29235359 Journal of Biblical Literature Winter 2003

Journal of Biblical Literature

VOLUME 122, No. 4 Winter 2003

lwq as Hypostasis in the Hebrew BibleAZZAN YADIN 601–626

Greek Historiography and the Chronicler’s History:A Reexamination

GARY N. KNOPPERS 627–650

The Language of Job and Its Poetic FunctionEDWARD L. GREENSTEIN 651–666

“Love Your Enemies,” the Golden Rule,and Ancient Reciprocity (Luke 6:27–35)

ALAN KIRK 667–686

“If Anyone Thirsts, Let That One Come to Meand Drink”: The Literary Texture of John 7:37b–38a

MICHAEL A. DAISE 687–699

The Messiah Jesus in the Mythic World of JamesMATT JACKSON-MCCABE 701–730

Potters’ Wheels and Pregnancies: A Note on Exodus 1:16SCOTT MORSCHAUSER 731–733

The Imagery of the Substitute King Ritual in Isaiah’sFourth Servant Song

JOHN H. WALTON 734–743

Book Reviews 745 — Annual Index 797

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2002: BRIAN K. BLOUNT, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542DAVID M. CARR, Union Theological Seminary, New York, NY 10027PAMELA EISENBAUM, Iliff School of Theology, Denver, CO 80210JOHN S. KSELMAN, Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, MA 02138JEFFREY KUAN, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, CA 94709STEVEN L. McKENZIE, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN 38112ALAN F. SEGAL, Barnard College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027-6598GREGORY E. STERLING, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556STEPHEN WESTERHOLM, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1 CANADA

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2004: JANICE CAPEL ANDERSON, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844MOSHE BERNSTEIN, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201ROBERT KUGLER, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA 99258BERNARD M. LEVINSON, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0125THEODORE J. LEWIS, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602TIMOTHY LIM, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 2LX ScotlandSTEPHEN PATTERSON, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO 63119ADELE REINHARTZ, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4K1 CanadaNAOMI A. STEINBERG, DePaul University, Chicago, IL 60614SZE-KAR WAN, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 92459

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JBL 122/4 (2003) 601–626

lwq AS HYPOSTASISIN THE HEBREW BIBLE

AZZAN [email protected]

Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901

In later Second Temple and post-70 literature it is not unusual for divinerevelation to be communicated by a heavenly voice. As Peter Kuhn demon-strates in Offenbarungsstimmen im Antiken Judentum, the revelatory voice isfound throughout Second Temple literature, and he cites dozens of examplesfrom late biblical sources, apocalyptic literature, Jubilees, targums, HellenisticJewish authors, and the rabbinic bat qol.2 The present study argues that theconcept of a mediating, hypostatic voice (lwq) exists in earlier strata of theHebrew Bible as well.2

The term “hypostatic” is problematic. S. Dean McBride defines “hyposta-sis” as “a quality, epithet, attribute, manifestation or the like of a deity whichthrough a process of personification and differentiation has become a distinct(if not fully independent) divine being in its own right,”3 a definition adopted in

A number of scholars generously read earlier drafts of this study and provided me with veryhelpful comments. My thanks to David Aune, Chris Franke, Bernard Levinson, Doug Olson, Ben-jamin Sommer, Mark Throntveit, and Molly Zahn. Thanks also to Michael Wise, C. MarkMcCormick, Hindy Najman, and Emily Glodek.

1 Peter Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen im Antiken Judentum: Untersuchungen zur Bat Qolund verwandten Phänomenen (TSAJ 20; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1989). To these should beadded examples from the NT (e.g., Mark 1:11 and parallels), and see also the interesting discussionof Ben Sira 17:13 by Anthony Hanson, “LXX Treatment of the Theme of Seeing God,” in Septu-agint, Scrolls, and Cognate Writings: Papers Presented to the International Symposium on the Sep-tuagint and Its Relations to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Writings (ed. George Brooke andBarnabas Lindars; SBLSCS 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), 564–65.

2 Kuhn’s book, which I came across in the final stages of this study, offers a brief interpreta-tion of Ezek 1:28 that contains elements similar to my own (including a link with Num 7:89); seeOffenbarungsstimmen, 9–14.

3 S. Dean McBride, “The Deuteronomic Name Theology” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University,1969), 5, quoted in John T. Strong, “God’s Kabôd: The Presence of Yahweh in the Book ofEzekiel,” in The Book of Ezekiel: Theological and Anthropological Perspectives (ed. Margaret S.Odell and John T. Strong; SBLSymS 9; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 72.

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the present study. In addition, the terms “intermediary” and “mediating” areused interchangeably with “hypostatic,” since they express the independence ofthe entity in question from God. There are different shades of meaning to theseterms, but the biblical sources do not allow for more precise semantic differen-tiation, an ambiguity endemic to analysis of biblical hypostases (most notablyWisdom).4 Rather than assay a complete and adequate definition, it is hopedthe biblical passages in question and the subsequent analysis convey the hypo-static nature of lwq.

My argument is limited in scope. The word lwq does not regularly refer toa mediating entity; in fact these instances are rare. There are, however, a num-ber of passages in Ezekiel, Numbers, and the account of the Sinai theophanythat suggest the presence of a hypostatic voice. The MT of these passages isoften corrupt in ways that obscure the hypostatic nature or even the very exis-tence of the voice—arguably the result of a theologically motivated late edi-tor—so certainty is not possible. The argument consists of two parts: first,analysis of the three verses that contain the hitpa>el form of rbd, followed by adiscussion of the Sinai/Horeb theophany. We begin with Num 7:89.

I. The Hitpa>el rbdm and the Fragmentary Nature of Numbers 7:89

Numbers 7:89 involves a number of difficulties:

trpkh l[m wyla rBeD"mi lwqh ta [m`yw wta rbdl d[wm lha la h`m abbwwyla rbdyw !ybrkh yn` @ybm td[h @ra l[ rà

And when Moses went into the Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he heardthe voice speaking to him from above the cover of the ark that was upon theark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, saying to him. . . .5

One problem is the vocalization rBeD"mi, a hitpa>el participle instead of the morecommon pi>el vocalization. The curious vocalization has elicited differentexplanations from both ancient and modern commentators. Abraham Ibn Ezraargues in his commentary on this verse that rBeD"mi is not a hitpa>el participle butan infinitive construct with a prefixed prepositional m (= @m). This suggestion,

Journal of Biblical Literature602

4 On Wisdom, see Bernhard Lang, Wisdom and the Book of Proverbs: An Israelite GoddessRedefined (New York: Pilgrim, 1986); Lang rejects the notion of Wisdom as hypostasis (pp.137–46), though the title of the book suggests that Wisdom was once much more than that. ClaudiaV. Camp also rejects the view that Wisdom is a hypostasis (Wisdom and the Feminine in the Book ofProverbs [Sheffield: Almond, 1985], 34–37), but later in the study embraces the notion that “Wis-dom, who was begotten before creation and was present with God during creation, is also theprimary link between God and humankind” (p. 272). Much depends, it seems, on how one under-stands the term “hypostasis.”

5 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own.

however, fits poorly with the sense of the verse in Numbers. The m of rBeD"mi inNum 7:89 cannot be prepositional, since Moses is hearing speech—the speakeris rBeD"mi with Moses—not addressing the act of speech as Ibn Ezra’s readingrequires. Rashi argues that the hitpa>el is a reverential form that suggests thatGod was both the speaker and the audience of the speech. Martin Noth, con-sciously or not, follows Rashi in arguing that the hitpa>el participle indicatesthat the voice “speaks with itself,” adding parenthetically, “this is certainly themeaning of the text in the traditional vocalization.”6 The problem with Noth’s(and Rashi’s) reading is that it does not explain why this verse employs the rev-erential hitpa>el to represent God’s speech, while innumerable verses use the(irreverent?) pi>el, including wyla rbdyw at the end of the verse. Baruch Levineargues that the hitpa>el participle has an iterative force and should be rendered“He continuously spoke.”7 This reading, while possible, lacks contextual sup-port, since the broader context provides no indication that the speechdescribed in Num 7:89 was any more or less continuous than other divinespeeches. Indeed, the attempt to ascertain the meaning of the hitpa>el from thebroader context of the passage leads to a second difficulty confronting theinterpreter of Num 7:89, namely, that the verse is essentially without context.

Numbers 7:89 is the concluding verse of ch. 7, which describes the giftsthe tribal chieftains bring as part of the dedication of the tabernacle. The phys-ical setting of the narrative—the tabernacle—is carried over into v. 89, but thetheme of God’s revelation to Moses constitutes a thematic break with what pre-cedes it. The final words of v. 89—wyla rbdyw (“saying to him”)—require thatwhat follows be the content of the divine communication. Instead one finds asecond introductory formula (Num 8:1) preceding God’s instructions regardingthe construction of the lampstand. The result—“And when Moses went intothe tent of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice speaking to him . . .saying to him. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: Speak to Aaron and tell him. . .”—is an impossible juxtaposition of one introductory statement leading toanother.

Numbers 7:89 is isolated both from what precedes and from what followsit and is rightly characterized by A. H. McNeile as “an isolated and mutilatedfragment.” Without context it is impossible to determine which if any of thegrammatical explanations offered for the MT vocalization of rbdm is appropri-ate. McNeile himself tries to explain the fragmentary nature of Num 7:89 as “asingle incident introducing some words of Jehovah which have been lost.”8 But

Yadin: lwq as Hypostasis in the Hebrew Bible 603

6 Martin Noth, Numbers: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), 65.7 Baruch Levine, Numbers 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary

(AB 4; New York: Doubleday, 1993), 258. On the iterative meaning, see E. A. Speiser, “The Dura-tive Hithpa>el: A tan Form,” JAOS 75 (1955): 118–21.

8 A. H. McNeile, The Book of Numbers (Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges; Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 43.

the idea that Num 7:89 was originally followed by a divine statement since losthas no explanatory force unless it explains why an introductory formula is pre-served without the speech it introduces. These difficulties led Jacob Milgromcandidly to admit that “[w]hy the Masoretes pointed [rbdm] as a Hitpael partici-ple is not clear.”9

A source that has been overlooked in the analysis of Num 7:89 is the SifreNumbers, the legal midrash redacted in the third century but containing tradi-tions attributed to sages of the second.10 I have devoted a separate study to theSifre Numbers’ interpretation of Num 7:89 and will not rehearse the argumenthere, except to say that the Sifre Numbers’ gloss of Num 7:89 draws the reader’sattention to the fact that God is not mentioned in the verse.11 At first sight thiscomment appears meaningless, since God—though not mentioned by name—is obviously the one speaking to Moses, and there is a venerable tradition oftranslators and commentators “introducing” God into the verse. One of twomethods is typically employed. Either one substitutes “God’s voice” for MT“the voice,” as when LXX has Moses hearing “th;n fwnh;n Kurivou lalou'nte",”and Noth refers to “the voice (sc. of God)”; or one makes God the explicitobject of the Hebrew wta. The NRSV has, “And when Moses went into the tentof meeting to speak with the Lord”; Philip J. Budd parenthetically glosses, “Andwhen Moses entered the Tent of Meeting to speak with him (Yahweh) . . .”; andLa Sainte Bible translates: “Quand Moïse pénétrait dans la Tente de Réunionpour s’adresser à Lui”—capitalizing the pronoun to indicate that it refers toGod.12 Numbers 7:89 does not support either approach. First, the verse statesthat Moses heard the voice, not “God” or “God’s voice.” Second, the isolatedand discontinuous nature of the verse undermines any attempt to determinethe referent of wta. God is not mentioned in the description of the chieftains’gifts; one must return to Num 7:11—almost eighty verses earlier—to find men-tion of God. The assumption that wta refers to God, though prima facie reason-able, is motivated by theology, not grammar.

The Sifre Numbers picks up on the absence of explicit mention of God and


9 Jacob Milgrom, The JPS Torah Commentary: Numbers (Philadelphia/Jerusalem: JewishPublication Society, 1990), 305 n. 22.

10 On the Sifre Numbers, see H. L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Tal-mud and Midrash (trans. and ed. Markus Bockmuehl; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), 266–68. Thepassage in question is Sifre Numbers §58, pp. 55–66 in the Horovitz edition.

11 See Azzan Yadin, “Shnei Ketuvim and Rabbinic Intermediation,” JSJ 33 (2002): 386–410.The biblical analysis does not depend on the rabbinic interpretation in any way. I present the rab-binic material as a way to emphasize how much rabbinic interpretation has to offer biblical scholar-ship, and to protest the gulf that often separates rabbinics from biblical scholarship.

12 Noth, Numbers, 65; Philip J. Budd, Numbers (WBC 5; Waco: Word, 1984), 85; La SainteBible, translated under the direction of l’École biblique de Jérusalem (Paris: Cerf, 1961), 146.

suggests that it is “the voice” that speaks in the tent of meeting, not God:“Scripture relates that Moses would enter into the Tent of Meeting and standthere, and the voice descended from highest heavens to between the Cherubs,and he heard the voice speaking to him from within” (Sifre Numbers §58[Horovitz ed., 55]). According to the Sifre Numbers, the voice regularly residesin the highest heavens but descends from its heavenly abode to speak withMoses within the tent.13 In other words, the Sifre Numbers interprets Num7:89 as a theological statement to the effect that a hypostatic voice lowers itselffrom the heavens to communicate with Moses while God remains divorcedfrom human affairs. Bracketing the theological ramifications of this interpreta-tion for the understanding of rabbinic Judaism, we see that the intermediaryvoice reading clarifies, at least partially, the two major difficulties outlinedabove.

1. The lack of context of Num 7:89: God’s location at the time of revelationis a contested issue within the Bible. If Num 7:89 does introduce a mediatingvoice, the discontinuity of the verse may be an attempt to introduce a polemictheological position in an inconspicuous manner. On this reading, the lack ofclear antecedent for the pronoun wta is not an accidental ambiguity but asmokescreen that allows the reader to assume that the referent is God. In thisway the new position is introduced but its novelty is camouflaged, a dynamicwell known in biblical literature from Deuteronomy.14 I refer to Noth’s obser-vation that Num 7:89 is “phrased, perhaps intentionally, in a very mysteriousway” and that the “strange wording . . . suggests [the verse] is intended as anindependent statement and not simply as the introduction to a divineaddress.”15 The mediating-voice interpretation of the verse provides such an


13 With this interpretation, the Sifre Numbers takes a clear stand on an issue that has occu-pied modern critics, siding, as it were, with Gerhard von Rad (“The Tent and the Ark,” in The Prob-lem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays [Edinburgh/London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965], 105–6) inholding that the meeting does not entail a permanent residence of the divine in the tent. See alsoManfred Görg’s assertion that “@k` meint hier wie auch sonst bei P ein kurzzeitiges Verweilen”(Görg, Das Zelt der Begegnung [BBB 27; Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1967], 60). Israel Knohl rejectsthis position, arguing that the priestly Torah accepts God’s permanent presence in the tent of meet-ing (though the Holiness School does not); see Knohl, The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torahand the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 131. For a survey of the different opinionsregarding this issue, see Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies in theShem and dwbk Theologies (Lund: Gleerup, 1982), 84; and, more recently, Benjamin D. Sommer,“Conflicting Constructions of Divine Presence in the Priestly Tabernacle,” BibInt 9 (2001): 41–63,and the literature cited in n. 18.

14 See Bernard Levinson, Deuteronomy and the Hermeneutics of Legal Innovation (Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1997), esp. 144–57; and also Benjamin D. Sommer, A Prophet ReadsScripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40–66 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988), 154–56.

15 Noth, Numbers, 65.

“independent statement” and explains why the verse is phrased “in a very mys-terious way.”

2. The MT vocalization of rbdm: The Sifre Numbers does not cite any spe-cific textual difficulty as generating its exegesis, but there can be little doubtthat the unusual vocalization caught the eye of the rabbinic exegete. The medi-ating voice speaking to Moses from the tent of meeting offers a possible expla-nation by allowing the hitpa>el to be understood as a reflexive form. Theargument is not central enough to warrant an extended discussion of the vari-ous meanings of the hitpa>el, but consider, by way of illustration, `dq, a rootthat—like rbd—is regularly found in the pi>el. Just as `dqtm means “to sanctifyoneself, to cause oneself to be holy,”16 rBeD"mi could suggest “causing oneself tospeak” or “speaking by one’s own agency.” This is not the only or even the mostobvious meaning of the hitpa>el, but if Num 7:89 refers to a mediating voice,the curious form might emphasize the agency of the voice and thus its indepen-dence from God. This interpretation of the hitpa>el would be strengthened ifthe same form were found in other passages referring to a mediating voice.

This is as far as Num 7:89 will take us. The interpretation offered by theSifre Numbers is suggestive, but the brevity and fragmentary nature of Num7:89 render any interpretation speculative. The rabbinic reading does, how-ever, point the way for further inquiry. If there is a relationship between thehitpa>el vocalization of rbdm and a theology of mediation, the connection mightpresent itself more clearly in other contexts. There are only two other instancesof rBeD"mi, both in Ezekiel.

II. The Hitpa>el rbdm in Ezekiel

Ezekiel 43:6

Ezekiel 43:6 is part of the temple restoration program. Ezekiel has beentransported to the Land of Israel, where he sees a heavenly entity, a man“whose appearance was like bronze” (Ezek 40:3). The man guides Ezekielthrough the restored temple, measuring its dimensions and moving from gateto gate. When they reach the eastern gate, Ezekiel has the following vision(Ezek 43:1–6):

ab lar`y yhla dwbk hnhw 2 !ydqh ^rd hnp rà r[` r[`h la ynklwyw 1

harmh harmkw 3 wdbkm hryah $rahw !ybr !ym lwqk wlwqw !ydqh ^rdm

rà harmk twarmw ry[h ta tj`l yabb ytyar rà harmk ytyar rà


16 Joüon 1:159; GKC §54 (3).

rà r[` ^rd tybh la ab hwhy dwbkw 4 ynp la lpaw rbk rhn la ytyar

dwbk alm hnhw ymynph rxjh la ynaybtw jwr yna`tw 5 !ydqh ^rd wynp

.ylxa dm[ hyh `yaw tybhm yla rBeD"mi [màw 6 tybh hwhy

1. Afterward he [= the man] brought me to the gate, the gate facing east.2. And behold, the glory of the God of Israel came from the east and thesound of his voice was like the sound of many waters and the earth shone withHis brilliance. 3. And the vision I saw was like the vision which I had seenwhen he came to destroy the city, and like the vision which I had seen by theriver Chebar17 and I fell on my face. 4. As the glory of the Lord entered thetemple by the gate facing east, 5. the spirit lifted me up and brought me intothe inner court; and behold the glory of the Lord filled the temple. 6. And Iheard speaking [middabbeµr] to me out of the temple, though [the] man hadbeen18 standing beside me.

The first issue to be addressed is the identity of the speaker, a difficult questionsince tybhm yla rBeD"mi [màw (“And I heard speaking to me out of the temple”)has no apparent subject. The hitpa>el participle can be nominal, in which casemiddabbeµr would refer to the speaker addressing Ezekiel, and this is how mosttranslations render it.19 This translation is awkward, however, since the partici-ple appears in the phrase tybhm yla rbdm, which implies that the prophet hearsspeech (not a speaker) issuing from the temple. Though “one who speaks to mefrom the temple” is not ungrammatical, it is awkward, since the participle func-tions both nominally and verbally. If the participle is nominal the verse ought toprovide an independent verb (e.g., “I heard a speaker call to me from the tem-ple”); if verbal, there should be an independent subject (e.g., “I heard a manspeak to me from the temple”).

The latter possibility is attested in the LXX of v. 6, which explicitly identi-fies the speaker as a voice: kai; e[sthn kai; ijdou; fwnh; ejk tou' oi[kou lalou'nto"prov" me (“and I arose and behold a voice from within the temple of one speak-ing to me”). According to the LXX, Ezekiel heard the voice of one speaking(fwnh; lalou'nto") from the temple. In this manner, the LXX provides thespeaking subject not found in v. 6 of the MT. Usually the smoothness of theLXX would be explained as an exegetical plus that serves to resolve the difficult


17 Both these visions—one on the River Chebar and one prophesying the destruction ofJerusalem—are discussed below.

18 The pluperfect ylxa dm[ hyh `yaw emphasizes that the human figure was standing besideEzekiel all along and was not the speaker. On this form, see Ziony Zevit, The Anterior Constructionin Classical Hebrew (SBLMS 50; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998).

19 KJV: “And I heard him speaking to me”; NRSV: “I heard someone speaking to me”; Vul-gate: “Et audivi loquentem ad me de domo”; Luther: “Und ich hörete einen mit mir reden”; LaSainte Bible: “Et j’entendis quelqu’un me parler depuis le Temple.”

text of the MT.20 With regard to Ezekiel, however, Emanuel Tov’s importantfindings concerning the relationship of the MT and the LXX of Ezekiel suggestthat the lectio difficilior of the MT should not be accorded priority.21 The start-ing point for Tov’s discussion is that the LXX is significantly shorter than theMT (by 4 to 5 percent), which leads to the question “whether the quantitativedifferences between the MT and LXX of Ez. were created by the translator orwere already extant in his Hebrew Vorlage.” Using evidence from word order,consistency in the choice of lexical equivalents, the choice of particular equiva-lents, and overall fidelity, Tov concludes that the translation technique of theLXX is, with regard to Ezekiel, “relatively literal and consistent.” As a result,the minuses in the LXX are best understood not as free or imprecise translationbut as reflecting a Hebrew Vorlage that was shorter than MT. Indeed, Tovargues that in most instances “the LXX reflects a more original text from a con-textual point of view, and the long text of the MT a secondary one. . . . Theamplifications of MT represent an added layer of contextual exegesis, clarifica-tion and slight editing.”22

Applying Tov’s findings to Ezek 43:6 suggests that the LXX fwnh;lalou'nto" is based on an early witness and is not a late exegetical plus. If so,the indefinite genitive of the LXX (“voice of a speaker”) reflects an indefiniteconstruct form most naturally rendered in Hebrew as rbdm lwq [màw, a phraseI will discuss at length below. In this way, the LXX provides a subject, lwq, thatis absent from the MT.23 The LXX of Ezekiel does not use fwnhv as a clarifying,exegetic term. In fact, all other LXX occurrences of fwnhv reflect the MT lwq,24

which strengthens the possibility that fwnhv in 43:6 corresponds to an earlier lwqthat was dropped from the MT. The absence of lwq from the MT of v. 6, how-ever, is problematic inasmuch as this change obfuscates the meaning of theverse relative to the LXX (and its presumed Vorlage). An intentional move froman earlier clear text (LXX) to a later obscure text (MT) is philologically counter-


20 On the distinction between exegetical and linguistic translation, see Emanuel Tov, TheText-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research (Jerusalem: Simor, 1997), 50–66.

21 Emanuel Tov, “Recensional Differences Between the MT and LXX of Ezekiel,” ETL 52(1986): 89–101.

22 Ibid., 91, 92, and the literature cited in n. 11. Tov’s conclusion is that “the MT and LXXtexts of Ez. reflect two different redactional stages of the book” (p. 101); so even though he focuseson the LXX minuses, the priority of the LXX to the MT holds for other textual differences, unlessproven otherwise.

23 Or, if one understands rBeD"mi as a nominal form, the LXX’s addition of lwq “frees up” rBeD"mi,providing the MT with a proper verbal predicate.

24 The verses in question are Ezek 1:24 (5x), 25; 2:1 (= MT 1:28); 3:12, 13; 9:1; 10:5; 11:13;19:7, 9; 21:22 (= MT 21:27); 23:42; 26:10, 13, 15; 27:28, 30; 31:16; 33:4, 5, 32; 37:7; 43:2. In 35:12the LXX h[kousa th'" fwnh'" tw'n blasfhmiw'n sou (“I have heard the sound of your blasphemies”)corresponds to the MT ^ytwxan lk ta yt[m` (“I have heard all your blasphemies”), a deviationbased on the homophonic relationship of lk and lwq.

intuitive and ought not to be accepted, unless it is possible to provide a motivefor such a move. I will argue below that the MT has such a motive, but first weturn to the remaining instance of rBeD"mi, Ezek 2:2.

Ezekiel 2:2

Ezekiel has just seen the vision of the divine chariot and now witnesses“the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD” (Ezek 1:28). He pros-trates himself, and there follows an extended auditory revelation (Ezek1:28bb–3:15), which is introduced by the following:

harm awh bybs hgnh harm @k !`gh !wyb @n[b hyhy rà t`qh harmk 1:28@b yla rmayw 2:1 .rbdm lwq [màw ynp l[ lpaw haraw hwhy dwbk twmd

yndm[tw yla rbd ràk jwr yb abtw 2:2 .^ta rbdaw ^ylgr l[ dm[ !da.yla rBeD"mi ta [màw ylgr l[

1:28 Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, sowas the appearance of the surrounding radiance. That was the appearance ofthe figure of the Glory of Yahweh; when I saw it, I fell on my face. Then Iheard a voice speaking.25 2:1 And it said to me: “Man, get on your feet and Ishall speak to you.” 2:2 Spirit entered me as it spoke to me and got me onmy feet,26 and I heard speaking with me.

The word rbdm in 1:28 is vocalized as a pi>el participle and so is not directlyrelated to the present inquiry—though the “voice speaking” does not belong tothe object of the vision, God’s Glory. Were God’s Glory the speaker, the versemight have read:

rbdm hwhy dwbk ta [màw ynp l[ lpaw haraw*

*when I saw it I fell on my face. Then I heard the Glory of God speaking

Or:rbdm hwhy dwbk lwq ta [màw ynp l[ lpaw haraw*

*when I saw it I fell on my face. Then I heard the voice of the Glory of Godspeaking.

Instead, the speech heard by the prophet breaks with the visual revelation thatprecedes it. The visual revelation is of the Glory of God, but the auditory aspectis attributed not to the dwbk but rather to a “voice speaking.” How is the clauseto be understood? The LXX reads kai; h[kousa fwnh;n lalou'nto", “and I hearda voice of a speaker,” a translation that takes rbdm as nominal, forming a con-


25 I argue for this translation below.26 The action of the spirit parallels its appearance in 43:5, where it also lifts the prophet just

prior to his hearing an unidentified (in MT) speaker rBeD"mi with him.

struct chain with lwq. This reading, while grammatically possible, raises a num-ber of difficulties. The indeterminate “a voice of a speaker” is awkward, sincewhat follows is an extended oration in which Ezekiel’s prophetic mission isdelineated. This is clearly one of the key passages of the book, and it is curiousthat it would be attributed to “a voice” of “a speaker.”27

Modern commentators have suggested that the vague “a speaker” is theo-logically motivated, an attempt to preserve the mystery of God.28 But Ezekielhas arguably just provided the single most graphic description of “visions ofGod” (Ezek 1:1) in the entire Hebrew Bible. Granted, the vision is described asthe “appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh” (1:28), a triple media-tion that serves to dispel the notion that Ezekiel is describing Yahwehsimpliciter.29 Still, the visual explicitness of his revelation is theologically prob-lematic, given the aniconic and antivisual voices within the Hebrew Bible,while the ascription of speech to Yahweh is a biblical commonplace—howmuch more when the hearer is designated a prophet. It is curious, then, thatEzekiel would charge headlong into the theologically loaded issue of God’svisual appearance, but be forced into an oblique and (reading rbdm lwq as aconstruct chain) grammatically awkward presentation by the theological com-monplace of God addressing a prophet. Indeed, on Walther Zimmerli’s andMoshe Greenberg’s theological reading, Ezekiel’s obfuscation of the source ofthe speech is counterintuitive. If the dwbk is a figure shown to the prophet inorder to allow God to remain “hidden in the manifestation of His glory” (to useZimmerli’s delectably paradoxical formulation), thus shielding God fromanthropomorphism—should the Glory not shield God from anthropomorphicspeech as well?

These difficulties—theological and syntactic alike—can be avoided byadopting the alternative translation of rbdm lwq that Greenberg cites in his

610 Journal of Biblical Literature

27 A number of translators have sought to mitigate the difficulty by presenting either thespeaker or the voice as definite. KJV “I heard him that spake unto me” is an example of the former,while Walther Zimmerli’s “And I heard the voice of someone speaking” (Ezekiel: A Commentary onthe Book of the Prophet Ezekiel [2 vols.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979, 1983], 1:89), ofthe latter. The Hebrew rbdm lwq, however, is ineluctably indefinite.

28 Zimmerli writes “[t]hat Yahweh’s name is not mentioned in this, although ‘the voice ofsomeone speaking’ is referred to cautiously, helps to preserve the mystery of the deity, hidden inthe manifestation of his glory” (Ezekiel, 1:131). Moshe Greenberg similarly argues that “the expres-sion avoids ascribing the speech directly to the human figure visible on the throne in the apparition,as though reserving the source of the speech for the unseen God” (Ezekiel 1–20: A New Translationwith Introduction and Commentary [AB 22; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983], 61).

29 This interpretation is already found in the Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael, where Rabbi Eliezerargues that the prophets were not granted sight of God but only of images, citing Ezek 1:1 (“Theheavens opened and I saw visions of God”) (Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael, Shirata 3 [Lauterbach ed.,2:24]).

notes: “And I heard a voice speaking.”30 Here the participle is verbal, and lwq isthe speaking subject rather than part of a construct chain. This rendering issmoother and more congruent with the meaning of similar biblical phrases.31 Italso corresponds to the proposed Vorlage of the LXX of Ezek 43:6, in which theprophet hears rbdm lwq, arguably a speaking voice translated as “the voice ofone speaking.”

If the rbdm lwq of 1:28 is a speaking voice, it is possible that the same lwq isthe speaker in 2:2, yla rBeD"mi ta [màw. The difficulties inherent in this phraseare evident. It contains ta followed by an indefinite participle and, of course,the hitpa>el vocalization of the participle. Most translations gloss the difficultyby rendering the verse as though rBeD"mi were definite, the results being similarto those discussed for 43:6. Thus, KJV (“I heard him that spake unto me”),Luther (“und hörete dem zu, der mit mir redete”), La Sainte Bible (“etj’entendis quelqu’un qui me parlait”) are clearly trying to make sense of the dif-ficult MT. The LXX provides a more coherent reading, kai; h[kouon aujtou'lalou'nto" pro; mev,” which suggests yla rbdm wta [mà (“and I heard it [or:him] speaking to me”), where the MT ta is understood as a graphic corruptionof rbdm wta,32 which would refer back to the speaking voice of 1:28: “And Iheard a voice speaking, and it said to me . . . and I heard it speaking with me.”This reading fits nicely with the indefinite lwq in 1:28 and the definite referenceto the lwq subsequently. On this interpretation, the Vorlage of the LXX 1:28bb–2:2 (which is prior to the MT) is:

.^ta rbdaw ^ylgr l[ dm[ !da @b yla rmayw .rbdm lwq [màw . . . yla rBeD"mi wtwa [màw ylgr l[ yndm[tw yla rbd ràk jwr yb abtw

Then I heard a voice speaking. And it said to me: “Man, get on your feet andI shall speak to you.” Spirit entered me as it spoke to me and got me on myfeet, and I heard it speaking with me.

If the LXX of Ezek 2:2 is accepted, then it counts as another example of anactive, mediating voice that takes the hitpa>el participle rBeD"mi.

The argument thus far suggests that the three instances of the hitpa>el par-ticiple of dbr exhibit a number of similarities. Each of them arguably has lwq asits subject. This is explicit in Num 7:89 and in (the pre-MT) LXX of Ezek 43:6,and it is a possible, though not certain, reading of the LXX of Ezek 2:2. Further,


30 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 61, note ad loc.31 See, e.g., Isa 40:3, rbdmb arwq lwq (rightly translated by NJPSV: “A voice rings out: ‘Clear

in the wilderness . . .’”) and Isa 40:6, arq rma lwq (NJPSV: “A voice rings out: ‘Proclaim . . .’ ”),where the more natural rendering of the Hebrew has the voice as the subject and the participle itsverbal predicate.

32 So Zimmerli, Ezekiel, 1:89. The LXX is the basis for the NRSV: “and I heard him speakingto me.”

in each case lwq appears in the context of divine revelation but is not explicitlycharacterized as God’s (i.e., as !yhwla lwq or hwhy lwq).33 One may conclude ten-tatively that the Sifre Numbers’ linking of the hitpa>el vocalization of rBeD"mi to amediating voice in Num 7:89 is at the very least highly suggestive for theremaining occurrences of the form, in which the MT alters a smooth text (theLXX Vorlage) in a way that reduces the presence of the lwq.

Ezekiel 1:24–26

A weakness of this argument is its reliance on the hitpa>el vocalization,arguably a late Masoretic addition. In discussing Ezek 2:2, Greenberg makesthis point explicitly, presenting the unusual vocalization as a late, theologicaladdition, almost a Masoretic midrash: “The rare MT vocalization seems to beartificial—an exploitation of a textual opening for introducing a later reveren-tial linguistic conceit.”34 Greenberg is right to warn against confusing laterMasoretic pointing and the consonantal text, but the evidence for a hypostaticlwq is not wholly dependent on the vocalization. First and foremost, the explicitmention of a voice in the LXX of Ezek 1:28—keeping in mind Tov’s argumentthat the LXX of Ezekiel is an earlier textual witness than the MT—is indepen-dent of the vocalization. An additional nonvocalization witness is found in Ezek1:24–26, where the MT text is evidently corrupt:

lwqk hlmh lwq !tklb ydÀlwqk !ybr !ym lwqk !hypnk lwq ta [màw 24

!dm[b !àrAl[ rà [yqrl l[m lwq yhyw 25 @hypnk hnyprt !dm[b hnjm

ask twmd rypsA@ba harmk !àrAl[ rà [yqrl l[mmw 26 @hypnk hnyprt

hl[mlm wyl[ !da harmk twmd askh twmd l[w

24. And when they went, I heard the sound (qôl) of their wings like thesound (qôl) of many waters, like the thunder (qôl) of the Almighty, a sound(qôl) of tumult like the sound (qôl) of a host; when they stood still, they letdown their wings. 25. And there came a voice (qôl) from above the firmamentover their heads; when they stood still, they let down their wings. 26. Andabove the firmament over their heads, in appearance like sapphire, there wasthe likeness of a throne; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a like-ness as it were of a human form.

As scholars have noted, v. 25a, !àr l[ rà [yqrl l[m (“and above thefirmament over their heads”), is repeated in v. 26aa, while v. 25b, hnyprt !dm[b


33 The MT of Ezek 43:2 has wlwq referring to Yahweh, but the LXX does not. Since the prior-ity of the LXX over the MT does not hold generally for Numbers, the LXX kai; h[kousen th;n fwnh;nkurivou lalou'nto" pro;" aujtovn (“and he heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him”) for the MTwyla rbdm lwqh ta [m`yw (“and he heard the voice speaking to him”) in Num 7:89 is an exegetic plusthat clarifies the difficult text of the MT.

34 Greenberg, Ezekiel 1–20, 62.

@hypnk (“when they stood still they let down their wings”), repeats verbatimv. 24b. The result is an extremely awkward passage. These difficulties areabsent from the earlier recension reflected in the LXX, which reads:

24 kai; h[kouon th;n fwnh;n tw'n pteruvgwn aujtw'n ejn tw'/ poreuvesqaiaujta; wJ" fwnh;n u{dato" pollou': kai; ejn tw'/ eJstavnai aujta; katevpauonaiJ ptevruge" aujtw'n 25 kai; ijdou; fwnh; uJperavnwqen tou' sterewvmato"tou' o[nto" uJpe;r kefalh'" aujtw'n. 26 wJ" o{rasi" livqou sapfeivrouoJmoivwma qrovnou ejp! aujtou' kai; ejpi; tou' oJmoiwvmato" tou' qrovnouoJmoivwma wJ" ei\do" ajnqrwvpou a[nwqen.

This LXX passage reflects the Vorlage:

!hypnk hnyprt !dm[bw !ybr !ym lwqk !tklb !hypnk lwq ta [màw 24

ask twmd rypsA@ba harmk 26 !àr l[ rà [yqrl l[m 35lwq hnhw 25

hl[mlm [wyl[] !da harmk twmd askh twmd l[w

24. And when they went, I heard the sound (qôl) of their wings like the soundof many waters but when they stood still, they let down their wings. 25. Andbehold a voice (qôl) from above the firmament over their heads 26. inappearance like sapphire . . .

The difference between the two versions is significant.36 The LXX doesnot contain the repetitions of the MT and as a result is a much clearer text.Why, then, does the later MT version contain corruptions not present in an ear-lier witness? Again, I believe the motivation is theological. Fwnhv in v. 24 means“sound” (of wings). But after the wings have fallen silent Ezekiel beholds afwnhv (v. 25). There is no speech reported, so the prophet does not perceive thefwnhv by auditory means, and since the fwnhv is spatially situated above theheads of the angels, LXX v. 25 may be referring to a visible voice. The heavy-handed corruption of the MT aims, I propose, to obscure this interpretation.

The MT undermines the hypostatic voice reading in two ways: First, itsubstitutes lwq yhyw (“and there was a voice”) for lwq hnhw (“and behold a voice”),diminishing the possibility that the voice be understood as a visible entity. hnhwoften has the force of a demonstrative or deictic statement, especially when fol-lowed by a noun; yhyw does not.37 Second, the MT surrounds lwq in v. 25 withinstances of lwq that cannot mean “voice.” The MT repeats 1:24b (“when theystood still they let down their wings”) immediately after the appearance of the


35 hnhw regularly corresponds to LXX kai; ijdouv.36 Leslie Allen offers a helpful discussion of the complex relationship between the MT and

the LXX here (Ezekiel 1–19 [WBC 28; Dallas: Word, 1994], 9 n. 24c), though I do not share hisconclusions.

37 GKC §147c; see also Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative(Sheffield: Almond, 1983), 62–63.

lwq in v. 25a, “sandwiching” it between two references to the sound of theangels’ wings and framing the lwq as an audible sound rather than a voice spa-tially situated above the angels’ heads as in the LXX. The repetition of v. 24b inv. 25b creates the expectation that v. 25a (the lwq) will be analogous to v. 24a(lwq meaning “sound [of wings]”). The other MT pluses serve the same func-tion: v. 24 contains a series of references to lwq, all of which mean “sound” or“thunder,” but surely not “voice.” Here too the MT obscures the lwq-voice ofv. 25 (LXX and Vorlage) with a barrage of twlwq-sounds. This, in any case, is thesolution adopted by those MT scribes who have not dropped v. 25 altogether.38

On this interpretation, Ezek 1:24–26 contains MT corruptions that are aimedat blurring the hypostatic fwnhv of the LXX, unrelated to the Masoretic vocal-ization.

Ezekiel 9:1

One final passage should be considered, since Ezekiel himself suggestedits relevance. Ezekiel 43:3 likens the vision at the temple to two earlier visions:the opening vision of the book, which has been discussed at length, and theprophecy on the destruction of Jerusalem in Ezek 9. If the argument thus far iscorrect and both Ezek 43:6 and 2:2 know of an independent, mediating voice,one might expect to find such a voice in Ezek 9 as well. The literary setting ofthis vision is much like that of Ezek 43. Ezekiel is led by a fiery figure toJerusalem, to the “door of the court” (8:7), where he sees the idols and impuri-ties within the temple. He is then led to the inner court of the temple (8:16),where the fiery man promises retribution against the house of Judah, and thenbegins a new auditory revelation (9:1):

alw lwdg lwq ynzab warqw lmja alw yny[ swjt al hmjb h`[a yna !gw 8:18ylk `yaw ry[h twdqp wbrq rmal lwdg lwq ynzab arqyw 9:1 !twa [mà

.wdyb wtj`m

8:18 Therefore I will deal in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity;and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them.9:1 Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying “Draw near, you execu-tioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.”

The key phrase here is lwdg lwq ynzab warqw in 8:18 and its near repetition,lwdg lwq ynzab arqyw, in 9:1. The RSV (above) understands both occurrences oflwdg lwq as adverbial, roughly equivalent to lwdg lwqb, and translates accord-


38 Nine MSS omit the verse; see BHS, ad loc.

ingly, which is standard.39 The meaning of lwdg lwq ynzab arqyw (understoodadverbially) in MT 9:1 is perplexing, however. The preceding verse, 8:18,describes the plight of idolaters that now must face the terrible wrath of God,who shows no mercy even though they cry out “with a loud voice.” Here theloud voice fits well with the narrative context. But in 9:1 the speaker—the fieryfigure that has been speaking since the beginning of ch. 8—resumes his com-munication with the prophet, but rather than speak he is shouting in Ezekiel’sear for no apparent reason a speech not even addressed to Ezekiel.

Turning to the LXX, one finds that 9:1 reads: fwnh'/ megavlh/ (“with a greatvoice”), an adverbial understanding of lwdg lwq that corresponds to the MT.The LXX of 8:18, however, is quite different: kai; ejgw; poihvsw aujtoi'" meta;qumou' ouj feivsetai oJ ojfqalmov" mou oujde; mh; ejlehvsw (“Therefore I will deal inwrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity”). The MT of 8:18b (ynzab warqw!twa [mà alw lwdg lwq [“and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, I willnot hear them”]) is absent. Again keeping in mind the priority of the LXX, whywould the MT add this clause? I believe it follows the pattern observed in Ezek2:2 and 43:6, in which the change seeks to blur the theological notion of a hypo-static voice. Consider what the MT would be without the plus in 8:18:

lwdg lwq ynzab arqyw 9:1 lmja alw yny[ swjt al hmjb h`[a yna !gw 8:18wdyb wtj`m ylk `yaw ry[h twdqp wbrq rmal

8:18 Therefore I will deal in wrath; my eye will not spare, nor will I have pity.9:1 And a great lwq cried out in my ears, saying, “Draw near, you execution-ers of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.”

Here “and a great lwq cried out in my ears” strongly favors understanding lwq asan active voice that cries out to the prophet. The LXX posits a speaking voice,but the MT plus in 8:18, with its unambiguously adverbial lwdg lwq (“they cry. . . with a loud voice”), inclines the reader toward an identical—that is, adver-bial—understanding of lwdg lwq in 9:1. In other words, the MT plus in 8:18 jux-taposes an adverbial lwdg lwq to 9:1 to blur the hypostatic voice crying out in theprophet’s ear.

Finally it should be noted that a mediating voice is theologically consistentwith the broader theology of Ezekiel, which includes several apparenthypostases. The clearest example is the hand that appears before Ezekiel in 2:9:


39 KJV: “He cried also in mine ears with a loud voice”; NRSV: “Then he cried in my ears witha loud voice”; Vulgate: “et clamavit in auribus meis voce magna dicens . . .”; Luther: “Und er rief mitlauter Stimme vor meinen Ohren”; La Sainte Bible: “C’est alors que d’une voix forte il cria à mesoreilles.” On this form, see GKC §117 s, t, citing 1 Kgs 8:55; 2 Sam 15:23; and another examplefrom Ezekiel—11:13.

rps tlygm wb hnhw yla hjwl` dy hnhw haraw

And when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me, and lo, a writtenscroll was in it.

The context leaves no doubt that this is a divine hand, as Zimmerli, DanielBlock, and others well recognize.40 But since God is not mentioned in the verseand the hand and its actions are not attributed to God, the hand appears as anindependent, mediating agent.41 A less obvious but more common hypostasismay be the dwbk itself, as John T. Strong argues in a recent article. Drawingfrom descriptions of the nature and role of the dwbk in Isaiah and the Psalms,but most often Ezekiel, Strong argues that the dwbk functions as the terrestrialrepresentative of the God who resides in heaven: “It is my contention that thedwbk was understood by Ezekiel to be the hypostasis of the enthroned divineking, Yahweh.”42 The scroll-bearing hand and the possibility that the dwbk, themain theological figure of the book of Ezekiel, is a hypostasis characterizeEzekiel’s theology as potentially hospitable to a hypostatic voice.43

The analysis of the hitpa>el rBeD"mi—precipitated by the Sifre Numbersinterpretation of Num 7:89—has been taken as far as it can go; there are nomore instances of this form in the Hebrew Bible. There remains, however, thebroader theological motivation for the hypostatic voice. Like other mediators,the voice appears in order to maintain God’s transcendence, making contactwith the material world so that God does not have to. It is not surprising, then,that the mediating voice appears in the context of the tabernacle (Num 7:89)and the temple (Ezek 43:6; 9:1), both sites of regular contact between thedivine and the mundane that raise the question of divine transcendence. Giventhe theological impetus behind the mediating voice, might we not expect tofind a mediating voice—or at least traces of one—in the other major site of rev-elation, at Sinai?


40 Zimmerli: “The original text of Ezekiel undoubtedly refers in 2:9 to the hand of Yahweh”(Ezekiel, 1:135); Block: “In light of the command in v. 8, the hand obviously belongs to Yahweh”(Daniel Isaac Block, The Book of Ezekiel [2 vols.; NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997, 1998],1:123).

41 Like Ezekiel, Daniel contains both a mediating voice (“While the word was in the king’smouth, there descended a voice from heaven saying . . .” [Dan 4:28]), and a mediating hand (“Thenwas the part of the hand sent from him; and this writing was written . . .” [Dan 5:24]).

42 See Strong, “God’s Kabôd,” 69–95, here 73.43 Ezekiel’s mediators may well be generated by the same theological convictions that cause

him to avoid visual anthropomorphism in ch. 1, where Ezekiel describes God’s entourage at greatlength but not the form of God itself. The LXX of Ezekiel discusses the voice openly, but the MTblurs these references. This discrepancy may be because the LXX translators were more accus-tomed to the idea of an intermediary voice owing to its prevalence in Greek religious literature (seeOtto Betz, “fwnhv/,” TDNT 9:278–80).

III. The Voice at Sinai/Horeb

The Sinai narrative, Exod 19–24, is a very complex composite work, whosehistory has been the subject of a great deal of scholarship.44 These matters willbe considered in the course of argument, but are not the focus of inquiry. Thetask at hand is to examine the traces of a mediating-voice tradition within theSinai pericopes. The first verse to be analyzed is Exod 19:19:

@`bkh @`[k wn`[ l[yw àb hwhy wyl[ dry rà ynpm wlk @`[ ynys rhw 18

!yhlahw rbdy h`m dam qzjw ^lwh rpw`h lwq yhyw 19 dam rhh lk drjyw

àr la h`ml hwhy arqyw rhh àr la ynys rh l[ hwhy dryw 20 lwqb ynn[y

.h`m l[yw rhh

18. The whole of Mount Sinai was smoking since Yahweh had descendedupon it in fire, and its smoke was billowing like the smoke of a furnace, andthe whole mountain shook mightily. 19. And the sound of the ram’s horn wasgrowing much stronger. Moses spoke and God answered with a voice.20. Thus Yahweh came down upon Mt. Sinai, to the top of the mountain, andYahweh summoned Moses to the top of the mountain and Moses ascended.(Exod 19:18–20)

As biblical scholars have long recognized, the sequence of events narratedin these verses is chronologically impossible. Verse 18 states that Yahweh hadalready descended onto Mt. Sinai and (v. 19) communicated with God, but inv. 20 Yahweh descends onto Mt. Sinai and calls Moses to ascend the mountain.As a result, there is broad scholarly consensus that vv. 19 and 20 were not origi-nally connected but that v. 20 and the section that follows are an insertion.45

There is some controversy over what verse originally followed 19:19, which is acomposite of two asyndetic clauses: v. 19a (“And the sound of the ram’s hornwas growing much stronger”) and v. 19b (“Moses spoke and God answeredlwqb”). This has led scholars to conclude that v. 19b—the key hemistich for thepresent analysis—“is not continuous with what precedes or follows it.”46 There


44 The secondary literature on the composition of the Sinai pericopes is vast and cannot bediscussed here. For a survey of relevant literature, see the first chapter (“Redaction and Theologyin the Sinai Complex”) of Thomas B. Dozeman, God on the Mountain: A Study of Redaction, The-ology, and Canon in Exodus 19–24 (SBLMS 37; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 1–17. A work that isnot cited by Dozeman but has played a major role in my understanding of these chapters is ArieToeg, Lawgiving at Sinai [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977).

45 See, e.g., Toeg, Lawgiving at Sinai, 21; Walter Beyerlin, Origins and History of the OldestSinai Traditions (Oxford: Blackwell, 1966), 8: “it is clear that the whole section xix. 20–24 is a latergloss.”

46 John I. Durham, Exodus (WBC 3; Waco: Word, 1987), 267.

are two schools of thought regarding the translation of v. 19b: one renders lwqas “voice,” the other as “thunder,”47 and I would argue that the former is to bepreferred. “Voice” is a standard meaning of lwq and fits the context of theSinaitic dialogue between Moses and God. As Thomas Dozeman notes:“Although the singular qôl . . . often refers specifically to the voice of God. . . .[T]he plural twlwq almost always occurs in the context of a storm . . . and doesnot refer to a more specific divine verbal communication.”48

Dozeman’s observation is strengthened by Haiim Rosén’s argument thatthe “gender incongruity” exhibited by the singular and plural forms of lwq (sin-gular: zero grade suffix [= “masculine”]; plural: –ôt suffix [= “feminine”]) is amarker of countability and noncountability. According to Rosén, nouns thatexhibit this irregularity are discrete and countable in the plural but noncount-able in the singular.49 Rosén’s explanation of the morphological pattern cannotbe accorded the status of a general law, since there are a number of question-able cases50 as well as outright counterexamples.51 Rosén’s hypothesis does,however, hold for a large number of the nouns exhibiting the morphological“incongruity.” Consider the following paired examples:52

• $ra, twxra Singular: “earth” or “land” or “soil” in a generalsense; plural: discrete political or geographic enti-ties

• `pn, tw`pn Singular: “life force” or “spirit” (except in deter-mined legal phraseology); plural: “people, individu-als”

• jwr, twjwr Singular: “spirit” or “wind”; plural: “direction”

• !`, twm` Singular: “fame, reputation”; plural: “names”


47 See the rich discussion of Benjamin Sommer, “Revelation at Sinai in the Hebrew Bible andin Jewish Theology,” JR 79 (1999): 422–51.

48 Dozeman, God on the Mountain, 27.49 Haiim Rosén, “On Some Nominal Morphological Categories in Biblical Hebrew,” in On

the Dignity of Man: Oriental and Classical Studies in Honour of Frithiof Rundgren, special issue,Orientalia Suecana 33–35 (1986): 355–65; reprinted in Haiim Rosén, East and West: SelectedWritings in Linguistics (Munich: W. Fink, 1994), 2:418–28. References in what follows are to Eastand West.

50 For example: swk, twswk; jra, twjra; brj, twbrj; !wqm, twmwqm. None of these clearly fits thepattern.

51 For example: !wlj, twmwlj; rwd, twrwd. My thanks to Dr. Yaakov Levi for his helpful com-ments.

52 These characteristics only present themselves when the nouns are not determined eitherby heh or as part of a construct chain.

• rn, twrn Singular: “light”; plural: “lamps”

• r[y`, twr[` Singular: “hair, a mass of hair”; plural: “individualhairs, strands of hair”

• rw[, twrw[ Singular: “skin” or “leather”; plural: “hides”

• @w`l, twnw`l Singular: “speech, discourse” (except when refer-ring to a tongue-shaped bay or to “tongues” of fire);plural: “(discrete) languages”

Does the incongruent pair twlwq, lwq belong to this group? The singularlwq generally means “voice,” or “sound”; these meanings are not discrete orcountable. lwq means “thunder” only in a grammatically determined state,namely, when it is identified as the voice of God. This is usually achieved withthe construct hwhy lwq, which appears in meteorological contexts (e.g., Ps 29),but also by a pronominal suffix that marks the lwq as belonging to God. So whileGod’s lwq can manifest itself as (or is) thunder, the meaning of (undetermined)lwq is not “thunder.”53 The plural twlwq almost never means “sounds” or“voices,” but appears in explicitly meteorological contexts meaning “peals ofthunder.” In Exodus, twlwq is paired with drb (“hail”) five times (9:23, 28, 29,33, 34), once with !yqrb (“flashes of lightning”) in the Sinai epiphany (Exod19:16), and once in a questionable meaning to be discussed below (Exod20:18). Elsewhere it is paired with rfm (“rain”) (1 Sam 12:17, 18; Job 28:26),and only once appears in the meaning of “sounds”—in the construct state (Ps93:4).54 It seems, then, that the pair lwq, twlwq generally fits the pattern identi-fied by Rosén: the –ôt ending refers to a discrete, countable plural (“peals ofthunder”), while the zero-grade ending has a more abstract sense (“voice,sound”). If so, lwqb wnn[y !yhlahw does not mean “God answered [Moses] in athunder” but “God answered him by a voice.”

But now a different problem presents itself, namely, why is the vocalnature of God’s speech stated? Were speech conveyed by something other thana voice, the situation would be unusual and the nonvocal medium madeexplicit. But there is no need to state that speech is conveyed by voice. There


53 Jeremiah 10:13 may use lwq in this sense, but the MT is clearly corrupt.54 In Ps 93:4 in the phrase !ybr !ym twlqm (“than the sounds of great waters”). The entire

psalm describes a sea storm, and the phrase is probably the result of syllabic considerations; seeMitchell Dahood, Psalms II: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 17; New York: Doubleday,1968), 341–42. The phrase hwhyAlwq in Ps 29 refers to thunder, but that only means that the voice ofGod is identified with thunder, not that lwq as such means “thunder.” See the similar analysis byDozeman, God on the Mountain, 27 n. 19.

are countless occurrences of speech verbs (rbdyw, arqyw, dgyw, @[yw, rmayw) wherethe vocal medium is assumed but never stated; these verbs occur hundreds oftimes in the Hebrew Bible without the addition of lwqb. Why does Exod 19:19bstate that lwqb wnn[y !yhlahw?

In order to answer this question it is necessary to examine this statementin conjunction with the verse that textual scholarship suggests (though not withcomplete unanimity) was its original sequel, namely, 20:18a:55

@`[ rhh taw rp`h lwq taw !ydplh taw twlqh ta !yawr ![h lkw

And all the people saw the qolôt and the flashes of lightning (!ydypl) and thesound of the trumpet (qôl haššoµpaµr) and the mountain smoking. . . .

Two issues must be examined in relation to this verse. First, it is unclear what itmeans that the people saw the peals of thunder (twlq). Some of the translatorshave sought to soften this incongruity by translating !yawr as “perceived” (RSV)or “witnessed” (NRSV), verbs of perception that are not sight-specific; andcommentators have suggested that the verse is meant to convey “somethingstronger and more inclusive than ‘hearing,’ e.g., synaesthetic ‘seeing,’ or ‘wit-nessed and experienced.’”56 But it is odd that such a momentous and singularexperience would have as its objects the blast of a trumpet and the !ydypl,which may be mere torches (see discussion below).

The second difficulty is the pairing of twlq and !ydypl. There is broad con-sensus among modern translators that these terms are to be rendered “thun-der” and “lightning,” respectively. If twlq is the correct reading, then “thunder”is appropriate, since the plural from regularly occurs in meteorological con-texts, as noted above. The same cannot be said for !ydypl, whose root meaningis “torches”; it does not mean “lightning,” and never appears in meteorologicalcontexts. When employed metaphorically, it is tied to imagery of burning (e.g.,Isa 62:1), while a number of verses juxtapose !ydypl and lightning as distinctelements.57 It is curious, then, that Exod 20:18a should use !ydypl to signifyflashes of lightning, particularly when !yqrb, the regular term, appears along-


55 A number of scholars argue that Exod 19:19b was originally followed by Exod 20:1, theDecalogue. For a survey of the scholarship supporting Exod 20:1 as the sequel see Toeg, Law-giving at Sinai, 20–21 (though he rejects this view); and Durham, Exodus, 269. The more widelyaccepted view identifies Exod 20:18 as the original sequel to 19:19b. Toeg argues for this positionpersuasively (Lawgiving at Sinai, 22, 37–38), and see the literature he cites there. Among morerecent discussions, see A. Phillips, “A Fresh Look at the Sinai Pericope,” VT 34 (1984): 290; andFrank Polak, “Theophany and Mediator: The Unfolding of a Theme in the Book of Exodus,” inStudies in the Book of Exodus: Redaction, Reception, Interpretation (ed. Marc Vervene; BETL 126;Louvain: Leuven University Press, 1996), 136–37 and esp. n. 69.

56 Polak, “Theophany and Mediator,” 137.57 Daniel 10:6 is one example, or Nah 2:5, where the chariots appear as !ydypl but run like

bolts of lightning (!yqrb).

side twlq in Exod 19:16. Furthermore, there is a broad consensus among theancient translators that !ydypl means not “flashes of lightning” but “torches.”58

Both biblical semantics and the testimony of the ancient translators suggest,then, that !ydypl are not flashes of lightning but torches, in which case the con-text is not meteorological and it is unclear why twlq—“peals of thunder”—would be paired with !ydypl. Indeed, without the meteorological context, twlqbecomes a very problematic reading.

But there is an alternative. The LXX of 20:18a has kai; pa'" oJ lao;" eJwvrath;n fwnhvn (“and the whole people saw the [singular] lwq and the torches etc.”).The LXX does not resolve the problematic representation of auditory phenom-ena that are perceived visually, so the singular lwq (where MT has twlq) is not aharmonizing gloss. Quite the contrary, the singular lwq is difficult since thephrase rp`h lwq appears later in the verse and the repetition is awkward.59 Theoddness of the singular form argues for its originality. The LXX reading also hasa distinct advantage over the MT as the nonmeteorological singular lwq doesnot foist upon the !ydypl the otherwise unattested meaning “lightning.” TheLXX is also the theological lectio difficilior—suggesting that the Israelites saw“the lwq”—while the MT is on much safer ground, describing peals of thunderduring the epiphany at Sinai, a fact already established in 19:16. Takentogether, these arguments provide significant evidence for preferring the LXXlwq to the MT twlq.

Thus far I have introduced two arguments concerning the Sinai epiphany:first, that lwq in Exod 19:19b means “voice” and not “thunder,” and, second,that the LXX reading of Exod 20:18a (fwnhv, lwq) is preferable to the MT (twlq).These are not bold arguments. The former is comfortably within scholarly con-sensus. And while I know of no precedent for the superiority of lwq to twlq, it isgenerally acceptable to prefer the LXX to the MT when the former is either thetheological lectio difficilior or accords with biblical semantics, both of whichhold in the present case. Building on these arguments, the reconstruction ofthe original juxtaposition of Exod 19:19b and Exod 20:18a yields:

lwqh ta !yawr ![h lkw lwqb wnn[y !yhlahw rbdy h`m*

*Moses spoke and God answered him by a voice, and the entire people sawthe voice.60


58 The LXX has ta;" lampavda"; Onkelos has ayrw[b (= torches); and the Vulgate has lampades.59 The singular form is “particularly odd since this means that the phrase now occurs coordi-

nately in the same form, once for the [qôl] and once for the sound [qôl] (of the trumpet)” (JohnWilliam Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Exodus [SBLSCS 30; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990],315).

60 The MT of the remainder of Exod 20:18 may reflect the conflation—perhaps as an inten-tional blurring—of this visible voice with other elements of the theophany, the peals of thunder and

This reconstruction, if correct, establishes the presence of a voice at Sinai.The voice was an intermediary between God and Moses and was visible to thechildren of Israel.61 And while on its own a reconstructed verse may not provedecisive, a similar view is articulated in Deuteronomy’s description of themountain epiphany (Deut 4:1–40), a passage in which one hypostasis—the“great fire” of Deut 4:36—has already been recognized by scholars.62 A secondmay be the subject of 4:11–12:

lpr[w @n[ ^`j !ym`h bl d[ àb r[b rhhw rhh tjt @wdm[tw @wbrqtw 11

!yar !knya hnwmtw !y[m` !ta !yrbd lwq àh ^wtm !kyla hwhy rbdyw 12

lwq ytlwz

11. And you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, while themountain burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness,cloud, and gloom 12. Then YHWH spoke to you out of the midst of the fire;you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form except a qôl.

The underlined phrase has been the subject of extensive discussion and, inwhat is by now a familiar pattern, most translators discount the possibility of avisible voice. This may be a mistake. Verse 12b is divided thematically: v. 12barefers to the auditory experience of the theophany (“you heard the sound ofwords”), while v. 12bb deals with the visual, asserting that they perceived noform “except a qôl.” If we remove the last two words of the verse (lwq ytlwz) the


the blasts of the horn. At present, this suggestion remains speculative; I know of no compellingexplanation for the MT of Exod 20:18b.

61 The existence of a visible, mediating voice may lie at the heart of a tannaitic disputerecorded in the legal midrash to Exodus, the Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael. Glossing Exod 20:18a (“Andthe entire nation saw the voices [LXX: voice]”): “They saw the visible and heard the audible—theseare the words of Rabbi Ishmael. Rabbi Aqiba says, They saw the audible and heard the visible”(Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael, Horovitz-Rabin ed., 235, corrected according to the comments of MeirFriedmann (Ish-Shalom), Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael with Meir Ayin Commentary [Jerusalem:n.p., n.d. (Vienna, 1870)], 71a).

62 On the Deuteronomistic framework of Deuteronomy, see Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy1–11: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 5; New York: Doubleday, 1991),13–15, as well as the literature cited in Ian Wilson, Out of the Midst of the Fire: Divine Presence inDeuteronomy (SBLDS 151; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 46 n. 3. As for the “great fire,” as schol-ars have recognized, the function of this fire is to mediate between God and Israel, distancing Godfrom the site of revelation. Thus R. E. Clements writes that Deut 4:36 contains “no suggestion . . .of a descent of Yahweh in any fashion, but only of the appearance of fire and of a voice out of thefire” (God and Temple [Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965], 90); and Jeffrey Tigay notes that Deut 4:36“states that there was indeed something on the earth when God spoke but it was not God” (JeffreyTigay, The JPS Torah Commentary: Deuteronomy [Philadelphia/Jerusalem: Jewish PublicationSociety, 1996], 56). On the revisionary force of Deut 4:36 (relative to, e.g., Deut 5:4), see StephenA. Geller, Sacred Enigmas: Literary Religion in the Hebrew Bible (London/New York: Routledge,1996), 30–61.

resulting phrase, “you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form,” portraysthe auditory and visual aspects as an absolute contrast: the former existed, thelatter did not. This contrast is not strengthened by lwq ytlwz; it is weakened. TheIsraelites perceived no form except a qôl, a visible voice. Here, too, the LXXsupports this reading. Where the MT of Deut 4:11 states that the mountain“burned with fire to the heart of heaven, wrapped in darkness, cloud, andgloom,” the LXX adds to this list a “great voice” (ejkaiveto puri; e{w" tou' oujranou'skovto" gnovfo" quvella fwnh; megavlh)—a voice that descended to the mountainand then was seen by the Israelites.63 Deuteronomy 4:12 echoes the view foundin the reconstructed Exod 19:19b + 20:18a: the Israelites stood at the foot ofthe mountain and saw a hypostatic voice.64

IV. Conclusion

The present study consists of a series of close readings that argue for thepresence of a hypostatic voice in certain parts of the Hebrew Bible. The biblicalpassages do not easily map onto accepted source-critical models. Though theisolated and fragmentary nature of Num 7:89 obscures its provenance, the cul-tic context of the verse and its terminology strongly suggest that it is Priestly.Moses enters into the tabernacle, the central priestly institution of the desertyears, and hears the voice from twd[h @ra, a term that appears exclusively inPriestly sources,65 in which case the mediating voice is a radical expression ofP’s anti-anthropomorphic views, a topic that has been much discussed in recentscholarship.66 Exodus 19:19b + 20:18a may be the product of a Deuterono-


63 The variant has not received much attention, most likely because the possibility that itexpresses a meaningful theological position was discounted. Wevers writes that “[a] popular B glosshas added fwnh; megavlh at the end, but this was taken over from 5:22, where the three nouns alsoobtain” (John William Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Deuteronomy [SBLSCS 39; Atlanta:Scholars Press, 1995], 73).

64 The theological connection between the theophany accounts in Exodus and Deuteronomycan be explained in source-critical terms if one assumes that Exod 19–24 underwent Deuterono-mistic redaction, a position pioneered by Lothar Perlitt and recently defended by Thomas B. Doze-man (God on the Mountain; see 37 n. 1 and 38 n. 7 for a survey of sources on the Deuteronomisticredaction of the Sinai narrative). However, the reading offered here does not depend on this expla-nation. If the Exodus account of the theophany is ascribed to an earlier source, Deut 4:12 may beunderstood as an interpretation of Exod 19:19b + 20:18a, perhaps based on the same Hebrew textof Exodus that is reflected in the LXX. This explanation accords with the view that “[t]he oldestJewish commentary on the Book of Exodus appears in another biblical text: the Book of Deuteron-omy” (Sommer, “Revelation at Sinai,” 432 [though I consider the characterization of Deuteronomyas a Jewish commentary anachronistic]).

65 On the Priestly terminology, see C. L. Seow, “The Designation of the Ark in Priestly The-ology,” HAR 8 (1984): 185–98.

66 See Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commen-

mistic redaction, but it may also belong to an earlier stratum that is exegeticallyreworked in Deut 4:12; the provenance of Deut 4 is itself a matter of debate.67

As for Ezekiel, it is generally accepted that his theology is Priestly, though RisaLevitt-Kohn has argued that Ezekiel combines Deutronom(ist)ic and Priestlytraditions.68 The picture is unclear, and it is difficult to attribute the hypostaticvoice to a single source.

Some general conclusions are nonetheless possible. Chronologically, mostof the sources discussed appear in relatively late biblical strata. Numbers 7:89resists definite dating, but scholarly consensus rules that it is not part of the ear-lier strata of P. Ezekiel and the Deuteronomistic sections within Deuteronomyare clearly late, and Exod 19:19b + 20:18a may be late, though this is less cer-tain. The general lateness of the hypostatic voice is strengthened by the prolif-eration of such voices in Second Temple literature, including Dan 4:28.69 Interms of the manuscript traditions, it is clear that the LXX is far more comfort-able with the notion of a hypostatic voice than the MT, and it is possible thatthis holds true for other theologoumena. Finally, it is worth noting the impor-tant role of the Masoretic vocalization of rbdm in Ezek 2:2 and 43:5. Both verseswere examined solely on the grounds that (like Num 7:89) they contain ahitpa>el vocalization of rbdm, and in both cases the superior manuscript tradi-tion of the LXX indicated the presence of a hypostatic voice. Although theMasoretic pointing is later, in these cases it improves the consonantal text bypreserving phenomena blurred or excised from the MT but present in the pre-MT Vorlage of the LXX.


tary (AB 3; New York: Doubleday, 1991), 58–61; Knohl, Sanctuary of Silence, 128–36. It should benoted that the absence of a mediating voice in the P account of Sinai cannot be counted for oragainst the existence of a hypostatic voice in P, since Baruch Schwartz has shown that “P’s idea ofthe [Sinai] theophany is totally dissimilar to the theophany of E and D. . . . In P no words are spo-ken, no Decalogue or other such sample of divine law is proclaimed” (“The Priestly Account of theTheophany and Lawgiving at Sinai,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to MenahemHaran (ed. Michael V. Fox et al.; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996], 125).

67 Eckart Otto, for example, argues that Deut 4 uses—and thus is subsequent to—Deuteron-omy, the Deuteronomistic History, prophets, and the Priestly torah (“Deuteronomium 4: DiePentateuchredaktion im Deuteronomiumsrahmen,” in Das Deuteronomium und seine Quer-beziehungen (ed. Timo Veijola; Schriften der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62; Helsinki:Finnische Exegetische Gesellschaft; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), 219.

68 Risa Levitt-Kohn, “Ezekiel, the Exile, and the Torah,” SBL 1999 Seminar Papers (SBLSP38; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), 501–26.

69 See the discussion in Kuhn, Offenbarungsstimmen.

APPENDIXTHE REVELATORY VOICE IN THE APOCALYPSE OF JOHN

The Book of Revelation opens with a vision (Rev 1:10-12):

10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voicelike a trumpet 11 saying “Write what you see in a book and send it to theSeven churches . . . 12 And I turned to see the voice that was speaking withme, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands 13 and in the middle ofthe lampstands one like a son of man . . . 15 and his voice sounded like theroar of rushing water . . . 16 . . . and a sharp, two-edged sword issued from hismouth. . . . ”

In an article published in 1986, James Charlesworth argues that the visiondescribed by John is one of a visible, hypostatic voice.70 Rejecting the tendencyto translate v. 12 as “I turned to see the one speaking to me,” Charlesworthargues that John is reporting an encounter with a visible hypostasis: “If ‘thevoice’ was conceived in early Jewish thought and perhaps in early Christian cir-cles as a heavenly being, then one can legitimately talk about seeing her, orhim.”71

Interestingly, the passage in question contains a remarkable number ofallusions to the biblical texts that have been examined in the present study.

