1<\/p>\n
Modern and Ancient Views of the Canon<\/p>\n
The concept of canon is a contentious topic, and not just in Biblical and Jewish Studies. The view that there is a canon that represents the highest literary merits and core values of Western society has been championed by some and denounced by others. The \u201cGreat Books\u201d debate in American universities is a curricular manifestation of this philosophical and cultural clash. Supporters argue that it is possible to identify a set of works of heroic stature from the time of Homer to the present day that represents the touchstones of Western civilization. Critics counter by pointing to the imperial, ideological, ethnic, political, and gender bias of such a concept, which has no place in postmodern society. The very idea of a canon divides and polarizes opinion in a way that few other concepts do.
\nIn Britain, the discourse took a different turn and was instigated by the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, who in his criticism of the public policy of multiculturalism and its fragmentation of society advocated a national culture based on the idea of canon, \u201ca set of texts that everyone knew,\u201d including the Bible, Shakespeare, and the great novels. Sacks\u2019 view that there is a closed list of works that represents core values has been criticized, and dissenters have wondered whether ethnic and religious diversity could not be better embraced by advocating a multiplicity of canons, including those of the minorities.
\nThe debate in the public sphere over the canon is fueled by ideological, philosophical, political, and pedagogical contretemps. One of the vital points of disagreement is about the nature of the canon itself. Is the notion of the canon inherently prescriptive\u2014endorsing what ought to be accepted and read\u2014or is it endemic, validating the eminence of a set of texts in Western society? What does the canon signify by way of a common set of values? Is the concept of a single canon justified, or is it better to think of a plurality of canons, with each community championing its own set of accepted texts?
\nThis public debate could be better informed by our returning to the beginning and investigating the notion of canon in ancient Judaism and early Christianity. When did the canon of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament close? What process led to its formation? Did all ancient Jews hold a single canon, or did each group have its own canon? By shedding light on the origins of the canon, I hope that a historical perspective can be added to the public discussion of canon.<\/p>\n
Terminological Considerations<\/p>\n
The term kanon, from Greek and literally meaning a measuring stick, rule, and (by analogy) a list, was used by the Christian church in its conciliar decisions that determined which books were to be included in the Bible. It seems an unsuitable term to use for describing the historical formation of Jewish scriptures since it is anachronistic and implies a fixed list.
\nJohn Barton points out that there are two clearly identifiable scholarly traditions, one that \u201cspeaks of texts as \u2018canonical\u2019 if they are widely received as possessing authority, and another which reserves the term for those texts which, after a process of sifting and evaluation, have been approved and stand on a limited list.\u201d He argues that the word \u201ccanon\u201d is an inappropriate term to use to describe the scriptures of Jews and Christians in the first few centuries of the Common Era, primarily because there was not to be found any sense that scripture formed a closed list.
\nEugene Ulrich advocates a strict definition of \u201ccanon\u201d to describe only the decisions made by official bodies. He nonetheless recognizes that the making of official lists is related to the historical development that saw the transformation of oral and written literature into scriptures, and he calls this activity \u201cthe canonical process.\u201d
\nA recent conference proceeding on the subject avoids the term \u201ccanon\u201d and instead uses the term \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d in its title. That is not a designation that an ancient Jew would recognize, but it is not thereby unsuitable.
\nIn the ancient sources, scripture is denoted in Hebrew and Greek by various phrases and titles, but \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d is not one of them. In Ezra-Nehemiah, several designations are deployed with the terms \u201ctorah,\u201d referring to laws and narratives, and\/or sepher, meaning book or scroll: \u05d3\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 (Neh 8:13); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 (Neh 8:3); \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05e9\u05d4 (Ezra 7:6); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05de\u05e9\u05d4 (Ezra 6:18); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05e9\u05d4 (Neh 8:1); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05d4\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd (Neh 8:18; cf. Neh 8:8); and \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05d4\u05dd (Neh 9:3). Moreover, there are Aramaic expressions embedded in the documents and narratives: \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d3\u05ea\u05d0 \u05d3\u05d9 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4 \u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05d0 (\u201cthe book of the law of the God of Heavens,\u201d Ezra 7:12) and \u05d3\u05ea\u05d0 \u05d3\u05d9 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05da (\u201cthe law of your God,\u201d Ezra 7:26).
\nIn Chronicles, the passover tradition is retold in a way that claims dependence on the earlier prescriptions of the laws of Moses, legal ordinance, authority of the ruling king, and the prescriptions of David and Solomon (2 Chr 35:4\u201312). Significant is the mention that the passover tradition is to be found \u201cin the writing of David\u201d (\u05d1\u05db\u05ea\u05d1 \u05d3\u05d5\u05d9\u05d3), \u201cin the document of Solmon\u201d (\u05d1\u05de\u05db\u05ea\u05d1 \u05e9\u05dc\u05de\u05d4), and \u201cin the book of Moses\u201d (\u05d1\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05de\u05e9\u05d4).
\nAmong the sectarian texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, designations of scriptures include the following: \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 (CD 4:8; 5:7; 6:4, 7; 1QS 8:15; 4Q159 fr. 5, l. 6, etc.); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d4\u05d7\u05ea\u05d5\u05dd (CD 5:2); \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05e9\u05d4 (CD 15:12; 16:2; 1QS 5:8); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05de\u05d5\u05e9\u05d4 (4Q397 fr. 14, l. 10; 2Q25 fr. 1, l. 1; verso of 4QpapCrypta); \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e0\u05d1\u05d9\u05d0\u05d9\u05dd (CD 7:17\/\/4Q266 fr. 3 col. 3, l. 18; 4Q177 fr. 1, col. 4, l. 14); \u05e9\u05d9\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d3\u05d5\u05d9\u05d3 (11Q13); and \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d4\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd (4Q491 fr. 1, l. 4).
\nIn Jewish texts of the Hellenistic and Roman periods and in the writings of the early church, scripture is most commonly called \u201cthe writing\u201d (\u1f21 \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae; e.g., Let. Aris. 155, 168; Philo, Virt. 51; Gal 3:22, 1 Clem 34:6); \u201cthe writings\u201d (\u03b1\u1f31 \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03af; e.g., Philo, Cher. 11); \u201cthe holy writings\u201d (\u03b1\u1f31 \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03af \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03af, \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1; e.g., Philo, Abr. 121; Mos. 2.290; 2 Tim 3:15); \u201cthe law\u201d (\u1f41 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, \u1f21 \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1; e.g., Philo, Opif. 46; Contemp. 78; Luke 10:26); \u201cthe law and prophets\u201d (\u1f41 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u1fc6\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9; e.g., Sir 1:1; 2 Macc 15:9; 4 Macc 18:10; Matt 7:12; Rom 3:21); \u201cthe book\u201d (\u1f41 \u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2; e.g., Let. Aris. 316); \u201cthe holy books\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f05\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1; e.g., 1 Macc 12:9; \u03bf\u1f31 \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u1f76 \u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9; e.g., Philo Mos. 2.36); and \u201cthe oracles (of God)\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1; e.g., Let. Aris. 158; \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1; e.g., Philo, Decal. 48; Rom 3:2).
\nIn Rabbinic literature, scripture is designated commonly by \u201cwhat is read\u201d (\u05d4\u05de\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0), \u201cwhat is written\u201d (\u05d4\u05db\u05ea\u05d5\u05d1), \u201cthe writings\u201d (\u05d4\u05db\u05ea\u05d5\u05d1\u05d9\u05dd), \u201cthe holy writings\u201d (\u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e7\u05d5\u05d3\u05e9), \u201cthe book or scroll\u201d (\u05d4\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8), \u201cthe books or scrolls\u201d (\u05d4\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd), \u201cthe law\u201d (\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4), and \u201cthe law and prophets\u201d (\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d5\u05d4\u05e0\u05d1\u05d0\u05d9\u05dd).
\n\u201cAuthoritative scriptures\u201d is not a term that the ancients used. In fact, whatever term one chooses would be problematic in some sense, and one could expend an inordinate amount of effort discussing terminology without shedding much light on the matter. It is important to maintain a sense of proportion about the terminological debates. I agree entirely with Ulrich, who wrote: \u201cThe definition of a canon is a relatively minor matter. Much more important, interesting, and ripe for analysis is the canonical process\u2014the historical development by which the oral and written literature of Israel, Judaism, and the early church was handed on, revised, and transformed into the scriptures that we have received, as well as the processes and criteria by which the various decisions were made.\u201d
\nThe essence of the problem is that ancient Jews did not use a term equivalent to \u201ccanon\u201d or \u201cauthoritative scriptures,\u201d but they did have the concept. Implied in the titles \u201cthe books of Moses\u201d and \u201cthe books of the Prophets\u201d is the idea of a collection, which is an important element of a canonical or authoritative list. Moreover, Rabbinic Judaism used the term \u201coutside books\u201d (\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd \u05d4\u05d7\u05d9\u05e6\u05d5\u05e0\u05d9\u05df) to describe \u201cheretical books\u201d (e.g., m. Sanh. 10:1). This implies that there must have been books that were included, most probably in a list (b. B. Bat. 14\u201315), but they were not called \u201cinside books\u201d or \u201ccanonical books.\u201d Those included in the list were called \u201choly scriptures\u201d (\u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e7\u05d5\u05d3\u05e9). In addition, when the rabbis debated whether the Song of Songs and Qohelet \u201cdefiled the hands\u201d and therefore were to be considered \u201choly scriptures,\u201d they also knew what was holy and not holy, but they did not explain their thinking.<\/p>\n
Canon and Authoritative Scriptures<\/p>\n
In this study, I will use \u201ccanon\u201d to refer to the list of biblical books. As will be seen, there is more than one list and therefore strictly speaking more than one canon, although the lists overlapped to a large extent. This definition is consistent with the decisions of the ecclesiastical councils, the first being the Council of Laodicea in ca. 360, which decided which books were to be included in the Bible. But the definition is only broadly \u201cconciliar\u201d in meaning since it is not confined to the deliberations of early Christianity. Josephus\u2019 Contra Apionem, 4 Ezra, and Mishnah Yadayim imply lists of biblical books; Baba Bathra, Origen, and Jerome enumerate Jewish lists of biblical books.
\nI use \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d to refer to the collections of authoritative writings before the appearance of the first lists. Authoritative scriptures are to be found among the post-exilic Judean community, Samaritans, Alexandrian Jewish community, communities reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Essenes, Therapeutae, Pharisees, Sadducees, Pauline churches, etc. before the end of the first century CE.
\nMy understanding of authoritative scriptures is indebted to Sid Leiman, although, unlike him, I avoid using the term \u201ccanon.\u201d He argues that from the traditional Jewish perspective, a canonical book is \u201ca book accepted by Jews as authoritative for religious practice and\/or doctrine, and whose authority is binding upon the Jewish people for all generations. Furthermore, such books are to be studied and expounded in private and in public.\u201d In the tannaitic period, moreover, the rabbis drew a distinction between the categories of \u201ccanonical\u201d and \u201cinspired,\u201d the latter referring to those books believed to have been composed under divine inspiration (\u201cby the spirit of holiness\u201d). In this sense, the Mishnah and Megillat Taanith were canonical but not inspired; the biblical books were both canonical and inspired.
\nLeiman\u2019s equation of canon with authoritative scriptures is instructive. For traditional Jews, authority is established by the acceptance of the community in matters of religious belief and practice and is binding for all time. This authority is thought to have its origins in divine inspiration and is manifest in the command to study the books and to comment on their meaning.
\nThis definition is consistent with the biblical understanding of authority. In Exodus 24:3\u20137, Moses took the record of the covenant and read it out loud to the people, commanding them to do all that is written in it. The people of Israel accepted the binding nature of the commandments by declaring that they would obediently do all that the Lord had spoken. Likewise, in the time of the monarchy, King Josiah read out loud to the people the book of the covenant that had recently been discovered been in the house of the Lord (2 Kgs 22\u201323). Both the king and the people made a covenant before the Lord, pledging to do all that was written in the book of the covenant (\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05ea). In the post-exilic period, Ezra is reported to have read out the book of the law of Moses (\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05e9\u05d4) before those assembled in front of the Water Gate. Ezra blessed the Lord, and the people affirmed by replying \u201cAmen, amen,\u201d lifting their hands, and bowing their heads and worshipping the Lord with their faces to the ground (Neh 8:1\u20136). Leiman\u2019s definition, therefore, is not only applicable to Rabbinic Judaism but is also a biblical concept of canon.
\nHowever, the distinction that Leiman draws between \u201ccanonical\u201d and \u201cinspired\u201d is open to challenge. David Kraemer argues that in the later Rabbinic community, \u201cthe literature that embodied the norms and values of Jewish society had finally to be understood as inspired,\u201d and therefore Leiman\u2019s distinction between inspired and uninspired canon is untenable.
\nAndrew Steinmann criticizes Leiman for combining two kinds of authoritative writings, the scriptural canon and another canon of religious literature. The critique exposes the weakness in Leiman\u2019s failure to distinguish among different kinds of authoritative literature. In Steinmann\u2019s words: \u201cThat religious communities oftentimes accept other collections of books as authoritative but not on the level of scripture does not mean that they have one canon divided into two categories. Instead, it implies that they recognize two collections: a collection of Scripture and a collection of other books that, though useful, are not recognized as both authoritative and inspired.\u201d As an example, Steinmann points to the way Lutherans also regard the Book of Concord as authoritative when they already recognize the scriptural canon of the Old and New Testaments.
\nOne doubts, however, that Steinmann\u2019s criticisms are justified. The comparison between the Lutheran Church and Rabbinic Judaism is questionable since the former has had a fixed canon for hundreds of years, whereas the latter has its beginnings when the Bible itself was in its formative stage. It is highly doubtful that the authoritative status of, say, the Mishnah in Rabbinic Judaism is comparable to the Book of Concord in the Lutheran Church.
\nFor Rabbinic Judaism the Oral Torah has an authoritative status in a way that the Book of Concord does not. The Rabbinic belief is that Moses did not receive just the Written Torah at Mt. Sinai, but also the Oral Torah, literally \u201ctorah according to the mouth\u201d (\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05e9\u05d1\u05e2\u05dc \u05e4\u05d4), which has been passed down in an unbroken chain of succession. Also, in Leiman\u2019s view the Mishnah and Megillat Taanith are canonical but not inspired. The different historical context and period, the break from the Catholic Church, and the Lutheran doctrine of sola scriptura mean that the authority of the Book of Concord is not a suitable parallel to the authority of Rabbinic literature in Rabbinic Judaism.
\nMy working definition, then, is the following: \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d refer to collections of writings that were accepted and used by a particular Jewish or Christian community. The term does not refer to a fixed list of books decided by an official body but implies a community\u2019s recognition of the divinely inspired nature of certain writings. That these divinely inspired writings were gathered in \u201ccollections\u201d is evidenced by the titular descriptors, such as \u201cthe books of Moses,\u201d \u201cthe books of the Prophets,\u201d and \u201cthe Psalms of David.\u201d That these writings were considered authoritative is shown by their acceptance and use within a community for study, commentary, worship, ritual, teaching, and moral behavior.<\/p>\n
Prophetic Status and Revealed Writings<\/p>\n
The above terminological discussion raises the issue of authority: Are there different kinds of authority? Is a distinction to be drawn between the authority of the writings that were eventually included in the canon, which is scriptural authority, and the authority of other writings? What are the indicators of authority? There is no one answer to these questions since the sources under consideration are diverse. They reflect a variety of literary contexts and historical circumstances. Moreover, the evidence that is available in the sources is often indirect and oblique. For the most part the sources do not address the issue; the principles, where they exist, are implied or couched in passing comments.
\nThere are nonetheless a few indicators that will help point the way forward. Several of the sources identify prophecy as an important element. This prophetic legitimacy is expressed in different ways, and writings were considered prophetic and inspired by God. Inspiration may be attributed to God alone or through his holy spirit. The writings so characterized are, by implication, different from other kinds of writings.
\nIn Rabbinic Judaism, the hallmark of prophecy was an important criterion for distinguishing between the biblical texts and other writings. Tosefta Sotah states: \u201cWhen the last prophets\u2014that is, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi\u2014died, the holy spirit ceased in Israel (13:2).\u201d This means that the cessation of the holy spirit was associated with their deaths. Given that these three also wrote prophecies that \u201ccame at the end of the prophets\u201d (bB.Bat 14a), the passage is also understood to indicate the closing of the second division of the Hebrew Bible. Subsequent revelation is by a heavenly voice or bat qol. The authoritative nature of Rabbinic literature is thus distinguished from the biblical texts.
\nImportant to note here is that this is a Rabbinic claim about the cessation of prophecy within the context of the sages\u2019 worldview and theology. As such, it is distinguishable from the historical question of whether prophecy actually did or did not cease at the end of the Second Temple period. Also to be bracketed aside is the question of whether the bat qol was an inferior form of revelation, which is an important issue in the debate over the inclusion of Rabbinic writings along with the biblical texts as canonical.
\nJosephus, in defending the twenty-two books of the Jewish canon against Greek detractors, distinguishes between the historical trustworthiness of the biblical texts with those written after the break of \u201cthe exact line of the succession of prophets.\u201d According to him, the events from the Persian period to his own time had indeed been recorded, but the recording had not been judged to be \u201cworthy of the same trust\u201d as that of the books of Moses and the Prophets (C. Ap. 1.38\u201341). Josephus, moreover, tells us elsewhere that there were other prophets (e.g., Theudas, Ant. 20.97) after Malachi\u2014the so-called \u201csign prophets\u201d\u2014but one would infer that these were not placed on the same level as the biblical prophets.
\nJosephus seems to have had different kinds of authority in mind when he drew a distinction between the prophets who wrote and other authors who also wrote about what happened in their own time. Immediately before the passage that enumerates the twenty-two-book canon, he discusses the trustworthiness of the priestly genealogy and record for the writing history:<\/p>\n
and this [i.e., the record] is justly, or rather necessarily done, because every one is not permitted of his own accord to be a writer, nor is there any disagreement in what is written; they being only prophets that have written the original and earliest accounts of things as they learned them of God himself by inspiration; and others have written what has happened in their own times, and that in a very distinct manner also (C. Ap. 1.37).<\/p>\n
Significant here is the clause translated as \u201cis not permitted of his own accord to be a writer.\u201d The Prophets have written by divine inspiration, while others have written about the events that happened in their own times \u201cin a very distinct manner also\u201d (\u03c3\u03b1\u03c6\u1ff6\u03c2). Josephus uses the adverb \u03c3\u03b1\u03c6\u1ff6\u03c2 in various ways in his writings, but given the context, it most naturally refers to writings that were composed \u201cdifferently.\u201d Those writings were drafted by men who were not prophets and who accounted for the things that had happened in their own time. The writings were not composed through divine inspiration and do not have the same authority.
\nPhilo, in recounting the rendering of the law of Moses into Greek, likened the translators to inspired prophets who came up with exactly the same wording: \u201cThey, like men inspired, prophesied, not one saying one thing and another another, but every one of them employed the self-same nouns and verbs, as if some unseen prompter had suggested all their language to them\u201d (Mos. 2.37). Significantly, Philo uses the verbs \u1f10\u03bd\u03b8\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ac\u03c9 (\u201cto be moved by a deity\u201d) and \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9 (\u201cto prophesy\u201d) to describe the medium and source of the divine translation.
\nPhilo too distinguishes between the sacred books, which most probably consist of the Pentateuch, and other books in his writings. In his life of Moses, he interwove what he learned from the \u201csacred books\u201d and the \u201ctraditions of the elders of the nation\u201d (Mos. 1.4). Both inform his exposition on Moses\u2019 life, but they are distinct in his mind.
\nIn the early church, 2 Timothy, written by followers of Paul, famously formulated the criterion this way: \u201cAll scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness (3:16).\u201d Scripture (\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae) most likely refers to the biblical books in accordance with its usage in other New Testament texts.
\nHowever, the early church also believed that divine revelation continued through the person of Jesus, the apostles, the Christian communities, and the holy spirit. Thus other writings eventually assumed an authoritative status. By the end of the first century or beginning of the second century, the Pauline letters themselves came to be regarded as divinely inspired. 2 Peter compares Paul\u2019s letters to the \u201crest of the scriptures\u201d\u2014namely, the Jewish scriptures\u2014because \u201cPaul wrote according to the wisdom given him,\u201d a description that is equivalent to the inspiration of the spirit (3:15\u201316).
\nIn the Dead Sea Scrolls, the community of the yahad was enjoined to live according to the \u201crule of the community\u201d just as God had commanded through Moses and the Prophets (1QS 1:1\u20133). The community was to study the law that God had commanded through Moses, in order to act in accordance with what was revealed, and \u201cjust as the prophets revealed by the holy spirit\u201d (1QS 8:15\u201316). The communities reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Khirbet Qumran believed that revelation had not ceased and that the writings that they produced were also divinely inspired. The canon had not closed, and the distinction among the authority of different texts thus became blurred.<\/p>\n
Divine Origins of Scripture<\/p>\n
The prophetic status of certain texts, then, is founded on the underlying principle of divine revelation, which distinguishes texts that were eventually included in the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament from other texts that were useful for teaching and moral guidance and, in Josephus\u2019 case, also for historical writing. Both the law of Moses and the writings of the Prophets were believed to have been inspired by God\u2019s holy spirit.
\nThe law of Moses was believed to have issued from Mount Sinai, although in its original biblical context of the book of Exodus what was received and passed on by Moses were the Decalogue and the rest of the laws in a broad sense, and not the five books of the Torah or Pentateuch. As for the Prophets and their writings, divine origin was mediated through the holy spirit.
\nThe Deutero-Pauline letter of 2 Timothy, mentioned above, uses a rare verb in its participial, adjectival form to express the divine origin of scripture; \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03c5\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 is often translated as \u201cinspired,\u201d but literally it means \u201cGod-breathed\u201d (2 Tim 3:16). The sense is similar to the way that God created man by breathing into him the breath of life.
\nThe notion of \u201cGod-breathed\u201d implies that the ultimate source of authority of all scripture is to be found in God. The author of 2 Peter 1:20\u201321 states it more explicitly when he draws a distinction between real and false prophecy: \u201cNo prophecy of scripture is a matter of one\u2019s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the holy spirit spoke from God.\u201d The source of real prophecy, therefore, is its divine origin, and real prophets \u201cspoke from God,\u201d a formulation that is consequent on God speaking to Moses (e.g., Exod 6:2) and is similar to how divine revelation is received \u201cfrom the mouth of God\u201d (e.g., 4Q175. i.5\u20136; 1QHa xx.12; 1QpHab ii.1\u20132; Matt 4:4).
\nSome Jews even claimed that the principle of divine inspiration was recognized by the Greeks. The pagan Greek author Hecataeus of Abdera is quoted to have said about the books of the Law of the Jews: \u201cTheir legislation is most philosophical and flawless, inasmuch as it is divine [\u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd]\u201d (Let. Aris. 31). Likewise, Demetrius of Phalerum, when asked why no previous historian or poet had mentioned the Jewish law, replied that the law is holy (\u03c3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bd\u03cc\u03c2) and \u201chas come into being through God\u201d (\u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9; Let. Aris. 313). Some, like Theopompus and Theodectes, did attempt to introduce Jewish law into their history and play, but as they were about to do so, they were struck by mental and physical illnesses. To Theopompus it was revealed in a dream that the cause of the affliction was due to \u201chis meddlesome desire to disclose divine matters to common men\u201d (Let. Aris. 313\u2013316).
\nThe principle of divine origin has another aspect that helps explain why the authority of texts varies in different communities. The belief that someone \u201cspoke from God\u201d is based on the understanding that his prophecy has a divine origin. But that perception is open to different interpretations: one community\u2019s \u201ctrue oracle\u201d could be another\u2019s false proclaimer. One straightforward solution is to base the proof of true prophecy on whether the predicted event is fulfilled. The Temple Scroll offers a pragmatic fix to the quandary:<\/p>\n
How shall we recognize that which the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord but the prophecy is not fulfilled and does not come to pass, that is a prophecy I have not spoken (11Q19 61:2\u20134).<\/p>\n
But not all prophecy is predictive. Much of what the biblical prophets include in their oracles passes for admonition, warning, and counsel. The Temple Scroll\u2019s solution would not apply. The acceptance that one prophecy is true and another one false, therefore, is often based on the discernment of a community. The principle of divine origins admits different perceptions of prophecy and consequently different kinds of authoritative texts.<\/p>\n
Imperial Validation of the Traditional Torah<\/p>\n
Not all indicators of authority, however, are strictly speaking religious. It is true that the ancients did not maintain a clear distinction between the political and religious spheres, but it would seem that the promulgation of the Torah in the post-exilic period was influenced by the authority of the Persian imperial government.
\nIn the Achaemenid period, the Persian court lent its authority to the validation of the traditional laws of the Judeans. Petitioned by the community in exile, Artaxerxes sent Ezra to reestablish the traditional cultic worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, to appoint judges and magistrates to adjudicate in cases, and to instruct the people who did not already know the law. Punishments were threatened against anyone who did not obey \u201cthe law of your God and the law of king\u201d (Ezra 7:26). As a consequence, the authority of the traditional Torah was reestablished in the life of the post-exilic Judean community. The Persians, however, acted in their own self-interest to secure the border regions with Egypt, and they were unlikely to have been interested in the details of the Judean Torah. What was important to them was its iconic value in reestablishing the traditional laws of a vassal state.
\nThe appeal to imperial authority is likewise evident in the Hellenistic period, when the Alexandrian Jewish community promulgated the myth of the origins of the Septuagint. This legend appealed to the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus and the great library of Alexandria as the originator of the initiative to translate the Hebrew laws into Greek. As a result, the nomos of the Jews in Alexandria gained a prestige that rivaled the works of Homer.
\nSeveral of the Hellenistic monarchs before Antiochus Epiphanes regularly issued decrees confirming the reestablishment of ancestral laws. Elias Bickerman showed that it was the convention of the Hellenistic monarchs to bestow, as one of the first gestures toward a conquered people, the reestablishment of their ancestral laws. According to Josephus, Antiochus III did exactly that when he conquered Jerusalem. \u201cLet all of that nation,\u201d he delcared, \u201clive according to the laws of their own country\u201d (Ant. 12.142). As John J. Collins summarized it: \u201cNeither in the case of Ezra nor in the case of the Seleucid take-over of Jerusalem, however, was there great interest in checking to see whether traditional custom corresponded to the written law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Citation as Indicator of Authority<\/p>\n
Another indicator of authority is the way that several of the sources use citation as a technique. Authority may be inferred from the direct and indirect quotation of texts. Verbatim citation is an indicator of authority in the way that it draws a distinction between the source-text and the interpretation. In the sectarian commentaries of the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, the typical pesher takes the form of lemma + introductory formula + comment. The implication is that the source-text, represented by the biblical lemma, is authoritative and its words need to be interpreted. Moreover, the sectarian comment is grammatically and thematically separated from the source-text by the interposition of an introductory formula, such as \u201cits interpretation\u201d (\u05e4\u05e9\u05e8\u05d5), and a blank space. Formally, the implication is that the lemma is qualitatively different from the comment. In practice, however, the pesherist blurs the distinction because he believes that his own comments, as mediated through the prophetic figure of the Teacher of Righteousness, are also divinely revealed and therefore authoritative. The blurring of the distinction is seen in the way that the pesher controls the meaning of the biblical verse.
\nIt is the case that some ancient Jews, especially those who were influenced by Greek culture and language, also cited other sources. In 1 Cor 15:33, for instance, Paul cites a popular saying first attested in Menander\u2019s Tha\u00efs; Paul tells the Corinthian church: \u201cDo not be deceived: \u2018Bad company ruins good morals.\u2019 \u201d Moreover, scholars have identified various preexistent slogans that Paul incorporated into his letters. What is important to note is that with perhaps a single exception, the enigmatic \u201cdo not go beyond what is written\u201d of 1 Cor 4:6, Paul reserves the use of introductory formulas (e.g., \u201cas it is written\u201d; \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u1f7c\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9) for the citation of biblical texts. His use of introductory formulas is not invariable; some biblical texts are cited without a short opening phrase, but he does not cite sayings and slogans with an introductory formula.
\nThe technique of indirect citation or allusion is more complicated because one is less sure whether a word, phrase, clause, sentence, or passage derives from a source or is part of an unintended linguistic reflex. It would be easier to posit dependence if a purported allusion included a cluster of distinctive lexical items that could be identified in the presumed source-text. Thus the Temple Scrolls\u2019 use of Exodus and Deuteronomy, for instance, is commonly acknowledged; the final columns of 51\u201366 are a close paraphrase of Deut 12\u201326. By contrast, it is debatable whether Paul indirectly cited books of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha since the suggested allusions are no more than literary affinities and parallels, many of which may be explained by the use of a common biblical and Jewish source.
\nAnother example from the Pauline letters would further illustrate the point. Paul does not cite directly from the Book of Numbers. However, in 1 Cor 10:8 he alludes to the incident at Shittim and Israel\u2019s consorting with the daughters of Moab (Num 25) when he admonishes the Corinthians to abstain from indulging in immorality and idolatry. The number of those who fell (23,000), however, disagrees with Num 25:9 (24,000). This error could be due to Paul\u2019s failed memory or his conflation of the number of males who were enrolled in the census (Num 26:62).
\nThis reuse of the biblical texts by indirect citation or allusion recurs regularly in ancient Jewish exegesis. Its technique is different from verbatim citation because it subsumes the source-text in its own interpretative paraphrase. There is no lemma, and the boundary between the source-text and the interpretation is intentionally blurred.
\nThere is, however, an implied sense of authority. One infers that the source-text is authoritative by the very fact that it is reused. The converse, the non-use of another text, does not imply that it is not authoritative. On first impression, the difference between direct and indirect citation lies in interpretative technique. The technique implies a difference in the self-perception of the interpreter as a commentator of an authoritative text (lemmatic exegete) or a participant in the unfolding of divine intention (paraphrastic exegete). However, this dichotomy is not strictly maintained, and the sources are often a mixture of these two, but the formal distinction is a useful way of thinking about the issue. What is important is that indirect citation also implies a sense of authority to that which underlies the technique of verbatim citation.<\/p>\n
Recognizing the Multiplicity of Canons<\/p>\n
There is a long history of scholarship that has investigated the development of the canon. Research into the canon was thoroughly done in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. From this body of scholarship, there emerged a three-stage theory of canonization corresponding to the three traditional divisions of the Tanak: the Torah or Pentateuch was fixed around 500 BCE, followed by the Nevi\u2019im or Prophets in the fourth or third century BCE and the Kethuvim or Writings in 90 CE. In the 1970s and 1980s this consensus was challenged as scholars tore down the pillars of the theory and razed its foundations to the ground. The consensus, once fractured and burnt, did not rise again out of the ashes like the proverbial phoenix. Instead, scholarly opinion was now divided, and remains so today, between those who believe that the canon was closed much earlier\u2014in the middle of the second century BCE, in the Maccabean period, or earlier\u2014and those who hold that the canon remained open well into the centuries of the Common Era.
\nThe discovery of the scrolls found in caves on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea has provided us with an opportunity to think anew about the formation of the canon. This heterogenous collection of around 800\u2013900 scrolls belonged to the sectarian communities identified by scholarly consensus with the Essenes. About one-quarter of the scrolls were recognizably biblical texts, while the remaining three-quarters consisted of sectarian, apocryphal, pseudepigraphical, and other hitherto unknown works. The scrolls were first discovered in 1947, but the well-known delay in the publication of all the manuscripts means that the full evidence has not been considered. Discussion of the formation of the canon based on the full evidence of the scrolls, therefore, is a desideratum.
\nThe publication of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible in 1999 was a significant moment in raising awareness of the biblical scrolls. Long neglected in favor of the non-biblical scrolls, the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament found by the Dead Sea remained almost exclusively the concern of text critics, who studied them in the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek languages. The translation of the biblical scrolls into English for the first time brought them to the attention of a wider circle of scholars and the public alike. It gave unprecedented insight into the important contributions that these scrolls make to our understanding of the nature of the Bible before its fixation. In the opening line of their introduction the editors of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible state: \u201cAt the time of Jesus and rabbi Hillel\u2014the origins of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism\u2014there was, and there was not, a \u2018Bible.\u2019 \u201d
\nTo say simultaneously that there existed and did not exist \u201ca Bible\u201d is contradictory; it is, moreover, confusing since the key term is qualified by quotation marks, meaning that it is not to be taken literally. It is surely fallacious to assert that something was and was not. It is an informal way of saying that there was a kind of Bible, as the authors go on to explain. Also, why was this something called \u201ca Bible.\u201d Do they not mean the Bible? In this one sentence, the authors of The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible have raised a host of important issues that are at the heart of the present book. What was the Bible like before its canonization? What is the relationship between the canonical Bible and the authoritative books before canonization? Is it historically accurate to speak about \u201cthe Bible\u201d or \u201cthe canon\u201d at the turn of the era? Moreover, the indefinite description of \u201ca Bible\u201d suggests that there was more than one Bible.
\nBefore we delve into the complexities of canonical research, it will be useful to stand back to reflect on what we might mean by the term \u201cthe Bible.\u201d In common parlance, the term is used by Christians to refer to the books of the Old and New Testament. For Jews, the same term denotes the books of the Tanak or Hebrew Bible, which is equivalent to the Christian Old Testament. The term is also used more broadly and symbolically to connote anything that is authoritative, ranging from the sacred scriptures of other religions to any trusted volume or guide (e.g., \u201cthe Buddhist Bible or \u201cthe wine taster\u2019s Bible\u201d).
\nEven if we restrict ourselves to the Judeo-Christian sense of the term and limit its reference to the first part of the Christian Bible, the Old Testament (the Jewish Tanak), it is evident that the noun preceded by the definite article, \u201cthe Bible,\u201d is meaningful only relative to a community. There never was, and there is not, a definition of \u201cthe Bible\u201d that is universally agreed upon by Jews and Christians (see appendix 1). One exception is the guild of biblical scholars (with or without religious affiliation) that agrees that the original Old Testament is the Jewish Tanak or Hebrew Bible. In Christianity, there are several different canons: the Protestant canon consists of thirty-nine books; the Catholic canon has forty-six books plus three additions; and the Orthodox canon totals forty-nine books plus eleven additions. The Lutheran and Reformed tradition, with its cri de coeur of sola scriptura, defines its canon in line with the Jewish Tanak, but even here there are differences: the count of thirty-nine books differs from the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible due to the combination or separate counting of 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, and the twelve Minor Prophets. The Protestant canon, moreover, differs from the Jewish canon in its ordering and categorization of the books. Apart from the Torah or Pentateuch, which is identical, Jewish tradition divides the rest of the books into the two categories of Prophets and Writings, whereas Protestant tradition classifies the remaining books according to their genre of historical books, poetic and wisdom texts, and prophecies.
\nDespite the plurality of canons, each religious community refers to its own collection as \u201cthe Bible,\u201d underscoring the point that the sense of definitiveness is fixed by the community. Each community, at least in its term of reference, recognizes only \u201cthe Bible\u201d that it advocates. Each community uses the definite form of \u201cthe Bible,\u201d not \u201ca Bible,\u201d in describing its sacred scriptures as though no other rival versions exist or are recognized.<\/p>\n
The Majority Canon<\/p>\n
Like the modern controversies over the literary and religious canons, the debate over the formation of the canon of the Hebrew Bible is an issue that is in need of further discussion. What I attempt to provide in this book is an investigation into the formation of the Jewish canon.
\nThe hypothesis is that throughout the post-exilic period up to around 100 CE there was not one official canon accepted by all Jews; there existed a plurality of collections of scriptures that were authoritative for different communities. The Pharisees had a canon of twenty-two\/twenty-four books that became the canon of the Hebrew Bible in Rabbinic Judaism. The Samaritans regarded only the Pentateuch as authoritative. There is no clear evidence that the Sadducees had a notion of canon. The Therapeutae probably had a concept of authoritative scriptures that included their own sectarian writings. Philo\u2019s description, however, is ambiguous, and the shape of the authoritative scriptures cannot be described with certainty. As for the sectarian communities, whom I identify with the Essenes, my argument is that they held a broadly bipartite collection of authoritative scriptures that included the Torah or Pentateuch and an open-ended category of \u201cprophetical books.\u201d This core of biblical texts was supplemented by other texts that have a graded authority. In the New Testament, the pattern is varied. The letter of Jude cited 1 Enoch as prophetic literature and considered its authority in a way no different from other Old Testament texts. But the letters of Paul presuppose the Pharisaic collection of authoritative scriptures that itself had not yet been finally defined. Luke attests to a tripartite collection that included the psalms in the third division.
\nMy approach is distinctive in the way that it problematizes authoritative scriptures in relation to a community. For me, the concept of \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d in the abstract is much less meaningful than when it refers to a community; the issue of \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d would be better accompanied by the question \u201cAuthoritative for whom?\u201d This approach means that I will focus on what a community cited as authoritative texts, rather than what it included in its library.
\nIt will be argued that the sources do not support the postulate of a definite canon, closed once and for all. Differences of opinion continue to be expressed. However, by the end of the first century CE there was a determined canon that was accepted by most Jews. Almost all the books included in this majority canon are to be found in the lists. There were disputes only about a few books, especially Qohelet and the Song of Songs.<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
The Emergence of the Canon Reconsidered<\/p>\n
Today, scholarly opinion is deeply divided between those who believe that the canon was closed in the Persian or Maccabean period and those who hold that the canon remained open well into the centuries after the turning of the era. Fundamental disagreements exist not only about the interpretation of such passages as the Prologue to the Wisdom of Ben Sira, 2 Maccabees 2:13\u201315, 4QMMT C 10\u201311, Matthew 23:34\u201336, Luke 24:44, Mishnah Yadayim 3.5, Josephus\u2019 Contra Apionem 1.38\u201342, and Bavli Baba Bathra 14b\u201315a and what they may or may not say about the formation of the canon, but also about the theoretical framework of how the development of the canon should be discussed.
\nDisputes over the significance of these loci classici center on the meaning of various descriptors of the prophets and writings found in the ancient sources. Are they formal titles of defined sections that correspond to the traditional divisions of the Nevi\u2019im and Kethuvim? Or should they be understood in the generic sense of \u201cprophetical books\u201d and \u201cwritings\u201d? For instance, when the Prologue of Ben Sira mentions, along with \u201cthe Law,\u201d \u201cthe prophets\/prophecies\u201d and \u201cthe rest of the books,\u201d is it referring to the books that belong to the traditional sections of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings? Or again, when Luke 24:44 directs the reader to the fulfillment in Jesus of \u201cthe law of Moses,\u201d \u201cthe prophets,\u201d and \u201cthe psalms,\u201d does the Evangelist have in mind the tripartite division of the Old Testament?
\nThere is much less dispute about the interpretation of the references to the law of Moses than about those of the other two sections. In fact, there is wide agreement that very early on what the sources called \u201cthe Torah\u201d included the five books of Moses that are preserved in the traditional Bible. When this section closed varies in the view of one scholar to the next, and often the so-called \u201cSamaritan schism\u201d is identified as the historical key to the dating.<\/p>\n
The Three-Stage Theory<\/p>\n
Scholarly disagreements are also evident on the question of how the development of the canon should be discussed. The three-stage theory, as articulated in the nineteenth-century studies of Frants Buhl, Gerrit Wildeboer and especially Herbert E. Ryle, assumes a stage-by-stage closing of each section of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings in sequential order.
\nThis linear development of the closing of the canon has been criticized by Roger Beckwith, who has argued that all the books of the Old Testament were canonized very early on. The tripartite division of the canon was not closed in three but two different stages, first the section of the Law, followed by the two sections of the Prophets and Writings together: \u201cThe Law was never the whole of the canon, and the other two sections were formed not so much by canonizing fresh material as by subdividing material already canonical.\u201d
\nJohn Barton also found difficulties with the three-stage theory and proposed that throughout the post-exilic period to the time of the New Testament and beyond, \u201cScripture was bipartite rather than tripartite,\u201d consisting of \u201cthe Torah and prophets.\u201d The canon did not develop stage-by-stage, as Ryle and others have suggested, but consisted for a long time of the Torah or Pentateuch, \u201cthe only corpus of material that was \u201cScripture\u201d in the fullest sense, the only set of documents on which the character and integrity of Judaism crucially depended.\u201d All other holy books may be described under the general and open-ended category of \u201cprophets.\u201d These books were secondary to the Torah, and their use depended upon the particular interests of the various groups. There was no third division because there was not yet a second one: \u201cthe prophets\u201d was not a fixed and closed second division.<\/p>\n
The Samaritan Schism<\/p>\n
More specifically, scholars found difficulties with the way that the three-stage theory depended upon the dating of two historical events, the Samaritan schism and the \u201ccouncil\u201d of Yavneh. It is argued that the Samaritans, when they separated from the Jews, took with them the Pentateuch, which they considered canonical. Ryle dated this schism to 432 BCE and understood this date as the terminus ad quem. He inferred that the Pentateuch must have been closed before this date and suggested that it must have been some time in the fifth century. But the dating of this schism is itself highly problematic.
\nRyle argued that the renegade Jewish priest Manasseh, mentioned by Josephus (Ant. 11.306\u2013312), should be identified with Eliashib\u2019s grandson in Neh 13:28, and it was through this self-same Manasseh that the Samaritans obtained their Torah. But the historical value of the Josephan account is disputed. Hugh Williamson subjected the various theories to scrutiny and concluded that Josephus\u2019 account was a garbled variant of the account in Nehemiah. Moreover, to arrive at the date of 432 BCE, Ryle had to use Josephus\u2019 account selectively; he rejected, for instance, Josephus\u2019 date, which he considered inaccurate.
\nBeckwith criticized Ryle\u2019s dating of the schism and instead pointed to the destruction of the Samaritan Temple on Mt. Gerizim by John Hyrcanus in ca. 120 BCE as the decisive moment of the parting of the two groups: \u201cIt is in this period, therefore, namely from the second century BC onwards, and not in the time of Nehemiah, that the religious breach between Samaritans and Jews is likely to have become, for the first time, complete.\u201d
\nBeckwith argued that the relationship between Jews and Samaritans varied over time. For the Jews antipathy toward the Samaritans was consistent ever since they returned from exile. There was only a brief period, between the second and third centuries CE, when the Samaritans were viewed more favorably than the gentiles by the rabbis, tolerating as they did the partaking of meals with them. By contrast, the Samaritans pretended to be the kinsfolk of the Jews, descended from the northern tribes, in times of prosperity, but in adversity, they denied such links, claiming their origins as colonists from abroad who were brought to Judaea by the Assyrians.
\nBeckwith found support for his second-century dating of the Samaritan schism in the palaeographical and text-critical analysis of James Purvis, who argued that the script, spelling and textual tradition of the Samaritan Pentateuch were paralleled in the scrolls, which are to be dated to the Hasmonean period between the mid-second to mid-first centuries BCE. But Purvis\u2019 view that the Samaritan sect originated at this time is not a necessary conclusion of his palaeographical and text-critical study. While it is the case that the Qumran scrolls include a number of texts of the Samaritan text-type, such as 4Qpalaeo-Exodusm and 4QNumb, it is to be doubted that one can then reconstruct the origins of the Samaritans on the basis of the text-type of their Pentateuch.
\nBeckwith\u2019s reading of the evidence of the so-called \u201cSamaritan schism\u201d is one-sided; it perpetuates the biases against the Samaritans in Josephus\u2019 account. Recently, Magnar Kartveit has reviewed the evidence from both the Jewish and Samaritan sources and has proposed that the \u201cGerizim project,\u201d which he dated to the first part of the fourth century BCE, was the most likely origin of the \u201cJews of Samaria.\u201d For Kartveit, it is the establishment of a Yahweh-worshipping Temple on Mt. Gerizim (MT: Mt. Ebal), in accordance with Deut 27:4, that constitutes the birth of the Samaritans. The Samaritans were Jews who remained in the land while their compatriots were exiled to Babylon. They worshipped Yahweh and venerated Moses over the prophets who followed him.
\nIn Kartveit\u2019s conception, therefore, there was no \u201cschism\u201d in the way that it usually implies the Samaritans splitting off from the Jews. Rather, the Samaritans were Jews who were fulfilling the precepts of the Pentateuch in establishing a cultic site of worship on Mt. Gerizim. They shared Israel\u2019s foundation document, which already included a discussion of the relationship between Moses and the prophets, but later expanded it to emphasize the Mosaic elements and significantly to change the imperfect verb \u201che will choose\u201d to the perfect \u201che has chosen\u201d in relation to the place of cultic worship on Mt. Gerizim in Deuteronomy. This version, then, was selected around the turn of the era or later to become the Samaritan Pentateuch. Kartveit concluded that \u201cthere was one version of the Pentateuch in circulation at the time when Deut 27:4 provided the temple founders with their necessary hieros logos for the project, but their version of the Pentateuch was deliberately chosen around the turn of the era or later. It is impossible to date the Samaritan \u2018schism\u2019 after the supposed \u2018canonization,\u2019 or to date the \u2018canonization\u2019 before the \u2018schism.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe use of the dating of the so-called \u201cSamaritan schism\u201d as a decisive moment in the formation of the Torah is thus called into question, be it dated to the fifth century, as Ryle would have it, or to the second century, in Beckwith\u2019s view. The extant sources are biased, redactionally complex, and incomplete. It is unwise to build one theory on the shaky foundations of another.
\nBefore we move on to the other historical pillar of the three-stage theory, the gathering of rabbis at Yavneh, brief mention should be made of an alternative reconstruction of the development of the canon by Andrew Steinmann. Steinmann obviated the whole issue of the Samaritan schism and simply assumed that the whole canon was closed toward the end of the fifth century BCE. In subsequent centuries, he maintained that the books of this canon were differentiated among various Jewish and Christian groups; the oldest organization of the canon was the books of \u201cthe Law and Prophets\u201d before the tradition split it into two strands, one maintaining the bipartite division of \u201cthe Law and Prophets\u201d and the other dividing the canon into the three parts of \u201cthe Law, the Prophets and the Psalms\/Writings.\u201d Steinmann\u2019s work is not about the closing of the canon as such; it is about the closed canon\u2019s subsequent development into two or three divisions.
\nSteinmann based his assumption upon David Noel Freedman\u2019s theory of the symmetry of the books of the Bible and its implications for the closing of the canon. According to Freedman, the whole Bible could be divided into two groups, one called \u201cPrimary History\u201d (consisting of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets) and another group that combined the Latter Prophets and the Writings (without Daniel, which he dated to the Maccabean period). Freedman pointed out that the two groups show remarkable symmetry, containing as they do 149,641 and 149,940 words respectively, and this symmetry could only be achieved once all of the books had been assembled into collections at about 400 BCE and its final shape was formalized at ca. 160 BCE, when Daniel was added.
\nFreedman\u2019s theory of symmetry and of the closing of the canon is open to question. His division of the Hebrew Bible into two groups is artificial; he had to invent a category of \u201cPrimary History\u201d because he could not find a name for this group in the ancient sources. Moreover, the statistical count is based upon the Leningrad Codex of the Middle Ages and on the questionable assumption that the Masoretic Text was not only the dominant text-type, but also that its textual form was already fixed by the time of Ezra. He ignored the earliest evidence of the biblical texts from Qumran that shows a diversity of text-types, including the proto-MT text, the Samaritan text, septuagintal text, and others besides.
\nIn the past, the evidence of the Qumran biblical scrolls was marginalized; they were seen as sectarian and not representative of mainstream Judaism. This marginalization cannot now be maintained, as it is increasingly becoming clear that the scrolls found in caves by Khirbet Qumran consisted of a heterogenous collection of writings, including sectarian and non-sectarian texts. All the scrolls may have belonged to the collection, but they are not all sectarian in the sense that they represent only the peculiar views of a small group. Rather the scrolls also represent the textual situation of the biblical texts in the Second Temple period generally. Steinmann\u2019s alternate reconstruction of the development of the canon, therefore, rests on some contentious assumptions.<\/p>\n
The \u201cCouncil\u201d of Yavneh<\/p>\n
The other historical event that propped up the three-stage theory was the gathering of rabbis at Yavneh in the aftermath of the destruction of the Temple by the Romans. Ryle suggested that the third division of the canon, the Writings, was closed at the \u201ccouncil\u201d of Yavneh in 90 CE. Searching critiques have since queried such a characterization of the gathering of rabbis.
\nThe label of \u201ccouncil\u201d has been shown to be anachronistic. In 1964 Jack Lewis criticized the translation of beth din, beth ha-midrash, yeshiva, methivta, and \u201cin the vineyard of Javneh\u201d by \u201ccouncil\u201d or \u201csynod\u201d: \u201cThough these are legitimate renderings of these terms, sixteen hundred years of ecclesiastical usage and twenty-one ecumenical councils have given these latter words certain ecclesiastical connotations of officially assembled authoritative bodies of delegates which rule and settle questions.\u201d Rather Lewis proposed that \u201cschool,\u201d \u201ccourt,\u201d or \u201cassembly\u201d would be more suitable terms for conveying the nature of the gathering at Javneh.
\nTerminology aside, Lewis also made the important point that the specific \u201ccanonical discussion\u201d at Javneh did not include all scripture but only Qohelet and the Song of Songs and that, moreover, the so-called \u201cdecision\u201d settled nothing, as evidenced by the ensuing debate about these same two books.
\nIt is now recognized that the modern, Christian-influenced conception of the gathering at Javneh can be traced back to the work of the Jewish scholar Heinrich Graetz, who suggested that the canon was closed by the \u201cSynode\u201d of Javneh. In an excursus to his study of Qohelet or Ecclesiastes in 1871, Graetz suggested that the third division of the writings was assembled in two stages, first by the Pharisees and Sadducees in 65 CE, and then at the synod of Javneh in 90 CE. The final closing of the canon took place only with the redaction of the Mishnah, which he dated to 189 CE. The first two divisions of the Torah and Prophets having been previously decided, the synod of Javneh confirmed the closing of the canon.
\nSubsequent scholars modified Graetz\u2019s dating by making the \u201csynod\/council of Yavneh\u201d not just the confirmation but also the final closing of the canon. Graetz\u2019s view is based on a passage in the Mishnah that he interpreted as describing the tumultuous leadership succession of Johanan, Gamaliel II, and Eleazar ben Azariah in the academy of Yavneh (m. Yad. 3.5\u20134.4). In the same passage, the sages ruled that \u201call the holy scriptures defile the hands,\u201d an enigmatic criterion for deciding the canonicity of books, and reported disputes over the status of the Song of Songs and Qohelet.
\nDavid Aune has investigated the source and influence of Graetz\u2019s views and has suggested that he must have read Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, published in 1670, in which Baruch Spinoza proposed that the canonization of sacred scripture took place at a \u201cconcilium pharisaeorum\u201d some time in the late Second Temple period. For Aune, both Graetz and Spinoza used the conciliar decisions of the church as a model for conceptualizing the Jewish process of defining the extent of the Hebrew Scriptures. Lewis, in an update of the discussion, doubted that it could be known \u201cwhether Graetz borrowed the idea of a synod from Spinoza.\u201d
\nIf Yavneh was not a \u201ccouncil\u201d or \u201csynod,\u201d what then did it signify? Shaye Cohen has argued that the gathering of rabbis at Yavneh was a \u201cgrand coalition\u201d of different groups and parties. It was not a \u201cpharisaic triumph,\u201d as it is often described in the literature. While many, if not most, of the sages were Pharisees or their descendants, there was no attempt to make anything of their ancestry, nor any intention of defining orthodoxy. Yavneh saw the end of sectarianism self-definition.
\nWhether it is the Sadducees, Essenes, or members of the house of Hillel or Shammai, the rabbis allowed all Jews of whatever persuasion \u201cto agree to disagree.\u201d The rabbis at Javneh did not experience a sense of crisis and did not feel a need to use exclusion as a means of establishing a normative religion. Rather there was a grand coalition representing the cessation of sectarianism. Before Javneh, Cohen argued, Judaism was characterized by sectarianism and the exclusion of some Jews by other Jews who did not agree with them. The destruction of the Temple, therefore, provided the impetus for reconsidering the damaging effects of internal divisiveness.
\nMartin Goodman has recently challenged Cohen\u2019s depiction of the post-70 reconstitution of Rabbinic Judaism at Javneh. In particular he questions (1) whether any of the groups before 70 really separated from the Temple, and (2) whether variety within Judaism really came to an end after 70. Goodman argues that before 70 the centrality of the Temple remained for all Jews, with the sole exception of the extreme allegorists attacked by Philo (de migratione Abrahami 89\u201393).
\nFor Goodman, Josephus did not hide disagreements among Jews on the cultic service, but such differences of opinion did not \u201cprevent unanimity between these groups on the value of the worship carried out in Jerusalem by the priests on behalf of the whole nation.\u201d Goodman then discussed the Essenes and the community (yahad) of the Dead Sea Scrolls, arguing that the scholarly view that these groups abandoned the Temple is wrong.
\nFirst, the only explicit reference to the Essene separation from the Temple is found in the Latin version of AJ 18.19, which states that the Essenes \u201csend votive offerings to the Temple but do not offer (non celebrant) animal sacrifices.\u201d Philo, describing the Essenes, states that they are \u201cutterly dedicated to the service of God (\u03b8\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03b5\u03c5\u03c4\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6), not offering up animals, but judging it more fitting to render their minds truly holy\u201d (QOP 75). Goodman argues that reading these passages as an avoidance of the Temple is possible but not necessary.
\nIn fact, the Essenes seemed to have participated in the Temple, only they used their own distinctive rituals. Thus Josephus states that the Essenes, \u201csending votive offerings to the Temple[,] perform sacrifices with a difference of purifications\u201d and that they \u201ccarry out sacrifices by themselves, being banned from the common precinct\u201d (AJ 18.19). This suggests to Goodman that the Essenes were restricted to certain areas in Jerusalem, near the Temple site and perhaps by the Essene Gate. On Philo\u2019s description, Goodman argues that it is an idealization and should not be understood literally as a disapproval of animal sacrifices.
\nTurning to the scrolls, Goodman accepts that the references in the Pesher Habakkuk recount the dispute between the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest. Nonetheless, he does not see any evidence that the the scrolls precluded a continuing participation in the Temple cult. The Temple Scroll details the rules for the Temple; the mishmarot texts contain calendars of priestly courses; there are references to priests, Aaron, and Zadok; the Copper Scroll contains a list of Temple treasures; the Damascus Document legislates on sacrifices and offerings in the Temple; MMT provides advice to the high priest on the administration of the Temple. Most of all, Goodman sees the importance of Deuteronomy among the biblical scrolls, which \u201crenders deeply implausible the notion that those who treated this text as authoritative will simply have ignored its injunction.\u201d
\nGoodman concludes by suggesting that the destruction of the Temple meant not so much the end of sectarianism, but the end of a public stage on which the disagreements were played out. After 70, Jews could disagree without having to confront each other in person; they could do so in \u201cuntroubled isolation.\u201d
\nGoodman\u2019s view that the Essenes and yahad of the scrolls did participate in cultic worship at the Temple is possible but not inevitable. The importance of the book of Deuteronomy in the corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls is not decisive, as he seems to think. Goodman believes that Deuteronomy centralizes the cult at Jerusalem. In fact, in Deut 12 the verb is significantly in the imperfect, and five times it states that the Lord God \u201cwill choose\u201d the place of his habitation (Deut 12:5, 11, 12, 18, 26). At least in Deuteronomy, the place has not been decided as Jerusalem. It is only in the Samaritan Pentateuch that the verb occurs in the perfect, \u201chas chosen,\u201d and that the cultic site is Mt. Gerizim and not Jerusalem.
\nGoodman\u2019s appeal to a host of scrolls, from the Temple Scroll to the Copper Scroll to the Damascus Document, does not exclude an interpretation of the anti-Temple stance by one or more communities of the scrolls. These scrolls are not all sectarian and vary in genre. The Temple described in the Temple Scroll, for instance, is clearly idealized. The Temple Mount, according to the dimensions stipulated, would span across the Kidron Valley and occupy the Mount of Olives. It is more like the Temple of the book of Revelation than the Herodian Temple. The Copper Scroll is most likely a fictional text about the hiding of treasures, akin to the rabbinic tractate masseket kelim, and not a real treasure map. Finally, the evidence that Goodman cites to support the view of Jewish unity all comes from Josephus\u2019 Against Apion (2.193\u2013195; 2.196; 2.179\u201381), where the overarching rhetorical strategy is to contrast the disunity of the Greeks with the singular agreement of the Jews.
\nAs far as the canon was concerned, it was the Pharisaic 22\/24 books that became majority canon. Uniformity of canon followed diversity. John Collins applied the significance of Yavneh to the formation of the canon: \u201cIf most rabbis at Jamnia were Pharisees, it was inevitable that Pharisaic opinion would prevail. So it was with the canon. If the twenty-two or twenty-four book canon had taken shape before 70 CE, as it seems likely, it was the canon of a party, not of all Jews. After 70, through the influence of Jamnia, other Scriptures were ignored and lost.\u201d
\nCollins\u2019 view that the Pharisaic canon became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism is the basic model that I have followed in this book. It is widely accepted that Rabbinic literature holds a broadly Pharisaic point of view. What is interesting is the way that the canon has been connected to the end of sectarianism. It means that before Yavneh, different collections of scriptures were held by different sects.
\nUnlike Collins, however, I would place less significance on Yavneh. The link between the canon and Yavneh is based on Mishnah Yadayim, in which it is thought that R. Eleazar ben Azariah replaced Rabban Gamaliel at Yavneh, a tradition that is textually and historically unsound. Also, the debates about the canonical status of Qohelet and the Song of Songs, as well as the Wisdom of Ben Sira, did not end but continued into the second century CE and beyond.<\/p>\n
The Temple and the One Canon<\/p>\n
A central criticism against the three-stage theory is the conception of the sequential closing of the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. Linear development, however, persists in subtler forms, whether it is in Leiman\u2019s and Beckwith\u2019s theory of the Maccabean dating of the closing of the canon or in Barton\u2019s bipartite theory. Assumed in the linear development is the view of an official canon that all Jews recognized.
\nSid Leiman argued that the Torah and Prophets were considered to have been inspired and canonical by 450 BCE, shortly after the cessation of prophecy between 500 and 450 BCE. Some books, such as Job and Psalms, were excluded either because \u201cthey did not properly belong in a religious history of the Israelite nation\u201d or because the books, such as Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, were composed after the prophetic canon was closed. Leiman admitted that it was rather speculative but that the earliest canonical activity could be traced back to the time of Moses, Samuel, Solomon, and Hezekiah. By contrast, he believed that the closing of the canon could be established with some certainty: it took place around 164 BCE under the aegis of Judas Maccabee.
\nBeckwith too advocated a modified view of the sequential closing of the canon. In his theory all the books of the Old Testament were canonized very early on. The tripartite division of the canon was closed in two stages, first the Law, followed by the Prophets and Writings together. Based on 2 Macc 2:14, he argued that in 164 BCE Judas Maccabaeus must have classified and subdivided the single, non-Mosaic collection into a second and third section of Prophets and Writings by \u201ccompiling a list.\u201d Beckwith even wondered whether the list of the order of the books of the Prophets and Writings in b. Baba Bathra 14a originated with Judas.
\nThis is entirely conjectural since 2 Maccabees does not mention any list-making activity by Judas. Arie van der Kooij questioned the historical trustworthiness of the account and pointed out that \u201cthe tradition about Nehemiah founding a library is generally assumed to be fictional. Furthermore, the text does not offer any indication that the collection of books by Judas should be interpreted as a classification of the books in the sections of the Prophets and Writings.\u201d Moreover, the order of the biblical books in b. Baba Bathra was not fixed, as evidenced by its continued fluctuation in Hebrew manuscripts and codices to the Middle Ages.
\nOn the origins of the canonization of the Torah, Beckwith was uncharacteristically vague. He distinguished between the process of canonization and final fixation of an individual book: \u201cCould it be that the earlier (often shorter) books which formed the original nuclei of certain canonical books were already, in their original shape, recognized as canonical, and then simply remained canonical as they were elaborated, completed and located in one of the three ultimate sections of the canon?\u201d
\nThis view of the origins has some similarities to Leiman\u2019s discussion of the earliest canonical activity, although Leiman clearly noted that this earliest stage also included non-canonical works (e.g., book of the Wars of the Lord, Num 21:14). According to Beckwith, books or portions of books of the Law were canonized very early, the dating of \u201cthe Decalogue, perhaps from the time of Moses and Deuteronomy, from the time of Josiah.\u201d He did not give precise times but presumably was thinking of the traditional dating of Josiah in the seventh century BCE and Moses in the fifteenth and fourteenth centuries BCE.
