Important Dates of the Second Temple Period<\/p>\n
600 BCE Babylonian Empire assumes control of Syria-Palestine
\n586 BCE Destruction of the First Temple, expulsion of Jews to Babylonia<\/p>\n
PERSIAN PERIOD, 538\u2013333 BCE
\n539\u2013538 BCE Cyrus the Great gains control of Mesopotamia and allows Jews to return to Judea
\n520\u2013515 BCE Second Temple built<\/p>\n
HELLENISTIC PERIOD, 336\u201363 BCE
\n336\u2013334 BCE Alexander the Great secures rule of Greece
\n334\u2013323 BCE Alexander conquers the East, including Judea
\n323\u2013301 BCE Wars among the Diadochi, Alexander\u2019s would-be successors<\/p>\n
Ptolemaic Period
\n301 BCE Ptolemaic rule established in Egypt, North Africa, and Palestine
\n285\u2013246 BCE Reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who sponsored Septuagint
\n221 BCE Seleucid King, Antiochus III, invades Palestine for the first time<\/p>\n
Seleucid Period
\n201\u2013198 BCE Seleucid conquest of Palestine under Antiochus III
\n168\u2013164 BCE Maccabean (Hasmonean) Revolt, desecration of the Temple
\n164 BCE Rededication of the Temple
\n160 BCE Death of Judah Maccabee<\/p>\n
Hasmonean Rule
\n152 BCE Jonathan established as High Priest; Josephus first mentions Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes
\n143\u2013134 BCE Simon\u2019s term of office; Seleucids relinquish all claims on Judea
\n134\u2013104 BCE Reign of John Hyrcanus (\u201cYohanan Kohen Gadol\u201d)
\n103\u201376 BCE Reign of Alexander Jannaeus, greatest expansion of Hasmonean kingdom
\n76\u201367 BCE Reign of Salome Alexandra (\u201cShlomzion HaMalka\u201d)<\/p>\n
ROMAN PERIOD 63 BCE\u2013337 CE
\n63 BCE Roman conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey
\n44 BCE Murder of Julius Caesar
\n40 BCE Parthian invasion of Palestine; Herod flees to Rome
\n37 BCE Herod captures Jerusalem
\nca. 20 BCE\u201350 CE Lifespan of Philo of Alexandria
\n4 BCE Death of Herod; his kingdom is split among his sons
\n6 CE Establishment of direct Roman rule in Judea
\n26 (or 19)\u201337 CE Pontius Pilate\u2019s term as Procurator in Jerusalem
\n30 or 33 CE Jesus is crucified by the Romans
\n37\u2013ca. 100 CE Lifespan of Flavius Josephus
\n66\u201370 CE First Jewish revolt against Romans
\n70 CE Titus sacks Jerusalem and destroys the Second Temple
\n73 or 74 CE Siege of Masada
\n116\u2013117 CE Jewish uprisings in Diaspora
\n132\u2013135 CE Bar-Kokhba Revolt
\n135\u2013138 CE Hadrianic persecutions
\nca. 220 CE Mishnah is compiled
\nlate 3rd century CE Tannaitic (halakhic) midrashim are compiled
\n4th century CE Tosefta is compiled
\n306\u2013337 CE Reign of Constantine; Christianity legalized and becomes imperial religion<\/p>\n
BYZANTINE PERIOD, 337\u2013638 CE
\n4th\u20135th century CE Jerusalem Talmud is compiled
\n5th century CE First aggadic midrashim are compiled (Genesis Rabbah)
\nca. 415 CE Abolition of Jewish Patriarchate
\n500\u20131000 CE Masorete transcription of the Hebrew Bible
\n638 CE Muslim conquest of Palestine
\n6th\u20137th century CE Babylonian Talmud is compiled<\/p>\n
Outside the Bible 1<\/p>\n
The Septuagint<\/p>\n
Emanuel Tov<\/p>\n
\u201cSeptuagint\u201d is the ancient Jewish-Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture. Septuaginta means \u201cseventy\u201d in Latin (usually abbreviated as LXX). This name derives from the tradition that the first Greek translation of the Torah (Pentateuch) was prepared by 72 elders, 6 from each of the 12 original tribes. The number 72 was subsequently rounded off to 70. The story of the miraculous creation of the translation is first found in the Hellenistic Jewish Letter of Aristeas (\u00a7301\u20137) and in the slightly later writings of Philo of Alexandria. At the same time, Rabbinic tradition, especially in the Talmud (B. Sof. 1.7), says there were 5 translators of the Torah, 1 for each book; this is more probable than 72 or 70.<\/p>\n
HISTORY AND TRANSMISSION<\/p>\n
According to the Letter of Aristeas, the translation of the Torah into Greek was initiated by Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt (reigned 285\u2013246 BCE), and was centered in Alexandria. This date is probably correct, although most other details in this Letter may be fictive. The translations of the rest of the Hebrew Bible, the Prophets and the Writings, were completed by the middle of the 1st century BCE. The grandson of Ben Sira knew the translation of the Prophets and part of the Writings in 132 or 116 BCE, according to different computations of the date of his Greek translation of Ben Sira\u2019s treatise (see also Wisdom of Ben Sira).
\nLike Hebrew Scripture, the LXX was transmitted in various ways: first in scrolls, later in book form (codex), as well as through citations in other manuscripts, etc. The form of the Hebrew Scripture with which we are most familiar is the Masoretic Text (MT). Forerunners of the MT are found among the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments dating from the 3rd century BCE until the 2nd century CE. The LXX, likewise, is known from ancient parchment (leather) and papyrus scrolls and codices, among them several fragments of early copies found near the Dead Sea. The most reliable complete texts of the LXX, however, are preserved in Christian biblical manuscripts, the codices B (Vaticanus), A (Alexandrinus), and S (Sinaiticus), from the 4th and 5th centuries CE. With the aid of these codices, earlier papyri, and evidence from the church fathers, modern editions reconstruct the early form of the LXX.<\/p>\n
NATURE AND CONTENT<\/p>\n
The translation of the Torah into Greek was soon to be followed by piecemeal translations of the other books of Hebrew Scripture. However, just as the Torah influenced the rest of the biblical books, so the LXX\u2014strictly speaking, the translation of the Torah\u2014gave its name to the collected Greek translations of the remaining Hebrew books. Thus, the label \u201cLXX\u201d ultimately came to designate a group of many translations of the various biblical books, translations that represent different approaches and were produced at different times. In the current version of the LXX, most books reproduce the original Greek translations (the \u201cOld Greek\u201d), but some reflect anonymous later revisions, for example 2 Kings (called 4 Kingdoms in the LXX) and the Song of Songs. The book of Daniel of the LXX contains a revision by a Jewish scholar, Theodotion. These internal differences among the various translations in the collected Greek Scripture texts existed already in antiquity, and consequently modern editions of the LXX are of equally mixed character. When analyzing books of the LXX, one has to take this variety into consideration.
\nThe Septuagint contains Greek versions of all the books of Hebrew Scripture, and also Greek versions of Hebrew books, such as Baruch and the Wisdom of Ben Sira, that were not included in the Hebrew canon. And the books in the LXX are arranged in a different sequence from their order in Hebrew Scripture. In the Hebrew Bible, the three large divisions are Torah, Prophets, and Writings; the divisions reflect the various scriptural books composed at different stages of the creation of the Bible. The books of Greek Scripture are arranged according to their content, in a somewhat different order: Torah and historical books, books of poetry and wisdom, and prophetic books, followed by the books of the New Testament (NT). Within each group, the sequence of the books differs from Hebrew Scripture. For example, in the Greek, the book of Ruth (included among the Writings in the Hebrew) follows the book of Judges, since its story took place \u201cin the days of the Judges\u201d (Ruth 1:1). Often the names of the books differ from their counterparts in Hebrew Scripture (e.g., Samuel\u2013Kings are named 1-4 Kingdoms in the LXX).<\/p>\n
THE CHARACTER OF THE TRANSLATION<\/p>\n
In the modern world, we are accustomed to translations of literary compositions, and it is hard to imagine that at one time no such translations existed. Indeed, in antiquity, cross-cultural enterprises such as the translation of Hebrew Scripture into Greek were a rarity. In fact, the LXX embodies the first major translation from an oriental language into Greek, and it was the first written translation of Hebrew Scripture. Therefore, the translators had to overcome many problems. When trying to analyze the Hebrew and Aramaic words, the translators could not resort to tools such as dictionaries or other sources of lexical information; they had to rely on their living knowledge of these languages and on exegetic traditions relating to words and contexts. We may assume that the translators were guided by such traditions when a specific rendering is found also in other sources. Thus a kesitah (a monetary unit of unknown value) is rendered in the LXX (Gen. 33:19; Josh. 24:32; Job 42:11)\u2014and also in the Aramaic Targum Onkelos and the Latin Vulgate\u2014as \u201clamb\u201d (cf. also Gen. Rab. 79:7). By the same token, the identification of difficult words was often guided by the context. Such a procedure frequently was little more than guesswork, especially in the case of rare and unique Hebrew words.
\nThe LXX was written in Koine, the Hellenistic dialect of Greek that was in general use by those who spoke and wrote in Greek from the 4th century BCE onward. Research into the language of the LXX is important, since this work forms the largest literary source written in this dialect. However, the study of the language of the LXX is complicated because of its many lexical and syntactic Hebraisms transforming characteristic Hebrew idioms to the Greek language, where such idioms do not exist. The high level of adherence to the Hebrew by the translators created new meanings and usages that can only be explained against the Hebrew background of the LXX. Thus the standard rendering of shalom as eir\u0113n\u0113 created a new shade of meaning in 2 Sam. 11:7, where \u201cDavid asked \u2026 how the war was going\u201d (u-li-shelom ha-mil\u1e25amah), which was rendered as \u201cand the peace of the war\u201d (eis eir\u0113n\u0113n tou polemou).