1. The presence of the spirit is familiar from Ezek 2:1–2 and 43:1–6.

2. The sound of the trumpet recalls the trumpets in Exod 20:18 (“And allthe people saw the voice [LXX] . . . and the sound of the trumpet”).

3. The great voice behind the speaker recalls Ezek 3:12, a passage that isvery similar to the ones discussed above (“Then the Spirit lifted me up,and as the glory of the LORD arose from its place I heard behind me thesound [qôl] of a great noise”).72

4. The vision of “one like the son of man” has been characterized as “acombination of Ezek 1:26, 9:2, 11 . . . and Dan 7:13,”73 passages thatcontain (on my reading) explicit references to the mediating divinevoice.

5. The seven lampstands allude to the seven lamps whose erection is com-manded during (or immediately following) Moses’ encounter with the


70 James H. Charlesworth, “The Jewish Roots of Christology: The Discovery of the Hypo-static Voice,” SJT 39 (1986): 19–41.

71 Ibid., 23.72 A comparison noted by a number of commentators; see, e.g., J. Massyngberde Ford, Reve-

lation: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary (AB 38; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975),382.

73 Ibid., 385.

voice in the tabernacle in Num 7:89–8:1: “And when Moses went intothe Tent of Meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice speaking tohim. . . . And the LORD spoke to Moses saying, ‘Say to Aaron, When youset up the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light in front of the lamp-stand.’”

6. The description of the voice as rushing waters recalls Ezek 1:24 (and43:2), discussed at length above.74

Charlesworth concludes that “[t]he evidence is impressive, and I am persuadedthat before A.D. 100 Jews . . . believed in the existence of a celestial being theycalled ‘the voice.’”75

In light of the above discussion, I suggest that John of Patmos consciouslyalludes to key passages in Ezekiel and Daniel and to Num 7:89–8:1 in order topresent himself as part of a group of prophets or visionaries that have receivedrevelation from the “voice.” Charlesworth’s argument can be taken a step fur-ther. Not only were there Jews who believed in a celestial being called “thevoice”—John of Patmos and the rabbinic author of the Sifre Numbers, to nametwo—they believed that the existence of this hypostatic voice was attested inthe Hebrew Bible itself. This essay suggests that these later readers were cor-rect. There are biblical passages that know of a hypostatic voice, and these maywell be the source of the Second Temple revelatory voice and perhaps also ofits contemporaries, the “vocal” hypostases Logos and Memra.


74 The double-edged sword (rJomfaiva) issuing from the mouth of the heavenly figure may beconnected to the difficult crux in the LXX of Ezek 43:2, which translates !ybr !ym lwqk wlwqw (“andhis qôl was like the qôl of many waters”) as kai; fwnh; th'" parembolh'" wJ" fwnh; diplasiazovntwnpollw'n (“the sound of the camp was like the sound of many dual sharpeners of swords”), as thoughthe lwq issuing from the figure’s mouth were swordlike. The image of the sword in the mouth mayalso be (midrashically?) related to the Hebrew twypyp brj (Ps 149:6) and its alternate form twyp brj(Prov 5:4). All this is clearly speculative; both the image of the sword in the figure’s mouth and theLXX of Ezek 43:2 require fuller discussion.

75 Charlesworth, “Jewish Roots,” 37.

JBL 122/4 (2003) 627–650

GREEK HISTORIOGRAPHYAND THE CHRONICLER’S HISTORY:

A REEXAMINATION

GARY N. [email protected]

The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802

In scholarly criticism of the Chronicler’s work it has become almostaxiomatic to say that the composition of Chronicles bears no signs of eitherHellenic or Hellenistic influence.1 Indeed, many commentators have used theputative lack of parallels with the conventions of ancient Greek historiographyas a prime reason to rule out a late date for Chronicles.2 In other words, there isno relationship whatsoever between the literary conventions found within clas-sical historiography and those found in the Chronicler’s work. The putative lackof a relationship has become one of the grounds for ruling out a late date for thecomposition of Chronicles. According to this widely accepted reconstruction,the book belongs to a period prior to the meeting between western and easternMediterranean cultures purportedly initiated by the conquest of Alexander theGreat.

1 By the Chronicler, I mean the author of Chronicles. For recent discussions, see S. Japhet,“The Relationship between Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah,” in Congress Volume, Leuven 1989(ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 43; Leiden: Brill, 1991), 298–313; I. Kalimi, “Die Abfassungszeit derChronik: Forschungsstand und Perspektiven,” ZAW 105 (1993): 223–33; S. Talmon, “Esra undNehemia: Historiographie oder Theologie?” in Ernton was man sät: Festschrift für Klaus Koch zueinem 65. Geburtstag (ed. D. W. Daniels et al.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991),329–56. For a different perspective, defending the more traditional view that Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah were authored/edited by the same person, see J. Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah: A Com-mentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988), 47–54.

2 E.g., P. R. Ackroyd, Israel under Babylon and Persia (New Clarendon Bible; Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1970), 7. An exception is P. Welten, who argues for Hellenistic influenceon the Chronicler’s descriptions of building fortifications and weaponry (Geschichte undGeschichtsdarstellung in den Chronikbüchern [Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973]).

627

The failure to explore comparisons with the conventions of classical histo-riography is unfortunate.3 Cross-cultural studies offer the benefits of compar-ing similar phenomena in a plurality of social settings, illuminating otherwiseodd or inexplicable traits of certain literary works, exploring a set of problems indifferent societies, and calling attention to the unique features of a particularera or writing. Moreover, ancient Greece does offer national histories that maybe compared with the Deuteronomistic History and the Chronicler’s History.4

A number of historiographical writings from classical Greece have been scruti-nized with a view to the composition of Genesis and the Deuteronomistic His-tory, even though almost all scholars date Genesis and the DeuteronomisticHistory significantly earlier than the Chronicler’s work.5 Problems of chronol-ogy and geographical distance have not prevented scholars from undertakingsuch cross-cultural studies with the Pentateuch, the Former Prophets, andEzra-Nehemiah.6 Given such precedents, it is surely ironic that the chronologi-


3 Abbreviations for works in biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies follow regular JBLstyle. Abbreviations for additional works in classics (not listed in the JBL stylesheet) follow thoseused in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed.; ed. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth; Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1996), xxix–liv.

4 By comparison, there are no national histories (that we know of) in the lands ofMesopotamia and Egypt until relatively late (Berossus in Babylon; Manetho in Egypt). See furtherJ. Van Seters, In Search of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 8–54, 209–321. OnManetho as more than a compiler or chronographer, see D. B. Redford, Pharaonic King-Lists,Annals, and Day-Books: A Contribution to the Study of the Egyptian Sense of History (Society forthe Study of Egyptian Antiquities 4; Mississauga, ON: Benben, 1986). The recent discussion of G.P. Verbrugghe and J. M. Wickersham (Berossos and Manetho: Introduced and Translated [AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996]) seems to be unaware of Redford’s work.

5 The following list is not exhaustive: M. L. West, The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women (Oxford:Clarendon, 1985), 13; idem, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry andMyth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999); J. Van Seters, “The Primeval Histories of Greece and Israel Com-pared,” ZAW 100 (1988): 1–22; idem, Prologue to History: The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis(Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992); S. Mandell and D. N. Freedman, The RelationshipBetween Herodotus’ History and Primary History (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism60; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993); J. P. Brown, “From Divine Kingship to Dispersal of Power in theMediterranean City-State,” ZAW 105 (1993): 62–86; idem, Israel and Hellas, vol. 1; vol. 2, SacredInstitutions with Roman Counterparts; vol. 3, The Legacy of Iranian Imperialism and the Individ-ual (BZAW 231, 276, 299; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995, 2000, 2001); F. A. J. Nielsen, The Tragedy inHistory: Herodotus and the Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 251; Copenhagen InternationalSeminar 4; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997); S. Noegel, “The Aegean Ogygos of Boeotiaand the Biblical Og of Bashan: Reflections of the Same Myth,” ZAW 110 (1998): 411–26.

6 T. C. Eskenazi and E. P. Judd (“Marriage to a Stranger in Ezra 9–10,” in Second TempleStudies 2: Temple and Community in the Persian Period [ed. T. C. Eskenazi and K. H. Richards;JSOTSup 175; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994], 266–85), J. Blenkinsopp (Ezra-Nehemiah, 173–201),and B. Halpern (“Ezra’s Reform and Bilateral Citizenship in Athens and the MediterraneanWorld,” in Egypt, Israel, and the Ancient Mediterranean World: Studies in Honor of Donald B.

cal boundary of 332 B.C.E.—Alexander’s conquest of Palestine—has inhibitedmost scholars from making comparisons with the compositional techniquesfound in Chronicles.

There are, however, a number of features in the Chronicler’s work thatmay be fruitfully compared with classical writings and Jewish Hellenistic writ-ings. These areas include the development of local histories, the idealization ofcertain characters, the excerpting of traditional writings, the condensation ofolder works, the employment of creative imitation or imitatio,7 and the use ofgenealogies. Of these, I wish to focus on the last. Following R. R. Wilson, Iunderstand a genealogy to refer to “a written or oral expression of the descentof a person or persons from an ancestor or ancestors.”8

Some important features of the Chronicler’s genealogical prologue findanalogies in classical prose composition.9 The point is not simply the phe-nomenon of written genealogies per se, because lineages are found within theYahwistic and Priestly sources of the Pentateuch; within Sumerian, Assyrian,and Babylonian royal inscriptions; and within pharaonic king lists and priestlywritings. More proximate examples, temporally speaking, to the Chronicler’s

Knoppers: Greek Historiography and the Chronicler 629

Redford [ed. G. N. Knoppers and A. Hirsch; Probleme der Ägyptologie; Leiden: Brill, forthcom-ing]) draw a series of important comparisons between the situation in postexilic Jerusalem and thatof fifth-century Athens. D. Smith-Christopher draws a series of broader (modern) social compar-isons (“The Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra 9–10 and Nehemiah 13: A Sociology of the Post-ExilicJudaean Community,” in Second Temple Studies 2, ed. Eskenazi and Richards, 243–65). See alsothe more general comments of A. Momigliano, who situates the works of both Greek and Hebrewauthors in the larger context of the Persian empire (The Classical Foundations of Modern Histori-ography [Sather Classical Lectures 54; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990], 8–24).

7 On this neglected issue, see J. Van Seters, “Creative Imitation in the Hebrew Bible,” SR 29(2000): 395–409. I would demur, however, from his characterization of the work of the Chronicleras plagiarism (pp. 399–400), rather than as an instance of imitatio. See C. Mitchell, “Transforma-tions in Meaning: Solomon’s Accession Narrative,” JHS 4 (2002–3), http://www.purl.org/jhs; andthe introduction to my commentary I Chronicles (AB 12; New York: Doubleday, forthcoming).

8 R. R. Wilson, Genealogy and History in the Biblical World (Yale Near Eastern Researches7; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), 9.

9 I agree with a number of recent scholars who have argued that the core (however onedefines that) of the genealogies in 1 Chr 1–9 is original to the first edition of the Chronicler’s work.See, e.g., S. Japhet, “Conquest and Settlement in Chronicles,” JBL 98 (1979): 205–18; eadem, I &II Chronicles (OTL; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993), 1–10; H. G. M. Williamson, 1 and2 Chronicles (NCB; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 37–40; M. Kartveit, Motive und Schichtender Landtheologie in I Chronik 1–9 (ConBOT 28; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1989). For a dif-ferent view, see A. C. Welch, The Work of the Chronicler: Its Purpose and Date (Schweich Lec-tures 1938; London: Oxford University Press, 1939); M. Noth, ÜberlieferungsgeschichtlicheStudien: Die sammelnden und bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament (2nd ed.;Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1957), 117–22, 132–33; W. Rudolph, Chronikbücher (HAT 21; Tübin-gen: Mohr, 1955), 6–91.

use of pedigrees include the genealogical lists found among the Safaitic inscrip-tions of ancient Jordan and North Arabia10 and the Achaemenid royal inscrip-tions. The ascending linear genealogy of Darius the Great appearing in theBehistun inscription may serve as one example.

I am Darius the Great King, King of Kings, King in Persia, King of countries,son of Hystapes, grandson of Arsames, an Achaemenian. (Behistun inscrip-tion, §1.2–3)

Saith Darius the King: My father was Hystapes; Hystapes’ father wasArsames; Arsames’ father was Ariaramnes; Ariaramnes’ father was Teispes;Teispes’ father was Achaemenes. (Behistun inscription, §2.1.3–6)11

The latter, a more complete lineage, immediately follows the former, whichserves as an introduction to the inscription itself.

The issue thus needs to be more narrowly defined: Where can one findparallels to the elaborate system of generational relationships in 1 Chr 1–9, thatis, to a group of extensive lineages appearing either as a single work by them-selves or as a substantial part of a larger literary work? One hastens to add thatthe genealogies of 1 Chr 1–9 do not represent a conglomeration of totally unre-lated lineages, but reveal a larger pattern of organization. They begin with thefirst person, Adam (1 Chr 1:1), list his various descendants in prediluvian andpostdiluvian times (1 Chr 1:1–54), focus on the sodalities of Israel (1 Chr2:1–9:1), and conclude with a tabulation of Jerusalem’s residents during thePersian period.12 The attention devoted to the development of humanity froma single source and the attention devoted to the relationships among a variety ofnations establish a context within which to view the origins of the people ofIsrael. The Israelites are related directly and indirectly to a host of other peo-ples, most of whom preceded Israel on the world stage.


10 F. V. Winnett, Safaitic Inscriptions from Jordan (Near and Middle East Series 2; Toronto:University of Toronto Press, 1957); F. V. Winnett, W. L. Reed, et al., Ancient Records from NorthArabia (Near and Middle East Series 6; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970); F. V. Winnettand G. L. Harding, Inscriptions from Fifty Safaitic Cairns (Near and Middle East Series 9;Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978).

11 My translation follows R. G. Kent, Old Persian (2nd rev. ed.; AOS 33; New Haven: Ameri-can Oriental Society, 1953), 119.

12 Similarly, M. Oeming sees the genealogies as comprising a system of concentric rings (Daswahre Israel: Die ‘genealogische Vorhalle’ 1 Chronik 1–9 [BWANT 128; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,1990], 206–10). Cf. M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels (BWANT 4/1; Stuttgart:Kohlhammer, 1930), 21; A-.M. Brunet, “Les Chroniste et ses sources,” RB 60 (1953): 485;Williamson, 1 and 2 Chronicles, 38–39; S. J. De Vries, I and II Chronicles (FOTL; Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 1989), 21–26; Kartveit, Motive und Schichten, 110–56; T. Willi, Chronik (BKAT 24/1;Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), 7–9.

a The peoples of the world (1 Chr 1:1–54)

b Judah (1 Chr 2:3–4:23)

c Simeon and the trans-Jordanian tribes (1 Chr4:24–5:26)

d The tribe of Levi (1 Chr 5:27–6:66 [Eng. 6:1–81])

c' The northern tribes (1 Chr 7:1–40)

b' Benjamin (1 Chr 8:1–40)

a' The Persian period inhabitants of Jerusalem (1 Chr 9:2–34)

As the table shows, the bulk of the genealogical prologue is dominated byone heavily segmented lineage—the descendants of Israel’s twelve sons (1 Chr2:3–8:40; cf. 1 Chr 2:1–2). Even within this branching system, the stemmata forindividual tribes may themselves evince further layers of segmentation. Thegenealogy for Benjamin’s sons in 1 Chr 7:6–11 is but one example.13

Benjamin

Bela Becher Jediael

Zemariah Joash Eliezer Elioenai OmriJeremoth Abijah Anathoth Alemeth

Ezbon Uzzi Uzziel Jerimoth Iri Bilhan

Jeush Benjamin Ehud ChenaanahZethan Tarshish Ah\ishah\ar14

Paying close attention to the critical issue of segmentation allows one to focusthe search for analogies to the multiple layers of branching lineages found in1 Chr 2–8. Since these chapters contain both linear and heavily segmentedgenealogies, one should look for collections of genealogies that contain bothlinear and segmented genealogies.15 In this respect, the ancient Near Eastern


13 The present text of Chronicles provides three lineages for the Benjaminites: 1 Chr 7:6–11;8:1–40; and 9:35–44. The last of these parallels 1 Chr 8:29–40. Whether the lineage presented in1 Chr 7:6–11 was originally a Zebulunite genealogy or whether a genealogy of Zebulun has beenlost are legitimate questions, but these questions need not be debated here. See Rudolph,Chronikbücher, 65–66; Japhet, I & II Chronicles, 169–70.

14 One should also call attention to heavily segmented portions of the Judahite genealogies(G. N. Knoppers, “‘Great Among His Brothers’”: But Who Is He? Heterogeneity in the Composi-tion of Judah,” JHS 3 (2000–2001), http://www.purl.org/jhs; idem, “Intermarriage, Social Complex-ity, and Ethnic Diversity in the Genealogy of Judah,” JBL 120 (2001): 15–30.

15 Both kinds of genealogies are found in earlier biblical writings; see A. Malamat, “King Lists

parallels adduced to the lineages in Chronicles are not directly germane,because these comprise individual lists (or genealogies) and do not representlarge collections of multilinear and linear genealogies.16

The collections of genealogies—both segmented and linear—found in theYahwistic and Priestly sources of the Pentateuch are more helpful in under-standing the composition of the genealogical prologue in Chronicles. TheChronicler, like the authors of the Yahwistic and Priestly writings, is much moreinterested in matters genealogical than the Deuteronomic and Deuterono-mistic authors are. Some of the Chronicler’s lineages are directly borrowedfrom those found within earlier biblical sources, especially those found in thePriestly writing. There is no doubt that the Chronicler’s theology has also beeninfluenced by Priestly thought. Yet, from a literary perspective, the Yahwisticand Priestly works are not particularly helpful as analogies to the genealogicalprologue. The short lineages the Yahwist employs in the course of his work lendstructure to his stories (Gen 4:1–2, 17–22; 9:18–19; 19:37–38; 22:20–24;29:31–35; 30:4–5, 7–16, 20–21, 24).17 The Priestly writers are more systematicin their genealogical speculations. They employ major genealogies, often punc-tuated by the formula “these are the generations” (twdlwt hla), as a frame forgroups of narratives and lists dealing with the primeval and ancestral eras (e.g.,Gen 5:1–32*; 10:1–32; 11:10–27; 25:12–17, 19–20; 35:22b–26; 36:1–5, 9–14).18

In the Priestly work, the narratives about the ancestors, the plagues, and theexodus culminate in the bestowal of divine law at Sinai.19 The latter knows no


of the Old Babylonian Period and Biblical Genealogies,” JAOS 88 (1968): 168–73; idem, “TribalSocieties: Biblical Genealogies and African Lineage Systems,” European Journal of Sociology 14(1973): 126–36.

16 On the composite nature of a number of these works, see Wilson, Genealogy and History,87– 114. Whether some of these works should be classified as genealogies at all, rather than as lists,has been questioned by R. S. Hess, who draws formal contrasts between certain pentateuchalgenealogies and the Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian King Lists (“The Genealogies of Genesis1–11 and Comparative Literature,” Bib 70 [1990]: 252–53). The Mesopotamian lineages are notsegmented or multilinear in their present form. Within these lists, in fact, some contemporarydynasties have been made sequential so as to create one continuous stemma.

17 M. D. Johnson, The Purpose of the Biblical Genealogies (2nd ed.; SNTSMS 8; Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1988), 4–14.

18 The formula itself appears in Gen 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27; 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9; 37:2; Num 3:1; cf.Gen 2:4; 5:1. See further Johnson (Biblical Genealogies, 14–36), although I do not agree with all ofhis conclusions.

19 Where the Priestly work ends has become a matter of keen debate among contemporaryContinental scholars. O. Kaiser has proposed, for example, that the original Priestly writing endswith Lev 9:24 (Studien zur Literaturgeschichte des Alten Testaments [FB 90; Würzburg: Echter,2000]). In American circles, much more material in Leviticus and Numbers has been traditionallyattributed to the Priestly writers. See R. E. Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative (HSM 22;Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981); B. A. Levine, Leviticus (JPS Torah Commentary; Philadelphia:Jewish Publication Society, 1989); idem, Numbers 1–20: A New Translation with Introduction and

parallel in the Chronicler’s work, which asserts the validity of Sinaitic legisla-tion.20 Among the Priestly materials dealing with the oppression in Egypt, theplagues, the exodus, the stipulations about the tabernacle, the apparel of thepriests, the consecration of the priests, the offerings, and the ordination ofAaron and his sons, genealogies become relatively infrequent (e.g., Exod 1:1–5;6:14–25; Num 3:1–3).21 What one finds in Chronicles, however, are large col-lections of lineages standing by themselves. In short, one can readily acknowl-edge the Chronicler’s indebtedness to the Yahwistic work and especially thePriestly writing, while recognizing that the author has moved beyond these ear-lier works in a number of different ways. Over half of the genealogies in 1 Chr1–8 have no biblical source.22 Within the larger book, the genealogies functionas an introduction or prelude to a much longer narrative account of monarchi-cal history.

In my judgment, the closest counterparts to the phenomenon of 1 Chr 1–9may be found in the works of the Greek genealogists. The mass of genealogicalliterature from the ancient Aegean world, even though it survives only in frag-mentary and testimonial form, was originally quite considerable.23 Genealogi-cal writings were one of the earliest types of prose written in ancient Greece.24


Commentary (AB 4; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1993); J. Milgrom, Numbers (JPS Torah Com-mentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1990); idem, Leviticus: A New Translation withIntroduction and Commentary (AB 3; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1991); J. Van Seters, The Lifeof Moses: The Yahwist as Historian in Exodus-Numbers (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994).

20 In narrating the course of the monarchy, Chronicles rates royal performance with refer-ence to Mosaic precedent or Sinaitic legislation on at least thirty occasions (1 Chr 15:15; 16:40;21:29; 22:12, 13; 2 Chr 1:3; 5:10; 6:16; 8:13; 12:1; 14:3; 15:3; 17:9; 19:10; 23:18; 24:6, 9; 25:4; 30:5,16; 31:3, 4, 21; 33:8; 34:14, 15, 19; 35:6, 12, 26). On one occasion an Aaronic precedent (itselfattributed to a divine command), “according to their custom at the directive of Aaron their ances-tor, as Yhwh the God of Israel had commanded him” (yhla hwhy whwx ràk !hyba @rha dyb !fp`mklar`y) is cited as determinative of how the priests are to enter the temple (1 Chr 24:19).

21 Some wonder whether Exod 6:14–25 may be part of a larger supplement or addition to theP narrative (M. Noth, Exodus [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962], 58–62).

22 The situation with the list of Jerusalem’s Persian-period residents in 1 Chr 9 is more com-plex. Some scholars think that the author of this chapter has borrowed much of this material(vv. 2–17) from Neh 11. I develop the view that the authors of both 1 Chr 9 and Neh 11 drew froma similar source but developed this source in quite different ways. The evidence provided by LXXNeh 11–12, which is often substantially shorter than the MT, points in the same direction (G. N.Knoppers, “Sources, Revisions, and Editions: The Lists of Jerusalem’s Residents in MT and LXXNehemiah 11 and 1 Chronicles 9,” Text 20 [2000]: 141–68).

23 West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 1–11; R. Thomas, Oral Tradition and WrittenRecord in Classical Athens (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 18; Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1989), 155–95.

24 F. Jacoby, “Über die Entwicklung der griechischen Historiographie,” Klio 9 (1909):80–123 (reprinted in his Abhandlungen zur griechischen Geschichtsschreibung [ed. H. Bloch;Leiden: Brill, 1956], 16–64); C. W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 4–12.

According to Plato, when Socrates asked the famous sophist Hippias, “What arethe subjects which the Spartans gladly hear from you?,” Hippias replied:

They listen with the greatest pleasure to the genealogies of their heroes andmen, to the settlement of tribes, and how cities were founded of old and, in aword, to everything concerning antiquarian knowledge. (Plato, Hp. mai.285d)

In Hippias’s answer, both the general interest in former times (literally,“archaeology”) and the particular interest in the genealogies of heroes and ofmen are remarkable. The regard of ancient Greeks for matters genealogicalmust be connected to the significance they attributed to origins and the originalancestor in determining the character of future generations.25 Prestige, status,even moral character might be derived from the original progenitor, preferablylegendary, heroic, or divine. Even in Thucydides’ work, in which there is notmuch explicit genealogizing, speeches to the troops contain many appeals totheir fathers and the fame of their ancestors.26 Whether one had the credentialsto serve in certain public offices was determined to no small extent by one’spedigree. Peisistratus reportedly wrote Solon, the sixth-century Athenianpolitician and poet, that since he (Peisistratus) was a descendant of Codrus, thelast king of Athens, he was rightfully tyrant of the Athenians (Diog. Laert. 1.53).According to Herodotus (5.22; 8.137–39), Alexander I of Macedon (ca. 498–454 B.C.E.) was not allowed to compete in the Olympic Games until he con-vinced officials that he was a Hellene by presenting his genealogy in which hedescended from Temenos, the Herakleid king of Argos. One is reminded of thecomment in the list of Ezra 2 that those priests returning from exile, who couldnot prove their priestly pedigree were barred from serving as priests.27 Theseofficiants were “exiled (Wla}g oy“w") from the priesthood” (Ezra 2:63//Neh 7:64).Plato’s very criticism (Tht. 174e ff.) of the infatuation with and reliance on lin-eages is itself indicative of the continuing influence of genealogical considera-tions in his time.28

Many of the major genealogical works in ancient Greece date to the sixthand the fifth centuries B.C.E., but the interest in genealogy was neither a newnor a temporary phenomenon. One feature of the Homeric interest in the past


25 B. A. van Groningen, In the Grip of the Past: An Essay on an Aspect of Greek Thought (Lei-den: Brill, 1953), 47–61.

26 S. Hornblower, “Introduction,” in Greek Historiography (ed. S. Hornblower; Oxford:Clarendon, 1994), 9.

27 H. G. M. Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah (WBC 16; Waco: Word, 1985), 36–37; Blenkinsopp,Ezra-Nehemiah, 91–92.

28 Plato’s criticism may have more to do with the proposition that the presence of some illus-trious figures within one’s lineage determines one’s present character than it does with the verifia-bility of the lineage itself (Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record, 174–75).

is a concern with genealogy (e.g., Il. 5.533–60; 20.215–40 [Aeneas]; 6.153–206[Glaucus]; Od. 11.235–330).29 Writing much later, in the second century B.C.E.,Polybius apologizes for the austerity of his work, because most historians take abroader approach and attract a wider public than he does: those “fond of hear-ing (stories) (filhvkoon)” are drawn by genealogical manner, while “the curiousand (fond of) the uncommon” (polupravgmona kai; perittovn) are drawn by thekind of history that concerns itself with colonies, foundations, and kinships(Hist. 9.1.1–4). The historian who exercises methodological self-discipline andconfines his inquiry to the actions of monarchs, cities, and nations—so, forexample, Polybius himself—attracts a much smaller audience (Hist. 9.1.5–6).30

Capitalizing on the interest in past generations and their filiations, geneal-ogists produced collections of lineages as works in and of themselves or usedsuch genealogies to introduce and structure larger works. In pre-HerodoteanGreece, writers established stemmata for Greek noble families, who claimeddescent from heroes and gods in the mythological past.31 Two Spartan royalhouses, for example, were officially said to have descended from Herakles, atleast by the time of Tyrtaeus.32 In the Phoronis, a mythographic work by Hel-lanicus of Lesbos, a segmented, multilinear system of lineages seems to domi-nate.33 The author sketches separately the stories of each one of the principaldescendants. As in the Chronicler’s segmented genealogies of Israel’s sons,Hellanicus finishes the account of the offspring of one son before starting onthe offspring of another.34 By pursuing this multilinear system of organization,Hellanicus evidently thought that he could bring some semblance of order tothe chaos of Greek mythology.35 Current social relationships or political hierar-chies may be claimed, explained, or ratified by recourse to pedigree. Pro-


29 Hornblower, “Introduction,” 9.30 Disparate comments from Greek and Roman authors show that the nature, style, limits,

and purpose of historical writing were subject to ongoing discussions (e.g., Herodotus 1.1; 2.29, 99,113, 147; Thuc. 1.1–23; Arist., Poet. 1451B1–32; Rh. 1.1360A30–36; Cic., De Or. 2.62, 145; 3.211;Leg. 1.5; Diod. Sic., 1.1–5; Sall. Iug., 4; Dion. Hal., Ant. Rom. 1–2; Livy 1.1; Quint., Inst. 2.4.2;Tac., Ann. 4.32–33; Plut., De Alex. fort. 1.3; Clem. Al., Strom. 1.15, 69; Marcellin., Vit. Thuc. 41).

31 T. S. Brown, The Greek Historians (Civilization and Society: Studies in Social, Economic,and Cultural History; Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1973), 3–18; West, Hesiodic Catalogue ofWomen, 8–9.

32 One version of their genealogies is recorded by Herodotus (7.204; 8.131).33 L. I. C. Pearson, Early Ionian Historians (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), 152–235; cf. F.

Jacoby, Griechische Historiker (Stuttgart: Alfred Druckenmüller, 1956), 268.34 Judah (1 Chr 4:1–23), Simeon (4:24–43), Reuben (5:1–10), Gad (5:11–17), Half-Manasseh

(5:23–24), Levi (5:27–6:66), Issachar (7:1–5), Benjamin (7:6–11), Dan (7:12), Naphtali (7:13), Man-asseh (7:14–19), Ephraim (7:20–29), Asher (7:30–40), and Benjamin (8:1–40). On the reconstruc-tion of a short genealogy for Dan (1 Chr 7:12), see my I Chronicles (forthcoming).

35 The segmented technique of the author of the much later (second century C.E.) work theBibliotheca, falsely attributed to Apollodorus of Athens, is similar (Pearson, Early Ionian Histori-ans, 159–70).

nouncements made about events in the past might be taken seriously as to whatshould obtain in the present. Details about settlements and kinship relation-ships may strike modern readers as inconsequential, but such particulars canestablish precedents for later times.36 The Athenians, for example, could citetheir participation in the Trojan expedition depicted in Homer (Il. 2.557–67) toshow that they had as good a claim to Sigeum as the Mytilenians did (Herodo-tus 5.94).37

Those Benjaminites living in the late Persian–early Hellenistic periodcould cite the Benjaminite lineages in Chronicles to lay claim to their habita-tion of sites not registered as belonging to them in earlier (biblical) texts. TheBenjaminite segmented genealogy of 1 Chr 8:8–12 mentions that one of thedescendants of Shah\araim (not otherwise attested) named Elpaal built Lud andOno (1 Chr 8:12), sites that lay beyond the traditional territory ascribed to Ben-jamin (Josh 18:11–28). Lud (or Lod) and Ono appear among the sites associ-ated with the repatriates (Ezra 2:33//Neh 7:37). Lod and Ono are, in fact, onlymentioned in late biblical literature (Neh 6:2; 11:35; cf. 1 Macc 11:34).38 Itwould seem that segments of the Benjaminite population (here associated withElpaal) migrated to the northwest during the Persian era. Political stability,trade, and agriculture may all have been factors in this movement.39 At least,this would explain the existence of a significant Jewish population in theModein area during the Hellenistic era.

The depth and breadth of genealogical interest depended on the purposesof the individual writer. In some cases, genealogies were pursued for individuallines. The titles of some of the mythographic works of the fifth-century writerHellanicus of Lesbos—the Deucalioneia, the Phoronis, and the Atlantis—indi-cate that this fifth-century writer sought to work out genealogies for individual


36 The connection between bloodlines and territory also exists within the Chronicler’sgenealogies (e.g., the lineages of Judah in 1 Chr 2:3–4:23) (Knoppers, “Intermarriage,” 15–30).Indeed, the issue of land should not be underestimated in assessing the Chronicler’s theologicaloutlook (S. Japhet, “People and Land in the Restoration Period,” in Das Land Israel in biblischerZeit [ed. G. Strecker; GTA 25; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983], 103–25).

37 West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 10–11.38 The author of Neh 6:2 seems to assume that the “Ono Valley” (/n/a t["q]Bi) lies beyond the

territory of Yehud (Blenkinsopp, Ezra-Nehemiah, 266). Some contend that Yehud included Lodand Ono within its northwest borders (E. Stern, Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in thePersian Period 538–332 B.C. [Warminster: Aris & Phillips; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society,1982], 245–49; Williamson, Ezra, Nehemiah, 34, 253–55). But, assuming that the sites in the list of(re)patriates refer to their destinations, as opposed to their ancestral homes, it is not necessary tohold that all of these places were located within the confines of Yehud. Some of the people in thelist of Ezra 2//Neh 7 could have lived within communities that lay outside of Yehud’s borders.

39 O. Lipschits, “The Origins of the Jewish Population in Modi>in and Its Vicinity” (inHebrew), Cathedra 85 (1997): 7–32.

families from a particular mythological figure.40 But already in the sixth cen-tury, the poet responsible for the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women put together acomprehensive collection of heroic genealogies in five books.41 At the end ofthe sixth century or the beginning of the fifth, Hecataeus of Miletus composeda mythographic work, comprising at least four books, on the genealogies ofheroes.42 Genealogists in the fifth century such as Acusilaus of Argos43 andDamastes of Sigaeum44 also composed large collections of genealogies involv-ing a number of different stemmata.

In his (in)famous preface to the Genehlogivai, Hecataeus writes that he setout to establish the truth “for the tales of the Greeks are many and ridiculous”(oiJ ga;r @Ellhvnwn lovgoi polloiv te kai; geloi'ai).45 One of Hecataeus’s aims wasto sort out the plethora of stories dealing with the mythic and heroic past byorganizing them in a fixed chronological order. Confronting disconnected andheterogeneous traditions, writers such as Hecataeus collated older materials,


40 Jacoby, Griechische Historiker, 262–87.41 The work, called the Gunaikw'n Katavlogo", or simply the !Hoi'ai (derived from the recur-

rent refrain, h] oi{h [“the like”], which marked the beginning of a section), was designed as a contin-uation of Hesiod’s Theogony, but had its own proem. West dates the completion of the work tobetween 560 and 520 B.C.E. (see R. Merkelbach and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea [Oxford:Clarendon, 1967]; West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 130–37).

42 The work is variously referred to as the Genealogies (Genehlogivai), the Histories (@Isto-rivai), and the Herology (@Hrwlogiva). Fewer than forty fragments remain from this author (G.Nenci, Hecataei Milesii Fragmenta [Florence: Nuova Italia, 1954]; F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente dergriechischen Historiker [Berlin: Weidmann; Leiden: Brill, 1923–58], frgs. 1–15, esp. 1 [pp. 1–47][hereafter FGH]). Cf. Herodotus 5.36, 125–26. Since the work of Nenci and Jacoby, a few newfragments attributed to Hecataeus have been published (H. J. Mette, “Die ‘Kleinen’ griechischenHistoriker heute,” Lustrum 21 [1978]: 5–6; idem, “Die ‘Kleinen’ griechischen Historiker heute,”Lustrum 27 [1985]: 33). On the historical context of Hecataeus and his connections to the aristo-cratic elite of Miletus, see Pearson, Early Ionian Historians, 25–106; Jacoby, Griechische His-toriker, 185–237; K. von Fritz, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967),1:48–76; 2:32–53. More briefly, S. Usher, The Historians of Greece and Rome (Norman: Universityof Oklahoma Press, 1969), 1–3.

43 FGH 2; Cicero, De or. 2.53; von Fritz, Griechische Geschichtsschreibung, 1:77–103; 2:54–78. According to Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1–13), Acusilaus lived before the Persian Wars (490–480/79B.C.E.).

44 Said to be a disciple of Hellanicus and a near contemporary of Herodotus. The title of oneof his works was Ancestors of Those Who Fought at Troy (FGH 5; von Fritz, GriechischeGeschichtsschreibung, 1:518–20, 525–26; 2:222–23, 244; cf. Strabo, Geographia 13.1.4; 14.6.4; Val.Max. 8.13).

45 FGH 1 F 1. That Hecataeus’s own work contains a variety of fabulous elements suggeststhat his purpose was not to explain away the absurd and mythical elements of stories he inheritedfrom the past, but rather to make some sense of the many contradictions among them. See furtherNenci, Hecataei Milesii, xxv; Fornara, Nature of History, 5–6. For a different view, emphasizingHecataeus’s rationalistic tendencies, see von Fritz, Griechische Geschichtsschreibung, 1:73; R.Drews, The Greek Accounts of Eastern History (Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies,1973), 16–19.

placed stories in a series, and arranged them within a larger genealogical order.To resolve contradictions that arose from multiple stories about one hero,genealogists might posit more than one hero by the same name, but living atdifferent times.46 The operative assumption was that a less well known person’sname had been forgotten, perhaps because of the fame of his more accom-plished namesake.47 Another device involved introducing new members into aline of succession to reconcile contradictory legends and to fill up missing gen-erations.48 Marital and kinship ties (many of which were artificial), migrations,and settlements of Greek heroes were used to link generations together and toexplain the alliances or enmities of various individuals and groups.

The rationalizing approach employed by these writers in reconstructingthe history of past generations may be compared with the systematic approachone finds within 1 Chr 1–9. These chapters string together lineages for a varietyof tribes, or portions thereof (e.g., Half-Manasseh in 1 Chr 5:23–26), as well asfor certain groups within tribes such as priests (1 Chr 5:27–41; 6:35–38), Levit-ical singers (1 Chr 6:1–33), and Davidic kings (1 Chr 3:1–24).49 In the lastinstance, the genealogist relates the group genetically to the sodality’s epony-mous ancestor (2:3–5, 9–17) and presents David’s seed as pivotal to Judah’slegacy by situating the group at the center of the tribe’s various lineages.50

a Lineages of Judah (1 Chr 2:1-55)

b Descendants of David (1 Chr 3:1-24)

a' Lineages of Judah (1 Chr 4:1-23)51

In spite of the detailed attention given to specific groups and familieswithin Greek and Hebrew traditions, the larger focus is national in both cases.The author of Chronicles situates the appearance of Israel and his sons in the


46 Brown, Greek Historians, 4 (with reference to Timaeus).47 L. I. C. Pearson, The Local Historians of Attica (Philological Monographs of the American

Philological Association 11; Philadelphia: American Philological Association, 1942), 10–11.48 Pearson, Early Ionian Historians, 161, 210, 224. Whether the calculation of Herodotus

(2.142) of three generations per century was standard is unclear.49 The Chronicler’s universal genealogy also contains an Edomite king list (1 Chr 1:43–51a)

and an Edomite chieftain list (1 Chr 1:51b–54), borrowed (and edited) from Gen 36:31–39 and36:40–43a, respectively.

50 The same pattern can be found in other contexts within early Judaism and early Christian-ity. In the genealogy bestowed upon Judith (8:1), for instance, her pedigree is ultimately traced toSimeon in the ancestral age (Jdt 9:2; cf. Tob 1:1; Jub. 4:1–33; Matt 1:1–2; Rom 11:1; Phil 3:4–5;b. Pesah \ 62b; b. Qidd. 69a–79b). In some cases, however, the Sinaitic age is determinative (e.g.,Ezra 7:1–5).

51 See further G. N. Knoppers, “The Davidic Genealogy: Some Contextual Considerationsfrom the Ancient Mediterranean World,” Transeu 22 (2001): 35–50.

context of the development of other peoples (1 Chr 1), but he concentrates onthe Israelite tribes themselves and their interrelationships (1 Chr 2–8). Simi-larly, the ancient Greek genealogists focused on what they considered to beGreek lines of descent from various heroes and deities. In their work they mayhave attempted to be pan-Hellenic in their coverage, but they apparently didnot pay great attention to the lineages of barbarian peoples. In this respect,comparison with the work of the Greek genealogists sheds light on the pur-poses according to which the Chronicler’s genealogical prologue was com-posed. The primary issue at stake is not so much the definition of the ethnosover against all other external groups as it is the development of the ethnos andthe interrelationships of the various groups who make up the ethnos.52

Because genealogies in the classical world were composed of names thatwere significant and designed to support the nation’s traditions and specula-tions, it is not surprising that they were interlaced with digressions explainingwhat particular groups did, what battles they fought, or where their descen-dants settled.53 In the linear descending ancestry for Philaios, attributed toPherecydes of Athens, an early-fifth-century author, one finds three brief nar-rative markers.

Philaios the son of Aias resides in Athens. Of him is born Daiklos, of him Epi-lykos, of him Akestoµr, of him Ageµnoµr, of him O<u>lios, of him Lyke µs, of himTopho µn, of him Laios, of him Agame µsto µr, of him Tisandros, of himMiltiadeµs,54 of him Hippokleideµs, during whose archonship the Panathenaeawere established, <of him Kypselos,>55 and of him Miltiadeµs, who colonizedthe Cherroneµsos (Chersonesus).56


52 A point also stressed by K. G. Hoglund, “The Chronicler as Historian: A ComparativistPerspective,” in The Chronicler as Historian (ed. M. P. Graham, K. G. Hoglund, and S. L.McKenzie; JSOTSup 238; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1997), 19–29.

53 West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 29.54 So Thomas (Oral Tradition and Written Record, 162) and others. The edition of Jacoby

(FGH 3 F 2) prefaces “who was archon among the Athenians” (speaking of Tisandros).55 This common restoration, which seems to be based on the testimony of Herodotus

(6.34–41, 103; 38.1), is uncertain. On the text-critical complexities of reconstructing the Philaidgenealogy and its sequence of proper names, see the detailed comments of G. Mussies, “Parallelsto Matthew’s Version of the Pedigree of Jesus,” NovT 28 (1986): 32–47; and Thomas, Oral Tradi-tion and Written Record, 161–73.

56 Marcellin., Vit. Thuc. 2–4 (= FGH 3 F 2). According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant.Rom. 1.13.1 [= FGH 3 T 7]), Pherecydes of Athens wrote many historical works of a mythical andgenealogical nature. In this respect, Pherecydes could be called both a historian (iJstorikov") and agenealogist (genealovgo"; FGH 3 F 1a, 2, 8, 18a, 21, 22a, 64a, 66, 86, 95, 101, 115a). E. Gabba dis-cusses Dionysius’s use of sources, including Pherecydes (Dionysius and the History of ArchaicRome [Sather Classical Lectures 54; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991], 1–22).

While positing a fourteen-generation line from Miltiadeµs the colonizer back toPhilaios, whose own father, the hero Aias (Latin Ajax), was said to be the great-est of all Greek warriors after Achilles (Homer, Il. 2.768–69), the genealogistcalls attention to what he considers to be important topographical and historicaldetails. Again, one can find formal parallels with Chronicles, which contains anumber of anecdotes dealing with settlements, invasions, migrations, exiles,and wars.57 In some cases, narrative sketches comprise a significant portion of atribe’s genealogy. In the material pertaining to Simeon (1 Chr 4:24–43), forexample, notes about population increase (vv. 27, 38), settlement (vv. 28–33),migrations (vv. 39–40), and war (vv. 41, 42–43) dominate the genealogy.

Admittedly, there is also a difference of degree between the two sets ofnational traditions. Some of the circumstantial tales are much longer and morefabulous in classical writings than they are in Chronicles. Indeed, the originallength of many of the Greek genealogical works must have been much longerthan 1 Chr 1–9.58 But the basic pattern of interlacing lineages with annotationsis found in both. Moreover, such narrative excursions can serve a larger pur-pose by making chronology complement genealogy. An event alluded to in adigression can be made to correlate to a specific point in a particular lineage,which is, after all, a history of generations. So, for example, Hellanicus was oneof the first to work out the chronological implications of the genealogies he cre-ated.59 Or, to return to the material pertaining to Simeon, the references to thesettlements up to the time of King David (1 Chr 4:31) and to the registrationduring the reign of King Hezekiah (1 Chr 4:41) punctuate the larger tribal lin-eage.60 In this manner, narrative comments help to define the vague chronol-ogy inherent within the genealogies themselves.61


57 E.g., 1 Chr 1:10; 2:3, 7, 22–23; 4:9–10, 27, 38–43; 5:1–2, 9–10. Based on the comparativeevidence, there is no inherent need to excise such comments as later additions and glosses. Indeed,the content of these digressions reveals many of the same themes found in the coverage of themonarchy (R. B. Dillard, “Reward and Punishment in Chronicles: The Theology of ImmediateRetribution,” WTJ 46 [1984]: 164–72).

58 Pherecydes of Athens, for instance, is credited with authoring a work divided by later edi-tors into some ten books (F. Jacoby, “The First Athenian Prose Writer,” Mnemos 13 [1947]: 13–64;repr. in his Abhandlungen zur griechischen Geschichtsschreibung, 100–143).

59 Pearson, Early Ionian Historians, 232; von Fritz, Griechische Geschichtsschreibung,1:476–522; 2.221–45; cf. J. H. Schreiner, Hellanikos, Thukydides and the Era of Kimon (Aarhus:Aarhus University Press, 1997), 11–17. Whether the chronological interest of Hellanicus is as pro-nounced as some scholars have thought is questioned by Thomas, Oral Tradition and WrittenRecord, 185.

60 Other chronological annotations may be found in 1 Chr 1:43; 3:4; 4:41, 43; 5:10, 17, 22, 26,36, 41; 6:16–17; 9:1, 2. Along with many commentators, I would transpose the anecdote of 1 Chr5:36 (“it was he [Azariah] who officiated as a priest in the Temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem”)to 1 Chr 5:35. See 1 Kgs 4:2.

61 If a (linear) genealogy is a history of generations, the synchronization of a known event witha person in a particular lineage defines both the event and the person.

In constructing a series of different segmented genealogies, the issue ofbeginnings is an important consideration. In one case, a Greek genealogicalwriter traced different stemmata back to the first man. In the Genealogivai ofAcusilaus of Argos, Acusilaus made Phoroneous the first man (prw'ton a[nqrw-pon) and evidently put the Phoroneid stemma, in which he subsumed thePelasgid, before the Deukalionid.62 In one of his works, Hellanicus traced thegenealogy of Codrus, the seventeenth and final monarch of Athens, throughHellen back to Deucalion (the so-called “Greek Noah”) and Pyrrha.63 Onefinds, of course, a similar impulse present in the Priestly work and in Chroni-cles. Various lines are traced back to Noah and ultimately to the primal humanbeing (Gen 5:1; 1 Chr 1:1).64

Very much related to the issue of beginnings are the issues of placementand coverage. The sequence of genealogies and the amount of coverage awriter devotes to a particular lineage are undoubtedly affected by the author’sown assumptions, geographical setting, social circumstances, interests, andpreferences.65 One need only compare the order and space allocated to the var-ious tribes in 1 Chr 2:3–8:40 with the order and space allocated to the varioustribes in early Yahwistic poetry to see the same factors at work in Israelite andJudean traditions. In the Blessing of Moses, for example, Reuben appears inthe initial position as the firstborn (Deut 33:6), but Joseph wins the most lavishpraise and receives the most extensive coverage (Deut 33:13–17). Judah andBenjamin receive one verse each (Deut 33:7, 12).66 In the Blessing of Jacob(Gen 49:8–12), Judah fares better than he does in the Blessing of Moses, butLevi is treated together with Simeon (Gen 49:5–7). As in the Blessing of Moses,Reuben appears in the initial position as the firstborn (Gen 49:3–4). Josephreceives extensive coverage as well as generous blessings (Gen 49:23–27).67 In


62 FGH 2 F 23a. This is not to say that his genealogical work began with the first man, asChronicles does. The work of Acusilaus seems to have begun with a theogony (FGH 2 F 1), as didsome of the works of other genealogists.

63 In FGH 4 F 125, Jacoby attributes the long passage to “Nachkommen des Aiolos. Argonau-tika (DEUKALIWNEIA),” the descendants of Aeolus: Argonautika (Deucalioneia), but he laterassigns it to Hellanicus’s local history, the Atthis (FGH 323a F 23).

64 A different approach seems to be taken in the Catalogue of Women, which is punctuatedby several independent starting points introduced by the refrain, h] oi{h. This refrain (“the like”)resumes the discussion of a collateral branch and does not inaugurate the presentation of a lineextending back to the original progenitor (West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 39).

65 The issue is not simply the reliability of tradition, but the malleability of that tradition inchanging circumstances. “Greek ideas about the past were reworked in response to a ‘constantlyshifting present’” (Hornblower, “Introduction,” 5).

66 Levi receives, however, high praise (Deut 33:8–11).67 F. M. Cross and D. N. Freedman, Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry (SBLDS 21; Mis-

soula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975), 69–122; B. Halpern, The Emergence of Israel in Canaan (SBLMS29; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 109–63.

contrast, the author of the genealogies in Chronicles privileges three tribeswith position and extensive coverage: Judah, Levi, and Benjamin. Each of thesetribes, especially the first two, plays a prominent role in the Chronicler’s pre-sentation of monarchical history.68 In the estimation of the Chronicler, thepatriarch Judah “became great among his brothers” (1 Chr 5:2), and it is there-fore Judah, not Reuben, who appears first in the Chronicler’s genealogical sys-tem. Judah, in fact, receives by far the most extensive coverage of any tribe(1 Chr 2:1–4:23).69 Within this larger genealogical arrangement, Levi takes thecentral position and receives the second most extensive coverage of any tribe(1 Chr 5:27–6:66). Finally, Benjamin appears last and receives the third mostextensive coverage (1 Chr 8:1–40).70

Issues of order and coverage are important considerations also in assessingthe work of the Greek genealogists. In this respect, the perspective andapproach of the mid-fifth-century author Pherecydes of Athens are worthy ofconsideration. Like the poet responsible for the Catalogue of Women and likeAcusilaus of Argos, Pherecydes attempted to treat different genealogiestogether.71 Unlike Acusilaus, Pherecydes apparently gave pride of place to theAttic adopted hero Aias. After the Aiakids came the Argive and Agenorid stem-mata, and after them the Deukalionid, Aspid, and Atlantid.72 The Catalogue ofWomen presents yet another point of view. The author begins with the descen-dants of Deucalion (books 1–2), proceeds to the descendants of Io, to whom heaccords by far the largest amount of space (books 2–3), continues with thedescendants of Pelasgus, Arkas, Atlantis, Atlas (books 3 and 4), and Pelops(book 4), and ends with Twilight of the Heroes (book 5).73


68 In his coverage of the aftermath of the division, the Chronicler repeatedly states that Ben-jamin remained with Judah (2 Chr 11:1, 3, 12, 23) (G. N. Knoppers, “Rehoboam in Chronicles: Vil-lain or Victim?” JBL 109 [1990]: 423–40). On the situation in the Deuteronomistic History, seeG. N. Knoppers, The Reign of Solomon and the Rise of Jeroboam, vol. 1 of Two Nations Under God:The Deuteronomistic History of Solomon and the Dual Monarchies (HSM 52; Atlanta: ScholarsPress, 1993), 135–223.

69 The Chronicler recognizes that Reuben was the firstborn of Israel’s sons (1 Chr 2:1; 5:1),but distinguishes firstborn status from birthright. The former does not lead ineluctably to the latter(G. N. Knoppers, “The Preferential Status of the Eldest Son Revoked?” in Rethinking the Founda-tions: Historiography in the Ancient World and in the Bible: Essays in Honour of John Van Seters[ed. S. L. McKenzie and T. Römer; BZAW 294; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2000], 115–26).

70 Much of the Benjaminite genealogy pertaining to the descendants of Jeiel (an ancestor ofSaul; 1 Chr 8:29–40) is paralleled in 1 Chr 9:35–44.

71 FGH 3 (pp. 58–104); Jacoby, “First Athenian Prose Writer,” 110–24. See also P. Dräger,Stilistische Untersuchungen zu Pherekydes von Athen: Ein Beitrag zur ältesten ionischen Prosa(Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1995).

72 West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 46.73 Hecataeus may have also placed the Deukalionids first (Pearson, Early Ionian Historians,

10). The overall order of stemmata in the Bibliotheke, falsely attributed to Apollodorus of Athens, issimilar in its arrangement of genealogies. One speaks about the basic sequence of genealogies in

In one of his remarks about these earlier authors, Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1.16)comments about how often Hellanicus disagrees with Acusilaus about thegenealogies and how often Acusilaus corrects Hesiod. That ancient authorspresent so many different opinions should not be surprising. Their works didnot consist of collections of facts about remote periods that each writer pas-sively acquired. Notwithstanding their appearance as sober collections of tradi-tional data, genealogies can manifest significant creativity. Each authorassembled, arranged, combined, shaped, and augmented traditional materialsin line with his own standards and conceptions. Whether in the Greek or theJudean arena, whether in poetic verse or in prose, each literary work representsa particular construction made by a particular author in a particular time from aparticular vantage point. Even if one were to argue that the Chronicler wasmuch more conservative than his Greek counterparts in that the Chroniclerworked with written materials as opposed to oral traditions, the basic pointremains the same. Each writer was attempting to create an intelligible networkof lineages that would fit his own priorities and reconcile, if not select from,available traditions.

We have been discussing genealogical works as a whole, collections of lin-eages whose outlines reflect deliberate attempts at rationalization and nationalorganization. But genealogy can also be a prelude to history. A system ofgenealogies may not be an end in and of itself. In the book of Chronicles thegenealogies appear as an introduction to the monarchy. Is there any such paral-lel to this phenomenon in the ancient classical world? It has to be acknowl-edged that juxtaposing a large network of genealogies with a long sequence ofnarratives in the context of a single historiographic work is a rarity; however, theTroika, authored by Hellanicus, may offer an analogy. As reconstructed bymodern scholars, the Troika was an extensive work, perhaps comprising morethan two books.74 The first book of the Troika contained genealogies of manyprominent Greeks and Trojans, while the second book dealt with the Trojanwar. These two books may have been followed by (unattested) third and fourthbooks describing the wanderings of heroes, such as Aeneas and Odysseus.Whether there were such third and fourth volumes in Hellanicus’s work neednot detain us here. What is important is the use of genealogies, as in 1 Chr 1–9,as a prelude to a longer narrative account of a given period or war. One isreminded of Pearson’s comment that a “writer with a taste for genealogy, suchas Hellanicus was, could not tell the story of the war without first explaining the


the Bibliotheke. There are, of course, sections of this much later work that have no known counter-part in the Catalogue of Women (West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 31–44).

74 In a number of details, Hellanicus and the author of the Bibliotheke seem to agree (Pear-son, Early Ionian Historians, 181–82, with references).

ancestry of those who took a prominent part in it.”75 The genealogies providevital information to the readers or hearers about the identity of the personsintroduced. If so, this would parallel the purpose many scholars ascribe to thegenealogies in Chronicles. These lineages introduce readers to the Israelites—their identity, their land, and their internal kinship relationships.76

There is a another way in which comparison with classical antiquity mayillumine the internal dynamics of the Chronicler’s genealogies. In the lineagesof 1 Chr 1–9 significant attention is given to the ancient past. By its very nature,each segment in the Chronicler’s sytem of Israelite genealogies begins with theancestral age. Significant attention is also devoted to the monarchy, especiallythe united monarchy, both in the genealogies themselves and in the narrativetangents. Very few of the genealogies actually extend into the late Persianperiod, the time in which the author wrote.77 Many scholars have found thispuzzling. In an Achaemenid or early Hellenistic context, the beginning of theSecond Temple period, why begin a Priestly genealogy in the age of the patri-archs and matriarchs, extend it through the monarchy, only to end it well beforethe author’s own time?78 Even more striking examples may be found in the lin-eages of the Levitical musicians. The author of 1 Chr 6:16–33 composesascending genealogies for three phratries of choristers, beginning with the timeof David and extending back to the time of their eponymous ancestor, Levi, andthe eponymous ancestor of the nation (Israel). The lineage provided for theQohathite singer Heman traces his ancestry through Samuel(!) back to Leviand Israel.

These were the ones stationed, along with their sons: from the descendantsof Qohath79—Heman the singer, son of Joel, son of Samuel, son of Elqanah,


75 Pearson, Early Ionian Historians, 176.76 Hence, they constitute an introduction to the story of the monarchy (S. Japhet, “Conquest

and Settlement in Chronicles,” JBL 98 [1979]: 205–18; eadem, The Ideology of the Book of Chron-icles and Its Place in Biblical Thought [BEATAJ 9; Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1989], 278–85; W. L.Osborne, “The Genealogies of 1 Chronicles 1–9” [Diss., Dropsie University, 1979], 3–95; J. Wein-berg, “Das Wesen und die funktionelle Bestimmung der Listen in I Chr 1-9,” ZAW 93 [1981]: 91–114; Johnson, Biblical Genealogies, 44–55; Kartveit, Motive und Schichten, 166–67; Willi, Chronik,7–9). Oeming goes so far as to say that the genealogies proleptically summarize the Chronicler’sthought (Wahre Israel, 206–18).

77 A clear exception is the lineage of the Davidides (1 Chr 3:1–24), which continues well intothe Achaemenid era (MT) or perhaps later (LXX). Mention should also be made of the list ofJerusalem’s postexilic residents and their genealogical affiliations (1 Chr 9:2–34).

78 J. W. Rothstein and J. Hänel (Kommentar zum ersten Buch der Chronik [KAT 18/2;Leipzig: Deichert, 1927]), followed by F. Michaeli (Les Livres des Chroniques, d’Esdras et deNéhémie [CAT 16; Neuchâtel: Delachaux & Nestlé, 1967], 57), would even add a name to thegenealogy of priests (Jeshua) so that it extends to at least the beginning of the Persian period (cf.Ezra 3:2; Hag 1:1).

79 So the LXXB and Tg. (lectio brevior). The MT reads “from the descendants of theQohathites.”

son of Jeroh \am, son of Eliel, son of Toah \,80 son of Zuph,81 son of Elqanah,son of Mah\ath, son of Amasai, son of Elqanah, son of Joel, son of Azariah, sonof Zephaniah, son of Tah \ath, son of Assir, son of Abiasaph,82 son of Qorah \,son of Izhar, son of Qohath, son of Levi, son of Israel. (1 Chr 6:18–23; Eng.6:33–38)

The patronym of Heman represents one of three classes or guilds of musicians—the Qohathites, who along with the Gershonites and Merarites (cf. 2 Chr5:12; 29:14; 35:15) receive new appointments during the time of David. Manycontemporary scholars believe (rightly or wrongly) that the singers becameesconced as a constituent feature of sanctuary worship only in Achaemenidtimes. But if the author was concerned to support the cause of the Leviticalmusicians, why stop with David? Why not continue the lineage to the singersliving during the author’s own time? One might be tempted to give a patanswer, namely, that the author lacked adequate information for later periodsof the monarchy. But the Chronicler’s account of the Judahite monarchy doesmention the Levitical singers a number of times.83 Hence, the question may besharpened: Why are none of these singers mentioned in the genealogies?

Recourse to classical writings illumines this feature of the genealogies.The Catalogue of Women also lacks explicit references to contemporary cir-cumstances and individual families. The poet limited himself to the mythicalage and did not make explicit connections between the past and the present.Even in the work of the Greek genealogists, who do mention recent and con-temporary figures, there is an emphasis on establishing links between theheroic age and the mythological age, as opposed to demonstrating a generation-by-generation sequence of unbroken lineages from the heroic age to the con-temporary world.84 In either case, there was much in their reconstructions thatwas implicitly relevant to the present.85 As M. L. West observes with respect to


80 Reading tôah \ with the MT. The LXXB and c2 read Theie. The lemmata of the LXXAN

Thoou(e) and the Vg. Thou may reflect toµh\û of MT 1 Sam 1:1.81 So the Qere, many Hebrew MSS, and most of the versions; cf. the Ketib “Ziph.”82 I read “Abiasaph” with LXXALN Abiasaph (cf. g Abe µasaph); cf. Exod 6:24 (MT <a ·bî<a µsa µp;

LXX Abiasaph). The MT has “Ebiasaph.” For comparison, see the textual variants of 1 Chr 6:8, 22;26:1.

83 2 Chronicles 20:14, 21; 23:13, 18; 29:12–14, 25–30; 34:12–13; 35:15, 25 (J. W. Kleinig,“The Divine Institution of the Lord’s Song in Chronicles,” JSOT 55 [1992]: 75–83; idem, TheLord’s Song: The Basis, Function and Significance of Choral Music in Chronicles [JSOTSup 156;Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993]).

84 A sixteen-generation genealogy has been claimed for Hecataeus (Herodotus 2.143) and anine-generation ascending lineage is provided for Xerxes (I) (Herodotus 7.11), but such cases seemto be the exception rather than the rule (Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record, 94–154,161–73). The same principle holds true for Mesopotamian royal lines. The norm is a genealogy justa few generations long (Wilson, Genealogy and History, 64).

85 Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record, 175–95.

the Catalogue of Women, there was potentially much interest and value in thisgenealogical poem both to families with pretensions to antiquity and to a widerpublic.86 The poet’s audience probably contained persons who consideredthemselves to be the descendants of a hero and who would be keenly interestedin how that hero was related to others. A hero might also be of local interest asthe founder of a cult or city. The eponyms of towns, regions, and tribes were ofspecial relevance, because: “their genealogical connexions defined the city’s,region’s, or tribe’s position in the world in relation to others, its proper alle-giances and sympathies. To this extent, assertions about the mythical pastexpressed the political perceptions or aspirations of the present.”87

Similarly, it was critical for Levitical singers living in the Second Templeperiod to have their appointments documented in the time of David, the for-mative age in which the First Temple was planned and endowed (1 Chr22–29).88 In this way, the Levitical musicians could claim that they were a sta-ple of temple worship from the very beginning. Presumably, the three classes ofsingers were well known in the writer’s time and were already functioning aspart of temple worship. For reasons of prestige and status, it was also importantfor the Levitical singers to make genealogical connections stretching back toQohath, Gershon, Merari, and Levi. By creating this lineage, the writer is ableto claim a measure of cultic continuity from the normative period of the unitedmonarchy, the time in which the First Temple was planned and built, back tothe age of his nation’s very beginnings, the time of the ancestors. The genealogyfurnishes the Levitical singers with a written basis to argue that their roots wereas historic as those of the priests (1 Chr 5:27–41; 6:35–38).89

Moreover, the author intimates that the arrangements made in theDavidic era have a bearing on later times, mentioning the appointment not only


86 West, Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 9–11.87 Ibid., 10. Jacoby (“First Athenian Prose Writer,” 115–16) and Thomas (Oral Tradition and

Written Record, 167–73) make similar comments about the function of the Philaid genealogy inAthens, arguing that this genealogy supported the civic cult, the acquisition of territory for Attica,and overseas colonization.

88 In speaking of the united monarchy functioning as a formative age, I mean that the authorpresents this period as the time in which many of Israel’s normative institutions such as the Leviti-cal singers, the Davidic monarchy, the Priestly courses, and the Jerusalem temple became estab-lished. There is in the Chronicler’s work an idealization of the united monarchy involving not onlyDavid and Solomon, but also Israel. I develop these themes further in my I Chronicles (forthcom-ing).

89 In this context, the genealogies establish parallels between those Levites serving as priestsand those Levites serving as singers (G. N. Knoppers, “Hierodules, Priests, or Janitors? The Levitesin Chronicles and the History of the Israelite Priesthood,” JBL 118 [1999]: 49–72; idem, “The Rela-tionship of the Priestly Genealogies to the History of the High Priesthood in Jerusalem,” in Judahand the Judeans in the Neo-Babylonian Period [ed. O. Lipschits and J. Blenkinsopp; Winona Lake,IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003], 109–33).

of Heman, Gershon, and Merari, but also of “their sons” (1 Chr 6:18).90 In thismanner, the author hints that the Levitical singers working in his own time, thelate Achaemenid or early Hellenistic period, have an impeccable pedigree.Such is the nature of ancient genealogies that the value of a given lineage incontemporary circumstances is directly tied to its antiquity and setting. By theirnature, genealogies are ostensibly all about the past, but they are also all aboutthe present.91

Conclusions:The Genealogies in Historical Context

In looking for parallels to the Chronicler’s use of genealogies, a number ofscholars have turned to king lists from the ancient Near East. While thisresearch has borne fruit, it has also left many questions unanswered. In thispaper, I have argued that the benefits of comparisons with ancient Greek writ-ings are many. A variety of odd or otherwise inexplicable features of the Chron-icler’s lineages—their heavily segmented organization, their fixation uponcertain earlier periods, the paucity of explicit references to the Chronicler’sown time, and their concentration on kinship relations within the larger nation—all can be illumined by reference to classical works. Moreover, the very exis-tence of an elaborate system of generational relationships either as a literarywork by itself or as a self-contained section within a larger work finds broadparallels in the historiographical traditions attested from ancient Greece.

This essay began with a discussion of the common claim that Chroniclesbears no signs of either Hellenic or Hellenistic influence. I have argued that thecomposition of the Chronicler’s work does manifest some signs of contacts(direct or indirect) with historiographic traditions attested in the ancientAegean world, although I would acknowledge that most of the influences onthe Chronicler’s work were derived from earlier biblical writings. Granted thatthe work exhibits some parallels with literary techniques found in Hellenicwritings, how should one explain such parallels? To answer this question entailsaddressing one of the assumptions that scholars have made in assessing anddating the Chronicler’s work.


90 Hence, in Chronicles the Levites have a pedigree similar to that of the priests (1 Chr 5:27;6:1). Both groups are ultimately descended from Levi (Knoppers, “Hierodules,” 49–72).

91 This consideration, as well as others, leads J. Vansina to comment that “genealogies areamong the most complex sources in existence” (Oral Tradition as History [Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1985], 182). R. Thomas goes further and speaks of genealogies as the least reliableof historical traditions (“Genealogy,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary [3rd ed.; New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1996], 629).

Archaeological studies of the Levant carried out during the last fewdecades have shed much new light on the history of this land during the Neo-Babylonian and Persian eras. Analysis of the material remains from ancientPalestine no longer supports the use of 332 B.C.E. as the threshold for Greekinfluence on Judah. Archaeological and written evidence for Greek contactswith the eastern Mediterranean predates the Macedonian conquest by cen-turies.92 The end of the Neo-Babylonian period and the advent of the Persianperiod witnessed a great expansion of international travel and commerce. Ini-tially, the contacts are most evident in the material culture of the Phoeniciancities, the Galilee, and the coastal plain. E. Stern points out that materialremains in the early Persian period from the Galilee region and the coastalplain are basically western, evincing eastern Greek, Cypriot, and Athenianinfluence.93 The Judean Hills, the Transjordan, and, to a lesser degree, Samariaare more eastern, evincing traditional culture as well as Assyrian, Babylonian,and Egyptian influences.

One could argue that Yehud was initially isolated from western influence,but it would seem hazardous to deny any contacts whatsoever, especially amongthe elite. In any case, as the centuries passed, imports from the east (and localimitations thereof) spread inland. The fifth and fourth centuries were a time ofrapid Hellenization.94 In spite of international wars, international trade contin-ued, even grew. Western traditions were adapted in different ways according tolocal needs and circumstances. Whereas the first bearers of the new culturalproducts seem to have been mostly the Phoenicians, later bearers included the


92 D. Auscher, “Les relations entre la Grèce et la Palestine avant la conquète d’Alexandre,”VT 17 (1967): 8–30; A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1975); E. Stern, “The Beginning of the Greek Settlement in Palestine inthe Light of the Excavations at Tel Dor,” in Recent Excavations in Israel: Studies in Iron AgeArchaeology (ed. S. Gitin and W. G. Dever; AASOR 49; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989),107–23; idem, Dor: Ruler of the Seas (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1994); Larry Stager,Ashkelon Discovered—From Canaanites and Philistines to Romans and Moslems (Washington,DC: BAS, 1991); J. C. Waldbaum, “Early Greek Contacts with the Southern Levant, 1000–600B.C.: The Eastern Perspective,” BASOR 293 (1994): 53–66; eadem, “Greeks in the East or Greeksand the East? Problems in the Definition and Recognition of Presence,” BASOR 305 (1997): 1–17;J. Boardman, The Greeks Overseas (4th ed.; London: Thames & Hudson, 1999); idem, Persia andthe West (London: Thames & Hudson, 2000); idem, “Aspects of ‘Colonization,’” BASOR 322(2001): 33–42.

93 Stern, Material Culture, 283–86.94 J. Elayi, Recherches sur les cités phéniciennes à l’époque perse (Supplemento 51 agli Annali

47/2; Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale, 1987); eadem, Pénétration grecque en Phénicie sousl’empire perse (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1988); eadem, “Présence grecque sur lacôte palestinienne,” in La Palestine à l’époque perse (ed. E-.M. Laperrousaz and A. Lemaire;Études annexes de la Bible de Jérusalem; Paris: Cerf, 1994), 245–60; E. Stern, The Assyrian, Baby-lonian, and Persian Periods 732–332 BCE, vol. 2 of Archaeology of the Land of the Bible (ABRL;New York: Doubleday, 2001), 217–27, 518–34, 552–54, 558–59.

