8:4. opens his soul wide like Sheol The lust of his soul for wealth is great.
\n8:5. the nations are gathered \u2026 the peoples are assembled The passive verbs of the scroll\u2019s version change the MT version \u201cWho has harvested all the nations And gathered in all the peoples\u201d (NJPS). The author retains the MT form of the verbs that appear in 1QpHab 8:11b\u201312a.
\n8:8. the Wicked Priest This pesher identifies the man of Hab. 2:5 as a Hasmonean High Priest, who was both a priest and a king (see 1QpHab 8:9\u201310).
\n8:8\u20139. who was called by the name of truth at the beginning of his standing This High Priest was considered a legitimate leader at the beginning of his service thanks to his faithfulness to the Law (cf. Mal. 2:6). The term \u201ctruth\u201d defines the just way of the righteous in 1QS 4:2, 17, 24; 5:3.
\n8:9\u201310. but when he ruled in Israel, he became arrogant The pesherist interprets the designation \u201chaughty man\u201d (Hab. 2:5) and the noun \u201ctaunt\u201d (mashal; Hab. 2:6) based on how the Wicked Priest\u2019s heart grew proud when his rule over Israel became strong (cf. 2 Chron. 26:16; 1 Macc. 1:3; etc.).
\n8:10\u201311. he abandoned God, and betrayed the statutes for the sake of wealth The pesherist interprets Hab. 2:5 to mean that a tremendous lust for wealth caused the haughty Wicked Priest to abandon God\u2019s statutes (for similar cases, see Deut. 8:17; Ezek. 28:5; Ps. 52:9).
\n8:11\u201312. And he stole and amassed the wealth of the men of violence who had rebelled against God, and he took the wealth of peoples The Wicked Priest made his wealth by robbing peoples of his own nation, probably the Pharisees, who are themselves accused of plundering in 4QpNah 3\u20134 ii 4\u20135, and the Gentiles (cf. 1QpHab 8:16\u201317). The yahad disapproved of any lust for money robbed from Jews or Gentiles.
\n8:12. to add to himself guilt of iniquity The image of being burdened with debt in Hab. 2:6b is interpreted in light of the heavy sins under which the Wicked Priest is sinking (see the previous and following comments; cf. also the Targum to Hab. 2:5). For the phrase \u201cguilt of iniquity\u201d (\u2019awon \u2019ashma) cf. Lev. 22:16. This phrase appears also in the Temple Scroll (11Q19: 35:8, 15).
\n8:12\u201313. abominable ways The sins of which the Wicked Priest is guilty. See 1QpHab 12:8\u201310. In CD 4:17\u201318, three kinds of \u201cabominable ways\u201d are mentioned: fornication, wealth (robbery), and defilement of the Temple.
\n8:13. unclean impurity The yahad defined sins as \u201cunclean impurity.\u201d
\n8:13b\u20139:7 The pesherist interprets Hab. 2:7\u20138 as meaning that the Wicked Priest, along with the last priests of Jerusalem, will ultimately be punished for the plundering they have done. This pesher details the afflictions that the Wicked Priest will suffer (1QpHab 9:1\u20132), and predicts that the wealth acquired by priests of Jerusalem through plundering will fall to the Romans (9:3\u20137).
\n8:13b. pt. [ ]\u2019wm The brackets indicate an erased letter in this word, which is rendered \u201csuddenly.\u201d
\n8:16. the priest The Wicked Priest, mentioned above (see also 1QpHab 11:12).
\n8:16\u201317. who rebelled [and trans]gressed the statutes of [God] Compare the sins committed by the Wicked Priest in 8:10\u201313.
\n8:17. [and all his enemies will arise and abu]se him Restored on the biblical idea of Hab. 2:7, and the continuation of the pesher in 9:1\u20132 (cf. 9:10\u201311). This restoration relates to the preserved preposition bo, \u201cabu]se him,\u201d stemmed from the Heb. root \u2018-l-l rather than to the Heb. root sh-l-l (\u201cplunder\u201d), as Horgan has it, referring to Hab 2:8a (Pesharim, 18). For the restoration \u201c[abu]se him,\u201d hitpael, from the Heb. root \u2018-l-l, \u201cabuse,\u201d see, e.g., 1 Sam. 31:4; Judg. 19:25; see BDB, 759.
\ns[o that] This restoration follows the Heb. infinitive lihyot according to Horgan\u2019s translation of 1QpHab 10:1, 12.
\n9:1. his injuries are on account of punishments of wickedness An explanation for the misfortunes that befall the Wicked Priest. The phrase \u201chis injuries\u201d is paralleled in the next sentence by \u201cevil diseases.\u201d For mishpatim in the sense of \u201cpunishments,\u201d see the Targum to Ezek. 5:8 and \u201cpunishments of fire\u201d (mishpate \u2019esh) in 1QpHab 10:13.
\nAnd horrors inflicted evil diseases upon him \u201cHorrors\u201d (sha\u2019aruriyot) interprets \u201cthose who make you tremble\u201d (meza\u2019aze\u2019eka) of Hab. 2:7b as pertaining to the evil deeds of the Wicked Priest. His deeds brought \u201cevil diseases upon him\u201d (cf. Deut. 28:59; 2 Chron. 21:19), which annihilated him.
\n9:2. and acts of vengeance on his carcass of flesh The pesherist interprets \u201cand will you become their plunder\u201d (Hab. 2:7c) as \u201cvengeance\u201d in the form of afflictions that prove fatal to the Wicked Priest. Based on this punishment of the Wicked Priest, some scholars have identified him as Jonathan, who was captured and killed by Trypho (1 Macc. 12:48; 13:23; Ant. 13.192\u201395). But the Hasmonean priest who died of evil diseases was Jannaeus (Ant. 13.398; J.W. 1.106). Compare below, 1QpHab 9:10\u201311.
\n9:4\u20135. the last priests of Jerusalem Refers to the Hasmonean chief priests who succeeded the Wicked Priest. These may be Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, Jannaeus\u2019s sons (Ant. 13.427\u201329).
\n9:5. who amass wealth and profit from the plunder of the peoples Their sin mirrors that of the Wicked Priest (1QpHab 8:12; cf. 4QpNah 3\u20134 i 11).
\n9:6\u20137. but at the end of days \u2026 their booty will be given into the hand of the army of the Kittim The pesherist anticipates retribution for this plundering in the form of the Romans, whose invasion of Judah was expected imminently and viewed as the end-time. In 54 BCE, Crassus plundered the treasure of the Temple (Ant. 14:105\u20139). Rumor had it that the Temple might be sheltering the ill-gotten wealth of the last Hasmonean priests, along with donations sent to the Temple by the Jews and other worshipers (Ant. 14:110\u201311).
\n9:7. For they are the rest of the peoples As the Kittim are the nation that is intended to act at the end-time, they are identified as \u201cthe rest of the peoples,\u201d the final empire (cf. Num. 24:24), whom God had used for punishing other wicked nations.
\n9:8\u201310:5 The pesharim on Hab. 2:8b\u201311 deal with crimes committed by the Wicked Priest against the yahad, and with his punishments\u2014both historical and eschatological.
\n9:9\u201310. the [W]icked Priest, whom\u2014because of wrong done to the Teacher of Righteousness and the men of his council This \u201cwrong\u201d refers to the human bloodshed and violence mentioned in Hab. 2:8b, and attested in 1QpHab 12:6, 9\u201310; 4QpPsa 3\u201310 iv 8. For \u201ccity\u201d as a symbol for \u201ccouncil,\u201d see 1QpHab 10:10.
\n9:10\u201311. God gave him into the hand of his enemies \u2026 for annihilation with festering wounds of the soul This description of the Wicked Priest\u2019s punishment parallels that of 9:1\u20132. \u201cFestering wounds\u201d (morerim) parallels \u201cdisease\u201d and \u201cinjuries\u201d (see 9:1).
\n9:11\u201312. beca[u]se he had acted wickedly against his chosen ones This phrase returns to the idea of 9:9\u201310a, functioning as a literary inclusio to frame the thought.
\n9:14. the guilt of your own [sou]l Translates the Heb. phrase hote\u2019 nafshekah in Hab. 2:10.
\n9:15. beam from the woodwork This translation is based on the Heb. kefis in 1QHa 14:29[6:26] and on the rendition of Heb. \u2018esah as \u201cwoodwork\u201d in the NJPS and NRSV translations of Hab. 2:11. See also 1QpHab 10:1.
\n9:16. the pr[iest One of the Hasmonean Wicked Priests.
\n10:1. its stones are (built up) by oppression and the beam of its woodwork by robbery Refers to a structure built by the priest. According to Josephus, this may be one of the following: a fortress built by John Hyrcanus near the Temple (Ant. 18.91); the fortress Alexandrion, built by Jannaeus (J.W. 1.134; Ant. 14.49; 16.394); a wall made of stones and wood, built by Jannaeus (Ant. 13.391; J.W. 1.99); or even the fortress Masada, initially built by Jonathan (J. W. 7.284).
\n10:2. the ends of many peoples Heb. kesot \u2018amim (Hab. 2:10): although the phrase is spelled differently than in the first quotation of Hab. 2:10 (kesawot \u2018amim; see 1QpHab 9:14), its pesher in 10:3\u20134 makes clear that the same meaning is understood in both cases.
\n10:3\u20134. This is the house of judgment, when God will give his judgment in the midst of many peoples This pesher refers to the eschatological judgment of the Wicked Priest, and highlights his reversal of fortune by means of an ironic parallel. Instead of finding safe haven in a high fortress, he will be condemned publicly.
\n10:4\u20135. and from there he will bring him up for judgment, and in their midst he will condemn him as guilty For a description of the final judgment process, cf. 1 En. 90:23\u201325. The verb \u201cbring up\u201d expresses the high category of the court (cf. Deut. 17:8\u20139; 25:7; Judg. 4:5; Ruth 4:1).
\n10:5. and with a fire of brimstone he will punish him The punishment with fire and brimstone written here represents a biblical tradition (cf. Ezek. 38:22; Ps. 11:6; Job 18:15). This represents the eschatological punishment.
\n10:5c\u201311:2 The pesharim on Hab. 2:12\u201313 deal with the harm done by the Man of the Lie (referred to in this passage as the \u201cSpouter of the Lie\u201d\u2014see the next comment) to those who trust his false teaching. However, the pesherist interprets Hab. 2:14 to mean that when these followers repent, the true knowledge of God will be revealed to them.
\n10:9. the Spouter of the Lie Heb. matif hakazab. This is the leader of the Pharisees, who is referred to as the Man of the Lie in 1QpHab 2:1\u20132; 5:11. The title is based on Mic. 2:11.
\nwho caused many to err He led many to go astray from the true way of observing the Torah. The verbal clause \u201ccause to err\u201d (hif\u2019il of t-\u2019-h)\u2014which characterizes the words of the false prophets in Jer. 23:13, 32; Mic. 3:5\u2014is used in the Dead Sea Scrolls for characterizing the teaching of the leaders of the Pharisees (cf. 1QHa 12:17, 21[4:16, 20]).
\n10:10. building a city of vanity with bloodshed and establishing a congregation with falsehood \u201cBuilds a city\u201d (Hab. 2:12) is interpreted to mean establishing a congregation (cf. 4QpPsa 3\u20134 iii 16; Matt. 16:18). For a city as a symbol of congregation, see also \u201ccity of Ephraim\u201d (4QpNah 3\u20134 ii 2); \u201ccities of Judah\u201d (1QpHab 12:9). The congregation built by the Spouter of the Lie is characterized by falsehood and bloodshed (cf. Mic. 3:10).
\n10:11. his\/its glory Heb. kbwdh may be read as masculine or feminine third-person singular. If this phrase interprets Hab. 2:13a, it may refer to the glory of God (\u201chis glory\u201d or \u201chis own glory\u201d), which will ultimately be proved by the punishment of the wicked (cf. 1QHa 10:26[2:24]; 7:33[15:20]). Other possibilities include the glory of the Spouter of the Lie (\u201chis glory\u201d) and the glory of the city (\u201cits glory\u201d\u2014note that \u201ccity\u201d in Hebrew is grammatically feminine).
\ntoil Heb. yig\u2019u (from the root y-g-\u2019) of Hab. 2:13b is interpreted as referring to the harm done to the followers of the Spouter of the Lie by his false teaching. See also the comment on 1QpHab 10:12\u201313.
\nservice of vanity The opposite of the \u201cservice of the truth\u201d performed by the members of the yahad (1QpHab 7:10\u201312).
\nteaching them in w[o]rks of falsehood Here, the pesherist interprets Heb. lehorotam in the sense of \u201cpreaching to them.\u201d
\n10:12\u201313a. with the result that their labor is for nothing; so that they will come to the punishments of fire The verb yig\u2019u, on the basis of the root n-g-\u2019 has the meanings \u201cto reach\u201d, synonym of \u201cto come\u201d (or \u201cto touch\u201d), and \u201cto inflict.\u201d The second pesher of Hab 2:13b expresses the sense of reaching or coming to the punishment (or to the infliction) of fire. Thus their false service to God dooms them to a final \u201cpunishment of fire,\u201d whereas the true service performed by the members of the yahad will save them at the end-time (1QpHab 8:1\u20133a). For more on \u201cthe punishments of fire,\u201d see also the comment on 10:5.
\n10:13. because they reviled and reproached the elect of God Nowhere in Hab. 2:13 does Habakkuk accuse the followers of the Man of the Lie of this particular sin. But according to CD 5:11c\u201313, those who revile the laws held by the members of the yahad are to be punished by fire (cf. Isa. 50:10\u201311; 1 En. 91:11).
\n10:16\u201311:1. when they return \u2026 Spouter of] the Lie This pesher on Hab. 2:14 probably deals with Israel\u2019s eschatological repentance; that is, Israel\u2019s turning away, or \u201creturning,\u201d from the erroneous halakhic precepts (cf. 1QSa 1:1\u20135) taught by the Spouter of the Lie or other leaders of the Pharisees (cf. 4QpNah 3\u20134 ii 8\u20139, iii 3\u20135).
\n11:1. and afterward knowledge will be revealed to them Those who repent will be rewarded with true understanding of the precepts of the Torah (cf. CD 3:13\u201316; 1QS 9:13) and the wondrous mysteries of God\u2019s providence (cf. 1QS 9:18;CD 13:7\u20138).
\n11:1\u20132. like the waters of the sea, in abundance Cf. Isa. 11:9; see also T. Levi 18:5; 1Q27 1:7.
\n11:2\u201311:16 The pesher on Hab. 2:15 deals with a traumatic event in the history of the yahad: A controversy between the yahad and the Priests and Pharisees that oversaw the Temple, over the correct liturgical calendar. The pesher on Hab. 2:16 deals with the punishment of the Wicked Priest who attacked the yahad on that matter.
\n11:2. his neighbor Renders the Heb. singular re\u2019ehu. Cf. 1QpHab 4:12.
\n11:3. their feasts Heb. mo\u2019deihem. This is a variant of \u201ctheir nakedness\u201d (me\u2019oreihem) of the MT. An interchange of some letters could have produced mo\u2019deihem. In Pesher Habakkuk, however, the author interprets Habakkuk based on both possibilities. See 1QpHab 11:6\u20137; see also the comments on 11:4\u20136 and 11:6\u20137.
\n11:4\u20136. the Wicked Priest, who pursued the Teacher of Righteousness \u2026 to his house of exile This event refers to the conflict between the two priests. For the priesthood of the Teacher of Righteousness, see 1QpHab 2:8. \u201cHouse of exile\u201d refers to the place where the Teacher of Righteousness was exiled (cf. 1QHa 12:9\u201310[4:8\u20139]), or where the Wicked Priest discovered him. The latter meaning might have been derived from the MT version me\u2019oreihem, \u201ctheir nakedness,\u201d from the root \u2019-r-h, \u201cuncover,\u201d which was not cited but was known to the interpreter. See also the comment on 1QpHab 11:6\u20137.
\n11:5. to destroy him Heb. lebal\u2019o, from the root b-l-\u2019. The pesherist uses the ambiguity of this word, which can mean \u201cconfusing\u201d (cf. Isa. 3:12; 28:7; Ps. 107:27) or \u201cdestroying\u201d (cf. Isa. 25:7\u20138; Lam. 2:2), to interpret the Wicked Priest\u2019s goal: to paralyze the activity of the Teacher of Righteousness. See also the next comment.
\n11:5\u20136. his poisonous vexation For this pesher on \u201chis poison\u201d (hamato) in Hab. 2:15, cf. the metaphoric meaning of the \u201ccup of the wine of wrath\u201d in Jer. 25:15 (NRSV), which destroys those who swallow it by making them drunk and confused.
\nfestival time Heb. kes is translated here as \u201ctime,\u201d as it is used elsewhere in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Another of its meanings, \u201cend,\u201d is not reasonable in this context.
\n11:6\u20137. And at the festival time, (during) the repose of the Day of Atonement, he appeared to them This event in the history of the yahad (cf. 1QHa 12[4]:9c\u201312) interprets the scroll\u2019s version of Hab. 2:15, which has \u201ctheir feasts\u201d (see also the comment on 1QpHab 11:3). The appearance of the Wicked Priest at the place of the yahad on the Day of Atonement demonstrates the calendrical controversy between the yahad and the Pharisees. The latter held to a 354-day lunar calendar that was used in the Temple at that time, whereas the yahad supported a 364-day solar calendar, according to which no festival fell on Sabbath. This controversy caused a split between the yahad and the rest of Israel. Because\u2014in light of the calendar they followed\u2014the yahad viewed as illegitimate the High Priest\u2019s Temple service on the Day of Atonement, their position might have been considered a political rebellion against his priesthood.
\n11:7. to destroy See the comment on 1QpHab 11:5.
\n11:8. to make them stumble on the fast day, their restful Sabbath This is a second pesher of mo\u2019adeihem, based on the root m-\u2019-d, \u201cstumble.\u201d For the members of the yahad\u2014who used to perform their feast of the Day of Atonement on the tenth day of the seventh month (Lev. 23:27), that fell, according to their 364-day calendar, on a different day of the week than that which was performed in the Temple\u2014could not observe the Day of Atonement properly because they were interrupted by the Wicked Priest. This interruption would be considered a religious \u201cstumble,\u201d for which they might be punished. This day is considered both \u201cthe fast day\u201d and a Sabbath, in the sense that work is prohibited (Lev. 23:30\u201332).
\n11:9. totter Heb. whera\u2019el, probably from the Hebrew version of Hab. 2:16 known to the authors of the OG, Syriac, and Latin translations, and to Aquila, who translated the Hebrew very literally into Greek. For the MT version, which has whe\u2019arel, \u201cuncover yourself,\u201d see the Targum to Hab. 2:16. 11:12. the priest The Wicked Priest (cf. 1QpHab 8:16; 9:16).
\nwhose shame prevailed over his glory This paraphrase of Hab. 2:16a refers to the aforementioned act of the Wicked Priest of stumbling the members of the yahad from performing the Day of Atonement according to their 364-day calendar.
\n11:13. for he did not circumcise the foreskin of his heart This pesher comments on the guilt of the Wicked Priest, based on Hab. 2:16 MT. The metaphoric phrase \u201cforeskin of the heart\u201d (\u2018orlat leb), based on Deut. 10:16 and Jer. 4:4, expresses the stubbornness of one who adheres to his sin, about which 1QS 5:4\u20135 warns the members of the yahad.
\n11:13\u201314. but he walked in the ways of inebriety in order that the thirst might be consumed The adherence of the Wicked Priest to his sin is likened to a man\u2019s willful, misguided attempts to quench his thirst through drunken excess (see Deut. 29:18; cf. 1QS 2:13\u201315). The members of the yahad, on the other hand, thirsted to act righteously according to the laws of God.
\n11:14\u201315. but the cup of the wrath of [Go]d will destroy him Based on the version of Hab. 2:16 that contains whera\u2019el, \u201ctotter\u201d, the pesherist predicts that God will retaliate against the Wicked Priest for the harm he did to the Teacher of Righteousness. See also the comment on 1QpHab 11:9.
\n11:15. [Go]d will destroy him Compare the comment on 1QpHab 11:5.
\n11:15\u201316. ad[d]ing [upon him his s]ha[me] and a pain [\u2026] These words of Hab. 2:16 are used for the eschatological punishment of the Wicked Priest (cf. 10:5), in addition to his past punishment (cf. 9:1\u20132).
\n11:17\u201312:10a The pesher on Hab. 2:17 deals with God\u2019s retaliatory punishment of the Wicked Priest for his plot to destroy the members and companions of the yahad, and for his abominable deeds that defile Jerusalem and the Temple.
\n12:1. will overwhelm {you} Heb. yehite[k]a, a parallel form of \u201cwill cover you\u201d (yehaseka). In comparison to the former phrase of Hab. 2:17, the author used another version of this verse than the MT yehitan (\u201cwill overwhelm them\u201d) Compare the OG, Aramaic, and Syriac translations.
\n12:2\u20136. the Wicked Priest\u2014to pay him his due inasmuch as he dealt wickedly with the Poor Ones \u2026\u2014(he it is) whom God will condemn This passage is structured in a somewhat inverted way. A more straightforward order would be as follows: \u201cthe Wicked Priest (line 2a), whom God will condemn to complete destruction because he plotted to destroy completely the Poor Ones (lines 5b\u20136a), to pay him his due inasmuch as he dealt wickedly with the Poor Ones\u201d (lines 2b\u20133a). Instead, the author places most of his explanatory remarks about the retaliation on principle (along with figurative identifications of \u201cLebanon\u201d and \u201cthe beasts\u201d) (12:2b\u20135a) before his statement of God\u2019s plan for the Priest, and then restates the retaliatory nature of the punishment (12:6).
\n12:3. the Poor Ones Heb. \u2019ebyonim is one of the epithets of the Qumran community. It symbolizes their desire for the grace of God and his salvation.
\n12:3\u20134. for \u201cLebanon\u201d is the Council of the Community This pesher reflects a traditional allegory that identifies the Lebanon as the Temple (cf. the Targum to Hab. 2:17). The pesherist applies this tradition to the Qumran community, which is considered as holy as the Temple (see, e.g., 1QS 8:5\u20136; 1QM 3:4).
\n12:4. the \u201cbeasts\u201d are the simple ones of Judah \u201cThe \u2018beasts\u2019 \u201d symbolizes those who were companions to the Qumran community, but still did not have full knowledge of its precepts and halakhic interpretation of the Torah. Traditionally, beasts symbolize ignorance, and likewise the peta\u2019im (\u201cthe simple ones\u201d). Compare, for example, Prov. 1:4 and 8:5, where the peta\u2019im are appealed to as prospective learners. The process of learning \u201call the precepts of the community\u201d and becoming full members is stated in 1QS 6:13b\u201323. For an earlier mention of Judah, see 1QpHab 8:1 and the comment on 8:1, the House of Judah.
\n12:4\u20135. those who observe the Torah See 1QpHab 7:11.
\n12:5\u20136. whom God will condemn to complete destruction because he plotted to destroy completely the Poor Ones Here is where the pesherist first interprets Hab. 2:17, \u201con account of human bloodshed.\u201d See also the pesher that appears at 1QpHab 12:2\u20133a, and cf. the pesher at 11:14, citing the desire of the Wicked Priest to quench his (unholy) thirst. See also the comments on 11:14\u201315 and 12:6\u20137.
\n12:6\u20137. the bloodshed of the town In his second citation of Hab. 2:17, the pesherist replaces \u201chuman\u201d (adam) with \u201ctown\u201d (kiryah).
\n12:7b. the \u201ctown\u201d is Jerusalem f. the Aramaic Targum to Hab. 2:17, and see Isa. 1:21, 26.
\n12:8\u20139a. where the Wicked Priest committed abominable deeds and defiled God\u2019s sanctuary Bloodshed defiles the Temple (Lev. 20:3; Ezek. 23:39), the holy city (Ezek. 22:1\u20136), and the holy land (Num. 35:33; Deut. 21:23; 11QT 64:11\u201313). Such an accusation may refer to Jannaeus, who crucified 800 Pharisees in Jerusalem. For other abominable deeds that defile the Temple and the holy city, see, for example, Ezek. 22:9\u201312; CD 5:6\u201311; 12:1\u20132.