\nLinear development can also be detected in John Barton\u2019s theory of the bipartite canon of \u201cthe Law and the Prophets.\u201d For him, the Torah was defined and closed at some early time. All other authoritative books were considered under the general rubric of \u201cprophets\u201d and remained so throughout the post-exilic period and the first few centuries after the turning of the era. There was no third division of Writings because there was not yet a fixed, second division of Prophets.
\nThe sequential closing of the canon as such is not problematic. The traditional division of the Hebrew Bible into the Torah, the Prophets, and Writings can be seen as a clue to its development. More difficult is the implication of an official canon in such a linear development. Leiman, Beckwith, and Barton all supposed that there was an official canon in ancient Judaism, and it was this canon to which the ancient sources referred. Leiman and Barton, to their credit, did recognize the possibility of the existence of other canons among the Qumran community, Philo, and other esoteric groups.
\nBeckwith, by contrast, believed that there was only one canon that was the common inheritance that all ancient Jews accepted. There was no disagreement among the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes about what he called \u201cthe public canon.\u201d
\nOn the Qumran-Essene community, Beckwith argued that they did not have a different, enlarged canon. The apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic works that they esteemed were regarded by them as \u201ca sort of interpretative appendix\u201d and of a lower order than the canonical books. The Essene canon was the public canon that all Jews, including the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Therapeutae, accepted as authoritative, the enumeration of which was twenty-two books; the variant figure of twenty-four books found in 4 Ezra and rabbinic literature is due to the different numbering of Ruth and Lamentations with or separately from Judges and Jeremiah.
\nBeckwith\u2019s view that the Essenes held a twenty-two-book canon is based on the questionable assumption that the Greek translator of Jubilees was an Essene who inserted a reference to this number of scriptural books in Jubilees 2:23. As James VanderKam summarized it: \u201cBeckwith learned from Milik that there was no space in a Qumran manuscript of Jubilees for this additional line (which is lacking in all Ethiopic manuscripts), so he argues that it must have been added by the Essene scholar who translated Jubilees into Greek no later than the first century C.E. But this line of argument is completely unconvincing.\u201d
\nBeckwith argued that from the time of the Maccabees to the destruction of the city of Jerusalem in 70 CE there was a public canon that was \u201claid up\u201d in the Temple. This Second Temple custom followed the earlier Israelite practice of the First Temple and Wilderness periods that saw the deposit of \u201can incipient canon of Scripture\u201d in or beside sacred objects, such as the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle, and in the sanctuaries, such as Shechem. According to Beckwith, this practice not only continued in the Second Temple period, but from the time of Judas Maccabee in the second century BCE, it was also the closed canon of the Torah, Prophets, and Writings that was deposited at the Temple in Jerusalem, serving as the canon for all Jews: \u201cIt seems, therefore, that for as long as the Temple stood there was no essential disagreement among the different Jewish schools about the public canon.\u201d
\nThere are several problems with Beckwith\u2019s historical reconstruction of a public canon. First, as mentioned above, he accepted the account of 2 Maccabees in his argument that the canon was closed under Judas in the second century BCE. As will be shown in chapter 6, the view that Judas, like Nehemiah, founded a library, is not supported by a close reading of 2 Maccabees 2:13\u201315. Second, the evidence that Beckwith adduced from Josephus and Rabbinic literature is insufficient to show that \u201cthe Temple Scriptures\u201d included the whole of the Tanak.
\nJosephus\u2019 evidence explicitly mentions the Law (War 7.150), and it may also have alluded to Joshua (Ant. 5.61), but it says nothing about the rest of the prophets and the writings at the Temple. To find reference to these, Beckwith cited Tosefta Kelim Baba Metsia 5.8, which states that the books of Ezra, the Prophets, and \u201cthe Fifths\u201d make the hands unclean if they come out of the Temple. Beckwith took it for granted that the books of the Prophets corresponded exactly to the books of the second division. As for \u201cthe Fifths,\u201d he interpreted it not just as a reference to the Psalter, but the whole of the Writings. The title of \u201cthe Fifths\u201d may refer to the Pentateuch or the Psalter, but even when it points to the latter, it is doubtful that it could mean the whole of the Writings. In Tosefta Kelim B. M. 5.8 \u05d7\u05d5\u05de\u05e9\u05d9\u05df most likely refers to \u201cthe five books (of Moses).\u201d
\nThird, Beckwith felt compelled to reconcile his theory of the public canon with the view of Origen (Against Celsus 1.49; Commentary on Matthew 17:35f) and Hippolytus (Refutation 9.29) that the Sadducees, who controlled the Temple, had a canon that consisted only of the Pentateuch. Whether the church fathers were correct in their reports is moot. Hippolytus\u2019 account, for instance, is not as reliable as Beckwith believes it to be. In the same work, Refutation of All Heresies, Hippolytus clearly conflated the Essenes with the Zealots and Sicarii (9.26). Moreover, a late midrash implies that the Sadducees knew more than the Pentateuch.
\nPreferring the testimony of the church fathers, Beckwith advanced a further theory of the Sadducees, their canon, and the Temple to explain the apparent discrepancy between the patristic sources and his theory of the public canon. According to him, when the Sadducees took over the Temple in the second century BCE, they inherited the public canon that had already been accepted, even though they themselves held a canon that contained only the Pentateuch. Then, in the second and early third centuries CE and in the aftermath of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the Sadducees \u201cjoined up with the Samaritans\u201d since their own cultic center was now in ruins. The evidence for this view is based on the highly questionable account of the Samaritans and Sadduceans in Hippolytus\u2019 Refutation 9.29, which is likely to be another instance of conflation.
\nIt is improbable that the Sadducees, who were aristocratic priests based on the cultic centrality of Jerusalem, would now abandon that ideology and become part of the group that had established the rival cultic site on Mt Gerizim. There is scant information about the Sadducees, apart from the fact that they were part of the Judean nobility, from whom some of the high priests were appointed. Beckwith\u2019s view is entirely unconvincing, compounded as it is with one questionable view piled on top of another.
\nNotwithstanding Beckwith\u2019s theory of the public canon, it should be asked whether there was a canon that all Jews accepted. Arie van der Kooij has argued that from the second century BCE onward there existed an \u201cofficial and authoritative\u201d canon, as evidenced by the Wisdom of Ben Sira, both in its original conception by the grandfather in 39:1\u20133 and the Prologue of the grandson.
\nAccording to van der Kooij, the tripartite division of \u201cthe Law,\u201d \u201cthe Prophets,\u201d and \u201cthe other books of our ancestors\u201d in the Prologue matches the three divisions that Josephus enumerates in Against Apion 1.38\u201343. The first two divisions of the Law and Prophets are defined and closed. As for the third division, van der Kooij followed Beckwith in arguing that the definite article of \u201cthe other books of our ancestors\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b1 \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b1) also indicates that it was closed. The twenty-two-book canon of Josephus is not an \u201cad hoc construction\u201d but reflects the canon of the Pharisees.
\nThe Prologue, van der Kooij continues, differs from the original conception of the grandfather; in chapter 39:1\u20133, it is not the tripartite canon that is in view. Rather the ideal scribe is to reflect on \u201cthe Law of the Most High,\u201d \u201cthe wisdom of all the ancients,\u201d and \u201cthe prophecies.\u201d The \u201cwisdom of all the ancients\u201d seems to imply \u201ca wider literary horizon than the wisdom literature of ancient Israel,\u201d whereas the grandson\u2019s Prologue emphasizes the threefold structure of the collection of books, a thorough study of these books, and the exclusive use of \u201cthe books of the ancestors.\u201d Van der Kooij attributed this shift as a corollary to the Maccabean revolt and its increased nationalism.
\nThere are several difficulties with van der Kooij\u2019s theory of an official and authoritative canon. It is undoubted that the Temple served as the depository of some of the scriptures, especially the Torah and the Psalms (cf. Josephus, Ant. 12.323). Josephus reports that at the capture of Jerusalem \u201cthe Law of the Jews\u201d was taken as booty along with the golden table, candlesticks, and lamps to Rome to be deposited in Vespasian\u2019s palace (War 7.148, 150, 162), and Titus gave him the concession to keep the holy books (Life 418).
\nBut Against Apion 1.38\u201343, a passage on which van der Kooij depended, says nothing about the Temple. The context is an apology for the historical accuracy of Jewish history. Josephus, in a polemical flourish, was attempting to show his Greek readers that Jewish history was both accurate and consistent because \u201cevery Jew\u201d considered the twenty-two books as the decrees of God. His account is marked by rhetorical exaggeration that every Jew \u201cwill cheerfully die for them\u201d (i.e., the books) and that \u201cno one has ventured whether to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable.\u201d The Wisdom of Ben Sira, both the Prologue and the original instruction, also says nothing about the presence of these books in the Temple.
\nMoreover, the act of depositing something in the Temple, whether in the library or archive, as such does not necessarily imply \u201ccanonization.\u201d Other important works and documents were deposited there for safekeeping. The lists of priestly genealogies, for instance, were deposited in the Temple and were consulted in the event that a priestly lineage needed to be established (Josephus, Apion 1.34\u201336; cf. War 2.427, 6.354; Life 1.6). Conversely, holy books were not just deposited in the Temple; they were also found in the synagogues (Josephus, Ant. 16.164).
\nWhat Josephus says about the canon in Against Apion will be discussed below. Suffice it to note here that van der Kooij\u2019s assertion that the Prologue of Ben Sira corroborates the closed, Pharisaic canon of Josephus is open to challenge. Josephus and Jesus ben Sira\u2019s grandson do not appear to have the same conception of a closed canon. Notwithstanding any surface similarities between the two notices (e.g., in the description of \u201cthe remaining books\u201d), Josephus\u2019 conception of canon is closed and fixed, as evidenced by his enumeration of five, thirteen and four books for each of the sections of \u201cthe books of Moses,\u201d \u201cthe Prophets,\u201d and \u201cthe remaining books\u201d respectively. For him, there are only twenty-two books in the Jewish canon. By contrast, the Prologue does not provide a similar book count for each section nor a total for all three sections. As will be shown in chapter 6, both the Wisdom and Prologue describe the curriculum of the scribe.
\nJohn Barton has argued that in the context of the Prologue \u201cthe other books\u201d is more naturally understood as \u201call other books\u201d since the point is that all books lose something in translation, not just scripture. Barton\u2019s interpretation of books in general is in keeping with the general thrust of the Prologue, which describes the grandfather as not only learned in scripture but simply learned.
\nFinally, it should not be supposed that the Temple authorities served like a church council or synod in decreeing a canon that was to be followed by all Jews. There is no evidence that the scriptures of the Temple were considered normative in this sense. Canon was not, for the most part, a point of contention in ancient Judaism as it was in Christianity.
\nRather, disputes centered on the halakhic interpretation of the biblical texts; what constituted a \u201cbiblical text\u201d was simply assumed. The eventual adoption of the Pharisaic canon by the rabbis may be explained by the membership of those who founded Rabbinic Judaism. The other sects that joined this \u201cgrand coalition\u201d presumably were willing to accept this canon. Why they did so cannot now be known, but one possibility is surely that their canons shared a considerable common core of authoritative books, and their halakha did not depend upon the books whose status is disputed.<\/p>\n
Scriptural Scrolls Deposited at the Temple<\/p>\n
There were no \u201cTemple Scriptures\u201d that served as the public, common, or official canon of all Jews. This does not mean that there were no scriptural scrolls kept at the Temple. Josephus explicitly mentioned copies of the law in connection with the Temple. Scrolls of scriptures were used for public reading and worship. Psalms were sung during worship at the Temple, and it is not unreasonable to assume that there were copies of one or more versions of the psalter kept there for this purpose. The scriptural scrolls of the Temple did in specific times and cases have an authoritative function: the discovery of the law book was a catalyst for cultic reform in the reign of Josiah in 622 BCE, and the three Torah scrolls, according to Rabbinic literature, were used to establish a standardized text. But these instances are not indicative of an official canon kept in the library of the Temple.
\nIn pre-exilic times Hilkiah, the high priest, discovered \u201cthe book of the law,\u201d identified by many with the book of Deuteronomy or a version of it (Urdeuteronomium), when repairs were being made to the Temple (2 Kgs 22). The book was brought before King Josiah and read aloud by Shaphan, his secretary. Upon hearing its words, King Josiah tore up his clothes and sought to know what Yahweh had intended for him, his people, and Judah, for he perceived that divine wrath was directed against them on account of the disobedience of the ancestors to the words written in it (v. 13). He was filled with remorse, and his response to the hearing of the words of the law was deemed suitably chastened. Huldah, the prophetess, described how King Josiah had \u201csoftened his heart\u201d and \u201chumbled himself before Yahweh\u201d (v. 19), the reward of which was that he would not see the divine wrath on Judah and would die in peace (v. 20).
\nThe discovery of the law book precipitated an extensive cultic reform program, as Josiah made a covenant with Yahweh to keep all commandments, purged the Temple of Jerusalem and the cities of Judah of idolatry, and reinstated the observance of the feast of passover (2 Kgs 23). This reform lasted one generation, as his sons Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim again did what was evil before Yahweh and returned to what the fathers had done in practicing idolatry (2 Kgs 23:32).
\nThe law book found in the Temple clearly had an authoritative function in Josiah\u2019s cultic reform program, but it was not a public canon. First, it consisted of only one book and not the Torah or Tanak. Second, unlike the Deuteronomist who compiled the history, the law book was not recognized by the Judean kings before and after Josiah as the standard by which to guide their behavior. The kings before Josiah neglected the law book, and his sons Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim subsequently abandoned it. The law book would be better described as a book of reform rather than a public canon.
\nThird, the narrative does not presuppose a \u201cTemple library.\u201d 2 Kgs 22 does not specify a place within \u201cthe house of YHWH.\u201d It was presumably a place for the safekeeping of valuable treasures and documents. \u201cLibrary\u201d is a convenient term, but it misleads if one also thinks of it as an institution that was accessible to the public and was primarily for books. In the Chronicler and Josephus\u2019 versions of the story, the accounts of Hilkiah\u2019s discovery also included a reference to \u201cthe silver\u201d (2 Chr 34:14) and \u201cthe gold\u201d (Ant. 10.58) that was being brought out of the same place as the book of the law (cf. Ezra 6:1; bSanh 22a). Karel van der Toorn described the place of depository as an area closed off from the public, \u201ca storage room.\u201d
\nIt is often thought that in the Hellenistic period a designated library at the Temple could be identified. The letter embedded within 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 may be legendary as an account of its foundation by Nehemiah, but the reference to a \u201clibrary\u201d (\u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b7) that Judas established (\u201cin the same way\u201d) was presumably real and verifiable by readers in the second century BCE. This institution was similar to a modern library as it included \u201call the books\u201d lost in the war. This library of books was offered to Jewish compatriots in Alexandria in the event that they \u201chad need of them,\u201d which probably meant a loan for the purposes of making copies of books that were missing in the Alexandrian collection.
\nThis common understanding of 2 Macc 2:13\u201315, however, is untenable. What was being compared was the collection of books in a general sense. Judas did not collect the same books as Nehemiah, nor did he found a library. What he did was to collect the books that had fallen to pieces because of the war. The persecution of Jews by Antiochus Epiphanes included the burning and cutting up of the books of the law (see chapter 6).
\nPut simply, there were scriptural scrolls deposited in the Temple but no public canon. The book of the law found in the Temple storeroom during Josiah\u2019s reign was a book of reform. It was inaccessible to the public and did not serve as the standard of piety for all Israelites.
\nAccording to Rabbinic literature, the scrolls kept at the Temple served an authoritative function in establishing textual readings, but this role is not the same as canonization. In the Jerusalem Talmud, it states:<\/p>\n
Three Scrolls of the Law were found in the Temple Court: the me\u2019ona scroll, the za\u2019atute scroll and the hi\u2019 scroll. In one of them they found written \u05de\u05e2\u05d5\u05df \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9 \u05e7\u05d3\u05dd (Deut 33:27) and in the other two they found written \u05de\u05e2\u05e0\u05d4; they adopted the reading of the two and discarded the reading of the one. In one they found written \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05dc\u05d7 \u05d0\u05ea \u05d6\u05e2\u05d8\u05d5\u05d8\u05d9 \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05e9\u05e8\u05d0\u05dc (Exod 24:5); and in the other two they found written \u05d5\u05d9\u05e9\u05dc\u05d7 \u05d0\u05ea \u05e0\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d1\u05e0\u05d9 \u05dc\u05d0\u05d9\u05e9\u05e8; they adopted the two and discarded the one. In one they found \u05d4\u05d9\u05d0 written nine times, and in the other two they found it written eleven times; they adopted the two and discarded the one (jTa\u2019anith 4, 2; 68a).<\/p>\n
This passage, paralleled in three other places in Aboth de Rabbi Nathan, Sifre, and Soferim, reports in a rather terse manner, typical of Rabbinic literature, an apparent acceptance of the reading of the majority of two in the case where three manuscripts disagree. Thus the fuller spelling of \u201crefuge\u201d (\u05de\u05e2\u05e0\u05d4) in the phrase \u201cthe ancient God is a refuge\u201d is accepted over the word orthographically spelled without a final heh. Likewise, the Aramaic-influenced variant of \u201cyoung men\u201d (\u05d6\u05e2\u05d8\u05d5\u05d8\u05d9), in the phrase \u201che designated some young men among the Israelites,\u201d is rejected over the reading of \u05e0\u05e2\u05e8\u05d9 attested by two manuscripts. Finally, the spelling of the feminine, singular, independent pronoun \u05d4\u05d9\u05d0 (instead of \u05d4\u05b4\u05d5\u05d0) in eleven places in the Pentateuch is accepted because of its attestation by two manuscripts.
\nThis passage describes the text-critical function of Torah scrolls in the Temple, but it is not about canonization. It denotes scribal activity, in the act of copying scrolls, that involved what one could call \u201ctext-critical decision making by majority reading.\u201d Shemaryahu Talmon would go further in reconstructing dissident groups behind each text-tradition (e.g., the extreme conservatives who preferred the ancient spelling of \u05d4\u05b4\u05d5\u05d0). Thus the Rabbinic texts attest to \u201cthe confirmation and authorization of a reading which had already been accepted by the rabbis.\u201d Talmon believed that the issue was about defending the textus receptus that had already been established. It was not about canonization.
\nThe scribes who worked at the Temple must have had occasion to compare the various scrolls and their readings. In their copying, they would have been faced with a choice of variants, and this choice sometimes involved patterns of divergent readings in certain scrolls. It would seem that they engaged in rudimentary textual criticism, but in establishing a standardized text, they were not also fixing the extent of the scriptural collection. There were collections of scrolls deposited at the Temple of Jerusalem, but these were not \u201cTemple Scriptures\u201d that served as the standard for Jewish religious behavior.<\/p>\n
What conclusions can be drawn from this critical review of the scholarly discussions concerning the emergence of the canon? First, the two pillars of the three-stage theory, the so-called Samaritan \u201cschism\u201d and the \u201ccouncil\u201d of Yavneh, do not provide solid bases for a historical reconstruction of the formation of the canon.
\nSecond, there is scholarly impasse on the dating of the closing of the canon. Central to this deadlock are disagreements about what books are implied by the descriptive phrases or titles \u201cthe Prophets\u201d and \u201cthe Writings.\u201d There is no substantial disagreement about the Torah, its content, or the order of the five books. However, scholars do not see eye to eye on the second and third divisions, what they included, and when they were closed. An important factor identified in the disagreements is the approach that reads the evidence in a linear way that also assumes the existence of a public canon at the Temple.
\nThird, depositing books at the Temple as such did not mean that they were canonized since other works, like the priestly genealogies, were likewise stored there. Conversely, scriptures were also stored in the synagogues. It is also to be doubted that the Temple authorities considered their books to be normative in the sense that they acted to make sure that the ordinary Jew and sectarian complied with their decrees.<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
The Earliest Canonical Lists and Notices<\/p>\n
It is widely agreed that the earliest list of the canon in rabbinic literature is to be found in the Babylonian Talmud. The passage in Baba Bathra is important evidence for the closing of the Jewish canon, but the nature of the list and its dating are not as straightforward as is sometimes assumed. It is only one of several early Jewish lists of biblical books.
\nIn the following I will discuss the earliest canonical lists and notices. The distinction between the two is in the explicit or implicit expression of the biblical books. Thus, for instance, while Baba Bathra details the biblical books of the canon, 4 Ezra and Josephus assume them in a general description of the number of books. It will be shown that by the end of the first century CE, there was a Jewish canon, even if it was not finally defined and the inclusion of a few books was still open to dispute.<\/p>\n
The Rabbinic Canon<\/p>\n
The Talmudic list is found in the gemara of b. Baba Bathra 14a\u201315b. The context of the mishnah is the division of property and belongings in the event that partners break up. The subject of division leads to a digression and to the issue that sacred scrolls are not to be divided. The halakhic concern, it would seem, is for the ordering of scriptures when copied on a single scroll or bound together in a volume. The Pentateuch is not mentioned; it is assumed since its order is not in dispute.<\/p>\n
Our Rabbis taught: The order of the Prophets is, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. Let us examine this. Hosea came first, as it is written, \u201cGod spoke first to Hosea\u201d (Hos 1:2). But did God speak first to Hosea? Were there not many prophets between Moses and Hosea? R. Johanan (250\u2013290), however, has explained that [what it means is that] he was the first of the four prophets who prophesied at that period, namely, Hosea, Isaiah, Amos and Micah. Should not then Hosea come first?\u2014Since his prophecy is written along with those of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi came at the end of the prophets, he is reckoned with them. But why should he not be written separately and placed first?\u2014Since his book is so small, it might be lost [if copied separately]. Let us see again. Isaiah was prior to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Then why should not Isaiah be placed first?\u2014Because the Book of Kings ends with a record of destruction and Jeremiah speaks throughout of destruction and Ezekiel commences with destruction and ends with consolation and Isaiah is full of consolation; therefore we put destruction next to destruction and consolation next to consolation. The order of the writings is Ruth, the Book of Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Qohelet, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel and the Scroll of Esther, Ezra and Chronicles. Now on the view that Job lived in the days of Moses, should not the book of Job come first?\u2014We do not begin with a record of suffering. But Ruth also is a record of suffering?\u2014It is a suffering with a sequel [of happiness], as R. Johanan said: Why was her name called Ruth?\u2014Because there issued from her David who replenished the Holy One, blessed be He, with hymns and praises.<\/p>\n
The number of books enumerated is the same as the traditional twenty-four-book canon (see appendices 1 and 2): Prophets (7 + 1), Writings (11), and the Pentateuch (assumed; 5). Only six of the Twelve Minor Prophets are mentioned. There is no reference to Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, but it is reasonable to assume that they were included in the \u201cTwelve Minor Prophets\u201d mentioned since there is evidence that these shorter prophetic books were collected by the first century CE (8HevXIIgr, 4QXIIa\u2013g and Mur 88).
\nThere is no mention of Nehemiah, but Ezra and Nehemiah are often considered as one book. This twenty-four-book canon is well attested in the late midrashim, but not in the early tannaitic sources. The passage allows one to confirm that the sequence agrees with the traditional order only in the enumeration of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings and the last three Minor Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. The other prophetic books differ in their order, or the arrangement is simply not mentioned. Hosea, Amos, and Micah prophesied in the same period as Isaiah, but the ordering is according to the size of the book rather than to chronology.
\nHosea, and presumably also Amos and Micah, is included in the Minor Prophets scroll because it is so small. The sequence of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, which became the traditional order, was known, but the order advocated by Baba Bathra is Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah on the thematic dovetailing of destruction to destruction and consolation to consolation.
\nFinally, the passage notes that while Job would have come first in chronological order, the righteous sufferer apparently having lived in the days of Moses, the third division of the Tanak does not begin with suffering but with the book of Ruth, since its suffering is tempered with the prospect of the Davidic line.
\nThe dating of this passage is fraught with difficulties. One clue to the date is the reference to R. Johanan (250\u2013290), a Palestinian amora, who was responding to some unidentified rabbis (\u201cour rabbis taught\u201d). As is typical of rabbinic discourse, R. Johanan need not be contemporary with the unnamed rabbis. The tradition taught by these anonymous rabbis may be contemporary with or earlier than Johanan.
\nOne way of narrowing down the time frame is to appeal to corroborative evidence from the church fathers. Patristic writings include numerous references to the canon, and those of particular importance include a discussion of the Jewish canon. Philip Alexander has argued that the final closing of the Rabbinic canon took place around 200 CE in reaction to the \u201cgrowing power of Christianity, which, at the end of the second century, made decisive moves to define its canon of Scripture, and to add a Second Testament to the First.\u201d He supposed that the baraita of Baba Bathra must have come from before 200 CE and that this dating is corroborated by the canonical lists in Melito, Origen, and Jerome.<\/p>\n
Melito\u2019s List<\/p>\n
The patristic evidence is more ambiguous than Alexander allows. Melito, the bishop of Sardis (died ca. 190), wrote to Onesimus, \u201chis brother\u201d (perhaps a designation of a fellow bishop), about how he \u201clearned accurately the books of the Old Testament\u201d when he went east to the place \u201cwhere these things were preached and done.\u201d It is reasonable to assume that he came to Palestine, but it is uncertain whether the source of the canonical list he acquired was Jewish. The letter, cited in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.26, reads as follows:<\/p>\n
Accordingly when I [Melito] came to the east and reached the place where these things were preached and done, and learnt accurately the books of the Old Testament, I set down the facts and sent them to you [Onesimus]. These are their names: five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kingdoms, two books of Chronicles, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon and his Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Songs, Job, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in a single book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra.<\/p>\n
Melito\u2019s list differs in certain respects from that of Baba Bathra (see appendix 2). The order of Numbers-Leviticus is inverted in comparison with the traditional order. Melito did not mention Nehemiah, Lamentations, and Esther. Even if we assume, for argument\u2019s sake, that he counted Nehemiah with Ezra and Lamentations with Jeremiah, Melito\u2019s canonical list still lacked Esther.
\nMelito referred to 4 Reigns (four books of Kingdoms) according to the designation of the Greek Bible for Hebrew 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. Moreover, he divided the whole into two parts, the \u201cfive books of Moses\u201d and \u201cthe Prophets.\u201d The books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Kings, Chronicles, the Psalms, Proverbs, Eccclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Job are listed after Deuteronomy and before the next section heading of the Prophets. There is no heading for this middle section, and it is a selective combination of books from the traditional divisions of the Prophets and the Writings.<\/p>\n
Origen\u2019s Hebrew Books<\/p>\n
Origen (ca. 185\u2013254) listed \u201cthe canonical books as the Hebrews have handed them down\u201d in his commentary on the Psalms. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.25, cited this passage, which originally formed part of Origen\u2019s comment on Psalm 1. There is no doubt that the list is Jewish.<\/p>\n
But it should be known that there are twenty-two canonical books, according to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet.\u2026 These are the twenty-two books according to the Hebrews: That which is entitled with us Genesis, but with the Hebrews, from the beginning of the book, Bresith, that is \u201cIn the beginning.\u201d Exodus, Ouelle smoth, that is, \u201cThese are the names.\u201d Leviticus, Ouikra, \u201cAnd he called.\u201d Numbers, Ammes phekodeim. Deuteronomy, Elle addebareim, \u201cThese are the words.\u201d Jesus the son of Nave, Iosoue ben noun. Judges, Ruth with them in one book, Sophteim. Of Kingdoms i, ii, with them one, Samuel, \u201cThe called of God.\u201d Of Kingdoms iii, iv, in one, Ouammelch david, that is, \u201cThe kingdom of David.\u201d Chronicles i, ii, in one, Dabre iamein, that is, \u201cWords of days.\u201d Esdras i, ii, in one, Ezra, that is, \u201cHelper.\u201d Book of Psalms, Sphar thelleim. Proverbs of Solomon, Meloth. Ecclesiastes, Koelth. Song of Songs (not, as some suppose, Songs of Songs), Sir assireim. Esais, Iessia. Jeremiah with Lamentations and the Letter, in one, Jeremia. Daniel, Daniel. Ezekiel, Ezekiel. Job, Job. Esther, Esther. And outside these there are the Maccabees, which are entitled Sar beth sabanai el. (Commentary on the Psalms apud Eusebius, EH 6.25).<\/p>\n
Origen provided Greek titles and the corresponding Hebrew titles in Greek transliteration and translation. Origen stated that the Hebrew canon consisted of twenty-two books, corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Despite this, there are only twenty-one books on his list. It is reasonably supposed that the Twelve Minor Prophets, counted as one book, was accidentally left out of his enumeration. Origen also included with Jeremiah, Lamentations and the letter of Jeremiah, the latter indicating that he was trying to harmonize his Greek Bible with the Hebrew Bible. He also clearly indicated that \u201cMaccabees entitled Sarbeth Sarbane El\u201d does not belong (\u201capart from these\u201d) to the twenty-two-book canon. This expression likely reflects the Rabbinic description of \u201coutside books.\u201d
\nThe list does not section the canon into three divisions, but the books agree with the list of Baba Bathra. As for the date of when Origen wrote, it has to be before 232 since he wrote his commentary on the first twenty-five Psalms while he was still in Alexandria (Eusebius, EH 6.24, 26). The existence of this \u201cHebrew\u201d list, therefore, must have been before 232.<\/p>\n
Three Hebrew Countings of the Biblical Books<\/p>\n
Jerome (ca. 342\u2013420) also mentioned the Jewish canon in several places of his writings, the most important of which is in his Prologue to the Books of Samuel and Kings. In this preface, which he described as \u201ca helmeted introduction\u201d (galeatum principium, meaning a head covering for protection against anticipated attacks), he referred to three different ways of counting the books of the canon:<\/p>\n
That the Hebrews have twenty-two letters is testified by the Syrian and Chaldaean languages which are nearly related to the Hebrew, for they have twenty-two elementary sounds which are pronounced the same way, but are differently written.\u2026 And again, five are double letters, viz., Caph, Mem, Nun, Phe, Sade, for at the beginning and in the middle of words they are written one way, and at the end another way. Whence it happens that, by most people, five of the books are reckoned as double, viz., Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Jeremiah with Kinoth, i.e. Lamentations.\u2026 The first of these books is called Bresith, to which we give the name Genesis. The second, Elle Smoth, which bears the name Exodus; the third, Vaiecra, which is Leviticus; the fourth Vaiedabber, which we call Numbers; the fifth, Elle Addabarim, which is entitled Deuteronomy. These are the five books of Moses, which they properly call Thorath, that is law.
\nThe second class is composed of the Prophets, and they begin with Jesus the son of Nave, who among them is called Joshua the son of Nun. Next in the series is Sophtim, that is the book of Judges; and in the same book they include Ruth, because events narrated occurred in the days of the Judges. Then comes Samuel, which we call First and Second Kings. The fourth is Malachim, that is Kings, which is contained in the third and fourth volumes of Kings. And it is far better to say Malachim, that is Kings, than Malachot, that is Kingdoms. For the author does not describe the Kingdoms of many nations, but that of one people, the people of Israel, which is comprised in the twelve tribes. The fifth is Isaiah, the sixth, Jeremiah, the seventh, Ezekiel, the eight is the book of the Twelve Prophets, which is called among the Jews Thare Asra.
\nTo the third class belong the Hagiographa of which the first book begins with Job; the second with David, whose writings they divide into five parts and comprise in one volume of Psalms; the third is Solomon, in three books, Proverbs, which they call Parables, that is Masaloth; Ecclesiastes, that is Coeleth; the Song of Songs, which they denote by the title Sir Assirim; the sixth is Daniel; the seventh, Dabre Aiamim, that is, Words of the Days, which we may more expressively call a chronicle of the whole of the sacred history, the book that amongst us is called First and Second Chronicles; the eighth, Ezra, which itself is likewise divided amongst Greeks and Latins into two books; the ninth is Esther.
\nAnd so there are also twenty-two books of the Old Testament; that is, five of Moses, eight of the Prophets, nine of the Hagiographa, though some include Ruth and Kinoth (Lamentations) amongst the Hagiographa, and think that these books ought to be reckoned; we should thus have twenty-four books of the old law. And these the Apocalypse of John represents by the twenty-four elders, who adore the lamb. (Prologue to the Books of Samuel and Kings).<\/p>\n
There are twenty-two books of the Old Testament corresponding to the \u201celementary characters\u201d of the Hebrew alphabet, five of Moses, eight of the Prophets, and nine of the Hagiographa. However, some include Ruth and Lamentations (or Kinoth, from the Hebrew \u05e7\u05d9\u05e0\u05d4 for \u201celegy\u201d or \u201cdirge\u201d) in the Hagiographa and separate them from Judges and Jeremiah respectively, thus increasing the total to twenty-four books, a number Jerome relates to the twenty-four elders who adore the lamb in the book of Revelation (Rev 4:4, 5, 10; 5:8; 11:16; and 19:4).
\nJerome considered the twenty-two-book canon to be the count of the majority (\u201cby most people\u201d); the twenty-four-book enumeration is a variant enumerated by \u201csome.\u201d He also seems to know a twenty-seven-book count when he states that there are five letters of the Hebrew alphabet that are \u201cdouble letters\u201d (kaph, mem, nun, peh, and tsadeh) that change shape depending on whether they are written at the beginning and in the middle (medial) or at the end (final). The canonical implication is that Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, and Jeremiah with Kinoth (or Lamentations) are reckoned as double, thus increasing the total to twenty-seven.
\nJerome further notes (not cited above) that the books not included in the list are to be placed among the apocryphal writings\u2014namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Ben Sira, Judith, Tobit, Shepherd, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. The Jewish canon that Jerome discusses, whether it be counted as twenty-two, twenty-four, or twenty-seven, has the same content as the books mentioned in Baba Bathra. It is also tripartite, divided as it is into the Law, Prophets, and Hagiographa, but the internal order of the books in each of the two sections of the Prophets and Hagiographa is not the same as that found in Baba Bathra. By the fourth and fifth centuries, it is clear that the Jewish canon was set, but Jerome\u2019s notice says nothing about when that canon was first closed.<\/p>\n
Date of the Closing of the Jewish Canon<\/p>\n
Was the Jewish canon closed at around 200 CE? The date of Origen\u2019s canonical list, giving due allowance for the accidental omission of the Twelve Minor Prophets, provides a terminus ante quem; it must have been prior to 232. To be more precise about the date, however, one has to turn to the Bryennios list.
\nIn 1950, Jean-Paul Audet republished a canonical list that he dated to the first half of the second century CE or earlier. It is a list of names, partly in Hebrew and partly in Aramaic, of the biblical books of the Hebrew Bible transcribed in Greek letters, accompanied by their corresponding Greek names. The list was first published by P. Bryennios in 1883 at the end of his introduction to the principal edition of the Didache.
\nThe Bryennios list contained twelve lines on folio 76a of manuscript 54 of the Greek Patriarchate Library of Jerusalem, inserted between the second Epistle to Clement and the Didache. This copy of the Jerusalem manuscript is dated to 6564 of the Greeks or 1056 CE, but the origin of the list Audet traced to the first half of the second century CE or earlier. It is unknown who compiled this list, but Audet argued that it was used by Greek-speaking Christians who derived it originally from a Jewish source. Audet pointed out that the Bryennios list shared a common literary tradition with one of the three lists found in Epiphanius\u2019 writing (On Weights and Measures 22f; see appendix 3).
\nThe list includes a total of twenty-seven books, it is not divided into sections, and it diverges significantly from the traditional order. Each of Judges and Ruth (not adjacent), 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings, 1-2 Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah is counted separately.
\nThe order of the books is notable. The first three books of the Pentateuch, Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus, follows the well-attested sequence. This is then followed by Joshua-Deuteronomy-Numbers, an order that is otherwise unattested. As noted above, Melito\u2019s list inverts Leviticus-Numbers to Numbers-Leviticus. Two other canonical lists, Mommsen\u2019s African Catalogue (359\u2013365) and that of Leontius of Byzantium, agree with Melito\u2019s inversion of the third and fourth books of the Pentateuch. But none follows the Bryennios order.
\nAn ingenious solution was suggested by Peter Katz that this anomalous order was caused by a mistaken boustrophedon (\u201cox turning\u201d), a bi-directional reading of sequential lines likened to the ploughing of a field. Thus the copyist read the Greek of the first line, Genesis-Exodus-Leviticus, from left to right. At the end of the first line, the scribe then copied the original order backward because he was now reading the second line from right to left. The second line was thus mistakenly copied as Joshua-Deuteronomy-Numbers. Katz\u2019s solution is supported by Epiphanius\u2019 list, with which the Bryennios list shares a common tradition, which corrects the sequence to the usual order of the pentateuchal books.
\nThe books of Ruth, Job, Judges, and Psalms, in that order, come after Numbers and before the historical books. There is no good explanation for this order. Audet described the order as \u201chaphazard\u201d and characterized the list as a particular example of \u201cearly freedom.\u201d The order of historical books (1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings), with 1-2 Chronicles, is attested by Melito\u2019s and Origen\u2019s lists. The order of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs is similarly attested.
\nAudet asserted that \u201cthe prophets as a whole are grouped in a recognizable way,\u201d but no other list agrees with the sequence of Jeremiah, the Twelve Minor Prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and 1-2 Esdras. The order of Jeremiah before Isaiah agrees with Baba Bathra, but the insertion of the Minor Prophets between them is anomalous. Melito\u2019s list has a similar grouping of the prophets but not in the same order. Esther completes the enumeration of the OT books at the end, just as it does in Origen\u2019s and Jerome\u2019s lists.
\nThe Bryennios list does share a number of features with Epiphanius\u2019 list. This has led some to believe that it is late. But Audet has provided good text-critical reasons for thinking that the Bryennios list is not dependent upon Epiphanius\u2019 list. For instance, Epiphanius\u2019 list is more fullsome, complex, and grammatically correct, and it is unlikely that the Bryennios list, had it depended on the former, would have changed it to a more primitive form. Audet suggested that the two lists shared a common corrupt source, as evidenced by the identical errors of the Greek transliteration of Hebrew or Aramaic titles (e.g., the delta of \u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03c9\u03b9\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1 [Epiphanius] and \u03bf\u03b4\u03bf\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03b1 [Bryennios list] does not correspond to anything in the Hebrew title of Leviticus, \u05d5\u05d9\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0, and is likely to be a significant error in the text-critical sense of the term).
\nAs for its date, Audet offered several arguments, including the view that the Bryennios list, which he called \u201cthe Jerusalem manuscript,\u201d circulated among Greek-speaking Christians. There must have been lists, like the Jerusalem manuscript, in circulation among the churches in Asia Minor that were creating confusion and that led Onesimus to seek clarification about the state of the Old Testament canon. Along with his request for extracts of passages from the Old Testament sections of the Law and Prophets that testified to Jesus, Onesimus asked Melito for \u201caccurate facts about the ancient writings, how many they are in number, and what is their order.\u201d The fluidity of canonical lists is presupposed in Onesimus\u2019 request, and it could only prevail before the establishment of Origen\u2019s influence in Palestine and in the Greek-speaking countries.
\nIf Audet is correct, and he has made a substantial case for his dating, then a Jewish list of canonical books, agreeing in content but not in order, division, and count to the list of Baba Bathra, existed by ca. 150 CE at the latest. This conclusion in itself does not address the question of when the canon was closed. To do so, we must look at passages in the Mishnah, Josephus, and 4 Ezra.<\/p>\n
Canonical Notices around the End of the First Century<\/p>\n
The evidence of the formation of the canon changes as one moves back in time. There are no longer any lists to examine and compare; what appear in the sources are passages that mention collections of books without explicitly enumerating what they included. Three passages that date to around the end of the first century or beginning of the second century CE provide different accounts of the state of canon.
\nIn Against Apion, Josephus states the following:<\/p>\n
Among us there are not thousands of books in disagreement and conflict with each other, but only twenty-two books, containing the record of all time, which are rightly trusted. Five of these are the books of Moses, which contain both the laws and the tradition from the birth of humanity up to his death; this is a period of a little less than 3,000 years. From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes, king of the Persians after Xerxes, the prophets after Moses wrote the history of what took place in their own times in thirteen books; the remaining four books contain hymns to God and instructions for people on life. From Artaxerxes up to our own time every event has been recorded, but this is not judged worthy of the same trust, since the exact line of succession of the prophets did not continue. (1.38\u201341; emphasis added).<\/p>\n
Much scholarly ink has been spilled over the question of whether Josephus\u2019 notice attests to the closing of the canon. Questions have been raised about the total number of twenty-two and its division into the five books of Moses, thirteen books of the Prophets, and four books containing hymns and ethical teachings. These have caused many difficulties for scholars who approach Josephus in the context of a linear development of the canon.
\nIf we start from the earliest Jewish lists, however, and discuss the various orders of the books and systems of enumeration, many of these difficulties disappear. The count of the twenty-two-book canon is not remarkable and is clearly one possible counting; according to Jerome and corroborated by the earlier sources, it is, in fact, the count of the majority. The division of all the books into a tripartite canon was evident in the canonical list of Baba Bathra and Jerome but was not the only system of ordering books or of dividing them into collections.
\nMost important, the lack of agreement on book order and sectional division did not imply that there was disagreement about which books were to be included in the canon. Bryennios and Origen simply listed them; Melito differentiated between the five books of Moses and the Prophets in a bipartite division. Even when Baba Bathra and Jerome agreed on the tripartite division, they differed on the order of Jeremiah-Ezekiel-Isaiah, and Psalms-Job and the placement of Ruth in the Prophets or the Writings. In other words, a book\u2019s canonical status is not dependent on its position within an ordered sequence or section.
\nJosephus\u2019 passage falls short of a \u201ccanonical list\u201d since he did not specify which books were included in his description of \u201cour books.\u201d It provides a summary of a twenty-two-book canon as it is divided into three sections. The five books of Moses are almost certainly the Pentateuch. The order of the five is unknown; it could be the traditional order or one reflected in Melito\u2019s list, with Numbers before Leviticus. Melito\u2019s list, after all, was not a popular version, as was evidently the Bryennios list; the bishop of Sardis determined the content and order after careful investigation, which involved travel to Palestine and consultation of the authorities.
\nAs for the prophetical books, Josephus enumerated them as thirteen. The same number may be deduced from Antiquities 10:35 when he extolled Isaiah as a wonderful man, speaking in truth, writing down his prophecies, and leaving them behind in books. Isaiah did not do this alone, Josephus stated, but there were other prophets, \u201ctwelve in number,\u201d who did the same.
\nSeveral suggestions have been made as to the content of the Prophets in Josephus\u2019 canonical notice. Beckwith believed that they were as follows: Job, Joshua, Judges (+ Ruth?), Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah (+ Lamentations?), Ezekiel, Twelve Minor Prophets, Daniel, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther. Beckwith was unsure about the inclusion of Ruth and Lamentations in the prophetic section. They may alternatively be found in the four-book-section on the hymns: Psalms (possibly with Ruth), Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs (alternative: Lamentations).
\nThe contents of these lists are no more than educated guesses. Steinmann provides an alternate list with some justification. His list is based on references to, or allusions to episodes in, the books elsewhere in Josephus\u2019 writings. His prophetic list includes the following: Joshua, Judges-Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah-Lamenations, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Twelve Prophets. But Steinmann had to resort to an assertion about the inclusion of Job and Chronicles: \u201cThis leaves only Job and Chronicles as not mentioned by Josephus. Since these books are attested as early as Ben Sira, we have no reason to doubt that Josephus\u2019 list includes these books also.\u201d
\nThere really is no sure way of knowing which other books Josephus would have included in his other twelve prophets. The delineation of his canon based on use is promising. In addition to scripture, he used various sources, archival material, lists of kings and priests, Jewish and Hellenistic authors, and extra-canonical books (1 Maccabees, additions to Esther, 1 Esdras) in his writings. Josephus appears to have distinguished among different kinds of authority.
\nScholars often suppose that Josephus\u2019 canon was the canon of the Pharisees of his time. The basis of this claim needs to be probed. One obvious place to start is his autobiographical account. In the description of his ancestry, as found written in the public records, Josephus was born of priestly, Hasmonean lineage (Life 1\u20136). At the age of sixteen, he tried out the three sects or schools of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes with a view to selecting the best. He also gained experience in the ways of ascetic life by devoting himself to Bannus and his manner of living in the wilderness for three years. At the age of nineteen, he stated that \u201cI began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees\u201d (Life 10\u201312).
\nDoubts have rightly been expressed over Josephus\u2019 curriculum vitae for the simple fact that his numbers just do not add up. There are only three years between sixteen and nineteen, and yet he was apparently able to squeeze into that time experience with not only the three sects of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes, whose initiation period alone, he tells us elsewhere, was two or three years long (War 2.137\u2013142), but also three other years in the wilderness with Bannus.
\nSteve Mason has mounted a case against the prevailing tendency to view Josephus either as a Pharisee or a pro-Pharisaic apologist in Antiquities-Life. The anti-Pharisaic passages in his oeuvre cannot be attributed to his sources on the grounds that he could not have written them. Mason has argued that the key phrase, to be translated as \u201cfollowing the Pharisaic school\u201d (\u03c4\u1fc7 \u03a6\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03b1\u1f31\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u1ff6\u03bd; Life 12b), should not be understood literally but rhetorically. It was \u201ca necessary function of his entry into public life.\u201d While Josephus was not and never claimed to be a Pharisee, he acknowledged the influence of the school when he returned from the wilderness to the city to begin his political life. Josephus knew a lot about the Pharisees, but he disliked their reputation for \u201caccuracy\u201d (\u1f00\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03b2\u03b5\u03af\u03b1), which he thought was undeserved.
\nOn Josephus\u2019 canon Mason argued against the prevailing scholarly consensus. He contended against the sectioning of Josephus\u2019 canon, which he believed was closed, into three or two divisions in Against Apion 1.37\u201343. Instead, he tried to show that Josephus\u2019 classification of the Judaean records was according to genre: Moses\u2019 writings included both laws and tradition; the prophets wrote history or tradition; and the rest of the collection consisted of hymns and hortatory advice. He concluded that this classification was \u201cgeneric.\u201d
\nMason emphasized the genre to the exclusion of the division and enumeration of the books in Against Apion. It may be the case that he classified the Judean records according to genre, but Josephus also grouped the various genres into categories, marked as they were by the number of works in each division as five, thirteen, and four respectively, totaling a twenty-two-book canon. Moreover, Josephus described these categories or divisions as \u201cthe books of Moses,\u201d \u201cthe Prophets,\u201d and \u201cthe remaining four books.\u201d The fact that each section contained various genres of writings does not then mean that the three divisions or sections did not exist.
\nJosephus may not have been a Pharisee, but there are good reasons for thinking that he was advocating the canon of the Pharisees. The first is circumstantial. Josephus recognized that the Pharisees had an increasing influence over the masses. According to him, so great was \u201ctheir power over the multitudes\u201d (\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f30\u03c3\u03c7\u1f7a\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9) that when they spoke against the king or high priest, they were immediately believed (Ant. 13.288). Whether this recognition was a result of political expediency\u2014in an attempt to convince the Romans that the Pharisees were the party to support for keeping peace in Palestine\u2014or simply an acceptance of the political reality, the implication for canon is the same: it would be in Josephus\u2019 interest to advocate the canon of the dominant party at the end of the first century CE.
\nSecond, while Josephus\u2019 twenty-two-book canon was at odds with the enumeration of the biblical books in Baba Bathra and other rabbinic texts, according to the combined attestations of Origen and Jerome, it was one of the two ways of counting the biblical books among the Hebrews. In his commentary on the Psalms Origen referred to the twenty-two canonical books, corresponding to the Hebrew alphabet, \u201cas the Hebrews have handed them down\u201d (apud Eusebius, EH 6.25). The phrase \u201cas the Hebrews\u201d (\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8 \u1f11\u03b2\u03c1\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2) is ambiguous since Origen used the term in various ways. Nicholas de Lange\u2019s warning should be heeded: \u201cThere is nothing to urge, and indeed much to counter, the suggestion that Origen\u2019s Hebraioi are necessarily \u2018rabbinic\u2019 or Aramaic-speaking Jews, or even that Origen made this distinction.\u201d
\nYet Origen could, and indeed did, use hebraioi here to refer to contemporary Jews, as de Lange himself argued. Origen knew a great deal about the rabbis: he was acquainted with Jewish institutions and could speak about the succession of the patriarchate; he consulted many Jews and even mentioned the patriarch Huillus\/Ioullos by name; and he may even have referred, in his commentary on the Psalms, to Hoshaya \u201cthe Great,\u201d who lived in Caesarea at the same time.
\nOrigen\u2019s count of the twenty-two canonical books is related to the Hebrew alphabet. In this, he showed that he was influenced by Jewish mystical theology, which attributes to the Hebrew alphabet a central role in creation. In Sefer Yesira, the mystic used the Hebrew alphabet to hew out the foundations of the universe. A late Rabbinic source, Midrash Psalm 1, states that \u201cR. Joshua b. Qorha and R. Judah (second century) say: \u05d0\u05e9\u05e8\u05d9 occurs 22 times in the Psalms, like the letters of the alphabet.\u201d Josephus\u2019 canon did not include this mystical element; he did not relate his canon to the Hebrew alphabet nor delve into the mysteries of the number twenty-two. His discussion of the canon, even with due allowances for exaggeration, was framed in a way that represented majority opinion and not the views of an esoteric minority.
\nIt has to be supposed, then, that at the time when Josephus was writing Against Apion, the twenty-two-book canon, which presumably any of his readers could verify, was the way that most Jews counted the books before the canon was adopted by mystics, who found deep significance in the coincidence of the number twenty-two with the Hebrew alphabet. The twentyfour-book canon, as attested for the first time in the apocalypse of 4 Ezra, then became the normative enumeration in Rabbinic Judaism.
\nThird, both Josephus and rabbinic literature use the cessation of prophecy in relation to the closing of the canon. Tosefta Sotah states that \u201cwhen the last prophets\u2014i.e. Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi\u2014died, the holy spirit ceased [\u05e4\u05e1\u05e7\u05d4 \u05e8\u05d5\u05d7 \u05d4\u05e7\u05d5\u05d3\u05e9] in Israel. Despite this, they were informed by means of oracles (13:2) [\u05d1\u05d1\u05ea \u05e7\u05d5\u05dc].\u201d Josephus too used the same argument, although his formulation at first glance appears to be rather different. In Against Apion 1.41, he admitted that Jewish history from the time of Artaxerxes to his own day was not deemed equally worthy because of the \u201cfailure of the exact succession of the prophets\u201d (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ad\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03b2\u1fc6 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b4\u03bf\u03c7\u03ae\u03bd). What this means is not entirely clear since Josephus\u2019 argument here is partial and undeveloped.
\nRebecca Gray has argued that what Josephus must have meant was that \u201cthere was enough material to string together a story, but not enough to write a completely comprehensive history of the period.\u201d Josephus may have boasted that \u201cthe complete history has been written,\u201d but an examination of the Antiquities shows that this was not the case. For Gray, Josephus\u2019 belief that the \u201cexact succession of the prophets\u201d had come to an end after Artaxerxes was an inference that he drew from the sources that he had in composing the Antiquities and not \u201ca theory about the disappearance of individuals called \u2018prophets.\u2019 \u201d Thus, she concluded, following John Barton, that Josephus\u2019 belief that prophecy had ended \u201cwas not an absolute dogma, but rather one expression of a vague nostalgia that idealized the past as a time when people were, in some indescribable way, closer to God and holier than in the present.\u201d
\nGray did not discuss the similarity of the reasoning of Against Apion and Tosefta Sotah. Just as Apion held that prophecy continued even when there was a belief that it had ended, so Sotah believed that revelation continued in a heavenly voice or bat qol after it was thought that the inspiration of the holy spirit had ceased with the death of the last prophets. The logic is similar if not the same. Moreover, both Sotah and Apion perceived, if only through nostalgic reflection, a difference between prophetic revelation of the past and present. This shared understanding of prophecy and revelation is in contrast to other Jewish groups, like the sectarian Essene communities and the earliest followers of Jesus, who believed that revelation had not ceased.
\nIn all likelihood Josephus\u2019 twenty-two-book canon was the Pharisaic canon, but it is to be doubted that it was also the canon of all Jews in the way that he has intended. Josephus\u2019 polemics against his detractors depended on his claim for the consistency of Jewish history and the agreement of all his compatriots on the sacred books. If by \u201cevery Jew\u201d he meant that all Jews throughout all times held the same canon, then it clearly was not the case. The rabbis who took the decision about Qohelet and Song of Songs and those who subsequently disputed whether these books \u201cdefiled the hands\u201d did not agree on a fixed canon. However, if Josephus meant that most Jews in his present time at the end of the first century CE agreed on the canon, then that would have been a credible generalization.<\/p>\n
The Twenty-Four-Book Canon of 4 Ezra<\/p>\n
A second canonical notice is found in the apocalyptic book of 4 Ezra, a work dominated by seven visions, in which the seer, identified as Ezra the scribe, converses with an angel (visions 1\u20133), meets a woman in mourning (vision 4), has a dream about a redeemer figure and the fall of the Roman Empire and other wicked nations (visions 5 and 6), and receives a revelation of the books (vision 7). It is a theodicy that attempts to make sense, theologically and emotionally, of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Romans. 4 Ezra dates to between 70 and 100 CE. It is in the seventh vision that we find the canonical notice. The context is that the law, having been burnt, will be given again in a revelation, inspired by the spirit of God\u2019s holiness, to Ezra, who will dictate it for forty days and nights to his five scribes, who will record it on writing tablets.<\/p>\n
And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, \u201cMake public the twenty-four books that you wrote first and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge.\u201d And I did so. (4 Ezra 14:45\u201348; emphasis added)<\/p>\n
The ninety-four-book canon of 4 Ezra is bipartite but not in the traditional sense. It is divided into a first section of twenty-four public books for all, both \u201cthe worthy and the unworthy.\u201d The second section, however, is a much larger corpus, consisting as it does of seventy books, which are to be given to \u201cthe wise.\u201d It is widely accepted that the twenty-four-book collection corresponds to the canon of the Hebrew Bible.
\nWhile this correspondence may be, it should be noted that the only indication of it is the number twenty-four. As discussed above, a count of twenty-four books is one possible enumeration of the canonical list; according to Jerome the twenty-four books are counted by \u201csome\u201d as an alternative to the twenty-two-book canon. 4 Ezra does not tell us which books are included. \u201cThe law\u201d in v. 21 refers to the whole ninety-four-book corpus. In keeping with esoteric tendencies, 4 Ezra reserves the remaining seventy books for the wise. It is this seventy-book collection that has greater authority.<\/p>\n
Disputes over the Song of Songs and Qohelet<\/p>\n
A third canonical notice is found in Mishnah Yadayim 3:5, a passage that was central to the discredited theory of the \u201ccouncil\u201d of Yavneh. The context of the Mishnah is whether a scroll that has been erased and in which eighty-five letters remain \u201cdefiles the hands,\u201d an enigmatic criterion for determining the holiness of scriptures. This highly specific issue leads to a more general discussion of all scriptures and their status in defiling the hands:<\/p>\n
A. All the Holy Scriptures defile the hands.
\nB. The Song of Songs and Qohelet defile the hands.
\nC. R. Judah (135\u2013170) says: The Song of Songs defiles the hands, but there is a dispute concerning Qohelet.
\nD. R. Yose (135\u2013170) says: Qohelet does not defile the hands, but there is a dispute concerning the Song of Songs.
\nE. R. Simeon (135\u2013170) says: Qohelet is among the lenient decisions of the School of Shammai and among the stringent decisions of the School of Hillel.
\nF. R. Simeon ben Azzai (110\u2013135) said: I have heard a tradition from the seventy-two elders on the day that they seated R. Eleazar ben Azariah (110\u2013135) in the academy; [it was decided] that the Song of Songs and Qohelet defile the hands.
\nG. R. Akiba (110\u2013135) said: God forbid! No man in Israel ever disputed the status of the Song of Songs saying that it does not defile the hands, for the whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel.
\nH. For all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holiest of the holy.
\nI. If there was a dispute, it concerned Ecclesiastes.
\nJ. R. Johanan b. Joshua (135\u2013170), the son of R. Akiba\u2019s father-in-law, said: Ben Azzai\u2019s version of what they disputed and decided (\u05db\u05df \u05d2\u05de\u05e8\u05d5) is the correct one.<\/p>\n
Typical of mishnaic discussions, the passage collects and presents the opinions of various rabbis who lived at different times. Its opening lines (A\u2013B) state the premises of the discussion\u2014namely, that all scriptures defile the hands and that the Song of Songs and Qohelet\/Ecclesiastes also defile the hands. The specification of these two biblical books is intentional, as it introduces the disputes over whether they in fact defile the hands.
\nThree rabbis who lived between 135 and 170 disagree (C\u2013E). R. Judah believes that the Song of Songs is holy but that there is dispute over the status of Qohelet. R. Yose then proves Judah correct by stating that Qohelet does not defile the hands, but he adds that the status of the Song of Songs is also in dispute. Finally, R. Simeon reports that the house of Shammai, known for its stringency, adopted the lenient ruling in this case in deeming that Qohelet does not defile the hands, whereas the house of Hillel, usually more lenient, took the uncharacteristically stringent ruling that the same book was holy.
\nCentral to the question of whether Mishnah Yadayim attests to the closing of the canon is the dictum of R. Simeon b. Azzai (F). Was a decision in fact taken that confirmed the canonical status of the Song of Songs and Qohelet? What was the historical context to which it referred?
\nThose who supported the theory of the \u201ccouncil\u201d of Yavneh interpreted the phrase \u201cthey seated R. Eleazar b. Azariah\u201d as a reference to his installment at the head of the Academy at Yavneh. The historical context, so it was assumed, was the temporary deposition of Gamaliel II, and replacement by Eleazar, as head of the Academy (cf. yBerakhot 4.7). This view was bolstered by the phrase \u201con that day\u201d (\u05d1\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd or \u05d1\u05d5 \u05d1\u05d9\u05d5\u05dd), which apparently prefaced the issues that were discussed at Yavneh (i.e., mYad 4.1\u20133, mEduyot, and various talmudic passages). But Leiman has argued that \u201con that day\u201d says nothing about the date or place of origin; rather, it is a Rabbinic technique that introduces a halakha that was discussed on the same day as the immediately preceding one.
\nAlexander has further questioned the whole historical context of the so-called deposition of Gamaliel. He doubts that this is the reference behind \u201cseating in the Academy\u201d and also wonders whether there is any historical truth of Gamaliel\u2019s alleged deposition as such. Alexander instead argues that Simeon\u2019s dictum is syntactically awkward and is probably a secondary insertion into the text: the mention of \u201cseventy-two\u201d (presumably referring to Yavneh) and \u201cseating of Eleazar\u201d is tautological. He therefore suggests that the \u201cseventy-two\u201d may have referred to the Sanhedrin and to a context before 70.
\nIf Alexander is correct, then the decision taken on the holiness of the Song of Songs and Qohelet must have occurred before 70 CE. The specific occasion is not indicated. A complicating factor, not discussed by Alexander, is that the institution of the Sanhedrin was not permanent; it acted as a kind of ad hoc committee that would meet when specific issues and cases demanded it. What is clear in m.Yadayim is that during \u201cthe seating of Eleazar,\u201d whatever the historical situation to which it may have referred, a decision was taken about the holiness of both the Song of Songs and Qohelet (F). This was confirmed by R. Johanan b. Joshua (135\u2013170), the son of R. Akiba\u2019s father-in-law (J). The decision, however, did not settle anything since rabbis continued to dispute the holiness of the two books for years to come (A\u2013E, G).<\/p>\n
The search for the source of Baba Bathra\u2019s enumeration of the biblical books found three earlier canonical lists by Origen, Melito, and Bryennios. None of these lists agrees exactly in number and order with Baba Bathra\u2019s list. Jerome\u2019s list, dating years later, also disagreed with Baba Bathra\u2019s order of certain books. In fact, no two lists discussed agreed with each other exactly. There were three systems of counting, totaling the books to be twenty-two, twenty-four, or twenty-seven. The lists of Jerome, Baba Bathra, Origen (with due allowance), and Bryennios, however, agreed in content, thus indicating the same canon.
