: In all instances where the heretics blasphemed, theirrefutation can be found right nearby.They continued to challenge him: What is this verse that is written (Genesis1:26) Let us make man in ou r image, after our likeness ?He answered them: t is no t written here: So the gods created man in theirown image, bu t rather: So God created man in his own image (27).His disciples said to him: These people you pushed aside with a reed. Whatwill you reply to us?He said to them: In the past, Adam was created ou t of dust and Eve wascreated ou t ofAdam. FromAdam onward, in ou r image, afterou r likeness.Man cannot be without a woman and woman cannot be without a man,and the two of them cannot be without the divine presence.30They continued to askhim: \X hat is this text that is written Qoshua 22:22)The Mighty One, God, the Lord The Mighty One, God, the Lord Heknows ?He answered them: t is not written here they know, bu t rather heknO\vs.Theysaid to him: Rabbi, you could push those people asidewith a reed, bu twhat shall you reply to us?He said to them: The three names refer to the same one , just as a personmight say King Caesar Augustus.They continued to ask him: What is this that is written (Psalms 50:2): TheMighty One, God the Lord, speaks and summons the earth ?He' said to them: Does it in fact say: they spoke or and they summon.What is written is speaks and summons the earth.His disciples said to him: Rabbi, you could push those peopleaside with areed, bu t what shall you reply to us?He said to them: The three names refer to the same one , jus t as a personmight say a craftsman, builder, architect.They continued to askhim: What is i t that is written Qoshua24:19) forheis a holy God [efohim qedoshim] ?He said to them: They are holy gods is no t written, but rather he is ajealous God.


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His disciples said to him: Rabbi, you could push those people aside with areed, bur what shall you reply to us?Rabbi Isaac said: Holy in all types of holiness. . . .They continued to ask him: What is this that is wrirten Deuteronomy 4:7)What great nation is there that has a God so near [elohim qerovim] to it?He said to them: t is not written hete as the Lord our God is to us,whenevetwe call upon them, bu t rather whenevet we call upon him.His disciples said to him: Rabbi, you could push those people aside with areed, bur what shall you teply to us?He said to them: Near in all manners of nearness . . .2. Sanhedrin 8b: lJRabbi Johanan said: Wherever the heretics blasphemed, their refuration isright nearby:Let us make man in our image, after ourlikeness - So God created manin his own image.Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language (Genesis 11 :7 -

And theLord came down [sing.] to see the ciry and the tower (verse 5).Because there God had revealed himself [literally: themselves] to him(Genesis 35:7)- to the God who answered [sing.] me in the day of mydistress (verse 3).What grear nation is there mar has a God so near [elohim qerovim] to it?(2 Samuel 7:23)- What orner nation on earth is like thy people Israel?

In light of these and similar passages (which may reflect the kinds of disputationsthat rabbis were involved in with some frequency), 2 it seems likely that at some stagein me evolution of the tradition about the alterations that were introduced beforeKing Ptolemy, the narratots decided to graft the original list of variant readings in theGreek translation33 onto a sequence of verses that were well-known subjects of religiousdebates. In me rabbis historical imaginations, these verses should have been emendedin the rranslation in order to avoid misrepresentations by actual or potential hererics.This reconstruction of the rradition s development follows a readily understandableideological logic that is familiar to anyone with experience in tracing the developmentof haggadic traditions across the Talmudic era. Evidently, this grafting preceded all theextant versions in rabbinic literature.

watted abbitOf especial inrerest is the hare example, which is highlighted in the BabylonianTalmudby be ing moved to the end of t he list, i n con tr as t t o the other examples, which are

Aristeas or Haggadah: Talmudic Legend and the Greek Bible i Segal 9listed in rhe order of their appearance in the Pentareuch. A briefcomparison of how thisparticular element is includedin thevariousmidrashic and Talmudic collections providesus with a textbook case for the evolution of haggadic traditions. In rhe Jvfekhilta me listof thevariants introduced for King Ptolemy includes the hare or rabbit (Lev 11:6or Deut14:7). This reading, like all the others in the passage, is presented withour any additionalexplanation, and there is no mention of Ptolemy s wife and her problematic name.54

A discourse in Leviticus Rabbah in which various rabbis propose prophetic readingsof some unlikely biblical passages contains the following pesher-like interpretation ofthe dietary laws (13:5):3 ;

Moses our master saw the empires in their activities: the camel, and thehare, and the coney .. (Deuteronomy 14:7).And the hare -This is Greece. King Ptolemy s mother was named Hare.

In this passage, the comment about Ptolemy s mother creates a link between thehare and Greece. However, it is no t l inked to any tex tual var iants in the Bible, andcertainly not to the legend of the seventy-two translators.

The PalestinianTalmud tractate lvfegillah (1:9 [71 d] 36 is evidentlythe earliestsourceto incorporate the information about Ptolemy s momer as a gloss, in order to explainthe significance of the variant in theGreektext. That it is a latergloss is indicatedby rhefacr rhat it is cited partially in Aramaic, though the actual list of variants, presumablya baraita is in Hebrew.3? The Yerushalmi s version, like the Mekhilta s and unlike theBavli s, includes the verse in its proper sequential order; it is given no special prominenceby being placed at the end of the list.38

Although there is no indispurable proof that the tradition evolved in precisely theorder j\1ekhilta -) Leviticus Rabbah -) Yerushalmi Babylonian Talmud, the hypothesisis an eminently plausible one, and it correlates nicely with rhe chronological orderof me respective compendia. As has been noted, neither of the Palestinian traditionsconnects the list of Greek variants with the legend about the miraculous agreement ofthe translators. That decisive step was likelyan innovation by the Babylonian redactors.- ?Ih e hare variam is (to all appearances) not of a theological character. Thisfact supportsrhe hypothesis that the theologically problematic examples were grafted on a t a l at erstage in the tradition s evolution.

