Between Wisdom and Torah: Discourses on Wisdom and Law in Second Temple Judaism 9783111069579, 9783111069319

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Between Wisdom and Torah

Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies

Edited by Friedrich V. Reiterer, Kristin De Troyer, Beate Ego, Matthew Goff and Tobias Nicklas

Volume 51

Between Wisdom and Torah Discourses on Wisdom and Law in Second Temple Judaism Edited by JiSeong J. Kwon and Seth A. Bledsoe

ISBN 978-3-11-106931-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-106957-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-106992-0 ISSN 1865-1666 Library of Congress Control Number: 2023930106 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgement This edited volume was planned in conjunction with my post-doctoral research on “scribal discourses of Wisdom and Torah,” a study that was done in acquiring my Habilitation at Université de Lausanne; it was produced with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and Université de Lausanne, which approved the biblical and scientific research conducted from May 2019 to April 2021. Essays in this book are based on articles presented at two international conferences. Firstly, the workshop entitled “Wisdom and Torah as Dynamic Modes of Scribal Discourse in Israel and Early Judaism: Beyond Biblical Genres and Traditions” was held in two sessions of EABS (Warsaw, Poland; 11–14 August 2019). Secondly, Institut romand des sciences bibliques (IRSB) at Université de Lausanne organised an international conference entitled “Was Wisdom Transformed into Torah in Second Temple Judaism” (18–21 April 2021). Further entries, not presented at either conference, were solicited to offer a more complete approach to the topic under discussion in this volume.  I would like to express a special thanks to a few scholars. Firstly, I would like to thank Prof. Thomas Römer (Collège de France) for his excellent advice and guidance in this project. During the SNSF project at Lausanne University, he generously offered financial and academic support, as well as several personal favours for me. Secondly, Prof. Konrad Schmid (Universität Zürich) thankfully allowed me to keep my office at Universität Zürich and supported other funding schemes for my employment in Switzerland. Thirdly, I thank the chief editor, Prof. Kristin De Troyer, for her invitation to publish this book in De Gruyter’s Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies series. In particular, I truly appreciate the support of Mr. Aaron Sanborn-Overby as well as the efforts and commitments of other individuals. Finally, Dr. Seth Bledsoe (Radboud University) thankfully accepted my suggestion to join me as the co-editor of this volume; he has been of great help in finalizing this volume. March 2022 JiSeong J. Kwon Lausanne, Switzerland

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-202

Contents Acknowledgement  Preface 

 V

 IX

Abbreviations 

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Part I: Wisdom & Torah in Instructional Literature JiSeong J. Kwon Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9: Assessing the Confluence of Torah and Wisdom in Proverbs   3 Bernd U. Schipper Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs   27 Pancratius C. Beentjes Ben Sira and His Grandson on Torah and Wisdom: Similar or Divergent Views?   45

Part II: Wisdom & Torah in Skeptical-Critical Discourse Tobias Häner “Things Too Wondrous” (Job 42:3): The Torah and the Limits of Knowledge in the Book of Job   77 Stuart Weeks Failing to be Wise: The Case of Qohelet 

 97

Luca Mazzinghi Wisdom and Law in the Book of Wisdom: A New Type of Relationship  Lydia Gore-Jones Sofia and Nomos in the Wisdom of Solomon 

 131

 113

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Part III: Wisdom & Torah in Legal Discourse Mark Sneed Explaining the “Confluence” of Biblical Wisdom and Torah: An Anthropological and Rhetorical Approach   149 Eckart Otto The Amalgamation of “Wisdom” in the Post-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods   173 Lindsey A. Davidson Law and Wisdom in the Epitaph of Abramos, Communal Magistrate (JIGRE 39 = SB 5765)   189

Part IV: Wisdom & Torah in Poetic Reflection Torleif Elgvin The Song of Songs: Torah, Creation, Celebration, and Libertinism  George J. Brooke Wisdom and Torah in the Hodayot and the Great Psalms Scroll: The Place of Prayer in Understanding Some Early Jewish Pedagogy 

 243

 275

Part V: Wisdom & Torah in Narrative Imagination Thomas Römer The Question of Wisdom Influence in the Composition of the Joseph Narrative   297 Seth A. Bledsoe Ahiqar the “Patriarch”: Tobit’s Interpretation of the Wisdom of Ahiqar through a Torahizing Lens   319 Index of Modern Authors  Index of Sources 

 373

 365

Preface The collection of essays in this volume together present a refreshed look and novel understandings of the literary and historical associations between “Wisdom” and “Torah” during the Second Temple Period. The volume is, therefore, engaging with and occasionally responding to previous studies on the association between Wisdom and Torah that have largely focused on the reception history of the Torah in the Second Temple wisdom texts, inside and outside the Hebrew Bible. Scholars such as Von Rad, Hengel, Schnabel, Sheppard, Blenkinsopp, Collins, Sanders, among others, have debated the identification of Wisdom with Torah among Second Temple Jewish audiences – whether construed as a Wisdom which is “torahized” or Torah which is sapientialised. Regardless of the continued diachronic, redactional debates – chiefly concerning the presumed combination of priestly and non-priestly Pentateuchal sources that may have already occurred in the Persian period  – the entries in this volume largely approach the Pentateuch as a collection of Mosaic discourses that likely had not gained a prevailing authority among Jewish communities until sometime in the 2nd c. BCE, perhaps even after the events of the Maccabean revolt. In any case, the prominent Hellenistic “wisdom” texts such as Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon do not seem to be dominated by a Torah-centric ideology, at least not to the extent of betraying a particularly canonical consciousness, even if Torah (conceptually) or Pentateuch (textually/traditionally) are prominently featured. Furthermore, while scholars have regularly pointed to the term “wisdom,” i.e., hokmah (‫)חכמה‬, as signifying a unified set of elements and historical contexts to the extent of identifying a distinctive literary tradition, an increasing number of interpreters have cast serious doubt about the existence of any cohesive Israelite/ Jewish “wisdom tradition” that has been transmitted and composed by “sages”/ “wise men,” particularly those whom scholars have suggested occupied a distinctive ideological tradition in contrast to a supposed cultic/covenantal tradition. If the long-standing framework of “torahized” wisdom in Israel and early Judaism makes substantial misconceptions in understanding the nature of wisdom literature as a de facto discrete tradition, it is necessary to re-examine and rethink the earlier generation’s assertions regarding the transformation of Jewish wisdom texts from the Achaemenid period to the early Roman period. To challenge the conventional paradigm, we begin by asking a simple question: “Was Israelite Wisdom influenced by and ultimately transformed into the Mosaic Torah in the Hellenistic period?” As the contributions to this collected volume demonstrate, the very framework presupposed by this question requires profound reconsideration. In response, the contributors have raised a number of issues in attempting to reconceptualize matters, asking, for example: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-204

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Is the concept/term “torah” in the biblical and non-biblical texts of the Second Temple period to be identified as the Mosaic Torah/Pentateuch or indicative of a broader Mosaich discourse of Jewish legal and/or foundational interpretive tradition? How can observable literary and historical correlations among so-called “wisdom” and Torah texts be explained and evaluated? Is the previous supposition that an “international” or “secular” Wisdom was transformed or integrated into the distinctly Jewish “Torah” in the Second Temple Period an appropriate or illuminating framework for understanding scribal discourses, especially among texts that are still identified by scholars as “wisdom literature”? Can we even speak of distinctive – and, perhaps, competing – ideologies of Torah and Wisdom, and, thus, with the apparent predominance of Torah by the end of the Hellenistic era, can we speak of Wisdom as sublimated to a Torah-centered Judaism?