\nThe first translators had to develop their own translation styles. The general approaches of translators are usually labeled \u201cliteral\u201d and its opposite, \u201cfree\u201d (or \u201ccontextual,\u201d or when exceedingly free, \u201cparaphrastic\u201d). Between these two extremes many gradations and variations may be discerned, from slavishly faithful to extremely paraphrastic (when the wording of the parent text is hardly recognizable).
\nThe books of the LXX are characterized by different translation styles that often appear within books of similar content. The reason for these differing styles is unclear. For example, the Greek versions of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the books of the Minor Prophets are rather literal (the original form of these books was translated by one individual), while the translation of Isaiah is free\u2014at times very free. Similar differences are visible within the Writings, where Psalms is presented in a very literal Greek version and the translations of Job and Proverbs are quite free, sometimes paraphrastic.
\nAnalysis of the level of freedom and literalness in the translators\u2019 approaches forms a key element in our understanding of translation styles and their use in the text-critical analysis of Hebrew Scripture. In short, the argument runs as follows: If a translator represented his Hebrew text faithfully in small details, we would not expect him to insert major changes in the translation. Therefore, when we find major differences between the LXX and MT in relatively faithful translation units, they must reflect different Hebrew texts. These differing Hebrew texts are of central importance to our understanding of Hebrew Scripture.
\nMost of the books of Hebrew Scripture were rendered into Greek in a relatively faithful way, while some are characterized by very literal renderings. In books of the latter type we can more easily assess the nature of the deviations from the MT. Some books, however, were rendered freely. These units pose special challenges, since in these cases it is more difficult to assess the nature of the Hebrew text behind the LXX (see Selections from Joshua, Selections from Esther, and Selections from Daniel.).
\nThe LXX was translated from a Hebrew text that differed, often greatly, from the MT. This is not surprising, since in antiquity many differing copies of the Hebrew Scripture text were in circulation. All these copies were considered \u201cScripture\u201d in early Judaism (but not in the later Rabbinic Judaism) and in Christianity, and they are accepted as such also by most scholars. In our analysis of Hebrew Scripture, we should supplement the data of the MT with valuable information included in the LXX, some Qumran scrolls, and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
\nSmall differences between the LXX and the MT\u2014minor changes inserted by scribes and mistakes made while copying the manuscripts\u2014are recorded in the critical text editions of individual books of the MT. While some are also noted in the commentary on selections from the LXX in these volumes, the commentary focuses mainly on large differences between the MT and the LXX. Such differences may involve a whole chapter or even a complete book.
\nIn some cases, the LXX contains a compositional layer that may have preceded the text of the MT (for example, in the books of Joshua and Jeremiah). In other cases, the Hebrew text underlying the LXX rewrote the MT, in ways that often resemble midrashic techniques (e.g., in 1 Kings, Esther, and Daniel). In yet other cases, the relation between the two texts cannot be determined easily (e.g., in Genesis, 1 Samuel, and Proverbs).<\/p>\n
THE WORLD OF THE TRANSLATORS<\/p>\n
Many renderings reflect the cultural environment of the translators, which consisted of elements of both Palestinian and Egyptian society. The Egyptian background is visible in some local technical terms. For example, nogsim, \u201ctaskmasters,\u201d in the story of the Israelites in Egypt (Exod. 3:7 and elsewhere) was rendered as ergodi\u014dktai, literally, \u201cthose who speed up the workers,\u201d known from Egyptian papyri; the Hellenistic division of cities into nomoi (districts) is reflected in Isa. 19:2 LXX.
\nThe translators often added religious background to sayings in Hebrew Scripture. See the examples given in Proverbs 1 and Selections from Esther; see further Isa. 5:13: \u201cTherefore my people go into exile without knowledge\u201d (NRSV), to which the LXX added \u201cof the LORD.\u201d Likewise, Targum Jonathan often identified \u201cknowledge\u201d with \u201cthe Torah\u201d (Isa. 28:9 etc.).
\nIn several places, the translators interpreted the context as referring to the messiah. \u201cA star rises from Jacob, a scepter comes forth from Israel\u201d in Num. 24:17 MT is interpreted in the LXX as \u201cA star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a man shall rise out of Israel\u201d (emphasis mine). A similar interpretation is reflected in the Aramaic Targumim. In other instances, the translators avoided a physical depiction of God. Thus in Num. 12:8 MT, \u201cand he beholds the likeness of the LORD\u201d is rendered in the LXX as referring to the \u201cglory of the LORD.\u201d<\/p>\n
SIGNIFICANCE<\/p>\n
The Jewish origin of the LXX is described in the Letter of Aristeas, in Rabbinic literature, and various additional sources. Its Jewish nature is reflected in its terminology and exegesis. Several Hebrew words were preserved in the LXX in their Hebrew or Aramaic form (at the time of the translation, Aramaic was more commonly spoken by Jews than was Hebrew). Some Hebraized Greek words in the LXX probably reflected the spoken language of the Alexandrian Jews, such as sabbata (Heb. Shabbat, Aram. shabta\u2018) and pascha (Heb. pesach, Aram. pascha\u2019).
\nJewish exegesis is visible wherever a special interpretation of the LXX is known also from Rabbinic literature. Such exegesis reveals the Palestinian background of at least some of the translators. For example, the Gk. to deuteron epidekaton, \u201csecond tithe,\u201d in the LXX of Deut. 26:12 differs from the term found in the MT: shenat ha-ma\u2018aser, \u201cthe year of the tithe.\u201d Here, the LXX translator has read the Heb. as shenit ha-ma\u2018aser, literally \u201csecond, the tithe\u201d; this interpretation represents the influence of the Rabbinic term ma\u2018aser sheni (\u201csecond tithe\u201d), mistakenly read into the biblical text.
\nThe LXX translation was a Jewish venture, created for Jews and probably also for Gentiles. It was used by Jews in their weekly ceremonial reading from Scripture, and served as the base for the philosophical-exegetic works of Philo and the historical-exegetic writings of Josephus. However, the central position of the LXX in Judaism did not last for a long period. It was soon recognized that the LXX often differed from the Hebrew text that was current in Palestine from the 2nd to the 1st centuries BCE onward and that was later to become the MT. These differences were not to the liking of the Pharisaic (proto-Rabbinic) circles, who held on to the exact wording of the MT, and soon a trend developed to replace the LXX with new translations. These new translations adapted the Old Greek translation to the Hebrew text then current in Palestine. They also changed the wording of the original translation when it imprecisely represented the source text. Because of their revisional character, the translations that were produced after the Old Greek translation are usually called \u201crevisions.\u201d
\nThe Jewish dislike of the LXX became even stronger when the Greek writings of early Christianity (the New Testament, or NT) based themselves, quite naturally, on the LXX (for Christianity: the Greek translation of the Old Testament). The LXX influenced the NT at various levels. Many of the terms used by the LXX translators became part and parcel of the language of the NT. For example, christos, originally a Gk. rendering of the Heb. mashiach, \u201cthe anointed,\u201d became the accepted appellation of Jesus of Nazareth. Furthermore, the NT quotes the LXX frequently, and some of its theological foundations are based on the wording of passages in the LXX. At an early stage the belief developed that this translation was divinely inspired and hence the way was open for several church fathers to claim that the LXX reflected the words of God more precisely than the Hebrew Bible. In the West, Christianity held on to the LXX as Holy Scripture until it was replaced by the Vulgate translation, by the church father Jerome (ca. 400 CE). In the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, the LXX is still considered sacred.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Bickerman, Elias. \u201cThe Septuagint as a Translation.\u201d In Studies in Jewish and Christian History, Part 1, 167\u2013200. Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 9. Leiden: Brill, 1967.
\nDines, Jennifer M. The Septuagint. London: T. & T. Clark, 2004.
\nFern\u00e1ndez Marcos, Natalio. The Septuagint in Context: Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
\nJellicoe, Sidney. The Septuagint and Modern Study. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
\nSeeligmann, Isaac L. \u201cProblems and Perspectives in Modern Septuagint Research.\u201d Textus 15 (1990): 169\u2013232.
\nSilva, Mois\u00e9s, and K. H. Jobes. Invitation to the Septuagint. Grand Rapids MI: Baker Academic, 2000.
\nSwete, Henry B. An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 2nd ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1914.
\nTov, Emanuel. \u201cThe Septuagint.\u201d In Mikra, section 2, The Literature of the Jewish People in the Period of the Second Temple and the Talmud, edited by M. J. Mulder, 1:161\u201388. Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Assen-Maastricht: Fortress\/Van Gorcum, 1988.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cThe Nature of the Large-Scale Differences between the LXX and MT S T V, Compared with Similar Evidence in Other Sources.\u201d In The Earliest Text of the Hebrew Bible: The Relationship between the Masoretic Text and the Hebrew Base of the Septuaginta Reconsidered, edited by Adrian Schenker, 121\u201344. Septuagint and Cognate Studies 52. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 2003.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Parallel Aligned Text of the Greek and Hebrew Bible (division of the CATSS database, directed by R. A. Kraft and E. Tov), module in the Accordance computer program, 2002 (with updates 2003\u2013) and the Logos computer program, 2004 (with updates 2005\u2013).<\/p>\n
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha<\/p>\n
James L. Kugel<\/p>\n
The terms \u201cApocrypha\u201d and \u201cPseudepigrapha\u201d are used to designate two loosely defined groups of texts that have survived\u2014for the most part in translation from the original Hebrew or Aramaic\u2014thanks to their having been preserved by various Christian churches. This fact in itself should make clear that the terms themselves, as well as the distinction between them, are proper to Christianity. From a Jewish standpoint, these texts, along with the Dead Sea Scrolls and the writings of Philo, Josephus, and other Hellenistic Jewish authors, all belong to a single corpus of Jewish writings of the Second Temple period. Some of these writings clearly were considered to be sacred texts, but for one reason or another they were not incorporated into the canonical collection that makes up our current Jewish Bible.