As many scholars have noted, the Talmud has got its history a bitgarbled. PtolemyII Philadelphus, in whose reign the Bible was translared into Greek, did not have a wifenamed Hare, Bunny, or anything of the sort. He did, however, have a grandfatherwho bore the epithet Ptolemy Lagos meaning rabbit. The Talmudic story wouldhave been just as effective if it had alluded to the correct historical information.40 Thefact that it did not do so is yet another indication of the unreliability of the historicaltradirions in the BabylonianTalmud. This unreliabiliry applies also to the traditions rharit claims to preserve of rhe textual variants in the old Greek Bible.


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In fact, Talmudic and midrashic literature suggests that the Jewish sages of that etadid not have firsthand familiarity with the Alexandrian Septuaginr, which they knewmerely as a legendary episode from the distanr pase. What is preserved in our list isa credible description of inrerreligious disputarions that rook place during the tabbisown days. The tendency ro conElate a list of texrual varianrs with a list of apologeticinrerpretations was likely facilitated by the fact that there was an overlap between thetI Vo l im. G en 2:2 and Exod 12:40 figure in both traditions.

The methodologies that we adopted for this analysis dovetail nearly wirh the data

presenredby Tov, according ro which it was precisely those verses that seemed to suggestduality or multiplicity in the godhead that remained unemended in the textus receptus ofthe Septuagint: that is, Gen 1: 1 26; 11:7; and Deut 4:19.

The LXX Translators ere Not Bothered aboutTheologyFurthermore, we have good reason ro suspect that the LXX uanslarors might havepreferred t ro draw roo much attenrion to the Torah s severe condemnarionof idolatry,at least insofar as it was extended ro Gentiles. If the translarors tended ro avoid physicalor anrhropomorphic descriptions of God they were not nearly as strictwhen it came toallusions to multiple deities.

This point is well illustrated by the LXX tendering of Exod 22:28 (LXX 22:27),You shall no t revile God, as theous ou kakologeseis. This reading provided Philo ofAlexandria with a rationale for teaching Mos. 2.205 :

No clearly by god he is no t here alluding ro the Primal God the Begetterof the Universe, bur ro rhe gods of the different cities who are falsely socalled, being fashioned by the skill of painters and sculprors. For the worldas we know it is full of idols of wood and srone, and suchlike images. Wemust refrain from speaking insultingly of these.

In light of such an attitude, it is not surprising that the Alexandrian rranslarors didnor hasten eliminate plural verbs such as let us make man or let us go down.

Based on his survey of anthropomorphism-related passages in the Greek Bible,Charles T. Fritsch concluded that for the most part, the LXX reveals no consistentmethod of avoiding the anthropomorphisms of the Hebrew. 43 Harry M.Orlinskywenteven further. Based on his reexamination of the evidence, he declared that

what have been regarded by virtually everyone as instances of an anri anrhropomorphic attitude on the part of the Septuagint translarors are theresult of nothing more tendentious than mere stylism, with theology andphilosophyplaying nodirectrolewhateverin thematter. .. . ThusFritschmade

Aristeas or Haggadah: Talmudic Legend and the Greek Bible I Segal 171nothing of the fact thar the LXX translated the face of God literally 18 )times in the Pentateuch, and proceeded ro create an anri-anthropomorphicficrion our of one ) instance of this phenomenon and an alleged one atthat. What is involved is no t theology, bur stylism and intelligibiliry.44

Although one can poinr ro cases where the LXX translarors probably did rephrasethe Greek ro avoid anthropomorphisms, the pracrice was no t carried out with anyconsistency;45 furthermore, such cases do no t appear among the ones enumerated in therabbinic traditions.

The LXX s No t Known in alestineEven if the variants mentioned in the Talmudic accounts originated in a Greek text thatwas known ro the rabbis unlikely bnt possible we would notneed to accept thepremisethat thetext they were referring ro was an early editionof the LXX. There were, as wenowknowwell, numerous Greek translations of the Bible circulatingin ancient Palestine. Basedon the nine fragments of Greek Bible rranslations rhar were unearthedat Qumran Caves and 7 and at Nahal Hever, the present scholarly consensus6 holds that during the SecondCommonwealth era there existed Palestinian versions of the LXX that were emended byHebrew speakers who were accustomed ro a Masoretic-like texe.7 This phenomenon isnormallyundersrood as an attempt produce a more literal adherence the Hebrew. Theresulting texts were neither LXX nor rabbinic but, as far as wecan tell, merely theattemptsof individual users, scholars, or communities ro come up with the most faithful renderingthey could of the Hebrew original.8 It is conceivable that scholars might have used theirlinguistic proficiency in order ro produce a revision of the LXX that was distinguishedby its theological integrity, of the sott described in our rabbinic tradition. However, sucha revision would not have been a witness ro the original Alexandrian version. On thecontrary, such a Greek text would have been yet another adaptarion, whose distinctivereadings cannot be credited ro the original seventy-wo sages.49

If the Septuagint text was not current in the Holy Land in their t ime, then we areforced to assume that the rabbis must have known of its use inAlexandria or some otherDiaspora community. However, I am aware of no convincing evidence that the rabbisof the land of Israel during the tannaitic era possessed detailed knowledge about theAlexandrian synagogues or about Greek Bible versions in their times. 50

onclusionOu r analysis has demonstrated that the Talmudic version of the Aristeas legend is acomposite that was assembled over several genetations from numerous discrete sources.