\nThe ordering and division of books must further be distinguished from the question of canonical status. Apart from the Torah or Pentateuch, there is no agreement on the sectioning of the books in the earliest canonical lists: Baba Bathra has a tripartite division; Melito, a bipartite canon; and Origen and Bryennios enumerate a single, undifferentiated list. It is the inclusion of a book in such a list, not its ranking sequence or position within a division, that makes it canonical. Baba Bathra\u2019s tripartite division eventually became the traditional division of the Jewish Tanak, but even then the order of the books within the divisions was not the same in the two lists.
\nThe closing of the canon is related to, but distinguishable from, the search for the earliest canonical lists. From the Mishnah, it appears that all scriptures were considered holy, except for the Song of Songs and Qohelet, and a decision was taken about the holiness of these two books. Two possibilities have been suggested as to the historical context in which that decision took place: at the Academy in Yavneh at ca. 90 CE or by the Sanhedrin some time before 70 CE. This issue remains unresolved. What can be said is that that decision must have taken place before R. Simeon b. Azzai (who flourished between 110 and 135), in whose name the report was given. The decision, once taken, did not, however, become the accepted norm, as rabbis continued to debate the holiness of the Song of Songs and Qohelet well into the second century.
\nThe notion of the \u201cclosing of the canon\u201d has to be further nuanced. The ancient sources discussed do not support a definite, once-for-all fixation of the canon. Dissenting opinions continued. The issue is when it was closed for most Jews. In this sense, one can hazard a guess: the closing of the canon in Rabbinic Judaism probably took place between 150 and 250 CE. This \u201cclosing\u201d did not end all debates. For instance, the rabbis continued to dispute the status of the book of Ben Sira. However, it was probably for most rabbis a significant moment that marked the recognition of the authority of those books that would eventually become the Tanak.
\nFinally, at the end of the first century, Josephus attests to a tripartite canon that totaled twenty-two books. This canon is likely to have included all the books that are also found in Baba Bathra but, apart from the Torah, in a different order and division. The twenty-four-book corpus of 4 Ezra referred likewise to the biblical canon, and it shows that the system of counting twenty-four books already existed at the end of the first century.<\/p>\n
4<\/p>\n
The Torah in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods<\/p>\n
There is no ancient source that describes the process by which certain books became the holy scriptures of Judaism. How did Jews come to regard some books but not others as authoritative? While a full answer to the origins of the Jewish canon remains elusive, it has been recognized that the period subsequent to the return from exile is critical for understanding the emergence of authoritative scriptures. Was the rise of \u201cthe torah\u201d supported by imperial edict?
\nIn particular, the account of the commission of Ezra has taken center stage in recent scholarly debates. Is the rescript of Artaxerxes in Ezra 7:12\u201326 authentic? This issue had been previously debated and a consensus reached by the middle of the 1980s. In his influential commentary published in 1985 Hugh Williamson could state that while the authenticity of the edict was formerly questioned, \u201cit is now acknowledged in outline, at least, by nearly all.\u201d This consensus, however, has since been challenged as scholars have investigated the redaction of Ezra-Nehemiah, the linguistic features of the Imperial Aramaic of Ezra 4\u20137, the conventions of northwest Semitic epistolary formulas, the identification of the edict with Hellenistic deeds of donation, and the historical plausibility of the edict as a whole.
\nAt about the same time that Williamson was penning those words, Peter Frei was articulating a theory that the firman of Artaxerxes should be understood in the light of Persian provincial governance. He used the German term \u201cReichsautorisation\u201d to describe what he saw as the imperial \u201capproval of local norms\u201d and control over a \u201cself-governing body in a constitutional manner.\u201d Based on an investigation of Persian practices in Egypt and Asia Minor, Frei described the process of authorization in the following way: \u201cThe imperial authority issues in writing a norm proposed by subordinates. In this way, a normal act of high-level legislation would be transferred to the area of the local norms.\u201d
\nFrei\u2019s theory has been widely discussed but not always understood. Konrad Schmid clarified that Frei was not advocating a centralization of local laws. What he meant was not that the local norms were \u201ccentrally registered and codified as \u2018imperial law,\u2019 \u201d but rather that these local rules were elevated to the status of imperial law. Some scholars are not persuaded by Frei\u2019s theory, but the case is not closed.
\nIn the following, Ezra\u2019s commission will be discussed in relation to the issue of canon. It will be suggested that the theory of imperial authorization is a way of circumventing the impasse of form-critical analyses of the edict of Ezra 7:12\u201326. But this geopolitical approach must be complemented by attending to the priestly ideology that shaped the book. It will be suggested that the priestly theology adapted Artaxerxes\u2019 edict by overlaying it with the language of volition.
\nThe scholarly debate over the authenticity of the edict and imperial authorization brackets off the question of what was meant by \u201cthe law.\u201d It simply assumes that \u201cthe law\u201d was the Pentateuch. But this assumption needs to be probed by an examination of those passages widely considered as part of the Ezra memoirs. It will be argued that the depiction of Ezra reading \u201cthe book of the torah of Moses\u201d in Nehemiah 8 is idealized. It is unlikely that Ezra read the whole of the Pentateuch in one morning. However, Nehemiah 9 presupposes knowledge of six biblical books, from Genesis to Joshua, and these books are referred to as \u201ctorah.\u201d That these books are authoritative is shown by their use in the confessions of the sins of Israel.<\/p>\n
The Edict of Artaxerxes<\/p>\n
Ezra 7:12\u201326 may be divided into three sections: (1) the decree to send Ezra to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem and to bring silver and gold for the Temple in Jerusalem (vv. 12\u201320); (2) an edict instructing the treasurers to grant Ezra what he asks and to exempt the Jerusalem Temple functionaries from tax (vv. 21\u201324); and (3) an instruction commanding Ezra to appoint legislative officials and to teach the laws to those who are ignorant of them and a stipulation of the punishment for those who do not comply with the laws (vv. 25\u201326). Ezra 7:12\u201326 states the following:<\/p>\n
12 Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven. And now 13 I make a decree that any one of the people of Israel or their priests or Levites in my kingdom, who freely offers to go to Jerusalem, may go with you. 14 For you are sent by the king and his seven counselors to make inquiries about Judah and Jerusalem according to the law of your God, which is in your hand, 15 and also to convey the silver and gold which the king and his counselors have freely offered to the God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem, 16 with all the silver and gold which you shall find in the whole province of Babylonia, and with the freewill offerings of the people and the priests, vowed willingly for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem. 17 With this money, then, you shall with all diligence buy bulls, rams, and lambs, with their cereal offerings and their drink offerings, and you shall offer them upon the altar of the house of your God which is in Jerusalem. 18 Whatever seems good to you and your brethren to do with the rest of the silver and gold, you may do, according to the will of your God. 19 The vessels that have been given you for the service of the house of your God, you shall deliver before the God of Jerusalem. 20 And whatever else is required for the house of your God, which you have occasion to provide, you may provide it out of the king\u2019s treasury.
\n21 And I, Artaxerxes the king, make a decree to all the treasurers in the province Beyond the River: Whatever Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven, requires of you, be it done with all diligence, 22 up to a hundred talents of silver, a hundred cors of wheat, a hundred baths of wine, a hundred baths of oil, and salt without prescribing how much. 23 Whatever is commanded by the God of heaven, let it be done in full for the house of the God of heaven, lest his wrath be against the realm of the king and his sons. 24 We also notify you that it shall not be lawful to impose tribute, custom, or toll upon any one of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the doorkeepers, the temple servants, or other servants of this house of God.
\n25 And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God which is in your hand, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River, all such as know the laws of your God; and those who do not know them, you shall teach. 26 Whoever will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed upon him, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of his goods or for imprisonment.<\/p>\n
Section one begins with the statement: \u201cArtaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven.\u201d The opening is not dated, but the narrative frame of Ezra 7:7\u20139 assigns the arrival of Ezra and his companions in Jerusalem to the first day of the fifth month of the seventh year of Artaxerxes\u2014that is, July\/August 458 BCE. This edict must have been written in the same year or slightly earlier (cf. Ezra 7:28).
\nThe epithet of Artaxerxes, \u201cthe king of kings,\u201d occurs in other places to characterize Persian monarchs (Arsame and Darius) and the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (Ezek 26:7 and Dan 2:37). Ezra is identified as \u201cthe priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heaven.\u201d His priestly status is traced back to Aaron and the high priesthood (7:1\u20135), although he nowhere makes this claim. He is, according to the genealogical note, the son of Seraiah, the last high priest killed by Nebuchadnezzar before Judah was taken into exile (2 Kgs 25:18\u201321). He is also \u201cthe scribe\u201d (\u05d4\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8, 7:11), but the sense of this epithet implies more than a high level of literacy (cf. \u201ca scribe skilled in the law of Moses,\u201d 7:6); he may have been an official of the royal court or of the diasporan community. The Persian loanword \u05d3\u05ea could mean \u201claw\u201d or \u201cdecree\u201d (Dan 2:13, 15; Ezra 7:21), but in Ezra 7 it has both a moral (\u201claw of your God\u201d) and legislative (\u201claw of the king\u201d) connotation (7:26). The title \u201cthe God of heaven\u201d (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4 \u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05d0, Ezra 5:11; 6:9, 10; Dan 2:18, 37, 44) is the Aramaic translation of the Hebrew theophoric title (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05dd [Gen 24:3, 7; 2 Chr 36:23; Ezra 1:2; Neh 1:4; 2:4; Jonah 1:9] or \u05d0\u05dc \u05d4\u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05dd [Ps 136:26]).
\nWhat is in view is an edict, ensconced in the formula \u201cI make a decree\u201d (lit. \u201cfrom me a decree is made,\u201d v. 13), but the rescript is presented in the form of a letter. There are two such letters in Ezra 7:12\u201326; the second is found in the address to all the treasurers of the Persian province of Abar-Nahara or \u201cBeyond the River\u201d (v. 21). Dirk Schwiderski argues that certain features in this and other Aramaic letters of Ezra support a later dating of the composition. For instance, the use of the preposition \u05dc in 7:12 (\u201cto [Ezra]\u201d) and 7:21 (\u201cto [all the treasurers]) belies a Hellenistic dating. In the Achaemenid period, letters used the prepositions \u05d0\u05dc or \u05e2\u05dc. Williamson accepts the linguistic characterization but counters that the sporadic uses of \u05e2\u05dc along with \u05dc in the Aramaic letters are \u201cfeatures better accounted for as relics of earlier texts which may have been overlaid than as haphazard attempts to give a flavour of antiquity.\u201d Both explanations are possible, and there is no way to decide on linguistic grounds alone.
\nThe edict stipulates two commands that are probably related. First, it orders Ezra to make inquiries (\u05dc\u05d1\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0 \u05e2\u05dc) about Judah and Jerusalem (v. 14). The remit is not stipulated, but it is reasonable to assume that the inquiry relates to the state of the cultic worship in Jerusalem. The mention of \u201cthe king and his seven counselors\u201d indicates that authority comes from the royal court (cf. Esth 1:14; Herodotus, Hist. Bk 3 \u00a7 31, 84, 118).
\nSecond, Ezra is tasked to bring silver and gold (v. 15). Important here is the use of the reflexive verb \u05d4\u05ea\u05e0\u05d3\u05d1 to emphasize that the donation was freely given. Significantly, the donation was not given to the Jerusalem Temple per se but to \u201cthe God of Israel, whose dwelling is in Jerusalem.\u201d The Persian largess is described in terminology similar to the Israelite freewill offering to God (\u05e0\u05d3\u05d1\u05d4). In fact, the voluntary nature of the donation is unmistakable when the following verse equates the silver and gold with (lit.) \u201cthe offerings freely given [\u05d4\u05ea\u05e0\u05d3\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea] of the people and the priests, willingly given [\u05d1\u05de\u05ea\u05e0\u05d3\u05d9\u05df] for the house of their God which is in Jerusalem.\u201d
\nThe all-encompassing nature of the royal donation (\u201call the silver and gold\u201d and \u201cin the whole province of Babylonia\u201d), however, is undoubtedly an exaggeration probably designed to show that all the resources of the Persian Empire were at Ezra\u2019s disposal. It is unlikely to be historically accurate. The editor sensed this problem and juxtaposed a second letter to qualify the limits of the royal donation, but he did not smooth out the wrinkles. It seems to me that one of the most persuasive arguments for the use of earlier documents in Ezra is precisely this uneven feature. Had the documents been composed de novo in the time of the editing of Ezra-Nehemiah, then one would have expected more consistency across the documents themselves and also with the narrative.
\nThe final four verses of this first section, then, enumerate the animals, grain, and wine offerings to be purchased with the money made available through the untying of the royal purse strings. Notable here is that the generosity of the Persians extended to the leftover monies. Apparently, Ezra and his companions have complete discretion in spending what remains of the grant.
\nSection two (vv. 21\u201324) turns to addressing all the treasurers in charge of the finances of the province of Abar-Nahara. It too is couched in epistolary form and is therefore a letter within a letter. In this letter Artaxerxes orders his treasurers to fulfill diligently whatever Ezra requires. This time the royal munificence is not unlimited but capped: up to 100 talents of silver, 100 cors of wheat, 100 baths of wine, 100 baths of oil, and an unspecified amount of salt. There is no mention of gold. The grant is nonetheless generous; for instance, one talent is estimated at 75 pounds, which would mean that the cap places the amount of silver at 7,500 pounds when the total annual tax revenue in the province of Abar-Nahara amounted to 350 talents, approximately 29 percent of the total levy.
\nVerse 23 introduces the motivation behind this royal generosity\u2014namely, to avert potential divine wrath against the king and his sons. In a similar vein Darius, in his support for the building of the Temple, decreed that the elders of the Judeans should be given whatever was needed so that they may \u201coffer pleasing sacrifices to the God of heaven, and pray for the life of the king and his sons\u201d (Ezra 6:10).
\nFinally, Artaxerxes orders that no tax of any kind be imposed on the Temple officials. This exemption for religious personnel seems ideologically motivated but is not unprecedented (cf. Herodotus, Hist. 3 \u00a791).
\nSection three (vv. 25\u201326) does not include an opening formula, but the transition back to Ezra indicates that this is the beginning of a third section. Commentators are exercised about how this section relates to the preceding sections. It seems clear to me that vv. 21\u201324 are parenthetical and that vv. 25\u201326 continue the edict of vv. 12\u201320.
\nIn v. 25, Ezra is commanded to appoint judges for all the people of Abar-Nahara. This remit is broad and on the face of it historically dubious. Apart from the Judeans, there are different peoples living in the province. Are they all expected to know the laws of Ezra\u2019s God? Presumably, those who know the laws are Judeans, or at least some of them are. But is it plausible that Ezra is being charged to educate other non-Judeans who do not know them?
\nOne solution is to interpret \u201call the people\u201d to refer to \u201cJudeans.\u201d In this view \u201cJudeans\u201d do not just live in Judah and Jerusalem (cf. 7:14) but also in other places in the province. The judges and magistrates that Ezra is ordered to appoint, then, would be comparable to the ones mentioned in the book of Deuteronomy, one of whose functions it is to teach (Deut 1:16\u201317; 16:18; 17:8\u201313; cf. \u201cthe wisdom of your God,\u201d Ezra 7:25). They would not judge all other peoples, just \u201cJudeans,\u201d those who lived in and outside of Judah.
\nThe final verse of the edict sets the possible punishments for non-compliance: death, corporal punishment (RSV: \u201cbanishment\u201d), confiscation of goods, or imprisonment. Significant is the juxtaposition of what appear to be religious and secular laws, \u201cthe law of your God\u201d and \u201cthe law of the king.\u201d<\/p>\n
Persian Support for the Authority of the Torah<\/p>\n
Did the Persians have a hand in the rise of \u201cthe torah\u201d? From the outset it should be observed that quite apart from the possible influence of the Persians \u201cthe torah\u201d had a traditional authority as implied in Ezra 7:25\u201326. Judges are appointed because of their knowledge of the law. Apparently, some of the \u201cJudeans\u201d already knew and were observing the law. The authority of the law preceded Ezra and the possible Persian involvement. Compliance was ensured by the stipulation of punishments.
\nMore uncertain is the role that the Persians might have played in elevating the authority of the Torah. Alongside the religious law is mentioned \u201cthe law of the king,\u201d which presumably would be secular law. But are we to understand that a distinction is being drawn between the religious and the secular? The juxtaposition of the two could alternatively be understood as a coupling of two kinds of law. The text of Ezra 7:25\u201326 is ambiguous, and the arguments for and against its authenticity are often circular, depending on what is presupposed about the literary editing of Ezra-Nehemiah.
\nAn alternative approach is to interpret Ezra 7:25\u201326 historically by an investigation of the Persian governance of vassal states within its enormous empire. Is there a pattern of imperial intervention, and, if so, what form did it take? This approach is ostensibly circumstantial, but it has some advantages. If Ezra\u2019s mission is situated within imperial policy, the issues are set in a historical context.
\nFrei\u2019s imperial authorization theory has attracted much attention but also mixed reactions. Recently, Kyong-Jin Lee has entered the fray by thoroughly reexamining the inscription of Udjahorresnet, the Passover letter from Elephantine, the document on the verso of the Demotic Chronicle, the trilingual inscription from Letoon, the Gadatas letter, and a Greek inscription from Miletus. Lee discusses Ezra\u2019s mission within the geopolitical context of the westernmost provinces of the Persian Empire. In her view, the edict of Artaxerxes is to be interpreted as shrewd political strategy, especially in the empire\u2019s relation to Egypt, rather than some idealistic benevolence of religious plurality on the part of the Achaemenid dynasty. The Persians recognized the importance of the religious shrines, not only as focal points of cultic worship but also as administrative centers of local communities.
\nIn particular, Lee enumerates six parallels in relation to selected verses in Ezra 7: (1) The Persian-Egyptian conflict in the fifth century dates Ezra 7:8 to 458 BCE. (2) Ezra 7:13 is similar to the account of the repatriation of Judean exiles from Babylon as attested in the Cyrus Cylinder. (3) The reference to seven counselors in Ezra 7:14 is in keeping with the Achaemenid tradition of conferring with seven noble families. (4) The donation of silver and gold in Ezra 7:15 finds an analogy in the Persepolis Tablets, which describe cultic donations made by the imperial government. (5) The reference to treasurers in Beyond the River (Ezra 7:21a) situates Judah within this satrapy, a fact that is corroborated by the Gadatas letter. (6) The tax exemption of religious personnel in Ezra 7:24 is also attested in the remission of levies by the priests of Caunios in the Letoon inscription.
\n\u201cIn light of the parallel historical cases from Egypt and Asia Minor,\u201d Lee concludes, \u201cI have established that Frei\u2019s model was correct when it identified the Persian cognizance of the instrumentality of traditional law within the various societies it had conquered.\u201d
\nIn fact, Lee accepts Frei\u2019s theory in part, arguing that while the Persian Empire lacked a foreign policy and state religion, it did intervene in local administrative affairs through legislation, thus allowing it to understand how vassal states operated. But she rejects Frei\u2019s claim that the imperial government protected its authorized rulings. The Persian Empire grew rapidly and lacked the manpower to enforce the compliance of vassal states with Persian legislation. What it did was to lend its authority to local legislation.
\nMany of the same points have already been made in the scholarly literature that Lee critically reviews throughout her thesis. There is no decisive evidence, and the contribution lies in the cumulative effect of Lee\u2019s having made the case for imperial authorization theory more thoroughly than had been done hitherto.
\nAn important issue that Lee raises but does not resolve is the impetus of the edict. She assumes, like some others before her, that the Babylon Jews petitioned the Persians, who then responded with an edict that sent Ezra and his companions to Judah to reestablish the cultic worship at the Jerusalem Temple, which was already built. This would go along with her characterization of the Persian legislative approach as \u201cbottom-up.\u201d But the edict says nothing about such a petition, and she does not show how her assumption is justified by the text. Williamson, however, has suggested that the \u201crequest\u201d of Ezra 7:6 would have included the provisions for the journey (cf. Ezra 8:22) and the permission for the whole venture.
\nOne solution is to recognize that the edict itself, and not just the narrative frame of Ezra 7, has probably been edited by Judean scribes. One of the ideologies that shaped this editing is the priestly theology of divinely inspired action. The God of Israel is ultimately behind the apparently willing action of the Persian kings. As discussed above, it is striking how imperial volition is expressed in the language of freewill offering. The silver and gold of Artaxerxes and his counselors are equated with the freewill offerings of the people and priests.
\nIn the edict of Cyrus that opens the book, a passage that has numerous affinities with Ezra 7, the Lord \u201croused the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia\u201d (Ezra 1:1) to proclaim that he has been charged with \u201cbuilding Him a house in Jerusalem\u201d (Ezra 1:2). The Persian king is presented as having acted on his own volition, although in fact the reader is informed that the royal actions were in fulfillment of the prophecy of Jeremiah. Williamson senses this, although he strongly argues for the authenticity and integrity of the Aramaic documents as primary sources. He hints at the same when he asks how Cyrus could have known the titles \u201cthe Lord (Yahweh),\u201d \u201cthe God of heaven,\u201d and \u201cthe God of Israel.\u201d His answer is that \u201cthe decree is a response to a petition by the Jews\u201d and that the language of the decree follows the petition. Of course, no such petition is included, and implicit in the discussion is a tacit recognition of the Judean features of the edict.
\nThis priestly theology uses the language of volition, which expresses the wishes of the people and the sacrifice of the Temple. In Ezra 1:3\u20134 it states: \u201cWhoever among you, from all his people \u2026 let him go up to Jerusalem \u2026 and let him build the house of the Lord the God of Israel.\u201d But those who do not wish to do so should help those who return: \u201cBut everyone who remains, wherever he may be living, the men of his place, shall help him [i.e., the one who is going up] with silver and gold, goods, beasts, in addition to the freewill offering [\u05d4\u05e0\u05d3\u05d1\u05d4] for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.\u201d
\nIt is in keeping with this priestly theology that the edict of Artaxerxes in Ezra 7 has been edited. The volition is expressed not only in the wishes of any one of the people of Israel, priests, and Levites to go with Ezra, but also in the freely contributed silver and gold, which, together with the freewill offering, were freely given to the Jerusalem Temple. The recognition of this priestly theology explains the presentation of the edict in Ezra 7 as the initiative of the Persian court. Without the mention of a local petition Artaxerxes is said to have issued a decree commissioning the reestablishment of the Jerusalem cultic center so important for Persian geopolitical strategy. It is vital to the priestly editor, in stark contrast to the conventions of Persian policy that are likely to have been followed in the case of the Judeans, to show that Artaxerxes enacted a legislative intervention from the top down.
\nPersian intervention in the religious affairs of Yehud, therefore, is plausible in the light of the pattern of imperial provincial governance. Interest in the Judean cultic center is already evident in previous commissions to rebuild the Temple. As for \u201cthe law of your God and the law of the king,\u201d Lee interprets Ezra 7:26 as a propagandistic slogan that promotes the notion that the monarch is \u201ca divinely sanctioned champion of the law\u201d since authority is embodied in a person rather than a text in Persian legal conventions. She does not explain that this law was identified with \u201cthe torah of Moses\u201d (Ezra 7:6) and \u201cthe torah of the Lord\u201d (Ezra 7:10) or what biblical books might be implied by those titles, although she assumes the the Mosaic Torah is the Pentateuch.<\/p>\n
Ezra Reading the Book of the Torah<\/p>\n
One of the dramatic moments in the restoration of Judean piety in the post-exilic period took place in the square before the Water Gate. The account in Nehemiah 8 may be divided into two sections: (1) the reading of the law on the first day (vv. 1\u201312), which is preceded by a chronological date (7:73b [Heb] 7:72b); and (2) the celebration of the feast of Tabernacles (vv. 13\u201318). The first part reads as follows:<\/p>\n
And when the seventh month had come, the children of Israel were in their towns. 1 And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the Water Gate; and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. 2 And Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. 3 And he read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the Law. 4 And Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden pulpit which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Ma-aseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Misha-el, Malchijah, Hashum, Hash-baddanah, Zechariah, and Meshullam on his left hand. 5 And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people; and when he opened it all the people stood. 6 And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God; and all the people answered, \u201cAmen, Amen,\u201d lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. 7 Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Ma-aseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law, while the people remained in their places. 8 And they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly; and they gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. 9 And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, \u201cThis day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.\u201d For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. 10 Then he said to them, \u201cGo your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.\u201d 11 So the Levites stilled all the people, saying, \u201cBe quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.\u201d 12 And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them.<\/p>\n
No year is mentioned in this account; the date, however, is the seventh month (Tishri; 7:72b) and it is the first day (8:1). The assembled are called \u201cthe sons of Israel\u201d (7:72b), \u201call the people\u201d (8:1, 6), and \u201cthe congregation\u201d (8:2). The collective purpose is indicated by the description of the gathering \u201cas one man\u201d (8:1). The place is the square before the Water Gate, but where it is located in Jerusalem is disputed. The people asked Ezra the scribe to bring out \u201cthe book of the law of Moses\u201d (8:1\u20132).
\nThere appears to be some uncertainty as to who read the book. According to v. 3, it is Ezra (\u201che read\u201d), whereas in v. 8 there are several people (\u201cthey read\u201d). The procedure also seems confused since Ezra unrolled the scroll (\u201che opened the book\u201d, v. 5) only after he had apparently read it. Williamson suggests that v. 3 should be understood as a heading that summarizes what is to take place. Thus the procedure should be followed sequentially in vv. 4\u20138: Ezra stood on a wooden pulpit or platform with thirteen companions, six on his right and seven on his left (v. 4); Ezra unrolled the scroll, and when he did so, all the people stood up (v. 5); he then blessed the Lord, and the people responded with three acts of affirmation by saying \u201cAmen, Amen,\u201d by lifting up their hands, and by bowing down and worshipping (v. 6).
\nVerses 7 and 8, however, pose other difficulties of sequence, for how can the Levites help the people understand before the reading of the law? Moreover, the antecedent of the subjects of v. 8 (\u201cthey read\u201d) most naturally points to the Levites of the preceding verse, which would contradict v. 3, which states that Ezra did the reading.
\nSolutions have been suggested. Verse 7 could be considered another summary heading. But this view is unlikely since v. 7 is more detailed than v. 8. Williamson, instead, postulates an implied step in the procedure, due to the incomplete editing of the chapter. He assumes that between vv. 6 and 7, Ezra begins to read the law. This is followed by the explanation of the Levites. Verse 8, then, forms the summary of the entire paragraph, and the subjects of the clause \u201cthey read\u201d are Ezra and his companions in v. 3, whereas the antecedents of \u201cthey gave their sense\u201d are the Levites of v. 7.
\nWilliamson\u2019s postulate of a missing step that describes Ezra reading the law between vv. 6 and 7 has much to commend it. It is demanded by the logic of the narrative; otherwise, the narrative would jump from the people\u2019s response to the assistance of the Levites. But the view that v. 8 is a recapitulation seems unlikely; it would insinuate that there is not one but two summary statements for six short verses.
\nMoreover, the supposed resume of v. 8 introduces new information. Verse 3 states that Ezra alone read the book (\u201che read\u201d); it does not say that his companions joined him in the reading. Of course, it seems improbable that Ezra alone would have read the law book from dawn until noon; it is more likely that he had others, perhaps one or more of his companions on the platform, to help him. But that is a question about historical plausibility. The text does not say that anyone else helped Ezra read the law. Finally, reading v. 8 as a recapitulation would make the verse grammatically awkward: the plural subjects of this one verse would refer to two different groups, Ezra and his companions (\u201cthey read\u201d) in the first clause and the Levites in the second clause (\u201cthey gave the sense\u201d).
\nAn alternative exegesis would be to take the subjects of v. 8 with the immediately preceding antecedent of the Levites in v. 7. In an attempt to help the people, they too read out loud to the people. Significantly, the verse adds the pual participle (\u05de\u05e4\u05e8\u05e9), meaning \u201cit was made distinct,\u201d implying that the first reading was not clear enough to the people. But in what ways did the Levites make the reading distinct?
\nThe same verb is used in Ezra 4:18 to refer to the letter that Rehum, Shimshai, and the rest of their associates sent to King Artaxerxes: \u201cNow the letter that you sent to me has been read \u05de\u05e4\u05e8\u05e9 before me.\u201d This verb in Aramaic could mean \u201cto explain\u201d or \u201cto translate.\u201d Thus the letter was either read with explanation or in translation. Williamson, however, translates the Aramaic participle \u201cverbatim\u201d and argues that the pael participle has the sense of \u201cword by word.\u201d In his view, the letter was read in full rather than summarized.
\nBut the letter to the Persian king is not that long; it takes up a mere six verses in Ezra 4:11\u201316. There is no need to state that it was read verbatim since there is no question of a summary. The Persian loan word that introduces the letter in v. 11 is \u05e4\u05e8\u05e9\u05d2\u05df, the same word used elsewhere to mean \u201ca copy\u201d (Ezra 4:23; 5:6) and not a summary.
\nInstead, what seems to be in view is bilingualism. The context suggests that the letter to which Artaxerxes was responding in 4:17\u201322 had been translated. There are three letters referred to in 4:6\u201324: (1) the letter of Bishlam, Mithredtah, Tabeel, and their associates (4:7); (2) the letter of Rehum and his colleagues (4:8\u201316); and (3) the king\u2019s reply to letter no. 2 (4:17\u201322). The procedure of royal correspondence must be pieced together from the information given in these letters.
\nIn 4:7, the wording needs explanation. According to this verse, \u201cin the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel and their associates wrote to King Artaxerxes of Persia.\u201d The next clause, however, literally states that \u201cthe written document of the letter was written in Aramaic and translated\u201d (4:7). The word \u201cAramaic\u201d is added a second time to the end of the verse, and translations vary in their understanding of its grammatical relationship to the rest of the clause. The RSV does not translate it, while JPS renders it separately as \u201cAramaic,\u201d preceding the linguistic switch of the original text from Hebrew to Aramaic.
\nWilliamson translates the final clauses in the following way: \u201cand the document was written in the Aramaic script but translated. (Aramaic).\u201d He argues that \u05d4\u05e0\u05e9\u05ea\u05d5\u05df need not refer to a written document. Moreover, he understands \u05db\u05ea\u05d5\u05d1 \u05d0\u05e8\u05de\u05d9\u05ea as the writing in Aramaic script, and \u05ea\u05e8\u05d2\u05dd as the translation of the document into Hebrew. The mention of Aramaic for the second time is taken as a scribal note. But it is not at all clear that Ezra 4:7 is distinguishing between script and translation. There is no change to the Aramaic square script in 4:8 onward or any evidence that the presumed original text of Ezra had such a switch of scripts.
\nIt seems to me that \u05d4\u05e0\u05e9\u05ea\u05d5\u05df should be translated by its usual sense of a written document. It could mean \u201cthe letter\u201d or alternatively \u201cthe instruction, the rescript,\u201d but there is no reason to suppose that it was unwritten or oral. In the book of Ezra \u05d4\u05e0\u05e9\u05ea\u05d5\u05df refers in other passages to written documents (e.g., a letter or report; see Ezra 4:18, 23; 5:5; 7:11).
\nWilliamson argues that \u05db\u05ea\u05d1 refers to script as in Esther 1:22. In that context it makes sense to understand \u05db\u05ea\u05d1 as \u201cscript\u201d in parallel to \u05dc\u05e9\u05d5\u05df as \u201clanguage\u201d since King Ahasuerus\u2019 letter is being sent to various peoples in the royal provinces \u201caccording to the language of his people\u201d (\u05db\u05dc\u05e9\u05d5\u05df \u05e2\u05de\u05d5). But \u05db\u05ea\u05d1 in Ezra-Nehemiah refers to a written document (\u201cthese, the ones enrolled by their genealogy, searched their registration [\u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05dd]\u201d; Ezra 2:62; Neh 7:64). In a related context, the same term is used by the Chronicler to mean royal correspondence (2 Chr 2:10) and the plans of the Temple that David gave to Solomon (1 Chr 28:19; 2 Chr 35:4).
\nThe penultimate clause of Ezra 4:7 refers to the writing of the letter in the Aramaic language: \u201cthe written document of the letter (or instruction) was written in Aramaic.\u201d The use of \u05db\u05ea\u05d1 underscores the written form of the communication. As for \u05d0\u05e8\u05de\u05d9\u05ea, in other uses of the term (2 Kgs 18:26; Isa 36:11, Dan 2:4) there is likewise an absence of a preposition; the nominal form is understood adverbially, in the sense of \u201cin Aramaic.\u201d Moreover, in those three other cases the reference is to the language and not the script.
\nThe final clause means \u201cand translated\u201d (\u05d5\u05de\u05ea\u05e8\u05d2\u05dd). The subject of the masculine participle is either \u201cthe written document\u201d or \u201cthe letter.\u201d The clause does not specify whether it was translated orally or in writing. The second occurrence of \u05d0\u05e8\u05de\u05d9\u05ea is perplexing. If it is also adverbial, then the last two clauses of verse 7 become tautological. There is no need to say that the letter was translated into Aramaic since it was already written in Aramaic. However, it could be a scribal note, indicating the switch from Hebrew to Aramaic, as Williamson suggested. Once \u201cAramaic\u201d is grammatically disentangled from \u201cand translated,\u201d then the final two clauses of v. 7 make much better sense. The letter was written in Aramaic but translated into another language, followed by a scribal note indicating that the language of the narrative is switching, as it does, to Aramaic in v. 8 and following.
\nThus understood 4:7 provides information about the procedure of royal correspondence. It speaks of a letter or instruction addressed to the king during the reign of Artaxerxes. The message sent to the king was not just an oral report brought by a messenger but a document written in Aramaic and translated into a different language, presumably Old Persian, that the king preferred or understood more easily. The verse summarizes the two-stage procedure of committing the missive into writing in Aramaic and delivering it in translation before the king.
\nIn Ezra 4:18, the king responds to Rehum and his associates\u2019 letter, which has been read before him. The introduction (4:8\u201311a) does not say how the letter was conveyed to the king, but if the procedure of 4:7 applied, then the letter or report would likewise have been written in Aramaic, as it in fact is. This letter in Aramaic was read before the king and made distinct. Given that 4:7 also stipulates a subsequent procedure of translation, then it is likely that \u05e9\u05e8\u05e4\u05de of 4:18 would mean that the letter was made distinct in the sense of having been translated. The translation was before the king, whether extemporaneously or as a prepared piece, but in any case done before the sovereign. The procedure of receiving reports in the royal court, then, would imply that letters, reports, and other documents written in the official language of correspondence and diplomacy, Aramaic, would be rendered into the language of the king.
\nOur interpretation of Ezra 4:18 means that the same verb \u05de\u05e4\u05e8\u05e9 in Neh 8:8 could have the sense of translation. It is a masculine singular pual participle. Its subject could be \u201cthe book or the scroll\u201d (\u05d4\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8); thus \u201cthey read the translated book, the torah of God.\u201d The participle could alternatively be understood as an adverbial accusative: \u201cthey read the book, the torah of God, in translation.\u201d The effect, however, is the same; it is translated.
\nThe first half of Neh 8:8, then, would have the same subject as the second half: the Levites read in translation the book of the law of God and gave the sense, so that the people would understand. Did they read from a scroll, or did they translate extemporaneously? The rules of translation into the Aramaic targum stipulate that a meturgeman must not translate from a written document but must render the words extemporaneously. But according to the subsequent account in Neh 9:3, \u201cthey read the book (or scroll) of the torah of the Lord their God\u201d while standing in their place. The subject is unspecified, but the immediately preceding antecedent is \u201cthe descendants of Israel\u201d of the previous verse. It is not impossible that Neh 8:8 envisions the Levites reading from scrolls, whether of the Hebrew text and\/or an accompanying translation, as they moved among the people.
\nThis reconstruction involves Ezra initially reading from the book of the law, presumably in Hebrew. He must have paused. Then the Levites \u201cread the translated book, the torah of God\u201d\u2014whether wholly repeating the portion of the reading or only in part\u2014making it distinct by rendering the reading into a language that was preferred or better understood. Nehemiah 8 does not say into which language the Levites had translated the reading, but later Jewish tradition understands it to be Aramaic and the whole episode as the origins of the Aramaic targum. Then the Levites gave the sense, perhaps in the form of explanations, so that the people would understand the reading.<\/p>\n
Did Ezra Read the Pentateuch?<\/p>\n
The book of the law of Moses (\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05de\u05e9\u05d4) in Neh 8:1 is often identified with the Pentateuch or five books of Moses, but this determination is not free from problems. In the subsequent account of the celebration (Neh 8:13\u201318), there is no mention of Yom Kippur alongside the festival of booths (cf. Lev 23:27\u201336, 39\u201343; 25:9). Conversely, there is a reference to the obligation to offer up the wood-offering (Neh 10:35) that is not found in the traditional Pentateuch but is attested in the Temple Scroll (11Q19 11.3) and other scrolls. Thus several possibilities have been suggested, including the identification of Ezra\u2019s Law book with one or more books or sources of the Pentateuch. Deuteronomy alone or with the priestly source is commonly seen as the reference standing behind \u201cthe book of the law of Moses.\u201d
\nIt is unlikely that Ezra\u2019s reading of the law in Nehemiah 8 presupposes the Pentateuch as we know it. The book is read in one day or, more precisely, in one morning (lit. \u201cfrom the light until midday\u201d; Neh 8:3). According to the Masorah, there are 5,845 verses or \u05e4\u05e1\u05d5\u05e7\u05d9\u05dd in the traditional five books of Moses. If one estimates that the duration of the morning consisted of six hours (\u201cfrom first light until noon\u201d), then Ezra would have had to read 974 verses for each of the six hours or 16 verses each minute! It would be difficult to achieve this. It would not allow the Levites enough time to translate and give the sense as they went around helping the people who stood in their place (Neh 8:7).
\nOne way of obviating this unlikely scenario is to postulate that Ezra read only a portion of the book of the law. Apart from the fact that Nehemiah 8 does not say so, this interpretation would run against the grain of the narrative since the thrust of the scene is that the children of Israel affirm the entire law of Moses. Ezra is unlikely to have read only some of the laws while leaving others out.
\nThere really is no way of knowing what Ezra\u2019s law book contained by looking at the material in this way. The danger is that one simply assumes that one knows what a book title or descriptive phrase means. The term \u201ctorah\u201d has various meanings, including \u201cinstruction,\u201d \u201cgeneric law,\u201d \u201cthe Law,\u201d \u201cthe book of Deuteronomy,\u201d \u201cthe five books of Moses,\u201d etc. The meaning of the term is dependent on the context in which it appears.
\nInstead, the reading of the law in Nehemiah 8 should be understood as part of the literary unit that constructs an ideal figure of Ezra. This is not to say that there is no historical Ezra, only that the historical kernel is well wedged within the literary husk. Source-critical analyses have shown that it belongs to the unit of Neh 8\u201310 and what has been called the \u201cEzra memoir.\u201d Neh 8 is dislocated in the Ezra-Nehemiah corpus and properly belongs to Ezra 7\u20139. In the literary depiction of Neh 8, Ezra becomes a kind of second Moses, reading the entire book of the law, in a reenactment of the covenantal ceremony of the giving of the law at Sinai. As such, it tells us more about the community of the editor, thought to belong to the priestly circles and dating to around 300 BCE, than the returnees from exile in the fifth century.<\/p>\n
The Hexateuch in Nehemiah 8\u201310<\/p>\n
Another way of ascertaining what books might be implied by \u201cthe torah of Moses\u201d is to investigate the books known to Ezra-Nehemiah, and especially in the review of Israelite history in Neh 9. Lester Grabbe points out that there are two traditions, one associating the promulgation of the Torah of Moses with Ezra (Neh 8) and a separate one that associates the same law with Nehemiah, the Levites, and the people without any mention of Ezra (Neh 9\u201310). He matches up passages in Ezra-Nehemiah with intertexual parallels in the Pentateuch. He finds parallels to all five books of the Pentateuch, as well as to the book of Joshua, and concludes that Ezra-Nehemiah relates not only to the legal sections, but also to \u201cthe whole of the Pentateuch.\u201d
\nThe biblical passages implied in Ezra-Nehemiah are the following: Genesis (Neh 9:6, 7\u20138), Exodus (Neh 9:9\u201311, 12\u201321), Leviticus (Ezra 3:4; 6:19\u201322; Neh 8:14\u201317; 10:32; 13:15\u201322), Numbers (Neh 9:12\u201322), Deuteronomy (Ezra 3:4; 6:19\u201322; Neh 10:32; 13:1\u20132; 13:25), and Joshua (Neh 9:23\u201325; cf. 9:26\u201337). Other passages may be added to this list, but it will suffice to show that Ezra-Nehemiah knows the biblical books. \u201cWe cannot absolutely demonstrate,\u201d Grabbe states, \u201cthat it [i.e., Ezra-Nehemiah] had in mind the Pentateuch precisely as we know it today, but it is a fair assumption that something quite close was in mind.\u201d Grabbe does not discuss where the book of Joshua fits in, but he evidently has a collection of five books of Moses in mind.
\nWhile I agree that the books of Genesis to Joshua are implied in Neh 8\u201310, I do not see two divisions of the Pentateuch plus Joshua. Surely the evidence points not to the Pentateuch but to a six-book collection, including the book of Joshua as Neh 9:23\u201325 clearly implies. But this inference would raise other problems.<\/p>\n
Joshua 24 and Nehemiah 8:17\u201318<\/p>\n
If a \u201chexateuch\u201d is implied, then how does it relate to the various descriptions of the collection? Recently Thomas R\u00f6mer and Marc Brettler have revived the theory of a Persian Hexateuch that has particular significance for the understanding of what \u201cthe torah\u201d might have signified for the post-exilic community. They point out that the two endings of Joshua 23 and 24 are important not just for source-criticism, but also historically for the emergence of a six-book collection (Genesis to Joshua). The latter is \u201ca post-exilic and post-Dtr text\u201d created by the Hexateuch redactor as a summary for the whole. The title of the book is \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05ea \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd (Josh 24:26), which should be translated not as a law book but \u201cthe book of the instruction of God,\u201d giving a wider sense to torah than the term \u201claw\u201d might imply. Moreover, they find this same book in Neh 8:17\u201318, concluding that \u201cthe book that was read by Nehemiah was the Hexateuch.\u201d
\nR\u00f6mer and Brettler provide plausible answers to some of the questions posed by Neh 8, but they leave aside other problems. Attractive is the suggestion that the Hexateuch would clarify v. 18 as a reference to the first commemoration of the festival of booths \u201csince the days of Joshua the son of Nun.\u201d The postulate of the Pentateuch alone would not adequately account for knowledge of this chronological note. However, in v. 14 the same torah is explicitly said to have come from the hand of Moses (\u201cthe torah that the Lord had commanded Moses\u201d). R\u00f6mer and Brettler do not discuss whether this description is a reference to the Pentateuch\u2014and if so, in what way it is Mosaic\u2014or a variant of \u201cthe book of the instruction of God.\u201d Moreover, it is not at all clear that Nehemiah is the subject of the clause \u201cand he read\u201d (\u05d5\u05d9\u05e7\u05e8\u05d0) of Neh 8:18. The antecedent points to Ezra (Neh 8:13).<\/p>\n
The \u201cTorah\u201d of Nehemiah 8\u201310<\/p>\n
It seems to me that the rub lies in the loose use of various titles of collections and descriptions and how they may or may not match up with the books implied in Neh 8\u201310. Six designations are used in Neh 8\u201310: \u201cthe book of the torah of Moses with which the Lord had commanded Israel\u201d (Neh 8:1); \u201cthe torah\u201d (Neh 8:2); \u201cthe book of the torah of God\u201d (Neh 8:8); \u201cthe torah that the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses\u201d (Neh 8:14); \u201cthe book of the torah of God\u201d (Neh 8:18); and \u201cthe book of the torah of the Lord their God\u201d (Neh 9:3). The common element is \u201ctorah.\u201d
\nWilliamson takes all these references as stylistic variants of the same title, which he equates more or less with the Pentateuch. But Neh 9:23\u201325 also shows knowledge of the conquest narrative, and the book of Joshua would have to be included in the designations, including those that refer specifically to Moses. However, Joshua 1:7\u20139, distinguishes itself from the book of Moses when it refers to the latter as an entity distinct from itself (\u201caccording to the torah which Moses my servant commanded you\u201d and \u201cthis book of the torah shall not depart from your mouth\u201d). So far as I am aware, the book of Joshua is not known to be part of \u201cthe torah of Moses\u201d in the Persian and early Hellenistic periods.
\nHow, then, can one cut through this Gordian Knot? One way is to recognize that the editor does not use the various titles and descriptions strictly, so one would not be able to find exact correspondences. The editor does not distinguish between descriptors that include an explicitly Mosaic reference from those that do not.
\nIn a similar way, the Chronicler uses the title \u201cthe book of the law of the Lord\u201d to refer to the law in the days of Josiah (2 Chr 34:14), which he explicitly relates to Mosaic origins (\u201cby the hand of Moses\u201d). This book is often identified with Deuteronomy or a version of it; in Chronicles, however, it probably refers to the entire Pentateuch. But the Chronicler also uses the same title to call attention more generally to the book of the law in the time of Jehoshaphat, son of Asa (2 Chr 17:9). His princes and Levites taught this book among the cities of Judah and among the people. This latter usage is found in the context of \u201ca post-exilic reality, anachronistically projected back to the age of the monarchy.\u201d It is unclear what this book might have included, but it is not explicitly characterized as Mosaic.
\nIn Ezra 6:18 the editor assigns the governance of the service of the Temple (\u05e2\u05d1\u05d9\u05d3\u05ea \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d0) to the book of Moses (\u05db\u05db\u05ea\u05d1 \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05de\u05e9\u05d4), but this tradition is not in the Pentateuch. It is, however, found in 1 Chr 23\u201327, and in that text it is David who organized the priests according to the appointed duties in their service (1 Chr 24:3).
\nIn other words, Ezra-Nehemiah seems to be familiar with not five but six biblical books, Genesis to Joshua. They are designated by various titles but not the \u201cHexateuch.\u201d The various designations have one common element, \u201ctorah,\u201d which must mean more than a strictly legal corpus. It is equivalent to what we would call laws and narratives.
\nThe term \u201ctorah\u201d in Ezra-Nehemiah is used in two main ways. It signifies the traditional laws of the Judeans that Ezra read out to the assembled of Israel. This literary use of \u201ctorah\u201d is symbolic; it does not refer to the Pentateuch as such. It raises aloft an emblem of Judean tradition that was being reestablished after the return from exile. A second use is torah as the signification of the laws and narratives of the Jewish people in the time of the final redaction of Ezra-Nehemiah. The scripturalization of this narrative as found in the first six books of the traditional Hebrew Bible forms the charter myth of Judean identity that represents the faithful and merciful God in the disobedient acts of the fathers of old.<\/p>\n
Prescription and Acceptance of Torah<\/p>\n
The recognition that \u201ctorah\u201d in Ezra-Nehemiah refers to both laws and narratives clarifies what is meant by the emergence of \u201ctorah.\u201d
\nThe \u201ctorah\u201d as traditional Judean laws are prescribed by Ezra and accepted by the people. Neh 8:9 states that the people responded in tears and then in joy after Ezra and the Levites taught them. The following day, the people enacted what they found written in the law concerning the festival of booths (Neh 8:13\u201318).
\nNotable in this narrative is the way that the teaching of the law is understood to be prescriptive. Ezra and the Levites did not just convey the law for information; in reading the scroll and making the people understand, they intended that the people should observe the traditional laws about the festival of booths.
\nThe prescriptive nature of this teaching represents a significant shift in the understanding of law. There is precedent for this use of laws in the book of reform during the reign of Josiah. The cultic reform that ensued after the discovery and reading of the book is similar to the changing of the behavior of the people after Ezra\u2019s reading of the Law. The comparison may even be extended to the royal backing of the prescription. But as John J. Collins notes, \u201cWhile Josiah\u2019s reform was certainly a milestone in the development of the Torah as Law, his lawbook was not yet a statutory law for Judah.\u201d
\nIt is only in Ezra-Nehemiah that the law becomes statutory. It is enacted by edict, judges are appointed, and penalties for disobedience are stipulated. However, the requirement of compliance seems to have been theoretical. It was not demanded in practice by either the secular or religious authorities. Ezra never forced the people to comply to the practices of the Mosaic law book. The Persians were not very interested in the specifics of the Judean laws, and they neither had the will nor the resources to enforce them, but they nonetheless exercised royal patronage over Ezra\u2019s mission and lent their authority to the traditional law that he was reestablishing in the province of Yehud.
\nTorah in Ezra-Nehemiah also refers to narratives. The intertwining of sacred story and obedience to the law is not to be missed. The story of God\u2019s dealings with his people is traced all the way back to Abram and Creation and forms the narrative of the confession of sins in Nehemiah 9. M. Gilbert compares various confessions of sins in the Hebrew Bible and observes that even if the law is not central, Neh 9 continually repeats the disobedience of the fathers from the law. The prayer reaches a crescendo in the final confession of God\u2019s steadfast maintenance of the covenant even while the people sinned. Acceptance of this charter myth is ensured by the cutting of the covenant, documenting the prescriptions in writing, and sealing the scroll with the signatories of secular and priestly authorities (Neh 9:32\u201310:39).<\/p>\n
It is possible, perhaps even likely, that the Persians had a hand in the promulgation of the Judean Torah. It served the interest of imperial geopolitical strategy to reinforce the traditional law of a subject people in order to maintain security and peace throughout the realm and especially in the vulnerable border region with Egypt.
\nIn the light of a discernible pattern of Persian governance, the edict of Artaxerxes is more likely to be authentic than a forgery. At its core is a historical rescript that supports a Persian intervention into the religious affairs of the Judeans in the fifth century BCE. It has, however, been adapted by a priestly editor who wants to underscore his theology of volition, which depicts both Persian kings and Israelites alike as willing participants in the divine drama. Thus the representation of the edict as a Persian initiative may be understood as a departure from the pattern of local petition and imperial reaction.
\nIn the edict of Ezra 7:12\u201326, the main purpose is the reestablishment of the cultic center in Jerusalem. The promulgation of the traditional Torah is subsumed under this overall aim, and it is to Neh 8\u201310 that one must look to see what books are in view. The depiction of Ezra reading the Torah, however, is fraught with form-critical and historical difficulties, not least in ascertaining what books \u201cthe torah\u201d might have included. Nehemiah 9, however, evidently knows six books, Genesis to Joshua, broadly designated under the title of \u201ctorah,\u201d which means laws and narratives.<\/p>\n
5<\/p>\n
The Letter of Aristeas and Its Early Interpreters<\/p>\n
It is often said that the Septuagint was the Bible of the Jewish diaspora in the period after the return of the Jews from exile to the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism. The simplicity of this assertion belies the complexity of the subject. Martin Hengel, in his discussion of the Christian reception of the Septuagint, entitles his opening chapter \u201cA Difficult Subject.\u201d Hengel points out that the topic belongs to one of the most exclusive of specialities, septuagintal studies, and is therefore terra incognita to most scholars.
\nMoreover, the subject itself is difficult. \u201cWe cannot prove,\u201d explains Hengel, \u201cthe existence of a genuine Jewish, pre-Christian collection of canonical value, unambiguously and clearly delimited.\u2026 Nor, especially, can it be shown that such a \u2018canon\u2019 was already formed in pre-Christian Alexandria.\u201d The indeterminacy makes the present task more difficult but is no excuse for avoiding the topic, as Hengel\u2019s book clearly shows.
\nDespite its legendary and propagandistic nature, the Letter of Aristeas is not without historical value in attesting to the existence of a canon, not in its literary setting of the third century BCE, but among the Alexandrian Jewish community of the first century and perhaps also the second century BCE. This canon of Jewish laws probably consisted of the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. But as the legend of the origins of the Greek translation was passed on, it was adapted to changed circumstances, and the translated texts came to mean more than the Pentateuch in the writings of the church fathers such as Justin, Irenaeus, Clement, Origen, Jerome, and Epiphanius.
\nThe translation of Hebrew scriptures to Greek should not be considered a phenomenon of the Jewish diaspora only. First, there is a scarcity of information about the Jewish diaspora. We do not know what Jews outside of Palestine held by way of canon. Did they read their scriptures in Hebrew, Greek, or Latin? It is only in Alexandria and Egypt, and now also at Qumran, that we have evidence of the role and function of authoritative scriptures.
\nSecond, the discoveries of the Judean desert show that the phenomenon of translating Hebrew scriptures into Greek was not confined to Egypt. Among the finds of the Judean desert are septuagintal texts, the most significant of which is the Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever, dating to the first century BCE, which attests to the early revision of a Greek translation. This kaige or proto-Theodotion recension evidences that Palestinian Jews likewise were engaged in revising existing translations toward the proto-MT. They too had a concept of canon as the Minor Prophets were transmitted as a collection.<\/p>\n
The Sinai Pattern<\/p>\n
According to the Letter of Aristeas, during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285\u2013247 BCE), the Jewish laws were translated into Greek at the request of the chief of the library in Alexandria. During his term as head of King Ptolemy\u2019s library, Demetrius of Phalerum is portrayed as noting that \u201cthe laws of the Jews are worthy of transcription and of being included in your library\u201d (10). This is tantamount to a request for \u201clibrary acquisition\u201d to fill a gap in the collection. Consequently, Aristeas, a courtier of the palace, and Andreas, the chief of the royal bodyguards, were entrusted by Ptolemy on a deputation to Jerusalem to acquire a copy of the laws of the Jews. The request was granted by the high priest, Eleazar, who sent seventy-two Jewish elders from Jerusalem to Alexandria, and in due course they translated the laws from Hebrew to Greek in seventy-two days, to the great acclaim of the Jewish community (\u00a750, 273, and 307).
\nThe climax of the account is worth quoting in its entirety as it includes several salient features:<\/p>\n
When the work was concluded Demetrius assembled the community of the Jews at the place where the translation was executed, and read it out to the entire gathering, the translators too being present; these received a great ovation from the community also, in recognition of the great service for which they were responsible. And they accorded Demetrius a similar reception, and requested him to have a transcription of the entire Law made and to present it to their rulers. When the rolls had been read the priests and the elders of the translators and some of the corporate body and the leaders of the people rose up and said, \u201cInasmuch as the translation has been well and piously made and is in every respect accurate, it is right that it should remain in its present form and that no revision of any sort take place.\u201d When all had assented to what had been said, they bade that an imprecation be pronounced, according to their custom, upon any who should revise the text by adding or transposing anything whatever in what had been written down, or by making any excision; and in this they did well so that the work might be preserved imperishable and unchanged always (\u00a7308\u2013311).<\/p>\n
This denouement is highly significant as an act of acceptance of the authoritative status of the Greek translation of the Jewish laws in Alexandria. The translation was read out to the Jewish community, which in turn responded by praising the work of the translators and Demetrius. The priests and elders of the translators, moreover, declared the translation to be perfectly accurate and that no revision of any kind should be made to its present form, a sentiment shared by the community, which immediately invoked a ban, valid for all time, on changing the text in any way.
\nIn an important article published in 1975, Harry Orlinsky pointed out that the description of the acceptance of the Greek translation in the Letter of Aristeas is modeled on the \u201cRevelation of the Torah at Sinai,\u201d as evidenced by the terminology and the use of what he called \u201cthe biblical procedure in designating a document as official and binding.\u201d He described this procedure of canonization to involve the reading aloud of the sacred text in the hearing of the people and the subsequent affirmation by the assembled, and he finds this pattern not only in the revelation of the law on Mt. Sinai (Exod 24:3\u20137), but also in the discovery of the book of the Covenant in the house of the Lord in the time of Josiah (2 Kgs 22\u201323) and in Ezra\u2019s reading of the Torah of Moses before the Water Gate (Neh 8:1\u20136). Moreover, Orlinsky pointed out that the imprecation against change of any kind is drawn from Deut 4:1\u20132 and the biblical directive to preserve the very words of the Hebrew text.
\nDetails of the account are highly significant, and Orlinsky goes on to show that the terminology of \u201cthe community of Jews\u201d (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03bb\u1fc6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f38\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd) is used in an official sense to refer to the \u201cthe Jewish people.\u201d The seventy-two translators evoke the memory of the elders of the twelve tribes and the priests who witnessed the events at Sinai. And the name of the high priest in Jerusalem, Eleazar, is chosen intentionally to echo his namesake, the third son of Aaron, in the biblical account.
\nOrlinsky\u2019s study is acknowledged by scholars for its contribution to the identification of the \u201cexample at Sinai\u201d in the Letter of Aristeas. However, he does not discuss the many historical problems relating to the account. In what sense is the Letter of Aristeas a historical account of the acceptance of the Greek translation as canon in Alexandria? What constituted the laws of the Jews?<\/p>\n
Legend, Propaganda, and Narrative<\/p>\n
It is widely agreed that the Letter of Aristeas is legendary and should not be taken at face value. The issue is whether there is a historical kernel embedded in it that reflects the views of the Jewish community in Alexandria.
\nThe literary form of the Letter of Aristeas, as with much else about the composition, has engendered debate. The designation of the composition as a \u201cletter\u201d (\u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u03ae) is late, first attested in Codex Regius (Q), a fourteenth-century manuscript. Some scholars would prefer to identify it as a literary \u201cepistle\u201d over an occasional \u201cletter,\u201d while others wonder whether such a distinction corresponds to modern English usage.
\nThe ancient sources do not call it a \u201cletter.\u201d Philo does not acknowledge the Letter of Aristeas, even though it is likely that he knew it rather than an independent source of the story (Mos. 2.25\u201344). Josephus, the first writer to mention the composition, ends his summary of the banquet scene by referring his readers to \u201cthe book of Aristeas\u201d (\u03c4\u1f78 \u1f08\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5 \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03bd; Ant. 12:100). Eusebius calls it \u201con the interpretation of the law of the Jews\u201d (Praep. Evang. 9.38), which some believe was its original title. Epiphanius gives it the generic designation of \u201ccollection\u201d (\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1; de Mens. et Pond. 9). And the manuscript tradition provides the superscription \u201cAristeas to Philocrates.\u201d
\nThe Letter of Aristeas is not a letter at all, and its designation as such is apparently due to the medieval scribe who was misled by the first-person voice of the narrative and the dedication to Philocrates. It refers to other documents as \u201cletters\u201d (\u00a728, 34, 41, 42, 51, 173), but it does not call itself \u201ca letter.\u201d According to its own self-description, the Letter of Aristeas is a \u03b4\u03b9\u03b7\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 (\u00a71, 322) or narrative of a certain Aristeas to his \u201cbrother\u201d Philocrates. This literary form is equivalent to the Latin narratio and was part of the rhetorical curriculum or progymnasmata of the aspiring rhetorician.
\nFor Abraham Wasserstein the Letter of Aristeas is \u201ca collection of exercises,\u201d including ekphraseis, symposia, questions and answers, and speeches, framed by a story of the translation: \u201cThe account of the translation is a Rahmenerzahlung, a frame story, the purpose of which is to provide a framework for a multitude of other stories and examples of varied literary genres.\u201d Thus the purpose of the Letter of Aristeas is not about the translation of the law as such but the creation of a propaganda to show, on the one hand, how successful Jews were in the Egyptian court, and, on the other, the benign reign of the Ptolemaic regime toward Alexandrian Jewry.
\n\u201cThe style of the work as a whole,\u201d Moses Hadas has stated, \u201cpointed to a writer of belles-lettres rather than of history.\u201d Recently, Sylvie Honigman put the matter succinctly, encapsulating the genre as \u201ca historical diegesis written in epistolary form.\u201d She compares the Letter of Aristeas to Homeric scholarship and argues that it is the \u201ccharter myth\u201d of the LXX in the context of the Jewish community in Alexandria.
\nThe diegesis of the Letter of Aristeas contains a heady mixture of history, imaginative embellishments, and digressions. There are numerous literary \u201casides\u201d and excursuses (e.g., the structure and rituals of the Jerusalem Temple; a history of the Egyptian Jews); the account is concerned with Jewish practices and shows great admiration for the high priest; and there are passages of philosophical discourse in which the king poses a series of prepared questions to each of his Jewish guests, who spontaneously give responses worthy of admiration. Indeed, one of the unexpected features of the narrative is just how little attention is paid to the issue of the translation (\u00a7301\u2013307).