\nThis is certainly true of many of the Apocrypha; some were doubtless thought to be no less holy than such biblical books as Genesis or Psalms. But when the Christian scholar Jerome (ca. 331\u2013420) set out to translate Hebrew Scripture into Latin, he put aside a number of books that were not in the Rabbinic canon as \u201cApocrypha,\u201d the Greek term meaning \u201cput aside\u201d or \u201chidden away\u201d (perhaps used by Jerome as an equivalent of the Hebrew genuzim).
\nThe works usually included under the rubric Apocrypha, are: 1 and 2 Maccabees (some Christian Bibles also include 3 and 4 Maccabees), 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), 1 Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah, Psalm 151, Additions to the Book of Daniel (comprised of The Prayer of Azariah, The Song of the Three Youths, The Story of Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon), Additions to the Book of Esther, and The Prayer of Manasseh.
\nThe Pseudepigrapha include a far more fluid body of texts. The name \u201cpseudepigrapha\u201d means \u201cfalsely attributed writings,\u201d a reflection of the practice common in Second Temple times for authors to conceal their real identity and attribute their writings to various biblical figures\u2014Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, Baruch, Ezra, and so forth. But this name does not properly describe all the works generally included under the rubric of pseudepigrapha: a number of them contain no attribution of authorship whatsoever.
\nThese works, like those of the Apocrypha, cover a wide range of literary genres. Many are accounts of dream visions or divine revelations (such as 1 and 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, etc.). Others take the form of spiritual last wills, in which a dying ancestor instructs his descendants about the proper path to follow in life (the Testament of Job, the Testament of Abraham, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, etc.). Still others are expansive retellings of biblical material (the Life of Adam and Eve, Jubilees, Pseudo-Philo\u2019s Book of Biblical Antiquities), as well as collections of ancient wisdom, pseudepigraphic psalms, and yet other material. Together, these works comprise the largest body of Jewish writings from the Second Temple period that we possess, surpassing in volume the whole collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the Septuagint, or the writings of individual authors such as Philo or Josephus.<\/p>\n
ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION<\/p>\n
One valuable aspect of these works is that nearly all of them reveal something about how the Torah and other sacred texts were commonly interpreted at the time in which the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha were written. (The same, of course, is true of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Hellenistic Jewish writings.) The interest in the meaning of Scripture, and often the willful attempt to promote a new interpretation of ancient texts, is most evident in works like Jubilees or the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. In both, the author deliberately sets out to comment on well-known biblical narratives from Genesis, seeking to resolve inconsistencies or apparent contradictions in the text, as well as to flesh out details in the story and, often, to bring out some new teaching or lesson from the biblical narrative.
\nJubilees and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs stand out among all the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha by dint of their intense focus on explaining and expanding the stories of Genesis. They also reveal an interesting feature of ancient biblical interpretation. Although commentaries per se did exist in ancient times (in, for example, the writings of Philo and the Dead Sea Scrolls pesharim), a rather popular way of commenting on texts was not to cite a verse and then offer an explanation, but rather to explain via retelling.
\nCommentators would rewrite a text in their own words, inserting into it their own understanding. If, for example, the original text contained a problematic word or phrase, or a place name no longer in use, the commentator would replace it with a different word or phrase that everyone would understand, or the name of a place that everyone would recognize. The same principle operated on the level of sustained narrative. In retelling a biblical story, the commentator would insert explanations of how something happened, or what motivated this or that biblical figure to act as he or she did. Sometimes these insertions went on for pages, nor were they always intended merely to clarify or fill in gaps in the narrative. Often they were designed to justify questionable items\u2014to explain, for example, why it was not reprehensible of Abram to have instructed his wife Sarai to say that she was his sister. Sometimes these ancient commentators also sought to find in biblical texts justification for their own, polemical claims\u2014such as the attempt by the author of Jubilees to condemn any contact of Jews with non-Jews.<\/p>\n
OFFHAND EXEGESIS<\/p>\n
Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and one or two others of the biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are indeed bent on interpreting, or reinterpreting, biblical narratives. But many of the other texts included under these rubrics refer to biblical texts in an altogether offhand manner, as if incorporating unconsciously some existing piece of interpretation. In many cases, it seems that the writer is simply reflecting what he or she has heard or learned from others\u2014teachers or preachers or other public figures. It is well to remember that books in this period were extremely expensive and relatively rare; it is altogether likely that those who studied ancient texts were simply taught to memorize them\u2014and that, along with the text itself, they learned by heart a standard interpretation of each passage or verse. Under such circumstances, it must not have always been easy for them to distinguish between text and standard commentary. So it is that many writers introduce a bit of interpretation (what is called an interpretive motif) without explaining, or perhaps even realizing, that such an explanation does not appear in the Scriptural text itself.
\nTo give but one example among many: the book of Judith is essentially an adventure tale, the story of its heroine\u2019s brave confrontation with the villain Holofernes. The book has very little (if any) interest in ancient interpretive traditions per se. But just before the climactic scene, Judith prays a short prayer:<\/p>\n
O LORD God of my ancestor Simeon, to whom you gave a sword to take revenge on those strangers who had torn off a virgin\u2019s clothing to defile her, and exposed her thighs to put her to shame, and polluted her womb to disgrace her; for You said, \u201cIt shall not be done\u2014yet they did it.\u2026\u201d O God, my God, hear me also, a widow. (Jdth. 9:1\u20134)<\/p>\n
In this prayer is evidence of at least two ancient interpretive motifs that derive from the biblical story of Dinah (Gen. 34). The first maintained that Levi and Simeon were each given a special, heaven-sent weapon (here, \u201ca sword\u201d) with which to take revenge on the people of Shechem for the rape of their sister. There is no mention of such a weapon having been given in the biblical story, but the same interpretive motif appears in the Testament of Levi (3:1) section of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and may be hinted at as well in the Hellenistic romance, Joseph and Aseneth (23:13\u201314). Another interpretive motif appears in Judith\u2019s assertion that God said, \u201c \u2018It shall not be done\u2019\u2014yet they did it.\u201d This is a reference to Gen. 34:7, where it is apparently Jacob\u2019s sons who say to each other, \u201cSuch a thing shall not be done.\u201d But an ancient motif found in Jubilees (30:5) and elsewhere held that these words were uttered not by Jacob\u2019s sons, but by God himself. Here, then, are two examples of the sort of offhand references to existing exegetical traditions that are common in Second Temple writings.<\/p>\n
FOCUS ON GENESIS<\/p>\n
It is an interesting feature of the books included in the biblical Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha that the exegetical motifs that they cite are overwhelmingly focused on narratives that appear in Genesis. (One partial exception is the Book of Biblical Antiquities, which retells biblical narratives from Genesis through 1 Samuel). This stands in opposition to the many texts from Qumran that are concerned with matters of halakhah (Jewish law), for example, the Temple Scroll and Some Precepts on the Torah [4QMMT]); the same is true of the writings of Philo and Josephus, both of whom show a profound interest in, and familiarity with, halakhic traditions. But such matters are relatively neglected in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Perhaps the reason lies in the fact that these texts have all survived thanks to early Christians. It may be that the relative lack of interest in halakhic matters in early Christianity caused the early Church to put aside Jewish texts focused on such things and to concentrate instead on those connected to Genesis.
\nOf course, there is much to be learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha apart from ancient biblical interpretation. Indeed, these texts open a window onto the whole world of Second Temple Judaism. That is, they tell us much about the actual way of life of Jews in this period; their social and political conditions, both within Judea and outside of it; what they thought about themselves in relation to their immediate neighbors; to what extent different circles within the population had been influenced by Hellenism and Greek thought, and how they themselves felt about this influence; and finally, how they sought to connect themselves to Israel\u2019s biblical past, as well as their hopes and dreams about the future. All these subjects have been investigated in the past, but there remains much to be discovered\u2014sometimes, between the lines\u2014in this important group of texts from the Second Temple period.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Charles, R. H. Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1913.
\nCharlesworth, J. C. Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2 vols. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1983, 1985.
\nKugel, J. L. The Bible as It Was. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.
\nNickelsburg, George W. E. Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Augsburg-Fortress, 2005.
\nSparks, H. F. D. The Apocryphal Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1984.
\nStone, M. E. Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period. Philadelphia: VanGorcum-Fortress, 1984.<\/p>\n
The Writings of Philo<\/p>\n
David T. Runia<\/p>\n
Philo of Alexandria is the most important representative of Hellenistic Judaism, the Greek-speaking variety of Judaism that flourished in Alexandria and elsewhere in the Diaspora from 200 BCE to 100 CE.<\/p>\n
PHILO\u2019S LIFE<\/p>\n
We obtain very little explicit information about Philo from his own writings. Josephus refers to him only once, in Ant. 18.259\u201360. This passage tells us four things: (1) that Philo was \u201cheld in the highest honor\u201d in the Jewish community of Alexandria; (2) that he was the brother of Alexander the Alabarch, a leading member of the community and one of the richest men in the Roman Empire; (3) that he was \u201cnot unskilled in philosophy\u201d; and (4) that he was placed at the head of an embassy of Alexandrian Jews that traveled to Rome to protest to the Emperor Gaius Caligula against the anti-Jewish mob violence that had taken place in Alexandria in 38 CE, a perilous adventure that could have cost Philo his life. Josephus may well have derived this last item of information from Philo\u2019s own account of the delegation, which has survived under the title On the Embassy to Gaius. At the beginning of this work Philo describes himself as a \u201csenior person\u201d who has gone gray through length of years (Embassy 1). This is the only secure chronologic evidence that we have for his life. He was probably born about 20 BCE and had died by about 50 CE.