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72 Common

When studied according to the methods of literary and philological analysis that areroutinely applied to Talmudic and midrashic texts, the passage cannot be viewed as areliable record of events that occurred centuries earlier than the compendia in which it isfound. On the contrary, the exegetical attitudes that it ascribes to the Greek translatorsare inconsistent with what we d o k now ab ou t their theological concerns (or lackthereof); and more glaring disagreements between the LXX and the MasoreticText findno place in the Talmudic lists of variants. The assumption that second- or third-centuryPalestinian rabbis would have preserved authentic memories of the original text of theAlexandrian Torah is contradicted by the literary and archaeological evidence.51

In light of these conclusions, it is hard to understand how scholarship ever treatedthe story with such respect. t is here, I believe, that we should remind ourselves of thetenacity of the outdated historiographic attitudes that E Sanders hasbeen instrumentalin discrediting.

It is not simplya matter of our havingmore informarion than previousgenerations ofscholars, though one should not minimize the importance of the discoveries at Qumranand elsewhere in challenging conventional wisdoms about ancient Judaism. Rather,earlier generations often studied the lives, values, and literature of ancientJews primarilyfrom theological perspectives, which promoted the tendencyto force the data-and thepeople-into rigid conceptual caregories. Afterall, it is so much neater to dividethe Jewsof the late SecondCommonwealth into Josephus s easily recognizable sects-Sadducees,Pharisees, and Essenes-and to accept the cla im (which served the interests of bothJewish and Christian apologists) that a single, linear, and consistent tradition extendedfrom the Pharisees through to the BabylonianTalmud as interpreted by its authoritativecommentators. Only when speaking about rabbinic Jews as a theological category is itpossible to imagine that they maintained a uniform Bible text, uniform observances,and uniform beliefs; and that they and their Pharisaic predecessors could impose themon all Jews. t is only by subscribing to those na ive beliefs that rabbinic literature canbe used as the basis for reconstructions of Ptolemaic Alexandria or the age of Jesus.Compared to those neat classifications, the alternatives are just too well, m ssy Evenif we could be persuaded that ancient Palestinian peasants were, for some reason, moreconsistent in their beliefs and ptactices than our own experience with human naturewould suggest possible,53 a taith in clearly defined sectarian divisions is much easier todeal with than the evidence say an Essene-like community thathonoredthe Zadokitepriesthood, observed Sadducee halakhah, and yet maintained a belief in survival afterdeath, perhaps even in bodily resurrection. 54 The tidy consistencyof the older categoriesis unquestionably attractive, even if it is historically indefensible.

avid iller

reedom, according to E P. Sanders, was an ideal that was common t o mos t Jewsliving in Roman Palestine despite considerable disagreementabout whatit entailedor how it should be realized. J Sanders envisions a spectrum of freedom seekers, withthose who waited passively for divine intervention, willing to die rather than giveup t he it own way of life, at one end, and those who promoted violent resistanceto Roman r ul e a t the other end . Both groups could appea l to r ol e model s f rom1 Maccabees-the former to the pious individuals who refused to defend themselveson the Sabbath l Macc 2:29-38), the latter to Mattathias and his sons, whoeventually secured both religious freedom and political independence. Even amongthose who opposed the later Hasmonean dynasty, Sanders suggests that memories ofthe successful Maccabean revolt encouraged a general desire for freedom. 2

The popular prophets Josephus accused of inciting revolt against Rome are locatedtoward the middle of the spectrum among freedom seekerswho were ready to fight, buthoping for miraculous intervention. 3 These sign prophets -so-called because of theirassociation with miracles that were supposed to playa role in divine deliverance4 a reoften regarded as independent figures whose eschatological signs of freedom or signsof salvation distinguished them from their more politically minded contemporaries. 5Such prophets are generally thought to have framed their activities no t in terms of theMaccabees but in terms of the exodus and conquest,6 if not also an expected prophet likeMoses Oeut 18:15-18).7

Some of the sign prophetsdoubtless did evoke thedistant biblical past,includingtheconquest of Canaan. According to Josephus s account in nt 20.169-72, an Egyptian


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286 Notes to chapters 1

40. See, for example, the Habakkuk commentary, lQpHab 7:4-5.41. Krister Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament, 2nd ed.

(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1 8),40.42. H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, rev. R. R. Otley (Cambridge:

Cambridge Universiry Press, 1914),391-92.43. A. Wifstrand, Luke and rhe Septuagint (in Swedish), STK (1940): 243-62; translated

in A. Wifstrand, Epochs and Style: Selected Writings on the New Testament, Greek Language andGreek Culture in the Post-ClassicalEra, ed. L Rydbeck and S. E. Porter, trans. D. Searby. WUNT2.179 (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). See also Loveday C. A Alexander, Septuaginta,Fachprosa, Imitatio: AlbertWifstrand and rhe Languageof Luke-Acts, in idem, Acts in Its AncientLiterary Context: A ClLzssicist Looks at the Acts ofthe Apostles, Library of NewTestament Studies 298(London: T T Clark International, 2005), 231-52.