As a result, this volume has the cumulative effect of focusing on the various ways that scholars can reformulate the simplistic, though nevertheless alluring, bifurcated model of a Wisdom-Torah identification, confluence, and interaction among Israelite/Jewish texts. The contributions comprise various, though in many ways, complementary investigations into the the concepts of Wisdom and Torah in both ancient and scholarly discourses. While all speak to the broader framework question, the individual entries do so by attending to specific texts and passages from a wide array of early Jewish literature, including those that came to be part of the Hebrew Bible as well as the deuterocanonical and cognate Jewish writings such as Graeco-Judean literature, materials from Qumran, and even epigraphical evidence. In such a volume there are, of course, limitations that preclude attempts at a comprehensive discussion, whether with respect to the individual texts themselves or to the wider array of early Jewish literature. We have attempted, nevertheless, to provide as broad an approach to the question as possible, while acknowledging some gaps in sources that could and, for some, should certainly be included in the discussion (e.g., 4QInstruction, 1QS [esp. the so-named “Treatise of the Two Spits”], Philo, etc.). The following studies are categorized in such a way to move the reader through the various texts and contexts raised by the question of “wisdom” and “torah” as mutually informative conceptual categories for understanding early Jewish literary output. As with any attempt at categorization, problems can arise given that several texts are of disputed date, provenance, and literary form. There are, of course, disagreements among the scholars, both concerning individual texts and the broader question, but we find that the cumulative effect to be complementary, leading to a

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coherent, even if polyphonous, conversation. For this reason, the reader is advised to view the arrangement of this volume as a heuristic tool for reflection and not to be indicative of any essentialzing, qualitative assumptions. Rather, the essays have been grouped together with a gentle eye toward form, while attending more pointedly to the function of the respective texts inasmuch as the respective essay’s authors have understood them. In short, the aim in the overall arrangement is to be instructive, rather than decisively conclusive, leading to an overall logic and flow. Part I (“Wisdom & Torah in Instructional Literature”) begins with Proverbs and Ben Sira. Though not without their differences, these two texts may be formally labelled “instruction,” yet more importantly they represent, for many scholars, the central place in the discussion of the category “wisdom.” The former has occupied and continues to occupy the starting point for the ways scholars have imagined the notion of a “wisdom” discourse or, even, a distinct “wisdom tradition.” While the latter, of course, has particular significance for this volume given its oft-cited identification of Wisdom and Torah (Sir 24:23). JiSeong J. Kwon begins the conversation by focusing on Proverbs 1–9. In addition to a quick but thorough survey of scholarship that helps set the theoretical backdrop – both for the essay and the volume itself – Kwon criticizes recent readings of Proverbs 1–9 in comparison with Mosaic discourse, particularly the book of Deuteronomy, that have suggested that the observable affinities are a result of a later, theological-qua-Torahisation of “traditional” wisdom instruction. Kwon demonstrates the several problems with such an evolutionary model of “wisdom.” While acknowledging conceptual overlaps, Kwon understands these to be only indicative of a broader awareness among Proverbs’s scribes of Jewish literature without necessitating any direct interference of a Torahizing redactor. Kwon’s chief interlocutor is Bernd Schipper, who offers the second entry on Proverbs in this volume. Building on the approach from his earlier work on Proverbs 1–9, Schipper focuses the present essay on one of the instructional collections of the second major section of the book (Proverbs 10–29), pointing specifically to Proverbs 28 as a compositionally distinctive layer among the proverbial instructions. Within this chapter one observes several notable features, especially conceptual and formal parallels with Deuteronomy, that demonstrate a theological understanding of wisdom. The implications of this reading of Proverbs 28, according to Schipper, are to add further support for a “nomistic,” rather than simply “instructional” connotation, behind the term “torah” throughout Proverbs, including chs. 1–9 and 30. In the final essay of this section, Pancratius C. Beentjes turns to the question of “wisdom” and “torah” in the book of Ben Sira, asking how these concepts figure in the parent Hebrew text in comparison with the Greek translation. The lexical study is a springboard to the bigger question concerning the ways that scholars have reg-

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ularly supposed an “identification” of Wisdom with Torah in Ben Sira, especially in light of the famous passage in ch. 24. Questioning the seemingly paradoxical equivalency of the universal gift of Wisdom with the particularism of Torah, Beentjes suggests a more nuanced view of a “correlation,” rather than straightforward identification, between Wisdom and Torah by suggesting a variegated conception of wisdom that cannot be reduced to either particular or universal. Beentjes’s discussion of this important text, to some extent, sets the stage for the remaining essays in this volume, many of which refer directly to Sirach 24. Part II brings together essays on Job, Qohelet, and the Book of Wisdom. Despite their varying literary structures and styles, not to mention the linguistic and chronological discrepancies, these three texts speak directly to the question of epistemology – an issue under the surface of perhaps any “wisdom” text, including the instructions, but in Job, Qohelet, and Wisdom it is of utmost importance. Furthermore, as the essays demonstrate, each of these texts shares a distinctive concern for the limits of human understanding, especially in the face of the divine. Thus, they have a certain resonance in their skeptical attitude toward human understanding that, at times, comes across as critical, even if the object of criticism may vary among the three texts, respectively. In the first essay of the section, Tobias Häner, drawing on several recent intertextual studies, reevaluates the relationship between the Job and its supposed critical evaluation of Torah. Häner’s essay attempts to shift discussion, suggesting that rather than understanding Job as a critique of Torah as such, instead the wisdom text is skeptical of the truth claims implied by the priestly-theocratic view of God and divine sovereignty in the Deuteronomic and Priestly sources. In a similar manner, Weeks’s analysis of Qohelet begins by drawing attention to the critique of a simple epistemology of wisdom, one that highlights the limited capacity of human knowledge, evident in the notoriously complicated work. Highlighting and leaning into the polyphony of the work, Weeks fronts those aspects of the text that may be said to reverberate with the concept of divine wisdom presented in Proverbs 1–9 (esp. Eccl 7:25–29) and with the notion of an association between wisdom and torah (namely, the epilogue 12:13–14), arguing that Qohelet seems to offer an outright rejection of such a view of wisdom. This is important for the present volume because, as Weeks indicates, the view of divine wisdom in Proverbs 1–9 is that which furthers the supposed association between Wisdom and Torah. Thus, the voice of the monologue counters this connection directly, while the epilogue, in its Deuteronomic-sounding mantra to “fear God and keep the commandments,” in fact reinforces the monologue’s critical stance against wisdom and instruction being at all useful when it comes to responding to God’s judgment. In a pair of essays, Luca Mazzinghi and Lydia Gore-Jones look to the Book of Wisdom as a significant site of literary reflection on the tension inherent in the

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concept of Torah, inasmuch as it is understood as a uniquely Jewish matter, when evaluated within a Hellenistic philosophical milieu within which “wisdom” has a prominent function. Both essays point to the Book of Wisdom’s critical stance toward “Hellenistic” culture as imagined in the text, even while there is an obvious effort to conceptualize wisdom and torah (law) within such a cultural and ideological matrix, especially noting the prominence of Stoic concepts of logos and cosmos. Further, they both suggest, though with differing manners, that law (nomos) is the key concept that resolves, rather than exacerbates, the tension between maintaining a distinctive Jewish identity in the face of the supposed universalizing tendencies of Hellenism. Mazzinghi opens up the discussion by contextualizing the Book of Wisdom within the broader Jewish-Hellenistic literary milieu, arguing that in contrast to some works this wisdom text conveys a complementary, rather than contradictory, view of Law and Wisdom. Importantly, according to Mazzinghi, the Law, rather than distancing “Israel” from the Hellenistic world, is in fact that which provides for a fuller cosmological self-understanding, and it does so through its attachment to Wisdom. Lydia Gore-Jones likewise addresses the question of Jewish identity in the context of the Hellenistic world in her reading of the Book of Wisdom. In this essay, Gore-Jones, noting the important distinction that the text anchors its authority in the Solomonic tradition rather than Mosaic (contra Ben Sira), argues that nomos in this text is not identified with “Torah” or the Law of Moses, but rather points to the concept of universal divine law, which is accessible and knowable through wisdom and rationality. The next set of essays (Part III) are linked by their pronounced attention to legal discourse, with notable use of anthropological and material approaches that are often underutilized in the study of biblical and related literature. The first two essays by Mark Sneed and Eckart Otto are more focused in their paralleled readings of Pentateuchal texts – Exodus and Deuteronomy, respectively – alongside the book of Proverbs. Beginning with Sneed, this essay combines anthropological and rhetorical analyses to demonstrate the clear correlation between the type of folkloric wisdom evident in Proverbs and the social norms (or mores) and legal precepts found in Exodus’s legal codes (and, to a lesser extent, those in Deuteronomy), taking as a given that both sets of texts would have been produced by and share an intimate familiarity among the same scribal circles. The sapiential and the legal, then, overlap a great deal, with their differences coming down not to contrasting or mutually exclusive worldviews – as has been argued by many – but instead due to the texts having different functions and thus displaying distinctive rhetorical modes. Eckart Otto likewise offers an extensive side-by-side reading of a Pentateuchal text, in this case Deuteronomy, with the book of Proverbs. His essay also centres on legal discourse, but with a specifically redactional focus on the (post-)Deuteronomistic layering that, according to Otto, reflects a concomitant “amalgamation” of distinc-

