Gaze, Honour and Shame in the Pericope Adulterae

Aberdeen University

Dissertation

Gaze, Honour and Shame in thePericope Adulterae

In partial fulfilment of the requirements of aMaster of Theology (Biblical Studies)

Author:Peter von Kaehne

Supervisor:Dr Jutta

Leonhardt-Balzer

January 29, 2016

Word count (main text excluding title page and bibliography): 20503

Gaze, Honour and Shame in thePericope Adulterae

Peter von Kaehne

January 29, 2016

S.D.G.

Contents

Table of Contents 5

1 Introduction 61.1 About this Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61.2 Relevance of the Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Methodology 102.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2.1.1 History of the Concepts Used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102.1.2 The Concept of Mediterranean Unity . . . . . . . . . . 122.1.3 The Honour and Shame Complex . . . . . . . . . . . . 122.1.4 Public and Private as Gendered Spaces . . . . . . . . . 142.1.5 The Concept of the Limited Availability of all Goods . 142.1.6 The Concepts of Kinship, Fictive Kinship, Patrons and

Clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152.1.7 John’s Antisociety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152.1.8 Criticism of Malina’s and Neyrey’s Models . . . . . . . 16

2.2 Building a New Model - Contribution by Ancient Jewish andMiddle-Eastern Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192.2.1 Choice of Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192.2.2 Notes on the Methodology of Talmud search . . . . . . 22

3 Results of the Analysis of External Texts 243.1 The 6th book of the Denkard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

3.1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

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3.1.2 Results: Honour and Shame, Women and Guilt in the6th Book of the Denkard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

3.2 The Babylonian Talmud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293.2.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293.2.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Social Contact between Men and Women . . . . . . . . 31Judging Adultery in the Talmud . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Feeling Shame in the Talmud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33Prohibition to Shame Someone . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35Challenging and Rebuking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Gaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Writing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

3.3 4Qinstruction, a Wisdom Text from Qumran . . . . . . . . . . 403.3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403.3.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

3.4 Ben Sira, Jesus ben Sirach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453.4.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453.4.2 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Friendship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Honour and Shame in Ben Sira . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Women in Ben Sira . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

3.5 Pulling it Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553.5.1 Honour and Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553.5.2 Rebuking versus Shaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573.5.3 Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583.5.4 The Model of Mediterranean Unity in the Light of the

Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

4 The Pericope 604.1 Textual and Literary Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

4.1.1 Source-Critical Background of the Pericope . . . . . . 60

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4.1.2 Cut and Re-Added or Added? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614.1.3 Literary and Other Arguments for and against Johan-

nine Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634.1.4 Historicity of the Passage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654.1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

4.2 The Pericope - the Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674.3 Court hearing, a Mob or Else? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694.4 Gaze of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714.5 The Pericope in its Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 714.6 Malina and Rohrbaugh’s Commentary on the Pericope . . . . 73

5 Applying the Corrected Model 75

6 Summary and Outlook 77

References 78

Bible Translations and Source Texts 86

Other Texts used in Preparation 88

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1 Introduction

1.1 About this Thesis

The pericope of the Adulterous Woman (Pericope Adulterae) in John 7:53-8:11is a text under doubt. Many modern Bibles treat it as suspect, the ESV (2001)marks the section with ”The earliest manuscripts do not include John 7:53-8:11”). Early Greek manuscripts do not contain the text, later manuscriptsfrom early on mark it in a special way, move it about or leave it out. WhileWestern Fathers seem to know it early on, Eastern Fathers remain apparentlyignorant of it until the 4th century.

Despite this it remains a text of huge significance for the church and for ordi-nary Christian believers. Unlike other possible additions to the Biblical textit has tenuously held its place and few if any modern translation committeeshave dared to leave it out completely. While individual scholars may well ad-vise against its use in theology or preaching, few or no modern denominationhas explicitly removed it from the canon. Within academia though there isless reticence. Many commentators, though, do not comment on it within theflow of the Gospel of John, but ignore the passage (Neyrey, 2009) or push itinto an appendix (Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998). Even stalwarts of feministtheology like Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza who programmatically have takenon most sidelined and ignored female figures in Gospel and OT have mostlyignored the passage. The bulk of current theological scholarly writing on thepassage appears to be more about its textual history than about its content.It is commonly ignored in the formulation of theology (Keith, 2008b: 377-8)

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The reason for this academic reticence is simple - apart from not being presentin early manuscripts, there are ample further reasons to render it suspect.Neither the language nor the content seem to fit easily into the gospel of John.In aspects the text seems to fit better to the synoptics - and yet none of thesehas any parallel. On the other side, there is good reason to consider the passageancient and quite possibly genuine.

In the following I want to discuss one particular approach which has becomepopular in recent years: analysis using anthropological models as a lens tolook at Biblical texts. The bulk of this work has been done by the researchersof the Context group around Bruce Malina and Jerome Neyrey, using andadapting to a large extent models coming from the background of the conceptsof ’Mediterranean unity’ and the closely related ”Honour/Shame” complex,both developed by the British anthropologists Pitt-Rivers and Peristiany inthe 1960s.

While a correct understanding of the pericope (and many others in the Bible)depends, in my view, heavily on the understanding of the importance of theHonour/Shame complex in the ancient world, it seems to me that honour andshame cannot be seen as the main or sole drivers of human behaviour amongJews at the time of Christ.

Insofar as the pericope is concerned, very little has been written taking thehonour/shame complex into account and what has been written appears hardlysatisfactory.1 The lack of current writing has certainly a lot to do with thetextual difficulties of the passage, but the poor quality of what has been writtenis to my mind the direct result of the limitations of Malina’s and Neyrey’sapproach. Far too many of the gospel encounters are made to appear by themas a rapid sequences of ’honour challenges’ and Jesus’ repostes. This oftendoes not do justice to the text and in particular it does not do justice to thispericope. Neither of the two seems to take really into account properly thatJewish religious culture has more drivers than just the honour/shame complex,

1for a comprehensive recently written overview on current research on the pericope see alsoKeith (2008b)

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specifically, firstly that the standing before God, so relevant to factions likePharisees, can not be simply grasped in the terms of honour and shame andsecondly that the honour/shame complex is often under direct attack by thescriptures. Further, neither of the two, nor their collaborators appear to havefully grasped Jesus counter-cultural approach in much of the gospels and inthis pericope in particular.

I believe that the supposed universality of the honour/shame complex withinMediterranean societies2 now and in Biblical times has blinded some of theContext group researchers towards the differences which may set ethnicities,socio-economic classes and religious communities apart from each other. Oneof the significant shortcomings from my point of view in Malina’s (and evenmore so Neyrey’s writing) appears to me the reliance in an extraordinary wayon Greek and Latin philosopher-authors, to the detriment of looking at Jewishand Eastern writings.

In the following I therefore want to have a closer look at the Pericope Adulteraeand see how it is read through the lens of Malina’s and Neyrey’s writing, andwhere the models of Malina and Neyrey need correction and emendation inorder to grasp more fully what happens in this pericope. In order to do thisI want to analyse the models brought by Malina and Neyrey and set theminto the context of Jewish writing of the period. My hope is to improve uponthe existing model or establish a new model which is more suited to gospelliterature (and in particular to this pericope). To my mind Malina’s andNeyrey’s models are by far too one-dimensional to do the pericope any justice.

The crucial aspect in this passage from my point of view is not only that thewoman was forgiven, but also that her honour was restored at least withinthe believers’ community. Malina and Neyrey do not even hint at this. Thereason for this appears to my mind the one-dimensionality of their model andthe systematic disregard of women implicit in their model

2though this in itself is severely challenged by contemporary anthropologists - see furtherdown

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1.2 Relevance of the Thesis

Quite apart from the relevance for the improved interpretation of the pericopeof concern for any believer or researcher of the Bible, concepts like the hon-our/shame complex play a huge role (and will continue to do so) for muchof today’s non-Western church. Even in the West, in churches of a migrantbackground, churches in areas with a significant gang problem or even just or-dinary teenage populations presentations of the gospel which ignore this anglewill likely not satisfy the pastoral and theological needs of these parts of thegospel audience.

Wiher (2003) and Oksnevad (2013) showed in their respective PhD theses howthese concepts play a role in rural East Africa ( Wiher) and among Iranianmigrants converting from Islam ( Oksnevad).

It is clear that for modern believers from audiences as listed above readingthe Bible in this light can offer new points of identification. Consider heree.g. (Ekblad, 2005)’s book on ministering among illegal migrants in the USA.Equally or even more relevant, though, is that a proper understanding of theconcepts of honour and shame in the Bible and their outworking will protectagainst eisegetical readings. It will avoid having modern understandings ofhonour and shame read into the text.

A separate but related matter is the treatment of the woman in the peri-cope. Any reading which ignores her, sidelines her or silences her continuesher accusers’ work. Malina and Rohrbaugh (1998: 292-293)’s disregard for thewoman is therefore quite disturbing and deserves to be highlighted, as it givessuccour to those who ignore, sideline and silence women in our current time.We live in a world where the stoning of women is not a thing of the past butvery much a current occurrence (BBC, 2014). In this pericope Jesus is seento restore the honour and protect the life of a dishonoured woman vis a visthe religious elite will provide comfort and direction. It is incumbent on anycommentator to work this restoration of honour out and not to ignore it. Mythesis will hopefully contribute to this task.

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2.1 Background

2.1.1 History of the Concepts Used

The use of insights of cultural anthropology and particularly of anthropologicalmodels in theological enquiry is not new.

In his now (originally written in 1979, several times updated) classic ”The NewTestament World Malina (2001) introduces his insights from cultural anthro-pology into theological enquiry. Over the years his endeavour has become ashared one by way of the ”Context group”, which defines itself by the followingmotto on their website:

The Context Group is a working group of international scholarscommitted to the use of the social sciences in biblical interpretation.(from the group’s website1)

At the core stands the idea that by defining anthropological models, testingand applying them, the biblical world and biblical texts will become easier tounderstand for the modern scholar. Many of these models have been derivedfrom secular anthropology.

For my enquiry the writings of two members of the group are of particularimportance, Malina himself and Jerome Neyrey.

1www.contextgroup.org

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Core concepts in Malina’s and Neyrey’s writings are the understanding of theMediterranean world being in essence a cultural continuum. The values ofhonour and shame govern much of human interaction in this part of the world.The shared experience of Mediterranean people is one of living in a world oflimited goods. The benefit of one will be to the detriment of someone else.This concept of all goods being available only in limited supply extends intothat of values, so the increased honour of one is the decrease in honour ofsomeone else. All men of honour are subsequently constantly participant incompetition with each other in order to gain more honour and/or protect theirhonour. (Neyrey, 1998: 17)

These concepts are not the creation of Malina and Neyrey, but both havetransferred them out of non-theological study into theology.

The idea of a Mediterranean unity of culture pre-dates both and stems fromthe begin of the 20th century. At the core of it is the idea popularised by theFrench historian Fernand Braudel that the Mediterranean sea as the defininggeographical feature, allowed and allows rapid access from anywhere to ev-erywhere bordering the sea. This in turn leads to a universality of culture,transcending religions and ethnicities (Gabriel Piterberg, 2015: Intro). TheBritish anthropologists Pitt-Rivers and Peristiany have build on this and theethnographic knowledge of the time their honour/shame model (Gilmore, 1987:2).

The principal result of this research has been the discovery of anumber of features typifying Mediterranean culture from Spain inthe west to Iraq in the east. This is not to say that there are notnumerous local differences, but rather that certain cultural pat-terns recur across the many nationalities, languages and religiousgroupings of the region. To a large extent, the variations whichoccur are variations on a theme. (Esler, 1994: 22)

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2.1.2 The Concept of Mediterranean Unity

If one turns to the New Testament with even a passing familiaritywith the findings of Mediterranean cultural anthropology, strikingsimilarities between the modern and first-century cultural patternsare immediately apparent. (Esler, 1994: 24)

Malina and Neyrey have used this idea of a universal Mediterranean culturethen, just as now to harvest extensively from the writings of those who wrotein order to inform their understanding of those who wrote less or not at alle.g. rural poor Palestinian Jews and early Christians. For example, relyingon this perception of a cultural unity and on the ubiquitous prevalence of thehonour/shame complex Neyrey (1994), comments on the Samaritan woman inJohn 4 quoting without any hesitation or seeming second thought Hierocles,Plutarch and Aristophanes, i.e. two Greeks and a Roman together with Philo,the Hellenized upper class Jew in order to illuminate the experience of a lowsocial class woman from a Samaritan village.

”It is safe to say that the cultural expectations regarding femalesremained constant throughout antiquity. Furthermore, what wasexpected of elite, urban females was likewise expected of non-elite,rural females insofar as space and wealth allowed.” (Neyrey, 1994:web)

2.1.3 The Honour and Shame Complex

Malina argues further that knowledge gained from contemporary Mediter-ranean people can be used to explain the past, quoting Francis Hsu in theprocess

”’the basic patterns of affect in each society is likely to persist insome cases, over thousands of years’. In the Mediterranean, honourand shame are the basic patterns of affect[..]” (Malina, 2001: 52)

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.

In line with the understanding of Peristiany, Malina describes the Mediter-ranean understanding of honour as a ”claim to worth, that is socially acknowl-edged”, based on ”authority”, ”gender status” and ”respect” (Malina, 2001:29), i.e. heavily tied up with sexuality, female sexual purity and gender segre-gation.

Honour in these circumstances is either ascribed or acquired. Ascription maybe the result of noble birth, of being kin with someone of high honour, ofcoming from an honourable place (Malina, 2001: 32-33). Typical exampleshere are the genealogies by which Matthew tries to link back Jesus to Davidand Abraham, but also the dismissals issued to Jesus regarding his home town- Nazareth in Galilee was not commonly perceived as a place from which muchgood would ever come (see e.g. John 7:52 - ”Search, and see that no prophetarises out of Galilee”).

Apart from ascription, honour can also be acquired as a result of honourablebehaviour - mostly shown in so-called ”challenge-response encounters”, result-ing in an enhanced reputation if won (Malina, 2001: 31-33).

As already mentioned the concept of honour and shame is heavily genderedin this model - and this gendering is according to the model typical and dis-tinct for the Mediterranean culture (Gilmore, 1987: 3). The role of womenis inside the house. Female honour is the possession of shame. It is centredon maintaining sexual purity and chastity, while male honour is at least for asignificant part focussed on providing protection to the sexual purity of theirwomen kin.