\n12:9\u201310a. And \u201cviolence (done to) the land\u201d (refers to) the cities of Judah, where he stole the wealth of the Poor Ones This pesher seems to refer to the thefts from the settlements of the yahad. \u201cCities\u201d symbolize congregations (see 1QpHab 10:10 and the comment on that line); Judah is a sobriquet for the yahad (see 8:1); and the dwelling places of the yahad are mentioned in 1QS 6:2. The wealth of the yahad is mentioned in several sources.
\n12:10b\u201313:4 The scroll concludes with the pesharim on Hab. 2:18\u201320, affirming the futility of idolatry in anticipation of God\u2019s eschatological judgment upon the Gentiles and all wickedness. This punishment will be God\u2019s ultimate response to Habakkuk\u2019s petition against the cruelty of the Kittim (1QpHab 5:12\u20136:12) and the wicked of Israel.
\n12:11. an image of falsehood Heb. marei sheker. This was probably the Hebrew version used by the Old Greek translation and the Targum. The MT version, \u201ca teacher of falsehood\u201d (moreh sheker), may be a case of a wrong reading.
\n12:12\u201314. all the idols of the nations, which they have made so that they may serve them and bow down before them This pesher concentrates the several images mentioned in Hab. 2:18a into a general definition, and paraphrases the purpose of their worship.
\n12:14. but they will not save them on the day of judgment This clause expresses the antithesis of pagan hopes. For a summary of what will happen on the eschatological day of judgment, see 1QpHab 13:3\u20134.
\n12:14\u201315. wo[e t[o the one who says] According to the MT version the restoration of the beginning of line 14 is hw[y \u2019wmer]l\u2019s, taking into consideration a mistaken second citation of the word hwy. For a similar mistake see 7:2, where a second citation of the word \u2018al is written. Other restoration of line 14 may be h[a\u2019wmer l]\u2019s. Compare the LXX and the Targum to this passage.
\n12:16. [Can it teach?\u2026] This translation follows Hab. 2:19 MT.
\n13:1\u20132. all the nations who have served the stone and the wood That is, the pagan nations.
\n13:3\u20134. on the day of judgment God will destroy completely all who serve the idols and the evil ones from the earth The idea of God\u2019s final judgment upon the wicked of the pagan nations and of Israel is mentioned in 1QpHab 5:4\u20135; 10:3\u20135. The annihilation of all the wicked in the end-time is a famous Jewish tradition.<\/p>\n
Greek Jewish Interpreters<\/p>\n
This section features selections from Greek Jewish authors writing mainly in the 3rd through the 1st centuries BCE. Most of them are known to us through excerpts preserved in the writings of pagan (and later Christian) authors. Not all of these works are strictly interpretive, but they are usually presented together because of both their similar dating and their fragmentary nature. An exception is the pair of works by Pseudo-Philo, which, though possibly of similar dating with the rest of the group, were transmitted along with a larger corpus of works by Philo, and so come to us as complete compositions.<\/p>\n
Demetrius the Chronographer<\/p>\n
Lorenzo DiTommaso<\/p>\n
Demetrius was a Jewish historian who flourished in Ptolemaic Egypt, likely in Alexandria during the last decades of the 3rd century BCE. The date may be inferred from a note to Ptolemy IV (= Ptolemy IV Philopator, reigned c. 221\u2013205 BCE) in fragment 6. Nothing more is known of Demetrius\u2019s life.
\nOf his writings, only six fragments survive, all of which were preserved by early Christian authors. Five appear in the Praeparatio evangelica of Eusebius (ca. 260\u2013340 CE), whose source was Alexander Polyhistor, a Gentile anthologist active at Rome in the mid-1st century BCE. The sixth, preserved by Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150\u2013215 CE) in his Stromata, is from Demetrius\u2019s book, On the Kings in Judaea.
\nDemetrius is the first Jewish author known to have composed in Greek. His spelling of proper names and other details indicate that he used a Greek version of Genesis and Exodus rather than the Hebrew. As such, he is our earliest independent witness for the existence of these books in Greek (and, by inference, a Greek Pentateuch).
\nDemetrius addressed the historical and religious issues that would have been raised by a careful reading of Scripture. His exegetical approach, called aporiai kai luseis (questions and solutions), was a feature of Hellenistic scholarship and was later employed by Philo of Alexandria (see Questions and Answers in Genesis and Exodus). Demetrius is also representative of the nationalist historians of the era, such as Berosus of Babylon (330\u2013250 BCE) and Manetho of Egypt (3rd century BCE), who applied elements of the critical rigor of Greek scientific historiography to their local histories.
\nYet Demetrius cannot be understood solely through the lens of Hellenism, since to some degree his exegetical approach was already implicit in the historical books of Scripture that were the object of his enquiry. He is not an apologist, and neither amplifies the antiquity of his heritage nor exaggerates the attributes of its heroes, who remain untouched by syncretism. Demetrius clarifies difficult sections of the biblical narrative rather than augmenting it with new episodes or the dramatic speeches so common in classical histories. His focus on difficult questions and the complexity of his solutions can obscure our understanding of his purpose. His goal was not to prove the integrity of Scripture or defend its claims against skeptics. He assumed it faithfully recorded sacred history, and that apparent problems and inconsistencies would be resolved by careful study. We learn, for example, how Jacob could have sired twelve children in seven years, why Joseph gave Benjamin a fivefold portion of food and clothing, and whence, during the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites might have obtained the weapons they used against the Amalekites.
\nThe selections below illustrate the nature of Demetrius\u2019s questions and the reasoned, explanatory logic of his solutions. His audience would have been educated Jews, but might have included Gentiles as well.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Bickerman, E. \u201cThe Jewish Historian Demetrius.\u201d In Christianity, Judaism, and Other Greco-Roman Cults, edited by J. Neusner, 3.72\u201384. Leiden: Brill, 1975.
\nDiTommaso, L. \u201cA Note on Demetrius the Chronographer, Fr. 2.11 (= Eusebius, PrEv 9.21.11).\u201d JSJS 29 (1998): 81\u201391.
\nDoran, R. \u201cThe Jewish Hellenistic Historians before Josephus.\u201d ANRW 2.20.1 (1984): 246\u201397, esp. 248\u201351.
\nGruen, E. S. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
\nHanson, J. \u201cDemetrius the Chronographer.\u201d In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by J. H. Charlesworth, 2.843\u201354. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
\nHolladay, C. R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, 1.51\u201391. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1983.
\nSterling, G. Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke\u2014Acts and Apologetic Historiography, 153\u201367. Leiden: Brill, 1992.
\nWacholder, B. Z. Eupolemus: A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature, 44\u201352. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College\u2013Jewish Institute of Religion, 1974.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
FRAGMENT 2<\/p>\n
3\u201310 Demetrius provides a lengthy, logical calculation (not translated) that assumes concurrent pregnancies among the mothers and 10-month gaps between the births of children of the same mother.
\n7. an angel of God The Hebrew (Gen. 32:25) and Greek (32:24) texts read \u201cman,\u201d but the prophet Hosea asserts that Jacob had struggled with an angel (12:4), a view that later became common. Demetrius is the earliest known extrabiblical author to call Jacob\u2019s opponent an angel.
\n11. Jacob was now 120 years old, and this was 1 year before Isaac died at the age of 180 years This simple statement illuminates Demetrius\u2019s concern over issues that could arise only from a close reading of Scripture. Frag. 2.16 states that Israel \u201cspent 215 years in the land of Canaan.\u201d The figure reflects the 430 years that Exod. 12:40 LXX records for Israel\u2019s time in Canaan and Egypt, but stands in contrast to the Hebrew text, which claims 430 years in Egypt only. For Demetrius, chronology and genealogy were complementary; his task was to explain the details. Frag. 2.16 shows how he calculated the figure of 215 years as the sum of the 25 years that Abraham spent in Canaan before the birth of Isaac (Gen. 12:4; 21:5), Isaac\u2019s 60 years of age at the time of Jacob\u2019s birth (25:26), and Jacob\u2019s 130 years of age when he went before Pharaoh (47:9). When Joseph was released from prison, he \u201cwas 30 years old,\u201d while Jacob \u201cwas now 120 years old\u201d (frag. 2.11). Genesis 45:6 implies that 9 more years passed before Joseph, now in the service of Pharaoh, received his brothers in Egypt (frag. 2.12\u201313). But if Joseph was 39 (frag. 2.18), Jacob must have been 129, which was a year too young for Demetrius\u2019s computation concerning the length of Israel\u2019s stay in Canaan. The problem, then, was the discrepancy between Isaac\u2019s death at 180 and the datum that Jacob did not enter Egypt until he was 130. One might suppose that since \u201cJacob arrived in Egypt during the third year of famine in Egypt\u201d (frag. 2.17), another year had passed, but Demetrius knew that this was not the case, since he determined that Dinah was 39 at the time and she could not be younger than Joseph. Demetrius\u2019s answer is more elegant: he concluded that Jacob must have been 120 \u201c1 year before Isaac died at the age of 180 years\u201d (frag. 2.11). Although his calculations do not survive, they probably were based on the recognition that Jacob and Joseph were born in different months (Demetrius pays close attention to months in frag. 2.3, 8\u20139, 17). Therefore, while Joseph was 30 when Jacob was 120, Jacob could have turned 121 when Isaac died at 180, but before Joseph turned 31. Nine years later, when he went to Egypt, Jacob would have been 130 when his son Joseph was for a few months still 39, at which point Israel\u2019s stay in Canaan ended at 215 years. All this goes far beyond typical Rabbinic calculations of such matters, which tend to be much simpler.
\n13. Joseph himself said that this was the reason he did not send for them Not every question required a complicated solution; sometimes the answer was in plain view, as it was on this issue, since \u201cJoseph himself\u201d tells us (Gen. 46:33\u201334).
\n14\u201315. Joseph gave Benjamin a fivefold portion \u2026 he gave Benjamin five such garments along with 300 pieces of gold Demetrius addresses two problems. The first concerns the proportions Benjamin received (Gen. 43:33\u201334; 45:22). Demetrius\u2019s answer follows from ratios: Jacob \u201chad sired six sons by Leah but only two sons by Rachel\u201d (frag. 2.14), and if Joseph reserved a portion for himself, that left five for Benjamin, the other son of Rachel. The reading \u201c300 pieces of gold\u201d is based on the Septuagint (the Hebrew text reads \u201csilver\u201d). The second problem concerns Benjamin and the food. The sentence begins, \u201cAnother issue concerns why,\u201d which should be considered in light of frag. 5.16, \u201cSomeone asked how.\u201d This language, characteristic of the \u201cquestions and solutions\u201d approach, need not imply an apologetic context. Demetrius\u2019s questions were meant for those who were familiar enough with Scripture to be interested in its finer details (including, as is clear from the commentary on frag. 2.11, its deep chronological structures), while his solutions lack the timbre of justification frequently associated with replies to Gentile skeptics. One has the sense that we have Demetrius\u2019s response to a question, perhaps originally posed by a student, as to why Benjamin received so much food \u201ceven though he could never consume\u201d it.<\/p>\n
Fragment 3<\/p>\n
1. Zipporah daughter of Jethro \u2026 of the stock of Abraham A Diaspora Jew, Demetrius assumed that Moses had not been polygamous or married outside his people. The genealogies of Scripture\u2014\u201cinsofar as can be reckoned from the names\u201d\u2014implied this. Gen. 25:1\u20134 LXX traces the line from Abraham through Keturah to Raguel, whom Demetrius takes to mean Reuel. Demetrius knew that Hobab was the son of Reuel the Midianite (Num. 10:29) and possibly concluded that Hobab and Jethro were brothers on the implication of Judg. 1:16 and 4:11. In frag. 3.2 (not translated) the same genealogies demonstrate how Moses, seventh in line from Abraham, could have married Zipporah, only six generations removed. Finally, Gen. 25:6 notes that Abraham had sent his sons after Isaac to the east. This, coupled with the notice that Midian was the name of another son of Keturah, provided the basis for Demetrius\u2019s view (frag. 3.3, not translated) that Moses\u2019s Ethiopian wife (Num. 12:1 LXX) was none other than Zipporah.<\/p>\n
Fragment 5<\/p>\n
16. how the Israelites obtained weapons Weapons were required for the Israelites\u2019 coming battle with the Amalekites (Exod. 17:8\u201316). Thus they had to \u201creturn again\u201d to the seashore, where the dead Egyptians were (14:30). The phrases \u201cthose who did not drown\u201d and \u201cthose who did\u201d are circumlocutions for \u201cIsraelites\u201d and \u201cEgyptians.\u201d Note also \u201ccame out\u201d; the obvious locative, \u201cfrom Egypt,\u201d is not explicit. Was Demetrius, an Alexandrian Jew, avoiding potential offense? While the Exodus was a national triumph over imperial Egypt and its king, Demetrius\u2019s focus was elsewhere and there was little reason to stress the politically sensitive aspects of the story. A later analogue might be Josephus, who, in order not to offend his Roman patrons, veiled the meaning of the great stone of Dan. 2:34\u201335, 45 that represents the kingdom of God and will smash and replace the final world empire (Ant. 10.209\u201310).<\/p>\n
Artapanus<\/p>\n
Erich S. Gruen<\/p>\n
The mysterious and intriguing Artapanus resists labels, eludes characterization, and defies categories. He carries a Persian name, writes in Greek, and has a Jewish perspective. His work jumbles genres and transforms traditions, blending history with fable, propaganda with fantasy, biblical narrative with pagan romance.
\nWe possess only three fragments from Artapanus\u2019s treatise, which was entitled either Judaica or Concerning the Jews. The excerpts were quoted by the Greek scholar and collector of information Alexander Polyhistor from Miletus in Asia Minor, writing in the middle of the 1st century BCE. Polyhistor\u2019s work itself no longer survives, but the 4th-century CE churchman Eusebius of Caesarea preserved many of Polyhistor\u2019s citations of Jewish authors in his Preparation for the Gospel. Hence we have only a third-hand version of Artapanus, at best. Two of the fragments, on Abraham and Joseph, are quite brief and truncated; a third on Moses is more extensive, elaborate, and engaging.
\nThe segment on Abraham depicts the patriarch as bringing his household to Egypt, remaining there 20 years, and teaching the science of astrology to the Pharaoh. Artapanus sees him through the eyes of both Greeks and Egyptians. Abraham is thus not only ancestor of the Jews but also contributor to the origins of culture and learning.
\nThe Joseph fragment liberally modifies the biblical version. According to Artapanus, Joseph landed in Egypt through his own shrewdness, escaping the machinations of his brothers rather than being victimized by them. He then became the king\u2019s economic minister, restructuring Egyptian agriculture, placing land tenure for the first time on an equitable footing\u2014a far cry from the biblical narrative that has him extending royal authority and reducing the Egyptian peasantry to serfdom. More striking still, Artapanus makes Joseph the discoverer of measurements, a lasting contribution for which he was much beloved by the Egyptians.
\nThe surviving fragment on Moses is far lengthier than the Abraham and Joseph portions combined. Here, Artapanus gives full rein to his imagination. Moses, he reports, acquired the name Mousaios from the Greeks, became the teacher of the mythical Orpheus, and conferred a host of benefits upon humankind, including the invention of ships, mechanisms for stone construction, Egyptian weaponry, hydraulic engines, implements of warfare, and even philosophy. Further, he reconstituted the entire Egyptian political and religious structure, taught hieroglyphics to the priests, made divinities out of cats, dogs, and ibises, taught Ethiopians to practice circumcision, and prompted the worship of the Apis bull. In addition, Artapanus invents adventures for Moses, including a military campaign against Ethiopians, the foiling of an Egyptian assassin, and escape from the plots of a jealous Pharaoh. And he rewrites the ten plagues narrative by having Moses initiate the flooding of the Nile and inspire the use of his rod as part of Isis worship. Instead of being only a lawgiver for the Jews, Moses turns out to be a benefactor of Egyptians and a culture hero for all of humankind.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
Nothing is known about Artapanus apart from these extracts. He must precede Alexander Polyhistor, who quotes him; thus he wrote no later than the early 1st century BCE. He used the Septuagint for his biblical text, thus placing him no earlier than the mid-3rd century BCE. The passages preserved by the Christian fathers Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria constitute our only attestations of Artapanus. Perhaps because of his idiosyncratic views, he did not receive mention by any Jewish or pagan writer. Since the surviving fragments all concern themselves with Egypt, it is likely that Artapanus dwelled in that land. And since no Gentile of that time period would have the motivation for retelling and rewriting biblical stories, he was almost certainly a Hellenistic Jew.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
The work does not fit neatly in a particular genre. It has been classified either as history or romance or some combination thereof, as a vehicle for promoting a syncretistic blend of cultures, or as a means to refute nasty Gentile depictions of Jews. But Artapanus is too slippery and elusive a writer to pigeonhole. The inventive and occasionally whimsical character of his work suggests that Artapanus was less an advocate for syncretism or an embattled apologist than an imaginative spinner of tales, with a light touch, who tampered freely with Scripture and transposed Gentile traditions to place Jewish figures in the center.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Barclay, J. M. G. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, 127\u201332. Edinburgh: Clark, 1996.
\nBraun, M. History and Romance in Graeco-oriental Literature, 1\u201331. Oxford: Blackwell, 1938.
\nCollins, J. J. \u201cArtapanus.\u201d In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by J. H. Charlesworth, 2.889\u2013903. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1985.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, 37\u201346. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
\nGruen, E. S. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, 87\u201389, 155\u201360. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
\nHolladay, C. R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, 1.189\u2013243. Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1983.
\nSch\u00fcrer, E. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ. Vol 3. Rev. ed. by G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman, 1.521\u201325. Edinburgh: Clark, 1986.
\nSterling, G. E. Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography, 167\u201387. Leiden: Brill, 1992.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
Fragment 1<\/p>\n
Jews were named Hermiouth The word \u201cHermiouth,\u201d unattested outside Artapanus, seems to be an allusion to the Greek god Hermes, thus representing an effort by Artapanus to set the Jews in the context of Hellenistic perception.
\nAbraham came with his entire household Artapanus radically rewrites the tale in Gen. 12:10\u201313:1, omitting Abram\u2019s devious misrepresentation of Sarai as his sister rather than wife and inserting instead the claim that Abram taught astrology to the Egyptian pharaoh. The claim parallels one made by another Jewish-Hellenistic writer, usually designated Pseudo-Eupolemus, who has Abraham discover astrology and Chaldean science and transmit them to Egyptian priests and to Phoenicians. These writers plainly endeavor to transform Abraham into a bringer of culture who transmits learning to Near Eastern peoples on a broad front beyond the framework of the biblical traditions. It is interesting to note that the Palestinian Rabbis of Genesis Rabbah carefully deny that Abraham was an astrologer; see Gen. Rab. 46 and 87. In contrast to the Babylonian Rabbis; see Shabbat 156a.
\nafter he had remained there twenty years The Bible says nothing about the length of Abraham\u2019s stay or about any of his entourage remaining in Egypt.<\/p>\n
Fragment 2<\/p>\n
1. because he excelled all the other sons Artapanus again departs freely from the biblical tale in Gen. 37:2\u201336. Joseph here preempts his brothers\u2019 plot and takes the initiative in persuading Arabs to convey him to Egypt. He is thus a proactive figure, no mere victim. This is the first extant reference to Arabs as descendants of Abraham, an obvious though confused allusion to the story of Ishmael, son of Abraham and the Egyptian Hagar, handmaiden of Sarah. The Bible itself nowhere equates Arabs with Ishmaelites. Artapanus attests to the identification having already been made by the 2nd century BCE.
\ndescendants of Israel This may be confusion on Artapanus\u2019s part. But more likely the original text read Ishmael rather than Israel.
\n2. prior to that time the Egyptians had farmed the land haphazardly Artapanus offers a much more generous portrait of Joseph than does the narrative in Gen. 47:13\u201326. The biblical story has Joseph expand the authority and land ownership of the pharaoh, converting Egyptian peasants into serfs for the benefit of the crown. Artapanus, by contrast, turns Joseph into a land reformer, ending exploitation of the weak by the powerful, bringing neglected territory back into cultivation, allocating possessions in equitable fashion, and setting aside property for the priests. The author omits the biblical rationale for Joseph\u2019s appointment, a famine in the country, and simply makes him the king\u2019s representative to reorganize Egypt\u2019s economic system. Cf. to Gen. Rab. 90:5, where Joseph\u2019s agricultural activities are also described, but without any mention of the inequity of the results. For the Rabbis this does not seem to have been an issue.
\n3. it was he who discovered measures Artapanus credits Joseph, like Abraham, with an important contribution to the arts and sciences of antiquity. This serves as another instance of Jewish appropriation of those realms, making the Egyptians dependent upon and grateful recipients of a Jewish invention.
\n4. he became the lord of Egypt The text accords Joseph even more authority than is suggested in the Bible. The statement appears, however, almost as an afterthought in Artapanus and may have been incorrectly inserted in the text by Eusebius. Cf. Gen. 41:41\u201344.<\/p>\n
Fragment 3<\/p>\n
1. Abraham and his son Mempsasthenoth \u201cAbraham\u201d is obviously a slip: Artapanus must have intended \u201cJacob.\u201d And the Egyptian name of his son seems a deliberate distortion of the name given to Joseph by the pharaoh in Gen. 41:45.
\n3. a certain Chenephres This may be a form of the name Chephren, the Egyptian pharaoh known from Herodotus (Hist. 2.127) and Diodorus of Sicily (Bib. hist. 1.64.1). But the story that Artapanus tells of his rivalry and conflict with Moses is found nowhere else and is probably a creation of the author.
\nhe was called Mousaios by the Greeks Mousaios was the legendary source of Hellenic verse and song. Artapanus here has the Greeks themselves judge Moses to be equivalent to the figure who exemplified the origins of their literary culture.
\n4. this Moses became the teacher of Orpheus Artapanus neatly reverses the standard genealogy, which has Mousaios as son or disciple of Orpheus, the celebrated singer in ancient lore. In this fashion Moses becomes the ultimate source of Greek poetry, a remarkable usurpation by the Jewish author.
\nwhen he reached manhood The transformation of Moses from Israelite leader to cultural hero for the nations is an invention by Artapanus of a quite striking character. The author claims him as benefactor of humankind generally, and particularly of Egyptians. And the benefactions take unusual and surprising forms. Moses supplies the know-how for ships and weapons, for hydraulic and building devices, and (seemingly as an afterthought) for philosophy. Even more remarkably, Artapanus assigns Moses the responsibility for various Egyptian institutions: not only the division into administrative districts (nomes), the landed privileges of the priests, and the use of hieroglyphics, in all of which a Jewish readership could take pride; but even the apportioning of divinities to each nome and the inauguration of animal worship! This has caused considerable consternation to scholars, some of whom have gone to great lengths to reconcile Artapanus\u2019s Jewish convictions with his startling connection of Moses to Egyptian animal cults. But the author\u2019s capriciousness needs to be taken into account. His flights of fancy were not necessarily to be taken seriously by knowledgeable contemporary readers, whether Egyptians or Jews. One can, however, find something similar in the Rabbinic interpretation of Deut. 32:8. See Deuteronomy Rabbah, ed. Lieberman, s.v. Shema Yisrael.
\n6. he was called Hermes The identification here is with the Egyptian conception of the popular Greek god Hermes, a figure they associated with their own divinity Thot, whom they credited with the crafts and building arts, with worship of the ibis, and especially with the ability to decipher sacred texts. It is no coincidence that Artapanus has Greeks identify Moses with Mousaios and Egyptians identify him with Hermes-Thot. The presentation is designed to suggest a deep integration of Moses into both cultures, not a mere conceit of the author.
\n7. sent Moses against them The tale of a campaign against Ethiopia owes nothing to the Bible. Artapanus felt free to invent at will. As leader of an expedition against Ethiopia, Moses follows in the footsteps of earlier Egyptian heroes like Sesostris and Semiramis (Diodorus, Bib. hist. 1.55.1; 2.14.4). It also shows up in much later Rabbinic sources, see Yalqut Shimoni 165.