Greeks themselves (soldiers, settlers, and traders). That western influences arepresent in the material culture of Samaria and Yehud is evident by develop-ments in pottery, numismatics, weights, weaponry, fortifications, and glypticart.95

There is also written evidence attesting to the development of numerousties between east and west. Commercial and political contacts are presumed,ratified, and promoted, for example, in an Athenian decree, dating to approxi-mately 367 B.C.E., that honors King Strato of Sidon.96 Found on a stele on theAcropolis near the Parthenon, the decree grants, among other things, variousprerogatives to the king and to his descendants and offers the prospect that fur-ther privileges may be granted in the future.97 The edict authorizes theexchange of diplomatic envoys and a rider provides Sidonian merchants visitingAthens with exemptions from the property tax, from the metics’ tax, as well asfrom having to pay for part of the expense of supporting the public choruses(corhgovn).98 The inscription indicates that the shipment of goods did not flowin simply one direction. International trade was affecting many parts of theancient Mediterranean world. The changes also affected southern Palestine.Evidence for a gradual transition in the southern Levant from older eastern tra-ditions to newer western traditions is suggested by the Zenon papyri99 and tosome extent by the Samaria papyri.100 In short, hundreds of years before the


95 E. Stern, “Between Persia and Greece: Trade, Administration, and Warfare in the Persianand Hellenistic Periods,” in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (ed. T. E. Levy; London:Leicester University Press/New York: Facts on File, 1995), 432–45.

96 M. N. Tod, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, II: From 403 to 323 B.C. (Oxford:Clarendon, 1948), #139.

97 Ibid., lines 4–12.98 Ibid., lines 29–36. One of the Phoencian inscriptions from Piraeus, the port of Athens

(KAI 60), indicates that an association of Sidonians existed there already in the third century B.C.E.Four other Phoenician inscriptions are attested from Piraeus (KAI 56–59) and three from Athensitself (KAI 53–55).

99 A body of reports written in Greek beginning in 259 B.C.E. by Zenon, a steward of Apollo-nius, the financial officer of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The reports focus on Zenon’s trips to andexperiences in Palestine. See C. C. Edgar, Catalogue général des antiquités égyptiennes du Muséedu Caire: Zenon Papyri (5 vols.; Cairo: Institut français d’Archéologie orientale, 1925–40; repr.,Hildesheim: Olms, 1971); W. L. Westermann, Zenon Papyri: Business Papers of the Third CenturyB.C. dealing with Palestine and Egypt (2 vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1934–40); C.Orrieux, Les papyrus de Zenon: L’horizon d’un grec en Egypte au IIIe siècle avant J.C. (Paris:Macula, 1983); X. Durand, Des Grecs en Palestine au IIIe siècle avant Jésus-Christ: Le dossierSyrien des Archives de Zénon de Caunos (261–252) (Paris: Gabalda, 1997).

100 A group of mostly legal documents dating approximately to 375 through 335 B.C.E. Thetexts were left in a cave in the Wa µdî ed-Dâliyeh north of Jericho by Samarian refugees fleeing fromthe army of Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.E. See F. M. Cross, “Papyri of the Fourth Century B.C.from Dâliyeh: A Preliminary Report on Their Discovery and Significance,” in New Directions inBiblical Archaeology (ed. D. N. Freedman and J. C. Greenfield; Garden City, NY: Doubleday,

armies of Alexander the Great conquered Palestine, the long process of Hell-enization had already begun. “By the third century BCE the entire country hadbecome completely Hellenized.”101 A few decades ago, Michael Stoneremarked that “the contrast between the age down to 400 B.C.E. and the pic-ture to be observed after 200 B.C.E. is stark, indeed starker than betweenJudaism before and after the Babylonian exile.”102 If so, Chronicles may be abridge between these two eras.103

Within the Persian and Hellenistic periods, intellectual elites from a vari-ety of societies found themselves confronted with empires aspiring to dominatethe entire ancient Mediterranean world. These societies were both united anddivided by trade, travel, taxation, and war. Given this fluctuating internationalsetting, it may not be altogether surprising that one finds scribes indulging ingenealogical speculations about the roots of their societies and their relations toother peoples. In this context, questions of self-identity, pedigree, shared kin-ship, and antipathy may have been prominent. Authors could affirm, reactagainst, or be unconsciously influenced by this broader historical setting. To besure, one would not want to reduce the Chronicler’s interest in genealogicalrelationships to only one particular impulse in the period in which he lived. Hewas, after all, not the first biblical writer to express an interest in pedigree. Norwould one want to advocate an end to cross-cultural studies of lineages in otherancient Near Eastern lands. There remains much to be learned from compar-isons with the genealogical materials found within ancient Near Eastern royalinscriptions, king lists, and priestly sources. But the point is a broader one. Inthe context of the late Persian period and the beginning of the Hellenisticperiod, the search for historical analogies to the literary conventions found inthe Chronicler’s compositional technique need not end with ancient Mesopo-tamia and Egypt. Some of the best extrabiblical analogies to the Chronicler’suse of segmented genealogies are found not in the East and the South but inthe West.104


1969), 41–62; idem, “The Papyri and Their Historical Implications,” in Discoveries in the WâdÈ µ ed-Dâliyeh (ed. P. W. Lapp and N. L. Lapp; AASOR 41; Cambridge, MA: ASOR, 1974), 17–29; idem,“A Report on the Samaria Papyri,” in Congress Volume: Jerusalem, 1986 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup40; Leiden: Brill, 1988), 17–26; M. J. W. Leith, Wadi Daliyeh I: The Seal Impressions (DJD 24;Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). The papyri themselves have been recently published byD. M. Gropp, Wadi Daliyeh II: The Samaria Papyri from Wadi Daliyeh (DJD 28; Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 2001).

101 Stern, “Between Persia and Greece,” 444.102 M. E. Stone, Scriptures, Sects, and Visions: A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish

Revolts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 25.103 Along with many other commentators, I believe that Chronicles was written near the end

of the Persian period or the beginning of the Hellenistic period (I Chronicles, forthcoming).104 I wish to thank my colleague Paul B. Harvey, Jr., for his helpful comments on an earlier

draft of this paper.

JBL 122/4 (2003) 651–666

THE LANGUAGE OF JOBAND ITS POETIC FUNCTION

EDWARD L. [email protected]

Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978 Israel

That the language of the poetic core of the book of Job is both rich andcomplex is a commonplace of scholarship.1 One encounters in Job a greaterdiversity of forms and a larger density of strange and foreign words than in anyother book of the Bible. Scholars have pointed in particular to a high incidenceof vocabulary that can be explicated only by recourse to Arabic and to a remark-able salience of Aramaic words and features.2

The concentration of so many apparently foreign elements in Job has ledscholars to adopt one of the following three explanations. One theory holds thatthe largely Hebrew book of Job that we possess was written originally inanother language and was then translated, though not without telltale traces,into Hebrew. Leading candidates for the source language of the allegedly trans-lated book are Edomite (of which we have no substantial samples), Arabic, andAramaic.3 Yet the Hebrew of Job is highly learned and specialized, and its

Earlier versions of this study were presented at the annual meeting of the Society of BiblicalLiterature in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 20, 2000, and at the Institute for Advanced Stud-ies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem on November 6, 2001. I am grateful to the Institute forits support during the 2001–2 academic year and to several colleagues at the Institute for theirfeedback and advice. I publish this study in tribute to Professor Richard Corney, a gracious col-league and friend from the Seminar for the Study of the Hebrew Bible of Columbia University,upon his retirement from General Theological Seminary in New York.

1 E.g., Yair Hoffman, A Blemished Perfection (trans. Jonathan Chipman; JSOTSup 213;Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 176–221; Ian Young, Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew(Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1993), 130–37.

2 See, e.g., Henry J. Weber, “Material for the Construction of a Grammar of the Book ofJob,” AJSL 15 (1898): 1–32. For a concise delineation of Aramaic words in Job, see, e.g., S. R.Driver and G. B. Gray, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job (ICC; Edinburgh:T & T Clark, 1921), xlvi–xlvii.

3 For Edomite, see, e.g., Robert H. Pfeiffer, “Edomite Wisdom,” ZAW 44 (1926): 13–25. ForArabic, see, e.g., Frank H. Foster, “Is the Book of Job a Translation from an Arabic Original?” AJSL

651

rhetorical uses are elegant and sometimes even intricate.4 For these and otherreasons scholars tend more recently to dismiss the theories of translation.5

A second theory holds that the foreign elements in the language of Jobresult from contact with languages spoken in the environment of the book’sprovenience. Most proponents of this view set the book of Job in the Persianperiod,6 when Aramaic became the lingua franca of Israel and the Trans-jordan.7 The high incidence of Aramaic in Job, it is thought, reflects the linguis-tic habits of the author and/or his audience. Others have imagined an earliercontact with Phoenician and other north Canaanite languages.8 The problemwith the notion that the Joban poet incorporated words and forms from what-ever language was around is that it fails to give proper appreciation to the factthat, foreign elements aside, the Hebrew of Job is richer than that of any otherbiblical text. Our poet could have managed quite well with Hebrew alone, ifthat had suited his purposes. Moreover, the idea that the poet was notlanguage-conscious flies in the face of the manifold devices of literary art thatare evident to any competent reader.9

Yet a third theory suggests that the language of Job is a dialect of Hebrewquite different from the Judean variety with which we are most familiar in the


49 (1932): 21–45; cf. A. Guillaume, “The Arabic Background of the Book of Job,” in Promise andFulfillment: Essays Presented to S. H. Hooke (ed. F. F. Bruce; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963),106–27; idem, Studies in the Book of Job with a New Translation (ed. J. Macdonald; Leiden: Brill,1968). The notion that Job is translated from Arabic, or Aramaic, goes back at least to R. Abrahamibn Ezra in the twelfth century (see his comment on Job 2:11); see also Yehuda Leb ben Ze’ev, rpsbwya (Vienna, 1834), cited by Rah\el Margaliot, awh` wmk bwya (Jerusalem: Y. Marcus, 1981), 88. ForAramaic, see, e.g., N. H. Tur-Sinai, The Book of Job: A New Commentary (rev. ed.; Jerusalem:Kiryath Sepher, 1967), xxx–xl, 110–12.

4 See Robert Gordis, The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job (Chicago/London: Universityof Chicago Press, 1965), 166–68.

5 E.g., Francis I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary (TOTC; Leicester/Down-ers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1975), 60; Hoffman, Blemished Perfection, esp. 194–200.

6 The prose tale of Job (chs. 1–2 and 42:7–17) is clearly a product of the Persian period; seeAvi Hurvitz, “The Date of the Prose-Tale of Job Linguistically Reconsidered,” HTR 67 (1974):17–34. The poetic core of Job, which abounds in Aramaisms, presupposes an audience that knowsAramaic. Such an audience, for an essentially Hebrew work, begins to exist in the Persian period(late sixth century B.C.E. on); see Joseph Naveh and Jonas C. Greenfield, “Hebrew and Aramaic inthe Persian Period,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 1 (ed. W. D. Davies and LouisFinkelstein; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 115–29.

7 E.g., Edouard Dhorme, A Commentary on the Book of Job (trans. H. Knight; London:Thomas Nelson, 1967), clxxvii–clxxviii; Gordis, Book of God and Man, 162.

8 E.g., Andersen, Job, 57; Anthony R. Ceresko, Job 29–31 in the Light of Northwest Semitic:A Translation and Philological Commentary (BibOr 36; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1980),195–97.

9 See, e.g., John E. Hartley, The Book of Job (NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 6.

Bible—a more northern or eastern dialect with Aramaic affinities.10 This expla-nation lacks conviction because, while some of the apparently foreign featuresare subtle and can sometimes be detected only by the most sophisticated read-ers, many if not most of the others are obvious and alternate with the corre-sponding native Hebrew forms.11 Thus we find well-known Aramaic wordsjuxtaposed with their Hebrew equivalents in parallel couplets; e.g., @ylm (mil-lîn), “words,” together with rbd (da µba µr), “word” (e.g., Job 4:2); dh` (s åa µhe µd),“witness,” with d[ (>e µd; e.g., 16:19); dwr[ (>a µrôd), “wild ass,” with arp (pere<;39:5); !rg (gerem), “bone” with !x[ (>es\em; 40:18); hta (<aµtâ), “come,” with ab(baµ<; 3:25). The morphologically Aramaic plural millîn, “words” (e.g., 4:2; 12:11;15:13; etc.) alternates with the corresponding Hebrew form millîm (e.g., 6:26;8:10; 15:3; etc.).12 Apart from its use on such blatantly Aramaic words as millîn,the Aramaic masculine plural suffix –în occurs relatively rarely in Job. The useof the morph –în, precisely because it is only occasional, serves to highlight anAramaic word or form; it does not mark the language of Job as “dialectal.” Tothe contrary, a dialect is ordinarily characterized by its recurrent use of a partic-ular word or form in contrast to, not alongside, the corresponding word andform in the dialect from which it is differentiated.13

Rather than seek an answer to the question of foreign linguistic elementsin the poetry of Job in the area of dialectology, others of us seek to understandthe phenomenon in the realm of poetics. We find it more in keeping with theliterary character of the book, as well as more meaningful, to interpret the for-eign elements by suggesting a poetic function.14 I shall account for the mani-fold adaptations of foreign, and especially Aramaic, features in the poetry of Jobwith two general factors. On the one hand, the use of non-Hebrew elements inJob functions as the poet’s manipulations of Hebrew do—to achieve a variety ofstructure-producing and meaning-enhancing effects. On the other hand, asH. L. Ginsberg has explained, the repeated use of non-Hebrew features lendsthe poetic dialogues an air of foreignness—which is particularly appropriatewith regard to Job and his companions, who are all apparently Transjordanianfigures.15 In what follows we shall illustrate and develop these hypotheses.

Greenstein: The Language of Job 653

10 Ibid.; Ivan Engnell, A Rigid Scrutiny: Critical Essays on the Old Testament (ed. and trans.J. T. Willis with H. Ringgren; Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969), 257–58; Young, Diver-sity, 135.

11 See H. L. Ginsberg, “Job, the Book of,” EncJud 10:120.12 See Gary A. Rendsburg, “Linguistic Variation and the ‘Foreign’ Factor in the Hebrew

Bible,” IOS 15 (1995): 180.13 See Tur-Sinai, Job, xxxiii–xxxiv.14 See Hoffman, Blemished Perfection, 203–7.15 Ginsberg, “Job,” 119–20. Tur-Sinai once made a similar proposal but later abandoned it

(Job, xxxiii).

For a first case in point, consider Job 3:8:

@tywl rr[ !ydyt[h ,!wy yrra whbqy

May they execrate it—those who curse Yamm,The ones who are equipped, who curse Leviathan.

In order to invoke an effective curse on the night of his conception, Job sum-mons the “heavy hitters,” the demons whose powers are strong enough to com-bat the sea monsters Yamm and Leviathan.16 Late in the first millennium of ourera, people were still summoning these powers in the imprecations theyinscribed on the well-known Aramaic incantation bowls.17 We have in this versetwo virtually synonymous phrases, coordinated in parallelism. In light of thename “Leviathan,” it is fairly clear to most commentators that the word !wy isbest understood to denominate the Canaanite deity of the sea, Yamm.18 And inview of the participle yrEr“ao, “those who curse,” it ought to be clear that the par-ticiple rrE[o in the B colon has a similar sense. By what means can we interpret!wy to refer to Yamm and rr[ to designate someone who curses?

I suggest that the solution is to understand that the poet is in each caseengaging a foreign feature or word.19 With respect to !wy, he is vocalizingaccording to the neighboring Phoenician pronunciation, whereby stressed ahad become stressed o.20 By this linguistic sleight of tongue, the poet is able to


16 See Benjamin Szold, The Book of Job (in Hebrew; Baltimore: H. F. Siemers, 1886), 24;G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew Text of Job,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient NearEast: Presented to Professor Harold Henry Rowley by the Society for Old Testament Study in Asso-ciation with the Editorial Board of Vetus Testamentum, in Celebration of His Sixty-fifth Birthday,24 March 1955 (ed. M. Noth and D. Winton Thomas; VTSup 3; Leiden: Brill, 1960), 72; MichaelFishbane, “Jeremiah IV 23–26 and Job III 3–13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern,” VT 21(1971): 160–61; Jacob Klein, bwya rps :^òònth !lw[ (Tel Aviv: Davidson-Itim, 1996), 39.

17 See, e.g., James A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia:University Museum, 1913), 121, no. 2: 3-4, 6: “I cast upon you the spell of Yamm (amyd ap`ya) andthe spell of the Dragon Leviathan (anynt @tywld ap`ya) . . . I bring down upon you the imprecation,the decree, and the ban that was brought down . . . on the Dragon Leviathan (anynt @tywl l[). . . .”

18 See Marvin H. Pope, Job: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (3rd ed.; AB 15; GardenCity, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 30. Contrast Georg Fohrer, Das Buch Hiob (KAT; Gütersloh: Mohn,1963), 110; James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (2nd ed.; WinonaLake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1987), 381–83.

19 For bilingual wordplay between Egyptian and Aramaic from the period of Job (fifth cen-tury B.C.E.), see Richard C. Steiner, “The Scorpion Spell from Wadi H\ ammamat: Another AramaicText in Demotic Script,” JNES 60 (2001): 263.

20 See Mitchell Dahood, cited in Walter L. Michel, Job in the Light of Northwest Semitic,vol. 1 (BibOr 42; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1987), 54–55. For the phenomenon, see JohannesFriedrich-Wolfgang Röllig, Phönizsch-Punische Grammatik (2nd ed.; AnOr; Rome: PontificalBiblical Institute, 1970), 29–30; Charles R. Krahmalkov, A Phoenician-Punic Grammar (HO;Leiden: Brill, 2000), 9, 28. My friend and colleague Prof. W. R. Garr has suggested to me (beyond

produce a double entendre.21 The phrase !/y yrEr“/a, whose primary meaning is“those who curse Yamm,” comes to convey a second meaning as well. Onehears in the phrase !/y yrEr“/a the nearly homonymous !/y r/a, “light of day.” Thedouble entendre redoubles the power of the curse: May that night be execratedby the demons whose strength is sufficient to curse the dreaded Yamm/Leviathan; and may that night be cursed, eliminated, as all nights are, by thelight of day. Our poet adopts a Phoenician vocalization specifically here withthe apparent purpose of adding a pagan, Canaanite nuance to the name of theold Canaanite deity Yamm—perhaps the way that ancient Judeans customarilyheard the name from the lips of Phoenicians for whom Yamm/Yom(m) was stilla deity.

The participle rrE/[ in the second colon, which resembles the participle ofthe A colon yrEr“/a in sound, morphology,22 and (as we shall see) sense, is drawnfrom the Arabic verb >arra, “to disgrace.”23 It is familiar in Biblical Hebrew inthe adjectival form yrIyrI[}, which is typically rendered “childless” on the basis ofGen 15:2, but which cannot mean “childless” in view of Jer 22:30, where a “dis-graced” man will prosper neither on his own nor through his sons.24 Rather,yrIyrI[} means “disgraced, accursed” in all its attestations. The use of the verb rr"[;in Job 3:8 creates a pun on its sound-alike A word yrEr“/a. Additionally, it pro-vides our verse with an even higher degree of coherence, through internalrhyme.

The poet’s use of Arabic produces a double entendre in Job 3:7:

wb hnnr abt la ,dwmlg yhy awhh hlylh hnh


what he has written in Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine, 1000–586 B.C.E. [Philadelphia: Uni-versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1985], 33–35) that the phonological change á > ó may not occur in adoubly closed syllable, preceding two consonants, as in /yamm/. Indeed, the forms attested inGreek and Latin transcription that are enumerated in the grammars are all of the type dabór(< dabár); cf. the alternate spellings of Hiram, King of Tyre’s, name in 1 Kgs 5: h\îraµm/h\îrôm; seeMordechai Cogan, I Kings: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 10; NewYork: Doubleday, 2001), 226. If Garr is correct, then the Hebrew poet of Job may be invoking apseudo-Phoenicianism.

21 Compare the poet’s use of the term !yrIaoy“, “riverlets of the Nile,” in the general sense of“watercourses” in Job 28:10, with the apparent purpose of creating a pun on r/a, “light,” a key wordin the poem (Stephen A. Geller, “‘Where Is Wisdom?’: A Literary Study of Job 28 in Its Settings,”in Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel [ed. Jacob Neusner, Baruch A. Levine, and ErnestFrerichs; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987], 164).

22 Obviously, the A form is plural and the B form is singular. The singular term can be under-stood as a collective, although there will always be those with an inclination to emend it to a plural.

23 See G. R. Driver, “Problems,” 72.24 See Arnold B. Ehrlich, Mikra Ki-Pheschutô (in Hebrew; Berlin: Poppelauer, 1899), 1:39

(at Gen 15:2). For a different interpretation of rr[ here, on the basis of a less precise Arabic ety-mological correspondence, see Barr, Comparative Philology, 125.

Lo, that night—let it be dwmlg;Let no celebration enter therein!

The substantive dWmlG" has the primary meaning of “sterile earth,” and it isattested elsewhere (Isa 49:21; Job 15:34; 30:3) with the sense of “sterile.” TheArabic noun julmuµd, however, also refers to a boulder or solitary crag.25

Accordingly, Job not only wishes that the night of his conception had been aninfertile environment; he also wishes it had stood alone, isolated from the daysand nights of the year. One ought to translate the verse twice: “That night—letit be sterile ground . . .”; “That night—let it be a solitary crag . . . !” As I havepointed out elsewhere, the image of a solitary structure standing in the desertfunctions as an objective correlative of Job, who in his opening discourseexpresses utter loneliness.26

In Job 4:3 a slight revocalization of the word !ybr (rabbîm) as raµbîm in theA colon both provides a more apt parallel to the vivid B clause and produces adouble meaning. Deriving ra µbbîm from Akkadian ra µbu, “to shudder, trem-ble,”27 we may understand the verse as follows:

qzjt twpr !ydyw !ybr trsy hnh

Look, you have always fortified the trembling;Arms that have gone limp you have strengthened.

The Akkadian word occurs elsewhere in Job in 33:19, in the form rîb, “trem-bling,”28 and also perhaps, as G. R. Driver and Ginsberg have suggested, in4:14.29 In any event, the use of the peculiar term raµbîm in Job 4:3 suggests bynear homonymy the more pedestrian term rabbîm, producing the additionalmeaning: “Look, you have fortified many trembling people.”30


25 See Guillaume, Studies, 80; Robert Gordis, The Book of Job: Commentary, New Transla-tion, and Special Studies (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1978), 34. That the meaning“boulder” is basic to the word is evident in the fact that that meaning continues to be a primary onein modern literary Arabic (Hans Wehr, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic [ed. J. MiltonCowan; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966], 132a).

26 E. Greenstein, “The Loneliness of Job” (in Hebrew), in Job—In the Bible, Philosophy, andArt (ed. Lea Mazor; Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Publications, 1995), 50–51.

27 Tur-Sinai, Job, 76–77.28 See Dhorme, Commentary, 497. For the form rîb compare the Akkadian noun rÈ µbu,

“quaking” (CAD R, 321–22).29 G. R. Driver, “Problems,” 73; H. L. Ginsberg, “Job the Patient and Job the Impatient,” in

Congress Volume: Rome 1968 (VTSup 17; Leiden: Brill, 1969), 105. In light of Jer 23:9, Ginsberg(class notes) reads 4:14: #yjrh ytwmx[ brw, “And shaking (roµb) made my bones shudder.”

30 For another possible poetic use of an Akkadian word to create a double entendre, seeDhorme, Commentary, 281–82, where seµper in Job 19:23 may play on both the Hebrew word for“document” and the Akkadian word for “bronze” (siparru; see CAD S, 296–99). The double mean-ing is suggested by the references to an iron and lead stylus in the immediately following verse.

Thus far I have pointed to examples of how the Joban poet has createdpoetic effects by means of language that would seem to be drawn from Phoeni-cian, Arabic, and Akkadian. It is clear to most readers of Job, however, that theforeign language that stands out by its repeated and obvious use in the poetry isAramaic. Before going farther, we would do well to deal with a methodologicalquestion that is often raised in connection with proposed Aramaisms in theBible.31 How can we know that a word is an Aramaism and not simply aHebrew word that shows up only now? E. Y. Kutscher and Avi Hurvitz havegiven us a number of helpful criteria for identifying Aramaisms.32

First, the Aramaic term occurs beside a well-established Hebrew syn-onym. The verb qr[ (>aµraq), “to flee,” for example, which occurs in Job 30:3, isa synonym of Hebrew jrb (baµrah\).33 Second, the Aramaic word is attested rou-tinely in Aramaic texts—for our purposes, ideally in texts from the Persianperiod, roughly contemporary with Job, such as the Proverbs of Ah \Èµqar andother documents found at Elephantine. That is the case with the verb qr[,although in this period it is generally spelled qrq.34 Numerous words in Job,whose origins are apparently Aramaic, are attested in Persian-period texts.Among them are: dlg, “skin” (e.g., Job 16:15),35 !rg, “bone” (e.g., 40:18),36 @pk,“hunger” (e.g., 5:22; 30:3; Ah \iqar 123), hlm, “word” (e.g., 4:2; Ah \iqar 82, 93,188), dwr[, “wild ass” (e.g., Job 39:5; Ah\iqar 203), dh`, “witness” (e.g., 16:19;Ah\iqar 140).37

Words that have sometimes been thought to be Aramaic, but which are


31 See Hoffman, Blemished Perfection, 185.32 Eduard Y. Kutscher, A History of the Hebrew Language (ed. Raphael Kutscher;

Jerusalem: Magnes; Leiden: Brill, 1982), 76; Avi Hurvitz, “The Chronological Significance of ‘Ara-maisms’ in Biblical Hebrew,” IEJ 18 (1968): 234–37; cf. Robert Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew:Toward an Historical Typology of Biblical Hebrew Prose (HSM 12; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press,1976), 10–12. The criteria of Kutscher and Hurvitz suffice to neutralize the skeptical approach ofNorman H. Snaith, The Book of Job: Its Origin and Purpose (London: SCM, 1968), 104–12.

33 See Kutscher, History, 76. For a possible double entendre between qr[ in the Aramaicallyderived sense of “flee” and the native Hebrew sense of “gnaw,” see Scott B. Noegel, Janus Paral-lelism in the Book of Job (JSOTSup 223; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 103–4.

34 The spelling qrq persists through most of the Persian period; see M. L. Folmer, The Ara-maic Language in the Achaemenid Period: A Study in Linguistic Variation (OLA 68; Leuven:Peeters, 1995), 69, 94–95 n. 369. The spelling qr[ in Job, together with other phonological fea-tures, suggests a later, rather than earlier, Persian-period dating.

35 See G. R. Driver, Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B.C. (rev. ed.; Oxford: Claren-don, 1965), letter 13, line 3; Ah \iqar 167, 210. References from Ah \iqar are taken from BezalelPorten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt 3: Literature,Accounts, Lists (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1993), 23–53.

36 See A. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923), text71:15 (p. 180).

37 See also ibid., text 1:8 (p. 1), and passim.

not found in contemporary texts, may prove to be Hebrew. A case in point is`y`y (yaµšîš), “old person” (Job 15:10), taken by Henry J. Weber to be Aramaic.38

It does not occur in Aramaic texts and would appear to have a Hebrew deriva-tion—a development from `y, “to be, exist,” coming to mean “longevity.”39 Anold person, in this derivation, is someone who has endured.

The third criterion for identifying an Aramaism is that the likelihood of anAramaism increases as the incidence of Aramaic words in a text grows higher.That is the situation in Job, where, as was said, the use of Aramaic is not onlyfrequent but blatant.

The poet would appear to be calling attention to many of the Aramaicusages by employing well-known Aramaic terms alongside familiar Hebrewequivalents; compare, for example, the use of hwj, “to declare,” in Job 15:17a,followed by such native Hebrew equivalents as dygh and rps in v. 17b and v. 18;and its use in 32:17 following Hebrew hn[.40 Moreover, as was said above, thepoet often matches a well-known Aramaic word with its Hebrew equivalent inso-called synonymous parallelism. Words such as these (e.g., hlm, !rg, dwr[,hta, dh`) would be discerned by any sophisticated reader, or listener, in anAramaic-speaking environment. A word like millîn, “words,” whose morphol-ogy is also Aramaic, is particularly telling.

As was argued above, the Aramaic in Job is neither haphazard nor consis-tent; it is neither incidental nor dialectal. Rather, the salience of Aramaic in Jobwould seem to serve poetic functions. In addition to the ad hoc functions ofpunning, double entendre, and euphony that I have indicated above, the sprin-kling of Aramaic words and forms throughout the poem of Job would appear toserve a more general and pervasive purpose. As N. H. Tur-Sinai, Ginsberg, andothers have explained, the use of Aramaic lends the Joban dialogues a Trans-jordanian veneer.41 In portraying his characters as Kedemite (from east of the


38 Weber, “Material” (n. 2 above), 14.39 See the Targum of Prov 8:21, where `y is rendered ataygs ayn`, “many years”; so R. David

Qimh\i, The Book of Roots (in Hebrew), s.v.; cf. Ugaritic it, used of Baal’s living on, coupled with h\y(CAT 1.6 iii 20–21). V. A. Hurowitz explains `y in Prov 8:21 in the sense of “property,” reflecting asemantic development parallel to that of Akkadian bu µšu/bušû, “property, wealth,” from bašû, “tobe, exist” (“Two Terms for Wealth in Proverbs VIII in Light of Akkadian,” VT 50 [2000]: 255–57).

40 In the Targum of Job from Qumran (11QtgJob) hwj in 32:17 is translated by hwj (perhaps inthe aph>el conjugation) (Michael Sokoloff, The Targum to Job from Qumran XI [Ramat Gan: BarIlan University Press, 1974], 68 with comment on 130).

41 See n. 15 above. See also Jonas C. Greenfield, “The Language of the Book,” in The Book ofJob: A New Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish PublicationSociety, 1980), xvi; Kutscher, History, 72; Rendsburg, “Linguistic Variation,” 178–81; Hoffman,Blemished Perfection, 204. Rendsburg (p. 179) expresses his unawareness of any predecessors,except for Tur-Sinai.

Rendsburg, following S. A. Kaufman (reference in Rendsburg), explains the poet’s creationof an Aramaic atmosphere in Job by recourse to the discourse concept of “code-switching.” In

Jordan), not only did the poet give them Edomite and/or Aramean names,42

and not only did he have them refer to the deity by names other than the dis-tinctively Israelite name YHWH,43 but, as Ginsberg put it:

he adds a Kedemite linguistic coloring. . . . Kedem . . . stands in synonymousparallelism with Aram in Numbers 23:7, and a famous native of this region isstyled Laban the Aramean and [is] represented as speaking Aramaic. . . . It istherefore for the sake of local color that this writer, whose knowledge ofHebrew (and of Hebrew Scriptures) was excellent, . . . makes his characterskeep using the noun millin . . . . and interlard[s] their speech with such hair-raising Aramaisms as sahed . . . and geled, and such forms as minhem (“fromthem,” Heb. mehem).44

In what follows I would like to show that the poet of Job incorporates Ara-maic linguistic elements not only for dialectal coloring but also for more acuteand specific rhetorical effects and that the Aramaizing of the poet can be dis-cerned not only in the lexicon, but in the phonology, morphology, and syntax ofthe language as well.

In the domain of Aramaic vocabulary, the primary effect would be to cre-ate a Kedemite atmosphere; however, some lexical usages would appear toserve other poetic functions. In Job 16:15, for example, the poet employs theAramaic verb ll[, “enter,” restructured morphologically as a (“causative”)polel, in the B clause: ynrq rp[b ytllw[w, “I sank my horn into the ground.”45


code-switching proper, a speaker moves from one register or dialect to another to indicate a changein social or rhetorical function; see, e.g., John Gumperz, Discourse Strategies (Cambridge/NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 75–81. In the dialogues of Job, however, Aramaic isintermixed mildly but routinely throughout. The speakers do not make any sudden shifts. Only thespeeches of Elihu (chs. 32–37) are distinguished both linguistically—by an enhanced use of Ara-maic—and rhetorically—(at least initially) by a bombastic tone. Since the Elihu chapters are,according to most scholars, composed by a different poet, it is difficult to ascribe their uniquenessto a discursive function. See, e.g., Driver and Gray, Job, xl–xlviii.

Rendsburg suggests (pp. 180–81) that the God speeches in Job (chs. 38–41) are not charac-terized by a noticeable use of Aramaic, but his claim is wholly unsubstantiated. There are manyAramaisms in the divine discourses, some of them cited in the present article. The presence of Ara-maic in the deity’s discourse may raise questions concerning the thesis developed here. SinceYHWH is not a Kedemite, why should he make occasional use of Aramaic? On the one hand, the useof Aramaic may serve a variety of poetic functions. On the other hand, there is no reason for thedeity’s speech to be tinged with Aramaic. One may suppose that the deity speaks with an Aramaicflavor as he is addressing a native Aramaic speaker.

42 See Ginsberg, “Job,” 119–20. Of course, the names are regarded as Edomite in biblicaltexts and may never be attested epigraphically; but that is all that is relevant for the poet.

43 Ibid., 120.44 Loc. cit. For the Joban poet’s familiarity with the language of Genesis, see Margaliot,

awh` wmk bwya, 76–79.45 See Pope, Job, 124; Amos Hakham, Job (in Hebrew; Da>at Miqra<; Jerusalem: Mossad Ha-

The gesture described is the antithesis of raising one’s horn (e.g., 1 Sam 2:1; Ps92:11), a metaphor drawn from the animal world, expressing the notion ofpride.46 The use of Aramaically derived lle/[ here would seem to play on thepreposition yle[} in the preceding colon and on the syllable ‘al that pervades thesurrounding passage.

In the area of syntax, the distinctive Aramaic feature of preceding a directobject with the preposition -l occurs several times in Job.47 Possibly each of theapproximately ten attestations of the phenomenon in Job48 appears to serve adiscursive or rhetorical function. In 5:2a and 21:22a, the preposition disam-biguates a fronted object (lywal and lal, respectively). In some verses, the useof -l produces alliteration, assonance, or internal rhyme within the verse (see,e.g., 8:8, where -l] preceding rq,je echoes -l] preceding @/vyrI; 9:11 and 23:8,where /l answers aOl; 12:23, where !yI/Gl' is doubled; 14:21, where /ml; echoes /l;19:28a, where /l recalls yli and alø of v. 27). In 34:3 the -l preceding whatshould probably be revocalized as <oµkel, “food,”49 reinforces the allusion to both6:30 and 12:11, verses similar in motif in which the consonant l appears threeand four times, respectively.

A less obviously Aramaic syntactic feature characterizing the poetry of Jobis the oft-noted omission of the definite article (prefixed -h'), even, at times,when following the nota accusativi ta (e.g., 13:25; 36:7; 41:26).50 Nahum Sarna


Rav Kook, 1984), 129. The familiar Aramaic verb is attested in the late Achaemenid-Seleucidcuneiform Aramaic incantation, line 4 (in the haf>el); see now M. J. Geller, “The Aramaic Incanta-tion in Cuneiform Script (AO 6489 = TCL 6,58),” Jaarbericht van het vooraziatisch-egyptischGenootschap “Ex Oriente Lux,” 35–36 (1997–2000): 127–46; for discussion of the form, see pp.136–37. The influence of Aramaic ll[, “enter,” on late Biblical Hebrew in general is reflected inthe fact that the similar Hebrew verb hl[, “go up,” is sometimes rendered by ab, “enter,” when theChronicler is copying a source from Samuel–Kings; compare, e.g., 2 Kgs 12:11 and 2 Chr 24:11; seeMark F. Rooker, Biblical Hebrew in Transition: The Book of Ezekiel (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990),101 n. 126 (drawing from Sara Japhet).

46 See “Horn,” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (ed. Leland Ryken et al.; Downers Grove,IL/Leicester, UK: InterVarsity, 1998), 400. The philological equivocations of Margit L. Süring aredisappointing (The Horn-Motif in the Hebrew Bible and Related Ancient Near Eastern Literatureand Iconography [Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1980]).

47 The phenomenon occurs elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew (e.g., Exod 32:12; Num 12:13;1 Sam 23:10; Isa 11:9); see, e.g., Bruce K. Waltke and M. O’Connor, An Introduction to BiblicalHebrew Syntax (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 184. It is generally regarded as a laterHebrew feature, influenced by Aramaic (see GKC §117n; Polzin, Late Biblical Hebrew, 64–66;Rooker, Biblical Hebrew in Transition, 97–99). For its use in contemporary Aramaic, see, e.g.,Takamitsu Muraoka and Bezalel Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (HO; Leiden: Brill,1998), 262–63.

48 See Driver and Gray, Job, lxx.49 See Fohrer, Hiob, 464; Gordis, Job, 386.50 See esp. Nahum M. Sarna, “Notes on the Use of the Definite Article in the Poetry of Job,”

has observed the dropping of determinative -h' within construct genitivephrases where the article is present in a parallel passage in so-called SecondIsaiah.51 Compare, for example, $ra rp[, “dust of the ground” (Job 14:19), with$rah rp[ (Isa 40:12); and !ym` gwj, “border of the sky” (Job 22:14), with gwj$rah, “border of the earth” (Isa 40:22). Compare also !wy dbay, “Perish the day,”in Job 3:3 with its doppelgänger !wyh rwra, “Cursed be the day,” in Jer 20:14.52

In view of the far-reaching uses of Aramaic in the poetry of Job, it seems mostreasonable to explain the dropping of determinative -h' as an evocation ofAramaic, where determination is achieved by the suffixation of –a. And becausethe dropping of the definite article in Joban poetry is only occasional, it is not adialectal feature but a poetic function.

The semantic coloring of Job with Aramaic usages is similarly light andoccasional, but routine. The Hebrew verb q`[, “to distrain,” has posed a chal-lenge to scholars seeking the technical meaning of the legal term in passages inJob.53 In virtually all passages in Job, the verb seems to indicate wrongdoing orinjustice in a more general way (e.g, 10:3).54 In Persian-period Aramaic, theverb and noun forms of q`[ denote injustice in general.55 The Hebrew sense ofq`[ in Joban poetry therefore appears to be tinged with Aramaic.

More subtly, the verb wakdyw (we ·yiddakke ·<û), “and they are oppressed”(Job 5:4), though morphologically a good Hebrew hitpa>el, has an unexpectedpassive sense here.56 Such a passive usage reflects Aramaic influence (wherethe passive voice is conveyed by infixed -t and not by internal vocalic flexion)and is, in fact, characteristic of late Biblical Hebrew.57 In the context of Jobanpoetry, however, it appears to be an Aramaic coloring, another linguistic featuremarking the speech of the characters as Kedemite.


in Texts, Temples, and Traditions: A Tribute to Menahem Haran (ed. Michael V. Fox et al.; WinonaLake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1996), 279–84.

51 Ibid., 282.52 For a comparison of these two passages, see Greenstein, “Loneliness of Job,” 43–53.53 E.g., Sylvia H. Scholnick, “Lawsuit Drama in the Book of Job” (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis Uni-

versity, 1975), esp. 178–79. BDB renders most instances of q`[ by “oppress, extort” (pp. 798–99).54 In view of Job 10:2–3, we should read in 9:21 ynq`[yw, “(Though I am innocent,) he would

do me wrong,” in parallel with yn[y`ry, “(Though I be in the right, his [!] mouth) would declare meguilty”; see also Fohrer, Hiob, 199; and my “A Forensic Understanding of the Speech from theWhirlwind,” in Texts, Temples, and Traditions, ed. Fox et al., 243 with n. 11.

55 E.g., Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbook of Aramaic Documents from AncientEgypt 1: Letters (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1986), 84, lines 5, 8, 9. Cf. the general sense ofq`[ in Qoh 4:1.

56 Ginsberg had once suggested repointing the verb as a pu>al on the basis of Job 22:9 (“d[bmtrwsml,” Tarbiz 5 [1934]: 209).

57 See Waltke and O’Connor, Introduction, 432. Another example is the hitpa>el forml`mtaw, “I seem (like dust and ashes),” in Job 30:19. The unique use of the hitpa>el of l`m replacesthe ordinary use of the nif>al (e.g., Isa 14:10; Pss 28:1; 49:13, 21; 143:7).

Sometimes an Aramaic word is employed but reshaped in the mold ofHebrew morphology. The simplest case is one like the word !yLimi, “words” (seeabove), where the Hebrew pluralizing suffix is appended to the originally Ara-maic word. In such an instance, one can well maintain that the word is alto-gether Hebrew. However, one can only with difficulty make such a claim withrespect to a word such as hr:h;n“, “light,” in Job 3:4. Here the Aramaic word ar:/hn“(e.g., Dan 2:22), the equivalent of Hebrew r/a, “light,” is restructured in aHebrew pattern as hr:h;n“.58 The form is identical to the form of other terms thatoccur in parallel syntactic constructions nearby in the text. Thus, in Job 3:4 thephrase, “Let no light (hr:h;n“) shine upon it,” is echoed in the following verse bythe phrase, “Let cloudy gloom dwell upon it.” The word for “cloudy gloom,”hn:n:[}, is morphologically identical to hr:h;n“, “light,” reinforcing the equivalentsenses that no light/cloudy gloom should characterize the day of Job’s birth.Both of these forms anticipate the same morphological shape of hn:n:r“, “delight,”in 3:7. There Job expresses the parallel wish that no “delight” fall on the night ofhis conception. The morphologically equivalent words, appearing within paral-lel syntactic constructions, underscore the twinning of Job’s two curses—that ofhis birth-day and that of his conception night.

In some cases the poet structures a Hebrew word according to an Aramaicmorphological scheme. A fairly obvious example occurs in Job 6:12, where thenoun vWjn:, “bronze,” appears without the vocalic suffix that defines the nativeHebrew form hv;Wjn“ (see Job 40:18). The Hebrew form vWjn: is quite apparentlyreshaped in the direction of Aramaic vj;n“ (e.g., Ah \iqar 121).

The following example is more subtle. Several commentators have dis-cerned that in Job 3:22, where the B colon speaks of people rejoicing when theyfinally exit their miserable existence and reach the grave, the A colon mustmean something similar. The word-pair `y` // jm`, “be glad” // “rejoice,” is syn-onymous, and so the Hebrew word lyGI should be roughly synonymous with rbq,“grave.”59 Scholars tend to emend lyGI to lG", “pile (of stones),”60 but my thesis—in which I seek a possible Aramaic formation—makes such a repointing unnec-essary. We have in the form lyGI a Biblical Hebrew synonym of later Hebrew lle/G(e.g., m. <Ohalot 2:4), “tombstone,” derived from the verb llg, “to roll.” Thestone is rolled over the mouth of the tomb or burial cave, a practice that is welldocumented in the archaeological remains of first-millennium B.C.E. Judah.61


58 See GKC §84g with p. 230 n. 2.59 See esp. Israel Eitan, “Biblical Studies,” HUCA 14 (1939): 10. Typical translations, which

render lyg yla by something like “to the point of rejoicing,” assume a locution and paradigm thatare not otherwise known in ancient Hebrew. The alleged parallel in Hos 9:1 (so, e.g., Dhorme,Commentary, 39) should be read differently, with the support of the versions (see Eitan, 11).

60 E.g., Eitan, “Biblical Studies,” 10; Fohrer, Hiob, 112.61 See, e.g., Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000–586 B.C.E. (New

York: Doubleday, 1992), 520–21.

On the analogy of the Hebrew noun zGE, “fleece,” derived from the gemi-nate verb zzg, “to shear,” we might expect to find the Hebrew noun *geµl, derivedfrom the Hebrew verb llg, “to roll,” to denote the tombstone. In Aramaic,however, the word corresponding to Hebrew zGE, “fleece,” is aZ:GI, the result ofappending the suffix of determination, -a.62 Comparing the Aramaic form aZ:GI,we may analyze the Hebrew noun lyGI, “burial stone,” as the hypothetical Ara-maic form of reconstructed *ge µl, minus the suffix of determination—as aHebrew noun with Aramaic morphological coloring.

The use of the word lyGI in Job 3:22 creates a pun on the synonymous verbsjm` and `y`, “to rejoice,” further enhancing the ironic notion of people gettinghappy upon reaching the grave. One may also remark upon the typical preci-sion of the Joban poet in constructing the parallelism. First, one reaches thestone that covers the tomb, and only then does one arrive at the grave proper.63

Concerning the phonological influence of contemporary Aramaic on theHebrew poetry of Job, examples have been pointed out in the scholarly litera-ture primarily in the case of the substitution of a different Aramaic consonantfor the native Hebrew one according to the regular Aramaic–Hebrew corre-spondences. Thus, for example, we find the consonant >ayin ([) in place of s\ade(x) in w[tn, “(the lions’ teeth) crack,” in Job 4:10,64 and in the verb [[r for $xr,“shatter,” in Job 34:24.65 Or conversely, an Aramaic word may be adapted to thecorresponding Hebrew consonant: for example, in Job 32:6 the Aramaic verbljd, “fear,” is Hebraized as ljz.66 Here we encounter z, which corresponds toAramaic d in words that derive from earlier Semitic ð. Note the same phe-nomenon in hypercorrect wk[zn, “ebbed away” (Job 17:1), for wk[dn (see Job6:17).67

The nature of the phonological influence of Aramaic on the Hebrew of Jobmay be subtler still. In Job 3:22, preceding the noun lyGI, “tombstone” (dis-cussed above), is the preposition yla, an expanded form of the common prepo-sition la, “to, toward,” which occurs four times in Job (3:22; 5:26; 15:22; 29:19)and nowhere else. It would appear to be modeled on the enhanced (and


62 For the verb zzg in Persian-period Aramaic, see Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni, Textbookof Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt 4: Ostraca & Assorted Inscriptions (Jerusalem: HebrewUniversity, 1999), 160, lines 3, 6, 8.

63 See the analysis of poetic form in Job 3 in Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (NewYork: Basic Books, 1985), 76–83.

64 E.g., Dhorme, Commentary, 47; contrast Frederick E. Greenspahn, Hapax Legomena inBiblical Hebrew (SBLDS 74; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1984), 138–39.

65 See Dhorme, Commentary, 521; Snaith, Book of Job, 110; Young, Diversity, 132.66 The Aramaic verb *ðh\l occurs in the Ah\iqar frame tale both as ljz and ljd; see Folmer,

Aramaic Language, 58.67 See Weber, “Material,” 10; contrast Guillaume, Studies, 97–98; Greenspahn, Hapax

Legomena, 114.

archaic) form of the preposition l[, viz., yl[, which occurs fifteen times in Jobbut elsewhere too. In every instance of yla, the enhanced preposition precedesa stressed syllable, either a monosyllabic noun like lyGI (3:22; see above) or apolysyllabic noun accented on the first syllable, as in Job 5:26a: rbqAyla, “(Infull ripeness you will enter) the grave.”

Ginsberg (in class) suggested that the Joban usage of the enhanced prepo-sition yl[ was similar to that of yla—that it would precede a noun with first-syllable stress. Such is the case in ten of the fifteen instances of yl[ attested inJob.68 Compare, for example, av,d<Ayle[}, “over grass,” in 6:5, and $r<a;Ayle[}, “onearth,” in 8:9. Of the five remaining exceptions, Ginsberg sought to eliminatetwo by recourse to a morphophonological phenomenon in Aramaic. It is wellknown that when the first person singular possessive suffix -È µ is attached to amonosyllabic noun in Syriac, the suffix is not pronounced.69 Thus the nominalform /nafšÈ µ/, “myself,” is articulated as nafš. The phenomenon is not only Syr-iac. In Western as well as Eastern dialects of Aramaic the noun yba, “my father,”drops the possessive suffix and yields the forms <ab or <ábba µ.70 The phe-nomenon, which Ginsberg thought went back to the Achaemenid period, isreflected in Dan 5:13: “You are Daniel of the Judean exiles whom my father(yba; <ábî), the king, brought from Judah.” The masoretic accentuation stressesthe first syllable of the word yba—giving one reason to assume that the posses-sive suffix, whose pronunciation should have drawn the stress to the second syl-lable, was not articulated but only written.71

Two instances of the enhanced form of the preposition yle[} precede mono-syllabic nouns to which the first person singular possessive suffix is attached. Inthe former we find yDIl]gI yle[}, “onto my skin” (16:15),72 and in the latter yviaro yle[},“over my head” (29:3). Ginsberg’s theory is that the first syllable of the nominalform was stressed in each case. The suggestion of so subtle an Aramaic coloringin Job might strike one as improbable. However, the more deeply one delvesinto the poetics of Job, where one finds the most sophisticated manipulations of


68 Job 6:5; 7:1 [Qere]; 8:9; 9:26; 15:27; 16:15; 18:10; 20:4; 29:3, 4, 7; 33:15; 36:28; 38:24; 41:22.There may be another example in 31:21, if we agree with B. Duhm, K. Budde, and others to redi-vide the phrase !wty l[, “against an orphan,” as the somewhat more apt !t yl[, “against an inno-cent man”; see, e.g., Fohrer, Hiob, 426.

69 See Theodor Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar (trans. James A. Crichton; London:Williams & Norgate, 1904), 36 (§50A).

70 See E. Y. Kutscher, Words and Their History (in Hebrew; Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher,1961), 1–4. Note, e.g., Abba in Mark 14:36, where *<ábî drops the final vowel and replaces it withthe determinative suffix –a.

71 See James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel(ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1927), 264.

72 For geled, “skin,” as an Aramaism, see above.

language, one may come to feel that it would be hard indeed to overestimatethe craft and artistry of the poet.

Were the Hebrew text of Job more reliable than it appears to be, we mightencounter several more examples of subtle foreign linguistic coloring. After all,foreign features, being less familiar, are the most liable to corruption in thecourse of scribal transmission. To put it another way: by adopting the hypothe-sis that the literary use of foreign language in Job would be even more extensivewere the text of Job in good order, one may allow oneself to adduce foreignwords and features in an attempt to deal with a problematic passage by meansof philological reconstruction.

A case in point may be found in Job 6:14:

bz[y yd` taryw, dsj wh[rm sml

The translations and commentaries all have a difficult time deriving sml (vocal-ized masoretically: sM;l') from anything. The etymologies—from ssm, “to melt”;`wm, “to move”; or sam, “to reject”73—fail to produce a straightforward render-ing that makes sense. Each translation rests on a large measure of strained exe-gesis. Many (e.g., the RSV, NRSV) render something like: “He who refuseskindness to his friend / forsakes the fear of Shaddai.”74 However, even if theHebrew could sustain such an interpretation, I find the logical connection thatis assumed between being a bad friend and being irreverent toward God to be awholly un-Joban notion. In the passage that ensues, Job expresses his profounddisappointment in his friends, who have dried up on him like a wadi in summer(6:15–19). Job has nothing, however, to say about his companions’ impiety.

The reconstruction of the verse by Ginsberg, which involves a minimum ofchange in the consonantal framework of the text, makes far better sense andsounds far more like Job:75

rZ:[uy“ yD"v' arEywI, dS;juy“ [r:me rs; hm;l;

Why should one who shuns evil be shamed?Why should one who fears Shaddai be cursed?

The interrogative hml, “Why?”, is employed by Job as early as his firstpoetic discourse (e.g., 3:11, 20). The following phrase, [rm rs, “one who turnsaway from evil,” as an epithet of the righteous, is introduced already in the pro-logue (e.g., 1:1, 8). The pu>al verb ye·h\ussaµd is derived from the Aramaic verb


73 The proposals are summarized in Hartley, Job, 136.74 For example, the New JPS translation fudges: “A friend owes loyalty to one who fails, /

Though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty.” Tur-Sinai (Job, 122) and Pope (Job, 49) render sm as“the afflicted” and “a sick man,” respectively; but their interpretation lacks conviction.

75 H. L. Ginsberg, “Studies in the Book of Job” (in Hebrew), Leš 21 (1958): 260–61.

and noun, literally “to be white” and figuratively “to be put to shame.”76 Theuse of the pu>al here is not as strange as it might at first appear. Not only is thepa>el verb attested in (somewhat later) Aramaic,77 the pi>el is attested in Bibli-cal Hebrew in Prov 25:10. The RSV translates Prov 25:9–10 as follows: “Argueyour case with your neighbor himself, and do not disclose another’s secret; lesthe who hears you bring shame upon you (^dsjy @p), and your ill repute have noend.” (The Hebrew noun ds,j, is also attested in Lev 20:17 in the sense of “dis-grace,” and we may suspect Aramaic influence there as well.)

As for the morphologically parallel verb in Ginsberg’s reconstructed Job6:14, ye ·>uzza µr, it is derived from Akkadian eze µru, “to curse.”78 It may or maynot be borrowed in Phoenician, too, in the inscription of the short-lived Esh-munazor, who describes himself posthumously as bn msk ymm <zrm, “one offew days, short ones”—or “accursed ones.”79

In conclusion, my primary aim was not to show how pervasive are foreign,and especially Aramaic, linguistic elements in the poetry of Job. This phe-nomenon has been documented by others. I have endeavored to show that theuse of foreign language in Job serves a variety of poetic functions and is everybit as sophisticated as the many other artistic features of Job—from metaphorto parody—features that, I might add, can also bear more extensive and inten-sive study.


76 For the same semantic development, cf. Heb. rwj, “pale, ashamed” (// `wb in Isa 29:22).77 Jastrow (1996 reprint),486.78 CAD E, 427.79 KAI 14:3. For references and discussion, see John C. L. Gibson, Textbook of Syrian

Semitic Inscriptions, vol. 3, Phoenician Inscriptions (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 110.

JBL 122/4 (2003) 667–686

“LOVE YOUR ENEMIES,” THE GOLDEN RULE,AND ANCIENT RECIPROCITY

(LUKE 6:27–35)

ALAN [email protected]

University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada

The golden rule introduces a note of reciprocity into Luke 6:27–35 thatseems dissonant with the instruction’s inaugural command to “love your ene-mies.” Rudolf Bultmann’s judgment that the rule expresses “naive egoism,”though tenacious, is not universal; many argue that the rule surmounts crudeself-interest.1 Nevertheless, interpreters of the passage have been markedlyaverse to viewing Jesus’ command to love enemies in terms of reciprocity, feel-ing that, no matter how others-oriented the golden rule’s formulation, itsunmistakable recourse to the logic of reciprocity ethics renders it morally infe-rior to the altruistic, unilateral stance of “love your enemies.” By the sametoken, its presence here is thought to blunt the edge of Jesus’ authentic ethic.

This view arises from defective understandings of reciprocity dynamics.Reciprocity is in fact basic to the ethic that Luke 6:27–35 seeks to inculcate.After assessing some leading attempts to account for what seems to be a clashof ethical perspectives, we will locate the passage’s moral exhortation withinpractices of social exchange in traditional societies, aligning these with descrip-tions of Greco-Roman reciprocity conventions, with particular attention toAristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Seneca’s De Beneficiis.

I

We begin our discussion with Albrecht Dihle’s categorical claim: “von derGoldenen Regel . . . führt kein direkter Weg zu der neuen, im Feindesliebe-

1 Rudolf Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh; Oxford: Blackwell,1963), 103; see Josef Fuchs, “Die schwierige goldene Regel,” Stimmen der Zeit 209 (1991): 773–81,esp. 773.

667

gebot am schärfsten formulierten Ethik, weil sie alles Handeln vom Grundsatzder Gegenseitigkeit her bewertet.”2 In the golden rule the norm that one usu-ally receives back in accordance with what one gives or inflicts assumes theform of a prudential maxim.3 “Love your enemies,” by definition not predicatedon anticipation of return, cannot be reconciled with the rule. The two embodysharply contrasting principles of action; “love your enemies” in fact annuls thekind of moral deliberation represented by the reciprocity maxim. Dihle there-fore accounts for the rule’s presence by reading it indicatively, as describingrather than prescribing the conventional way of acting. Reciprocity calculationis then critiqued by Luke 6:32–34 and superseded by the programmaticadmonition to “love your enemies.”4 Critics, however, point to the absence ofcontrastive conjunctions that would justify reading v. 31 as an indicative state-ment.5 A further difficulty arises from the fact that in the various genres ofmoral exhortation maxims had the force of proofs and premises, embodying asthey did principles commanding collective assent.

Paul Hoffmann takes the view that Luke 6:27–35 “enthält Spannungenund Brüche,” and follows Dihle’s judgment that the rule’s presence here is“recht seltsam” because vv. 32–34 reject the kind of behavior v. 31 recom-mends. This tension was not so pronounced in Luke’s Q tradition, argues Hoff-mann, where sayings elaborating love of enemy (6:27a, 28b, 35c, 32–34, 29) andsayings on reciprocity (6:30, 31, 36) likely were aggregated separately, albeitcontiguously. Luke in a calculated manner has combined these disparatemotifs, part of his moral project of counteracting the habituation of wealthiermembers of his community to the friends- and class-oriented reciprocity ethicrepresented by the rule and to reorient them to Jesus’ rigorous ethic of givingwithout expectation of return. By positioning vv. 32–34 after v. 31, Luke createstension between the two perspectives, the intent being that the former versescritique and surpass the latter.6 Hoffmann’s solution is unsatisfying, however,


2 Albrecht Dihle, Die Goldene Regel: Eine Einführung in die Geschichte der antiken undfrühchristlichen Vulgärethik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), 116.

3 Albrecht Dihle, “Goldene Regel,” RAC (1981 ed.), 11:930–40, esp. p. 931; idem, GoldeneRegel, 11–12, 32, 110, 126.

4 Dihle, “Goldene Regel,” 937; idem, Goldene Regel, 72–80, 111–14.5 E.g., Victor Paul Furnish, The Love Command in the New Testament (Nashville: Abingdon,

1972), 57–58 n. 107, positing the need for eij dev or ajllav to introduce v. 32. Reinhold Merkelbachmust emend the text to render Dihle’s proposal plausible (“Über eine Stelle im Evangelium desLukas,” Grazer Beiträge 1 [1970]: 171–75).

6 Paul Hoffmann, Tradition und Situation: Studien zur Jesusüberlieferung in der Logien-quelle und den synoptischen Evangelien (NTAbh 28; Münster: Aschendorff, 1995), 19–22, 41–42.Joseph A. Fitzmyer’s position is similar to Hoffmann’s (The Gospel According to Luke [I–IX]:Introduction, Translation, and Notes [AB 28; New York: Doubleday, 1981], 639–40). Compare alsoRichard Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine(San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), 266: reciprocity ethic “transcended” by the love of enemies;

because the rule is already part of the underlying tradition; moreover, thesequential arrangement of these motifs that Hoffmann proposes for Q is hardlyless problematic than their redactional integration in Luke. Finally, like Dihle,Hoffmann has difficulty accounting for the imperative force of the rule.7

In Paul Ricoeur’s view, the golden rule follows the “logic of equivalence,”whereas “love your enemies” follows the “logic of superabundance,” that is, the“economy of the gift.”8 Nevertheless the rule is the supreme principle of moralaction, in its rationalized Kantian form capable of generating specific maximsthat counter violence and exploitation in diverse spheres of human interaction.9

The command to love enemies, by contrast, cannot act nor should be viewed asan alternative, autonomous moral axiom; for it excludes the principles ofreciprocity and equivalence that are crucial to justice. Accordingly, it cannotfound an equitable system of ethics; indeed, if applied autonomously it wouldcreate grotesque caricatures of morality: “quelle loi pénale—et en généralquelle règle de justice—pourrait procéder directement . . . du commandementnu d’aimer ses ennemis?”10 Rather, it is “supra-ethical”; it expresses the reli-gious principle of the superabundance of the gift, urging emulation of God’slove and mercy unilaterally bestowed on every creature without qualification.11

Kirk: “Love Your Enemies” 669

see also idem, “Ethics and Exegesis: ‘Love Your Enemies’ and the Doctrine of Non-violence,”JAAR 54 (1986): 3–31, esp. 19: “transreciprocal relations.”

7 See also François Bovon, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, vol. 1, Lk 1,1–9,50 [EKKNT 3;Zurich: Benziger; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989), positing “der Bruch mit derberechenden Gegenseitigkeit in der Feindesliebe” (pp. 317–18), and that “Jesus überwindet dasPrinzip der Gegenseitigkeit und der Vergeltung” (p. 314). Expressing doubts that the rule, with itsvestiges of reciprocity calculation, can ultimately be reconciled with “love your enemies” is HeinzSchürmann, Das Lukasevangelium, vol. 1, Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1–9,50 (HTKNT 3; Freiburg/Basel/Vienna: Herder, 1969], 351). Leif Vaage and Michael Steinhauser attempt in quite differentways to align the passage with a Cynic-like ethos. Vaage argues that the composition deliberatelyparodies the rule, while Steinhauser, taking a tradition-history approach, argues that a primitivelayer, characterized by nonretaliatory response to military occupation, has been overlaid by materi-als that introduce the motif of reciprocity (Leif E. Vaage, Galilean Upstarts: Jesus’ First Followersaccording to Q [Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1994], 45; Michael Steinhauser, “The Violence of Occu-pation: Matthew 5:40–41 and Q,” TJT 8 [1992]: 28–37, esp. 35). Vaage, though, is forced to glossand paraphrase the maxim to get it to support his interpretation, while Steinhauser’s distinctionbetween reciprocity and retaliation, crucial to his tradition history, is precluded by MarshallSahlins’s analysis that shows retaliation and reciprocity to be cognate motifs (see below).

8 Paul Ricoeur, “The Golden Rule: Exegetical and Theological Perplexities,” NTS 36 (1990):392–97, esp. 392–93; idem, “Entre philosophie et théologie: règle d’or en question,” RHPR 69(1989): 3–9, esp. 7: “Mais ce n’est pas la simple citation de la Règle d’Or qui pose un problème d’in-terprétation, mais l’effet sur elle d’un contexte qui semble la désavouer.”

9 Ricoeur, “Entre philosophie,” 7; idem, Oneself as Another (trans. Kathleen Blamey;Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 221.

10 Ricoeur, “Entre philosophie,” 8.11 Ibid., 6.

The juxtaposition of the two commands, though tensive and paradoxical,nevertheless creates a dialectic crucial for ethics.12 The autonomous realm of“ethics,” the domain of the golden rule’s operation, is here moved against thehorizon of the “supra-ethical,” represented by the love command. The goldenrule must retain its force in the administration of justice in all spheres. How-ever, this exercise of bilateral justice is now imbued with and hence moder-ated—indeed, transformed—by the spirit of unilateral mercy that animates thelove command. Likewise, the self-interest that inheres in the reciprocity maximis attenuated by the spirit of superabundant generosity. This creates a “genuinereciprocity,” one devoid of self-interested motives; in turn, the continued forceof the golden rule prevents the moral travesties that would follow from isolatedapplication of the command to love enemies.13

Ricoeur shows that the command to “love your enemies,” standing alone,is ethically vacuous; hence it has a necessary relationship with the golden rule.The rule gives the inaugural command orientation to the social realm, to therealia of human interaction.14 It is open to question, however, whetherRicoeur’s interpretation does complete justice to Luke 6:27–35. Fundamentalto Ricoeur’s dialectic is his placing reciprocity and love of enemies—the latterexpressive of the “superabundance of the gift”—in opposition. But this distinc-tion is belied by the fact that gift giving is a crucial element of reciprocitydynamics.15 Also questionable is Ricoeur’s assigning of the clearly program-matic admonition to “love your enemies” to the realm of the “supra-ethical”and, correspondingly, to a kind of ameliorating role in the conventional ethicsof equivalent exchange. The biblical love command, going back to the HolinessCode, embodies a concrete ethic.16 It seems preferable to interpret its permu-tation in Luke 6:27 as in some manner continuing this moral tradition.


12 Ricoeur, “Golden Rule,” 396.13 Ibid., 395. “L’éthique commune dans une perspective religieuse [Ricoeur’s emphasis] con-

siste, selon moi, dans la tension entre l’amour unilatéral et la justice bilatérale et dans l’interpréta-tion de l’une dans les terms de l’autre” (“Entre philosophie,” 8). Furnish’s solution resemblesRicoeur’s: the “calculating justice” of the rule is transformed into “creative justice” by its correla-tion with the love command (Love Command, 57–59).

14 A point also made by Georg Strecker, “Compliance—Love of One’s Enemy—the GoldenRule,” AusBR 29 (1981): 38–46, esp. 45.

15 Demonstrated most notably by Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchangein Archaic Societies (trans. W. D. Halls; New York: Norton, 1990). See also Natalie Zemon Davis,The Gift in Sixteenth-century France (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000), andFrançoise Zonabend, The Enduring Memory: Time and History in a French Village (trans. AnthonyForster; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), 47–49.

16 Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mountincluding the Sermon on the Plain (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 514. Voicing a simi-lar criticism is Jeffrey Wattles, The Golden Rule (New York: Oxford, 1996), 64–66.

Jeffrey Wattles, John Topel, and A. E. Harvey attempt in quite differentways to sever the golden rule’s connection with reciprocity ethics, thereby hop-ing to align it more closely with “love your enemies.” Reciprocity behavior,Wattles argues, is motivated by self-serving desire for “repayment,” behaviorsuch as that described in 6:32–34. The rule is alien to reciprocity so defined, forit transforms the principle of acting prudentially in order to elicit beneficialreturns (do ut des) into a rule of thumb for how one should act in the first placetoward others, shifting focus from oneself to the other.17 Wattles’s analysis ofthe rule’s formulation is persuasive, as is his point that it leaves indeterminate—as it must to be internally coherent—the social identities of those towardwhom one directs action in accordance with the maxim. However, his case thatit is not a reciprocity maxim is convincing only if one accepts his restricted defi-nition of what constitutes reciprocity behavior. Clearly the moral calculus of therule presumes that the person using it has command of the dynamics ofexchange. In Georg Strecker’s words, “the Golden Rule implies the idea thatthe proper action must be oriented on the action of the other, that is, on theprinciple of reciprocity.”18

Topel’s approach is less to deny the rule’s genealogical connection toreciprocity ethics than to argue that in its formulation it advances so far beyondJewish and Greco-Roman reciprocity maxims as to be unique and “non-reciprocal.” Unlike its ancient counterparts, the Gospel maxim succeeds indecentering the self and, conversely, centering the other, creating in place ofself-serving reciprocity calculation a “moral maxim of general altruismexpressed by mutuality between a doer and others.”19 While Topel convincinglylocates the golden rule, for comparative purposes, within the family of ancientreciprocity maxims, it is less clear that a gap has opened up between it and itsGreco-Roman and Jewish cognates. Topel acknowledges that Sir 31:15a,“Judge your neighbor’s feelings by your own,” also “implies that the correspon-dence between one’s own feelings and dislikes and that of the other shouldform the norm of conduct.”20 The same could be said for “let us so give as we


17 Wattles, Golden Rule, 58, 65–67.18 Strecker, “Compliance,” 45. Wattles tries to separate the various manifestations of

reciprocity in human–human and human–divine relations into distinct, “logically independent”principles. This maneuver permits him to split off the golden rule from such “independent princi-ples” as (a) repaying good with good and harm with harm, (b) the cosmic justice of good followingupon good acts, and vice versa, (c) the prudential principle of doing good because it is in one’s long-range interests to do so (Golden Rule, 31–32). It is clear, however, that these principles are denom-inated by the more fundamental principle of reciprocity, as Dihle has shown. Wattles’s critique ofDihle is both perfunctory and weak.

19 John Topel, “The Tarnished Golden Rule (Luke 6:31): The Inescapable Radicalness ofChristian Ethics,” TS 59 (1998): 475–85, esp. 477–78, 484.

20 Ibid., 483 n. 41.

would wish to receive” (Seneca, Ben. 2.1.1: “sic demus, quomodo vellemusaccipere”). The comparative achievement of the rule seems to be its universal-ity, itself a function of the high level of abstraction in its formulation, not theopening up of moral territory not covered to some extent explicitly or by impli-cation by other maxims.

In a similar vein Harvey argues that the rule has “an extreme and uncondi-tional formulation” that gives unequivocal expression to a radical selflessnessgoing “far beyond the prudential wisdom” of conventional maxims.21 Luke,however, in vv. 30, 32–35, blunts the radical “moral edge” of the “utterly uncon-ditional” command to love enemies and the golden rule by trying to renderthem plausible in terms of enlightened—but nevertheless prudential and farfrom uncommon—adages counseling against seeking redress and recommend-ing generosity and compassion beyond one’s social circle.22 In effect, Harveycharges Luke with bringing Jesus’ transcendent, unique commands down tothe level of the best in Jewish and pagan morality.