Many passages in both the Hebrew and the New Testamental scriptures areaccording to both Malina and Neyrey only fully understood if the importanceof honour and shame for the writers and their subjects are appreciated.

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2.1.4 Public and Private as Gendered Spaces

Space according to Neyrey (1994: web) and Malina (2001: 47) is gendered inancient Israel. The private area belongs to women, the public to men. A manentering a private space where he does not belong acts (sexually) aggressively,a woman entering a public space endangers her honour, unless she is protected.Private areas are not by necessity restricted to being inside a house or courtyard- wells are private too, in the sense that women would not expect men to bethere at a time when women go to collect water (Neyrey, 1994: web).

2.1.5 The Concept of the Limited Availability of all Goods

A further important aspect of the honour/shame system is the understandingthat ancient Mediterranean people would perceive all goods as of only limitedavailability. In parts this is an expression of the natural circumstances of anarea where water and other goods limit what can be achieved materially. But,crucially non-material goods like honour were also seen as of limited availability( Malina, 2001: 33, Neyrey, 1998: 17. This has the result that any increase inhonour of one person will reduce the honour of someone else.

”There is only so much to go round, or at least that is what peoplelearn to perceive” (Malina, 2001: 33)

As a result of this understanding of honour as a good with limited availabilityancient Mediterranean men were in Malina’s and Neyrey’s understanding moreor less constantly and daily subject to numerous honour challenges both byfriend and by foe (Neyrey, 1998: 19-21). Both describe Mediterranean societiesas ”agonistic” (Neyrey, 1998: 20). Basically every interaction in public has ahonour challenge aspect - from a simple invitation to a glass of wine by a friendto the murder of a kin by an outsiderNeyrey, 1998: 20-21).

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2.1.6 The Concepts of Kinship, Fictive Kinship, Patrons andClients

Another aspect of the Honour/Shame model is the concept of kinship. Neyreydescribes the society of NT times as ”face-to-face”, collectivist and its membersas group-oriented 2 instead of being individualists (Neyrey, 1998: 27). Thegroup-oriented person puts the group’s interests above those of themselves.Neyrey supports this by quotes both from Josephus and Plutarch (Neyrey,1998: 27). In turn, the group bestows honour upon its members for beingcompliant with the group’s code of conduct and supportive of the group’sadvantage (Neyrey, 1998: 28).

The natural collective every person belongs to is the family, wider clan andvillage/tribe, but other, more voluntary kinship-like associations exist too -guilds, associations like the Pharisees and patron/client relationships (Neyrey,1998: 28).

Patron/client relationships come about when someone needs a favour fromsomeone more powerful, who in turn considers it useful to maintain depen-dants, while guilds form from (usually) social equals e.g. traders with similareconomic interests (Neyrey, 1998: 28, Malina, 2001: 214-217)

All such voluntary kinship arrangements are collectively called by Neyrey andMalina ’fictive kinships’ (Malina, 2001: 214).

2.1.7 John’s Antisociety

Malina and Rohrbaugh (1998) introduce the terms ’antisociety’ and ’antilan-guage’ used originally in anthropological studies of gang culture (Malina andRohrbaugh, 1998: 7-9). Antisociety describes a group’s attempt to define andredefine the rules by which their society is governed contrary to what main-stream society considers right.

2see also Malina (2001: 60-68) for more on that

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John’s antisociety is comprised of people exiled from mainstream, marginalisedto the point of being ”depersonalised”(Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998: 10), butnow undergoing a re-socialisation while following Jesus (Malina and Rohrbaugh,1998: 13). Part of this re-socialisation is a new perception of reality, accompa-nied by a new use of language (Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998: 11). This newlanguage (John’s ’antilanguage’) is according to Malina unique to the Gospel ofJohn and not shared by the Synoptics, Paul or certainly not the wider Jewishworld(Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998: 13).

John is indeed different from the other Gospels. Our sociolinguisticconsiderations point up precisely why this is the case. John writesfor persons actually living in an alternate society embedded in alarger society - the society of ”this world” and of ”Judeans” (Malinaand Rohrbaugh, 1998: 15).

2.1.8 Criticism of Malina’s and Neyrey’s Models

Anthropological models are by their very nature averaging out and abstractinghuman experience. Their intended accuracy does not lie in the prediction ofthe actions of the individual but in the understanding of the collective.

As applied to the Biblical text, the purpose of anthropological models is toprovide heuristic tools, i.e. tools to create new questions. It is not the modelswhich will provide answers, but the texts - as interrogated by the models (Esler,1994: 23). This means of course that all models need to be under constantscrutiny to create the best possible fit.

Insofar as the concept of Mediterranean unity and the honour/shame complexare concerned, much of this has been challenged in the last decades - more sothough from within anthropology proper than from within theological anthro-pology: Relating to the misgivings Edvard Said expresses in his book ”Orien-talism” (Said, 1978)3 against an othering of Middle Eastern people by Western

3consider here e.g. Said’s quote: ”In a sense the limitations of Orientalism are, as I

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authors. Herzfeld and others challenged Mediterraneism as being similarly ofpolitically suspect parentage (Schwartz, 2012: 23). Beyond such general andpoliticly motivated criticism, the utility of a broad sweep impression for theunderstanding of specific problems has been highlighted by others accordingto (Schwartz, 2012: 23), who nevertheless remains very critical of the concept.

The sluggishness of theological anthropology to follow developments in anthro-pology proper has been noted. Schwartz (2012: 23) writes:

Unsurprisingly [..] at the moment of its decline as an ethnographichypothesis, Mediterraneism was embraced in its crudest and mostdeterministic form by scholars of the Hebrew Bible and the NewTestament

Reading the Bible in this light does make it appear sometimes as a long chainof honour challenges in the most vulgar way (Schwartz, 2012: 23).

Schwartz though continues to accept the ideas underlying the concept ofMediterranean unity as useful tools for a job - to fill blanks, to create questions- but not as a grand theory. In that sense it matters to him little whether an-thropologists may have abandoned the theory - as long as it still produces forhim in his inquiries ”fuel for structural comparison” (Schwartz, 2012: 25)

Quite a different criticism of the entire concept has been brought by Giovaninni(1987: 64) who highlights the lack of awareness of social class in much of thewriting on Mediterranean unity. That this concern might be well-founded issuggested when Neyrey (1994: web) simply asserts

”Furthermore, what was expected of elite, urban females was like-wise expected of non-elite, rural females insofar as space and wealthallowed.

Neyrey does not give any qualification nor any evidence either. Values trickledown the social pyramid and are applied insofar as ”space and wealth al-

said earlier, the limitations that follow upon disregarding, essentialising, denuding thehumanity of another culture, people or geographical region” (Said, 1978: 108). Much ofthis could be said about the concept of Mediterranean Unity as well

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low”(Neyrey, 1994: web). And yet, might not class differences also result invalue differences? Kohn (1959) certainly found this in his investigation onparenting values in different social classes in a modern Western society. Canone simply assume that in ancient societies values trickled down and wereimplemented as resources allowed?

Malina and Neyrey do acknowledge differences between the Greek/Roman andJewish culture of the time (e.g. Malina and Rohrbaugh (1998: 21)), but inpractice their and their collaborators’ reliance upon Greek understanding ofthe Shame and Honour complex appears near absolute. This is evidenced by

• the gross imbalance in use of sources: Malina’s ”The New TestamentWorld”’s index of non-biblical ancient sources references thirty-five Ro-man and Greek sources, seven early Christian sources (mostly Latin, i.e.Western) , but only twelve Jewish sources - and no sources from the East,i.e. Persian or Aramaic, despite the obvious and well documented influ-ence the exile and subsequent times had on NT period Jewish cultureand religion. Other works by the authors are similarly imbalanced.

• Very little place is devoted to the investigation of how non-biblical Jewishauthors saw these concepts nor has any energy been expended to considereven just the practicalities of honour and shame in Jewish culture.

• Where Jewish texts are used (deuterocanonical writings mostly) the read-ings are cursory and used to proof text, instead of providing analysis andbalance (see e.g. the treatment of Ben Sira in Malina (2001: 122, 153)).

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2.2 Building a New Model - Contribution byAncient Jewish and Middle-Eastern Literature

2.2.1 Choice of Texts

What is done and what ought to be done are often not the same thing. An-thropology (irrespective of whether anthropology of ancient or modern people)is concerned with former more than with latter. And yet, what people perceiveas right, good and wise to do, i.e. what ought to be done, reflects up to a pointthe reality of daily life - in our aspirations we show who or what we are.

Therefore I think that ancient wisdom texts might provide a valuable insightinto ancient reality, at least insofar as these ancient texts might show whatideals people pursued, even if they failed achieving them - particularly whensuch texts have gained wide currency and can therefore safely be assumed tobe accepted as valuable by the ancients.

This is in effect what Malina and Neyrey did when they used authors likeAristotle and Philo to support their theses.

With this in mind I want to see what ancient wisdom texts of Jewish or Easternbackground can be used to provide balance to Malina and Neyrey’s approach.

There is a fairly large number of texts from a Jewish background availablewhich could be used to inform this thesis. In order to select texts which willhave a significant enough impact, I have chosen texts fulfilling the followingpractical and conceptual criteria (in no particular order of preference):

• Texts need to be translated into English or another language I can readfluently enough.

• Texts of significant length need to be available in electronic format toallow searching(This criterion really applies only on the Babylonian Tal-mud given its enormous size. All other texts have a readable length)

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• Texts need to have a broad enough social base to be relevant to thequestion

• Texts need to offer a perspective on the pericope from at least one angle.

• There needs to be enough accessible scholarship and enough clarity re-garding their meaning and background to provide reliable input intowhat I want to demonstrate (or falsify)

With these criteria in mind I have chosen to concentrate on 4QInstruction andBen Sira, the Babylonian Talmud and the 6th book of the Denkard, a PersianZoroastrian work. All four fulfil the criteria above.

Other texts I considered, but rejected include the Jerusalem Talmud (lack ofsuitable electronic texts), the Book of Wisdom and 4 Macabees (both offeringno discernible added benefit over the combination of Ben Sira and 4QInstruc-tion, also as being heavily Hellenistic in orientation and therefore unlikely tooffer balance to the gentile and Jewish Hellenistic and writers Neyrey and Ma-lina already used). I also rejected the ”Counsels of Adarbad Mahraspandan”,a Zoroastrian text purporting to be from the 3rd-4th century AD, but po-tentially even older in content, mostly as I could not gain clarity regardingits genuineness. I would have liked to gain access to Judeo-Persian Andarzliterature, but not much of it is translated into English and what is translatedappears to be medieval in origin rather than ancient. My hope is that this willchange in future.4

4QInstruction and Ben Sira are both interesting in their social location beingessentially complementary to each other. 4Qinstruction is largely addressedat the rural poor (more about this below) while Ben Sira is the product of awriter of the upper classes writing for the upper classes (again, more about thisbelow). Both books give a good pre-NT perspective of what was considered”good”, or ”honourable behaviour” for their time and intended audiences. Ben

4A large selection of Judeo-Persian literature is collected and examined in the JewishTheological Seminary in New York. A major digitisation project is currently in full swingand will hopefully result in more accessible work in the future (http://www.jtsa.edu/TheLibrary/Polonsky Digitization Project.xml)

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2 Methodology

Sira, being part of the Septuagint was well known at the time of Jesus, while4Qinstruction has significant evidence in its favour as being also well knownat the time.

The choice of the Babylonian Talmud over its Palestinian equivalent was madelargely for two reasons - the easy availability of the former over the latter ina quality English translation (Soncino) and the existence of electronic sourcesallowing easy automatised searches. This choice was made easier by the factthat the Mishnah and the Amoraic parts of the Bavli are of same or similar ageas those of the Jerusalem Talmud (leaving aside the below further describedStammatic redaction of the Amoraic parts(Rubenstein, 2005: 5))

The choice of the Talmud over any other early post NT period Jewish writingswas based on the wide perspective the Talmud offers. Its dialectical natureensures that numerous possible viewpoints are covered and documented. Thetriple nature of it (Mishnah Amoraic and Stammaitic layer of the Gemara)may also show a development of thought as time progresses.

The main reason not to choose the Zoroastrian Denkard (Ēmētān, 1907) (tr.”The Deeds of Religion”) should have been its late age. It was compiled onlyin the 9th century by the Zoroastrian priest Aturpāt Ēmētān (Nigosian, 1993:68). As a Zoroastrian work it is therefore late, very late. Much earlier writing,though, has not survived. Further, its encyclopaedic collection, compilationand assertion of well settled Zoroastrian beliefs, history and ethical ideas en-sures its ongoing relevance. Its sixth book assembles many other much oldersources, in particular the Avestan ”Bariš nask” (Gignoux, 1994/2011). To-gether with other writings from the same time the Denkard is considered a”natural continuation of the Avesta” (Nigosian, 1993: 11) . The 6th book inparticular addresses matters of custom and personal conduct from a PersianZoroastrian perspective and is based on much older material (Malandra, 1998:411). Its form is that of an andarz, a Persian form of wisdom literature, ofloosely connected aphorisms, proverbs and other didactic assertions (Shaked,1985/2011). In this lies a significant reason I chose it over others: As a workof wisdom literature it is very similar to Ben Sira and 4QInstruction in style

21

2 Methodology

and content. While there are a few possible alternatives to the Denkard (e.g.the Dadestan-e deniq, another 9th century andarz), or even what is left of theAvesta itself5, the 6th book of the Denkard’s easy going simplicity and lackof denseness make it a likely candidate for being just the kind of Zoroastrianthinking a Jew might have been aware of and interested in: Other writings of-ten have a more specialist Zoroastrian angle, are tightly linked to Zoroastrianrituals or more esoteric Zoroastrian beliefs and are often simply very difficultto understand - then and now.6 The 6th book of the Denkard is a long col-lection of proverbs. Since it is thought to be derived from much earlier lostbooks (Malandra, 1998: 411) it may serve as a good example of the casual cul-tural influences Jews would have been exposed to while staying in the Iraniansphere.7. In general the influence of Persian culture, thinking and environmenton Jewish thought remains under-explored but is known and well recognisedfor its importance (Herman, 2005: 284). Even while direct literary referencesbetween Zoroastrian and Jewish literature remain scarce (Herman, 2005: 285)it is well accepted that there are significant mutual cultural influences whichhave led to shared value judgements (Secunda, 2009: 115).