\n8. the war lasted ten years The phrase deliberately evokes an epic war, most obviously that of the Greeks in Troy. Josephus gives a longer and very different version of Moses\u2019s supposed campaign against the Ethiopians (Ant. 2.238\u201353). It may have been based in part on Artapanus\u2019s re-creation, but evidently had other sources as well, perhaps even earlier than Artapanus.
\n9. they consecrated the ibis This notice parallels the tale in Josephus, in which Moses in his Ethiopian campaign brought with him baskets full of ibises, because these fierce enemies of serpents catch and swallow them (Ant. 2.246).
\n10. the practice of circumcising Herodotus reports that the practice originated with Egyptians (Hist. 2.36) and adds that Egyptians and Ethiopians were the only peoples who had engaged in it from distant antiquity (2.104). It appears therefore that Artapanus has turned this tradition, too, in Moses\u2019s favor, giving him priority among those in Egypt for this practice and having him teach it to Ethiopians as well, a clear instance of cultural usurpation.
\n12. named a bull Apis Reverence for Apis was central in Egyptian religion, particularly in connection with agriculture. By having Moses point out to the pharaoh the value of oxen for tilling the land, thereby prompting the latter to create the cult of Apis, Artapanus neatly makes the Israelite leader originate an Egyptian rite of the most sacred character. And Chenephres proceeds to bury the evidence that this was Moses\u2019s idea\u2014perhaps a bit of mischief by Artapanus.
\n16. named the river and the city in that place Meroe This marks yet another clever usurpation by Artapanus. Meroe was the royal seat of Ethiopia. The standard story ascribes its designation to Cambyses, the 6th-century Persian ruler of Egypt, who named it after his wife, mother, or sister (versions vary) who died there. Artapanus gives the tale his own twist by maintaining that the famed city owed its name to Moses\u2019s honoring of his mother. This fiction adds to the construct that puts Ethiopia as well as Egypt in the debt of Moses.
\n17. Arabia The vague designation here probably corresponds to Strabo\u2019s location of Arabia as the land between the Nile and the Arabian Gulf (Geogr. 17.1.21).
\n18. drew his own sword and killed Chanethothes This is evidently an allusion to the Exodus narrative in which Moses slew an Egyptian and fled to Midian (Exod. 2:11\u201312). But Artapanus has liberally embellished the tale, turning it into the foiling of a dastardly plot and an admirable act of self-defense rather than one of subterfuge and retaliation.
\n19. Raguel This is the name given to Jethro, the priest of Midian, in the Septuagint text of Exod. 2:18.
\nregard for his own people Reference here is to the Israelites in Egypt, not to Egyptians generally. The term homogen\u0113s (of the same race) indicates that clearly enough.
\nwith his proposal for an attack blocked The Greek text is compressed and disputed at this point. The context does imply that Moses\u2019s objections prevented a full-scale assault on Egypt, inducing Raguel to order a plundering raid. Yet Moses subsequently follows divine orders in determining to make war upon the Egyptians.
\n20. ordered the Jews to be clothed with linen This is an odd form of harassment since linen garments were normally a mark of distinction and were indeed worn by Egyptian priests. Is Artapanus poking fun at the simplemindedness of the pharaoh? Or is there an ironic allusion here to the biblical prohibition (Lev. 19:19; Deut. 22:11) of the wearing of a mixture of linen and wool?
\n21. told him to wage war against Egypt The variant on the \u201cburning bush\u201d narrative in Exod. 3:1\u201310 takes a more forceful turn here. Unlike the biblical account, Artapanus has God order an armed attack, not just remonstrations with Pharaoh, to rescue the Jews. The author never hesitates to depart from the Bible.
\n22. he resolved to lead a fighting force against the Egyptians This, of course, differs markedly from the Exodus text, which never suggests a military expedition. But other traditions that surface in the Greco-Egyptian writers Manetho (3rd century BCE) and Chaeremon (probably 1st century CE), and that may even draw upon Jewish traditions, record upheavals by rebels in Egypt in combination with forces from Jerusalem that conquered the Egyptians and plundered their land. The texts are transmitted by Josephus (Ag. Ap. 1.230\u201351, 288\u201392). That Artapanus\u2019s version has much in common with those stories cannot be ascertained. An obvious gap exists in his narrative at this point, for there is no follow-up of Moses\u2019s resolve to conduct an armed campaign. Alexander Polyhistor may have omitted that portion in his summary of Artapanus. Josephus\u2019s rewriting of Exodus here does have the divine voice enjoin Moses to take the role of general and commander of the Hebrew hosts (Ant. 2.268)\u2014though no battle narrative follows.
\n23. the king imprisoned him This episode is altogether outside the biblical tradition. It owes more to tales of miracle escapes from prison through divine intervention, like that of the Bacchants and Dionysus himself in Euripides\u2019s Bacchae 434\u201352, 503\u201310, 610\u201337. And it has parallels in three different stories recounted in Acts 5:17\u201325; 12:3\u201311; 16:23\u201328.
\n25. he fell over speechless The text plainly underscores the magical powers of Moses and the awesome character of God\u2019s name, which caused Pharaoh to collapse until revived by Moses himself. But there may also be a comic quality to the scene. The mere whisper of God\u2019s name in the ear of the king, who had mockingly asked for it, resulted in him falling in a heap on the floor\u2014presumably rendering himself a laughingstock to his courtiers.
\n27. the king then told Moses to perform some sign for him For the remaining portions of the fragment Artapanus gives a somewhat closer approximation of the narrative in Exodus. But he feels no inhibitions in omitting, abbreviating, substituting, or combining material from Exodus. Indeed, the more he echoes the text, the more a knowledgeable reader would notice the deliberate discrepancies.
\nso Moses threw out the rod The story of the rod derives from a combination of Exod. 4:2\u20135 and 7:8\u201313. But Artapanus omits the Egyptian sages and sorcerers whose efforts were outdone by Moses.
\n28. he \u2026 struck the Nile with his rod, and the river flooded Artapanus notably modifies the Exodus narrative at 7:14\u201320. Instead of turning the Nile waters into blood, Moses\u2019s staff caused them to overflow the banks and flood the land. And Artapanus adds the comment that this feat inaugurated the regular flooding of the Nile. Since that feature, as all knew, was the very lifeline of the nation, the author here implicitly gives Moses credit for the most sustaining element in the Egyptian economy and civilization\u2014not at all what the Exodus legend had in mind.
\nstagnant water began to smell This segment largely reproduces Exod. 7:18, 21.
\n31. the king became arrogant Artapanus leaves God out of this. In Exod. 7:3 it was God who determined to harden Pharaoh\u2019s heart.
\nhe performed more signs Artapanus adapts the tale of the ten plagues but picks and chooses at will, in effect supplying his own rendition. He omits certain plagues, but alludes here to the fourth (Exod. 8:20) and the sixth (9:8\u201312).
\n32. Moses used his rod Frogs, locusts, and flies evidently refer to the second, third, and eighth plagues (Exod. 7:27\u20138:3; 8:17\u201320; 10:12\u201315). But Artapanus manipulates the biblical tale for his own idiosyncratic purposes. He strikingly claims that Moses\u2019s deed caused Egyptians to place a rod in each temple and connects it in some fashion with the worship of Isis. This must be taken as yet another effort to make Moses responsible for essential features of Egyptian culture and religion.
\n33. Moses produced hail and earthquakes Hail was the seventh plague in Exod. 9:18\u201326. But Artapanus adds the earthquakes, perhaps with a touch of malicious glee. He seems to be making some sport of the situation by having Egyptians dart about dodging the one, only to be felled by the other.
\n34. the king released the Jews Remarkably, Artapanus omits the culminating event, the death of the Egyptian firstborn. This may be due to the abbreviation by Alexander Polyhistor rather than an absence from Artapanus\u2019s text. But, given its pivotal importance in the biblical narrative, it is hard to believe that the lapse stemmed from inadvertent oversight. Artapanus, as he does so frequently, reversed expectations by dropping the most familiar aspect of the legend and directing attention to the novelties that he inserted.
\nprocured from the Egyptians This softens the biblical version, which has Israelites \u201cplunder\u201d the Egyptians (Exod. 12:36). Artapanus may here reflect a Hellenistic Jewish inclination to set Israelite behavior in a better light.
\n35. now the Memphians claim The Exodus narrative at 14:21\u201322 blends two distinct versions of the crossing of the sea without acknowledging the difference: the drying up of the waters to enable passage and the separating of the sea into two walls of water through which the Israelites could move safely. Artapanus interestingly sees them as two independent explanations, while ascribing them not to the Bible but to two Egyptian traditions, one from the Memphians and one from the Heliopolitans. The author, as is his wont, gives a special twist to the legend by citing only Egyptian sources\u2014and thereby perhaps casting a cloud upon their reliability. The Memphite version is a rationalization, indicating that Moses worked out the crossing in advance without divine assistance. The Heliopolitans, by contrast, embrace the construct that has Moses part the waters in obedience to a divine command.
\n36. the divine voice This must be part of the explanation assigned to the Heliopolitans. The previous sentence alone would not provide the needed contrast with the Memphite version.
\n37. a fire blazed in front of them Characteristically, Artapanus alters the biblical narrative in arbitrary fashion. Drowning the Egyptians in the flood waters (Exod. 14:26\u201328) was not enough. Artapanus adds that they were consumed by fire as well. It is unlikely that he simply expanded upon the pillar of fire and cloud from which God looked down upon the scene (14:24)\u2014a very different matter. Nor is there any likely connection to the fire that accompanied the plague of hail inflicted upon Egypt earlier; Exod. 9:24.<\/p>\n
Eupolemus<\/p>\n
Gregory E. Sterling<\/p>\n
One of the most important 1st century BCE doxographers, one who collected the works of other authors in a systematic way, was Alexander Polyhistor (ca. 110\u201340 BCE), a polymath who began life as a slave but was given his freedom and citizenship on the orders of the Roman statesman Sulla (ca. 81 BCE). He devoted his energies to collecting quotations from different authors, largely on ethnographic and philosophical matters. His work Concerning the Jews was an important collection of citations from early Hellenistic Jewish authors. Among the Jewish authors Polyhistor cited was Eupolemus.
\nClement of Alexandria (ca. 150\u2013215 CE) and Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260\u2013340 CE) independently used Polyhistor\u2019s Concerning the Jews. In his Miscellanies, (Stromata [Strom]) Clement preserved three citations from Eupolemus via Polyhistor (frags. 1, 2, and 5, two of which he attributed directly to Eupolemus (frags. 1 and 5). Eusebius preserved six fragments in his Preparation for the Gospel (Praeparatio evangelica [Praep. ev.] frags. 1, 2, 3, 4; and Pseudo-Eupolemus, frags. 1 and 2), five of which he attributed explicitly to Eupolemus (frags. 1, 2, 3, 4 and Pseudo-Eupolemus, frag. 1). Two of the fragments of Clement and Eusebius are parallel (frags. 1 and 2). Two of the fragments cited by Eusebius probably belong to a Samaritan\u2014author (the ethnic identity is disputed) whom we conveniently call Pseudo-Eupolemus. This leaves us with five fragments: three preserved by Clement (frags. 1, 2, and 5) and four by Eusebius (frags. 1, 2, 3, and 4). Since Eusebius provided the fuller citation, his citations are used in the two cases below where there are overlaps.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
Eupolemus (meaning \u201cgood at war\u201d) was an unusual name for a Jew in the ancient world. There are several statements that help us identify the author. The final fragment suggests that the work was completed in the fifth year of Demetrius I Soter (162\u2013150 BCE) or 158\u2013157 BCE. In 161 BCE, Judas Maccabeus sent \u201cEupolemus the son of John the son of Accos and Jason the son of Eleazer\u201d on an embassy to Rome (1 Macc. 8:17; see also 2 Macc. 4:11; Ant. 12.415). The coincidence of the date of the writing and the date of the embassy lead us to identify the author of the fragments with the ambassador, and this is secured by common interests of the author and ambassador: The interest in the Temple that the fragments demonstrate suggests that our author may have been a priest or a Levite associated with the Temple. And we have a lineage for the ambassador that ties him to a priestly family. Eupolemus\u2019s father was named John; the author of 2 Maccabees identifies him as an ambassador to Antiochus III when the Seleucids gained control of Judea (2 Macc. 4:11). John is linked to Accos or the Hakkoz family of priests (1 Chron. 24:10). The status of the family as priests makes the selection of the father and son for ambassadorial work an obvious possibility. The congruence of the ambassador\u2019s status as a priest and the author\u2019s interest in the Temple make the identity of the two probable.
\nEupolemus was probably born at the end of the 3rd century BCE or the beginning of the 2nd century BCE. He grew up in a priestly family in Jerusalem, where he received a good education in both Hebrew and Greek. His father\u2019s early ambassadorial work probably ensured him a broad education. The fragments indicate that he may have known the works of Ctesias (frag. 4 = Praep. ev. 9.39.4) and Herodotus (frag. 4 = 9.39.5). He may have been too old to serve or was deceased when another delegation traveled to Rome without him in 143 BCE (1 Macc. 12:16).
\nThe five fragments attributed to Eupolemus reflect two major concerns. The first and fifth fragments form an inclusio by situating the work within the contest over culture set off by Alexander the Great\u2019s conquests, when people living in the East reacted to Greek rule by claiming cultural superiority through their antiquity. Fragment 1 presents Moses as a great innovator who helped to establish human culture: He was the \u201cfirst\u201d sage, the \u201cfirst\u201d to give the alphabet, and the \u201cfirst\u201d legislator. Fragment 5 returns to the concern of situating the Jewish people in the larger world by accenting the antiquity of the Jewish people through chronological calculations correlated to dates in the larger world.
\nThe second, third, and fourth fragments concentrate on the history of the Temple. Fragment 2 moves quickly through the period from Joshua up to David by summarizing key figures through chronological notices and passing over the judges. Like the biblical Chronicler, Eupolemus concentrated on David and Solomon, and more particularly, on their role in the construction of the Temple. Eupolemus elevated Solomon\u2019s status and the Temple\u2019s by including correspondence between Solomon and the kings of Egypt and Phoenicia. It was no accident that these two kings represented the powers of Eupolemus\u2019s own period: the Ptolemies and Seleucids. The narrative provides a detailed, but selective description of the Temple based on the accounts in Kings and Chronicles, but works freely with the text. It emphasizes the role of prophets in the instructions for the Temple by including two extra biblical references to them. Fragment 3 provides a conclusion to the account of Solomon, and fragment 4 moves to the destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians. Eupolemus was able to incorporate his interest in prophets by including the role of Jeremiah.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Eupolemus offers an insider\u2019s perspective on the Temple during the tumultuous events of the middle of the 2nd century BCE. While he entitled his work Concerning the Kings in Judea (frag. 1 = Strom. 1.23.153.4), he appears to have concentrated on the Temple\u2014at least if our fragments reflect the basic interests of the work (frags. 2 and 4 especially). He wrote at the outset of the Hasmonean period after Judas had cleansed the Temple (164 BCE), but prior to Jewish independence in 142 BCE. The cleansing of the Temple (1 Macc. 4:36\u201361; 2 Macc. 10:1\u20139; Ant. 12.316\u201326) may have been the event that inspired him to write his history. His embellishments of the biblical text point to a rising national pride as the Hasmoneans attempted to extend their control over Jerusalem and Judea. His work was probably an effort to provide a sense of identity for the movement by relating their past glories, especially the construction of the Temple.
\nThe identity that Eupolemus sought to establish was connected with the traditions of the people through the retelling of the biblical text. However, it was also associated with the world at large. He wrote his account in Greek and self-consciously situated the story of the kings of Judea in the framework of the larger world, especially the Seleucids and Ptolemies. He was unambiguously Jewish, but Jewish in the Hellenistic world.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
Eupolemus stands in a tradition of priestly writers living in the ancient East who related their native traditions: Berossus in Babylon, Manethon in Egypt, and later Josephus are all good examples of the tradition that I call apologetic historiography. It is the Eastern tradition that Josephus set out in his historiographical excursus in Ag. Ap. 1.6\u201356, which may be described as \u201cthe story of a subpeople in an extended prose narrative written by a member of the group who follows the group\u2019s own traditions but hellenizes them in an effort to establish the identity of the group within the setting of the larger world.\u201d These authors are different from Greek ethnographers who described what they saw and heard, using their own records from their own investigations. At the same time, they hellenize their own records by writing in Greek and using some of the techniques and forms of Hellenistic authors. It is worth reading some of the other priestly authors to understand the tradition.
\nAs suggested above, this form of historiography relates both to native traditions and to traditions in the larger Hellenistic world. Eupolemus is most indebted to 1-2 Chronicles for his native traditions, and so it is helpful to read through these biblical books to understand the focus of his work. He also drew from the larger world, and his work is similar in many ways to the group of authors known as local historians, that is, historians who wrote the history of a city or region. One of the hallmarks of these works is concern for chronology: the writers structured their works around the reigns of kings or the chief magistrates in Athens known as archons, in the same way that Eupolemus did. They were concerned with origins just as Eupolemus was. The most famous set of local historians are those who wrote about Athens. The most important of these are: Hellanicus (FGH 323a), Cleidemus (FGH 323), Androtion (FGH 324), Phanodemus (FGH 325), Melanthius (FGH 326), Demon (FGH 327), Philochorus (FGH 328), and Ister (FGH 334).
\nThere is another Jewish work that shares some of the same orientation with the local historians, although not with the attempt to relate the whole history of the people as the apologetic historians: 2 Maccabees. It is worth reading its defense of the Temple along with Eupolemus\u2019s account of its construction and destruction.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Doran, Robert. \u201cThe Jewish Historians before Josephus.\u201d In ANRW 2.20.1, 246\u201397, esp. 263\u201370. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987.
\nFallon, F. \u201cEupolemus.\u201d In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James Charlesworth, 2:861\u201372. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
\nFreudenthal, J. Alexander Polyhistor und die von ihm erhaltenen Reste j\u00fcdischer und samaritanischer Geschichtswerke, esp. 105\u201330. Hellenistische Studied, 1\u20132. Breslau: H. Skutsch, 1875.
\nGruen, Erich. Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, esp. 138\u201346. Hellenistic Culture and Society 30. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
\nHolladay, Carl R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. Vol. 1: The Historians, esp. 93\u2013156. SBL Texts and Translations 20 \/ SBL Pseudepigrapha Series 10. Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1983.
\nMittmann-Richert, Ulrike. Einf\u00fchrung zu den historischen und legendarischen Erz\u00e4hlungen, esp. 174\u201384. J\u00fcdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-r\u00f6mischer Zeit 6.1.1. G\u00fctersloh: G\u00fctersloher Verlag, 2000.
\nSterling, Gregory E. Historiography & Self-definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography, esp. 207\u201322. NovTSup 64. Leiden: Brill, 1992; rpt. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.
\nWacholder, Ben Zion. Eupolemus: A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature. Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 3. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1974.
\nWalter, Nikolaus. Fragmente j\u00fcdisch-hellenistischer Historiker, esp. 93\u2013108. J\u00fcdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-r\u00f6mischer Zeit I.2. G\u00fctersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1980.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
9.26.1 Fragment 1 celebrates three \u201cfirsts\u201d for Moses: he was the first sage, the first to give an alphabet, and the first lawgiver. The emphasis on cultural origins is part of the competitive nature of the Hellenistic world in which authors from groups conquered by the Greeks asserted their cultural superiority in response to Greek military and economic superiority. Superiority was determined by age, expressed by the aphorism \u201cthe older is better.\u201d Jews participated in this debate openly. The most surprising claims were made by Artapanus (frag. 3.4), who claimed that Moses was Orpheus\u2019s teacher, the originator of philosophy, and the founder of Egyptian religion\u2014among other things! The three claims by Eupolemus must be understood in this context: he is claiming that Moses was the first sage and that what he gave to the Jews was transmitted through them to other cultures. Both Clement and Eusebius preserved this fragment, although the version in Clement lacks the third claim.
\nMoses was the first sage Later Jewish authors made similar claims. Philo considered Moses \u201cperfect\u201d as a sage (Alleg. Interp. 3.140; see also Posterity 173; Giants 47; Drunkenness 37; Migration 201). Josephus thought that he was the wisest legislator (J.W. 3.376) who \u201csurpassed every person who has ever lived in understanding\u201d (Ant. 4.328).
\nhe handed down \u2026 the alphabet first to the Jews The origins of the alphabet were disputed in antiquity. Some claimed that the Egyptians invented the alphabet (e.g., Library 1.16.1; 69.5); others claimed the Phoenicians (Herodotus 5.58.1\u20132; Diodorus 3.67.1); and still others the Greeks (Diodorus 5.57.3\u20135). Artapanus claimed that Moses taught the Egyptian priests hieroglyphs (frag. 3.4). These claims were part of the debate on cultural origins. In reality, the alphabet developed among Semites who were probably influenced\u2014in part\u2014by the uniconsonantal signs of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The first known examples of alphabetic writing belong to the Proto-Canaanite script from which the Phoenician script evolved. The Phoenician script became the basis for several later scripts including Hebrew and Aramaic. The Greeks also borrowed the Phoenician alphabet, but changed it by converting some consonants into vowels.
\nMoses was the first to write laws for the Jews There were a number of competing claimants for the title of first lawgiver (Diodorus 1.94.1\u20132; see also Pliny, Natural History 7.191). Josephus knew and used this tradition. He wrote: \u201cNow I claim that our lawgiver surpasses in antiquity the lawgivers mentioned anywhere else.\u201d He then listed a number of Greek legislators whom he said \u201cappear to have been only yesterday or the day before in comparison to him.\u201d At a minimum, Josephus argued, even Jewish detractors had to admit that \u201cour lawgiver was most ancient\u201d (Ag. Ap. 2.154\u201356). The claim sometimes took the form of the \u201ctheft of philosophy\u201d argument in which Jews argued that the Greeks had stolen their philosophical thought from Moses. The best example of this is the 2nd century BCE author Aristobulus (e.g., frags. 3\u20134).
\n9.30.1\u201334.18 Fragment 2, the longest fragment, concentrates on the Temple. It summarizes the period from Joshua until David and then develops the roles of David and Solomon in preparing and constructing the Temple. The major sources for this fragment are the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles. Eupolemus interwove the two accounts, although he preferred Chronicles to Kings. However, he did more than summarize the biblical text: he supplemented and altered it to serve his purposes. One of the most striking additions is the inclusion of the correspondence between Solomon and Vaphres. These letters, along with those between Solomon and Souron that have a biblical base, are early examples of the inclusion of documentary evidence\u2014even when it is fictitious\u2014that became commonplace in 1 and 2 Maccabees and Josephus. Clement has a summary of the material in this fragment.
\n9.30.1. Concerning the Prophecy of Elijah The title is a problem. It is the only attestation of such a title. It could be from a separate work, but this is unlikely since the contents deal with two kings and never mention Elijah. It may have been a sectional heading that has been confused with a title for the entire work in the transmission of the material. The fragments do have an interest in prophets and prophecy.
\nMoses prophesied for forty years This refers to the 40 years when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt through the desert.
\nJoshua, the son of Nain, for thirty years Some calculations were required to reach the length of Joshua\u2019s prophetic leadership. He was 40 when Moses sent him as a spy (Josh. 14:7), and lived through the 40 years of the wilderness (Num. 14:34). This makes him 80 when he assumed the leadership of the people. Since he died at 110 (Josh. 24:29), he led for 30 years.
\npitched the sacred tent in Shiloh See Josh. 18:1; 19:51. Shiloh, Khirbet Seilun, was an important sanctuary prior to the monarchy (Judg. 21:1\u201324, esp. 19\u201321; 1 Sam. 1:3, 24). It is located in the Ephraimite hill country approximately 19 miles north of Jerusalem. The site was destroyed at an early date, perhaps by the Philistines (1 Sam. 4). See comment on 9.34.14, he went to Shiloh.