\nPhilo was born into a very rich and influential Jewish family in Alexandria. There can be no doubt that he enjoyed the privileges of Roman citizenship and had the benefit of an extensive education in the liberal arts and philosophy. In his writings he often speaks in general terms about social and cultural events that he attended in Alexandrian society. At the same time his writings attest to his deep involvement in the life of the Jewish community, even if concrete details about his participation in religious and educational institutions are lacking. The 4th-century church father Jerome relates that Philo was of priestly descent (Vir. ill. 11). There are good arguments for accepting this testimony; in an incidental comment in one of his dialogues, Philo tells us that he traveled to Jerusalem \u201cto pray and sacrifice in the ancestral Temple\u201d (Prov. 2.107).
\nApart from the embassy, the most interesting evidence on Philo\u2019s life in his own writings is furnished by two surviving dialogues that depict discussions in his family circle (On Providence 2 and Whether Animals Have Reason). In both works the chief interlocutor is his nephew Tiberius Julius Alexander, who apostasized from his Jewish beliefs, became governor of Egypt, and participated in the campaign that led to the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Philo passionately defends Jewish belief in divine providence against the skeptical Alexander. At the end of the dialogue Alexander concedes victory to his uncle (Prov. 2.113), but this may well have been wishful thinking on Philo\u2019s part. In his introduction to On the Special Laws (3), Philo wistfully looks back on a time when he could devote his attention to philosophy and remain untouched by political cares (Spec. Laws 3.1\u20136). Here he is probably referring to the events leading up to the embassy, but they are also an indication of the dark clouds that were beginning to threaten the Jewish community in Alexandria during Philo\u2019s lifetime. The community found itself in an increasingly precarious situation, sandwiched between the educated Greek citizen body and the native Egyptian populace, both of whom were deeply hostile to Jews. Such social and ideological conflict, which could burst into open violence at any time, is the backdrop for Philo\u2019s writing.<\/p>\n
WORKS<\/p>\n
Philo was a prolific author. Almost 50 treatises by his hand have survived, amounting to about 2,500 pages of text. The best-known edition of his works in the Loeb Classical Library takes up no less than 12 volumes. Yet we know that at least a third of his writings have been lost. Moreover, not all of the extant works have survived in the original Greek; nine treatises, including the above-mentioned dialogues, are available only in a literal Armenian translation produced in Byzantium (present-day Istanbul) in the 6th century.
\nThe vast majority of Philo\u2019s writings are commentaries on Scripture, focusing almost exclusively on the Torah, translated into Greek (the Septuagint, LXX). These commentaries can be grouped into three lengthy series, discussed at more length below. In some cases Philo explains the same biblical text in all three series, allowing direct comparison of the different methods of scriptural interpretation that he used in each. They are:<\/p>\n
Allegorical Interpretation, which consists of 21 treatises. Here Philo gives a detailed and complex exposition of Gen. 1\u201317. Through the use of the exegetic technique of allegory, he interprets the early history of humanity and the life of the patriarch Abraham in terms of the moral life and religious quest of the soul.
\nExposition of the Law, in 10 books. This is a more varied work directed at a wider audience. It offers a detailed explanation of the Torah, or Law, in its broadest sense. It commences with an explanation of the Creation account in Gen. 1\u20133, which is seen as laying a philosophical basis for the Law. It then moves on to the patriarchs as living embodiments of the Law, before turning to detailed exposition of the Decalogue and the other ordinances of the Mosaic Law, with emphasis on both literal observance and symbolic interpretation. There is also an introductory account of the life of Moses in two books, which is best seen as an introduction to the whole series rather than as belonging specifically to the Exposition.
\nQuestions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus, comprising six books (four on Genesis and two on Exodus). Imperfectly preserved in Armenian, this presents questions and answers on the biblical text in its literary sequence. Most of the (usually) short chapters contain literal interpretation, followed by figurative (or allegorical) interpretation. The purpose of this work is to provide a kind of repository of exegetic material, to be used in teaching or perhaps in the synagogue.<\/p>\n
A small group of historical-apologetic treatises also survives. Two of these deal with the violence against the Jews in Alexandria in 38 CE and its aftermath. In a famous work titled On the Contemplative Life, Philo paints an intriguing portrait of a group of Jewish ascetics living in the countryside outside Alexandria. His corresponding work on the \u201cpractical\u201d life, describing the Essenes, has been lost, but fortunately we have a shorter chapter on the Essenes in another of Philo\u2019s works (Good Person 75\u201391). These works are of inestimable value because they draw a picture of Jewish life and thought outside Palestine at the height of Second Temple Judaism.
\nThe group of five philosophical treatises is most intriguing. Three of these have only survived in an Armenian translation, On Providence 1 and 2 and Whether Animals Have Reason. There is also a treatise on the indestructibility of the cosmos and one titled That Every Good Person Is Free. These works, which make virtually no reference to Scripture at all, provide us with much highly valuable source material on Hellenistic philosophy and are relevant to the concerns of a Jewish intellectual. This is particularly clear in the case of the theme of divine providence, which is the subject of two of the five works.<\/p>\n
PHILO\u2019S BIBLE<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s writings contain a huge number of quotations from and references to the Jewish Bible. These have been collected together in a supplementary volume to the Biblia Patristica. This invaluable resource lists all the biblical quotations of the church fathers up to about 400 CE.
\nOf the 129 columns of references, 123 are to the first five books, ascribed in the tradition to Moses, and only 6 to the rest of the Bible, including the Psalms and Prophets. This remarkable imbalance certainly tells us something important about Philo, which may well also extend to the rest of Alexandrian Judaism. Scripture for Philo is primarily, if not exclusively, the Torah.
\nThe chief reason for Philo\u2019s focus on the Pentateuch is his great admiration for Moses. Philo is convinced that Moses was the author of the entire Torah, including the account of his death at the end, which Moses prophetically foresaw. At the beginning of his treatise on the biblical Creation account, On the Creation of the World, Philo introduces Moses to his readers as one who \u201cnot only had reached the very summit of philosophy, but had also been instructed in the many and most essential doctrines of nature by means of oracles\u201d (Creation 8). This quote, if read carefully, indicates Philo\u2019s double take on the origin of Scripture: On the one hand, God instructed Moses what to write, so that the authority of Scripture ultimately derives from God himself. But on the other, Moses is considered to be the divine instrument in formulating the writings that are transmitted under his name.
\nPhilo is convinced that these books, if read properly, contain all the wisdom and guidance that one needs to know in order to lead a good life, devoted to God. They represent a sacred text whose authority is paramount and unconditional. To some degree Philo tends to present Moses as a kind of Greek philosopher who founded a school of thought (hairesis), of which the Jewish people are disciples. This was a useful way of presenting the Jewish religion in the Greek intellectual context of Alexandria, especially since the Greeks had great respect for sages who lived long ago and left behind writings with great authority.
\nPhilo was of course well aware that Moses had written his books in Hebrew, or Chaldean, as he sometimes calls it. He himself, however, always refers to the Mosaic books of the Septuagint. As noted above, he wrote a biographical introduction to Moses and his writings in which he presents Moses under four headings: king (or leader), legislator, priest, and prophet. Moses\u2019s role as author of Scripture is discussed mainly under the second heading (though it is also relevant to the fourth). Philo gives a famous account of how the Torah was translated into Greek on the instigation of none other than King Ptolemy of Alexandria (Moses 2.25\u201344; see also The Letter of Aristeas). Philo believes that the LXX is an exact translation of the original Hebrew text. He himself was almost certainly unable to read the Hebrew Bible in the original; the divine authority of the LXX was for him an article of faith.<\/p>\n
PHILO\u2019S WAY OF READING THE BIBLE<\/p>\n
Most of Philo\u2019s writings are commentaries of differing kinds on the Torah. In them he makes crucial assumptions about the nature of the sacred text. For example, Moses writes nothing that is in any way superfluous; every word of his text, including all its names and numbers, is drenched with meaning, and that meaning is of direct relevance to people\u2019s lives.
\nFor Philo, the sacred text has literal meaning. The patriarchs were real people who lived long ago, and the Torah\u2019s injunctions for daily living are to be obeyed literally. He disagrees sharply with those contemporaries who argued that the Law had only symbolic significance (Migration 89\u201393). But his real interest is in the symbolic meaning of both the lives of the patriarchs and the regulations of the Torah. According to Philo, the wisdom of Scripture lies primarily in its hidden meaning, which can be uncovered only through the process of allegorical interpretation. He himself is famous (or notorious) for the complex systems of allegorical exegesis that he developed in response to the biblical text. For Philo, the patriarchs not only are humans who existed in history, but in a deeper sense stand for the soul in its relation to God. Abraham symbolizes the learning soul, Isaac the soul that is gifted by nature and is thus self-taught, Jacob the soul that strives for excellence and perfection through practice. The scheme behind this interpretation has its roots in Greek philosophy. Philo applies it to the Bible, and it allows him to discern spiritual depth in stories that on the surface may seem archaic or even alien.