2.2.2 Notes on the Methodology of Talmud search

Since it is impossible to even remotely grasp the richness of the Talmud withinthe confines of this thesis, I have taken the approach to look for materialrelevant to the task by using indexes of the Talmud (mostly by looking througha web-based Talmudic index (WebSchas) and used general machine assisted fulltext searches. I further followed pointers up as supplied by various authoritieswithin and without my other source texts. The Talmud versions I used were

5Large amounts of the Avesta, the core Zoroastrian scripture are lost, among with muchother writing - both the Alexandrian conquest and the wars and destruction caused bythe Islamic conquest have resulted in significant loss of manuscripts (Nigosian, 1993: 48)

6The difficulties even only to translate some of the older scriptures are immense and welldocumented (Nigosian, 1993: 11)

7See also e.g. Secunda (2009) for more on the influence of the Iranian environment onTalmudic thinking

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2 Methodology

the English translation by Soncino and the German translation by Mayer (163)(both of the Bavli, the latter is only a selection).

The items I looked for were initially matters relating to ’gaze’ and ’shame’.Further items suggested themselves by following links within the text.

The dialectic and the often diametrically opposed opinions expressed may wellallow the careless reader to obtain pretty much anything they want from theTalmud, by finding apparent proof texts. This is made more dangerous as par-ticularly in the Stammaitic parts of the Gemara of the Bavli often even ratherspurious objections are made, documented simply to ensure and demonstratethat all angles of a particular matter are thoroughly illuminated (Rubenstein,2005: 3). Sometimes proofs are taken to their very end where only they arefinally rejected (Kraemer, 1996: 41). The real conclusions are then only foundby stepping through all these dialectic processes to the end rather than bysimply picking out individual statements. I have endeavoured to follow suchdialectic routinely through to the end and hope that I have not stumbled into(too many) traps prepared by the Bavli’s compilers.

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3 Results of the Analysis ofExternal Texts

3.1 The 6th book of the Denkard

3.1.1 Background

The Denkard, a Persian Zoroastrian document as a whole is the combinationof work of Ādurfarnbag-ī Farroxzādān, his son Zardušt and finally, both au-thor and redactor Ādurbād-ī Ēmēdān. The last one is commonly named asthe main author, in part for his own contribution but more so as he recon-structed the total work after its partial destruction following the violent deathsof Ādurfarnbag and Zardušt. The full extent of his authorship is not thereforenot entirely known (Tafazzoli, 1983/2011).

The sixth book of the Denkard is a collection of 266 short paragraphs, eachone between one and a few sentences long. It is written in Pahlavi Persianand was translated in 1907 into English by Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana(Ēmētān, 1907)

In the following I will rely on Sanjana’s translation. Reflecting the fact thatthe book is a compilation of older material (Gignoux, 1994/2011) there is afair bit of repetition in it.

Conventionally it is subdivided into five structural parts (A-E) recognisableby formulaic introductions, though Sanjana’s translation does not mark these

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3 Results of the Analysis of External Texts

up in any form.

Shaked has further found six thematic subdivisions ( Gignoux, 1994/2011,Ēmētān and Shaked, 1979: XXII). The first thematic division addresses per-sonal piety, the second creation myths and wisdom, the third practical matters,the fourth human qualities, the fifth is anecdotal and the sixth is a collectionof a variety of matters (Gignoux, 1994/2011).

The intended audience of the book is the aristocratic and intellectual elite ofIran (Ēmētān and Shaked, 1979: XVII). Much of the content is thereforedevoted to righteous government and the appropriate personal conduct of theleader(see e.g $142).

The form of the book’s content - a collection of short wisdom quotes - is calledandarz - short statements with considerable practical applicability. Some, ac-cording to Gershevitch et al. (1968: 53)] see in the book aspects of Aristotelianphilosophy, something Gershevitch himself denies as being not supported byany evidence. Its wisdom (Pahlavi - xrad) is one of ”observation and reflection”(Gershevitch et al., 1968: 51).

While there is some form of overarching thematic connection within each part

”the unit is the sentence, and there is usually no attempt at conti-nuity” (Gershevitch et al., 1968: 51)

This form has found wide use in Middle Persian literature (Shaked, 1985/2011)and continued to be of interest until far into the Islamic time of Iran.

As explained above, the book is compiled rather than newly authored andreflects significantly older material, likely from lost parts of the Avesta, andtherefore reaches back far beyond NT times.

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3.1.2 Results: Honour and Shame, Women and Guilt in the6th Book of the Denkard

The Denkard VI mentions honour and shame either directly or indirectly sev-eral times. Honour is obtained by leading an actively virtuous life, shame itsdirect opposite:

They held even this thus namely, Shame is that in which they donot cease performing sin; Honor is that in which they do not ceaseperforming virtue. (Ēmētān, 1907: $7)

Honour is closely related to honesty and sincerity: ”The faculty of honorembodies truthfulness and sincere love.” (Ēmētān, 1907: $115:8)

False honour is a bad thing: ”[one should ] not [to] honor the sinner whothrough sin is opposed to creation (Ēmētān, 1907: $13)” and ”[..] not tohonor the sinner because of his sin. And one is, despite his power and wealthnot to exalt a person of false creed. (Ēmētān, 1907: $14:1-2).

A good man should, though, not desire to obtain honour from people but fromheaven:

(3) And one is to wish for the reward of meritorious acts from theheavenly beings (or, spiritually) and not from the worldly beings(or, in the affairs of the world). (Ēmētān, 1907: $14:3)

This of course subverts any agonistic struggles as there is no need to obtainhonour in a outwardly visible fashion and indeed it is deprecated to do so.

Correct motives are as important as correct deeds:

They held even this thus: namely, if one performs (apparently)meritorious acts for these four things, those cannot (really) be mer-itorious acts (viz.), an evil name, or an immoral name, or shame ,or the fear of someone else. (Ēmētān, 1907: $54:1)

while a sense of shame, together with fear of punishment is a good corrective

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and protective:

He who (is) gâsânig, [has] for the sin which he commits, [..] a senseof shame and (is in) latent anxiety of the (future) punishment. [..](Ēmētān, 1907: $206:2)

The recognition that good deeds are born out of a struggle is always there:

They held even this thus: namely, there is never a person bornin whom these six spiritual things do not struggle – good mindand bad mind, virtuous moral sense and passion, and honor andscorn . (Ēmētān, 1907: $77)

Finally, all honour is ultimately linked to the right religion:

They held even this thus: namely, for every person there is anobject which is more honorable and dearer to him than anythingelse; and when he regards that thing as his co-helper, and whenthere lies nothing else in the midst, only then is one full of gladnesstherefrom. That thing is Religion. (Ēmētān, 1907: $33:1-2)

and

They considered this, too, thus; namely, (there are) several thingswhich (are) best for men. And these are as follows: An abundanceof hospitality, an abundance of honor , a sufficiency of discrimina-tion, and a longing for the recompense of good deeds from the goodspirits, and a profession of discipleship (in the Religion). Because,out of those virtues this one object is the best, viz., to profess dis-cipleship, since it is possible to recognize all the five (virtues afore-said) in the practice of the discipleship (of the Prophet). (Ēmētān,1907: $110:1-3)

This sense of honour though, while having very different expressions for theman and for the woman, is not tied in any particularly strong sense to sexuality,contrary to what Malina et al describe for the Mediterranean Unity model.

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Guilt is according to the Denkard resolved by recognition and repentance:

They held even this thus namely, through expiation, there remainsno passage to hell. And through non-expiation, there remains nopassage to heaven. Expiation is that wherein one is in contritionwith repentance for a sin committed, and does not commit that sinagain. (Ēmētān, 1907: 30:1-3)

With regard to specific guilt - while adultery should be avoided for the sake ofthe peace of the land and while it is sinful, it is not ”inexplicable” (Ēmētān,1907: $72). While there is a definitive female responsibility for house andhousehold ( Ēmētān, 1907: $93:1, Ēmētān, 1907: $127:4-6) the separation ofgenders is far from complete. Encounters are possible, and even if they areamorous do not impinge by necessity on either side’s honour - what actuallyhappens is relevant (i.e. intercourse or not). Here not outward appearance,but the ’voice of the conscience’ (aivâj râi rûbân) is of relevance (Ēmētān,1907: $153:4-5).

Female honour is summarised by

They considered this, too, thus: namely, a woman who possessesthese several marks of distinction is a lady : (namely, she is) anornament to (her) husband, an embellishment of hospitality (orfestivities), and herself a protection to home-life, and (who) man-ifestly keeps unsullied herself and her own person and judgement.(Ēmētān, 1907: $93:1)

There are specific counsels against arrogance and pride.

As explained above, the Denkard’s intended audience is the intellectual elite.While a simple lifestyle is strongly encouraged (Ēmētān, 1907: $141:2), to-gether with generosity (Ēmētān, 1907: $142:1), there is no indication that thevalues described in the Denkard are meant to ”trickle down” to lower socialclasses. They are upper class values and are meant for rulers and aristocrats.In summary, what can be concluded from the text is the following.

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• The Denkard describes a system of honour (and much less so shame)which while gender bound appears less tied to sexuality than the Mediter-ranean system Malina et al describe.

• While there are different gender roles, genders do not seem to be strictlyseparated.

• Unlike the Mediterranean system there is no agonistic motivation formen described.

• Appearance, while relevant, is less important than keeping a good con-science.

• Social class plays a role for which values are adopted or seen as necessaryto adopt.

3.2 The Babylonian Talmud

3.2.1 Background

The Talmud is a collection of discussions of early Jewish sages, organisedin thirty-seven tracts (Neusner, 1999: 185), each often with several chaptersand/or many sections. Each section is divided into Mishnah and Gemara1, theformer being a comment upon the commandments and latter being furtherdiscussion by the sages. Separate to these sections are fixed numbered divi-sions representing earlier folios. These divisions are usually used for citationand orientation, even though they do not represent content borders. In thefollowing I will use both page numbers in my Soncino edition and Tract/folionumber together for the referencing of quotes.

These discussions are often highly controversial and follow a closely argueddialectic. At the same time the style of recording them is entirely uniform

1and occasionally a small number of very old contributions called the Tosefta[(Neusner,1999: 188)]

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(Soncino: 185). The overall volume is vast (the Soncino Talmud edition hasmore than 9000 pages).

The Mishnah was originally collected in the 2nd century under the leadership ofthe nasi of Palestine, the Roman Jewish authority at the time. The traditionalJewish view is that the Mishnah is a codification of the Oral Law given to Moses(Neusner, 1999: 124).

There are two versions of the Talmud - the Babylonian (Bavli) and the JerusalemTalmud. The latter is older (finished 400 AD (Neusner, 1999: 152)) than theformer (end of 6th century (Neusner, 1999: 152))

There is some lack of overlap between the two - the Bavli e.g. does not covervarious land-related laws only relevant to those who live in Palestine. In generalthe Bavli is considered as more authoritative (Neusner, 1999: 152).

The Bavli’s Gemara in turn has two more or less equally sized layers: Anearlier layer, the Amoraim, which appears to be overall fairly congruent withthe Jerusalem Talmud’s Gemara and a later part, the Stammaitic part, whichreflects mostly later, entirely Babylonian discussions (Rubenstein, 2005: 4).While it is not always possible to distinguish with complete confidence thetwo layers, at the core of it is the distinction whether the speakers are named(Amoraim) or remain anonymous (Stammaim)(Rubenstein, 2005: 4). Whilethe Jerusalem Talmud has also a Stammaitic layer it is much less significant(only about one tenth versus half of the Bavli’s Gemara)(Rubenstein, 2005: 4)

The differences between the Amoraic part of the Bavli and the JerusalemTalmud are subtle, but significant: Rubenstein points out a likely Stammaiticlayer of editing on the otherwise similar Amoraic layer (Rubenstein, 2005: 6)

To place the knowledge gained from the Talmud in terms of social background- the simplest is probably to see the Talmudic Rabbines as ideological andsociological successors of the NT’s Pharisees (). Pharisees in turn are describedby (Malina and Rohrbaugh, 2003: 391) as a ’fictive kinship group’, with ashared ideological outlook, mostly according to (Finkelstein, 1938: 61,81) ofplebeian middle-class background with some patrician influence and in terms

30


of the passage studied - the Talmud may well represent the best source ofinsight into the thinking of Jesus’ opponents, if not into the thinking of thegeneral public.

3.2.2 Results

Social Contact between Men and Women

The Talmudists considered there to be clear rules both for men and women tomaintain enough of a distance to avoid temptation. These rules cover specifi-cally speaking with a woman and looking at her:

The Gemara in Nedarim 20a states:

and do not converse much with women, as this will ultimately leadyou to unchastity. R. Aha of the school of R. Josiah said: He whogazes at a woman eventually comes to sin, and he who looks evenat a woman’s heel will beget degenerate children. (Soncino: 4060)

The same theme is pursued in the Gemara of Berachot 24a where the gaze ateven just the small finger of a woman is prohibited as it is equally bad as tolook at her genitals (Soncino: 90).

Eruvin 18b discusses whether a man may walk behind a woman or a marriedwoman and the consensus is not. Walking behind a woman could and wouldlead to sinful thoughts. (Soncino: 1037)

A man should not talk too much with a woman. The Gemara in Yomah 47bexplains that

R. Jose the Galilean was once on a journey when he met Beruriah.‘By what road’, he asked her, ‘do we go to Lydda?’ — ‘FoolishGalilean’, she replied: ‘did not the Sages say this: Engage notin much talk with women? You should have asked: By which toLydda?’ (Soncino: 1202)

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Interestingly the woman takes here an active step in chiding the rabbi and re-bukes him pointing out how he should have applied the law onto the situation.

Covering her hair is right for a woman according to the Gemara of Yoma 47a

The Sages said unto her: What hast thou done to merit such[glory]? She said: Throughout the days of my life the beams ofmy house have not seen the plaits of my hair. (Soncino: 1979)

So, gazing at and talking too much with a woman were considered dangerousactivities - not by necessity sinful per se, but potentially leading to sin - in theBavli - and protection from being looked at is a good thing.