\n9.30.2. Afterward Samuel was a prophet By moving directly from Joshua to Samuel, the text omits the judges (Iron Age I, 1200\u20131000 BCE). It is impossible to know whether Eupolemus or Alexander Polyhistor skipped this period. Given the nature of the chronological summary as a bridge and the focus on the Temple, it is likely that Eupolemus gave the judges little attention, if any. In this way, his work reflects the structure of 1 Chronicles, which uses genealogies to summarize history until it reaches Saul (1 Chron. 1\u20139), who serves as a transitional figure to David.
\nthen by God\u2019s will Saul was chosen as king by Samuel Modern biblical scholars recognize two different sets of stories that relate Saul\u2019s anointing: an older set (1 Sam. 9:1\u201310:16 and 10:27b\u201311:15) and a set that is more critical of the monarchy and reflects the Deuteronomist\u2019s(s\u2019) perspective (8:1\u201322; 10:17\u201327a; 12:1\u201325).
\nafter he ruled for twenty-one years The basis for these data is unknown. The text of 1 Sam. 13:1 that gives the length of Saul\u2019s reign is corrupt. Josephus gave 20 years (Ant. 10.143) and 40 years (Ant. 6.378). The author of Acts also knows the 40-year tradition (Acts 13:21).
\n9.30.3. Then David, the latter\u2019s son David was Jesse\u2019s son (1 Sam. 16:1\u201313) and son-in-law to Saul (1 Sam. 18:27). The mistake was probably made by Alexander Polyhistor. It would be an easy mistake to make if Eupolemus had only listed Saul as a transitional figure to David.
\ncame to power and subdued Eupolemus summarizes David\u2019s military career in three campaigns: first against the Syrians. the Assyrians, and Phoenicians; second against the Idumeans, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Itureans, the Nabateans, and the Nabdeans; third against Souron (contrary to 1 Kings 5:15). The summary differs from the biblical text in several important ways. First, Eupolemus omits David\u2019s greatest victory, his subjugation of the Philistines. This is a remarkable omission that may reflect the fact that the Philistines had largely disappeared in the Persian period (539\u2013334 BCE) and would have had little relevance in the 2nd century BCE. Second, Eupolemus updated the geography to reflect the map and military situation of the 2nd century BCE. Commagene is not mentioned in the Bible but is in Josephus. Galadene is Gilead in the Bible. The Idumeans are the later descendents of the Edomites who migrated to the south of Judah and became the enemies of the Hasmoneans. Judas campaigned there regularly. Idumea remained a sensitive place until John subdued it and forced the Idumeans to be circumcised in approximately 129 BCE (1 Macc. 4:36\u201359 || 2 Macc. 10:1\u20138). The Itureans were also a later group. They are mentioned in the Septuagint (LXX) (1 Chron. 5:19), but not in the Masoretic Text (MT) (although see Gen. 25:15; 1 Chron. 1:31). They began moving from the northern reaches of Transjordan into Galilee, a migration that may lie behind Eupolemus\u2019s inclusion of them. Tensions existed between the Hasmoneans and the Itureans; in approximately 104\u2013103 BCE Aristobulos conquered them in the Galilee and Transjordan regions and forced them to be circumcised (Ant. 13.318). The Nabateans were an Arab tribe that became important in the 2nd century BCE initially as supporters of Judas and Jonathan (1 Macc. 5:24\u201328; 9:35) and later as opponents of Alexander Jannaeus (Ant. 13.375, 382). The Nabdeans are unknown. The name may be a corrupt form of another name. It is possible that it was originally taken from 1 Chron. 5:19 where the Nadabaioi appear.
\n9.30.4. Souron This is the biblical Hiram, king of Tyre (ca. 969\u2013936 BCE). The spelling is unusual, but there was confusion over the spelling: he is \u1e24\u020ar\u0101m (2 Sam. 5:11), \u1e24\u020ar\u00f4m (1 Kings 5:25, 32), and H\u00fbr\u0101m (2 Chron. 1:18\u20132:15). The statement that David campaigned against him runs counter to the biblical narrative that speaks of David\u2019s friendship with Hiram (1 Kings 5:1; see also 2 Sam. 5:11\u201312 || 1 Chron. 14:1). It may be due to Ps. 83:7, which mentions Tyre as an enemy, since Eupolemus probably thought of David as the author.
\nhe struck a friendship treaty with Vaphres There is no record of David\u2019s dealings with a king of Egypt. The name Vaphres comes from Jer. 51:30 LXX.
\n9.30.5. Since David wanted to build a temple for God This is based on 2 Sam. 7:1\u20133 || 1 Chron. 17:1\u20132.
\nhe asked God to show him a place for the altar David does not ask this question in the biblical text. Eupolemus followed the lead of the Chronicler in associating David with the location of the altar. David purchases a threshing floor to build an altar to stop a plague (2 Sam. 24:25 || 1 Chron. 21:1\u201330). The Chronicler records that David decided that this would be the place for the altar (1 Chron. 22:1; 2 Chron. 3:1).
\nyet commanded him not to dedicate the temple because he was defiled with human blood This is a good example of Eupolemus\u2019s closer dependence on the Chronicler than on Kings, which mentions his campaigns but not his defilement through blood (1 Chron. 22:8 || 1 Kings 5:3; 1 Chron. 28:3).
\n9.30.6. The name of the angel was Dianathan The name is an obvious mistake. Dianathan has to come from the Greek dia Nathan (\u201cthrough Nathan\u201d). The statement conflates the account of Nathan\u2019s oracle to David about building a house for God (2 Sam. 7 || 1 Chron. 17) and the story of the angel at the threshing floor where the plague was stopped (2 Sam. 24:15\u201317 || 21:14\u201317), although according to the Chronicler the prophet Gad delivered the oracle that gave David the choice of punishments that set up the angel\u2019s mission (2 Chron. 21:7\u201313). Eupolemus may have conflated the accounts of the promise to build a house and the selection of the site of the temple, but Alexander Polyhistor probably confused the \u201cangel\u201d with Nathan.
\nbut to take care of the materials that pertained to the construction Recorded by the Chronicler but not by the Deuteronomistic historians (1 Chron. 22:1\u201319; 28:1\u201329:19).
\n9.30.7. he commissioned ships to be built in Elana Elana is Eloth (NJPS; elsewhere called Elath). Eupolemus has ascribed an activity attributed to Solomon by the Deuteronomists and Chronicler (1 Kings 9:26\u201328 || 2 Chron. 8:17\u201318) to David in order to heighten the preparations that David undertook for the Temple. The Chronicler made David\u2019s preparations for the temple a major theme; however, Eupolemus has extended even this. The result is to draw a closer connection between David and the temple.
\n9.30.8. After David had ruled for forty years This is taken from 2 Sam. 5:4; 1 Kings 2:11 || 1 Chron. 29:27.
\nSolomon, his son, who was twelve years of age Solomon\u2019s age is not given in 1 Kings 2:12 MT; elsewhere he is called young (1 Kings 3:7; 1 Chron. 22:5; 29:1). However, the LXX gives his age as 12 at the time of his accession (3 Kingdoms 2:12). Eupolemus appears to have followed the LXX or a different Hebrew text upon which the LXX was based. Josephus thought that he was 14 (Ant. 8.211).
\nin the presence of Eli the high priest Zadok was the high priest when Solomon was coronated (1 Kings 1:32\u201340; 1 Chron. 29:22). The alteration to Eli, who had been dead for years (1 Sam. 4:12\u201318), may have been deliberate. The Seleucids put the high priesthood up for sale in the first part of the 2nd century, a move that led to several important consequences. Eventually, the people named Jonathan high priest (152 BCE [see 1 Macc. 10:1\u201321]), a move that probably motivated the Teacher of Righteousness to break with the Hasmoneans and lead a group of followers to Qumran. The Zadokites were associated with the Qumran community, and may have even been involved in its founding. Eupolemus\u2019s connections with the Hasmoneans would have made him sympathetic to the break with the Zadokites, a sympathy that would explain the replacement of Zadok with Eli at this critical juncture in the story.
\nHe also handed over to him This is based on 1 Chron. 29:1\u201319, esp. 1\u20135.
\nhe wrote to Vaphres There is no record of Solomon\u2019s correspondence with an Egyptian king in the biblical text. However, there is a record of his correspondence with Hiram (= Souron) (1 Kings 5:1\u20139 || 2 Chron. 2:3\u201316). Eupolemus\u2019s correspondence between Solomon and Vaphres is drawn from the correspondence between Solomon and Souron, as the close verbal agreements between the two letters indicate: only 4 of the 49 words in Solomon\u2019s letter to Vaphres are altered in the letter to Souron; the latter also has an additional 5 words. Since the letter to Souron was based on the biblical precedent, the letter to Vaphres was as well. Why did he put the correspondence with Vaphres first and not put the correspondence for which he had a biblical base first? It may be due to the political climate of the middle part of the 2nd century BCE that reflected the effort to break free from the Seleucids. The letter follows the practices of Hellenistic epistolography: it opens with the sender, the recipient, and a standard greeting.
\n9.32.1. King Vaphres to Solomon, the great king It is worth noting that Solomon used the title \u201cking\u201d for himself and Vaphres, but Vaphres called Solomon \u201cthe great king\u201d while calling himself \u201cking.\u201d This indicates that Solomon was Vaphres\u2019s superior according to Eupolemus. The letter is based on the letter from Souron to Solomon that has a biblical base (1 Kings 5:7\u20139). The two letters are very close, but there are more differences between these than there are between the two letters of Solomon.
\nI am sending you 80,000 Eupolemus followed the lead of the biblical text (2 Chron. 2:16\u201317 gives 153,600 based on 1 Kings 5:29\u201330, which gives a total of 153,300) but rounded the number up (160,000) and divided it between Vaphres and Souron (80,000 each).
\nthe number who come from specific locales The translation hides a problem in the Greek. Mras suggests that an \u201cand\u201d fell out so that the text should read \u201cthe number and the locale from which they come.\u201d
\nnome A nome was a province or administrative unit in ancient Egypt. If the emendations offered here are correct, all of the nomes are in the Nile Delta.
\nSethroitic Emended from Sebrithitic following Kuhlmey.
\nAthribitic Emended from Bathrithitic following Holsten.
\n9.33.1. King Solomon to Souron The letter is based on 1 Kings 5:2\u20136 || 2 Chron. 2:2\u20139.
\nwho ordered me to build a temple for God David\u2019s charge to Solomon is based on 1 Chron. 28:9\u201321. See also 29:19. It would be possible to understand the antecedent of \u201cwho\u201d to be God; however, this does not make sense since the temple is \u201cfor God.\u201d I have therefore understood David to be the antecedent.
\nwho created heaven and earth See 2 Chron. 2:11 NJPS (v. 12 NRSV) where this declaration appears in Hiram\u2019s response.
\nI have also written to Galilee, Samaria There is no basis for this in the biblical text. The names Galilee and Samaria are used anachronistically: these are the names of the territories in the 2nd century BCE when Eupolemus wrote, not in the 10th century BCE at the time of Solomon.
\nMoab, Ammon, and Gilead The Moabites and Ammonites were enemies of Israel (see the etiological saga of their origins in Gen. 19:30\u201338). They were located on the east side of the Jordan in modern Jordan (the name of the modern city of Amman is from Ammon). David conquered them and made them vassal states. As vassals, they were not part of Solomon\u2019s kingdom, but independent kingdoms that served Solomon. Gilead, on the other hand, was directly administered by Solomon (1 Kings 4:7\u201319, esp. 13\u201319). It was north of the area occupied by the Ammonites.
\nten thousand cors of wheat each month This is different from the biblical text. After Hiram\u2019s response, the Deuteronomist said that Solomon provided Hiram with 20,000 kor of wheat and 20,000 kor of oil annually (1 Kings 5:25 [v. 11 NRSV]). The Chronicler has Solomon promise to supply Hiram\u2019s servants with 20,000 kor of wheat, 20,000 kor of barley, 20,000 bath of wine, and 20,000 bath of oil, but does not specify the time period (2 Chron. 2:9 [v. 10 NRSV]). Eupolemus has Solomon promise 10,000 kor of wheat and olive oil per month, which equals 120,000 kor of each per year. The large amounts suggest Solomon\u2019s wealth and generosity.
\n9.34.1. Souron to Solomon, the great king There is a biblical basis for this letter (1 Kings 5:7\u20139 || 2 Chron. 2:11\u201316). As was the case with the letter from Vaphres, Souron acknowledges Solomon\u2019s superiority through the use of an expanded title. See comment on 9.32.1, King Vaphres to Solomon, the great king.
\nwho created heaven and earth This echoes 2 Chron. 2:11 NJPS (v. 12 NRSV); it is not in 1 Kings 5:21 NJPS (v. 7 NRSV).
\n9.34.2. a Tyrian man with a Judean mother He is mentioned in Hiram\u2019s letter in 2 Chron. 2:13 (vv. 13\u201314 NRSV) (NJPS has \u201cHuram\u201d in 2 Chronicles) and in the context of the construction work in 1 Kings 7:13\u201314. Both the Deuteronomists and the Chronicler mention him in the summary of the bronze work (1 Kings 7:40\u201347 || 2 Chron. 4:11\u201318). The Deuteronomist gave his name as Hiram whose father was a Tyrian and whose mother was from the tribe of Naphtali, while the Chronicler thought his name was Huram-abi, with a Tyrian father and a mother from the tribe of Dan. Eupolemus followed the Chronicler, but omitted the name.
\nDan Following the emendation of Potter. The manuscripts read \u201cDavid\u201d; however, this is probably a result of confusion between the abbreviation for David (DAD) and DAN. Alexander Polyhistor probably made the mistake.
\n9.34.3. the needs of the youth Following the emendation of Freudenthal from kai (\u201cand\u201d) to t\u014dn (\u201cof\u201d).
\n9.34.4. Solomon \u2026 had traveled to the mountains of Lebanon The biblical account does not mention this trip. Hiram had the timber floated down the Mediterranean to a place (1 Kings 5:9), more specifically Joppa (2 Chron. 2:16). Eupolemus has heightened Solomon\u2019s personal involvement.
\nwith his father\u2019s friends in retinue This is probably David\u2019s court.
\nwhen he was thirteen years of age The biblical text put the beginning in the fourth year of his reign when he was 16 (1 Kings 6:1 || 2 Chron. 3:2). It may be that Eupolemus wanted to convey the image of Solomon beginning the Temple when he became a man. Alternatively, it may be that Eupolemus wanted to emphasize that Solomon began the Temple at the outset of his reign, without delay.
\nOne tribe per month furnished the 160,000 The 160,000 is the sum of the 80,000 Egyptians sent by Vaphres (Praep. ev. 9.32.1) and the 80,000 Tyrians and Phoenicians (9.30.2) sent by Souron. In 1 Kings 5, Hiram had his workers cut the timber, but Solomon conscripted the builders from the Israelites (1 Kings 5:13\u201316, although see 5:17\u201318, which includes Hiram\u2019s builders). In 1 Chron. 2:17\u201318, Solomon drafted foreign workers.
\nHe laid out the foundations The dimensions that Eupolemus gives do not agree with the biblical tradition in either the Hebrew or the Greek. See 1 Kings 6:2 || 2 Chron. 3:3. Eupolemus may have derived the 60 cubits in width from Ezra 6:3.
\nNathan \u2026 had commanded him 1 Kings 6:11 indicates that Solomon received an oracle, but does not specify the name of the prophet. Eupolemus has supplied the name Nathan, who was active during the careers of David and Solomon.
\n9.34.5. He built by alternating a course of stone and a bonding of cypress wood This is not in the biblical text. 1 Kings 6:36; 7:12 indicate that Solomon built the inner court by alternating three courses of stone and one course of cedar. Eupolemus may have taken his inspiration from Ezra 5:8; 6:4.
\nhe paneled the inside with cedar and cypress wood 1 Kings 6:15\u201318 suggests that Solomon lined the walls of the Temple with cedar and built the floor of cypress, except for the most holy place that had only cedar. 2 Chron. 3:5 only mentions cypress.
\nso that the stone building was not visible See 1 Kings 6:18.
\nHe plated the inside of the sanctuary The biblical text indicates that Solomon plated the walls of the innermost sanctuary (the most holy place) with gold; however, it does not have the panels and silver nails that appear in Eupolemus\u2019s account. Compare 1 Kings 6:20\u201322, 36; 2 Chron. 3:7\u20139, the latter mentions gold nails.
\ncasting The manuscripts read chonnunta, \u201cheaping up\u201d; Freudenthal emended this to choneuonta, \u201ccasting.\u201d
\n9.34.6. He made the ceiling There is nothing in the biblical text about the ceiling and roof, apart from 1 Kings 6:9 that mentions that the roof consisted of cedar beams and planks.
\nHe made two bronze pillars Compare 1 Kings 7:15\u201322 || 2 Chron. 3:15\u201317. Eupolemus\u2019s account differs in several ways: he has them plated in gold (only in Eupolemus), makes them equal in height with the sanctuary (versus 18 cubits in 1 Kings 7:15 and 35 cubits in 2 Chron. 3:15), and specifies the circumference at 10 cubits (versus 12 cubits in 1 Kings 7:15 and no specification in 2 Chron. 3:15).
\n9:34.7. He made ten golden lampstands, each weighing ten talents Cf. 1 Kings 7:49 || 2 Chron. 4:7. Eupolemus alone gives the weight. Eupolemus follows the biblical text that says that the lampstands were divided between the right and left sides. The tabernacle had a single lampstand (Exod. 25:31\u201340). The number \u201cten\u201d before \u201cgolden lampstands\u201d was apparently elided in the copying of the text, probably because in the Greek text, \u201cten\u201d occurs twice (deka deka). Seguier suggested this conjecture, which I accept. It brings the text into alignment with the biblical text.
\nMoses set up in the Tent of Testimony See Exod. 27:21.
\n9.34.8. seventy golden lamps Each of the 10 lampstands had 7 lamps, just as the candelabra in the tabernacle had 7 branches (Exod. 25:31\u201340).
\nHe also built the gates of the temple Eupolemus\u2019s account is based on the biblical text but varies in detail: 1 Kings 6:31\u201336 mentions doors of olivewood for the entrance to the inner shrine (vv. 31\u201332) and doors of cypress for the entrance to the Great Hall or nave; 2 Chron. 4:9 states that Solomon plated the doors with bronze. The doors were carved according to the Deuteronomists (1 Kings 6:32, 35) and Eupolemus. Some doors or their parts were plated with gold (1 Kings 7:50). On the subject of the doors see also Ezek. 41:21\u201325.
\n9.34.9. a stoa in the northern part of the temple This may be dependent on 1 Kings 7:31 LXX, which mentions 48 pillars.
\na bronze laver Eupolemus\u2019s account differs from the biblical text. According to 1 Kings 7:23\u201326 || 2 Chron. 4:2\u20136, the stoa was circular (rather than square as Eupolemus suggests) with a diameter of 10 cubits, a circumference of 30 cubits, and a height of 5 cubits.
\nHe made a brim on it Eupolemus makes the brim extend beyond the biblical description of a \u201cbrim like a cup\u201d (cf. 1 Kings 7:26 || 2 Chron. 4:5) to make it possible for the priests to wash in the laver (see Exod. 30:17\u201321).
\nHe also made twelve bases The biblical text says that the laver rested on 12 oxen (1 Kings 7:25 || 2 Chron. 4:4; Jer. 52:20).
\n9.33.10. He made a bronze base \u2026 so that the king could stand on it The speaker\u2019s platform is based on 2 Chron. 6:13, but differs in details.
\nHe built the altar This is based on 2 Chron. 4:1, but differs in dimensions: 25 \u00d7 20 \u00d7 12 cubits versus 20 \u00d7 20 \u00d7 10 cubits.
\n9.34.11. He made two bronze rings built like a chain The elaborate scarecrows are unique to Eupolemus. The description may have been based on the biblical accounts of the chains associated with the capitals on the pillars (2 Chron. 3:16; see also 1 Kings 7:17). The function of these devices in Eupolemus was to keep the birds away so that they would not pollute the Temple. This agrees with the concerns for purity that began to dominate Jewish identity and practice in the 2nd century BCE. Josephus says that the Herodian Temple had sharp gold spikes on its top to prevent the birds from nesting (J.W. 5.224). See also m. Mid. 4:6.
\n9.34.12. He surrounded Jerusalem the city with walls, towers, and ditches The biblical text credits Solomon with building the walls of Jerusalem (1 Kings 3:1; 9:15), although it does not mention \u201ctowers and ditches.\u201d
\nHe built a palace for himself 1 Kings 7:1\u201312 suggests that Solomon built a complex of royal buildings, including the Lebanon Forest House, the Hall of Pillars, the Hall of the Throne or the Hall of Judgment, and two palaces.
\n9.34.13. Jerusalem \u2026 Hierosolyma The etymology is a play on the words in Greek. Eupolemus suggests that Jerusalem (Ierousal\u0113m) is from \u201ctemple\u201d (hieron). The initial letters are strikingly similar: iero. The Greeks preferred the declinable form Ierosolyma rather than the indeclinable Ierousal\u0113m. Hecataeus of Abdera (in Library 40.3.3) gives a similar etymology, as does Josephus: \u201cDavid was the first who drove the Jebusites out of Jerusalem and named the city after himself. For in the time of Abraham our ancestor, it was called Solyma, but later named Jerusalem. For the temple (hieron) was named Solyma in Hebrew which means security\u201d (Ant. 7.67). There are some textual problems with the text in Josephus, but it appears that he connected Jerusalem with Solyma and identified this with the Temple. In J.W. 6.438, Josephus says that Melchizedek changed the name of the city from Solyma to Jerusalem after he built a temple.
\n9.34.14. he went to Shiloh The biblical text has Solomon bring the ark from the City of David or Zion, the southern mount of Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:1 || 2 Chron. 5:2), since David had already brought it there (2 Sam. 6:12\u201315 || 1 Chron. 15:25\u201328). Eupolemus had him go to Shiloh, which was the first place that the ark resided in the Promised Land (Josh. 18:1\u201310 [see above in Praep. ev. 9.30.1]; 1 Sam. 1:3; 4:3) and became \u201cthe chosen place\u201d prior to Jerusalem (Ps. 78:60; Jer. 7:12\u201314 || 26:6). As we noted above, the site was destroyed at a relatively early date (see comment on 9.30.1, he pitched the sacred tent in Shiloh). The Chronicler placed the tent in Gibeon (1 Chron. 16:39; 21:29), but had David bring the ark to Jerusalem (2 Chron. 1:3\u20136).
\na thousand oxen The biblical text says that the offerings were without number (1 Kings 8:5 || 2 Chron. 5:6). The specific reference to 1,000 may be drawn from the earlier tradition that Solomon offered \u201ca thousand burnt offerings\u201d at Gibeon (1 Kings 3:4), a reference that the Chronicler changed to Jerusalem (2 Chron. 1:6).
\nHe then took the tent, the altar, and the vessels that Moses had made This is based on 1 Kings 8:4\u20139 || 2 Chron. 5:5\u201310.
\n9.34.15. just as the prophet commanded him This is the second reference to a prophet not mentioned in the biblical text (see comment on 9.34.4, Nathan \u2026 had commanded him). Eupolemus emphasizes the role of prophets more than the biblical text does. In these two instances, the statements emphasize the human response to divine oracles concerning the temple.
\n9.34.16. He brought an enormous offering to God There may be a problem in the text of Eupolemus. He normally makes the numbers larger than the biblical text. In this instance, his numbers are considerably smaller than the 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep mentioned in 1 Kings 8:62 || 2 Chron. 7:5.
\nAll the gold \u2026 amounted to 4,600,000 talents The figures are flights of fancy intended to impress the reader with the lavish nature of the decorations. The biblical text does not provide an analogous summary. Cf. the amounts sent to Solomon (1 Kings 9:14, 28) and the summary of what David provided (1 Chron. 22:14).
\n9.34.17. Solomon sent back the Egyptians and the Phoenicians In the biblical text, Solomon sends the people of Israel home (1 Kings 8:66 || 2 Chron. 7:10).