\nPhilo\u2019s method of allegorical exegesis makes many of his writings difficult and even convoluted; the reader often needs guidance to follow the complex chains of thought. The aim of his method, however, is simple: to show that Scripture is relevant for the life of the soul in quest of God. Contributing to the complexity is the fact that Philo sometimes gives differing or even competing explanations of the same text. Such multiple exegesis has its roots in the school setting of Alexandrian Judaism. Generations of exegetes had interpreted the Bible before Philo and he is keen to record their efforts, though he never mentions any names. Perhaps he sensed that these opinions had to be preserved before they disappeared.<\/p>\n
PHILO\u2019S SIGNIFICANCE<\/p>\n
Without the evidence supplied by Philo\u2019s copious writings, our knowledge of this fascinating period in the history of Jewish life and thought would be severely impoverished. His significance is particularly great in the following areas:<\/p>\n
Philo gives us a substantial amount of information about Jewish life in Alexandria at the beginning of the Common Era. His record of political events fleshes out the accounts of Josephus to a considerable degree. He also informs us about various Jewish groups in the Diaspora. His accounts, however, are often annoyingly vague and general.
\nHe also tells us much about Jewish observance of the Law in his time. Certain practices that later became standard in Rabbinic Judaism are foreshadowed in Philo\u2019s writings. It is obvious that there was continuity between Judaism in Palestine and Judaism in the Diaspora. However, here too it is often hard to pin him down because he is commenting on the Bible and not explicitly describing contemporary practice. It is also likely that Philo was already acquainted with midrashic material that is recorded in Rabbinic texts.
\nBecause he quotes or paraphrases the LXX extensively in his works, Philo is a fundamental witness to the state of the biblical text in his time. His Bible is certainly not identical to the text as we have it today, but neither does he provide evidence for a separate edition that now has been lost.
\nHis writings are a crucial witness to the commentary tradition on the Greek Bible. His own exegesis, and especially his use of the allegorical method, is a unique product of Alexandrian Judaism. It also preserves evidence of other commentary traditions that preceded him.
\nPhilo testifies to an extensive interaction between Jewish culture and the dominant Greco-Roman culture of the Alexandria of his day. Nowhere did Jews adapt themselves to the dominant culture more than in this metropolis. A positive attitude to Greek cultural achievement is a hallmark of Alexandrian Judaism. Philo probably went further in this than most of his fellow Jews.
\nHe is also an important witness to the culture of early Imperial Alexandria aside from its links to Judaism. His command of the Greek language is outstanding, and the information he provides on Greek education, literature, science, and particularly philosophy is invaluable. He is a sharp observer, and even his observations of ancient sport incorporated in similes and metaphors have been considered informative by classical scholars.
\nPhilo was an exact contemporary of Jesus and an older contemporary of Paul. His writings form an important backdrop for the New Testament, even though Alexandria plays a limited role in that work. New Testament scholars have pored over Philo\u2019s works for centuries in an attempt to understand how the Christian religion grew out of Second Temple Judaism.<\/p>\n
PHILO\u2019S INFLUENCE<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s writings had practically no influence on Judaism as it developed after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the disastrous Jewish revolt in Egypt in 115\u2013117 CE. The Rabbis were not interested in Philo because his attitude toward Greek culture differed so strongly from their own, and medieval Judaism was unaware of his existence. As far as Judaism is concerned, his writings were rediscovered by the Italian Jew Azariah dei Rossi in the late 16th century. On the other hand his writings were warmly embraced by early Christian thinkers, who saw in him a kindred spirit. They were attracted to his use of the Greek Bible and the allegorical method, as well as to doctrines such as the transcendence of God, the creation of the cosmos, the Logos, and providence. They also found his accounts of the life and role of Moses useful for apologetic purposes.
\nThe early Christians preserved Philo\u2019s writings, first in Alexandria, and later in the libraries of Caesarea and Byzantium. Philo was regarded by Christian scholars as a \u201cgood Jew\u201d\u2014that is, one whose writings were acceptable to Christians\u2014and this reputation continued in the medieval period. Today both Jewish and Christian scholars carry out extensive research on his writings and thought, the results of which are distilled in the various contributions to these volumes.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s writings are best consulted in the edition of the Loeb Classical Library:<\/p>\n
Philo: In Ten Volumes (and Two Supplementary Volumes). Translated by F. H. Colson, G. H. Whitaker, and R. Marcus. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1929\u20131962.<\/p>\n
There is an excellent anthology:<\/p>\n
Winston, David. Philo of Alexandria, The Contemplative Life, The Giants, and Selections. The Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1981.<\/p>\n
Three volumes have been published in the new Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series:<\/p>\n
Runia, David T. Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
\nvan der Horst, P. W. Philo\u2019s Flaccus: The First Pogrom. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
\nWilson, Walter T. Philo of Alexandria on Virtues: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2011.<\/p>\n
The best recent general introduction is:<\/p>\n
Borgen, P. Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time. Leiden: Brill, 1997.<\/p>\n
For Philo\u2019s philosophical and theological thought, see:<\/p>\n
Winston, D. Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1985.<\/p>\n
For extensive use of Philo\u2019s evidence in an account of Second Temple Judaism, see:<\/p>\n
Sanders, E. P. Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE\u201366 CE. Philadelphia: Trinity, 1992.<\/p>\n
For Philo\u2019s reception in the Christian tradition, see:<\/p>\n
Runia, D. T. Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.<\/p>\n
Josephus and His Writings<\/p>\n
Louis H. Feldman<\/p>\n
Titus Flavius Josephus, the important Jewish historian and prolific writer, provided us with our only detailed descriptions of Jewish history, politics, and culture of the Second Temple period, including first-hand accounts of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the events leading up to the emergence of nascent Christianity and the early Diaspora.<\/p>\n
HIS LIFE<\/p>\n
Few scholars have been neutral in their judgment of the life of Josephus. In the 19th century Jewish and Christian scholars alike condemned him almost unanimously. Aside from Josephus\u2019s own autobiography and the references to his career in his Jewish War, the sources for his life are slight. Among pagan writers, Suetonius (Vespasian 5.6), Appian (frag. 17), and Cassius Dio (66.1) mention his prediction that Vespasian would become emperor, and Porphyry (De abstinentia et esu animaliums 4.11) cites Josephus\u2019s discussion of the three philosophical schools (Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes). Perhaps the Talmud\u2019s silence about him is due to the fact that he was an \u201coutsider.\u201d That said, an attempt has been made to find a hidden reference to him in minor talmudic tractates (Derek Eretz Rabbah 5, Pirke Ben Azzai 3) that mention a visit of several sages to a nameless (to be sure, pagan) philosopher in Rome who is seeking his intercession with the Emperor Domitian.
\nBorn in Jerusalem in 37 CE, Josephus was given the Hebrew name Joseph ben Mattityahu. In his autobiography, Life (2), he is proud of the fact that he was descended on his father\u2019s side from the first of the 24 courses of priests and on his mother\u2019s side from the Hasmonean kings. We know nothing of his life until the age of 14 (Life 8) except that he made great progress in his education and gained a reputation for such an excellent memory and understanding that he was universally consulted by the chief priests and leaders of Jerusalem for his precise information on the laws.
\nStarting at the age of 16, he spent three years gaining personal experience as a Pharisee, a Sadducee, and an Essene, after which, he says, he spent three years living with a hermit named Bannus. Finally, he began a political association with the Pharisees. At the age of 26 he went on a successful mission to Rome to gain the release of certain priests from prison. Though he had no military experience, two years later, at the beginning of the Jewish revolt against Rome, he was chosen by the revolutionary council in Jerusalem to be general in Galilee. There he eventually surrendered to the Romans; predicted that the general Vespasian would be chosen emperor; and received a tract of land outside Jerusalem, some sacred books, the liberation of some friends, Roman citizenship, lodging in the former palace of Vespasian, a pension, and other amenities.
\nIn Life (29), however, which tells the story at greater length, Josephus asserts that when he was appointed, the leaders in Jerusalem, who favored pacification, dispatched him to induce the rebels to fight only in self-defense. He pretended to agree with the rebels, while actually hoping that the Roman general, Cestius Gallus, would in the meantime quell the revolution. One wonders why Josephus, once appointed, did not undertake guerrilla warfare, as his Maccabean ancestors had done so successfully more than two centuries earlier, or why he did not retreat with his army to Jerusalem, which he knew was by far the best fortified of all the Jewish strongholds, rather than shut himself up in the tactically hopeless trap of Jotapata. The suspicion is strong that Josephus was playing a double role; and indeed he says in an extraordinarily candid passage (Life 72) that when the revolutionary John of Gischala had asked for the imperial grain in Galilee, so that he might secure the income he needed to construct defenses for Gischala, Josephus refused, saying that he intended to reserve the grain \u201ceither for the Romans or for my own use.\u201d Again, the fact that in the suicide pact with his men at Jotapata Josephus somehow managed to be among the last two to die has led to suspicions that he arranged the drawing of the lots. Indeed, the Slavonic version (War 3.391), which hardly seeks to discredit Josephus, states quite explicitly that \u201che counted the numbers with cunning and thereby misled them all.\u201d<\/p>\n
HIS WORKS<\/p>\n
Josephus\u2019s earliest work, the Jewish War, in seven books, was originally written in Aramaic, though nothing remains of that version. In 79\u201381 CE Josephus himself translated it into Greek, with the aid of some assistants. His magnum opus is his Jewish Antiquities, completed in 93\u201394, in 20 books covering the span of history from Creation to the outbreak of the revolution against the Romans. Life defends his action as general in Galilee; and his Against Apion, in two books, written shortly thereafter, refutes the charges of anti-Semites, notably that the Jews are actually of recent origin, that they worship the head of an ass in the Temple, and that they practice ritual murder.