\nYet without this account of the origins of the translation, there is no story to tell. This is certainly how the first interpreters of the Letter of Aristeas understood it. Philo and Josephus may have embellished, adapted, and omitted various details and passages of the narrative in their writings, but they did not leave out the origins of the translation. The church fathers likewise focused on the legend of the Septuagint.<\/p>\n
Author and Date<\/p>\n
In the past scholars called the writer \u201cPseudo-Aristeas,\u201d but it made little sense to add \u201cpseudo\u201d to the name of an author who would otherwise have been unknown. This prefix is typically affixed to a known personage, such as Moses, Ezra, or Ezekiel. The author is, however, \u201cpseudo\u201d in another sense. Despite being a purported courtier in Ptolemy\u2019s court, he was probably a Jew rather than a Greek, judging by what he knows and says about Judaism. He shows detailed knowledge of Judaea, the Jerusalem Temple, and its cultic practices (\u00a783\u2013120). He admires the high priest, Eleazar, and approves of his apology of Jewish food laws as directed toward justice (\u00a7167\u2013171). And he lauds the Jewish translators as far more advanced than the philosophers because they made God their starting point (\u00a7235).
\nA particularly telling comment from the narrator extols the virtues of the seventy-two translators because of their devotion to God: \u201cFor in their conduct and discourse these men were far in advance of the philosophers, for they made their starting-point from God\u201d (\u00a7235). This is evocative of the story of Daniel and his friends in the Babylonian court that dates to the second century BCE.
\nMost scholars now believe that \u201cAristeas\u201d was the nom de plume of an unidentified Hellenized Jew who adopted the literary persona of an Egyptian courtier. He wrote in good literary Koine, although his style has a tendency to pretentiousness.
\nThere are likewise doubts about the date of the composition. Scholars are in rare agreement that the literary setting of the Letter of Aristeas takes place during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. The name \u201cPhiladelphus,\u201d in fact, is never mentioned. Consistent with the point of view of a courtier, the monarch is referred to as \u201cthe (great) king\u201d in the Letter of Aristeas. On two occasions, he is simply called \u201cPtolemy\u201d (\u00a735 and 41), and the royal identity must be inferred from the reference to Ptolemy Lagus (or Ptolemy I Soter) as the king\u2019s father (\u00a712\u201313).
\nThere are, however, slips and inaccuracies that betray a later date of composition. In \u00a7182, when Nicanor instructs Dorotheus to make special provisions of food, drink, and recliners for the benefit of the visiting translators, the narrator adds: \u201cFor such was the arrangement instituted by the king, which you may observe in use even now\u201d (\u1f14\u03c4\u03b9 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd). The perspective is that of an author who was removed in time from the events and needed to explain the conventions of a contemporary practice to the reader.
\nOr again, in \u00a728, when the narrator adds an explanatory gloss to the royal practice of requiring a written submission of the proposed acquisition of the Jewish books, he nostalgically reminisces of a bygone age: \u201cThese kings used to administer all their business through decrees and with great precaution; nothing was done negligently or casually.\u201d The use of the past tense, \u201cused to administer,\u201d is incompatible with a contemporary author. Moreover, the plural \u201ckings\u201d is inaccurate, given that there was only one other king before Philadelphus (cf. Josephus, Ant. 12:10).
\nThe most glaring of such blunders is the naming of the librarian as Demetrius of Phalerum (ca. 350\u2013297 BCE). He never held the office in the library of Alexandria, and he enjoyed the patronage of Ptolemy Soter and not of his son Philadelphus. In fact, in the rivalry for succession, Demetrius supported his half-brother Ptolemy Ceraunus against Philadelphus. Upon his accession, Philadelphus banished the \u201cPeripatetic\u201d scholar.
\nDespite its claim of using public records to guarantee the accuracy of the account (\u00a7296\u2013300) the Letter of Aristeas is not quite what it seems. Its date of composition is clearly after the time of Philadelphus. Here the consensus that holds sway with regard to the literary setting gives way to a multitude of scholarly views. Suggested dates of composition range between the third century BCE and first century CE.
\nMost scholars, however, would agree that the terminus ante quem was the end of the first century CE. In book 12 of the Jewish Antiquities, when recounting the accession of Ptolemy Philadelphus to power in Egypt, Josephus gives an account of the origins of the Greek translation (11\u2013118). His paraphrase differs from the Letter of Aristeas in several ways. It is shorter by intentional contraction; for instance, Josephus states that \u201cI have not thought it necessary to report the names of the seventy elders\u201d (57). His account adds the occasional personal touch. He explains that the tears of the king, upon seeing the scrolls, is a sign of joy and not sadness: \u201cIt is natural for great joy to be expressed by the same signs as grief\u201d (91). Josephus\u2019 version of the story also differs in numerous details, especially those relating to numbers (e.g., library books, slaves, prices, and wages).
\nThere is little doubt, however, that Josephus used the Letter of Aristeas as a source rather than an independent tradition. Major differences may be explained by what Josephus did with his source. In some cases, he simply summarized it. On the banquet scene in which the king questioned each of the seventy-two translators, Josephus referred the interested reader to \u201cthe book of Aristeas\u201d for further details (99\u2013100). The differences between Ant. 12 and the Letter of Aristeas may be explained by Josephus\u2019 historical method. He states this most clearly when he prefaces his description of the royal gifts of furniture for the Temple with the justification that \u201calthough perhaps my History does not call for such an account, because I believe that in this way I shall bring home to my readers the king\u2019s love of art and his magnanimity\u201d (59). The inclusion of details, therefore, and presumably also the contraction, addition, and adaptation of his source, are dependent on how he wants to tell the story.
\nSince Josephus used it in his paraphrase, the date of the composition of the Letter of Aristeas must have been prior to the end of the first century CE, when the Antiquities was written. In his two-volume work, On the Life of Moses, Philo (20 BCE\u201350 CE) also recounts the story of the translation (2.25\u201344). It would seem that he too used the Letter of Aristeas as a source, although there are numerous differences between the two.
\nThe major discrepancies are three. In Philo\u2019s version, the Greek translation was not brought about by the need to fill a gap in the library but by the necessity to make known the laws to the Greeks, who had hitherto been denied access because the laws were written in the \u201cChaldean tongue.\u201d It was not Demetrius the chief librarian but \u201csome people\u201d who thought \u201cit a shame that the laws should be found in one half only of the human race, the barbarians, and denied altogether to the Greeks\u201d (Mos. 2.27). These unnamed \u201cpeople,\u201d probably Greeks in Alexandria, then set in motion the translation of the Jewish laws. Because of its public interest, the proposal was referred to the king, who immediately dispatched envoys to Jerusalem.
\nThe Philonic account also differs in its description of the process of translation. In the Letter of Aristeas the work was tantamount to \u201ca translation by committee.\u201d The translators compared their translations and harmonized the details under the direction of Demetrius, completing their work in seventy-two days (\u00a7300\u2013307). By comparison, Philo recounts that each scribe sat in seclusion translating and under inspiration wrote the same \u201cword for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter\u201d (Mos. 2.37).
\nFinally, Philo mentions an annual feast on the island of Pharos, attended by Jews and Greeks, to commemorate the translation at the place where \u201cthe light of that version first shone out\u201d (Mos. 2.41). Within the literary context of the Letter of Aristeas and its account of the original translation of the Jewish laws, no yearly remembrance was instituted. Moreover, there is no hint that that tradition had already been established by the time the Letter of Aristeas was composed.
\nPhilo\u2019s account occurs in his biography on the life of Moses. In the first volume, he recounted the birth, early life, and activities of Moses; the exodus from Egypt; wanderings in the wilderness; and the troubles that were overcome. In the second volume, Philo focused on Moses\u2019 role as legislator, high priest, and prophet, based on the Platonic view that states could flourish only if either the kings were philosophers or philosophers were kings (Mos. 2.2). It is in the second volume and in the section on Moses as legislator that Philo includes the account of the Greek translation.
\nThe literary context is vital in accounting for the first two discrepancies. Philo\u2019s emphasis upon kingship, especially on the house of the Ptolemies, explains the omission of Demetrius and the library. The books were not translated into Greek because the chief librarian thought it good to include a copy of the Jewish laws in his collection but because Moses was \u201cthe best of all lawgivers in all countries\u201d (2.12), and his laws, once known in Greek translation, would be universally recognized for their superiority. The institutions found in them (namely, the sacred seventh day and the fast, 2.21, 23) are highly respected, and \u201ceach nation would abandon its peculiar ways, and, throwing overboard their ancestral customs, turn to honouring our laws alone\u201d (2.44). This is because, for Philo, Moses was not just the legislator of the Jews but \u201cthe best of all lawgivers in all countries\u201d (2.12).
\nMoreover, for Philo, Moses was the ruler of the Jews, and it was fitting that the need for the translation of his books should not only be recognized by the people, but also that it be carried out under the authority of no less a royal figure than Ptolemy Philadelphus, who was highly regarded in Roman Alexandria and whose praises, so it was reported, were sung \u201ceven till to-day\u201d (2.29).
\nIn the Letter of Aristeas and the Life of Moses the recounting of the translation process included two different \u201cmiraculous\u201d elements. In the former, the translation was completed in seventy-two days, \u201cas if this coincidence had been the result of some design\u201d (\u00a7307). A more obvious \u201ccoincidence,\u201d however, is between the duration of the translation and the number of translators who represented the twelve tribes of Israel. By the Ptolemaic period, the Israelite tribal organization had long since ceased, but in the appointment of six elders from each of the twelve legendary tribes, the Letter of Aristeas is symbolically underscoring the acceptance of the Jewish community. The duration of the translation is best explained by the significance that the Letter of Aristeas attaches to the number.
\nIn the latter, Philo\u2019s \u201cmiraculous\u201d element is found in the exact agreement of the translations by scribes who worked in isolation (2.37\u201338). The number of scribes was unimportant, as was the banquet scene, which he summarized briefly (2.33). Important to Philo was the divine inspiration of the translation. He described the scribes as though they were \u201cpossessed and under inspiration\u201d and that their translation was dictated to them by God (2.37). As a result, their translation agreed exactly \u201cword for word.\u201d Philo added that the translational agreement was all the more astonishing given that the Greek language \u201cabounds in terms, and that the same thought can be put in many shapes by changing single words and whole phrases and suiting the expression to the occasion\u201d (2.38).
\nPhilo\u2019s emphasis upon inspiration here is consistent with his view that Moses was an inspired prophet. Later on in the same work, Philo describes Moses \u201cas a prophet possessed by God\u2019s spirit\u201d (Mos. 2.258). The scribes who would translate Moses\u2019 books likewise had to recognize the lofty task before them, \u201creflecting on how great an undertaking it was to make a full version of the laws given by the Voice of God, where they could not add or take away or transfer anything, but must keep the original form and shape\u201d (2.34).
\nIt is likely that Philo adapted the Letter of Aristeas when he wrote his biography of Moses. This would mean that the Letter of Aristeas must be dated prior to the turning of the era. But can we be more precise? Moses Hadas has argued that the Letter of Aristeas is to be dated to 130 BCE. His comprehensive discussion of all the internal and external evidence leads him to posit a date in the second half of the second century. The lynchpin of his argument is the linkage between the Letter of Aristeas and the Prologue of the Wisdom of Ben Sira. \u201cIf, as seems not unlikely,\u201d Hadas concluded cautiously, \u201cthe version referred to in Aristeas is indeed a revision and Ben Sirah\u2019s objection refers to the unrevised version, it would seem most reasonable to assign a date shortly after 132 BCE.\u201d
\nWhat Hadas had in mind, of course, was the grandson\u2019s observations in the Prologue about translations and original compositions: \u201cFor things originally spoken in Hebrew have not the same force in them when they are translated into another tongue: and not only these, but the Law itself, and the prophecies, and the rest of the books, have no small difference, when they are spoken in their original language.\u201d Hadas interpreted these words to imply a criticism against previous, unsatisfactory Greek translations; the Prologue of the Wisdom of Ben Sira is witness to a dissatisfaction with existing translations that is also found in the Letter of Aristeas. For Hadas, when Demetrius informed the king that the books of the law of the Jews \u201chave been committed to writing somewhat carelessly and not adequately\u201d (\u00a730), he was referring to previous translations and not to Hebrew manuscripts. What Demetrius sought from Ptolemy, therefore, was an official revision and not a translation de novo.
\nBut this whole line of argument depends upon an unlikely interpretation of the verb \u03c3\u03b5\u03c3\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, which Hadas translated neutrally as \u201chave been committed to writing.\u201d In his notes, Hadas showed that he was actually following Paul Kahle\u2019s view that \u03c3\u03b5\u03c3\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 means \u201cinterpreted\u201d and \u201ctranslated\u201d rather than \u201cwritten down\u201d since the king was unlikely to be interested in the state of the Hebrew text.
\nGunther Zuntz, however, has convincingly shown, by appealing to comparative lexical usage, that the verb \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd means \u201cto write\u201d and not \u201cto translate.\u201d He points out that the verb literally means \u201cto betoken\u201d or \u201cto indicate,\u201d and in the papyri it is often used in the clause \u03c3\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03ad \u03bc\u03bf\u03b9, \u201cwrite to me.\u201d This same sense is found in 1 Esd 8:48 (\u201cthe catalogue of all the names has been written\u201d [\u1f10\u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03ac\u03bd\u03b8\u03b7]) and 2 Macc 2:1 (\u201cas has been written [\u03c3\u03b5\u03c3\u03ae\u03bc\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9]\u201d). Zuntz placed particular weight on the usage of the verb in Aristobulus, given its relationship to the Letter of Aristeas: \u201cHence I have written [\u03c3\u03b5\u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03ac\u03b3\u03ba\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd] as required.\u201d For Zuntz Demetrius must have meant, when he wrote to the king, that the books of the Jewish laws were written rather carelessly.
\nBut why would an Alexandrian librarian or his king care about the state of the Hebrew text? David Gooding has argued that it must be remembered that the author of the Letter of Aristeas was a Jew and not a Greek and that Demetrius was not Philadelphus\u2019 librarian. \u201cThough the author has accurately copied the style of court memoranda for the sake of verisimilitude,\u201d stated Gooding, \u201che has made Demetrius say whatever he wanted him to say, and in the process has made him speak more like a Jew than a Greek.\u201d
\nIt could be added against Hadas that while the interpretation of the Prologue of Ben Sira as a criticism against existing translations is possible, it is not necessary. A non-apologetic reading of the Prologue is equally possible, if not more likely: the grandson is simply noting the inadequacy of translation as such. The translation of \u201cthe law,\u201d \u201cthe prophecies,\u201d and \u201cthe rest of the books\u201d into Greek is simply an example of how any translation, including his own Greek rendering of his grandfather\u2019s Hebrew work of wisdom, differs markedly from the original.
\nThe grandson\u2019s own admission that \u201cdespite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly\u201d is surely not a self-criticism of his own inadequate effort and skill. Rather it is a recognition that his own translation, like all translations, merely approximates the sense of the original, as any bilingual person would know intuitively.
\nFinally, Hadas does not explain the vital discrepancy between \u201cthe Jewish laws\u201d of the Letter of Aristeas, which he understood to be the Pentateuch, and Sirach\u2019s enumeration of the law, prophecies, and the rest of the books.
\nA more promising way of dating was suggested by Henry Meecham. In his commentary he appealed to linguistic evidence for his dating of the Letter of Aristeas to 100 BCE. Comparing features of the Letter of Aristeas\u2019s Koine to usage in the papyri, Meecham concluded that the date must have been in the \u201clate Ptolemaic period (say about 100 B.C.).\u201d He pointed to six key features of lexical usage, grammar, and morphology: the occurrence of the plural \u201cthe keepers of the bodyguard\u201d (\u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b9\u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c6\u03cd\u03bb\u03b1\u03ba\u03b5\u03c2; \u00a712, 40); the use of \u03c6\u03af\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 (\u00a745) in the technical sense of \u201cfriends of the king\u201d; the omission of the pronoun \u03c3\u03bf\u03b9 in the formula \u201cif then it seems good\u201d (\u1f10\u1f70\u03bd \u03bf\u1f56\u03bd \u03c6\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9; \u00a732); the use of the shorter epistolary greeting \u201cgreeting and health\u201d (\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f10\u03c1\u03c1\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9; \u00a735); the incidence of the phrase \u201cyou will then do well\u201d (\u03ba\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff6\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f56\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 plus participle; \u00a739, 46) in polite discourse; and the use of various lexical forms (\u03bf\u1f50\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c2\/\u03bc\u03b7\u03b4\u03b5\u03af\u03c2, \u03c4\u03b5\u03c3\u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1\u03b4\u03cd\u03bf, \u1f15\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03b5\u03bd, \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03b8\u03b7, \u1f00\u03c0\u03b5\u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf, \u1f43\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bd), as well as the term \u201cCoele-Syria and Phoenicia\u201d (\u00a712).
\nThe linguistic evidence is by no means decisive, as Meecham himself is well aware, and further discoveries of papyri may well show earlier usages of these terms. Moreover, there is always the possibility that a later author may have been using archaizing language. Nonetheless, the linguistic evidence as it stands is consistent with a 100 BCE dating.
\nSylvie Honigman has further argued that the date of the Letter of Aristeas may be pushed back to the middle of the second century BCE. As mentioned above, she interprets the book as the charter myth of the LXX composed by an anonymous Jewish author for a highly educated Alexandrian Jewish audience. This political myth provides a record and validation of the origins of the Septuagint, which was a matter of prestige for the Jewish community in an intellectual climate that saw the standardization of the Homeric texts by Aristarchus.
\nHonigman eschews the usual historical discussions of the realia of the narrative. Rather she focuses on the more elusive task of finding hints in the \u201cideology and beliefs presented in the work\u201d as a way of dating the text and reconstructing its historical context. Honigman argues that Aristarchus, the fifth head of the library of Alexandria (ca. 180\u2013145 BCE), produced an edition of Homer with commentary that acquired the status of an authoritative text. This \u201cscripture\u201d is corroborated by the papyri, which show a normalization and standardization of the Homeric works by 150 BCE. The Letter of Aristeas was composed at this time, and the reference in \u00a730 to manuscripts that \u201chave been transcribed somewhat carelessly\u201d is a retrojection of a second-century situation to the period of Ptolemy II.
\nBut the Letter of Aristeas does not mention any comparison to Homer\u2019s works. Honigman assembles her case based upon a thorough literary analysis of the Letter of Aristeas itself, where there is an intermingling of what she calls \u201cthe Homeric pattern,\u201d \u201cthe Alexandrian pattern,\u201d and \u201cthe Exodus pattern.\u201d For her, one particularly telling detail is in the use of the Greek verb \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03b2\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd to refer to a textual emendation among Homeric grammarians undertaking their form of textual criticism. This same verb is used in the Letter of Aristeas \u00a731, which referred to the emended form of the books to be deposited in the Alexandrian library.
\nHonigman\u2019s dating is based on the intellectual climate of Alexandria in the second century BCE, specifically the textual standardization of the Homeric works. By its nature, it is circumstantial, but it reaches that level of probability to which one is accustomed in investigating ancient historical matters.<\/p>\n
The Origins of the LXX and the Canon of the Alexandrian Jews<\/p>\n
The concept of \u201ccharter myth\u201d is dependent on the notion of cultural memory. A community that perpetuates a myth of this kind creates a composition based upon reminiscences of what it believes to have happened in the distant past. It is not necessarily unhistorical; it is just not entirely factual.
\nThe task then is to separate history from subsequent embellishment in the Letter of Aristeas. Legendary elements within the main theme are likely to include the number of seventy-two elders who translated the Jewish laws into Greek in seventy-two days (\u00a7307). The deference that the Ptolemaic king pays to both the original manuscripts and translation (\u00a7177\u2013178, 317) also smacks of an overt concern for royal approval among the second century Alexandrian Jewish community.
\nThe central claim of the Letter of Aristeas, however, is likely to contain a historical kernel. The Jewish laws were remembered to have been translated into Greek some time in the early Ptolemaic dynasty, whether during the reign of Soter or Philadelphus. This memory is not entirely inaccurate and is supported in a general way by the earliest septuagintal manuscripts found in Egypt. The first-century BCE fragments known as Papyri Fouad include Greek translations of Genesis (PFouad 266a) and Deuteronomy (PFouad 266b, 266c). They were found in Fayyum and attest to the phenomenon of translating the Jewish laws into Greek in Egypt. Papyrus Ryland 458 (Deuteronomy), moreover, dates a century earlier and is likely to have come from the same area.
\nThis activity is not restricted to Egypt. The finds of the Judaean desert likewise evidence the same translational phenomenon. Fragments of Greek Deuteronomy (4QLXXDeut [4Q122], ca. 200\u2013150 BCE), Numbers (4QLXXNum [4Q121], ca. 40 BCE\u201310 CE), and Leviticus (4QpapLXXLeva [4Q119], ca. 125\u20131 BCE; 4QpapLXXLevb [4Q120], ca. 100\u20131 BCE) were found in one of the caves by Khirbet Qumran. These have been dated to the first or second century BCE. Cave 7, which contained only fragments of Greek manuscripts, also yielded a few fragments that have been identified by the principal editors as early septuagintal manuscripts of Exodus (7QpapLXXExod [7Q1]; 100 BCE) and the Epistle of Jeremiah (7QpapEpJer [7Q2]; 100 BCE).
\nA notable find is the Minor Prophets Scroll from Nahal Hever (8HevXIIgr; 50\u20131 BCE). This Greek text not only attests to a collection of six of the Twelve Minor Prophets books in one scroll (Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Zechariah), but its textual character also shows that the revision of existing Greek translations toward the proto-MT had already begun. This has been described as a kaige recension, by virtue of its stereotyped translation of the Hebrew gam by the Greek kaige, or more commonly as the proto-Theodotion recension, signaling the affinities of the Theodotion recension to this scroll.
\nTranslations from Hebrew to Greek had already taken place in the second century BCE, as indicated by the earliest Greek manuscripts from Egypt and the land of Israel. The process had likely begun before that time. Further corroborating evidence may be garnered from the identifiable citations and references in the works of Jewish Hellenistic authors, most notably that of Aristobulus, who referred to an early Greek translation of \u201cthe narrative of the leading forth of the Hebrews,\u201d followed by \u201cthe complete translation of the Law and all its contents\u201d under Ptolemy Philadelphus (in Eusebius, Praep Evang. 13.13.2). The Letter of Aristeas itself hints at even earlier Greek translations that were misused by the historian Theopompus (ca. 376\u2013300 BCE) and the tragic poet Theodectes (ca. 380\u2013334 BCE) with serious psychological and physical consequences (\u00a7314\u2013316), although this account of the use of Jewish laws by renowned Greeks could be a literary topos.
\nAdditionally, it has been shown that the language of the Septuagint of the Pentateuch is consistent with the Koine of the third-or second-century BCE Egypt. John Lee\u2019s comparative study of the Septuagint of the Pentateuch and the papyri confirms that the translators were familiar with the \u201cvocabulary of their time.\u201d Greg Horsley, moreover, has shown that the Septuagint translators did not use a special form of Jewish-Greek, as was suggested by earlier scholars, but that they used idiomatic Koine Greek.
\nThe cumulative force of this evidence points to the second or the third century BCE. Various translations were carried out in several localities (Fayyum, Judaean desert) and not just in Alexandria. But in the Letter of Aristeas the second-century Alexandrian Jewish community claimed that the translation took place in its city and under the royal patronage of the early Ptolemaic dynasty. The standardization of the Homeric epics in the second century, as Honigman suggested, may have given an anonymous Alexandrian Jewish author the impetus to produce his own account of the origins of the translation of the Jewish laws based on the communal recollections of earlier generations.
\nThese cultural reminiscences are not entirely accurate. The reference to Demetrius as librarian is clearly a mistake, although he may have been associated with the translation in some way. The ostensible acquisition of a library copy is also likely to reflect the concerns of the Jewish community in the second century to establish the official Alexandrian translation. The more likely reason probably had to do with the changing linguistic use and facility of Greek over Hebrew among the Jews in the diaspora and in the land of Israel in the period that saw the Hellenization of the ancient Near East. The Prologue of the Wisdom of Ben Sira attests to this need to translate a work from Hebrew into Greek. Among the scrolls found at Qumran, there is evidence of knowledge of Greek.
\nThe number of translators is also unlikely to be correct and is probably symbolic of the tribal organization of ancient Israel conflated with the elders who witnessed the events on Mt. Sinai (Exod 24:1, 9). Rabbinic tradition mentions five as the number of translators (Avot of Rabbi Nathan B 37, 94f), which would be consistent with the textual assessment of the translation of the Pentateuch as having been done by a handful of translators.
\nThe Letter of Aristeas attests to the beliefs of the Jewish community in Alexandria. Its \u201ccharter myth\u201d claims the story of the origins of the translation in reaction to the standardization of the Homeric epics. Other translations, not mentioned by the Letter of Aristeas, also took place elsewhere. As propaganda, it speaks first and foremost for what the Jewish community of second-century Alexandria believed about the significance of the translation of the Jewish laws into Greek.<\/p>\n
The Jewish Laws and the Pentateuch<\/p>\n
It is widely held that the Letter of Aristeas attests to the translation of the first five biblical books, the Pentateuch. This is possible, but nowhere in the composition is this explicitly mentioned. What was translated is described as \u201cthe divine law\u201d (\u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2; \u00a73); \u201cthe laws of the Jews\u201d (\u03c4\u03ac \u1f38\u03bf\u03c5\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1; \u00a710); \u201cthe law\u201d (\u1f21 \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1; \u00a7176, 313); \u201cthe books\u201d (\u03c4\u03ac \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b1; \u00a7176, 317); \u201cthe entire law\u201d (\u1f41 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2; \u00a7309); and \u201cthe rolls\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7; \u00a7179, 310). There are also references to Jewish laws and writings but not specifically in the context of the translation: \u201cthe holy law\u201d (\u1f21 \u03c3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bd\u03ae \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1; \u00a75); \u201cthe law\u201d (\u1f41 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2; \u00a7122, 168); \u201cthe scripture\u201d (\u1f21 \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae; \u00a7155, 168); and \u201cthe book\u201d (\u1f21 \u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2; \u00a7316).
\nOne of these terms, the plural \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7, is etymologically the root of the term \u201cthe Pentateuch\u201d (\u1f21 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bd\u03c4\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03c5\u03c7\u03bf\u03c2), which the church fathers Tertullian, Origen, and Epiphanius used to refer to the first five books. The first attested use of the term, however, dates to the first century CE. It appears in a certain letter of Ptolemy\u2019s to his \u201csister\u201d Flora, in which he refers to \u201cthe Pentateuch of Moses\u201d (in Epiphanius, Against Heresies 33.3.1\u201333.7.10).
\nBut \u03c4\u1f70 \u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c7\u03b7 literally means \u201cjars, cases\u201d and in the Letter of Aristeas denotes \u201cthe rolls,\u201d \u201cscrolls,\u201d and \u201cbooks.\u201d These rolls were \u201cprecious parchments\u201d on which \u201cthe law\u201d was inscribed \u201cin Jewish letters with writing of gold\u201d (\u00a7176). Elsewhere in the Letter of Aristeas it is said that the divine law is written on \u201cparchments in Hebrew characters\u201d (\u00a73). If \u201cHebrew characters\u201d is understood to mean the ancient Hebrew script and \u201cJewish letters\u201d the square script, then there appears to be some discrepancy. Solomon Zeitlin suggested that the phrase \u201cin Jewish letters\u201d was a secondary interpolation dating to the period after the destruction of the Temple, when the Jewish script was much more in use than the ancient Hebrew script. Rabbinic tradition alludes to Egyptian Torah scrolls written in gold (cf. Sopherim 1.10), but what was written in gold was only the names of God.
\nIt is possible that what the Letter of Aristeas had in view by way of the translation of the Jewish laws was a \u201ctetrateuch.\u201d Passages from four of the five biblical books\u2014Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy\u2014appear in the Letter of Aristeas. The book of Genesis, however, seems to have been used very little, if at all. One possible allusion is found in a response to the king\u2019s question as to why the majority of men do not embrace virtue. The elder (the sixty-third in sequential order!) replies that all men are by nature \u201cintemperate and have an innate propensity to pleasure\u201d (\u00a7277). This view that human nature has such a propensity recalls a similar sentiment of the good and evil inclinations of man in Philo\u2019s writings and in the midrashic interpretation of Gen 2:7.
\nThe various terms associated with the Jewish laws can have different referrents. For instance, in \u00a7155, \u201cscripture\u201d (\u1f21 \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae is used to introduce a conflated quotation of Deut 7:18 and 10:21. It does not refer to the Pentateuch. Moses is mentioned only once by name; he is more often called \u201cthe legislator\u201d (\u00a7131, 139, 148, 312). In the one instance in which he is named, the reference introduces a discussion of the unclean animals of Lev 11:29 (\u00a7144).
\nPerhaps the most indicative evidence of the translation of the Pentateuch is to be found in the reference to \u201cthe entire law\u201d (\u00a7309), which in the context must mean more than Deuteronomy and could have theoretically included all five biblical books in separate scrolls. Genesis, however, does not fit the description of law. Philo (see below) considers the first book as history rather than law. The alternative would be to take \u201cthe entire law\u201d as a \u201ctetrateuch\u201d of books from Exodus to Deuteronomy.<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s Greek Canon<\/p>\n
Philo\u2019s retelling of the origins of the Greek translation was discussed above in relation to the dating of the Letter of Aristeas. What needs further consideration is his own understanding of the significance of the translation as canonical scriptures.
\nA striking difference between the Letter of Aristeas and Moses is the absence of \u201cthe Sinai Pattern.\u201d In the latter, there is no account of the reading aloud of the translation and its acceptance by the Jewish people. It may be that the Jewish community in Alexandria at the turn of the era knew the story well and Philo felt no need to repeat it. It is more likely that Philo was writing to a Greek audience who was unlikely to be convinced by the superiority of Moses simply because his laws were given by God on Mt. Sinai and whose translation into Greek was acclaimed by the Jewish community in Alexandria.
\nIn the opening of book 1, Philo refers to \u201cthe Greek men of letters\u201d who refused to treat Moses in their writings out of envy and because many of his laws were opposed to those of different states (Moses 1.2). Philo\u2019s rhetorical strategy is to show the excellence of the Jewish laws as such. These laws were superior to other laws by the universal recognition of the institutions of the Sabbath and fasts enshrined in them. Moses was not only the philosopher-king par excellence, but he also displayed the faculties of the legislator, high priest, and prophet (Moses 2.2).
\nDespite the absence of \u201cthe Sinai Pattern,\u201d there is little doubt that Philo considered the translation authoritative. In his account of the translation, Philo draws heavily on the notion of inspired scriptures. He describes the translators as men \u201cpossessed, and under inspiration, [who] wrote, not each several scribe something different, but the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter\u201d (Moses 2.37). Sebastian Brock has shown that within the context of ancient translation theory, Philo\u2019s view falls along the literalistic end of the spectrum, where the Hebrew text is translated into Greek verbum e verbo rather than sensus de sensu.
\nAdam Kamesar, however, has argued that Philo\u2019s view of the translation is not comparable to the extremely literalistic translation of someone like Aquila since for him the Hebrew (which Philo calls \u201cChaldean\u201d) and Greek are both word-for-word and sense-for-sense perfect.
\nThe key to Kamesar\u2019s explanation is what Philo says about the translators\u2019 \u201ccommunion, through sheer thought, with the most pure spirit of Moses\u201d (Moses 2.40). \u201cThis may indicate,\u201d Kamesar suggested, \u201cthat the Seventy were able to communicate with Moses (in his capacity as ever-living author of the Pentateuch) by means of logos endiathetos (internal speech), rather than logos prophorikos (enunciated, articulated speech).\u201d
\nAs if the representation of the identical word and thought is not enough, Philo also describes the sanctity of the translation of the holy scriptures with the imprecation, derived from Deut 4 and 13, that nothing should be added to or taken away from or changed in any way (Moses 2.34). For Philo, the translation was sacred, and holy scripture was the Greek Pentateuch.
\nA comprehensive listing of the citations and allusions to biblical sources in Philo\u2019s works shows an overwhelming preponderance of pentateuchal references over books outside of the five. Philo divides the sacred books into two parts, the historical (\u03c4\u03cc \u1f31\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03bd \u03bc\u03ad\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2) and the commandments and prohibitions together (\u03b1\u1f31 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03be\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03c0\u03b1\u03b3\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2; Moses 2.45\u201348). The first part began with the world\u2019s creation (Moses 2.37) in order to show that the Father and Maker of the world was also its truest lawgiver, so that the law-observant person would understand that he was living in harmony with the order of the universe (Moses 2.48, 52). There is little doubt that this refers to Genesis, as his subsequent paraphrase shows (Moses 2.49\u201365).
\nThe second part consists of portions from Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, which he used to illustrate Moses\u2019 faculties as high priest and prophet (Moses 2.66\u2013292). Deuteronomy also figures in various places in Philo\u2019s writings, especially in On Rewards and Punishments, On the Decalogue, and On the Special Laws I\u2013IV. According to Nikolaus Walter, Philo\u2019s emphasis upon the Pentateuch follows a tradition, also evident in the Letter of Aristeas and Aristobulus, that gave preference to the first five books of Moses over the rest of the scriptures.
\nThis is not to say that Philo avoided using extra-pentateuchal sources in his writings. Rather he draws a clear distinction between scripture and other sources of information. On composing his biography, Philo states his method: he will tell the story of Moses as \u201cI have learned it, both from the sacred books [\u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd], the wonderful monuments of his wisdom which he has left behind him, and from some of the elders of the nation [\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u1f14\u03b8\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03b5\u03c3\u03b2\u03c5\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03bd]; for I always interwove what I was told with what I read, and thus believed myself to have a closer knowledge than others of his life\u2019s history\u201d (Moses 1.4). Scripture and tradition figure in Philo\u2019s writings, but they are not indistinct in his mind.<\/p>\n
Josephus, the Greek Translation, and Canon<\/p>\n
Unlike Philo, Josephus replicates the \u201cSinai Pattern\u201d at the end of his paraphrase of the Letter of Aristeas. He follows his source by recounting how the translation was read aloud to the assembled and the people expressed their approval. He even includes a modified version of the imprecation against change by describing how the priest, eldest of the translators, and the chief officers of the community all requested that the translation \u201cremain as it was and not be altered\u201d (Ant. 12.108). However, he immediately qualifies the apparently eternal validity of the translation: \u201cAccordingly, when all had approved this idea, they ordered that, if anyone saw any further addition made to the text of the Law or anything omitted from it, he should examine it and make it known and correct it; in this they acted wisely, that what had once been judged good might remain for ever\u201d (Ant. 12.109).
\nThis final paragraph is not part of the Letter of Aristeas and stands in contradiction to what had just been paraphrased, which suggests that either Josephus was drawing on another source or he was expressing his own views about the Greek translation. As no source has been identified, it is likely that we have here an insight into what Josephus thought about the Greek translation.
\nJosephus advocates changing the text whenever anyone should notice (\u1f41\u03c1\u1fb7) anything \u201cadditional\u201d (\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c3\u03cc\u03c2) or \u201clacking\u201d (\u03bb\u03b5\u1fd6\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd) to \u201cwhat was written in the law\u201d (\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u1ff3). That person should examine it, make it known, and correct it. This could refer to a situation in which there were textual variants found in different Greek texts. More likely, however, given that the context is the translation of the Jewish laws, it points to the known differences between the Hebrew and Greek texts. Those who are able to read the Hebrew, like Josephus himself, and who also have facility in Greek should point out any discrepancies between the original and the translation and change them.
\nAs was discussed above, Josephus\u2019 canon was also the canon of the Pharisees. According to the Mishnah, holy scriptures must be written in \u201csquare Assyrian (Hebrew) script\u201d on parchment, and in ink (mMeg 2:1); otherwise they do not \u201cdefile the hands\u201d (mYad 4:5), an enigmatic concept that probably refers to the sancta contagion of holy objects. The Aramaic passages in Daniel and Ezra must be written in Aramaic and not Hebrew, and vice versa for the Hebrew passages (mYad 4:5). The physicality of the Torah finds its clearest expression in the medieval period, but that notion was already evident when the Mishnah was edited in the second century.
\nJosephus, like Paul (whom we will discuss in chapter 9), was a bilingual Jew. He originally wrote The Jewish War in Aramaic or Hebrew before he translated it into Greek. The translation, however, was not literal but a thorough reworking of the text to such an extent that his Vorlage could not be recovered from the translation. For him, the Greek translation of the Jewish laws was just that, a translation. It did not carry with it any notion of a fixed and authoritative form. When it was faulty, it needed to be corrected, so that \u201cwhat had once been judged good might remain for ever\u201d (Ant. 12.109).
\nIn the foregoing I have discussed the legend of the Septuagint and its earliest interpreters, Philo and Josephus. Although there is no decisive proof, the Letter of Aristeas was likely to have been composed in second-century BCE Alexandria by an anonymous Jew who conceived it as a charter myth of the translation of the Greek laws. This was done in reaction to the editing of the Homeric epics in Alexandria. The Letter of Aristeas did not acknowledge that translations of Hebrew scriptures into Greek were also taking place elsewhere in Egypt and in the land of Israel. The claim, therefore, is that the translation occurred in Alexandria, under royal patronage, and in the early Ptolemaic dynasty of the third century BCE. For the Jewish community in second-century Alexandria, the translation was canonical, as evidenced by the reading aloud of the text and the approval of the Jewish people.
\nFor Philo, the Greek Pentateuch was canonical. This Jewish Alexandrian philosopher and exegete did not appeal to the \u201cSinai Pattern.\u201d Rather he drew on the concept of divine inspiration as a means of expressing his understanding of the equivalence of form and thought of the Hebrew and Greek. Philo used other sources in his writings, both Jewish and Greek, but he did not blur the distinction of authoritative scriptures with other kinds of writing.
\nJosephus\u2019 addition to the Letter of Aristeas changes the significance of the \u201cSinai Pattern\u201d entirely. For him, the Greek translation had no canonical status since it could be changed. Rather, it was a translation of holy scriptures that had been written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The canon for Josephus was the twenty-two book canon of the Pharisees.<\/p>\n
6<\/p>\n
The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira and 2 Maccabees<\/p>\n
The second century is an important period for our understanding of the formation of the Jewish canon. Scholars have appealed to the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira and 2 Maccabees to bolster the view that the canon was determined, if not already closed. In the following, the texts will be examined to see just how far the evidence can take us.
\nIt will be argued that the Prologue of Sir does not have in view the closed canon. In its conception, the collection of authoritative scriptures consisted of the law, the prophets, and the other ancestral books, but this is not a bipartite or tripartite canon. It is a reference to the curriculum of the scribe, and the books included in this syllabus have been divided into two divisions, plus a third category of miscellaneous books of ancient Israelite literature. Likewise, the praise of the fathers (Sir 44\u201350) does not assume a closed canon. Absent in this parade of Israel\u2019s heroes are four biblical books. Moreover, the praise of Simon, the high priest, which culminates the section, implies that Sir presents itself as part of the literary heritage of Israel.
\nAs for 2 Maccabees, it will be argued that the comparison between Nehemiah and Judas should be understood in a general way. It does not mean that there was an official library of books in Jerusalem during the Maccabean period. What Judas collected were books damaged during the war. These books are now back in the possession of the people.<\/p>\n
The Wisdom and the Prologue<\/p>\n
The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira is one of the most textually complex works of ancient Jewish literature. It was originally written in Hebrew and translated to Greek in the second century BCE, as recounted in the grandson\u2019s Prologue. The textual tradition attests to two different Hebrew texts (the original, HT1, and an expanded one, HT2) and two Greek translations (GI and GII). There is also an Old Latin and Syriac recension. The textual relationship among these texts, translations, and versions is complex.
\nBy contrast, the dating of the book is relatively straightforward. There is scholarly consensus that the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira must have been written some time in the first quarter of the second century BCE. This dating is deduced by piecing together several historical data. According to the Prologue, the anonymous grandson went to Egypt \u201cin the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes.\u201d
\nThere are only two Ptolemaic kings known by this epithet, Ptolemy III Euergetes I (246\u2013221 BCE) and Ptolemy VII Physkon Euergetes II (170\u2013117 BCE), and it is the latter who reigned thirty-eight years or more. The grandson, then, must have gone to Egypt in 132 BCE. It has been conjectured that he spent the next fifteen years translating his grandfather\u2019s book of wisdom into Greek and published the Prologue after 117 BCE.
\nThe date of the grandfather\u2019s writing of the book of wisdom is inferred from the likely age of the grandson and an estimate of the number of years that separate one generation from another. It is commonly supposed, therefore, that the grandson was an adult when he traveled to Egypt and that he would have been between twenty-five and forty years of age. If the years between the two generations are further reckoned to be between forty and fifty years, then the date of the composition would range between 222 and 197 BCE.
\nTwo internal considerations help narrow the date of composition. In Sir 50:1\u201321, there is a praise of Simon, son of Onias, who served as high priest between 219 and 196 BCE. Its detailed description of the sacerdotal garments and rituals suggests that ben Sira lived in Simon\u2019s time and that his report was based on eyewitness testimony. However, Ben Sira also referred to the high priest as a figure of the past (\u201cin his days\u201d; Sir 50:1, 3), suggesting that Simon was already deceased by the time of the writing of Sir. This would imply that Sir must have been written after 196 BCE.
\nA second internal consideration is the absence of any reference to Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who began imposing his Hellenizing policies in 175 and was finally repulsed by Mattathias and his sons in 164 BCE. It is thought that had ben Sira been writing his Wisdom during this time, he surely would have mentioned the Maccabean Revolt. The date of the composition of Sir, therefore, is thought to have taken place after 196 and before 175.
\nThe different dates of the writing of the Wisdom and Prologue have led Arie van der Kooij to conjecture two concepts of the canon. Embedded within a section that compares the vocation of the skilled worker and the scribe (38:24\u201339:11) is a passage that describes the resources available to the one who devotes himself to study. Van der Kooij makes the point that \u201cthe wisdom of all the ancients\u201d implies a broader category than the wisdom literature of ancient Israel and adduces the parallel to LXX 3 Reg 5:10, where Solomon\u2019s wisdom is said to have been greater than \u201cthe wisdom of all the ancients\u201d (\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c6\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03ce\u03c0\u03c9\u03bd). The same verse goes on to state that Solomon\u2019s wisdom is superior to that of all the ancient peoples and above all the wise men of Egypt.
\nBy contrast, according to van der Kooij, \u201cthe Prologue clearly reflects a new attitude towards the ancient books.\u201d In his view, the Prologue defines the tripartite canon and is comparable to what Josephus says about the canon. In particular, van der Kooij sees the use of the definite article as significant in describing three defined sections of the Law, the Prophets, and the other books. He attributes the sharpened focus on the ancestral laws to the events of the Maccabean Revolt. In view of the threat to the city of Jerusalem, the Temple, cult, and laws of the Jews by the Hellenizing policies of the Seleucid Antiochus, \u201cit can easily be imagined that this crisis resulted in a strong emphasis on everything \u2018ancestral\u2019 (\u03c0\u03ac\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 or \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u1ff7\u03bf\u03c2), such as the ancient books, books of the Jewish traditions, symbolizing the Jewish self-identity.\u201d
\nVan der Kooij has correctly observed a difference in the canonical notices of the Wisdom and the Prologue. However, I would explain it as a difference in formulation over substance. Ben Sira was speaking to a Judean audience, notably those who attended his beth midrash in Jerusalem (Sir 51:23). By contrast, the grandson was in Egypt and was addressing Greek-speaking Jews. The two communities probably knew both Hebrew and Greek but used only one language as their dominant tongue. It is likely that Ben Sira\u2019s school of study in Jerusalem was conducted in Hebrew, whereas the Jewish scribes in Egypt functioned primarily in Greek, prompting the grandson to translate his grandfather\u2019s wisdom book into that language. Moreover, Ben Sira would have been teaching in an environment that was predominantly Jewish, while the grandson was introducing his work to a diasporan community that lived among non-Jews.
\nVan der Kooij\u2019s explanation of the heightened nationalism, resulting from the threat against Judaism, is unlikely. Nowhere else in the Prologue is this supposed nationalistic tendency to be detected. The grandson wrote his Prologue after the Maccabean Revolt, but he did not mention the events that led to the expulsion of the Seleucid king. We do not know from where the grandson had come. If he had previously lived in Jerusalem, then he may have personally experienced the revolt. But if so, then it made no impact on him.<\/p>\n
The Grandson\u2019s Formulation<\/p>\n
Ben Sira describes the curriculum of the scribe in the following way:<\/p>\n
39:1 (alternately 38:24): On the other hand he who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High (\u1f10\u03bd \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u1ff3 \u1f51\u03c8\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5) will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients (\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd), and will be concerned with prophecies (\u1f10\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2); 2 he will preserve the discourse of notable men (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ae\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) and penetrate the subtleties of parables (\u1f10\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd); 3 he will seek out the hidden meanings of proverbs (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd) and be at home with the obscurities of parables (\u1f10\u03bd \u03b1\u1f30\u03bd\u03af\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd).<\/p>\n
This curriculum includes several categories of writings: law, wisdom, prophecies, discourse, parables, and proverbs. Some of these categories overlap: wisdom could include parables (cf. Sir 1:25), and discourse is parallel to proverbs (cf. Sir 6:35). It is unclear how many categories Ben Sira had in view.
\nPatrick Skehan and Alexander Di Lella suggest that Ben Sira\u2019s order of the material (Law, Wisdom books, Prophets) follows the LXX and Latin Bibles, but that the grandson\u2019s Prologue stipulates the canonical division (Law, Prophets, rest of the books) of the MT. This suggestion depends on the questionable separation of 39:1 from 39:2\u20133. Moreover, it advances the unlikely scenario that Ben Sira was following the canon of the LXX in Jerusalem, whereas his grandson was advocating the canon of the MT among Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt.
\nUnlike Skehan and Di Lella, Peter R\u00fcger interprets Ben Sira\u2019s canon to be bipartite and open. For him, the first two divisions of the Law and Prophets were closed, but the third division remained open, as evidenced by its variable designations. R\u00fcger likewise draws a distinction between 38:34\u201339:1 and 39:2\u20133; however, for him both halves refer to Israelite literature.
\nThat Sir 39:1\u20133 (alternatively enumerated as 38:34\u201339:3) is a literary unit is required by the immediately preceding verse; 38:34 brings the stanza on the products of the skilled scribe to a close. A new unit is signaled with the preposition \u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03bd, \u201cnevertheless, but\u201d (39:1), reprising the theme begun in 38:24 that the wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure. A new topic of the scribe\u2019s place in society, his travels, and his pious devotion is introduced in 39:4.
\nThe leisure, free from the cares of toil, allows the scribe to devote himself to what can only be described as study. In 39:1, Ben Sira begins to detail the components of this study with two participial clauses (in the genitive and dependent on the preposition), literally meaning \u201cthe one giving his soul and understanding in the law of the Most High.\u201d Significant is the use of the Greek \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03bc\u03b9 plus \u1f21 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae to express the idea of devotion. This expression will be echoed in the grandson\u2019s Prologue (see below).
\nWhat follows is an enumeration of the scribe\u2019s curriculum, formulated in six clauses, all using the future indicative tense: he will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients (\u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9); he will be concerned with prophecies (\u1f10\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c3\u03c7\u03bf\u03bb\u03b7\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9); he will preserve the discourse of notable men (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ae\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f40\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9); he will penetrate the subtleties of parables (\u1f10\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03c3\u03b5\u03bb\u03b5\u03cd\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9); he will seek out the hidden meanings of proverbs (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03c1\u03c5\u03c6\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9\u03bc\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b6\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9); and he will be at home with the obscurities of parables (\u1f10\u03bd \u03b1\u1f30\u03bd\u03af\u03b3\u03bc\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b1\u03b2\u03bf\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9).
\nThe first three verses of chapter 39 constitute one long periodic sentence. The sense of the first two participial clauses is completed by the subsequent indicative verbs. The scribe\u2019s devotion is to the law of the Most High, but his commitment also requires study of other kinds of knowledge and writings. The sources enumerated are wisdom, prophecies, discourse, parables, and proverbs. \u201cParables\u201d are mentioned twice, underscoring their artful and obscure nature. Each of the terms is ambiguous and could refer equally to Israelite and non-Israelite sources. There is nothing to preclude an understanding of vv. 2\u20133 as a reference to different kinds of Israelite literature.
\nThere is one term that requires further explanation. The Greek \u03b4\u03b9\u03b7\u03b3\u03ae\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 (\u201cdiscourse\u201d) is a technical term used in the rhetorical manuals. It is the term that the Letter of Aristeas uses to designate itself as \u201ca narrative\u201d (see chapter 5 and below). In the grandson\u2019s vocabulary, however, the word is used in the non-technical sense of \u201cevery narrative\u201d (6:35); \u201cthe discussion about the law\u201d (9:15); \u201cthe inopportune chastisement\u201d of the child (22:6); \u201cthe wise talk of the godly man\u201d (27:11); \u201cthe offensive chatter\u201d of the fool (27:13); and \u201cthe talk about bulls\u201d (38:25). In the hands of the grandson, diegesis has a general, rather than technical, meaning.
\nIt is unclear whether Ben Sira thought that these categories referred only to the literature of ancient Israel. In these verses we do not have Ben Sira\u2019s own words, just the grandson\u2019s translation. A clue to the grandson\u2019s understanding may be found in his use of the Greek \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03bf\u03b9, \u201cancient.\u201d This adjective is used twenty-six times in the LXX to mean \u201cancient, old, and long ago.\u201d As mentioned above, van der Kooij pointed out that the adjective is used in LXX 3 Reg 5:10 in the sense of ancient peoples other than Israelites.
\nHowever, the most important context is surely the grandson\u2019s own usage. He deploys the adjective three other times in his translation: he means by its use \u201can old friend\u201d in 9:10 and \u201cthe ancient giants\u201d of the Watchers\u2019 myth in 16:7. Significantly, in 2:10, he also uses the adjective to refer to Israel\u2019s ancestors; Ben Sira rhetorically asks his disciples to look to the ancient generations (\u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03ac\u03c2) and see who had faith in the Lord and yet was put to shame. This leading question assumes the answer \u201cno one.\u201d
\nThe adjective is never used by the grandson to refer to the ancestors of non-Israelites like the Egyptians. The probable reference of \u201cancient,\u201d therefore, is to the Israelites of old. The phrase \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd should be understood as \u201cthe wisdom of all Israelite ancestors\u201d and not the wisdom of the ancient ancestors of other peoples in general. Understood in the context of the grandson\u2019s Greek usage, 39:1\u20133 is likely to be a reference to Israelite literature.
\nThe Prologue helps clarify the grandson\u2019s understanding of the scribal curriculum. It provides direct access in the form of the grandson\u2019s own words.<\/p>\n
1 Whereas many great teachings have been given to us through the Law (\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5) and the Prophets (\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) and the others that followed them (\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u02bc \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f20\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03cc\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd), and for these we should praise Israel for instruction and wisdom. 2 Now, those who read the scriptures must not only themselves understand them, but must also as lovers of learning be able through the spoken and written word to help the outsiders. 3 So my grandfather Jesus, who had devoted himself especially to the reading of the Law (\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5) and the Prophets (\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) and the other books of our ancestors (\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03bd), and had acquired considerable proficiency in them, was himself also led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom, so that by becoming familiar also with his book those who love learning might make even greater progress in living according to the law. 4 You are invited therefore to read it with goodwill and attention, and to be indulgent in cases where, despite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases imperfectly. 5 For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same sense when translated into another language. 6 Not only this book, but even the Law (\u1f41 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2) itself, the Prophecies (\u03b1\u1f31 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1\u03b9), and the rest of the books (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03bd) differ not a little when read in the original. 7 When I came to Egypt in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes and stayed for some time, I found opportunity for no little instruction. 8 It seemed highly necessary that I should myself devote some diligence and labor to the translation of this book. 9 During that time I have applied my skill day and night to complete and publish the book (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03bf\u03bd) for those living abroad who wished to gain learning and are disposed to live according to the law (\u1f10\u03bd\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03c9\u03c2). (versification added)<\/p>\n
The rationale for writing the Prologue is clear enough. The grandson wants to introduce his grandfather\u2019s book of wisdom to those who love learning. The addressees, \u201cyou\u201d in the plural, are invited to read it, so that they will make further progress in living according to the law (v. 4). The grandson\u2019s intended audience is the Greek-speaking Jews of Egypt. He describes them as \u201cthose living abroad\u201d (v. 9). Moreover, they were probably scribes as the following descriptors imply: \u201cthose who read (scripture)\u201d (v. 2) and \u201cthe lovers of learning\u201d (v. 2). The word \u201cscribe\u201d (\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c2 and \u05e1\u05d5\u05e4\u05e8) occurs in 38:24 (cf. 10:5).
\nThese scribes must not just understand the great teachings of Israelite scriptures, but must also help the outsiders. Skehan and Di Lella have suggested that what stands behind this reference to the outsiders is the narrative of Neh 8:8\u201312. The phrase \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u1f10\u03ba\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2 (v. 2) is better rendered as \u201cthose who are without them,\u201d and refers to the laity or to those who are unable to read the original scriptures because they lack the scriptures or wisdom. The scribes, therefore, must in speech and in writing help the laity.
\nThe nature of the scribal assistance, however, is not through translation and explication in the way that the Levites went around and offered help to those who heard the reading of the law in the square before the Water Gate (Neh 8:7). The scribes, to be sure, must have been bilingual, as the appeal to goodwill and indulgence in assessing the imperfect translation implies. But it is not their translational skills that are needed here. Rather, so the grandson specifies, the scribal aid consists of oral teaching and the drafting of a book of instruction and wisdom. His grandfather, the scribe par excellence, had devoted himself to the reading of the law, the prophets, and the other books, and having acquired considerable proficiency in them had himself written a book of instruction and wisdom that was being recommended.
\nThe grandson refers to the law, the prophets, and the other books three times in his Prologue. In all three occasions, the expression of the law and the prophets\/prophecies is invariable. By contrast, the description of the third category varies in all three instances: it is described as \u201cthe others that followed them\u201d (\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u02bc \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f20\u03ba\u03bf\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03b7\u03ba\u03cc\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd), \u201cthe other books of our ancestors\u201d (\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03bd), and \u201cthe rest of the books\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03bd). The third category, then, has three slightly different designations. Despite some verbal resemblance (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u1f70 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03c9\u03bd, v. 6) to Josephus\u2019 canonical notice (\u03b1\u1f31 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u03b1\u03af, C. Ap. 1.40), there is no similar enumeration of the third category to contain exactly four books.
\nThe definiteness of all three divisions, and not just the third category, is required by the grammar and is not indicative of a closed, tripartite canon. Verse 3 is a reference to the scribal curriculum of the law, the prophets, and the other ancestral books. When the grandson wrote that Ben Sira had devoted himself to the reading of \u201cthe law,\u201d \u201cthe prophets,\u201d and \u201cthe other books of our ancestors,\u201d he meant that his grandfather had studied and acquired proficiency in the content of the syllabus as outlined in 39:1\u20133. The link between the Prologue and 39:1\u20133 is explicit in its expression of devotion to study. In the Prologue, the grandson uses the expression \u201chaving devoted himself\u201d (\u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2) to describe his grandfather\u2019s vocation. This use of \u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03bc\u03b9 plus the reflexive pronoun is reminiscent of the more Hebraic sounding \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b4\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03bc\u03b9 plus \u1f21 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae of 39:1.
\nThe grandson designates the ancestral writings \u201cbooks\u201d in the same way that he calls the Wisdom of his grandfather \u201cthis book.\u201d Ben Sira\u2019s original expression may not have included the word sepher (cf. Sir 50:27; Masada Ms B reads: \u05de\u05d5\u05e1\u05e8 \u05e9\u05db\u05dc \u05d5\u05de\u05d5\u05e9\u05dc \u05d0\u05d5\u05e4\u05e0\u05d9\u05dd, \u201cinstruction, understanding, and suitable proverbs\u201d). The law corresponds to \u201cthe law of the Most High.\u201d The reading of the prophets is another way of expressing the scribe\u2019s concern with prophecies. In 39:1, the mention of prophecies comes after the reference to wisdom. And \u201cthe other books of our ancestors\u201d is a summary of everything else. This miscellaneous third category is alternatively called \u201cthe rest of the books\u201d and refers to all the other books of wisdom, discourse, parables, and proverbs. Notable is the use of the adjective \u201c[our] fathers\u201d (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd) that qualifies \u201cthe other books,\u201d which corresponds to the \u201cancient Israelite ancestors\u201d (\u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03c9\u03bd) of 39:1.
\nThe Prologue refers only to Israelite literature. However, it is not a closed canon. The third category of other books is not a closed, third division. In fact, it is not one category at all but an undefined number of categories in the way that is implied by the formulation of \u201cthe other books\u201d and \u201cthe rest of the books.\u201d It is an open-ended way of referring to books other than the law and prophecies.
\nThat the grandson did not have a closed canon is further evidenced by the grammar of the Prologue in v. 3. Two participial clauses are followed by an indicative and infinitive that complete the sense. Thus the grandfather \u201chaving devoted himself\u201d (\u1f11\u03b1\u03c5\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03b4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2) and \u201chaving acquired considerable proficiency in them\u201d (\u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f31\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u1f74\u03bd \u1f15\u03be\u03b9\u03bd \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03b7\u03c3\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2) \u201cwas himself led to write down (\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03ae\u03c7\u03b8\u03b7 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c5\u03b3\u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03c8\u03b1\u03b9) something pertaining to instruction and wisdom.\u201d The following purpose clause makes explicit the reason. Literally it states: \u201cso that the lovers of learning, when they come under the influence of them [i.e., the instruction and wisdom], might add [\u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03b8\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd] much more in living according to the law.\u201d
\nTo the grandson, then, the scripturalization of his grandfather\u2019s teachings is meant to help the scribe live piously by adding a worthy book to his study. There is no sense whatsoever that the scribal syllabus is already closed or that Ben Sira\u2019s book is to be excluded from the list. Quite the opposite, the Prologue is a recommendation to include ben Sira\u2019s book of instruction and wisdom in the scribal curriculum of Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt.
\nIn sum, the grandson\u2019s Prologue should be understood in relation to what Ben Sira said about the devotion of the scribe. Both in the translation of 39:1\u20133 and the Prologue, it would appear that the grandson saw the scribal curriculum to consist of the literature of ancient Israel. Moreover, in the Prologue, he intended that his grandfather\u2019s book, which he had with great effort translated into Greek, be included in that syllabus.<\/p>\n
In Praise of the Men of Piety (Sir 44\u201350)<\/p>\n
To ascertain which biblical books might have been included in the categories of the law, the prophets, and the other books, we must turn to the Wisdom of ben Sira itself. In the final chapters of Sir, there is an extended section known in Hebrew as \u05e9\u05d1\u05d7 \u05d0\u05d1\u05d5\u05ea \u05e2\u05d5\u05dc\u05dd, \u201cin praise of the fathers of old\u201d (Genizah Ms B). Sir 44:1\u201350:24 praises various figures, beginning with Enoch and ending with Simon, the high priest in Ben Sira\u2019s day. The genre of this parade of Israel\u2019s worthies has been identified as the Beispielreihe (series of examples), a literary form of recounting prominent figures of the past that is attested in Jewish and Greek literature of the day.
\nIt is thought that this literary procession of figures assumes the biblical texts in their traditional order. \u201cThroughout these chapters,\u201d Skehan and Di Lella state, \u201cBen Sira manifests an easy and thorough familiarity with earlier Scriptures\u2014the Pentateuch (the Law), Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, Chronicles, Nehemiah, Psalms, Proverbs and Job.\u201d R\u00fcger, by contrast, argues that the analysis of the praise of the fathers permits a conclusion that is virtually certain\u2014namely, that the third division of the canon remained open in the time of Ben Sira.
\nSir 44:1\u201315 provides an apt introduction to the praise of the fathers, but the precise meaning of these verses is obscured by the knotty text-critical problems centered on the pronoun \u201cthese\u201d (Heb. \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4, Gk \u03bf\u1f57\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9, Syr. hlyn, Lat. illi) in v. 10. A proper understanding of this opening section, therefore, is a necessary step toward ascertaining the scriptural basis of the entire section.