\nHe gave each ten shekels \u2026 the talent is a shekel Eupolemus suggests that Solomon gave the foreign workers a bonus, perhaps in light of the request that Vaphres and Souron had made for him to take care of the workers (Praep. ev. 9.32.1 and 9.34.3). The gesture indicates Solomon\u2019s magnanimity. The equation of a talent with a shekel is wrong: a talent was the equivalent of approximately 3,000 shekels (1 talent = 60 minas, and each mina = 50 shekels).
\n9.34.18. the gold pillar The gifts to Vaphres and Souron may be based on 1 Kings 9:10\u201314, although the specifics are so different that they should probably be considered an embellishment of the biblical narrative. The pillar of gold is extrabiblical but is mentioned by Theophilus, about whom we know almost nothing except for the fragment that Alexander Polyhistor cited: \u201cTheophilus says that Solomon sent the leftover gold to the king of Tyre. He fashioned a lifelike and full-size image of his daughter and used the gold pillar to cover the image\u201d (Praep. ev. 9.34.19; see also comment on 9.34.20). The tradition of a famous gold pillar in a temple at Tyre is old and goes back to at least the time of Herodotus, who saw it in a temple of Heracles (Hist. 2.44). See also Ag. Ap. 1.118. The story is remarkable for its openness to pagan cults: Solomon sent a pillar that was set up in a pagan temple. While the text never hints that Solomon worshipped in a pagan shrine, it affirms that he honored a shrine with a gift. The recognition of the importance of the cults of other peoples began as early as the LXX when the translators rendered Exod. 22:27 (28): \u201cyou will not speak evil of the gods,\u201d in order to encourage Jews to respect the deities of others. Eupolemus has taken this a step further by making a positive statement.
\n9.34.20 The third fragment brings the discussion of Solomon to a conclusion by accenting his wealth and the length of his reign. The only material between fragments 2 and 3 is the fragment of Theophilus cited above (frag. 3 = Praep. ev. 9.34.18).
\n1,000 gold shields Eupolemus doubles the number of shields in the biblical text, which says that Solomon made 200 large gold shields of 600 shekels\u2019 weight apiece and 300 gold shields of 3 minas (= 150 shekels) weight apiece (1 Kings 10:16\u201317; cf. also 2 Chron. 9:15\u201316, which doubles the gold in the 300 shields to 300 shekels apiece).
\nHe lived fifty-two years The calculation comes from Solomon\u2019s age at his accession (12; see Praep. ev. 9.30.8) and the length of his reign.
\nhe ruled forty years in peace See 1 Kings 11:42 || 2 Chron. 9:30.
\n9.39.2\u20135 The next time that Eusebius cites Polyhistor, he quotes this fragment. Eusebius cites a number of descriptions of Jerusalem between fragments 3 (9.34.20) and 4 (9.39.1\u20135); it is not possible to know what Polyhistor or, more important for our purposes, what Eupolemus, had covered between the two. The second and fourth fragments are related thematically by their interest in the Temple: fragment 2 records its building and fragment 4 its destruction. In fragment 4, in keeping with his interest in prophets, Eupolemus mentions Jeremiah. He may have taken a clue from 2 Chronicles, his main source, which mentioned Jeremiah in connection with the end of Judah (2 Chron. 35:25; 36:12, 21, 22) or he may have known the book of Jeremiah well enough to include it. In this fragment he interweaves stories from Jeremiah with material from 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles.
\n9.39.2. Then Jonacheim [ruled] This could be either Jehoiakim (609\u2013598 BCE [2 Kings 23:36\u201324:7 || 2 Chron. 36:5\u20138]) or Jehoiachin (598\u2013597 BCE [2 Kings 24:8\u201317 || 2 Chron. 36:9\u201310]). The difference between the names of the father and the son is very slight in Hebrew (Y\u0115h\u020fy\u00e3k\u00eem vs. Y\u0115h\u020fyak\u00een) and are identical in Greek transliteration in Kings (Ioakim), although they are different in 2 Chronicles (Ioakim versus Iechonias). Jeremiah\u2019s career extended through the reigns of both (Jer. 1:2\u20133). The events narrated in the fragment span the reign of Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin as well as the reign of Zedekiah, Jehoiachin\u2019s uncle (597\u2013586 BCE [2 Kings 24:18\u201325:21 || 2 Chron. 36:11\u201321]). Eupolemus has telescoped the three.
\nto a gold idol whose name was Baal The gold idol is not mentioned in Jeremiah. It reminds a reader of the calf made from gold (Exod. 32:1\u201335). Jeremiah frequently critiqued the worship of Baal and the prophets who spoke in the name of Baal.
\n3.39.3. He disclosed the misfortune that was about to come on them Jeremiah is famous for his oracles that the Babylonians would destroy Jerusalem. Jeremiah did not begin with this message, but came to it through the momentous events that brought the 7th century BCE to a close. After Jehoiakim burned Jeremiah\u2019s first scroll of prophetic oracles, the prophet appears to have realized the inevitability of Jerusalem\u2019s destruction (Jer. 36:1\u201332, esp. 27\u201331).
\nJonacheim set out to burn him alive There were a number of plots against Jeremiah. Perhaps Eupolemus has in mind the Temple sermon (Jer. 7:1\u201315 || 26:2\u20136) and the reaction it provoked (Jer. 26:8\u201324).
\n9.39.4. When the king of the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar, heard According to the biblical text, Nebuchadnezzar decided to move against Judea when Zedekiah rebelled against him (2 Kings 24:20\u201325:1 || 2 Chron. 36:13, 17). Nebuchadnezzar became aware of Jeremiah\u2019s activities when he laid siege and freed Jeremiah (Jer. 39:11\u201312; 40:1\u20136).
\nhe urged Astibares, the king of the Medes Ctesias of Cnidos, a late 5th-century BCE Greek physician in the court of Artaxerxes, wrote a 23-volume account of Persia that mentioned a Median king named Astibares (FGrH 688 frag. 5 = Diodorus Siculus 2.34.6). The biblical account does not mention the Medes. Eupolemus may have drawn from Ctesias\u2019s entertaining narrative for this detail.
\n9.39.5. he gathered 180,000 foot-soldiers, 120,000 cavalry, and 10,000 chariots The biblical text does not mention the size of Nebuchadnezzar\u2019s army (2 Kings 25:1 || 2 Chron. 36:17). Since the total number of foot-soldiers and cavalry is 300,000, it is possible that Eupolemus drew the number from the size of Xerxes\u2019s army (Herodotus 8.113; 9.32).
\nHe first sacked Samaria, Galilee, Scythopolis, and the Jews living in Gilead 1 Kings 22:8\u201312 || 2 Chron. 36:17\u201319 only mention Jerusalem; however, the campaign was broader, as the Lachish Letters that record the final days of Lachish in Judea attest. However, Eupolemus has suggested that the campaign was in the north, a reasonable assumption since the Babylonians would have approached from the north. Unfortunately, he appears to be wrong in his details. The Assyrians destroyed Beth Shean (= Scythopolis [the later Hellenistic name for the city]) in approximately 732 BCE, and it lay unoccupied for about 500 years.
\ntook the king of the Jews, Jonacheim, captive According to 2 Kings 24:6, Jehoiakim died in office; 2 Chron. 36:5\u20138 and Dan. 1:1\u20132 suggest that Nebuchadnezzar carried him into exile. Both Kings and Chronicles relate the capture and exile of Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:10\u201312, 15 || 2 Chron. 36:10).
\nHe chose to send the gold, silver, and bronze in the temple to Babylon This could refer to 597 BCE when Nebuchnezzar took Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:13 || 2 Chron. 36:10), or to 586 BCE when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and took Zedekiah (2 Kings 25:13\u201317 || 2 Chron. 36:18).
\nexcept for the ark and the tablets in it The tradition that Nebuchadnezzar did not send the ark and its tablets to Babylon is not found in the Bible. Eupolemus is the first to attest to the survival of the ark, a tradition that enjoyed wide circulation.
\n1.21.141.4\u20135 The fifth and final fragment is from Clement. Like Demetrius, the 3rd century BCE Jewish author, Eupolemus was concerned about the chronology of Israel. Two factors appear to be at work in the dates he provides. First, he is interested in demonstrating the antiquity of the Jews. Just as fragment 1 emphasized Moses as a culture bringer, so this fragment accentuates the age of the Jewish people. Eusebius got the point when he wrote: \u201cPhilo, Aristobulus, Josephus, Demetrius, and Eupolemus, Jewish authors, all demonstrated in writing that Moses and the Jewish race are older than Greek origins\u201d (Hist. eccl. 6.13.7). Second, he associates the Jews with the Seleucids and the Ptolemies in an effort to connect the Jewish people to the larger world. Unlike the Teacher of Righteousness, who led a group of Jews out into the world to withdraw from the world, Eupolemus attempted to relate the Jewish people to the larger world.
\n1.21.141.4. all the years from Adam until the fifth year of the reign of Demetrius, the twelfth year that Ptolemy was king of Egypt The identities of Demetrius and Ptolemy are debated. The problem is that it is difficult to synchronize the fifth year of a Demetrius with the twelfth year of a Ptolemy. There were three Seleucid rulers named Demetrius: Demetrius I Soter (161\u2013150 BCE), Demetrius II Nicator (145\u2013138, 129\u2013126 BCE), and Demetrius III Eucaerus (95\u201387 BCE). The dates given for the first of these synchronize best\u2014although not perfectly\u2014with a Ptolemy. The most likely Ptolemy is Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, who initially ruled (170\u2013163 BCE) with his brother Ptolemy VI Philometor (180\u2013145 BCE) and sister Cleopatra II. He ruled Cyrene from 163\u2013145 BCE and then became sole ruler of Egypt in 145 and reigned until 116 BCE. The 5th year of Demetrius I Soter is ca. 157\u2013156 BCE and the 12th year of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes is 159\u2013158 BCE. The discrepancy is likely due to a different count for one or both rulers. There may also have been a textual error. While there are other possibilities, this is the closest synchronization.
\n1.21.141.5e. From the time \u2026 to the previously mentioned time was altogether 2,580 years The two dates that are provided place the Exodus very early. If the year 5149 AM = 158 BCE and the Exodus occurred 2,580 years prior to 5149 or 158 BCE, then it occurred in 2,569 AM or 2,738 BCE. Some have been bothered by this early date and suggested that the text should be emended from 2,580 to 1,580. However, the intention of authors like Eupolemus was to put the date early, not late. Further, the biblical text places the Exodus relatively early: MT places it in 2668 AM and the LXX in 3819 AM. Thus the text as we have it is closer to MT than the LXX in its calculations.
\n(From this time until the consuls in Rome, Gnaeus Domitius and Asinius The text with the names is corrupt. I have accepted the emendation of Freudenthal. Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus was promised a consulship in 40 BCE, a consulship that he held in 32 BCE. Gaius Asinius Pollio (76 BCE\u20134 CE) was an important figure during Rome\u2019s transition from a republic to an empire. He served as consul in 40\u201339 BCE. During this time he also served as Anthony\u2019s envoy in the peace at Misenum where he helped to restore peace, including a reconciliation between Octavian and Domitius. The fragment appears to use 40 BCE as the year when Asinius Pollio was consul and Domitius was promised a consulship. This is in rough agreement with the estimated 120 years from 158\u2013157 BCE which would place the writing of this sentence around 40 BCE. The sentence was probably added by either Alexander Polyhistor or another writer.<\/p>\n
Pseudo-Eupolemus<\/p>\n
Gregory E. Sterling<\/p>\n
A 1st-century BCE Roman savant, Alexander Polyhistor, collected a number of works on the Jewish people. Four centuries later, Eusebius, the Christian bishop of Caesarea, used Polyhistor\u2019s collection as a major source for his apologetic work Preparation for the Gospel. Eusebius indicates that Polyhistor had attributed his first three fragments to Eupolemus, Artapanus, and some anonymous authors respectively. The fragments attributed to Eupolemus and some anonymous authors overlap enough that they must have come from the same work, here called fragments 1 and 2.
\nFragment 1 relates five episodes in Abraham\u2019s life. The first is his geographical and chronological setting in Babylon, where he excelled in astrology. The second summarizes his migration to Phoenicia, where he passed his specialized astrological knowledge on to the Phoenicians (Gen. 12:1\u20139). The third summarizes the unusual story of Gen. 14, in which Abraham rescued Lot and on his return was entertained by Melchizedek at the temple on Mount Gerizim. The fourth recapitulates the marriage of Sarah to Pharaoh when Abraham entered Egypt (Gen. 12:10\u201320). The fifth is extrabiblical and details Abraham\u2019s contributions to the Egyptian priests at Heliopolis. The account concludes with a genealogical account about the discovery of astrology.
\nFragment 2 relates the contents of episode 1 and mentions the movements of Abraham to Phoenicia and Egypt in episodes 2 and 4.
\nThe relationship between the two fragments is debated. They share the same basic contents and relate them in the same order, but they differ in a number of details. For example, in fragment 1, the giants are dispersed by God following their construction of the tower of Babel, while in fragment 2, the gods destroy all of them through the flood except Belus, who escapes and builds the tower of Babel. The differences in the events, the theistic perspectives, and the punishments meted out to the giants are all noteworthy. How should we explain the similarities and dissimilarities? Is fragment 1 part of the history of Eupolemus and fragment 2 the work of Polyhistor? Or did Alexander Polyhistor incorrectly place fragment 1 among the authentic fragments of Eupolemus and then compose a summary that he attributed to anonymous authors (frag. 2)?<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
The relationship between the two fragments raises the question of authorship. The most important evidence for the identity of the author of fragment 1 is the geographical orientation of the material. In the third episode, Abraham is entertained \u201cat the temple of Gerizim.\u201d Given the significance of Mount Gerizim for the Samaritans, its mention raises the possibility that the author was a Samaritan. A second hint may point in the same direction: the author has a distinct preference for Phoenicia over Egypt. Abraham initially travels to Phoenicia (episode 2). He remains there longer than in the biblical text since the fragment repositions Gen. 14 (episode 3) before Gen. 12:10\u201320 (episode 4). When Abraham finally arrives in Egypt, the author makes the dependence of the Egyptians on the Babylonians clear, both in direct statements and in the genealogy that he constructs, in which the Ethiopians and Egyptians descend from the Phoenicians (episode 5).
\nThe preference given to the area controlled by the Seleucids rather than the Ptolemies combined with the explicit reference to Mount Gerizim suggests that our author was a Samaritan\u2014rather than a Jew\u2014who lived in the Seleucid empire prior to the destruction of the Samaritan temple in 129\u2013128 BCE (Ant. 13.254\u201356), although the limited scope and nature of our evidence can only make this a reasonable possibility. It may be that the reference to the temple led Polyhistor to associate the work of this Samaritan author with the work of Eupolemus, who emphasized the Jerusalem Temple. Hence we will call the author Pseudo-Eupolemus.
\nSince fragment 2 is a summary that has noteworthy differences from fragment 1, it was likely the work of an epitomist who altered some of the content in the process of abridging the work. If Polyhistor was the epitomist, then a period of time must have elapsed between his writing of fragment 1 and fragment 2; otherwise it would be hard to explain why he did not note that both came from the same work. If, on the other hand, an earlier epitomist had already summarized the work of Pseudo-Eupolemus, then Polyhistor simply took over the summary. While it is impossible to be certain, the latter is more likely, given Polyhistor\u2019s general care with works that he summarized.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Pseudo-Eupolemus offers a universal perspective on Israel\u2019s ancestral traditions. Unlike Eupolemus, who presents Moses as the first wise person, Pseudo-Eupolemus champions Abraham, broadening the origins of Israel. The author constructs a genealogical tree that identifies the ancestors of Israel with Greek gods (so that Enoch = Atlas). By identifying Greek gods with Hebrew heroes, our author has both demythologized the Greek pantheon and built a bridge between the two cultures. The author is a witness to the creative ways in which Samaritans and Jews found to form identities within the Hellenistic world. Similarly, the author draws from an eclectic mix of traditions or sources ranging from Berossus, the Babylonian priest who wrote an account of Babylonia, to Genesis Apocryphon, the Aramaic midrash on Genesis found at Qumran.
\nIn all of these ways, the author moves ancient Hebrew traditions away from the narrow confines of ancient Palestine to the broader Mediterranean basin. He not only traces Abraham\u2019s movements through the entire Fertile Crescent, but joins the East to the West genealogically and positions Abrahamic\/Samaritan traditions at the forefront of the spread of culture. The author thus combines a sense of nationalism and universalism in what we may call particular universalism.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
Pseudo-Eupolemus was one of a number of Jewish\/Samaritan Hellenistic writers whose works have only been preserved in fragments. It is important to read the fragments of other such authors to find overlapping themes and treatments. In particular, it is worth reading the fragments of Theodotus, another 2nd-century BCE author preserved by Polyhistor, whose epic retelling of Gen. 34 centers on Shechem, an orientation that may point to a Samaritan provenance. It would also be worth reading other ancient accounts of Abraham, especially the presentations in The Genesis Apocryphon; Artapanus, frag. 1; Philo\u2019s On the Life of Abraham; and Josephus\u2019s Jewish Antiquities (1.148\u2013256).
\nThe fragments of Pseudo-Eupolemus belong to a tradition of ancient historiography that I have called apologetic historiography. It is the Eastern tradition that Josephus set out in his historiographical excursus in Ag. Ap. 1.6\u201356 that may be defined as \u201cthe story of a subpeople in an extended prose narrative written by a member of the group who follows the group\u2019s own traditions but Hellenizes them in an effort to establish the identity of the group within the setting of the larger world.\u201d<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READINGS<\/p>\n
Doran, Robert. \u201cPseudo-Eupolemus.\u201d In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James Charlesworth, 2 vols., esp. 2:873\u201388. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
\nFreudenthal, J. Alexander Polyhistor und die von ihm erhaltenen Reste j\u00fcdischer und samaritanischer Geschichtswerke, esp. 82\u2013103. Hellenistische Studied, 1\u20132. Breslau: H. Skutsch, 1875.
\nGruen, Erich S. Hellenism and Heritage: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition, esp. 146\u201353. Hellenistic Culture and Society 30. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
\nHolladay, Carl R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. Vol. 1: The Historians, esp. 157\u201387. SBL Texts and Translations 20 \/ SBL Pseudepigrapha Series 10. Chico CA: Scholars Press, 1983.
\nSterling, Gregory E. Historiography & Self-definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts and Apologetic Historiography, esp. 187\u2013206. NovTSup 64. Leiden: Brill, 1992. Reprint, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005.
\nWacholder, Ben Zion. \u201cPseudo-Eupolemus\u2019s Two Greek Fragments on the Life of Abraham.\u201d HUCA 34 (1963): 83\u2013113.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Eupolemus: A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature, esp. 104\u20136, 135, 205\u20136, 287\u201393. Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 3. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1974.
\nWalter, Nikolaus. Fragmente j\u00fcdisch-hellenistischer Historiker, esp. 137\u201343. J\u00fcdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-r\u00f6mischer Zeit I.2. G\u00fctersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1980.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
9.17.2\u20133 The first story about Abraham locates him chronologically and geographically. It is likely that the author knew the work of the Babylonian priest Berossus, who wrote a history of Babylon. Josephus wrote: \u201che [Berossus] mentions our ancestor Abraham\u2014although he does not name him, he said the following: \u2018in the tenth generation after the flood there was a just and great man among the Chaldeans who had expertise in the heavenly bodies\u2019 \u201d (Ant. 1.158).
\n9.17.2. Concerning the Jews in Assyria This title is problematic if the work was written by a Samartian. In this case, Alexander Polyhistor may have supplied the title. If the author were a Jew, then the author may have supplied the title.
\nthe city of Babylon was first founded by those who were saved from the flood Babylon was the Akkadian name for a Mesopotamian city located on the Euphrates River where it is close to the Tigris River. The site was inhabited as early as the 6th millennium BCE. Pseudo-Eupolemus\u2019s etiological myth is based on Gen. 10:6\u201314, which sketches the descendents of Ham, the son of Noah. Among these is Nimrod, whose kingdom began with Babylon (10:8\u201310).
\nThey were the giants The account appears to connect the \u201cgiants\u201d (NJPS has \u201cNephilim\u201d) who antedated the Flood (Gen. 6:4) with the story of Nimrod, who is called a \u201cgiant\u201d by the Septuagint (LXX) translators (Gen. 10:8\u20139).
\nand built the tower The tower is Babel (Gen. 11:1\u20139). According to the biblical text, Noah\u2019s descendants built a city and a tower.
\n9.17.3. When this tower collapsed by the action of God The biblical text says that the builders deserted the tower when they could no longer understand each other (Gen. 11:7\u20138). A later Jewish author may have drawn from Pseudo-Eupolemus in an account of the fall of the tower, as well as from Hesiod\u2019s Theogony. See Sib. Or. 3.97\u2013161.
\nIn the tenth generation This is based on the genealogy in Gen. 11:10\u201332. It assumes that Shem is part of the Flood generation and begins counting with his son Arpachshad. Abram is the 10th generation.
\nin Camarine, a city of Babylon that some call the city of Ur\u2014it means \u201cthe city of the Chaldeans\u201d There is some confusion in the text. The Camarine that we know was in Sicily rather than Babylon. The identification of Ur with \u201cthe city of the Chaldeans\u201d probably rests on a misinterpretation of ur (Ur) as ir (city). The translators of the LXX regularly rendered ur kasdim (Ur of the Chaldeans) with h\u0113 ch\u014dra t\u014dn Chaldai\u014dn (the land of the Chaldeans).
\nin the thirteenth generation This alternative dating is problematic. It may be a later insertion. Whether authentic or inauthentic, in this scheme the count begins with Enoch rather than Shem, placing Abraham in the 13th generation (Gen. 5:21\u201332; 11:10\u201332).
\ndiscovered both astrology and Chaldean science Hellenistic authors frequently made claims that their ancestors had discovered culture. The claims were part of a larger contest over culture in which groups argued that they were the font of civilization. Early Hellenistic Jewish authors made these claims. The connection between Abraham and astrology was well known.
\n9.17.4 The second story relates Abraham\u2019s migration to Canaan, named as Phoenicia, and his role as a culture-bringer to the Phoenicians. It is based on Gen. 12.
\ncame to Phoenicia and lived there Pseudo-Eupolemus used Phoenicia for Canaan. The translators of the LXX sometimes rendered k\u0115na\u2018an, \u201cCanaan,\u201d by phoinik\u0113, \u201cPhoenicia\u201d (Exod. 16:35) or phoinikes, \u201cPhoenicians\u201d (Josh. 5:12). Similarly they sometimes translated k\u0115na\u2018an\u00ee, \u201cCanaanite,\u201d as phoinik\u0113, \u201cPhoenicia\u201d (Josh. 5:1) and k\u011bna\u2018an\u00eem, \u201cCanaanites,\u201d as phoinikes, \u201cPhoenicians\u201d (Job 40:30). The use of Phoenicia and the Phoenicians reflects the prominent role that the Phoenicians played in Israel in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods. Pseudo-Eupolemus consistently identified the land as Phoenicia and the residents as Phoenicians. He later claimed that Canaan was the father of the Phoenicians (frag 1.9). Pseudo-Eupolemus\u2019s practice could be understood simply as a learned adaptation of the language of the LXX. Alternatively, it could reflect a connection with the Samaritans. According to a letter the Samaritans wrote to Antiochus Epiphanes, the Samaritans called themselves \u201cSidonians in Shechem\u201d and claimed that they were Sidonians in origin.
\nhe was well-pleasing to their king This refrain is used at the end of the first two stories about Abraham: the first emphasizes that he was well-pleasing to God and the second that he was well-pleasing to the king whose identity is not known.
\n9.17.4\u20136 The third episode is a summary of the unusual story of Gen. 14, the battle of the four kings against the five and Abraham\u2019s meeting with Melchizedek. This episode focuses on Abraham\u2019s military prowess and magnanimity rather than his role as a culture-bringer.
\n9.17.4. the Armenians The Armenians are not mentioned in the biblical text. The inclusion probably reflects the tensions in the 2nd century BCE between the Armenians and Syrians. The tensions developed when the Armenians shifted their allegiance away from Antiochus the Great to Rome after the Romans defeated Antiochus at the Battle of Magnesia in 189 BCE (see Geogr. 11.14.15). It is worth pointing out that a Samaritan Chronicle related a war of Joshua against the Armenians.