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tively Deuteronomistic and priestly motifs together with sapiential ones. Though focused primarily on the diachronic composition and its literary implications, Otto’s reading, like Sneeds, gestures somewhat toward the material context, suggesting that there lies behind the sapientialising amalgamation an historical and institutional (i.e., judicial) basis. Lastly in this section, Lindsey A. Davidson takes the reader even more explicitly to a material, lived context for insight into the juxtaposition of Law and Wisdom in the Second Temple Period. Davidson’s essay offers a thorough presentation of the Epitaph of Abramos (ca. 1st c. BCE/1st c. BCE), erected in honour of Abramos who is said to be “crowned in wisdom” in praise of his role as a magistrate and judge for a Jewish community in Roman Egypt. Taking a more practical approach, Davidson offers an important epigraphical, material balance to the otherwise exclusively literary and, thus, rhetorically imaginative focus of the discussion of wisdom and torah. Aside from the extensive and important discussion of the legal contexts within which “torah” would have been exercised in Jewish diaspora communities, this essay offers some material evidence for the conceptual association between one skilled in “law” and “wisdom.” Part IV comprises two essays where poetic reflection take centre stage. While poetry is certainly a formal feature of several wisdom texts, such as Qoheleth or Job, these essays point to the ways that certain poetic texts – Song of Songs, Hodayot, and Psalms – present a sophisticated intersection of sapiential themes, torah, and public performance. Torleif Elgvin offers a broad overview of the textual, material, and lyrical aspects related to the Song of Songs. In addition to discussion of the symbolic and, possibly, political sub-text behind the love poetry, Elgvin draws attention to two wisdom sayings recited in the Songs (8:6aβb and 8:7)) that can represent, together with the not so subtle Solomonic contextualization, hermeneutical keys to the entire collection, specifically arguing that they attune the reader to a sapiential reflection on libertine love that has had implications on the way the “Song(s)” have been interpreted in various contexts. In the second essay, George Brooke analyses two important poetic texts found at Qumran – the Hodayot (1QHa) and the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) – to illustrate how “torah” and sapiential motifs were appropriated and juxtaposed in the respective texts, particularly as it reflects the divergent, though concurrent, ways that such referents came to be seen as authoritative. Brooke further elaborates on the poetic aspects of the specific passages where “torah” appears and which he identifies as prayers, whether for individual, private reflection (Hodayot) or for communal purposes (Great Psalms Scroll). Indeed, it is in the distinctive genres and functions of the these poetic reflections where one can trace their characteristic representations of wisdom and torah. The final section (Part V) combines two essays examining texts that scholars have, at one point or another, identified as didactic or wisdom tales, and, further, that have a clear connection with Torah. Thomas Römer reassesses the half-century

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debate – since Gerhard van Rad (1953) – about the potentially didactic or “wisdom” nature of the Joseph story in Genesis. After a brief, but satisfactory overview of the debates surrounding the narrative, including its supposed provenance and literary designation, Römer assesses the narrative’s relationship to its immediate Law/ Torah context, its presentation of “wisdom” and the character of Joseph, and its potential resonances with Proverbs. Informed to some extent by redactional inferences, Römer concludes that von Rad’s theory should not be dismissed entirely, but instead modified in light of the story’s distinguishable, even if ultimately complementary, layers of redaction that point to varying views on wisdom and the divine. The second essay of this section, and the final essay of the entire volume, looks to the deuterocanonical narrative of Tobit. Seth A. Bledsoe focuses specifically on the figure of Ahiqar as an illustration of the ways that “wisdom” and “torah” might coalesce in the narrative, arguing that the text’s identification of Ahiqar as “Jewish” – rather than being exceptional or disingenuous – corresponds precisely with the ways that Tobit appropriates other important figures in its attempt to reflect on idealized Jewish self-understanding and ethics. Ahiqar, thus, functions much like the patriarchs in their conferring authority on the titular character by way of association, whether genealogically or symbolically. Altogether the essays in this volume approach the question of Wisdom and Torah through multiple avenues and in consideration of several texts that can generally be located within the vast and diverse scope of Second Temple Period Jewish literary production and transmission. We hope that the following essays will advance the conversation on these two fundamental concepts and further contribute to our pursuit in better understanding the history and tradition of early Judaism. JiSeong J. Kwon Seth A. Bledsoe

Abbreviations AB ABD ABRL ABS ABSA AEL AIL AJP AnBib ANET AOAT AOS APF ASTI ATANT ATD AYBRL AzTh BA BBB BBET BBRSup BCOTWP BEHER BETL BEvT BI:AJCA Bib BibInt BibOr BJS BKAT BLS BN BR BSac BWA(N)T BWL BZ BZABR BZAW BZNW

Anchor Bible The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992 The Anchor Bible Reference Library Archaeology and Biblical Studies The Annual of the British School at Athens Ancient Egyptian Literature, M. Lichtheim, 3 vols. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1973–1980 Ancient Israeli and its Literature The American Journal of Philology Analecta Biblica Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. Edited by James B. Pritchard. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969 Alter Orient und Altes Testament American Oriental Series Archiv für Papyrusforschung Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments Das Alte Testament Deutsch Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library Arbeiten zur Theologie The Biblical Archaeologist Bonner biblische Beiträge Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie Bulletin for Biblical Research Supplement Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms Bibliothèque de l’École des hautes études: Sciences religieuses Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie BI: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches Biblica Biblical Interpretation Biblica et Orientalia Brown Judaic Studies Biblischer Kommentar, Altes Testament Bible and Literature Series Biblische Notizen Biblical Research Bibliotheca Sacra Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten (und Neuen) Testament Babylonian Wisdom Literature. Wilfred G. Lambert. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960 Biblische Zeitschrift Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

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XVIII  CaE CBET CBQ CBQMA CBTJ CEJL ConBOT COS CPJ CQR CRINT CrStHB CSCA CTR CTSSR CurBR CurBS DCH DCLS DJD DSD DSSSE ÉBibNS ECC EG EHAT EJL EQÄ EstBib ETL ExpTim FAT FB FIOTL FRLANT GAP GBS HALOT

HBAI HBIS HBT HCOT

 Abbreviations

Cahiers évangile Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Calvary Baptist Theological Journal Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature Coniectanea Biblica The Context of Scripture. Edited by William W. Hallo. 3 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1997–2002 Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum. Edited by Victor A. Tcherikover. 3 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957–1964 Church Quarterly Review Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum Critical Studies in the Hebrew Bible California Studies in Classical Antiquity Criswell Theological Review College Theology Society Studies in Religion Currents in Biblical Research Currents in Research: Biblical Studies The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew. Edited by David J. A. Clines. 9 vols. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 1993 Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Studies Discoveries in the Judean Desert Dead Sea Discoveries The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition. Edited by Florentino G. Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar. Leiden: Brill, 1999 Études bibliques, Nouvelle série Eerdmans Critical Commentary Epigrammata graeca ex lapidibus conlecta. Georg Kaibel. Berlin: Reimer, 1878 Exegetisches Handbuch zum Alten Testament Early Judaism and its Literature Einführungen und Quellentexte zur Ägyptologie Estudios bíblicos Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Expository Times Forschungen zum Alten Testament Forschung zur Bibel Formation and Interpretation of Old Testament Literature Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments Guides to Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Guides to Biblical Scholarship The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, and Johann J. Stamm. Translated and edited under the supervision of Mervyn E. J. Richardson. 4 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1994–1999 Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel History of Biblical Interpretation Series Horizons in Biblical Theology Historical Commentary on the Old Testament