In contrast to all these approaches, Hans Dieter Betz argues that theexhortation to “love your enemies” does not mark a definitive break withHellenistic reciprocity ethics. Rather, it moves from an ostensibly absurd pro-grammatic admonition (vv. 27–30) to demonstration of that admonition’s rea-sonableness in terms of Greek ethics (vv. 31–35).23 The rule is an open-endedmaxim that simply makes available for prudential use the fact that “humansocial life consists of conventions of reciprocity, exchange of gifts and favors”;moreover, maxims of this sort emerged to counteract cycles of retaliation andcounterretaliation.24 This renders intelligible its presence in Luke 6:27–35,which proscribes reflexive retaliation. The rule mandates taking the initiative inbeneficial dealing with others; hence it is the “inadequate understanding” ofthe rule, consisting in “mere response to love received,” that is critiqued invv. 32–34.25 While agreeing with Betz that Luke 6:27–35 stands within theantique tradition of innovation and invention in reciprocity ethics, we can nev-ertheless question whether the parenesis intends to show that the command tolove enemies is “in conformity with the basic idea of Hellenistic religion andmorality.”26 This characterization does not account satisfactorily for the persis-


21 A. E. Harvey, Strenuous Commands: The Ethic of Jesus (London: SCM; Philadelphia:Trinity, 1990), 100, 107–15, 206. Also problematic is Harvey’s attempt to render the meaning of themaxim unequivocal.

22 Ibid., 95, 100–104.23 Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 591–600.24 Ibid., 293, 516.25 Ibid., 516, 591, 600.26 Ibid., 612. Betz’s point seems to be that there may be a rapprochement of sorts between

Jesus’ ethics and developments in ancient moral philosophy, but he does not elaborate. That Luke-

tently contrarian attitude the exhortation displays toward conventional Hel-lenistic reciprocity behavior, particularly in the wide-ranging critical and inven-tive work it carries out on that ethic’s operative principle, cavri". Betz’s work onthis passage suggests, though, that resolution of its problems lie precisely inattention to reciprocity dynamics.27

II

As parenesis, Luke 6:27–35 is invested in either inculcation or transforma-tion of norms that govern social, economic, and religious patterns of life.28

Accordingly, the task of exegesis is to situate the passage in its generative socialand moral context. In what follows we will correlate ethnographic analyses oftraditional social exchange with descriptions of reciprocity norms in ancientsources, in particular Aristotle and Seneca.29

Reciprocity is discussed in the scholarly literature under a bewilderingarray of terms.30 To further complicate matters, descriptions are associated


Acts adopts a stance critical of conventional reciprocity practices is well established in exegesis; seeHoffmann, Tradition und Situation, 40–48; and Alan C. Mitchell, “‘Greet the Friends by Name’:New Testament Evidence for the Greco-Roman Topos on Friendship,” in Greco-Roman Perspec-tives on Friendship (ed. John T. Fitzgerald; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997), 225–62.

27 Besides Betz, a few other scholars have explored the possibility that reciprocity might playa more integral role in 6:27–35. Luise Schottroff argues that the parenesis is about integration ofthe enemy into community relations characterized by neighbor love (“Gewaltverzicht und Fein-desliebe in der urchristlichen Jesustradition,” in Jesus Christus in Historie und Theologie [ed.Georg Strecker; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1975], 197–222, esp. 214–15). John Nolland takes a sim-ilar view, but posits a disconnect with vv. 32–35, which in his view constitute a “denial of anyreciprocity ethic” (Luke 1–9:20 [WBC 35A; Dallas: Word, 1989], 293–96). Gerd Theissen recog-nizes that the passage appropriates the Hellenistic reciprocity ethic, but he nevertheless views theparenetic integration of the “unilateral” command to “love your enemies” and the “mutuality” ethicrepresented by the golden rule as secondary and artificial. It amounts to a relaxation of the strin-gency of the primitive “love your enemies” ethic, an accommodation with the less demanding ethicof the surrounding culture brought about by a shift in Sitz im Leben (Social Reality and the EarlyChristians [trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 122–31, 149–51).

28 See James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1985): “We are not therefore dealing with purely mental constructs. . . but rather with values . . . firmly anchored in a host of commonplace material practices” (p. 305).

29 On this methodological approach, see Thomas W. Gallant, Risk and Survival in AncientGreece: Reconstructing the Rural Domestic Economy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991),2–3, 35.

30 Peter M. Blau, “Interaction: Social Exchange,” in International Encyclopedia of the SocialSciences (New York: Macmillan & Free Press, 1968), 7:452–56. Many of these are listed byGeoffrey MacCormack, “Reciprocity,” Man n.s. 11 (1976): 89–103; see also Herman Gabriel,Ritualized Friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge/London: Cambridge University Press,1987), 10–11, 29, 80; Gallant, Risk and Survival, 149, 156–57; Zonabend, Enduring Memory,

sometimes with friendship, at other times with neighborliness, and on occasionwith impersonal trade relations. Such imprecision has drawn GeoffreyMacCormack’s critical comment that generalized application of the term“reciprocity” obscures differences among the specific kinds of exchange rela-tionships it purports to describe.31 In scholarship on Luke 6:27–35 one encoun-ters a similar lack of nuance with respect to “reciprocity ethics.” Hence,achieving precision in use of the term “reciprocity” will be crucial to clearing upthe passage’s difficulties.

Relations in all social spheres are articulated through acts of reciprocalexchange. Stated differently, social relations are by definition relations ofreciprocity.32 “A material transaction is usually a momentary episode in a con-tinuous social relation.”33 Friendship in particular is established and main-tained by mutual benefaction. Accepting and reciprocating benefits maintains astate of mutual obligation, essential to the social bond between partners in theexchange.34 In Seneca’s words, a benefit “is a common bond that binds two per-sons together” (Ben. 6.41.2).35 Benefaction is also the “starting mechanism” forinitiating social bonds, for establishing relations: “If friends make gifts, giftsmake friends.”36 “One may take the initiative in creating a bond of affection bygenerosity, without any sense of fulfilling an existing obligation.”37 Bestowal ofa benefit—voluntary dispossession of self for another—creates an obligation to


48–50; Julian Pitt-Rivers, “The Kith and the Kin,” in The Character of Kinship (ed. Jack Goody;Cambridge/London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 89–105, esp. 89, 97–98.

31 MacCormack, “Reciprocity,” 89, 101.32 Mauss, Gift, passim; Alvin W. Gouldner, “The Norm of Reciprocity,” in Friends, Follow-

ers, and Factions (ed. Steffen W. Schmidt et al.; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977),28–43, esp. 28, 33; Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago: Aldine, 1972), 185–89, 208;George C. Homans, “Social Behavior as Exchange,” American Journal of Sociology 63 (1957–58):597–606, esp. 597.

33 Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 185–86; see also Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Principle ofGive and Take,” in Sociological Theory (ed. Lewis A. Coser and Bernard Rosenberg; New York:Macmillan, 1957), 81–84, esp. 81.

34 Mauss, Gift, 37; Blau, “Interaction,” 453; Stephan Joubert, “Coming to Terms with aNeglected Aspect of Ancient Mediterranean Reciprocity: Seneca’s Views on Benefit-Exchange,” inSocial Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible (ed. John J. Pilch; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2001),47–63, esp. 51.

35 From Moral Essays, vol. 3 (LCL; trans. John W. Basore; Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-sity Press; London: Heinemann, 1958).

36 Mary Douglas, “No Free Gifts,” foreword to Mauss, Gift, vii–xviii, esp. xv; Mauss, Gift,81–82; Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity,” 39; Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 169, 177, 186, 201–2,219–23; Claude Lévi-Strauss, “The Principle of Reciprocity,” in Sociological Theory, ed. Coser andRosenberg, 84–94, esp. 86–90.

37 K. J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley: Univer-sity of California Press, 1974), 277.

reciprocate—or, better, a challenge to do so. Entailed in acceptance of thefavor is the moral obligation to make a return in some way and so to enter uponthe obligations of an ongoing friendship. Conversely, overt rejection or failureto reciprocate, signals, as the case may be, breach of relationship or protractionof alienation.38

Marshall Sahlins argues that reciprocity manifests itself in three genres:general reciprocity, balanced reciprocity, and negative reciprocity, or to useNatalie Zemon Davis’s words: “gift, sale, and coercion.”39 Sahlins’s model allowsus to bring to light the reciprocity dynamics of our passage, with the requisiteanalytical precision.40

General reciprocity drives the intimate relation of friendship discussedabove, and accordingly its emblematic feature is open-ended, generous shar-ing, typically construed in the language of unconditional giving. “The nature ofthe return is invariably not stipulated in advance, cannot be bargained about,”and time lines for returns are left vague.41 The open-ended, generous nature ofthe exchange, along with the absence of overt accounting, expresses at thematerial level the personal trust that is the heart of friendship. It is the “paradoxof friendship,” however, that free, generous giving generates obligation to makea return.42 Marcel Mauss states that “in theory these [presents] are voluntary, inreality they are given and reciprocated obligatorily.”43 This implicit obligationmanifests itself affectively as gratitude, with returns of gratitude constitutingassurance of more tangible reciprocation: “Gratitude . . . ‘establishes the bondof interaction, of the reciprocity of service and return service, even when theyare not guaranteed by external coercion.’”44 To quote Seneca, “He who receives


38 Pitt-Rivers, “Kith and Kin,” 99–100; Gallant, Risk and Survival, 144; Lionel Pearson, Pop-ular Ethics in Ancient Greece (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 17, 140–41; Herman,Ritualized Friendship, 29, 80; Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: AStudy in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989),38.

39 Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 198; Davis, Gift, 129; also Gouldner, “Norm of Reciproc-ity,” 31; and Pitt-Rivers, “Kith and Kin,” 100.

40 Walter Donlan applies Sahlins’s model to analysis of the Iliad and Odyssey in a similarmanner (“Reciprocities in Homer,” Classical World 75 [1981–82]: 137–75).

41 Blau, “Interaction,” 454–55; also Davis, Gift, 64–66; Zonabend, Enduring Memory, 49;Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 191. See Seneca, Ben. 1.2.2–4; and the comments of Joubert,“Seneca’s Views,” 56–58.

42 The phrase is Pitt-Rivers’s (“Kith and Kin,” 97); see also Blau, “Interaction,” 452–53;Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 193–94.

43 Mauss, Gift, 3; also Blau, “Interaction,” 454; Zonabend, Enduring Memory, 47–50.44 Blau, “Interaction,” 452–53, citing Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel (Glen-

coe, IL: Free Press, 1950), 387. See Blundell, Helping Friends, 33; Charles Stephen Mott, “The

a benefit with gratitude repays the first instalment on his debt” (Ben. 2.22.1; seealso 1.4.2–3). By cultivating friends through acts of giving, one benefits oneselfand establishes credit with a view to the uncertain future. The fact that friend-ship has a prudential aspect, however, does not necessarily amount to a com-promise of its constitutive elements of trust and self-giving.45

General reciprocity also supplies the discourse of exchange between elitepatrons, with disproportionate resources, and subordinate clients, with needfor access to those resources. A client could respond to a patron’s benefactionsonly with gratitude and loyalty, returns that a patron, competing with othermembers of the elite for honor and political influence, valued highly. Patrons,depicting themselves as exemplars of the virtues of liberality and magnanimity,would make benefactions in order to bind people to them in cliental relation-ships.46 “What the wealthy did was to transmute a portion of their dispropor-tionate economic means into forms of status, prestige, and social control bymeans of acts they passed off as voluntary acts of generosity or charity.”47 In DeBeneficiis, Seneca makes constant reference to benefaction without thought ofreturn, but simultaneously is obsessed with returns of “gratitude” and fumesabout “ingratitude” (e.g., 1.1.13; 4.10.5–11.2; 4.28.5).48 Aristotle recommends


Power of Giving and Receiving: Reciprocity in Hellenistic Benevolence,” in Current Issues in Bib-lical and Patristic Interpretation (ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975),60–72, esp. 62; Seneca, Ben. 2.22.1.

45 Gallant, Risk and Survival, 98, 156–57, 173; Pitt-Rivers, “Kith and Kin,” 89, 97–98; Scott,Weapons of the Weak, 192–93; Pearson, Popular Ethics, 136; Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 277;Herman, Ritualized Friendship, 91–92; Paul Millet, Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 120; idem, “Hesiod and His World,” Proceedingsof the Cambridge Philological Society 210 n.s. 30 (1984): 84–107; Seneca, Ben. 6.35.1.

46 Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 219; Blau, “Interaction,” 455; Dover, Greek Popular Moral-ity, 228; Gallant, Risk and Survival, 158–60, 196; Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 194; S. N. Eisen-stadt and L. Roniger, Patrons, Clients, and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure ofTrust in Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 49; eidem, “Patron–Client Rela-tions as a Model of Structuring Social Exchange,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 22(1980): 42–77, esp. 49, 56–62; A. R. Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press, 1968), 41–48; Andrew Drummond, “Early Roman clientes,” inPatronage in Ancient Society (ed. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill; London/New York: Routledge, 1989),89–115, esp. 104–5; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Patronage in Roman Society: From Republic toEmpire,” in Patronage in Ancient Society, 63–87, esp. 72–73; M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 111.

47 Scott, Weapons of the Weak, 307. Hands notes that “in Egypt . . . almost any decision of thePtolemies referred to in official documents, whether relating to fiscal immunities, rights to land orproperty, or even to guarantees against arbitrary action by the king’s own officers, is almost invari-able styled as philanthropon” (Charities and Social Aid, 42).

48 See Joubert, “Seneca’s Views,” 51–52; Pearson, Popular Ethics, 136; Scott, Weapons of theWeak, 193, 197. T. R. Stevenson, not recognizing that “gift” language colors reciprocal exchangebetween patrons and clients, takes Seneca’s claims to disinterested benefaction too much at face

for “friends who are unequal in status: the one who is benefited . . . must repaywhat he can, namely honour” (Eth. nic. 8.14.3).49 The patron–client relation-ship, though unequal, is universally articulated in personalized terms as a bondof friendship or fictive kinship, the two domains in which general reciprocityoperates.50

Balanced reciprocity features overt concern for equivalence of exchange,with obligations spelled out and fulfilled within set time frames. Partners in theexchange are unabashedly if cordially focused on their own interests. “Thematerial side of the transaction is at least as critical as the social: there is moreor less precise reckoning. . . . relations between people are disrupted by a fail-ure to reciprocate within limited time and equivalence leeways.”51 Accordingly,balanced reciprocity characterizes more distant relationships in which self-interest and material concerns take priority over the human bond itself, as inmarket exchange.52

Negative reciprocity is maximization of one’s own benefit at the absoluteexpense of another. It defines interaction with subordinated groups, outsiders,and enemies. Balanced reciprocity can shade into negative reciprocity when,for example, one seeks to swindle another in a trade exchange. Negativereciprocity is synonymous with exploitation, and thus it can assume coerciveforms, for example, “theft, punitive seizure, and forced payment.”53 Accord-ingly, negative reciprocity in its most extreme mode is retaliation: reciprocatinginjury with injury.54


value (“The Ideal Benefactor and the Father Analogy in Greek and Roman Thought,” ClassQ 42[1992]: 421–36, esp. 426); see Hands, Charities & Social Aid, 26.

49 Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics (trans. H. Rackham; LCL; Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press; London: Heinemann, 1948); see Frederic M. Schroeder, “Friendship in Aristotleand Some Peripatetic Philosophers,” in Greco-Roman Perspectives, ed. Fitzgerald, 35–57, esp. 45;and Hands, Charities and Social Aid, 35.

50 Pitt-Rivers, “Kith and Kin,” 98; Gallant, Risk and Survival, 145–46, 160; Herman, Ritual-ized Friendship, 13, 37–39; Barry Strauss, Athens after the Peloponnesian War: Class, Faction, andPolicy 403–386 BC (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 27–28; P. A. Brunt, The Fall of theRoman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 384–94, 420–24; Richard P. Saller,Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982),59–60; David Konstan, “Patrons and Friends,” CP 90 (1995): 328–42, esp. 340–41. For a classicexample, see Seneca, Ben. 2.3.2.

51 Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 195.52 Herman, Ritualized Friendship, 10, 80; Pitt-Rivers, “Kith and Kin,” 97–100. Balanced

reciprocity corresponds to Aristotle’s “friendships of utility”; general reciprocity to his “friendshipsof virtue” (Eth. nic. 8.13.2, see also 8.13.6–7). On Seneca’s drawing the same distinction, seeJoubert, “Seneca’s Views,” 56–57.

53 Davis, Gift, 9.54 Sahlins, Stone Age Economics, 191, 195, 215–16; Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity,” 30, 32,

36–38.

III

Greek reciprocity ethics are attested in stable though hardly static, homo-geneous, or uncontested forms for a period spanning the archaic, classical, Hel-lenistic, and Roman eras. The dynamic of open-ended exchange of benefitsamong friends—that is, generalized reciprocity—coheres around the termcavri", which designates both the concrete favors that friends do reciprocallyfor one another and the gratitude shown in return, a gratitude that we haveseen is the affective dimension of the diffuse obligation to reciprocate. Theterm highlights the qualitative aspects of the relationship, bringing into viewthe graciousness, trust, and voluntariness crucial to this kind of mutualexchange.55 Thus cavri" is the vital principle of friendship itself. Lionel Pearsonnotes that “the whole ancient theory of friendship is based on the assumptionthat favours will be returned: a man who helps his friend usually does so withthe expectation that some return for his favour will be made.”56 Giving frommercenary motives, though, is typical of friendships of utility, a debased carica-ture of friendships of virtue. According to Aristotle, even friendship of virtue ispredicated on exchange of benefits. What distinguishes it from friendship ofutility is the intention governing those benefits: giving is done for the sake ofthe friend, not for the return.57

Cavri" operates in an evaluative framework that directs conferral of favorsand benefits, in other words amity, to the right sorts of persons. These are thevirtuous and the worthy, those with well-disposed intentions who are likely torespond with gratitude, those with means to reciprocate, those who havealready given a benefit and thereby tangible evidence of readiness to recipro-cate, and similarly, those with a track record of reciprocating benefits. Accord-


55 Blundell, Helping Friends, 32–33; Hands, Charities and Social Aid, 36; Robert Parker,“Pleasing Thighs: Reciprocity in Greek Religion,” in Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (ed. Christo-pher Gill, Norman Postlethwaite, and Richard Seaford; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998),105–25, esp. 108, 118–19; David Konstan, “Reciprocity and Friendship,” in Reciprocity in AncientGreece, 279–301, esp. 286.

56 Pearson, Popular Ethics, 136; also Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 202; Gallant, Risk andSurvival, 146–52; Herman, Ritualized Friendship, 92; see Seneca, Ben. 1.12.2.

57 Nicomachean Ethics 5.5.7; 8.4.1, 5.1, 7.6, 8.6, 13.2; 9.1.7, 5.3, 8.2; see Schroeder, “Friend-ship,” 43; Christopher Gill, “Altruism or Reciprocity in Greek Ethical Philosophy?” in Reciprocityin Ancient Greece, ed. Gill et al., 303–28, esp. 319–20; also Sencea, Ben. 1.2.2–4; 2.10.4; 5.1.4.Seneca can nevertheless say: “and so all that is given in this manner will be returned to you in richermeasure” (5.1.4). See also Johann C. Thom, The Pythagorean Golden Verses (Religions in theGraeco-Roman World 123; Leiden/New York: Brill, 1995), 123; Hans Conzelmann, “cavri" ktl:Profane Greek,” TDNT 9:373–76; Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 600–601, 606; Frederick Danker,Jesus and the New Age According to St. Luke (St. Louis: Clayton, 1972), 86–87; W. C. van Unnik,“Die Motivierung der Feindesliebe in Lukas VI 32–35,” NovT 3 (1966): 284–300, esp. 295–98; andMauss, Gift, 7.

ingly, the ability to be discriminating in choosing whom to benefit, thus inchoice of friends, is itself a virtue. In Aristotle’s words, “[It is easy] to give andspend money, but to . . . give money to the right person, and to the rightamount, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way—this is not within everybody’s power and is not easy, so that to do these thingsproperly is rare, praiseworthy, and noble” (Eth. nic. 2.9.1–2).58 These senti-ments are echoed by Seneca: “we ought to be careful to confer benefits by pref-erence upon those who will be likely to respond with gratitude” (Ben.1.10.4–5).59 Seneca notes as a matter of regret that one cannot avoid inadver-tently misdirecting benefits to people who turn out to be ingrates, “whose dis-grace lies in not making a return if it is permissible” (1.1.10). This should not,however, bring a halt to benefaction. Though as a rule one should avoid con-sciously benefiting the unworthy, persevering in benefaction despite unrespon-siveness is godlike, shows serene transcendence of soul, and may in the endelicit gratitude (1.1.9–13; 1.2.5; 1.10.4–5). This last point is an important quali-fier for Seneca: of ungrateful people one should knowingly benefit only thosewho show promise of becoming grateful, not those who have displayed a “bent”toward ingratitude. The unworthy receive the gods’ benefits only because theycannot be separated from the worthy (4.26–28).60

Enemies, by definition unlikely to return favors, and with whom the rela-tionship is already defined by a history of episodes of negative exchange, arebeyond the pale of benefaction. Seneca, who frequently intones with languageof giving magnanimously without obvious expectation of return, holds ada-mantly that benefits are for one’s friends, that injuries cancel reciprocity obliga-tions, that revenge is justified when injuries surpass benefits, and that the onlycondition under which one benefits an enemy is inadvertence.61 K. J. Dover


58 . . . kai; to; dou'nai ajrguvrion kai; dapanh'sai: to; d! w|/ dei' kai; o{son kai; o{te kai; ou| e{neka kai;w{" . . . ; see also 2.9.1–2; 4.1.12, 23; 8.5.1; 9.1.7. For Seneca, the first cause of ingratitude is that “wedo not pick out those who are worthy of receiving our gifts” (“non eligimus dignos, quibus tribua-mus” [Ben. 1.1.2]; see also 2.18.3). See Sir 12:1–6; and Hesiod, Op. 342–54; also Pearson, PopularEthics, 88–89, 143; Blundell, Helping Friends, 45, 52; Gallant, Risk and Survival, 147, 156;Schroeder, “Friendship,” 46; Hands, Charities and Social Aid, 30–34, 74, 80–91; Johann C. Thom,“‘Harmonious Equality’: The Topos of Friendship in Neopythagorean Writings,” in Greco-RomanPerspectives, ed. Fitzgerald, 77–103, esp. 102; and idem, Pythagorean Golden Verses, 121: “Thesole criterion for choosing a friend is his excellence in ajrethv, virtue.”

59 Also: “I protest against the squandering of liberality [upon the ungrateful]” (1.15.3; also1.9.2); see the comments of Joubert (“Seneca’s Views,” 54): Seneca’s ideal recipient is “upright, sin-cere, mindful, grateful, who does not steal, who is not greedily attached to his own possessions, andwho is kind to others (4.11.1).”

60 Scott notes that “members of the upper class wish to maximize the discretionary characterof the benefits at their disposal, because it is precisely this aspect of their power that yields thegreatest social control” (Weapons of the Weak, 194).

61 Seneca, Ben. 2.18.5; 3.12.4; 4.27.4–5; 4.34.2; 5.20.6–7; 5.22.2–3; 6.4.5–6; 6.5.1–2; 6.4.5–6;

notes that “it may often be the case that what appears to be a commendation ofgeneralized benevolence and generosity in fact refers to conduct towardsphiloi.”62 The operative moral axiom in Greek reciprocity ethics was that onehelps friends and harms enemies, and that it is just—“the justice of the talio”—to do so.63

That this maxim was not adequate to every situation nor always conduciveto justice was recognized even at the popular level. There was uneasiness aboutthe danger of assigning moral status to personal revenge.64 The moral uncer-tainty surrounding the maxim was explored, for example, by Aeschylus in theOresteia, where it is suggested that “the identification of justice with retaliationmade strife endless”; likewise, “the retributive dike of the Furies perpetuatesviolence, it leads to no end; true justice must have a finality and put an end toviolence.”65 Moreover, the maxim was in many cases qualified by countervailingvirtues also well represented in traditional wisdom. To overlook injury could bejustified by appeal to prudential concerns and advantage, or as a display of mag-nanimity and superiority.66 Dihle’s study is nothing if not a demonstration of thesustained effort in antiquity, while remaining in the deliberative framework ofreciprocity, to surmount problems inhering in blunt application of the reciproc-ity norm, particularly in its negative aspect.67 For its part philosophical ethicssought emancipation from servitude to reciprocity maxims, that is, from normspredicated on desires for return, on the contingencies and caprices of humaninteraction, norms that held one’s moral freedom hostage to external factorsand whose only basis lay in popular opinion. It searched for a rationally


6.5.1–2. “Friendship is weakened by failure to reciprocate or violated by positive injury and so turnsinto enmity” (Blundell, Helping Friends, 38; see also Pearson, Popular Ethics, 17).

62 Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 276–77.63 Blundell, Helping Friends, 26–31; also Pearson, Popular Ethics, 87, 120–21, 130, 136;

Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 183–84. A locus classicus for this common ethic is Hesiod, Op.342–51: “Call your friend to feast but leave your enemy out . . . // . . . Give to him who is giving toyou but not to him not giving” (lines 342, 354); see John T. Fitzgerald, “Friendship in the GreekWorld Prior to Aristotle,” in Greco-Roman Perspectives, ed. Fitzgerald, 13–34, esp. 32, and DavidL. Balch, “Political Friendship in the Historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities,” inGreco-Roman Perspectives, ed. Fitzgerald, 123–44, esp. 143.

64 Blundell, Helping Friends, 53–56.65 Pearson, Popular Ethics, 125–26, also 205–6. Blundell notes that the impossibility of sepa-

rating application of the talio, taken as an abstract principle of justice, from the lust for personalrevenge is “one source of Electra’s cheerless atmosphere. . . . The characters remain entangled intheir own perspectives, trapping themselves in self-contradictions and delusions of impartialitywhich exclude the possibility of an unequivocally just outcome” (Helping Friends, 267–68).

66 Dover, Greek Popular Morality, 184, 191–95, 226; Blundell, Helping Friends, 56; Harvey,Strenuous Commands, 93, 99; Schottroff, “Gewaltverzicht,” 207–10; Bovon, Evangelium, 314.

67 E.g., Dihle, Goldene Regel, 45; see also Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 288, 306; DieterZeller, Die weisheitliche Mahnsprüche bei den Synoptikern (FB 17; Würzburg: Echter Verlag,1977), 53–58; Schottroff, “Gewaltverzicht,” 204–5.

grounded and autonomous basis for ethics and, correspondingly, focused lesson establishing balance and rectification in the empirical world than on cultiva-tion of one’s internal state. This entailed idealizing the free, self-directed soul,sovereignly unmoved by circumstance, by the constraints of social custom, bypassions and desires, not discomposed by harm inflicted, refusing to compro-mise its virtue by returning wrong, and as the case required capable of benefit-ing others without calculations of return.68 Reciprocity ethics neverthelesscontinued to frame moral deliberation at the popular level despite develop-ments in moral philosophy.69

IV

Luke 6:27–35 stands in the tradition of development and innovationwithin common reciprocity ethics. Verses 27–29 depict instances of negativereciprocity, the form of exchange characteristic of relations with one’s enemy.Negative reciprocity—maximizing benefit to oneself at the absolute expense ofanother—takes blatant form in coercion, forceful seizure, and violence. Verse29 depicts paradigmatic instances of negative reciprocity—striking and seizure.Blows to the face give symbolic expression to relations of domination thatenable exploitation: “There is no system of domination that does not produceits own routine harvest of insults and injury to human dignity—the appropria-tion of labor, public humiliations, whippings, rapes, slaps, leers, contempt, rit-ual denigration.”70 Verse 29b describes robbery.71 Negative reciprocity in itsmost unambiguous mode is retaliation: requiting injuries with injury. In placeof redress of this sort, the instruction urges benefaction. The programmaticcommand “love your enemies” is immediately clarified by the exhortation to“do good” (kalw'" poiei'te) to those who have inflicted injuries, and this is fol-lowed by concrete examples of benefaction.72


68 “Wo im strengen Wortsinn philosophische Ethik gelehrt wird, so also die Normen für dasrechte Handeln sich nicht aus der communis opinio ergeben, sondern aus der Bemühung um dieErkenntnis des wahren, von den Meinungen der Menschen unabhängigen Seins, hat offenbar dieGoldene Regel keinen Platz” (Dihle, Goldene Regel, 103–4; also 45, 64–69; and idem, “GoldeneRegel,” 935–36; see also Wattles, Golden Rule, 33–36; Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 305–6; Harvey,Strenuous Commands, 98). Gill shows, though, that there is no radical break with reciprocity con-ceptions in Greek moral philosophy (“Altruism or Reciprocity?” 315–27).

69 Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 306; Pearson, Popular Ethics, 17, 141.70 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press,

1990), 37; also Ricoeur, Oneself as Another, 220.71 Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 290, 597; Hoffmann, Tradition und Situation, 12; Harvey,

Strenuous Commands, 99; Schürmann, Kommentar, 347; Theissen, Social Reality, 142.72 The exhortation of v. 27b resonates with the maxim: basilikovn kalw'" poivonta kakw'"

ajkouvein, utilized in philosophical parenesis, “das aber ohne Zweifel älteren, vorphilosophischen

The identity of the beneficiaries in v. 30a is not clear. The admonition’semphasis is likely to be found in pantiv, that is, on the eccentric recommenda-tion of giving without restraint or qualification, without consideration of theworthiness of the recipient—whether the person is the sort to feel obligated tomake a return.73 This goes against the grain of the conventional wisdom that inselecting beneficiaries one exercises discretion. Verse 30b, “. . . if anyone takesaway your goods, do not ask for them again,” refers to a quintessential instanceof negative reciprocity, confiscation.74 As was the case in v. 30a, the responseurged is to benefit the perpetrators. In effect this alters the meaning of theexchange from confiscation to gift—in terms of our model, from negative togeneral reciprocity. Blessings, prayers, the offer of the other cheek, bestowal ofthe citwvn, unrestrained giving, conversion of confiscated goods into a gift:these are stunningly liberal acts of general reciprocity, not abandonment ofreciprocity in principle.75

Passing over the golden rule (v. 31) for the moment to the rhetorical ques-tions of vv. 32–34, we find here the definitive expression of general reciproc-ity—open-ended exchange of benefits among friends. With the term cavri" theexhortation in a meditated manner brings into view the dynamic that governsthis kind of exchange. Accordingly, “lending” (vv. 34, 35a) should be construednot as contractual but as open-ended lending among friends, widely practicedamong all social strata in Greece and Rome.76 As we established earlier, cavri"operates in an evaluative framework that restricts exchange relationships topersons likely to reciprocate.

The salient feature of vv. 32–34, however, is not repudiation of reciprocitybehavior and its animating principle, cavri", but the turning on its head of theancillary evaluative framework. Thereby the parenesis brazenly redirects the


Ursprungs ist und seinen Platz auch in vulgärethischen Sentenzensammlungen gefunden hat”(Dihle, Goldene Regel, 45).

73 So Danker, Jesus and the New Age, 85.74 See Zeller, Mahnsprüche, 59–60; Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 598–99; Hoffmann, Tradi-

tion und Situation, 14; Nolland, Luke 1–9:20, 297; Harvey, Strenuous Commands, 95; Schürmann,Kommentar, 348; Theissen, Social Reality, 138.

75 Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 290, 596–99; Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, SocialScience Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 55.

76 Van Unnik, “Motivierung,” 298; Hoffmann, Tradition und Situation, 43 n. 129; Schottroff,“Gewaltverzicht,” 217 n. 92; Harvey, Strenuous Commands, 96; Nolland, Luke 1–9:20, 299; I.Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 263. On thepractice of generalized lending itself, see Gallant, Risk and Survival, 156–57; Finley, Ancient Econ-omy, 54–57; Hands, Charities and Social Aid, 33–34, 137; Herman, Ritualized Friendship, 89–94.In Herman’s words, “loans constituted but one item in the circulation of favours and counter-favours that tied the partners together” (p. 93). Theissen assumes that contractual lending, that is,balanced exchange, is the issue (Social Reality, 139; similarly Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 602), butthis renders inexplicable the dominating presence of cavri" in this context.

reciprocity ethic into a quite different vision of exchange relations—that is,social relations. It hardly need be pointed out that the same vision animates thedirectives of vv. 27–30. The rhetorical questions deny that benefactionsdirected toward those disposed to respond either proceed from or generatecavri": “. . . what cavri" have you?” The astonishing nature of this claim becomesclear when counterposed to Pearson’s characterization of the routine under-standing of cavri": “if there is no interchange of favours there is no charis”—cavri" being the defining element of precisely these kinds of exchanges.77 Noless startlingly, cavri" is appropriated for an ethic featuring benevolencedirected toward enemies, a group routinely ruled out by the conventional eval-uative framework. Despite this breathtaking, even disorienting inversion, theparenesis has not abandoned the conceptual framework of reciprocity, theworld where social relations are defined and articulated by various modes ofexchange.

This construal seems contradicted by v. 35c, the divine paradigm: “Andyou will be children of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and thewicked.” This seems behavior alien to a mentality governed by reciprocity con-cerns—surely God gives disinterestedly! Hence the persistent tendency inscholarship to connect v. 35c solely with the programmatic admonition to loveone’s enemies, supposedly likewise an abandonment of the principle of recipro-cation, and to distinguish both from the reciprocity maxim in v. 31. This viewarises from inadequate understanding of reciprocity dynamics and the socialgeography of the Greco-Roman world. Verse 35c depicts the divine benefactordisplaying the stunning generosity possible only for elites with vast resources attheir disposal.78 The language of noble magnanimity that accompanies a bene-factor’s distribution of benefits does not mean that such giving is disinterested.Rather, benefactors seek by this means to awaken gratitude, create socialbonds, and thereby a devoted clientele. Seneca, an elite patron, likens his bene-


77 Pearson, Popular Ethics, 88; also Herman, Ritualized Friendship, 94; Blundell, HelpingFriends, 32–34; Parker, “Pleasing Thighs,” 108, 118. The modifier poiva may give the sense: “whatsort of cavri" do you get out of that?”—that is, less a flat denial that such exchanges generate cavri"than a denigration of the value of cavri" that is generated through exchanges among people well dis-posed to one another. On either interpretation the point is redeployment of the term within analternative social and moral order. The protasis of each of the rhetorical questions depicts the “giveand return” conventionally correlated to cavri", while the apodosis suddenly alienates cavri" fromthat dynamic. The effect for those listening is a jarring defamiliarization of the term.

78 See Aristotle, Eth. nic. 4.1.23: “This is why we do not call the lavishness of princes Prodi-gality; because we feel that however much they spend and give away they can hardly exceed thelimit of their resources.” Crhstov", predicated here of God, typically refers to someone “der voneiner durch Rang, Stellung, Macht, Reichtum u.a.m. begründeten Überlegenheit über andereeinen wohltätigen Gebrauch macht” (K. Weiss, crhstov", TWNT 9:474); see Hoffmann, Traditionund Situation, 43; also Mauss, Gift, 74; and Bruce Malina, “Patron and Client: The Analogy BehindSynoptic Theology,” Forum 4/1 (1988): 1–32.

factions to the indiscriminate magnanimity of the gods displayed in nature(Ben. 1.1.9–13; 4.25.2). But though not initially distinguishing between thewicked ingrate and the good person who will respond with gratitude, heearnestly desires the latter.79 Inhering in any venture of giving is the risk that itwill not be reciprocated. Seneca’s point in invoking the divine paradigm is this:ingratitude does not constrain the gods to attenuate their goodness, displayedin their generosity, and neither will it constrain him. In imitation of the gods herefuses to grant those who do not reciprocate power to curtail his generosity; herefuses to make the response of another the contingent condition for his owndisplay of the virtue of generosity. This is a far cry from so-called giving with nomoral concern for response, and in fact Seneca without contradiction—andwithout hesitation—can severely censure those who fail to respond to benefac-tion.80

Verse 35b therefore expresses general reciprocity in its benefactor–clientdimension. God’s benefits are freely bestowed. Though response is desired, thedivine giving will not be contingent upon it.81 This correlates to the actionsmandated to the “children of God” in vv. 27–30, and it supports the reconstrualof cavri" in vv. 32–34. In contrast to Seneca, for whom magnanimity distin-guishes the grateful from the ungrateful among an initially morally indistinctgroup of recipients, this principle, along with the divine paradigm supporting it,is extended to the benefiting of active enemies and the morally unworthy, andaccordingly entails abandonment of the principle of discrimination so crucial tothe conventional cavri" ethic.82

V

We are now in a position to return to the problem of the golden rule’s pres-ence in the passage. It might perhaps be less surprising now to find a reciproc-ity maxim embedded in parenesis that we have seen resonates throughout withreciprocity dynamics. However, we also have seen that the passage rejects theadequacy of the conventional reciprocity ethic by subjecting its core concept,cavri", to revaluation and urging abandonment of the evaluative framework thatnormally accompanies it. Yet reciprocity maxims, close cognates of the rule,typically are found in parenetic contexts in support of standard friends- and


79 See Ben. 3.14.3; 3.16.1; 4.10.5–11.2; 4.25.2; 4.26.2–3; 4.27.4–5; 4.28.6; 4.34.2; 5.20.6–7;5.21.2–3, and the discussion above.

80 The definitive statement of these principles is Ben. 1.1.3–13.81 “Divine benevolence stands in stark contrast to human failure to respond in kind” (Betz,

Sermon on the Mount, 610), though curiously Betz then suggests that God “does not expect any-thing in return, though gratitude is certainly the appropriate return” (p. 611).

82 See Hoffmann, Tradition und Situation, 46.

kin-oriented reciprocity obligations.83 This is why many have found the goldenrule in this context indigestible, for just by its presence it seems to evoke theconventional ethic of reciprocal exchange, out of which it emerged and which itor its close relatives so often were called upon to support.

There can be no question that the rule is predicated on the reciprocitynorm. To repeat Strecker, it “implies that the proper action must be oriented onthe action of the other, that is, on the principle of reciprocity.”84 Its criterion ofaction is one’s own desire for beneficent responses from others. It is just asclear, though, that the maxim, by virtue of its formulation, does not unequivo-cally authorize the conventional reciprocity behavior critiqued in vv. 32–34. Ithas long been noted that the rule renders the identity of the recipients of one’sactions indeterminate. While far from ruling out calculated hope for favorableresponse, the rule limits permissible actions to those one would wish visitedupon oneself, with one’s actions not necessarily predicated upon the previousbehavior or prospective reaction of others. Another way of stating this is thatneither the evaluative framework nor its corollary, self-interest—both part andparcel of the conventional cavri" ethic—is innate to the maxim in this its bareformulation. In this respect the rule anticipates the overt rejection of the tradi-tional cavri" evaluative framework in the verses that follow. By the same token,the range of recipients of one’s moral action opened up by the maxim is poten-tially unlimited.85 Moreover, the maxim rules out negative reciprocity, for ineffect it proscribes actions one would not want visited upon oneself and pre-scribes beneficial actions.86 In these respects it aligns with the admonitions ofvv. 27–30.

However, while the rule does not explicitly authorize key elements of theconventional ethic, neither does it in its bare formulation rule them out. Likeall maxims, it has the property of hermeneutic openness. It is a given maxim’sinteraction with the particular parenetic contexts in which it is invoked thatdirects its precise meaning from case to case.87 In a bold manner Luke 6:27–35


83 Dihle, “Goldene Regel,” 930–33, 936; see also Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity,” 39.84 Strecker, “Compliance,” 45; also Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 293, 516.85 See Fuchs, “Goldene Regel,” 774; Werner Wolbert, “Die goldene Regel und das ius talio-

nis,” TTZ 95 (1986): 169–81, esp. 175, 181; Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 511–13; Wattles, GoldenRule, 67; Topel, “Tarnished Golden Rule,” 477; Zeller, Mahnsprüche, 118–20; Marcus G. Singer,“The Golden Rule,” Philosophy 38 (1963): 293–314, esp. 313; Nolland, Luke 1–9:20, 303; Schür-mann, Kommentar, 350–52.

86 Dihle, Goldene Regel, 81; Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity,” 38; also Wattles’s comments(Golden Rule, 188–89). See Ricoeur’s very important discussion in Oneself as Another, 223–27.

87 A point emphasized by Strecker, “Compliance,” 45; Ricoeur, “Golden Rule,” 394–95;Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 293, 516. Singer’s discussion also is crucial (“Golden Rule,” 294–95,313): “. . . it [golden rule] requires interpretation, and is consequently no substitute for an ethicaltheory, or other moral ideas, in the light of which it must be interpreted” (p. 313).

exploits the rule’s gnomic indeterminacy to appropriate its massive authority—the unparalleled collective assent it enjoys—to support and in effect univer-salize the alternative social vision the moral exhortation seeks to bring torealization. Just as importantly, the rule connects the programmatic love com-mand to the social realia of human relations, thereby preventing “love yourenemies” from degenerating into empty sentimentality. The golden rule,expressing the foundational, all-pervasive social norm of reciprocity, functionsas a “starting mechanism” that stimulates the kind of interaction necessary tobring into existence the envisioned social relations.88 Without the reciprocitymotif, the command to love enemies remains orphaned from a social context; itis just an emotive slogan, not the inaugural note of a comprehensive socialvision.89


88 Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity,” 39; see also Ricoeur, “Golden Rule,” 394–97.89 Ricoeur’s great insight; see also Strecker, “Compliance,” 45, and Horsley, “Ethics and Exe-

gesis,” 17.

JBL 122/4 (2003) 687–699

“IF ANYONE THIRSTS, LET THAT ONECOME TO ME AND DRINK”:THE LITERARY TEXTURE

OF JOHN 7:37b–38a

MICHAEL A. [email protected]

The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795

I. The Debate over John 7:38b

John 7:37–38 is a well-known interpretive crux. In it Jesus, on the last dayof Sukkot, bids anyone who is thirsty “come to him and drink,” assuring the onewho believes that, as the Scripture said, “out of his belly shall flow rivers of liv-ing water.” Three questions arise from several ambiguities in the text’s grammarand language: (1) Where does Jesus’ initial invitation end? (2) To whom doesthe phrase “out of his belly” refer? (3) From what passage(s) has the clause “outof his belly shall flow rivers of living water” been drawn?1 The amalgam ofoptions has evoked persistent debate, with no single proposal yet winning con-sensus. Indeed, the status quaestionis vividly described by Joseph Blenkinsoppsome decades ago can still be said to hold true today:

It must be with more than his usual trepidation that the exegete picks hisway over this particularly dangerous spot of the mined terrain of the FourthGospel; the casualties have been heavy here, and there is much uncer-tainty. . . .2

Among several smaller factors complicating this scenario is the formula inJohn 7:38b, “as the Scripture said.” The problem concerns the clause’s closest

1 For fairly recent treatments of the passage, see Germain Bienamé, “L’annonce des fleuvesd’eau vive en Jean 7,37–39,” RTL 21 (1990): 282–302, 418–31; and Anthony T. Hanson, TheProphetic Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), 99–115.

2 Joseph Blenkinsopp, “John VII.38–39: Another Note on a Notorious Crux,” NTS 6 (1959):95.

687

syntactical relationships. With which part of its immediate context is it to beconnected? One might take it to be John 7:38c, which follows:

As the Scripture said, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”3

Or one might take it as part or all of John 7:37b–38a which precedes:

“The one who believes in me” (7:38a) as the Scripture said,“If anyone thirsts, let that one come to me and let the one who believes in medrink” (7:37b– 38a), as the Scripture said.

Though most exegetes have taken the first of these options—and somehave attempted to dismiss the second as untenable4—the second has attractedadvocates from the fourth century to the present: Codex Bezae (according to T.Herbert Bindley), Crispinus Smits, and Alcides Pinto da Silva read John 7:38bwith the entirety of 7:37b–38a;5 Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, Jerome,Theodore of Mopsuestia, Isho’dad of Merv, Theophylact of Ochrida, JohnLightfoot, Günter Reim, and, most recently, Jan C. M. Engelen connect it onlyto John 7:38a.6


3 All translations in this article are mine.4 Marie-Joseph Lagrange (Évangile selon Saint Jean [7th ed.; Paris: Gabalda, 1948], 215), fol-

lowed by Rudolf Schnackenburg (Das Johannesevangelium [HTKNT 4; Freiburg: Herder, 1971],2:215 n. 1), alleged that the reading is a mere expedient, designed to circumvent the problem offinding a passage in back of John 7:38c. Jürgen Becker (Das Evangelium nach Johannes [2d ed.;ÖTK 4; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1985], 1:272) and Maarten J. J. Menken (“‘Rivers of Living Water ShallFlow from His Inside’ [John 7:38],” in Old Testament Quotations in the Fourth Gospel: Studies inTextual Form [CBET 15; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996], 187 and n. 4) suggest that the sequenceshould follow Johannine, early Christian, and early Jewish customs of placing formal introductionsprior to their quotations.

5 T. Herbert Bindley, “John VII.37, 38,” Expositor 20 (1920): 445; Crispinus Smits, Hande-lingen van de Apostelen, Evangelie van Johannes, Apocalyps en Katholieke Brieven, vol. 2 of Oud-Testamentische Citaten in het Nieuwe Testament (Collectanea Franciscana Neerlandica 8;’s-Hertogenbosch: L. C. G. Malmberg, 1955), 2:245; Alcides Pinto da Silva, “Giovanni 7,37–39”Salesianum 45 (1983): 577–86.

6 Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat. lect. 16.11 (Cyrilli Hierosolymarum archiepiscopi opera quaesupersunt omnia [ed. Wilhelm C. Reischl and Joseph Rupp; Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967],2:216–17); John Chrysostom, Hom. Jo. 51.1 (Volume One of the Discovered Works of Our FatherAmong the Saints, John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople [ed. Henry Savile; Eton: JohnNorton, 1612], 766; for Savile’s edition as the best complete text of Chrysostom’s homilies, seeJohannes Quasten, Patrology [Utrecht: Spectrum, 1960], 3:430–31); Jerome, Comm. Zach.3.14.8.9.309–13 (Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, part 1/6 of S. Hieronymi Presbyteri opera[ed. Marcus Adriaen; CCSL 76A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1970], 885); Theodore of Mopsuestia, Comm.Jo., bk. 3, folios 162v–163v (Theodori Mopsuesteni: Commentarius in Evangelium Iohannis Apos-toli [ed. Jacques-Marie Vosté; CSCO Scriptores Syri 62–63; Paris: Typographeo Reipublicae,1940], 62:161–62 [reading Vosté’s suggested atytJt atLmL (“to the following word”) for atLmL

attytJ (“to the proper word”) at p. 161, line 26; for the Latin, see 63:115); Isho‘dad of Merv,Comm. Jo., folio 129b (Luke and John in Syriac, ed. and trans. Margaret D. Gibson, vol. 3 of TheCommentaries of Isho‘dad of Merv, Bishop of Hadatha [HSem 7; Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-

The purpose of this article is not to advocate the alternate reading—indeed, I myself am inclined to follow the consensus and take John 7:38b asintroducing 7:38c. Rather it is to contribute to the broader discussion of John7:37–38 by building on the by-product of one of the alternate readings. Anyonefamiliar with research on John 7:37–38 knows that the lion’s share of attentionto possible literary antecedents has been given to 7:38c. The prospect of findingthe source behind “rivers of living water shall flow from his belly” is as alluringas it is elusive; consequently, most interest in the passage’s literary backgroundhas focused, almost myopically, on that single clause. However, both of theseverses are allusive of literary antecedents, regardless of how one chooses toread the formal quotation itself. John 7:37b–38a, as much as 7:38c, resonateswith biblical overtones. In this regard, discussion of the alternate reading offersa corrective of sorts by giving some compensatory consideration to the prove-nance of what lies before, rather than after, John 7:38b. However problematicits placement of the quotation may be for some, the alternate reading has gen-erated discussion that, if further engaged, can balance the asymmetrical atten-tion described above and thereby widen exegetical horizons about the fullermeaning of John 7:37–38.

This article aims to do just that. After first demonstrating that two allegedwitnesses to the alternate reading have been misread, two proposals for theprovenance of John 7:37b–38a will be assessed, modified, and interpreted inrelation to their immediate context in John 7. I will conclude that, at its base,John 7:37b–38a forms a reference to LXX Isa 55:1, and that this reference hasbeen embellished so as to assimilate Isaiah into Johannine theology and con-nect the whole of John 7:37–38 with its preceding narrative.

II. Questionable Witnesses to the Alternate Reading of John 7:38b

Codex Bezae: T. Herbert Bindley

Before developing the central thesis of this article, we note first that, of theseveral witnesses alleged to testify to the alternate reading of John 7:38b, two

Daise: The Literary Texture of John 7:37b–38a 689

sity Press, 1911], 151–52); Theophylact of Ochrida, Comm. Jo. ch. 7, vv. 37, 38 (PG 123:1341ab,1342ab); John Lightfoot, Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae (ed. R. Gandell; 4 vols. 1658–74; Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1859), 3:323; Günter Reim, Jochanan: Erweiterte Studien zum alttesta-mentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevangeliums (1974; Studien zum Alttestamentlichen Hinter-grund des Johannesevangeliums 22; Erlangen: Verlag der Ev.-Luth. Mission, 1995), 70–72; JanC. M. Engelen, Johannes 7–10: Verklaring van een Bijbelgedeelte (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1982),50–51. A third option, mentioned but not taken up by Reim and Jürgen Becker, is that John 7:38bintroduces a single quotation that spans both John 7:38a and 7:38c; see Reim, Jochanan, 64, 71; andBecker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 1:272.

likely do not: Codex Bezae, as suggested by T. Herbert Bindley, and Jerome, assuggested by Hugo Rahner. Bindley argued that Bezae attests John 7:38b tointroduce 7:37b–38a as a reference to Isa 55. His cue was a transcription ofBezae’s Latin text made by J. Armitage Robinson, in which John 7:38b was fol-lowed by a period.7 Detecting a parallelism in the two clauses preceding John7:38b, Bindley surmised that, in Bezae, that formula looked backwards to intro-duce both of those clauses as a reference to Isa 55:1.8 The text as it appears inRobinson and Bindley is as follows:

dicens si quis sitit veniantet bibat9 qui credit in mesicut dixit scriptura. flumina dentreeius fluent aquae vivae.

Precarious in Bindley’s deduction, however, is that the “punctuation” heand Robinson perceived in John 7:38b is probably not a period at all. In themanuscript of Bezae itself, one does not find a period per se, but a medialstop—one of many points in Bezae that are raised from the bottom letter line tohalf the height of its uncials/capitals. The mark appears in both Greek andLatin columns, as represented in the following transcription:

LEGWEANTISDIYAiERCESQW DICENSSIQUISSITITVENIANTKAIPEINETWOPISTEUWNEISEME ETBIBATQUICREDITINMEKAQWSEIPENHGRAFH:POTAMOI- SICUTDIXITSCRIPTURA:FLUMINA-

EKTHS DENTREKOILIASAUTOUREUSOUSINUDATOS- EIUSFLUENTAQUAE-

ZWNTOS VIVAE10

With regard to Bindley’s hypothesis, it is significant that a survey of medialpoints in Bezae—if only in the Gospel of John—shows quite clearly that no oneof them ought ipso facto be equated with a “period.”11 First, while many medial


7 J. Armitage Robinson, The Apology of Aristides; The Passion of S. Perpetua; The Lord’sPrayer in the Early Church; the Fragments of Heracleon (TS 1; Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1891; repr., Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint Ltd., 1967), 98 n. 6.

8 Bindley, “John VII 7.37, 38,” 444–45. In a postscript (p. 447), Bindley welcomed CharlesF. Burney’s suggestion of a stop placed after John 7:38a, published while Bindley’s own article wasin press (C. F. Burney, “Our Lord’s Old Testament Reference in St. John VII.37, 38,” Expositor 20[1920]: 385–88). Whether or not Bindley was retracting his own proposal, as Bienamé thinks(“L’annonce des fleuves d’eau vive en Jean 7,37–39,” 289 n. 28), his publication of it nonethelesshas raised an issue about Bezae’s John 7:38b that warrants treatment.

9 Bindley mistakenly reproduced Robinson’s (correct) “bibat” as “bibit.”10 The transcription is from the photographs in Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis quattuor Evan-

gelia et Actus Apostolorum complectens Graece et Latine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Presswith C. J. Clay & Sons, 1899), 1: folios 132b, lines 17–20; 133a, lines 17–20.

11 For views on the possible relationship between Bezae’s medial stops and its exemplar, seeJ. Rendel Harris, Codex Bezae: A Study of the So-Called Western Text of the New Testament (TS 2,

points do coincide with ends of sentences, many ends of sentences are bereft ofthem altogether. Second, and conversely, where medial points do obtain in thetext, they often appear at other grammatical junctures: sometimes between twoclauses of the same sentence,12 sometimes between an introductory clause anddirect or indirect discourse,13 sometimes between a subject and its verb or averb and its (indirect) object/predicate,14 and sometimes between parts of asingle clause or phrase.15 At folio 163b/9 a medial point splits main from elabo-rating clauses, much like a colon. At folio 115a/2 a medial point occurs at thebeginning of a mid-sentence parenthetical remark. And—curiously in regard tothe issue at hand—at folio 153b/14 (John 12:38) a medial point appearsbetween a citation formula and a reference that follows (rather than precedes)it, ostensibly functioning more like a comma than like a period:

iüna o logos hsaiüou tou profhtou plhrwqhon eipen: ke tis episteusen th akohhmwn kai o braceiwn ku tini

:apekalufqh(f.153b/13–16)16

On these grounds Bindley’s hypothesis about Bezae becomes dubious. Tobe sure, the frequent coincidence of medial points with periods in Bezae doesallow the possibility that Bindley and Robinson have alighted upon a correctreading. But, that the function of those points seems indifferent to grammarand syntax—not to mention that one medial point appears between a citation


no. 1; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1891), 241–43; and David C. Parker, Codex Bezae:An Early Christian Manuscript and Its Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992),73–81.

12 Inter alia, f.104b/10, f.113b/25, f.115a/3, f.115a/14, f.114b/17, f.115b–116a/22, f.117a/12(sigla: f.# = folio number; /# = line number of the respective folio; b = the Greek text; a = the Latintext; b-a = the appearance of a point at the same place in correlating Greek and Latin texts). Thetext used for this and the following notes is Frederick H. Scrivener’s critical edition of Bezae (BezaeCodex Cantabrigiensis [Cambridge: Deighton, Bell, 1864; repr., Pittsburgh Reprint Series 5; Pitts-burgh: Pickwick, 1978]). These and several of the following examples are partial, not exhaustive,listings.

13 Between an introductory clause and direct discourse, see f.115a/32, f.116a/8, f.115b/16,f.117a/16, f.116b–117a/17, f.116b/21; between an introductory clause and indirect discourse,f.113b–114a/33, f.118b–119a/16, f.121b/31.

14 Between a subject and its verb, see f.113b/17, f.115a/2–3, f.118a/22, f.121b/23; between averb and its (indirect) object/predicate, f.104b/9, f.114b–115a/9, f.117a/9, f.167b/33–168b/1.

15 Between a compound subject, see f.118b/18; between compound infinitives, f..135b/28;between compound adjectives (participles), f.122a/26; between compound objects of a preposition,f.115b/28–29; between two substantives (in apposition), f.104b/20–21; between two adverbialphrases, f.123a/28–29; between a noun and its modifier(s), f.116b/22; between a verb or participleand its modifier(s), f.115a/8; between a conjunction and the verb in its clause, f.116b/6; and oneither side of a number, f.178b/4, f.180b/6.

16 The transcription is as it appears in Scrivener, Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis, 138.

formula and a quotation that follows it—ultimately renders their reading, andtherefore Bindley’s theory, doubtful. Conceding a slim chance to the contrary,discretion suggests that Bezae should not be considered a witness to the alter-nate reading of John 7:38b.

Jerome: Hugo Rahner

A similar point can be made for Hugo Rahner’s claim about Jerome.17 Inhis 1941 article on patristic interpretation of John 7:37–38,18 Rahner allegedthat, while elsewhere Jerome had taken John 7:38b to introduce 7:38c as a ref-erence to Proverbs,19 in his Commentary on Zechariah Jerome had read 7:38bas of a piece with 7:38a. Rahner noted that, in this Commentary, Jerome hadparaphrased “sicut dixit scriptura” (John 7:38b) as “juxta id quod scripturarumvocibus continetur” (“as that which is contained in the utterances of the Scrip-tures”).20 From this Rahner seems to have deduced that, here, Jerome (likeCyril and the Antiochene School) read John 7:38b as an adverbial modifier of7:38a, referring to the whole of Scripture—that is, as “the one who believes inme as the Scripture said.” Rahner appears to have accentuated his point byomitting the comma between v. 38a and v. 38b that appears in J. P. Migne’s textof Jerome, which he cites:

Es scheint zwar, dass auch ihm [Jerome], der sich in der Schultradition vonCaesarea so gut auskannte, die zuerst von Cyrillus von Jerusalem vorgelegteLösung nicht unbekannt war. Denn er sagt in seinem Kommentar zuZacharias: “sic qui crediderit in eo (Christo) juxta id quod Scripturarumvocibus continetur, flumina aquae viventis egredientur de ventre illius”—erzieht also den Text so zusammen wie die antiochenische Schule es lehrte.21

Such an inference, however, is open to question. To be sure, the preciseclause “juxta id quod scripturarum vocibus continetur” never does occur else-where in Jerome. But similar clauses opening with “juxta id quod” do; and,where they appear as referring to the Scriptures, they invariably function ascitation formulae, introducing single and identifiable passages of the Bible.Note the following:


17 The following discussion has benefited from specific comments by my colleague Alison I.Beach. Final responsibility for its content and conclusions, of course, remains solely my own.

18 Hugo Rahner, “Flumina de Ventre Christi: Die patristische Auslegung von Joh 7,37.38,”Bib 22 (1941): 269–302, 367–403.

19 Jerome, Adversus Rufinum 2.25 (PL 23:469c–470a). Rahner suspected that Jerome fol-lowed Origen and traced it specifically to Prov 5:15–16 (“Flumina de Ventre Christi,” 299–301).

20 Jerome, Comm. Zach. 3.14.8.9.309, 312 (CCSL 76A, 885).21 Rahner, “Flumina de Ventre Christi,” 299 (brackets are mine; parentheses are from

Rahner).

PASSAGE IN JEROME CITATION FORMULA REFERENCE

Comm. Isa. sed juxta id quod Hiezechieli dicitur Ezek 3:8–922

14.50.4/7.31–34 (“but as that which is said by Ezekiel”)

Comm. Isa. juxta id quod ipse loquitur (“as that Matt 24:1423

14.52.9.10.54–56 which he himself says”)

Comm. Jer. juxta id vero, quod LXX transtulerunt Jer 17:17 LXX24

3.17.15–17.9–11 dicentes (“as that, indeed, which theLXX has translated, saying”)

Comm. Os. juxta id quod supra scriptum est Hos 5:1–225

2.9.8.9.186–189 (“as that which is written above”)

Comm. Os. juxta id quod supra dixerat (“as that Hos 9:1226

2.9.16.17.447–449 which he had spoken above”)

Comm. Mich. ut juxta id quod scriptum est (“so that, Rom 11:3227

1.2.11/13.504–505 as that which is written”)

Comm. Mal. juxta id quod in Deuteronomio Deut 32:1128

4.1/3.40–42 scriptum est (“as that which iswritten in Deuteronomy”)

Epist. 119, 5.6 juxta id, quod in evangelio legimus Matt 6:229

(“as that, which we read in the gospel”)

Epist. 119, 10.13 juxta id, quod scriptum est (“as that, Ezek 9:930

which is written”)


22 Text: Commentariorum in Esaiam libri XII–XVIII, part 1/2A of S. Hieronymi Presbyteriopera (ed. Marcus Adriaen; CCSL 73A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1963), 553.

23 Text: ibid., 584.24 Text: In Hieremiam libri VI, part 1/3 of S. Hieronymi Presbyteri opera (ed. Siegfried

Reiter; CCSL 74; Turnhout: Brepols, 1960), 169. Note that the third plural “transtulerunt” hereand in Epist. 140, 7.26–28 (below) is used for the LXX version of Jer 17:17 and Ps 89:3, respec-tively—not as a general reference to the whole of Scripture.

25 Text: Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, part 1/6 of S. Hieronymi Presbyteri opera (ed.M. Adriaen; CCSL 76; Turnhout: Brepols, 1969), 96–97. Hosea 5:1–2 is cited earlier in the com-mentary at Comm. Os. 1.5.1.2.3–5 (CCSL 76, 50).

26 Text: Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, ed. Adriaen (CCSL 76), 104. Hosea 9:12 is citedearlier in the commentary at Comm. Os. 2.9.11/13.282–284 (CCSL 76, 99).

27 Text: Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, ed. Adriaen (CCSL 76A, 454).28 Text: ibid., 940.29 Text: Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae, part 2 (ed. Isidore Hilberg; 2nd ed.; CSEL 55;

Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1996), 451.30 Text: ibid., 466. The reference, as suggested by Hilberg (p. 466, note for line 24), seems to

PASSAGE IN JEROME CITATION FORMULA REFERENCE

Epist. 140, 7.3 porro juxta id, quod Septuaginta Ps 89:3 LXX31

transtulerunt (“Moreover, as that,which the Septuagint has translated”)

The difference in detail between these formulae and the clause in ques-tion prohibits drawing absolute implications from this comparison. But, thatJerome elsewhere used “juxta id quod” to introduce specific passages of theBible, and that he at one place took John 7:38b to introduce 7:38c as a refer-ence to Proverbs, suggest that the weight of evidence runs against Rahner’sdeduction. It is more likely that Jerome’s paraphrase refers to a discrete biblicallocus, that such a locus is to be found somewhere in Proverbs, and that theclause being introduced is John 7:38c. Thus, Jerome would have nowherealigned with Cyril and the Antiochene School and, therefore, like Codex Bezae,is best not counted among the witnesses to the alternate reading of John 7:38b.

III. John 7:37b–38b: Two Proposals

Among several ways of conceiving of the alternate reading of John 7:38b,two take 7:38b to introduce a specific biblical locus: one, argued by GünterReim, takes John 7:38a to be a quotation of Isa 28:16; the other, argued primar-ily by Alcides Pinto da Silva, takes John 7:37b–38a to be a quotation of Isa55:1–3.32 Reim argues that John 7:38b introduces 7:38a as a reworked refer-


be to Ezek 9:9 (Vulg.), “The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great (magnaest nimis valde).”

31 Text: Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae, part 3 (ed. Isidore Hilberg; 2nd ed.; CSEL 56/1;Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1996), 276. A related but somewhat more remote usage ofthe construct is found in Comm. Mich. 1.2.11/13.402–3, where the Hebrew (over against LXX) ver-sion of Mic 2:11–13 (quoted earlier in the commentary at 1.2.11/13.391–401) is introduced with“juxta id quod nobis ab Hebraeis traditum est” (“as that which has been passed on to us by theHebrews”); see Commentarii in Prophetas Minores, ed. Adriaen (CCSL 76A), 450–51.

32 The third way of conceiving the alternate reading of John 7:38b is that which Rahner iden-tified with Cyril above; namely, that John 7:38b is an adverbial modifier of 7:38a, referring to thewhole of Scripture. It has also been followed by Chrysostom, Theodore, Isho‘dad, Theophylact,Lightfoot, and Engelen (see the references to each in n. 6 above). Bienamé objects that this inter-pretation “meconnaît la formule de citation” (“L’annonce des fleuves d’eau vive en Jean 7,37–39,”289 n. 31), and his critique finds support from John 1:23; 6:31; and 12:14–15, where similar clausesbeginning with kaqwv" introduce identifiable biblical passages. A complete dismissal of the optionshould be tempered, however, by the possibility that analogous clauses in John 17:12 and (espe-cially) 19:28 likewise refer to Scripture as a whole. Judith Lieu entertains (though does not neces-sarily advocate) this for John 17:12d, “in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (“NarrativeAnalysis and Scripture in John,” in The Old Testament in the New Testament: Essays in Honour of

ence to LXX Isa 28:16d, oJ pisteuvwn ejp! aujtw'/: the third person “he” has beenchanged to “me,” and the prepositional phrase ejpiv + dative has been replacedwith eij" + accusative.33 Reim’s assumptions and premises are somewhat diffi-cult to discern, coming couched in an extended discussion of early Jewish andChristian exegesis of Isa 28:16. With some certainty, however, they can be dis-tilled into the following three points: (1) the singular hJ grafhv in John 7:38bindicates that 7:38a refers only to a single passage of Scripture;34 (2) early Jew-ish and Christian interpretation of Isa 28:16 evokes the same themes of eternallife and messianic faith as are found in John 7:38a and other passages in Johnwhere pisteuvein eij" + accusative is used;35 and (3) the use of eij" + accusativein John 7:38a for ejpiv + dative in LXX Isa 28:16 has precedent in Paul, whomakes a similar replacement in Rom 10:11, 14.36

Pinto da Silva, for his part, contends that John 7:38b introduces 7:37b–38aas a reference to a LXX-influenced Hebrew text of Isa 55:1–3.37 Since Pinto daSilva does not regard the connection between Isa 55 and John 7:37b to be in


J.L. North [ed. S. Moyise; JSNTSup 189; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000], 157); and forJohn 19:28b, “in order that the Scripture might be completed,” see Heinrich W. Meyer, Kritischexegetisches Handbuch über das Evangelium des Johannes (5th rev. and enl. ed.; KEK2; Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1869), 631; Robert H. Lightfoot, St. John’s Gospel: A Commentary (ed.C. F. Evans: Oxford: Clarendon, 1956), 317–18; Wilhelm Thüsing, Die Erhöhung und Ver-herrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium (NTAbh 21; Munich-Westphalia: Aschendorff, 1960),64–68; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John [xiii–xxi]: Introduction, Translation,and Notes (AB 29A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), 929; Severino Pancaro, The Law in theFourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity According toJohn (NovTSup 42; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 355–57; Roland Bergmeier, “TETELESTAI Joh 1930”ZNW 79 (1988): 284–86; and Wolfgang Kraus, “Die Vollendung der Schrift nach Joh 19,28: Über-legungen zum Umgang mit der Schrift im Johannesevangelium,” in The Scriptures in the Gospels(ed. C. M. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997), 630–33, 633 n. 9; idem,“Johannes und das alte Testament: Überlegungen zum Umgang mit der Schrift im Johannesevan-gelium im Horizont biblischer Theologie,” ZNW 88 (1997): 14–16, 16 n. 84.

33 Reim, Jochanan, 71–72.34 Appealing to Edwin C. Hoskyns, Reim cites as examples John 7:42; 13:18; 17:12; 19:24, 28,

37 (Jochanan, 70 n. 184); see Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel (ed. F. N. Davey; 2nd ed.; London:Faber & Faber, 1947), 322. Reim observed earlier in his work (p. 19) that John 7:42 includes refer-ences to both 2 Sam 7:12 and Mic 5:1, but he considers them to be two separate citations intro-duced by the single oujc hJ grafh; ei\pen.

35 Besides John 7:38a, Reim cites John 3:15, 16, 18, 36; 6:35, 40, 47 (Jochanan, 71).36 Reim takes Paul’s question in Rom 10:14, “How then can they call upon whom they have

not believed (eij" o}n oujk ejpivsteusan),” to be a direct commentary on the quotation of LXX Isa28:16 in Rom 10:11 (“everyone who believes on him [pa'" oJ pisteuvwn ejp! aujtw'/] will be put toshame”) (Reim, Jochanan, 83 n. 211).

37 Pinto da Silva, “Giovanni 7,37–39,” 578. Smits somewhat anticipated Pinto da Silva by sim-ilarly suggesting that John 7:38b introduces 7:37b as a reference to LXX Isa 55:1–3 (Handelingen,245). Smits’s choice, however, not to address the way John 7:38a figures into that reference—arguably the nub of the issue—has left the vanguard for the case with Pinto da Silva.

serious dispute,38 he weights his discussion toward demonstrating that the con-nection with Isa 55 extends further into John 7:38a. His premises are essentiallyfivefold, divided into two lines of argument: one for a connection to a HebrewVorlage; the other (apparently) for LXX influence on that Vorlage.39 For theHebrew Vorlage, Pinto da Silva argues (1) that Isa 55 was an important the-matic source for the whole of John; (2) that the grammar of John 7:37b–38a isreminiscent of Hebrew Isa 55:1–3a; (3) that the Evangelist would havereplaced Isaiah’s call to “eat” with one to “drink” to accommodate the Sukkotcontext of John 7 (the wilderness commemoration?, the libation drawn fromSiloam?); and (4) that the Evangelist would have translated Isaiah’s [wmv w[mv(“listen!”) as oJ pisteuvwn (“the one who believes”) and Isaiah’s !kvpn yjtw (“andyour soul will live”) as pinevtw (“let that one drink”) because, throughout theFourth Gospel, listening/believing and living/drinking are semantic equiva-lents.40 For LXX influence on this Hebrew Vorlage, Pinto da Silva continues(5) that the linguistic and thematic sequence of LXX Isa 55:1–2 (given thesemantic equivalents noted above) matches that of John 7:37b–38a.41 Pinto daSilva visualizes this last parallel using the Traduction oecuménique de la Bible(TOB), which he (rightly) notes is a translation of the Hebrew text that is sensi-


38 See the works cited by Pinto da Silva, “Giovanni 7,37–39,” 580 n. 20. It should perhaps beremembered that, in the broader discussion of John 7:37–38, v. 37b has been associated with othersapiential invitations; see Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Quenching of Thirst: Reflection on the Utter-ance in the Temple, John 7:37–39,” Scripture 12 (1960): 41–45.