\nThe Genizah Ms B, the Masada Scroll, and the different versions allow a variety of interpretations. Verse 10 reads in the RSV translation: \u201cBut these were men of mercy, whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten.\u201d If we follow the reading of Genizah Ms B and Syriac, the antecedent of \u201cthese\u201d could hardly refer to v. 9 since it states that some of them have no \u201cmemorial\u201d (\u05d6\u05db\u05e8 and dwkrn\u2019). It would directly contradict what is said subsequently: \u201cfor eternity their memorial (\u05d6\u05db\u05e8\u05dd and dwkrnhwn) will stand\u201d (v. 13) and \u201ctheir name (\u0161mhwn) will live forever\u201d (v. 14; reading with the Syriac; Genizah is mutilated). The Masada Scroll, Greek and Latin, however, read, respectively, \u05d6\u05e8\u05e2\u05dd, \u03c3\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd and semen eorum.
\nThree different interpretations have been proposed. The pronoun \u201cthese\u201d has been understood to refer to those fathers described in vv. 10\u201315 and in vv. 3\u20138\u2014namely, those men who \u201chave caused a name to remain.\u201d In this interpretation, v. 9 would be the sole reference to the impious of Israel who have been condemned to perpetual anonymity by the absence of a memorial. But this interpretation does not account for the force of the conjunction \u201cbut, nevertheless,\u201d which ostensibly contrasts the men of v. 9 with those of v. 10.
\nA second interpretation takes \u201cthese\u201d proleptically, referring forward to Israel\u2019s pious men in vv. 10\u201315 and their everlasting memory. By contrast, vv. 3\u20139 are understood to recount the pagan heroes, only some of whom will be remembered. But the heroes of vv. 3\u20139, most especially the \u201cprophets\u201d (v. 3) and \u201cscribes\u201d (v. 4), are unsuitable descriptors of pagan figures. The alternative view that there was a mixed group of Israelite and pagan heroes described by Ben Sira in vv. 3\u20139 is unlikely.
\nA third way interprets the demonstrative pronoun as a reference to the fathers of vv. 10\u201316. Accordingly, Ben Sira describes Jews generally in vv. 3\u20139, before turning to the fathers whose deeds have been memorialized in Israel\u2019s scriptures. Verse 9 would refer to some good Jews who have left neither a memorial nor a family. But the figures described in vv. 3\u20139 are hardly ordinary Jews; they are \u201crulers,\u201d \u201cleaders,\u201d \u201cmusicians,\u201d and \u201cthe rich.\u201d Moreover, in this interpretation, v. 9 would contradict one of Ben Sira\u2019s themes that the good will leave a good name.
\nIt seems to me that the pronoun \u201cthese\u201d should be interpreted in connection with its most obvious antecedent, the men who have no memorial in v. 9. The difficulty with v. 13 may be resolved by appealing to the Masada Scroll in the Greek. Rather than mentioning \u201ctheir memorial,\u201d it reads: \u201cfor eternity their seed (\u05d6\u05e8\u05e2\u05dd and \u03c3\u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) shall stand.\u201d The men who have no memorial were nonetheless men of piety whose glory will not be forgotten and whose name will remain in their descendants for generations (cf. 46:11).
\nUnderstood in this way, the opening section of the praise of the fathers envisages two groups of men who will leave behind a good name (vv. 8 and 14). There is a play on the word shem, which means both \u201cname\u201d and \u201cmemorial.\u201d The shem of v. 14 will live forever only as it is perpetuated by the descendants, whereas in v. 8 it means a \u201cmemorial\u201d (cf. the parallel zkr in v. 9), some literary or concrete reminder of the pious lives of old. Thus those who have caused a \u201cname\u201d to remain have in fact left a memorial, whereas those without a memorial will have in their children the propagation of their name.
\nThere are several advantages to interpreting 44:1\u201315 in this way. It is consistent with the important theme in Ben Sira that the good will leave a good name (e.g., 41:11\u201312). It makes sense of the otherwise puzzling reference in v. 9d: \u201cand their children after them.\u201d The men who die without a memorial are those who, with their children, were as though they had not existed. Since these men are also men of piety, then their righteousness will not be cut off (v. 10), and their descendants shall stand forever (v. 13).
\nThis opening salvo, then, is not only an introduction to the heroes of Israel\u2019s past, but also an unmistakable harbinger of the praise of the high priest, Simon, that is to come. The house of Onias, hitherto without a literary record, but pious and praiseworthy, will be remembered through his glorious son Simon. As will be seen, ben Sira\u2019s praise of Simon both elevates him to the status of Israel\u2019s pious men of old and secures a literary memorial for the house of Onias.<\/p>\n
The Scriptural Basis of the Praise<\/p>\n
The praise of the fathers of old begins in 44:1 and extends to 50:24. Skehan and Di Lella, who have a similar understanding of 44:1\u201315 to the above, however, divide the unit into the praise proper (44\u201349) and an appendix (50). But this division is based on their questionable view that the canon was already closed. The praise of Simon is surely the culmination of the chapters, not a secondary section of additional material. Manuscript B describes Simon as \u201cthe great one of his brothers\u201d and \u201cthe splendour of his people\u201d (Sir 50:1). It calls him \u201cpriest,\u201d which surely means \u201chigh priest\u201d (cf. Sir 45:24, where the high priesthood is explicitly mentioned). The unity of 44:1\u201350:24 is moreover assured by the autobiographical notice in 50:27 that marks the end of the whole section. The intervening vv. 25\u201326 are a secondary insertion of unrelated material.
\nThe praise of the fathers implies most of the books of the traditional Jewish canon, more or less in the the same book order (see appendix 5). It deviates from the traditional order in one or two places, most notably when it refers to Enoch (for the second time), Joseph, Shem, Seth (also Enosh), and Adam in Sir 49:14\u201316. But this passage may have been inserted secondarily to smooth out the transition to Simon. Chronicles occurs in connection with David and the books of Samuel and not at the end of the kethuvim as found in the traditional canon. The sequence of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel disagrees with the order of Baba Bathra (Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah) but agrees with the MT order.
\nThe agreement could hardly be coincidental. Ben Sira was either following an extant list of heroes and their deeds or he was himself constructing this parade of Israel\u2019s worthies from the biblical scrolls. Either way, the parade of figures follows a book order that mostly agrees with the traditional MT order. The position of Chronicles agrees with the LXX order. Notably absent is Deuteronomy and most of the books of the Writings except for Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.
\nBeyond the laus patrum, knowledge of other biblical books may be detected. Only four books are unattested in Sir: Ruth, the Song of Songs, Esther, and Daniel. R\u00fcger investigated the issue and concluded that these four books were not attested in Sir 44\u201350 nor in the rest of the book of Ben Sira. Similarly, Pancratius Beentjes states: \u201cThere is consensus of opinion that ben Sira does not mention, or quote from, the books of Esther, Ruth, Daniel, Song of Songs, and the book of Ezra.\u201d
\nOddly enough, Beentjes then goes on to argue that Sir 45:17 (\u201cto teach the precepts of his people, and the norms of the descendants of Israel\u201d) is dependant on Ezra 7:10. In his view, the absence of the Ezra tradition may be explained by Ben Sira\u2019s guiding principle in the composition of the praise of the fathers, and that is to emphasize the high priesthood. Nehemiah, however, is mentioned in Sir 49:11\u201313 and Ezra-Nehemiah is invariably considered as one work. There are, then, four biblical books not attested in the Wisdom of ben Sira. In this sense, Sir does not imply the closed canon.
\nRobert Kraft, however, has queried this entire approach to ascertain the canon of Ben Sira. He argues that there is a distinction to be drawn between \u201cscriptural consciousness\u201d and \u201ccanonical consciousness\u201d and that knowledge of laws and traditions does not necessarily mean knowledge of writings and books. Thus he argues that Sir does not give explicit references to scriptural passages.
\nBeentjes has directly refuted Kraft\u2019s claim by pointing to numerous instances of scriptural references marked by hal\u00f4 and k\u00ee and once by hakkat\u00fbb. Additionally, there are what Beentjes calls \u201cinverted quotations\u201d and the structural use of scripture. Even if not all of these examples are equally convincing, it is undeniable that Ben Sira did use writings, as exemplified in Sir 24:23 and its reference to \u201cthe book of the Most High God,\u201d which is, moreover, equated with \u201cthe law of Moses.\u201d
\nBenjamin Wright has recently discussed the issue of authority. For him, authority is not only about the use of scriptural texts, but also about how Ben Sira adapts Israel\u2019s literary heritage into a figured world of wisdom teaching. The world that Ben Sira constructs for his students is also informed by the oral tradition of the sages that was handed down and the observation of the material world, especially the meditation on creation.
\nIt seems to me that what has yet to be emphasized in this discussion is the presentation of the praise of the high priest Simon as a literary memorial. Sir 50:1\u201324 is not an appendix; rather it is the climax of the parade of worthy figures of the past. As such, it sets itself up as a literary memorial to Simon, the ramification being that the Wisdom of ben Sira sees itself as a continuation of the literary heritage of Israel as found in the biblical texts and in oral, wisdom tradition. Scripture in the view of Ben Sira is not just the traditional biblical texts, but also the wisdom tradition that he himself has committed to writing.
\nIn sum, the Wisdom of ben Sira does not attest to a closed canon as is often supposed. Both the grandfather and grandson recognized the literary heritage of Israel in the form of the law, most probably a reference to the Pentateuch, an assortment of prophetic writings that includes all the biblical prophetic books and other ancestral books. It does not imply a bipartite or tripartite canon. The divisions may be characterized as 2 + n, where n equals any number of other categories. Ben Sira considered his own book as prophetically inspired (cf. Sir 50:27), and it is unclear whether he or his grandson would include it in the second division of prophets or in the miscellaneous category of other books.<\/p>\n
The Notice of 2 Maccabees<\/p>\n
Another text that has been frequently discussed is 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 and its reference to Judas Maccabeus collecting \u201ca library\u201d of books. On first blush, this notice should be discarded as historically worthless. Its context is legendary, as seen, for instance, in the story of the preservation of the fire of the Temple\u2019s altar in liquid! Moreover, 2 Maccabees compares Judas\u2019 postwar efforts to Nehemiah\u2019s role in the founding of a library and the collection of books when the biblical sources say nothing of the kind. The biblical Nehemiah was a builder of the wall surrounding Jerusalem that had fallen down; he was no patron of a library. The contemporary depiction of Nehemiah in Sir 49:11\u201313 confirms that this tradition was known in the second century.
\nArie van der Kooij, who otherwise questions its reliability as an account of canonization, nonetheless argues for an official public canon at the Temple on, among other things, the combined evidence of 2 Maccabees and the supposed tripartite division of the canon in 4QMMT. The latter will be discussed below in chapter 7. Suffice it to say here that 4QMMT does not mean what van der Kooij wants it to say. On 2 Maccabees, van der Kooij speculates: \u201cIt might be that in connection with the purification of the temple and the restoration of the cult, the temple library or archive was replenished with copies of books and letters formerly kept there.\u201d
\nVan der Kooij\u2019s suggestion should not be dismissed out of hand. According to 1 Macc 1:56\u201357, the books of the law were torn and burnt during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes. It is not impossible that they were restored in the aftermath of the rebellion. Does 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 contain a historical kernel?
\nA series of interconnected issues will be explored. The mention of \u201ca library\u201d in association with Judas in 2 Maccabees must be explained. Was it, in fact, a temple library, and why was it attached to the achievements of Judas? What kind of books were mentioned and how do they match up with the canon of Jewish scriptures?<\/p>\n
The Jerusalemite Redaction of 2 Maccabees<\/p>\n
The first issue to be discussed is the redaction of 2 Maccabees and what that might mean for the origins of the notice. 2 Maccabees is a composite document containing various sources that underwent a complex process of editing. A source-critical analysis of the text shows that it was originally an abbreviated account of a much longer history. The abridged version was a text of diasporan Jewry, as shown clearly by its ideological stance that prioritizes the chosen people over the Temple (5:19). But it was later adapted by anonymous Jerusalemite scribes who attached the opening festal letters to the narrative and inserted the passage of 10:1\u20138. The final redaction of 2 Maccabees, therefore, is Jerusalemite.
\nThe opening chapters of 2 Maccabees contain two or three letters, depending on how the dates included in them are interpreted. The opening verse begins with a letter from Jews in Jerusalem and Judea to their compatriots in Egypt (1:1\u20139). In 1:10, a second, longer letter is cited, again from the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea\u2014this time with the \u201csenate\u201d or \u201celders of Israel\u201d (gerousia) and Judas\u2014and is addressed to Aristobulus, the teacher of Ptolemy (1:10\u20132:18).
\nThe section of 1:1\u201310 is complicated by the dates attested in the verses and what they might mean in terms of the number of letters included in the preface. In 1:7, it states that the Judean Jews had written \u201cin the one hundred and sixty-ninth year\u201d of the reign of Demetrius. This date is pegged to the chronology of the Seleucid era, which is counted from 312 BCE, and it falls within the first reign of Demetrius II (145\u2013139 BCE and 129\u2013125 BCE). According to v. 7, then, the Jerusalemite and Judean Jews wrote to their Egyptian brothers in 143 BCE. In v. 9, there is a second date: \u201cand now see that you keep the feast of booths in the month of Chislev, in the one hundred and eighty-eighth year.\u201d This too is dated to the Seleucid era, thus 124 BCE.
\nIt would appear that the Judean Jews were writing in 124 BCE and referring to a letter written previously in 143 BCE. This would mean that the letter quoted a second letter that has not been preserved.
\nRecently, Daniel Schwartz has queried this widely accepted dating of the letter: \u201cIt does not seem that there was anything special about that year.\u201d Instead he dates the first letter to 143 BCE, the year of the Hasmonean independence, during which time the Jerusalemites invited the Egyptian Jews to keep the feast of booths of the Seleucid year \u201c148\u201d\u2014namely, the year 164 BCE, when the Temple was rededicated.
\nTo arrive at this conclusion, Schwartz inverts the significance of the datings in vv. 7 and 9 and appeals to a textual variant of \u201c148\u201d for \u201c188\u201d found in two Greek manuscripts. Rather than taking the date of 169 SE (= 143 BCE) in v. 7 as the date of a previous letter quoted, Schwartz argues that this is the very date of the letter despite its placement at the beginning. The Jerusalem Jews were writing to their Egyptian counterparts on the occasion of the independence of the Hasmonean state to invite them to celebrate the feast of booths. He argues that the tense of v. 7 is an epistolary perfect (\u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03b1\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd) and does not refer to the past but the present. Moreover, the date in v. 9 refers to the year when the Temple was rededicated. It should not read \u201c188,\u201d a scribal error, but \u201c148\u201d of the Seleucid era, which is equivalent to 164 BCE.
\nSchwartz has offered persuasive arguments for the redating of the letter, and in doing so, he has linked the opening more closely with the narrative. The preface and the narrative are not just documents loosely edited together, but they are part of the final redaction of 2 Maccabees.
\nThe opening section of 2 Macc 1:1\u20132:18, then, consists of two letters. The first letter, 1:1\u201310a, includes a conventional greeting, an admonition, an account of the distress and divine intercession, the offering of sacrifices, and the invitation to keep the feast of booths. A second, much longer letter, 1:10b\u20132:18, is addressed to Aristobulus and also begins with a conventional greeting. It thanks God for having driven out those who fought against the holy city, invites the Egyptian Jews to join in the celebration of the purification of the Temple, and provides an account that emphasizes the continuity between pre-and post-exilic cultic worship. The two letters serve as a kind of preface before the real preface begins in 2:19.
\nThe opening of the story begins in chapter 3, as marked by the previous verse: \u201cAt this point therefore let us begin our narrative, adding only so much to what has already been said; for it is foolish to lengthen the preface while cutting short the history itself\u201d (2:32). This verse not only introduces the narrative proper, but it also says something about 2 Maccabees\u2019 relationship to its source.
\nVerse 2:32 describes itself as \u201cthe narrative,\u201d and the Greek term \u1f21 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ae\u03b3\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 means here an epitome or abbreviated account of \u201cthe history\u201d (\u1f21 \u1f31\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03af\u03b1). The author of the history was Jason of Cyrene, who wrote about the matters concerning Judas and his brothers; the purification of the great temple; the rededication of the altar; further wars against Antiochus Epiphanes and his son Eupator; the heavenly appearances that aided the few to overcome the hordes of barbarians and recover the famous temple, liberate the city, and restore the law that was in danger of being abolished (2:19\u201323).
\nThe author of 2 Maccabees has distilled all that was written in five volumes into a single book, and he described his own digest as \u201can epitome\u201d (2:26). He clearly did not write the history; he is \u201cthe epitomist\u201d and \u201cthe abridger,\u201d and his identity is unknown.
\nAccording to his own self-description this \u201cepitomist\u201d expended great effort in the abridgement, a standard topos of the diligent author, toiling under the drudgery of epitomization and experiencing sleepless nights (2:26\u201331). His intention is not to provide an exhaustive treatment of history but a \u201cbrevity of expression,\u201d recasting the history in a way that omits the confusing mass of numbers and details (2:24, 31).
\nAs an abridger, his goal was to profit all readers by an appeal to the imagination, pleasing those who wish to read and facilitating those who want to memorize (2:25). He leaves the exact details to the \u201crecord keeper\u201d or \u201chistorian,\u201d while striving to follow the rules of epitomization (2:28). He is not the master builder of a new house, the architect who is concerned about the entire construction, but the decorator who adorns the walls with paintings (2:29).
\nAn appreciation of the intentions of the epitomist helps explain the characteristics of the book (chs. 3\u201315) and how the preface complements it (chs. 1\u20132). The narrative of 2 Maccabees follows a cyclical pattern of a good beginning, degeneration of the situation, recovery, and finally a happy ending. Such a literary ring would not only delight those who read the account, but also aid those who would commit the narrative to memory.
\nIt begins with an idyllic and peaceful description of the holy city, its inhabitants pious in their legal observance under the leadership of the high priest Onias, and honored by foreign kings (3:1\u20133). There follow accounts of betrayal by Simon (3:4; 4:1\u20136), Jason (4:7\u201322), and Menelaus (4:7\u201350). Chapter 5 recounts the defilement of the Temple and robbery of its treasures by Antiochus Epiphanes. Matters continue to deteriorate as various Greek customs were forced upon individuals and the Jewish populace equally, atrocities were committed, and noble acts of defiance exemplified (ch. 6).
\nThe nadir of the decline is also the turning point of the fight-back, at least in spirit. Eleazar, the aged scribe, defied the order to eat swine flesh and instead chose the punishment, thus exemplifying and memorializing by his death the nobility and courage of the Jewish nation (6:18\u201331). The mother and the seven brothers chose martyrdom over the transgression of Jewish law (ch. 7).
\nThe fight-back takes on a decidedly military slant from chapter 8 onward, when the narrative turns to Judas Maccabeus and his companions secretly entering villages and enlisting six thousand Jews faithful to the Jewish religion for the rebellion. This military resistance is adumbrated in 5:27 with its signposting of Judas and nine others fleeing to the mountains so that they might not share in the defilement. Chapter 9 reports the death of Antiochus Epiphanes when he falls out of the chariot as he rushes from Ecbatana to Jerusalem. His death is precipitated by \u201cthe judgment of heaven\u201d (9:4), which strikes Antiochus with pains in his bowels.
\nThe excruciating death of the Seleucid tyrant is followed by an account that is closely tied to the festal letters. Judas and his companions recapture the Temple and city, tear down foreign altars, purify the sanctuary, build another altar, offer sacrifices on it, and celebrate it for eight days in the manner of the feast of booths. That 2 Macc 10:1\u20138, often called the Hanukkah passage, is a secondary unit is clear from v. 9, \u201csuch then was the end of Antiochus who was called Epiphanes,\u201d which links it to 9:29. The first eight verses of chapter 10 could be excised without interrupting the narrative; 9:29 flows naturally into 10:9.
\nSchwartz points out that the secondary nature of 10:1\u20138 and its link to the first festal letter is evidenced grammatically and thematically. The exclusive Greek style of both passages is characterized by parataxis (the frequent use of \u201cand\u201d). Thematically, 10:1\u20138 is distinctive from the surrounding chapters by its hostile attitude toward the gentiles, the interest and priority of the Temple and its cult, and the lack of concern over potential Dionysiac associations. Finally, the link between the letters and 10:1\u20138 is shown by the way that the passages depend on each other for comprehensibility: the otherwise odd reference to extracting fire from rocks (10:3) is intelligible in view of the liquid fire that was poured on rocks (1:31\u201332), and only 10:6\u20137 and 1:9 and 18 describe Hanukkah as a kind of festival of booths.
\nThe remaining chapters of 2 Maccabees recount the various victories of Judas and his companions, culminating in the victory over Nicanor and the return of the holy city to the Hebrews (10:9\u201315:39). In this final section, Schwartz also detects intervening editorial stages where the author used a source that helped him draft up the narrative between 10:9\u201311:37 and 13:3\u20138.
\nThe complex redactional history of 2 Maccabees may be summarized as follows: it was originally an epitome of Jason of Cyrene\u2019s five-volume history; the abridgement viewed the story of Judas and his brothers from a diasporan perspective; other materials were added; and the final redactional layer adapted the whole work from a diasporan to a Judean perspective by adding the Hanukkah passage and the festal letters. In its completed form, therefore, 2 Maccabees is a Jerusalemite redaction.<\/p>\n
The Authenticity of Judas\u2019 Letter<\/p>\n
The content of the letter may be divided as follows: (1) the opening address and greeting (1:10b); (2) a thanksgiving to God for deliverance (1:11); (3) a recounting of the ambush of Antiochus in the Persian Temple as a sign of divine judgment and expulsion of those who attack the holy city of Jerusalem (1:12\u201317); (4) an invitation to the Egyptian Jews to join in the celebration of the purification of the Temple (1:18); (5) the hiding and recovery of the fire of the altar before and after the exile, including a prayer of dedication and the sacralization of the hiding place (1:19\u201336); (6) a reference to Jeremiah\u2019s order that those being deported should take with them some of the fire of the altar and his exhortation that they not forget the commandments nor be led astray by idolatry (2:1\u20133); (7) an account, also from the writings of Jeremiah, of the sealing of the tent and ark in a cave of unknown location. The prophecy also includes the reassurance of an eventual divine disclosure in the form of the appearance of the glory of the Lord and of the cloud. The final line mentions that Solomon too asked that the place be sanctified, a comment that serves as a transition to the following section (2:4\u20137); (8) loosely related comments about Solomon sacrificing during the rededication and completion of the Temple; Moses and Solomon praying so that fire would descend from heaven to burn up the sacrifices; the eating of the sin-offering that was not consumed by fire; and Solomon\u2019s celebration, which lasted eight days (2:9\u201311); (9) the reference to Nehemiah and Judas founding a library and collecting books (2:12\u201315); and (10) a reiteration of the invitation for Egyptian Jews to celebrate the holiday of purification with their Judean brothers (2:16\u201318).
\nThe logic of the second festal letter twists and turns from pillar to post, and source-critics vary in their judgments, depending on the perceived coherence or incoherence of the narrative. For instance, Daniel Schwartz postulates a secondary insertion in 1:13\u201316 that recounts the death of \u201cthe leader\u201d in Persia (1:13\u201316), whereas Ben Zion Wacholder argues that the same passage is \u201can integral part of the letter.\u201d The passage is, in any case, the only account that attests to the death of Antiochus before the purification of the Temple. A different account of the death is given in chapter 9. The main point of the letter, however, is clear: it is an invitation to Egyptian Jews to join the celebration of the purification of the Temple.
\nThe letter purports to come from Judas and other Jews in Jerusalem and Judea, including the elders of Israel, but commentators have questioned this attribution. As it stands in 2 Maccabees, the second festal letter is addressed to Aristobulus, who was the teacher of the king, commonly identified with Ptolemy VI, who ruled Egypt between 180 and 145 BCE. The letter was written by (among others) Judas, who died in 160 BCE, and on the face of it there is nothing to preclude the attribution of authorship to Judas.
\nThe authenticity of the letter, however, has been questioned on chronological grounds. Jonathan Goldstein interprets 1:12\u201317 as a contemporary reporting of Antiochus\u2019 demise in Istafan, Persia, in 164\/163 BCE and argues that news could not have reached Jerusalem and subsequently been passed on to Alexandria in time for the celebration of the purification of the Temple on the twenty-fifth of Chislev. The chronological objection, however, is overcome if the invitation is to a celebration of the first anniversary of the purification of the Temple.
\nThe second festal letter has been characterized as a forgery, written by an Egyptian Jew sympathetic to the exclusive legitimacy of the Jerusalem Temple and the dynastic claims of the Hasmoneans. Goldstein postulates that the real author wrote in November or early December 103 BCE, when Ptolemy IX invaded Egypt and the Oniads were powerless to help (Josephus, Ant. 13.352). The second festal letter, therefore, is \u201can anti-Oniad propaganda\u201d designed to champion the legitimacy of the Jerusalem Temple over the Temple in Leontopolis. But it would be very odd to attach a supposed propaganda piece to 2 Maccabees when the narrative extols the virtues of the high priestly line of Onias. Moreover, the letter describes itself as originating from Jerusalem and Judea to Egypt, not the other way around.
\nThe authenticity of the second festal letter is being reconsidered. Goldstein stated: \u201cIt cannot be excluded that it is based on an original going back to Judas himself.\u201d Earlier Wacholder had accepted the authenticity of the letter, arguing, among other things, that if it was a forgery, then it would have been a \u201cunique type of Hellenistic forgery\u201d since forgeries normally involve the assumption of a pagan voice in praise of the Jews.<\/p>\n
The Notice in Context<\/p>\n
The authenticity of the second festal letter is sub judice. The question remains about the validity of the claim that Judas, like Nehemiah before him, collected books of Israel\u2019s heritage.
\nAspersions have been cast on the integrity of the notice of 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 by an appeal to its overall context, which includes non-biblical traditions and miraculous events. Thus Nehemiah is said to have built the Temple and altar (2 Macc 1:18) when he is known in his own writings for bolstering the infrastructure, especially the walls surrounding the holy city (Neh 1:1\u20137:5). He is commonly thought to have arrived after both the Temple and altar had already been rebuilt. Historical inaccuracies have been pointed out, including the statement that the Israelites were deported to Persia rather than Babylonia (2 Macc 1:19).
\nSome of these incongruities find satisfactory explanations. The reference to Persia over Babylonia, for instance, is apparently due to the changed geopolitical situation. Jews writing in the second century referred to the traditional territory of Babylonia by its contemporary political designation of \u201cPersia.\u201d Other references remain incongruous with the biblical sources, which themselves do not always agree. Thus Ezra 3 describes the building of the altar and the construction of the foundations of the Temple by Jeshua and Zerubbabel, whereas in Ezra 5:16, it is Sheshbazzar who lays the foundations of the house of God.
\nThe objection that Nehemiah did not build the Temple should be tempered by the recognition that what is preserved in the biblical accounts is only partial. Josephus concludes book 11 of Antiquities by stating that \u201cNehemiah had done many other excellent things\u201d (183). In his retelling, Nehemiah asked King Xerxes not only to give him leave to build the walls of Jerusalem, but also \u201cto finish the building of the Temple\u201d (165). 2 Macc 1:18 attests to this tradition, which attributes to Nehemiah a role in the completion of the Temple building.
\nAs for the miraculous events, they are not the kind of material that would be considered historical, but they are biblical and traditional, and their inclusion in the second festal letter is no reason for rejecting the notice. The biblical texts are infused with supernatural events. Fire, for instance, came down from heaven to consume the sacrifice at the altar (1 Chr 21:26). There are no more a priori reasons for doubting the validity of 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 based on its context in the second festal letter than any other historical event embedded in the biblical texts.<\/p>\n
2 Maccabees 2:13\u201315<\/p>\n
The passage states:<\/p>\n
13 The same things are reported in the records and in the memoirs of Nehemiah, and also that he founded a library and collected the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings. 14 In the same way Judas also collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war which had come upon us, and they are in our possession. 15 So if you have need of them, send people to get them for you.<\/p>\n
This notice is based on the information derived from \u201crecords\u201d and \u201cthe memoirs of Nehemiah.\u201d The first term, \u201crecord\u201d (\u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03ae), does not occur elsewhere in the LXX. It occurs six times in Let. Aris., nine times in Philo, and forty times in Josephus, and it means either a documentary record or literary text, such as the sacred scripture.
\nThe second term, \u201cmemoir\u201d (\u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03bd\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2), refers to archival material. It occurs three other times in the LXX. In Ezra 4:15 (paralleled in 1 Esdr. 2:19), it occurs in Rehum and Shimshai\u2019s letter to Artaxerxes, in which the Persian king is requested to look in \u201cthe book of the your fathers\u201d to discover the history of the rebellious city of Jerusalem. In 2 Macc 4:23, it refers to the recording of essential business transactions involving money.
\nThe \u201cmemoirs of Nehemiah\u201d are an accepted scholarly construct that postulates a source that was used in the compilation of the book of Nehemiah. The identification of the passages that make up these memoirs is debated, but it often includes the following verses: 1:1\u20132:20; 3:1\u201332; 3:32\u20137:5; 11:1\u20132; 12:27\u201347; 13:1\u201331, and the genealogical list of 11:3\u201312:16. In these passages, there is no reference to a library and collection of books. In fact, 2 Macc 2:13 refers to a tradition about Nehemiah that is unattested elsewhere, but it is not thereby unreliable.
\nBut what did Nehemiah found? The Greek term translated by \u201clibrary\u201d could also mean \u201can archive.\u201d Stefan Schorch has argued that \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b7 in Hellenistic Greek means \u201ca royal archive\u201d and points to the occurences in LXX Ezra 6:1 and Esther 2:23. He admits that while the difference between a \u201clibrary\u201d and an \u201carchive\u201d is not always clear, \u201cthe distinction between the two should nevertheless be upheld.\u201d
\nHowever, this distinction between an archive that stores official documents and a library servicing a collection of literature is not maintained by the term or its content. The Greek \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03b9\u03bf\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03b7 could also refer to a \u201clibrary\u201d (e.g., Let. Aris. 9, 8, 29; Philo, Legat. 151; and Josephus, Ant. 12.12, 14, 36, and 48). Moreover, Nehemiah\u2019s collection includes documents and literature, as Schorch himself argues. The necessary conclusion is surely that no distinction was drawn between a bibliotheke as an archive and as a library.
\nArmin Lange has argued that the letter uses the \u201creassembling of the Jerusalem temple library by Judah Maccabee to show the temple in more Hellenistic light,\u201d the rhetorical effect of which is to gain the Egyptian Jews\u2019 sympathy. But this seems unlikely. Egyptian Jews would have been familiar with the great library of Alexandria, which produced critical editions of Homer\u2019s works at this time, and inviting a comparison between the two would result in a negative rather than the desired positive response. Moreover, the view that Judas reconstituted the temple library is altogether questionable (see below).
\nThree kinds of writings were collected by Nehemiah. The phrase \u201cthe books about kings and prophets\u201d is a vague description. Schorch pointed out that the use of the preposition \u201cabout\u201d (\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af) grammatically makes both \u201ckings\u201d and \u201cprophets\u201d the logical objects. They are instead books and stories about kings and prophets. Schorch does not mention it, but LXX Jer 14:15 corroborates this understanding when it describes what \u201cthe Lord says concerning the prophets [\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd] who prophesy lies in my name.\u201d He argues that what is in view are the kind of documents attested in 2 Maccabees 2:1\u20137 and not the historical and prophetic books of the canon. However, given the vagueness of the formulation, the description does not preclude an identification of the books of Samuel and Kings or, for that matter, several of the prophetic books like Jeremiah.
\nThe second category of writing refers to \u201cthe books of David.\u201d This has often been compared to the phrase \u201cin David\u201d in 4QMMT, but that text may not refer to the writings or psalms of David. Rather, the phrase in MMT could mean either the deeds or the example of David. However, the psalms are mentioned in other scrolls. In the Great Psalms Scroll and 11QMelch authorship of the psalms is ascribed to David (see chapter 7). The same attribution of authorship of the psalms to David may be found in other texts (see chapter 9 for a discussion of Luke 24:44).
\nFinally, there were \u201cletters of kings about votive offerings.\u201d Daniel Schwartz points out that royal correspondence concerning Temple matters is attested in Eupolemus, possibly a Jerusalemite priest, who refers to missives sent between Solomon and Hiram that were stored in Tyrian archives.
\nThe notice compares the activities of Judas to those of Nehemiah. The comparison forms part of the broader literary purpose of the second festal letter in linking the Hasmonean rededication of the altar to Temple worship in the days of Nehemiah and Solomon. The adverb (\u1f61\u03c3\u03b1\u03cd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2) means \u201clikewise\u201d or \u201cin the same way.\u201d What is being explicitly compared is the collection of books. Verse 14 even uses the same verb \u201cto collect\u201d (\u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03b3\u03c9).
\nWhat kinds of books were collected by Judas is not specified. The usual translation of the clause makes Judas collect all the books \u201cthat had been lost on account of the war which had come upon us.\u201d This is a logical absurdity, for how can things that are lost be collected? It is not mentioned that they were found. The verb \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03c0\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03c9, however, literally means \u201cto fall to pieces.\u201d In the myth of the origins of the Septuagint, the term is used to refer to defective or imperfect books in the library of Alexandria (Let. Aris. 29; Josephus, Ant. 12.36).
\nA better translation, therefore, is that Judas collected all the books that \u201chad fallen to pieces on account of the war.\u201d After all, according to 1 Macc 1:56, the books of the law were torn to pieces or cut up (\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03c3\u03c7\u03af\u03b6\u03c9) and burnt (\u1f10\u03bc\u03c0\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03b6\u03c9) during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes. Presumably, these books were only partially destroyed, so Judas was able to gather these tattered and burnt books of the law.
\nThere is no mention of Judas establishing a library. To read the construction of a Maccabean library into this verse is to overload the comparative sense of the adverb. In fact, the recovered books are not in a library but \u201cin our possession\u201d or \u201camong us\u201d (\u03c0\u03b1\u1fe4 \u1f21\u03bc\u1fd6\u03bd). The plural subject of this phrase most naturally refers to the authors of the letter, who are inclusively the Jerusalemite and Judean Jews, the elders of Israel and Judas.
\nThat the books of the literary heritage of Israel are found among the people is evidenced by 2 Macc 2:1\u20133 and its recounting of the words of Jeremiah. The prophet not only asked those being deported to take some of the fire, but also \u201cthe law,\u201d so that they might not forget the commandments. 1 Macc 1:56\u201357 recounts how during the Seleucid persecution, a death sentence was pronounced on anyone in possession (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac \u03c4\u03b9\u03bd\u03b9) of the book of the Covenant.
\nIn sum, the adverb in v. 14 (\u201cin the same way\u201d) should not be pressed beyond what it can bear. The comparison should be understood in a general sense. Judas did not collect the same kinds of books, nor did he found a library like Nehemiah. What he seemed to have done was, like Nehemiah, to collect books. The books that he gathered were damaged during the war, and his reassembling of them formed part of the restoration of Jewish heritage. They were now back among the Judeans.<\/p>\n
A Maccabean Library?<\/p>\n
It was Sid Leiman who saw 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 as important evidence of the closing of the canon in the second century BCE. Although he did not actually say that Judas founded a library, his discussion has led subsequent scholars to draw that conclusion. He wrote in his introductory chapter about the portrayal of Nehemiah: \u201cWhat may well be described here [i.e., 2 Macc 2:13] is a collection and canonization of biblical books.\u201d Further on, he described Judas\u2019 collection of books in this way: \u201cThe literary activity ascribed here to Judah Maccabee may, in fact, be a description of the closing of the Hagiographa, and with it, the entire biblical canon. Although literary activity is nowhere else ascribed to him, such activity by Judah Maccabee, or by other Hasmoneans under his aegis, may have been a response to the attempt on the part of Antiochus IV to destroy Hebrew Scripture.\u201d
\nLeiman spoke of \u201cliterary activity\u201d and not about a library, and in his footnotes, he was more careful in his formulation, but he also mentioned a private library. According to him, the literary activity ascribed to Nehemiah \u201cmay reflect the formation of a private library rather than an act of canonization.\u201d John Barton noted this tendency in Leiman to be more cautious in his footnotes than in the main text. In any case, Leiman\u2019s views came to be understood as Judas founding a library in Jerusalem, a reading of 2 Macc 2:13\u201315 that has now been called into question.<\/p>\n
The second century was indeed an important period in the study of the formation of the canon. Both the Wisdom of ben Sira and 2 Maccabees, in their own way, attest to the emergence of collections of authoritative writings that served Jewish communities in Judea and Egypt. There is no evidence, however, that the canon was already closed or that the Jerusalem Temple functioned as a depository of official books.
\nJesus ben Sira and his grandson had slightly different conceptions of scriptural collections, but they shared the view that the book of Wisdom belonged to the literary heritage of Israel, which had not been fixed and closed. Thus they recommended that the scribe who devoted himself to the law of the Most High should study inter alia the Wisdom of ben Sira.
\nThe view that the canon was closed in the second century is based on an interpretation of 2 Maccabees that cannot be sustained. The above examination has shown that the notice belongs to the second festal letter written by Jews from Jerusalem, possibly including Judas. It forms part of the final Jerusalemite redaction that gave 2 Maccabees its present shape.
\nThe historical notice of 2 Maccabees 2:13\u201315, however, does not say that Judas reconstructed a library. Rather, it compares the Maccabean leader\u2019s collection of books to an otherwise unattested tradition of Nehemiah gathering books and founding a library. Some of the books collected by Nehemiah, like the books of David, probably correspond to the psalms in a general way rather than as a defined psalter. Others are official correspondence about offerings that do not have an obvious counterpart. Yet others are ambiguous and could refer to non-biblical documents or the narratives of Samuel and Kings or prophetic books.
\nBut Judas did not collect the same books as Nehemiah. The adverb should be understood in a general sense of comparing an earlier act of book collection to that of Judas\u2019 postwar act of reconstitution. The Maccabean collection is a reassembling of books damaged during the war that were now back in the possession of the people. It does not say anything about a Maccabean library or canonization.<\/p>\n
7<\/p>\n
The Dead Sea Scrolls and Authoritative Scriptures<\/p>\n
The Qumran-Essene theory holds that manuscripts discovered by Bedouin goatherds in caves by the Dead Sea in 1947 belong to the community of the Essenes. These scrolls were found in eleven caves close to the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran and comprised \u201cthe library\u201d of a monastic-like group of sectarians known from the classical sources as the Essenes.
\nFrom the early days of research, scholars have advanced various views about the archaeology of Khirbet Qumran, its relationship to the scrolls found in the nearby caves, the origins of the community, the identification of key figures in the scrolls like \u201cthe Wicked Priest,\u201d \u201cthe Liar,\u201d and \u201cthe Teacher of Righteousness,\u201d and the history of the community until its disappearance.
\nSome believe that the community came from Babylon, while others have argued that the archaeological site was a military fortress and had no association with the community described in the scrolls. Still others have developed the Qumran-Essene theory to postulate that the Qumran community was one of two daughter sects of the Essene movement; the other was that of the Therapeutae, who lived in Egypt by Lake Mareotic. Finally, scholars trained in Jewish law have underscored the importance of halakha for those who lived there, one scholar conjecturing a Sadducean origin of the Qumran community.
\nNonetheless, the Qumran-Essene theory reigned supreme until the beginning of the 1990s. Broadly speaking, it remains the view today, if one can still speak of a consensus; the Qumran-Essene theory in the hands of various scholars has since transformed in ways that one could justifiably ask whether it should still be described as one and the same theory.
\nIn the last twenty years or so and prompted by the release and publication of all the remaining scrolls from Cave 4 in 1991, there has been a vigorous reassessment of the Qumran-Essene theory in all its essential tenets. Archaeologists have subjected Khirbet Qumran to a thorough reexamination, advancing various ideas about the character and function of the archaeological site through the periods of occupation, with or without regard to the scrolls found in the caves nearby, the classical descriptions of the Essenes, Pliny\u2019s geographical notice, and other sites in the surrounding region.
\nThe adjoining cemetery has also been reexamined for female skeletons and its burial practices compared to Jewish customs found elsewhere. The release of the remaining scrolls from Cave 4 made it possible to study the different versions of the sectarian documents, in particular the Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document, and to posit the dispersal of sectarian communities throughout Judaea. For some, this has resulted in the decentralization of Khirbet Qumran as the \u201cmother house\u201d of Essenism and the postulate of different communities of the yahad.
\nA discussion of these developments in research is well beyond the scope of this chapter. These views are, in any case, accessible in the articles, books, proceedings of conferences, and other publications that offer an assessment of the state of research.
\nWhat will be offered below is an examination of the issue of authority in relation to the scrolls. In a subsequent chapter I shall discuss the authoritative scriptures of the Essenes and Therapeutae. This approach to the topic is a way of including all the relevant sources that are conventionally considered under the rubric of the scrolls, the sectarian community, the Essenes, and the Therapeutae. It does not imply a particular theory, apart from the general identification of the community of the scrolls with the Essenes and the relationship of the scrolls to the archaeological site of Khirbet Qumran.
\nIt will be suggested that the biblical scrolls, while important in attesting to the presence of works that will eventually be included in the canon, do not by themselves tell us what the communities of the scrolls considered as authoritative scriptures. They need to be complemented by an examination of the use of the same biblical books in the sectarian documents. It will be argued that the sectarian scrolls imply a broadly bipartite collection of authoritative scriptures consisting of the \u201cTorah of Moses,\u201d referring to the Pentateuch, and an undefined collection of writings that are considered prophetic.
\nThe sectarians also used writings other than those that were eventually included in the Jewish canon, and it will be suggested that these have a graded authority, a sliding scale of influence, ranging from those that are authoritative interpretations of the biblical texts to sources and traditions that were used to produce the rulebooks and other sectarian scrolls.<\/p>\n
From Library to Collections<\/p>\n
The collection of nine hundred or more scrolls found in the eleven caves has often been described as \u201cthe library of the Qumran community.\u201d In this library, there are copies of all the books of the Hebrew Bible except for Esther. Some of the books, like the Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Genesis, and Leviticus, are represented by several copies, while Ezra and Nehemiah have but a single exemplar each. The Qumran \u201clibrary,\u201d then, attests to the entire Hebrew Bible with the exception of one book, but it does not tell us what the Qumran community thought of the canon or indeed whether it even had a concept of authoritative scriptures.
\nDid the Qumran community distinguish as authoritative those books that were eventually included in the canon from other writings that were also found in the library? There are good reasons for asking this question. It is now widely recognized that the Qumran library was diverse in content. Quite apart from the biblical books, it contained scrolls of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books, as well as previously unknown writings, a number of which reflect the concerns of one or more Jewish sects.
\nThe labels \u201capocryphal\u201d and \u201cpseudepigraphical\u201d are, of course, formal descriptors. They do not imply that the Qumran community considered the scrolls so described to be extra-canonical. The branding of scrolls as \u201cbiblical\u201d is likewise heuristic. It allows us to speak intelligibly about texts among the Qumran library that have a patent relationship with the books of the canon without prejudging whether they were already considered in this way.
\nThe conventional practice of dubbing the collection of scrolls as \u201cthe library,\u201d then, should be taken in a broad sense. In the library are to be found writings that were both manifestly sectarian and other texts that did not exhibit any such traits. The biblical scrolls belong to this latter category, and their presence in the collection might suggest that they were valued and read by the community.
\nBut if \u201cthe library\u201d is not really a library but a heterogenous collection of writings\u2014consisting, to be sure, of a core of sectarian writings but mixed in with the writings of ancient Jews in general\u2014then the inclusion of the biblical text within the corpus by itself is no evidence of authority. The presence of the biblical texts in the collection does not tell us how the sectarian community regarded them vis-\u00e0-vis other texts that were also found in \u201cthe library.\u201d
\nIn fact the analogy of \u201cthe library\u201d breaks down precisely in this respect. Significantly, there is no criterion for distinguishing the status of one text from another. The scrolls of the eleven caves do not contain any internal differentiation of a \u201cspecial collections,\u201d \u201creserved books,\u201d or \u201creference only\u201d section in the way that a modern library signals the importance and distinctiveness of certain books within its general collection. Therefore, the inclusion of \u201cbiblical\u201d books in the Qumran \u201clibrary\u201d as such is not equivalent to the consideration of them as authoritative scriptures. In fact, it would be better to stop calling the Dead Sea Scrolls \u201ca library\u201d and instead refer to them by the generic and nondescript term of \u201ca collection\u201d or \u201ccollections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biblical Scrolls of Second Temple Judaism<\/p>\n
Another issue concerns the nature of the biblical scrolls themselves. These scrolls do not exhibit any evidence of sectarian variants. According to Eugene Ulrich, they are \u201cthe Scriptures of late Second Temple Judaism,\u201d and they are distinguished by the \u201cabsence of sectarian variants.\u201d \u201cAbsence,\u201d as a construct, implies an argumentum e silentio. In this case, however, the lack of evidence is more akin to the scientific theory of the null hypothesis.
\nUlrich has shown that there is no relationship between the character of the biblical scrolls and the postulate of the sectarian nature of the corpus. He does this by illustrating what a sectarian variant would have looked like. For instance, the Samaritan Pentateuch intentionally changed the deuteronomistic formula \u201cthe place where the Lord will choose\u201d (e.g., Deut 12:5; 14:23; 16:2; 17:8; 18:6; 26:2). The future tense of this formula in the MT and LXX indicates that a decision had yet to be made about the location of Yahweh\u2019s dwelling place. The same passages in the Samaritan Pentateuch, however, read \u201cthe place where the Lord has chosen,\u201d thus explicitly stating that the place of the sacred sanctuary had already been chosen in the time of Moses and Joshua as Mt. Gerizim, a tendentious modification of the text for religious reasons. Jerusalem, of course, was later considered by Jews to be the chosen place.
\nAccording to Ulrich, the variants found in the biblical scrolls are not of this type. Rather, they reflect mechanical changes of scribal copying errors and technical alterations for greater clarity.<\/p>\n
The Canonical Status of the Great Psalm Scroll Reconsidered<\/p>\n
The distinction between a scroll deposited among the collection and one considered authoritative by the sectarian community has not been sufficiently recognized in the debates about the status of the Great Psalm Scroll (11QPsa) as either an early form of the Hebrew Psalter or a secondary liturgical composition.
\nIn 1965, James Sanders published a well-preserved, five-meter-long scroll that included forty-nine or fifty compositions, of which thirty-nine were previously known psalms primarily from the last third of the traditional Psalter. 11QPsa (11Q5) was dissimilar to the MT-Psalter, however, in several respects: the order of the psalms did not always follow the traditional psalter; and it included non-MT psalms (e.g., LXX Ps 151, Sirach 51:13\u201323, 30), non-canonical songs (e.g., \u201cApostrophe to Zion,\u201d \u201cHymn to the Creator\u201d), and a prose composition of 2 Sam 23:1\u20137 in column 27. The scroll is palaeographically dated to 30\u201350 CE.
\nInitially, Sanders argued that the scroll was Essenic, and therefore sectarian, because he believed that when the group separated from Jerusalem in the second century BCE, it took along to Qumran a psalter that had partially been fixed in its last third section.
\nThe last third section, corresponding roughly to books III and IV of the traditional Psalter, remained fluid. The traditional MT-Psalter contains 150 psalms and is divided into five books: I (psalms 1\u201341, containing most of the \u201cPsalms of David\u201d); II (42\u201372, including the psalms of Korah and Asaph); III (73\u201389, comprising additional psalms of Korah and Asaph); IV (90\u2013106, consisting of untitled psalms); and V (107\u2013150, concluding with mostly pligrimmage psalms).
\nThe division of the collection of psalms into five books was a late development made to parallel the Pentateuch (\u201cMoses gave the five books of the Torah to Israel and David gave the five books of Psalms to Israel\u201d; Midrash Tehillim 1.2); however, in this discussion, it is used in a heuristic sense to compare the division of 11QPsa to the MT-Psalter.
\nSanders\u2019 view of the fixation of the first two-thirds of the Psalter was not based on the evidence of 11Q5 since Ps 101 (frs. A, B, and CI) is the first composition preserved in that scroll. Rather it was deduced from other previously published Qumran psalms scrolls that preserved psalms from books I\u2013III. According to Sanders\u2019 early view, there were several versions of the psalter, 11Q5 being one of them. This scroll is a true psalter that the sectarian group took with it to Qumran and to which it added its own Hasidic and proto-Essene poems. Sanders also believed that the Jerusalem establishment stabilized the same third portion and disseminated the official version of the psalms that eventually became the accepted MT-Psalter.
\nThe consequence of this initial formulation, however, is that Sanders was in effect arguing that 11Q5 was a sectarian psalter! But this was either not his intention or he later changed his mind. What he eventually came to say was that 11Q5 was evidence of a true psalter, not a sectarian one, that the sectarians happen to have taken with them to Qumran. Sanders\u2019 characterization of the non-canonical psalms as \u201cHasidic\u201d and \u201cproto-Essene\u201d additions, which he later dropped, has contributed to the confusion.
\nWhat Sanders ended up saying was that the features of 11Q5 were not peculiarities of a secondary, sectarian collection; rather they attested to the fluidity of the last third of the psalter, which had a different order via-\u00e0-vis the MT-Psalter and included non-canonical material. The authenticity of 11Q5 as a true psalter, according to Sanders, is shown by the Davidic emphasis throughout the scroll, but especially at the end, and the stylistic similarities between the biblical and non-biblical psalms.
\nSanders\u2019 views were criticized by several scholars, notably Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, Shemaryahu Talmon and Patrick Skehan. Objections of a general and specific kind were leveled at Sanders\u2019 hypothesis, but they were not very effective since they assumed that the MT-Psalter was the orthodox psalter that had already been formed in the fourth century BCE and from which the 11QPsa-Psalter was drawn.
\nFor instance, arguments against the order of the psalms found in 11Q5 presuppose that the MT-Psalter was the standard order from which the scroll deviated. Moreover, the arguments that the liturgical interests of 11Q5 are incompatible with a canonical psalter seem altogether baffling, for what is a psalter if not a liturgical composition!
\nIn a study taking account of all the psalms manuscripts from Qumran, Peter Flint has critically evaluated Sanders\u2019 views, which he dubbed \u201cthe Qumran Psalms Hypothesis.\u201d He supports Sanders\u2019 claim that 11QPsa is evidence of the gradual stabilization of the Psalter: there is little variation in Psalms 1\u201389 in order and content, but Psalms 90\u2013150 remained in a state of flux.
\nFlint also agrees that there were two or more versions of the Psalter. He develops Sanders\u2019 views by positing three literary editions (following Ulrich\u2019s variant literary editions of the biblical scrolls): an early psalter (edition I), whose arrangement of Psalms 1\u201389 had already stabilized (as seen in 4QPsa, 4QPsb, and 11QPsc); a second version (edition IIa = edition I + the arrangement of 11QPsa), attested by 11QPsa, 11QPsb, and perhaps 4QPse; and a third version (edition IIb = edition I + Pss 89\u2013150) or the MT-Psalter (so MasPsb).
\nFlint, however, disagrees with Sanders\u2019 early view that 11QPsa was put together at Qumran and was therefore sectarian. Instead he cites approvingly of Sanders\u2019 subsequent change to the view that 11QPsa was compiled outside Qumran and brought in by novices who joined the community.
\nThe view that there were \u201ctwo or more\u201d literary editions is possible, but the evidence is not as straightforward as it seems. First, while the nineteen psalms (within Pss 5\u201371) of 4QPsa primarily follow the MT-Psalter order, Ps 33 immediately follows Ps 31, and Ps 71 comes directly after Ps 38.
\nLikewise, while 4QPsb preserves fifteen psalms (between Pss 91 and 118), Ps 112 is placed right after Ps 103. The third exemplar, 11QPsc, preserves nine compositions between Pss 2 and 25 in what appears to be the MT-Psalter order. These three scrolls do not attest to one literary edition.
\nSecond, the problems inherent in the characterization of edition I are compounded by the supposition that there was an edition IIa that comprises edition I plus the arrangement of 11QPsa. The twenty-six fragments of 4QPse are too badly mutilated to serve as positive evidence of the 11QPsa order. The codicological argument that another composition, no longer extant, must have come between Pss 104 and 105 does not require that Ps 109 is that composition.
\n11QPsb has the same order of Pss 141\u2192133\u2192144 as 11QPsa, and it includes portions of non-canonical compositions of the catena \u201cplea for deliverance\u201d and \u201capostrophe to Zion.\u201d Moreover, 11QPsb includes Ps 77:18\u201378:1, which has the sequence of the MT-Psalter, but it is insufficient to show that that was the order of edition I since those verses are not attested in the extant witnesses.
\nFinally, edition IIb should not be straightforwardly equated with the MT-Psalter since two of the three exemplars (4QPsa and 4QPsb) of its first constituent part (i.e., edition I) do not have the same order as the MT-Psalter.
\nThe heart of the Qumran Psalms Hypothesis lies in the characterization of 11QPsa as a true psalter. Arguments for it being a true psalter center on the ascription of Davidic authorship throughout the scroll, but especially in col. 27, lines 2\u201311, where it is said that David wrote 3,600 psalms and songs to sing before the altar in the course of a 364-day year. Gerald Wilson has, moreover, argued that the Great Psalms Scroll is structured according to the principles that governed the arrangement of books IV and V of the MT-Psalter. But neither of these arguments necessarily leads to the view that 11QPsa was a true psalter. It could alternatively be interpreted, as Flint correctly and recently concluded, \u201cas a collection drawn from a Psalter that had previously been finalized.\u201d<\/p>\n
From \u201cTrue Psalter\u201d to Liturgical Collection<\/p>\n
In fact, discussing 11Q5 as a \u201ctrue psalter\u201d is itself questionable. It is a petitio principii that supposes that the sectarians already had a concept of an authoritative body of hymnic material different from other liturgical texts. Would they have differentiated the variant literary editions of the psalms from other liturgical compositions that were also included in the scrolls corpus? How, for instance, is the authority of the Hodayot different from that of the psalms?
\nThe discussion about the status of 11QPsa has latterly developed away from the view that it was a Qumran-Essene psalter and as such has weakened the claim to authoritative status in the sectarian community. If the Great Psalms Scroll is to be considered a non-sectarian composition that was imported into the scrolls collection, then like other biblical scrolls, it does not by itself indicate how the community understood it.
\nThe sectarian documents do indeed cite the psalms numerous times and even exegeted them in their typically sectarian form of pesher interpretation (1QpPs, 4QpPsa, and 4QpPsb), but the text-form of the lemmata of 4Q173, the only pesher to preserve overlaps with 11Q5 (namely, Ps 129, attesting to the MT), is not derived from the 11QPsa-Psalter. The contention, then, is that while evidence for the specific use of the 11QPsa-Psalter is found wanting, the psalms are cited in pesherite and other sectarian texts.<\/p>\n
Authoritative Status of the Psalms<\/p>\n
The debate about the status of the Great Psalms Scroll as a \u201ctrue psalter\u201d is distinguishable from discussions about the authoritative status of the psalms among the sectarian scrolls. Textual form is an important element in the choice of a particular text by each religious group and tradition: the MT for Rabbinic Judaism and Protestantism, the LXX for the Alexandrian Jewish community and the Greek Orthodox Church, the Vulgate for Roman Catholicism, and so forth.
\nBut the sectarian scrolls do not exhibit any such preference for a particular text. For instance, 4Q175 (4QTest) tolerates various textual forms, attesting as it does to the Samaritan text-type of Deut 5 and 18, the MT of Num 24 and Deut 33, and the \u201cPsalms of Joshua\u201d (4Q379) (including the LXX of Josh 6:26). Pesher Habakkuk is aware of the MT and textual variants from 8HevXIIgr, LXX, and Peshitta. 4QpPsa (4Q171) has the variant \u201cthe lovers of the Lord\u201d (frs. 1\u201310, col. 3:2, 5a, 7) rather than \u201cthe enemies of the Lord\u201d of the MT (Ps 37:20b). 1QpMic attests to the definite \u201cthe land\u201d (Mic 1:3 in frs. 1\u20135, lines 2\u20133), a reading that is also found in the LXX. And 4Q252 attests to the LXX reading \u201cmy spirit shall not dwell\u201d (fr. 1, l. 2) rather than \u201cmy spirit will not judge\u201d of the MT of Gen 6:3.
\nThe sectarian documents, therefore, did not assign authoritative status to one particular text-type. They tolerated textual variants and sometimes exploited their interpretative possibilities in their exegesis. The psalms were quoted and interpreted, and it did not matter whether they textually followed the MT, the LXX, or another text-type.
\nIt is nonetheless probable that a concept of authoritative scriptures in the form of a collection of psalms already existed at Qumran. 11QMelch, a thematic pesher, introduces Ps 82:1 (textually MT with a minor variant of the Qumran nominal form of \u05d1\u05e7\u05d5\u05e8\u05d1) by the introductory formula \u201cas it is written concerning him [i.e., Melchizedek] in the psalms of David\u201d (\u05d1\u05e9\u05d9\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d3\u05d5\u05d9\u05d3, 11Q13 1:10). The nominal plural suggests that these psalms were regarded as a collection, and the construct is best understood as a genitive of authorship, \u201cthe collection of songs written by David.\u201d In another scroll, 4Q491, a version of the War Scroll, the terminology of \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d4\u05dc\u05d9\u05dd (fr. 17, l. 4) is preserved, though the immediate context has been lost. The psalms, it would seem, are part of a collection and are to be found in a sepher, probably meaning a book or a scroll.<\/p>\n
The Meaning of \u201cbe-David\u201d in 4QMMT<\/p>\n
The publication of 4QMMT (\u201csome precepts of the torah\u201d) in 1994 engendered a debate about the possible attestation of the tripartite canon at Qumran. According to the principal editors, MMT refers not only to the book of Moses and the books of the Prophets, but also to the Writings. This canonical notice is preserved in a badly mutilated line that the editors reconstructed and translated as follows: \u201cWe have [written] to you so that you may study (carefully) the book of Moses and the books of the Prophets and (the writings of) Dav[id]\u201d (Composite Text [hereafter CT], C 10). This has been questioned, but most scholars accept the editors\u2019 reconstruction.
\nThe rub lies in the contested meaning of the phrase be-david. The editors have suggested that it meant \u201cthe writings of David,\u201d but there are good reasons for querying this interpretation. The collection of psalms is known in other sectarian documents as \u201cthe songs of David\u201d (11QMelch) and \u201cthe book of psalms\u201d (4Q491). The phrase be-david could theoretically have been a third way of referring to the psalms, but there is no unambiguous evidence of the technical use of the preposition beth followed by a proper name to refer to Writings. It is more likely to be a reference to \u201cthe deeds of David,\u201d as paralleled in the phrase \u201cthe deeds of the kings\u201d (CT C 28).
\nOne objection to this interpretation is that be-david should be understood in the same way as \u201cthe book of Moses\u201d and \u201cthe books of the prophets,\u201d which immeditately precede it in line 10. Daniel Schwartz argues that be-david should be understood as a reference to \u201cbooks by or about David.\u201d He invokes the Latin tag eiusdem generis (lit. \u201cof the same kind\u201d) as an argument against the interpretation of David\u2019s deeds.
\nAccording to Schwartz, this rule of interpretation justifies the assumption that \u201cthe third item is of the same genus as the first two.\u201d But the fact of the matter is that the third item is not of the same genus as the first two. It does not include the word \u201csepher\u201d as in the other two. Rather, the phrase is simply be-david and not be-sepher david. It follows two references to collections of books, which led to the mistaken interpretation of it as the third division of the Hebrew Bible.
\nA further consideration of the broader context of MMT, taking account of the end as well as the beginning, raises another possibility that be-david could mean the example of David. The end of MMT reiterates the beginning and the admonition to consider the kings of Israel and their deeds in the familiar, deuteronomistic pattern of blessings and curses. David is singled out as a role model.
\nThus the we-party is admonishing the you-party to consider both the authoritative writings of the book of Moses and the books of the Prophets, in which are found narratives about the life and deeds of Israel\u2019s kings, and especially stories about King David, whose own life, marked as it is by the sin against Uriah, is otherwise distinguished by its piety.
\nIn MMT, David is mentioned several times, but there is no distinctive use of the psalms. Line 10 means, \u201cWe have written to you so that you may carefully consider the book of Moses and the books of the Prophets and the example of David.\u201d MMT does not appear to refer to the psalms.<\/p>\n
Broadly Bipartite Collection of Authoritative Scriptures<\/p>\n
By the second half of the first century BCE the sectarians already had an implicit sense of authoritative scriptures in the form of a collection of writings attributed to Moses, another set of books of the Prophets, and one or more versions of the psalter.