Abbreviations 

HR HS HSAT HSM HSS HThKAT HTR HUCA IB IBC ICC IEKAT IM

IRT ITQ JAEI JAJ JANER JAOS JBL JBQ JCS JEA JEOL JHebS JIGRE JJS JLCRS JNES JNSL JQR JSHRZ JSJ JSJSup JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSPSup JSS JTS Judaism KAT LAI LBS

 XIX

History of Religions Hebrew Studies Die Heilige Schrift des Alten Testaments. Edited by Emil Kautzsch and Alfred Bertholet. 4th ed. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1922–1923 Harvard Semitic Monographs Harvard Semitic Studies Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Harvard Theological Review Hebrew Union College Annual Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by George A. Buttrick et al. 12 vols. New York, 1951–1957 Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching International Critical Commentary Internationaler Exegetischer Kommentar zum Alten Testament Inscriptions métriques de l‘Egypte gréco-romaine: recherches sur la poésie épigrammatique des Grecs en Egypte. Edited by Étienne Bernand. Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 98. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1969 Issues in Religion and Theology Irish Theological Quarterly Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections Journal of Ancient Judaism Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Bible Quarterly Journal of Cuneiform Studies Journal of Egyptian Archaeology Jaarbericht van het Vooraziatisch-Egyptisch Gezelschap Ex Oriente Lux Journal of Hebrew Scriptures Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt Journal of Jewish Studies Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion Series Journal of Near Eastern Studies Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages Jewish Quarterly Review Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit Journal for the Study of Judaism Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Judaism Kommentar zum Alten Testament Library of Ancient Israel The Library of Biblical Studies

XX  LD LHBOTS LSJ LSTS MdB MDOG NCB NCBC NCoBC NedTT NIB NICOT NIDOTTE NRTh NSKAT NTAbh NTS OAC OBL OBO ÖBS OBT OCD OTE OTL OTM OTMs OtSt PÄ PBM PRS PUP RB RBS RevExp RevQ RPT RSR RStB RTL SAK SB

 Abbreviations

Lectio Divina Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996 Library of Second Temple Studies Le Monde de la Bible Mitteilungen der deutschen Orient-Geselleschaft New Century Bible New Century Bible Commentary New Collegeville Bible commentary Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift The New Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by Leander E. Keck. 12 vols. Nashville: Abingdon, 1994–2004 New International Commentary on the Old Testament New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis. Edited by William A. VanGemeren. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997 La nouvelle revue théologique Neuer Stuttgarter Kommentar, Altes Testament Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen New Testament Studies Orientis Antiqui Collectio Orientalia et Biblica Lovaniensia Orbis Biblicus et Orientalis Österreichische biblische Studien Overtures to Biblical Theology The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited by Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. 4th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012 Old Testament Essays Old Testament Library Old Testament Message Oxford Theological Monographs Oudtestamentische Studiën Probleme der Ägyptologie Paternoster Biblical Monographs Perspectives in Religious Studies Publications of the University of Pretoria Revue Biblique Resources for Biblical Study Review & Expositor Revue de Qumran Religion in Philosophy and Theology Recherches de Science Religieuse Ricerche storico bibliche Revue théologique de Louvain Studien zur Altägyptischen Kultur Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten. Edited by Friedrich Preisigke et al. Vols. 1–21. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1915–2002

Abbreviations 

SBAB SBB SBLDS SBLTT SBS SBT SCS SEÅ SemeiaSt SGKA SGV SHBC SHR SHS SJT SOTSMS SPAW SPCK SPHA SPOT SR SSEJC StBibLit STDJ STR StudBib SUNT SymS TynBul TDOT

TDNT

TLOT TS TSAJ TVZ UCOP USQR VE VT VTSup VWGTh WAW

 XXI

Stuttgarter biblische Aufsatzbände Stuttgarter biblische Beiträge Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Studies in Biblical Theology Septuagint and Cognate Studies Svensk Exegetisk Årsbok Semeia Studies Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums Sammlung gemeinverständlicher Vorträge Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary Studies in the History of Religions Scripture and Hermeneutics Series Scottish Journal of Theology Society for Old Testament Study Monograph Series Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Studies in Philo of Alexandria Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament Studies in Religion Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity Studies in Biblical Literature Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Sciences Théologiques et Religieuses Studia Biblica Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments Symposium Series Tyndale Bulletin Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. Edited by G. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren. Translated by John T. Willis et al. 8 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–2006 Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich. Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964–1976 Theological Lexicon of the Old Testament. Edited by Ernst Jenni, with assistance from Claus Westermann. Translated by Mark E. Biddle. 3 vols. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1997 Theological Studies Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum Theologischer Verlag Zürich University of Cambridge Oriental Publications Union Seminary Quarterly Review Verbum et Ecclesia Vetus Testamentum Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie Writings from the Ancient World

XXII  WBC WMANT WO WUNT ZABR ZAW ZBK.AT ZKT ZTK ZWK ZWT

 Abbreviations

Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Die Welt des Orients Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für altorientalische und biblische Rechtgeschichte Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zürcher Bibelkommentare. Altes Testament Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie

Part I: Wisdom & Torah in Instructional Literature

JiSeong J. Kwon

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9: Assessing the Confluence of Torah and Wisdom in Proverbs 1 Introduction Many scholars consider that Proverbs 1–9 shares a contiguous correlation of wisdom with the Deuteronomic Torah because Proverbs typically emphasises the need to listen to and obey traditional commandments and presents a choice between two paths: blessings and life for those who obey its teachings, or curses and destruction for those who do not follow them (e.g., Prov 3:1–35). So, it would be highly probable that the author of Proverbs reflected Deuteronomy and the Pentateuchal materials and that this explains in part why the hermeneutical spectrum in Proverbs 1–9 is prevalent in later Midrashic interpretation.1 Representatively, Michael Fishbane regards Proverbs 1–9 as an aggadic exegesis reusing the earlier material of Deuteronomy.2 Agreeing with the scheme of a Midraschic reference in Prov 6:20–35, Christl Maier argues: Diese Texte sind ohne die aus Dtn 6,6–9; 11, 18–21 bekannte Rede von den als Denkzeichen auf Stirn, Hand, Tür geschriebenen Worten unverständlich. Die Proverbientexte nehmen durch Aufnahme tragender Begriffe unverkennbar auf die Deuteronomiumstellen Bezug, ohne einen einzigen Satz direkt zu zitieren.3

Likewise, Georg Braulik maintains that Proverbs 1–9 (esp. 6:20–35) is viewed as “die deuteronomische Lernparänese,” especially of Deut 11:18–21 and the Deca-

1 André Robert claims that Proverbs 1–9 has a Midrashic interpretation that reutilises other scriptural texts such as Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah; see “Les attaches littéraires Bibliques de Prov. I–IX,” RB 44 (1935): 344–65, 502–25. Cf. George W. Buchanan, “Midrashim Pré-Tannaïtes: À propos de Prov 1–9,” RB 72 (1965): 227–39; Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 287–88; Christl Maier, Die “fremde Frau” in Proverbien 1–9: Eine exegetische und sozialgeschichtliche Studie, OBO 144 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), 72–79, 153–77. 2 In Biblical Interpretation, 287–88, Fishbane follows the paradigmatic way in which Robert understands late biblical texts; see also Fishbane, “Torah and Tradition,” in Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament, ed. Douglas A. Knight (London: SPCK, 1977), 275–300, at 284. 3 Maier, Die “fremde Frau,” 154. JiSeong J. Kwon, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-001