39 Confusing in Pinto da Silva’s discussion is his final statement that “one can choose the best”(si può scegliere la migliore) of either line of argument (“Giovanni 7, 37–39,” 586). Contrary to hisearlier statement that the source behind John 7:37b–38a was a LXX-influenced Hebrew text(p. 578), it implies that the Vorlage could be either such a LXX-Hebrew hybrid or the LXX itself.

40 Pinto da Silva, “Giovanni 7,37–39,” 579–85.41 Ibid., 585–86. For further clarification it may be noted that the LXX reading to which

Pinto da Silva alludes (kai; pivete) is attested in thirty-one uncials, minuscules, and papyri, as well asin Clement of Alexandria: besides Clement (using the sigla from the Göttingen edition) they are A,Q, S, 26, 36, 46, 49, 86, 106, 109, 147, 198, 233, 239, 306, 403, 407, 410, 449, 534, 538, 564, 565,613, 764, 770, 902, 904, 915, 948, 965—note also the reading pivesqe (in various combinations) inV, 90, and Theodoret; cf. the Septuagint apparatus in Joseph Ziegler, Isaias, vol. 14 of Septuaginta(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1939), 327. Visualized in Greek, the correlation with John 7is as follows:

LXX Isa 55:1 John 7:37b

oiJ diyw'nte" ejavn ti" diya'/poreuvesqe ejrcevsqwkai; pivete kai; pinevtw

Over against the witnesses listed above are a number of readings following or akin to the MT sum-mons “to eat”: favgete (B, Qmg, 22, 48, 51, 88, 93, 96, 231, 763, Cyprian); favgete kai; poreuvesqe kai;ajgoravsate (87, 309, 490, Jerome); favgetai kai; poreuvesqe kai; ajgoravsate (91); favgesqe (86c,130, 311, 544); favgesqai (62). I will not here speculate on the complex issue of their origin.

tive to the LXX.42 His visualization is reproduced here, with his Italian of John7:37b–38a translated into English:

John 7:37b–38a Isa 55:1–2

Let the one who has thirst Ô vous tous qui êtes assoifféscome to me venezand let drink et buvezthe one who believes in me écoutez-moi

IV. The Provenance of“The One Who Believes In Me”

The wider discussions of Reim and Pinto da Silva carry a number of pointswith which one might take issue: the presence of Isa 28:16 in several Qumranand Christian texts cited by Reim, for instance, is questionable;43 and thesemantic equivalents Pinto da Silva perceives between Isa 55 and the Gospel ofJohn are sometimes tenuous.44 Most telling for the issue at hand, however, isthat the phrase oJ pisteuvwn eij" ejmev in John 7:38a is more readily explainable in


42 See Traduction oecuménique de la Bible (2nd ed.; Paris: Cerf, 1982), 11, 545n o.43 Contra Reim, no characteristic vocabulary of Isa 28:16 appears in 1QS 11:3b–5, CD

3:19–20, or 1QHa 11:37 (Sukenik 3:37), and 1QHa 15:9 (Sukenik 7:9) has only the possible allusion@jb tmwjl (“tested wall”); text of 1QHa (The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University [ed. EleazarL. Sukenik; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1955], pl. 41). Similarly doubtful or stretched are Reim’s sugges-tions that Isa 28:16 lies behind 1 Tim 1:16 (“as a type of those who are going to believe on him [tw'nmellovntwn pisteuvein ejp! aujtw'/] for eternal life”), 2 Tim 1:12 (“but I am not ashamed [oujk ejpais-cuvnomai], for I know whom I have believed” [w|/| pepivsteuka]), and Luke 2:34 (“this one is set forthe fall and rise [ajnavstasin] of many in Israel”). In the last verse, Reim perceives Isa 28:16 to berepresented by ajnavstasi", and to be a corollary to Isa 8:14, represented by ptw'si" (“fall”), similarto the coupling of those two passages in Rom 9:33 and 1 Pet 2:6, 8 (Jochanan, 74–75, 78–81, 78n. 203). For similar points on Reim’s discussion of 1QS 11:3b–5 and 1 Tim 1:16 (as well as on Rom10:11), see Bienamé (“L’annonce des fleuves d’eau vive en Jean 7,37–39,” 290 nn. 32, 34).

44 Among Pinto da Silva’s claims are (1) that the metaphor of “water” for “word” in Isa 55:10–11 is reflected in John 7:37–38 and Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman (John 4:7–26), nei-ther of which make explicit reference to “the word”; (2) that the exhortation to “buy grain (wrbv) . . .without money or price (ryjm awlbw #skAawlb)” in Isa 55:1b is manifest in the feeding of the multi-tude with loaves and fishes in John 6:5–14; (3) that the reference to “wine and milk” in Isa 55:1b hascorollaries in the turning of water to wine at Cana (John 2:1–11) and the flow of blood and waterfrom Jesus’ side on the cross (John 19:34); and (4) that the synonymity between “listening to” and“being from God” in John 8:47 is tantamount to a synonymity between “listening to” and “believ-ing,” such as Pinto da Silva alleges to occur between Isa 55:2–3 and John 7:38a (“Giovanni7,37–39,” 579, 580, 583–84). From a different vantage point, Hanson criticizes Pinto da Silva’s pro-posal for implying that John 7:37–39 contains actual words of Jesus and that those words can be dis-tinguished from the Evangelist’s commentary on them (Prophetic Gospel, 103–4).

other ways. This can be pursued along two lines of argument. First, if thephrase were drawn from the Jewish Bible, a more concrete connection couldbe made with Isa 53:1 in John 12:37–38. There, the construct pisteuvein eij" +accusative is used in commentary on pisteuvein + dative in LXX Isa 53:1, sug-gesting that the former might be an excerpted equivalent of the latter:

But though he had performed so many signs among them, they were notbelieving in him (oujk ejpivsteuon eij" aujtovn45), in order that the word of Isaiahthe prophet might be fulfilled, which said, “Lord, who has believed ourreport (ejpivsteusen th'/ ajkoh'/ hJmw'n)? And to whom has the arm of the Lordbeen revealed?”

But more to the point is the likelihood that oJ pisteuvwn eij" ejmev in John7:38a is not derived from a biblical passage at all but is simply a turn of phrasepeculiar to Johannine style. This has been demonstrated, independently, byboth Marie-Émile Boismard and Arnaud Lamouille and Eugen Ruckstuhl andPeter Dschulnigg. The prevalence of pisteuvein eij" + accusative in John, con-trasted with its relatively meager attestation elsewhere in the NT, suggests thatthe construct is, in fact, a “linguistic feature” (Sprachmerkmal) native to Johan-nine nomenclature.46 That being so, the phrase “the one who believes in me” inJohn 7:38a (and elsewhere in the Gospel) is better identified not as a quotationtraceable to some specific biblical locus—be it Isa 28:16, Isa 55:1–3 or anyother—but as a turn of phrase distinctive to Johannine parlance.

Johannine embellishment would also account for the verb ejrcevsqw forLXX poreuvesqe in the quotation of Isaiah in John 7:37b (see the comparison inn. 41). #Ercesqai is used frequently in the Gospel of John as a metaphor forfaith in Jesus.47 Thus, like oJ pisteuvwn eij" ejmev, it can be regarded in John 7:37 asa peculiarly Johannine feature, inserted into the quotation to help turn Isaiah’sbid to “come to the water” into the Evangelist’s summons to “believe in Jesus.”


45 P66 f13 pc and Eusebius of Caesarea read ejpivsteusan.46 The occurrences of the construct in John (outside of John 7:38) are at John 1:12; 2:11, 23;

3:16, 18, 36; 4:39 (eij" aujtovn omitted in a* pc a e); 6:29, 35, 40; 7:5, 31, 39, 48; 8:30; 9:35, 36; 10:42;11:25, 26 (eij" ejmev omitted in W), 45, 48; 12:11, 36, 37, 42, 44, 46; 14:1(2x), 12; 16:9; 17:20. Bois-mard and Lamouille distinguish pisteuvein eij" to; o[noma, which they register as 100-percent charac-teristic of Johannine literature, from pisteuvein eij", which they rate at 83 percent (L’Évangile deJean, vol. 3 of Synopse des quatre Évangiles en français [Paris: Cerf, 1987], 491, 496, 502); see alsoEugen Ruckstuhl and Peter Dschulnigg, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium(NTOA 17; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 32, 57–58, 150–51. Boismard andLamouille do not extend their comparison to works outside the NT; Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg,who do, note that the peculiarity of the phrase to John breaks down when placed in the larger con-text of Hellenistic literature.

47 John 3:20–21; 5:40; 6:35, 37, 44, 45; 6:65 (also possible are 3:26; 7:34, 36; 8:21–22; 10:41;13:33); for its use to express “believing” in the Father, see John 14:6. On this point, see also Blenk-insopp, “John VII.38–39,” 96

Moreover, the use of ejrcevsqw in John 7:37 is likely a narrative carryover of atheme begun in the immediately preceding passage, John 7:33–36. There,e[rcesqai appears twice as Jesus tells the Jews that where he is going they can-not “come,” and the Jews, in response, ponder his meaning:

Therefore Jesus said, “I am with you yet a little while and (then) go to the onewho sent me. You will seek me and will not find me, and where I am you can-not come (uJmei'" ouj duvnasqe ejlqei'n).” The Jews therefore said among them-selves, “Where is he about to go, that we will not find him? He is not going togo to the Diaspora among the Greeks and teach the Greeks, is he? What isthis word which he said, ‘You will seek me and will not find me,’ and ‘Where Iam you cannot come (uJmei'" ouj duvnasqe ejlqei'n)’?”

That e[rcesqai appears again in Jesus’ next spoken words in John 7:37 sug-gests that the logia in 7:37–38 are meant to pick up on the discourse in 7:33–36and develop its theme of “coming” even further. In fact, a certain logical pro-gression of thought emerges when one considers both passages together.Whereas earlier in the feast of Sukkot (7:33–36) Jesus tells the Jews they cannotcome where he is going (and they query among themselves about what thatmight mean), on the last day of that feast (7:37–38) he tells them that they can,nonetheless, come to him, inserting the language of e[rcesqai into Isa 55:1 tomake his invitation. The thought expressed is not unlike John 14:4–6, whereJesus will not tell his disciples precisely where he is going, but assures themthat, by knowing him himself, they know the way where he is going (see John13:33).

Seen in this light, the substitution of ejrcevsqw for poreuvesqe in John7:37b functions not only to adapt Isa 55 to Johannine theology but also to tieJohn 7:37–38 into 7:33–36. It serves both to aid in the theological embellish-ment of the quotation and to weave John 7:37–38 into the larger fabric of ch. 7.

V. Conclusion

Two matters relative to the alternate reading of John 7:38b have beenaddressed. First, it has been shown that two witnesses alleged to testify to thatreading—Codex Bezae and Jerome—likely do not. Second, it has been arguedthat John 7:37b–38a forms a reference to LXX Isa 55:1, modified so as to adaptthe quotation to the Fourth Gospel’s theology and connect John 7:37–38 the-matically with 7:33-36.


JBL 122/4 (2003) 701–730

THE MESSIAH JESUS IN THEMYTHIC WORLD OF JAMES

MATT [email protected]

Niagara University, Lewiston, NY 14109

I

It has often been observed, sometimes with consternation, that there islittle in the Letter of James that could not have been written by a non-ChristianJew. Beyond its spare references to Jesus, concepts that form central pillars inthe mythic thought of other early Christian works are not obviously importantin James. Most notably, James lacks any reference to Jesus’ death and resurrec-tion (let alone the former’s atoning significance), while allusions to the closelyrelated ideas of the Holy Spirit1 and new creation or rebirth2 are controversial

Earlier versions of this paper were read at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meetingin Denver, Colorado, in November 2001, and at the Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society meetingin Wheeling, West Virginia, in April 2002. Thanks are due to Martin Albl, John J. Collins, DennisDuling, and Christopher Mount for reading and commenting on subsequent drafts. Any remainingproblems, of course, are my own responsibility.

1 That pneu'ma is used with reference to that which animates living bodies rather than the“Holy Spirit” in Jas 2:26 (“the body without spirit is dead” [to; sw'ma cwri;" pneuvmato" nekrovnejstin]) is generally agreed. Interpretation of the “spirit” mentioned in 4:5, which is complicated bythe variety of exegetical problems plaguing Jas 4:5–6, is slightly less uniform. It has occasionallybeen interpreted with reference to the “Holy Spirit”; see, e.g., Ralph P. Martin, James [WBC 48;Waco: Word, 1988), 149–51. Most interpreters, however, identify it, too, as something characteris-tic of humanity in general; so, e.g., Martin Dibelius, James: A Commentary on the Epistle of James(11th ed., rev. Heinrich Greeven; trans. Michael A. Williams; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress,1988), 223–24; Franz Mußner, Der Jakobusbrief (3rd ed.; HTKNT 13/1; Freiburg: Herder, 1975),182; Sophie Laws, “Does Scripture Speak in Vain? A Reconsideration of Jas IV.5,” NTS 20(1973–74), 212–13; Peter H. Davids, The Epistle of James: A Commentary on the Greek Text(NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 163–64; most recently Martin Klein, ‘Ein vollkommenesWerk’: Vollkommenheit, Gesetz und Gericht als theologische Themen des Jakobusbriefes (BWANT7/19; Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1995), 113; Christoph Burchard, Der Jakobusbrief (HNT 15/1;Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000), 174; David Hutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor?

701

at best. Especially when seen alongside its infamous insistence on the impor-tance of “works” as opposed to “faith alone” for attaining “righteousness”(2:14–26), these omissions raise fundamental questions about James’s thoughtand particularly about the nature of the letter’s interest in the figure twicereferred to as “the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:1; 2:1).

Interpreters have generally explained these perceived lacunae in variousways. Several interpreters from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentiethcentury found in this silence sufficient cause to posit that James was not origi-nally a Christian composition at all and thus to excise its two references to Jesusas the work of a later, Christian hand.3 When the text is approached in this way,the problem simply evaporates: the figure of Jesus Christ plays no integral rolein the thought of the work as originally composed. With no textual support forsuch excisions and ample evidence, on the contrary, of the letter’s compositionwithin a Christian milieu, this position has found few advocates.4

A second approach to the perceived problem is to deny that any coherentmythic or theological system informs the text at all. This approach is associatedparticularly with Martin Dibelius, whose influential commentary on Jamespresents a running argument that James is simply a collection of sayings, admo-nitions, and treatises of diverse origin.5 Dibelius contends that one cannot legit-imately combine the various “isolated texts” that are assembled here “for the


The Social Setting of the Epistle of James (JSNTSup 206; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,2001), 193–94. A number of exegetes, in fact, interpret it along the lines of the “evil inclination”; soJoel Marcus, “The Evil Inclination in the Epistle of James,” CBQ 44 (1982): 606–21; Luke TimothyJohnson, The Letter of James: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 37A;New York: Doubleday, 1995), 280–81; Manabu Tsuji, Glaube zwischen Vollkommenheit und Ver-weltlichung: Eine Untersuchung zur literarischen Gestalt und zur inhaltlichen Kohärenz desJakobusbriefes (WUNT 2/93; Mohr-Siebeck, 1997), 84–86; Robert W. Wall, Community of theWise: The Letter of James (New Testament in Context; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1997), 203–4.Matthias Konradt is more ambivalent; but he concedes in any case that “Ansonsten fehlt im Jak einpneumatologischer Horizont christlicher Existenz . . . Jakobus’ Sicht christlicher Existenz jeden-falls keine entwickelte pneumatologische Komponente hat. In Zentrum steht das Wort, und das hatselbst duvnami"” (Christliche Existenz nach dem Jakobusbrief: Eine Studie zu seiner soteriologischenund ethischen Konzeption [SUNT 22; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998], 84).

2 The critical passage is Jas 1:18, the interpretation of which is subject to much disagreement.For a detailed treatment with reference to past interpretation, see Matt A. Jackson-McCabe, Logosand Law in the Letter of James: The Law of Nature, the Law of Moses, and the Law of Freedom(NovTSup 100; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 193–239.

3 L. Massebieau, “L’Épître de Jacques: Est-elle l’oeuvre d’un Chrétien,” RHR 32 (1895):249–83; Friedrich Spitta, Der Brief des Jakobus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1896);Arnold Meyer, Das Rätsel des Jacobusbriefes (BZNW 10; Gießen: Töpelmann, 1930).

4 Hartwig Thyen, Der Stil des jüdisch-hellenistischen Homilie (FRLANT 47; Göttingen: Van-denhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955), 14–16, is a rare exception. To my knowledge, the Christian author-ship of James has not been seriously challenged in any study published in recent decades.

5 Dibelius, James, 1–10, and passim.

purpose of constructing a theology.” The Letter of James, Dibelius states flatly,“has no ‘theology,’” let alone a consistent and developed conception of the sig-nificance of Jesus. Since the presence or absence of this or that concept mayonly be accidental in such a collection, the lack of reference to any given idea“does not justify the assertion” that it has “no value” for the author. Dibeliusthus concluded that, while the author himself likely presupposes a theology ofsome sort, “we cannot determine with certainty how much [he] presupposes”given the composite and eclectic nature of the text he produced.6

Though Dibelius’s commentary has enjoyed enormous influence,7 thisexplanation, too, has been largely abandoned in recent decades. The initialindications of a significant paradigm shift came as several scholars began read-ing James as a “wisdom writing”—a model that allowed interpreters to posit anintegral “wisdom theology” even while accepting the essential features ofDibelius’s literary analysis.8 More fundamentally important in this respect,however, have been two broader trends in NT studies. With the general shift,since the 1960s, toward reading strategies that emphasize coherence and con-nections in texts—redaction criticism, rhetorical criticism, and, more recently,literary and structuralist approaches—has come a steady erosion in the hege-mony of Dibelius’s atomistic, form-critical approach to James.9 At the sametime, the intensive study of the Synoptic sayings source that John S. Kloppen-borg’s pioneering Formation of Q inspired has raised important questionsregarding the possibility of early Christian kerygmata that were not centered

Jackson-McCabe: The Messiah Jesus in James 703

6 Ibid., 48, 21 (emphasis his).7 Particularly telling in this respect is the fact that general studies of James’s theology were

few and far between over much of the twentieth century—apart from the ongoing scrutiny ofJames’s statements on “faith,” “works,” and “justification” as these relate to Paul’s. Notable excep-tions prior to the 1960s are Gerald H. Rendall, The Epistle of James and Judaic Christianity (Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1927); and Arthur Temple Cadoux, The Thought of St. James(London: Clarke, 1944).

8 See in this respect esp. B. R. Halson, “The Epistle of James: Christian Wisdom?” in StudiaEvangelica 4.1 (ed. F. L. Cross; TU 102; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1968), 308–14—which, how-ever, makes no explicit reference to Dibelius; Ulrich Luck, “Der Jakobusbrief und die Theologiedes Paulus,” ThGl 61 (1971): 161–79; Rudolf Hoppe, Der theologische Hintergrund des Jakobus-briefes (FB 28; Würzburg: Echter, 1977; 2nd ed., 1985).

9 More than a decade ago, Peter H. Davids declared that “the age of the string-of-pearls con-ception of the letter is past, and its essential theological unity is ready for exploration” (James[NIBCNT; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989; repr. Hendrickson/Paternoster, 1995], 13); cf.Christoph Burchard, “Zu einigen christologischen Stellen des Jakobusbriefes,” in Anfänge derChristologie: Festschrift für Ferdinand Hahn zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. C. Breytenbach and H.Paulsen; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 354: “M. Dibelius, der alles mit großemEcho bestritt, scheint Unrecht zu bekommen [with respect to his literary analysis].” The tenacity ofDibelius’s literary paradigm, however, is evident in the recent commentary of C. Freeman Sleeper(James [ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 1998], 19–21); not surprisingly, Sleeper finds little more thantheological “raw material” in James (ibid., 41).

on Jesus’ death and resurrection.10 Whatever the precise reasons, the prospectof delineating the basic features of James’s religious thought is being taken withincreasing seriousness in the ever-expanding literature on the letter.11 A num-ber of works, in fact, have tackled the issue of James’s Christology in partic-ular.12

If James is a Christian composition, and one that is informed by some rela-tively coherent theology, two basic options remain for explaining its lack ofexplicit reference to core elements of the theologies of other, more prominentNT texts. One is that such concepts are tacitly assumed in the work; one ormore of these notions are in fact so fundamental to the work that the author feltno need to refer explicitly to them. The other possibility is that James repre-sents a variant early Christian myth, in which Jesus’ death and attendantnotions of atonement, Holy Spirit, and rebirth are not of central importance.

The challenge facing the interpreter who wishes to choose between theseoptions is precisely the fact that the text is all but silent regarding the signifi-cance of Jesus Christ. Discussions of James’s “Christology” have thus typicallybeen characterized by an intense scrutinizing of the few statements that aremade. Does the grammatically ambiguous 1:1 imply that James imagines aJesus who is both “Lord” and “God,” thus signaling from the outset a high


10 Kloppenborg’s critical discussion of the common approach to the Synoptic sayings sourceas a “catechetical supplement to the kerygma” (p. 18) through much of the last century provides avery instructive comparison to past studies of James; see The Formation of Q: Trajectories inAncient Wisdom Collections (SAC; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 1–40, esp. 8–22, which situatesDibelius in this discussion. Note that discussions of Q often figure into the scholarly literature onJames; see esp. Patrick J. Hartin, James and the Q Sayings of Jesus (JSNTSup 47; Sheffield:Sheffield Academic Press, 1991); also, e.g., Hoppe, Theologische Hintergrund, 119–48; Matt A.Jackson-McCabe, “A Letter to the Twelve Tribes in the Diaspora: Wisdom and ‘Apocalyptic’Eschatology in the Letter of James,” in SBL 1996 Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996),504–17; Todd Penner, The Epistle of James and Eschatology: Re-reading an Ancient Christian Let-ter (JSNTSup 121; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), 241–56, 264–65; HutchinsonEdgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor, 63–73.

11 For a helpful synthesis and critical evaluation of recent scholarship, see Matthias Konradt,“Theologie in der ‘stohernen Epistel’: Ein Literaturbericht zu neueren Ansätzen in der Exegesedes Jakobusbriefes,” VF 44 (1999): 54–78. Konradt, who rightly recognizes “eine neueForschungsphase” in the study of James (p. 77) similarly correlates the “Literaturflut” with thedecline of Dibelius’s form-critical approach (ibid., 55–56).

12 The first of these was Franz Mußner, “»Direkte « und »indirekte« Christologie”; cf. idem,Jakobusbrief, 250–54. See also Martin Karrer, “Christus der Herr und die Welt as Stätte derPrüfung: Zur Theologie des Jakobusbriefes,” KD 35 (1989): 166–88; Burchard, “Zu einigen chris-tologischen Stellen”; further Markus Lautenschlager, “Der Gegenstand des Glaubens im Jakobus-brief,” ZTK 87 (1990): 163–84; Klein, ‘Ein vollkommenes Werk’, 165–75. Most recently, MartinAlbl dealt with this issue in a paper entitled “Kyrios in the Letter of James,”presented at the 2001annual meeting of the SBL in Denver, Colorado.

Christology that will permeate the remainder of the text?13 In what sense is“glory” to be ascribed to “our Lord Jesus Christ,” as it is in 2:1? Do the refer-ences to “the name of the Lord” (5:10, 14) or “the honorable name” (2:7) referto Jesus? Which if any of the other “Lord” passages in James imply a referenceto him? What might any of these passages suggest about his significance?14

Given the ambiguity in what little data there are, however, the decisive factor ininterpretation is ultimately the interpretive framework the reader constructsand brings to James’s few statements about Jesus.15 Franz Mußner read Jamesin light of its supposed dependence on early Christian baptismal formulae andfound indications that the letter presupposes precisely that idea which remainsnotoriously unexpressed in it: the atoning death of Jesus.16 Markus Lauten-schlager, appealing to the theological context of the letter itself, came to theopposite conclusion: its works-centered soteriology leaves no place for such anotion. James’s Christ, rather, functions primarily as an agent of God’s eschato-logical judgment.17 Those who have situated James within the Jewish (Chris-tian) “wisdom tradition,” meanwhile, typically find in its statements evidence ofsome form of “wisdom christology.”18


13 So François Vouga, L’Épître de Saint Jacques (CNT 2nd s. 13a; Geneva: Labor et Fides,1984), 31, 36; Karrer, “Christus der Herr,” esp. 168–73; cf. Klein, ‘Ein vollkommenes Werk,’166–67, 174. This is also the thesis of Albl (see the preceding note).

14 James’s elliptical—and thus ambiguous—use of the title “Lord” has often been noted.There is sufficient context to allow confident (and thus generally acknowledged) identification ofkuvrio" with God in 1:7; 3:9; 4:10; 5:4, 11, and 15. Despite the reservations of Klein (‘Ein voll-kommenes Werk,’ 166), the so-called conditio Jacobea of 4:15 is also most naturally taken with ref-erence to God. James 5:7, 8, which refer to “the parousia of the Lord,” present the leastcontroversial references to Christ, though the immediately following reference to “the judge” whois “standing before the doors” is somewhat more problematic, given the emphatic statement in 4:12that there is one judge—God; see further on these passages below. The several references to “theName” (2:7; 5:10, 14) are especially difficult; but as the argument of this paper does not depend ona particular interpretation of any one of them, the matter will not be pursued further.

15 See the concluding remarks in Burchard, “Zu einigen christologischen Stellen,” 364–68.16 Mußner, “»Direkte « und »indirekte« Christologie,” 113, citing Jas 2:5.17 Lautenschlager, “Gegenstand des Glaubens,” 169–73; cf. Klein, ‘Ein vollkommenes Werk,’

175.18 Halson, enlisting the identification of Christ with “the wisdom of God” in 1 Cor 1:24 as a

possible parallel, already considers the possibility that James contains a “Wisdom-Christology” tobe “a hypothesis worth examining” (“Epistle of James,” 31). This line of interpretation is advancedmore definitively by Hoppe (Theologische Hintergrund, 76–81, 98–99) and Hartin (James and theQ Sayings of Jesus, 94–97, 134–36, 214, 241–42); so also Luck, “Jakobusbrief,” 174–76; and idem,“Die Theologie des Jakobusbriefes,” ZTK 81 (1984): 1–30, esp. 22–23. Luck, however, identifieswisdom with the law, not Christ (“Die Theologie,” 19); the latter, rather, “ist mit seinem VerhaltenVorbild des Glaubens”—specifically, of that faith despite suffering that James’s goals of wisdomand perfection entail (ibid., 22–23 with n. 80). All three authors emphasize that Christ is describedas oJ kuvrio" . . . th'" dovxh" in Jas 2:1 as well as in a “wisdom context” in 1 Cor 2:8.

Seen in this light, Matthias Konradt’s recent observation that studies of thecontext of James’s christological statements form “ein wichtiges Desiderat derJakobusbriefforschung” is quite on the mark.19 More precisely, one can identifytwo types of context that are critical in this respect. The first is the larger mythicframework of James itself, of which its Christ figure is a part. To what extentcan the mythic world of James be reconstructed and so provide the contextwithin which its Christ must be understood to function?20 The second is whatmight be termed the comparative context. With what other texts—for example,the Pauline or Johannine literature, Jewish wisdom literature—ought James tobe compared for this purpose? What mythic or paradigmatic figures from theancient literature most illuminate James’s Christ figure, and in what respects?

In what follows I will deal with each of these issues in turn. I will argue,first, that there is a coherent mythic system informing James, the soteriology ofwhich lacks any focus on Jesus’ death, the Holy Spirit, or rebirth. Second, I willsuggest that comparison with Jewish messianic works produced in the earlyRoman period greatly illuminates the role of the Christ figure in James. I shallultimately argue that James represents a variant early Christian myth, theChrist of which is conceived in terms of a messianic paradigm typical of earlyRoman-period Judaism.21 Put differently, James’s Christ is more like the “mes-siahs” found in the Jewish literature of the period than those, for example, ofthe Pauline or Johannine literature, in this respect: his central role is not toestablish a “new creation” or “rebirth” through the infusion of a divine spiritmade available by his death and resurrection; it is simply to effect a violentpurge of “the wicked” and the restoration of Israel’s twelve-tribe kingdom.


19 Konradt, “Theologie in der ‘strohernen Epistel,’” 57–58.20 I use the term “world” in the sense outlined by William E. Paden: not “just a term for the

‘totality of things’ in general, but rather for the particular ways totalities are constructed in any par-ticular environment” (“World,” in Guide to the Study of Religion [ed. Willi Braun and Russell T.McCutcheon; London/New York: Cassell, 2000], 334–47, here 335; see further idem, ReligiousWorlds: The Comparative Study of Religion [Boston: Beacon, 1994]). In the context of “religiousworlds,” the term refers to “cultural systems that organize language and behavior around engage-ment with postulated superhuman agencies” (“World,” 335). In order to differentiate between“world” as the socially constructed reality assumed in the text of James and reconstructed by con-temporary interpreters, and James’s particular use of the term kosmos (which kosmos is only partof James’s “world” in the broad sense employed here), I will leave James’s term in Greek transliter-ation in what follows.

21 Interpreters remain divided on the interrelated questions of the date and authorship ofJames. The view that it is an authentic work of James, the brother of Jesus—and thus to be datedprior to his death ca. 62 C.E.—is not uncommon in recent English-language scholarship, while theview that it is a pseudonymous work dating from the late first or early second century remains morecommon in German scholarship. I incline toward the latter position, but the historical period that isrelevant to this article—roughly from Pompey’s conquest of Jerusalem to the Bar Kokhba rebel-lion—is broad enough to cover either view.

II

The world and its history, as understood in the Letter of James, are struc-tured fundamentally in apocalyptic terms. History is bounded in the past by thecreation of the kosmos and humanity by a good God (e.g, 1:17; 3:9) and movesinexorably toward a final judgment over which God himself will ultimately pre-side (4:12; cf. 2:12–13). Humanity, created in the likeness of God (3:9) andapparently the central focus of creation, finds itself in the meantime subject tothe machinations of God’s supernatural nemesis, “the Devil,” and must resisthim (4:7). The text’s present is characterized as “the last days” (5:3). It is a timedefined primarily by corruption—to the point, in fact, that the very term kos-mos carries a fundamentally negative connotation. It is a source of impurity(1:27); to be a “friend of the kosmos” is by definition to be an enemy of God(4:4).22

The corruption of the kosmos is particularly evident to James in its socio-economic disparity, an issue that surfaces repeatedly in the text (see esp.1:9–11, 27; 2:1–13, 15–16; 5:1–6; cf. 4:13–17). “The rich” are symbolic of allthings opposed to God. They are blasphemers (2:7), dishonest landowners whodeal treacherously with their laborers (5:4), and persecutors of “the righteous”in particular (5:6; cf. 2:6).23 They are singled out as special objects of the com-ing wrath, and, in a forensic scene that apparently previews the last judgment, itis said that their hoarded wealth will itself provide witness against them (5:3).24

The remarkable two-pronged definition of true religion found in Jas 1:27 isintegral to this worldview. “Pure and undefiled religion” is simply active con-cern for those most vulnerable under the current socioeconomic conditions—widows and orphans—while keeping one’s own self untainted by the kosmos.

At the same time, James’s understanding of the world and proper religios-ity within it are also significantly conditioned by its assumption of some inter-pretation of the narrative of Genesis–Kings (and other Jewish traditions) as pasthistory.25 Two elements of the mythic history assumed by James are especially


22 Cf. 2:5, where God’s election of “the poor with respect to the kosmos” (tou;" ptwcou;" tw'/kovsmw/) to be “rich in faith” and “inheritors of the kingdom” implies that “the ‘world’s’ measure-ment of value is directly opposed to God’s” (Johnson, Letter of James, 224). See further LukeTimothy Johnson, “Friendship with the World/Friendship with God: A Study of Discipleship inJames,” in Discipleship in the New Testament (ed. Fernando F. Segovia; Philadelphia: Fortress,1985), 166–83.

23 On the interpretation of Jas 5:6, see below under section IV.24 More precisely, it is said that “the rust” on their wealth will be a witness against them.

Dibelius, citing Sir 29:10, interprets this well: “The rust bears witness that the money remains lyingaround and that therefore the rich man has neglected his duty to give alms” (James, 236).

25 The text contains several allusions to figures and events in this narrative; see, e.g., 3:9 (thecreation of humanity in the image of God); 2:21 (Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac); 2:25 (Rahab and

relevant for our purposes. The first is God’s “promise” of a “kingdom” “to thosewho love him,” and his “election,” in particular, of “the poor with respect to thekosmos” to be this kingdom’s “inheritors” (2:5). The concepts of “promise,”“election,” and “inheritance” are obviously rooted in the biblical narrative andare clearly related both to the claim of descent from Abraham for the authorand his audience (2:21) and to his description of the latter as “the twelve tribes”(1:1). James’s own characteristic emphases, however, are blended integrallyinto its reading of the biblical narrative. The promise of land, which dominatesthe latter, is construed in terms of a promised kingdom—a reading that couldbe inferred from the larger narrative (see esp. 2 Sam 7), but which has particu-lar resonance with the Jesus tradition. The “elect” who will “inherit” this “king-dom,” moreover, are identified further as “the poor with respect to the kosmos”(2:5, tou;" ptwcou;" tw'/ kovsmw/). This identification, while again strongly recall-ing the Jesus tradition (cf. esp. Luke 6:20; Matt 5:3, 5; Gos. Thom. 54), alsoreflects two characteristic and closely related features of James itself: its eco-nomic emphasis and its negative valuation of the kosmos.26

The text’s other assumption about the past that is significant in the presentcontext is the belief that God authored a law.27 This notion, too, has clear rootsin the biblical narrative; the law referred to in James is nothing other than theTorah—however precisely it is interpreted.28 The role and meaning of this lawin James, though, are again significantly informed by the text’s other assump-tions and concerns. While espousing an approach to the law that assumes thecritical and equal importance of all of its commands (2:10), the text is emphaticonly in connection with issues of economic disparity: the exclusion of “partial-ity” vis-à-vis poor and rich,29 and likely the legislation regarding payment ofagricultural laborers as well.30 The law, in other words, is particularly importantin that it addresses concretely and specifically the general socioeconomic31 andpurity concerns that inform James’s concept of “true religion.”32


“the messengers”); 5:17 (Elijah and the drought); note further 5:10 (the “suffering and patience” of“the prophets”) and 5:11 (“the endurance of Job”).

26 See above, with n. 22.27 James 4:12: ei|" ejstin oJ nomoqevth". That this is a reference to God seems clear from the

echo of the Shema (cf. 2:19) and is confirmed by the fact that the law in question is the Torah (seethe immediately following note). See Johnson, Letter of James, 294.

28 See esp. Jas 2:8–12, noting particularly the assumption of its scriptural character (2:8). Fora detailed treatment of the issue, see Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law, 154–85.

29 James 2:1–13; cf. Lev 19:15; further Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law, 157–64. Note thatJames seems to read Lev 19:15, which condemns preferential treatment toward rich or poor, withan emphasis on just treatment of the poor, on one hand, and a presumption of wickedness on thepart of “the rich,” on the other.

30 James 5:4–6; cf. Lev 19:13; further Johnson, Letter of James, 301–5.31 One might compare here the interpretation of “the Law and the Prophets” presumed in

the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31).32 In James, impurity comes ultimately from “Gehenna” (3:6), and to humans through the

More immediately relevant to the question of James’s soteriology, and thusto the question of its interest in Jesus, though, is its peculiar correlation of thislaw with an “implanted logos that is able to save your souls” (to;n e[mfuton lovgonto;n dunavmenon sw'sai ta;" yuca;" uJmw'n) (1:21–25).33 This correlation was notderived from the biblical narrative, nor did it originate within Jewish tradi-tion.34 As I have argued at length elsewhere, it is based on the Stoic notion thathuman reason comprises a divinely given natural law.35 James understands theTorah—which he lauds lavishly as a law that is both “perfect” and “of free-dom”—to be the written expression of a law that God “implanted” in humanbeings at creation,36 and which stands opposed to human desire (ejpiqumiva).37

This philosophical idea itself takes on a quite distinctive coloring withinthe Jewish apocalyptic worldview of James. James’s divine legislator is not the


kosmos (1:27). Individuals are tainted primarily through a self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure charac-terized as a failure to resist “the Devil” (4:7–8; cf. 4:1–6), or through the tongue—which, interest-ingly, is thus itself likened in some fashion to oJ kovsmo" th'" ajdikiva" (3:6).

33 The close relationship between “implanted logos” and “law of freedom” is generally recog-nized, though the precise nature of that relationship has been variously conceived. For recent dis-cussions see Konradt, Christliche Existenz, 67–74; Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law, 139–44.

34 Pace esp. Rinaldo Fabris, Legge della Libertà in Giacomo (Supplementi all RivB 8; Bres-cia: Paideia, 1977), 113–21; Martina Ludwig, Wort als Gesetz: Eine Untersuchung zum Verständnisvon ‘Wort’ und ‘Gesetz’ in israelitisch-frühjüdischen und neutestamentlichen Schriften:Gleichzeitig ein Beitrag zur Theologie des Jakobusbriefes (Europäische Hochschulschriften 23/502;Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1994), 162–64.

35 This and the following paragraph state in summary form the general conclusions ofJackson-McCabe, Logos and Law; see esp. pp. 29–86 on the particular philosophical theory thatled to the use of the term “implanted” (e[mfuto", insita) to describe either human reason or a natu-ral law it is said to comprise in works as otherwise diverse as Cicero’s On Laws, the Apostolic Con-stitutions, and writings of Justin and Methodius, as well as to the early interpretation of James’se[mfuto" lovgo" as reason or natural law in the commentaries associated with Oecumenius, Theo-phylact, and Dionysius bar Salibi. A condensed form of the argument can be found in Matt Jack-son-McCabe, “The Law of Freedom (James 1:25): Light from Early Exegesis,” Proceedings of theEastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 21 (2001): 33–44.

36 Predictably, early reviews of Logos and Law have shown a hesitancy to—as one reviewerput it—“put aside the history of interpretation so quickly” and identify this logos with somethingother than “the gospel,” even while apparently granting the argument that the phrase e[mfuto"lovgo" itself has its roots in the Stoic theory of law (Joel B. Green, RBL [http://www.bookreviews.org {2002}]; cf. the review by Joel Marcus, CBQ 64 [2002] 577–79). Such a position was alreadyheld by Dibelius, who argued that James had indeed adopted a Stoic phrase, but that it had beendrained of all of its original meaning (James, 114); see further on this Jackson-McCabe, Logos andLaw, 17–19, and on the general hesitancy to identify James’s logos as something other than “thegospel,” pp. 2–5 and 7–27. What remains unclear in these reviews, however, is how such a positionwill now account for the fact that James adopts not simply an isolated term (as Dibelius held), but acomplex of ideas: most notably, like other, contemporary works that clearly rely on this Stoic the-ory, James correlates this logos precisely with a law—and one that is, indeed, both “perfect” and, ina fashion peculiarly characteristic of Stoicism, characterized by “freedom.”

37 On the antithetical pairing of logos and desire in James, see Jackson-McCabe, Logos andLaw, ch. 5; also Konradt, Christliche Existenz, 85–100.

immanent Stoic deity, but a judge “who is able to save [oJ dunavmeno" sw'sai] andto destroy” (4:12), and whose law will provide the standard at an eschatologicaljudgment (2:12).38 The typically Hellenistic opposition between logos anddesire, then, is formulated by James as “two ways” one can travel toward judg-ment (cf. 5:19–20). The pursuit of desire—which is now associated with amythological Tempter—leads through sin to eschatological “death” (1:14–15),while “doing” the implanted logos results immediately in “works” (e[rga) andultimately in eschatological “blessedness” or “life” (see esp. 1:21–25; cf. 1:12).39

Thus is this implanted logos, just as the lawgiver himself, identified as that“which is able to save” (to;n dunavmenon sw'sai)—though only if one “does” it(1:21, 22–25). Continual attention to the written “law of freedom” is critical; forthis is the way to ensure that one becomes the “logos-doer” (poihth;" lovgou) or“work-doer” (poihth;" e[rgou) who will finally “be blessed” (1:22–25) and“saved” (2:14–26).

In the narrative of Genesis–Kings, the giving of the law is intimatelyrelated to the inheritance promised to the descendants of Abraham. It wasgiven by God to his elect tribes as the condition for the fulfillment of the divinepromise; it is their covenantal obligation, just as God’s promise of an inheri-tance is his. While there is no explicit reference to the covenant in James, it issufficiently clear that its “perfect law of freedom” serves an analogous role—albeit refracted, once again, through James’s characteristic concerns. If “therich” are the consummate examples of the arrogant pursuit of desire who willultimately face a “day of slaughter” (5:1–6), the “poor with respect to the kos-mos” are those whom God has “elected” for “inheritance” of the “promisedkingdom.” Though couched in terms that reflect James’s economic interests asmuch as the biblical narrative itself, these notions of “election” and “inheri-tance” are scarcely to be understood apart from the covenantal myth.40 In fact,the imagined audience is conceived of as descendants of Abraham (2:21) and,indeed, “the twelve tribes”—a designation that is a potent symbol of the fulfill-ment of this covenantal promise, and particularly in the early Roman period inwhich James was written, as we shall shortly see. The kingdom itself, moreover,must be understood as the reward that awaits those whose observance of thelaw—and thus “doing” of logos—is such that they succeed at the final judg-ment. It has been promised by God, specifically, “to those who love him” (2:5;


38 Cf. in this respect Justin, 2 Apol. 2.1–4.39 Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law, 216–22; cf. Klein, ‘Ein vollkommenes Werk,’ 82–85.

Note in connection with this “death” the references to the destruction (1:11) and “slaughter” (5:5)that await “the rich” in particular.

40 Note also the use of the reproaching address “adulteresses” in 4:4, which, as in theprophetic literature whence it is derived, assumes that the implied audience stands in a covenantalrelationship with God; see Johnson, Letter of James, 32, 278.

cf. 1:12)—a typical Deuteronomistic expression for observing the commands ofthe Torah.41

On the face of it, such a covenantal dimension may seem at odds with aninterest in an innate logos that is common to all of humanity. Consistent or notfrom a modern perspective, however, such tensions between universal andcovenantal are scarcely unheard of in the ancient literature.42 In fact, Jamesdisplays a quite coherent view of the world, its history and “true religion.” Bibli-cal traditions, Jewish apocalypticism, Jesus tradition, Greek philosophical con-cepts of logos and law, and James’s own characteristic economic interests havebeen braided together to form a remarkably consistent, if distinctive, world-view. The text’s several soteriological statements are integral to this worldviewand reveal a similar consistency. The God of the Jewish Scriptures is the one“Lawgiver and Judge who is able to save and destroy” (4:12). The eschatologicaljudgment over which this Lawgiver will preside will be executed in accord withthe law he “implanted” in humanity at creation in the form of logos and gave inwritten form to the descendants of Abraham. The “doing” of this logos/law andthe “works” that result are necessary for attainment of the kingdom promisedby God to those whom he “elected” as “inheritors,” while those, like “the rich,”who instead pursue desire will suffer terrible judgment. It is in this sense thatthe “implanted logos”—like the Lawgiver and Judge who legislated it—canitself be described as that “which is able to save.”

If this interpretation is correct, it poses rather sharply the question ofJames’s interest in the figure called “Jesus Christ.” The view that the text tacitlyassumes a soteriology that centers on “new creation” or “rebirth” achieved bythe reception of a divine spirit made available through the death and resurrec-tion of Jesus, as in the Fourth Gospel or the letters of Paul, is scarcely com-pelling. Although it can be safely assumed that James presupposes Jesus’ deathand resurrection,43 the mythic presuppositions that make them the central fea-


41 See esp. Deut 7:9; 30:16, 20; cf. Neh 1:5; Dan 9:4; Pss. Sol. 14:1–2; further Ludwig, Wortals Gesetz, 144–50.

42 Analogies can be found in a number of ancient works. Particularly noteworthy in this con-text are 4 Maccabees, whose understanding of the Torah is thoroughly indebted to both the Stoictheory of law and Jewish covenantal myth, and Apostolic Constitutions 8.12.6–27, whose retellingof Genesis–Joshua includes God’s giving of both the “implanted law” (e[mfuto" novmo") to Adam andits written form to “the Hebrews” through Moses, after having delivered them from the Egyptians“on account of the promises to the fathers” (7.67); see further Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law,95–122. Cf. more generally Sirach’s combination of “traditional theological themes of salvation his-tory . . . and covenant” and “sapiential theology of creation” (Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation:The Theology of Wisdom Literature [Nashville: Abingdon, 1994], 284).

43 It is difficult to imagine that the author of James was unaware of the historical fate of Jesus.The ascription of “glory” and the title “Christ” to him are therefore difficult to account for apartfrom an assumption that Jesus’ existence did not end with his execution.

tures of the soteriologies of the Johannine and Pauline literature are quite aliento James. While one can say little regarding Jesus’ relation to the implantedlogos in James, he certainly was not the embodiment of some hitherto unknownlogos that, only now, can effect a new sort of “birth” as in the Fourth Gospel. Onthe contrary, James’s logos was fundamental to God’s creation of humanity(1:18),44 and had in any case long found written expression in the Torah.45 Noris there any hint in James of Paul’s notion that fulfillment of this “perfect law offreedom” cannot occur apart from a transformation from “fleshly” to “spiritual”existence, itself made possible only in the wake of Jesus’ death and resurrection(cf., e.g., Rom 8:3–11). Again, James’s logos is innate in the human being andcan be “done” if one simply gives sufficiently diligent attention to the Torah(see 1:22–25).

James’s oft-noted silence in connection with the complex of ideas regard-ing spirit and “rebirth” or “new creation” is in fact quite consistent with thesoteriological outlook I have outlined here. If one hopes to understand the roleof Jesus as “christ” in James, then, comparisons will have to be sought else-where than in the Pauline and Johannine literature. I propose that more illumi-nating comparisons can be drawn from a number of works produced in theearly Roman period which express a longing for the restoration of Israel’stwelve tribes and the violent destruction of Israel’s enemies by the hand of amessiah.

III

The intended audience of the Letter of James is identified as “the twelvetribes who are in the diaspora” (1:1, tai'" dwvdeka fulai'" tai'" ejn th'/ diaspora'/).Interpreters have typically framed the question of how to interpret this address


44 Note in this connection that the “implanted logos” or “implanted law” concept refers uni-formly to something innate in the human animal in the ancient literature—including other earlyChristian works like those of Justin, Methodius, and the Apostolic Constitutions. On the interpreta-tion of Jas 1:18 in particular, see Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law, 193–216, 233–38. What Iapparently failed to make sufficiently explicit there (as pointedly noted in the review by Marcus,CBQ 64 [2002]: 578–79) is that the description of those so “born” as “a sort of first fruits of [God’s]creatures” (ajparchvn tina tw'n aujtou' ktismavtwn) can be understood quite well in light of the Stoicnotion of humanity’s elevated place in the order of creation due to its endowment with logos; seeesp. Logos and Law, 237.

45 In this connection one can also contrast Justin’s view that Jesus and his teaching embodiedthe full, “right” logos (and thus “natural law”) rather than the spermatic “implanted logos” that allhumans have always had by nature; see, e.g., 2 Apol. 8.1–3, and further Jackson-McCabe, Logosand Law, 123–27. At most, one might infer that James’s Jesus is analogous to Philo’s “animate law”(e[myucoi novmoi) patriarchs; but his silence on the issue makes any such suggestion tenuous at best.

as a choice between literal and symbolic readings of its principal terms.46

Joseph Mayor, for example, could find no indication of a “figurative meaning”in this “bare phrase” and concluded that James was “a circular letter written toJews residing outside of Palestine.”47 Dibelius argued precisely the oppositeposition; that “the entire expression must be construed in a completelymetaphorical sense,” as “the true Israel, for whom heaven is home and earth isonly a foreign country, i.e., a Diaspora.”48 Others, between these two poles,have taken “the diaspora” part of the address literally, while reading the twelvetribes more symbolically.49

As Luke Timothy Johnson has recently pointed out, however, symbolicand literal readings of the address are hardly mutually exclusive alternatives.

However ambiguously the Greeting works to locate the text in the real world,it works effectively to construct a compositional world. . . . It is the world ofthe Torah. Whether intended literally or figuratively, the “twelve tribes in thedispersion” is a designation that makes sense only within the framework ofone specific set of texts and one shared story in the Mediterranean world.50

Regardless of the extent to which it was meant “literally,”51 in other words, thedesignation of the audience as “the twelve tribes in the diaspora” is clearly andthoroughly symbolic. Indeed, while it is clear from a number of sources thatmany Jews of the early Roman period continued to believe that the other tribesof Israel, though lost for centuries, were still “out there” somewhere, the“twelve tribes”—unlike “the Jews”!—were scarcely a social reality at the timethis text was composed.52 Rather, “the twelve tribes,” as a central, corporate


46 For a recent discussion of the possibilities for interpreting James’s address, with referencesto past interpreters, see Hutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor, 96–101.

47 Joseph Mayor, The Epistle of St. James (3rd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1913; repr. GrandRapids: Zondervan, 1954), 29–31, here 31; see more recently James B. Adamson, James: The Manand His Message (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 12. One should note the facile slide in suchreadings from “twelve tribes” to “Jews” (i.e., Judeans).

48 Dibelius, James, 66.49 Bo Reicke, for example, read the designation “the twelve tribes” with reference to “the

Christian church in general,” but took “in the Diaspora” to mean that they were located outside ofPalestine (The Epistles of James, Peter, and Jude: Introduction, Translation, and Notes [AB 37;Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964], 4–5). Others have taken the addressees specifically as JewishChristians living outside of Palestine; for a partial list, see Adamson, James, 12 n. 65.

50 Johnson, Letter of James, 171.51 See further on this below, under section IV.52 An assumption of their location “beyond the Euphrates” seems to have been especially

common; see Josephus, A.J. 11.133; cf. 2 Bar. 77:19–78:1, and esp. the elaboration of this idea in4 Ezra 13:40–45, which locates them in a mythical land called “Arzareth” (“Anotherland”), “wheremankind had never lived, that there at least they might keep their statutes which they had not keptin their own land.” The text indicates that their journey to this land included a miraculous crossingof the Euphrates, wherein “the Most High . . . stopped the channels of the river until they had

character in the epic narrative of God’s covenant with Abraham enshrined inthe Jewish Scriptures, were above all an important element of the mythic real-ity of (at least some) Jews of the period.53

Whatever it may suggest about the concrete audience the author has inmind this address does tell us a great deal about their role in James’s mythicworld.54 They are, first of all, the descendants of Abraham (cf. Jas 2:21: “Abra-ham, our father”), the covenant people, and thus heirs of the promises made byGod to the patriarchs. It was their ancestors who were rescued by God fromEgyptian slavery; among whom the promised land was initially divided intotribal territories; who were, briefly, united under Davidic rule, only to bedivided, exiled, and only partially restored. Moreover, given the strong linkbetween the tribes and the land itself in the ancient literature,55 the furthercharacterization of these tribes as being “in the diaspora” reveals ratherpoignantly that their present is understood to be a time in which the covenantalpromises remain profoundly unfulfilled. The diaspora is precisely where thetwelve-tribe people ought not to be.

If thus disclosing a certain pathos, James’s symbolic designation of hisaudience as “the twelve tribes in the diaspora” reverberates at the same timewith a hope for the future that is equally unmistakable. E. P. Sanders hasremarked, with respect to first-century Judaism, that “the expectation of thereassembly of Israel was so widespread, and the memory of the twelve tribesremained so acute,” that a symbolic use of even the number twelve itself—forexample, in Jesus’ selection of apostles—“would necessarily mean ‘restora-tion.’”56 As many of James’s recent interpreters have come to realize, it is pre-cisely in this context that James’s address is to be understood.57 If currently inthe diaspora, James’s imagined audience is still the twelve-tribe people whoseingathering and restoration in the eschatological era were so widely antici-pated.58 This dimension of the address is in fact strongly underscored by the


passed over.” This and all translations of 4 Ezra are taken from Bruce M. Metzger, “The FourthBook of Ezra,” OTP 1:517–59.

53 See further on this point immediately below.54 See Hutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor, 96: “As the introductory disclosure

of the identity of the addressees, [Jas 1:1] obviously is of great importance for the view of theaddressees throughout the epistle.”

55 See esp. Num 26:52–56; Josh 13–19; Ezek 47:13–48:35; cf. Matt 4:13–16. 56 E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 98; emphasis his.57 Mußner, Jakobusbrief, 62; Hartin, James and the Q Sayings of Jesus, 77–78; idem, A Spiri-

tuality of Perfection: Faith in Action in the Letter of James (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,1999), 51–52; Jackson-McCabe, “A Letter to the Twelve Tribes,” 510–15; Penner, Epistle of Jamesand Eschatology, 181–83; Johnson, Letter of James, 169; Hutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosenthe Poor, 96–101, 134.

58 See E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM; Philadel-phia: Trinity Press International, 1992), 289–95; see further on this below.

fact that the implied author writes as a “slave of” (and thus authoritativespokesman for) God and a figure he calls “christ” (1:1; cf. 2:1).59 This designa-tion “christ”—however one understands it—is fundamentally eschatologicaland must surely be read in light of James’s apocalyptic outlook. The authorwrites, in short, as an authoritative messenger of God and his eschatologicalagent to the “twelve tribes” whose restoration had long been predicted by theprophets.

This brings us to the central issue of this study: the role of this “christ” inthe world of the letter. Despite the increasing awareness of the eschatologicalforce of James’s address to “the twelve tribes,” the relevance of this hope forunderstanding James’s interest in Jesus has received little attention.60 Examina-tion of the Jewish literature of the early Roman period, however, reveals aremarkably consistent link between the restoration of Israel’s tribes and a (usu-ally Davidic) “messiah” who will violently purge the enemies of the elect,whether as this-worldly warrior-king or as heavenly judge.

The biblical narrative portrays the Davidic rule over a unified twelve-tribekingdom as a brief interlude in the history of Israel.61 Whatever the historicalreality,62 this arrangement seems to have been understood as the divinelyordained ideal in at least some versions of Judah’s royal ideology.63 In fact, pre-dictions of an ideal Davidic king who would defeat Israel’s enemies and presideover a reunified Israel may begin as early as the Assyrian period and are in anycase well attested by the time of the exile.64 This expectation of Davidic rule


59 On the self-designation of “slave of God and Jesus Christ” as a claim to authority, seeHutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor, 45–50.

60 Mußner, for example, is well aware that the restoration of the tribes was among the typical“eschatological deeds of the messiah” (Jakobusbrief, 62; cf. already James Hardy Ropes, A Criticaland Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle of St. James [ICC; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1916],118–19, 122–23). Oddly, however, this observation is of such marginal interest for his understand-ing of James’s interest in Jesus that it was not even mentioned in his subsequent article on James’sChristology.

61 See esp. 2 Sam 5–1 Kgs 12. This arrangement is said to obtain under only two kings for atotal of seventy-three years: thirty-three years under David himself (2 Sam 5:5) and forty under hissuccessor, Solomon (1 Kgs 12:42).

62 For a helpful discussion of the issues, see Paula McNutt, Reconstructing the Society ofAncient Israel (Library of Ancient Israel; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), ch. 4.

63 See esp. 2 Sam 7, which narrates Nathan’s oracle regarding the eternal throne of Davidafter the latter has been anointed king over all the tribes of Israel (5:1–3) and brought the ark of thecovenant to his newly secured capital, Jerusalem (5:6–10; 6:1–23). The subsequent breakup of thetwelve-tribe kingdom is interpreted in 1 Kgs 11–12 as a divine punishment of David’s son. Cf. alsoPs 89:3–4, 19–37; further Dennis C. Duling, “The Promises to David and their Entrance intoChristianity—Nailing Down A Likely Hypothesis,” NTS 20 (1973): 55–77, esp. 55–60.

64 See esp. Amos 9:11–15; Hos 3:4–5; Isa 11; Jer 23:5–8; further John J. Collins, The Scepterand the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Literature (ABRL; New York:Doubleday, 1995), 24–28, who leaves open the possibility of an early dating for Isa 11. On the dat-

over a restored kingdom composed of the northern and southern tribes findsparticularly vivid expression in Ezekiel, which in its present form ends with anaccount of the distribution of the land among the twelve tribes. The detail ofthis account is surpassed only by the book of Joshua.65

Judging from the extant literature, interest in the reestablishment of theDavidic dynasty virtually disappeared in the centuries following the lofty—andultimately, disappointed—expectations of Haggai and Zechariah at the time ofJudah’s restoration.66 Interestingly, though general expressions of hope for afinal ingathering from the diaspora are not uncommon, explicit concern for thenorthern tribes or emphasis on the twelve-tribe identity of eschatological Israelrecedes with it. Sanders’s inventory of evidence for the hope that “the twelvetribes of Israel will be assembled” in the pre-Hasmonean “non-biblical litera-ture” yields such explicit interest in Israel’s tribes only in Sirach: in 48:10, wherethis restoration is associated with Elijah’s return;67 and in 36:13–16, which someconsider to be a later addition to the work.68 More common, both at this timeand into the Hasmonean and early Roman periods are more vague notions of afinal ingathering of Jerusalem’s children “from east and west” (Bar 4:37; 5:5), orfor a gathering of Israel’s “scattered people” (2 Macc 1:27; 2:18; cf. Philo,Praem. 164–65). “In such instances,” as Sanders notes, “we cannot be sure thatthe lost ten tribes were explicitly in mind,” as opposed to simply an ingatheringof the Jewish Diaspora.69 In any event, what is noteworthy for our purposes is


ing of Hos 3:4–5, see Kenneth Pomykala, The Davidic Dynasty Tradition in Early Judaism: Its His-tory and Significance for Messianism (SBLEJL 7; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 17 with n. 10.

65 See esp. Ezek 37:15–28; cf. Ezek 47:13–48:34. While the “Prince” of Ezek 37:25 and 34:24is explicitly identified as Davidic, that of chs. 40–48 is not; the relationship between the two figuresin the oracles as originally composed is thus a matter of debate. See Pomykala, Davidic DynastyTradition, 25–32.

66 A few passages from the so-called Second Zechariah are notable exceptions; see Collins,Scepter and the Star, 31–34.

67 It is perhaps noteworthy in this connection that the anointing of kings to inflict retributionis among the heroic actions of Elijah singled out in this passage (LXX 48:8, oJ crivwn basilei'" eij"ajntapovdoma).

68 I cite the NRSV versification (cf. LXX 36:10); this is apparently the text Sanders has inmind, though he cites it as Sir 35:11. On the problem of Sir 36, see John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdomin the Hellenistic Age (OTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 109–11.

69 Sanders, Judaism, 294; he finds such an assumption, however, to be “likely enough” in gen-eral. Such is in fact clearly the case, e.g., in Tob 14, when Tobit (who is identified at the outset as amember of the tribe of Naphtali among the Assyrian exiles [1:1–2]) assures his descendants that“everything that was spoken by the prophets of Israel whom God sent will occur,” including thereturn of Israel’s exiles to the land (14:4–5). This is also likely the case in Jub. 1:15–18, given itsSinai setting. Similarly, given the emphasis on God’s faithfulness to his covenantal promises in theTestament of Moses, the prominence of the tribes in the (p)review of history offered in chs. 2–5—and particularly its apparent assumption of the continued existence of the ten tribes beyond theeighth century (4:9)—might suggest that it, too, entertained hopes for such a restoration. The

that when interest in a Davidic “messiah” does begin to reemerge in the Has-monean and early Roman periods, it goes hand in hand with explicit interest inthe twelve-tribe identity of eschatological Israel.

As is well known, the literature of the Dead Sea sect reveals clear expecta-tions of a militant Davidic “messiah.”70 It is also clear from a number of textsthat this group anticipated the presence of a “twelve-tribe” Israel in the escha-tological era as well.71 The War Scroll (1QM) envisions a twelve-tribe organiza-tion for Israel’s army in the final battle against the nations and the “wicked ofthe covenant” that recalls the instructions for the initial conquest of Canaan astold in the book of Numbers.72 The question of the messiah’s role in this war iscomplicated by the War Scroll’s complex composition history. The “Prince ofthe Congregation”—a title used to designate a Davidic messiah in a number ofthe sect’s works73—is mentioned in 1QM 5:1–2; but Philip R. Davies, at least,


extant portions of the work, however, speak only of a divinely wrought vengeance upon the nationsand Israel’s astral exaltation: “[God] will fix you firmly in the heaven of the stars, in the place oftheir habitations. And you will behold from on high. Yea, you will see your enemies on the earth”(10:9–10).

70 For a convenient collection of the primary evidence, see James C. VanderKam, “Messian-ism in the Scrolls,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium onthe Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Eugene Charles Ulrich and James C. VanderKam; Christianity andJudaism in Antiquity Series 10; Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 211–34,esp. 212–19; further Collins, Scepter and the Star, 56–68; Pomykala, Davidic Dynasty Tradition,171–216; Johannes Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran: Königliche, priesterliche undprophetische Messiasvorstellungen in den Schriftfunden von Qumran (WUNT 2/104; Tübingen:Mohr-Siebeck, 1998), 46–229; Kenneth Atkinson, “On the Herodian Origin of Militant DavidicMessianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm of Solomon 17,” JBL 118 (1999): 435–60. All cita-tions of the Dead Sea Scrolls are taken from Florentino García Martínez, The Dead Sea ScrollsTranslated: The Qumran Texts in English (trans. W. G. E. Watson; Leiden: Brill, 1994).

71 E.g., 4Q164, which interprets Isa 54:12 with reference to the “chiefs of the tribes of Israelin the last days”; note also the references to the “door of Naphtali” and the “door of Asher” in thedescription of the New Jerusalem in 4Q554 1 ii 8, 10. See further S. Pines, “Notes on the TwelveTribes in Qumran, Early Christianity and Jewish Tradition,” in Messiah and Christos: Studies in theJewish Origins of Christianity (ed. Ithamar Gruenwald et al.; TSAJ 32; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck,1992), 151–55; David Flusser, “Qumran und die Zwölf,” in Initiation: Contributions to the Themeof the Study-conference of the International Association for the History of Religions held at Stras-burg, September 17th to 22nd 1964 (ed. C. J. Bleeker; Numen Sup 10; Leiden: Brill, 1965), 134–46.

72 See esp. 1QM ii 2–3, 7; iii 13–15; v 1–2; vi 11. See Philip R. Davies, 1QM, The War Scrollfrom Qumran: Its Structure and History (BibOr 32; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1977), 28: “Thescheme of the war [in the War Scroll] rests on Num i–x, 10, where the organisation of the twelvetribes of Israel prior to entry into Canaan is portrayed. . . . It is probable that the war which cols.II–IX describes is seen as a new ‘entry into a promised land.’” See further ibid., 24–58; also YigaelYadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness (trans. B. and C.Rabin; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962) 16, 38–69.

73 Collins, Scepter and the Star, 57–64. The Davidic identity of the “Prince” of 1QM isdebated. E. P. Sanders flatly asserts that “there is no Davidic Messiah in the War Rule” (Judaism,

considers this passage a later addition.74 Whatever its origin, the passage inquestion explicitly links this figure to the twelve-tribe army: on his shield is tobe inscribed “his name, and the name of Israel and Levi and Aaron and thenames of the twelve tribes of Israel, according to their generations, and thenames of the twelve commanders of their tribes” (1QM 5:1–2). The passage’sclear assumption of Davidic leadership over the twelve-tribe army is quite inline with 1QSa, where the “messiah of Israel” is explicitly placed at the head ofan analogous military organization.75

Though the warfare motif is less accentuated, the pairing of Davidic mes-siah (cristov") and restored tribes is found also in Pss. Sol. 17. If not as obvi-ously militaristic in the conventional sense,76 the role of the anticipated “LordMessiah” (cristo;" kuvrio")77 of this psalm is still fundamentally violent.78 He


296–70). Pomykala recognizes that “the Branch of David is identified with the Prince of the Con-gregation” at Qumran (Davidic Dynasty Tradition, 213), but nonetheless rejects such an identifica-tion in this particular passage, essentially because it lacks explicit reference to the Prince’s Davidicstatus (ibid., 210, 239). Collins regards such a minimalist approach to this text as “problematic andits results implausible” (“Jesus, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Qumran-Messianism:Studies on the Messianic Expectations of the Dead Sea Scrolls [ed. James H. Charlesworth et al.;Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1998], 105 n. 16). The “Prince of the Congregation” is both explicitlyidentified as “the Branch of David” and given an important place in the eschatological war in4Q285. Pomykala thus concedes in any case that the Davidic messiah played a key role in the escha-tological war at least “at some stage” of the sect’s development (Pomykala, Davidic Dynasty Tradi-tion, 211; cf. Collins, Scepter and the Star, 59).

74 Davies, 1QM, The War Scroll from Qumran, 35–36.75 1QSa ii 14–15; for the tribal dimension of the organization, see i 15, 29. Note that this text

is also said to be a rule for “the last days” (i 1), at a time when “war to subdue the nations” is stillpending (i 21). The close association of king and twelve tribes is also evident in the Temple Scroll,which refers to an honor guard of one thousand men from each tribe of Israel that is to accompanythe king, along with twelve princes, priests, and levites (11Q19 lvii 1–15). The eschatologicaldimension of this text, however, is contested; see Collins, Scepter and the Star, 109–11.

76 See esp. Pss. Sol. 17:33: The messiah “will not rely on horse and rider and bow, nor will hecollect gold and silver for war.” All translations of Psalms of Solomon are taken from R. B. Wright,“Psalms of Solomon: A New Translation and Introduction,” OTP 2:639–70.

77 The text of 17:32 has commonly been emended to read “the Lord’s messiah” (cristo;"kurivou), as in Alfred Rahlfs, Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes(Verkleinerte Ausgabe in einem Band; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979), 488; Gene L.Davenport, “The ‘Anointed of the Lord’ in Psalms of Solomon 17,” in Ideal Figures in AncientJudaism: Profiles and Paradigms (ed. John J. Collins and George W. E. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS 12;Chico, CA: Scholars, 1980), 77–79. According to Wright, however, the Greek and Syriac MSS agreeagainst such an emendation (“Psalms of Solomon,” 667 note z).

78 With Collins, Scepter and the Star, 54–55; Atkinson, “On the Herodian Origin of MilitantDavidic Messianism,” 444–45. Contrast James H. Charlesworth, “From Jewish Messianology toChristian Christology: Some Caveats and Perspectives,” in Judaisms and their Messiahs at the Turnof the Christian Era (ed. Jacob Neusner et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 236:“the Messiah [of Pss. Sol. 17] is not portrayed as a vengeful bloody warrior.”

will be a destroyer who will purge the holy city and the land of all unrighteous-ness (17:21–25). Unlike the War Scroll, the psalmist gives Israel’s tribes them-selves no active role in this purge. They are rather the object of the messiah’sconstructive role as divine instrument for the formation of a righteous king-dom:

He [viz., the davidic king] will gather a holy people whom he will lead in righteousness

And he will judge the tribes of the peoplethat have been made holy by the Lord their God . . .

He will distribute them upon the land according to their tribes;the alien and the foreigner will no longer live near them. (vv. 26–28)

He will judge the peoples in the assemblies,the tribes of the sanctified . . .

Blessed are those born in those daysto see the good fortune of Israelwhich God will bring to pass in the assembly of the tribes. (vv. 43–44)

Though “the alien and the foreigner will no longer live near them,” the mes-siah’s rule will extend nonetheless even over “gentile nations,” and he will be ajust and righteous king for all (17:28–31).79 The era he inaugurates will lookrather like the ideal portrayed in the book of Joshua, only with a Davidic kingcentered in Jerusalem (as in Ezekiel) and a rule that extends beyond Israel’stribes to the Gentile nations as well.