Quite apart from protection of one’s own heart against sinful acts, it is equallyimportant not to act in a fashion which subjects one to (wrong) suspicion:

Sotah 4b discusses at length the time of seclusion of a man with a woman nothis wife which is sufficient to justify the suspicion that intercourse has takenplace:

And how long is the duration in the matter of seclusion? Sufficientfor misconduct, i.e., sufficient for coition, i.e., sufficient for sexualcontact, i.e., sufficient for a person to walk round a date-palm. Suchis the view of R. Ishmael; R. Eliezer says: Sufficient for preparinga cup of wine; 1 R. Joshua says: Sufficient to drink it; Ben Azzaisays: Sufficient to roast an egg; R. Akiba says: Sufficient to swallowit; R. Judah b. Bathyra says: Sufficient to swallow three eggs oneafter the other; R. Eleazar b. Jeremiah says: Sufficient for a weaverto knot a thread; Hanin b. Phineas says: Sufficient for a womanto extend her hand to her mouth to remove a chip of wood [frombetween the teeth]; Pelemo says: Sufficient for her to extend herhand to a basket and take a loaf therefrom (Soncino: 4374)

One passage in Berachot 3b discusses why one should avoid entering ruins -even for prayer.

The Gemara of Berachot 3a states

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Our Rabbis taught: there are three reasons why one must not gointo a ruin: because of suspicion,16 of falling debris and of demons(Soncino: 4)

. Ruins are an area of physical and supernatural danger, but also create therisk of being suspected of having sought an illicit encounter.

Judging Adultery in the Talmud

Sotah, a tract of the Talmud considering the treatment of women accusedof adultery states they should undergo a ceremony in the temple where theywere forced to drink bitter water. The ceremony has a significant number ofstages, but towards the end when it is clear that she has indeed committedadultery the Mishnah states that the woman should be exposed to the looksof everyone. The Bavli’s Gemara in Sotah considers this further and explainshow the convicted woman is eventually made ugly and is exposed to the looksof everyone in order to shame her and in order to prevent others from actingsimilarly:

But, said Raba, [the meaning is:] WHOEVER WISHES TO LOOKUPON HER COMES TO LOOK, it makes no difference whetherthey be men or women; but women are obliged to look upon her,as it is said: ’That all women may be taught not to do after yourlewdness.’ Soncino: 4389

Feeling Shame in the Talmud

Similarly to Ben Sira, the Talmud distinguishes between a shame which leadsto the avoidance of sin and a shame which destroys:

In Nedarim 20a following a Mishnaic discussion of vows and how one shoulddeal with the inevitable breaking of them is a Gemara which discusses theimpact shame has on the avoidance of sin:

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It was taught: [And Moses said unto the people, fear not: for Godis come to prove you,] that his fear may be before your faces: 21By this is meant shamefacedness; that ye sin not — this teachesthat shamefacedness leads to fear of sin: hence it was said that itis a good sign if a man is shamefaced. Others say: No man whoexperiences shame will easily sin; and he who is not shamefaced— it is certain that his ancestors were not present at Mount Sinai.(Soncino: 4060)

And so a feeling of shame will also assist in obtaining forgiveness according toBerachot 12b:

Raba b. Hinena the elder further said in the name of Rab: If onecommits a sin and is ashamed of it, all his sins are forgiven him,as it says, That thou mayest remember and be confounded, andnever open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame; when Ihave forgiven thee all that thou hast done, saith the Lord God.(Soncino: 45)

On the other hand an absence of a feeling of shame can be disastrous - at leastone of the reasons brought in Shabbath 119b for the destruction of Jerusalemwas absence of shame for one’s sins:

Ulla said: Jerusalem was destroyed only because they [its inhabi-tants] were not ashamed of each other, for it is written, Were theyashamed when they committed abomination? nay, they were notat all ashamed [... therefore they shall fall] (Soncino: 818).

The Gemara in Megilla 25b expands upon a Mishnaic list of passages (mostlydescribing bad deeds by heroes of the faith) in the Bible which should not beused in public service. In this list, while some passages are indeed not read,the Talmudists answer objections to a large number of ”shameful” passagesand insist they must be read as they help the listeners to either avoid sin orconfess and gain forgiveness:

The story of Lot and his two daughters is both read and trans-

34


lated. Certainly! — You might think that [we should forbear]out of respect for Abraham. Therefore we are told [that this isno objection]. The story of Tamar and Judah is both read andtranslated. Certainly! — We might think that [we should forbear]out of respect for Judah. Therefore we are told [that this is noobjection]; [the passage] really redounds to his credit, because [itrecords that] he confessed. The first account of the making of theCalf is both read and translated. Certainly! — You might thinkthat [we should forbear] out of respect for Israel. Therefore we aretold [that this is no objection]; on the contrary, it is agreeable tothem, because it was followed by atonement (Soncino: 2762-3)

Prohibition to Shame Someone

But, while embarrassment and a sense of shame may be a force for good, itcan also harmful.

The Mishnah of Bava Metzi 58b states that harm done with words is as badhas harm done in monetary terms

JUST AS THERE IS OVERREACHING IN BUYING AND SELL-ING, SO IS THERE WRONG DONE BY WORDS. [THUS:] ONEMUST NOT ASK ANOTHER, ‘WHAT IS THE PRICE OF THISARTICLE?’ IF HE HAS NO INTENTION OF BUYING. IF AMAN WAS A REPENTANT [SINNER], ONE MUST NOT SAYTO HIM, ‘REMEMBER YOUR FORMER DEEDS.’ IF HE WASA SON OF PROSELYTES ONE MUST NOT TAUNT HIM, ‘RE-MEMBER THE DEEDS OF YOUR ANCESTORS,’ BECAUSEIT IS WRITTEN, THOU SHALT NEITHER WRONG A STRANGER,NOR OPPRESS HIM (Soncino: 5738)

.

It is important here of course to note that the Mishnah is the eldest part of

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the text and more or less equivalent to the NT age-wise.

In the subsequent Gemara the evil of harming others with words and specif-ically embarrassing them is made clear in ever increasingly drastic terms - astatement associated with Rabbi Nahman ben Isaac compares embarrassingsomeone else with murder, based on the change in countenance of the embar-rassed person when turning pale (Soncino: 5379), while Rabbi Dimi expandsupon this by stating that those who create nicknames, along with those whocommit adultery and those who embarrass someone will not be able to everascend from Gehenna, i.e. will not be part of those resurrected from the dead.(Soncino: 5379). Rabbi Johanan then furthers this by stating that living with awoman in adultery might actually be preferable to shaming someone (Soncino:5380)

This combination of three key sins within a wider discussion of shaming some-one - adultery, embarrassment and nicknaming - may of course be read assuggesting that adultery with a married woman is also a form of shamingsomeone - i.e. the husband of the woman.

One of the reasons it is so important not to shame someone is given in Sotah8b:

A person would rather experience physical pain than shame” (Son-cino: 4388)

Incidentally, despite this injunction not to shame someone there is at least oneincident (K’rithoth 8a) recorded in the Talmud where one Rabbi calls anotherone by a derisive nickname (Soncino: 9013).

Based on a Mishnaic instruction regarding food delivery to houses of mourning(Soncino: 2897) - without any mention of shame - the Gemara expands that inorder to prevent embarrassment for the poor a lot of practices around burialsshould be regulated (Mo’et Katan 27b)

• Food items should be delivered to houses of morning in plain packingboth to rich and to poor people to avoid shaming the poor (Soncino:

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2898)

• rich people should use cheap glasses for offering drinks to the visitorsduring mourning (Soncino: 2898)

• biers should be made of cheap material (Soncino: 2898)

• Rabbi Gamaliel ordered for himself cheap burial shrouds to set an exam-ple.

Not just poor people should be protected from embarrassment, but everyoneelse too - rules were created in the same Gemara for the protection of peoplesuffering from intestinal problems, women in menstruation and women withvaginal discharge: What had been done customarily for deaths from these cat-egories was expanded to everyone so that it became impossible to distinguishbetween those dead suffering from the above afflictions and others without.This in turn would protect those alive suffering from such conditions to beworried and ashamed that their affliction might be revealed in death.

In another place (Taanit 31a)the rules around the dancing at a festival aredescribed where all girls’ clothes are treated as if they were menstruating andwhere every girl will borrow and lend each other nice clothes, so that no onecan be embarrassed because they do not have any such clothes worthy for adance (Soncino: 2641)

That protecting another from embarrassment is even more important thanpreventing one’s own death is stated in Baba Metzia 59a

R. Johanan said on the authority of R. Simeon b. Yohai: Betterhad a man throw himself into a fiery furnace than publicly put hisneighbour to shame. Whence do we know it? — From Tamar. Forit is written, when she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law (Soncino: 5740)

and this is echoed in Sotah 10b (Soncino: 4397).

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The significance of the impact shaming can have is given in an account inGittin 55b-56a where a public insult to a powerful man, Bar Katza, is blamedfor the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple.

In summary, what becomes obvious is the huge importance the Talmud givesto the dangers of shaming someone and the lengths one should go to in orderto avoid that. The Talmud’s perception of the sinfulness of deliberately tryingto shame someone can hardly be exaggerated - given that in it all three formsof sin leading to an eternal stay in Gehenna are all varieties on the theme ofshaming someone else, while the worldly impact of a shaming is shown in thecatastrophic consequences of an insult at a party - leading all the way to thedestruction of Israel.

Rubenstein (2005) points out that there is a steady increase in sensitivitythrough the three layers from the early Mishnah across the Amoraic Gemarato the Stammaitic layer. This is demonstrated in at least one of the examplesquoted above (Bava Metzi 58b) where the Mishnah compares and sets as equalundefined harm done with words with financial harm - but the subsequentGemara increasingly downplays the latter, while concentrating in its definitionof harm done with words solely onto public shaming.

This temporal shift in sensitivity is of course of relevance as it may haveindicated that the general sensitivity towards shaming took on ever increasingsignificance, though it is without doubt that even the earliest layers do takedeliberate shaming very seriously.

Challenging and Rebuking

Despite the strong emphasis on not shaming someone there is e.g. in BavaMetzia 31a an equally strong emphasis on rebuking someone who has actedwrongly. One should rebuke their neighbour as often as is necessary (Soncino:5641). Being younger or less experienced should not be seen as reason eithernot to rebuke when it is required (Soncino: 5641).

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The failure to rebuke each other can have disastrous consequences - it is blamedfor the destruction of Israel in the Gemara of Shabbath 119b (Soncino: 819)and leaves according to the Gemara of Sukkah 19b the person who could haverebuked subject to punishment (Soncino: 2201)

Even though rebuking is a necessity, this should not happen in the face ofdanger to one’s life according to the Gemara of Nedarim 22a (Soncino: 4064),where a murderer asked a witnessing Rabbi for his opinion on his deed andwas praised by him. The Rabbi’s colleagues reassured him afterwards that thispraise was not sinful, as it had saved his life.

Gaze

Gaze and stare are powerful and dangerous. I have already above how thegaze at women should be avoided. In the Gemara in Baba Bathra 57b inthe midst of a longer discussion on the duties and rights of owners of sharedcourtyards is stated that one can not forbid the daughters of the neighbourssharing the courtyard to wash clothes there, as this may be the only way thegirls can protect themselves from male gaze. At the same time men are advisedto avoid such courtyards as it is disrespectful to look at girls washing clothes(Soncino: 6091).

But even the gaze at one’s very own good looks in a mirroring surface can leadto sinful thoughts according to the Gemara of Nedarim 9b (Soncino: 4037).Similarly the gaze at one’s own genitals can lead to a loss of virility accordingto the Gemara in Sanhedrin 92a (Soncino: 6870).

In the Gemara of Megila 28a an ancient Rabbi is asked why he had lived solong. His answer is

Never in my life have I gazed at the countenance of a wicked man;for so R. Johanan said: It is forbidden to a man to gaze at the formof the countenance of a wicked man [..] (Soncino: 2772)

Lengthy and frequent sections are devoted to the power of the evil eye. though

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this is a subject beyond the scope of this thesis.

Finally to gaze at the rainbow or at other manifestations of the Lord is a signof disrespect (Soncino: 4934,5829).

Writing

There are lengthy prescriptions regarding writing on a Sabbath. Most writingwas considered work and hence forbidden (see Sabbath 103a-104b), but theMishnah in Sabbath 104b states also:

IF ONE WRITES WITH A FLUID, WITH FRUIT JUICE, WITHROAD DUST, OR WITH WRITER’S POWDER, OR Wlth ANY-THING THAT CANNOT ENDURE, HE IS NOT CULPABLE(Soncino: 76)

3.3 4Qinstruction, a Wisdom Text from Qumran

3.3.1 Background

Within the library of the Qumran sect a number of texts have been foundwhich fall within the category of wisdom texts.

Of particular interest in this matter may be 4QInstruction, a highly frag-mented (Macaskill, 2006: 72) text from pre-NT times, directed at a (likelynot sectarian (Macaskill, 2006: 73)) (García Martínez, 2006: 175) audience ofbelievers, mostly composed of the rural poor (Goff, 2013). It is more or less acontemporary and in some ways a complementary text to Ben Sira who waswriting for an upper class audience (see below).

In terms of its content it has a strong apocalyptic leaning (García Martínez,2006: 175) and combines these apocalyptic elements with its wisdom content.García Martínez (2006) There has been previously considerable uncertainty

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regarding the exact role of the apocalyptic versus the ”ordinary” in 4QIn-struction’ wisdom, but as García Martínez concludes

I think we may conclude that if Sirach represents “secular” Jewishwisdom, the wisdom of 4QInstruction is in every way closer to the“revealed” wisdom of a full-blown apocalypse, as in 4 Ezra. In anycase, I regard 4QInstruction as the representative of a new anddifferent sort of Jewish wisdom, a wisdom whose authority is notgrounded on human knowledge but on divine revelation. GarcíaMartínez (2006: 186)

The (unknown) author of 4QInstruction wants to educate the mebin, ’Un-derstanding one’ (Macaskill, 2006: 85) i.e. a student striving for knowledgeand (occasionally) the mebin’s wife. The mebin, possibly a follower of thesect strives to live a holy life within his economically precarious situation -always on the brink of debt, sometimes in debt slavery. Irrespective of thesevicissitudes of life he was to strive for knowledge.

4QInstruction’s internal organisation is essentially unknown as it is a largecollection of fragments, the order of which is not completely understood andlikely, considering the state of fragmentation will not ever be fully understoodGarcía Martínez (2006: 180). Goff thinks that is this is of minor relevanceas other wisdom texts (e.g. Proverbs) do not follow any particularly clearstructure either, nor does this text seem to require it (Goff, 2013: 7-8). Others,like García Martínez (2006: 181) try to pin down at least some fragmentswithin the order of it.