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 JiSeong J. Kwon

logue.4 The book of Proverbs, according to William Brown, more radically contains codified Mosaic legislation shown in Deuteronomy, and the term torah in Deuteronomy is renovated through the later development of Proverbs to contribute to a golah community during the early Persian period.5 According to Katharine Dell, the framework of Proverbs 1–9 contains the literary influence from so-called Deuteronomic ideas (e.g., Prov 2:1–4; Deut 4:6), but in this, it differs from Proverbs 10–31 that overlaps more with Psalms.6 More recently, Bernd Schipper has proposed a Hermeneutik der Tora in Proverbs during the post-exilic period, arguing that redactors of Proverbs developed wisdom discourses by utilizing Deuteronomy in a canonical formula as well as the late prophetic literature inspired by Deuteronomy, like Jeremiah.7 In Schipper’s opinion, the scribal exegesis of Proverbs in the reception of Deuteronomy makes potential the argument that the educational instruction in the original wisdom discourse of Proverbs 1–9 supports the hermeneutics of the Torah but is contrary to the late prophecy.8

4 Georg Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bucher Ijob, Sprichworter, Rut: Zur Frage früher Kanonizität des Deuteronomiums,” in Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen, ed. Erich Zenger, Herders Biblische Studien (Freiburg: Herder, 1996), 90–105. Paul Overland draws the teaching of the Shema Israel from Prov 3:1–12 and Deut 6:4–9; see “Did the Sage Draw from the Shema? A Study of Proverbs 3:1–12,” CBQ 62 (2000): 424–40. Bertrand Pinçon gives a new interpretation of proverbial instructions through parallels to Deuteronomy 8 and Prov 3:1–12; see “La correction paternelle de Proverbes 3, 1–12 et ses résonnances Deutéronomiques,” in Separata de: Estudios Bíblicos, 67 (Madrid: Facultad de Teología San Dámaso, 2009), 381–93. 5 William P. Brown, “The Law and the Sages: A Reexamination of Tôrâ in Proverbs,” in Constituting the Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride Jr., ed. John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell (Winona Lake: Penn State University Press, 2005), 251–80, esp. 278–79. 6 Katharine J. Dell, The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2009), 167–78, 194. 7 Bernd U. Schipper, “Das Proverbienbuch und die Toratradition,” ZTK 108 (2011): 381–404; Hermeneutik der Tora: Studien zur Traditionsgeschichte von Prov. 2 und zur Komposition von Prov. 1–9, BZAW 432 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012); “When Wisdom Is Not Enough!” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of “Torah” in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and David A. Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 221–79. 8 In “Wisdom Not Enough,” 75–76, Schipper’s redactional criticism is valuable in determining its compositional dating and process. However, his approach to potential layers is too weakly supported and hypothetical to count on its feasibility. The term ‫ בינה‬is mostly synonymous with ‫ חכמה‬in Proverbs, and there is no reason to assume that it represents something of so-called “wisdom” ideology or tradition. Regardless of the existence of ‫בינה‬, the discourse of Proverbs 1–9 has a consistent view on the significance of the father’s instructions and their consequences. Moreover, Schipper (op. cit.) claims that Proverbs 1–9 “ties in with the position of Proverbs 3 and not with chapter 7 or with the mediating position of Proverbs 2,” and that there was a decreased notion of wisdom in the challenge of late prophecy and the emergence of sceptical wisdom like Qoheleth. However, such an excessive split in Proverbs 1–9 seems to be a weak argument given that sceptical litera-

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 5

Nevertheless, the usage of ‫ תורה‬and other cognate expressions (e.g., ‫ )מצוה‬in Proverbs alone is not sufficient to assume that its author would have been referring to the Torah or Deuteronomy with these terms.9 For example, Richard Clifford claims that the presupposition that the referent of terms ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ תורה‬in Proverbs (28:4, 7, 9, 18) is “the Torah of Moses,” possibly against the backdrop of the reform of Ezra-Nehemiah during the fifth century BCE, is a flimsy argument.10 Stuart Weeks advocates that the father-son relationship in Proverbs (3:12) is quite common in the Hebrew Bible, where Yahweh appears as a father instructing Israelites, including Deuteronomy (Deut 1:31; 8:5; 32:6) and Isaiah/Psalms, and that readers of Proverbs 1–9 would possibly regard the word ‫ תורה‬as “a reference to the Torah.”11 Nevertheless, Weeks does not presume that Proverbs 1–9 has direct “evocations of Deuteronomy” illustrating the Mosaic Torah itself, but considers that ‫ תורה‬references speak of “the Jewish Law, the ‘instruction’ par excellence, which is already, after all, in the public domain.”12 The composition of Proverbs could be developed throughout several stages, from collections of sayings related to general knowledge to instructions of wisdom theologised by Yawhism.13 When the relationship between personified Wisdom and Israelite religion – in particular, the fear of Yahweh – and between the acquisition of the divine wisdom and Yahweh were established and coincident in the performance of Proverbs, the authority of the “instructions” or “proverbs” in an educational setting (i.e., Deut 6:4–9) could have been recognised as that of laws in Israelite/Jewish traditions in a broad sense. Indeed, collections of proverbs in oral or literary performance could have various purposes in individual discourses such as narratives, laws, poems, and prophetic oracles.14 So, there is a considerable inaccuracy in claiming that the meaning of ‫ תורה‬in Proverbs is identi-

ture in Akkadian and Egyptian civilization would have been known to authors of Jewish scribes (e.g., Babylonian Theodicy, Pessimistic Dialogue between Master and Servant, The Protest of the Eloquent Peasant). 9 Ronald E. Clements emphasises the assimilation of wisdom to the revealed Torah as part of the canon; see “Wisdom,” in It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture : Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars, SSF, ed. Donald A. Carson, Hugh G.M. Williamson, and Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 67–84, esp. 76. 10 Richard J. Clifford, Proverbs: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 5. 11 Stuart Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9 (Oxford: Oxford University, 2007), 102–4. 12 Weeks, Instruction and Imagery, 103–4 n. 8, 113, 126. 13 E.g., Roger N. Whybray, Wisdom in Proverbs: The Concept of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9, SBT 45 (Naperville: A. R. Allenson, 1965), 72–104; also refer to The Composition of the Book of Proverbs, JSOTSup 168 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1994). 14 See Carole R. Fontaine, Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament: A Contextual Study, BLS 5 (Sheffield: Almond, 1982) and eadem, “Proverb Performance in the Hebrew Bible,” JSOT 32 (1985): 87–103.

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 JiSeong J. Kwon

cal to the Mosaic Torah in a Deuteronomic formula. This essay focuses on re-examining the claim that the concept of “Torah” and related terms in the compositional process of Proverbs are interconnected to the Torah of Moses in Deuteronomy or Deuteronomic texts.

2 Torah-Reception in the Composition of Proverbs? The book of Proverbs, in its literary form, adopts the Egyptian Instruction genre (e.g., The Instruction of Amenemope) and general foreign counterparts,15 but it is also rooted in profound Jewish thought.16 Scholars have speculated about the compositional process of Proverbs based on linguistic and stylistic indicators, although there has not been complete agreement. For instance, one may first consider the division suggested by Fox:17 1. Four collections of Proverbs 10–29 dated to the 8th–7th century BCE; probably before and after the fall of the Northern Kingdom (722 BCE); 2. Ten lectures in Proverbs 1–9 with Prologue (1:1–5 or 1:1–7) prefixed to proverbial collections; 3. Interludes and minor additions in Proverbs 1–9 inserted in the book; 4. the appendix in Proverbs 30–31, after the old collection of proverbs. 15 See Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 28–31; Bernd U. Schipper, “Die Lehre des Amenemope und Prov 22,17–24,22: Eine Neubestimmung des literarischen Verhältnisses (Teil 1),” ZAW 117 (2005): 53–72; idem, “Die Lehre des Amenemope und Prov 22,17–24,22: Eine Neubestimmung des literarischen Verhältnisses (Teil 2),” ZAW 117 (2005): 232–48; Vincent Pierre-Michel Laisney, L’enseignement d’Aménémopé, Studia Pohl 19 (Roma: Editrice Pontificio Istituto biblico, 2007); Michael V. Fox, “From Amenemope to Proverbs: Editorial Art in Proverbs 22,17–23,11,” ZAW 126 (2014): 76–91. 16 It is unlikely to suppose that its author was directly influenced by Egyptian thought or ideas, but a broadly shared literary genre was derived from Babylonian and Egyptian Instruction literature. See Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9, 36–37. 17 For this topic, refer to the study of Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, AB 18A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 48–49, 322–30 and idem, Proverbs 10–31, AB 18B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 499–500, 923–33. Nevertheless, there is a lack of reasonable evidence in his claim. For instance, he supposes that interludes C (6:1–19) and D (8:1–36) depend on Proverbs 10–29. However, there would not be any evidence for this assumption, although Proverbs 1–9 certainly reflects older collections. Further, the structural division of lectures and interludes is acceptable, but this cannot prove the hypothesis of redactional development by several editors. For the compositional development of Proverbs 1–9, Whybray divides it into ten discourses (with preface) and two distinct stages (by ideas of wisdom and Yahweh); see Wisdom in Proverbs, 72–104. For a recent survey of the compositional process in Proverbs 1–9, see Bernd U. Schipper, Sprüche (Proverbia) 1–15, BKAT 17 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 89–116.