44. Swete, Introduction, 26.45. E. E. Ellis, Biblical Interptetation in the New Testament Church, in Mikra: Text,

Translation, Readingan d Interpretation oftheHebrew Bible in Ancientjudaism andEarly Christianity,ed. M. J Mulder and H. Sysling, CRINT, Section 2: Literature of the Jewish People in the Periodof theSecondTempleand theTalmud 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988),692.

46. This was pointed Out ro me by Ed Sanders. Cf J R. Wagner, Heralds of the Good News:Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans, NovTSup 101 (Leiden: Brill, 2002),33-39, on the hearer competence of Paul's Roman recipients.

47. GeorgeJ. Brooke, The Canon within theCanon atQumran and in the NewTestament,in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After, ed. Stanley E. Porret and CraigA Evans,JSPSuP 26 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 242-66.

48. Devorah Dimant, The Problem of Non-translated BiblicalGreek in \ 7 Congress of theInternational Organization fOr Septuagint and Cognate Studies, jerusalem, 1986, ed. C. E. Cox,SBLSCS 23 (Atlanta: Scholars Ptess, 1987), 3-6.

49. Recently explored in a new and fruitful way by N. Hacham, The Lettet of Aristeas: ANew Exodus Story? jS j 36 (2005): 1-20.

50. Fishbane, Use, Authoriry and Interpretation, 356.51. A point effectively demonstrated throughout Batclay, jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora.52. Holladay, Hellenism.53. Cf the remarks of van der Horst ( Interpretation ) and Doran ( Jewish Hellenistic

Historians ) .54. Chaim Rabin, The Translation Process and the Character of the Septuagint, Textus 6,

(1%8): 21.

Chapter Aristeas or Haggadah Talmudic Legend and the GreekBible Palestinian Judaism

1. E. P Sanders, judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE CE (1992; corrected ed., London:SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1994),400.

2. Ibid., 329-30.

Notes to chapter 287

3. Ib id. , 10- 11 .4. Anexcellentanalytical surveyof the development of this legendmay befound inAbraham

Wasserstein and DavidWasserstein, The Legend of the Septuagint: From ClLzssicalAntiquity to Today(Cambridge: Cambridge Universiry Press 2006).

5. Emanuel Tov The Rabbinic Tradition Concerning the 'Alterations' Inserted into theGreek Pentateuch and Their Relation ro the OriginalText of the LXX jS j 15 (1984): 65-89.

6. Ibid., 76. This section underwent considerable revision in the reissue of the article inEmanuel Tov The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Colleered Essays on the Septuagint, VTSup 72 (Leiden,Bosron, and Cologne: Brill, 1999), 10.

7. Some texrs add the gloss: And theydid not write 'creared them.'' '8. An interes ting a ttempt to interpret this variant in terms of an arrested LXX reading

may be found in Abraham Geiger, Urschrift und Obersetzungen der Bibel, in ihrer Abhdngigkeitvon der innern Entwicklung des judentums, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Madda, 1928),415-19 (Heb.: 267-68). According ro Geiger's conjecture, the original allusion was ro the factthat the LXX altered beloti Cworn out ), which the translators regarded as roo crude. Most recentscholarship ascribes the variation ro a different Hebrew Vorlage. SeeTov Alterations, 78-79.

9. Fot example, John Wansbrough , Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of ScripturalInterpretation, London Oriental Series 31 (Oxford: Oxford Universiry Press, 1977).

10. Moses Hadas, ed., Aristeas to Philocrates LetterofAristeas , Jewish Apocryphal Literature(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951).11. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, eds., Philo with an English Translation, ed. T E. Page,

E. Capps, andW H. D. Rouse, 10 vols., LCL (London: William Heinemann; Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard Universiry Press, 1935),6:460-70.

12. See Wasserstein and Wasserstein, LXX Legend, 51-54.13. Ibid. , 59; see also 65: The srory is clearly intended to commend the changes ro the

reader as being worthy of arrention preciselybecause they are the direct outcome of a miraculousevent. Many scholars have unjustifiably twisted the meaning of the passage in order ro suPPOrttheir presupposition that the rabbis wereout ro discredit the LXX byaccusing it of tamperingwiththe biblical text.

14. P isha 14 (H. S. Horovitz and A Rabin, eds., Mechilta D Rabbi Ismael, 2nd ed.[Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1970], 50-51; Jacob Z. Lauterbach, ed., Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, 3vols.,Jewish Classics, papered. [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Sociery ofAmerica, 1 1], 11112). The (lack of) distribution among the tannaitic midrashic collections deserves somemention.Given that thealterations cover all five books of the Pentateuch (ifweCOUnt the hare example asreferting ro Lev II :6, andnot only Deut 14:7), we should have expected the respective midrashicworks ro mention them, ifonly cursorily, as they were encountered. This is notthe case, and thesingle reference in lvfekhilta remains the only arrestation in the literature of tannaitic midrash.The general situarion remains the same in tannaitic midrashim that were nor known ro earlierscholars. J. N. Epstein and E. Z. Melamed Mi:khilta d Rabbi Simon b. jochai [Jerusalem: MekizeNirdamim, 1955])do not mention Prolemy or thea rerarions in thecommentaries on Exod 12:40(34), transcribed from ms. Firkovitch, or on 24:5 (220), based on Midrash Haggadol. The same


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otes to chapter I otes to chapter I I 89

holds true for Menahem Kahana, Sifre Zuta on Deuteronomy: Citations ji-om a New TannaiticMUrash (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 2003), where the survivingquotations contain no such references.