\n4Q397, the only copy of MMT to preserve the notice, palaeographically dates to the first half of the Herodian period; 11QMelch (11Q13) palaeographically dates either to the late Hasmonean period (75\u201350 BCE) or early Herodian period (50\u201325 BCE); and 4Q491 palaeographically dates to the Herodian period (30\u20131 BCE). It is uncertain when these three scrolls were originally composed, but the palaeographical dating of their copies converges remarkably well. By the first half of the Herodian period (ca. 50\u20131 BCE) or earlier, these sectarian scrolls together refer to three collections of scriptures. It is not, however, a tripartite division.<\/p>\n
The Book of Moses<\/p>\n
The phrase \u201cthe book of Moses\u201d most likely refers to the Pentateuch. There is even evidence of the citation of all five books in connection with the title.
\nStephen Pfann argued that the title midrash sepher moshe of 4QpapCrypt A (4Q249) is related to the midrash ha-torah of 1QS 8:15. The extant portion of the scroll, however, attests only to Leviticus and Exodus 7. It is possible that the original unmutilated scroll included \u201ca midrash\u201d of passages from all five books of the Pentateuch. But \u201cha-torah\u201d could alternatively refer more generally to \u201cthe instruction.\u201d
\nHowever, the title itself is suggestive; \u201cthe torah\u201d has \u201ca midrash.\u201d \u201cMidrash\u201d later became the title of a genre of Rabbinic literature, but here it probably means \u201cinterpretation.\u201d The term is related to \u201cstudy\u201d (darash), and it is possible that it refers to the documents that issued from the sectarian community\u2019s nightly study of the torah. Moreover, \u201cthe torah\u201d is explicitly said to have been decreed by God through Moses.
\nIn CD 4\u20137, there is evidence that \u201csepher moshe\u201d refers to the five books of the Pentateuch. The title is embedded in the phrase \u201cin the book of the torah that is sealed\u201d (\u05d1\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d4\u05d7\u05ea\u05d5\u05dd CD 5:2). This phrase belongs to a complex exposition of the three nets of Belial and Isaiah 24:17, which warns against bigamy and incest, and the so-called \u201cwell-midrash\u201d of Num 21:18. Several biblical passages are referred to in this section, significantly including references to all five books of the Pentateuch from Genesis to Deuteronomy (e.g., Gen 1:26 in CD 7:9; Exod 25:16, 21, and 40:20 in CD 5:2\u20133; Lev 18:13 in CD 5:8\u20139; Num 21:18 in CD 6:3\u20134; and Deut 17:17 in CD 5:2).
\nIt is unlikely that this \u201cbook\u201d or \u201ctorah\u201d of Moses remained open and included other compositions. That it was closed is implied by CD\u2019s characterization of the book of Jubilees as a perush or explanation of the Torah of Moses. There is a formal distinction between the two corpora. The book of Jubilees is not considered part of the Torah, but it is nonetheless an authoritative explanation of the Torah of Moses (see below).<\/p>\n
The Books of the Prophets<\/p>\n
More difficult to ascertain are the works that are likely to have been included in \u201cthe books of the prophets.\u201d Within the context of MMT, the phrase \u201cthe books of the prophets\u201d most naturally refers to the books of Samuel and Kings. MMT CT C 17\u201319 states the following:<\/p>\n
[It is written in the book] of Moses [and in the books of the Prophets] that there will come [\u2026] [the blessings have (already) befallen \u2026] in the days of Solomon the son of David. And the curses [that] have (already) befallen from the days of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and up to when Jerusalem and Zedekiah King of Judah went into captivity.<\/p>\n
This paragraph is an apt summary of the narrative of the books of Samuel and Kings. The author of MMT mentioned the kings by name, and they are in this context used as temporal markers of the narrative. The phrase \u05d1\u05d9\u05de\u05d9 (\u201cin the days of\u201d; 2x) and the preposition \u05e2\u05d3 (\u201cuntil\u201d) call attention to the deeds of all the kings between Solomon and Jeroboam, on the one end, and Zedekiah, on the other, that have engendered God\u2019s blessings and curses (CT C 18\u201319). In this context, \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e0\u05d1\u05d9\u05d0\u05d9\u05dd, mentioned just a line before this phrase, would most naturally refer to the books of Samuel and Kings.
\nBut the sectarian understanding of the \u201cbooks of the prophets\u201d is unlikely to have been restricted to the two books of the former prophets as found in MMT since other figures are also known as prophets and their writings considered prophecies. Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are explicitly called prophets. Joshua, Jeremiah, Amos, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Hosea, Nahum, Zephaniah, Micah, and possibly Obadiah and Malachi are associated with writings that are prophetic. Further corroborating evidence is to be found in the collection of the Minor Prophets in individual scrolls.
\nThere are good reasons to be cautious about equating \u201cthe books of the prophets\u201d with the second division of the Hebrew Bible. The book of Daniel is found in the third division of the traditional Jewish canon, in the section of \u201cWritings,\u201d but among the sectarians it was considered prophetic (see 4QFlor and 11QMelch).
\nLikewise, the pesharim interpret the psalms in the same way that they do the prophetic texts. It is possible that the psalms would have come under the broad category of \u201cthe books of the prophets.\u201d The collection of psalms, then, would be considered as a sub-collection in the same way that the Minor Prophets form an identifiable group of texts within the group of prophetic texts.
\nAs will be discussed in chapter 9, Luke 24:44 raises the possibility that the psalms were considered prophetic and may have been included in the collection of the books of the Prophets. Unfortunately, no such evidence is available in the scrolls. What can be said is that the psalms were understood by the sectarians as an identifiable collection; they are called \u201cthe songs of David\u201d and \u201cthe book or scroll of the psalms.\u201d
\nWhat has been suggested thus far is that the sectarians recognized collections of authoritative scriptures: the five books of Moses; different collections of prophetic books (e.g., Samuel-Kings, Minor Prophets); and one or more collections of psalms. Moreover, the psalms are likely to have been considered prophetic in nature, but it is uncertain whether they would have been considered prophetic in the canonical division sense of the word. It is better to say that the sectarian scrolls assume a broadly bipartite collection of authoritative scriptures.<\/p>\n
Graded Authority of Other Authoritative Writings<\/p>\n
There are non-biblical writings that appear to have some claim to authoritative status within the Qumran community. To assess these claims, it should be clear from the outset that a book\u2019s claim of authority by itself is insufficient. Authority is dependent on the acceptance of the community. A work that has a self-referencing authority does not by itself mean that the sectarian community accepted this claim. Thus, for instance, while the fragments of Reworked Pentateuch (4Q364\u20137 and 4Q158) appear to present themselves as biblical texts with virtually no noticeable exegetical Tendenz, there is no evidence that they were accepted by the sectarians as authoritative.<\/p>\n
The Book of Jubilees as Authoritative Explanation<\/p>\n
It is widely believed that the book of Jubilees was considered authoritative by the sectarian community, but in what sense were the teachings found in it normative for the life and practice of the community of the Damascus Document? CD 16:1\u20133 states the following:<\/p>\n
1 Therefore, let a man bind himself to an oath to return 2 to the Torah of Moses, indeed in it everything is specified. The explanation of their times when 3 Israel is blind to all these, it is detailed according to the book of the Divisions of the Times by Jubilees and weeks.<\/p>\n
This passage is partially preserved in two manuscripts of D from Cave 4 (4QDc 2 ii 5 and 4QDe 10 ii 17) with no significant textual variant. The beginning literally reads, \u201cLet the man set upon himself to return to the torah of Moses.\u201d The definite noun is used in the sense of \u201ceach man.\u201d The verb is imperfect and probably hiphil rather than qal, the infix yod being indistinguishable from vav in the writing. The object is implied and could be an oath or vow. The reading of \u201cyourself\u201d in the manuscript is corrected to \u201chimself\u201d (\u05e0\u05e4\u05e9\u05d5), as in line 4. The noun \u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 could mean \u201cinstruction\u201d or \u201claw\u201d in the generic sense, but the parallel sepher suggests that it is used as the title of \u201cthe Torah of Moses.\u201d The verb translated as \u201cspecified\u201d (\u05de\u05d3\u05d5\u05e7\u05d3\u05e7, meaning \u201cto study closely\u201d or \u201cto inquire\u201d) is a technical term used in Rabbinic literature for detailing the specifics of the law (e.g., m.Naz. 1:2).
\nCD 16:1\u20133 is not a verbatim citation of the book of Jubilees as is often believed. Its admonition begins by calling each man to bind himself to a return to the Torah of Moses, a title referring most likely to the Pentateuch, as argued above. The reason for doing so is unclear; the clause, as rendered in some English translations (\u201cfor in it all things are strictly defined\u201d), would not be sufficient reason for requiring obedience. The fact that the Torah of Moses contained everything is no reason for obeying it. Alternatively, \u05db\u05d9 could be translated as \u201cindeed\u201d and the clause understood explicatively to state that everything is in the Torah of Moses; thus \u201cindeed in it everything is specified.\u201d
\nCD 16:2 states that the explanation of their times is to be found in \u201cthe book of the divisions of the times by Jubilees and weeks.\u201d The use of \u05e4\u05e8\u05d5\u05e9, translated as \u201cexplanation,\u201d is significant because it defines the role of the sepher. It becomes a technical term in Rabbinic literature for expounding the nature of specific laws.
\nThe sepher mentioned is widely understood to be the book of Jubilees. In Jub 1:4, it states that God\u2019s revelation to Moses not only included the first and last things, but also \u201cthe account of the division of all the days of the Law and of the testimony\u201d (cf. 1:26; 50:13). The two descriptions are not identical, but they are close and allow one to assume that CD is speaking about the book of Jubilees.
\nThis identification is corroborated by the presence of multiple copies of the book of Jubilees among the scrolls corpus and the citation of the book in the fragmentary text 4Q228 (50\u201325 BCE), fr. 1 i 2 and fr. 1 i 9. The explanatory role of the book of Jubilees is evidenced in the application of the 364-day calendar to selected events of the flood story in a sectarian text (4Q252).
\nIt is important to underscore that CD understands the book of Jubilees as a perush or legal explanation. What the admonition calls for is that a man should bind himself to the Torah of Moses and not to the book of Jubilees as such. The sectarian, however, could not effect his return to the teachings of the Mosaic Torah without the aid of the book of Jubilees. Everything is included in the Torah of Moses, but not everything is clear: the Torah requires explication as regards chronological matters.
\nThe book of Jubilees is secondary to the Torah of Moses, but it too has authority. One cannot help but think that what lies behind this is the concern over the proper observance of the calendar. CD justifies its reference to the book of Jubilees by an allusion to the time of Israel\u2019s blindness to these calendaric concerns. The solemn command requires that each man should not only bind himself to the authority of the Torah of Moses, but also abide by the explanation of the book of Jubilees.
\nThere is no need to think of the book of Jubilees as part of Torah in order for it to have authority. It is an authoritative explanation of the Torah. In CD\u2019s view, there are two categories of authoritative writings, the Torah of Moses, on the one hand, and its explanation in the form of the book of Jubilees on the other.
\nThe book of Jubilees appears to set itself up as the sole Sinaitic revelation. The title states the following:<\/p>\n
This is The Account of the Division of Days of the Law and the Testimony for Annual Observance according to Their Weeks (of years) and Their Jubilees throughout all the Years of the World just as the Lord told it to Moses on Mount Sinai when he went up to receive the tablets of the Law and the commandment by the word of the Lord, as he said to him, \u201cCome up to the top of the mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet in 6:22, it recognizes the primacy of another body of writings, which it calls \u201cthe book of the first law.\u201d In the context of an admonition for the children of Israel to celebrate the feast one day each year, 6:20\u201322 states that \u201cShebuot [is] twofold and of two natures,\u201d probably playing on the two possible senses of the Hebrew word as meaning \u201cweeks\u201d and \u201coaths.\u201d The passage, then, refers to a prior recording of this dual nature and states that \u201cthis is because I have written it in the book of the first law, which I wrote for you, so that you might observe it in each of its appointed times, one day per year.\u201d This first law is understood to be the Torah of Moses (cf. 30:12, 21; 50:6).
\nThe book of Jubilees\u2019 understanding of itself is implied rather than explicit. One infers that it is not a rival torah since it recognizes \u201cthe book of the first law\u201d as authoritative, admonishing the children of Israel to \u201cobserve it.\u201d By implication it must be \u201csecondary\u201d in some sense.
\nHindy Najman suggests that the book of Jubilees, like the Temple Scroll, is an extension of the Mosaic discourse, a \u201cseconding of Sinai.\u201d James Vander-Kam argues, however, that by the second century BCE, when Jubilees was composed, the discourse already had a long history. \u201cOur author,\u201d he states, \u201cwanted to be part of it but not as an epigone; he wanted to be the originator of the tradition. He was not seconding Sinai; he was initiating Sinai.\u201d
\nBut John Collins questions whether the smashing of the first tablets by Moses necessarily means that Jubilees sees itself as setting the precedent. Collins observes: \u201cPresumably the tablets that were destroyed were accurately replaced. The fact that the traditional Torah is called \u2018the first law\u2019 would seem to grant it priority, in a sense. But the \u2018testimony\u2019 is also revealed on Mt. Sinai, so for all practical purposes Jubilees and the \u2018first law\u2019 are coveal and complementary.\u201d
\nThis self-understanding of Jubilees, however, does not mean that the sectarian community likewise regarded it on the same status as the traditional Torah of Moses. VanderKam is surely correct when he notes that the author of CD is alluding to material from \u201ctwo Mosaic texts.\u201d But as the above discussion shows, the Damascus Document did not consider the book of Jubilees to be a competing rival to the traditional Torah of Moses. Rather, it understood the two corpora to be complementary and it gave precedence to the traditional Torah of Moses.
\nIt is even possible that a reference was made to the book of Jubilees in 4Q177. Once known as 4QCatenaa, this sectarian text has more recently been reconstructed by Annette Steudel to be part of an eschatological midrash. Whether 4Q174 and 4Q177 are copies of the same text is moot since there is no overlap between the two manuscripts. In any case, there is a reference to \u201cthe book of the second torah\u201d (\u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d4\u05e9\u05e0\u05d9\u05ea) in frs. 1\u20134, l. 13, of 4Q177.
\nNow this second torah has been understood to be a reference to the Temple Scroll. Yigael Yadin and James VanderKam equate it with the torah mentioned in the Psalms Pesher, which the Teacher of Righteousness sent to the Wicked Priest, prompting a murderous attempt on the former\u2019s life. But nowhere is the Temple Scroll called \u201cthe second torah.\u201d It refers to itself as \u201cthis torah\u201d (\u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d4\u05d6\u05d5\u05d0\u05ea; 11QTS 56:12\u201321). It is unlikely to be Deuteronomy since the biblical book calls itself \u201ca copy of this torah\u201d (\u05de\u05e9\u05e0\u05d4 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d4\u05d6\u05d0\u05ea; Deut 17:18). This second torah, however, could be the book of Jubilees.
\nThere is a tantalizing possibility that the dual pattern discussed above may have been original to the now mutilated text of 4Q177. In its interpretation of Hosea 5:8, 4Q177 interpreted the parallel \u201chorn\u201d and \u201ctrumpet\u201d as two sepharim respectively. 4Q177, fr. 1, col. 4, lines 13 and 14, states the following:<\/p>\n
13 Blow a horn in Gibeah (Hos 5:8a). The horn is (the) book of [the torah]. [A trumpet in Ramah (Hos 5:8b). The trumpet ] 14 is (the) book of the second torah.<\/p>\n
The reconstruction of these lines is based on the known procedure of atomization and the formulaic use of the independent pronoun. Steudel has argued that the original margin in the manuscript was large enough to include a reference to the Torah, followed by the lemma, atomization, and identification of \u201ctrumpet\u201d with \u05e1\u05e4\u05e8 \u05d4\u05ea\u05d5\u05e8\u05d4 \u05d4\u05e9\u05e0\u05d9\u05ea. However, she does not believe that evidence for a second book of the law could be found at Qumran and translates the phrase as \u201cthat is the book of the law again.\u201d
\nBut that would be an odd sense of the Hebrew. The straightforward rendering is surely \u201cthe book of the second torah.\u201d Understood literally, 4Q177 possibly attests to the dual pattern that has been described. The fragmentary nature of the scroll prevents us from drawing any firmer conclusion than that.
\nCD\u2019s understanding of the nature of the book of Jubilees is that it is a perush or explanation of the Law of Moses, and it may have been referenced in 4Q177. It is not quite the same as Jubilees\u2019 understanding of itself.<\/p>\n
Pesher as Authoritative Commentary<\/p>\n
I have elsewhere analyzed the lemmatic structure of the pesharim in relation to scriptural authority. There is no need to repeat the discussion here. What I would like to suggest is that the dual pattern described above is implied in the structure of pesherite exegesis.
\nPesherite exegesis may be deconstructed into the following elements: lemma + interpretative formula + sectarian comment. The pattern is not invariable, but it is regular. The formula shows that the lemma or verbatim quotation of a biblical text was considered qualitatively different from the interpretation. In this formula the pesherite comment is secondary; its role is to explain the biblical text. The reconstituted biblical verses could stand on their own, but the sectarian interpretation would be incomprehensible without the lemmata.
\nThe sectarian comment is nevertheless authoritative since both the method and content of pesherite interpretation are divinely revealed. God enlightened the Teacher of Righteousness by giving him understanding to interpret (\u05dc\u05e4\u05e9\u05d5\u05e8) the prophetic oracles (1QpHab 2:8\u201310). He also revealed the content of the mysteries of the prophetic oracles to the sectarian leader (1QpHab 7:4\u20135). One step removed from the source, the pesherists both recorded the content of the divine utterances as passed down from the Teacher of Righteousness in scrolls that we now call pesharim and followed the revealed method of exegesis as shown to him.<\/p>\n
Citation of Pesherite Commentary<\/p>\n
The sectarian community not only accepted the authoritative commentary of the pesher, but also used it in its rulebook. CD 4:12\u201319 states the following:<\/p>\n
12 During all those years Belial will be let loose 13 against Israel, as God said through Isaiah the prophet, the son 14 of Amoz: \u201cTerror, and the pit, and the snare (are) upon you, O inhabitant of the land.\u201d Its interpretation (\u05e4\u05e9\u05e8\u05d5): 15 (these are) the three nets of Belial, about which Levi the son of Jacob said 16 that he catches Israel in them and makes them appear to them as three kinds 17 of righteousness. The first is fornication, the second wealth, the third 18 making the sanctuary unclean. He who escapes from one will be caught in another, and he who saves himself from that will be caught 19 in the third.<\/p>\n
This gobbet is also extant in fragment 3 of 4Q266. It is the central passage in the admonitions section of CD, and much scholarly attention has been trained on the identification of sectarian teachings about incest, divorce, and polygamy. Important for the present discussion is the use of the technical term pesher in its suffixed form to introduce the sectarian interpretation of Isaiah 24:17 as the three nets of Belial.
\nThis has been described by Deborah Dimant as an \u201cisolated pesher.\u201d As such, it implies that the author of CD either used the same method of exegesis while drafting his composition or he cited from a pesher on Isaiah no longer extant. None of the five continuous pesharim on the book of Isaiah (4QpIsaa\u2013e) preserves an interpretation of Isa 24:17. Given that CD uses various sources in composing its texts, it seems more likely that the pesher of Isa 24:17 is being cited.
\nThe pattern of authoritative biblical text and commentary is notable. According to CD 4, Isa 24:17 is authoritative because its source is to be found in a divine revelation to Isaiah, the son of Amoz. Moreover, Isaiah\u2019s words are quoted, confirming that the prophetic oracle is regarded by the sectarian author to be authoritative. The pesherite exegesis, then, identifies the three snares of the Isaianic verse with the three nets of Belial and includes an internal reference to the words of Levi, the son of Jacob, a source no longer extant but one that may have been originally associated with the Testament of Levi or the book of Jubilees. The remaining sectarian commentary (preserved only in part) expands on the three nets of Belial.
\nIt is notable that while the biblical verse of Isaiah is the authoritative text quoted, the subsequent discussion in CD 4 is focused on the interpretation of the passage and not on the biblical text as such. It is not about the Isaianic \u201cterror,\u201d \u201cpit,\u201d and \u201csnare\u201d that are upon the inhabitants of the land, but the pesherite explication of them as fornication, wealth, and the defilement of the sanctuary in the years of Belial. The pesher may be secondary to the biblical verse, but it sets out the parameters of the discussion.<\/p>\n
Thematic Pesher and the Dual Pattern of Authority<\/p>\n
The same dual pattern is also evident in 11QMelchizedek (11Q13). The only one to fit the description of the genre of \u201cthematic pesher,\u201d the scroll cites several instances of pesherite interpretation. The technical term \u201cpesher\u201d occurs five times in the scroll (11Q13 2:4, 12, 17, 20; fr. 6:4). It is used to interpret biblical sources but also serves to introduce a commentary on the periodization of history.
\nColumn 2 preserves what may be seen as two blocks of interpretation, involving the citation and interpretation of numerous verses around the theme of redemption. Each block is marked by the expression \u201cand as it said\u201d (\u05d0\u05de\u05e8 \u05d5\u05d0\u05e9\u05e8) in lines 2 and 25. The first block begins with a reference to what Lev 25:13 states about the year of Jubilee (line 2), followed by a citation of Deut 15:2 (line 3) on the manner of that remission (\u05e9\u05de\u05d8\u05d4).
\nThe technical term pesher is extant in the introductory formula of line 12 (pishro al). It introduces the interpretation of Ps 82:2, in which the psalmist, David in the view of the author of 11Q13 (see line 10), asks how long \u201cyou\u201d will judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked. The plural subject \u201cyou\u201d is, then, identified with Belial and the spirits of his lot who rebelled by turning away from the statues of God. As was true in CD 4:12\u201319, the biblical source-text has primacy, but the pesherite comment controls the meaning of the biblical verse.
\nIn the following line 13, the figure of Melchizedek is said to \u201craise the vengeance of the laws of God.\u201d This interpretation picks up the two biblical source-texts cited earlier in lines 10\u201311, which describe how a divine being (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d5\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd) has taken his seat among other divine beings (\u05d0\u05dc\u05d5\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd) and will judge (Ps 82:1) and that in the highest heaven a divine being (\u05d0\u05dc) will judge the people (Ps 7:7\u20138). Melchizedek is understood to be that divine being of the psalms who is described in terminology that is normally reserved for God. Helping him are other divine beings, as it is stated in Isa 61:3 (line 14).
\nLine 15 is badly mutilated, but it seems to move on to the topic of the appointed \u201cday\u201d and the roles of the prophets and anointed figure. The \u201cday\u201d may be restored to \u201cthe day of vindication,\u201d given that Isa 61:2 is cited subsequently in lines 19 and 20. The broaching of the prophets is made through an interpretation of Isa 52:7 and the figurative identification with \u201cthe mountains\u201d (lines 15\u201317). The Isaianic \u201cmessenger\u201d is then recognized as the anointed one of Dan 9:26 who, moreover, is understood to be the one who announces the day of vindication when God will also comfort the mourners, as stated in Isa 61:2.
\nThe final lines 20\u201325 of column 2 interpret Isa 52:7 and Lev 25:9, probably referring to Melchizedek as the redeemer who delivers those who uphold the covenant from the hands of Belial. There is also a fragmentary reference to the periodization of history (line 20), which would correspond with earlier chronological comments on the timing of the Jubilee, the day of Atonement (line 7) and the death of the anointed one (line 18).
\nThe same dual pattern can be seen in the first half of column 2 if the reconstruction of the technical term pesher in line 4 is accepted (\u201c[its interpretation] is about the last days concerning the captives\u201d). Lev 25:13 and Deut 15:2 are quoted, but the subsequent comments on the figure of Melchizedek in lines 6\u20138 are governed by the pesherite comment.<\/p>\n
Use of Pesher in Scrolls of Different Genres<\/p>\n
The technical term pesher also occurs in other scrolls that are not pesharim. Most often it is used to interpret a biblical source. 4Q174 interprets Ps 1:1 by identifying the blessed man who \u201cdoes not walk in the counsel of the wicked\u201d with \u201cthose who turn from the way,\u201d presumably of the wicked (frs. 1\u20132, col. 1, line 14). The meaning of the line is puzzling:<\/p>\n
Midrash (\u05de\u05d3\u05e8\u05e9) of \u201cHappy is the man that walketh in the counsel of the wicked.\u201d The interpretation (\u05e4\u05e9\u05e8) of the passa[ge \u2026] those who turn aside from the way of [\u2026].<\/p>\n
It seems unnecessary to include both \u201cmidrash\u201d and \u201cpesher.\u201d The suggestion that this is a hybrid genre of \u201cmidrash pesher\u201d does not resolve the difficulties but rather introduces new complications. One solution is to render \u201cmidrash\u201d not in the titular sense but as a tradition based on the explanation of the verse accompanying communal deliberations. According to 1QS 8:15, the community engaged in midrash ha-torah (\u201cthe expounding of the Torah\u201d), an activity that was commanded by God through Moses. It is possible that these communal deliberations were written down and studied.
\nIf \u201cmidrash\u201d is used in 4Q174 in an analogous manner, then it refers to the community\u2019s deliberation of the prophetic meaning of the psalms. Line 14, therefore, may be seen as the title of the section referring to the community\u2019s understanding of the verse. The pesherite comment is not only a comment on Ps 1:1, but also on the interpretative tradition as passed down by the community.
\nThe use of pesher in the sectarian community is primarily for exegesis. 4Q177 uses the method to interpret various biblical texts from the Psalms (17:2; 11:1\u20132; and 13:2\u20133) and Isaiah (37:30). 4Q252 interprets Reuben\u2019s indiscretion with his father\u2019s concubine Bilhah (Gen 49:3\u20134) with the pesher technique. And 4Q464 introduces a quotation of Gen 15:13 with \u201cpesher.\u201d
\nThe use of pesher in the scrolls, however, is broader than an exegesis on the biblical text. In 4QOrd (4Q159), the term pesher is used to interpret words that do not correspond to biblical quotations (fr. 5, lines 1 and 5). In another scroll, there is a tantalizing suggestion that it may have been used to introduce the concept of the \u201cages\u201d (\u05d4\u05e7\u05e6\u05d9\u05dd; 4Q180 fr. 1, lines 1 and 7) that God had created and the tradition of angels consorting with the human females (cf. Gen 6:4). One assumes that the use of pesher here is related to, rather than being directly on, the biblical texts.<\/p>\n
Pesher and Authority<\/p>\n
There is little doubt that the pesher functioned in an authoritative manner in the sectarian community. It is both a method of interpretation and the resulting content of that exegesis. It functions to explicate a biblical text, concept, and teaching. Its authoritative status is confirmed by its use in documents that are considered sectarian by other criteria.
\nAs a form of exegesis, the pesher presents itself as a comment. The lemma, almost invariably in the form of a verbatim biblical citation, is authoritative because it requires comment. However, the sectarian discussion is controlled by the comment and not the lemma. The meaning of the biblical verse, in its own literary context (such as in the prophecies of Habakkuk, Nahum, and Isaiah or in individual psalms), is supplanted in favor of the meaning attached to it by sectarian exegesis.
\nThe biblical quotation has a formal primacy that is accepted by the sectarians. One infers that by the time of the writing of some of the pesharim, probably around the first century BCE, these biblical texts had already gained an authoritative status that was widely recognized among Jews generally and that the pesherists could not ignore. However, in the context of pesherite hermeneutics it is the revelation of God, mediated through the Teacher of Righteousness and as passed down in the sectarian communities, that determines the meaning for belief and practice. In this sense, the pesher is secondary, but in a counter-intuitive way it is also more authoritative. The pesher is formally a comment and supplement to the biblical lemma, but in practice it is understood as the authoritative expression of divine intention.<\/p>\n
The Authority of Biblical Excerpts and Anthologies<\/p>\n
There are other scrolls of varying character that appear to have some authority among the sectarians. These scrolls differ in the form of authority that they display.
\nThe text once called \u201cthe Psalms of Joshua\u201d is now known by its official title as \u201cthe Apocryphon of Joshua\u201d (4Q378\u2013379). A passage from 4Q379, fr. 22, is cited in 4QTestimonia (4Q175), lines 21\u201330, alongside other biblical texts (Deut 5:28\u201329; 18:18\u201319 [Sam Exod 20:21]; Num 24:15\u201317; and Deut 33:8\u201311). It consists of a citation of Josh 6:26 (LXX) and its interpretation of an accursed man of Belial and his two sons. The type of interpretation is akin to the pesher, but the technical term is not used. Scholars have interpreted this passage to be an allusion to historical figures in the Maccabean period, most notably to Simon Maccabee and his two sons, Judas and Mattathias.
\n4Q175 is a collection of excerpts. Whether it is also a collection of prooftexts for the sectarian community is less clear. It is a single sheet whose text was penned by the scribe who also copied 1QS. The first three excerpts are all biblical, but the fourth one is non-biblical. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that 4Q379 had the same authoritative status as Deuteronomy and Numbers. But for whom?
\nEvidence of the sectarian character of 4Q175 is indirect. At the thematic level, the three figures of a prophet like Moses, priest and king, correspond to sectarian thought. In CD 7:19 the \u201cstar\u201d and \u201cscepter\u201d of Num 24:17 are identified with the interpreter of the law and prince of the whole congregation respectively. The blessing of Levi in Deut 33:8\u201311 has been interpreted by scholars to refer to the priestly messiah of sectarian thought or a reference to the Teacher of Righteousness, who was known as a priest.
\nThe sectarian character of 4Q175 is seen primarily in the selection of the biblical passages. The combined citation of Deut 5:28\u201329 and 18:18\u201319, however, is not used by the sectarian documents. It is unnecessary to suppose that the sectarians cited from this biblical anthology rather than from the biblical scrolls of Numbers and Deuteronomy themselves. In fact, there is some indication that the sectarians quoted directly from a biblical scroll. For instance, the author of 4Q174, frs. 6\u20137, cites Deut 33:8\u201311, but it is unlikely that he did so from 4Q175. 4Q174 exegetes sections larger than Deut 33:8\u201311: it interprets vv. 19\u201321 in frs. 9\u201310 and possibly v. 12 in fr. 8. Those verses of Deuteronomy are not included in the relevant extract of 4Q175.
\nThe aligning of a passage from the Apocryphon of Joshua in 4Q175 alongside other biblical passages is substantiation that some, perhaps the sectarian community, regarded 4Q379 as authoritative. However, the absence of explicitly sectarian features of the scroll and the indecisive evidence of its use in sectarian texts mean that it remains a possibility and not a certainty or even a probability.<\/p>\n
Literary Sources in the Rule of the Community<\/p>\n
The sectarian rule book known as the Rule of the Community used more sources than the biblical texts. The constituent parts are not cited with introductory formulas. Rather they are incorporated into the creation of the composite sectarian document.
\nVarious non-biblical sources were used to create the different versions of the Rule of the Community (1QS and 4QSa\u2013j). Take, for instance, the Cave 1 copy (1QS). This version of the Rule includes two different texts appended to the end of the composition, conventionally designated as 1QSa (Rule of the Congregation) and 1QSb (Rule of Blessings) and a title page. Moreover, the last column of 1QS includes a hymn that is evocative of the Hodayot or Thanksgiving Hymns. This hymn is detachable from the rest of S, as evidenced by its replacement with a calendaric text (otot) in another version of the rule (4QSe).
\nThe composite character of 1QS may also be differentiated linguistically in the use of two conjugations for the root ndb \u201cto volunteer\u201d: the first four columns use the niphal (1:7, 11), whereas the rest of the document the hithpael (5:1, 6, 8, 10. 21 [2x]; and 6:13). Corroborating this linguistic division is the evidence of 4QpapSa (4Q255) and 4QSd (4Q258); the former includes the equivalent of columns 1\u20134 of 1QS, and the latter begins only with column 5. 4QSd, moreover, is missing the two spirits passage (1QS 3:13\u20134:26), which is likely to have been a preexistent source.
\nUnlike the biblical texts, these sources are incorporated into the Rule of the Community without introductory formulas. The authority of these sources is qualitatively different from that of the biblical text and pesher that are cited with introductory formulas. They have a literary, as opposed to scriptural, authority.<\/p>\n
Borrowings and Use of Common Traditions as Indicators of Authority<\/p>\n
The scrolls appear to use traditions and concepts found in the Temple Scroll, the book of Enoch, the Thanksgiving Psalms, and 4QInstruction. Some of these scrolls are themselves sectarian, so the phenomenon analyzed in the following is partly a question of inner-sectarian borrowings. The challenge lies in establishing the nature and direction of the dependence. More often than not, the evidence points to the use of a common tradition.
\nThere is an implied sense of authority in this phenomenon of borrowing and using of common traditions. What was borrowed and used must have been important enough to the scribe, editor, and author to incorporate it into his text. He is not citing the material to refute it but is adopting it in a way that makes it his own.<\/p>\n
Bigamy and Hanging in the Temple Scroll, CD, and Pesher Nahum<\/p>\n
The Temple Scroll is a non-biblical text that systematically rewrites the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. There are three copies of the Temple Scroll, two dating to the Herodian period (11Q19 and 11Q20) and an older copy from the Hasmonean times (4Q524). Two other scrolls (4Q365a and 11Q21) are either copies of the Temple Scroll or sources used by it.
\nThe Temple Scroll is so called because of its extensive discussion of the Temple, its sacrifices, and the laws of the holy city (11Q19, cols. 3\u201348). It also includes an introduction (col. 2) and a section on laws of general application (cols. 48\u201366). 1 Chr 28:11\u201319 recounts the story of David making known to Solomon the plans of the architectural features of the Temple, the divisions of the priestly services, and the weight of the various cultic objects.
\nThe biblical text did not preserve the actual plans and specifications mentioned, and the Temple Scroll supplies what is missing. This characterization of gap-filling, however, is only one way of construing the nature of the text. The Temple Scroll could alternatively be seen as a sectarian scroll, attesting to \u201ca new Deuteronomy,\u201d \u201cthe Qumran Torah,\u201d or \u201ca seconding of Sinai.\u201d
\nThe Temple Scroll has several points of contact with sectarian scrolls. Two of the best known are the laws on bigamy and hanging. CD 4:20\u201321 stipulates a prohibition against taking \u201ctaking two wives in their lifetime.\u201d There is a long-standing scholarly debate over the nature of this prohibition\u2014does it rule against polygamy, divorce, and\/or remarriage? My own view is that it is about bigamy and not divorce. The unusual use of the suffix (-hem) in CD to refer to two women is a clue to uncover the story of Jacob\u2019s marriages to Rachel and Leah.
\nThe Temple Scroll likewise prohibits bigamous marriage to two women (11Q19 57:17\u201318), and it has been suggested that there is convergence and perhaps even dependence. CD 4:20\u201321, therefore, should be understood in the light of the ruling of the Temple Scroll. This harmonization of the sources, of course, is methodologically debatable. One could argue that each document should first be understood in its own terms.
\nImportant for the present discussion is that while the Temple Scroll and CD have the same prohibition, they draw on the common source of Lev 18:18 (\u201cAnd you shall not take a woman as a rival wife to her sister, uncovering her nakedness while her sister is yet alive\u201d). The independence of the traditions is assured by the different formulation of the same law.
\nThe Temple Scroll is closer to the biblical text: \u201cAnd he shall not take upon her (his wife) another wife, for she alone shall be with him all the days of her life\u201d (11Q19 57:17\u201318), whereas CD states quite distinctly that \u201cthey [i.e., the builders of the wall] are caught in two (traps): in fornication by taking two wives in their lifetime\u201d (4:20\u201321). Based on these differences, it is unlikely that CD depends on the Temple Scroll. Rather CD and the Temple Scroll appear to draw, in their own way, on Lev 18:18.
\nAnother well-known point of contact concerns the interpretation of the biblical law of hanging in the Temple Scroll and Pesher Nahum (4Q169). Deut 21:22\u201323 specifies the procedure of the capital punishment in putting a man to death, impaling his corpse, and finally removing the body overnight. The Temple Scroll, however, rendered this passage as a law of killing by hanging when it inverted the biblical sequence to \u201cyou shall hang him\u201d and \u201che shall die\u201d (11QTS 64:6\u201313).
\nIt has often been suggested that the hanging of men alive, either by crucifixion or a rope, in 4QpNah (4Q169, frs. 3\u20134, col. 1, line 7) reflects the influence of the Temple Scroll, but this dependence is called into question once it is realized that Paul too interpreted the same Deuteronomy passage as the cursed crucifixion of Jesus (Gal 3:13).
\nGiven the distinctive formulations of the law in each text, it is unlikely that the Temple Scroll, 4QpNah, and Galatians were literarily dependent on each other. More likely, they were drawing on a shared exegetical tradition that interpreted Deut 21 as a punishment of putting someone to death.<\/p>\n
Enochic Traditions in the Scrolls<\/p>\n
The book of Enoch (1 Enoch) is a composite document containing five books (the book of Watchers, chs. 1\u201336; the book of Parables or Similitudes; chs. 37\u201371; the Astronomical book, chs. 72\u201382; the book of Dream Visions, chs. 83\u201390; and the Apocalypse of Weeks, chs. 91\u2013105) and three appendices (the book of Noah, chs. 106\u2013107; another book written by Enoch, ch. 108; and the book of Giants) dating to different periods (ca. from 350 BCE to 75 CE). Eleven copies of Enoch were discovered in Cave 4; four of them are copies of the Astronomical book (4QEnastra\u2013d), and the remaining seven are copies of other parts of 1 Enoch. There is no copy of the Similitudes, and the scrolls also include nine copies of the book of Giants (1Q23, 1Q24, 2Q26, 4Q203, 4Q206 2\u20133, 4Q530, 4Q531, 4Q532, 4Q533, 6Q8), whose relationship to the book of Enoch is debated. There is also a very fragmentary text (1Q19) that has been possibly identified as the book of Noah.
\nOne or more parts of the composite book of Enoch influenced Jewish circles related to the sectarian community. For instance, the book of Jubilees refers to the authoritative status of Enoch and his writings several times, stating that \u201cthe work of Enoch had been created as a witness to the generations of the world so that he might report every deed of each generation in the day of judgment\u201d (10:17; cf. 4:24; 7:39). In the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), there is a reference to \u201cthe Book of the Words of Noah,\u201d and there may also be a commentary on the Apocalypse of Weeks in a Qumran scroll (4Q247).
\nIt is not surprising, therefore, to find the influence of Enochic thought among explicitly sectarian scrolls. In 4Q180 and 4Q181, once called the \u201cAges of Creation\u201d and also known as the \u201cPesher on the Periods,\u201d there is an interpretation (pesher) concerning the ages that includes the story of the Watchers consorting with women known from 1 Enoch 6\u201316. The fragmentary text refers to Azazel, the angels, and the birth of the giants (\u05d2\u05d1\u05e8\u05d9\u05dd; 4Q180 fr. 1, lines 7\u20138).
\nThe Damascus Document likewise is influenced by this myth of the Watchers. In CD 2:14\u201319, the admonition for the sectarian to please God and live perfectly is based on the warning against the \u201csinful urge\u201d and \u201ceyes of fornication,\u201d by which many have gone astray, and even mighty warriors have stumbled. The influence of 1 Enoch is particularly evident in the consequent \u201cfalling\u201d of \u201cthe Watchers of Heaven\u201d (\u05e2\u05d9\u05e8\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05dd; cf. Dan 4) and the birth of offspring who were as tall as \u201cthe height of cedars\u201d and whose bodies were \u201cas mountains.\u201d The myth behind this reference, of course, is the story of the watchers or angels who descended from heaven because of their lust for the daughters of man, a legend based on Gen 6:1\u20134 but developed fully in the Enochic tradition.<\/p>\n
The Use of the Hodayot in the Pesher<\/p>\n
As its title suggests, the Hodayot or Thanksgiving Psalms are liturgical songs akin to the biblical psalms. There are some thirty such psalms preserved in eight copies from Caves 1 and 4 (1QHa and 1QHb; 4QHa\u2013f). These psalms are considered sectarian and are divided into the Teacher-hymns and the Community-hymns. It is probable that they had a role in the liturgical life of the community (cf. 1QS 6:8), but sectarian liturgy is itself a disputed matter.
\n1QH is the best preserved of the copies and shows numerous affinities with sectarian scrolls, especially the pesharim. It has been suggested that when the Habakkuk pesherist cited Hab 2:15, he derived the textual variant \u201ctheir feasts\u201d (1QpHab 11:3; MT: \u201ctheir nakedness\u201d) from 1QHa 12:13 (cf. 1QHa 9:26). The difficulty with this view is that the term \u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05d3, meaning \u201cfeast,\u201d is very common in the sectarian documents (e.g., CD 3:14; 1QS 4:18; 1QSa 2:2; 1QM 2:6). The suffixed form (\u05de\u05d5\u05e2\u05d3\u05d9\u05d4\u05dd) is even attested several times (1QS 1:15; 10:5; 1QM 2:4; 11Q20). The significance of feasts and appointed times seems a more generally sectarian rather than a specifically Hodayot concern.
\nMore promising is the literary affinity between 1QpHab 11:2\u20138 and 1QH 12:5\u201312 on the use of six sobriquets (\u201cviolent or ruthless,\u201d \u201clie or falsehood,\u201d \u201cseekers of smooth things,\u201d \u201csimple,\u201d \u201cpoor,\u201d and \u201cinterpreters of knowledge by wonderful mysteries\u201d). This affinity is based on the use of a textual variant of \u201cthe traitors\u201d in Hab 1:5 and its identification with the \u201cruthless ones\u201d in both the Pesher Habakkuk and the Hodayot.<\/p>\n
The Hodayot and 4QInstruction<\/p>\n
4QInstruction (1Q26 and 4Q415\u2013418a, 418c, and 423) is a badly preserved text of uncertain length that appears to be an instruction manual for a student or mevin but with a broader audience in mind. It follows the traditional sapiential tradition as found in the book of Proverbs but adds a revelatory element to its teaching on the concept of raz nihyeh or \u201cmystery that is to come.\u201d The mevin is urged to gaze upon the mystery, to meditate on it, and to grasp it. The phrase and concept are also found in the Rule of the Community (1QS 11:3\u20134) and the book of mysteries (1Q27 fr. 1, col. 1, lines 3\u20134; also in 4Q300), but it is difficult to ascertain the nature of the dependence. They seem to be sharing a tradition, wider than the sectarian thought-world, that synthesizes traditional wisdom teachings with apocalyptic modes of divine revelation.
\n4QInstruction shares a number of features with 1QHodayot. The two texts take the overall perspective of instruction. They settle on the didactic posture of teaching all those who want to learn wisdom and to do the works of truth. The target audience is, moreover, the elect to whom God has revealed the divine plan in the context of creation.
\nNotably, the two texts share the exact words: \u201caccording to their knowledge they will receive honour, each one more than his neighbour\u201d (4Q418 fr. 55, line 10, and 1QHa 18:29\u201330). It is difficult to say which text cited the other. They could both be citing a third source that was considered authoritative.<\/p>\n
The sectarians who wrote some of the Dead Sea Scrolls had a notion of authoritative scriptures, but it was not developed. On one level, the concept is formal. It is about groups of traditional writings, whether they be the five books of Moses, different prophetic collections, or the psalms. I have argued that their authoritative scriptures may be characterized broadly as a bipartite collection.
\nThe Torah of Moses is most likely the Pentateuch. The books of the Prophets include various individual prophecies and sub-collections of prophetical books (e.g., the Minor Prophets, Samuel-Kings, etc.). The Psalms, and not necessarily the Great Psalms Scroll as such, were certainly regarded as a collection, but it is questionable that they formed the nucleus of a third division.
\nIt is unlikely that the psalms were part of a third division since a second division of prophetical books does not appear to have been closed or defined. Moreover, the psalms appear to have been considered prophetic. This formal notion of authoritative scriptures is manifest in some of the things that the sectarians said and assumed.
\nThe sectarian scrolls interpret this traditional collection of authoritative scriptures in various ways, using techniques of direct and indirect citation and reformulation. The biblical texts have a formal authority, but the sectarian interpretation has contemporary authority. In fact, more often than not the sectarian interpretation governs the meaning of the biblical text; it is not what the biblical text says that is ultimately authoritative but what the sectarian scrolls understood it to have meant.
\nI have discerned this textual phenomenon as the dual pattern of authority by which the traditional biblical text serves as the source of the sectarian interpretation but is also in turn defined by it. The sectarian hermeneutics subvert the biblical texts by wresting control of the meaning from the biblical text. What is important is not what Moses, David, Isaiah, Habakkuk, etc. said but what the sectarians understood them to have meant. The locus of authority sits on both the authoritative interpretation and the biblical text.
\nThe notion of authoritative scriptures also admits patterns other than the relationship between the traditional biblical texts and their interpretation. The conceptual advantage of using \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d over \u201ccanon\u201d comes to the fore in this respect. There is no need to limit the examination to the books that eventually made it into the canon because the sectarians did not yet have a notion of a closed list of authoritative books. They appear to have used non-biblical material, including their own sectarian writings, in the same way that they used the biblical texts.
\nAuthority is implied in various ways\u2014by citation, allusion, borrowings, and incorporation of common traditions. Moreover, the source of the authority is not the biblical text as such; it is non-biblical, traditional material (e.g., the book of Jubilees, the books of Enoch) or specifically sectarian compositions (e.g., pesher, Hodayot). To be sure, this traditional and sectarian material is associated with the biblical texts, whether directly (as in the case of the pesher, secondary anthologies of the biblical texts) or indirectly (e.g., the book of Jubilees, the book of Enoch, Hodayot, the sources of the Rule of the Community). But it is not biblical.
\nIt was argued above that the nexus of diverse relationships among these non-biblical, but nonetheless authoritative, texts may be characterized by a graded authority. The authority of various non-biblical texts seems to be on a sliding scale of importance.
\nThe book of Jubilees and pesher have the strongest claim to authority by virtue of what the sectarian texts said about them and what they did with their content. They are explanations and interpretations of the traditional biblical texts, but they are themselves also considered authoritative. One has to wonder: had the sectarians developed a canon, would these texts have been included in their list?
\nThe gradation of authority in the remaining material is less clear. Further work needs to be done to tease out the relationship among them. For instance, how is the use of the quotation in the Hodayot and 4QInstruction any different from the use of sources in S and other rule texts?
\nAn important reason for this graded authority is that the sectarians believed that revelation had not ceased. God continued to reveal his will to the Teacher of Righteousness, the pesherists, and the community. This belief blurs the boundary between the traditional authority of Moses and ancient prophets and that which was still being revealed to the community of the renewed covenant. A formal distinction may be drawn between the biblical text and the interpretation, but in practice the line is fuzzy as authority, often greater than that of the biblical source-text, is conferred on the interpretation.<\/p>\n
8<\/p>\n
The Holy Books of the Essenes and Therapeutae<\/p>\n
It is difficult to know with certainty what the Essenes and Therapeutae understood by way of one or more collections of authoritative scriptures since what we know about both Jewish groups is derivative. The description of the Essenes is to be found in a few classical and patristic sources, not wholly independent of each other, and the Therapeutae are recounted only in the writings of Philo. Because of this narrow evidential base, it is essential to situate the sources in their literary context. How did Philo and Josephus characterize the scriptures of the Essenes and Therapeutae?<\/p>\n
The Essenes\u2019 Ancestral Laws<\/p>\n
Philo describes the Essenes a few times in his literary oeuvre; the most important of these descriptions are to be found in Apologia Pro Iudaies and Quod Omnis Probus Liber Sit. The former is a reference to Hypothetica, the title given by Philo to his work. It is preserved as an extract in Praeparatio Evangelica 8.5, 11, and Eusebius was responsible for describing the contents as \u201cthe apology for the Jews\u201d (8.10, 19). The latter, \u201cfor every good man is free,\u201d is the second part of a larger work that discusses the relationship between ethics and civil freedom in a way that is reminiscent of Stoic ideals. This too is preserved as a fragment in the same work by Eusebius (book 8, chapter 12). The authenticity of this latter excerpt has previously been questioned but is now generally accepted as genuine.
\nIt is in Probus 75\u201391 that Philo hints at the kind of writings that were considered authoritative. He describes how the the Essaioi (variant of Essenes), who numbered some four thousand in Palestinian Syria, were models of ethical living. Their virtue is indicated by their name, which Philo acknowledges is not Greek and thinks it means \u201choliness,\u201d and exemplified by the way they live. The Essenes flee from the cities and towns and instead live in villages, in order to avoid the ungodliness of the town dwellers. The rationale for the avoidance is the corrupting influence of intermingling with the ungodly, which Philo compares to the spread of disease: \u201cAs noxious air breeds epidemics there, so does the social life afflict the soul with incurable ills\u201d (76).
\nPhilo\u2019s description is idealistic. He portrays the Essenes as rural, peaceful agriculturalists who are entirely unconcerned with material goods and weapons of war. Apparently, they do not hoard silver and gold or amass wealth to generate revenue (76); moreover, there are no makers of arrows, javelins, swords, helmets, armor, or shields among them (78). There are no slaves among them, and their lives are characterized by mutual support and help: \u201cThere are no slaves among them, not a single one, but being all free they help one another\u201d (78\u201379); \u201cthey are useful to themselves and to their neighbours\u201d (76). It is an ideal based on the biblical command to love your neighbor, who is like you (Lev 19:18, 34).
\nIdealism is also evident in the incongruous way that Philo describes the Essenes\u2019 attitude toward goods and property: \u201cAlmost alone among all mankind, they live without goods and without property\u201d (77). This is at odds with what Philo just stated about the Essenes working in the fields (76).
\nThe reference to authoritative writings occurs in the next section of Prob. (80\u201382), where Philo\u2019s description of the Essenes moves from their customs to philosophy. He first contrasts the emphasis of the Essenes on ethics over philosophy, which he associates with \u201cword-chasers\u201d and \u201cstreet orators\u201d (80), probably a reference to rhetorical sophistry. This philosophy, in his words, \u201cis useless in the acquisition of virtue,\u201d except in teaching about God and the creation of the universe (80).
\nBy contrast, the Essenes devote themselves to the moral part of philosophy. What Philo writes may be literally translated as follows: \u201cThey work out ethics rather well, using as teachers [\u1f00\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2] the ancestral laws [\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2] which it is impossible for a human mind to think up without someone being divinely inspired [\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03ba\u03c9\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd\u03b8\u03ad\u03bf\u03c5].\u201d Philo uses \u1f00\u03bb\u03b5\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2 in several other places in his writings (Somn. 1.69, 129; Mos. 1.22, 48; Spec. 2.98; and Praem. 5) to compare the discipline of virtue to the athletic regime of trainers. The phrase \u03c0\u03b1\u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9 is used in other places to refer specifically to the laws of the book of Exodus (QE 2.14; cf. Hypoth. 7.11), though here he probably had a reference to pentateuchal laws more generally. He attributes their origins to divine inspiration.
\nAccording to Philo, the pedagogic role of the ancestral laws is shown by their use within the community (81\u201382). The Essenes instruct themselves at various times with these laws, but especially on the holy seventh day. On the Sabbath, they cease their work and gather in holy places, called synagogues, and sit in an orderly fashion according to age. One of them takes and reads (\u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b3\u03b9\u03bd\u03ce\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9) the books (\u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2), and another, more experienced member explains (\u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\u03b4\u03ac\u03c3\u03ba\u03b5\u03b9) whatever is not clear since the laws are given enigmatically through symbols. This Essenic custom corresponds to the pattern of reading and explanation in Neh 8 and may reflect synagogal practice. Notably, there is no mention of the complementary prophetic portion of the haftharah. It would seem that the Essenes, at least in Philo\u2019s portrayal, only had the Pentateuch as authoritative scriptures.<\/p>\n
The Holy Books of Laws and Prophetical Sayings<\/p>\n
Josephus includes a description of the Essenes in a number of passages in his works, the most important of which for the present purposes is his description of the three schools in War 2.119\u2013161. This long account may have once belonged to an independent source since Hippolytus also used it in his history of the three Jewish sects (Refutation of all Heresies 9.18\u201328).
\nThe broad context of the passage is Josephus\u2019 narrative concerning the transformation of Archelaus\u2019 territory into a Roman province in 6 CE. Coponious was sent as the procurator of the province, and under his administration a revolt flared up under the leadership of the Galilean Judas, who convinced his followers to refuse Roman taxation and to submit to no one except God. The sect led by Judas is elsewhere called the \u201cfourth philosophy\u201d (Ant. 18.9, 23).
\nMention of Judas\u2019 sect then calls to mind the three sects of Judaism of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Josephus describes the Essenes\u2019 communal life, their daily routine, initiation, disposition, and beliefs, ending with a brief notice about another order of Essenes who differed only in their attitude to marriage.
\nJosephus\u2019 characterization of the Essenes\u2019 authoritative writings differs from Philo\u2019s in important respects. He calls them \u201choly books\u201d (\u03b2\u03af\u03b2\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9 \u1f31\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1\u03af) and says that some of the Essenes were trained in their study (159). What Josephus probably meant by these holy books was the Pentateuch. He associates them to \u201cdifferent sorts of purifications,\u201d which ostensibly refers to the purity laws in Leviticus and Numbers. Given that Josephus also has the lawgiver in view (152), it is likely that these holy books refer not just to Leviticus and Numbers, but also to all five books of Moses. Elsewhere in his writings, Josephus uses the same term, \u201choly books,\u201d and qualifies it with \u201cof Moses\u201d (e.g., Ant. 1.26; 10.58, 10.63).
\nIn War 2.159, the phrase is followed by two explanatory clauses (\u201cand different purifications\u201d and \u201cand prophetic apophtegms\u201d) that define the content of the holy books. The holy books therefore must also have included some undefined prophetical writings in addition to the Pentateuch. Thus, according to Josephus, some of the Essenes are educated in the study of the holy books and become expert foretellers of the future, rarely erring in their predictions.
\nJosephus\u2019 characterization of the Essene authoritative scriptures corresponds well to what was described in the previous chapter about the sectarian conception of the Torah and a broadly defined group of prophetical writings. Additionally, Josephus corroborates the authoritative status of other writings when he describes how the initiated Essene swears to preserve \u201cthe books of their sect [\u03c4\u03ac \u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f31\u03c1\u03ad\u03c3\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b1] and the names of the Angels\u201d (War 2.142). The sectarian books also had authority, and they are distinguishable from the biblical books.
\nJosephus\u2019 description of the Essenes\u2019 authoritative scriptures is reliable, given that elsewhere he says that the Jewish canon is the twenty-two-book tripartite canon. He must have been following his source when he described the Essene holy books as broadly bipartite. Philo, on the other hand, appears to have described the Essenes\u2019 authoritative scriptures in line with the Alexandrian understanding of the Pentateuch as the authoritative ancestral laws (see chapter 5).<\/p>\n
The Holy Scriptures of the Therapeutae<\/p>\n
Knowledge of the Therapeutae is derived from a single source whose authenticity has previously been challenged. \u201cOn the Contemplative Life\u201d (De Vita Contemplativa) is now widely regarded as genuine. Its genuineness was once doubted because the description of the Therapeutae resembled that of the monastic life. Moreover, Philo\u2019s negative comments about Plato (Contempl. 59\u201362) seem incongruous with his open admiration of the Greek philosopher.
\nBut resemblance between the Therapeutae and Christian monks is not an a priori reason for doubting Contempl.\u2019s authenticity. It could be argued that it was a Christian forgery if we also knew that there were no Jewish groups devoted to the contemplative life. Moreover, Philo\u2019s critique of the Symposium is not necessarily inconsistent with his admiration of the Greek philosopher. Platonic thought is followed, but the criticism against homosexuality is based on the book of Leviticus, whose stance against same-sex intercourse is authoritative for Philo.
\nPhilo mentions the authoritative scriptures of the Therapeutae in the context of describing their dwellings and contemplative habits (24\u201328). Before this, Philo introduces the Therapeutae by tracing the etymology of their name to healing (1\u20132). He then draws comparisons with Greek philosophy and sophistry and the Egyptian worship of animals (4\u201310) and asserts that \u201cthe therapeutic kind\u201d is superior in its quest for the divine Being (11). These Therapeutae are superior because, according to Philo, they are other-worldly: they are carried away by a heavenly love, and they believe that their mortal life has already ended (12\u201313). Thus while still alive, they leave behind their inheritance for the benefit of others and do not simply abandon their property and possessions to ruin as some Greek ascetics do (13\u201317).
\nThe Therapeutae also divest themselves of their social relationships, abandoning their family and friends, lest they ensnare them, and live in isolated places, beyond the city walls (18\u201320). They are found in many parts of the known world but especially in Egypt, in each of the nomes or districts, and in every neighborhood of Alexandria, notably a settlement upon a low hill above Lake Mareotic (21\u201323). Philo then goes on to provide an extended description of the Therapeutae\u2019s dwellings and customs, comparing them when he deems appropriate to the practices of the Greeks (24\u201390).
\nThe immediate context of the notice is the description of the dwellings (24\u201328). The Therapeutae live in modest individual dwellings, not too close to nor far apart from each other, and in each house there is a holy room, called the sanctuary and monastery, into which nothing is brought except sacred books: \u201cbut only the law and the oracles delivered under inspiration by the prophets along with the Psalms, and the other (books) by means of which religion and sound knowledge grow together into one perfect whole\u201d (25). Further on, Philo calls these books \u201cthe holy scriptures\u201d (28). What is translated above as \u201cthe law\u201d literally reads \u201claws\u201d (\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9). It is one of the terms Philo uses to describe the five books of Moses. The prophet Moses is mentioned subsequently (64), and it is reasonable to suppose that here the laws refer to the Pentateuch.
\nThe clause \u201cthe oracles under inspiration through the prophets\u201d (\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03b9\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) is a conventional way of describing prophecies in Jewish Greek literature. What is unclear is whether Philo had in mind three or four divisions. The Greek conjunction (\u03ba\u03b1\u03af) is ambiguous. It could mean either that the \u201cpsalms\u201d were part of the Prophets (i.e., \u201calong with Psalms,\u201d as in the above translation) or that they comprised a separate division (i.e., \u201cand the Psalms\u201d). There is no way of deciding based on grammar.
\nThe final category is simply notated by \u201cthe others\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03b1), implying the plural noun \u201cbooks.\u201d Again the conjunction (\u03ba\u03b1\u03af) could mean either that the other books are part of the Prophets and Psalms or that they are a separate division. The accompanying description is too general to help identify what these other books might have contained (\u201cby means of which religion and sound knowledge grow together into one perfect whole\u201d). The definite article is required by the grammar and does not imply a closed division. The authoritative scriptures of the Therapeutae could be a bi-, tri-, or quadri-partite collection.
\nPhilo also mentions that the Therapeutae have produced their own writings, including allegorical interpretations and hymns. Some of these sectarian writings were drafted by the founders of the sect, while others were being composed by members of the sect. The authoritative nature of these sectarian writings is not only ensured by the antiquity of the authorship, but also by their use as exemplars of an ideal character to be emulated (29). Both the biblical and sectarian texts have authority, but they are not indistinct.
\nWhat Philo says about the Therapeutae\u2019s authoritative scriptures appears to be idealized. The mechanical and material aspects of book production need to be taken into consideration in assessing its historical validity. Philip Davies argues that canons emerge out of the influence of the intellectual circles of the scribal class. It is the scribes who preserve the scriptures of biblical Israel by faithfully copying, adding, and shaping both the form and traditum. These social factors are evident in Qohelet and Ben Sira, the latter notably with the mention of the house of study (Sira 51:23).
\nMenahem Haran traces the development of the writing material of biblical books and argues that \u201cthe use of skins as the standard material for copying books of importance was one of the practices adopted and brought by the Jews returning from Babylonia.\u201d Haran argues that the switch from the use of papyrus to skin took place at the end of the Assyrian period and in the Neo-Babylonian empire.
\nHaran adduces linguistic evidence of texts from the city of Erech that denote two scribes, \u201cone who writes on skin\u201d (KU\u0160.\u0160AR) and \u201cone who writes on clay tablets\u201d (DUB.\u0160AR). Moreover, the reliefs of the last Assyrian kings, from Tiglath Pileser III onward, depict scribes recording on both cuneiform clay tablets and skins. The frequency of use of skin increases in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, so much so that clay tablets as writing material are altogether eclipsed by the beginning of the Common Era.