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 7

Collections of proverbial sayings (Proverbs 10–29), according to the book’s testimony, may be dated from the Solomonic reign (1:1; 10:1) up to Hezekiah’s (25:1). According to the historical-critical approach, most of Proverbs 10–29 – although not every proverb – is often regarded as comprising the oldest parts of the book of Proverbs.18 Proverbs 1–9, the latest redactional layer excluding the ending in Proverbs 30–31,19 is approximately dated to the late Persian or early Hellenistic periods, although the linguistic evidence is too weak to prove this.20 Concerning the reception of the Torah in Proverbs, it is essential to mention the compositional process suggested by Bernd Schipper. Eight ‘Lehrreden’ in Prov 3:1–7:27 (3:1–12; 3:21–35; 4:1–9; 4:10–19; 4:20–27; 5:1–23; 6:20–35; 7:1–27) were composed as a core portion. Then, Proverbs 1–9 went through three redactional processes: (1) the addition of 2:1–22 and 8:1–36; (2) the addition of 1:8–19; 1:20–33 and 9:1–6; 9:13–18; (3) the addition of 1:1–7 and 9:7–12.21 In particular, he focuses on Prov 2:1–22 as a hermeneutical key and three passages (3:1–12; 6:20–35; 7:1–27) that are allegedly relevant to Wisdom and Torah.22 Contrary to Fox, the methodology of Schipper in describing the reception of the Torah begins with the assumption that redactors of Proverbs intentionally referred to Deuteronomic texts.23 According to Schipper, the emergence of the Torah, instead of Wisdom, was provoked by the distrust of Wisdom and the new belief in Torah. He asserts that the reception of Deuteronomy in Proverbs led to the specific exegesis, and “the sapiential instruction” in Proverbs 3, 6, and 7 reacts to the central message, namely the Shema of Deut 6:4–5. Schipper’s analysis, of course, helps us 18 Lennart Boström, The God of the Sages: The Portrayal of God in the Book of Proverbs, ConBOT 29 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1990), 15. 19 In particular, Prov 31:10–31 is generally dated either to the Achaemenid period or to the Hellenistic period. For the Achaemenid period, see Christine R. Yoder, Wisdom as a Woman of Substance, BZAW 304 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001). For the Hellenistic period, see Bernhard Lang, “Women’s Work, Household and Property in Two Mediterranean Societies: Comparative Essay on Proverbs XXXI 10–31,” VT 54 (2004): 188–207; Albert M. Wolters, The Song of the Valiant Woman (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000). However, Hans-Peter Mathys supposes that verses of Proverbs 31:10–31 are certainly connected to Phoenician socio-economic and cultural characteristics; see “Die Tüchtige Hausfrau von Prov 31,10–31: Eine phönizische Unternehmerin,” TZ 60 (2004): 23–42. 20 In Proverbs 1–9, 6 (cf. 48–49) Fox comments: “Some parts of Prov 1–9, especially chapter 8, seem to me to be a response to Greek philosophy, though this is an uncertain basis for dating. The end point of the process was well before Ben Sira, who was writing in the early second century B.C.E., for he was strongly influenced by Proverbs.” Cf. Konrad Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2012), 186. 21 Schipper, Sprüche 1–15, 116. 22 Schipper, Sprüche 1–15, 102–6. 23 Schipper, Hermeneutik der Tora; “Wisdom Not Enough”; cf. Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium,” 90–105.

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 JiSeong J. Kwon

to appreciate different attitudes and nuances in the wisdom discourse of Proverbs 1–9, but whether the use of the term ‫ חכמה‬and related terms by the redactor(s) of Proverbs tells the reception of the Torah in corresponding texts of Proverbs and the influence of “Deuteronomy” on them is unclear. Thus, the assumption concerning the reception of the Torah in the compositional process of Proverbs 3, 6, and 7 will be examined.

3 Proverbs 3, 6, 7, and Deuteronomy Can one say that the book of Proverbs follows the command of the Shema in Deuteronomy? Several interpreters (e.g., Maier, Braulik, Fishbane, Schipper) of Proverbs have argued that Prov 3:1–5, 6:20–24, and 7:1–5 have significant parallels with or make allusions to Deut 6:6–8 and 11:18–21.24 In particular, Schipper presupposes the allusion of instructions of Proverbs to the Shema in Deut 6:6, 8, and 11:18, arguing that a common theme in both books is linked by the key phrases ‫“( קשׁרם על‬to bind (them) upon”) in Prov 3:3, 6:21, 7:3 and ‫“( כתבם על לוח לבך‬write (them) on . . .”) in 3:3 and 7:3 and further argues that the two key Hebrew words ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ תורה‬as they appear in Prov 3:1, 6:20, 23, and 7:2 originate from Deuteronomy.25 In Proverbs, keeping instructions guarantees a long life (Prov 3:2), children’s success (3:4), and protections from ‫“( נכריה‬a foreign woman”) and ‫“( אשׁה זרה‬strange woman” or “prohibited woman”; 7:5; 6:24), and parental ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ תורה‬in Proverbs could be an allusion to Yahweh’s commands in Deuteronomy concerning the divine law in revelation. From the assumption that corresponding instructions in Prov 3:1–5, 6:20–24, and 7:1–5 drew on Deut 6:6–8 and 11:18–21 as a source, Schipper contends that the conception of “wisdom” is to some degree undermined through the force of Torah.26 For instance, the warning about ‫בינה‬, a term elsewhere synonymous with ‫חכמה‬, is set in direct contrast to the idea of “trusting in Yahweh” in Prov 3:5; while the two words ‫ בינה‬and ‫ חכמה‬are interrelated with ‫ מצוה‬in 7:2–4, the similar passage in 6:20–24 only talks about ‫ תורה‬and ‫מצוה‬, undermining the significance of wisdom. Such a redactional analysis in selected passages is insightful and might provide some convenient inference about the reception of the Torah in wisdom texts. However, Schipper’s claim about the prioritization of Torah is made without solid evidence and thus is subject to some criticism. It is too unconvincing to suppose

24 Maier, Die “fremde Frau,” 153–58; Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium,” 93–94; Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 58–60; Fishbane, “Torah and Tradition,” 284; and idem, Biblical, 288. 25 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 59. 26 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 76.

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 9

that redactors of Proverbs intentionally edited those intermingled passages in chs. 1–9 which project different outlooks on “Wisdom” and “Torah.” For instance, does Prov 3:1–5 depend on Deuteronomic language and content, or was its formation influenced by the nationalistic propaganda of Moses’s Law? André Robert points out that the formulation in Prov 3:11–12 – among other passages (cf. Job 33:16–30; Exod 4:22–23; Deut 1:31; 32:5–6; Hos 11:1–4; Isa 63:8–9; Jer 3:14–15) – shows a striking parallel with and thus dependence on Deut 8:5.27 On the contrary, William McKane reversely supposes that a new sort of instruction used in the Yahwistic reinterpretation of Proverbs 3:1–12 (esp. 3:3, 11) influenced Yahweh’s discipline in Deut 8:5.28 Likewise, Roland Whybray maintains that though parallels between Prov 3:1–4 and Deut 6:1–15 are “too striking to be totally ignored,” Deuteronomic language originated from the common language of “family education . . . to emphasize the mandatory nature of the law of Yahweh” (esp. Deut 8:5).29 Katharine Dell, leaving the issue of Deuteronomic links in Proverbs undecided, says that those similarities were produced by “the same cultural milieu” and argues that those “echoes in Proverbs 1–9” are “from mainly prophetic and legal thought-worlds.”30 What the assessments of Whybray and Dell tell us is that a degree of resemblance between Proverbs and Deuteronomy should not be seen as due to the direct influence of a primary source but from a general cultural awareness.