\nand captured the enemies\u2019 children and wives This is one of the details that Pseudo-Eupolemus shares with 1Qap Gen 22:11 and which is not in the biblical text (Gen. 14:14\u201316).
\n9.17.5. When ambassadors approached him In the biblical text this is the king of Sodom (Gen. 14:17\u201324).
\nat the temple of Gerizim The biblical text says that Melchizedek was king of Salem (Gen. 14:18). Abraham met the king of Sodom and Melchizedek in the Valley of the King (Gen. 14:17). The identification of Salem was disputed in the ancient world: some thought that it referred to Jerusalem; while others argued that it was in Samaria. The former is supported by Ps. 76:2 and the Genesis Apocryphon found at Qumran (1QapGen 22:13). The latter has the support of Gen. 33:18 LXX: \u201cJacob came to Salem, the city of Shechem\u201d (versus the Masoretic Text, \u201cJacob arrived safe in the city of Shechem which is in the land of Canaan\u201d). Pseudo-Eupolemus appears to have agreed with the latter tradition. Shechem was located in the pass between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans built a temple on Mount Gerizim in the Persian period, a point that became a matter of dispute between the Samaritans and the Jews. John Hyrcanus razed the temple in 128 BCE. Pseudo-Eupolemus\u2019s connection of Melchizedek with Mount Gerizim rather than Jerusalem points to the probable ethnic identity of the author as a Samaritan.
\n9.17.6\u20137 The book of Genesis contains two stories that relate Abraham\u2019s dissimulation about Sarah: Gen. 12:10\u201320, thought to be the Yahwist\u2019s account that relates the story of Abraham in the court of Pharaoh; and Gen. 20:1\u201318, considered the Elohist\u2019s account that relates the story of Abraham in the court of Abimelech, king of Gerar. The author conflated the two by using Gen. 12 as a frame but including elements from Gen. 20. The placement of Gen. 12 (episode 4) after Gen. 14 (episode 3) was deliberate and ensured that Egypt came last in Abraham\u2019s movements.
\n9.17.6. He received gifts from Melchizedek The biblical tradition leaves the identity of the giver and receiver ambiguous. Jewish authors tended to clarify the ambiguity. In most cases, Abraham was the giver (1Qap Gen 22:17; Ant. 1.181), but this author makes him the recipient.
\nthe king of Egypt married his wife The biblical text says only that she entered his house (Gen. 12:15; cf. also 20:2).
\n9.17.7. he was unable to have intimate relations with her This appears to be drawn from Gen. 20:3\u20137. It is emphasized in 1Qap Gen 20:17.
\nWhen he summoned his diviners In Gen. 20:3\u20137, God appears to Abimelech in a dream. He relates his exchange with God to his servants (20:8). 1QapGen 20:19\u201320 has Pharaoh summon various groups, but they flee.
\nthe woman was not a widow In both Genesis stories Abraham presents Sarah as his sister as does Pseudo-Eupolemus (in Praep. ev. 9.17.6). The move from \u201csister\u201d to \u201cwidow\u201d is not unreasonable, since there would need to be an explanation for her alleged single status. For this reason I do not follow the proposal of Doran who treats the statement as an \u201coracular imperative\u201d in which einai ch\u0113ra = ch\u0113rainein: \u201cLet the woman not be parted from her husband.\u201d).
\n9.17.8\u20139 The fifth and final episode of fragment 1 relates an extrabiblical event, Abraham\u2019s stay in Heliopolis. Like episodes 1 and 2, this fragment emphasizes Abraham\u2019s role as the bringer of culture.
\n9.17.8. While Abraham lived in Heliopolis Genesis does not specify a nome or administrative region (i.e., a province in ancient Egypt) for Abraham\u2019s residence. It was probably included here since Heliopolis was considered to be the residence of priests who were philosophers and astronomers (Geogr. 17.1.29). It was also the center of the worship of the sun god, Atum-Re.
\nthe Babylonians and he had discovered these things In the first episode, the author indicated that Abraham not only received a Babylonian education, but also discovered astrology. This statement includes the Babylonians in the discovery.
\nhe traced their [original] discovery back to Enoch The claim that Enoch discovered astrology is attested in Jewish sources (e.g., Jub. 4:17; 2 Enoch; and esp. 1 En. 72\u201382). The claim may rest on the statement in Gen. 5:23 that Enoch lived 365 years, the same number of days in the solar calendar.
\nnot the Egyptians The Egyptian origin of astrology was a well-known claim in the ancient world (e.g., Herodotus 2.82; Diodorus Siculus 1.81.6).
\n9.17.9. the Babylonians claim that Belus was the first In Babylonian mythology, Belus was the creator god (= Marduk). As creator of the cosmos, he is associated with astrology.
\nHam The manuscripts read Chanaan (\u201cCanaan\u201d); however, I have followed Bochard\u2019s emendation to Cham (\u201cHam\u201d), which brings the genealogy into line with Gen. 10:6. Doran suggests that we should not accept the emendation but translate: \u201cThis Canaan fathered the ancestors of the Phoenicians,\u201d but this leaves the ancestor unnamed, an anomaly that leads me to accept Bochard\u2019s emendation.
\nThe latter fathered Canaan, the father of the Phoenicians See Gen. 10:6, 15. The latter suggests that he fathered Sidon, which gives a basis for this etiologic claim.
\nFrom Canaan came a son, Cush who is known as Asbolus In Gen. 10:6, Cush is the son of Ham and brother of Canaan. The insertion of a generation in which Canaan is the father of Cush and Mizraim rather than their brother makes the Ethiopians and Egyptians descendants of the Phoenicians! Asbolus the augur was mentioned by Hesiod, [Scut.] 185. His name, asbolus, means \u201csoot,\u201d which probably explains how he came to be the ancestor of the Ethiopians.
\nThe Greeks claim that Atlas discovered astrology This is attested in numerous Greek sources. Pseudo-Eupolemus identified Atlas with Enoch. The practice of identifying a god with a human is known as Euhemerism after Euhemerus whose Sacred History claimed that a pillar in a temple on the island of Panchaea related the history of the Olympian deities. The Greek gods were originally humans whose extraordinary contributions led them to be divinized. Pseudo-Eupolemus has both undercut Greek mythology and recast the ancestors of the Samaritans and Jews. It is not simply that Atlas has been reduced to human status, but that Enoch is now given a Hellenistic frame of reference.
\nMethuselah who came to know everything through the agency of angels This is a tradition shared with 1Qap Gen 2.19\u201321 and 1 En. 106:13.
\n9.18.2 The second fragment provides a summary of the first, second, and fourth episodes of fragment 1. The result is that fragment 2 concentrates on Abraham\u2019s role as the bringer of culture, although only as a vehicle for transmission rather than a discoverer as in fragment 1. It shares the same basic geographic orientation as that found in fragment 1 by tracing Abraham\u2019s movements from Babylon to Phoenicia and then to Egypt.
\nthey were destroyed by the gods for their impiety Fragment 1 (= Praep. ev. 9.17.3) said that they were destroyed \u201cby the action of God.\u201d Fragment 2 adds the reason for the destruction. It may be that fragment 2 assumes that the Flood destroyed them, while fragment 1 situates them after the Flood. The use of the plural \u201cgods\u201d is striking. While this could be a literal translation of the Hebrew elohim (\u201cgods\u201d but understood as \u201cGod\u201d), the LXX routinely translates this correctly with the singular theos (\u201cGod\u201d). The plural might be the work of the epitomist.<\/p>\n
Pseudo-Hecataeus, \u201cOn the Jews\u201d<\/p>\n
Bezalel Bar-Kochva<\/p>\n
In Against Apion (1.183\u2013205 and 2.43) Josephus presents a number of fragments and testimonia from a treatise named \u201cOn the Jews,\u201d attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera. Hecataeus (ca. 300 BCE), the father of \u201cscientific ethnography,\u201d was renowned for his great ethnographical work on Egypt, into which he included a rather reserved excursus on the Jewish people (Diodorus, Bib. hist. 40.3.1\u20138). The passages in Josephus, however, describe in a panegyric manner what is claimed to be the history of the Jews in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, as well as a description of the Jerusalem Temple and the main characteristics of the Jews. The passages (and the treatise) were not alluded to by any other author in antiquity, save for Philo of Byblos (who may have been acquainted with the original treatise) and Eusebius (PE ix.4.2\u20139), who only quoted Josephus.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
Philo of Byblos (1st\u20132nd century CE) was the first to doubt the ascription of the treatise to Hecataeus (ap. Origen, C. Cels. I. 15). The question of authenticity was raised again in the 17th century and has gained momentum in the last two centuries. A close examination of the surviving material shows that almost all the statements and pieces of information are anachronistic, contradict the information at our disposal, or cannot be attributed to Hecataeus. This also renders redundant the suggestion that Josephus used a Jewish adaptation of Hecataeus.
\nThe anachronisms, as well as other features of the treatise, lead to the conclusion that it was written toward the end of the 2nd century BCE (early in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus) by an Egyptian Jew, who belonged to the \u201cmoderate conservative\u201d stream of the various groups of Alexandrian Jewry. This stream strictly adhered to the Torah precepts and to the use of the Hebrew Torah in the religious service and education, strongly rejecting allegorical methods for interpreting the Scripture. Although they were well versed in the Greek language and literature, these Jews seem to have avoided the study of philosophy and reading mythological literature, adopting a Greek curriculum of their own. With a keen interest and constant link with the Land of Judea, they identified themselves with Jews of the Holy Land rather than with their country of residence. The treatise can be regarded as a disguised manifesto of the \u201cmoderate conservatives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
The writer\u2019s main purpose seems to have been to legitimize and justify the continuation of Jewish residence in Egypt (implicitly prohibited by the Torah; see Deut. 17:16; 28:68) at a time when the Jewish state was beginning to flourish. The religious legitimation is provided by attributing the initiative for the Jewish settlement in Egypt to the high priest in Jerusalem. This recalls the Letter of Aristeas, in which fictitious authorization by the Jerusalem high priest of the Greek translation of the Torah legitimizes this controversial move. Pseudo-Hecataeus politically justifies settlement in Egypt by indicating that the impetus for settling there was to create a strong and prosperous Egyptian Jewish community, one deeply involved in the political, economic, and especially military life of the Ptolemaic Empire, in order to enable Diaspora Jews to exert their influence on behalf of their kindred in the Holy Land. This explanation has drawn its inspiration from certain historical episodes in which the lobbying power of Egyptian Jews was indeed successful in helping the Hasmonean state, in one instance, at the beginning of Alexander Jannaeus\u2019s reign, even saving it from reoccupation (102\u2013101 BCE; see Josephus, Ant. 13.285\u201387, 353\u201355).<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Bar-Kochva, B. Pseudo-Hecataeus: \u201c \u2018On Abraham and the Egyptians\u2019 ascribed to Hecataeus.\u2019 \u201d Tarbitz 70 (2001): 327\u201352.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. Pseudo-Hecataeus: \u201cOn the Jews.\u201d Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. The Image of the Jews in Greek Literature: The Hellenistic Period, 90\u2013130. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
\nDoran, R. \u201cPseudo-Hecataeus.\u201d In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by J. H. Charlesworth, 2.905\u201319. New York: Doubleday, 1985.
\nHolladay, C. R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, 1.277\u2013335. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1983.
\nSch\u00fcrer, E. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised and edited by G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman, 3\/1.671\u201377. Edinburgh: Clark, 1986.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
Against Apion<\/p>\n
1. 183. on the Jews Josephus refers to the contents as well as to the title of the treatise.
\n184. battle \u2026 near Gaza The battle of Gaza took place in 312 BCE. Castor of Rhodes wrote a work named Chronological Tables, much used in the days of Josephus.
\n186. Hecataeus Josephus quotes Hecataeus in order to prove, using Greek authors, that the Jewish people was not a \u201cyoung\u201d one as argued by anti-Jewish authors, but that its antiquity was recognized as such by distinguished Greeks. However, the most he could show from Hecataeus was that the Jews were a \u201cmature\u201d entity in the time of Alexander and Ptolemy I.
\nhis kindness and humanity Ptolemy I\u2019s attitude to the inhabitants of Syria (including the Jews) is described by a number of Gentile and Jewish sources as the opposite of philanthr\u014dpia and humanity (e.g., Josephus Ant. xii.3\u20136; Ap. I. 205\u201311; Diod. xix.93.7). This panegyric account could not have been written by a contemporary, even by one who served in the Ptolemaic court. The author of such a sentence could hardly be Hecataeus of Abdera.
\n187. Hezekiah There was no high priest named Hezekiah. The author could have meant only Hezekiah, the civil governor of Judea known from coins of the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods. He was described by \u201cHecataeus\u201d as high priest in order to strengthen the main message of the treatise.
\n188. Although [kaitoi] \u2026 all the Jewish priests This reservation (unless kaitoi is emended to kai oti) obviously does not refer to the statement about Hezekiah quoted in para. 187, but to another sentence which preceded it in Pseudo-Hecataeus. Its precise contents and wording is anyone\u2019s guess (for instance: \u201cmany people, like the Levites, served in the Temple \u2026\u201d). An omission of a sentence or more appears from the introductory words to para. 188 (\u201che says\u201d).
\nJewish priests Allocation of the tithes to the priests as an official duty (instead of to the Levites as in Num. 18:23\u201324) is attested at least from the times of John Hyrcanus (135\u2013104 BCE). The number of priests cannot be verified. It may refer only to priests occupied in public administration.
\n189. well acquainted with us This statement was preceded presumably by a reference to the negotiations between Hezekiah and the Ptolemaic court and to the authority bestowed on the Jewish official. According to the terminology and parallels from Greek foundation stories, it appears that Hezekiah is said to have asked for permission to establish Jewish settlements and was appointed by the court to lead them.
\nadvantage This word refers to the advantages and benefits to be found in the charter to establish Jewish settlements, or (by a slight correction of the text) to the scroll containing the charter.
\ntheir settling and constitution Hezekiah read aloud a document containing the account of the foundation and the constitution of the new settlement(s). These were the two components of the \u201csettlement decrees\u201d usually also engraved on stone and\/or written on a scroll in Greek colonies. There is no reason to reject the possibility that the foundation story held a kernel of truth. But the emigration was not a voluntary one, Hezekiah was not a high priest, and this was not the beginning of Jewish settlement in Egypt (as seems to be indicated). Jews emigrated to Egypt from the late generations of the First Temple, in the days of Jeremiah, and Jewish settlements are known from the Elephantine Papyri. The deliberate mistakes serve the purpose of the book.
\n191. they faced tortures This martyrology inevitably echoes events that occurred during the persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (168\u2013164 BCE). There were no such religious persecutions in the Persian period (on the stories in the book of Daniel, see Bar-Kochva, Pseudo-Hecataeus, 91\u201397).
\n192 There is no independent verification for the participation of Jews in Alexander\u2019s army. The rebuilding of the Temple of Bel is well attested elsewhere.
\n193. and he adds that it is just to admire them for these [actions] The phrasing \u201cand he adds\u201d indicates that it is not a Josephan addition. It obviously could not have been written by a Greek author. Hecataeus\u2019s positive attitude to paganism is reflected in the remains of his works.
\n194. the Persians There is a brief reference in Eusebius\u2019s Chronicon to deportation in the late Persian period. It has been connected by scholars to one of the local rebellions in Syria and Phoenicia, presumably in the aftermath of the rebellion led by Tennes, the Sidonian king (348 BCE). The number of the deported may be considerably exaggerated.
\nturbulence in Syria This explanation could hardly have been written by a contemporary. The military confrontations between the armies of the Successors took place in the coastal plain (\u201cPhoenicia\u201d), not in the rather isolated Judean hills.
\n195. 300 myriads Three million arourae (a Ptolemaic unit of measure) equals 8,300 square kilometers. This was the size of Judea in its enlarged borders at the late years of John Hyrcanus\u2019s reign and the early days of Alexander Jannaeus (last decade of the 2nd century BCE), after the Hasmoneans annexed Samaria and Idumea to the Jewish state. In the time of Hecataeus, Judea occupied no more than 2,700 square kilometers and was far from fertile, a third of it being desert.
\n197. many fortresses The Jews did not, and could not, have \u201cmany fortresses\u201d in the time of Hellenistic occupation. Nor were \u201cmany fortresses\u201d occupied by the foreign reign (just one, the Jerusalem Akra, perhaps also Beth Zur close to the Idumean border). This anachronism reflects the times of Hasmonean independence.
\nJerusalem The circumference of Jerusalem (more than 9.5 kilometers) and the number of inhabitants is much exaggerated for the early Hellenistic period. The circumference of the city in the days of Hecataeus stood at 2.2 kilometers and in the time of John Hyrcanus at no more than 5 kilometers. The exaggeration appears also in Jewish works of the Hasmonean period, which found it necessary to glorify the Holy City in that way. The demographic figure is also much exaggerated for the Hasmonean period (in fact, around 40,000).
\n198. center of the city The Temple was \u201cnearly in the center of the city\u201d under the Hasmonean rulers. In the early Hellenistic period it was well separated from the \u201cCity of David\u201d (500 meters to the south), where most of the population was concentrated.
\n5 plethora long and 100 cubits wide The stone wall was about 154 meters \u00d7 51 meters. Judas Maccabaeus built a wall around the Temple after its purification in 164 BCE (1 Macc. 4:59\u201360). There is no evidence for the existence of such a wall earlier.
\nsquare altar This was the offering altar. The author does not provide any explanation for its primitive construction, which must have appeared strange to a Greek used to magnificent altars, and especially when the magnificent golden altar is also mentioned. The real Hecataeus provides causal explanations for every Jewish custom in his original excursus on the Jews. There are none in the remains of \u201cOn the Jews,\u201d even when an explanation is badly needed. Had there been such an explanation in \u201cOn the Jews,\u201d Josephus would not have failed to record it, as he himself was puzzled about this custom (Ant. iv.200).
\nbeside it a great edifice where there is an altar The reference is to the golden altar, also called \u201cthe incense altar\u201d (Exod. 30:1\u201310).
\ntwo talents The weight of the lamp alone was two talents (about 74 kilograms) (see Exod. 25:38\u201339; Temple Scroll 9.11). There is obviously some copying error in the text. The weight of the golden altar was not mentioned.
\n199. a light that is never extinguished This is reported with regard to the lamp and the offering altar in the times of the Second Temple (e.g., Josephus Ant. iii.199; Tamid 3.9, 6.1; Philo Spec. 1.285). The sentence suggests that the same practice was also observed in the golden-incense altar.
\nnor any votive offerings and absolutely no plants The statement about the absence of votive offerings and plants in the Jerusalem Temple may be directed against practices in the Oniad Temple at Leontopolis (see Josephus, Ant. 13.66; J. W. 7.428). This is well expected of a \u201cconservative\u201d Egyptian Jew who was loyal to the Jerusalem Temple.
\npurification Purity is repeatedly demanded of the priest by the Pentateuch. According to the Mishnah (Mid. 1:2; Tamid 1:1), the priests also performed guard duties at night. This obviously required purity, and purification rituals were therefore carried out even at night (Mid. 1:9).
\nabstaining from wine in the Temple See, for example, Lev. 10:8\u201311; cf. Ezek. 44:21; Josephus, J.W. 5.229. The exact and detailed acquaintance of the author with the Jerusalem Temple further suggests that the treatise was written by neither the original Hecataeus nor any other Gentile.
\n200. they served as soldiers under King Alexander There is no independent evidence for the participation of Jews in the campaigns of the 4th century BCE.
\n201. Jewish cavalrymen Mounted archery was a demanding art of war, requiring long tradition, and confined to certain Asiatic tribes. It is hardly believable that Jews in the early Hellenistic period were already trained in this type of warfare and even had reached a high standard as appears from the story.
\n203. the bird There is no specification of the bird, as is customary in such cases in Greek literature. Only a few species were regarded as suitable for divination. The rules of Greek divination as we know them were very complicated. The simple rules described by the seer (which actually did not require a seer), show that the author did not have real knowledge of pagan divination.
\n204. had it been able to know the future Greeks did not believe that birds knew the future, but that their movements are directed by the gods to indicate the destiny to humans, the birds being unaware of it.
\n2.43. Hecataeus This testimonium appears at the beginning of the second book of Against Apion, where Josephus strives to prove that Hellenistic rulers showed good will toward the Jews and granted them privileges.
\nSamaria Samaria was annexed to Judea only in the later years of the reign of John Hyrcanus (112\u2013107 BCE).
\naphorolog\u0113ton The phoros (tribute) symbolized the submission of ethnic groups or nations. Relating an exemption from the phoros in this case is impossible, all the more so when referring to an annexed territory. Such an exemption would mean recognition of Jewish independence. This statement can hardly be attributed to Hecataeus of Abdera, a contemporary of Alexander. Moreover, being dependent on the Ptolemaic court, he would not have said this in the days of Ptolemaic rule in the Holy Land. Privileges and concessions allegedly granted by Alexander were frequently presented by the Jews and others to the Successors and later rulers as binding precedents.<\/p>\n
Theodotus, \u201cOn the Jews\u201d<\/p>\n
Howard Jacobson<\/p>\n
Theodotus\u2019s Greek epic poem, apparently called \u201cOn the Jews,\u201d has survived in only 47 lines, with additional comments about the contexts of the fragments by the compiler. Of the eight fragments, seven clearly deal with Shechem and the events surrounding Jacob and his children with respect to that city. The remaining fragment (frag. 3) very likely provides background material for that story. If this is a representative sampling, then it would appear that Theodotus\u2019s epic was entirely focused on one particular brief episode in Genesis (chap. 34), even though its title suggests something more.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
Theodotus\u2019s fragments come to us, like most Hellenistic Jewish verse, in Alexander Polyhistor\u2019s compilation, quoted by Eusebius. There is no good internal or external evidence for his dates, so the best we can do is put him before Alexander Polyhistor, that is, before the mid-1st century BCE. As for his place, again no good evidence exists, but the writing of a Greek hexameter poem in the Homeric mode by a Jew (if such he was) would suggest Alexandria.
\nWe know nothing about the man Theodotus. Scholars have long debated if he was a Jew or a Samaritan. Many think the latter, for two main reasons: (1) the attentiveness of the author to Shechem, which appears to be the central focus of what still exists of the poem, and (2) the explicit designation of Shechem as \u201choly city.\u201d The latter argument is not as strong as it has often seemed, because the use of the adjective \u201choly\u201d is a Homeric convention and so may have no significance. Second, there is no reason to think that a Jew could not have called Shechem a \u201choly city\u201d if that is what Samaritans called it. How often we hear a Christian saying \u201cthe holy city of Mecca\u201d in spite of the fact that, for the speaker, the city is not necessarily holy. The arguments on the other side seem stronger. Polyhistor, at any rate, thought the poem was \u201cOn the Jews\u201d and it is a lot more likely that a work on that topic was written by a Jew than by a Samaritan. In addition, the Samaritans (i.e., the inhabitants of Shechem) are depicted rather nastily in our fragments (especially frags. 2 and 7), more likely reflecting the views of a Jew than a Samaritan (though some argue that a Hellenistic Samaritan would have sympathized with the biblical sons of Jacob rather than with the aboriginal inhabitants of Shechem).<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, we have no evidence for any subsequent influence of Theodotus\u2019s work, either on Jewish or Christian authors. This could be very different if we had more than a meager 47 verses extant. In any event, even these are enough to show us how deeply the Jews of the time were embedded in Greek culture.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READINGS<\/p>\n
Bull, R. J. \u201cA Note on Theodotus\u2019 Description of Shechem.\u201d Harvard Theological Review 60 (1967): 221\u201327.
\nDaise, M. \u201cSamaritans, Seleucids, and the Epic of Theodotus.\u201d JSP 17 (1998): 25\u201351.
\nFeldman, L. H. \u201cPhilo, Pseudo-Philo, Josephus, and Theodotus on the Rape of Dinah.\u201d JQR 94 (2004): 253\u201377.
\nHolladay, C. R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, 2.51\u2013204. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989.