15. A methodical comparison of the rabbinic versions was already conducted by Geiger(Urschrift, 439-47; Heb. 282-87). Geiger was substantially correer in noting rhat the earliestand most rel iable traditions are those contained in the Mekhilta, where rhe miracle story is notmentioned. He also noted the composire nature of the Babylonian version, while dismissing themedieval ivlasekhet Soferim as irrelevant to the ancient reality. Cf. Tov, Alterations, 66-67, andWasserstein and Wasserstein, LXX Legend, 60.

16. Ezra Fleischer, Eretz-Israel Prayer and Prayer Rituals as Portrayed in the Geniza Documents,Publications of the Perry Foundation (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 199-202; Debra Reed Blank,It s Time toTake Another Lookat Ou r Little Sister Soferim: A Bibliographical Essay, JQR90(1999): 20-21.

17. A rare and notable exception to this pattern is Giuseppe Veltri, Eine Tora fUr den KonigTalmai: Untersuchungen zum Obersetzungsverstiindnis in der judisch-hellenistischen und rabbinischenLiteratur, TSAJ 41 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994). In his review ofVelrri s book, Tov wascompelled to concede the point; see EmanuelTov, Review of G. Veltri, Eine Tora fUr den KonigTalmai, Scripta Classica Israelica 14 (1995): 178-83.

18. Gunter Sternberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Mishnah, (Edinburgh: TBT Clark,1996),204-208; c Wasserstein and Wasserstein, LXX Legend, 54.19. The conventional view is expressed in Tov s chapter on the LXXin the collection l 11ikra:

This negative approach is visible also in the view of the Rabbis who explained the diffetencesbetween the MT and XX as alterations of the latter. See Emanuel Tov, The Septuagint, inMikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in AncientJudaism andEarly Christianity, ed. M. J. Mulder and H. Sysling, CRlNT Section 2: Literature of the JewishPeople in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1988), 162.

20. Thissimple understandingof the passage is found in Rashi s standard commentary.21. Nevertheless, I am convinced rhat they are fundamentally incorrect. See also Abrahanl

Wasserstein, On Donkeys, Wine and the Uses of Textual Criticism: Septuagintal Variants inJewish Palestine, in ?heJews in the Hellenistic-Roman World: Studies in Memory ofMenahem Stern,ed. Isaiah Gafni, Aharon Oppenheimer, and Daniel Schwartz (Jerusalem, Zalman Shazat CenterforJewish History and the Historical SocietyofIsrael, 1996), 122-23.

22. This factwas noted by Tov, Review ofG. Veltri.23. Saul Lieberman, The Martyrs of Caesarea, Annuaire de I1nstitut de Philologie et d Histoire

Orientales et Slaves 7 (1939-44): 395. See also idem, Texts and Studies (New York: KTAY, 1974),182.

24. Lieberman s caveats havebeen followedwith judiciousresults by most scholars ofTalmudicphilologyand literature, to the pointwhere the historical value of texts is often treated as virtuallyirrelevant to their study. See Shamma Friedman, La-Aggadah Ha-Historit Ba-Talmud Ha-Bavli,in Saul Lieberman Memorial Volume, ed. Shamma Friedman (New York and Jerusalem: Jewish

Theological Seminaty of America, 1993). Friedman warns that in lighr of the Bav/i s propensityfor embellishing and expanding the tales about sages with formulas and motifs borrowed fromother contexts, ir is crucial to idenrifY rheoriginalliterarykernel of thepassagebefore wedererminethe hisrorical kernel (119).

25. See Zacharias Frankel, Ober den Einfiuss der paldstinischen Exegese au fdie alexandrinischeHermeneutik (Westmead: Gregg International Publishers, 1972); Hanoch Albeck, Introduction tothe Mishna (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik;Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1959), 10-14.

26. See Viktor Aptowitzer, Observations on t he Crimina l Law of the Jews, ]QR 15(1924-25): 55-118; David Micl1ael Feldman. Birth Control in Jewish Law: Marital Relations,Contraception, andAbortionas SetForth in the Classic Texts ofJewish Lawwith Comparative Referenceto the Christian Exegetical Tradition (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1980),257-62.

27. Tov, Review of G. Veltri, 183.28. Cf. Wasserstein and Wasserstein. XXLegend, 59.29. For additional rexts and discussion of the theological issues, see Alan F Segal, Two Powers

in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Cnristianity and Gnosticism, SJLA (Leiden: Brill, 1977),121-22, 124-34.

30. See also Gen. Rab. 8:8-11 (J. Theodor and Albeck, Bereschit Rabba: itkritischemApparat und Kommentar [in Hebrew], 3 vols. [Berlin: H. ltzkowski, 1903-23], 64). On thepassage, seeVeltri, Eine Tora, 39-41. 106.

31. Mentioned by Tov, Rabbinic Ttadition, 85; Veltri, Eine Tora. 38-39, 106; Segal, TwoPowers, 122-24.

32. Segal. Two Powers, 128: Thus, we can det ive a li st of scriptural passages which wereviewed as dangerous in the third cenrury, contemporarywith R. Simlai or R. Yohanan.