4QInstruction’s importance for us comes from its relevance for much of theworld of thought occupied by authors of the New Testament. Given the numberof manuscripts within Qumran (seven or eight (Carr, 2005: 222)) it must havebeen a hugely popular and important text for the sect - but the text is notconsidered to be sectarian in nature, as already mentioned above.

Comparison with various texts from the New Testament show that the texteither might have been known to the NT’s authors or at least expresses similar

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thinking:

In comparison with Paul’s Letter to the Colossians Cavin (2013) found:

Cumulatively, 4QInstruction exhibits a pattern of ideas that illu-minate the Colossian author’s epistolary strategy, anthropology ofthe elect, realized eschatology, placement of the “mystery” at thecore of the elect’s existence, and study of that “mystery” as themeans to live rightly. (Cavin, 2013: 184)

Similarly, Goff argues that 4QInstruction’s treatment of ’Flesh’ and ’Spirit’are largely equivalent to Paul’s use of the same terms. Stating that

Frey has suggested that the flesh-spirit dichotomy in Paul is prof-itably read against the background of the Palestinian wisdom tra-dition, as attested by 4QInstruction. (Goff, 2009: 122)

he moves on to explain that

[i]n both Paul and 4QInstruction an individual can act either fleshlyor spiritually. The similarity between this text and 1 Corinthians3 regarding the distinction both compositions make between spir-itual and fleshly types of people can be plausibly understood asa consequence of influence from the Jewish sapiential tradition inthis section of 1 Corinthians. (Goff, 2009: 122)

Rey in turn shows ample similarities between Ephesians and 4QInstruction intheir respective approach to family relationships (Rey, 2008: 231).

At the same time he points out the differences both have in relation to con-temporary and preceding Hellenistic authors - the world of thought of theNew Testament era Jewish and Jewish Christian writers is not by necessitycongruent with Greek thinking - even if both inhabit the same time and space:

However, despite the obvious similarities, scholars also agree thatthere are fundamental differences between the New Testament fam-ily codes and texts originating in the Hellenistic tradition.

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In turn Ashton (2011: 58) demonstrates significant similarities between theGospel of John’s teaching on the ’coming Kingdom of God’ and 4QInstruction’steaching of the ’mystery that is to be’.

There is also good textual evidence that it might have been known to Matthew(Macaskill, 2006).

The Sermon on the Mount is echoed in 4Q417 2i+26 11-12

Has he not [ established for the contrite of spirit ] and for thosewho mourn eternal joy? (Goff, 2013: 185)

So, all in all, the plentiful similarities and parallels suggest that 4QInstruction’sauthor and the New Testament authors are part of the same world of ideasand thoughts, a world which is at least in parts emphatically different to thatof contemporary Hellenistic authors.

There is also growing evidence that 4QInstruction formed part of the educationof pre-Hasmonaean Jewish priests (Carr, 2005). It remains unclear whetherthis also applies to priests of the NT period.

3.3.2 Results

While the text is has a significant eschatological aspect (e.g. Macaskill (2006:73-77)), the values taught in the more didactic aspects are in essence traditionaland often echo very practical themes from the Proverbs - matters of financialconduct, marriage and others.

4QInstruction appears to have a relatively high view of women - despite quiteexplicitly subordinating the wife to her husband (Goff, 2013: 32). The authordoes instruct women directly and leaves no doubt that women are among theelect and with the same hope as men. (Goff, 2013: 33)

4Q415 2ii - addressed directly at the wife of the mebin, describes as the honourof a married woman her behaviour inside the family of her husband. She shouldrespect her father-in-law and guard her marital relationship closely (Goff, 2013:

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31). The wife is discouraged from seeking a divorce (Goff, 2013: 39) and shouldnot blame or praise her husband for his economic success (or lack of it), butacknowledge God’s doing in this (4Q423 4) (Goff, 2013: 34).

Importantly, the demand for the submission of the wife to her husband is not areason to assume a general submission of all women to all men. It is a specificdemand. According to 4Q416 2 men are admonished not to seek authority overany women other than their own wives. (Macaskill, 2006: 108). This is in twoways significant - firstly in its own right as a clear command to men to treatwomen with respect as equals outside of their own marriage and secondly as itquite clearly requires there to be social contact between men and women notmarried to each other. Otherwise the demand would not make much sense.

Men at the same time are charged with treating the important women in theirlives with respect - the mother, together with the father should be honouredas if they were gods (Goff, 2013: 33), while marriage with one’s wife shouldbe approached ”in poverty” (i 4Q416 2 iii 20), ”suggesting that the man is toapproach this endeavour with humility and dignity” (Goff, 2013: 34).

Leaving the subject of male/female relationships 4QInstruction’s has also a lotto say about the subjects of judgement and forgiveness:

4Q417 2 i 2–7 advises the rebuker to be aware of their own need for forgiveness- Macaskill, 2006: 103-4, while 4Q417 2i 12-16 have this to say:

Utt[er] your judgements like a righteous ruler. Do not ta[ke … ] Anddo not overlook your [trans]gressions. Be like a humble man whenyou dispute a case … take. And then God will appear, turn away hiswrath and forgive your sins, [beca]use before [his] wr[ath vacat ] noone can stand. Who will be righteous in his judgement? Withoutforgiveness [h]ow [can any] poor man [be righteous ?] (Goff, 2013:185)

Honour and shame are explicit themes in 4QInstruction.

The mebin is meant to honour his parents, as is the mebin’s wife to honour

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husband and father-in-law (see above).

The mebin’s honour comes from God, who lets him according to 4Q416 2 IIIparticipate in his own glory (which he receives as an ’inheritance’):

With righteousness you will walk because God will make his cou[nten ]ance shine upon all your ways. To the one who glorifies you,give honor. Praise his name always, for from poverty he has liftedyour head and with the nobles he has set you. Over an inheritanceof glory he has given you dominion. (Goff, 2013: 93)

This is echoed again in 4Q418 126 ii + 122 ii where God gives his glory to hiselect (Goff, 2013: 274).

The two occasions 4QInstruction mentions ’shame’ refer to the shame of beingin financial debt and unable to pay back and in attempting more than is inone’s (economical) strength, on both occasions in the form of a warning, notto fall into such traps (both in 4Q416 2 I-II Goff (2013: 59-60).

Nowhere is there spoken of honour obtained by facing down human opponents- the agonistic view of honour and shame described by Malina and Neyreynor is honour or shame ever brought into connection with sexuality or theprotection of female virtue.

3.4 Ben Sira, Jesus ben Sirach

3.4.1 Background

The book of Ben Sira is considered canonical in Christian denominations whichuse the Greek Septuagint or Vulgate as the basis for their canon, i.e. RomanCatholic and Orthodox churches (Veltri, 2005: 190). Most Protestant de-nominations and Jews have discarded it as not canonical (Veltri, 2005: 190).Subsequently it is not anymore commonly found in Protestant Bible texts.(deSilva, 2002) Within Jewish circles the book seems to have been considered

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scripture but then experienced a gradual downgrading . In essence the bookwas ”decanonised” (Veltri, 2005: 204).

The book has been both alluded to and quoted from extensively in both earlyChristian and Jewish (Veltri, 2005: 204) literature. The letter of James possi-bly refers to it (James 1:19 → Ben Sira 5:13) . The Babylonian Talmud bothquotes2 and discusses3 it, as do numerous other witnesses.

While there has been in earlier years some debate regarding the overall au-thorship of the book (Horne and Davidson, 1856: 1031), there is today nooverwhelming good reason not to accept the claims of the prologue for thebulk of the text 4 . The discovery of large parts of the original Hebrew texthas laid to rest most of the doubts Davidson raised. The following is thereforebased on the assumption that the claims of the Greek prologue are authenticand accurate.

Its author Joshua ben Sira / Jesus Sirach was a Jewish sage from the 2ndcentury BC. He names himself within the book (Sir 50:29, 51:1). He workedas a scribe in Jerusalem and ran a house of instruction for sons of the Israeliteupper classes (deSilva, 2002: 157). He is described in the Greek version aswell-travelled (Sir 34:12) and experienced in the wisdom both of the Jewishscriptures and of gentile philosophers (deSilva, 2002: 158, Schwartz, 2012: 57).

He authored the book in Hebrew sometime in the years between 195-172BC(deSilva, 2002: 158). According to the Greek prologue the book was translatedby his grandson in the late 2nd century , after the year 132BC (deSilva, 2002:158) into Greek and eventually incorporated into the Septuagint (Veltri, 2005:195). This translation is far from literal, in fact the translator readily admitsthat he has not done a very faithful translation, but collected and united, in

2Not all citations of Ben Sira are clearly identifiable as being quotes from the book, butsome are very clearly so, e.g. Yevamoth 63b → Sir 26:3

3Sanhedrin 100b discusses the utility and permissibility of reading Ben Sira4The ongoing argument regarding the closure of the book is covered well in Goff (2007a:

249)

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order to present to a new audience the words of his grandfather (deSilva, 2002:157). The transmission of the Greek text has led to two text families with adifference of about 300 verses (deSilva, 2002: 157). With regard to the Hebrewtext Veltri (2005: 222) writes:

In effect, the Hebrew text of Ben Sira, which probably was atthe disposal of Jewish and Christian scholars at least until thefourth century, as Jerome confirmed, ceased to be transmitted andis extant only in fragments.

Nevertheless, the original Hebrew text has survived in parts and has now beento a large extent recovered and reconstructed (deSilva, 2002: 157). Most ofthe Hebrew fragments recovered stem either from the Geniza (Toy and Lévi,1906) or from Masada (TSGRU, Corrado Marione, 2013: 81). The fact thatthe Geniza fragments are from the 12th century, confirms that Ben Sira wasread among Jews well into the Middle Ages (Schwartz, 2012: 46)

In the following though I want to rely on the Greek text as we have it via theSeptuagint, mostly as this reflects probably best the text which was commonlyavailable at the time of Jesus and hence the text most likely to influence Jesus’contemporaries.

Textually the book stands in the tradition of Wisdom literature, but combinesthis with a high respect for the Law as expressed in the Tanakh (deSilva, 2002).

Similar to Proverbs the book is to a large extent of short sayings, but alsopoems, a psalm and longer tracts, all fairly disparate and without necessityfollowing any sequential logic (deSilva, 2002: 153). Nevertheless there areseveral recurrent major themes which can be identified as relevant to the au-thor - honour and shame, use of the speech, friendship and enmity, pursuitof wisdom, household management and relationship to women (deSilva, 2002:154-155).

Culturally and politically the book is written at a time of significant Hellenisa-tion of the Jewish people, at least of the upper classes (deSilva, 2002: 159-161).The fact of the early translation of the book is its own witness of this. This

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Hellenisation is both embraced and challenged by the author. In particularthe Greek pursuit of honour as a man’s highest aim is recognised but thenchallenged and transformed into a Jewish understanding of real honour beinggained only by pursuing God’s will and law in one’s life (deSilva, 2002) - moreabout this below. The author’s aim was to enable his disciples to withstandthe pressures of Hellenisation insofar as they meant an abandoning of faithful-ness to the Law (deSilva, 2002). At the same time he willingly and liberallyaccepted wisdom where he saw it among Greek authors and incorporated itinto his own work (deSilva, 2002: 166-167)

3.4.2 Results

Friendship

Ben Sira devotes a significant amount of time and advice to the subject offriendship.

After distinguishing different kinds of friendships, ranging from the most casualto the most committed, he points at what he considers true friendship, whichwill last through challenges and bad times and will require much testing(Sir6:7):

If thou wouldst get a friend, try him before thou takest him, anddo not credit him easily (DRC 1752/2003).

Having established such friendships which are worth their while, Ben Siraadmonishes much effort should be spend to maintain them - see e.g. Sir 7:13,7:20, 14:13.

Further, echoing and expanding upon Proverbs 27:17 Ben Sira describes in Sir19:15 how reproof to a friend when he goes wrong may make him a better man.

This idea of the right kind of friends being a mean towards grace is old - itechoes Proverbs and Job. All in all, Ben Sira’s teaching here is much the sameas that of Proverbs.

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Curiously though this particular aspect of his teaching - together with hisobvious misogyny - appears to have later caused significant difficulties to theJewish reception of his book:

As Schwartz (2012: 7) argues deuteronomical teaching resists all reciprocalrelationships between people. Society is meant - according to this teaching -to be built of a shared piety and love for God, ensuring that all Israelites aretreated and considered of same value and inspiring the same mutual loyalty(Schwartz, 2012: 15). Mediterranean societies on the other hand are built onthe triad of clientèle, vassalage and friendship, all relationships which requirereciprocity and are at the core of the Mediterranean honour/shame system(Schwartz, 2012: 13). The system espoused by much of the legislation in thePentateuch is just exactly the opposite - by way of a large number of laws thepoor are cared for and society is meant to be kept by and large on an equallevel - without the recipients being required to feel gratitude and obligationtowards the donor (Schwartz, 2012: 18). Praising friendship in the form ofa reciprocal relationship may thus appear to be endorsing the Mediterraneanmodel. And yet,

instead the Torah for its part has a radical anti-Mediterraneanvision of Israelite society; the only fully legitimate relationship ofpersonal dependency for Israelites is that with their God, who istheir father, master, friend and lover (Schwartz, 2012: 26)

.

All this in turn made Ben Sira suspect to a later rabbinical audience when hepraised friendship.

And yet, as Schwartz points out repeatedly Ben Sira’s teaching on friendshipdid actually try to play down the usual Greek/Roman gift giving / influenceseeking behaviour5 states Schwartz (2012: 59), referring here to Sir 3:17-23in the Geniza A manuscript (very different to the equivalent Greek passage).

5This despite there being quite a number of other occasions where Ben Sira actually ex-pounds the rules of gift-giving as he sees them - see e.g. Sir 20:13ff

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Recompense should not be sought nor expected from the recipient, but if atall then from God, see e.g. Sir 12:1-6, of which verse 2 says:

Do good to the just, and thou shalt find great recompense: and ifnot of him, assuredly of the Lord (DRC 1752/2003).