\nHaran associates the greater use of skin with the spread of the Aramaic language. He adduces Ctesias of Cnidos\u2019 statement, reported in Diodorus, that the Persians record their events on \u201croyal skins\u201d and suggests that the dikhronah or the memorandum of Cyrus\u2019 edict in Ezra 6:1\u20132 may also have been written on skin. For Haran, it is the \u201cAramaizing\u201d of daily life that is the reason for the Jewish adoption of the use of skin for copying biblical scrolls.
\nGiven the costs of book production, especially if they followed the custom of requiring skin for copying out sacred texts, and the impecunity of the Therapeutae, it seems to me unlikely that each member had the equivalent of the Torah, prophetical writings, psalms, and other books in each of his sacred rooms. The Philonic depiction would imply that the Therapeutae each had a mini-library in the home. Instead, his characterization could have been of the holy books of the Therapeutae in general. Since Philo\u2019s own understanding of the holy books is the Pentateuch (see chapter 5), he would have been following his source at this point, even if he did not entirely do so faithfully, despite the protestations of his polemical introduction (1\u20132).<\/p>\n
The Essenes and Therapeutae were two ancient Jewish groups that were previously associated with the communities of the scrolls. Recent scholarship has critically reviewed the links between these communities. Joan Taylor and Philip Davies have questioned the association of the Therapeutae, who lived in Egypt by Lake Mareotic, with the Essenes, who dwelled in Palestine. They have further argued that the name \u201ctherapeutae\u201d means \u201cattendants\u201d of God and not \u201chealers,\u201d as was previously supposed.
\nObjections have also been raised over the characterization of \u201cthe Qumran community.\u201d John Collins has contended that it is misleading to use the term \u201cthe Qumran community\u201d since the communities described in the Damascus Document and different versions of the Rule of the Community do not presuppose a Khirbet Qumran setting alone. He has advocated a dispersal of multiple communities, with a quorum of ten men, throughout Judaea and in keeping with the various locations of the Essenes.
\nOur conclusion is consistent with the view that the sectarian communities are to be identified with the Essenes. Josephus\u2019 description of a broadly bipartite collection of authoritative scriptures of the Essenes converges well with what we know of the sectarian scrolls\u2019 use of the biblical texts. Moreover, the Essenes, like the scrolls communities, held that books composed by the sect were also authoritative and distinct from the biblical texts.
\nThe link between the Therapeutae and the Essene and scrolls communities has been rightly questioned. On first encounter, it would seem that the Therapeutae also had a concept of authoritative scriptures different from that of the scrolls and Essene communities. However, a closer examination shows that what Philo says about the authoritative scriptures of the Therapeutae is highly idealized. The grammar is, moreover, ambiguous and could refer to two, three, or four internal divisions.<\/p>\n
9<\/p>\n
Canon in the Gospels and Pauline Letters<\/p>\n
It is a truism to say that the Christian gospel was seen to complement the authoritative scriptures of ancient Judaism. The notion of fulfillment permeates the New Testament writers\u2019 way of relating the significance of Jesus\u2019 life and death to the words of Jewish scriptures (e.g., Mark 14:49; Matt 26:56; Luke 4:21; Acts 1:16; John 19:36; James 2:23). This fulfillment was expressed variously as the foretelling of ancient prophecy (e.g., Matt 2:15; Acts 3:18); the accomplishment of something that had been predicted (e.g., Matt 8:17; John 12:38; Rom 1:2); or the reader\u2019s discovery of the true meaning of an ancient oracle (e.g., Acts 8:34\u201335).
\nAscertaining what these authoritative scriptures were, however, is more difficult than is often thought. The authors of the New Testament took for granted what they regarded as authoritative scriptures. Paul, for instance, was more concerned with the preaching of the gospel to the gentiles and the nurturing of the fledgling churches in Italy, Macedonia, Achaia, and Asia Minor than he was with defining his canon. \u201cAccording to the sources preserved for us,\u201d Martin Hengel noted, \u201cthe question of a delimited canon was not a problem considered or discussed. It was believed to be self-evident that one could know what were \u2018Holy Scriptures.\u2019 \u201d
\nAnother difficulty surrounds the contentious task of extracting historical information from literary texts. Many scholars have turned away from the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels as a way of describing what he did and believed. Ed Sanders, for instance, focuses on deeds to reconstruct the historical Jesus. Other scholars avoid historical issues altogether and limit themselves to the literary portrayals in the Gospels, speaking instead of a Matthean, Markan, Johannine, and Lukan \u201cJesus.\u201d
\nIn the following it will be argued that Luke and Paul had an implied notion of authoritative scriptures. Matthew 23:34\u201336 is problematic as evidence for the existence of a closed canon from Genesis to Chronicles since the passage is not intended to define the beginning and end of a list of books. It selectively draws out biblical figures from Abel to Zechariah to exemplify the shedding of innocent blood.
\nLuke 24:44, by contrast, does attest to at least a tripartite collection. \u201cMoses\u201d and \u201cthe prophets\u201d are metonyms for the writings that belong to the first two divisions, the Torah and the Prophets. \u201cThe psalms,\u201d however, do not represent all the books included in the unnamed third division, nor was this third division called \u201cthe Writings.\u201d
\nPaul belonged to a Jewish sect that had a canon that was determined but not yet defined. To call his bible \u201cthe Septuagint,\u201d however, is simplistic. Paul certainly knew the Septuagint, but he most commonly cited biblical passages that belong to the textually uniform tradition of the LXX and MT. Paul\u2019s citation of texts with an introductory formula is an important, but incomplete, indicator of what he considered canonical. Writing in the 50s, Paul was a Pharisee, and this background, widely accepted as genuine, is seen to be a key to the view that he was heir to an emerging, but not yet defined, canon.<\/p>\n
From Abel to Zechariah<\/p>\n
Roger Beckwith has argued that Jesus knew the tripartite canon. According to him, when Jesus denounced the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew and referred to the death of Abel and Zechariah, he had in mind the whole Tanak, from Genesis to Chronicles, in its traditional order. The Gospel of Matthew states the following:<\/p>\n
Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation (23:34\u201336).<\/p>\n
Beckwith did not discuss whether this anti-Pharisaic passage was an authentic saying of Jesus; he simply assumed it. He pointed out that the parallel passage in Luke 11:49\u201351 included the significant addition that all the martyrs in question were described as \u201cprophets,\u201d rather than denoted as prophets, wise men, and scribes, as they are in the Matthean version. For Beckwith, Jesus had denounced the Pharisees and laid the guilt of taking innocent blood on them by an appeal to the whole of the Old Testament, encapsulated, as he saw it, in the phrase \u201cfrom the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah.\u201d Beckwith identified Abel as the one murdered by his brother Cain according to the account in Genesis 4.
\nThe identification of Zechariah, however, was more problematic since there are numerous individuals known by that name in the Old Testament and ancient Judaism. Beckwith first discussed four possible candidates: (1) Zechariah the prophet (Zech 1:1, 7); (2) the \u201cfaithful witness\u201d Zechariah, the son of Jeberechiah (a longer form of Berechiah or Barachiah; Isa 8:2); (3) Zechariah, the son of Baruch, who was murdered by the Zealots just before the Romans destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem (Josephus, War 4.334\u2013344); and (4) Zechariah the father of John the Baptist (Luke 1).
\nThe second of these Zechariahs is disqualified by Beckwith because he was not known to be a prophet or martyr. Also, Beckwith asserted that \u201cit would have been strange if Jesus ended his reckoning at the Book of Isaiah.\u201d The third Zechariah is also disqualified because Josephus\u2019 description of the location of his death is not specific enough; it was stated that the Zealots murdered Zechariah \u201cin the middle of the Temple,\u201d whereas Jesus specified that it was \u201cbetween the sanctuary and the altar.\u201d Also, Jesus was speaking about the past and not the future.
\nBeckwith did not consider the possibility that it may have been the evangelist who, writing at the end of the first century, was referring to traditions preserved in Josephus. Both the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are dated to between 80 and 100 CE, and there is nothing to exclude the possibility that they may have known a tradition also found in Josephus. As for the specificity of the location, that is a literary question and not one about the identification of the Zechariah in Josephus\u2019 account: \u201cin the middle of the Temple\u201d is not incompatible with the more specific location of \u201cbetween the sanctuary and the altar.\u201d
\nZechariah the father of John the Baptist is also ruled out of consideration by Beckwith, despite the identification of early Christian writings, on account of the nature of the New Testament Apocrypha, which do not provide independent tradition but \u201cfanciful elaboration of things recorded in the canonical gospels.\u201d Moreover, John the Baptist\u2019s father was never known to have had the patronym of the son of Barachiah.
\nHaving eliminated three of the four Zechariahs, Beckwith then considered the prophet (Zechariah number 1) along with a fifth candidate, Zechariah the son of the priest Jehoiada. This latter figure lived in the time of King Joash (835\u2013796 BCE) and prophesied against the wicked officials of Judah who transgressed the commandments of Yahweh and reverted to Baal worship. The officials in turn conspired against him, and he was stoned to death (2 Chron 24:19\u201322).
\nThe problem with the identification of the prophet Zechariah is that he was not known to have been martyred, whereas the difficulty in equating the Zechariah mentioned in Matthew\u2019s Gospel with his namesake of 2 Chr 24 is that the latter never had a patronymic epithet \u201cthe son of Berachiah\u201d attached to his name; he was known as \u201cthe son of Jehoiada\u201d (\u05d1\u05df \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d9\u05d3\u05d4 v. 20), which Beckwith interpreted to mean \u201cthe descendant of Jehoiada.\u201d
\nBeckwith tried to explain away this difficulty by suggesting that Zechariah was not the literal son of the priest Jehoiada, who died at 130 years of age, but his grandson, a consideration, moreover, that meant that Zechariah may have had a father named Berachiah. But 2 Chronicles does not say that Jehoiada was Zechariah\u2019s grandfather or that he had a father called Berachiah. While it is possible that \u201cson of\u201d could mean \u201cdescendant of,\u201d 2 Chronicles 24:22 unambiguously states that Jehoiada was Zechariah\u2019s father (\u201chis father\u201d \u05d0\u05d1\u05d9\u05d5) and not his grandfather.
\nBeckwith was aware of how tenuous was his explanation. So he finally opted to interpret Jesus to be referring to both the prophet Zechariah and Zechariah the son of Jehoiada. Invoking the use of the rabbinic technique of \u201chomiletic identification\u201d\u2014that is, the conflation of different individuals of the same name in the Hebrew Bible\u2014Beckwith argued that Jesus used this technique and identified both Zechariahs, the canonical prophet and the son of Jehoiada, in order to make a sermonic rather than a historical point about the vengeance of innocent blood.
\nThere is no evidence, however, that Jesus or any of the New Testament writers knew and used this technique elsewhere. Moreover, it would be an unnatural reading of Matthew 23:35 since the reference to Abel is to a singular figure. It would be decidedly odd that that reference would then be coupled with a composite figure of Zechariah.
\nBeckwith\u2019s rather involved argument is unconvincing. It depends on the piling up of a series of questionable theories and assumptions: (1) Jesus was not only aware of the rabbinic technique of \u201chomiletic identification,\u201d but he was also using it in his reference to two Zechariahs; (2) Jesus must have been referring to the traditional Jewish canon; and (3) the order of the books was the same as that found in Baba Bathra.
\nWe do no know what concept of canon, if any, Jesus held. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as teaching primarily in parables, and he uses scriptures in his dispute with the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees. Matthew 23 should be understood within the context of the Gospel\u2019s hostile attitude toward the Pharisees, who figure as prominent opponents of Jesus.
\nThroughout the Gospel, the Pharisees, together with the Sadducees and Herodians, are portrayed in a negative light as they attempt to test or trick Jesus but never succeed. They are concerned with the finer points of the law: eating with tax collectors and sinners (9:11); plucking grain on the Sabbath (12:2); posing questions about purity laws (15:1\u20139) and divorce (19:3). In collusion with the Herodians, they try to trap Jesus on the issue of Roman taxation (22:15). In 9:32\u201334 and 12:22\u201332, they accuse Jesus of using demonic forces to exorcise a demon from one possessed (\u201cIt is only by Beelzebub, the ruler of demons, that this fellow casts out the demons\u201d; 12:24).
\nIn 5:20, there appears to be an exception to the negative portrayal of the Pharisees. Jesus states, \u201cFor I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.\u201d This seems to be a tacit admission that the scribes and Pharisees excel in righteousness and that \u201cthe crowds\u201d (the lost sheep of 9:36) ought to emulate them.
\nHowever, in chapter 23 Jesus denounces the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites, whitewashed tombs, snakes, and vipers, for their actions do not match their teachings; they do not practice what they preach, for they are pompous and prefer the outer trappings of religiosity over the inner righteousness of God. The theme of inconsistency between the outer show of rituals and the humble, inner spirituality also appears in 6:5, 16, and 7:5, although the Pharisees are not mentioned.
\nIn 15:12\u201314 Jesus accuses the Pharisees of upholding the tradition of the elders while neglecting the commandments of God. Given what Matthew says about them elsewhere, 5:20 is best understood as profound irony rather than as a genuine recognition of the Pharisees\u2019 righteousness.
\nThe attitude toward the Pharisees in chapter 23 has more to do with the Gospel of Matthew than with the historical Jesus. In the Gospels the descriptions of the Pharisees vary from one account to the next. Common among them is the depiction of the Pharisees as opponents of Jesus, whether as the main rivals and\/or leaders of the Jews. There is also an emphasis on their expertise as interpreters and strict observers of the law. The perceptible difference in the way that the Pharisees are portrayed in the Gospels appears to reflect the rise of the Pharisaic party as the dominant party of Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple and the recognition of their influence by the Christian communities.
\nMark portrays the Pharisees primarily as opponents of Jesus on matters of legal observance (Mark 2:16; 2:23\u20134; 3:1\u20136; 10:2\u201310). They are not involved in the passion narrative and the crucifixion of Jesus. Matthew is entirely hostile to the Pharisees, and they have a small role in asking Pilate to provide soldiers to guard the tomb in case Jesus\u2019 disciples should steal his body and claim that he has resurrected (Matt 27:62\u201365).
\nLuke-Acts treats the Pharisees with far less hostility. The Pharisees do criticize Jesus for sharing food with sinners and tax collectors, but their disagreement about food purity does not prevent them from participating in the banquets (Lk 7:36\u201339; 11:37; 14:1). Disagreements are over the degree of legal observance. In Acts, the Pharisees are, moreover, portrayed as a party with political clout (e.g., the influence of the Pharisee Gamaliel in the council, Acts 5:34, or the insistence of the party of the Pharisees in the apostolic council on the circumcision of Gentile believers, Acts 15:5). In the Gospel of John, the Pharisees, along with the chief priests, are in charge, and they are the driving force behind the opposition to Jesus (John 7:45\u201352, 11:45\u201353).
\nWhen the Matthean Jesus refers to the innocent blood from Abel to Zechariah son of Berachiah, he is not setting out the limits of the canon. He is drawing lessons from scripture about the shedding of innocent blood, exemplified by the deaths of all the righteous ones from Abel to Zechariah. Zechariah is possibly the \u201cZechariah son of Jehoiada\u201d mentioned in 2 Chronicles 24:19\u201322. Significantly, Luke 11:51 does not include the patronym \u201cthe son of Berachiah,\u201d and its addition is probably a Matthean error of reference, confusing the one Zechariah of the monarchic period with the exilic prophet Zechariah who is explicitly called \u201cthe son of Berechiah\u201d (Zech 1:1).
\nSome scholars would see this as Matthew\u2019s addition to Q. There are some thirty different Zechariahs known in the Hebrew Bible alone, and it is not surprising that a mistaken identity could arise. The prepositions \u201cfrom\u201d (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc) and \u201cuntil\u201d (\u1f15\u03c9\u03c2) indicate the range of examples to which the Matthean Jesus\u2019 words refer. The examples of spilling innocent blood are drawn from pre-history, in the form of Adam\u2019s second son Abel, until the ninth century and the figure of the prophet Zechariah during the reign of King Joash.
\nBut these are not the first and last recorded murders of the prophets of God in the Hebrew Bible as is sometimes thought. Abel was a shepherd whose sacrifice inexplicably garnered the favor of Yahweh (Gen 4:4); he was not a prophet, wise man, or scribe. In Hebrews 11:4, his more acceptable sacrifice, compared to that of Cain, was considered an act of faith and righteousness, but the sprinkled blood of Jesus speaks more graciously than the blood of Abel (12:24).
\nWhen Jesus referred to Abel in Matthew 23:35, he was pointing to a biblical example of the spilling of innocent blood and not the killing of a messenger of God; it was a proof by example of only one element of the prophecy, the spilling of innocent blood. It was the example of Zechariah that was the proof of the murder of God\u2019s prophets.
\nAs for the claim that Zechariah was the last of the murdered prophets, that is unlikely to be correct. Jeremiah 26:20\u201323 indicates that Uriah, the son of Shemaiah from Kiriath-jearim, who prophesied against the city and land and fled to Egypt, was brought back and murdered by King Jehoiakim and his officials in the late seventh or early sixth century BCE.
\nThe account of the stoning of Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, is recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:19\u201322 but is not found in the parallel account of 2 Kings 11\u201312. This non-synoptic material shows that it is an independent tradition that the Chronicler had but was not found in the books of Kings. Jesus in Matthew and Luke, but not Mark, appears to know this same tradition, and it is a reasonable assumption that the former may reflect a tradition that he read it in a scroll of Chronicles or a source also used by the Chronicler.
\nBut it does not mean that Chronicles was the last book of the canon that the Matthean Jesus had in mind. The book of Chronicles is last in the order of the accepted Tanak, and it is also last in the list embedded in Baba Bathra. But it is found in the middle order, after Reigns or Samuel and Kings, in the early canonical lists of Melito and Origen (see appendix 2). It is also unlikely that Chronicles was included in the third division of Josephus\u2019 canonical notice since that was described as the remaining four books of hymns and precepts.
\nIn other words, the passage of Matthew 23:34\u201336 is about the selective use of biblical examples drawn from the time of Adam to the monarchic period of the ninth century to bolster Jesus\u2019 prophecy against the Pharisees. It is not an exhaustive list of the first and last murdered prophets. More important, it does not say or imply much, if anything, about the canon of Jesus; as a would-be canonical notice, it is rather inconsequential.<\/p>\n
Luke 24:44 and the Tripartite Canon<\/p>\n
According to some scholars, Luke 24:44 is indicative of a tripartite canon or at least an incipient one. The verse states the following:<\/p>\n
Then he [i.e., Jesus] said to them [i.e., his disciples], \u201cThese are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.\u201d (Emphasis added)<\/p>\n
The passage occurs in the post-resurrection narrative, after Jesus had appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus, had supper with them, disappeared from them, and finally reappeared to those who were gathered in Jerusalem. That the subject is the scriptures there is little doubt. The issue is whether the Lukan Jesus was referring to a tripartite canon of the Torah, Prophets, and the Writings. Those who take this view usually interpret \u201cthe psalms\u201d as the third category pars pro toto, the part representing the whole of the third division of \u201cthe Writings.\u201d
\nJohn Barton, however, has pointed out that the three sections mentioned in Luke 24:44 are the exception to the overwhelmingly bipartite reference to \u201cthe Law and the Prophets\u201d in the New Testament. Barton\u2019s point is not just about the internal divisions of the canon in New Testament times, but also whether the canon remained open and comprised of books in addition to those that were eventually included in the Jewish canon.
\nCraig Evans has added that there is a close connection among David, the psalms, and prophecy in Luke-Acts (cf. Acts 1:16, 20; 2:30; 4:25), which means that in v. 44 the \u201c \u2018prophets and the psalms\u2019 should probably be taken together.\u201d Evans holds that all the things written about Jesus are found in the Law and Prophets (including the Psalms), not the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
\nLuke 24:44 should be read in the light of vv. 25\u201327 of the same chapter:<\/p>\n
And he said to them, \u201cO foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?\u201d 27 And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.<\/p>\n
Linguistic links between vv. 27 and 44 are evident (\u03b5\u1f36\u03c0\u03b5\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u03cd\u03c2, \u1f10\u03bb\u03ac\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\/\u1f10\u03bb\u03ac\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1, \u1f14\u03b4\u03b5\u03b9\/\u03b4\u03b5\u1fd6, \u039c\u03c9\u03cb\u03c3\u03ad\u03c9\u03c2, \u03c0\u03ac\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2\/\u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1, \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd\/\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ae\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c2 and \u03c4\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u1fd6\u03c2\/\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b3\u03b5\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03ad\u03bd\u03b1). In v. 27, it states that \u201cbeginning from Moses and from all the prophets he [i.e., Jesus] interpreted to them [i.e., Cleopas and his companion] in all the scriptures the things concerning him.\u201d The participial phrase \u201cbeginning from\u201d (\u1f00\u03c1\u03be\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c0\u03cc) points to something beyond \u201cMoses\u201d and \u201cthe prophets.\u201d Given that the Lukan Jesus is interpreting texts, the nouns \u201cMoses\u201d and \u201cthe prophets\u201d would naturally represent writings believed to have been written by or associated with them. Moreover, they function as categories of collections of writings, and they are consistent with the first two divisions of the Torah and the Prophets.
\nThe Lukan Jesus, then, must have begun from the texts of these two divisions and interpreted \u201call the scriptures\u201d to Cleopas and his companion concerning himself. The phrase \u201call the scriptures\u201d is Luke\u2019s way of saying that the entirety of Jewish scriptures attest to Jesus. It implies that there is at least a third division of scripture, distinct from Moses and the prophets; it could, of course, imply more than one other division.
\nThe mention of \u201cthe psalms\u201d in v. 44 specifies what else was included in \u201call the scriptures\u201d of v. 27, but they are unlikely to be equivalent. The psalms are mentioned because Luke gives them a prominent place in his writings. Luke is unique among New Testament authors to single out the book of psalms; there are explicit references to \u201cthe book of psalms\u201d in the introductory formulas of Luke 20:42 and Acts 1:20. There is also no evidence that \u201cthe psalms\u201d represent the whole of this third division or that this third division was called \u201cthe Writings\u201d or Kethuvim.
\nRead together, vv. 27 and 44 of chapter 24 imply a canon that included more than the law of Moses and the writings of the prophets. Luke does not specify which books were included in these collections, but the law of Moses is likely to have included the five books of the Torah or Pentateuch.
\nThere is some uncertainty about which books were included in the Prophets. Luke\u2019s citation of passages from the prophetic books is dependent upon Mark and Matthew. C. K. Barrett states that \u201cLuke\u2019s contribution to the Christian use of the OT is very small\u201d and points to his distinctive use of Isaiah in Luke 4:18, 19, and 22:37. Nonetheless, the use of scripture beyond verbatim citations is pervasive. \u201cIt is safe to say,\u201d Barrett declares, \u201cthat there is no major concept in the two books [i.e., Luke-Acts] that does not to some extent reflect the beliefs and theological vocabulary of the OT.\u201d
\nIt is potentially confusing that the psalms were also considered prophetic by Luke because David was believed to have been the author of the psalms (Acts 1:16; 4:25) and he was regarded as a prophet (Acts 2:30). In the light of our interpretation of v. 27, the psalms must have been included in a third division, but they were nonetheless also considered prophetic, in the sense that they were believed to have issued from the mouth of one considered to be a prophet. Phrased differently, for Luke the psalms were not prophetic in the canonical division sense of the word, but they were prophetic because they were believed to have come from David, who was considered a prophet (Acts 2:30). For him, not every book that was considered prophetic was included in the second division of the Prophets.
\nIn fact, it is possible that for Luke all scriptures were prophetic. Luke 24:25 states that the suffering of the Christ before his glorification was spoken about by the prophets, implying that all the scriptures, including the books found in the canonical divisions of \u201cMoses\u201d and \u201cthe prophets,\u201d were prophetic (vv. 26\u201327). Acts 3:22 quotes Deut 18:15 and the raising up of a prophet like Moses. Within the context of Peter\u2019s speech to the crowd (Acts 3:11\u20134:4), it is clear that Luke, following Deuteronomy, also considered Moses a prophet.
\nOne way of reconciling these views is to postulate that for Luke all scriptures were by nature prophetic, but they were not all included in the second division of the canon. Since he also maintained distinctions between the books of \u201cMoses\u201d and \u201cthe Prophets\u201d and those found in a third, unnamed category, he must also have been following a tradition that by the end of the first century had already differentiated the scriptural books into at least three canonical divisions.<\/p>\n
Paul, the Septuagint, and Textual Classification<\/p>\n
It is surprising that many scholars take for granted that what the apostle had by way of authoritative scriptures was the Septuagint. This assumption needs to be examined. More often than not, it refers to the verbatim scriptural citations in the Pauline letters that agree with the purported source-passages in the LXX. Typically, scholars arrive at this view based on a casual comparison of the text found in Nestle-Aland with the presumed source-text of the Septuagint, usually as found in Rahlfs\u2019 edition.
\nHowever, in an article that summarizes previous research on Paul\u2019s use of the Old Testament, Mois\u00e9s Silva tabulates the four categories of textual classification of the Pauline citations that expose the weakness of this view. He also includes a fifth category of ten passages whose source-texts are open to debate. Silva\u2019s list is maximal in that it includes Pauline and Deutero-Pauline letters. If the references to the Deutero-Pauline letters are removed from his lists (namely, 1 Tim 5:18a, 2 Tim 2:19a, Eph 4:8, Eph 5:31, and Eph 6:2 Mois\u00e9s 3), then the following are the totals:<\/p>\n
(1) Paul = LXX = MT: 41 times
\n(2) Paul = MT \u2260 LXX: 6 times
\n(3) Paul = LXX \u2260 MT: 17 times
\n(4) Paul \u2260 LXX \u2260 MT: 28 times<\/p>\n
As expected, the overall change is not great since most of the verbatim quotations are found in Paul\u2019s Hauptbriefe. Category 3 remains the same. The modified textual categories show how misleading it is to claim that Paul simply used the LXX. It is true that Paul\u2019s citations agree with the LXX 58 times, but in 41 of those cases they also agree with the MT, which means that in 45 percent of the total number of cases the textual tradition is uniform. Paul cites distinctively septuagintal texts only 17 times out of 92 (18 percent). By comparison, he cites the MT 47 times, and 6 times distinctively (7 percent). His citations also diverge from the LXX in 28 cases (30 percent) when it disagrees with the MT.
\nIt is true that some of Paul\u2019s verbatim citations may be textually classified as distinctly septuagintal, but most often he cites a textual tradition that is common to both the LXX and MT. Next most frequent is the quotation of verses that diverge from both the LXX and MT. Last, he cites least often quotations that are distinctly MT. It is simplistic to say that he used the Septuagint.<\/p>\n
The Scrolls, Pauline Quotations, and Textual Variants<\/p>\n
The Dead Sea Scrolls play an important role in corroborating the textual characteristics of the Pauline quotations. The discovery of \u201cseptuagintal\u201d manuscripts written in Hebrew (e.g., 4QJerb, 4QNumb) shows that it is the content and not the language that forms the basis of textual classification. The septuagintal biblical scrolls from Qumran evidence that for some of the translations into Greek there was indeed a Hebrew source-text. The divergences are not just interpretative; the Jewish Greek translator was using an extant Hebrew text that differed from the MT.
\nThe scrolls also provide variants that agree with the Pauline quotations. Take, for example, the verbatim citation of Rom 9:33. The verse begins with an introductory formula followed by the citation of Isa 28:16 and 8:14\u201315:<\/p>\n
\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u1f7c\u03c2 \u03b3\u03ad\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u00b7
\n\u1f30\u03b4\u03bf\u1f7a \u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9 \u1f10\u03bd \u03a3\u03b9\u1f7c\u03bd \u03bb\u03af\u03b8\u03bf\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2
\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ad\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd \u03c3\u03ba\u03b1\u03bd\u03b4\u03ac\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5,
\n\u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f41 \u03c0\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03cd\u03c9\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u02bc \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u1ff7 \u03bf\u1f50 \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c7\u03c5\u03bd\u03b8\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9.<\/p>\n
Thus it is written:
\n\u201cBehold I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling
\nand a rock that causes one to trip, but the one who believes in him
\nshall not be put to shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
The opening words of the combined quotation, \u201cBehold, I am laying,\u201d are expressed by \u1f30\u03b4\u03bf\u1f7a \u1f10\u03b3\u1f7c \u1f10\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff6 in the LXX. The synonym \u1f10\u03bc\u03b2\u03b1\u03bb\u1ff6 expresses the same sense as Paul\u2019s \u03c4\u03af\u03b8\u03b7\u03bc\u03b9 except that it has a future rather than a present tense. The MT reads: \u05d4\u05e0\u05e0\u05d9 \u05d9\u05e1\u05d3 (lit: \u201cbehold me, he laid\u201d), with a third-person piel perfect. The change from Hebrew first to third person is sometimes smoothed out in commentaries by interpreting an implied relative clause: \u201cBehold, I am he who laid.\u201d Alternatively, the consonantal text may be repointed to read a qal participle (defectively spelled). While these solutions are possible, 1QIsaa and 1QIsab attest to a masculine singular qal participle (\u05d9\u05d5\u05e1\u05d3) and a piel participle (\u05de\u05d9\u05e1\u05d3) that obviate the grammatical incongruity. In Rom 9:33, then, Paul\u2019s citation is consistent with a Hebrew text not identical with the MT. Paul and the LXX appear to be using a variant text that presupposes one of the Qumran readings.<\/p>\n
Paul and the Language of the LXX<\/p>\n
A potential objection could be raised about the use of the language of the Septuagint in Paul\u2019s letters. Given that the Greek language is rich in nouns, verbs, prepositions, particles, etc., it is surely more than coincidence that Paul often chooses the same combination of lexical items and even follows the same word order.
\nIn Philo\u2019s description of what he believes to have been the inspired translation of the Greek scriptures, he expresses this point well. He describes how the translators, sitting in isolation \u201cbecame as it were possessed, and, under inspiration, wrote, not each several scribe something different, but the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter. Yet who does not know that every language, and Greek especially, abounds in terms, and that the same thought can be put in many shapes by changing single words and whole phrases and suiting the expression to the occasion?\u201d (Moses 2.37\u201338). Philo\u2019s view has been previously discussed in chapter 5. It belongs to his translational theory that the same word and thought in Hebrew are perfectly expressed in the Greek rendering.
\nPaul did not hold this translational theory, but Philo\u2019s astute observation about the nature of the Greek language raises the issue of the use of the septuagintal language in Paul\u2019s letters. It allows us to clarify that the above discussion of the Septuagint is about textual classification. Paul did not always cite a biblical passage that can be textually classified as distinctly septuagintal, but he did know the septuagintal translations of various biblical books (see categories 1 and 3 above). The language of the Septuagint had a profound influence on Paul and other Jews writing in Greek.
\nA modern analogy may be seen in the influence of the Authorized Version or the King James Version (KJV) on the English language. Many of the common turns of phrase and expression still used today can be traced back to this translation, even when Anglophones are unaware of it. For instance, someone may quip, \u201cthe voice of him that crieth,\u201d derived from the KJV, even though he is discussing the MT of Isa 40:3. The KJV, following the LXX version and the citation of Isa 40:3 in Mark 1:3, renders \u201cin the wilderness\u201d together with \u201cthe voice of him that crieth,\u201d thus locating the crying voice in the desert. The RSV more accurately translates the MT of Isa 40:3 as a voice crying in some unknown location, the message of which includes the preparation of the way of the Lord in the locality of the wilderness: \u201cA voice cries: \u2018In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD.\u2019 \u201d
\nPaul uses the language of the LXX because he knew the Septuagint and cited it when it suited him. The language of the LXX also influenced his own writings when he was not citing biblical texts. Textual classification of his biblical citations, however, concerns the content and not the linguistic form of a text-type, and the above point is that Paul does not always use the septuagintal text-type. He most commonly cites a passage that belongs to the uniform tradition of the LXX and MT.<\/p>\n
Critique of the Alexandrian Canon<\/p>\n
In the 1960s, Albert Sundberg mounted a thoroughgoing critique of the theory that the New Testament recognized a canon larger than the Palestinian canon that included the books of the Hebrew Bible plus the Apocrypha or Deuteroncanonical books. The critique consisted of arguments of a particular and general kind, two of the most penetrating being the New Testament\u2019s use of books in addition to those of the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha and the fluctuation of the contents of the canonical lists and biblical manuscripts in the first few centuries of the Christian era.
\nSundberg showed that the New Testament authors were not only acquainted with all the books of the Apocrypha, but that they also knew the Psalms of Solomon, 2 (4) Esdras, Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Assumption of Isaiah, and 4 Maccabees. This would mean that they did not endorse a concept of a fixed canon from Egyptian Judaism. They acknowledged a larger collection of authoritative scriptures. An examination of the canonical and conciliar lists in patristic sources and the contents of the great codices of Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus similarly showed that there was no recognition that the Alexandrian canon was accepted by the church.
\nThe standard critical edition of the New Testament provides in one of its appendices a long list of references to Jewish literature, those belonging to the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament as well as to apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts. Nestle-Aland\u2019s loci citati vel allegati includes one purported citation of the Apocrypha in 2 Tim 2:19. The sentiment of the clause \u201clet him turn away from wickedness\u201d (\u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c3\u03c4\u03ae\u03c4\u03c9 \u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u1f00\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03af\u03b1\u03c2) may be found elsewhere (e.g., Prov 3:7; Isa 52:11), but Sirach 17:26 presumably has been identified as the source-text by virtue of its verbal proximity, varying only in the use of a different verb (\u1f00\u03c0\u03cc\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c6\u03b5). 2 Timothy, however, is widely considered a Deutero-Pauline letter. In none of the genuine letters does Paul directly quote the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.
\nThe Nestle-Aland list is maximal in including every possible allusion, no matter how attenuated, to the alleged source-passages. The relevance of several of the purported allusions is questionable. The \u201cloci\u201d include works that postdate the Pauline letters\u2014namely, 2 Esdras (end of first century CE), 4 Maccabees (first\/second century CE), (Syriac) Apocalypse of Baruch (second century CE), Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (second century CE), and the Life of Adam and Eve (terminus post quem, seventh century CE). For these works, the literary relationship of the Pauline passages to the purported source-passages must not be one of dependence but of similarity of thought or expression.
\nOf the pre-Pauline works suggested in the Nestle-Aland list, the evidence for direct dependence is not compelling (see appendix 4). Several of the suggested sources share terminology that is found in the Pauline letters but also elsewhere in Jewish literature (e.g., the scrolls, Philo, Josephus), especially in the biblical texts. A few share distinctive terminology with the Pauline letters. As for themes and religious ideas, they sometimes express similar sentiments, but the different context and formulation of the passages militate against a literary dependence. The Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Ben Sira share the most extensive literary affinities with the Pauline letters.<\/p>\n
Different Senses of Authority<\/p>\n
It has long been suggested that there is a correspondence of thought between Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans and the Wisdom of Solomon. There is no comparable scholarship investigating affinities between the Wisdom of Ben Sira and the Pauline letters. In Rom 1:19, for instance, Paul writes \u201cFor what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.\u201d James Dunn observes that Paul and Wisdom both share a kind of natural theology and that the apostle was, moreover, \u201cconversant with and indeed indebted to a strong strand of like-minded Hellenistic Jewish wisdom theology.\u201d On the parallel between Rom 1:19\u201332 and Wis 12\u201315, Dunn states that the parallel is \u201ctoo close to be accidental.\u201d
\nIt is not just about natural theology, however, that affinities may be detected. There are common themes of election, immorality, and idolatry that permeate Paul\u2019s thinking in Romans. For instance, in Rom 2:4, Paul writes in diatribe-like form: \u201cOr do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God\u2019s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?\u201d Paul appears either to be lecturing a presumed Jewish interlocutor or to be addressing a sentiment that he heard from certain Jews. His criticism focuses on the abuse of God\u2019s mercy as it is shown to the elect, a form of piety expressed in Wis 15:1\u20135:<\/p>\n
But you, our God, are kind and true, longsuffering and ordering all things with mercy. 2 For even if we sin, we are yours, knowing your might, but knowing we are considered yours, we will not sin; 3 for to know you is perfect righteousness, and to recognize your might is the root of immortality. 4 For neither has the artful inventiveness of human beings led us astray, nor the fruitless toil of painters, a figure stained with varied colors, 5 whose appearance arouses yearning in fools so that they long for the unbreathing form of a dead image.<\/p>\n
In Rom 2:4, Paul is seen to be arguing against those who have abused the mercy that God has for his chosen people. Unlike Wis 15, where sinning is to be avoided (\u201cWe will not sin\u201d), Paul\u2019s Jewish opponents took for granted God\u2019s kindness, forbearance, and patience, not realizing that they too, like the gentiles, needed repentance. While similar ideas are found in the biblical texts (e.g., Exod 34:6\u20139; Ps 86:5, 100:5, 145:8), Wisdom is presumably seen to be a source of Romans not only because of the cluster of common themes, but also because of shared terminology: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd and \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c2; \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 and \u03bc\u03b1\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03b8\u03c5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2.
\nIf Paul used the Wisdom of Solomon in Romans, then he did not do so straightforwardly. In Rom 2:4, Paul does not argue against Wisdom 15 as such but against Jews who he believed abused the mercy of God by continuing to sin. Wisdom itself does not advocate sinning despite God\u2019s mercy. On the parallel between Rom 1:19\u201332 and Wis 12\u201315, it has recently been argued that Paul\u2019s polemic runs diametrically opposed to that of Wisdom because the apostle blurs the distinction between Jew and Gentile whereas Wisdom maintains this anthropological dualism.
\nIf one takes the consensus view as correct, then Paul would be summarizing Wisdom in Romans. He provides a paraphrase without indicating that it was derived from a source. The form of implied authority of the source would be similar to the way that the \u201cRewritten Bible\u201d or \u201cRewritten Scripture\u201d genre subsumes its source-text in a seamless new creation without interpretative markers.
\nHowever, if Paul was instead polemicizing against Wisdom, then his use of it is analogous to the way that the slogans of his opponents appear elsewhere in his letters. He would be referring indirectly to or quoting from the views of his opponents in order to refute them. The issue, then, is what kind of authority may be inferred from Paul\u2019s textual engagement with Wisdom and whether a distinction can be drawn among the different kinds of sources that he used when writing his letters.
\nPaul was an urbane and multilingual Jew who cited his scriptures from the Septuagint and other existing Greek translations or a revision; he could alternatively provide his own translation of the Hebrew original, whether of the MT or another variant Hebrew text. Paul also quoted biblical prooftexts from memory and from preexistent florilegia and catenae. He often included catchphrases and slogans current in the churches to which he was writing, and in one case he even cited a popular saying first attested in Menander\u2019s Tha\u00efs. His letters show a casual acquaintance with the techniques and strategies of Greek rhetoric. When appropriate he also used hymns and traditions newly formed in the nascent church.
\nAs a rule, Paul uses an introductory formula only when he is quoting a text that was eventually included in the canon. He does not always use formulas to introduce his quotations, but when he does use them, he is almost invariably citing texts that would later be included in the canon. In an important study comparing the citation formulas in the scrolls and the New Testament, Joseph Fitzmyer states: \u201cWhile these formulae were often stereotypes in both literatures, they nevertheless indicate the conscious and deliberate appeal made by these writers to the Old Testament as the \u2018Scriptures.\u2019 \u201d Likewise, Johann Lust asserts: \u201cIt is true that Qumranic authors, like those of the NT, appear to use the quotation exclusively when citing writings which we now call \u2018biblical\u2019 books.\u201d
\nOne possible exception is the difficult passage of 1 Cor 4:6. The RSV translates the clause (\u03bc\u1f74 \u1f51\u03c0\u1f72\u03c1 \u1f03 \u03b3\u03ad\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9) as \u201cdo not go beyond what is written.\u201d It is part of a purpose (\u1f35\u03bd\u03b1) clause that would instruct the Corinthians not to exceed what Paul had said about himself and Apollos. There are, however, numerous textual, grammatical, and interpretative issues attached to this clause. First, the clause is elliptical and needs a verb to be read as a negative articular infinitive. Some manuscripts supply \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, thus \u201cnot to think beyond what is written.\u201d
\nSecond, there is numerical incongruity between the plural relative pronoun and its singular antecedent. Some manuscripts change the relative to the singular ho. Third, its referent has been variously interpreted: (a) the meaning is utterly corrupt and beyond recovery; (b) the clause was a scribal gloss that has been introduced subsequently into the text; (c) it is a reference to a public document of the Corinthian church; (d) it alludes to the metaphors of planting and building in 1 Cor 3:5\u20137; (e) it means scripture generally; (f) it has in mind the biblical quotations in 1 Corinthians specifically; or (g) Paul may have been quoting a slogan or proverb known by the Corinthians.
\n1 Cor 4:6 is textually corrupt and too obscure to be considered positive evidence that Paul used citation formulas for non-canonical texts. Moreover, the verb \u03b3\u03ad\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 does not necessarily connote an authoritative status in the way that it does when Paul uses it in a formula introducing a biblical quotation. It could simply mean what was written previously or above.
\nIt is possible, and perhaps even likely, that Paul was acquainted with the Wisdom of Solomon and interacted with passages from it in the opening chapters of his letter to the Romans, but if his use of introductory formulas is anything to go by, he did not consider it scripture. Passages from Wisdom were like other sources that he used in his letter. They informed his thinking and writing, but they were not considered scripture.<\/p>\n
Scriptural Citations and Excerpts<\/p>\n
Dietrich-Alex Koch counted sixty-six scriptural citations that are introduced by a formula in Paul\u2019s letters. If frequency of citation is an indication of importance, then Isaiah (21x), Psalms (16x), and Deuteronomy and Genesis (11x) are the most important. Whether this should be described as \u201ca canon within a canon\u201d is moot; it is at least a selection of scriptural passages that speak to the occasions and circumstances that Paul was addressing.
\nFor Paul, certain scriptural passages are particularly important, and these cannot be reflected in a statistical count. One such passage is Habakkuk 2:4, which is cited twice in the letters (Gal 3:11 and Rom 1:17; cf. Hebrews 10:37\u201338). The first four verses of the second chapter constitute the hermeneutical center of the prophecy. Paul, as an adroit reader of scripture, selected this vital verse, which originally referred to the faithfulness of the righteous Israelite, as the key verse on which to hang his theological belief that righteousness for Gentiles came through faith in Christ Jesus: \u201cThe one who is righteous shall live by faith\u201d (significantly omitting the possessive \u201chis\u201d). Frequency of citation, therefore, is only one aspect of Paul\u2019s use of scripture. In other words, quotations of the Old Testament need to be weighed rather than just counted.
\nIt is unlikely that Paul carried around scrolls of scriptures with him as he traveled from place to place. It was his custom, according to Acts 17:2\u20133, to argue with Jewish opponents in the synagogue, explaining and proving from scriptures (\u1f00\u03c0\u1f78 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u1ff6\u03bd) that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. If the Lukan account can be believed, then Paul did so for three weeks in the Thessalonian synagogue. The scrolls of scriptures available to him may have belonged to the Jewish synagogue that he visited, and depending on the wealth of the community, the extent of the collection of scriptural scrolls would vary.
\nIt has sometimes been suggested that Paul quoted his scriptural texts from memory, evidenced by conflations and other errors indicative of remembering incorrectly. This is certainly possible, given the importance of studying and memorizing scripture among the Jews of his day. By his own boasting Paul was more advanced than his Jewish contemporaries, he was a zealot for the traditions of the fathers (Gal 1:14), and he was a \u201cHebrew of Hebrews\u201d (Phil 3:5). Intensive study of scripture would have been par for the course for one so precocious.
\nThere is some evidence, however, that Paul may also have used aidesm\u00e9moire in the form of biblical excerpts. In 2 Timothy 4:13, Paul or one of his followers writing in his name asks his fellow teacher Timothy to bring from Troas the cloak, the books (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b2\u03b9\u03b2\u03bb\u03af\u03b1), and especially the parchments (\u03bc\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f70\u03c2 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bc\u03b2\u03c1\u03ac\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2). It is uncertain what \u201cthe books\u201d contained. It has been suggested that they may have been legal papers attesting to his Roman citizenship or material relating to his ministry or person. The membrana (parchment notebook), however, may have contained excerpts of biblical passages. Such biblical excerpts have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of which, 4Q174, includes a passage from 2 Samuel 7:14 that is also found in the so-called \u201cEssene interpolation\u201d of 2 Cor 6:14\u20137:1.<\/p>\n
Limitations of Scriptural Citations<\/p>\n
The question of what canon Paul had in mind remains an unsolved problem primarily because he did not cite all the scriptures that he considered authoritative. He was not concerned to define the extent of his canon. He was a missionary, and there were many more pressing issues before him. Practically, he used certain scriptural texts more than others to bolster his pastoral and theological concerns; he debated with other Jews by using scriptural scrolls that were available at the synagogue; he may also have used convenient biblical excerpts to compose his letters; and he also referred to works that were not included in the canon of the Hebrew Bible.
\nPaul cited or alluded to all the books of the traditional Jewish canon except for the Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, and Ezra-Nehemiah. No passage from Numbers is cited directly, but there is little doubt that in 1 Cor 10:8 Paul had in view the incident at Shittim when Israel \u201cplayed the harlot\u201d with the daughters of Moab (Num 25).
\nPaul makes scant use of the narratives of the conquest, the period of the judges, or the history of the monarchy. Joshua may have been used by Paul if his ignoble escape from the clutches of the governor of Damascus via a basket lowered by a rope down the city wall is an allusion to the escape of Joshua\u2019s spies (2 Cor 11:32\u201333; Josh 2:15). When Paul refers to the riches of the olive tree root (Rom 11:17), he may have had in mind Judges 9:9, though it could also be proverbial (cf. Jos. As. 5:7, T. Lev 8:8). 1 Samuel is represented only by a brief citation in Rom 11:2 that affirms that God had not rejected or abandoned his people, whom he foreknew (1 Sam 12:22). The familial relationship expressed in the Davidic covenant of 2 Sam 7:14, suitably modified by the addition of \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03b8\u03c5\u03b3\u03b1\u03c4\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2, is cited in 2 Cor 6:18. Though there may be one or two possible allusions elsewhere (2 Kgs 6:22 in Rom 12:20 [?]; and 2 Kgs 17:15 in Rom 1:21[?]), Paul used the book of Kings primarily in relation to the account of Elijah and his encounter with the prophets of Baal (1 Kgs 19 in Rom 11).
\nThere is no perceptible use of Obadiah and Haggai, but several of the Minor Prophets (Joel, Amos, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Zechariah, and Malachi) are quoted, and the Minor Prophets were considered as one book by the time Paul was writing in the middle of the first century CE. 1-2 Chronicles are also not well represented in Paul. The Davidic covenant of 2 Sam 7:14 quoted in 2 Cor 6:18 is also found in the synoptic passage of 1 Chr 17:13. The word \u03c0\u03c1\u03bf\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b7\u03bc\u03c8\u03af\u03b1 (lit: \u201cthe taking of the face\u201d\u2014i.e., favoritism) in Rom 2:11 may have been derived from the LXX of 2 Chr 19:7, where \u201cto marvel the face\u201d (\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd) is combined with the taking (\u03bb\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd) of gifts.<\/p>\n
Paul and Canon<\/p>\n
In his letter to the Phillipians, Paul turns from disparaging his opponents as dogs, evil workers, and mutilators to his own impeccable background: circumcision on the eighth day, from the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; and as to righteousness under the law, blameless (3:2\u20136). Paul\u2019s Jewish credentials are widely accepted (cf. 2 Cor 11:22). In his early life and before his conversion, it is believed that Paul belonged to the Pharisaic sect or school. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul is reported to have claimed that his father was also a Pharisee (23:6) and that he was even a student of Rabban Gamaliel (22:3). It is, therefore, entirely natural to compare Paul\u2019s canon to that of the Pharisees.
\nBut what do we know of the canon of the Pharisees? As argued in chapter 3, implicit in Josephus\u2019 and 4 Ezra\u2019s canonical notices is the Pharisaic canon. What may be added here is that in Romans Paul describes the biblical texts as \u201choly scriptures\u201d (\u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03c6\u03b1\u03af \u1f01\u03b3\u03af\u03b1\u03b9, 1:2), a description unique in the NT and an exact translation of the Rabbinic expression for \u201choly scriptures\u201d (\u05db\u05ea\u05d1\u05d9 \u05d4\u05e7\u05d5\u05d3\u05e9).
\nThe use of scripture in Paul\u2019s letters does not correspond exactly with the 22\/24 book Pharisaic canon. The Song of Songs, whose authoritative status is debated in rabbinic literature is never cited or alluded to by Paul. There is only one citation to Ecclesiastes or Qohelet in Rom 3:10, but it may be doubted whether Paul was citing the scriptural text at that point. Rom 3:10\u201318 seems to have been using a catena of scriptural verses that also included Ps 14:1\u20133 (= 53:2\u20134), Ps 5:10, Ps 139:4, Isa 59:7, Prov 1:16, and Ps 35:2, and Paul may not have been conscious of citing Ecclesiastes as such. As the manuscript tradition indicates, the whole catena may have been considered a collection of psalms.
\nRuth and Esther are also absent from the letters. Interestingly, the status of all four books was also in question in rabbinic literature: \u201cR. Simeon b. Johai (135\u2013170) says: Ecclesiastes is among the lenient decisions of the School of Shammai and among the stringent decisions of the School of Hillel, but [all agreed that] Ruth, Song of Songs, and Esther defile the hands (bMeg 7a).\u201d The dispute over the status of Qohelet is indicated by the different positions taken by the Schools of Shammai and Hillel. The description of stringency seems to be inverted here since the former school is normally considered stricter than the latter in halakhic matters.
\nOne possible resolution is to interpret leniency or stringency not in relation to the authoritative status of the book of Qohelet as such but to the requirements for purification once \u201cthe hands\u201d have been defiled. That is, the decision of the School of Shammai was considered \u201clenient\u201d because in its view Qohelet did not defile the hands and therefore did not require purification, whereas the School of Hillel was \u201cstringent\u201d precisely because it considered as necessary purification of the hands once someone had touched the same book. In any case, the authoritative status of Qohelet was in dispute (cf. mYad 3:5).
\nThe Talmudic passage goes on to indicate that Ruth, the Song of Songs, and Esther defile the hands. But why would R. Simeon b. Johai specifically name these three and not other books? It is possible that they are mentioned precisely because there was uncertainty over the authoritative status of all three books. It was well known that the status of the Song of Songs was disputed (mYad 3:5). There was also doubt over the book of Esther (bMeg. 7a). As has often been noted, the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain a copy, citation of, or allusion to Esther.
\nOn the book of Ruth, Sid Leiman has argued that \u201cthe need to list Ruth in this passage implies that its biblical (i.e., inspired canonical) status was not readily accepted by all,\u201d despite the absence of any passage questioning its status in rabbinic literature. Leiman suggested that it may have been because the book of Ruth was not part of the Torah, the national history of Israel, or the didactic literature. Alternatively, the book of Ruth may have raised questions because it contradicted the injunction against Moabites in Deut 23:4 and cast doubt over the legitimacy of David\u2019s lineage.
\nNotwithstanding Leiman\u2019s explanations, it is notable that the book of Ruth was mentioned along with these three disputed books, which indicates at the very least that its authoritative status had to be affirmed by way of indicating that it defiled the hands.
\nWhat emerges from this examination is that Paul\u2019s use of biblical books corresponds broadly to what we know of the emerging Pharisaic canon. The Pharisaic canon itself had not yet been finally defined, and there are disputes about a few books. Paul cites or alludes to all the biblical books except for the Song of Songs, Qohelet, Esther, and Ruth, whose authoritative status is disputed in rabbinic literature. Paul did not use Ezra-Nehemiah. One can only guess at why it was not cited. Perhaps the absence of references to this biblical book may be due to its emphasis on the rebuilding of the physical Temple, the observance of the law, and its stance on Jewish identity and exogamy, all of which would have been highly inconvenient for Paul\u2019s teachings.<\/p>\n
The writings of Paul and Luke date to the middle and latter half of the first century CE respectively. This date is late in the history of the formation of the canon, and it is thus not surprising that implied notions of canon could already be detected in them. Luke attests to a tripartite canon with the psalms constituting one sub-collection of, rather than representing, the whole third division. But Matthew 23 is not a canonical notice. It is a reference to biblical examples of the killing of God\u2019s prophets and the shedding of innocent blood.
\nIt is an oversimplification to say that the Septuagint was Paul\u2019s Bible. It was suggested that \u201cthe Septuagint\u201d or \u201cseptuagintal\u201d had three distinguishable referents: the textual classification of the Pauline citations; the language of the Greek translation and its influence on Jewish authors writing in Greek; and the theory of the Alexandrian canon. When the topic is thus differentiated and analyzed, the following may be concluded: (1) Some of Paul\u2019s citations may be textually classified as \u201cseptuagintal,\u201d but most often he is citing a uniform text of the LXX and MT; (2) Paul knew the Septuagint, and the language of the Greek translation shaped his own expressions; and (3) Paul likely knew the Wisdom of Solomon, but he did not consider it scripture.
\nPaul used various sources in his letters, but he regularly distinguished his use of scripture from other types of material by the inclusion of an introductory formula. He did not always use an introductory formula when he cited scripture, but when he did use this technique, it was almost always in quoting texts that would be later considered \u201cbiblical.\u201d I have argued that Paul had a sense of different kinds of authority.
\nThe study of Paul\u2019s citations and his use of scripture more broadly informs us of which biblical books he considered important\u2014namely, Isaiah, Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Genesis\u2014but we do not know the extent of his canon. Paul\u2019s letters were occasional, and the scriptural texts that he cited and used were determined largely by the circumstances in which he was writing. I have suggested, therefore, that Paul\u2019s widely accepted background as a Pharisee complements the study of his citations as a way of ascertaining his canon. His canon was the canon of the Pharisees, which was itself emerging and not yet finally closed.<\/p>\n
10<\/p>\n
The Formation of the Jewish Canon<\/p>\n
The process that led to the formation of the Jewish canon is complex and not easily summarized. In the foregoing discussion I selected important texts and issues to discuss with no attempt at a comprehensive survey, for the scope of such a review would have had to include the whole of ancient Jewish and early Christian literature. Instead, I opted for a narrower textual and scholarly engagement that traded breadth for depth. It seems to me that there are three broad areas that could benefit from a synthetic and reflective final discussion: the emergence of the canon; the various conceptions of authoritative scriptures; and authority and canon.<\/p>\n
Origins and Development<\/p>\n
This study confirms the conclusions of previous scholars that the three-stage theory of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries cannot be maintained. Elegant in its simplicity of a stage-by-stage closing of the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the Writings the theory tottered and finally collapsed when its rotting pillars were pulled apart. There was no \u201ccouncil\u201d at Yavneh, and the Samaritan schism is not a solid basis for inferring the closing of the Jewish Pentateuch. What remained of the three-stage theory was reconceived in several ways in the late 1970s and 1980s, but no scholarly consensus emerged.
\nScholarly opinion remains divided over the origins and history of the canon. There are, however, two basic positions with variations on the theme. Sid Leiman and Roger Beckwith argue that the canon was closed by the second century BCE, whereas Albert Sundberg and John Barton maintain that it remained open well into the first centuries of the Common Era. These views have their detractors and supporters, and neither side has garnered the same kind of broad acceptance that was enjoyed by the three-stage theory.
\nA critical review of the theories in chapter 2 showed that the more recent views were also built on some unexamined assumptions. It was assumed that there was an official canon at the Temple library that served as a normative collection of texts that regularized the development of the canon. Sectarians, like the communities reflected in the scrolls and the Essenes, may or may not have had their own canon, but it was assumed that most Jews in the wider society held the canon that was authorized by the Temple. I have found no evidence to support the view that scrolls found at the Temple were used to define the canon.
\nThe hypothesis advocated in this book is that by the end of the first century of the Common Era the Pharisaic canon became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism because the majority of those who gathered in the grand coalition at Yavneh were Pharisees. Building on the understanding of the significance of Yavneh by Shaye Cohen, John Collins proposed this theory in the mid-1990s, but it has not been widely discussed. Before there was one common canon, there were several collections of authoritative scriptures held by different groups.
\nThe above discussion supports what I would call the theory of the majority canon. Collins himself does not use this description. This theory proposes that the canon of the majority became the canon of Rabbinic Judaism. It does not imply that there were other canons. It is unknown whether the authoritative collections of other Jewish groups (such as the Alexandrian Jewish community) also became canonical.
\nI differ from Collins on a few points. I would not see as much significance as Collins does in the apparent gathering at Yavneh since debates about a few books persisted to the second century and beyond. Also, the evidence for the historical reconstruction of Yavneh is more ambiguous than Collins allows (see chapter 2).
\nI also differ slightly from Collins on the exclusion of books from the canon on pragmatic grounds alone, such as the late date of the composition and the concern to limit the number of books. In my view, the belief that holy scriptures defile the hands is an important criterion that contributed to the formation of the Rabbinic canon. Based on the priestly theology that sees contagion in the sancta, one important feature that cannot be ignored is the way that holiness of scriptures is understood to have had a detrimental effect on the mundane. The Song of the Ark, cited in Mishnah Yadayim, is an important if neglected piece of evidence that points to the story of Uzzah grasping the Ark with his hand. The Lord struck him down for transgressing the boundaries between the holy and the mundane.
\nThis majority canon was not officially closed at the end of the first century CE. There is no evidence that ancient Judaism had an official body, like the ecclesiastical councils, which pronounced on the inclusion or exclusion of individual books. Josephus was the first to articulate the twenty-two-book canon. His claim that every Jew regarded the scriptures as the \u201cdecrees of God, to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to die for them\u201d is an exaggeration.
\nMishnah Yadayim shows that there was no universal agreement; disputes continued over the status of two books, Qohelet and the Song of Songs, as holy scriptures. Other rabbinic texts record disputes over the status of the Wisdom of Ben Sira as well as the books of Ruth and Esther.
\nOn the whole, the theory of the majority canon finds support in the above chapters. By the end of the first century CE, there was a canon that most Jews accepted. I emphasize most and not all because the search for a universally accepted canon is illusory. Disagreements existed in the past and continue in the present. When this canon actually closed is not clear, but a rough estimate of between 150 and 250 CE would not be far off the mark.
\nPhilip Alexander describes the process as the quiet end of an event of considerable moment. He dates the baraita of Baba Bathra to before 200 CE but notes that it is embedded in a sugya of a much later date. He also observes, however, that the Rabbinic canon did not finally come to a close until the middle ages. In fact, the whole \u201cmodelling of the canonic process in terms of openness and closure \u2026 is problematic.\u201d Alexander has questioned the concept of closure in Rabbinic Judaism and suggested that the openness of the canon never really ceased but \u201cis as much a feature of the situation post 200 CE as it is a feature of pre-70 CE.\u201d The order of the books of the Prophets and Writings continued to fluctuate in Jewish manuscripts, and stabilization, but not uniformity, occurred only with the emergence of the great codices of St. Petersburg and Aleppo.
\nI do not know whether the debates about the disputed books died away in the way implied by this characterization or whether dissenting views were simply not recorded in Rabbinic literature. There is vagueness in the way that Alexander maintains both that the Rabbinic canon was closed at around 200 CE and that the openness of the canon was a feature of post-200 CE Rabbinic Judaism.
\nOne way of disambiguating the issue is to distinguish between primary and secondary features of the canon. What Alexander sees as features of openness is the fluctuation of the order of the books of the Prophets and Writings. As argued in this book, the sequence of the books on a list is a secondary feature; what defines the canon is the inclusion and exclusion of books on a list. This would obviate the apparent tension between openness and closure. In my view, the Rabbinic canon was already closed when Baba Bathra enumerated the books in a list (chapter 3). The subsequent fluctuation of the order of the books of the Prophets and the Writings in Jewish manuscripts and lectionaries did not mean that the canon remained open.
\nThe explicit reason given for Baba Bathra\u2019s specification is the ordering of the books of the Prophets and Writings. This has been interpreted as either an issue related to the sequence of shelving scrolls in a library or the use of longer scrolls in the copying of different series of books (the Pentateuch, all the Prophets, and infrequently all the Hagiographa). But it seems to me that this pragmatic concern assumes that the books that it wants to order are already considered holy scriptures.