This concept of a Davidic messiah who, after destroying the wicked, willgather Israel’s tribes into the land is found also in 4 Ezra, though its explicitapocalyptic worldview lends a more supernatural cast to its eschatological out-look. In a reinterpretation of the vision of the fourth beast in Dan 7, a figureappears who, symbolized by a lion, represents “the Messiah whom the MostHigh has kept until the End of Days, who will arise from the posterity of David”(4 Ezra 12:32). Elsewhere described as God’s “son,”80 and apparently preexis-tent,81 this messiah is more a judge than a king.82 He will set the wicked “beforehis judgment seat, and when he has reproved them, then he will destroy them”(12:33). After this, the angelic interpreter tells Ezra, he will “deliver in mercy


79 See Davenport, “‘Anointed of the Lord,’” 74–76.80 Or perhaps “servant,” if Greek pai'" underlies the Latin and Syriac in 4 Ezra 7:(28), 29 and

13:32, 37, 52, as Michael E. Stone suggests (Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of FourthEzra [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990], 207–8). Collins argues in any case that “[t]heLatin and Syriac reading, ‘my son’, should be accepted as a faithful rendering of the original, at leastin Chapter 13” (Scepter and the Star, 165).

81 Stone, Fourth Ezra, 209–10, 212.82 Michael E. Stone, “The Question of the Messiah in 4 Ezra,” in Judaisms and their Mes-

siahs, ed. Neusner et al., 209–24; esp. 210–15; Stone, Fourth Ezra, 209–13.

the remnant of my people, those who have been saved throughout my borders,and he will make them joyful until the end comes, the day of judgment”(12:34).

As is clear from this passage, the messiah’s role in 4 Ezra is a penultimateone. The final judgment will occur some four hundred years after the “revela-tion” of the messiah and seven days after he and “all who draw human breath”have died; it thus entails a general resurrection of the dead (see 4 Ezra 7:28–44). The scenario receives further elaboration in the interpretation of the visionof the “man” who “flew with the clouds of heaven” in 4 Ezra 13, which alsoapparently alludes to Dan 7.83 Again described as “my son” who will be“revealed” (13:32; cf. vv. 37, 52), the figure is now identified as one “whom theMost High has been keeping for many ages, who will himself deliver [God’s]creation” and who will “direct those who are left” (13:26). Similar to the king ofPss. Sol. 17, he will not carry “spear or weapon of war”; he will, nonetheless,“destroy . . . without effort by the law” the “innumerable multitude” from thenations that attempts to conquer him (13:28, 33–38). The “remnant” who are“saved throughout [God’s] borders” (12:34), moreover, are now identifiedexplicitly as Israel’s restored tribes:

As for you seeing him gather to himself another multitude that was peace-able, these are the ten tribes which were led away from their own land intocaptivity in the days of King Hoshea. . . . Then they dwelt there [beyond theEuphrates, in the region of ‘Arzareth’] until the last times; and now, whenthey are about to come again, the Most High will stop the channels of theriver again, so that they may be able to pass over. . . . But those who are left ofyour people, who are found within my holy borders, shall be saved. (13:39–40,46, 48)

A remarkably similar scenario is found in 2 Bar. 39–40.84 Like that of4 Ezra, the messiah of this work is also apparently preexistent.85 The “dominionof [God’s] Anointed One” will in any event be “revealed” after a series of fourkingdoms, the last of which is especially powerful and evil (39:7). The messiahwill judge and kill the last of these rulers at Zion and then “protect the rest of


83 Collins, Scepter and the Star, 183–85.84 The numerous affinities between 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch might suggest some literary rela-

tionship between the two works; see, e.g., John J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Intro-duction to the Jewish Matrix of Early Christianity (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 178–80. Accordingto Stone, however, chs. 39–40 of 2 Baruch at least “do not seem to have a literary relationship with4 Ezra 11–12,” despite their similarities (“Question of the Messiah in 4 Ezra,” 211). All translationsof 2 Baruch are taken from A. F. J. Klijn, “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” OTP 1.615–52.

85 Note that he himself will be “revealed” (29:3), and that “when the time of the appearanceof the Anointed One has been fulfilled” he shall “return[ ] with glory” (30:1). On the messiah of2 Baruch, see further Charlesworth, “From Jewish Messianology to Christian Christology,” 245–47.

my people who will be found in the place that I have chosen. And his dominionwill last forever until the world of corruption has ended”—that is, until he“returns with glory” just prior to the resurrection of the dead (2 Bar. 39:7;40:1–3; cf. 29:1–30:5).86 As in Pss. Sol. 17, his dominion will extend beyondIsrael to encompass all of the nations—at least, all of those he spares (2 Bar.70:7–9; 72:2–6). It will be characterized by remarkable abundance, health, andjoy (29:5–8; 73:1–74:4).

The messiah of 2 Baruch, unlike those discussed above, is not explicitlyidentified as Davidic.87 As the structure of the book makes clear, however, he isnonetheless closely associated with the restoration of Israel’s twelve-tribe king-dom. After opening in the fictive setting of the sixth century B.C.E. with anunfavorable comparison of the “two tribes which remained” in the land with“the ten tribes which were carried away into captivity,” the work closes withBaruch composing two letters: one to the Babylonian exiles and one, sent byeagle, “to the nine and a half tribes which were across the river” (1:1–5; 77:19;see also chs. 78–87).88 The latter, written to share with them the consolation“Baruch” found in the series of visions revealed to him (esp. 81:1–82:2), formsthe conclusion of 2 Baruch. The letter begins with an affirmation of the unity of“the twelve tribes, bound by one captivity as we also descend from one father”(78:4). They are reminded that Moses had long ago warned them, “when youwere in the desert as twelve tribes together,” that “[i]f you trespass the law, youshall be dispersed. And if you shall keep it, you shall be planted” (84:2–3).Secure in the knowledge of God’s righteousness, they should focus not on thecurrent situation, but on “that which has been promised to us regarding theend” (83:5). For “God is the one who always promised on our behalf . . . that hewill never forget or forsake our offspring, but with much mercy assemble allthose again who were dispersed” (78:7). The time of the messiah, clearly, willbe the time of that reunification.

The many significant differences among the messiahs of these works serveto highlight at least two things that are consistent: the messiah’s violent destruc-tion, by whatever means, of the wicked, and his close association with therestoration of Israel’s twelve tribes. The latter point is particularly noteworthy,given the lack of explicit interest in either “messiahs” or the tribal identity ofeschatological Israel that otherwise characterizes the Jewish literature of theperiod. In fact, the “messiah” of the Similitudes of Enoch—who, as Danielic


86 The protection of those found within the land is emphasized also in 71:1.87 He is, nonetheless, apparently kingly; see esp. 73:1, where he sits down “on the throne of

the kingdom.” Interestingly, this is precisely the reverse of 4 Ezra, whose messiah is Davidic butnot obviously royal.

88 For the notion of the continued existence of the northern tribes “across the river,” see n. 52above.

“Son of Man,” is more similar to the messiahs of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch than tothose of Qumran and Pss. Sol. 1789—is the lone example of such an avenging“messiah” who is not associated with the restoration of Israel’s tribes.90 On theother hand, Sib. Or. 17–76 is exceptional among early-Roman-period texts forits emphasis on the restoration of Israel’s tribes apart from the appearance ofany “messiah.”91 In this light, the consistent link between these two otherwiseunusual ideas appears all the more remarkable.

This combined interest in Israel’s twelve-tribe identity and a (usuallyexplicitly Davidic) “messiah” who will effect, by whatever means, the destruc-tion of the wicked is clearly rooted in the ideal vision of Israel’s past asexpressed in the narrative of Genesis–Kings, and of its future as envisioned innumerous passages in the prophetic corpus. The sudden reemergence of inter-est in this combination of ideas after centuries of silence is no doubt related tothe reestablishment of native kingship in Judah in the Hasmonean period.Interest in an idealized Davidic leadership clearly implies dissatisfaction withcurrent political realities, and it is scarcely accidental that the Dead Sea sectand the Psalms of Solomon—the earliest instances of this renewed interest—were both sharply critical of the Hasmonean dynasty. More specifically, the col-lapse of native kingship and the subjection, once again, to foreign rule afterdecades of national autonomy in the mid-first century B.C.E. may have been aparticularly important factor in the reawakening of Jewish interest in thisapparently long-discarded ideal.92 It is quite difficult to determine the point at


89 See further on this figure George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Salvation without and with a Mes-siah: Developing Beliefs in Writings Ascribed to Enoch,” in Judaisms and their Messiahs, ed.Neusner et al., 56–64; Collins, Scepter and the Star, 177–82; James C. VanderKam, “RighteousOne, Messiah, Chosen One, and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37–71,” in The Messiah: Developments inEarliest Judaism and Christianity (ed. James H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992),169–91.

90 I leave aside here the various texts of the Qumran sect that refer to the Davidic messiahwith no explicit reference to the twelve tribes. Assessment of their significance would require aclear understanding of the development of the group’s thought—an exceedingly complex problemthat cannot be resolved here. For a critical synthesis of past discussion of the problem as it relates tothe sect’s complex messianic conceptions, see Zimmermann, Messianische Texte aus Qumran,447–54; further Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Messianic Figures and Ideas in the Qumran Scrolls,” inMessiah, ed. Charlesworth, 116–29; Collins, Scepter and the Star, 77–83; Gerbern S. Oegema,“Messianic Expectations in the Qumran Writings: Theses on their Development,” in Qumran-Messianism, ed. Charlesworth, 53–82. On the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, see n. 94 below.

91 A messiah does figure into the Christian redaction of the Sibylline Oracles; see furtherJohn J. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” OTP 1:330–34. The relevant passage, at any rate, makes nomention of a messiah in this connection. Like the pre-Hasmonean Sirach, interestingly, this pas-sage seems rather to associate this restoration with the return of Elijah; unlike Sirach, however, theprophet appears after the return of the ten tribes (Sib. Or. 2:187ff.).

92 See Collins, “Jesus, Messianism, and the Scrolls,” 106–7. Other factors may also have comeinto play here. Oegema correlates the rise of messianism in the Dead Sea sect with the death of the

which the Dead Sea sect became interested in this particular combination ofideas,93 but the War Scroll, the Psalms of Solomon, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch are allclearly wrestling with the Roman subjection of Judah—albeit in a variety ofspecific situations.

Given this repeated link between an avenging, usually Davidic, “messiah”and the restoration of Israel’s twelve-tribe identity in the Jewish literature of theearly Roman era, the interest in Israel’s twelve tribes expressed in several earlyChristian works raises intriguing questions regarding the role of messianismand Jewish nationalism in the various stages and forms of this Roman-periodmovement. Given the diversity that characterizes emergent Christianity—including, not least, its intense debates regarding the relationship between Jew-ish and non-Jewish adherents to the movement—it is the prudent course toresist generalizations about the early Christian interpretation of this complex ofideas in advance of a detailed investigation of each of the relevant texts.94 Ourpresent concern is the way that this complex of ideas illuminates the role ofJesus as “christ” in the Letter of James.

IV

The prospect of formulating anything like a comprehensive Christology ofJames is not good, given the meager explicit attention the figure receives in thetext. Comparison with the works examined above, however, is very suggestiveof the broad outlines of the role of Jesus Christ within the mythic world ofJames. If, as suggested above, James’s soteriology renders highly problematic


Teacher of Righteousness (“Messianic Expectations in the Qumran Writings,” 56, 63), whileAtkinson proposes that “the violent messiah was fashioned predominantly as a righteous counter-part to Herod the Great and subsequent Herodian rulers (“On the Herodian Origin of MilitantDavidic Messianism,” 435).

93 See n. 90 above.94 See esp. Matt 19:28 || Luke 22:30, which was likely derived from the Synoptic sayings

source (Paul Hoffmann et al., Q 22:28, 30: You Will Judge the Twelve Tribes of Israel [ed.Christoph Heil; Documenta Q; Leuven: Peeters, 1998]); also Acts 26:6–7; Rev 7; 21:12; furtherJackson-McCabe, “Letter to the Twelve Tribes,” 513–14. Also of relevance here is the Testamentsof the Twelve Patriarchs, which is clearly Christian at least in its present form. Testament of Ben-jamin 9:2 envisions a time when the twelve tribes, with “all the nations,” will be gathered at a tem-ple of God that “will exceed the former [temple] in glory” (OTP 1:827). The interpretation of thispassage, though, is exceedingly complex, even by the standards that normally obtain for the Testa-ments; see, e.g., Marinus de Jonge, Studies on the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: Text andInterpretation (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 236–40. On the complex problem of the messianic aspects ofthis work, see Anders Hultgård, “The Ideal ‘Levite’, the Davidic Messiah, and the Saviour Priest inthe Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism, ed. Collins andNickelsburg, 93–110.

the assumption that it presumes a Christology centered on Jesus’ death and res-urrection as central soteriological mechanisms, its interest in a cristov" is quiteintelligible when seen in light of the messianic paradigm that emerges fromthese other early-Roman-period texts.

In these works, whatever else he may be—Davidic or not, heavenly orthis-worldly—“the messiah” is a figure who is associated above all with thedestruction of the enemies of God’s elect and the restoration of Israel’s twelvetribes. The Letter of James, written from a “slave” of Jesus cristov" to “thetwelve tribes who are in the diaspora,” is oriented fundamentally toward ananalogous reversal. As in 4 Ezra, this event is portrayed less in terms of tradi-tional military action than as an impending judgment associated with the law.95

In James, as we have seen, the enemies of God and his elect are styled as “therich.” It is they who symbolize the pursuit of desire and failure to “do” thelogos, and who kill “the righteous” in general (5:6) and persecute the author’sgroup in particular (2:6). And it is “the rich,” therefore, who are singled out asthe chief victims on an eagerly anticipated “day of slaughter” (hJmevra sfagh'")(see 5:1–6).96 Those who resist the temptation of desire, on the other hand, willreceive “the crown of life” (1:12; cf. 1:14–15). Through continued attention tothe “perfect law of freedom,” they exhibit the “humble” acceptance and“doing” of the logos that renders one a “doer of works” and, ultimately,“blessed” (1:21–25). The humble, in short, will be exalted (1:9; 4:9–10); and“the poor,” we must infer, will at this time finally inherit the kingdom that they,as the elect, have been promised (2:5).

From this time, too, one must assume, the “twelve tribes” to whom Jameswrites will no longer be “in the diaspora” (1:1). It must be admitted at the out-set that the extent to which the terms of this address are “spiritualized” inJames—so that the “twelve tribes” have no ethnic, and “diaspora” no geograph-ical, connotations—cannot be determined decisively. That a number of earlyChristians who deemphasized the distinction between Jew and Gentilenonetheless appropriated symbols of Jewish identity for their own mixedgroups inevitably raises questions regarding any Christian work that is not abso-lutely explicit in this regard; and James is not.97 A few observations, however,are in order. First, Mayor’s simple identification of these tribes with Israel ingeneral is most problematic, given that Jas 2:1, at least, clearly assumes an audi-


95 See esp. Jas 2:12–13; 4:11–12; also 3:1; 5:9, 12. Cf. 4 Ezra 12:32–34, and esp. 13:38: themessiah “will destroy them [i.e., “the assembled nations”] without effort by the law”; also 2 Bar.72:2; 40:1–2; Pss. Sol. 17:24–25, 33, 35–36.

96 The expression “day of slaugher” is apparently taken from Jer 12:3; see also Jas 1:11: “therich person, with his ventures, will be destroyed” (oJ plouvsio" ejn tai'" poreivai" aujtou' maranqhvse-tai).

97 The reference to “Abraham our father” (2:21) is subject to the same question; see, e.g.,Dibelius, James, 161.

ence who holds “the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory” (see 2:1).98 Thedesignation is thus used of a more specific (not to say localized) group of Jesusadherents. At the same time, the particular designation “twelve tribes”—per-haps because of its more concrete genealogical and geographical associations99

—is used with specific reference to ethnic Israel in most, and perhaps all, otherinstances in the extant early Christian literature.100 One should be less thancavalier, then, in assuming a “completely metaphorical” reading that emptiesthe designation of all ethnic significance.101 When this address is read in itsearly-Roman-period context—and particularly alongside James’s fundamentalorientation around the Torah and, arguably, its polemical stance towardPaul102—the origins of the text within a group that functioned principallywithin Jewish society must be considered the more likely possibility.103 That a


98 This is acknowledged even by Mayor (Epistle of St. James, cxxxvii), who paraphrases 2:1 as“Do not you, who call yourselves believers in Christ, disgrace your faith by exhibitions of partiality”(p. 79). Nonetheless, he rejects the idea that “St. James is throughout addressing himself exclu-sively to Christians,” even while conceding that “the larger part of the epistle is intended for them”(p. cxliii). Apparently, then, one must infer that the criticism of acts of partiality toward “the rich”and against “the poor with respect to the world” in 2:1–13 was aimed specifically at Christian Jews.Why this should be the case, however, is hardly clear.

99 For the geographical aspect, see n. 55 above; Matt 3:12–16 suggests that this connotationcontinued to be of at least some interest in the first century. For the genealogical significance, seeesp. Luke 2:36 and Phil 3:5; such use of tribal affiliation as an identity marker, however, is rare inthe literature of the period.

100 Such is the case with all those texts cited above in n. 94, with the possible exception ofRevelation. This text poses a problem analogous to that of James, and its references to the tribeshave been subject to a variety of interpretations; see A. Feuillet, “Les 144.000 Israélites marquésd’un sceau,” NovT 9 (1967): 191–224; Albert Geyser, “The Twelve Tribes in Revelation, Judeanand Judeo-Christian Apocalypticism,” NTS 28 (1982): 388–99; J. A. Draper, “The Heavenly Feastof Tabernacles: Revelation 7:1–17,” JSNT 19 (1983): 133–47; Richard Bauckham, “The Book ofRevelation as a Christian War Scroll,” Neot 22 (1988): 17–40; idem, “The List of the Tribes in Rev-elation 7 Again,” JSNT 42 (1991): 99–115; Christopher R. Smith, “The Portrayal of the Church asthe New Israel in the Names and Order of the Tribes in Revelation 7.5–8,” JSNT 39 (1990):111–18.

101 So, e.g., Dibelius, who reads it in light of such Pauline notions as “true circumcision” andthe “heavenly Jerusalem” (James, 66).

102 Note also the oft-noted relationship between this work and the Jesus tradition, as well asits use of the term “synagogue” in connection with a gathering of the group (2:2). That James inter-acts at all with distinctly Pauline concepts is increasingly debated, particularly among English-speaking scholars; see esp. Penner, Epistle of James and Eschatology, 47–74; Johnson, Letter ofJames, esp. 58–64, 246–50; Hutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor, 174–76 nn. 56, 58.See, however, Jackson-McCabe, Logos and Law, 243–52.

103 What is in mind here is a group broadly analogous to that modeled by J. Andrew Overman(Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community [Min-neapolis: Fortress, 1990]) and Anthony J. Saldarini (Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community[Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism; Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1994])for Matthew. Such sociological models are useful for imagining the social realities attending the

relatively small Jewish sect could appropriate this symbol of Israel’s nationalidentity for themselves is clear from the literature produced by the Dead Seasect, a group who also, interestingly, identified themselves in some sense with“the poor.”104 Whatever the text’s precise attitude toward Gentile adherents toJesus Christ, then, the “actual audience”105 anticipated for this text was proba-bly Jewish—or, more properly, “Israelite.”106

The identification of the letter’s intended audience as “the twelve tribes inthe diaspora” must be viewed as a highly charged address in the context of theearly Roman period. Whatever its ethnic connotation, the designation “twelvetribes” represents the appropriation of a symbol of Israel’s national restorationfor a group also conceived of as “the poor with respect to the kosmos” and theelect “inheritors of the kingdom” (2:5). Thus too, regardless of its concrete,geographical intention, the location of the twelve tribes “in the diaspora” is alsoprofoundly symbolic within the mythic world of James. As James reads thescriptural narrative, God has promised a “kingdom” to the twelve tribes; andthough they are currently “in the diaspora,” an impending eschatological rever-sal will effect their restoration as a fulfillment of God’s promise. Existence inthe diaspora is thus the polar opposite of existence in “the kingdom”—regard-less of the extent to which these notions are viewed in this-worldly or (and?) inheavenly terms.107

In light of the repeated link in this period between the restoration of


earliest Christian movement, whatever one’s interpretation of Matthew itself. By drawing this com-parison, I do not in any case mean to imply a genetic connection between the group that producedJames and that which produced Matthew, as suggested, e.g., by Hartin, James and the Q Sayings ofJesus, esp. 220–44.

104 See E. Bammel, “ptwcov",” TDNT 6:896–97.105 Any discussion of the original, actual audience of this text is complicated by the fact that

the intended audience—at least as explicitly identified—is not an empirically observable group inthe social world in which the text was produced, but a literary and mythic construct. One encoun-ters a similar problem in the letter to the “nine and a half tribes” that closes 2 Baruch—which wasin fact said to have been sent to its addressees via eagle! See 2 Bar. 77:17–78:1; 87:1.

106 I take this address not so much as formally excluding a Gentile Christian audience as sig-nifying that they are less than a central concern in the world of the text. Comparison with Psalms ofSolomon and 2 Baruch may again be instructive in this respect. Both texts assume that the blessingsof the messianic era will extend in some way to Gentiles (Pss. Sol. 17:28–31; cf. 2 Bar. 70:7–9;72:2–6), but each is clearly principally concerned with the restoration of Israel. Gentile salvation isin this respect only a peripheral matter, a by-product of the fulfillment of God’s covenantalpromises to Israel (at least, as understood in these texts) that receives little attention in its ownright.

107 James’s apocalyptic horizon (and particularly the fact that it seems to assume a belief inresurrection of the dead; see n. 43 above) would suggest a significantly otherworldly quality to its“kingdom.” It seems that this distinction between “this-worldly” and “otherworldly” is generally ofless concern in the ancient apocalyptic literature than it is for the contemporary interpreters of thisliterature; see in this respect the discussion of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch above, as well as Rev 20–21.

Israel’s tribes and a violent avenger “messiah,” the symbolic charge of thisaddress is only intensified by the author’s self-identification as “slave” of a par-ticular cristov". The impending “slaughter” of the chief enemies of God and his“elect poor”—that is, of “the rich”—is tied in James to an imminent “parousiaof the Lord” (Jas 5:1–6, 7–8).108 Given the “virtually technical usage” of theterm parousia in the early Christian literature with reference to a future com-ing of Jesus, it is overwhelmingly probable that Jesus is in mind in this passage,as most interpreters agree.109 Even apart from this typical Christian usage, themessiah’s consistent role in the texts examined above as destroyer of the ene-mies of the elect make the cristov" mentioned in 1:1 and 2:1 the natural choicehere. This latter consideration also renders more likely the identification of the“judge” of the immediately following 5:9 with Jesus. The description of this“judge” as “standing before the doors” strongly recalls the depiction of the Sonof Man, poised to “gather his elect” in Mark 13:26–29 || Matt 24:30–33 (see alsoRev 3:20; Luke 12:36; John 10:1–10). If the emphatic assertion in 4:11–12 thatGod is “the one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy” givessome pause here,110 it seems clear that the rhetorical force of that passage issimply to contrast human acts of judgment—which are forbidden—with theonly one that is ultimately valid: the divine, eschatological one. That it alsoentails a rigorous denial of a mediator of God’s eschatological judgment isscarcely obvious.111 All things considered, the identification of the “judge” ofJas 5:9 as Jesus is the more likely alternative.112 Whatever his precise role in theproceedings,113 however, the parousia of this Christ is clearly linked to theimminent judgment and destruction of the enemies of God and his elect.


108 The affirmation of the coming judgment on the rich is cited as grounds for “patience”until “the parousia of the Lord” occurs, as is clear from the use of ou\n in 5:7; so also Klein, ‘Ein voll-kommenes Werk,’ 173.

109 Johnson, Letter of James, 313–14; cf. Konradt, Christliche Existenz, 291–92 with n. 36.110 So, e.g., Hutchinson Edgar, Has God Not Chosen the Poor, 206, with references to past

interpreters.111 In this connection note that Pss. Sol. 17 is framed with declarations that God himself is

“our king forevermore” (17:1, 46), despite the fact that its central concern is that God should “raiseup for them their king, the son of David, to rule over your servant Israel” (17:21). The implication isthat the “messiah” of this psalm is ultimately the mediator of God’s judgment and kingship; for“The Lord himself is his king” (17:34). As Davenport puts it, “the one who will occupy the throne ofDavid will be king in a qualified sense only . . . [Israel’s] subjection to the earthly [Davidic] king isthe means of their subjection to God” (“Anointed of the Lord,” 72).

112 So also Konradt, Christliche Existenz, 295, with references to previous interpreters; fur-ther Johnson, Letter of James, 317. See also Penner, who speaks of Jesus’ likely role in James as“coming judge” (Epistle of James and Eschatology, 268 n. 1); he in any case sees a “functional over-lap between God and the messiah” with respect to the judgment in James (pp. 267–68; cf. 170–71n. 2).

113 Several early Christian works attest an interpretation of Christ not as eschatological judge,but as “advocate and witness for his own followers” at a judgment carried out by God himself; see

If James says precious little regarding the precise role and nature of its“christ,” then what it does say is basically consistent with the messianic para-digm that emerges from the Jewish literature of the early Roman period.Though no mention is made of his Davidic character (cf. 2 Baruch), James’smessiah is closely linked to an impending, violent judgment on the enemies ofGod and his elect, on one hand,114 and to the ingathering of the “twelve tribes”from “the diaspora” on the other.

James’s messiah—like all those discussed above—is also in some respectsdifferent from those of other works. Most obviously, the messiah of James hasdied and been raised from the dead.115 A function of his identification as Jesusof Nazareth, this aspect of James’s messiah is more reminiscent of other Chris-tian works than of the non-Christian texts discussed above. While James saysnothing about it explicitly, our best clue to how Jesus’ death is interpreted isfound in 5:6, where “the rich” are portrayed as killers of “the righteous.” Thepassage is best read generically, along the lines of Wis 2:12–20, rather than withspecific reference to Jesus;116 one might compare in this respect the portrayalof “the rich” as persecutors of James’s audience (2:6), as well as the paradig-matic suffering of “the prophets” cited in Jas 5:10. Nonetheless, the verygeneric nature of these claims would have made them natural paradigms forexplaining the death of Jesus.117

While the notion of a messiah who himself suffers a humiliating death atthe hands of his enemies might seem at first glance to be entirely incongruousfrom the point of view of the messianic texts discussed above, ultimately it onlyrenders James’s messiah an example of the more supernatural, “apocalyptic”variety attested in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.118 In 4 Ezra, the heavenly dimension ofthe messiah is effected by his identification with the Danielic “Son of Man.”Interestingly, this same move is made in the Synoptic Gospels—at least in part,apparently, in the service of explaining how Jesus can be “messiah” despite his


Hans Dieter Betz, “An Episode in the Last Judgment [Matt 7:21–23],” in idem, Essays on the Ser-mon on the Mount (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 125–57, here 142.

114 One who is a “friend of the kosmos” is, by definition, an “enemy of God” (4:5); such arro-gant pursuit of desire as is decried here clearly applies to “the rich.” For the perceived treatment ofJames’s implied audience by “the rich,” see 2:6–7.

115 Mußner, “»Direkte « und »indirekte« Christologie,” 112–13; see also n. 43 above.116 Johnson, Letter of James, 304.117 Such motifs also figure prominently in the Synoptic sayings source (Christopher M. Tuck-

ett, Q and the History of Early Christianity: Studies on Q [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996],165–207) and, according to J. R. C. Cousland, play a crucial role in Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus’death (The Crowds in the Gospel of Matthew [NovTSup; Leiden: Brill, 2002], 207–25).

118 Collins observes that “a tendency to combine traditions about a Davidic messiah withexpectation of a heavenly savior” was common in the first century C.E., particularly after thedestruction of the Temple (Scepter and the Star, 189).

crucifixion.119 In Matthew, the twelve apostles will indeed “sit on twelvethrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel,” but only after Jesus’ death, whenhe comes as Son of Man and “is seated on the throne of his glory” (19:28; cf.24:23–31). Similarly, the “restoration of the kingdom to Israel” (Acts 1:6) andthe apostles’ own enthronement over “the twelve tribes of Israel” in Jesus’ king-dom (Luke 22:30) anticipated in Luke-Acts will be accomplished only whenJesus comes with great power as the Son of Man.120 According to these texts,Jesus’ work as messiah was never intended to be accomplished during hisearthly life, but only at the time of his heavenly descent as Son of Man.

It is perhaps not accidental that James’s own characterization of “thejudge” as “standing at the doors” (5:9) recalls the similar description of the Sonof Man in Mark 13:26–29 and Matt 24:30–33. One might well read the ascrip-tion of “glory” to Jesus in Jas 2:1 in light of the “glory” that is typically associatedwith the Son of Man at his descent.121 Jesus’ death and resurrection in Jamesonly serve to transform him into a more patently supernatural savior, thus cre-ating the conditions necessary for a heavenly “coming.”122 They are not them-selves the focal point, and are indeed not obviously soteriologically relevantbeyond this general, preparatory function. In James, “Jesus saves” not throughhis death and resurrection, but only to the extent that his heavenly parousia willsignal the destruction of the wicked oppressors of God’s elect and the establish-ment of the long-promised era of blessedness for the righteous.

The Letter of James evidences a variant early Christian myth that, whiledifferent from the death-and-resurrection-centered one that is reflected inmuch of the extant Christian literature, is consistent in significant respects withother Jewish messianic thinking in the early Roman period. The centralmetaphor that informs James’s interest in the figure of Jesus Christ is not, as inthe Johannine or Pauline literature, new creation or rebirth, but nationalrestoration: the reestablishment of a twelve-tribe kingdom by the hand of an


119 See esp. Mark 8:27–9:1; 14:61–62. In both passages, Jesus’ identification as “messiah” isquickly clarified by a further identification of him as heavenly Son of Man. Indeed, it is when hecomes as Son of Man that Jesus will “gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of theearth to the ends of heaven” (13:27).

120 See esp. Luke 21:27–28, where this “redemption” (ajpoluvtrwsi"; cf. 1:68; 2:38; 24:21) isassociated with “the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”

121 E.g., Mark 8:38 and 13:26, with pars.; Matt 19:28; cf. 2 Bar. 39:7.122 Similarly, if the grammatically ambiguous Jas 1:1 is taken to imply some form of identifi-

cation of Christ with God, comparison with the preexistent messiahs of 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra mightprove to be illuminating. The relevance of the preexistent Sophia of some Jewish wisdom texts, onthe other hand, depends largely on the problematic classification of James as “wisdom literature”;on such a classification, see Jackson-McCabe, “Letter to the Twelve Tribes,” 505–8. The grammat-ical ambiguity of 1:1, however—even when coupled with James’s notoriously ambiguous use ofkuvrio"—strikes me as a rather slim basis from which to advance such a claim.

avenger messiah. In a manner reminiscent of the letters to Israel’s exiled tribesat the close of 2 Baruch, the author of James writes a letter of counsel to the“twelve tribes in the diaspora” to encourage them as they await their promised,and now imminent, restoration. He warns them regarding lapses in the doing ofthe divine law, by which they will ultimately be judged and the observance ofwhich can thus “save” them. They are encouraged to emulate the endurance of“the prophets” as they experience the trials that the kosmos inevitably poses for“the righteous,” secure in the knowledge that “the judge is standing at thedoors” (5:7–11). E. P. Sanders and others have argued plausibly that an expecta-tion of Israel’s restoration was an important dimension of the mythic imagina-tion of Jesus.123 The Letter of James suggests that, for some of his earlyadherents, this hope, like their messiah himself, was not extinguished on thecross.


123 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 61–119, esp. 95–106; idem, The Historical Figure of Jesus(London/New York: Penguin, 1993), esp. 183–87; see also Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Mil-lenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 141–45; Paula Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth, Kingof the Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of Christianity (New York: Knopf, 2000), 89–98.

JBL 122/4 (2003) 731–743

CRITICAL NOTES

POTTERS’ WHEELS AND PREGNANCIES:A NOTE ON EXODUS 1:16

The beginning of the exodus story recounts a change of leadership in Egypt. A newking who “did not know Joseph” implements a program of oppression against thedescendants of Jacob. Dissatisfied with the results of his policy of forced labor, theunnamed sovereign decides to treat the Israelites with further malevolence. Summon-ing the “midwives” Shiphrah and Puah, he announces his sinister intention: “When youserve as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son,you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live” (Exod 1:16 RSV).

A perusal of modern versions will indicate that the previous rendering is widelyaccepted. Despite such agreement, a number of problems remain unresolved. The term!yIn:b]a; of the MT has been a crux, although the suggestion that it refers to some sort ofobstetric aid has long pedigree.1 Moreover, some translators have regarded the phrase!yIn:b]a;h;Al[' @t,yair“W as difficult. To make sense of the passage, the need was felt to supply apronoun referring back to the supposed antecedent t/YrIb][ih;: “when you see <them>(the Hebrew women) upon the ‘birthstool’ . . . .”2

Although this interpretation is tempting, questions arise concerning the accuracyof such a proposal, especially in light of the immediate sequel. As is well known, thefemale personnel do not follow the decree (Exod 1:17b). When news of the women’sfailure reaches the king, he demands an explanation for their negligence, to whichShiphrah and Puah make the duplicitous reply: “. . . the Hebrew women . . . are deliv-ered before the midwife comes to them . . . ” (Exod 1:29). Surprisingly, given the por-trait that has been drawn of this monarch, the answer is wholly satisfactory to thepharaoh, insofar as the two women escape punishment.

But why would either a premature or unattended birth annul the main thrust ofthe royal command? If one accepts the usual interpretations of v. 16, the excuse offered

1 See William H. C. Propp, Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Com-mentary (AB 2; New York: Doubleday, 1999), 139; Werner H. Schmidt, Exodus I (BKAT 2/1;Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988), 5–6; Nahum M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus: TheHeritage of Biblical Israel (New York: Schocken, 1987), 24; Brevard S. Childs, The Book of Exodus:A Critical, Theological Commentary (OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 6.

2 Nahum M. Sarna reads “look at the birthstool” (JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus [Philadel-phia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991], 7). Propp, however, notes that the expression would likelybe “between” rather than “upon” such a device (Exodus, 139). Propp regards !yIn:b]a; as a generalterm for “pudenda.” The LXX (w\sin pro;" tw'/ tivktein) and the Vulgate (partus tempus advenerit)interpret rather than translate and refer to the time of delivery.

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by Shiphrah and Puah would not have solved their dilemma. The absence of a midwifewould hardly have freed the women from their duty to their sovereign: they still wouldhave the information necessary to carry out their task. However, the next stage in thisprocess, wherein the ruler ratchets up the pressure and demands that his subjects drownthe Hebrew infants, makes it probable that the midwives’ mission had been formulatedin a different fashion. Apparently, their order had been to eliminate the males prior totheir birth, but once delivered, they were to be permitted to survive. This raises the pos-sibility that both the translation and exegesis of v. 16 are in need of revision.

A possible solution may be furnished by positing that an “Egyptianism” underliesthe phrase !yIn:b]a;h;Al['. To an extent, this vignette’s focus on the midwives reflects somefamiliarity with Egyptian culture, particularly the renown it had throughout the ancientworld in the field of gynecological practice.3 The attempts to see in !yIn:b]a; a birthingdevice were largely shaped by suppositions about obstetric techniques from the NileValley.4 By the same token, while the use of “bricks” or “stools” in labor is sometimesattested,5 Jer 18:3 demonstrates that !yIn:b]a; can only refer to a “potter’s wheel”: “I wentdown to the potter’s house, and behold, he was doing work upon the wheel(!yIn:b]a;h;Al[').”6 The phrase is exactly the same as in Exod 1:16. The recognition thatwomen likely did not bear offspring on such a contraption led to the attempts to explainthe term as something other than what it was.

Yet the “potter’s wheel” is regularly linked to pregnancy in ancient Egyptian reli-gious literature and art. The implement (Eg. nh\p/nh\b)7 was associated with the creator-god, Khnum, a ram-headed deity who was depicted as an artisan.8 In mythopoetic texts,Khnum would mold and shape each human being at conception “upon his wheel,”9 withthe potential child being granted the physical and psychological traits that would defineit as an individual—obviously including characteristics of gender.10 During this time offashioning, the developing infant was said to be “upon the potter’s wheel” (h \r nh \p),11

from which it would hopefully be delivered hale and healthy.12 What is significant, isthat the metaphor refers to a gestating fetus prior to parturition.


3 See Elmar Edel, Ägyptische Ärtze und ägyptische Medizin am hethitischen Königshof(Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1976), 62–63.

4 Texts testify to the valuable role midwives played in Egyptian society. The best knownexample is found in P. Westcar 9.22–11.3, translated by Miriam Lichtheim, AEL 1:220–21.

5 Ericka Feucht, “Birth,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt (ed. Donald B. Red-ford; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 1:182–83 (hereafter OEAE). The University of Penn-sylvania has announced the discovery of a decorated “birthing-brick” from Abydos, in University ofPennsylvania News Release, “Penn Archaeologists Uncover 3,700-Year-Old ‘Magical’ Birth Brickat Mayor’s Residence Just Outside Abydos, Egypt” (Online: http//www.museum/upenn.edu/news/birthbrick/home.htm), no pages, accessed July 2002. According to the report, the excavator,Josef Wegner, suggests that the brick was used to support a woman’s feet during labor.

6 B. G. Wood, “Potter’s Wheel,” ABD 5:427–28.7 WÄS 2:294, 9.8 P. F. O’Rourke, “Khnum,” OEAE 2:231–32.9 WÄS 2: 295, 1. See “Great Hymn to Khnum,” AEL 3:111–13.

10 Kurt Sethe, Urkunden der 18. Dynastie, vol. 1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1961),222.13–224.1.

11 WÄS 2:294, 10.12 The idiom was literally “to go forth <from> upon the potter’s wheel” (pri h\r nh\p) (WÄS

We suggest that the Hebrew is an adaptation of the idiom h\r nh\p and refers to achild still forming in the womb that has not yet come to full term. Grammatically,!yIn:b]a;h;Al[' is most likely an example of casus pendens, or anticipatory emphasis.13 Theprepositional phrase has been moved forward to stress the circumstances surroundingthe time of the midwives’ examination (!t,yair“W): “When you look/determine ‘upon thepotter’s wheel’ [i.e., when you undertake a prenatal examination], if it is a son, then ter-minate him; if it is a daughter, she shall live.” Such a procedure would have been withinthe scope of ancient Egyptian knowledge and practice. Medical texts contain prognosticrecipes for determining the sex of an unborn child, as well as prescriptions for ending apregnancy through draughts and potions.14

Within the narrative logic and progression of Exodus, the royal injunction of Exod1:16 should thus be understood as an intermediate measure in a campaign of increasingviolence against the Israelites. The demand for the elimination of unborn males standsmidway between the rigors of the corvée initially inflicted upon the adult community ofIsrael and the subsequent command to the Egyptian populace to commit outright infan-ticide.

Scott [email protected]

Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028

Critical Notes 733

2:294, 11). The formation scenes are not anatomically correct: infants are portrayed as miniature,ideal children standing “upon the wheel.”

13 GKC, §§119.1; 143.14 H. Grapow, Kranker, Krankheiten und Arzt: Grundriss der Medizin der Alten Ägypter III.

(Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1956), 11–17.

THE IMAGERY OF THE SUBSTITUTE KING RITUALIN ISAIAH’S FOURTH SERVANT SONG

Interpreters have long struggled over the imagery that supplies the background forthe fourth Servant Song (Isa 52:13–53:12).1 For those who have seen the Servant as apersonification of corporate Israel, the imagery has been problematic both because it isintensely individual and because Israel appears to be the beneficiary of the Servant’ssuffering. Those who have seen the Servant in royal or messianic terms have had diffi-culty finding precedent for a suffering king or messiah in Israelite theology. Attempts toidentify the Servant with a prophet, whether Deutero-Isaiah or Moses, have likewisestruggled to make sense of all of the diverse elements of the Servant Songs and have notbeen sufficiently persuasive to bring about a consensus. Additionally, it has been ques-tioned what role the concept of vicarious suffering serves in either the text or the world-view. Finally, these issues are complicated by obscure references such as being with therich in his death (v. 9) and seeing seed and prolonging days (v. 11), and are bogged downin the larger questions concerning the interrelationship of the Servant Songs and theirrole within the canonical book of Isaiah.2

It is my thesis that the imagery, background, and obscurities of the fourth song canbe adequately resolved when the passage is read in light of the substitute king ritualmotifs known from Mesopotamia as early as the Isin period (early second millennium)and as late as Alexander the Great. A peripheral awareness of the potential in this com-parison has been evident in the literature for some time. The most substantial work wasdone in 1958 by J. Scharbert, who addressed the relationship between the Suffering

1 As just one example, John Gray considers I. Engnell’s attempts to see the source of theimagery in the akitu festival or Tammuz liturgies to be stretched and forced, but he has no alterna-tive to offer (The Biblical Doctrine of the Reign of God [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1979], 284).

2 The scholarship up until the mid-1980s was conveniently summarized by Herbert Haag,Der Gottesknecht bei Deuterojesaja (EdF 233; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,1985). A helpful discussion of the problems with each of the major positions is provided by GordonHugenberger, “The Servant of the Lord in the ‘Servant Songs’ of Isaiah: A Second Moses Figure”in The Lord’s Anointed (ed. P. E. Satterthwaite, R. S. Hess, and G. J. Wenham; Grand Rapids:Baker, 1995), 105–40. Variations on the identification with Moses can be found in George Coats,The Moses Tradition (JSOTSup 161; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 186–89; and in Klaus Baltzer,Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40–55 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 18–22.A recent investigation of the question of the connection of Jesus to the fourth song is Jesus and theSuffering Servant (ed. W. H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1998).

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Critical Notes 735

Servant and ancient Near Eastern texts.3 On good evidence, Scharbert rejected the ideathat Isa 53 represented an actual substitute king ritual. He observed that the reasons forthe substitution were different, that the victim in the šar pûhÚi texts was not a willing vic-tim, and that there was no sin–guilt–atonement matrix in the rituals. Nor was he con-vinced that the Assyrian victim was actually killed. In the end he concluded that Isa 53could not be considered an actual case of a substitute king ritual because the magicalworldview that was the premise on which the rituals were based stood in stark contradic-tion to the sophisticated theological foundation of the Servant Song.4 These are all validconcerns if the question is whether an actual substitute king ritual is being representedin Isa 53. M. A. Beek took up the topic in 1966 but dismissed the relationship in a briefparagraph because he saw no king in Isa 53 and doubted the death of the servant.5 B.Janowski explored the relationship between the substitute king rituals in Mesopotamianand Hittite texts and the substitution rituals in Israel (particularly Lev 16) but did notbring Isa 53 into the discussion.6 Elsewhere he indicates that the relationship betweenthe substitute king ritual and Isa 53 could be traced, but he does not do so.7 A. R. W.Green, explored the šar pûhÚi in the context of human sacrifice but likewise did not bringIsa 53 into his investigation.8 Even as recently as 1998, a summary of the major workdone on the concept of Stellvertretung in Isa 53 found no cause to mention the substi-tute king rituals.9 In the thesis developed here it is suggested not that the Isaiah text rep-resents an actual substitute king ritual but that the motifs of those rituals provide abackground for the theological points that the author of the song wishes to make to hisaudience.

The extant texts are concentrated in seventh-century Neo-Assyrian documentsconnected to the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal. We will first examine what isknown of the substitute king ritual and then compare that to the textual data in thefourth Servant Song.

3 J. Scharbert, “Stellvertretendes Sühneleiden in den Ebed-Jahwe-Liedern und in altorienta-lischen Ritualtexten” BZ n. F. 2 (1958): 190–213.

4 For similar conclusions, see G. Fohrer, “Das Alte Testament und das Thema ‘Christolo-gie,’” EvT 30 (1970): 281–98.

5 M. A. Beek, “Der Ersatzkönig als Erzählungsmotiv in der altisraelitischen Literatur,” inVolume du Congrès: Genève 1965 (VTSup 15; Leiden: Brill, 1966), 24–32, esp. 32.

6 B. Janowski, Sühne als Heilsgeschehen: Studien zur Sühnetheologie der Priesterschrift undzur Wurzel KPR im Alten Orient und im Alten Testament (WMANT 55; Neukirchen-Vluyn:Neukirchener Verlag, 1982), 210–15.

7 B. Janowski, “Er trug unsere Sünden: Jesaja 53 und die Dramatik der Stellvertretung,” inDer leidende Gottesknecht: Jesaja 53 und seine Wirkungsgeschichte mit einer Bibliographie zu Jes53 (ed. B. Janowski and P. Stuhlmacher; FAT 14; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), 46 n. 61.

8 A. R. W. Green, The Roles of Human Sacrifice in the Ancient Near East (Missoula, MT:Scholars Press, 1975), 88–91,

9 D. P. Bailey, “Concepts of Stellvertretung in the Interpretation of Isaiah 53,” in Jesus andthe Suffering Servant, ed. Bellinger and Farmer, 223–50.


I. Substitute King

The substitute king materials received their earliest major treatment by RenéLabat, and the Assyrian texts have been most thoroughly addressed by J. Bottéro and S.Parpola, with translations of most of the documents provided by Parpola.10 The Hittitesubstitute king ritual texts were the subject of H. Kümmel’s 1967 monograph.11 Theoccasion for the enthronement of a substitute king was the occurrence of omens thatwere thought to jeopardize the life of the king. Typically the threat was posed by animminent eclipse of the sun, moon, or one of the planets.12 The theory behind the ritualwas that the negative effect of the omens would be drawn to the substitute and wouldthus bring deliverance for the king. Bottéro summarizes:

The real office of a šar pûhÚi was not to rule in the place of the king but to playpublicly the role of the person of the latter, and thus to serve as a lightningrod in a way, in order to take upon himself and or draw upon himself the evilfate that threatened his master.13

Thus it was decided that “somebody should sit on the throne and remove yourevil.”14 The person who was chosen as the substitute was warned that he had to take evilomens on himself. Chosen by the diviners, he was enthroned, dressed like the king, andgiven the royal insignias (crown, mantle, weapon, scepter).15 He was given a queen whoeventually shared his fate. He played the role of king by presenting offerings before thealtar and burning incense. The length of time that the substitute needed to play his rolewas often a matter of discussion between the king and his advisors. The king, as might beexpected, was anxious to resume his throne at the earliest moment possible, but wantedto make sure that the omens had passed.

Concerning the substitute king about whom the king, my lord, wrote to me:“How many days should he sit (on the throne)?”—we waited for a solar

10 René Labat, “Le Sort des Substituts Royaux en Assyrie au Temps des Sargonides,” RA 40(1945–46): 123–42; J. Bottéro, “Le substitut royal et son sort en Mésopotamie ancienne,” Akkadica9 (1978): 2–24 (Eng. trans. “The Substitute King and His Fate,” in Mesopotamia: Writing, Reason-ing, and the Gods [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992], 138–55); Simo Parpola, Lettersfrom Assyrian Scholars to the Kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (2 vols.; Kevelaer: Butzon &Bercker, 1970, 1983), 2:XXII–XXXII; revised and expanded in Letters from Assyrian and Babylo-nian Scholars (SAA 10; Helsinki: Helsinki University, 1993), ## 1, 2, 3, 4, 12, 25, 89, 90, 189, 219,220, 221, 240, 314, 350, 351, 352 and 377 (hereafter LABS). Parpola’s detailed textual commen-taries may be found accompanying the respective texts in vol. 2. Many of the texts were previouslypublished in R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Letters belonging to the Kouyunjik Collectionsof the British Museum, part I–XIV (London/Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1892–1914). Anadditional text was published by W. G. Lambert, “A Part of the Ritual for the Substitute King” AfO18 (1957–58): 109–12.

11 H. Kümmel, Ersatzrituale für den hethitischen König (Studien zu den Bog·azköy-Texten;Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1967). A briefer treatment may be found in his article “Ersatzkönig undSündenbock” ZAW 80 (1968): 289–318.

12 Lambert, “Part of the Ritual,” A:11–12.13 Bottéro, “Substitute King,” 150.14 LABS #25.15 Ibid., #189.

eclipse, (but) the eclipse did not take place. Now if the gods see each otheron the 15th day, he may go to his fate on the 16th. Alternatively, (if) it pleasesthe king, my lord, let him complete the 100 days.16

Of particular interest is the question of what sort of person served as the substitute. Onsome occasions it was a person of high standing17 but in one of the Assyrian texts thesuggestion is made that a saklu (a simpleton or halfwit18) was chosen and designated ašatammu (an adminstrator and cult official) before being elevated to the substituteking.19 Bottéro elaborates:

Mâr-Ištar had to stress the insignificance of the individual, who was withoutimportance on the social level and whose fate really could not be of interestto anyone. However, the same Mâr-Ištar seems to imply that, before he couldchoose this individual as a substitute, he had to give him the office ofšatammu: someone who was simultaneously an administrator and a cult offi-cial in the temple. Thus, at least in this period, it was considered necessarythat the substitute had to be of high social standing in order to be worthy ofthe man he was going to replace, even if the social promotion were ficti-tious.20

In the earliest extant text referring to the substitute king, a common gardener waschosen as the substitute.21 In the Hittite text the substitute was a prisoner of war fromthe king’s enemies.22 Alexander the Great’s replacement was a common criminal,according to Plutarch.23

While the substitute was on the throne playing the role of king, frequent corre-spondence passed between the king and his advisors. Various purifying rituals were per-formed on behalf of the king, who was sometimes referred to in the correspondence asthe “farmer” (ikkaru).24 More important, however, were the several means by which thesubstitute took on himself the evil that threatened the king. First, he is made to recitethe omen litanies and thereby take them on himself.25 Then they were written out andfolded into the hem of his robe.26 The final act by which the transference of the evilomens is accomplished comes at the end of the period when the substitute is put to

Critical Notes 737

16 Ibid., #220; #350 also refers to a one-hundred-day term.17 Ibid., #352, where it was Damqi, the son of the prelate of Akkad.18 CAD S:80–81. Bottéro indicates that saklu refers to “a man who was simple, naïve, perhaps

even somewhat ‘retarded.’” In other contexts, however, the term may simply refer to a commonperson (“Substitute King,” 147).

19 LABS #352.20 Bottéro, “Substitute King,” 147.21 A. Kirk Grayson, Assyrian and Babylonian Chronicles (TCS 5; Locust Valley, NY: J. J.

Augustin, 1975), 48, 155, Chronicle 20:31–36.22 Kümmel, Erzatzrituale, 10–11 in text KUB XXIV 5 + IX 13 vs. 19, LÚŠU.DAB = Akk.

s\abtu.23 Bottéro, “Substitute King,” 147.24 LABS ##212, 2, 221.25 Ibid., #351.26 Ibid., #12. It is possible that in some cases they were mixed with his food and ingested (#2).

death. In so doing, the omens are canceled. He is put to death for the sake of the kingand his prince and accomplishes their redemption.

[Damqi], the son of the prelate of Akka[d], who had ru[led] Assyria, Baby-lon(ia) [and] all the countries, [di]ed with his queen on the night o[f the xthday as] a substitute for the king, my lord, [and for the sake of the li]fe ofŠamaš-šumu-uki[n]. He went to his fate for their redemption.27

A tomb is prepared for the substitute and he is given a royal funeral.28 The royalaccoutrements are burned and sacrifices (burnt offerings, šuruptu) made; numerous rit-uals were performed (bÈ µt rimki [house of ablution or purification], bÈ µt sala< mê [house ofsprinkling of water], namburbi [apotropaic]), and eršahÚunga psalms are recited.

We prepared the burial chamber. He and his queen were decorated, treated,displayed, buried and wailed over. The burnt-offering was made, all portentswere cancelled, and numerous apotropaic rituals, BÈ µt rimki and BÈ µt sala< mêceremonies, exorcistic rites, penitential psalms and omen litanies were per-formed to perfection.29

These were to assure that the evils would go down with him to the land-of-no-return.30

Thus the days of the king were lengthened.31 As a result, both the king and the landwould be purified and cleared of claims against them,32 and the land would prosper.33

The substitution was seen as a way of allowing the gods to do what they wanted todo. The omens had indicated that the gods desired to act against someone. The ritualwas not intended to fool the gods, but to give them a ready victim on whom to carry outtheir intentions.34

II. Fourth Servant Song

It is clear in the fourth Servant Song that the role of the Servant is to take sin andtransgression, evils and punishments on himself in order to bring deliverance. It isequally obvious, however, that there is no king in sight in the passage. Nevertheless,there are sufficient parallels to posit that Isaiah adapted substitute king imagery to a dif-ferent situation. We will first examine the parallels and then conclude with a considera-tion of the transformation of this material in Isaiah’s fourth Servant Song.


27 pidišunu; LABS #352:12.28 LABS #352; Bottéro, “Substitute King,” 152.29 LABS #352:17–19.30 Lambert, “Part of the Ritual,” B:4.31 LABS #352:r.10–11; Bottéro, “Substitute King,” 152.32 Lambert, “Part of the Ritual,” B:8. têbibtu is used, which often has the sense of clearing a

person from claims against them (see CAD E:6–7).33 Lambert, “Part of the Ritual,” A:8.34 Bottéro, “Substitute King,” 142.

The song begins with the exaltation of the Servant (52:13), just as the substitutewas elevated to kingship.35 There follows a description of his previous low station. Thisdescription may include some sort of physical deformity (52:14),36 but certainly indi-cates that he was in some sense common (53:2) and sufficiently lowly to be despised(53:3). In the substitute king texts, the substitute is generally described as in some wayexpendable. The Assyrian use of saklu suggests an individual who was mentallyimpaired. The criminal substituted for Alexander, the Hittite prisoner of war, and thecommon gardener of Isin would all be considered expendable because of their lowsocial status. Here in Isaiah the fact that the Servant is described as despised and per-haps physically impaired or abused suggests that he also is considered dispensable.37

Verses 4–6 describe the substitutionary role of the Servant. As earlier in the pas-sage, there is no mention of a king who is being protected. It is rather the corporate pop-ulation that is the beneficiary of the Servant’s suffering. As the substitute does for theking, the servant is bearing the punishment of the people, taking their evil upon himselfand bringing peace. In the Assyrian texts, the king and the crown prince are seen as theprimary beneficiaries, but the land and the people are calmed by the procedures andindirectly enjoy relief from the anticipated upheaval.

Verses 7–9 move to the next step, as the Servant is cut off from the land of the liv-ing (53:8) for the transgression of the people. The most striking parallel comes in v. 9.Interpreters have grappled with the seemingly incongruous statement that the Servantwas with the rich in his death, especially in light of the parallel with the wicked in the

Critical Notes 739

35 The similarity between the Akk. saklu and the Hebrew verb used in 52:13, lkc, is curiousand mildly intriguing, but the Hebrew cognate for Akk. saklu is lks. For a recent lexicographicalanalysis, see H. Tawil, “Hebrew lkc – lks, Akkadian SAKLU: A Lexicographic Note III,” BeitMikra 153 (1998): 203–16. Furthermore, lkc is clearly used in this context as a positive assessment,as its parallel to exaltation demonstrates. K. Baltzer suggests the translation “beatified” (Deutero-Isaiah, 394–95). The only possible connection of this to Akk. saklu in the substitute king texts wouldbe through wordplay and polemic, a highly unlikely combination.

36 The Hebrew hapax legomenon tjvm admits of variant readings and translations and there-fore cannot bear much weight in the discussion.

37 In the middle of this description, v. 15 contains the problematic statement that he will“sprinkle” many nations. If “sprinkle” is correct, the prominence of the rituals at the bÈ µt sala< mê(house of sprinkling) could be of heightened interest. Hebrew hZ<y", from hzn, was translated “sprin-kle” in the KJV, NASB, and NIV. Other translations follow the line of thinking suggested by theLXX (“cause to wonder”) and posit a root nzh II, “startled,” from Arabic. The main reason fordeparting from the way nzh is used everywhere else (twenty-four times) is syntactical. Other con-texts consistently use a preposition to introduce that which is sprinkled. As another alternative,Michael Barré understands the verb as derived from the root zhy meaning “to smile” in postbiblicalHebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic and takes it as a contrast to the sulking kings in the next line (“Textualand Rhetorical-critical Observations on the Last Servant Song [Isaiah 52:13–53:12],” CBQ 62[2000]: 10–11). Baltzer prefers to retain the translation “sprinkle” (Deutero-Isaiah, 400) and sug-gests that it functions as a ritual gesture of greeting. The difficulty with considering this sprinklingas related to the substitute king rituals is that in Isaiah the Servant is doing the sprinkling, whereasin the substitute king rituals the substitute is being purified by being sprinkled. As with saklu, then,any relationship between Isaiah and the Assyrian texts would feature reversal and would be so sub-tle as to be implausible without further evidence.

previous line. When the song is considered in light of the substitute king ritual, thismakes very good sense. When the Servant is buried as royalty, his grave could be said toassociate him with the !y[vr in the royal tomb. Hebrew !y[vr here could include thosecondemned as guilty (e.g., Deut 25:1; 1 Kgs 8:32). In the substitute king context, thebelief that the omens threatened the king assumed that he at least stood condemned. Itwas never clear, however, what actions had brought this judgment, and advisors wouldhave been naturally reticent to suggest that the king was guilty.38 On the other hand, theconnection with the rich is even more evident in the substitute king ritual in the exces-sive pomp and ceremony with which the substitute is buried. The parallelism betweenthe “guilty” and the “rich” has long been noted.39

Verse 10 contains many of the features recognizable from the Assyrian materials,but here is where the adaptation begins its departure from the imagery. Just as it isinferred from the omens that it is Marduk’s will to strike the substitute, it is seen as Yah-weh’s will to crush the Servant. That much is transparent in similarity. The remainder ofthe statements in v. 10 all find parallels in the substitute king materials, but with somesignificant differences. Verse 10b presents some textual difficulties. The abrupt occur-rence of a putatively second masculine singular verb form (!yct) has led to a plethora ofvariations both ancient and modern, but they have little effect on the issue at hand. Iconsider it most likely that vp,n< should be taken as the subject of the third feminine sin-gular verb form, though awkward or unprecedented combinations are the result.40 The!v;a; serves as a reparation or compensation offering that appeased the deity for acts ofsacrilege. This would be well in line with the clearing of claims (têbibtu) that was theintended effect of the substitute king ritual.

In the next line, 10ag, the abnormality is that the two nouns “seed” and “days” areleft without pronouns, though most translations are content to add them. The absenceof pronouns leaves a conspicuous ambiguity with regard to whose seed and days areintended. In the substitute king context it is the king who has prolonged days41 and seeshis seed42 as a result of the substitute’s death. In the Servant Song the people are thebeneficiaries and in a comparable situation would be the ones who would have seed andlength of days as a result of the Servant’s death.43 This element is picked up again in thefinal verses as it is the many who are justified and whose sins are carried.


38 The assumption of something like guilt could be substantiated by the rituals that were per-formed on behalf of the king. These include apotropaic namburbi rituals (LABS ##90:r.15;240:13–15; 352:17), šuilla rituals (LABS #240:5), ÉR.ŠÀ.HUN.GÁ rituals (LABS ##351:r.14; 352:19,r.4), the latter most characteristically including penitence and admission of guilt (see E. R.Dalglish, Psalm 51 [Leiden: Brill, 1962], 26).

39 Baltzer (Deutero-Isaiah, 417) has traced the observation back to Gesenius, who made acase based partially on the fact that both words use the same set of consonants.

40 This was recognized as the most natural reading of the text by Baltzer (Deutero-Isaiah,420).

41 LABS #352:r.10–11.42 LABS #352:1043 Baltzer likewise sees the ambiguity as pregnant when he attaches seed and length of days

to the covenant promises (Deutero-Isaiah, 422).

III. Implications of the Role of the Substitute King Imageryin the Fourth Servant Song

Democratization

It has long been recognized that Deutero-Isaiah is characterized by the absence ofroyal figures. It is rather the community that has taken the place of the king.44 This istypically referred to as the democratization of royal ideals.45 If the parallels suggestedabove are correct, the Servant, rather than representing the community and standing infor the king, is the idealized substitute who bears the punishment due the communityinstead of that due the king. This is a variation on the concept of democratization, as thecommunity stands in for the king and thereby is the beneficiary of the Servant’s workrather than being represented in the Servant. Instead of democratization in terms of thelocus of power (people replacing king), this is democratization in terms of being thebeneficiary of the Servant’s role as a substitute (Israel’s condemned remnant playing therole of Assyria’s condemned kings, or even Israel’s condemned monarchy).

Vicariousness

If the imagery of the substitute king is being used in the fourth Servant Song, thenthere truly would be a vicarious element to the Servant’s role, contra R. N. Whybray andothers.46 Whybray’s attempts to demonstrate that there is no vicariousness are based,first, on preconceived notions about who the Servant and the “many” are and, second,on extensive considerations of lexicography.47 The latter, which suffer the appearance ofspecial pleading, are deemed inadequate when the substitute king rituals show the useof similar terminology in clearly vicarious contexts.48 This reopens the question of theServant’s identity.

Identity of the Servant

If the suffering is vicarious, the prophet is ruled out.49 If the suffering is on behalfof the people, then the Servant is not corporate Israel, though it could theoretically still

Critical Notes 741

44 Edgar Conrad, Reading Isaiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 146; and H. G. M. William-son, Variations on a Theme (Cumbria: Paternoster, 1998), 129.

45 For instance in Gray, Biblical Doctrine of the Reign of God, 281–93.46 R. N. Whybray, Thanksgiving for a Liberated Prophet (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978), 30.47 Ibid., 30, 31–76.48 So, e.g., LABS #90:12, where HUL-ka lu išši clearly refers to the removal of evil from the

king onto the substitute (see also 25:r.5, where it is restored, and the discussion in CAD N 2:100).Even though this is a letter rather than a ritual text, and this particular letter refers to the use of animage as a substitute rather than a person, the expectations of vicarious removal are evident. Thiselement would be further bolstered if the restoration in LABS #240:r.20 is correct, indicating thatthe affliction of the substitute will save the life of the king. Note finally the recitation of omenlitanies whereby the substitute “takes all the celestial and terrestrial portents on himself” (LABS#351:11–13).

49 Only speculation could provide any way in which Deutero-Isaiah may have suffered on

be a smaller group within Israel. If the context is non-Davidic, then the Servant is notpromoting Davidic kingship.50 On the other hand, a profile of what is expected of theServant in Deutero-Isaiah overlaps considerably with the idealistic profiles that eventu-ally come to be known as the ideal royal (i.e., messianic) profile in the canonical book ofIsaiah. Compare, for instance, the data from the first two Servant Songs with the profileof the ideal individuals in Isa 11 and 61–62.51 Though the exact terminology varies, thesimilarity in the general profile is unmistakable.52

Profile Servant Songs Isaiah 11 Isaiah 61–62

Spirit upon him 42:1 11:2 61:1Will bring justice 42:1 11:3–4 61:1–3Impact on the nations 42:6; 49:6 11:10 61:9–11; 62:1–2Set prisoner free 42:7 61:1Has message 49:2; 50:4 61:1Reward with him 49:4 62:11Will bring splendor to Israel 49:5–6 11:10 61:3; 62:3Will restore Israel 49:5–6 11:11–12 61:3–4

These conditions would lead to the conclusion that the Servant is to be identifiedas an ideal royal figure to whom messianic-like expectations were connected and whosuffered and/or died because of the sins of the people. Instead of having a particularindividual in view, this parallel would favor the commonly adopted possibility that theimagery of the Servant is more important than the identity of the Servant. Perhaps theauthor could be seen as aggressively promoting a revitalized image of Yahweh and at thesame time offering a transformed theology of kingship portraying the ideal king as a Ser-vant who functions as a humble instrument of God’s will and plan.53 A true king would


behalf of the people. Moses can be seen to suffer on behalf of the people, but this view only consid-ers the Servant to be Moses-like.

50 The various positions are well summarized and documented in Gordon Hugenberger,“The Servant of the Lord in the ‘Servant Songs’ of Isaiah: A Second Moses Figure,” in The Lord’sAnointed (ed. P. E. Satterthwaite, R. S. Hess, and G. J. Wenham; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995),105–40.

51 This is in keeping with Tryggve N. D. Mettinger’s reminder that “the Servant of the Lorddisplays royal features,” referring particularly to the first Servant Song and its connection to Isa 61(King and Messiah: The Civil and Sacral Legitimation of the Israelite Kings [Lund: Gleerup, 1976],249–50). See also Richard Schultz, “The King in the Book of Isaiah,” in The Lord’s Anointed, ed.Satterthwaite, Hess, and Wenham, 141–65; and Hugenberger, “Servant of the Lord,” 114–17.

52 See the thorough discussion of Williamson, Variations on a Theme, 113–66.53 This approach takes account of the Servant Songs as well as other data drawn from the sur-

rounding context in keeping with more recent tendencies to take seriously the literary relationshipsthat suggest an integrated view. See, e.g., R. E. Clements, “Isaiah 53 and the Restoration of Israel,”in Jesus and the Suffering Servant (ed. W. H. Bellinger and W. R. Farmer; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity,1998), 39–54. The idea that the Servant is portrayed in Moses-like terms would be able to fit intothis interpretation, but this interpretation would admit of other possibilities as well.

be more like the substitute king. Turning away from royal prerogative, covenant laurelsand Davidic pedigree, Isaiah forges a new image drawing on ancient Near Easternmaterials that emphasize God’s prominence in the kingship equation.54 The Servantwould then not be a messianic figure in the sense of representing continuity with theDavidic line as much as he would be messianic in the sense of representing what an idealanointed monarch would look like.

John H. [email protected]

Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187

Critical Notes 743

54 If there is a parallel between the substitute king ritual and the fourth Servant Song, itwould be fruitful to investigate the possible implications for the other three Servant Songs. In eachof the other three there were elements that were reminiscent of other kingship-focused obser-vances from the ancient Near East. The emphasis in the first on establishing justice brings to mindthe mešarum declaration of freedom for the oppressed that sometimes came in the first year of aking’s reign (a similarity also observed by Mettinger [King and Messiah, 250]). In the second, theemphasis on restoration of the land and extension to the islands and the ends of the earth are remi-niscent of the Egyptian sed-festival. Points of contact include being called from the womb (in thesed-festival, rebirth of the king is emphasized as he goes under the banner of the placenta), thearrow and quiver (Pharaoh shoots arrows in four directions), strength being spent (the festivalseems to reinforce the strength of the king when it may seem weakest), and receiving homage. Thethird song had long ago been related by I. Engnell to the akitu festival, where kingship wasrenewed in Mesopotamia (“The Ebed Yahweh Song and the Suffering Messiah in Deutero-Isaiah,”BJRL 31 [1948]: 54–93; see also Studies in Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East [Uppsala:Almqvist & Wiksell, 1953]). The reference to not being rebellious (50:5) and submitting to havinghis beard pulled and receiving blows are all reminiscent of the fifth day of the akitu, when the kingdeclares that he has not sinned or brought destruction to Babylon. In addition he claims that he hasnot forgotten the rituals or struck the cheek of those under his protection. The high priest drags theking by his ears and strikes him on the cheek on two occasions. If such connections could be iden-tified, it would strengthen further the idea that Deutero-Isaiah is trying to forge a renewed imageof kingship through the ideal represented in the Servant.

The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters, byR. S. Sugirtharajah. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. x + 306.$70.00/$25.00.

Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, by R. S. Sugirtharajah. New York:Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 231. $17.95 (paper).

To suggest that R. S. Sugirtharajah’s The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial,Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters (2001) and Postcolonial Criticism and BiblicalInterpretation (2002) are important books of “hybrid” genre is at once to acknowledgeSugirtharajah’s success in advancing the causes of postcolonial criticism in biblical inter-pretation and to observe the uneasiness, the disjointedness, of the proximity in whichthe two subjects continue to lie. Perhaps this is because, as Sugirtharajah argues in hissecond text, “there has been a remarkable unwillingness to mention imperialism asshaping the contours of biblical scholarship” (PC, 25). If so, these two recent works—which borrow greatly from each other and function as two volumes—make great stridesin redressing this oversight.