\nThough we have 133 manuscripts in whole or in part of the Greek text of Josephus, the earliest dates from as late as the 10th or 11th century, a full 1,000 years after their composition. Only one brief papyrus fragment (War 2.576\u201379, 582\u201384), dating from the 3rd century CE, remains. The many discrepancies between it and the manuscripts suggest that the manuscripts are not completely accurate.<\/p>\n
JOSEPHUS THE HISTORIAN<\/p>\n
The importance of Josephus as an historian may be gauged by comparing what we know about the century before the end of the first Jewish insurrection against the Romans with the little we know about the century thereafter. In view of the fact that we have so little historical information about this period in Rabbinic writings and in the works of non-Jewish writers, Josephus\u2019s information is quite important. It is of particular value because of his claim (which has surely been debated) that he is a critical historian who found fault with other historians (whose works, unfortunately, no longer exist). Josephus has indeed supplied us with a detailed account of the events leading to the Jewish insurrection and to the destruction of the Second Temple, but we have no such historian for the succeeding events. It is no exaggeration to say, for example, that we have more information from his writings about the infamous Herod than about any other figure in Greek or Roman antiquity\u2014even Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar.<\/p>\n
HIS SIGNIFICANCE AS A WRITER<\/p>\n
Josephus, however, is much more than a historian. His significance is particularly great in the following areas:<\/p>\n
Inasmuch as he presents us with a paraphrase of the Bible, he is an important early witness to the biblical text whose paraphrase can be compared not only with the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX) in its various versions, but also with the Dead Sea Scroll fragments. His importance for our knowledge of the biblical canon is particularly great because our other sources, such as the LXX, are either fraught with incredibly complex problems of their own; sectarian, such as the texts of the Samaritans or the Dead Sea Scrolls; or were written later, such as the Talmud or the writings of the church fathers.
\nJosephus represents one of the earliest extant stages in the history of the midrashic tradition, and his works can be compared not only with the later targumim and midrashim, but also with the writings of Philo, other Greco-Jewish writers, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, Pseudo-Philo\u2019s Book of Biblical Antiquities and other writings, and the Dead Sea Scroll\u2019s Genesis Apocryphon.
\nHe is one of the earliest witnesses to the Jewish halakhic (legal) tradition, perhaps a century later than the Dead Sea Temple Scroll, somewhat later than Philo\u2019s On Special Laws, and earlier by a century than the recorded Mishnah.
\nHe presents by far our fullest account of the momentous change in the history of Judaism, including its enormous success in winning converts, which led Judasim from its biblical phase to its Rabbinic era.
\nHis works, along with some Samaritan inscriptions and papyri and the Dead Sea Scrolls, are our fullest account of the development of sectarian movements in Judaism\u2014Samaritanism, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the revolutionary Fourth Philosophy.
\nThe period Josephus covers in such detail is the era just before and during the emergence of Christianity and hence is crucial for an understanding of the infant years of this new religious group.
\nJosephus is the archaeologist\u2019s chief guide in the process of recreating the economic, social, political, and cultural life of Judea, particularly for the two centuries before the destruction of the Second Temple.
\nAnd he is our chief guide for the economic, social, political, cultural, and religious life of the Diaspora during this period, particularly in Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria, Babylonia, and Rome.
\nHe occupies an important place in the history of Greek and Roman historiography, a link in the joining of the Isocratean and Aristotelian schools.
\nJosephus is an important source for much of Greek, Roman, and Parthian political and military history (for example, he gives us a far fuller account of the assassination of the Roman emperor Caligula and the accession of Claudius than any other writer).
\nHe is by far our most important source for the relations between Jews and non-Jews, including in particular the phenomena of anti-Semitism and philo-Semitism during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
\nAs the author of the first extant autobiography from antiquity, he is important for establishing the canon of this genre, which was to culminate in Augustine\u2019s Confessions.
\nAn important source for Greek vocabulary and grammar of the Hellenistic period, Josephus uses this knowledge to shed great light on our understanding of the writings of the period, notably those of Philo, the New Testament, and papyri.<\/p>\n
JOSEPHUS\u2019S SOURCES FOR HIS BIBLICAL PARAPHRASE<\/p>\n
Josephus seems to have had access to three textual traditions for the Bible (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), and his use of one or more of these texts appears to have varied from book to book as he paraphrased the Bible. What complicates the matter is that apparently a number of divergent Greek and Hebrew biblical texts were extant in Josephus\u2019s time, as we see in the LXX, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and the Dead Sea manuscripts.
\nIn his autobiography (Life 7\u20138) he tells us that he was born and raised in Jerusalem and that at an early age he made such great progress in his education that he far excelled his compatriots in Jewish learning, which was presumably centered on knowledge of the Torah in Hebrew. Consequently, he knew the Hebrew text well, and he regarded it as having been unalterably fixed long before he came along (Ag. Ap. 1.42). It is hard, however, to prove at any given point what text Josephus relied on, since he was usually paraphrasing and elaborating rather than translating. We must not discount the possibility that he is perhaps following a Jewish tradition independent of both the MT and the LXX, as we may infer from his agreement with Pseudo-Philo, even in some places where its views are found neither in the MT nor in the LXX. The fact that the Talmud, the targumim, and the midrashim continue to show latitude in their quotations from the Bible for centuries thereafter indicates that the text of the Bible was still being debated.
\nSince Josephus was writing in Greek, he would naturally have been inclined to employ a Greek text of the Bible. Nevertheless, one would a priori expect him to have shied away from using the LXX, notwithstanding Pseudo-Longinus\u2019s compliment in his On the Sublime (9.9), because it is stylistically inferior to the classical authors whom Josephus knew so well (Herodotus, the tragedians, Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and, above all, Thucydides) and because it would be readily understood only by those who already were acquainted with the Bible in its original language. The fact that he paraphrased the Bible in Greek would in any case seem to indicate that he hoped to improve on the LXX; otherwise there would hardly have been much point in a new version. Hence, it is only where the style of the LXX is more polished, as in the Additions to Esther or in 1 Esdras, that one would expect him to adhere to its text.
\nAn Aramaic targum is a third possibility for the source of Josephus\u2019s paraphrase. Aramaic was in all probability Josephus\u2019s primary language, as it was for the Jews generally in Palestine at his time. While it is true that the earliest extant targum for the Pentateuch, that of Onkelos, dates from the 2nd century CE, there can be little doubt that the practice of translating the Bible into the Aramaic vernacular in the synagogue was much older. The fact that the origin of the targum of Onkeles is attributed to Ezra (5th century BCE) by Rav (3rd century CE, Megillah 3a) meant that in later centuries, at least according to the Rabbinic tradition, it had the sanctity associated with the great name of Ezra. If Josephus is much freer in vocabulary, style, order, and content in his rendering of biblical material in books 1\u20135 of Jewish Antiquities, where he is paraphrasing the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges, than he is in books 6\u201311, this may be due to the availability of targumim for these earlier books.<\/p>\n
SALIENT FEATURES OF JOSEPHUS\u2019S PARAPHRASE OF THE BIBLE<\/p>\n
As an historian Josephus is careful and consistent in his approach. The most striking feature, however, of his paraphrase of the Bible in his Jewish Antiquities is his insistence (Ant. 1.17) that he will neither add to nor omit anything from the biblical narrative; and yet he takes liberties, and often very considerable liberties, with the biblical text. We may note the following factors that influenced him in doing so:<\/p>\n
Defense of the Jews against charges of misanthropy and dual loyalty by his primarily non-Jewish audience;
\nA cryptic prediction, addressed to Jews, of the forthcoming fall of the Roman Empire;
\nConcern with the contemporary problem of assimilation and intermarriage;
\nSpecial regard, as a proud priest, for the priesthood and for the Temple in Jerusalem;
\nInsistence that his biblical heroes are fully comparable to pagan heroes in their good birth, precociousness, handsome stature, wealth, wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, respect for truth, humanity, mercy, hospitality, gratefulness, generosity, and piety;
\nRespect for law and order and for the concept of a just war; contempt for the masses, for demagogues, and for the revolutionaries of his day; and abhorrence of civil strife;
\nRealistic attitude and even high regard for the superpower of the day and loyalty to the rulers;
\nOpposition to messianic and messianic-like movements; and de-emphasis on God\u2019s role in history and on miracles;
\nTolerance and respect toward non-Jews and especially non-Jewish leaders and non-Jewish religions; and concern to refute the view that Jews are busybodies and are aggressively seeking converts;
\nEvents, notably in his remarks about the biblical Flood (Ant. 1.93\u201395);
\nRomance, particularly in his treatment of the Esther narrative;
\nWomen, particularly in his downgrading of Deborah and of Queen Salome Alexandra;
\nPrediction (Ant. 10.210);
\nIntermarriage, particularly in his treatment of Samson and Solomon;
\nJerusalem, as seen in his defense of God\u2019s action in choosing Aaron rather than Moses as first high priest (Ant. 3.190).<\/p>\n
JOSEPHUS\u2019S INFLUENCE<\/p>\n
In view of all this, it is not surprising that during the Middle Ages Josephus was regarded as an authority in such diverse fields as biblical exegesis, chronology, arithmetic (a popular mathematical problem, the so-called Josephus-spiel, was based on how he might have arranged the lots so that he and one of his men would be the last ones chosen to commit suicide), astronomy, natural history, grammar, etymology, and Jewish theology; and, through the Testimonium Flavianum (Ant. 18.63\u201364), the authenticity of which has been much debated, he was considered the most crucial non-Christian witness to the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus, and the responsibility of the Jews for his death. Moreover, his work served as the chief guide to the sites of the Holy Land for pilgrims and Crusaders; his works were even permitted to be read during Lent at the monastery of Cluny. In the period from 1450 to 1700, more editions of Josephus\u2019s Jewish Antiquities and Jewish War were published than of any other Greek work. Because of his data on the background of the birth of Christianity, he played a key role in the controversies of the Reformation and in the readmission of the Jews to England under Cromwell.