\nIt is best to avoid singling out one consideration that led to the canonization of books in Rabbinic Judaism. There are numerous factors that contributed to the final closing of the canon. As seen in the foregoing chapters, many of the books that were eventually included in the Rabbinic canon had been considered for a long time the traditional scriptures of Judaism. These books were read, studied, and interpreted but also used for moral guidance and worship. The debates in Rabbinic literature are about a few books that do not have obvious halakhic implications. The closing of the Rabbinic canon may be likened to the reaching of a consensus of opinion. It does not imply the absence of dissenting voices; it means that most accepted the canon of 22\/24 books.
\nAnother factor is the influence of non-Jews. The first ever attested articulation of the Jewish canon was forged in controversy. In his apology of the Jews against Greek detractors, Josephus emphasized the unity of the Jewish canon in the form of only twenty-two books. Josephus\u2019 rhetorical strategy in Contra Apionem demanded that he contrast the universal agreement of Jews for the one canon with the myriad of inconsistent Greek histories.
\nThe influence of non-Jews is particularly telling in the way that the books of Homer were explicitly ruled out as holy scriptures. In Mishnah Yadayim 4:6, the Sadducees attribute the following halakhic position to the Pharisees: \u201cAccording to you the Holy Scriptures defile the hands, whereas the writings of Homer would not defile the hands.\u201d
\nThe epics of Homer became \u201ccanonical\u201d in the Hellenistic period (chapter 5). Excluding them as holy scriptures is a way of differentiating among different kinds of writings that the rabbis knew. The position of the Pharisees is, in fact, not all that different from the view of the Alexandrian Jewish community. Implied in both the exclusion of the Iliad and Odyssey and the comparison of the charter myth with the epics of Homer is the belief that the ballads of the Greek bard are prized but also distinguishable from the traditional Jewish scriptures. That the Pharisees felt the need to hold this position implies that some Jews were blurring the authority of traditional Jewish writings with the authority of highly prized but non-Jewish works.
\nRabbinic Judaism was also influenced by Christianity. It is becoming increasingly clear that the rabbis knew books of the New Testament.
\nPeter Sch\u00e4fer has argued that the depictions of Jesus in rabbinic literature constitute an anti-Christian, counter-narrative to the NT Gospels. He believes the following: (a) behind the parody of Jesus\u2019 origins, his virgin birth, and Davidic genealogy is the infancy narrative of Matthew; (b) the depiction of Jesus as the bad son\/disciple is a possible allusion to Mary Magdalene\/the immoral woman of Luke and also of John; (c) Jesus\u2019 teaching of the law in the Temple or on the Sermon on the Mount is a polemic against Luke and John; (d) Jesus\u2019 execution is dependent on all four Gospels, but his trial the day before Passover agrees exclusively with John; (e) the description of Jesus\u2019 disciples is to be read against all four Gospels, Acts, and Paul; (f) Jesus\u2019 punishment is based on John; and (g) there is no source for the rabbinic portrayal of Jesus as \u201cthe frivolous disciple.\u201d
\nSch\u00e4fer believes that the views of Jesus in the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud may be differentiated. In the former, the criticism is primarily directed at the Christian sect parting from Rabbinic Judaism. In the latter, the Sassanian Empire, with its Zoroastrian religion, allowed Babylonian Jews to attack Jesus personally, his birth, life, and resurrection. The Gospel of John, in particular, was singled out because of its theological nature and provenance in the Jewish diaspora of Asia Minor. The Babylonian Jews may have known it or its narrative through Tatian\u2019s Diatessaron.
\nThe closing of the Jewish canon may be seen as part of the Jewish reaction to knowledge of books of the New Testament and the increasing influence of Christianity. The Tosefta, for instance, polemicizes against the holiness of Christian writings, characterizing them as heretical books: \u201cThe Gospels and heretical books do not defile the hands\u201d (tYad 2:13). Joshua Bloch argued that Rabbi Akiba coined the term \u201coutside books\u201d not to refer to apocalyptic literature or heretical books but \u201cto stigmatize as un-Jewish\u201d the books of the Nazarenes or Christians. Thus the ban against books of the New Testament involved the imprecation that any Jew who read them aloud in the synagogue would not have a place in the world-to-come.
\nIt would be tempting to find the reason for the closing of the canon in Rabbinic Judaism\u2019s reaction to Christianity. Alexander, for instance, has suggested that the concept of \u201cheresy\u201d entered Rabbinic Judaism at about the same time as the emergence of \u201corthodoxy\u201d in the Christian church, and this had \u201ccanonic implications.\u201d But the above discussion shows that the influence was wider than Christianity alone.
\nThe closing of the biblical canon of Rabbinic Judaism is more protracted than is often assumed. The Rabbinic debates eventually disappeared, but a de facto canon was already fixed between the second and third centuries CE.
\nJust as the end was drawn out, so the beginning did not emerge at a singular moment. Despite what was later believed to have been the reception of the Torah on Mt. Sinai, the emergence of the Pentateuch was much more complex. Scholarship has shown that Moses did not receive the first five books in one revelatory event but that the Pentateuch grew over time in an extended transmission history that included revisions, rewritings, and editing. Authoritative texts in the pre-exilic period included hypothesized sources like J and individual books or parts of books, like Urdeuteronomium, and not a collection of five books.
\nIn the post-exilic period, however, there is a discernible collection of the books of the \u201ctorah,\u201d but this did not just include the Pentateuch. Nehemiah 8\u201310 uses the term \u201ctorah\u201d loosely as a label for the first six books, from Genesis to Joshua. The \u201ctorah\u201d is not to be taken in the strictly legal sense but means what we would call laws and narratives together.
\nBy the second century BCE, in the Letter of Aristeas the translation of the Pentateuch from Hebrew to Greek was mentioned. The anonymous Jewish author began the legend of the Septuagint as part of the charter myth of the community and drew on the collective memory of the Alexandrian community, which preserved the story of the translation of the Torah in the third century and under the royal patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty. Philo\u2019s retelling of this story shows that his own authoritative scripture was the Greek Pentateuch, whereas Josephus considered the Septuagint a translation. His own canon, however, was the twenty-two-book canon.
\nAlso in the second century, the Prologue and Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira presupposed a much larger collection of authoritative scriptures. This collection included all the books of the Hebrew Bible with the exception of four biblical books: Ruth, the Song of Songs, Esther, and Daniel. But this collection was not closed; the grandfather considered his own book of wisdom as part of the literary heritage of Israel. It was also not bi- or tripartite. The internal divisions may be characterized by its inclusion of the categories of the Pentateuch, the prophecies, and a third miscellaneous division of other ancestral books.
\nThere is no evidence that the canon was closed in the second century. 2 Maccabees does not attest to the closing of the canon under Judas, as Leiman and Beckwith supposed. Rather, it gives credence to the view that Judas collected books that had fallen to pieces after the war against the Seleucids. The inference that it referred to the founding of a Maccabean library is based on a misreading of the text. What Judas had done was to collect the books that had been damaged during the war; he was now returning them to the people. The books included were not specified.
\nBeginning some time in the second century BCE and extending to the first century CE, the communities that wrote some of the Dead Sea Scrolls held a notion of authoritative scriptures that was different again. From the sectarian scrolls, it can be deduced that the shape of the authoritative scriptures was the Torah, referring to the five books of Moses, and a category of prophetical writings, including several sub-collections of prophecies (e.g., the Minor Prophets, Samuel-Kings). The psalms were also compiled into collections, but it is unclear whether the sectarians drew a distinction between what were later included in the canon and other psalms that were also considered authoritative by the community. Moreover, the psalms were considered prophetic in nature, and it is uncertain whether they were to be counted among the books of the prophets or formed the nucleus of a third and as yet undetermined division.
\nAs described by Josephus, the authoritative scriptures of the Essenes consisted of the Torah and the prophetic books, corresponding strikingly to the broadly bipartite shape of authoritative scriptures reflected in the sectarian scrolls. The authoritative scriptures of the Therapeutae, however, are described by Philo in an idealized way, implying that each sectarian had a mini library of sacred writings in his room. Moreover, the description of what they may have contained is ambiguous, and it could to refer to a bi-, tri-, or quadripartite collection of authoritative scriptures.
\nWriting in the middle of the first century CE, Paul was not interested in defining his authoritative scriptures. The common assumption that what he had by way of \u201cthe Bible\u201d was the Septuagint has been called into question. There is no doubt that Paul knew some of the Greek translations of the Hebrew scriptures, but discussions about his use of the Septuagint should be differentiated according to what is meant by textual classification, use of LXX language, and his citation techniques. It has been argued that Paul\u2019s background as a Pharisee complemented his use of scripture. Together they show that in his letters there is a recognizable outline of the Pharisaic collection of authoritative scriptures that was itself emerging and not finally closed.
\nDespite what Beckwith and his followers believe, Matthew 23:34\u201336 is not evidence of the closed twenty-two-book canon. The passage selectively uses biblical examples to bolster Jesus\u2019 prophecy against the Pharisees. Written at the end of the first century, the Gospel of Luke is aware of all the books of the Old Testament. For Luke, all scriptures are by nature prophetic, but since he maintains a distinction between the books of Moses and the prophets, and a third unnamed division, he must have been following a tradition that by the end of the first century CE had already differentiated the scriptural books into at least three divisions.
\nThe theory of the majority canon, therefore, is amply supported. Before the emergence of this Pharisaic canon at the end of the first century CE, there was a diversity of collections of authoritative scriptures.<\/p>\n
Diversity and Unity<\/p>\n
Before this majority canon there were several collections of authoritative scriptures. Such a description, however, should not be taken to mean that the formation of the canon was an inexorable march from the diversity of collections of authoritative scriptures to the unity of the majority canon. The diversity of collections of authoritative scriptures should not imply that there were distinctly different \u201ccanons.\u201d It would be a mistake to exaggerate the differences and ignore the overlaps. The five books of Moses or Pentateuch, once emerged in the Achaemenid and early Hellenistic periods, figure in almost every formulation of authoritative scriptures that has been examined. A core of prophetical books (e.g., Samuel-Kings, the Minor Prophets) and psalms is also used in several communities.
\nRather, diversity is manifest in the inclusion of other books. In the second century, the Jewish Alexandrian community held up the Greek Pentateuch as its authoritative scriptures. Contemporaneous with the Letter of Aristeas, the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira implies a larger collection. In \u201cthe praise of the fathers,\u201d as well as in the prescriptions of the scribal curriculum in chapter 39 and in the Prologue, virtually all the books of the traditional Hebrew Bible (with the exception of four books) are known. Moreover, Ben Sira considered his own wisdom book part of the literary heritage of Israel. One possible explanation of the differences is that Ben Sira\u2019s collection represents the scribal conception of authoritative scriptures in Palestine, transplanted to Egyptian soil, whereas the collection of the Jewish Alexandrian community consisted of the Pentateuch alone.
\nYet a third conception may be found in 2 Maccabees. According to the second festal letter, Nehemiah not only founded a library, but also collected books about kings and prophets, the writings of David, and royal correspondence. It is not certain that this is about a collection of authoritative scriptures, as is sometimes supposed, rather than a description of the holdings of the library. In any case, the collection of books is unusual and is otherwise unattested, and there is doubt about the notice\u2019s authenticity. Judas likewise collected books damaged in the war, and some of these are presumably law books, but he did not tell us what they were.
\nIn sum, the process did not develop from the many collections of authoritative scriptures to the one canon. Rather, there were many collections and then there was the majority canon. Once sectarianism disappeared, so did the variety of collections.<\/p>\n
Canon and Authority<\/p>\n
The above investigation has raised time and again the issue of power, influence, and the emergence of collections of books. The complex relationship between canon and authority may be profitably discussed by grouping the issues into sub-categories.
\nThe relationship of authoritative scriptures to secular power is evident in the Persian and Hellenistic periods. Jewish communities in Babylonia and the city of Alexandria appealed to the ruling authority to legitimate and promote traditional Jewish law. In the case of Babylonian Jewry, Ezra\u2019s petition was to reestablish Temple worship and to instruct the Judeans who did not know the law. Imperial authorization took the form of a rescript that elevated the Jewish Torah to the status of imperial law.
\nIn a slightly different but not altogether dissimilar way, Alexandrian Jewry preserved in its collective memory the origins of the Septuagint. Evidently, the authority of the Greek translation of the Pentateuch in Alexandria was sanctioned by the Ptolemaic dynasty. This royal imprimatur gave the translation an unrivaled authority and raised its translation to the level of a new Torah. The charter myth that is the Letter of Aristeas not only promotes the official Greek translation by way of the royal seal of approval, but it also recognizes no other translational activity elsewhere in Egypt and Palestine.
\nA slight variation on the theme occurs in the account of the books that Judas returned to the people at the end of the war against the Seleucids. What Judas, and not a foreign king, did was to reinstate traditional Jewish observance among the people. 2 Maccabees depicts the return of the books to the people. This act has a symbolic value that cannot be missed in the reestablishment of traditional Jewish laws. After the war against the Hellenizing Antiochus, the Temple is rededicated, the Hanukkah festival is celebrated, and the books are returned to the Judeans.
\nAnother issue raised in the above discussion is the relationship between the books that were eventually included in an authoritative list and different collections of authoritative scriptures before the first lists were compiled. This issue is about terminology but also methodology. We have problematized the conception of canon and authoritative scriptures rather than assumed that the two are equivalent. Throughout we have maintained a distinction between \u201ccanon\u201d as a list of books and \u201cauthoritative scriptures\u201d as a description of pre-canon collections of authoritative writings.
\nPhilip Davies warns against the \u201cteleological fallacy\u201d that \u201cwithin the process of formation of a canon lie the seeds of the final canon itself\u2014as if the final shape of the canon were the outcome of an inevitable growth rather than being the result of discrete historical decision.\u201d This is a warning well worth heeding. However, the foregoing discussion has shown that earlier collections of authoritative scriptures do overlap to a large extent with the lists of books found later in Josephus, 4 Ezra, Mishnah Yadayim, the early church fathers, and Baba Bathra.
\nThe relationship between the authority of biblical books and other books not eventually included in the canon admits various patterns. Both the grandfather and grandson regard the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira as belonging to the literary heritage of Israel. The Wisdom is to be recommended as part of the scribal curriculum alongside other biblical books.
\nBy contrast, for the community of the Damascus Document the book of Jubilees was an authoritative perush or interpretation. It specifies the times and seasons that are found in the Torah, and its authoritative status is secondary in the formal sense. This means that while the sectarian author is informed by more than the biblical texts, the traditional scriptures of ancient Israel had a formal primacy.
\nA similar pattern may be detected in Philo\u2019s interweaving of scripture and tradition. In his writings, he is clearly informed by Greek philosophy as well as Jewish tradition, but he did not blur the line and kept \u201cthe sacred books\u201d distinct in his mind. So also with Josephus\u2019 writing of history as he distinguished between those writings that were trustworthy because of their prophetic credentials and those that came after prophecy was believed to have ceased. Likewise for Paul, who used various popular slogans, aphorisms, and popular sayings in writing his letters but reserved the use of introductory formulas for biblical texts.
\nClosely related is the issue of the relationship between authoritative scriptures and interpretation. On the one hand, the content of the biblical books was simply reiterated, as, for instance, in the confessions of sins in Nehemiah 9 or the praise of the fathers of old in Sira 44\u201350. This implies a clear recognition of the authority of traditional scriptures. On the other hand, the content of the biblical books was reused, adapted, and lemmatically interpreted in a variety of ways. Analytically, the act of paraphrasing and rewriting is different from the technique of citation. The former subsumes the source-text in a way that makes indistinct the biblical text and its interpretation. By contrast, lemmatic exegesis maintains a clear distinction between source and interpretation. The interpreter\u2019s self-perception is that his own writing is manifestly distinct from the source that he cites.
\nThis broad difference between the lemmatic and paraphrastic approaches must be qualified by two factors that blur the boundary: (1) some of the rewriting process involves the presentation of extensive passages of what can only be described as direct borrowings; and (2) lemmatic exegesis does not always preserve the distinction between \u201cbiblical\u201d and \u201cpost-biblical.\u201d Verbatim quotations from the biblical source-texts are also open to the interpreter for adaptation and rewriting. Traditional authority rests on the biblical texts, but the authority of application sits squarely on the accompanying interpretation.
\nFinally, I note the relationship of authoritative interpretation to the formation of a new canon. The use of the biblical texts in several ancient Jewish communities preserved the embryo of the generation of a new canon. This is clearest in the way that the Pauline letters themselves become authoritative scriptures of Christian churches at the end of the first and beginning of the second century. The resulting canon of the New Testament did not appear until Athanasius, but the Pauline epistles were already circulating as a collection much earlier.
\nThe sectarian scrolls likewise could be seen to contain this generative power, as would the traditions of the fathers that the Pharisees interpreted and transmitted. One cannot help but think that the belief in the continuing revelation of God, whether in the form of revealed exegesis of scripture or the voice from heaven that pronounced legal rulings, was ingrained with the generative power to form a new canon. But that is a topic for another occasion.<\/p>\n
Appendix 1:<\/p>\n
Some Modern Canons<\/p>\n
Tanak (Jewish; 24 books)
\nOld Testament (Protestant; 39 books)
\nOld Testament (Roman Catholic; 49; 46 books + 3 additions)
\nOld Testament (Orthodox; 60; 49 books + 11 additions)<\/p>\n
Torah (5)
\nPentateuch (5)
\nPentateuch (5)
\nHistorical Books (29)<\/p>\n
Genesis
\nGenesis
\nGenesis
\nGenesis
\nExodus
\nExodus
\nExodus
\nExodus
\nLeviticus
\nLeviticus
\nLeviticus
\nLeviticus
\nNumbers
\nNumbers
\nNumbers
\nNumbers
\nDeuteronomy
\nDeuteronomy
\nDeuteronomy
\nDeuteronomy
\nJoshua
\nProphets (8)
\nHistorical Books
\nHistorical Books
\nJudges
\n(12)
\n(16)
\nRuth
\nJoshua
\n1-2 Kingdoms
\nJudges
\nJoshua
\nJoshua
\n(= 1-2 Samuel)
\nSamuel
\nJudges
\nJudges
\n3-4 Kingdoms
\nKings
\nRuth
\nRuth
\n(= 1-2 Kings)
\nIsaiah
\n1-2 Samuel
\n1-2 Samuel
\n1-2 Chronicles (= 1-2 Paraleipomenon)
\nJeremiah
\n1-2 Kings
\n1-2 Kings
\nEzekiel
\n1-2 Chronicles
\n1-2 Chronicles
\n1 Esdras
\nTwelve Prophets
\nEzra
\nEzra
\n2 Esdras (= Ezra)
\nHosea
\nNehemiah
\nNehemiah
\nNehemiah
\nJoel
\nEsther
\nTobit
\nTobit
\nAmos
\nJudith
\nJudith
\nObadiah
\nPoetry\/Wisdom (5)
\nEsther + additions
\nEsther + 6 additions
\nJonah
\n1-2 Maccabees
\n1-3 Maccabees
\nMicah
\nJob
\nNahum
\nPsalms
\nPoetry\/Wisdom (7)
\nPoetry\/Wisdom (8)
\nHabakkuk
\nProverbs
\nZephaniah
\nEcclesiastes
\nJob
\nPsalms + Ps 151
\nHaggai
\nSong of Songs
\nPsalms
\nJob
\nZechariah
\nProverbs
\nProverbs
\nMalachi
\nProphets (17)
\nEcclesiastes
\nEcclesiastes
\nSong of Songs
\nSong of Songs
\nKethuvim
\nIsaiah
\nWisdom of Solomon
\nWisdom of Solomon
\nEcclesiasticus (= Wisdom of Ben Sira)
\n(Writings)
\nJeremiah
\n(11)
\nLamentations
\nEcclesiasticus
\nEzekiel
\nPsalms
\nDaniel
\nProphets (18)
\nProphets (23)
\nProverbs
\nHosea
\nJob
\nJoel
\nIsaiah
\nHosea
\nSong of Songs
\nAmos
\nJeremiah
\nAmos
\nRuth
\nObadiah
\nLamentations
\nMicah
\nLamentations
\nJonah
\nBaruch + Epistle of Jeremiah
\nJoel
\nQohelet (= Ecclesiastes)
\nMicah
\nObadiah
\nNahum
\nEzekiel
\nJonah
\nEsther
\nHabakkuk
\nDaniel + additions
\nNahum
\nDaniel
\nZephaniah
\nHosea
\nHabakkuk
\nEzra-Nehemiah
\nHaggai
\nJoel
\nZephaniah
\nChronicles
\nZechariah
\nAmos
\nHaggai
\nMalachi
\nObadiah
\nZechariah
\nJonah
\nMalachi
\nMicah
\nIsaiah
\nNahum
\nJeremiah
\nHabakkuk
\nBaruch
\nZephaniah
\nLamentations
\nHaggai
\nEpistle of Jeremiah
\nZechariah
\nEzekiel
\nMalachi
\nDaniel + 4 additions<\/p>\n
Appendix 2:<\/p>\n
Early Canonical Lists<\/p>\n
Baba Bathra
\nMelito
\nOrigen
\nJerome
\n[Pentateuch assumed]
\nFive books of Moses
\nGenesis
\nExodus
\nFive books of Moses, Torah
\nGenesis
\nLeviticus
\nGenesis
\nOrder of the Prophets
\nExodus
\nNumbers
\nExodus
\nNumbers
\nDeuteronomy
\nLeviticus
\nJoshua
\nLeviticus
\nJoshua
\nNumbers
\nJudges
\nDeuteronomy
\nJudges-Ruth
\nDeuteronomy
\nSamuel
\nJoshua
\n1-2 Reigns (=Samuel)
\nKings
\nJudges
\n3-4 Reigns (= Kingdom of David)
\nEight books of Prophets
\nJeremiah
\nRuth
\nEzekiel
\nReigns in 4 parts (= 1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Kings)
\n1-2 Chronicles
\nJoshua
\nIsaiah
\n1-2 Esdras (= Ezra)
\nJudges
\nTwelve Prophets
\nPsalms
\nRuth
\nChronicles in 2 parts
\nProverbs
\nSamuel (1-2 Reigns)
\nOrder of the Writings
\nEcclesiastes
\nKings (3-4 Reigns)
\nPsalms
\nSong of Songs
\nIsaiah
\nRuth
\nProverbs
\nIsaiah
\nJeremiah
\nPsalms
\nEcclesiastes
\nJeremiah with Lamentations and the letter of Jeremiah in one
\nEzekiel
\nJob
\nSong of Songs
\nTwelve Prophets
\nProverbs
\nJob
\nQohelet
\nDaniel
\nNine of Hagiographa
\nSong of Songs
\nProphets
\nEzekiel
\nJob
\nLamentations
\nIsaiah
\nJob
\nPsalms
\nDaniel
\nJeremiah
\nEsther
\nProverbs
\nEsther
\nThe Twelve
\nEcclesiastes
\nEzra
\nDaniel
\napart from these
\nSong of Songs
\nChronicles
\nEzekiel
\nMaccabees
\nDaniel
\nEsdras (= Ezra)
\n1-2 Chronicles
\nEzra-Nehemiah
\nEsther<\/p>\n
Appendix 3:<\/p>\n
Bryennios\u2019 and Epiphanius\u2019 Lists<\/p>\n
Bryennios List
\nEpiphanius, On Weights and Measures, 22ff.
\n1. Genesis
\nGenesis
\n2. Exodus
\nExodus
\n3. Leviticus
\nLeviticus
\n4. Joshua
\nNumbers
\n5. Deuteronomy
\nDeuteronomy
\n6. Numbers
\nJoshua
\n7. Ruth
\nJob
\n8. Job
\nJudges
\n9. Judges
\nRuth
\n10. Psalms
\nPsalms
\n11. 1 Kingdoms (1 Samuel)
\n1 Chronicles
\n12. 2 Kingdoms (2 Samuel)
\n2 Chronicles
\n13. 3 Kingdoms (1 Kings)
\n1 Kingdoms (1 Samuel)
\n14. 4 Kingdoms (2 Kings)
\n2 Kingdoms (2 Samuel)
\n15. 1 Chronicles
\n3 Kingdoms (1 Kings)
\n16. 2 Chronicles
\n4 Kingdoms (2 Kings)
\n17. Proverbs
\nProverbs
\n18. Ecclesiastes
\nEcclesiastes
\n19. Song of Songs
\nSong of Songs
\n20. Jeremiah
\nThe Twelve Prophets
\n21. The Twelve Prophets
\nIsaiah
\n22. Isaiah
\nJeremiah
\n23. Ezekiel
\nEzekiel
\n24. Daniel
\nDaniel
\n25. 1 Esdras (Ezra)
\n1 Esdras (Ezra)
\n26. 2 Esdras (Nehemiah)
\n2 Esdras (Nehemiah)
\n27. Esther
\nEsther<\/p>\n
Source: From Audet, \u201cA Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books,\u201d 136 and 138.<\/p>\n
Appendix 4:<\/p>\n
Extra-Canonical Jewish Writings and the Pauline Letters<\/p>\n
The list below is compiled from Nestle-Aland\u2019s loci citati vel allegati. It includes all the purported allusions or echoes to extra-canonical Jewish writings in the Pauline letters. Since Nestle-Aland simply lists the sources and does not offer explanations, the brief notes included in column three of the table below are intended to draw out the possible basis for and to assess the validity of the suggested source-texts by a comparison of the lexical, literary, and thematic affinities with the Pauline passages. There are no verbatim citations.
\nThe identification of an allusion or echo involves a greater degree of subjective judgment than one would prefer. What a reader perceives as an oblique reference to a purported source-text could either be (1) an allusion of Paul, or (2) Paul\u2019s reflexive and unintended use of terminology current in his time and\/or drawn generally from the biblical texts. In the latter, it is the reader rather than the author who has made the literary connection.
\nA cluster of terms and themes in the letters that corresponds to a source is an indicator that Paul may have had a particular text in mind when he penned his correspondence. Formalizing this in the form of specifying the minimum number of words is not useful since allusions may occur as several shared words or a few (or even one) distinctive terms. The case for literary affinity between the purported source-text and a Pauline passage is naturally made stronger if the terminology and theme are rare and distinctive. Terminology or motif found in several sources has a weaker claim to literary affinity or dependence.
\nThe comments accompanying the list below show that on the whole literary dependence of the Pauline letters on apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts is not supported by the evidence. The purported \u201csources\u201d are often better described as \u201cliterary affinities\u201d or \u201cparallels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source\/Parallel
\nPauline passage
\nComment
\n3 Esdras = 1 Esdras
\n4:38
\n1 Cor 13:13
\nIt is love (\u1f00\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7) rather than truth (\u1f00\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1) that endures forever in 1 Cor 13.
\n4 Esdras (= 2 Esdras)
\n3:21, 26
\nRom 5:12
\nNot an exact parallel. In 4 Esd Adam and the rest of humanity are burdened with transgression, whereas Paul attributes the entrance of sin into the world, and therefore death, to Adam. Cf. 4 Esd 7:118.
\n4:8
\nRom 10:6
\nBoth 2 Esdras and Romans adapt in their own way and not uniquely the common tradition found in Deut 30 that divine instruction is not in the heavens nor down in the abyss.
\n4:35
\nRom 11:25
\nShared theme of a predetermined number (of Gentiles in Romans, but of the souls of the righteous in 4 Esd).
\n7:11
\nRom 8:20
\nThe causal clause (\u201cbecause of the one who subjected [it], \u03b4\u03b9\u1f70 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03ac\u03be\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1) might be a reference to Adam and his transgression. If so, then a similar sentiment is expressed in 4 Esd.
\n7:72
\nRom 7:23
\nThe \u201cother law\u201d (\u1f15\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd) seems to refer to the sin dwelling within Paul (cf. Rom 7:17), which is at war with \u201cthe law of my mind.\u201d The internal conflict created by sin is also expressed in 4 Esd, which explains that because of iniquity those who received the commandments did not keep them and those who obtained the law did not observe it faithfully.
\n7:75
\nRom 8:19
\nThe renewal of creation is shared between these passages but is not distinctive to them (e.g., Isa 65:17, 66:22; 1 En 91:16; and Jub 1:29).
\n7:118
\nRom 5:16
\nCf. 4 Esd 3:21, 26 above.
\n8:60
\nRom 1:21
\nThe language used is not the same, but there is an affinity in expressing the human responsibility toward God.
\n10:9
\nRom 8:22
\nPersonification of creation\/earth is shared, but Paul uses the metaphor of a woman in birth pangs, whereas 4 Esd evokes the image of a bereaved mother.
\n1 Maccabees
\n12:9
\nRom 15:4
\nBoth passages express the view that scriptures give encouragement (\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03ac\u03ba\u03bb\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2).
\n2 Maccabees
\n2:4
\nRom 11:4
\nShared notion of a divine reply in the form of an oracle (\u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2), given to Elijah (Rom 11:4) and Jeremiah (2 Macc 2:4).
\n6:4
\nRom 1:28
\nThe exact phrase \u201cthings unfit\u201d (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03ae\u03ba\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1) is shared. Cf. 3 Macc 4:16.
\n6:23
\nRom 9:4
\nSame terminology of \u201cthe giving of the law\u201d (\u1f21 \u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03af\u03b1). Cf. 4 Macc 5:35, 17:16.
\n12:43\u201345
\n1 Cor 15:29
\nSimilar expectation of resurrection, but it is the futility of the baptism of the dead in Paul rather than of the sin-offering in 2 Macc that is being questioned.
\n3 Maccabees
\n2:29
\nGal 6:17
\nThe general notion of identity marks is common to both, but the Pauline language of bearing \u201cthe marks of Jesus\u201d is not identical with the ivy-leaf symbol of Dionysius in 3 Macc.
\n4:16
\nRom 1:28
\nCf. 2 Macc 6:4 above.
\n4:16
\n1 Cor 12:2
\nShared theme of being led astray. The notion of \u201cdumb idols,\u201d however, is also found in other texts (e.g., LXX Ps 113:12; Hab 2:18\u201319; 1 Kgs 18:26\u201329; Bar 6:7). Paul uses \u03c4\u1f70 \u03b5\u1f34\u03b4\u03c9\u03bb\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f04\u03c6\u03c9\u03bd\u03b1 rather than \u03c4\u1f70 \u03ba\u03c9\u03c6\u1f70 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bc\u1f74 \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bb\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd of 3 Macc.
\n4 Maccabees
\n2:5
\nRom 7:7
\nBoth cite \u201cdo not covet,\u201d which is derived from the decalogue (Exod 20:17, Deut 5:21).
\n2:6
\nRom 13:9
\nCf. 4 Macc 2:5 above.
\n17:4
\n1 Thess 1:3
\nPaul writes about the \u201csteadfastness of hope\u201d (\u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03bf\u03c2) in the Lord Jesus Christ, whereas 4 Macc expresses a different sentiment: the \u201chope of steadfastness\u201d (\u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u1fc6\u03c2) with God.
\n18:24
\nGal 1:5
\nAn identically worded doxology (\u1fa7 \u1f21 \u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f30\u1ff6\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b1\u1f30\u03ce\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd, \u1f00\u03bc\u03ae\u03bd) is found in both Gal 1:5 and 4 Macc 18:24. Similar doxologies are found elsewhere (e.g., LXX Ps 83:5, 40:13, 71:19, 88:52, 105:48; Rom 16:27; and Rev 1:5\u20136).
\nTobit
\n5:19
\n1 Cor 4:13
\nOnly link is lexical, the metaphorical use of \u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af\u03c8\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1 (\u201cwhat is scraped around\u201d).
\n14:5
\nGal 4:4
\nGeneral theme of the fulfillment of time.
\nJudith
\n12:8
\n1 Thess 3:11
\nPaul uses the expression \u201cto direct the way\u201d (\u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03c5\u03b8\u1fe6\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u1f41\u03b4\u03cc\u03bd), which is also found in Jdt.
\nBaruch
\n3:29
\nRom 10:6
\nBased on a conflated quotation of Deut 9:4 and 30:12, Paul\u2019s rhetorical question, \u201cWho will ascend to the heaven\u201d (\u03c4\u03af\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03b2\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd), is paralleled in Prov 30:4 and Bar 3:29.
\n4:7
\n1 Cor 10:20
\nThe sacrifice to demons and not God is found in Bar and in LXX Deut 32:17b.
\nSirach
\n1:10
\n1 Cor 2:9
\nThe exact source of this quotation has not been identified, but there may be a detectable allusion in the final clause of 1 Cor 2:9 to Sir.: \u201cHe lavished her [i.e., wisdom] on those who love him\u201d.
\n1:24\u201325
\nCol 2:3
\nThe general theme of hiding is shared and the phrase \u201cthe treasures of wisdom\u201d (\u03bf\u1f31 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b1\u03c5\u03c1\u03bf\u1f76 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03af\u03b1\u03c2) is found in both. But the contexts are very different. In Col. Paul states that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Sir, by contrast, it is the patient man who will withhold his words until the right time. The \u201ctreasures of wisdom\u201d in Sir refer to the wise sayings.
\n5:3
\n1 Thess 4:6
\nPaul\u2019s use of the adjective \u201cavenging\u201d (\u1f14\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03c2) may be related to the \u201cavenging, he avenges\u201d (\u1f10\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03ba\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03b9) of Sir, with both referring to the Lord.
\n6:19
\n1 Cor 9:10
\nBoth Sir and 1 Cor share the participial noun \u1f41 \u1f00\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03c1\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd, but the latter is not a quotation of the former. It is possible that \u1f10\u03b3\u03c1\u03ac\u03c6\u03b7 in 1 Cor is not introducing a verbatim quotation.
\n7:34
\nRom 12:15
\nMourning in solidarity with those in bereavement is expressed in different ways.
\n17:3
\n1 Cor 11:7
\nBoth Sir and Paul depend on the Genesis account of the creation of man in God\u2019s image. Cf. Wis 2:23.
\n18:11
\nRom 5:5
\nPouring out of God\u2019s love in Romans but of God\u2019s mercy in Sir.
\n23:17
\n1 Cor 6:18
\nPaul\u2019s \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f34\u03b4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03c3\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1 may be an allusion to \u1f10\u03bd \u03c3\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b1\u03c1\u03ba\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f50\u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd of Sir.
\n27:8
\nRom 9:31
\nShared general theme of pursuing righteousness (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2, Rom) and what is just (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03b4\u03af\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd, Sir).
\n32:23
\n1 Cor 7:19
\nThe phrase \u201ckeeping the commandments\u201d (\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u1ff6\u03bd) is common to both passages. Cf. Sir 29:1.
\n35:6
\nPhil 4:18
\nThe description of offering with a pleasing odor (\u03b5\u1f50\u03c9\u03b4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2) acceptable to God is found in Paul, Sir, and many other Jewish texts.
\n35:12\u201317
\nRom 2:11
\nTheme of impartiality of God\u2019s favor occurs in both passages.
\n35:13
\nGal 2:6
\nShare the expression \u201cnot showing partiality\u201d (\u03bf\u1f50 \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u03b2\u03ac\u03bd\u03c9 \u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd).
\n36:18
\n1 Cor 6:13
\nA Corinthian slogan that draws on the description of food (\u03b2\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bc\u03b1) and stomach (\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bb\u03af\u03b1), which is also found in Sir.
\n37:28
\n1 Cor 6:12; 10:23
\nThe phrase \u201cnot all things are beneficial\u201d (\u03bf\u1f50 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bc\u03c6\u03ad\u03c1\u03b5\u03b9) is shared by all three passages. Cf. 1 Cor 7:35.
\n44:12
\nRom 9:4
\nMention of \u201cthe covenants\u201d (\u03b1\u1f31 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03b8\u1fc6\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9) belonging to Israelites in Paul and Sir.
\n44:18, etc.
\nRom 9:4
\nCf. Sir 44:12 above.
\n44:19
\nRom 4:17
\nPaul cites the LXX Gen 17:5, whereas Sir paraphrases it.
\n44:21
\nRom 4:13
\nThe generalization of the Abrahamic promise is not found in Genesis. Both Rom 4:13 and Sir 44:21 express the view that Abraham is not only the father of many nations, but also the one who is to inherit the earth. But Paul is not dependent on Sir, as the expressions are very different. It is more likely that they both drew upon a common Jewish interpretation. Cf. Jub 19:21 below.
\nWisdom of Solomon
\n2:5\u20137
\n1 Cor 15:32
\nThe quotation is derived from Isa 22:13, which expresses the consequences of eating and drinking in view of death, which is inevitable. The saying is proverbial and is found also in Wis.
\n2:11
\nRom 9:31
\nBoth use the common terminology of \u201crighteousness\u201d (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2) in very different ways.
\n2:19
\nPhil 4:5
\nThe cognate adjective (\u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b5\u03b9\u03ba\u03ad\u03c2) and noun (\u1f21 \u1f10\u03c0\u03b9\u03b5\u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03af\u03b1) are found in Phil and Wis respectively. The contexts are different.
\n2:23
\n1 Cor 11:7
\nThe expression found in Wis is slightly different from the Pauline formulation: \u03b5\u1f30\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd\u03b1 \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u1f30\u03b4\u03af\u03b1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03ca\u03b4\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 (\u201cthe image of his eternity\u201d). Cf. Sir 17:3.
\n2:24
\nRom 5:12
\nThe spread of death to all men in Paul may be likened to \u201cdeath entered the world\u201d in Wis.
\n3:8
\n1 Cor 6:2
\nShared general theme of the holy ones judging the world. Cf. Wis 4:16, 1QpHab 5.4\u20135, 4Q161, frs. 8 + 10, l. 20, and 1 En 1:9.
\n3:18
\n1 Thess 4:13
\nPaul says that the others (\u03bf\u1f31 \u03bb\u03bf\u03b9\u03c0\u03bf\u03af) who have no hope (\u03bf\u1f31 \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f14\u03c7\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1) grieve for those who are asleep. For Wis those who die quickly are the ones who have no hope (\u03bf\u1f50\u03c7 \u1f15\u03be\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1) or comfort on the day of decision.
\n4:2
\n1 Cor 9:25
\nThe metaphor of the athletic accolade in the form of prized laurels is found in both passages. The cognate terminology of \u201ccrowned\u201d (\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b7\u03c6\u03bf\u03c1\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c3\u03b1) and \u201ccrown\u201d (\u03c3\u03c4\u03ad\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd) is shared, but the subject of Wis is \u201cvirtue\u201d and of 1 Cor is Paul\u2019s preaching of the gospel.
\n5:18
\n1 Thess 5:8
\nMilitary metaphor is used in both passages to make concrete the images of different religious virtues. Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to put on the \u201cbreastplate of faith and love\u201d (\u03b8\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1 \u03c0\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f00\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7\u03c2) and \u201cfor a helmet the hope of salvation\u201d (\u03c0\u03b5\u03c1\u03b9\u03ba\u03b5\u03c6\u03b1\u03bb\u03b1\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u1f10\u03bb\u03c0\u03af\u03b4\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2). In Wis the righteous will put on \u201crighteousness as breastplate\u201d (\u03b8\u03ce\u03c1\u03b1\u03ba\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03bd) and wear \u201cimpartial justice as a helmet\u201d (\u03ba\u03cc\u03c1\u03c5\u03b8\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u1f00\u03bd\u03c5\u03c0\u03cc\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd). Cf. Eph 6:14.
\n6:3
\nRom 13:1
\n\u201cThere is no authority except from God\u201d is a common theme, not distinctive to Paul and Wis.
\n6:18
\nRom 13:10
\nThe concept of \u201clove\u201d (\u1f00\u03b3\u03ac\u03c0\u03b7) is very different. For Paul, it is the outworking of faith (cf. Gal 5:6, 1 Cor 13:4\u20136), whereas for Wis it is the love of her [i.e., Wisdom]. There is an equation of \u201clove\u201d with keeping (\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2)\/fulfilling (\u03c0\u03bb\u03ae\u03c1\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1) of the law in both.
\n7:24
\n1 Cor 1:24
\nJust as personified \u201cwisdom\u201d is the power of God and an emanation of the glory of the Almighty (Wis), so too Christ is the \u201cpower of God\u201d and the \u201cwisdom of God\u201d (1 Cor).
\n8:8
\n1 Thess 5:1
\nPaul\u2019s reference to knowledge of the times and seasons is a common motif (cf. Act 1:7) that is also found in Wis.
\n9:13
\n1 Cor 2:16
\nThe citation of 1 Cor 2:16 is taken from Isa 40:13, to which an allusion in Wis 9:13 may be detected (cf. Jdt 8:14).
\n9:15
\n2 Cor 5:1, 4
\nThe \u201couter nature\u201d or \u201ccorruptible body\u201d is compared to an earthly tent in both passages, but the terminology is not exact: Paul describes it as \u201cour earthly dwelling of tent\u201d (\u1f21 \u1f10\u03c0\u03af\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c3\u03ba\u03ae\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2), whereas Wis. \u201cthe earthly tent\u201d (\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03b3\u03b1\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03b3\u03b5\u1ff6\u03b4\u03b5\u03c2 \u03c3\u03ba\u1fc6\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2).
\n10:16
\n2 Cor 12:12
\nPaul states that when he came to Troas, \u201ca door was opened for me in the Lord.\u201d Wis says that \u201cshe [i.e., Wisdom] entered into the soul of the Lord\u2019s attendant,\u201d possibly but not necessarily implying a door. The suggested parallel is dependent on a particular understanding of the portal through which Wisdom entered.
\n11:10
\n1 Cor 4:14
\nPaul\u2019s admonishment (\u03bd\u03bf\u03c5\u03b8\u03b5\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) of his beloved Corinthian \u201cchildren\u201d may have a literary parallel in personified Wis\u2019s paternal warning of the Israelites.
\n11:15
\nRom 1:23
\nThe two passages share the general theme of the perversion of wickedness in the worship of animals, but Paul\u2019s emphasis is on \u201cimage,\u201d whereas Wis\u2019s is on rationality. Cf. Wis 12:24.
\n11:23
\nRom 2:4
\nRepentance (\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1) is based upon God\u2019s kindness (\u03c4\u1f78 \u03c7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03cc\u03bd) in Romans, but upon his mercy, which is able to overlook men\u2019s sins, in Wis (cf. 12:10, 19).
\n12:24
\nRom 1:23
\nSee Wis 11:15 above.
\n13\u201315
\nRom 1:19\u201332
\nIn both passages, there is a condemnation of pagan moral failure to know God and to consider instead his created works, which leads to idolatry.
\n13:1
\nRom 1:21
\nThe suggested text is not parallel to Rom 1:21. The former concerns those who were ignorant of God, while the latter those who failed to honor and to give thanks despite knowing God.
\n13:1
\n1 Cor 15:34
\nWhen Paul says that some of the Corinthians have no knowledge of God (lit. \u201cignorance of God\u201d; \u1f00\u03b3\u03bd\u03c9\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6), he may have been alluding to the passage on idolatry in Wis 13. Cf. Rom 1:18\u201323.
\n15:7
\nRom 9:21
\nBoth passages express the prerogative of the potter to make vessels for various purposes. It is unlikely, however, that Paul is dependent upon the suggested source since his contrast is between honor\/dishonor (\u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03ae\/\u1f00\u03c4\u03b9\u03bc\u03af\u03b1) whereas Wis\u2019s is between clean\/unclean (\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03b1\u03c1\u03cc\u03c2\/\u1f10\u03bd\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03af\u03bf\u03c2).
\n16:13
\nRom 10:7
\nThe allusion to Ps 107:26 is interpreted as a reference to the resurrection of Jesus in Rom 10:7. A similar view of resurrection may be implied in Wis, but Paul is clearly not dependent on it, as evidenced by the different formulation.
\n17:1
\nRom 11:33
\nThe inscrutable knowledge of God is expressed in different ways in the two passages.
\n18:14\u201316
\n1 Thess 5:2
\nThe theme of sudden appearance is found in both passages; however, they are very differently expressed. Paul says that \u201cthe day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night,\u201d whereas Wis symbolizes the \u201call powerful word\u201d (\u1f41 \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03bf\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2) leaping from heaven and from the royal throne as a stern warrior.
\n19:7
\n1 Cor 10:1
\nBoth 1 Cor and Wis are dependent on the wilderness tradition of the cloud (Exod 13:21\u201322) and crossing of the sea (Exod 14:22); the combination of the two in one verse is distinctive to them.
\nJubilees
\n1:23
\nRom 2:29
\nThe two passages share the theme, found elsewhere in Jewish literature, of the \u201ccircumcision of the heart.\u201d
\n19:21
\nRom 4:13
\nThe promise of Abraham to inherit the earth is found in both. Cf. Sir 44:21.
\nPsalms of Solomon
\n9:5
\nRom 2:5
\nPaul is not dependent on the Pss. Sol. here. Although there is some similarity in the theme of divine judgment, Paul refers to the hard and impenitent heart, whereas the Pss. Sol. to the doing of wrong and injustice.
\n15:8
\nRom 2:3
\nWhen Paul rhetorically asks, \u201cWill you escape the judgment of God?\u201d (\u03c3\u1f7a \u1f10\u03ba\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03be\u1fc3 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bc\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd), he may be echoing Pss. Sol., which state that those who do lawlessness \u201cwill not escape the judgment of the Lord\u201d (\u03bf\u1f50\u03ba \u1f10\u03ba\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03be\u03bf\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03bf\u1f31 \u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf\u1fe6\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03b1\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03c1\u03af\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03bf\u03c5).
\n17:1
\nRom 2:17
\nPaul is probably alluding to Jer 9:23, which he quotes in 1 Cor 1:31 and 2 Cor 10:17. The Pss. Sol. express a similar sentiment: \u201cfor in you, O God, will our soul boast\u201d (\u1f45\u03c4\u03b9 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c3\u03bf\u03af, \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2, \u03ba\u03b1\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae\u03c3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f21 \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u1f74 \u1f21\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd).
\n1 Enoch
\n46:3
\nCol 2:3
\nThe theme of hidden treasures of some kind is common to both. Paul states that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In 1 En it is the Son of Man who will \u201creveal all the treasures of that which is secret.\u201d
\n62:4
\n1 Thess 5:3
\nThe analogy of a woman giving birth is used by Paul to illustrate the sudden destruction that will come upon people who claim that there is peace and security. The literary affinity with 1 En is in the symbolic imagery of birthing. In 1 En the judgment of the sinners and lawless ones is likened to a woman who gives birth in difficulty.
\n72\u201382
\nGal 4:10
\nThis is a general theme of calendrical concerns of days, months, seasons, and years.
\n91:7
\nRom 1:18
\nThe divine wrath that comes from heaven is a motif shared between the two passages.
\nAssumption of Moses
\n12:7
\nRom 9:16
\nFound in both passages is the general theme of dependence on God\u2019s will\/mercy rather than human action or virtue.
\n(Syriac) Apocalypse of Baruch (= 2 Baruch)
\n14:8\u20139
\nRom 11:33
\nPaul\u2019s wonder at the depth of the riches, wisdom and knowledge of God, and the inscrutable ways of his judgment are paralleled in 2 Bar (\u201cBut who, O Lord, my Lord, can comprehend the workings of thy judgment? Or who can search out the depths of thy way? Or who can trace the profundity of thy path? Or who can describe thy unfathomable counsel? Or what man that has ever been born has ever discovered either the beginning or the end of thy wisdom?\u201d). Cf. Wis 17:1, Job 9:10, Ps 77:20, Prov 25:3.
\n14:13
\nRom 4:13
\nPaul\u2019s view that the righteous descendants of Abraham will inherit the world has a parallel in 2 Bar, where the righteous will leave the world without fear and will trust \u201cthat they will attain the world which thou has promised them.\u201d
\n15:8
\nRom 8:18
\nPaul\u2019s comparison between the present suffering with the incomparable glory to come is paralleled in 2 Bar (\u201cFor this world is for them a place of strife, and weariness, and much trouble, but that which is to come will be a crown with great glory\u201d).
\n21:13
\n1 Cor 15:19
\nSimilar despondency expressed in the prospect of sharing only in this life.
\n23:4
\nRom 5:12
\nThe concept of sin and death spreading to all men through Adam is shared between the two passages, but 2 Bar additionally includes a theme of determined number of places for those who are to be born and for the dead.
\n48:8
\nRom 4:17
\nThere is a parallel to Paul\u2019s statement that God gives life to the dead and \u201ccalls into existence the things that do not exist\u201d in 2 Bar (\u201cand with a word thou dost quicken that which was not\u201d).
\n48:22
\nRom 2:17
\nThe theme of Jewish reliance on the law and God is expressed in both passages.
\n54:15
\nRom 5:12
\nThe entrance of sin into the world through Adam is expressed in both, but 2 Bar qualifies it with the view that each soul chooses its own future torment or glory.
\n57:2
\nRom 2:15
\nPaul\u2019s formulation that the law\u2019s requirement \u201cis written on their hearts\u201d is similar to 2 Bar\u2019s observance of the unwritten law.
\nTestament of the Twelve Patriarchs
\nTestament of Reuben
\n4:3
\nRom 2:15
\nIn both passages, the role of the conscience (\u1f21 \u03c3\u03c5\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b4\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) to act upon the thoughts is expressed.
\n5:5
\n1 Cor 6:18
\nThe imperative to \u201cflee from fornication\u201d (\u03c6\u03b5\u03cd\u03b3\u03b5\u03c4\u03b5 \u03c4\u1f74\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03c1\u03bd\u03b5\u03af\u03b1\u03bd), shared by both 1 Cor and T. Reu, may be dependent on LXX Gen 39:12.
\nTestament of Levi
\n2
\n2 Cor 12:2
\nBoth Paul and Levi ascend to the third heaven.
\n3:2
\nRom 2:5
\nSimilarity in theme is expressed by the use of the same phrase \u201crighteous judgment of God\u201d (\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u03ba\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 \u03c4\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6) in Paul and T. Lev.
\n3:6
\nRom 12:1
\nPaul\u2019s appeal to a Christian noetic dedication (\u201cas a cult suited to your rational nature\u201d) is paralleled in T. Lev, \u201ca reasonable [\u03bb\u03bf\u03b3\u03b9\u03ba\u03ae\u03bd] and bloodless offering\u201d.
\n14:5
\nRom 2:22
\nBoth Paul and T. Lev accuse sinners of robbing the Temple.
\n18:11
\nRom 1:4
\nThe phrase \u201cthe spirit of holiness\u201d (\u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1 \u1f01\u03b3\u03b9\u03c9\u03c3\u03cd\u03bd\u03b7\u03c2) is found in both passages.
\nTestament of Joseph
\n10:1
\nRom 5:3
\nAlthough both the noun \u201cpatience\u201d and the verb \u201cworks\/produces\u201d are found in both passages, the sentiments are not the same. For Paul suffering (\u1f21 \u03b8\u03bb\u1fd6\u03c8\u03b9\u03c2) produces \u201cendurance\u201d (\u1f51\u03c0\u03bf\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03ae), whereas for T. Jos the author exclaims \u201chow great are the things that patience can effect.\u201d
\nTestament of Benjamin
\n4:3
\nRom 12:21
\nThe view that doing good can overcome evil is found in both passages. Paul states: \u201cDo not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good\u201d (\u03bd\u03af\u03ba\u03b1 \u1f10\u03bd \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u1ff7 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd). Likewise, T. Benj says that \u201cby doing good he [i.e., Joseph] overcomes evil\u201d (\u1f00\u03b3\u03b1\u03b8\u03bf\u03c0\u03bf\u03b9\u1ff6\u03bd \u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u1fb7 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03ba\u03cc\u03bd).
\nLife of Adam and Eve
\nch. 9
\n2 Cor 11:14
\nIn attacking the false apostles in Corinth, Paul drew upon a literary tradition of Satan disguising himself as an angel. The closest parallel is to be found in L.A.E., where Satan \u201ctransformed himself into the brightness of the angels\u201d. Paul\u2019s description of Satan as \u201can angel of light\u201d (\u1f04\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03cc\u03c2) finds no parallel elsewhere, but is consistent with the contrast that he draws between light and darkness (2 Cor 4:6, 6:14). Cf. Job 1:6\u201312.<\/p>\n
Appendix 5:<\/p>\n
Scriptural References in Sirach 44\u201350<\/p>\n
Fathers
\nDescription
\nReferences
\n(1) Enoch (44:16)
\n\u201cHe pleased the Lord\u201d
\nLXX Gen 5:24
\n\u201cFor generations\u201d
\nnumerous (e.g. Isa 34:17)
\n(2) Noah (44:17)
\n\u201cPerfect and righteous\u201d
\nGen 6:9
\n\u201cWhen the flood came\u201d
\nGen 6:17; 7:6, 10
\n(3) Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (44:19\u201323)
\nAbraham
\n\u201cWas the great father of a multitude of nations\u201d
\nGen 17:5
\n\u201cCovenant in his flesh\u201d
\nGen 17:17
\n\u201cWhen he tested him\u201d
\nGen 22
\n\u201cNations be blessed through his posterity\u201d
\nGen 12:3; 18:18; 22:18
\n\u201cMultiply him\u201d
\nGen 17:20
\n\u201cExalt his posterity as the stars\u201d
\nGen 22:17; 26:4
\n\u201cFrom sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth\u201d
\nPs 71:8; Zech 9:10
\nIsaac
\n\u201cHe gave the same assurance\u201d
\nGen 17:21<\/p>\n
Jacob
\nCovenant, blessing, inheritance and portion and distribution among the twelve tribes
\nGen 25, 27\u201335, 37, 42\u201350
\n(4) Moses (45:1\u20135)
\nHis glory
\nExod 33:18
\nPerformed miracles and glorified before kings
\nExod 7\u201314
\nFaithful and meek
\nNum 12:3, 7
\nMade him hear his voice
\nExod 23:22
\n\u201cInto thick darkness\u201d
\nExod 20:21
\nGave him commandments
\nExod 19\u201324
\n(5) Aaron (45:6\u201322)
\nSplendid priestly garments
\nExod 39:1\u201331
\nAnointed with holy oil
\nNum 35:25
\nAtone for the people
\nLev 16:34
\nRebellion of Dathan, Abiram,
\nNum 16
\nand Korah
\nNum 18
\nNo landed inheritance
\nNum 18
\n(6) Phinehas (45:23\u201326)
\n\u201cCovenant of peace\u201d
\nNum 25:16
\nPriesthood forever
\nNum 25:13
\n(7) Joshua and Caleb (46:1\u201310)
\nSun held back
\nJosh 10:12\u201314
\nHailstones on enemies
\nJosh 10:11
\nJoshua and Caleb withstood the congregation
\nNum 14:6\u201338
\nCaleb\u2019s inheritance
\nJudg 1:10\u201315
\n(11) judges (46:11\u201312)
\nFaithful judges
\nBook of Judges
\n(12) Samuel (46:13\u201320)
\nProphet and seer
\n1 Sam 9:9
\nEstablished the kingdom and anointed rulers
\n1 Sam 8\u201310, 16
\nOffered a suckling lamb and the Lord thundered from heaven
\n1 Sam 7:9\u201310
\nNot taken anyone\u2019s property
\n1 Sam 12:3
\nProphesied after he had fallen asleep
\n1 Sam 28
\n(13) Nathan (47:1)
\nRose up to prophesy in the days of David
\n2 Sam 7
\n(14) David (47:2\u201311)
\nPlayed with lions and bears
\n1 Sam 17
\nSlew a giant
\n1 Sam 17
\nThey glorified him for his ten thousands
\n1 Sam 18:7, 21:12, 29:5
\nAnnihilated the Philistines
\n2 Sam 5\u201312
\nSang praise with all his heart
\n1 Chr 16:7\u201311
\nPlaced singers before the altar
\n1 Chr 15:16
\nArranged the feasts throughout the year
\n1 Chr 23:26\u201332
\n(15) Solomon (47:12\u201322)
\nBuilt a house and sanctuary
\n1 Kgs 6\u20137
\nWisdom and understanding
\n1 Kgs 5:9\u201314
\nFar-reaching reputation
\n1 Kgs 10:1, 23\u201324
\nFamed songs, proverbs and parables
\n1 Kgs 5:12
\nAmassing of gold and silver
\n1 Kgs 10:21, 27
\nSubject to women
\n1 Kgs 11:1\u20135
\nDivided kingdom
\n1 Kgs 12 to 2 Kgs
\n(16) Rehoboam and Jeroboam (47:23\u201325)
\nFoolish Rehoboam
\n1 Kgs 12:8, 13
\nJeroboam caused Israel to sin
\n1 Kgs 12:28\u201333
\n(17) Elijah (48:1\u201311)
\nMinistry of Elijah
\n1 Kgs 17:1\u20132 Kgs 2:18
\nLike a fire and torch
\n1 Kgs 18:23, 36
\nBrought famine
\n1 Kgs 18:21; 2 Kgs 4:38
\nShut up the heavens
\n1 Kgs 17:1
\nThree times brought down fire
\n1 Kgs 18:23\u201338; 2 Kgs 1:10, 12
\nRaised a corpse from death
\n1 Kgs 17\u201322
\nFamous men from their beds
\n2 Kgs 1:6, 16
\nJudgments of vengeance at
\n1 Kgs 19:8\u201318
\nSinai\/Horeb
\n1 Kgs 19:15\u201317
\nAnointed kings to inflict retribution
\n1 Kgs 19:19
\nAppointed prophetic successor
\n2 Kgs 2:11
\nTaken up in a whirlwind of fire, in a chariot, and horses of fire
\nMal 4:5
\nTurn the heart of the father to the son
\nMal 4:5
\n(18) Elisha (48:12\u201316)
\nMinistry of Elisha
\n1Kgs 19:19\u20132 Kgs 13:21
\nElisha was filled with Elijah\u2019s spirit
\n2 Kgs 2:9, 15
\nHis body prophesied after death
\n2 Kgs 13:20\u201321
\n(19) Hezekiah (48:17\u201325)
\nReign of Hezekiah
\n2 Kgs 16:20\u201320:20
\nBrought water into the city; tunneled the rock and built pools
\n2 Kgs 20:20
\nBoasting of Rabshakeh and trembling of Israelites
\n2 Kgs 18:17\u201319:1, 4, 22\u201324, 28
\nGod delivers them by the hand of Isaiah
\n2 Kgs 19:2\u201337
\nAngel of the Lord smote the Assyrians
\n2 Kgs 19:35
\nSun went backwards and lengthened the life of the king
\n2 Kgs 20:8\u201311; Isa 38:7
\nIsaiah saw the last things and comforted the mourners in Zion
\nBook of Isaiah
\n(20) Josiah (49:1\u20133)
\nReign of Josiah
\n2 Kgs 21:24\u201323:34
\nTook away the abominations
\n2 Kgs 23:4\u201320, 24
\nSet his heart upon the Lord
\n2 Kgs 22:2; 23:2, 25
\n(21) sinful kings of Judah (49:4\u20136)
\nAll sinful except David, Hezekiah and Josiah
\nBook of Jeremiah
\n(22) Jeremiah (49:7)
\nConsecrated in the womb as prophet
\nJer 1:5
\nTo pluck up, afflict, and destroy, as well as to build and plant
\nJer 1:10
\n(23) Ezekiel (49:8\u20139)
\nSaw the vision of God\u2019s glory above the chariot of cherubim
\nEzek 1:26\u201328; 10:4
\n(23) Twelve Prophets (49:10)
\nTwelve prophets comforted the people of Jacob and delivered them
\nBooks of the minor Prophets
\n(24) Zerubbabel (49:11)
\nHe was like a signet ring
\nHag 2:23
\n(25) Jeshua (49:12)
\nBuilt the Temple in his days
\nHag 1\u20132; Ezra 3
\n(26) Nehemiah (49:13)
\nReerected walls, set up gates and bars, and repaired ruined houses
\nNeh 1:1\u20137:5
\n(27) Enoch (49:14)
\nTaken up from the earth
\nGen 5:24
\n(28) Joseph (49:15)
\nHis bones are cared for
\nGen 50:25
\n(29) Shem and Seth (49:16a)
\nHonored among men
\nGen 11:10 and 4:25
\n(30) Adam (49:16b)
\nAbove every living being in creation
\nGen 1\u20133
\n(31) Simon (50:1\u201321)
\nDetailed description of Simon, the high priest, and son of Onias<\/p>\n
title The Formation of the Jewish Canon<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1 Modern and Ancient Views of the Canon The concept of canon is a contentious topic, and not just in Biblical and Jewish Studies. The view that there is a canon that represents the highest literary merits and core values of Western society has been championed by some and denounced by others. The \u201cGreat Books\u201d … <\/p>\n