Instead, friendship is with Ben Sira a relationship of trust and includes, asalready alluded to, one of mutual admonishment and reproof where friendswho go wrong will assist each other to get right again (Sir 19:13-16a)

Reprove a friend, lest he may not have understood, and say: I didit not: or if he did it, that he may do it no more. Reprove thyneighbour, for it may be he hath not said it: and if he hath saidit, that he may not say it again. Admonish thy friend: for thereis often a fault committed. And believe not every word. (DRC1752/2003)

In essence good friends are in Ben Sira are a means by which it is easier to leada life which will please God, a mean of grace and the obligation of friendshipis to provide just this to them.

Honour and Shame in Ben Sira

There are several major sections which deal with the concepts of honour andshame directly and many others are visibly influenced by them.

In a lengthy section on honouring one’s parents Ben Sira initially simply elu-cidates the Torah’s relevant command. He then moves further and ties uppersonal honour with parental honour, addressing situations of discord andeven parental dementia:

12 Glory not in the dishonour of thy father: for his shame is noglory to thee. 13 For the glory of a man is from the honour of hisfather, and a father without honour is the disgrace of the son. 14Son, support the old age of thy father, and grieve him not in his

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life; 15 And if his understanding fail, have patience with him, anddespise him not when thou art in thy strength: for the relieving ofthe father shall not be forgotten. (DRC 1752/2003: Sir 3:12-15)

This is of course to a large extent in line with Malina’s assertion that inMediterranean culture personal honour is to a significant extent ascribed ratherthan acquired and depends on the collective honour of one’s family and ances-try (Malina, 2001: 31-32). Protecting parental honour therefore does protectone’s own personal honour.

While Malina asserts that property and wealth are usually associated withhonour (Malina, 2001), Sira appears to be critical of this notion - while heacknowledges that wealth may seem to bring honour, he sees real honour inobedience to God and his word - see e.g. Sir 10:33-34:

The poor man is glorified by his discipline and fear, and there isa man that is honoured for his wealth. 34 But he that is glorifiedin poverty, how much more in wealth? and he that is glorified inwealth, let him fear poverty (DRC 1752/2003).

This means that the man who is glorified in wealth will lose all that when heis poor as he has no honour by way of good behaviour to fall back upon.

Similarly for Ben Sira honour does not lie in any outward looks as he assertsin Sir 11:2-4:

Praise not a man for his beauty, neither despise a man for hislook. The bee is small among flying things but her fruit hath thechiefest sweetness. Glory not in apparel at any time, and be notexalted in the day of thy honour: for the works of the Highest onlyare wonderful, and his works are glorious, and secret, and hidden(DRC 1752/2003)

Glory does come from the excellency of one’s work (Sir 14:21), a theme fur-thered in chapter 38 where Ben Sira lists a whole range of professions whichshould receive honour for their work. Wisdom and the keeping of secrets re-

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sult in honour (Sir 21:31), while the telling of tales dishonours the teller (Sir21:31) as does dishonesty (Sir 20:28). Within ordinary social circumstanceslike festivities Ben Sira gives advice, how to preserve one’s honour (Sir 32) byshowing the right kind of behaviour.

The association of wisdom and justice with honour is often repeated - see e.g.chapters 24, 25 and 27.

All honour though finally stems from God (Sir 38:6) and is bestowed by himupon people (Sir 38:6 and Sir 45).

Shame is described by Ben Sira as something which can hinder good deeds (Sir4:24, but also 20:24) or indeed promote them (Sir 4:25 or 32:14). Associationwith the wrong kind of people can result in shame (Sir 13:8) as can one’s owndaughters and wife by being badly behaved or indeed sexually unchaste (Sir22:5, Sir 26 and Sir 45)

It is important that one is not ashamed of one’s friends (Sir 22:31) thoughof course friends need to be carefully selected (see above). Giving surety canresult in shame and bitter poverty can result in shame (Sir 29). People shouldbe ashamed of falling into sin - and such a sense of shame can protect themfrom such sin (Sir 41).

All in all, it is quite clear that Ben Sira is deeply immersed in the culture ofhonour and shame of his time and to a large extent does seem to accept it asa given.

What is less clear is whether he himself fully supports the model or not. Camp(2013: 174)

trie[s] to argue that Ben Sira’s book is deeply marked by the con-cern for honor and shame, played out in a dovetailing of sexual andeconomic issues and rhetoric that would be remarkable, if it werenot so utterly predicted by the honor-shame model.

One alternative reading by e.g. Schwartz is that Ben Sira recognised the timefor what it was and tried to

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advise the observer of the Torah how to behave as a social agent,but in a world that fails to conform with the irenic vision of theDeuteronomist (Schwartz, 2012: 78).

DeSilva goes further in that he claims that Ben Sira is simply using the commonlanguage of honour and shame in order to achieve his actual aim - Torahobservance - in a language his pupils would understand and accept (deSilva,2002: 155). He finds that Ben Sira is deeply critical of the principles as suchand does subvert them wherever he can, by assigning all real honour to Godand separating the usual markers of honour (wealth, power) from that whichhe considers honourable.

Camp dismisses any notion of Ben Sira being critical towards the conceptsof honour and shame. She will only allow that any supposed criticism is anexpression of the fears Ben Sira will have experienced due to his

social class in his particular historical context. Wealthy enough togive alms and sinful enough to feel that he needs to; capable ofmaking loans and going surety, but financially insecure enough tolose his shirt on a bad deal; carrying enough social weight to bea patron to some but still needing patronage himself - Ben Sira isa man in a dangerous middle, in both practical and moral terms,a middle-class speculator in the high-risk market of honor (Camp,2013: 174)

Irrespective of any final conclusions with regard to the distance Ben Sira main-tained to the concepts of honour and shame, it is quite clear that he is sig-nificantly more concerned with honour and shame than e.g. the author of4QInstruction for whom simply all honour comes from God and who does notstrive to maintain honour in front of people.

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Women in Ben Sira

Some of Ben Sira’s approach to women is infamous and often hard to stomachfor most modern readers.

For better is the iniquity of a man, than a woman doing a goodturn[..] (DRC 1752/2003: Sir42:14)

Much of the rest is very stereotypical, comparing ”the good wife” with the”the bad wife” - with not much in between.

In terms of the Mediterranean model, Ben Sira’s condemnation of the baddaughter in Sir 42:9-11 is probably the most significant:

The father waketh for the daughter when no man knoweth, and thecare for her taketh away his sleep, when she is young, lest she passaway the flower of her age, and when she is married, lest she shouldbe hateful: In her virginity, lest she should be corrupted, and befound with child in her father’s house: and having a husband, lestshe should misbehave herself, or at the least become barren. Keepa sure watch over a shameless daughter: lest at anytime she makethee become a laughingstock to thy enemies, and a byword in thecity, and a reproach among the people, and she make thee ashamedbefore all the multitude. (DRC 1752/2003)

It is quite clear, just as Camp (2013: 175) asserts that a significant part ofBen Sira’s sense of honour is fragile and dependent on the chasteness of one’sfemale kin. Having said this, it appears an exaggeration by Camp to tie upBen Sira’s understanding of honour and shame so strongly with sexuality andfemale chasteness - the number of occasions where Ben Sira connects the twomatters is significant but is not even close to a majority of times.

That his views were not ubiquitous is confirmed by the Talmud where thereare some voices recorded, discussing the above quote, apparently consideringhim a misogynist (Soncino: 6913)

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Summary

The section on friendship, while not immediately relevant for the pericope,probably shows best how Ben Sira was trying to stem tides and was trying touse cultural patterns of relating for his purpose to create Torah obedient menout of his disciples.

The section on women shows on the other hand just how much Ben Sira hadincorporated values which do fit a lot closer to the Mediterranean Unity modelthan to e.g. the views of women espoused by 4Qinstruction.

Ben Sira lived in a difficult time where the original Jewish way of life hadcome under attack. Whether he was overly influenced by the pagan patternsof his time or whether he simply tried to express his faith in the patterns ofhis time is hard to say and remains subject to debate. What can certainly besaid is that at his time the Jewish upper classes were heavily influenced byGreek/Hellenistic thought.

3.5 Pulling it Together

3.5.1 Honour and Shame

Looking at these different strands of evidence together the following can beshown:

It is quite clear that the concepts of honour and shame did play a significantrole for Jews in the NT time. Texts both prior (4QInstruction and Ben Sira)and after (Talmud) used the terms and were very aware of the concerns.

The Mediterranean Unity concept though of honour and shame

• being intricately linked with female chastity

• of honour being of limited availability and hence subject to continuouscompetition

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• being values eclipsing all other concerns regularly and usually leadingleading to an agonistic relationship to everyone aside of kin

seems to have little support in any of the studied Jewish literature - apart fromBen Sira. There is a definite strand through all literature that true honourbelongs to God and comes from God - it is not something fought over.

Ben Sira is probably closest in mindset to the world of Greek/Hellenistic think-ing. And yet, he frequently tries to divert his intended audience back to a dif-ferent way of thinking (described by Schwartz as the deuteronomical model) orat least to show them that true honour lies in the fulfilment of Torah commandsrather than competition.

The case of 4QInstruction is curious - clearly it was a very popular piece ofwriting at its time, quite likely influential or at least occupying a similar worldof thought as some NT writing, but it was completely lost until fairly recently.One problem with 4QInstruction is clearly that it is a high-context document- not a lot of explanation is given and the author expects the audience to knowwhat is being talked about.

Its audience of rural poor seems to be not at all interested in an agonisticcompetition. The concept is not even criticised as it was by Ben Sira. Whilehonour and shame are known as concepts, all honour comes from God. There isalso very little evidence of a trickle-down effect as surmised by Neyrey (1994).Rather the document suggests that the audience is simply not interested incompetition, but is preparing for something else entirely. Further, while thedescribed relationship of men and women is clearly one of subordination of wifeto husband, women are otherwise valid and equal members of the audience 6

and are directly spoken to. It seems the experience of poverty and insecuritymakes the mebin of 4QInstruction appreciate his wife while the wife knowsthat she is honoured if she keeps her end of the marriage covenant up. She hasthe same status as elect as the male mebin. All in all 4QInstruction is much

6I referred above to the instance where men are advised not to expect submission fromwomen other than their wife

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less a solely male document than Ben Sira and the Talmud.

The Talmud in turn occupies an odd zone - many of the Greek/Hellenisticvalues are directly rejected. There are elaborate prohibitions and regulationsagainst shaming, so making all agonistic competition clearly a prohibited mat-ter - and yet there is ample evidence of internal wrangling for prime positionby various Rabbines and there is a sense of honour being a limited good. Quiteclearly though there is as Rubenstein has demonstrated a trajectory from theMishnah through the Amoraic to the Stammaitic layers where the pursuitof (scholarly) honour and the sensitivity towards shaming becomes more andmore acute as we move away from NT times. While sexual chastity and mis-conduct does play a significant role in the regulations discussed, there is lessof a sense of all male honour being tied up in female chastity. With regard tothe Roman/gentile sense of honour, Schwartz comments:

They [the Rabbines] thought of themselves, of their God and theirTorah, as being in competition with the Roman state for honor(Schwartz, 2012: 162)

Finally the Denkard offers a valuable insight into a non Jewish Persian/Zoroastrianthinking. While there is a clear understanding of a sense of honour, this is nei-ther very much tied to female sexuality nor to an agonistic struggle for thelimited resource of honour. Rather honour is obtained from the godhead byliving a good and religious life. In that sense, despite the religious gap, theDenkard appears closer to 4Qinstruction than to any of the other writings andis certainly quite removed from the Mediterranean unity model.

3.5.2 Rebuking versus Shaming

Both Talmud and Ben Sira explicitly encourage the reader to rebuke someonewho sins. Ben Sira lists this as a particular duty of friendship. The fact thatsuch a rebuke may well be seen as shaming by an unrepentant evildoer isclearly one of the reasons for the permission the Talmud grants not to rebuke

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someone if one’s life would be brought in danger by the rebuke.

3.5.3 Women

With regard to the role of women, all four documents maintain a significantlevel of separation between female and male role, but only Ben Sira appearsto relegate women completely into a passive role. He is also the only one whoshows any sense of feeling personally threatened by female insubordination orlack of chastity.

While Ben Sira sees women in a preferentially silent and domestic role, it isclear that the 4QInstruction’s mebin’s wife has a different role - active andinvolved.

The Talmud certainly does not support a silent role. While social contactshould be limited, it is at the very least as much the responsibility of mento keep themselves away from women as for women to keep themselves apart.The rabbi who asks a woman for the way is sharply rebuked by her for usingtoo many words.

3.5.4 The Model of Mediterranean Unity in the Light of theTexts

Malina and Neyrey’s model is in the light of all the texts discussed simply tooone-dimensional.

It is very clear that honour and shame are concepts Jews accepted and livedby too.

But, if one can use the texts chosen as surrogate parameters for social classes’predominant thinking, only a small part of society - the Hellenistic influencedupper class - seems to have accepted Mediterranean Unity concepts entirelyand without resistance - i.e. neither the limited amounts of honour to share

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out and constant competition for honour nor the sexual aspects of the Mediter-ranean model seem to be ubiquitously accepted.

Probably closest to Deuteronomical views, are the concepts 4QInstruction sup-ports - all honour comes from God, all genuine honour is the result of followingGod’s command. Male and female honour are not substantially different, northere is there much need for a constant defence of one’s personal honour.

The views shown by the Denkard are surprisingly close to those of 4Qinstruc-tion in that matter.

The Talmud in turn shows, as Schwartz argues a definite drift from being lessto becoming more sensitive about matters of honour and shame over a periodfrom NT times to 600 AD. Only in the Stammaitic parts of the Gemaraare honour challenges seen, described and endorsed (Rubenstein, 2005: 41).Further, the Talmud is explicit in its condemnation of deliberate shaming ofsomeone, and yet will encourage open and possibly public rebuke of a sinnerif necessary.

All this suggests that for at least some groups among the Jews at the time ofJesus the need to constantly battle to preserve and further one’s honour is notlikely to have been a priority - though for others it may indeed be a matterof huge significance. These groups would have had valid alternative modelsto live by - honour comes from God and from obedience to him, jostling forhonour and deliberate shaming of others is not part of daily life, but evil andsinful, while rebukes are acceptable even if they are painful.

Any interpretation of NT texts needs to take these different streams into ac-count - particularly if people of several social classes and religious convictionmingle in a passage.