\nIn more recent times, the translation of Josephus into English by Whiston in 1737 has been reprinted 217 times and this translation has very often occupied a place on the shelves of non-Jewish English-speaking people between the Jewish Scriptures and the New Testament, since Josephus spans particularly that period. Indeed, among the strictest English Protestants in the early 18th century only the Bible and Josephus were permitted to be read on Sundays. In fact, the earliest book by a Jewish author (other than the Bible) printed in the United States was L\u2019Estrange\u2019s translation of the Jewish War, in 1719; and the second book of Jewish authorship to be printed in the United States was Morvvyn\u2019s English translation of Josippon, the Hebrew paraphrase of the Jewish War.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Bilde, Per. Flavius Josephus between Jerusalem and Rome: His Life, His Works, and Their Importance. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988.
\nFeldman, Louis H. Josephus and Modern Scholarship (1937\u201380). Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Josephus\u2019s Interpretation of the Bible. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Studies in Josephus\u2019 Rewritten Bible. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Flavius Josephus: Judean Antiquities 1\u20134. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014 and Hata, Gohei, eds. Josephus, the Bible, and History. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989.
\nRajak, Tessa. Josephus: The Historian and His Society. 2nd ed. London: Duckworth, 2002.
\nSchwartz, Seth. Josephus and Judaean Politics. Leiden: Brill, 1990.
\nThackeray, Henry St. J. Josephus, the Man and the Historian. New York: Jewish Institute of Religion, 1929.<\/p>\n
The Dead Sea Scrolls<\/p>\n
Lawrence H. Schiffman<\/p>\n
The term \u201cDead Sea Scrolls\u201d refers to the collection of manuscript finds from the caves of Qumran, on the shore of the Dead Sea, 10 miles south of Jericho. They were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 different caves, which were located in Jordan until the Six Day War of 1967, when they came into the possession of Israel. Carbon 14 dating and paleography (the study of the scripts) have determined these scrolls to be about 2000 years old. While some were quite long, most of them have only survived as fragments.
\nBelow the caves on the plateau is the settlement of Qumran. Most scholars believe that this building complex housed the people who collected the Scrolls. They are most often identified with a Jewish sect known as the Essenes; the sect probably inhabited this site from about 100 BCE to 68 CE (see Josephus\u2019s account in his Jewish War).
\nThe Dead Sea Scrolls\u2014the earliest Hebrew and Aramaic Jewish documents composed after the books of the Hebrew Bible\u2014are our main source of information about the religious history of Judaism between the close of the Bible (ca. 400 BCE) and the compilation and editing of the Mishnah (ca. 220 CE). Little other contemporary information about this period exists. Therefore, from these ancient texts it is possible to learn a great deal about the history of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple period and about the Jewish background of early Christianity.<\/p>\n
DISCOVERY AND PUBLICATION<\/p>\n
At the end of the 19th century Solomon Schechter, then at the University of Cambridge, was alerted to old manuscripts in a synagogue attic in Cairo. This storehouse of old Hebrew texts is known as the Cairo Genizah. When Schechter examined the manuscripts, he found two puzzling texts that appeared to be from an ancient sect. He called them the Zadokite Fragments, and these same texts were later found also at Qumran.
\nIn 1947 a Bedouin herdsman located Cave 1 of Qumran. The first seven scrolls he discovered were written on animal skins, wrapped in linen and placed in large storage jars. These scrolls divided into two lots: one was sold to Khalil Iskander (Kando), a Bethlehem merchant, who sold them to Professor Eleazer Sukenik, who bought them for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The others were sold to Athanasius Samuel, and the Syrian Metropolitan of Jerusalem, and later purchased for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by Yigael Yadin, professor of archaeology. While archaeologists excavated Qumran, the Bedouin continued to search for scrolls, and sold them through Kando to the Palestine Archaeological Museum (now the Rockefeller Museum). Eventually some 900 manuscripts were identified, broken into some 80,000 fragments. With the exception of some manuscripts in private hands, most of the scrolls are in the Shrine of the Book of the Israel Museum and in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem. One unique text, the Copper Scroll, the text of which is actually beaten onto a copper sheet, remains in Jordan.
\nAfter the discovery of the fragments, an international team of scholars was constituted in Jordan to piece them together and publish the texts and translations. The team was active until the early 1960s, but clearly the enormous amount of work involved was too much for them. The team continued to work on its own, withholding the scrolls from the view of outside scholars. In 1967 Israel took control of the Rockefeller Museum, where the majority of the scrolls were located. When the team still failed to publish their manuscripts by the early 1990s, the Israel Department of Antiquities came under international pressure to act. Subsequently it ended the monopoly by allowing any scholar access to the scrolls, appointing a new editor in chief, and increasing the members of the international team. The appointment of a new editorial team hastened the publication of the texts, all of which became available in transcription and translation by 2002. Today any fragment that can be read, even ones containing only a few letters, appears in the official publication, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, published by Oxford University Press, and in other editions. And there are other photographs and editions online that anyone can access.<\/p>\n
THE NATURE OF THE SCROLLS<\/p>\n
The contents of the scrolls contain many literary genres (such as biblical commentaries, liturgy, prayer texts, and sectarian documents), divided into three sections: biblical books; other literature of Second Temple times, often called apocryphal or pseudepigraphical works; and the literature of the sect itself. In addition, tefillin (phylacteries) and mezuzot (small scrolls affixed to the doorpost) have been found at Qumran. A few fragments were written on papyrus, and some texts appear in Greek or Aramaic, although the largest part is in Hebrew\u2014in a Hebrew dialect that only the Qumran sect used.
\nHow did this particular group of documents find their way to the Qumran caves? Most scholars agree that the Scrolls were probably gathered together by a sectarian group occupying the building complex at Qumran, adjacent to the caves. They were composed over a very long period. The earliest compositions are ancient biblical materials such as the Torah\u2014the Five Books of Moses. The collection also includes texts written at various times during the Hellenistic period, from the 4th century BCE on. It is widely recognized that most of the Aramaic documents found at Qumran were composed before the sect even came into being and then were imported to Qumran after the sect occupied the settlement. Scholars have come to terms such texts \u201cpre-Qumranian.\u201d
\nWe must carefully distinguish between the dates the texts were composed and the dates they were copied. The documents were written over many centuries, from the earliest days of Israelite history (before 1000 BCE) through the end of the Second Temple period (70 CE). They were gathered into the Qumran collection between approximately 150 BCE and 68 CE, when the Qumran settlement came to an end. The date of composition is critical to an understanding of their context and helps us identify the historical allusions concealed in some of the texts. Other compositions, if ordered chronologically, can help us construct the development of the thought of this unusual sect.
\nAlthough a few of the Qumran texts were copied as early as the 3rd century BCE, most were copied between the 2nd century BCE and the early 1st century CE. Indeed, this was the heyday of the sect and its building complex at Qumran. The community was most probably destroyed at the hands of the Romans in 68 CE as part of the military campaign to crush the Great Revolt of the Jews against Rome (66\u201373 CE).
\nThe collection itself can best be described as a library. A large percentage of the scrolls come from Cave 4, an artificially hewn cave only a five-minute walk from the buildings that served as the center of sectarian activity. Judging from the regularly spaced rows of holes found in the cave walls, we can infer that the cave had wooden shelves of some type. When the cave was abandoned, the shelves eventually rotted and collapsed, leaving the scrolls on the floor of the cave. This explains their damaged and fragmentary condition. Fortunately, other scrolls survived with little damage in neighboring caves, some in protective jars, apparently placed there to save them from destruction shortly before the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans.
\nAs in any library, the collection contains a wide variety of works valued by its owners, not simply books composed and copied by them. Accordingly, the Qumran caves have yielded information on the views held by the sect and their opponents, as well as those of related, but not identical, groups in the complex landscape of Second Temple Judaism. For this reason, not only do the scrolls let us reconstruct the views of those who gathered them, but they also shed light on a variety of trends in ancient Judaism.
\nAt this point, we must dispel some erroneous theories about the Scrolls. First, they are not the library of the Jerusalem Temple. Clearly, if there is anything that unifies this collection, it is its owners\u2019 opposition to the practices and procedures of the Temple in the hands of the priestly leadership. Second, the Scrolls are not the documents of an early Christian sect. Contrary to claims by certain sensationalists, the documents never mention Jesus, John the Baptist, or James the Just, the \u201cbrother\u201d of Jesus. In fact, carbon-14 testing and paleography\u2014the study of the shapes of the Hebrew letters\u2014confirm that all the material was composed before the rise of the early church, so that the Dead Sea Scrolls cannot refer to those events. Further, the Scrolls in no way reflect Christian beliefs.<\/p>\n
WHAT THE SCROLLS TEACH US<\/p>\n
As stated earlier, the Scrolls are our primary source of information about the history of Judaism between the canonization of the Bible and the Mishnah, the period that witnessed the rise of Rabbinic Judaism. They also give us glimpses into the Jewish background of early Christianity.