33. See Wasserstein, Donkeys, 126-36 (dealing with Exod 4:20 and Num 16:15);Wasserstein and Wasserstein, XXLegend, 64; and Tov, Alterations.

34. C Veltri, Eine Tom, 222.35. Mordecai Margulies. ed., Midrash ~ i k r a Rabbah, 4 vols. (Jerusalem: WaI1rmann,

1972),290 (see his notes to line 7). C Veltri, Eine Tora, 226, 232-33.36. Veltri, Eine Tora, 233.37. The sentence is, in fact, formulated in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic. Given the

poor state of rhe Yerushalmi text, we should probably not attach too much importance to thesenuances, which can easily get obscured bycopyists. At any rate, it should be made clear that theAramaisms in the Yerushalmi version cannot be explained on the same literary grounds as i n theBabylonian version as speech by a foreigner ; see below). The fact that allusions to Ptolemy smother/wife are entirely absent from the Mekhilta version should remove any reasonable doubrabout i ts being an explanatory gloss introduced during the amoraic era. The fact that this lastsentence is worded in Aramaic , in con tras t to the rest of the source, which is in Hebtew, asexpected from a tannatic text bamita), should not of itself be regarded as evidence that the story(or that part of it) is not original to the baraita in the Babylonian Talmud. In its current setting,it appears as if Aramaic is being used here as a literary device to suggest the foreignness of thespeaker. This would be consistent with the use of the term Jews in the quotat ion, rathet than


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Israel, wh ich is the normal manner for Jews ro refer ro themselves in rabbinic usage. Jews, onthe other hand, usually appears in speech that is being ascribed ro foreign speakers. In theTalmud,the use of theform Yehuda ei (Jews) rather than Israel is almost exclusivelyconfined to speech byor ro Gentiles. 1bis pattern holds true generally, though not as consistently, in the Yerushalmi andPalestinian midrashim as well.

38. Thi s is true, as well, of the Mekhilta. The unit would be out of sequence even if it werebased on Deut 14:7, since it should be followed by Deut 17:3.

39. See Friedman ( La-Aggadah, 162), who argues for the primacy of Palestinian overBabylonian versions of hisrorical haggadot. The question of whether the Yerushalmi made useof Leviticus Rabbah or vice versa is a long-standing controversy in Talmudic scholarship. Albeck l\1fidrash Vayikra Rabba, in Louis Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of His SeventiethBirthday, ed. Saul Liebermanet al. [New York: AmericanAcademy forJewish Research, 1945], 30 31) insisted that Leviticus Rabbah utilized the Yerushalmi. Margulies Rabbah,Introduction XVII-XXII) refuted Albeck s arguments, suggesting that similarities between thetwo collections could more profitably be ascribed to their both drawing from common sources.See also Leib Moskovitz, The Relationship between the Yerushalmi and Leviticus Rabbah: ARe-examination, in Eleventh World ofJewish Studies, ed. World Union of Jewish Studies(Jerusalem: World Union ofJewish Studies, 1993),31-38. None of these studies cites our examplein connectionwith the debates over the direction of borrowing between Leviticus Rabbah and thePalestinianTalmud.

40. Wasserstein, Donkeys, 139-41; cf. Tov, Alterations, 73-74, 89.41. A useful summary of the relevant facts and scholarly discussions may be found in Segal,

Two Powers, 129-30 n. 13.42. Similarly, in Leg. 153,Philo states that thelaw of Moses prohibits unrestrained affronts ro

pagan deities beeause their worshipers do not knowany better. See also Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.237,who justifies this prohibition by the Hebtew legislator ou t of reverence for the very word god.See Robert Goldenberg, The Septuagint Ban on Cursingrhe Gods, JSJ 28 (1997): 381-89.

43. Charles T. Fritsch, Anti-Anthropomorphisms of the GreekPentateuch (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1943).

44. Harry Meyer Orlinsky, The Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint of the Book of Joshua,in Congress Volume: Rome 1968, ed. G. W Anderson et aI., VTSup 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1969),187-95; idem, The Septuagint as HolyWrir and the Philosophy of rhe Translators, HUCA 46(1975): 89-114; Emanuel Tov, Theologically Motivated Exegesis Embedded in the Septuagint,in Translation of Scripture: Proceedings of a at the Research Institute,15-16, 1989, ed. Annenberg Research Institute, JQR Supplements (Philadelphia: AnnenbergInstitute, 1989),215-33.

45. See also T ov ( 1beologicallyMotivat ed who menti ons Num 12:8; Exod 4:24;24:10.

46. As formulated byLeonard Greenspoon, 1h e Dead Sea Scrolls and the GreekBible, in1heDead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A ed. Peter W Flint and James VanderKam (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 101-27.