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4 The Pericope

4.1 Textual and Literary Background

In the following section I want to provide some of the background to thepassage insofar as it will impact on my choices later. The presumed age of thetext, the origin and the likeliness of its historicity are all of relevance. Thechoices I have to make here will impact on what I want to say in later partsof this thesis. The currently most definitive and comprehensive works on thebackground of the pericope are probably the chapter in Ehrman (2006) on thepassage and the superb and very thorough PhD thesis by Keith (2009). Muchof the following is a summary of what I have learned from these two, withemendations where it seemed necessary to defend my overall choices.

4.1.1 Source-Critical Background of the Pericope

The pericope has a complicated source background. In essence it is not knownwhen and how it was added to the text of the NT. A wide range of earlymanuscripts do not have it (Metzger, 1995: 187). Others, defective in therelevant area of John simply do not offer enough physical space for it (Met-zger, 1995: 187). Some early non-Greek Eastern versions (Syriac, Armenian,Georgian etc.) either do not have it, while some others mark it as suspect(Metzger, 1995: 188).

In general the earliest evidence for the text within the Bible appears in theWestern tradition. One of its earliest appearances seems to be the Latin Vul-

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gate. In the bulk of Greek manuscripts the passage only appears from the 5thcentury onwards.

On the other hand some early Greek fathers hint at the passage or at least atsomething akin to that passage. There is evidence that at least in Egypt it wasconsidered part of the canonical Greek text in the 3rd century. Ehrman refersto a commentary by Didymus the Blind, an 4th century Egyptian commen-tator, who recounts the pericope more or less completely in one of his morerecently discovered papyri (Ehrman, 2006: 197). At the same time this findbrings according to Ehrman (2006: 214) into stronger focus the likelihood oftwo different sources being amalgamated in the final version present now inJohn.

A detailed discussion of this evidence is presented by Bridges (2008) and byKeith (2009)

Further, while the overwhelming number of manuscripts which contain the textplace it into the traditional location in the Gospel of John, some manuscriptsplace it somewhere else, both in other sections of the Gospel of John or indeedinto the synoptic gospels (Porsch, 2009: 625).

The other closely related problem is the internal instability of the text. Variousmanuscripts contain additions and alterations (Knust, 2006: 485). It is muchharder to be clear about the quality of any these many variants within thepassage due to the lateness of its appearance in known manuscripts (Metzger,1995: 189)

4.1.2 Cut and Re-Added or Added?

The textual problems have been known for a long time. Many early manuscriptsmark the passage with an asterisk or other marker, presumably as suspect(Metzger, 1995: 187). Closely related to these textual problems, the age andthe historicity of the passage is the question of when and how it joined thegospel’s text.

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One solution to the manuscript problem has been presented very early on byAugustine who contends that the passage has not been added in the West buthad been cut out in the East for moral reasons i.e. being too forgiving toadulterers (Augustinus, 395/1900: 387). This view is sustained today still bysome, among them e.g. Kenneth Bailey (Bailey, 2008: 228) and (Card, 2014:104).

Ehrman (2006: 217) appears in partial agreement with this, suggesting thatthe story has been suppressed after the 1st century, mainly as it contradictsthe 2nd century church’s emphasis on penance, though he does not believe itwas originally in John.

Metzger (Metzger, 1995: 189) dismisses this suggestion as being without anyreal evidence. He points at the initial three verses which would have no obvi-ous ”moral” reason for cutting, but significantly shift the time frame for thesubsequent discourse.

Green (2000: 243) surveys feminist readings of the pericope by the feministtheologians Schottroff, O’Day and Swidler. All three see the reason for the lateinclusion of a pericope in its approach to women which is seen as contrary tothe early church’s preferences. The passage though is old and genuine. Noneof the three argue for an explicit removal from John, but rather for a lateinclusion of a text which could not be safely ignored. This is seconded byKnust (2012: 62):

Somehow the pericope adulterae was granted the status of ’gospel’ -in the wider sense of the term — by some Christians from at leastthe second century whether or not it was present in the earliestwritten gospels.

.

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4.1.3 Literary and Other Arguments for and againstJohannine Origin

Leaving aside the manuscript difficulties there are other matters which havebrought the pericope’s placement in the gospel of John into doubt: language,syntax and concepts. ”Scribes and Pharisees”, who according to Saldarini(1994: 44) ”dog Jesus’ footsteps everywhere” in the Gospel of Matthew - butdo not appear in John at all as a group joined at the hip. Bruce Metzgertherefore concludes:

The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of theadulteress is overwhelming (Metzger, 1995: 187)

.

Not all agree though. Card ( 2014), while acknowledging the manuscript prob-lems points at four matters:

Firstly there is the total absence of anything similar in any of the synopticgospels which makes it a unique story - something which is typical for John.Secondly there are the editorial comments in verses 5 and 6. These are muchmore similar to what John does on other occasions than what the Synopticsdo (Card calls it the ”Johannine whisper”). Further there is the way Jesusanswers a question with a question. Finally the passage offers symmetry tochapter 8 - Jesus averts a stoning, but then is nearly subject to one himself(Card, 2014: 104).

This is echoed by Ehrman, who while not accepting an Johannine origin assuch (Ehrman, 2006: 196), argues that by the end of the 3rd century theaccount must have been found in Egyptian sources in the Gospel of John (andin the Gospel according to the Hebrews) (Ehrman, 2006: 207). According tohim the placement in John has good reasons: The episode responds directlyand in a practical way to concerns raised in the verses immediately prior to it,concerning due process and correct judgement and echo an earlier discourseon correct behaviour on the Sabbath (Ehrman, 2006: 202-3).

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In turn Witherington (2009) argues for the pericope being one of the originalwitness of the ”beloved disciple” and part of a larger corpus of oral stories onlylater written down.

While Estes in his analysis of questions in John asserts that the questions assuch cannot be used as argument either for or against inclusion into the gospelof John (nor indeed for or against historicity) (Estes, 2012: 162) neverthelessthen proceeds to treat the questions in the pericope exactly the same way andwithout any further distinction as any of the other questions Jesus asks. Heexplains how John’s use of questions is different to that of the synoptics (Estes,2012: 51).

Knust (2012: 63) in turn, referring to claims that the language and choice ofwords is non-Johannine, dismisses the debate by stating that the Gospel ofJohn is a known aggregate, that other parts of the gospel have also a veryselective word choice and that there is in essence no original Gospel of John,but it has come into being by collection and accretion, this pericope simplybeing the last in a row (Knust, 2012: 64).

Overall Keith does not believe there is currently enough scholarly consensusto make the passage a synoptic one (Keith, 2008b: 379). in his PhD thesis(Keith, 2008a) he argues strongly both on multiple manuscript and patristicgrounds that the only appropriate and original location is the Gospel of Johnat the current location. Every other location, including different places in Johnor indeed in the synoptic gospels is based according to him on a later dislodge-ment, most likely as a result of the development of lectionaries, which wereusually compiled from several manuscripts rather than being simply a copy ofone. This confronted scribes with the partial absence in some manuscripts andrequired decisions regarding placement (Keith, 2008a: 111-131).

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4.1.4 Historicity of the Passage

Much of the original manuscript research was has been focussed on finding orreconstructing a particular form as the source of it all. Wettlaufer (2012: 184)argues, though, that more and more are questioning recently whether this isreally appropriate. At which point should a text be considered as canonical?Is it the finished text of the first author or is it the version the early churcheventually has accepted and distributed? Even while the search for a definitesource text of much of the NT has therefore become increasingly recognisedas a ”chimera” (Wettlaufer, 2012: 58), the question of the historicity of thepassage remains relevant.

Metzger asserts that he considers the passage ancient and quite possible au-thentic ( O’Day, 1996: 627, Metzger, 1995: 187-189) but does not go deeperinto the matter.

Ehrman argues for a very early origin of the pericope. His argument is basedfirstly on the rapid forgiveness issued to the woman:

Since forgiveness without previous remorse or repentance can scarcelybe attributed to the NT church, the story of the freely forgivenadulteress may well be thought to ante-date the earliest writingsof the NT. (Ehrman, 2006: 217)

Secondly, he argues that the trap set for Jesus in terms of potentially defying(or kowtowing to) Roman authority is quite similar to the account of Caesar’stax in Mark 12. According to him this brings the origin of the account to pre70 AD (Ehrman, 2006: 217).

This claim is supported by Keith who, while he bases his investigation of thepassage on its non-Johannine origin, is equally convinced of its basic historicity.His arguments centre on the large number of early church fathers from a widegeographical background who refer to the passage Keith, 2009: 6. For him thepassage is remarkable as it is the only one which asserts that Jesus could write(Keith, 2009: 5) (rather than just read). This conviction of the historicity

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of the passage allows Keith to investigate his claim against a first centurybackground (rather than any later time, when the passage finally had becomepart of the accepted canonical text) (Keith, 2009: 6). Within the contextof this investigation the historicity is similarly relevant as it determines quiteclearly the investigatory time-frame.

4.1.5 Conclusion

In summary, it remains clear that while it is impossible to be certain aboutmuch of the origin of the passage, there is ample consensus that it is old.Recent developments (discovery of the Didymus commentary) have shed somemore light upon it.

Its popularity very early on and its likely historicity though has ensured it itsplace within the canon. The text remains widely accepted as canonical acrossmost denominations (see also the articles of Baum (2014) and Bridges (2008)which are dedicated in their entirety to discussion of this question), despite thesevere criticisms issued against it and its placement within John. Few moderntranslations do other than marking it up as somewhat suspect, unlike otherpassages which have been removed or banished into footnotes.

For the purposes of this investigation I will follow Keith and Ehrman in as-suming it is a genuine Jesus text from the 1st century and reflects a historicaloccurrence.

Further, along with Card and Bailey, I believe there are reasons enough to atleast consider it within a Johannine context, particularly given that this gospelis where the text has ended up.

Given the closeness in some aspects to the Synoptics the text can probably alsousefully be illuminated by the Synoptics - and particularly the Sermon on theMount. I will consider this within the discussion of the context. Neverthelessit illustrates well some of what John has to say in the surrounding chapters,even only by way of its placement by the final redactor. It would be foolish to

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disregard this.

4.2 The Pericope - the Text

The pericope is short, hence here in its completeness with some remarks. Thetext is taken from the NASB.

53Everyone went to his home.1But Jesus went to the

The pericope introduces one further day into Je-sus’ stay in Jerusalem. Alternatively 7:52 and 8:12

Mount of Olives. 2Early in would have happened on the same day. O’Day

the morning He came again (1996: 628) points out that the Mount of Olives is

into the temple, and all the not mentioned elsewhere in John, but more com-

people were coming to Him; monly in the synoptics.

and He sat down and beganto teach them.3The scribes and the Phar-isees brought a woman caught

The formula οι γραμματεις και οι φαρισαιοι doesnot appear elsewhere in John in this group. The

in adultery, and having set remainder of this group of chapters uses ιουδαιοι

her in the center of the or φαρισαιοι as the term for Jesus’ opponents.

court, 4they said to Him, γυνή stands for a mature (married) woman.

“Teacher, this woman has εν μεσω i..e very visible. μοιχεία stands for sex-

been caught in adultery, in ual relationship outside of an existing marriage

the very act. επ αυτοφωρω ”In the very act of the crime” - Many

remark here on the absence of the man. Some

speculate he was a Roman soldier, which adds a

racial/religious aspect to it. No author I consulted

points out the absence of her husband. Usually,

and as Malina and Rohrbaugh (1998: 292) points

out, accusation and punishment of adultery is the

role of the wronged husband and his family

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5“Now in the Law Mosescommanded us to stone

In 1st century AD practice for a married womanthe usual death sentence was done by throttling

such women; what then do her to death (Daube, 1938: 307)

You say?”6They were saying this,testing Him, so that they

Card (2014) refers to this as ”Johannine whisper”.The narrator’s comment, all knowing and able to

might have grounds for ac- read into the mind of the people concerned is some-

cusing Him. thing fairly typical for John, though other gospel

writers have used it too (see e.g. Mark 6:26-7But Jesus stooped downand with His finger wrote

The verb κύπτω includes also averting the gaze.ἀνακυλίω includes looking up again. ειπεν ’he

on the ground. 7But when says ’, this includes a direction ’to address’, i.e. the

they persisted in asking gaze is now directed at the woman.

Him, He straightened up,and said to them, “He whois without sin among you,let him be the first to throwa stone at her.” 8 Again Hestooped down and wrote onthe ground.9 When they heard it, theybegan to go out one by one,

beginning with the olderἀνακυλίω , ”to straighten up” includes looking

up again. The situation changes: μονος - he

ones, and He was left alone, is now alone with the woman. This ”alone”

and the woman, where she might or might not still include the disciples

was, in the center of the and other listeners, but the accusers have cer-

court. 10 Straightening up, tainly gone (Keith, 2009: 164). At this point

Jesus said to her, “Woman, Byzantine variants indicate that Jesus looked at

where are they? Did no one her και μηδενα θεασαμενος πλην της γυναικος (see

condemn you?” 11 She said, also (Keith, 2009: 165) ειπεν αυτη ”he says to

“No one, Lord.” And Je- her” i.e. the gaze is now directed at the woman.

sus said, “I do not condemn ουδε εγω σε κατακρινω Bailey (2008: 238) points

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you, either. Go. From now out here that this is not the immediate forgive-

on sin no more.” (NASB, ness issued in other situations, but a refusal to

1995) judge. πορευου [και] απο ου νυν μηκετι αμαρτανε

combines with it to become a call to repentance

and for a start of new life

4.3 Court hearing, a Mob or Else?

Whether the situation is a proper court hearing, a mob situation or somethingelse entirely is not stated clearly within the pericope. According to Ehrman(2006: 219) one possible background to this irregular situation is that thepericope amalgamates two separate accounts - one in which Jesus interferes ina concluded court case, essentially at the moment of execution and one wherethe entrapment is the core of the scenario. The entrapment won out in hisview of the text.

Considering the text itself as we have it and considering legal and other circum-stances of Jewish life in the first century there are indeed a number of clearindications that this is not an ordinary court hearing, nor a mob situationgetting out of hand.

Interestingly, there is a short passage in the Mishnah which explains howcarefully a court needs to go ahead even if the court members themselves hadwitnessed a crime and were in charge of judging it. Even then, the witnesseswould require testing in open court. The crime referred to here is a murder,but I see little reason why another crime where the witnesses are the judges (asin this pericope seemingly) should not have been handled in the same carefulmanner - if the pericope is talking about a court hearing. And yet, this carefultesting of witnesses does not seem to have happened, suggesting this was nota court hearing, but something more irregular.