\nThe formation of the Scrolls sect coincides with the aftermath of the Maccabean Revolt. When the victorious Hasmonean rulers (Judah the Maccabee\u2019s family) adopted the rulings of the Pharisees (forerunners of the talmudic Rabbis) regarding the conduct of the Temple in about 152 BCE, the loyal opposition\u2014a band of pious Sadducees\u2014left Jerusalem and retreated to the desert, taking up residence at Qumran. The scrolls were gathered at Qumran by this sect.
\nOur primary source about the Sadducean origins of the sect is an extremely important text known as the Halakhic Letter (Miktzat Ma\u2019ase ha- torah, or more simply, 4QMMT, which may be translated as Some Precepts of the Torah). From that text we have discovered that the religious legal tradition of the Dead Sea sect was primarily Sadducean. Knowing this, we can begin to reconstruct from the Scrolls the nature of this priestly group\u2019s system of biblical interpretation and law, of which we knew almost nothing before. Further, it is now clear that the Dead Sea sect underwent a gradual process of development and radicalization, transforming it into the community we recognize from the sectarian scrolls. Although this community is identified as Essene, many scholars, myself included, maintain that the term \u201cEssenes\u201d encompasses a much wider movement than this one particular sect.
\nThe Halakhic Letter, along with the text known as the Temple Scroll, contains many polemical arguments against the Pharisees. Such arguments help us to deduce numerous Pharisaic legal teachings and prove that many laws enshrined in the Mishnah in about 220 CE already existed in the Hasmonean period. Other texts enable us to expand on the history of the Pharisees already known from Josephus and from Rabbinic traditions. And this is only a small part of what we can learn from the Qumran scrolls about the major Jewish sects in Second Temple times.
\nIn the documents specific to the Qumran sect itself, we find evidence of a highly dualistic Judaism, dividing individuals into predestined lots of good and evil. Evildoers were to be destroyed at the End of Days, expected to dawn immediately. The sect organized itself in preparation for this messianic period, closely studying the Bible for guidance and strictly adhering to Jewish law as they interpreted it.
\nThe sect also gathered the texts of related groups, placing them in its library along with approximately 225 biblical texts. Those other compositions, some previously known, others unknown, were preserved here in the original Hebrew or Aramaic. Numerous prayer texts, those of either the sect or other groups of Jews, were also preserved, as were tefillin and mezuzot, which are quite similar to those in use today.<\/p>\n
BIBLICAL BOOKS<\/p>\n
All books known to us from the Hebrew Bible are represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls, some in only tiny fragments, except for the book of Esther. Esther might be absent on ideological grounds, or a manuscript of it just did not survive. The most well preserved are Isaiah A and the Temple Scroll.
\nThe texts of these books are very similar to modern Bibles, although there are some variants, attesting to the fluidity of the text in the Second Temple period. Various types of Bibles have been noted: one very similar to the traditional Hebrew (the Masoretic Text), in use today in modern Bibles; a text that served as the basis for the Septuagint translation; and Bibles that resemble the Samaritan Pentateuch. Numerous manuscripts reflect mixed texts with various features. Within 100 years or so after Qumran, the text was greatly standardized and variants removed.<\/p>\n
APOCRYPHAL AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHICAL BOOKS<\/p>\n
Additional compositions, not in the biblical canon, were in the possession of general readers of the time. Known as Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, some of these writings were discovered at Masada, located south of Qumran on the western shore of the Dead Sea as well. They include books like Jubilees, Wisdom of Ben Sira, and Enoch, some of which had survived in Greek or Latin, or Ethiopic, but were unknown in the original Hebrew or Aramaic.<\/p>\n
SECTARIAN LITERATURE<\/p>\n
The sect, often identified with the Essenes known from Josephus, possessed many literary genres. First and foremost, they composed the rules by which one might become a member of the sect, and they described the daily routines of the members. Infractions of the rules resulted in punishments. There were many legal texts dealing with the proper way of observing the Sabbath and holidays, the operations of the courts and judges, relations with non-Jews, and other legal topics. The sect prayed together and ate at a communal table. They also maintained ritual purity for which they built many mikvaot (ritual bathing pools) to cleanse body and soul. Their hymns and liturgical compositions were recited on a daily basis, while others were reserved for special occasions. Introspective religious poetry, biblical commentaries, mystical visions, and a description of the war at the End of Days are some of the genres featured in the scrolls. The Copper Scroll is unique because it purports to be a guide to a hidden treasure somewhere in the Judean Desert.
\nThe beliefs of the sect included antagonism to anyone outside the sect. Such people were sinners who had perverted the word of the LORD and broken His covenant. The sect was the true Israel and a substitute for the Temple of Jerusalem, which the sect would not visit because it was, in their opinion, polluted by not operating according to the dictates of sectarian law. In fact, the halakhic (Jewish legal) disputes that the sectarians had with the Jerusalem establishment are detailed in Q4MMT. The laws of the Qumranites tended to be most like the Sadducees, of all the sects known from this time.
\nQ4MMT has been called a foundation document of the sect because after it was circulated, the sectarians left Jerusalem where they despaired of seeing their reforms carried out, and settled in Qumran. There they waited for the End of Days, and the great eschatological war in which all sinners would be eliminated. The righteous of the sect would then reconstitute the Temple according to their own ideals and live on to bask in the Messianic Age. Until that day, the sectarians had to maintain pure, strictly halakhic lives. Their laws and rituals were established by the sectarian assembly, a hierarchical institution that determined what the law demanded through inspired biblical exegesis. The sect also had a hierarchy of officers and ranks in the eschatological army. When the apocalypse occurred, the sectarians, with the help of the angels, would fight against all heavenly and earthly opponents and inaugurate the Messianic Age. Two messiahs would be present, the messiah of Aaron and the messiah of Israel, religious and political leaders, respectively.
\nVarious Qumran manuscripts contain a solar calendar. Not only did the sect reject the luni-solar calendar used by other Jews, but they added their own holidays to the biblical festivals. They practiced communal use of property, which members brought into the sect. Although some scholars had posited that the membership was celibate, the texts often speak of women, the state of marriage, how old one must be to get married, etc., so it is unlikely that the sect renounced marriage and procreation.<\/p>\n
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS SPEAK TO US TODAY<\/p>\n
The Dead Sea Scrolls offer us more than obscure knowledge about ancient history and antiquarian curiosities. They have come to life anew in our own day, specifically because they indirectly address issues confronting us in our own times. This in large measure explains the intense public interest in the Scrolls and in the scholars who study them.
\nThe Scrolls speak to us across the centuries about the issue of pluralism in Judaism. Through them, we get a glimpse of an era characterized by several competing approaches to Judaism, each claiming a monopoly on the true interpretation of the Torah. All these approaches, with the exception of the extreme Hellenizers, demanded observance of the Torah\u2019s commandments. (The extreme Hellenizers, however, embraced Greek culture to the extent that they actually identified the God of Israel with Zeus and allowed pagan influences even in their religious practices.) These approaches differed only on certain theological issues and the particular rulings of the Law and its interpretation. Although their disputes are different from those dividing our communities today, we can benefit by studying how these groups interacted with each other and negotiated their diverse approaches.
\nThe Scrolls could also help us clarify the relationship of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. As with every major archaeological find in Israel today, the discovery of these ancient scrolls ties contemporary Jews to their past through the land, for it was there that so much of ancient Jewish history took place, and it is there that the future of the Jewish people is now being shaped. As archaeology rediscovers the past, it is also creating the present. The issues that the Scrolls raise\u2014God, Torah, messiah, holiness\u2014still powerfully resonate as the modern State of Israel gropes toward its own identity.
\nFinally, the Scrolls can help to forge better relations between Jewish and Christian communities. Now, after two millennia of strife, the two faiths, so deeply linked by common origins, are establishing a new relationship in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Here the Scrolls speak to us again, showing precisely how Christianity emerged from currents in ancient Judaism, much more widespread in the period than we previously imagined.
\nThe Dead Sea Scrolls are important to the history of Judaism in that they are a snapshot of what Jewish law and belief were like in the immediate postbiblical period. They also illustrate the origins of mysticism, apocalypticism, and messianism\u2014seminal ideas that were carried forth in later Rabbinic Judaism and into the Christian milieu of the New Testament. Through the Scrolls we can observe the role of local texts, the sources of ancient translations, and the process of standardization. Their use of the Hebrew language is a goldmine for an understanding of the linguistic development that took place between the end of the Bible period and the Mishnaic period. They truly afford a glimpse into the development of Western religion in these most formative years.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Abegg, Martin Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.
\nCharlesworth, James H., ed. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. 7 vols. to date. T\u00fcbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck); Louisville KY: John Knox, 1994. In Discoveries in the Judean Desert (DJD) series, 40 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1955\u20132009.
\nGarc\u00eda Mart\u00ednez, Florentino, and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, eds. and trans. Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
\nLim, Timothy, and John J. Collins, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
\nParry, Donald W., and Emanuel Tov, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader. 6 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2004.
\nSchiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam, eds. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 2 vols. Oxford: University Press, 2000.
\nSchiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
\nVanderKam, James C., and Peter Flint. The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002.
\nVermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. New York: Allen Lane, Penguin, 1997.
\nWise, Michael, Martin Abegg, and Edward Cook. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996; rpt. 1999.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Important Dates of the Second Temple Period 600 BCE Babylonian Empire assumes control of Syria-Palestine 586 BCE Destruction of the First Temple, expulsion of Jews to Babylonia PERSIAN PERIOD, 538\u2013333 BCE 539\u2013538 BCE Cyrus the Great gains control of Mesopotamia and allows Jews to return to Judea 520\u2013515 BCE Second Temple built HELLENISTIC PERIOD, 336\u201363 … <\/p>\n