Notes to chapter

47. There remains much that is unclear about the target audience of the Palestinian GreekBible texts. See Greenspoon, Dead Sea Scrolls, 101; Wasserstein, Donkeys, 121-25,

48. The GreekMinor Prophetsscroll fromNahalHever provides an object lesson in thepitfallsfacing those who would tryto pigeonhole tbe data into a theory of authoritarian centralization.Recognizing that the scroll fits the paradigm of kaige translations, on account of its propensityto translateall the occurrences of the Hebrewparticlegam (sometimes termed proto-Theodotionbecause theyanticipate the literalapproachesthat wouldlatertypifY the translationsofAchilles andTheodotion), the first editor, Dominique Barthelemy, was compelledto date thescroll to the midfirst century, on the assumption that translations of this sortwere rabbinic in character, reflectingthe hermeneutical methods of Rabbi Akiva and hisschool, which attached midrashic importanceto such minutiae (Barthelemy, Redecouverte d un chainon manquant de I his to ire de la LXX,RB 60 [1953]: 18-29). The link between Aquila s translation and Rabbi Akiva s hermeneutics isitself problematic, since rabbinic sources connectAquila primarily to Rabbis Joshua and Eliezer,who belonged to an earlier generation and were not associated with Rabbi Akiva s methods. Thisassumption underlies the conventional wisdom that the rabbis rejected the Septuagint becauseof its inadequacies for their newexegetical methods and sponsoredAquila s newversion to replaceit. Unfortunately, the paleographical analysis of Barthelemy s scroll produced a date in the firstcentury B.C.E. or earlier, long before the alleged emergence of those rabbinic hermeneuticalmethods-and, for that matter, before the actual existence of rabbis as such. See Emanuel Tov,Robert A. Kraft, and P J. Parsons, eds., 1he GreekMinor Prophets Scrollfrom Nahal Hever ljevXJIgr): 1he Seiyal Collection I, DJD 8 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990).

49. Anotherimportanttestimonyto theuse of the Septuagintin first-century Palestinecomesfrom Josephus. H. St.] Thackerayobserved thatJosephus generallycitedthe Pentateuch from aSemitic original, whereas his quotations for the historical books derive from the Greek (josephus:1he Man and the Historian, The Hilda Stich Strook Lectures [New York: Jewish Institute ofReligion Press, 1929], 81-89; Eugene Ultich, 1he Qumran Text of Samuel and Josephus, HSM 19[Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978],223-59). Josephus s teliance on the Septuagint is evidentnot only in the biblical text thathe brings but in his citations of apocryphal texts such as the LetterofAristeas or theAdditions to Esther. Most significant is the fact that Josephus s Greek Bible hasbeen identified as consistently proto-Lucianic in its textual tradition, reflecting a revision of theLXX and not a pureversion of the Alexandrian text. Ulrich concluded that Josephus used a textintimatelyrelatedto 4QSam . Histextwasa biblical text ina tradition not aberrant but apparentlymore widely influential in theSecond Temple period than that of the MT.

50. References to Alexand ria in the Talmud and Mid rash tend e ithe r to imbue i t with thelegendary aura of bygone Jewish magnificence as in the descriptions of the great Alexandriansynagogue, iny. Sukkah 5:1 (55a-b); b. Sukkah 51b) or to portray it as a stereotypical metropolis inwhich were blendedworldly sophistication and moral corruption. See, for example, Esth. Rab. 1:17.The rabbinicsourcesdo not indicate much firsthand familiarity with the city; see b. Sanh. 67b.

51. See Wasserstein and Wasserstein, LXX Legend, 64-65.52. E. P Sanders, Jesus and the Kingdom: The Restoration of Israel and the New People of

God, inJesus, the Gospels and the Church: Essays in Honor ofWilliam R. Farmer, ed. E. P Sanders


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9 Notes to c ha pt er s 1 I - I 2

(Macon, Ga.: Mercer Universiry Press, 1987),225-39; idem, Defending rhe Indefensible, JBLII I (1991): 463-77.

53. And, for that matter, moreconsisrent rhan those fickle mobs that are soeasily swayed backand forth in Josephus s accounts of the Jewish wars.

54. For a summary of these issues, see James VanderKam, Identiry and Hisrory of theCommuniry, in The DeadSea Scrolls afterFifty Years, ed. PetetW. Flint andJamesc. VanderKam(Leiden, Bosron, and Cologne: Brill, 1999), 487-533; Emile Puech, Immortaliry and Lifeafter Death, in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery: Proceedings of the jerusalemCongress, july20-25 1997, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, EmanuelTov, and James VanderKamOerusalem: Israel Exploration Socieryin cooperationwirh The Shrineof rheBook, Istael Museum,2000), 512-20.Chapter t 2: Whom Do You Follow? The Jewish Politeia and theMaccabean Background of Josephus s Sign Prophets

1. E. P Sanders, judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE 66 CE (1992; corrected ed., London:SCM; Philadelphia: Triniry Press International, 1994),279.

2. Ibid., 41, 493. Cf. William Reuben Farmer, Maccabees, Zealots, and josephus: An Inquiryinto jewish Nationalism in the Greco-Roman Period (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1956), 203;S. G. Brandon Jesus and theZealots: A Studyof thePoliticalFactor in Primitive Christianity (NewYork: Charles Scribner s Sons, 1967), 63;Morton Smith, Zealots and Sicarii, Their Origins andRelation, HTR 64 (1971): 2; David M. Rhoads, Israel in Revolution 6--74 CE A Political HistoryBasedon the Writings ofjosephus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976),22-23.