MISHNAH. IF THE BETH DIN AND ALL ISRAEL SAW IT,IF THE WITNESSES WERE TESTED AND THERE WAS NO

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TIME LEFT TO SAY ‘SANCTIFIED’ BEFORE IT GREW DARK,THEN THE MONTH IS PROLONGED. IF THE BETH DINALONE HAVE SEEN IT, TWO OF THEM SHOULD COMEFORWARD AND TESTIFY BEFORE THEM, AND THEN THEYCAN SAY, ‘SANCTIFIED, SANCTIFIED’. IF THREE PERSONSSAW IT, THEY [THEMSELVES] CONSTITUTING THE BETHDIN, TWO [OF THEM] SHOULD COME FORWARD AND THEYSHOULD ASSOCIATE SOME OF THEIR COLLEAGUES WITHTHE ONE LEFT, AND THEY [THE TWO] SHOULD TESTIFYBEFORE THEM AND THEY CAN THEN SAY, ‘SANCTIFIED,SANCTIFIED’. [THIS MUST BE DONE] BECAUSE AN INDI-VIDUAL IS NOT AUTHORIZED [TO SAY ‘SANCTIFIED’] BYHIMSELF. (Soncino: 2504)(Rosh has Shana 25b)

The Jewish authorities had by the time of Jesus’ ministry lost their indepen-dence in terms of capital punishments (Daube, 1938: 307). This would in alllikelihood not have stopped a village mob enacting vigilante justice (Daube,1938: 307), but it is difficult to imagine a lynch mob’s stoning happening inJerusalem under the eyes of the occupation forces. In fact Pharisaic law hadby that time replaced stoning with strangulation - partially in response to theRoman occupation1, partially in respect towards the idea of bodily resurrec-tion.

Bailey (2008: 233), referring to Josephus and the layout of the temple court,asserts Roman soldiers patrolling on the feast days the walls overlooking thetemple court would have been able to spot any irregularities well and interfereimmediately if there was a concern. Furthermore no witnesses were brought,even though they are a legal requirement (O’Day, 1996: 628).

All in all nothing in the scene suggests any careful judicial deliberation, noris a mob situation very likely (given the observation by Romans) - though itmight well have escalated into that. The best explanation is that the woman

1The reason was according to Daube (1938: 307) that strangulation was ”a punishmentattracting less notice”.

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is brought before Jesus and he is pushed to give an instantaneous judgementin order to lay a trap for him - just as the internal comment states.

4.4 Gaze of Jesus

The pericope contains several physical changes of position each one of theseby necessity containing an implied or explicit change in direction of the gazeof Jesus. I have started highlighting them above, but here for clarity’s sakeconsider the table below.

v6 Jesus stoops and writesv7 Jesus straightens upv8 Jesus speaks to pharisees and scribesv9 Jesus stoops and writes

Jesus straightens upv10 (Variant)Jesus sees only the woman

Jesus speaks to her

This together with the placing of the woman in Jn 8:3 by her accusers ”in themidst” (which is repeated several times throughout the text) gives a strongimpression of Jesus at first averting his glance from the woman (and for a timefrom her accusers) and only when he is alone (or alone with his disciples andher) looking straight at her - while her accusers have gone out of their way toput her up to be seen by everybody. I will return to this matter.

4.5 The Pericope in its Context

To look at the context of a text which is often presumed to have been a ’floater’(Card, 2014: 103) without any real context is difficult. In line with Keith andEhrman though I think it is appropriate to seek first the context in John, ifonly to seek the connections which have moved the final redactor to insert thepericope there. Afterwards I will cast my net more widely.

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4 The Pericope

Within its final placement in the gospel of John the text falls into a largerpassage where Jesus speaks at the temple for several days in a row. Thepassage itself introduces a new day into the sequence - without it, Jn 8:12would follow directly on from John 7:52 and the night spend at the Mount ofOlives falls away.

It follows immediately a dialogue within the Jewish authorities where Nicode-mus challenges the authorities to act with due process and (only a few versesprior) Jesus challenges his opponents not to judge superficially. In this sensethe pericope becomes a practical illustration for the prior discussions.

Keith also sees a connection between the account of Jesus writing in the peri-cope and John 7:15. The pericope answers the challenge issued here. Jesuscan write, so he must be learned, contrary to what his opponents might think.

Following on from the passage in subsequent events he is nearly stoned himself(chapter 8). While this is not the first time that Jesus has been nearly stoned(Luke 4) it is the opinion of both Card (2014: 106) and Ehrman (2006: 214)that the connection is significant. Jesus stands in the place of the woman andreceives her punishment.

The idea of a specifically political entrapment which is hinted at by the com-ment in verse 6 is shared with Mark 12, an account where Jesus was challengedto say what he thought about paying taxes to Caesar. In both situations thequestion brought to Jesus seemed to allow only one of two alternatives - bring-ing upon himself the wrath of the occupier or appearing morally compromised.In both situations Jesus turns the trap on its head and leaves his opponentsexposed.

It is not the only story in the Gospel of John where Jesus gives a marginalisedwoman voice and/or importance. The others are John 4 (The Samaritanwoman at the well) and John 12:1-6 (Anointing by Mary).

It shares some parallels with synoptic accounts of encounters of Jesus withwomen considered sinners: In each of these accounts Jesus subverts any objec-tification of the woman and recognises her as a person of worth (see e.g. Luke

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7).

Finally, the pericope does echo certain accounts from the Hebrew Bible whichTrible (1984) called in her eponymous book ”Texts of Terror”. In particularthere appears to be a strong echo with Judges 19 - the account of the Leviteand his pilegesh. In each of these accounts a voiceless or nearly voiceless womanis subject to a violent and cruel death at the hands of men. In Judges 19, theecho is particularly strong as here just as there the woman is nameless and ofdoubtful moral character. Here and there she is threatened with an extremelyviolent death. Here and there she is in the presence of a protector - here Jesus,there her husband, a Levitic priest, i.e. a representative of God to the people.The significant difference and unique nature of this pericope is that here God(in the form of Jesus) is seen to intervene and ensures the salvation of thewoman, while there her protector fails and throws her to the wolves.

4.6 Malina and Rohrbaugh’s Commentary on thePericope

Malina and Rohrbaugh (1998) do not treat the passage within the flow of theircommentary of the gospel of John, but put it into an appendix, arguing it doesnot really belong to the gospel of John (Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998: 292)

The treatment they give the passage is short:

They point out that the passage is one of high context - only by knowing theunwritten context can the passage be well understood (Malina and Rohrbaugh,1998: 292).

Initially they discuss shortly marriage in a Mediterranean context as a mergingof two families, where adultery will result in loss of honour and feud, unlessresolved by the death of the woman (Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998: 292).

At the core of the passage is an honour challenge where the scribes and Phar-

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4 The Pericope

isees trying to destroy Jesus’ honour. Jesus in turn defends himself by delib-erately shaming them (Malina and Rohrbaugh, 1998: 293).

As, after they are gone, Jesus has no witnesses for the adultery he can notcondemn the woman, so he sends her away with an admonishment (Malinaand Rohrbaugh, 1998: 293). Nothing in the commentary suggests that Jesusmight have intended the saving of the woman.

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5 Applying the Corrected Model

Using the information gleaned from the source texts the following can be saidabout the pericope:

The Pharisees and Scribes’ attempt to ”test” Jesus may well be describedas an honour challenge, an attempt to shame Jesus just as Malina suggests.This may equally well be part of the sin Jesus alludes to when he asks theone without sin to throw the first stone. While academic honour challengesare reported in the Talmud, this seems to happen more in late layers. Theprohibition to shame was strong in early rabbinic writings.

Jesus’ response to the challenge is not correctly described as defending himselfor shaming the Pharisees and Scribes in return. The best term for what Jesusdoes here is a rebuke. Both Talmud and Ben Sira are explicit and clear thatrebuking sinners is desirable and good activity, but shaming is not. Eventhough the form and emotional impact may well be the same, the two areentirely different activities.

Indications that Jesus intended to rebuke are several:

• the lack of eye contact following the rebuke allowed the rebuked accusersto leave with minimal additional shaming

• the writing into the sand is, as Bailey (2008) points out, a clear indica-tion of Jesus knowing the law (including the oral law, allowing writingwith/in dust). This demonstration of knowledge of the law alludes toand strongly implies wider knowledge e.g. concerning the correct con-duct of capital crime cases also already regulated in NT times oral law,

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or indeed on the prohibition to shame someone.

• Such allusion rather than direct challenge regarding the law significantlylowers the shaming impact, while allowing reflection and recognition ofsin

• In the end the accusers walked away as they recognised their own guilt.Jesus did not accuse them of anything their own consciences did notconfirm. Otherwise there would have been no reason to leave the scene.There is no record of what the sins of the accusers might have been orthat anyone other than they themselves knew of their sins.

The importance of gaze in gender relations and the connection between gazeand respect is well documented in the Talmud. Applying this on Jesus’ actionstowards the woman shows that he only looks at her when he is alone withher. This means his gaze cannot publicly dishonour her further her alreadysignificant loss of honour.

Further, in the light of the Mishnaic rules around the treatment of adulterouswomen - whereby everybody present was strongly encouraged to look at sucha woman in her shame in order to shame her further - Jesus’ pointed refusalto look at her while she is exposed to the public amounts to an explicit showof respect offered in this particular situation only to an honourable woman ina bad situation.

Jesus’ look at her once he is alone with her and his kind, non-aggressive speechdirected at her happens in his father’s house, i.e. in (now) private space. Thissignifies acceptance into his (fictive) kinship.

Jesus’ forgiveness and re-direction offered to her reinstates her into her familyand her role as wife (I pointed out above the absence of her husband and familyfrom the scene)

The woman leaves the scene not just forgiven, but also with her honour re-stored. Within the context of 4QInstruction and Ben Sira (both echoing earlierscripture) all true honour comes from God alone.

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6 Summary and Outlook

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes ”Judaism is overwhelmingly a guilt rather than ashame culture” (Sacks, 2015). While this statement is written 2000 years afterthe events described in the pericope, it is clear from the surveyed literaturethat this was indeed the case for a large part of the Jewish people in NT time- fulfilment of the commands of the Torah was at least as much a value as thepursuit of honour. Even where the pursuit of honour became a value (BenSira and to some extent the Talmud) the honour sought is that of being foundobedient to the Torah.

The model of Mediterranean unity does indeed provide valuable insights, buton its own and without the corrective offered by the texts surveyed, it is flawedand unable to penetrate the pericope and presumably many other texts too.

The rich results already gleaned from the limited literature chosen in this thesissuggest that more conclusions and more clarity could be gained from a widerand deeper survey.

Finally, the assertion by Bridges (2008: 220) and Baum (2014: 178) thatthis pericope does not add anything theologically to the remainder of theBible appears now facile and premature. There are significant pastoral andtheological implications when one considers the explicit restoration of honourto an adulterous woman - particularly in pastoral circumstances where (lossof) honour is a significant concern. The christological implications of a sinner’srestoration to honour when all honour comes from God are obvious.

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Bible Translations and SourceTexts

Berlin, Adele, Marc Zvi Brettler, and Michael A. Fishbane. (2004) The JewishStudy Bible: Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation. Oxford Univer-sity Press, USA. isbn: 9780195297546.

DRC. (1752/2003) Doauy-Rheims Bible - Challoner Revision. Phoenix, Ari-zona: electronically published by CrossWire Bible Society. url: http://www.crosswire.org/sword/modules/ModInfo.jsp?modName=DRC (Re-trieved November 19, 2014).

King James Bible with Apocrypha. (1769/2003) Phoenix, Arizona: electroni-cally published by CrossWire Bible Society. url: http://www.crosswire.org / sword / modules / ModInfo . jsp ? modName = KJVA (Retrieved Novem-ber 19, 2014).

Levine, Amy-Jill and Marc Z. Brettler. (2011) The Jewish Annotated NewTestament. OUP USA. isbn: 9780195297706.

NASB. (1995) New American Standard Bible. The Lockman Foundation.

Robinson, Maurice A. and William G. Pierpont, eds. (2005) The New Tes-tament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform 2005. CrossWire BibleSociety.

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ESV. (2001) The English Standard Version. Wheaton: CrossWay Bibles.

WHNU. (2014) Westcott and Hort with NA27/UBS4 variants. CrossWire BibleSociety.

88

Other Texts used in Preparation

Charlesworth, James H. and Henry W.L. Rietz, eds. (1997) The Dead Seascrolls : Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts with English translations. Vol. 2.Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press.

Goff, Matthew J. (2007b) Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of theDead Sea Scrolls. BRILL. isbn: 9789004147492.

Hughes, Kyle R. (2013) “The Lukan Special Material and the Tradition Historyof the Pericope Adulterae.” In: Novum Testamentum 55.3, pp. 232 –251. issn:00481009.

Meinrad Limbeck Paul-Gerhard Müller, Felix Porsch, ed. (2009) Stuttgarterkleiner Kommentar zu den Evangelien. Katholisches Bibelwerk. isbn: 9783460154001.

Milne, Bruce. (1993) The Message of John: Here is Your King! InterVarsityPress. isbn: 9780851109718.

Osborne, Grant R. (2007) The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Intro-duction to Biblical Interpretation. IVP Academic. isbn: 9780830828265.

Pannenberg, Wolfgang. (1985) Anthropology in Theological Perspective. T&TClark.

Paul Billerbeck, Hermann Strack und. (1924) Kommentar zum Neuen Testa-ment aus Talmud und Midrasch. Vol. 2. S 519-521 - Discussion about stoning

89

Other Texts used in Preparation

- married women are supposed to be 8:6 writing on earth - Schab 12:5 - writ-ing on something which is not permanent 8:7 first stoning: the witnesses -Deut 13:10, 17:7 and Sanh 6:4 - throw from 2. Muenchen: C.H.BeckscheVerlagsbuchhandlung.

Pilch, John, ed. (2000) Social Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible:Essays by the Context Group in Honor of Bruce J. Malina (Biblical Inter-pretation). Society of Biblical Literature.

Stanley Porter, Andrew Gabriel. (2013) Johannine Writings and Apocalyptic :An Annotated Bibliography. Vol. 1. Johannine Studies. Brill.

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