We turn first to The Bible and the Third World: in ch. 1, “Before the Empire: TheBible as a Marginal and a Minority Text,” Sugirtharajah contextualizes the Bible prior toits introduction to Europe, citing its influence as one among many religious documents.He describes the Bible’s introduction to India through the simplified text of the Peshittaand the rare, untranslated Syriac version. In a discussion of the Bible’s relationship toChina, Sugirtharajah demonstrates how selected portions from the NT introduced bythe Nestorians were translated and modified: the Monument text, for example, containsBuddhist, Taoist, and Confucian references and omits the death of Christ. Thus,Sugirtharajah emphasizes, “the Christian Gospel was seen as validating the ancientsocial customs of the Chinese—loyalty to the Emperor and fidelity to family” (p. 25).African Donatists, in this account, were able to use the text of the Bible to understandtheir oppression and to evoke God even as they bypassed the church officials who werealso their persecutors. As Sugirtharajah concludes, prior to the alignment of Christianitywith Europe, the theology introduced in the Bible often had to be altered in order to sig-nify, was usually known only through small portions rather than the complete work, was

JBL 122/4 (2003) 745–785

BOOK REVIEWS

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Book reviews are also published online at the Society of Biblical Literature’s WWW site:http://www.bookreviews.org. For a list of books received by the Journal, see

http://www.bookreviews.org/books-received.html

understood through liturgy or as a mystical object rather than its text, and was oneamong many compatible religious documents.

Chapter 2, “White Men Bearing Gifts: Diffusion of the Bible and Scriptural Impe-rialism,” begins with the Bible’s translation from Latin into English, the British and For-eign Bible Society’s mass distribution of the Bible (at or below cost), the difficulttranslation of the Bible into foreign languages, and the call for British missionaries. Thebulk of the chapter testifies to the Bible’s use as a colonial tool; Sugirtharajah empha-sizes the ways in which the Bible was interpreted to “inculcate” European values andcustoms; and biblical Scriptures were drastically altered to “encroach” upon cultural his-tories, so that to explain “sin” among the Panare, for example, the Bible was rewritten tomake the natives responsible for Christ’s crucifixion. Alternately, local non-authoritarianleadership might need to be “displaced” before the Bible’s mores could be “properly”understood; through “analogies and implication,” the violence of colonialism could beexplained and defended as just punishment for sinful, ignorant lives. Instead of nativeoral traditions, written communication was privileged; and whereas belief in the Biblewas confirmed as historically accurate, other religious tests and artifacts were dismissedas superstitious and inauthentic.

Despite this exploitation, “resistant” biblical readings by colonized people werealso possible. Sugirtharajah exposes subversive techniques and recovers several impor-tant but overlooked critics in ch. 3, “Reading Back: Resistance as a Discursive Practice.”Sugirtharajah investigates allegory and allusion as activating biblical texts and creatingintimacy with the reader. He points to former slave Olaudah Equiano and Native Amer-ican William Apess as writers who employ those techniques to create historical connec-tions between their own peoples and the biblical Jewish peoples. These works claim,Sugirtharajah argues, a democratization of all humanity before God, the establishmentof a biblical heritage, and the condemnation of colonial violence. Other writers, heexplains, connected cultural religious texts and rituals to the Bible, as with K. N. Baner-jea’s suggestion, for example, that Hindu texts were commendable drafts of the Bible.Sugirtharajah suggests that other forms of “resistance” came from unusual interpreta-tions of the Bible, such as that of Pandita Ramabai, who was outspoken in her convictionof the Bible as metaphor, expressed distaste for the mediation of the church in inter-preting belief, and advocated a new Marathi vernacular Bible that was accessible to hercommunity. Finally, Sugirtharajah speaks of the Bible in African Bantu churches as atool for insurrection, but one that was dismissed as unreliable when it challenged Bantucultural practices.

Resistance occurred not only on the side of the colonized, Sugirtharajah suggestsin “The Colonialist as a Contentious Reader: Colenso and His Hermeneutics.” In achapter devoted to the ideas of Bishop John William Colenso, Sugirtharajah exploresthe dissident potential of the “principled” colonialist. Responding to questions asked byhis Zulu translator, Colenso discovered himself to be skeptical of both the historicity ofthe Bible and, in parts, its ethical message. As Sugirtharajah recounts, Colenso had trou-ble reconciling a loving God with “depictions of God inflicting punishment on haplesspeople” (p. 114) and believed that the biblical God was a figure of love. In response,Colenso tried to demonstrate that those portions of the Bible he deemed ethically repel-lent were historically inaccurate—a move calculated to reinforce his credibility amongthe Zulus. Despite his view of the natives as childlike, Colenso believed that God wasvisible to all peoples, and that his words were not confined to a single set of books; this


supposed pervasiveness perhaps validated Colenso’s use of “Zulu concepts . . . to illumi-nate the Pauline description of the double nature in humankind” (p. 126). Sugirtharajahcredits Colenso particularly because he used the Bible to critique the violence and inhu-manity of “civilized” colonial practices.

In a return to issues raised previously, in ch. 5, “Textual Pedlars: Distributing Sal-vation—Colporteurs and Their Portable Bibles,” Sugirtharajah examines the Englishand Foreign Bible Society’s salespeople, or colporteurs, as their work intersected withother forms of colonialism. These outwardly pious, dedicated men and womenrecounted their experiences selling or exchanging low-cost Bibles throughout the world.As Sugirtharajah notes, “the simultaneous arrival of colonialism and the Bible” meantthat the two projects often functioned together (p. 145). In Sugirtharajah’s description,colporteurs used the Bible to justify to natives England’s national power, while to theEnglish, they told stories of how natives came to faith by reading mere fragments of theBible. Though, Sugirtharajah suggests, the colporteurs did not encourage interrogationof biblical texts, they described those people interested in the Bible as inquiring andthoughtful, while deeming those uninterested as “proud,” “careless,” “profligate”(p. 152). Colporteurs noted that many people regarded the Bible as a talisman ratherthan as Scripture to be read. As Sugirtharajah concludes, despite their efforts to beabove politics, the colporteurs worked with other kinds of colonizers to instill love of theBible, pride in the empire, and gratefulness to the Bible Society and the English for dis-seminating it.

In ch. 6, “Desperately Seeking the Indigene: Nativism and Vernacular Herme-neutics,” Sugirtharajah examines the strategies used for translating and integratingChristian thought into native cultures through “vernacular hermeneutics.” He explainsthe effort to draw “conceptual correspondences” between two religious traditions, asColenso had done by incorporating Zulu ideas to explain biblical texts. The use of “pop-ular culture” provided another useful method for making the Bible accessible and rele-vant. “Narrativel enrichments” connoted the use of similar stories from two differenttraditions, but allowed for the story outside the Bible to complicate and expand themeaning of the traditional biblical story. “Performantial parallels” describes common-alities in the religious rituals between two cultural traditions, such as the idea of sacri-fice. For Sugirtharajah, vernacular hermeneutics served as a corrective to rationalistmodes of interpretation and allowed Christian interpreters to gain credibility and cul-tivate deeper contact with their own people. He speaks of it as a positive force whenpluralistic, but suggests that it had hegemonic potential and encouraged Christian tri-umphalism.

Sugirtharajah’s penultimate chapter, “Engaging Liberation: Texts as a Vehicle ofEmancipation,” focuses primarily on Latin America and outlines what he calls “libera-tion hermeneutics,” philosophies that promoted active colonial resistance. Sugirtharajahoutlines three phases of liberation hermeneutics. The first phase is the incarnation of aphilosophy that acknowledges the injustices associated with poverty, in which the Bibleserves to advocate a universalizing discourse of liberation. Sugirtharajah uses GustavoGutiérrez’s Job and Elsa Tamez’s Paul as examples: they illustrate God’s love for thepoor, define sin as attached to the privileged, generate hope in the search for justice,and connect individual suffering with societal suffering. The second phase is the readingof the Bible by untrained readers to create a grass-roots Christian community, torecover the Bible from its “spiritual” meaning so that it becomes responsive to the

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immediate needs of that community, and to activate the people. The third phase is theemergence of minority voices victimized by “both internal and external forces,” includ-ing “dalits, women, burakumin, [and] indigenous people” (p. 206). In this third categorySugirtharajah emphasizes several writers who reveal oppressive structures within thetext of the Bible.

Sugirtharajah uses his final chapter, “Postcolonializing Biblical Interpretation,” todefine postcolonialism as the most recent manifestation of resistant writing and to layout a prospectus for postcolonialism’s use in biblical studies. Such an interrogation, asSugirtharajah sees it, would include unveiling ideological and cultural assumptions ofBible critics (so that we would consider Esther a Persian woman and a member of a spe-cific class, for example); engaging in reconstructive readings of biblical texts (the con-frontation of Elijah with Baal might be read as a complex issue of interminglingcommunities); examining colonial and metropolitan interpretations (to involve a reread-ing of critical studies of Jesus and the tribute money, for instance); and investigatinginterpretations that contest colonial interests and concerns. Sugirtharajah also proposesthe need for an intersection between postcolonial biblical scholarship and liberationhermeneutics.

I see this earlier work as defining Sugirtharajah’s commitment to postcolonial the-ory particularly through his connection of religious/cultural imperialism with economiccolonization and in his recovery of minority writers and perspectives. His methodologyin The Bible and the Third World is more consciously articulated and scrutinized in hislater text, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, where he speculates on thepossible approaches biblical scholars might take.

In ch. 1 of Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation, “Charting the After-math: A Review of Postcolonial Criticism,” Sugirtharajah presents postcolonial criticismas a new methodology for biblical scholars. He introduces postcolonial criticism’s his-tory, highlighting Edward Said’s “orientalism” and Homi Bhabha’s “hybridity” as partic-ularly useful tools. In evaluating this history, Sugirtharajah points to postcolonialism’straditional emphasis on nineteenth-century “colonialism.” He implies that this overlynarrow focus is a place where biblical scholars might contribute to an expanding dis-course on the topic.

For its own part, as Sugirtharajah demonstrates in ch. 2, “Redress, Regeneration,Redemption: A Survey of Biblical Interpretation,” that the Bible has been involved indiscussions of colonialism almost since the inception of Western expansionism.Sugirtharajah systematizes the history of biblical interpretation as it intersects with vari-ous colonial contexts. In what he describes as “dissident” and “resistant” responses tocolonization, Sugirtharajah provides examples of critiques advanced by missionary andsubaltern writers who saw the Bible used unjustly to defend colonial slaughter oroppression of innocents. He demonstrates how the Bible was appropriated by subalternwriters to intertwine biblical ideologies with those of the colonized culture in what hecalls “heritagist” readings. Through “liberationist” and “nationalist” readings, Sugir-tharajah conceives of the Bible as a force of communalism and as instructive in thedemocratic and humanitarian aspirations of post-independence governments. Finally,through what he describes as “dissentient” readings, Sugirtharajah investigates the roleof subgroups within postcolonial criticism—especially third world feminists and dalits—in this critique. Not only does this chapter “set the scene for postcolonial biblical inter-pretation” as he suggests (p. 5), but it also implies that there is a precedent for


postcolonial studies already implicit in biblical scholarship if we would only put ourresources into recovering it.

The possibilities for this kind of scholarship abound, as Sugirtharajah reveals in ch.3, “Coding and Decoding: Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation.” Sugirtha-rajah lays out several directions for postcolonial criticism of the Bible, which are unitedby one “singular aim”: “to put colonialism at the centre of biblical scholarship” (p. 74). Inbeginning this chapter, Sugirtharajah notes certain exoticizing and condescending prac-tices (what Said calls “orientalism”) in the teaching of the Bible to subaltern peoples andborrows four terms from Stuart Hall to introduce a series of readerly responses.Sugirtharajah introduces the idea of “hegemonic” readings that reveal structures withinBible stories that allow for claims to domination—the defense of King Solomon’sassumption of power, for example. He demonstrates “professional” readings as attentiveto resistance (and lack thereof) from within the system, generally ascribed by Sugirtha-rajah to writers and scribes who transformed verbal edict into law and were thereby ablesometimes to create reforms. “Negotiated” readings still confirm the hegemonic pow-ers, but alter details to speak to a variety of issues, as in the case where Gospel storiestold by more than one witness maintain different relationships to “empire.” Sugirtha-rajah uses the idea of “oppositional” reading strategies to recognize various covert meth-ods of marginalized protest (silence, deception, sabotage). Anomalous, but useful in thissection, are further suggested readings and potential course assignments. Sugirtharajahgoes on to consider briefly various aspects of Christ’s life and its relationship to colonial-ism. He provides two unique, oppositional readings of the Markan Gerasene demoniacusing postcolonial critical methods, and he posits visual representation as an overlookedarea that offers potential for postcolonial critical inquiry. He argues that the contextual-ization of early Christian “confessional” writings is imperative to understanding the rela-tionship of their project to empire. As he insists, “Subjecting the Christian Bible to apostcolonial scrutiny does not reinforce its authority, but emphasizes its contradictorycontent” (p. 101).

As such, postcolonial scrutiny allows one to create dialectic in the Bible, ratherthan certainty. In ch. 4, “Convergent Trajectories? Liberation Hermeneutics and Post-colonial Biblical Criticism,” Sugirtharajah distinguishes this aspect of postcolonialism’sproject from “liberation hermeneutics,” though he advocates for their alliance. Libera-tion hermeneutics reflects a method of interpreting the Bible actively to affect the realconditions of poverty. Sugirtharajah returns to Gustavo Gutiérrez’s On Job and ElsaTamez’s Amnesty of Grace as exemplars of liberation hermeneutics. Their cause is ofimportance to postcolonial scholars because it takes marginalized peoples seriously, but,as Sugirtharajah points out, it universalizes the issues. He explains that the project of lib-eration hermeneutics “does not preclude reifying the poor, and it functions within theEnlightenment paradigm of dichotomous thinking—rich/poor, oppressed/oppressor,and have/have-nots. Moreover, it is prone to romanticize the poor” (p. 115). Therefore,Sugirtharajah argues, it reenacts the very structures and oppressions it hopes to evade.Postcolonialism, by Sugirtharajah’s account, provides a needed corrective to theseissues. A more developed reading of the way the two projects might work together suc-cessfully is discussed in ch. 8 of The Bible and the Third World.

Fascinating to me, as a postcolonial literary critic, is the amount of attentionSugirtharajah devotes to issues of the English home front, as he does once more in ch. 5,“The Version on Which the Sun Never Sets: The English Bible and Its Authorizing Ten-

749Book Reviews

dencies,” which describes the Bible as a tool and manifestation of British Empire. Helinks the creation and rise of the King James (or Authorized) Version of the Bible to aproject of English nationalism. As he explains, this Bible, written in vernacular Englishand inexpensive enough for almost anyone to purchase, functioned to endorse thepower of the monarchy over that of the church (and of English Protestantism over thatof Roman Catholicism) by giving people access to God’s word without the intermediaryof church officials. He continues, suggesting that this version, translated into foreignlanguages by the British and Foreign Bible Society, was used not only to “civilize” nativecultures (and used in English to teach them English), but also by the monarchy to con-firm its own rule over its own subjects. Such an unusual juxtaposition suggests, thoughhe does not say it directly, that British domination over colonized countries resonated inlimited ways with its domination over its own people. Such a claim would mitigate thepotential disconnect between this chapter and others in the book, though it might alsobespeak a problematic universalism that Sugirtharajah criticizes elsewhere.

In ch. 6, “Blotting the Master’s Copy: Locating Bible translations,” Sugirtharajahconsiders the complications surrounding the translation of the Bible into the variouslanguages of the colonized. These translations, as Sugirtharajah points out, enforcedvernacular standardization of languages, eliding dialects and idioms. He gives examplesof phrases and ideas that posed particular difficulties to translators. He also indexes par-ticular biblical passages about “justice,” or land possession, and the variety of ways theymight be and have been translated. Sugirtharajah argues in this chapter for an Indianmethodology whereby numerous translations are better than an “authentic” one. In apersuasive moment, he explains an injustice of Western approaches to translation: “Inthe process of translating, nonbiblical languages should be allowed to interrogate andeven radically disrupt biblical languages. Biblical languages must be willing to beaffected by the ‘other’ rather than merely affecting the ‘other’” (p. 173).

In his final chapter, “Hermeneutics in Transit: Diaspora and Interpretation,”Sugirtharajah advocates for what he calls “diasporic hermeneutics,” which speaks to astate of physical and cultural “homelessness” resulting from any number of political orsocioeconomic circumstances. He traces the root of the term “diaspora” through Jewishbiblical “homelessness,” and suggests that a methodology of diaspora would be possibleonly through a “hybrid” system of interpretation, particularly exemplified by Gandhi. AsSugirtharajah suggests, simplifying and, I think, optimistically spinning Bhabha’s senseof the term, “The postcolonial notion of hybridity is not about the dissolution of differ-ences but about renegotiating the structure of power built on differences. . . . Hybridityis a two-way process in which both parties are interactive so that something new is cre-ated” (p. 191). As a “discursive practice,” he goes on, “hybridity is concerned with thefluid and shifting base of cultures and their interaction” (p. 194).

The great strength of Sugirtharajah’s ambitious books The Bible and the ThirdWorld: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters and Postcolonial Criticismand Biblical Interpretation is their breadth: the sheer number of geographies andmoments he investigates and the arenas of biblical scholarship he exposes to postcolo-nial critique is impressive and should serve as a rallying call to postcolonial biblicalscholarship. This strength is also at times a weakness. I find Sugirtharajah to devote dis-proportionate space to the role of the colonizers—England, Colenso, and the Britishand Foreign Bible Society—instead of expanding on the very critics he works to recover.


Because he cannot spend the time to enrich his readings of colonized responses to theBible in general overviews, they are instructive, but cursory, and they lack the historicalcontext upon which a traditional postcolonial scholar might well insist. Finally,Sugirtharajah seems torn between his role as surveyor and critic. He works to presentpostcolonial criticism as having many valuable applications and venues for Bible scholarsand yet finds himself more persuaded by some methodologies than by others. WhenSugirtharajah invests in a particular theory, as he does in the last two chapters of his sec-ond book, he appears almost unaware that these are his most compelling discussions.Certainly, however, Sugirtharajah has created a hybrid methodology. As indications ofthe possibilities of postcolonial criticism in biblical interpretation, both are auspiciousworks.

Bonnie RoosAustin College, Sherman, TX 75090

!yrxm tayxy [The Exodus from Egypt: Reality or Illusion (Exodus 1–15)], by PninaGalpaz-Feller. Tel Aviv: Schocken, 2002. Pp. 236. $19.00.

Galpaz-Feller, both an Egyptologist and a biblicist by training, addresses theEgyptian background of Exod 1–15. Although a number of scholars have illuminatedthe Egyptian coloration of the exodus story before, Galpaz-Feller’s work stands outbecause she offers a greater integration of Egyptology and biblical studies in a series ofshort essays that constitute a running commentary on Exod 15.

Galpaz-Feller offers an analysis that is admirably well balanced. She identifiesdetails of the biblical texts that reflect the impressions of Egyptian culture on biblicaltexts, while identifying discordances between biblical texts and the realia of ancientEgypt. The 110-year life span of Joseph reflects the ideal life span of ancient Egyptianculture, the seventy-day mourning period mirrors the practices of ancient Egypt, andthe use of hdyl ynba, not mentioned elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, is referenced inboth Egyptian texts and pictorial representations. At the same time, the cameo of anEgyptian princess descending to the Nile to bathe conflicts with the reality that ancientEgyptians did not do so in the Nile because of the danger of crocodiles.

Galpaz-Feller’s analysis of the plague narratives shows her intellectual integrity.She examines and then dismisses the theory that each plague was directed against a par-ticular Egyptian deity, showing that a number of plagues, such as lice, wild animals, andboils, cannot be linked to any Egyptian god. Rather, in Galpaz-Feller’s analysis, theplagues are generated from the undoing of creation according to the biblical account ofit. However, the special emphasis devoted to the plague of locusts reflects the specialvalence of locusts in Egyptian culture, and the biblical author’s use of heavy and rigidverbs to characterize the pharaoh’s heart portrays his guiltiness in the context of Egyp-tian death religion’s emphasis on the lightness of an innocent heart. Galpaz-Feller’s dis-cussion of the origins of Israelite monotheism also exemplifies her reluctance to engagein Egypto-parallelomania. She argues that Israelite monotheism was influenced bymany theological/cultic concepts of the religions of the ancient world, one of which hap-pened to be Egyptian. The true name of the Egyptian god Ra is a secret, and Galpaz-Feller offers the suggestion that the secrecy of the true name of a deity might be

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reflected in the name YHWH. She asks whether the revealing of the name YHWH is a truerevelation of the deity’s name or whether the name YHWH lacks specificity and thereforeshould be linked to the concept of the secrecy of the true name of a deity. Galpaz-Felleralso demonstrates that Akhenaten’s religious revolution, worshiping the sun-disk via theking, died with Akhenaten and that certain fundamental aspects of his religion are con-tradicted by the contours of Israelite religion in the Bible. Creation, for example, wasnot an issue for Akhenaten’s “monotheism,” but was certainly a major facet of biblicalreligion.

Galpaz-Feller argues that beyond the Egyptian coloration of the exodus narrative,there are elements that have historical value. Beyond the details that reflect ancientEgyptian culture as it was generally practiced throughout Egyptian history, there areelements that reflect Egyptian culture and history only in the time of Raamses II and theNineteenth Dynasty. The particular cities that the Hebrew Bible records as having beenbuilt by the Israelites were attributed in Egyptian texts to Raamses II. A city in the NileDelta, Pi-Raamses, not Memphis or Thebes, was the capital during the reign of Raam-ses, and the brevity of the journeys that Moses and Aaron undertook to visit the pharaohimplies that the capital was near the Israelites in the Nile Delta. Increased documenta-tion for the use of foreign workers comes from his reign. The route taken by theIsraelites out of Egypt mirrors that taken by fleeing slaves in the Nineteenth Dynasty soas to avoid manned outposts. There is documentation for the stationing of royal horsesand chariotry in the Nile Delta during the Nineteenth Dynasty. Here, although she doesnot specifically state it, Galpaz-Feller appears to be arguing against the so-called mini-malist historians by contending that there is historical validity to the exodus narrative.

Galpaz-Feller argues that, although there were probably Egyptian scribes at theIsraelite or Judean royal court, it is highly unlikely that details of Egyptian culture andhistory restricted to the reign of Raamses and the Nineteenth Dynasty would have beenknown to court scribes, who generally wrote daily records of court life. These details,according to Galpaz-Feller, are more than an Egyptian atmosphere—they are memo-ries preserved from an acquaintance with life in Egypt during the reign of Raamses IIand the Nineteenth Dynasty. Galpaz-Feller argues that these memories were preservedfrom the sojourn of some ancestors of the ancient Israelites who were foreign workersliving in Egypt during the reign of Raamses II and the Nineteenth Dynasty—thisembodies the historical kernel that is at the core of the exodus narrative.

One can quarrel with specific details of Galpaz-Feller’s analysis. Her argumentthat the location of the pharaoh’s palace in the Nile Delta is a detail linking the narrativeto the reign of Raamses is undermined by the location of the capitals of Egypt during theFirst Temple period, Tanis and Sais, in the Nile Delta: according to Galpaz-Feller’sleaning that the narratives were composed in the First Temple period, an Israelite inthat period composing a story set in Egypt would naturally place the capital in the area.But, most critically, there is a methodological ambiguity inherent in Galpaz-Feller’scontention. Whether or not the specific details she isolates as particular to the Nine-teenth Dynasty are truly so, historical verisimilitude does not mean that an event actu-ally occurred. Elements that create an Egyptian atmosphere (concomitant with manythat are alien to Egypt) might mean that a story is plausible, not probable. Galpaz-Fellerassumes that a tale that can be taken historically must be taken as historically true. Anauthor could invent an occurrence, and, as long as the story contained details appropri-


ate to the historical period in which it was set, this imaginary event, according to Galpaz-Feller, would have to be taken as an event that actually occurred. To assert that an eventcould possibly have occurred is quite different from asserting that it is likely to haveoccurred.

Pamela BarmashWashington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO 63130

The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: le·šakkeµn še·mô šaµm in the Bibleand the Ancient Near East, by Sandra L. Richter. BZAW 318. Berlin/New York: deGruyter, 2002. Pp. 246. €68.00 (cloth).

In a book that stands head and shoulders above much that is being published in thediscipline of Hebrew Bible, Sandra L. Richter makes a high-profile contribution to thedebate about a Deuteronomistic Name theology. She argues a double thesis: (1) that theformula le ·šakke µn še µm is a loan adaptation from Akkadian šuma šaka µnu, used in theMesopotamian monumental corpus about the king placing his name, and (2) that thescholarly idea of a Name theology in the D-work rests on a basis of misunderstanding.Richter’s book is a healthy sign of rethinking in our discipline. She even speaks about “anew paradigm” without a question mark (in the rubric, p. 36).

The book has three parts. The first is an introduction with a survey of recentresearch on the D-work (strangely ignoring the contributions of the Göttingen school)and on the Name theology. Richter stresses the role of an outdated idea of nominal real-ism and of a likewise obsolete Wellhausen scheme for the development of Israelite reli-gion: these were the two formative factors in the scholarship that led to the conclusionabout a Name theology, which served as a corrective to preexilic notions of divine pres-ence in the temple.

The second part discusses the le ·šakke µn formula in the biblical context. Here thereader finds a fine survey of the distribution of all the different Name formulas and anexegesis of key texts. 2 Samuel 7 contains a wordplay focusing on name and reputation:David’s great name (v. 9) and God’s name in the temple (v. 13). Similarly, the Name in1 Kgs 8 has to do with memorial and reputation, not with divine presence. The authorthen turns to the issue of how to translate the le ·šakke µn formula. Here she makes thestriking observation that the le·šakkeµn šeµm formula has a synonym in la ûm še·mô šaµm, “toplace his name there.” Part II also offers an excellent section on the verb škn in Semitic.

The third part gives a discussion of the Akkadian šuma šaka µnu formula that indepth and scope goes far beyond anything that has previously been published on thisidiom. The material is found in royal monumental inscriptions. In her classification, theauthor gives a particularly good discussion of the clay nails (sikkaµtu). In the treatment ofthe occurrences of the Name formula, I single out for particular mention the sections onthe victory stelae of the Amanus Mountains (“Journey to the Cedar Forest”) and the dis-cussion of the occurrences in correspondence, notably the occurrences in Amarna let-ters nos. 287 and 288, both being letters from Jerusalem. To “place one’s name” on amonument is to claim that monument as one’s own. An important section is thendevoted to corresponding expressions in the Levant.

This discussion leads up to the understanding of the semantic content of the

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Hebrew Name formula as an idiom about YHWH being like an ancient Near Easternking placing his name, thus indicating that he is the mighty champion, the conqueringking, the new sovereign of the region who is awarding to Israel her land-grant (p. 205).This is further developed in the final conclusions: Deut 12:2–4 speaks about destroyingthe names of the foreign gods, followed in v. 5b by the command to seek YHWH at theplace where he chooses to place his name (pp. 209–10).

Being one of the scholars engaged in the discussion about a Name theology (T.Mettinger, The Dethronement of Sabaoth: Studies on the Shem and Kabod Theologies[ConBOT 18; Lund: Gleerup, 1982]), I must compliment Richter on an impressivepiece of work. She is admirably well informed about the primary material and aboutmodern research on the issue. The chapter on the ancient Near Eastern material is abeautiful monograph in itself. The presentation is crystal clear.

Of her two theses, about the semantics of the formula and about the nonexistenceof a Name theology, I am inclined to accept the first one. The impressive array of mate-rial for the Akkadian name-placing formula šuma šaka µnu, and the possible role ofHebrew laµ ûm šeµm, “to place one’s name,” as a synonym for the Akkadian formula, arestrong positive indications in favor of the author’s loan hypothesis.

However, it should not be forgotten that there is a well-established formulaic useof the qal participle of škn about YHWH’s dwelling on Zion: haššoµkeµn be·har s\iyyôn, “hewho dwells on Mount Zion” (Isa 8:18; cf. Joel 4:17, 21; Ps 135:21). Moreover, the casesof the le ·šakke µn še µm formula would be the only ones with the sense “put, place” inHebrew šaµkan. Richter’s attempt to find the meaning “to set up (a tent)” in the piel andhiphil (Josh 18:1; Ps 78:60; pp. 102–5) fails to convince, as appears from a comparisonwith Lev 16:16 and Josh 22:19, where the tent is the subject of šaµkan in the qal, referringto the tent of meeting abiding with the people. Even so, I believe that the truth aboutthe le ·šakke µn še µm formula may lie in Richter’s loan hypothesis, though the margin ofuncertainty is slightly wider than she believes.

The second thesis, about the nonexistence of a Name theology, is in my opinionopen to serious questions. Certainly, Richter makes some good points in her discussionof “nominal realism.” Nevertheless, such instances as 1 Sam 25:25 and Sir 46:1 point tothe possibility of the name as a semantically loaded unit. Moreover, the phenomenon ofhypostatization of the name is attested in the biblical world; cf. Eshem-Bethel in Ele-phantine, Astarte as šm b>l (KTU 1.2.I.8; 1.16.VI.56; KAI 14:18), and sumu/samu inAmorite personal names. The formulation in Isa 30:27 (“the name of the Lord comesfrom afar”) is to be seen as a case of this development (see Mettinger, Dethronement,129–32).

The sacking and destruction of the temple had serious consequences for the pre-exilic Zion-Sabaoth theology of divine presence with YHWH Sabaoth enthroned on thecherubim in the temple. The distribution of the Sabaoth designation, with a hiatus dur-ing the exile, and the Priestly concept of ka µbôd, “glory,” as a replacement, are indica-tions of the hermeneutic attempts to come to grips with the cognitive dissonance causedby the national catastrophe (see Mettinger, Dethronement, 11–17, 80–115). Richter’stheory about the nonexistence of a Name theology would leave us with a situation wherethe Deuteronomistic theologians stand aloof from all of this, propagating a central cultwithout reflecting on the obvious problem of divine presence.

Moreover, Richter’s treatment of two crucial texts is less than convincing, namely,


2 Sam 2 and 1 Kgs 8. In the former there is, pace Richter, an obvious wordplay betweenthe house built for YHWH’s dwelling (le·šibtî, v. 5) and the house built for his name (lišmî,v. 13). In the latter text, 1 Kgs 8, Richter claims to have accounted for nine of twelve ref-erences to the name “by means of a single idiomatic use of ‘name’ having to do withmemorial and reputation” (p. 82). She completely overlooks that there is an elaboratecontrast between the concept of immanence in the temple (maµkôn le·šibte·kaµ, vv. 12–13)and the idea of YHWH’s throning in heaven (where the same Hebrew expression, maµkônle·šibte·kaµ, is modified by the addition of “in heaven,” vv. 39, 43, 49; cf. v. 30). She alsooverlooks the import of the thematic formulation in v. 27: “But will God indeed dwell onthe earth? Even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, much less thishouse that I have built!”

I must finally comment on Richter’s discussion of the modern “Name theologians”(Gerhard von Rad, R. E. Clements, Moshe Weinfeld, this reviewer, and others) as beingunconscious apostles of Wellhausen (pp. 22–36). Wellhausen’s “idealistic, three-tieredevolutionary scheme was transported by nearly a subliminal route, into conventional,modern Deuteronomistic studies” (p. 27). To a European scholar like this reviewer, thislooks more like an attempt to create a case of guilt by association than as an argument fitfor a monograph otherwise marked by Richter’s academic excellence. Besides, her read-ing of European scholarship is sometimes a bit overhasty: I for one do not sketch adevelopment in five subsequent steps with the cherubim iconography associated withJE, as she tries to tell the reader (p. 28 n. 104). In reality, I consider the Deuteronomis-tic Shem theology and the Kabod theology of Ezekiel and P as broadly contemporaryattempts to handle the harsh realities of the sixth century.

Sandra L. Richter makes a good case for her understanding of the semantics of thele ·šakke µn še µm formula, which should now be seen as preexilic loan translation and asattested in the Deuteronomic law code. Less convincing is her attempt to eliminate theName theology from the history of ideas of the exilic period. The promise of a newparadigm was perhaps slightly overhasty. Even so, Richter’s book is compulsory readingfor everyone engaged in serious work on Israelite religion. As for current Deuterono-mistic studies, I would like to call attention to Timo Veijola’s recent survey in TRu 67(2002): 273–327, 391–424; 68 (2003): 1–44; and to Erik Aurelius, Zukunft jenseits desGerichts: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Studie zum Enneateuch (BZAW 319; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2003).

Tryggve N. D. MettingerLund University, Anders Möllares väg 20, SE 237 41 Bjarred, Sweden

4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition, by Gregory L. Doudna. JSPSup 35. CopenhagenInternational Series 8. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001. Pp. 813. $185.00.

This book is a published version of the author’s disputats that was submitted to theUniversity of Copenhagen. Doudna’s study should generate considerable controversysince it proposes that the mysterious “Lion of Wrath” in 4QpNah (4Q169) is aNebuchadnezzar-like foreign invader who will deliver God’s judgment on Israel andthat the Dead Sea Scrolls were deposited in the caves surrounding Qumran in 40 B.C.E.It also contains the original text of the pesher that is based on the author’s examination

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of the actual manuscript and all the available photographic evidence. Although this bookis a critical edition of and commentary on 4QpNah, it is actually much more; it is a boldreconstruction of the history of the Qumran community.

Doudna’s study of 4QpNah consists of nineteen chapters, divided into three sec-tions, with two appendices (one on paleography and the other on the identity of theTeacher of Righteousness). In the first section, “Text Reconstruction and Analysis I,”Doudna presents a careful and meticulous philological study, reconstruction, and trans-lation of 4QpNah. This section contains much valuable information, because Doudnawas granted access to Allegro’s personal papers pertaining to 4QpNah, which Allegropublished in DJD 5, as well as the photographs that J. Strugnell consulted in writing hisreview of this DJD volume. Doudna was able to compare this evidence with the actualpesher in the Rockefeller Museum. In the final weeks before publication, Doudnaincorporated several readings in his footnotes from S. Berrin’s 2001 dissertation(“4QpNah [4Q169, Pesher Nahum]: A Critical Edition with Commentary, HistoricalAnalysis, and In-Depth Study of Exegetical Method” [Ph.D. diss., New York Univer-sity]). Much of the material in part 1 is repeated in part 2, “Text Reconstruction andAnalysis II,” which contains another reconstruction and translation of 4QpNah and afew chapters on the pesher’s historical background. Part 3, “On the Eve of the RomanConquest,” is an enlarged presentation of the historical material found in part 2, muchof which is then repeated in two lengthy appendices. The study concludes withDoudna’s reconstructed text in Hebrew, with an adjacent English translation, and aphotograph of 4QpNah. Because of the great amount of material in this book, it isimpossible to give a complete review of the author’s discussions and conclusions about4QpNah, paleography, and the archaeological and historical background of the Qumransettlement. The following comments are intended to provide selected examples ofDoudna’s methodology and interpretations that this reviewer found particularly inter-esting because of their implications for Qumran studies.

The greatest contribution of the present volume is its detailed examination anddescription of 4QpNah. It includes numerous charts and extended discussions of col-umn length, line spacing, letter size, and the placement of vacats. Doudna’s analysis ofscribal behavior is particularly useful for evaluating the likelihood of proposed restora-tions. One example is 4QpNah 1–2 II 9–11, where Strugnell proposes that the wordmmnw in line 10 is a variant from all known texts of Nahum and restores a lengthy unin-terrupted quotation from Nah 1:5–6a to complete the missing portions of these lines.Doudna’s precise measuring of the spacing in this column demonstrates that this word,and the others visible in lines 10 and 11, are in the exact positions expected if the quota-tion had continued. For this reason Doudna accepts Strugnell’s restoration as convinc-ing (pp. 306–14) and includes it in his reconstructed text of 4QpNah (p. 757). However,earlier in the book Doudna does not adopt Strugnell’s proposal, since he writes thatthere is little to support it over Allegro’s shorter restoration (p. 106).

Doudna proposes that the errors and corrections in 4QpNah provide evidence “ofa scribal transmission history of at least two scribal copying generations” (p. 44). In hisearly discussion of the text, Doudna proposes that scribal generations could be rathershort. He suggests that copies of a text could be made soon after the original and com-ments. “Alternatively, scribal generations could be authors’ successive drafts, written oncheap papyrus and corrected in preparation toward a first fair copy, such that prior


scribal copy generations would represent only hours or days, not decades, of history of atext” (p. 44). In his “Appendix A: Palaeography and the Dating of Individual QumranManuscripts” (pp. 675–82), which also includes discussions of selected archaeologicaland numismatic materials (pp. 678–80), Doudna cautions against relying excessively onthe precision of F. M. Cross’s typological sequence of handwriting styles, since writingstyles varied widely (p. 675; also pp. 39–40). Here Doudna correctly questions the use ofhistorical designations such as “Herodian” as names for a paleographic script, since it isuncertain when these “Herodian” typological features in scripts first began (p. 676). Healso questions Cross’s precise paleographic datings of first-century C.E. scribal activityand states, in connection with using archaeology to buttress this method, that “the high-precision dating system at the basis of the Cross 1961 script charts—functions almostlike a bulletproof shield, impervious to the effects of any items of actual data that maysuggest something different” (p. 679). Reiterating this point, Doudna states, “Despitedecades of uncritical reliance upon the dates in the script charts of Cross 1961a in theQumran field, there is no basis in actual data for asserting that Qumran texts written in‘Herodian’ formal and semiformal hands must be the work of scribes as late as the Hero-dian political period” (p. 681). In doubting that there is any existing archaeological orepigraphic data that supports dating the start of “Herodian” formal hand as late asCross’s estimate of approximately 30 B.C.E. (p. 676), Doudna poses some significantchallenges to this traditional dating method and to the dating of Qumran’s stratigraphy.

Much of Doudna’s book consists of a detailed reconstruction and analysis of4QpNah (pp. 77–555). Doudna justly urges that 4QpNah should be reconstructed ontextual grounds alone (pp. 50, 337, 627). In the introductory material in part 1, however,Doudna, following a section on “Reconstruction of Scroll Length” (pp. 37–38), includesa section titled “Palaeography and Radiocarbon” (pp. 38–43). Here the author instructsthe reader to “see further discussion in Appendix A” (p. 39), in which the issue of pale-ography, but not radiocarbon dating, is given a detailed treatment along with a brief dis-cussion of some archaeological and numismatic materials. In his examination ofpaleography, Doudna is correct to call into question the traditional reliance on Cross’sdating method, particularly the use of historical designations such as “Herodian” asnames of scripts. He accepts that “low-precision palaeographic dating” is substantiallygrounded in the evidence, since it places Qumran scribal hands typologically andchronologically later than the fourth century B.C.E. and earlier than the second centuryC.E. (p. 682; see also p. 39). In the introduction Doudna comments, “Since 4QpNah and1QpHab are alike in genre, in language and themes, in scribal characteristics, in identi-cal type of scribal hand (although different scribes), and in their existence only in singlecopies, it is suggested that the scribal copies of 1QpHab and 4QpNah were contempo-rary, from the same generation” (p. 40). He then suggests that 4QpPsa is also contempo-rary with these two texts and that “any true date information for any of the three shouldapply to all three” (p. 40). This section is followed by a chart (table 2) that lists publishedpaleographic date estimates for these three Qumran texts from a number of scholars.

Doudna continues his discussion in the introduction to comment on the radio-carbon dating of 4QpNah. He points out that the two radiocarbon tests of 4QSd yieldeddifferent dates. This discrepancy, as he correctly observes, suggests that this documenthas likely been contaminated (pp. 41–42). In his chart, “Published Radiocarbon Dates(1QpHab; 4QpPsa)” on p. 41, Doudna lists radiocarbon dates for two documents.

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According to his chart, 1QpHab dates to “88–2 B.C.E.” with “68% confidence” and tobetween “160 B.C.E.–2 C.E.” with “95% confidence.” 4QpPsa dates to “29–81 C.E.” with“68% confidence” and to between “3–126 C.E.” with “95% confidence.” Doudna citeshis 1998 study (see his “Dating the Scrolls on the Basis of Radiocarbon Analysis,” in TheDead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years [ed. P. Flint and J. VanderKam; Leiden: Brill, 1998],1:430–71) and states that one of these two dates is in error. He comments, presumablyreferring to his 1998 study, “On grounds external to the two radiocarbon dates—princi-pally the clustering of the other Qumran text radiocarbon datings in agreement with thatfor 1QpHab, whereas the radiocarbon date for 4QpPsa is out at one end of the distribu-tion—I argued that the radiocarbon date for 1QpHab more likely reflects the true datefor both 1QpHab and 4QpPsa (and 4QpNah as well)” (p. 42). While Doudna calls forfurther radiocarbon tests, by placing this information at the beginning of his study andby instructing the reader of the introduction to read appendix A, the present reviewercould not but keep in mind the fact that 4QpNah had already been, to some extent,dated. Because Doudna placed this discussion of paleography and radiocarbon datingearly in the book and instructed the reader to see his expanded treatment of paleogra-phy in the appendix, he caused this reviewer, perhaps mistakenly, to date the extantcopies of 4QpNah, and also 1QpHab and 4QpPsa, in the first century B.C.E. before heread Doudna’s reconstruction of and commentary on 4QpNah.

Doudna expands on some of the material he raises in the beginning of the bookand seeks to push back the traditional dates of other Qumran writings. He suggests thatcopies of the Serekh texts are roughly contemporary in both composition and scribalcopies (pp. 707–10). He also comments, “It should be recognized that the production ofCD as a text is contemporary with the production of 4QpNah and 1QpHab” (p. 643),and, “There is no good reason to date the final redaction of CD earlier than the time ofPompey” (p. 643 n. 737). Doudna appears also to imply that some other sectarian workswere composed in a fairly short span of time when he concludes, “There is no evidenceamong the Qumran finds of Teacher of Righteousness/yachad texts composed later thanthe generation of the Teacher of Righteousness” (pp. 706–7). Doudna believes, “Insteadof a one- or two-century history, a yachad in existence less than a generation prior to thelatest yachad text composition at Qumran is more likely” (p. 707). He does, however,comment, “That yachad groups indeed existed external to the texts in some form isassumed here on the basis of allusions in the pesharim (not on the basis of 1QS)” (p. 707n. 810). Since he identifies Hyrcanus II as the Teacher of Righteousness, he maintainsthat all of the texts explicitly naming this figure were composed within a two-year maxi-mum span of time between 65 and 63 B.C.E. (p. 710). In his discussion, Doudna alsowrites that the calendrical texts “reflect issues of interest to priests of Hyrcanus II in the1st century B.C.E.” (p. 737), that 11QTa also came from circles associated with Hyr-canus II (pp. 738–39), and that 4QMMT dates to “c. 67–63 B.C.E. when the party ofHyrcanus II was out of power” and the “authors (‘we’) of 4QMMT” were priests of theparty of Hyrcanus II (p. 739). Doudna also brings the prayer on behalf of “kingJonathan” (4Q448) into the discussion and concludes, “A text with a prayer on behalf of‘Jonathan the king’, Hyrcanus II [author’s italics], would be in keeping with the presentargument that the Qumran texts are a library that belonged to Hyrcanus II” (p. 736).Doudna further seeks throughout the latter part of the book to associate the Scrolls withthe general period of Hyrcanus II and comments, “A first-century BCE deposit date forall of the scrolls is the best explanation for why there is not a single historical allusion in a


Qumran text later than the 1st century BCE. In fact all of the data become accounted forvery well if all of the texts were deposited in the caves c. 40 BCE” (p. 701, author’s italics).

Doudna concludes his book by stating that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the library ofHyrcanus II (= the Teacher of Righteousness) and that they came to Jerusalem with himwhen he became high priest. They were then hidden at Qumran in 40 B.C.E. Moreover,“The find circumstances at Qumran testify to an interrupted hiding at an end of theperiod of habitation at Qumran corresponding to what de Vaux saw as the violent end ofQumran Period Ib” (p. 754). This bold conclusion calls for a reassessment of past gener-ations of Qumran scholarship. While Doudna includes references to several publica-tions from 2000 and also incorporates findings from Berrin’s 2001 dissertation, he doesnot cite my own work, which proposes that there are indeed Herodian-era (37 B.C.E. to70 C.E.) references in many Qumran texts, including the Isaiah pesher (“On the Hero-dian Origin of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran: New Light from Psalm ofSolomon 17,” JBL 118 [1999]: 435–60; and “On the Use of Scripture in the Develop-ment of Militant Davidic Messianism at Qumran,” in The Interpretation of Scripture inEarly Judaism and Christianity [ed. C. A. Evans; JSPSup 33; Sheffield: Sheffield Aca-demic Press, 2000], 106–23). K. Pomykala’s much earlier valuable study (The DavidicDynasty Tradition in Early Judaism: Its History and Significance for Messianism[SBLEJL 7; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995]), which presents similar arguments for Hero-dian influence in many Qumran texts, including the Isaiah pesher, is also omitted fromthe bibliography. While it is not the intention of this review to defend these publica-tions, since their conclusions may very well be erroneous, they nevertheless use paleog-raphy and seek to amass a considerable body of textual evidence to propose that manyQumran texts were copied and redacted in the Herodian period to reflect politicalchanges introduced by the Herodian kings.

Doudna’s textual analysis and reconstruction of 4QpNah contain many interestingproposals. Doudna claims to have discovered a new fragment (4Q282i), which he names“4Q Crucifixion Fragment” (pp. 409–33), that he uses to interpret the famous passageregarding the crucifixion of the “Seekers after Smooth Things” by the “Lion of Wrath” in4QpNah 3–4 I 6–8. He uses 4Q282i to restore “call” (qr<), instead of “fear” (yr<), in4QpNah 3–4 I 8. While this restoration is very likely, Doudna proposes that this word inthe pesher does not introduce a quotation. Rather, he suggests that the lamed of“hanged” (ltlwy) in line 8 marks the one hung alive as the object of direct address.Doudna then suggests that the phrase “accursed by God” (mqwll <l), found in Deut21:23, was deliberately omitted by the scribe of 4QpNah because it could have beenread as “the one cursing God.” Based upon this addition to 4QpNah, Doudna under-stands this section to be a prediction that the “Seekers after Smooth Things” will be cru-cified in the future, like traitors of the past, “for one hanged alive on [a stake is cal]led{‘accursed of God’}” (p. 430). Upon close examination, Doudna’s reconstruction isunlikely. He corrects J. Fitzmyer’s (DJD 36, p. 222) reading of “my virgin” (by btwlty) in4Q282i to an unattested pi>el form of tlh and translates this fragment as “by him when hehung up/when he was hung up” (bw btwltw). Doudna’s alternative suggestion that thisverb may be a pu>al is unlikely, since it assumes that the short vowel is indicated by amater and that the long vowel of the infinitive is written defectively. Therefore, his useof 4Q282i as the basis for associating the verb qr< with the verb tlh is improbable. In histranslation, moreover, Doudna proposes that the verb forms of 4QpNah should be read“as they would be read if encountered in similar types of sentences in biblical Hebrew”

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(p. 62). Therefore, he interprets most of column 1 of fragments 3–4 as a description of“what is to come” (p. 606). Doudna omits the valuable study of E. Regev (“How Did theTemple Mount Fall to Pompey?” JJS 58 [1997]: 276–89), which convincingly demon-strates that this section of 4QpNah recounts the defeat of “Manasseh” (= Sadducees)and the deportation of Aristobulus II and his supporters in the wake of Pompey’s con-quest as documented by Josephus. The significance of the Psalms of Solomon, whichalso corroborates Josephus’s account of Pompey’s deportation of Aristobulus and con-tains many parallels with the pesharim, is also largely ignored in the present volume.

Although Doudna regards columns 3–4 of 4QpNah largely as a prediction offuture events, he also proposes that Demetrius and Antiochus of lines 2–3 and the refer-ence to something “in Israel of old” in line 8 refer to the past (pp. 389–433, 601–7). Hebriefly compares the pesharim to ancient methods of divination to support his con-tention that they do not contain ex eventu prophecy (pp. 57–61; also ch. 17). By placingthis comment in the introduction, this reviewer understood the author as wanting thereader to exclude the possibility of ex eventu prophecies in the text when readingDoudna’s translation and reconstruction of 4QpNah. The consequence of this conclu-sion is that certain translations and historical interpretations of 4QpNah have alreadybeen excluded. Doudna’s insistence that 4QpNah predicts future events leads to someinteresting historical identifications of this text’s sobriquets. He accepts the traditionalassociation of the Kittim with the Romans but proposes that the Lion of Wrath isPompey, that Manasseh (and the Wicked Priest and Spouter of Lies) is Aristobulus II,and that the Teacher of Righteousness is Hyrcanus II.

Doudna builds upon his historical reconstruction of the background of 4QpNah toreinterpret the entire occupational history of the Qumran settlement. He examines thearchaeological evidence to propose a discontinuity between the inhabitants of periodsIb and II. The movement of the dining room (L 77) to the second-story level duringperiod II is one of many examples that convincingly demonstrate that Qumran remaineda sectarian settlement in period II. Much of this section consists of an extensive rebuttalof J. Magness’s ceramic dating of the Qumran pottery, including the scroll jars, and herstratigraphical analysis of the Qumran settlement (see now her recent book, TheArchaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002]).Doudna, however, does not adequately explain the relationship between the inhabitantsof period II and the deposition of the scrolls in the adjacent caves, which he insists wereall written prior to 40 B.C.E. While Doudna’s argument for a first-century B.C.E. depositof all the scrolls in the caves, and its consequences for reconstructing Qumran’s laterhistory, may not convince all readers, his discussion does bring to light the often tenta-tive nature of archaeological evidence and the problems inherent in seeking to associatetexts and artifacts.

Scholars will undoubtedly find Doudna’s book stimulating and provocative. It is avirtual encyclopedia of information on 4QpNah, Qumran studies, and archaeology. It isparticularly valuable for its history of scholarship and detailed analysis of the actual textof 4QpNah. The author, however, could have spent more time addressing the issue ofgenre, which is important for understanding the use of Scripture in the pesharim torecount historical events. (For an excellent treatment of this issue, see now T. Lim,Pesharim [Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press,2002]). Doudna’s book is valuable for its textual and historical analysis of 4QpNah andrelated Qumran texts. The recent publication of J. H. Charlesworth on the pesharim


(The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? [with appendices by LidijaNovakovic; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002]), which contains a vastly different interpre-tation of the pesharim and Qumran’s archaeological history, demonstrates the impor-tance of the material examined in Doudna’s book for understanding the history ofSecond Temple Judaism. Until the revision of Allegro’s DJD 5 edition of 4QpNah byG. J. Brooke and M. Bernstein appears, scholars now have, in addition to Doudna’s valu-able text and reconstruction of 4QpNah, a new edition of the pesharim that was pre-pared under the direction of J. H. Charlesworth (The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Pesharim,Other Commentaries, and Related Documents [Princeton Theological Seminary DeadSea Scrolls Project 6B; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox,2002]). Doudna’s book, in addition to the other publications cited in this review, showthat the pesharim have not yielded all of their secrets and that work on this interestingcorpus of texts is still in its infancy.

Kenneth AtkinsonUniversity of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614

The Controversy Stories in the Gospel of Matthew: Their Redaction, Form and Rele-vance for the Relationship between the Matthean Community and Formative Judaism,by Boris Repschinski. FRLANT 189. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000.Pp. 373. €64.00 (cloth).

Of late it has been recognized increasingly that Matthew’s relationship withJudaism is a fundamental key to establishing the social context and theological perspec-tive of his Gospel. It is particularly welcome, therefore, to encounter a work thatpromises to advance the question. Repschinski’s book offers the first comprehensive lit-erary analysis of the controversy stories in Matthew. Because of the centrality of thisconflict to the Gospel, Repschinski rightly supposes that a proper appreciation ofMatthew’s treatment of these conflicts cannot help but elucidate the evangelist’s ownrelationship to Judaism. Accordingly, he embarks on a commendably thorough analysisof the controversy stories and then invokes its conclusions to construct broader infer-ences about the Gospel and formative Judaism.

Repschinski adopts an eclectic methodology that draws upon form, redaction, andnarrative criticisms. In establishing what constitutes a controversy story, Repschinski isguided by Rudolf Bultmann’s form-critical categories, and because Bultmann discerns aclose connection between controversy stories and biographical apophthegms, Repschin-ski includes both within his ambit. In all, he addresses seventeen stories in Matthew,including the rejection of Jesus at Nazareth (13:53–58).

The book as a whole is well organized and carefully constructed. Each major sec-tion is furnished with summations that neatly anticipate the coming section. After a sub-stantial and valuable Forschungsbericht (ch. 1), Repschinski begins with aredaction-critical examination of each of the Gospel’s controversy dialogues, as well as adiscussion of the related pericopae in Mark (chs. 2–5). He then approaches the contro-versy stories from a literary and narrative standpoint (chs. 6–7), concluding with anapplication of his findings to the relationship between Matthew’s community and for-mative Judaism (ch. 8). The only feature that appears somewhat incongruous in Rep-schinski’s arrangement is his decision to delay consideration of form-critical approaches

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until ch. 6, but this is because he uses the form-critical approaches as a preamble for hisstructural evaluation of the controversy stories.

Repschinski’s redaction-critical analyses follow the Gospel’s chronology, begin-ning with the disputes in Matt 9 and culminating with Jesus’ final controversies inJerusalem. Repschinski establishes that Matthew intensifies the conflict in all the con-troversy narratives he has inherited from Mark. What is more, Matthew streamlines allMark’s stories and clearly identifies the Jewish leadership as Jesus’ opponents. Althoughthe constitution of these opponents is varied, it is the Pharisees who figure most promi-nently in Matthew as Jesus’ detractors. The crowds often serve as the audience to theseconflicts, and occasionally reference is made in these controversies also to Matthew’s“community” (as in Matt 9:8). Of particular note in the Gospel is the christological com-ponent of the controversy stories, which begins to become prominent in ch. 12 andemerges as a characteristic feature of the conflicts in Jerusalem. Jesus is represented byMatthew as the undisputed victor in all these contests and as the authoritative expositorof the Mosaic Law. The Jerusalem controversies also demonstrate a pronounced dero-gation of the Jewish leadership, which suggests to Repschinski that Jesus and his oppo-nents are both vying for the leadership of the crowds. The final trait isolated byRepschinski in his redaction-critical analysis is a particular affinity on Matthew’s part forJewish traditions and modes of interpretation.

As noted above, Repschinski begins his next section with an overview of form-critical approaches as an introit to his own structural evaluations of the controversy sto-ries. Here he is able to isolate the formal features of the controversy story: “an optionalnarrative introduction—introduction to the objection—objection in direct discourse—introduction to the riposte—riposte in direct discourse—an optional narrative conclu-sion” (p. 271), even though he concludes that the defining features of controversy storiesultimately reside in their content and not in their form. Nevertheless, he determinesthat their form does suggest affinities with the chreia and also with the “contest in dia-logue” (a[gwn logwn), a feature typical of Greek tragedy.

The portion of Repschinski’s book devoted to narrative criticism focuses on twoissues: first, how the controversy stories fit within Matthew’s narrative framework and,second, the theological implications that arise from the narratives. With respect to theformer, he concludes that the stories promote a narrative contrast between Jesus’ pow-erful words and deeds and the reactions of his detractors. The theological implicationsemerge from those contrasts. Repschinski recognizes that the evangelist devotes consid-erable attention to the audience of the controversy stories (i.e., the crowds), and con-tends that Matthew’s heightened interest in the Pharisees cannot be explained readilywithout reference to the circumstances of Matthew’s own day. Rather, the controversiesneed to be considered in light of Matthew’s contemporary situation. This assessmentallows Repschinski to pronounce on the evangelist’s relationship to Judaism. He con-cludes that the controversy narratives are motivated by an ongoing mission to Israel andby a parallel attempt to delegitimate Pharisaic leadership within the context of formativeJudaism.

Repschinski’s book has a number of merits. Chief among them is its reconsidera-tion of the controversy stories. Repschinski has been able to update such scholars as R.Hummel and A. J. Hultgren, and, just as valuably, to interact with the extraordinarywealth of commentary on Matthew that has emerged in recent years. His only, andrather surprising, omission is Evert-Jan Vledder’s Conflict in the Miracle Stories: A


Socio-exegetical Study of Matthew 8 and 9 (JSNTSup 152; Sheffield: Sheffield Aca-demic Press, 1997), which examines Matthew 8 and 9 from the standpoint of conflicttheory and narrative. In the end, however, R’s literary findings turn out to complementthe social-scientific findings of Vledder. Moreover, from a purely literary standpoint, itwould be difficult to fault Repschinski’s volume. One might criticize individual featuresof his argument (such as his unexamined assumption that Matthew’s community isinvoked frequently throughout the controversies), but his overall assessment of the con-flict stories remains both sound and convincing.

Valuable, too, are Repschinski’s discussion and reconsideration of the roles of Jew-ish leadership and the crowds in relation to Jesus. Repschinski’s treatment of the narra-tive roles played by the characters both consolidates and updates recent discussion.Though a number of these observations have already been advanced by J. D. Kingsbury,M. A. Powell, G. Stanton, and others, his analysis does much to corroborate their find-ings and confirm the place of the various players within the Gospel. Particularly impor-tant here is his recognition that Matthew’s Jewish leadership is uniformly unresponsiveand intransigent toward Jesus, and that they never abandon their obduracy. Their failureto acknowledge the rightful claims of Jesus ultimately results in the destruction ofJerusalem in Matthew’s portrayal. By contrast, Repschinski rightly observes that thecrowds are expressly distinguished from their leadership, and that their inclusion inmany of the controversy stories is calculated to suggest their status as potential converts:“Matthew intends the audience of the controversy stories to reflect a group that turnsfrom the fraudulent leadership of the opponents of Jesus towards an acknowledgementof the Matthean community as the rightful leaders of Israel” (p. 329).

One slight concern with Repschinski’s portrayal of the role of the Jewish leader-ship is that he appears to treat the scribes as though they were a distinct group, some-how analogous to the Herodians or Sadducees. His use of the capitalized “Scribes”contrasts noticeably with his discussion of the “chief priests and elders” without capitals;(see, e.g., p. 322 #81, where he mentions “Pharisees and Scribes . . . chief priests andelders”). Then again, Repschinski may simply be following Matthew’s own presentation,which often seems to treat the scribes as though they were a discrete social entity (cf.7:29).

His conclusion that the controversy stories are part of Matthew’s agenda to dele-gitimate the Jewish leaders of his own day fits readily with the tenor of much recentMatthean scholarship. Repschinski’s final chapter is suggestively entitled “TheMatthean Controversy Stories as Reflections of a Struggle Intra Muros of Judaism.”Although this title appears to advocate a definitive stance toward the situation ofMatthew’s community, Repschinski is actually less dogmatic than his title would sug-gest. While he is inclined toward an intra-muros position, he acknowledges that the evi-dence from the Gospel could just as well support a parting of the ways. In his view, thedelegitimation of the Pharisees and the continuing mission to Israel need not exclude anextra-muros scenario or one that suggests an ongoing process of separation (as Vledder,e.g., would argue). The definitive feature that emerges from Repschinski’s discussion isthat the conflict is yet to be resolved. Such a conclusion categorically excludes the his-toricizing approach to the Jewish leadership advocated by G. Strecker and others, whichwould view the leaders as negative “types” provided for the edification of Matthew’scommunity. Contrary to what Strecker would have us suppose, Repschinski demon-strates that Matthew’s Pharisees very much reflect the situation of contemporary

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Judaism. Thus, even if Repschinski does not categorically solve the vexing question ofMatthew’s relation to Judaism, his study casts a welcome light on the context and theo-logical perspective of Matthew’s Gospel.

Lastly, Repschinski is to be commended for his decision to write in English. Whilethe book does display more than the occasional grammatical solecism (pp. 24, 36, 41etc.), it is safe to say that none obscures his meaning. The positive side of his decision isthat it should make his work accessible to a larger readership—and deservedly so; Rep-schinski’s book will surely be the standard work on Matthew’s controversy stories for aconsiderable time to come.

J .R. C. CouslandUniversity of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z1 Canada

Die Geschichte Israels in der Sicht des Lukas: Apg 7,2b–53 und 13,17–25 im Kontextantik-jüdischer Summarien der Geschichte Israels, by Joachim Jeska. FRLANT 195.Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001. Pp. 336. €64.00 (cloth).

Arguing that previous studies of the Summarien der Geschichte Israels (SGI) inActs 7:2b–53 and 13:17–25 that use tradition- and redaction-critical approaches areinadequate, Joachim Jeska seeks to analyze Luke’s two SGIs through a comparison withall the available antik-jüdischer SGIs. Jeska contends that there have been no previousattempts to examine all the available ancient Jewish SGIs and compare them to Luke’stwo SGIs. Jeska is interested in both the function of the SGIs in their Lukan contextsand in their authorship.

Jeska sets out to answer three questions. First, do the Lukan SGIs exhibit a coher-ent general design? According to Jeska, previous tradition- and redaction-critical studieshave hit a dead end through hypothetical reconstructions and are of no help in answer-ing this question. Second, what function do the Lukan SGIs have both in their immedi-ate context and in the broader context of Luke’s two-volume work? Previousliterary-critical studies have not addressed this question significantly. Third, do theLukan SGIs derive from some template (Vorlage), or are they based on direct interac-tion with primary biblical texts? The only way to answer these questions is first to do asystematic analysis of all the available ancient Jewish SGIs, both biblical SGIs, such asthat found in Josh 24, and those found in texts such as 1 Enoch’s Animal Apocalypse, aswell as those found in Josephus and Pseudo-Philo. After a brief review of the history ofresearch on the Lukan SGIs, Jeska examines each SGI, grouped by genre. He focuses onthe primary features of SGIs. Chapter 2 provides a discussion of each individual SGI,while ch. 3 provides an analysis of common features and functions of the ancient JewishSGIs in their contexts. SGIs are all based on events narrated in Genesis through 2 Kings.In each SGI, some events are presented tersely, some at length, and some not at all.Each author makes these selections based on the specific needs of the narrative in whichthe SGI is embedded. In an SGI, the God of Israel, specific individuals or the wholepeople of Israel are the actors. An SGI can cover events from the creation of the worldto eschatological events, and Jeska deals only with SGIs that contain events from thenarrative of Abraham up to the temple built by Solomon. A critical element of an SGI isthe presence of Aktualisierungen, which are “Summarische Darstellungen derGeschichte Israels setzen sich zusammen aus einer Vergangenheitsdarstellung und


einem Ausblick auf die Gegenwart, in der nicht selten eine aus der Vergangenheits-darstellung gewonnene Erkenntnis auf die Gegenwart übertragen wird” (p. 19). AnAktualisierung refers to the presence of an SGI that begins in Israel’s past and continuesup to the present time of the speaker and, in some cases, into the future, which appliessome aspect of the past to the present hearers, usually for polemical purposes. A briefnarrative of the past not necessarily connected to the present is called a Kurzaktual-isierung, e.g., Acts 7:38. An SGI is almost always embedded in a larger context, typicallyas part of a speech; it does not stand alone. Jeska states that the characteristics of an SGIdistinguish it from examples of the “rewritten Bible,” such as Jubilees or Liber Antiqui-tum Biblicum. An SGI may occur in a speech, prayer, hymn, vision, or other genre. Jeskaexamines twenty-seven SGIs, ranging from narratives, such as 1 Sam 12:8–13 and Jose-phus, Ant. 3.86–87; to prayers, such as Neh 9:6–31; to visions, such as 1 En. 85:3–90:38;to hymns, such as Ps 105:7–44; and to prophetic- or God-speeches, such as Ezek20:5–29.

Jeska asserts that a major feature of SGIs is a variation in perspective of thespeaker. This Wechsel goes from Solidarisierung to Distanzierung. In most SGIs, thespeakers move from identifying with their hearers, e.g., “our father Abraham,” to dis-tancing themselves from their hearers, e.g., “your fathers.” Generally the emphasis ofthe speakers is on distancing themselves from the hearers. This alternation in perspec-tive is especially relevant for Acts 7, which reflects the same movement from solidarityof speaker and hearers to distancing the hearers from the speaker. This alternation, plusthe specific circumstances surrounding the speech, govern the selection of material inthe SGI. That is, the contents are not based on some fixed tradition but are whollydependent on the context of the speakers and hearers. The author of the SGI shows,through the Aktualisierungen, that the presentation of the past is done specifically for itsrelevance to the present situation of the speaker and hearers. The analysis of the alterna-tion of perspective shows that in an SGI, historical events are not merely portrayed fortheir own sake, “sondern funktionalisiert wird” (p. 116). SGIs are always used with aspecific intention and are never “neutral.”

Chapter 4 focuses on the issue of the unity of Stephen’s speech in Acts 7 and theAktualisierungen in the speech. Jeska examines the arguments against the unity andcoherence of Stephen’s speech. These arguments, however, fail to account for the factthat the features they depend on are common to ancient Jewish SGIs, such as the alter-nation in perspective from solidarity to distancing between speaker and hearers. Fur-thermore, both Lukan SGIs exhibit the presence of Aktualisierungen, just as ancientJewish SGIs do. Because Aktualisierungen always function in SGIs to point to the lat-ter’s main concerns, Jeska focuses on them in Acts 7 and 13. Jeska argues that the move-ment from the presentation of the past to the present done through Aktualisierungen,therefore, does not provide evidence of separate literary sources for each of these ele-ments but simply reflects the pattern of all Aktualisierungen.

Chapters 5 and 6 analyze and interpret the SGIs in Acts 7 and 13 respectively inlight of what has been seen regarding the features of ancient Jewish SGIs. By looking atthe framework of Stephen’s speech, the promised land, circumcision, the law, and thetemple are all seen to play an important role. There is a dialectic in the speech betweenthese four gifts of God and their relativizing by the disobedience of the people of Israel,by which a soteriological aspect of the law and temple are repudiated. While most schol-ars acknowledge this property of the text, they see no significant role for the mention of

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Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. Jeska argues that, seen in the context of an SGI, theseindividuals do have significance for Luke. Through Abraham, a universalizing of themembership of the people of God is emphasized, which is not tied to the promised land,circumcision, law or temple. Jeska argues that the elements of the SGI, thought by manyto have no function in Stephen’s speech, correlate well with themes in both Acts and inLuke’s two-volume work, such as the universalizing of the people of God. Both inStephen’s speech and throughout Luke-Acts, the “borders” of the promised land arestretched to include non-Jews. The person of Joseph in Acts 7 contributes to the sametheme as well as shows how believers, like Joseph, can coexist with the ruling authorityof the Romans/Egyptians. The correlation between the elements in the SGI in Acts 7and their function in light of the overall design of Luke-Acts shows that Luke himselfdesigned the SGI in Stephen’s speech and did not take it from a source or template. Acts7:53 does not show the speech having an incomplete end, but, ending like other SGIs,shows by means of the departure of the followers of Jesus from Jerusalem in Acts 8 judg-ment upon Jerusalem-based Judaism.

Jeska next compares the SGI in Acts 13:17–25 to those in 1 Sam 12 and 1 Enoch89. The purpose of the SGI is clear, says Jeska. It shows that God intervenes in historyand that this intervention is for the good of his people. In the SGI, the Aktualisierungserves to place John and Jesus at the climax of God’s intervention in the history of hispeople. The omission of the giving of the law in Paul’s SGI indicates, like that of Acts 7,the relativizing of the law and its irrelevance for salvation. Contrary to the views ofSoards and others, the function of the SGI in Paul’s speech is to legitimate the initialJewish audience and establish a fundamental link between Paul’s mission and the syna-gogue. The SGI of Acts 13 shows why the Jews were the first recipients of the Christ-message. Through the summary of the history of Israel in Acts 13, Luke foundationallyestablished that Jesus is part of the history of Israel and that the Heilsbotschaft appliesfirst to Israel. The SGI legitimates the practice of going to the Jews first, and is thus pro-grammatic for Paul the missionary.

Jeska then examines the role of Paul’s speech and its SGI to the design of Luke-Acts as a whole. He compares Paul’s speech with Jesus’ synagogue speech in Luke 4.The goal in both cases is the same: the demonstration of the refusal of the message ofsalvation by the first addressees and with it a pointer to the universalizing of salvationand of God’s people. Like the SGI in Acts 7, the SGI in Paul’s speech in Acts 13 wascomposed by Luke, rather than taken from a source, and designed specifically for itscontext. The book concludes with an appendix that provides expanded treatment of therelation of the Lukan summaries of the history of Israel to the Animal Apocalypse in1 Enoch.

Jeska is to be commended for seeking to analyze the SGIs in Acts as whole unitsand reading them in light of features found in other SGIs, rather than dissecting theminto pieces in order to find their Vorlage. His efforts to see the SGIs in light of similarSGIs in Jewish literature is also helpful for understanding the content and function ofthese summaries. Jeska’s comparison of themes in the SGIs and speeches in Acts 7 and13 to the larger context of Luke-Acts is also valuable, contributing to the picture of Lukeas an author and not merely a compiler of tradition. The book is also right to questionthe speculative results of tradition- and redaction-criticism, especially since the actualsources that may lie behind Acts 7 and 13 are unknown and render attempts to see howLuke has redacted this material susceptible to criticism. All that being said, given Jeska’s


claim that no previous studies have analyzed all the available SGIs, it would have beenhelpful if Jeska had interacted with R. G. Hall’s Revealed Histories: Techniques forAncient Jewish and Christian Historiography (JSPSup 6; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991),as this work deals with many of the same SGIs asking questions about their function intheir narrative contexts, just as Jeska does. In spite of this, Jeska’s work raises manyimportant questions about method in understanding these two speeches in Acts andprovides helpful pointers for seeing the speeches in Acts in the wider context of Luke’sentire two-volume narrative. For these reasons, this book is recommended for studentsof the speeches in Acts.