3.1 Proverbs 3:1–5 and Deuteronomy 6:6–8, 11:18–21 The most frequently mentioned parallels occur in the third lecture of Prov 3:1–5 (cf. vv. 21–24) and the sermons of Moses in Deut 6:6–8 and 11:18–21. These two Deuteronomic texts most likely belong to the Deuteronomi(sti)c redactor during the Persian period, reflecting the circumstance of the Jewish Diaspora still surviving outside Palestine.31 In them, if Moses’s commandments (Deut 6:6) are on their “heart” (‫)לבב‬, and their parents successfully instruct the next generation in their daily lives by “binding” (‫ )קשׁר‬them “as a sign” on their necks (Deut 6:8) and by

27 André Robert, “Les attaches littéraires Bibliques de Prov. I–IX,” RB 43 (1934): 42–68, esp. 67–68. 28 William McKane, Proverbs: A New Approach (London: SCM, 1970), 291. 29 Roger N. Whybray, Proverbs, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 59–60. 30 Dell, The Book of Proverbs, 170; Dell (p. 186) indicates that Prov 10:1–22:16 contains “cultic influence and echoes of psalmic texts.” 31 According to Thomas Römer, The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 175–76, Deuteronomists of the Persian time were concerned with “a ‘new conquest’” by the returnees from Babylon. Also, see Eckart Otto, Deuteronomium 4,44-11,32, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2012), 803–5.

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 JiSeong J. Kwon

“writing” (‫ )כתב‬them “on the doorposts” and “on the gates” (6:9), obedient Jews will have prolonged life and security (Deut 11:21). Here, what the Deuteronomi(sti)c redactor intended to tell is relevant to divine and Mosaic instructions, namely that Jews should educate their children in them and inscribe them in visible places so that their houses after Exile become a sacred place like a temple.32 6 And these words that I command you this day shall be upon your heart. 7 You shall repeatedly teach them to your children, and shall speak of them . . . 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and as frontlets between your eyes. (Deut 6:6–8)

‫ והיו הדברים האלה אשׁר אנכי מצוך היום על־‬6 ‫ וקשׁרתם‬8 . . . ‫ ושׁננתם לבניך ודברת בם‬7 ‫לבבך‬ ‫לאות על ידך והיו לטטפת בין עיניך‬

1 My son, do not forget my teaching (torah) but let your heart observe my admonitions, 2 for a length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you.3 Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them on your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart.33 4 Then, you will find favour and good discernment in the eye of God and man. 5 Trust in Yahweh with all your heart and do not depend on your understanding. (Prov 3:1–5)

‫ בני תורתי אל־תשׁכח ומצותי יצר לבך‬1 ‫ כי ארך ימים ושׁנות חיים ושׁלום יוסיפו לך‬2 ‫ חסד ואמת אל־יעזבך קשׁרם על־גרגרותיך‬3 ‫כתבם על־לוח לבך‬ ‫ ומצא־חן ושׂכל־טוב בעיני אלהים ואדם‬4 ‫ בטח אל־יהוה בכל־לבך ואל־בינתך אל תשׁען‬5 18 So you shall mount these my words in your heart and your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall repeatedly teach them to your children, speaking of them . . . 20 You shall write them upon the doorposts of your house and your gates, 21 so that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land . . . (Deut 11:18–21)

‫ ושׂמתם את דברי אלה על לבבכם ועל נפשׁכם‬18 ‫וקשׁרתם אתם לאות על ידכם והיו לטוטפת בין עיניכם‬ ‫ וכתבתם‬20 . . . ‫ ולמדתם אתם את־בניכם לדבר בם‬19 ‫ למען ירבו ימיכם וימי‬21 ‫על־מזוזות ביתך ובשׁעריך‬ . . . ‫בניכם על האדמה‬

32 Römer, Deuteronomistic History, 176. 33 In LXX (Codex Vaticanus), the phrase ‫ כתבם על לוח לבך‬is omitted, but MT, Vulg., tg, Syr contains this. MT (BHS) apparatus suggests that this probably is a gloss from Prov 7:3.

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 11

Let us consider occasions where interpreters have compared Prov 3:1–5 and Deut 6:6–8, 11:18–21. Firstly, it has been maintained that the use of the term ‫( חסד‬with ‫ )אמת‬in Prov 3:3a refers to the covenantal connexion with Deut 6:5.34 The verb ‫אהב‬ (“love”) in Deut 6:5 (cf. Exod 34:6) signifies the divine-human reciprocal love based on the Deuteronomistic covenant with Yahweh. Yet it is unlikely that one should view ‫ חסד‬only as a loyal covenantal bond in all cases.35 In Prov 3:3a, ‫ חסד‬and ‫אמת‬ were not intended to show an Israelite covenantal duty to Yahweh’s commitment, but the two words unquestionably represent integrities or virtues that children were to demonstrate before their parents or teachers.36 Secondly, as opposed to what has been claimed, inscribing parental instructions on ‫“( לוח לב‬on the tablet of heart”) in Prov 3:3 is not the same as writing Moses’s Torah in visible places on Israelite houses in Deut 11:20. The command of engraving something evocative on ‫ לוח לב‬appears not only in Prov 3:3 and 7:3 but also in Jer 17:1, where that which is inscribed (‫ )חרושׁה‬on ‫“( לוח לב‬the tablet of heart”) and written (‫ )כתב‬by “a pen of iron” and “a stylus of diamond” is in reference to “the sin of Judah,” which is inescapable and indelible, and implies that her pending punishment is inevitable.37 In the given context, when Deuteronomy speaks of the actual tablet written on the stone, it lacks the notion of the indelible internalised law on the human heart. Even though Deuteronomi(sti)c laws in Deut 6:6 and 11:18, just as the instruction of Proverbs 1–9, do speak about the importance of pedagogy,38 Deuteronomy doubts the truthfulness of the human heart and perceives that the human “heart” is so collapsed and easily deceived that Israelites should be wary of the hazard of idolatry (Deut 9:4–5; 11:16; 13:2–3; 30:17). Contrary to Deut 6:6–8 and 11:18–21, putting the writing of Moses on “lips” and “hearts” in Deut 30:14, which is an addition of the post-exilic redactor, means pre-

34 Overland, “Did the Sage Draw?” 433. Raymond C. van Leeuwen, “Proverbs,” NIB 5:48 mentions that this verse refers to “the essential attributes of Yahweh once revealed on Mt. Sinai (Exod 34:6; Pss 25:10; 57:3; 67:7).” 35 Edgar Kellenberger, Häsäd wä’ämät als Ausdruck einer Glaubenserfahrung: Gottes Offen-Werden und Bleiben als Voraussetzung des Lebens, ATANT 69 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1982), 185–86; contra Robin L. Routledge, “Ḥesed as Obligation: A Re-Examination,” TynBul 46 (1995): 179–96. 36 In 14:22, while those developing evil will get lost, those doing good will be rewarded in the protection of ‫ חסד‬and ‫אמת‬. In Prov 16:6, when ‫ חסד‬and ‫ אמת‬can atone for a sinner’s iniquity, an individual, by its parallel “fearing Yahweh” that is the religious virtue, an individual can “turn away from evil.” The proverb in 20:28 says that ‫ חסד‬and ‫ אמת‬are allied to the faithfulness essential to king’s rulership. Waltke supposes that ‫ חסד‬and ‫ אמת‬are the metonymies that stand for the essence of the father’s teaching; Proverbs 1–15, 100, 241. Fox argues that ‫ חסד ואמת‬are God’s attributes “which produces the benefits listed in” vv. 1–3; Proverbs 1–9, 145. 37 Cf. the inscription of Job’s plea in Job 19:24 and the eternal record on ‫ לוח‬in Isa 30:8. 38 Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (Philadelphia: JPS, 1996), 77; Dell, The Book of Proverbs, 170.