\nHorst, P. W. van der. \u201cTheodotus.\u201d In Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, edited by M. J. Mulder, 526\u201328. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.
\nLudwich, A. De Theodoti Carmine Graeco-Iudaico. Regimontii: Hartungiana, 1899.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
Fragment 1<\/p>\n
1. it was fertile The phrase refers to the fertility of Shechem and its environs in Samaria.
\n4. two mighty mountains These are Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal (see, e.g., Deut. 27:12\u201313).
\n7. Shechem, a holy city For the possible implications of the expression \u201choly city,\u201d see introductory comments.<\/p>\n
Fragment 2<\/p>\n
10 The text is not certain. I translate Ludwich\u2019s emendation.
\n12. very unyielding men The biblical narrative does not contain any such negative assessment of Hamor and Shechem.<\/p>\n
Fragment 3<\/p>\n
13. to pasture-rich Syria The adjective is undoubtedly an inference drawn from the proliferation of Jacob\u2019s flocks in Gen. 30:37\u201343.
\nSyria If we want to keep the text and also make contextual sense of this passage, then we must assume that Theodotus here uses \u201cSyria\u201d for Mesopotamia.
\n13\u201314. left behind \u2026 the roaring Euphrates River Jacob will have crossed the Euphrates en route to Mesopotamia, but lipen (\u201cleft behind\u201d) is usually used for the starting point of a journey, not an intermediate point. Theodotus is careless.
\n17. his cousin The Bible\u2019s Laban is Jacob\u2019s uncle. Theodotus may be using the Greek anepsios (kin) loosely. To be sure, if one charts the genealogies of both Laban and Jacob, there is some degree of kinship. They were perhaps second cousins.
\n18. the sole ruler of Syria There is no indication in the Bible that Laban was the local ruler. Josephus (Ant. 1.286) describes him as a person of high standing. Some later Jewish sources do call him a king (Midrash VaYisau 3:2; Yalkut Shimoni VaYishlah 35 \u00a7235).
\n22\u201323. he did not deceive Jacob Theodotus evidently feels the need to defend Jacob\u2019s wit, for in the Bible he certainly is deceived (Gen. 29:25).
\n25. 11 wise sons The number refers to the sons born in Mesopotamia.<\/p>\n
Fragment 4<\/p>\n
27\u201329 These lines could come either from a speech by Jacob and his sons to Hamor and Shechem or one by Hamor and Shechem, attempting to persuade their fellows to circumcise themselves in order to contract marriages with Jacob\u2019s family. Explicit mention of circumcision will have appeared in lines of the speech not preserved. The \u201crace\u201d issue probably comes from references to becoming \u201cone kindred\u201d at Gen. 34:16, 22.<\/p>\n
Fragment 5<\/p>\n
30\u201334 This fragment appears to belong to the same scene as the preceding one. Whoever the speaker is (Jacob or one of his sons), he is explaining the history and significance of the rite of circumcision.
\n32. with all his household Similar references are found at Gen. 17:12\u201313, 27.<\/p>\n
Fragment 6<\/p>\n
35\u201336 These lines are labeled by Eusebius as the words of Simeon to his brother Levi, persuading him to take part in the killing of the Shechemites. There is nothing like this in the biblical narrative.
\n36. he once said Exactly how this oracle relates to the killing of the Shechemites is not clear.
\n10 tribes What the number 10 is doing here is unclear and no attempt at explaining it has been adequate. Some think it is an allusion to the 10 northern tribes of Israel, others to the Canaanite peoples of Gen. 15:19\u201321 (though this scarcely suits the language here).<\/p>\n
Fragment 7<\/p>\n
37\u201340 The biblical account says nothing about the character and morals of the Shechemites, leaving readers only to infer whatever they will from Shechem\u2019s rape of Dinah. Theodotus seems to have turned the Shechemites into doublets of the inhabitants of Sodom to resolve the ethical problem of the destruction of many innocents. T. Levi 6:9\u201310 also describes the Shechemites as xenophobic.<\/p>\n
Fragment 8<\/p>\n
41\u201347 The Bible gives no graphic description of the brothers\u2019 killing of Shechem and his father (cf. Gen. 34:25\u201326). Theodotus\u2019s account is much more Homeric than biblical. See also T. Levi 6:4.<\/p>\n
Philo, the Epic Poet<\/p>\n
Harold W. Attridge<\/p>\n
Fragments of an epic poem, On Jerusalem, written in the classic meter of dactylic hexameter, celebrate the story of Abraham and the physical wonders of Jerusalem. The poem was probably written in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE by a Jewish author steeped in the new international culture of the Hellenistic world. The vocabulary and style of the work reflect the tastes of the literary culture of Alexandria in this period and show the degree to which Jews were becoming part of that dominant culture. At the time, learned poetry in the epic meter of Homer and Hesiod flourished. The prolific poet Callimachus, head of the library at Alexandria in the early 3rd century, composed a learned epic, Hecale, on an obscure figure of Greek mythology. In the same period Aratus\u2019s Phaenomena put into hexameters the new astronomical learning of the period. Toward the end of the 3rd century, Apollonius of Rhodes composed his Argonautica, recounting the story of Jason, his Argonauts, and the quest for the golden fleece. That a Jewish author with Greek learning would attempt something similar is not surprising. The most striking feature of the poem is the dramatic evocation of the mysterious story of the Akedah (Genesis 22) to ground the sanctity of the city. A biblical story is here reworked in a new international literary idiom, celebrating Jewish tradition with sophisticated style.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
Nothing is known of the author of the poem. He is not to be confused with the Alexandrian philosopher and interpreter of the Bible, Philo, active in the 1st century CE. The epic poet must have lived at least a century before the philosopher, perhaps even earlier. His elaborate poetic vocabulary, evident even in the brief fragments that survive, suggests a level of learning to be expected in a major cultural center such as Alexandria. The fragments of Philo\u2019s poetic work illustrate the degree of appropriation of Greek culture by some Jews in the Hellenistic period who used Greek forms to celebrate their heritage.
\nThe fragments of this poem were preserved by Alexander Polyhistor, a Greek scholar (ca. 105\u2013135) originally brought to Rome as slave taken captive in the Mithridatic War. His extensive explorations of philosophy, geography, and history, of which only fragments remain, earned him the name \u201cPolyhistor.\u201d In the mid-1st century BCE Alexander composed a work about the new eastern peoples brought under Roman domination by Pompey. Eusebius, the Christian historian and bishop of the 4th century, later cited those fragments in his Preparation for the Gospel, Book 9.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
The first two closely connected fragments (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.20.1) describe the Akedah, or Binding of Isaac, recounted in Gen. 22. The location of the fragment in a work on Jerusalem attests the identification of Mt. Moriah with the Temple Mount in this period.
\nA third fragment (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.24.1) mentions the patriarchs, culminating in Joseph. Although the context is lost, the poem probably presented Jerusalem as a central feature in the promises to the ancestors of Israel. The poem thus fills a gap in the stories of Genesis, where Jerusalem does not appear as one of the cities in the land of Canaan visited by the patriarchs.
\nThree final fragments (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.37.1\u20133) describe physical features of the city, particularly its waterworks.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, 54\u201357. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cSpells Pleasing to God: The Binding of Isaac in Philo the Epic Poet.\u201d In Jewish Cult and Hellenistic Culture: Essays on the Jewish Encounter with Hellenism and Roman Rule, 99\u2013111. JSJ Sup 100. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
\nGutman, Yehoshua. \u201cPhilo the Epic Poet.\u201d ScrHier, 1:39\u201363. Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1954.
\nHolladay, Carl. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors: Poets, 205\u201399. Vol 2. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1:1. ancient laws The poet apparently refers to Torah. He may have in view the whole story of Abraham, but the focus of the following lines is clearly on the episode recounted in Genesis 22.
\n3. Marvelous Or perhaps \u201cawesome,\u201d a characterization of the impressive deed of Abraham.
\nthe bonds\u2019 knot Refers to the action of Abraham who bound Isaac (Gen. 22:9), thus providing the traditional name of the episode, the Akedah or \u201cBinding\u201d of Isaac when God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his only son.
\nfar-famed Abraham An epithet characteristic of epic diction describes Abraham, while the poet directly addresses him for dramatic effect.
\n4. God-beloved prayers The Greek is literally \u201cGod-beloved charms\u201d or \u201cspells.\u201d The allusion is obscure, but may refer to Abraham\u2019s remark to Isaac in Gen. 22:8 that \u201cGod himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering.\u201d
\n5\u20136. garden of dread plants This obscure allusion may simply refer to Mt. Moriah. The plants would be fearsome because they had provided the wood for the pyre on which Isaac was to be burned.
\n6. praiseworthy thunderer An epic transformation of a biblical name of God.
\nquenched the pyre Gen. 22 makes no mention of the pyre being either lit or quenched, although fragment 2, line 2 seems to presume that the fire is \u201ccrackling.\u201d The expression must be a poetic reference to the divine intervention that halted the sacrificial killing of Isaac.
\n7. made his promise immortal As a result of Abraham\u2019s test, God made Abraham a promise of numerous offspring by which nations would be blessed (Gen. 22:17\u201318).
\n8. offspring The people of Israel are in view.
\n2.3. horned ram The ram that would substitute for Isaac was caught in a thicket by its horns (Gen. 22:13).
\n3:2. spot The locale is probably Jerusalem, presented as the goal toward which patriarchal history pointed. A broader reference to the whole of the land might be in view, but the last fragment clearly focuses on the city.
\n6. Revolving time\u2019s secrets with the flood of fate This obscure phrase probably refers to Joseph\u2019s activities as interpreter of dreams, particularly in his visionary perception of years of plenty and years of famine (Gen. 41).
\n4:2. Pool The referent may be the Pool of Siloam. The \u201cfountain\u201d mentioned in the introduction by Eusebius would be the spring of Gihon, from which waters flowed via Hezekiah\u2019s tunnel to the pool.
\nruler\u2019s baths This may also be part of the waterworks connected with the Pool of Siloam. Or there may be an allusion to the description of water flowing from the future Temple in Ezekiel 47.<\/p>\n
Ezekiel, the Tragedian<\/p>\n
Howard Jacobson<\/p>\n
Ezekiel\u2019s Exagoge is a Greek play written after the model of the great classical tragedies of 5th-century BCE Athens. If there was a genre called \u201cJewish Greek tragedy,\u201d then it is the only example that we know of from the ancient world. We have fragments amounting to 269 lines, but we do not know how long the entire play actually was. What we do have breaks down neatly into five episodes: (1) A prologue speech delivered by Moses describes Jewish life in Egypt, his own life from birth to flight from Egypt, and his meeting the daughters of Raguel. (2) Some events at Midian, including a dream of Moses and an interpretation by Raguel, his father-in-law. (3) God appears to Moses at the burning bush and instructs him. (4) An Egyptian survivor reports on the destruction of the Egyptian army at the Red Sea. (5) A Jewish scout reports on the discovery of a good camping site in the desert.
\nThe Exagoge\u2019s five episodes, or acts, are in accord with the Hellenistic \u201crule.\u201d Indeed, it is the only Greek tragedy we know to follow this rule! In addition, the play repeatedly breaks the so-called Aristotelian unities of time and place and clearly is operating under a very different set of dramatic assumptions than did the 5th-century tragedians.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
There is no significant doubt that the Exagoge was written by a Greek Jew living in Alexandria, the center of hellenized Jewish life in the ancient world. As for the date of the work, we can say with certainty that the play was written between circa 280 BCE and circa 50 BCE. But a good case can be made for limiting the dates to 200\u2013100 BCE, based on the absence of any mention of the Land of Israel and the relationship of Alexandrian Jews to Greeks and Egyptians. Most of the extant fragments have reached us via quotations by the church father Eusebius, who himself tells us that he was taking his quotations from the 1st-century BCE scholar Alexander Polyhistor. No manuscripts of the play survive.
\nWe have no idea who Ezekiel was. But we can say that he was a Jew who knew both his Bible (in Greek) and exegetical traditions on the Bible. He was also highly familiar with Greek tragedy and shows significant knowledge of the plays of all three major 5th-century BCE tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides).<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Both on the Greek side and on the Jewish one, the Exagoge is a work of major importance. Its fragments represent the most extensive remains of any Hellenistic tragedy\u2014or indeed tragedian\u2014and so Ezekiel becomes our most significant source of evidence for Hellenistic tragedy. For the student of Jewish literary history and thought, Ezekiel is one of our most important sources for the Hellenistic period in the Diaspora. In addition, he is one of our earliest sources of biblical exegesis and in some cases provides pieces of exegesis that do not show up again until much later Rabbinic midrashic collections. There is some evidence that Philo and Josephus made use of the Exagoge, but other clear-cut evidence for its influence on either Jewish or Christian literature is lacking.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Fornaro, P. La voce fuori scena. Turin: Giapichelli, 1982.
\nHeath, J. \u201cEzekiel Tragicus and Hellenistic Visuality: The Phoenix at Elim.\u201d Journal of Theological Studies 57 (2006): 23\u201341.
\nHolladay, C. R. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, 2.301\u2013529. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989.
\nHorst, P. W. van der. \u201cSome Notes on the Exagoge of Ezekiel.\u201d Mnemosyne 37 (1984): 354\u201375.
\nJacobson, H. The Exagoge of Ezekiel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
\n\u2014\u2014\u2014. \u201cMysticism and Apocalyptic in Ezekiel\u2019s Exagoge.\u201d Illinois Classical Studies 6 (1981): 272\u201393.
\nWinston, D. \u201cNew Light on an Old Drama.\u201d Judaism 35 (1986): 109\u201313.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1. when Jacob left Canaan Ezekiel follows the traditional practice of Greek tragedy, beginning his play with a lengthy prologue that sets the scene and provides important background information.
\n2. he came to Egypt with 70 souls Ezekiel closely follows the biblical narrative, beginning with the descent to Egypt of Jacob\u2019s family and the ensuing persecution of the Israelites by the Pharaoh.
\n14. my mother hid me It is not until the 14th line that the audience becomes aware of the identity of the speaker. Such a delay in identifying the speaker of the prologue is also a common feature of Greek tragedy.
\n30\u201331. she then named me Moses, because she had taken me from the watery riverbank The etymology makes no more sense in the Greek than it does in English. It is simply grounded in the biblical text wherein a connection is made between the name Moshe (Moses) and the verb m-sh-h (to take, draw). Ezekiel nicely combines the biblical etymology with the occasional use in Greek prologues of name etymology.
\n34\u201335. after telling me all about my lineage and God\u2019s gifts There is no such indication in the Bible. Ezekiel resolves a problem that inheres in the Bible\u2019s narrative: how does Moses become aware that he is Jewish?
\n36\u201337. the princess gave me a royal upbringing and education This is our earliest testimony to Moses\u2019s royal Egyptian education, a theme treated expansively by Philo (Moses 1.20\u201324) and found in the Christian Bible (Acts 7:22).
\n42\u201343. I saw two men fighting, one a Hebrew, the other an Egyptian In the Bible the Egyptian is manifestly the aggressor, the Jew the victim. Why Ezekiel simply made it a fight between two men is not apparent.
\n48\u201349. I again saw two men fighting, this time men of the same race Ezekiel is vague, the Bible is clear: the two men are both Jews. Ezekiel leaves it open for readers\/viewers who did not know the Bible to assume that both men are Egyptians.
\n57\u201358. I left the country and have now in my wandering come to this foreign land Ezekiel concludes his prologue, leaving us a scene familiar from classical Greek tragedy, the arrival in a foreign land of a hero killer in flight.
\n59. here are seven maidens coming The encounter depicted is grounded in Moses\u2019s meeting with the daughters of Jethro (also called Raguel in the Greek Bible or Reuel in the Hebrew Bible) at the well in Midian (Exod. 2:16\u201317).
\n60\u201362. this land is called Libya. It is inhabited by tribes of various peoples, Ethiopians, black men In contrast, the Bible reports the place to be Midian. Ezekiel is thinking of Num. 12:1, where we hear of \u201cthe Cushite woman he had married.\u201d Ezekiel identifies Sepphora with the wife mentioned in Numbers and makes the inference that Midian was in Africa.
\n62\u201365 In the Bible Jethro (=Raguel) is priest of Midian. Ezekiel and other postbiblical texts make him (also) a leader.
\n66. Sepphora, you must reveal this The character Chum does not exist in the Bible\u2019s narrative. He may have been a suitor of Sepphora who is now disturbed to learn that she has been betrothed to Moses by her father.
\n68\u201389 The Bible contains nothing like this scene, in which Moses reports to Raguel a clearly significant dream and Raguel interprets it. Dreams with symbolic character are common in both the Bible and Greek literature. This particular dream displays the influence of both Jewish and classical Greek texts. Thus, for example, Moses\u2019s observation of the cosmos probably derives ultimately from Abraham\u2019s view of the heavens in Gen. 15. The attribution to a biblical figure of a significant dream that does not occur in the Bible is fairly common in postbiblical and midrashic literature. But elements of the dream and interpretation seem to show also the influence of Herodotus (e.g., 1.107\u20138) and Aeschylus\u2019s Persians (176\u2013214). In the latter, the queen-mother dreams of the downfall of her son, the Persian king, in battle. In addition, aspects of Moses\u2019s dream seem to be perhaps the earliest evidence for Jewish mystical thought. Scholars debate whether Ezekiel is merely presenting such thought or is engaged in polemic against it.
\n72\u201375 Daniel 7:9\u201315 bears significant similarity. The divine being sits on his throne, a man approaches and is given sovereignty, glory, and kingly power.
\n80. I counted them all See Ps. 147:4, \u201cHe reckoned the number of the stars.\u201d
\n85. you will establish a great throne This sentence and its implications are completely unbiblical. The notion of Moses as king developed in the Hellenistic period (e.g., Philo, Moses 1.148\u201349).
\n89. you will see what is, what has been, and what shall be The Bible contains no clear indication that Moses could foresee the future (he is called a nabi at Deut. 34:10). But the notion is occasionally present in postbiblical and midrashic texts (e.g., Exod. Rab. 40:2).
\n90\u2013112 Ezekiel dramatizes the episode of the burning bush. The initial part of the scene is missing. Ezekiel repeatedly emphasizes the miraculous character of the event, in contrast to the Bible\u2019s simple \u201cthis great sight\u201d (Exod. 3:3).
\n93. its foliage stays green and fresh Ezekiel\u2019s nonbiblical emphasis on the continuing greenness of the bush is found in Palestinian Midrash (e.g., Exod. Rab. 2:5) and Targum (Jer. Tg. at Exod. 3:2) and is grounded in a wordplay in the Hebrew text (lbs\/lvlv).
\n101. that you, a mortal, should see my face is impossible No such statement is present in the biblical narrative, but it may be implicit at Exod. 3:6, \u201cMoses hid his face.\u201d However, the principle involved has been adopted from Exod. 33:18\u201323.
\n106\u20137. I have called them to mind \u2026 and so I have come to save my people God never says anything like this in the burning bush scene, but the notion is present both closely before and after it (Exod. 2:24; 6:3\u20135).
\n108. I have seen my servants\u2019 suffering and distress The Bible\u2019s story of the Exodus from Egypt contains no allusion to the concept of the Jewish people as \u201cGod\u2019s slaves.\u201d Elsewhere in the Bible it does occur (e.g., Lev. 25:42). Ezekiel\u2019s introduction of the theme here is related to the Rabbinic exegesis that the escape from Egypt was a transition from bondage to Pharaoh to the proper state of being slaves to God (e.g., Pes. 5:5 [32c]).
\n113\u201319 Ezekiel abbreviates and tones down the emotional character of the biblical scene. In the latter Moses argues at length with God and even arouses his wrath. Ezekiel puts Moses in a more positive, less belligerent, light. Note too that Ezekiel avoids here the biblical Moses\u2019s skepticism about the faith of the Jewish people (Exod. 4:1).
\n120\u201331 God performs two miracles for Moses. One has to assume that between lines 119 and 120 there was further dialogue between God and Moses, which concluded with Moses\u2019s saying something like, \u201cWhat if Pharaoh refuses to listen to us?\u201d
\n130. it\u2019s become like snow Ezekiel reflects the Septuagint text (Exod. 4:6), \u201chis hand became like snow.\u201d The original (Hebrew) text has, \u201chis hand became leprous, like snow.\u201d The Greek translators were at pains to avoid the reference to leprosy, because there was a widespread anti-Semitic Egyptian claim that the Jews (including Moses) were actually a mob of lepers who were banished from Egypt (see Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.8).
\n132\u201351 Important events are often presented in Greek drama via messenger speeches. Ezekiel presents the Egyptian plagues in a variation of that technique, a prophetic speech in God\u2019s mouth. Ezekiel\u2019s conception of the plagues is something like the Philonic (Moses 1.96\u201397) and Rabbinic one (Exod. Rab. 12:4), in which the 10 plagues are envisioned as three groups of three and one isolated plague.
\n139\u201340. there will come \u2026 a pestilence In the Bible the plague of pestilence affects only animals (Exod. 9:3), in Ezekiel only human beings. This may be related to Ps. 78:50, where the plague of pestilence appears to also affect human beings. In addition, postbiblical exegesis often made associations between this and the tenth plague. If Ezekiel was following this pattern, then human death here can be understood.
\n140. all who possess hard hearts will die Here we have the beginnings of the notion that the punishment of the Egyptians was penalty for their hardheartedness, a theme found in the early Church.
\n149\u201350. King Pharaoh shall suffer none of the plagues \u2026 until he sees his firstborn son a corpse The Greek text here is not clear. If this translation is correct, then Ezekiel is contradicting the Bible wherein Pharaoh does suffer from earlier plagues. There is some evidence in other postbiblical accounts for the limiting of Pharaoh\u2019s suffering to the last plague (e.g., J. Tg. at Exod. 10:29).
\n152\u201374 After concluding his recitation of the plagues, God instructs Moses to transmit to the Jews the laws of Passover.
\n160. during the night you shall eat the roasted meat This is intended to limit the time of eating to the nighttime, as in the Bible\u2019s directions (Exod. 12:10).
\n166. the Egyptians shall render payment for all the work the Jews have done This is obviously an apologetic expansion of the Bible\u2019s description of how the Jews demanded and received precious vessels from the Egyptians (Exod. 12:35\u201336) and is also a well-attested Rabbinic tradition (e.g., Sanh. 91a). Indeed, the biblical narrative here had become a prime element in anti-Semitic propaganda. The same Talmud passage also reports a debate on the matter between Jews and Egyptians before Alexander the Great.
\n167\u201371 The seven-day duration of the Passover holiday is founded on a seven-day journey of the Jews from Egypt. The Bible has nothing like this, not even a mention of a seven-day trip. Although some postbiblical sources (Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.20\u201321; Seder Olam Rab. 5) do speak of a seven-day journey from Egypt, none seem to have a clear etiology for the length of the holiday. But this kind of etiology goes back to the biblical model: for example, God worked six days, then rested; so people are enjoined to keep a Sabbath after six days of work. Ezekiel was probably drawing on a current Jewish tradition.
\n169. that morning on which you left Egypt The Bible does not specify the time of day. Ezekiel was probably familiar with exegetical traditions that emphasized the Jews\u2019 departure during the daytime (e.g., Sifre Deut. 128).
\n175\u201376. let the Hebrew men take for their families unblemished lambs or calves The Exodus narrative (12:5) limits the sacrifice to sheep and goats. But Deut. 16:2 enjoins sheep or cattle. Most likely, Ezekiel simply follows the Deuteronomic text. For \u201cfor their families,\u201d \u201cfamily by family\u201d would be better.
\n184. but every man shall be summoned If the text is correct, this alludes to the universal application of the Passover sacrificial rite, a theme common in the Bible and in postbiblical texts. \u201cWill be summoned\u201d reflects the Rabbinic principle that no one could partake of the Paschal sacrifice unless he had been previously registered (see Pes. 61a).
\n189\u201390. no leaven shall be eaten. For you shall receive release from these evils The point derives from the ancient allegorical use of leaven for that which is evil or impure. Leaven then becomes a symbol of affliction that the Jews, in celebrating a festival of liberation from persecution, should refrain from eating. (Cf. J. Bek. 4:2; 7d; B. Bek. 17a for Rabbinic texts that refer to the leaven as evil.)