3. Sanders, Practice and Belief 288.4. The term was coined by P W Barnett, The Jewish Sign Prophets-AD 40 70 Their

Intentions and Origin, NTS 27 (1981): 679, and includes Theudas (Ant. 20.97-99), an unnamedEgyptian (Ant. 20.169-72; j. W 2.261-63), other anonymous prophets (Ant. 20.167-68, 188;j. W 2.258-60; 6.285-86), and possibly Jonathan the Weaver, active in Cyrene after the Jewishrevolt (j.W 7.438; cf. 437-50; Life 424-25). Although these individuals are introduced in variousways rhe promised actions ofTheudas and the Egyptian are norcalled signs ; the impostors whopledged wonders and signs are usually not labeled prophetS _j.W 2.258-63 indicates thatJosephus viewed rhem rogerher. Cf. Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple jewishPalestine: The Evidence from josephus (Oxford: Oxford Universiry Press, 1993), 198-99 n. 2.

5. j. W 2.259; 6.285; cf. Ant. 20.188. On the sign prophets as independent figures, seeSmith, Zealots, 14; Rhoads, Israel in Revolution 163-64; Richard A. Horsley, Like One ofrhe Prophets of Old : Two Types of Popular Prophets ar theTime of Jesus, CBQ 47 (1985): 460.On rhe sign prophets as eschatological figures, see E. P Sanders, jesus and judaism (Philadelphia:Fortress Press, 1985), 171; Gray, Prophetic Figures, 137, 141; Rhoads, Israel in Revolution 83;Horsley, TwoTypes, 454.

6. Cf. Barnett, Jewish Sign Prophets, 685; Horsley, Two Types, 454.7. Cf.JoachimJeremias, Mouses, TDNT4:863; HowardM. Teeple, TheMosaic Eschatological

Prophet (Philadelphia: Sociery of Biblical Literature, 1957), 65, 109; Ferdinand Hahn, The Titles

IIjIII

Notes to chapter 12 9

ofjesus in Christology: Their History in Early Christianity (London: Lutterworth, 1969),358-59,364-65; Martin Hengel, The Zealots: Investigations into the jewish Freedom Movement in the Periodfrom Herod I until 7 AD trans. David Smith (Edinburgh: T T Clark, 1989), 230; Dale Allison, The New l vfoses: A Matthean 7jtpology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993),83.

8. TheJordan River locationmost naturally recallsJoshua. Thesrrongestreason forconnectingTheudas to the e.xodus from Egypt is rhe description of his followers taking meir possessions withmem into me desert (Ant. 20.97; cf. Exod 12:31-39; cf. Hengel, Zealots, 229-30 .

9. Gray, Prophetic Figures, 125-33. In contrast to Josephus, the phrase signs and wondersis used frequently in the Septuagint for God s mighry acts of deliverance at the exodus fromEgypt. The three aurhenticating signs given to Moses at the burning bush, Josephus observes,were intended to confirmMoses as Israel s deliverer (Ant. 2.272-84); the ten plagues, on theorherhand, are attributed solely to God.

10. Cf. Ant. 6.110; 18.211; 19.9, 94; j. W 3.404; 4.623; and esp. j. W 1.377. For otherprophetic semeia in Josephus, see Ant. 6.54, 57, 91; 8.232, 236, 347; 10.28-29.

j. W 2.259 and Ant. 20.167 (the Egyptian);Ant. 20.188 (a certain impostor); cf. Theudas,who persuaded thepeople to follow him to theJordan (Ant. 20.97), as well asJonaman rheWeaverf. W 7.438 .

12. Gray, Prophetic Figures, 137: As a religious motif, the wilderness had wider associationsthan rhe exodus and conquest events alone. Cf. Daniel R. Schwartz, Temple and Desert: OnReligion and Stare in SecondTemple Period Judaea, in idem, Studies in thejewish BackgroundofChristianity WUNT 60 (Tiibingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992),34-38, for examples.

13. The mosr likely reason why the rebels asked permission to retire to the desert f. W6.351) was because the desert surroundingJerusalem afforded a natural escape route, not becausethey believed God would there providesalvation (contra Gerhard Kittel, eremos, TDNT2:659;Farmer,l vfaccabees, 116; Hengel, Zealots, 255 .

14. Cf. Gray, PropheticFigures, 117; Klaus-Stefan Krieger, Die Zeichenpropheten: eine Hilfezum Verstandnis des Wirkens Jesu? in Von jesus zum Christus: christologische Studien: Festgabefi r Paul Hoffinann zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Rudolf Hoppe and Ulrich Busse (Berlin: Walter deGruyter, 1998), 186.

15. Unless orherwise noted, all quotations of Josephus are raken from H. Sf. ]. Thackeray,Ralph Marcus, Allen Wikgren, and L. H. Feldman, josephus, 10 vols., LCL (Cambridge, Mass.:Harvard Universiry Press, 1926-65), except quotations of Antiquities books 1-4, which aretaken from Louis H. Feldman, judean Antiquities 1-4, vol. 3 of Flavius josephus: Translation andCommentary ed. Steve Mason (Leiden: Brill, 2000).

16. Cf. Krieger, Zeichenpropheten, 184;].W 6.286. Hengel (Zealots, 114-15) and Barnett( Sign Prophets, 688; cf. 682-83) suggest thar signs of freedom (semeia eleutherias) (j. W 2.259recalls a related expression (ton . .. pros ten eleutherian autois semeion gegonoron) applied to MosesinAnt. 2.327. This suggestion overlooks rhe fact that rheword Sign is combined with freedommost frequently in a context that anricipates rheJewish revoir, but has no relation to theexodus atall. In Josephus s lengthy accounr concerning the assassination of the emperor Gaius, a passwordoffreedom (semeion l u t h r i t l ~ ironically portends Gains s murder (Ant. 19.54, 186, 188).

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