Kenneth D. Litwak1985 Windsor Place, Pomona, CA 91767

Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of the Apostles and the Life of Apollonius ofTyana, by Andy M. Reimer. JSNTSup 235. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.Pp. xviii + 277. $110.00.

In recent years, a number of books have appeared that attempt to define or under-stand “magic” in the ancient world. These books tend to fall into two distinct camps,those that accept ancient descriptions of “magicians” and “sorceresses” as evidenceupon which to construct a social history of magic, and those that reject understandingmagic as a practice and argue instead that “magic” existed entirely as a polemical accusa-tion: no one actually practiced magic, they were only accused of it. Andy Reimer’srevised dissertation attempts to negotiate a middle course through this debate.

Reimer begins his book with a brief survey of scholarship on magic, breaking thevarious approaches down into two stages. The first stage treats magic in “absolute” terms(using Reimer’s terminology) and represents the legacy of early anthropological work onmagic. This approach tends to define “magic” in opposition to either religion or science(or both) and regards it in evolutionary terms as primitive or belonging to the unedu-cated classes (pp. 3–8). The second stage, according to Reimer, approaches magic in rel-ative terms, seeing magic as part of intergroup polemics and not as a practice in and ofitself. This approach, which evolved out of the sociology of knowledge, shifts its atten-tion from understanding magic as a practice to understanding how it works as an accusa-tion: it regards “magic” entirely as a locative term and not an absolute one (pp. 8–10).The problem with this approach, according to Reimer, is that it also becomes reduction-ist, treating all accusations of magic as mere intergroup polemic and ignoring the com-plexities of the historical reality: “With the present sociology of knowledge approach tomiracle and magic, all that seems to be accomplished is that we are building a grand fileof case studies which prove that ‘miracle’ and ‘magic’ are simply empty labels that com-peting religious groups use for their own convenience” (p. 10).

Reimer goes on to suggest a third approach, one that will move beyond what hecalls “the sociology of knowledge loop” (p. 10). He proposes that the labels “magic” and“miracle” rest on “some shared ground” between the ancient writer and his audience,which would have made these labels meaningful. Miracle-workers themselves, hewrites, appealed to this shared knowledge to avoid the charge of “magic.” Thus, accord-ing to Reimer, these labels point toward something in reality that the historian canuncover through careful and critical reading of ancient texts: “Once we have carefully

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observed miracle-workers and magicians in action, we are set to look again for the defi-nition of miracle and magic in the ancient Mediterranean context” (p. 13).

The problem with this initial position is that it already accepts the reality of thelabels Reimer seeks to understand. By treating polemical accusations of magic asdescriptive, Reimer not surprisingly discovers that “real” magicians look a lot like nega-tive caricatures of them in stereotype. He does not address the possibility that the nega-tive characteristics of the magician along with the label itself may be part of thepolemical charge laid on religious competitors. Instead, Reimer accepts the descriptionsof religious virtuosi as accurate portraits and assumes that the characteristics ascribed tothem (whether positive or negative) genuinely represent their activities. He writes thathe wants to recreate the moment in which a person “associated with extraordinary phe-nomena first arrived on the scene and the members of these groups were forced todecide on the status of these phenomena” (p. 13). This operation assumes, however, thatthe label innocently follows the activity and that naming does not involve ideology and isnot bound up with issues of power and authority, legitimacy and illegitimacy. Thisaspect of Reimer’s methodology leads to some difficulties and contradictions later in hisstudy, as shall be discussed below.

Reimer states that he will employ a “narrative critical approach” to reconstruct the“narrative worlds” of the two texts he is examining and from these narrative worlds gainaccess to the historical reality behind them (pp. 41–43). He invokes Clifford Geertz’s“thick description” as a methodological device to “learn” these worlds and interprettheir culture. By so doing, Reimer seeks to “converse” with the subjects of these worldsand gain access to them (pp. 30–33). In applying anthropological methodology toancient society, Reimer follows the illustrious footsteps of many who have precededhim, including Peter Brown and Alan Segal. The problem with Reimer’s approach isthat he does not fully accomplish his intentions. Reimer converses with the narrators ofhis texts and much secondary scholarship on them, but he does not step back from thetexts to get a broader perspective on their social context. The result is that Reimer pro-duces not a “thick description” that can distinguish winks from twitches but one thatconfuses ideology and polemic for reality. He mistakes, in Geertz’s terminology, theburlesque imitation of a wink for a genuine one intended as a covert sign.

Reimer lays out his argument in three chapters: “Gaining Power,” “IntersectingPower,” and “Defending Power.” While the basic outline makes sense, much of thethree chapters is overlapping material, leading to some repetition. I will treat each chap-ter in turn. In “Gaining Power” (ch. 2), Reimer invokes the work of Mary Douglas tolocate power in the social margins. Borrowing extensively from Peter Brown’s work onholy men in late antiquity, Reimer argues that legitimate “intermediaries” (the term heemploys to designate both magicians and miracle-workers neutrally) gain power by cul-tivating “fringe status” (p. 47). Thus, miracle-workers such as the apostles in Acts andApollonius in Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius (hereafter VA) abandon money, family,and careers, travel as itinerant preachers, and disregard personal safety and security.These are the three elements that, according to Reimer, distinguish a legitimate inter-mediary (miracle-worker) from a magician. So, for example, one reason the author ofActs classifies Simon as a “magician” (8:9) rather than as a miracle-worker is that he isstationary; he dazzles the people of Samaria with his special powers and appears to haveno intention of “moving on” (pp. 76–77). Likewise, the Jew Elymas, who is described asa magos in Acts, is a resident holy man and adviser to the proconsul (13:8). Both Simon


and Elymas are well established, “stationary” religious figures. The apostles, on theother hand, enter a town, preach, perform miracles, and then depart, demonstrating forReimer their status as legitimate intermediaries.

While Reimer has focused on the element of interstitial power that Douglas andBrown develop, I think he misses the polemical point of these representations and theirony with which they would have been received by an ancient audience. In both depic-tions, it is Simon and Elymas rather than the apostles who would have been regarded aspossessing religious “legitimacy.” Leaving aside the designation “magician,” Simon isdepicted as having a large following among the people of Samaria, whom he impresseswith his special powers and who call him by a religious title. Similarly, Elymas is a courtadviser and thus wields official religious authority. In fact, it is itinerancy that consti-tutes one of the main attributes of the goeµs (charlatan magician) in Greek thought (e.g.:Plato’s Symp. 203.a.1; Meno 80.b.6; and Bacch. 233–38). The writer of Luke-Acts,therefore, upsets social expectations when he lodges an accusation of magic against awell-established charismatic religious figure in Samaria and an official adviser to theproconsul.

By depicting a ragtag bunch of itinerant preachers, casting out demons in thename of a crucified criminal, as “miracle-workers,” Luke ironically inverts the labels“magic” and “miracle” and uses them as a form of “corrosive” discourse to undercut theestablished authority of competing religious figures (see Bruce Lincoln, Authority: Con-struction and Corrosion [Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1994], 74–89). Reimertoo easily accepts Luke’s polemical labeling and thus misses this irony and the “reality”behind the depictions, mistaking Simon and Elymas for magicians and believing thatmarginality necessarily conferred religious authority. This link between itinerancy andlegitimacy leads to some complications when Reimer is faced with classifying the Brah-mans of India in VA, whom he acknowledges constitute legitimate religious figures eventhough they are stationary (p. 80).

Reimer’s decision to base his study on only two ancient texts contributes to manyof the problems his inquiry encounters. It has been argued, for example, that Philostra-tus modeled his VA on Christian depictions of Jesus and the apostles in an effort todemonstrate Apollonius’s legitimacy. In that case, what once constituted an ironic inver-sion of social expectations, has become by the third century C.E. an accepted part of reli-gious discourse. It is problematic, therefore, to use only these two texts to construct aconception of magic and miracle in the ancient world. To return to Geertz’s analogy, it isas if Reimer is basing his thick description and understanding of a wink entirely on theburlesque mockery of one without knowledge of winks in other contexts.

In ch. 3, “Intersecting Power,” Reimer considers the complex relationships thatdevelop in encounters between the intermediaries and traditional religious authorities.It is in this chapter that his initial premise—distinguishing the difference betweenmagic and miracle based on polemical depictions—begins to pose the biggest problems.For example, Reimer notes that “[a]t least three of the four negatively labelled interme-diaries in Acts appear to be making claims to legitimacy within an established religiousframework” (p. 148). This statement raises the question of who is “legitimate” and whois not in the social world of Acts. Reimer is almost forced to admit at this point that thelabels “magic” and “miracle” are, in fact, relatively defined and not based on externalcriteria as he asserted in ch. 1. Rather, as Reimer acknowledges, Simon is consideredlegitimate by his followers, just as Elymas is by his. The fact that the narrator of Acts

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labels these two intermediaries “magicians” seems to confirm the polemical use of theterm in situations of religious competition rather than illuminate (as Reimer seeks to do)the nature of their activities. The label “magic” here tells us more about the relationshipbetween the one naming and the one being named than it does about what the personbeing named was actually doing. (This is the point Alan Segal makes in his article “Hel-lenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition,” in Studies in Gnosticism and HellenisticReligion [ed. R. Van den Broeke and M. J. Vermaseren; Leiden: Brill, 1981], 367, whichReimer quotes but dismisses in his effort to determine the real differences betweenmagicians and miracle-workers [p. 11].)

Reimer also shows in this chapter how the authors of Acts and of VA both try toestablish ties between their heroes and local religious establishments. Apollonius, forexample, “begins and ends his career as a holy man living in a temple and in betweenmanages to live in shrines from one end of the “inhabited world” to the other” (pp. 153–54). Acts ties its miracle-workers to the authority of Jewish scripture (p. 146) and towealthy and influential members of the Gentile community (p. 152). In both cases,Reimer argues that the authors’ intentions are to legitimate the intermediaries by link-ing them with established traditions and thereby eschew any possible association withmagic. This claim contradicts his earlier argument that fringe status and itinerancy con-stituted the attributes of legitimate intermediaries. This apparent contradiction requiresclarification.

Chapter 4, “Defending Power,” collects evidence that seems to undermine evenfurther Reimer’s intention of demonstrating that the labels “magic” and “miracle”reflect reality more than polemical name-calling. In this chapter he examines the defen-sive measures employed by “legitimate” intermediaries to refute or defer the charge ofmagic. Interestingly, the very attributes (such as itinerancy and marginality) that in ch. 2Reimer identifies as characteristics that legitimated intermediaries now fuel accusationsof magic against those same miracle-workers (p. 225). Clearly, the perception of legiti-macy lay in the eye of the beholder. Other charges miracle-workers must address toavoid being labeled “magicians” include being socially disruptive, politically subversive,religiously deviant, and causing financial loss (p. 243). Legitimate intermediaries,according to Reimer, represent the mirror image of the magician: they possessattributes such as being selfless and politically neutral (Reimer ignores here the subver-sive element of early Christianity, which threatened the hegemony of the empire onmany different levels. See further Todd Penner, “Res Gestae Divi Christi: Miracles,Early Christian Heroes, and the Discourse of Power in Acts,” in The Role of Miracle Dis-course in the Argumentation of the New Testament (ed. Duane F. Watson, SBLSymS;Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, forthcoming). Reimer’s uncritical acceptance ofthese labels and their stereotyped portraits reinscribes the ideological biases of hisauthors and prevents him from successfully “learning” their social world. I find prob-lematic, for example, that Reimer accepts the veracity of these charges when they areleveled against Simon or Elymas (and uses them to construct a portrait of “real” magi-cians) but rejects these same charges when they are leveled at so-called legitimatemiracle-workers, namely, the apostles.

In ch. 5, “Concluding Thoughts,” Reimer nuances his theory somewhat and tenta-tively suggests that what he is investigating are stereotypes rather than real practices: “Itis in a detailed investigation into the operation of characters labeled as performers of


miracle or magic that one can discover the criteria that distinguished the two in theminds of Greco-Roman Mediterraneans, as well as gaining a deeper understanding ofthe practical outworking of the criteria” (p. 245). While his point is not fully articulated,he seems to imply here that the criteria have less to do with the actual practices of theintermediaries than with their position vis-à-vis political and religious authorities. AsReimer states, “[A]t the heart of the distinction between miracle-worker and magicianlies a social dynamic” (p. 246). He thus appears to move closer to the relative approachof defining “magic” than he was initially. Later, however, he reaffirms his conviction thatthe labels follow the activities of intermediaries: “When an individual performs anextraordinary event which is understood to be a mediation of some sort of divine power,it will be classed a miracle if it is not performed for some personal advantage by themiracle-worker, it is a particularly powerful display of mediated divine power, it is notovertly undermining the acceptable social and political structures of a given community,and/or it can be understood to occur within an established religious framework”(p. 250). Thus, according to Reimer’s approach, Simon actually was to some degree amagician, whereas Philip was in fact a legitimate miracle-worker. The narrator of Actsmerely distinguished between the two of them by applying various criteria (whatReimer calls a polythetic classification scheme) to determine which intermediary waswhich. These criteria, however, were derived from those same polemical texts thatlabeled the intermediaries initially. Their depictions of the intermediaries should there-fore be regarded as equally polemical and subject to ideological embroidery. It seems tome that what Reimer has most successfully done in this book is identify attributes of twodifferent stereotypes that could be enlisted in the contest for power and used either tolegitimate or delegitimate contenders for religious authority. It is important to distin-guish, however, between ideologically charged portraits of intermediaries and the real-ity of their activities.

Reimer’s initial breakdown of the difference between “absolutist” and “relativist”approaches to understanding magic illuminates developments in the study of this slip-pery subject. Furthermore, his criticism of what he calls the “sociology of knowledgeloop” raises important questions and highlights potential problems in current scholar-ship on ancient magic. I also applaud Reimer’s bold effort to engage these depictionsseriously—as genuine portraits of powerful intermediaries. He counters the typical aca-demic approach that eschews any discussion of a possible reality behind these descrip-tions because it challenges our post-Enlightenment conceptions of physical existence.Where Reimer fails to fulfill this reader’s expectations is in accepting too readily thedescriptive value of literary representations of magic. The result is that he reinscribestheir ideological presuppositions and fails to discover the social reality he seeks behindthe texts. Considering more than two texts may have given Reimer a broader perspec-tive from which to conduct his “thick description.” Reimer might also have been helpedby thinking about the depictions in terms of stereotype rather than reality. This theoret-ical shift might have enabled him to avoid some of the contradictions he encountered inchs. 3 and 4. This book raises some important questions and problems for the field butrequires more development to realize its goals.

Kimberly B. StrattonCarleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6 Canada

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Paul between Synagogue and State: Christians, Jews, and Civic Authorities in 1 Thessa-lonians, Romans, and Philippians, by Mikael Tellbe. ConBNT 34. Stockholm: Almqvist& Wiksell, 2001. Pp. xii + 340. €30.00 (paper).

This thoroughly researched and well-presented doctoral dissertation (Lund Uni-versity) warrants careful reading. Tellbe examines the tripartite relationships betweenChristians, Jews, and civic authorities at three major urban centers: Thessalonica, Rome,and Philippi. The common link among the three is, of course, Paul. Tellbe maintainsthat using Paul’s letters to each of these communities, along with supplementary mate-rial from Acts, allows one to take note of interactions and tensions among the major enti-ties in each city. Doing so allows him to determine “how interactions in this tripartiterelation shaped the self-understanding and identity of the Christian communities of1 Thessalonians, Romans, and Philippians” (p. 4). In particular, it reveals how the needfor political legitimacy shaped Christian identity as early as the mid-first century C.E.

The first chapter lays out the need for this study within the matrix of previous bib-lical scholarship on Paul and his communities. Tellbe’s primary analysis is historical,with a detailed textual analysis of Paul’s letters, although he also draws upon sociologicaland rhetorical methods. While few would question the use of these letters as “authentic”Pauline letters (which for Tellbe are without interpolation), Tellbe is “inclined to takemuch of the detailed material of Acts as a credible source of information in the task ofreconstructing the setting of the Pauline communities” (p. 18). His decision to do so isunder-defended and, given his reliance on Acts for critical information, his choice not todefend this more thoroughly is unfortunate. Those less inclined than he to place muchreliance on Acts will find that some of his assumptions about the composition of thePauline communities and the urban interactions of Jews, Christians, and civic authori-ties rest on a somewhat unstable foundation.

Chapter 2 sets the stage for the remainder of the book by undertaking an analysisof “the legal status of Diaspora Judaism under Roman rule,” focusing primarily on infor-mation provided by Josephus and Philo, although with some reference to Roman writ-ers. Jewish communities were treated by the Romans much like other foreign cults andvoluntary associations—left to their own religious activities as long as they did not dis-rupt public order, but brought under control if perceived to be unruly. Although Tellbeagrees with recent arguments against a special Jewish designation of polituema, he doesnote a “number of unusual concessions” granted only to the Jews (p. 42): “Judaism in thefirst century CE was thus granted a legal standing in the Roman society that in practiceseems to have been more specific than what is actually conveyed by the more generalRoman expression collegium licitum” (p. 59). Nevertheless, Jews in particular citieswere not immune from periods of opposition by the local authorities (p. 63).

Chapter 3 gives attention to the specific situation at Thessalonica, beginning with adescription of the city itself and the Roman, Jewish, and Christian populations therein.Tellbe correctly surmises that Roman imperial ideology and propaganda played a largepart in civic affairs. However, he is on less secure ground in asserting that there was aninfluential group of Jews in the city. Here he relies only on Acts 17:1–9, 1 Thess 2:13–16(considered by many to be an interpolation), and either late or questionable epigraphicevidence. Although he acknowledges “the apparent tension between Luke and Paulconcerning the composition of the Thessalonian church” Tellbe claims that it is “impor-tant not to overplay these differences” (p. 93). This seems to be understated in light ofTellbe’s reliance on the elimination of the tension in order for his thesis to hold.


Granted Tellbe’s caveat, he presents an interesting argument that the Thessaloni-ans are facing hostility and sufferings at the hands of local polytheists and Jews. He sug-gests that the opposition to Paul is similar to opposition expressed concerning itinerantsmore generally: “the local Jews probably made use of current gentile critique of wander-ing philosophers in their allegation of false prophecy” (p. 110). However, given themethodological problems noted above, one might ask why the Jewish intermediary?Why not suppose simply that it is in fact Gentile critique of wandering philosophers thatcreates the problem Paul addresses in 1 Thess 2? Doing so avoids heavy reliance onquestionable assumptions. Indeed, this move would strengthen Tellbe’s further argu-ments that Paul’s eschatological teachings and his explicit use of the language andimages of the empire in the letter reflect conflict between the Christians and the localRoman authorities.

One gets the uneasy sense that the real goal of the first half of the chapter concern-ing the conflict with the Thessalonian Jews is meant to bolster the veracity of Acts.Tellbe writes, “I find no real reasons to question Luke’s portrayal of extremely zealousThessalonian Jews as instigators of the persecution of the gentiles who carry out this per-secution” (p. 115). Yet this is a circular argument, since he has already clearly assumedthe accuracy of Luke’s account and used that account to make his case. He would havedone well to apply his own advice about the relevance of Suetonius’s report on theRoman Jews to his use of Acts—the ambiguous details should cause one to confine one’sreconstruction to Paul’s letters themselves (p. 159).

In ch. 4 Tellbe turns his attention to Rome, beginning with a discussion of theRoman imperial ideology developed under Augustus and moving to a description of theJewish community in Rome and the composition and situation of the Christian commu-nity to whom Paul writes. In Rom 13:1–7, Paul is clearly distinguishing the RomanChristians from the Roman Jews by affirming the payment of Roman taxes but not men-tioning the payment of the temple tax. Overall, “Paul appears thus to lead the RomanChristians in a direction that results in an unavoidable break with the synagogues”(p. 196). In doing so, however, Paul creates a new tension between the Christian com-munity and the Roman authorities, since the Christians are no longer protected underthe emperor’s toleration of distinctive Jewish practices. To protect themselves, theChristians organized themselves as collegia domestica (p. 199).

Chapter 5 returns to Macedonia with an examination of the situation at the Romancolony of Philippi, where, Tellbe suggests, the Christian community was undergoingopposition from the civic authorities, as seen in Phil 1:27–2:18 (and Acts 16:11–40) andthe terminology Paul uses in the letter (politeuvomai, polivteuma, swthvr, kuvrio"). Onanother front, the Philippians were faced with the presence of Jewish Christian Judaiz-ers within their community (although here Tellbe is unclear on whether they are local oritinerant Christians [pp. 260–61]). This, in turn, led to the grumbling and discourage-ment among the Philippians that Paul addresses in his letter (p. 225). Paul addresses thisdis-ease within the community by affirming their distinct Christian identity—neitherJewish nor Roman, the Philippian Christians are citizens of heaven.

In the final chapter Tellbe summarizes and compares the patterns of Christian andJewish civic interrelationships that he finds at Thessalonica, Rome, and Philippi andattempts to draw some general conclusions. His book makes a good case for taking seri-ously the sociopolitical dimensions of each individual city and concludes, rightly, albeitbroadly, that “Paul’s theology should thus be perceived as an outcome of the complex

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interplay between ideas and social structures, theological concepts and socio-historicalphenomena” (p. 296). However, there is much room for disagreement on the details ofhow this works itself out in Paul’s letters. Such disagreements can be expected with abook that covers such a breadth of material, and it would be incorrect to suggest that thebook is not worthwhile. Indeed, there is more to praise in the book than to critique.Tellbe’s analyses of various texts are always thorough, lexically sound, grounded in theirlocal contexts, and give due attention to the vast secondary material. Engagement withhis arguments repays much intellectual stimulation, and he is a worthy dialogue partnerfor scholars working on Paul and his social world and for those working on the issue ofthe “parting of the ways” of Judaism and Christianity.

Richard S. AscoughQueen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6 Canada

New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 9: A Review of Greek Inscriptions andPapyri Published in 1986-87: In Honour of Paul Barnett, edited by S. R. Llewelyn (Syd-ney: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University; GrandRapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Pp. xvi + 136. $35.00 (paper).

The ninth collaboration in this series of NT background resources is dedicated toDr. Paul Barnett, a historian/theologian in the Reformed tradition. Dr. Barnett shep-herded the New Docs project from its inception in 1980. In the preface to New Docs 9(p. vii), A. M. Nobbs reflects that Dr. Barnett is truly representative of the interests ofthose served by New Docs, namely, all those involved in study of and research on the NTdocuments themselves. E. A. Judge’s tribute to the honoree, “Paul Barnett and NewTestament History” (pp. ix–xii), draws the distinction between investigating the phe-nomena of the NT itself (à la G. R. Elton and C. F. D. Moule) and the study of the socio-cultural consequences of those phenomena in later times. Dr. Barnett’s approach to theNT as a phenomenon of history helped to ensure that “[t]he writings of the NT are man-ifestly conceived and shaped under the impulse of the message they convey. Yet they arebuilt up not out of mythological thinking but from the narrative of remembered experi-ence” (p. xii). Complementing this interesting sketch is a bibliography of the honoree’spublications compiled by C. B. Forbes.

Editor Llewelyn is joined in the analysis and commentary (fourteen contributions)by M. Harding, J. R. Harrison, T. W. Hillard, E. A. Judge, R. A. Kearsley, J. M. Lieu,A. M. Nobbs, and J. W. Pryor. New Docs 9 reviews selected inscriptions and papyri pub-lished or significantly reedited in 1986–87 which appear relevant as philological andconceptual background to the NT. Four categories are treated that serve to illuminatethe historical setting and the distinctive extant communication of early Christianity inthe Greco-Roman world: Inscriptions (twelve entries), Papyri (eleven entries), Judaica(four entries), and Ecclesiastica (four entries).

On the inscriptional side, attention may be given to the concept of beneficence(eujergevth") as applied to the earthly Jesus (Acts 10:38) and to secular rulers (Luke22:25). A virtuous man (a[ndra ajgaqov") is honored as a benefactor of the people(eujergevthn o[nta tw'n dhvmou [p. 6]), a Roman governor is both a benefactor of Greeksand a patron (eujergevthn o[nta tw'n !Ellhvnwn kai; pavtrwna tou' dhvmou [p. 15]), and a tem-


ple warden of the imperial cult in Sardis is designated swth'ra kai; eujergevthn (p. 30).The personal patronage of individual Romans was widely understood. Euergetes andpatron were conceptually connected, requiring a relational commitment by the Romanaristocrat. Perhaps Paul’s reference to deaconess Phoebe as prostavti" (patroness, pro-tectress [Rom 16:2]) should be understood in this light, cf. “Sophia, the second Phoibe”(New Docs 4, 239–44).

Tiberius Caesar Augustus (kaivsara qeo;n) is revered as eujergevthn tou' kovsmou(p. 22). In this example from the base of a statue (41–54 C.E.), we may be reminded ofhow the orator Tertullus flattered Felix’s administrative deeds as being everywhere wel-comed with all thankfulness (eujcaristiva" [Acts 24:3]). Tiberius’s benefaction towardthe world merits the piety and thanksgiving of his provincial subjects (eujsebeiva" kai; euj-caristiva"). Another eujergevth" is remembered for commitment to his community intimes of crisis (ejn kairoi'" ajnagkaivoi" [p. 7]), similar to Paul’s oJ kairo;" sunestalmevno"(1 Cor 7:29).

Another virtuous man (a[ndra ajgaqov" [p. 20]) excels all ancestral honor (pa'sanfiloteimivan progonikh;n uJperbavlwn). Here we may note the contrast (synkrisis)between the secular and somewhat self-serving language of excess (uJperbavllein) anddistinctive Christian language stemming from experience in the Spirit. Descriptions ofbenefactors who excelled in a spectrum of virtues on honorific inscriptions (good will[eu[noia], benevolence [filanqrwpiva], courage [ajndreiva], love of glory [filodoxiva] andhonor [filotimiva], greatness of mind [megalofrosuvnh], and moderation [swfrosuvnh])may be compared (pp. 20–21) with Paul’s language of excess (uJperbavllein, uJperbolhv)for the overflow or surpassing of grace (2 Cor 9:14; Eph 2:7), glory (2 Cor 3:10, 17),power (2 Cor 4:7; Eph 1:19), revelation (2 Cor 12:7), and love (1 Cor 12:31).

Oracles in the Greco-Roman world were often memorialized by statues erected tocommemorate and name persons who gave appreciated prophecies. A first-century C.E.example of this practice records such a prophecy in detail and then describes it as beingpistoi; lovgoi (p. 9). Llewelyn suggests that the use of “faithful words” to describe an ora-cle from the gods is unusual, iJeroi; lovgoi or qei'oi lovgoi being expected instead in hisview. But Philo’s qei'oi lovgoi (De Somn. 1.148.9; 1.147.7) are rationalistic speculationabout how “divine words” supposedly function toward the soul, not a description or anevaluation of prophetic speech. Seeking to illuminate the purpose of pistoi; lovgoi frompolitical, scientific, religious, and legal contexts, Llewelyn finds that the phrase does not,in these instances, refer to actual words of a deity (p. 13), but rather to trustworthyexplanations, words, or reports. My response to this is that different contexts motivatedifferent descriptions, an oracular context of ostensibly nonrational prophetic-type phe-nomena being different from these other contexts. For example, Hannibal’s speech con-tains toi'" ejmoi'" lovgoi" . . . pistoi''" (Polybius, Hist. 15.7.2.1), trustworthy words deemedreliable and credible, similar in intent to those pistou' lovgou and pisto;" oJ lovgo" (1 Tim1:15; 3:1; 4:9; 2 Tim 2:18; Titus 1:9; 3:8), words and statements which are probably alsonot references to inspired prophetic speech or revelatory information received in adream or vision as are oiJ lovgoi pistoiv kai; ajlhqinoiv eijsin (Rev 21:5; 22:6). The latterphrase as a description of prophetic-type phenomena is the closest parallel recorded inNT manuscripts to the inscription’s pistoi; lovgoi (with Llewelyn, p. 14).

Therefore, pistoi; lovgoi may not be as unusual or unexpected as Llewelyn thinksas a phrase quite reasonably describing prophetic speech that is judged, discerned, and

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appreciated. In the Christian context, inspired prophetic speech in the Jerusalem/Petrine tradition given by a prophet (Acts 15:32) or a prophetess (Acts 21:9) must havebeen appreciated to contain faithful words or else these individuals would not have beenso designated. Indeed, the narrative inclusion of material related to prophetic-type phe-nomena (Acts 20:23; 15:28–29) and to prophetic speech (Acts 18:9–10; 21:11b) suggeststhat an intrinsic conceptual discernment criterion applied to such material from a his-torical perspective was that it constituted pistoi; lovgoi. An interior function of the Spiritlike the Johannine chrisma (1 John 2:20, 27) would not have been perceived as teachingthe truth of all things had it not produced at least a component of faithful words. Paul’sexhortation to pray for the interpersonal gift of prophecy (1 Cor 12:31a; 14:1, 39a) wouldhave carried no weight if the result could not be appraised as containing faithful words.Could prophetic lovgoi a[pistoi serve to edify, comfort, instruct, or guide? Also, in theoverall cultural and literary background, another factor conducive to an educated citizenreadily using pistoi; lovgoi to describe the contents of an appreciated prophecy could bethe easily detectable fulfillment of prophecy theme found in well-known and studiedtexts, which suggests the efficacy and potential importance of prophetic speech inhuman affairs. Cf. G. E. Duckworth, Foreshadowing and Suspense in the Epics ofHomer, Apollonius, and Vergil (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1933); E. Henry,The Vigour of Prophecy: A Study of Virgil’s Aeneid (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Uni-versity Press, 1989); A. J. Haft, “ta; dh; nu'n pavnta telei'tai: Prophecy and Recollection inthe Assemblies of Iliad 2 and Odyssey 2,” Arethusa 25 (1992): 223–40; A. D. Botha,“Aspects of Prophecy in Virgil’s Aeneid,” Akroterion 37 (1992): 6–14.

The ascent of a soul at death is poetically expressed, “But Italy kept my body, andmy soul went up on high (yuch; d! aijqevra eijsanevbh)” (p. 19). As is normative for NewDocs, we are offered current bibliographical overviews of the subjects at hand. Helpfulin this regard is bibliography on the soul (p. 19), on patronage (pp. 16, 18), on benefac-tion (pp. 5, 6), on administration (p. 68), on God-fearers (p. 80), on Jewish marriage (pp.85, 98), on the Unknown Gospel (p. 101), and on Christian epitaphs (p. 105).

A 1.5-meter column between Smyrna and Ephesus, announcing that it was Caesar,father of his country who made the roads, illustrates the potentially bilingual nature ofcitizenry under Roman governance (p. 23). This announcement, a text first in Latin andthen repeated in Greek, a format common on milestones, official inscriptions, and onstones set up privately by both Greeks and Romans, again demonstrates the need tocommunicate in the two “official” languages. This common background is developed byR. A. Kearsley, Greeks and Romans in Imperial Asia: Mixed Language Inscriptions andLinguistic Evidence for Cultural Interaction until the end of AD III (Bonn: Habelt,2001), and, on the literary side, by M. Palmer Bonz, The Past as Legacy: Luke-Acts andAncient Epic (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).

In the Papyri category, those culled for their potential illustration of NT backdropturn up a third-century C.E. letter of personal petition concerning legal rights whichbears on understanding the actions of women in the parable of the reluctant judge(Luke 18:1–8) and to Felix’s tardiness in hearing Paul’s case (Acts 24:26). This letterbears the common feature of ending with “farewell” (e[rrwso, here, p. 34; e[rrwsqai, p.67; e[rrwsqe, Acts 15:29), cf. “The Sending of a Private Letter,” New Docs 7, pp. 26–47.

A third-century papyrus (221–205 B.C.E.) unsurprisingly flatters Ptolemy Philopa-


tor with praise associated with Egyptian divinities. Of interest is the phrase “living image(eijkw;n zwsa') of Zeus, son of the Sun, Ptolemaeus, living eternally (aijwnovbio"), loved byIsis” (p. 37). Llewelyn rightly notes how the metaphor employs the likeness of a statuteor the stamped resemblance on a coin, the participle (zwsa') applying the life of thedeity to the ruler. Perhaps flattery touting Philopator as the living image of Zeus mightimply his worthiness to be gazed upon, keeping in mind that Epictetus (1.6.24) criti-cized his students who thought they needed to go to Olympia to see Zeus in the form ofa statue. Also, given the established intercultural figurative language of “living” as ametaphor—here one recalls the well-known example in the petition of a devotee of theancient Near Eastern scribal god Nabu, who dispenses living water and living bread inresponse to prayer for the afterlife—it would be just a minor self-serving detour todescribe a mortal as the living image of the ranking member of the Egyptian pantheon.Llewelyn notes the synkrisis (p. 38) with NT usage, where it is not the image that is liv-ing, but God himself (Matt 26:63; Acts 14:15; 1 Thess 1:9), and where Christ, not men oftemporal importance, is eijkw;n tou' qeou' tou' ajoravtou (Col 1:15).

A highlight of New Docs 9 is Llewelyn’s revealing study of wedding invitations. Hetabulates the fourteen extant invitations to a wedding (pp. 62–66), showing the followingcommon format: invitation by host, occasion plus relationship of person marrying,where, and when. Identical to the Lukan parable about a dinner (Luke 14:16–24), theyall are best understood as presuming a previous knowledge of the event. L. Mitteis andU. Wilcken suggest that these invitations were produced in bulk and delivered in personby a messenger with a list of guests (Grundzüge und Chrestomathie der Papyruskunde[Leipzig: Teubner, 1912], 419). Given that most invitations name the time as tomorrowor today or from a certain hour, Llewelyn also concludes (p. 65) that the guests hadalready been informed (inferred by I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke [Exeter: Pater-noster, 1978], 587–88) and that the invitations themselves were designed to serve asreminders. In Luke 14:16–24, the host (ajnqrwpov" ti") sends a slave to call previouslyinvited guests (toi'" keklhmevnoi") to the meal at the appointed time (th' w{ra tou' deivp-nou). A custom of short notice invitations functioning as reminders does appear to bequite harmonious with three invitees in this parable begging off due to their own con-cerns. Such a known pattern of invitee behavior would strengthen the point of the para-ble that conformity to this self-serving and impolite deportment is taken very seriouslyby God who will in turn reject invitees focused on worldly concerns in favor of extendingan eternal welcome to those who will appreciate and respond to an invitation from theultimate inviter.

In the Judaica category, we are treated to “Jews, Proselytes and God-fearers ClubTogether” (pp. 73–80) based on the text of the Aphrodisias inscription (ca. 300 C.E.).Here God-fearers (qeosebei'"), three proselytes with biblical names, and diverse Jewsby birth join an association whose members are “lovers of learning” (tw'n filomaqw'n),befitting students of the Torah. Sympathetic Gentiles, rather than Jews of distinctivepiety, seem to best fit these God-fearers.

As to Ecclesiastica, New Docs 9 offers constructive comment on “The EarliestDated Reference to Sunday in the Papyri,” (pp. 106–18). P. Oxy. 3759 dates itself at2 October 325, Constantine issuing his edict to rest on the venerabili die solis four yearsearlier in 321 C.E. In this papyrus a judge (p. 108) refers not to dies solis or its Greek

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equivalent (hJlivou hJmevra), but to “of the coming sacred Lord’s day” (th'" ejpiouvsh" kuri-akh'" iJera'") and to “after the Lord’s day” (meta; th;n kuriakh;n). Constantine’s decreesuspended commerce and administration, but allowed seasonal agricultural work, thelatter industry attested by P. Oxy. 3407, which cites an apparently established hJ kuriakh'hJmevra to refer to Sunday. Of particular interest here is Llewelyn’s “The Use of Sundayfor Meetings of Believers in the New Testament,” NovT 43 (2001): 205–33.

Also in Ecclesiastica, a small fragment (P. Köln 255, here, p. 99) fits the text of thelarger fragments of the Unknown Gospel (P. Egerton 2) published by H. I. Bell andT. C. Skeat, Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and other early Christian Papyri (Lon-don: British Museum, 1935). P. Köln 255 allows a slight emendation to the textualreconstruction of Bell and Skeat. It contains the nomina sacrum IH, a suspended abbre-viation for !Ihsou'", found too in the larger fragments which contain other examples (onthe significance and purpose of these, see L. W. Hurtado, “The Origin of the NominaSacra,” JBL 117 [1998]: 655–73). Nomina sacra found in other biblical fragments dis-covered since 1935, together with P. Köln 255, may now suggest that the UnknownGospel should be dated ca. 200 C.E. See L. W. Hurtado, “P 52 (P. Rylands Gk. 457) andthe Nomina Sacra: Method and Probability,” TynB 54 (2003): 1–14, here 7 n. 20. In anycase, the text of the Unknown Gospel continues to imply that the writer knew Jesusmaterial that also found its way into the Fourth Gospel at a time when oral memory ofJesus tradition complemented and functioned alongside the circulation of manuscriptsby NT writers.

Lastly, mention may be made of a late-second-century inscription from Bithynia(pp. 102–5), which appears to attest to a constellation of early Christian ideas: “Neithergold nor silver but bones lie here awaiting the trumpet call (perimevnonta fwnhvn savl-pingo"). Do not disturb the work of God (mh; luvsi" e[rgon qeou') the begetter(genhthvro").” Fwnhvn savlpingo" echoes 1 Thess 4:16; mh; luvsi" e[rgon qeou' could echomh; . . . katavlue to; e[rgon tou' qeou' (Rom 14:20), or it may follow from ideas conveyed inthe widespread preaching about Jesus and the resurrection, which were probably nottoo dissimilar from what we can deduce from Paul on that subject. Cf. G. Delling, “DerTod Jesus in der Verkündigung des Paulus,” in Apophoreta: Festschrift Ernst Haenchen(ed. W. Eltester and F. H. Kettler; BZNW 30; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1964), 85–96.Genethvr applied to God is likely Christian speculation about the afterlife, consistentwith the expected physical reconstruction from mortality to future glory which familiar-ity with Jesus tradition would encourage.

In light of recent advances, I can only repeat the sentiment expressed in my reviewof volume 1 of this effort, namely, that investigations of early Christianity and of NTtexts would be enhanced by having the entire New Docs series at hand in order to appro-priately appraise the empirical backgound connections to be found therein. One mightcall attention as well to the many concise compendia of information that are nestledthroughout the series, like the role of women of means in early house-churches (p. 50).With New Docs 5 providing cumulative indices to previous volumes, New Docs 9 contin-ues the individual pattern with a complete set of indices to subjects, writers, texts, andprominent words.

Paul ElbertChurch of God Theological Seminary, Cleveland, TN 37311


Slavery in Early Christianity, by Jennifer A. Glancy. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 2002. Pp. xiv + 203. $39.95 (cloth).

Though she does not explicitly acknowledge the influence of feminist theory onher work, Jennifer A. Glancy’s Slavery in Early Christianity adopts an angle of visioncommon in feminist theoretical discourse. Throughout this book, Glancy’s methodolog-ical lens remains focused squarely on the material bodies of slaves in early Christianity—gendered bodies, natally alienated bodies, bodies constantly subject to violent abuse andsexual violation, bodies ranking on the lowest rung of the hierarchically ordered Romansocial world. In so doing, Glancy provides a much-needed corrective to scholarly litera-ture in a field that has preferred to contemplate slavery on an abstract plane as ametaphor for spiritual malaise (or spiritual salvation); has treated slavery as a benign andcommon means of “advancement” in Roman social circles; has adopted the morality ofslaveholders who decry the indolence and thievery of slaves; or has simply ignored theissue altogether.

The argument is organized in following way: ch. 1 attempts to ground the Stoic andPauline use of slave metaphors in the bodily facts of slavery on which such metaphorsdepend; ch. 2 focuses on slavery in the Pauline churches and the question of how a newidentity as a Christian would affect an urban slave; ch. 3 focuses on the liminal statesassociated with slavery, including manumission, self sale, and fugitive status; ch. 4 dis-cusses slavery in the sayings attributed to Jesus; and ch. 5 traces the intertwining ofecclesiastical development and slaveholding culture, focusing primarily on the biblicalhousehold codes and the Pastoral Epistles.

In these chapters, Glancy repeatedly confronts her readers with the bodily impli-cations of slavery in the ancient world. These bodies, if gendered female, were subject asa matter of course to sexual penetration and were used as breeders, milk producers, andsexual surrogates for modest wives. These bodies, if gendered male, were also subject tosexual abuse and daily incidental violence. Male slaves were denied the experience ofpaternity and of masculinity; “symbolically, no slave had a phallus” (p. 25).

Glancy startles and disturbs by holding up these brute facts of slavery, sometimesplucked from obscure sources, but most often gleaned from familiar texts that she readswith new emphases. There is the slave collar from the fourth or fifth century providedby one Christian archdeacon, Felix, for his human property that identifies the slave andexhorts its finder, “Hold me so that I do not flee.” There is the scene in the Acts ofAndrew in which the elite Maximilla, on her conversion to Christian ascetic practices,offers up her slave Euclia to take her place in her husband’s bed. Eventually this Euclia,who becomes “uppity,” is mutilated and cast out to become food for dogs. There is thereference in the denouement of the parable of the unmerciful slave in Matt 18 to theslave being handed over to the torturers (tois basanistais).

The prevailing arguments of NT scholars about the benign implications of Chris-tianity for slaves are repeatedly exposed by Glancy as begging the question of what theRoman slave institution entailed, especially given the cultural normalcy of corporal pun-ishment and sexual use. Did the exhortations in Colossians for masters to be “just andfair” to their slaves really translate into cessation of corporal punishment? While thePastoral Epistles do not explicitly encourage householders to use physical violenceagainst their slaves, how could a householder read the instruction to “manage the house-

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hold well,” in any other way? Paul writes in 1 Thess 4:4 that each male should “obtain hisown vessel.” If he did not mean by this exhortation that each householder should pro-cure a slave as a morally neutral sexual outlet, should he not have been more explicit onthis point? Would slaveholders have known, without repeated instruction to the con-trary, that shunning porneia required them to refrain from sexual use of slaves?

Her persistent focus on slaves as vulnerable bodies requires a rethinking of majorpresuppositions in both Pauline and Jesus studies. In the case of the Pauline churches,she poses the following conundrum: since slaves were sexual property, and Paul clearlycondemns porneia, “either the community excluded slaves whose sexual behavior couldnot conform to the norms mandated within the Christian body, or the community toler-ated the membership of some who did not confine their sexual activities to marriage.The first possibility challenges the assumption that slavery did not jeopardize the stand-ing of individuals in the Christian community; the second possibility suggests thatPauline communities viewed some sexual activities as morally neutral” (pp. 49–50). Herargument concerning the parables of Jesus also shakes foundational assumptions. Owingin large part to the foundational work of John Dominic Crossan on parables, we havecome to understand the parables, especially those that can be traced back to the histori-cal Jesus, as overturning orderly expectations, as critiquing the “horizon of normalcy” inthe first century. However, as Glancy rightly notes, such an understanding of the para-bles is possible only because we have not been conscious of the bodies of slaves in them.As Glancy turns our attention to this matter, we see the “normalcy” of slavery reinforcedin parables scattered throughout various redactional layers, perhaps most troublingly inthe Gospel of Matthew where large clusters of parables rely for their impact on the cor-poral punishment of slaves.

Glancy’s book is clear, forceful, and important; it belongs on the shelves of scholarsand in classrooms, both graduate and undergraduate. I am only troubled that Glancy’smethodological lens has not enabled her to reconstruct a history of slavery in earlyChristianity that could acknowledge a bit more slave agency, slave empowerment, andslave resistance. There are scholars who work more persistently than Glancy does toread ancient texts against the grain in order to reconstruct non-hegemonic voices withinand behind them. Glancy reads texts that have potential for such reconstructions—Ignatius’s exhortation to Polycarp restricting manumission, Pliny’s reference to femaleslave ministrae in his letter to Trajan concerning Christians in Bithynia, or the mid-fourth-century Council of Gangra’s condemnation of the practice of harboring fugitiveslaves—but she does not exploit them for such purposes. For example, even if onegrants her point that Pliny tortures the female slave Christian ministers “not becausemost Christians, or most Christian leaders, were slaves” but because as slaves “their bod-ies were liable to torture” (p. 131), one might still raise the further question of what sortof Christian assembly allowed for female slave ministers. No such question is raised inthis book. She does not make reference to scholarship that has stressed the pre-Paulineorigins of the liturgical formulas in Gal 3:28 or Phil 2, and which has attempted to wrestalternate emancipatory meanings from them (see, e.g., Cynthia Kittredge’s work on thePhilippian’s Christ hymn in her Community and Authority: The Rhetoric of Obediencein the Pauline Tradition [Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998]). In her sin-gle-minded focus on the parables of Jesus, Glancy virtually ignores scholarship onanother body of sayings in the Jesus tradition that does call into question kyriarchal


structures of domination, including slavery. She notes merely and briefly that while theMarkan exhortation to become “slave of all” is countercultural, Luke omits it in hisredaction, and that in the later church the image of leader as slave “seems to have beenmore pervasive at the rhetorical level than at the level of practice or power relations”(pp. 105–6). While Glancy is certainly right to read the book of Acts as reflecting slave-holder sensibilities, she does not ask further what counter discourse Luke’s ideologicallydriven apologetic history might be attempting to mask. She accepts as scholarly consen-sus Wayne Meeks’s understanding of the socioeconomic status of the “first urban Chris-tians,” though Meeks’s work relies heavily on the portrait of such Christians painted inthe book of Acts.

In short, Glancy informs us in her book that there are two stories that scholars ofearly Christianity like to tell about slavery: one of ascent and one of descent. In the“ascending story” Christianity is incompatible with slavery, but it takes centuries for thisunderstanding to transform social structures in accordance with this moral vision. In the“descending story” Christianity begins as a “golden age” of egalitarianism but thendescends into patriarchy (pp. 145–46). Glancy is right to say that these two stories arefrequently told. For debunking them, and for providing a much more complex andmorally troubling picture of the intersection of developing Christianity and the institu-tion of slavery, this book is to be commended. But Glancy is not cognizant of a thirdstory some scholars of early Christianity tell (I think here particularly of the theoreticalwritings of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza in the past two decades), in which this history isreconstructed neither as an “ascent” nor as “descent” but as a continual strugglebetween emancipatory, democratic tendencies and kyriarchal ones. If Glancy wereaware of this model of reconstruction, she might have been able to give a larger voice inher book to the historical persons she cares most about, the slaves themselves.

Shelly MatthewsFurman University, Greenville, SC 29613

From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early Christian World, byDennis E. Smith. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. Pp. xi + 411. $25.00 (paper).

By its sustained focus on a highly prominent feature of the cultural setting of theNT and early Christianity, this very informative study makes a substantial scholarly con-tribution. The book builds on a foundation of work that began with Smith’s Ph.D. disser-tation and has been continued in several essays published subsequently. Here, however,we have the benefits of further research and reflections.

Perhaps the fundamental point that Smith rightly emphasizes is the importance ofmeals as social and religious occasions throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods,among all groups and peoples that figure as part of the background of earliest Christian-ity. Scholars who work in the periods know this in general, of course, but the particularvalue of Smith’s book is the thoroughness with which he treats virtually all aspects of thematter. Moreover, Smith seeks to underscore the view that “meals took similar formsand shared similar meanings and interpretations across a broad range of the ancientworld” (p. 2). He contends that meals in a variety of settings and groups all “draw fromthe same common tradition, the tradition of the banquet” (p. 3). Furthermore, Smith

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insists that in all such settings and groups the common meals always had “an integrativefunction” in which “they combine the sacred and the secular into one ritual event” (p. 6).

But the real heuristic aim in Smith’s work is to urge a model for the developmentof eucharistic liturgies, in which he posits a variety of Christian common meals in theearliest (first-century) period among different Christian groups, all of these meals beingadaptations of the “common banquet tradition,” these various Christian communalmeals then merging into a comparatively more unified practice that became the morefamiliar Christian Eucharist. (For what it is worth, as someone who cut his scholarlyteeth on NT textual criticism, I cannot help seeing a certain similarity between Smith’smodel and Streeter’s famous model of “local texts” in his theory of the early textual his-tory of the NT.)

In his introduction, Smith sets out observations about the “social code” or func-tions of ancient banquets. The common meals of the first century confirmed and ritual-ized social boundaries (i.e., participation or nonparticipation was significant). Theycreated a bond among the participants, and sharing a common meal promoted “a senseof ethical obligation” to one another. Ancient banquets involved social distinctions/rank-ing, and they provided occasions for one’s social status to be “recognized and acknowl-edged,” especially in the custom of reclining (which signaled that one was a free citizen;women, children, and slaves were normally not permitted to recline but were requiredto sit or stand if they were present). Also, social rank was indicated by the way that placesat the banquet were arranged and assigned. Yet, in tandem (and tension) with express-ing social stratification, common meals also expressed a certain (limited) social equalityof participants. Banquets were to be occasions of “good cheer” or “pleasure,” one of thefrequent terms used to express the note of “festive joy” being euphrosyneµ). Finally, oneof the regular features of common meals was “entertainment,” particularly in the “sym-posium” part of the occasion that usually followed the consuming of the food.

In the next chapter, Smith first elaborates more specifically the features of the“Greco-Roman” banquet. For many, such as this reviewer, this chapter will be perhapsthe most informative and valuable in the book. Smith explores the origin of the customof reclining and provides very helpful artistic reconstructions of the physical arrange-ments of the typical Greek banquet. There is considerable valuable detail here aboutwhen the dinner was held (evening), written invitations (examples of which are extantfrom Hellenistic-period Egypt), how many participants were thought appropriate (usu-ally from three to about nine) and why, the layout of dining rooms, the typical order ofthe meal and the gestures and customs involved, the menu, the leadership and arrange-ment of guests, the nature of the symposium (drinking party) that usually followed theeating, various special occasions for meals (e.g., birthdays, weddings, funeral feasts), andvarying ways that social class was exhibited.

In the next several chapters, Smith discusses major types of occasions or groups inwhich a common meal featured, and he here pursues his argument that they all repre-sent appropriations/adaptations of the basic Greco-Roman banquet tradition. First, heportrays “the Philosophical Banquet,” in which the symposium was an important socialsetting to be given over to witty and stimulating conversation, and values of koino µnia,friendship, and pleasure (here more of an intellectual type) were promoted. Indeed, oneof the distinguishing features of the philosophical banquet and symposium urged bysome ancient writers was the substitution of flute-girls and related behavior with enter-


taining discussion. Because the philosophical symposium was a literary motif used byancient writers, Smith is able to draw upon this literature in his portrayal of matters.

The “Sacrificial Banquet” is Smith’s name for the common meal that often wasconnected with temple sacrifice. Indeed, Smith notes that in the ancient sources theterms “sacrifice” (thysia) and “feast” (heorteµ) are sometimes linked in such a way to sug-gest that they refer to two parts of a common religious phenomenon. Here again, Smithprovides helpful details about sacrifice in the Greco-Roman period, and he explores var-ious proposals as to what made the sacrificial meal “religious,” his own thesis being that“festive joy” was inherent in the sacrificial banquet and that this represents its “primary‘religious’ content” (p. 80).

The “Club Banquet” is Smith’s label for the common meals held by voluntary soci-eties (e.g., collegia) of the period. In this sort of setting, “pleasure” (heµdoneµ) and “festivejoy” could often have a very simple connotation and expression, with enjoyable food andplenty of wine the essential components. This chapter includes quite specific examplesof such groups (such as the burial “society of Diana and Antinous” and the association ofdevotees of Dionysus/Bakchos who called themselves Iobakchoi), with interesting infor-mation drawn from inscriptions and documents describing club rules and procedures.Indeed, at the end of this chapter there are excursuses giving the statutes of these twogroups.

Chapter 6 concerns the “Jewish banquet.” Here Smith examines the references to,and advice about behavior at, meals given in Ben Sira and references in rabbinic litera-ture to communal meals (among which the Passover meal is particularly important). Healso considers the communal meals of particular Jewish groups of the time: Pharisees,Haverim, Essenes (using the Qumran texts), and the Therapeutae. Smith also discussesthe “messianic banquet” motif, by which he designates any ancient Jewish use offood/meals as signifying “immortality and/or the joys of the end-time or afterlife”(p. 166). In Smith’s view, references to “messianic banquets” are “by and large literaryidealizations,” and he doubts “the existence of a messianic banquet as a real meal” actu-ally celebrated in Jewish groups of the first century (p. 171).

The remainder of the book (chs. 7–9) is devoted to discussion of early Christiancommunal meal practice, commencing with “the Banquet in the Churches of Paul” (ch.7). It was obviously Smith’s main motive for doing his research to cast light upon earlyChristian meals, and these chapters offer a goodly amount of reflections and proposalsworthy of further consideration. But I do have to say also that it is in these chapters thatSmith seems to me most liable to criticism and objection, and the impressive depth ofresearch on Greco-Roman meal practice provided in the previous chapters is not fullymatched by an equivalent depth of interaction with relevant issues and scholarship con-cerning the Christian texts in question. In the space of this review I shall restrict myselfto illustrative and more important matters on which criticism seems justified.

Sometimes Smith seems to oversimplify matters a bit, or perhaps to present themwith a too single-eyed appreciation for the relevance of the sort of cultural backgroundthat he emphasizes. For example, rightly stating that the communal meals of earliestChristian circles should be seen in the context of the meal practices and attendantmeanings that he describes so fully in preceding chapters, Smith then contends that theorigin of Christian meals “is not to be found in any one type or originating event butrather in the prevailing custom in the ancient world for groups to gather at table”

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(p. 174, emphasis added). But surely this is a non sequitur and a false dilemma. Ofcourse, in their first-century settings it is completely to be expected that Christian cir-cles would have meals together. And it is also right to say that their communal mealslikely reflect (in various ways) the influence of their cultural setting. But the reason thatthey had communal meals as followers of Jesus is not simply the broad ubiquity of groupmeals in Greco-Roman culture. The impetus and reason(s) for first-century Christiancircles to have their own communal meals lie more directly in the factors that were con-stitutive of these circles, such as proclamation of Jesus’ unique significance (in whateverterms and with whatever emphases) and of the divine favor extended through him to allwho were willing to accept it. So, it would be a more adequate characterization of earlyChristian communal meals to describe them as not only reflective of the “originatingevents” so heavily thematized in their beliefs and teaching but also shaped by communalmeal conventions of the Roman era.

In other cases, Smith’s exegesis of key NT passages is insufficiently informed, andso his conclusions are sometimes less secure than he assumes. His discussion of “theIncident at Antioch” in Gal 2:11–14 is an instance. He takes it as “clear that this incidentrefers to Jewish dietary laws” (p. 181, to be sure, along with a goodly number of otherscholars), but he shows no awareness of important discussions such as that of PeterTomson (Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles[CRINT 3/1; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990], esp. 222–58), whichcogently contend that the issue in Antioch was not food but the terms of admission toChristian table fellowship.

Likewise, Smith’s discussion of “charismatic/ecstatic” experiential phenomena(e.g., 205) could have benefited from major studies such as David Aune, Prophecy inEarly Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1983); and J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and CharismaticExperience of Jesus and the First Christians As Reflected in the New Testament(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975). As it is, Smith seems rather unsure of what to makeof references to such phenomena. Moreover, it does seem to stretch things a bit to assertthat the activities referred to in 1 Cor 14:26 represent an early Christian version of“table talk,” equivalent to the “entertainment” of the symposium (pp. 200–210). Smith’sview involves such a high level of generalization that almost anything would qualify, andit is not clear either that his claim actually adds anything to our understanding of theworship occasion(s) that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians. Smith has done a commendableservice in underscoring and elaborating the place of corporate dining in the first cen-tury, but here and in some other places as well he seems to try to account for too muchon the basis of a single explanatory factor. He will sometimes note that the NT phenom-ena/texts exhibit distinguishing features but then will seek to minimize the differencesand lump things together in such a way that the particularities of either the pagan orearly Christian practices are obscured (e.g., p. 255).

Repeatedly, in fact, Smith does not consider other relevant and cogent options.For example, for the phrase “unto my remembrance” (1 Cor 11:24; Luke 22:19) hepoints to “the memorial meal of the Epicureans,” whereas the expression is not used inthe funerary meals but is found in the LXX (e.g., Lev 24:7; Pss 37:1; 69:1; Wis 16:6) andin Jewish and Christian writers influenced by the biblical tradition (e.g., Josephus,Justin), and the idea of commemoration is a profound feature of the Passover meal tra-


dition with which Jesus’ death was associated very early (e.g., 1 Cor 5:7). There might beroom for debate, but not even to mention this seems to reflect either a blinkered visionor a peremptory approach to the question. As it is, his conclusions about meals in thePauline churches are not adequately based.

He adopts uncritically the sweeping view that in Q and the “early [Gospel of]Thomas” Jesus’ death is given “no particular theological meaning at all,” which, thoughtouted by some others, is no more convincing through repetition. He also cites approv-ingly Mack’s schema of a transition from “Jesus movements” to “Christ cult,” showing noawareness of the telling criticisms that have been lodged (on the basis of the chronologyof the evidence) and the very different views proposed in recent decades.

In sum, Smith is to be thanked heartily for this study, especially for the discussionof meal practices and conventions in the first six chapters. In his handling of the earlyChristian texts and phenomena, he is considerably less sure-footed and adequate, buthere he does sometimes offer some stimulating and heuristically useful suggestions.

Larry W. HurtadoSchool of Divinity, New College,

University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH1 2LX, Scotland

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I. Articles and Critical Notes

Aster, Shawn Zelig, “What Was Doeg the Edomite’s Title? Textual Emendation versus aComparative Approach to 1 Samuel 21:8,” 353

Bloch-Smith, Elizabeth, “Israelite Ethnicity in Iron I: Archaeology Preserves What IsRemembered and What Is Forgotten in Israel’s History,” 401

Bodner, Keith, “The Locutions of 1 Kings 22:28: A New Proposal,” 533Brown, Scott G., “On the Composition History of the Longer (“Secret”) Gospel of

Mark,” 89Carter, Warren, “Are There Imperial Texts in the Class? Intertextual Eagles and

Matthean Eschatology as ‘Lights Out’ Time for Imperial Rome (Matthew24:27–31),” 467

Chavel, Simeon, “Compositry and Creativity in 2 Samuel 21:1–14,” 23Claassens, L. Juliana M., “Biblical Theology as Dialogue: Continuing the Conversation

on Mikhail Bakhtin and Biblical Theology,” 127Collins, John J., “The Zeal of Phinehas: The Bible and the Legitimation of Violence,” 3Croy, N. Clayton, “‘To Die Is Gain’ (Philippians 1:19–26): Does Paul Contemplate Sui-

cide?” 517Daise, Michael A., “If Anyone Thirsts, Let That One Come to Me and Drink’: The Lit-

erary Texture of John 7:37b–38a,” 687Dozeman, Thomas B., “Geography and History in Herodotus and in Ezra-Nehemiah,”

449Eshel, Hanan, “6Q30, a Cursive Šîn, and Proverbs 11,” 544Foster, Paul, “Why Did Matthew Get the Shema Wrong? A Study of Matthew 22:37,”

309Geoghegan, Jeffrey C., “‘Until This Day’ and the Preexilic Redaction of the Deuterono-

mistic History,” 201Gray, Patrick, “Brotherly Love and the High Priest Christology of Hebrews,” 335Greenstein, Edward L., “The Language of Job and Its Poetic Function,” 651Jackson-McCabe, Matt, “The Messiah Jesus in the Mythic World of James,” 701Kirk, Alan, “‘Love Your Enemies,’ the Golden Rule, and Ancient Reciprocity (Luke

6:27–35),” 667Knoppers, Gary N., “Greek Historiography and the Chronicler’s History: A Reexamina-

tion,” 627Levin, Yigal, “Who Was the Chronicler’s Audience? A Hint from His Genealogies,” 229Martin, Troy W., “The Covenant of Circumcision (Genesis 17:9–14) and the Situational

Antitheses in Galatians 3:28,” 111Meier, John P., “Is There Halaka (the Noun) at Qumran?” 150

ANNUAL INDEXVolume 122 (2003)

797


Morschauser, Scott, “Potters’ Wheels and Pregnancies: A Note on Exod 1:16,” 731Poirier, John C., “Purity beyond the Temple in the Second Temple Era,” 247Schmitz, Philip C., “The Grammar of Resurrection in Isaiah 26:19a–c,” 145Stassen, Glen H., “The Fourteen Triads of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew

5:21–7:12),” 267Walton, John H., “The Imagery of the Substitute King Ritual in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant

Song,” 734Waters, Kenneth L., Sr., “Matthew 27:52–53 as Apocalyptic Apostrophe: Temporal-

Spatial Collapse in the Gospel of Matthew,” 489Wise, Michael O., “Dating the Teacher of Righteousness and the Floruit of His Move-

ment,” 53–87Yadin, Azzan, “lwq as Hypostasis in the Hebrew Bible,” 601Yoder, Christine Roy, “The Woman of Substance (lyjAtà): A Socioeconomic Reading

of Proverbs 31:10–31,” 427

II. Book ReviewsBecker, Michael, Wunder und Wundertäter im frührabbinischen Judentum: Studien

zum Phänomen und seiner Überlieferung im Horizont von Magie und Dämonis-mus (Graham H. Twelftree) 581

Bedford, Peter Ross, Temple Restoration in Early Achaemenid Judah (Bruce A. Power)366

Bultmann, Rudolf, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (Frederick Clifton Grant;Samuel Byrskog) 547

Collins, John J., and Gregory E. Sterling, eds., Hellenism in the Land of Israel (Lee I.Levine) 562

Cousland, J. R. C., The Crowds in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt Jackson-McCabe) 379Doudna, Gregory L., 4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition (Kenneth Atkinson) 373,

755Edgar, David Hutchinson, Has God Not Chosen the Poor? The Social Setting of the

Epistle of James (Matthias Konradt) 182Feldman, Louis H., Judean Antiquities 1–4: Volume 3, Flavius Josephus: Translation

and Commentary, ed. Steve Mason (Dennis Stoutenburg) 566Fletcher-Louis, Crispin H. T., All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the

Dead Sea Scrolls (Matthew Goff) 165Galpaz-Feller, Pnina, Yis\i<at mis\rayim: M´s\i<ut o dimyon [Exodus—Reality or Illusion]

(Pamela Barmash) 751Glancy, Jennifer A., Slavery in Early Christianity (Shelly Matthews) 779Glazov, Gregory Yuri, The Bridling of the Tongue and the Opening of the Mouth in Bib-

lical Prophecy (Michael S. Moore) 558Hartin, Patrick J., A Spirituality of Perfection: Faith in Action in the Letter of James

(Matthias Konradt) 182Hempel, Charlotte, Armin Lange, and Hermann Lichtenberger, The Wisdom Texts

from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought (Matthew Goff) 571Jackson-McCabe, Matt A., Logos and Law in the Letter of James: The Law of Nature,

the Law of Moses, and the Law of Freedom (Matthias Konradt) 182Jeska, Joachim, Die Geschichte Israels in der Sicht des Lukas: Apg 7,2b–53 und 13,17–25

Annual Index 799

im Kontext antik-jüdischer Summarien der Geschichte Israels (Kenneth D. Litwak)764

Johnson, Richard W., Going Outside the Camp: The Sociological Function of the Leviti-cal Critique in the Epistle to the Hebrews (C. Patrick Gray) 383

Kim, Seyoon, Paul and the New Perspective: Second Thoughts on the Origin of Paul’sGospel (Robert Keay) 179

Llewelyn, S. R., ed., New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 9: A Review ofGreek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1986-87: In Honour of Paul Barnett(Paul Elbert) 774

Marshall, John W., Parables of War: Reading John’s Jewish Apocalypse (Robert M. Roy-alty, Jr.) 585

Mason, Steve, Life of Josephus: Volume 9, Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commen-tary, ed. Steve Mason (Dennis Stoutenburg) 566

Murphy, Catherine M., Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community(Matthew Goff) 165

Nickelsburg, George W. E., 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch: Chapters1–36; 81–108 (Patrick Tiller) 574

Oldenhage, Tania, Parables for Our Time: Rereading New Testament Scholarship afterthe Holocaust (Luise Schottroff) 578

Perrin, Nicholas, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship between the Gospel of Thomasand the Diatessaron (Robert F. Shedinger) 383

Person, Raymond F., Jr., The Deuteronomic School: History, Social Setting, and Litera-ture (Samuel A. Meier)160

Rapp, Ursula, Mirjam: Eine feministisch-rhetorische Lektüre der Mirjamtexte in derhebräischen Bibel (Susanne Schulz) 363

Reimer, Andy M., Miracle and Magic: A Study in the Acts of the Apostles and the Life ofApollonius of Tyana (Kimberly B. Stratton) 767

Reinmuth, Titus, Der Bericht Nehemias: Zur literarischen Eigenart, traditions-geschichtlichen Prägung und innerbiblischen Rezeption des Ich-Berichts Nehe-mias (Armin Siedlecki) 370

Repschinski, Boris, The Controversy Stories in the Gospel of Matthew: Their Redaction,Form and Relevance for the Relationship between the Matthean Community andFormative Judaism (J. R. C. Cousland) 761

Richter, Sandra L., The Deuteronomistic History and the Name Theology: le ·šakkeµnše·mô šaµm in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Tryggve N. D. Mettinger) 753

Ross, Allen P., Introducing Biblical Hebrew (Jan A. Wagenaar) 157Salevao, Iutisone, Legitimation in the Letter to the Hebrews: The Construction and

Maintenance of a Symbolic Universe (C. Patrick Gray) 383Shedinger, Robert F., Tatian and the Jewish Scriptures: A Textual and Philological

Analysis of the Old Testament Citations in Tatian’s Diatessaron (William L.Petersen) 391

Sherwood, Yvonne, A Biblical Text and Its Afterlives: The Survival of Jonah in WesternCulture (Tod Linafelt) 560

Smith, Dennis E., From Symposium to Eucharist: The Banquet in the Early ChristianWorld (Larry W. Hurtado) 781

Sugirtharajah, R. S., The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolo-nial Encounters (Bonnie Roos) 745


———, Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Bonnie Roos) 745Tellbe, Mikael, Paul between Synagogue and State: Christians, Jews, and Civic Author-

ities in 1 Thessalonians, Romans, and Philippians (Richard S. Ascough) 772Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C., To Increase Learning for the Understanding Ones: Reading and

Reconstructing the Fragmentary Early Jewish Sapiential Text 4QInstruction(Matthew Goff) 165

van de Sandt, Huub, and David Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Placein Early Judaism and Christianity (Douglas Geyer) 589

Watts, James W., ed., Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of thePentateuch (R. Christopher Heard) 555

Wellhausen, Julius, The Pharisees and the Sadducees: An Examination of Internal Jew-ish History, translated by Mark E. Biddle (Dennis Stoutenburg) 376

Yeung, Maureen W., Faith in Jesus and Paul: A Comparison with Special Reference to“Faith that Can Remove Mountains” and “Your Faith Has Healed/Saved You”(Erik M. Heen) 175

III. Reviewers

Ascough, Richard S., 772Atkinson, Kenneth, 373, 755Barmash, Pamela, 751Byrskog, Samuel, 549Cousland, J. R. C., 761Elbert, Paul, 774Geyer, Douglas, 589Goff, Matthew, 165, 571Grant, Frederick Clifton, 547Gray, C. Patrick, 383Heard, R. Christopher, 555Heen, Erik M., 175Hurtado, Larry W., 781Jackson-McCabe, Matt, 379Keay, Robert, 179Konradt, Matthias, 182Levine, Lee I., 562Linafelt, Tod, 560

Litwak, Kenneth D., 764Matthews, Shelly, 779Meier, Samuel A., 160Mettinger, Tryggve N. D., 753Moore, Michael S., 558Petersen, William L., 391Power, Bruce A., 366Roos, Bonnie, 745Royalty, Robert M., Jr., 585Schottroff, Luise, 578Schulz, Susanne, 363Shedinger, Robert F., 387Siedlecki, Armin, 370Stoutenburg, Dennis, 376, 566Stratton, Kimberly B., 767Tiller, Patrick, 574Twelftree, Graham H., 581Wagenaar, Jan A., 157

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