\n193\u2013242 The drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea and all the attendant events involved a degree of spectacle that Ezekiel could not have begun to think of representing on the stage. But it was common in Greek drama for scenes of warfare to be reported in messenger speeches. Ezekiel\u2019s is heavily influenced by the messenger speech in Aeschylus\u2019s Persians (353\u2013432), reporting the great defeat of the Persians by the Greeks.
\n203. it came to one million men This looks like a large round number to make a point. But in fact Jub. 48:14 also reports that the Egyptian host was one million.
\n224\u201328 The biblical narrative at Exod. 14:21 reports no striking of the sea, indeed the verse does not mention the rod at all. But the fact is that Josephus (Ant. 2.338) and Philo (Moses 1.177) also report that Moses struck the sea, as do some midrashic texts. It also appears to be so portrayed in a wall painting found in the 3rd-century synagogue at Dura-Europus. It is thus clear that such a version of the crossing of the Red Sea was widespread. Its roots seem to reside in the language of some verses in the Prophets (Isa. 11:15; Zech. 10:11).
\n231\u201332. we hastened forward, but encountered night Postbiblical tradition had it that the cloud that came between the two camps cast darkness on the Egyptians while providing light for the Jews. In Ezekiel\u2019s account, this becomes the first of the series of miraculous\u2014and disastrous\u2014happenings that now befall the Egyptians (Exagoge 231\u201335). While this is a considerable embellishment over the biblical narrative, it is in line with traditions of multiple awesome events at the Red Sea (e.g., Ps. 106:22; Wis. 19:8).
\n233. as if they were bound fast Rabbinic texts report that the ground turned to mud under the chariots and so the wheels stuck.
\n234\u201335. from the heavens came a great flash, as if of a fire This expansion of Exod. 14:24 has a long history. It seems already present at Ps. 77:19.
\n236\u201338. when they had reached the other side, a large wave surged around us Ezekiel belongs to the tradition that all the Jews were safely across before the Egyptians drowned (no such indication in the Bible). The Rabbis explained that this was intended to keep the Egyptians from thinking that the Jews had also drowned.
\n243\u201369 This is yet another use by Ezekiel of the messenger speech. Context indicates that the messenger here is probably a scout sent to investigate the camping possibilities in the desert. Ezekiel elaborates the terse biblical statement that at Elim there were 12 springs and 70 palm trees (Exod. 15:27). Like Philo (Moses 1.188), Ezekiel makes Elim a wonderful oasis. Rabbinic tradition tended in the opposite direction, making the place\u2019s natural character an inhospitable one. Ezekiel may here be under the influence of his Greek environment, for he appears to have made his scene a Hellenistic utopia. It appears that in The Exagoge Elim was the first encampment after the crossing of the sea. Ezekiel evidently left out the encampment at Marah (Exod. 15:23\u201326). This would be in keeping with Ezekiel\u2019s general tendency to avoid biblical material that might put the Jews in a bad light. That Elim turns out to be a virtual utopia is taken as a sign of divine favor.
\n254\u201369 The scout continues his report with the sighting of a strange bird. There can be no doubt that this bird is the fabulous phoenix. One of our sources for this passage explicitly makes the identification. More important, comparisons with accounts of the phoenix guarantee the identification. Why did Ezekiel incorporate into a play on the Exodus the appearance of the phoenix, an appearance that is attested neither in the Bible nor in postbiblical Jewish sources? In general, appearances of the phoenix, which were very rare, were taken to mark a moment or an event of great magnitude. In addition, the tale of the phoenix is one of regeneration and rebirth. On both these counts, Ezekiel may have introduced the phoenix to signify the great import of the redemption of the Jewish people, itself a story of (metaphorical) rebirth. In addition, there was a Greco-Egyptian tradition that the phoenix appeared during the reign of Amasis (Tacitus, Annals 6.28). The latter was thought to be the Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus. Ezekiel\u2014or some other Alexandrian Jew\u2014will have then made an easy connection and established the phoenix as a sort of divine sign of the momentousness of the Exodus. Our fragments of The Exagoge come to an end with the description of the phoenix. Although some scholars suggest additional scenes, it seems very likely, though not certain, that the play indeed ended here.<\/p>\n
Pseudo-Orpheus<\/p>\n
David E. Aune<\/p>\n
Orpheus was a legendary poet in Greek myth endowed with the gift of enchanting song. Two famous stories about Orpheus were circulated in the ancient world. One story narrates his unsuccessful attempt to bring his lost love, Eurydice, back from the dead by charming Hades with his music. The other relates his rescue of Jason and the Argonauts from the bewitching Sirens by countering their magical singing with his own more powerful song. Eventually, Orpheus was credited with several types of cryptic poetry, including oracles, healing songs, theogonies (accounts of the origins of the gods), and initiatory rites (rituals used to induct volunteers into semiprivate pagan religious sects).
\nPseudo-Orpheus (also called the Jewish Orphica, the Pseudo-orphic fragments, and the Testament of Orpheus) is a short hexameter revelatory poem supposedly spoken by Orpheus to his son or disciple Musaeus, in which he finally recognizes the error of polytheism and informs Musaeus about the nature of the one true God.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
The text known as the Jewish Orphica was freely revised by a series of anonymous author-editors from as early as the late 3rd century BCE until possibly as late as the 4th century CE. As a result, the Jewish Orphica has survived in a number of versions or recensions. Of these, scholars have identified four main recensions, normally referred to as A, B, C, and D, with each one slightly longer than its predecessor. The shortest and probably the most original form of the text is found in recension A (21 lines), written no earlier than the 3rd century BCE, probably by a Hellenistic Jewish author. Recension B (31 lines), which includes some material on Abraham (lines 27\u201331), is an expanded version of A, clearly written by a Hellenistic Jewish author-editor in the 2nd century BCE. Recension C (41 lines), which adds some material about Moses (lines 2, 41\u201342), is probably a revised version of Recension B, written by yet another Hellenistic Jewish author-editor, probably by the mid-2nd century BCE. Finally, Recension D (46 lines) seems to be a reworked version of recension C by a Christian author, writing as late as the 4th century CE, who reproduces nearly all of Recension C, frequently changing the wording and adding several lines referring to the incarnation of Jesus (lines 17\u201320).
\nRecension C was cited in a commentary on the Pentateuch by the first Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Aristobulus of Alexandria (ca. 160 BCE). Aristobulus thought that many great Greek philosophers\u2014he included the legendary Orpheus in their ranks, along with Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato\u2014were dependent for their ideas about God on the Torah. Believing that Orpheus had actually written the Orphic poem he cited in his commentary, he titled it Hieros Logos, or \u201cSacred Word,\u201d a phrase indicating its dependence on the Torah, the ultimate Sacred Word. Later, the Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260\u2013340 CE) quoted the same version of Jewish Orphica in his lengthy work Preparation for the Gospel (13.12.5), attributing it to the commentary by Aristobulus.<\/p>\n
Significance<\/p>\n
Many fragments of Orphic poetry survive in quotations in Greek writers beginning with Plato (427\u2013347 BCE). Orpheus occasionally appears in Jewish art, such as the frescoes in the amazingly well-preserved 3rd-century CE synagogue at Dura Europos, a Roman border city on the banks of the Euphrates in what is now Syria.<\/p>\n
GUIDE TO READING<\/p>\n
The translation that follows is based on the Greek text of Recension C.<\/p>\n
SUGGESTED READING<\/p>\n
Collins, John J. Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora. New York: Crossroad, 1983.
\nFeldman, Louis, and Reinhold Meyer, eds. Jewish Life and Thought among Greeks and Romans: Primary Readings. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.
\nGeorgi, Dieter. The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986.
\nGrant, Robert M. God and the One God. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986.
\nGuthrie, W. K. C. Orpheus and Greek Religion: A Study of the Orphic Movement. London: Methuen, 1935. Reprint, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
\nHolladay, Carl. Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors. Vol. 4: Orphica. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996.
\nLafarque, M. \u201cOrphica: A New Translation and Introduction.\u201d In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James H. Charlesworth, 2:795\u2013801. Garden City: Doubleday, 1985.
\nLaks, Andr\u00e9, and Glenn W. Most. Studies on the Derveni Papyrus. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997.
\nMras, Karl. Eusebius Werke, Achter Band: Die Praeparatio Evangelica, part 2. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1956, 191\u201394.
\nSch\u00fcrer, Emil. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC\u2013AD 135), revised by Geza Vermes, Fergus Mill, and Martin Goodman, 3.1:659\u201367. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1986.
\nWest, M. L. The Orphic Poems. Oxford: Clarendon, 1983.<\/p>\n
COMMENTARY<\/p>\n
1\u20134a. I will speak to those to whom it is permitted Using the language of the mystery religions of antiquity (voluntary, semiprivate religious sects that required secrecy and elaborate initiation rituals), these lines introduce the poem as a secret revelation intended for those belonging to an inner circle, though phrased as if for Musaeus alone. See also the comment on lines 38\u201341.
\n1. shut the doors A metaphor meaning \u201cDon\u2019t listen!\u201d
\nyou uninitiated Those not formally initiated into a mystery cult and therefore not permitted to be present during the secret rituals (see also the comment on lines 1\u20134a).
\n2. righteous ones Refers to those who are initiated.
\n3. listen This exhortation announces the conclusion of the poem\u2019s introduction, and is formally similar to proclamation formulas used in the Hebrew Bible to introduce prophetic oracles, such as \u201chear the word of the LORD\u201d (1 Kings 22:19; 2 Chron. 18:18; Amos 7:16). Proclamation formulas are also used in Wisdom Literature, for example, in Prov. 7:24: \u201cNow, sons, listen to me; \/ Pay attention to my words\u201d (cf. Deut. 32:1; Prov. 4:1; Job 13:6).
\nchild of the light-bearing Moon Identified in Plato as Musaeus, offspring of the moon and the Muses (Resp. 364e).
\n4a. Musaeus A mythical singer of oracles often associated with Orpheus. Some Hellenistic Jews, as well as the Pythagorean philosopher Numenius, regarded \u201cMusaeus\u201d as the Greek name for Moses; this view would reverse the relationship assumed in the Jewish Orphica by casting Musaeus as the teacher of Orpheus (Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.27).
\n4b-5. what formerly appeared in your heart Meaning the pagan notions of god that Orpheus is seeking to correct through this special revelation to Musaeus.
\n5. rob you of life itself This is the end of a line in Homer\u2019s Iliad (22.58). \u201cLife\u201d connotes a full life lived out in the knowledge of the true revelation.
\n6. divine Logos This phrase could mean several different things, based on how the word logos has been understood in the past. For the ancient Greek philosophers, \u201clogos\u201d meant the principle of reason that pervades the universe and was\u2014for some schools of thought (e.g., the Stoics)\u2014identical with God. For Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE\u201350 CE), \u201cdivine Logos\u201d referred sometimes to a mediator between God and creation, and sometimes to the sensible world, based on the Platonic notion of the Idea or Logos as a divine model or plan in the mind of God. Finally, \u201cLogos\u201d can mean \u201cword,\u201d so that the phrase \u201cdivine word\u201d could be identical with the Torah.
\n7. ruling that intelligent organ, the heart For ancient Greeks, including Aristotle, the heart was the seat of intelligence as well as memory and emotions. Even for Stoics, the \u201cgoverning principle\u201d of the body was situated in the heart (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.159). Here it is the \u201cdivine Logos\u201d (Ps.-orph. 5) that humans must allow to rule their lives.
\n8. the Immortal One who has formed the cosmos Emphasizes the sovereignty of God in creating the universe, a role never assigned to either Zeus or Jupiter in Greek and Roman mythology. In continuity with many texts that were eventually included in the Bible, Judaism continued to maintain that God alone made the world. The title \u201cImmortal One\u201d was a frequent Greek epithet for the gods, used to contrast them with mortal humans.
\n10\u201321 This section centers on the oneness, sovereignty, and transcendence of God, using motifs drawn from popular Hellenistic philosophical conceptions of the one God that were adopted by Hellenistic Judaism. According to Aristobulus, Orpheus (like Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato) was dependent on Moses.
\n10. He is one alludes to the affirmation of divine unity emphasized in the Shema, the central prayer of Jewish liturgy and the first word of three passages from the Torah (Deut. 6:4\u20139; cf. M. Ber. 2:2). The Jewish historian Josephus (37\u2013ca. 100 CE) traced the doctrine concerning the oneness of God back to Abraham, the first advocate of monotheism (Ant. 1.154\u201356). Theophilus of Antioch, a Christian apologist writing around 180 CE, claimed that Orpheus, wrote his Testament at the end of his life and rejected the 365 gods, claiming that there is only one God (Autol. 3.2).
\nself-generated Emphasizes the fact that God alone is the basis for his own being.
\nand by him are all things completed In Pseudo-Aristotle, On the Universe 379b\u2013410a (2nd\u20131st centuries BCE), the unknown author states, \u201cAll things are from God and were constituted for us by God,\u201d reflecting the kind of monotheism maintained by Hellenistic philosophers.
\n13 This line is a doublet of line 21, found only here in Recension D.
\n16. And there is no other An allusion to the exclusive divine claim in Deut. 4:35: \u201cIt has been clearly demonstrated to you that the LORD alone is God; there is none beside Him\u201d; and Deut. 32:39: \u201cSee, then, that I, I am He; \/ There is no god beside Me.\u201d
\n18. My child Here, the author alludes to the tradition that Musaeus is the son of Orpheus (Library 4.25.1); the 2nd-century Christian apologist Tatian speaks of Musaeus as a disciple of Orpheus (Against the Greeks 39). In some forms of biblical Wisdom Literature, \u201cmy child\u201d is often an affectionate term for a disciple (e.g., Prov. 2:1; 3:1; 4:10, 20; 5:1).
\n20\u201321. around him a cloud has been set God is inaccessible to humans and even, ultimately, to Orpheus himself. The cloud in this image acts as a visual symbol of the presence yet hiddenness of God. In the Exodus story, God leads his people in a pillar of cloud (Exod. 13:20\u201322); clouds conceal God as part of the appearance of God on Mount Sinai (Exod. 13:12; alluded to in Ps. 18:12; 105:39); in the Tent of Meeting a cloud representing the presence of God fills the most holy place (Exod. 33:9, 10; 40:34\u201338), just as the later Temple of Solomon is filled with a cloud of God\u2019s glory (1 Kings 8:10\u201311; 2 Chron. 5:13\u201314).
\n21. yet it stands tenfold for other people Even though the one God is hidden from Orpheus, he is even more hidden from others.
\n22\u201328 This passage was added to Recension A by the editor of Recension B, and included in Recension C (the basis of the present translation).
\n22. For no one among mortals could see the ruler of men In Exod. 33:17\u201323, Moses asks to see the Presence of God, to which God responds: \u201cyou cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live\u201d (v. 20). The invisibility of God was emphasized sometimes in Greek and Roman sources, but particularly in early Judaism. Philo of Alexandria, the Middle Platonic Jewish philosopher, referred to \u201cthe Maker of the whole universe, whose nature is invisible and inscrutable not only by the eye, but by the mind \u2026\u201d (Spec. Laws 2.165) and according to Tg. Neof. I to Exod. 33:23: \u201cit is not possible for you to see the face of the Glory of my Shekinah.\u201d There are many Rabbinic sources on this theme; one contrasting view, found in Sifra Nedavah 1:2 and Sifre Numbers 103 is that people do not see God in their lifetime, but when they die; according to this view, God is only invisible to some people.
\n23. Except a certain unique person Refers to Abraham, who alone is said to have seen God. The Torah mentions several times that \u201cthe LORD appeared to Abram\u201d (Gen. 12:7; 17:1) and once that \u201cAbraham remained standing before the LORD\u201d (Gen. 18:22), though the text provides no details about these appearances. Targum Ps.-Jonathan to Gen. 18:1: \u201cThe Glory of the LORD was revealed to him at the Vision of Mamre.\u201d Genesis Rabbah also claims that Abraham was unique in receiving revelation.
\n24\u201328. Chaldean \u2026 for he was learned in following the path of the sun The implication of Abraham\u2019s Chaldean origins is that he has knowledge of astrology. The Chaldeans, who lived in Chaldaea at the head of the Persian Gulf, the traditional home of Abraham, had an ancient reputation as astrologers and astronomers. The Aramaic sections of Daniel (2:5, 10; 4:4; 5:7, 11) describe them as magicians. These lines present him positively as an astrologer, a tradition regarded negatively in both Jubilees (12:16\u201318), Philo (De Abrahamo 71) and Genesis Rabbah 44:5, which summarize the view of a majority of sages: \u201cyou are a prophet, not an astrologer.\u201d They are probably based on Gen. 15:5, where God tells Abraham to look at the sky and count the stars. Amplified in Jub. 12:16\u201318, this tradition was eventually developed to the point that Abraham is credited with a knowledge of the cosmos (Josephus, Ant. 1.155\u201356) and he even becomes a full-fledged astrologer in two fragments preserved by Eusebius, the first by Pseudo-Eupolemus, who claims that Enoch taught Abraham astrology, and the second by an anonymous author, who claims that Abraham taught astrology in Palestine and Egypt (Praep. ev. 9.17.2; 9.18.2). Greeks and Romans also associated Abraham with the science of astrology.
\n24. Chaldean people Refers to Abraham\u2019s origins in Ur of the Chaldeans in Mesopotamia (Gen. 11:31\u201332). Philo regarded both Moses (Moses 1.5) and Abraham (Abraham 70) as being of Chaldean origin, yet it is probably Abraham that the author has in mind because of the traditional association of Abraham with astrology (see the previous comment).
\n25. the sphere as it rotates The ancient Greeks believed that the earth, as well as the sun and moon, were spherical (the perfect shape) and that they rotated.
\n29\u201332 The insertion of Abrahamic material in lines 25\u201331 is awkwardly followed by material that centers on God, not on Abraham, in lines 29\u201332. Though God is not explicitly named, the editor makes the new subject clear by the transitional phrase \u201cAnd he himself\u201d (line 29).
\n30. On a golden throne, and earth lies under his feet An allusion to Isa. 66:1: \u201cThus said the LORD: \/ The heaven is My throne \/ And the earth is My footstool,\u201d emphasizing divine sovereignty. \u201cOn a golden throne\u201d reflects the Hebrew Bible metaphor that God has a heavenly throne (Isa. 6:1; Ps. 11:4; 45:7; 47:8; 103:19), symbolizing his sovereignty over creation.
\n30\u201331. his feet \u2026 his right hand Anthropomorphic language such as this is common in the Hebrew Bible but was alien to the world of Hellenistic philosophical thought, suggesting that the author-editor lives in both worlds.
\n32 The trembling of the mountains before God reflects the language of theophany (i.e., manifestations of God) in the Hebrew Bible; see, for example, Ps. 114:7: \u201cTremble, O earth, at the presence of the LORD.\u201d
\n35. he controls their beginning as well as their middle and end A phrase based on an ancient Greek way of describing the one God. A fragment of an Orphic poem preserved in the Derveni Papyrus (350 BCE) contains this phrase: \u201cZeus is the beginning, Zeus is the middle, all things are fulfilled by Zeus\u201d (see also Plato, Leg. 4.715e). In Isa. 44:6, God says \u201cI am the first and I am the last\u201d (cf. Isa. 41:4; 48:12). Josephus, in discussing the significance of the First Commandment, explains that \u201cGod is the beginning, the middle, and the end of all things\u201d (Ag. Ap. 2.190). A talmudic tradition maintains that God is signified by the Hebrew word emet (truth), because it contains the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet (J. Sanh. 18a).
\n36\u201337 These lines describe a primary aspect of Moses\u2019s ministry: he proclaimed a word of the ancients, i.e., that God controls the beginning, middle and end of all things (see Ps.-Orph. 40).
\n36. as one born in the underbrush Refers to the famous story of Moses\u2019s birth and concealment in a wicker basket \u201camong the reeds by the bank of the Nile\u201d (Exod. 2:1\u20134).
\n37. He received teaching from God in the two tablets of the law That is, the Ten Commandments, written by the finger of God and received by Moses (Exod. 31:18; Deut. 4:13; 5:22; 10:1\u20135).
\n38\u201341 These lines form the conclusion to the poem, which begins the way it ends by using language based on the secrecy of ancient Greek mystery cults, namely that it \u201cis not permitted\u201d to reveal to anyone the details of what cult members have learned.
\n41. this divine message Refers to the teaching of Orpheus that centers on the oneness of God and his sovereignty over all creation.
\npreserve it in your heart Orpheus tells Musaeus to internalize the commands of God, a concept sometimes expressed in the Hebrew Bible as \u201cWrite them on the tablet of your mind\u201d (Prov. 3:3; 7:3). The same phrase occurs in Deut. 11:18 (part of the Shema and the origin of tefillin or phylacteries): \u201cTherefore impress these My words upon your very heart: bind them as a sign on your hand and let them serve as a symbol on your forehead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pseudo-Philo, On Samson and On Jonah<\/p>\n
Gohar Muradyan and Aram Topchyan<\/p>\n
The homilies On Samson and On Jonah are rhetorically embellished literary elaborations or paraphrases of two compact biblical stories. On Samson, drawn from Judg. 13\u201314, tells of Samson\u2019s birth (about the half of the homily describes its circumstances); his youth and killing of the lion; his marriage with a Philistine woman; his famous riddle; and the murder of 30 Philistines (Judg. 13\u201314). On Jonah is the story of the disobedient prophet Jonah, who tried to ignore God\u2019s command and escape from God, narrated in the short book of Jonah.
\nThe main theme of On Samson, declared in 2:2, is \u201cwhat Samson did thanks to his strength,\u201d while chapter 1 is a kind of a preamble, telling briefly how Samson lost his strength in the episode with Delilah (Judg. 16:4\u201319). The preamble to On Jonah, in which various craftsmen\u2014and among them, God\u2014are deemed more valuable than their instruments, resembles a rhetorical exercise.<\/p>\n
Authorship and History<\/p>\n
The two homilies were written in Greek: the biblical text underlying them is the Septuagint (LXX). Therefore, in some cases (On Jonah 27:3; On Samson 1:5; 15:3; 29:4; 22:2; 27:3; 30:5) the author\u2019s biblical citations deviate from the Hebrew Bible and are identical with the the Armenian version of the LXX. Only in one case (On Samson 41:3) does the biblical quote come from the Hebrew Bible and its content deviates from the LXX. The homilies survive in an old Armenian translation, in about a dozen manuscripts, the oldest of which were copied in the latter half of the 13th century. In most of these manuscripts, they are transmitted as part of the Philonic corpus; thus, in Armenian (and maybe already in Greek) tradition these homilies were ascribed to Philo of Alexandria. In fact, On Samson and On Jonah seem to have been translated from Greek by the same person who translated Philo\u2019s works (probably in the late 5th century); this is apparent from his style, which literally imitates certain linguistic features of Greek.
\nAucher, the first editor of the homilies, published them as genuine works of Philo of Alexandria. He provided the text with a parallel Latin translation. Hans Lewy, a later editor, entitled his book The Pseudo-Philonic De Jona, thus calling into question the assumption of Philonic authorship. Indeed, Philo is not likely to have written the homilies: the approaches of Philo and Pseudo-Philo to the biblical text are quite different. Philo sequentially cites short biblical passages and gives their literal or allegorical interpretation (or both), whereas Pseudo-Philo has composed rhetorically embellished literary versions of biblical stories.
\nFolker Siegert, who has thoroughly studied the two homilies, mentions no allusions to specific facts or to datable sources, except for the completion of the LXX translation in the early 2nd-century BCE; this suggests that the homilies may have been written between this time and the 4th century CE, when Greek oratory flourished in Jewish synagogues. In On<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
8:4. opens his soul wide like Sheol The lust of his soul for wealth is great. 8:5. the nations are gathered \u2026 the peoples are assembled The passive verbs of the scroll\u2019s version change the MT version \u201cWho has harvested all the nations And gathered in all the peoples\u201d (NJPS). The author retains the MT … <\/p>\n