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serving memorisable instruction and removing obstructions to abiding by divine laws.39 Similarly, the idea of writing divine law on human hearts in Prov 3:3 is much closer to the notion of the new covenant in Jer 31:33, where humans cannot help but keep the requirements of the Torah, than to that of Deut 6:6.40 The same view can be observed in Egyptian texts like Papyrus Beatty IV, which says: Be aware of saying, “Every man is in accordance with his character, the ignorant and the wise are the same thing. Shay and Renener41 are engraved on one’s character with the writing of God himself. Every man is as he is made, and his lifetime is (run) within an hour” (v. 6.5–8).42

As Fox has indicated, the Papyrus states that the destiny engraved on the human heart is the divine act that humans cannot change, and this idea is analogous to “the belief in the predetermination of moral character” in the Hellenistic era.43 The substance of wisdom in Sir 1:14–15 (cf. 39:16–35; 42:15–43:33) is portrayed as what was built in “the womb of the faithful” (1:14; cf. 43:33).44 Divinely engraved character in the innermost thought is also found in the notion of parental laws inscribed on hearts and the wisdom poured out in hearts in Prov 2:6, 3:3, 6:21, 7:3. Writing the instruction on individuals’ heart in Prov 3:3b–4 significantly describes that the scribal education for Jewish families is correlated with something imprinted on the internal organ, namely, human hearts alongside the external mnemonic device of a necklace (cf. 3:3b, 22). Additionally, Schipper claims that the admonition of “trusting in Yahweh with all your heart” in Prov 3:5a (cf. Deut 6:4; 11:13) sharply contrasts with the

39 In the Deuteronomic formulation, Israelites are commanded to strengthen their resolved “hearts” (4:9, 29; 6:5; 10:12; 11:13, 18a; 20:3; 26:16). The Deuteronomic warning in 29:3[4] is that Yahweh did not give Israelites “a heart to understand” (‫ )לב לדעת‬or “eyes to see or ears to hear.” According to Römer, Deuteronomistic History, 174, the idea concerning the circumcision of the heart in Deut 30:6 and 10:16 “might be understood as polemical against the Priestly attempt to transform the ritual of circumcision into a distinctive sign of rising Judaism.” 40 JiSeong J. Kwon, “Calling-Not-Answering and Internalisation of Torah in Proverbs 1–9: Jeremiah and Israelite Wisdom Literature,” in Jeremiah in History and Tradition, ed. Jim West and Niels P. Lemche, The Copenhagen International Seminar (New York: Routledge, 2019), 107–21. 41 Shay and Renener are deities related to “fate” in Egyptian mythology. 42 The English translation comes from Michael V. Fox, “Who Can Learn: A Dispute in Ancient Pedagogy,” in Wisdom, You Are My Sister: Studies in Honor of Roland E Murphy, O Carm, on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, ed. Michael L. Barré, CBQMS 29 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1997), 71 and idem, Proverbs 1–9, 311. 43 In “Who Can Learn,” 71–72, Fox gives another example from Papyrus Insinger: “It is the god who gives the heart, gives the son, and gives the good character. The fate and the fortune that come, it is the god who determines them” (9.19–20); also from Anchsheshonq (7:4–5). Fox’s point is that the same pessimistic view on education is reflected in Prov 9:7–10. 44 JiSeong J. Kwon, “Determinism in Ben Sira?” Semitica (forthcoming).

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 13

command of “not counting on your understanding (‫ ”)בינה‬in Prov 3:5b and that the redactor of Proverbs 3 “derives its meaning” from “light of the deuteronomistic tradition.”45 William McKane likewise regards Prov 3:5–6 as the reinterpretation by Yahwism, which was edited by another redactor to indicate the “‘nationalizing’ of the Instruction” and to complement the lack of wisdom in proverbial instructions.46 The author of this passage intends to mention the danger of human hubris and the limit of human knowledge. However, the content of Proverbs 1–9 does not indicate that instructions of “wisdom” are entirely distinctive from Yahwistic and religious commandments, and it is pointless to think that “laws” in proverbial wisdom are conflicting against or competing with Deuteronomic laws, because the passage of Prov 3:1–12, as it is written, combines wisdom teachings with Yahwistic faith. The command not to count on human understanding (‫ )בינה‬in a negative admonition in 3:5b is regarded as the illusory conviction of being clever that makes a parallel with “fearing Yahweh” and “turning away from evil” in 3:7 (cf. 26:12; Isa 5:21).47

3.2 Proverbs 6:20–24, 7:1–5 and Deuteronomy 6:7, 11:19 ‫ נצר בני מצות אביך ואל תטשׁ תורת אמך‬20 ‫ קשׁרם על לבך תמיד ענדם על גרגרתך‬21 ‫ בהתהלכך תנחה אתך בשׁכבך תשׁמר עליך והקיצות היא תשׂיחך‬22 ‫ כי נר מצוה ותורה אור ודרך חיים תוכחות מוסר‬23 ‫ לשׁמרך מאשׁת רע מחלקת לשׁון נכריה‬24 20 My son, keep your father’s admonition and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. 21 Bind them on your heart continually; tie them on your neck. 22 When you walk, she48 will guard you; when you lie down, she will watch over you; and when you awake, she will speak with you. 23 For the admonition is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs49 of discipline are the way of life, 24 to preserve you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the foreign woman. (Prov 6:20–24)

‫בשׁבתך בביתך ובלכתך בדרך ובשׁכבך‬ when you dwell in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you get up. (Deut 6:7; identical with 11:19)

45 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 61, 63. 46 McKane, Proverbs, 292. 47 Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs, WBC 22 (Nashville: Nelson, 1998), 21. 48 The subject “she” in the Vulgate is rendered as plural to correspond to the object in v. 21. 49 LXX and Tg renders ‫“( תוכחות מוסר‬the reproofs of discipline”) as “reproof (sg. ‫ )תוכחת‬and discipline.”

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In Proverbs 1–9, many consider Prov 6:20–24 to be the passage most influenced by the Torah. According to Michael Fishbane, Prov 6:20–35 intentionally reformulates laws of “adultery and seduction” from Deuteronomic sermons in Deut 5:6–18 (21) and 6:4–9.50 McKane supposes that Prov 6:21–22 is “most reasonably explained as a free adaptation of Deut. 6.7 or 11.19” and sees that the metaphor concerning the binding of the accompanying instructions was intentionally modified to approximate it to Deuteronomi(sti)c commandments and that ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ תורה‬which is parallel to ‫ דרך חיים‬and ‫“ תוכחות מוסר‬belong to both Law and Wisdom.”51 Schipper has argued that Prov 6:20–24 and 7:1–5 employ Deuteronomy 6, with Prov 6:20–24 especially prioritising the Deuteronomic Torah and denying the notion of wisdom, while Prov 7:1–5 emphasises the importance of Wisdom personified as attenuating the value of the Torah.52 Schipper then suggests that the three verbs – ‫“( נחה‬guide”), ‫“( שׁמר‬watch over”), and ‫“( שׁיח‬converse”) – in Prov 6:22 which “encompass the whole of life” correspond only to Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible who watches over humans (cf. Exod 13:17; Gen 24:27), and that the Deuteronomi(sti)c laws in Deut 6:7 and 11:19 are applied to the father’s ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ תורה‬for educating their children in Prov 6:23.53 Shipper’s argumentation could be reasonable if he provides a persuasive clue from the text beyond the redactional criticism. However, the dependence of Proverbs 6 on Deuteronomy is hardly acceptable for several reasons. Firstly, Prov 6:20–24, in the ninth lesson of Prov 6:20–35, acts as a foreword to the subsequent admonition of avoiding the temptation of the “evil woman” (‫)מאשׁת רע‬54 (or the “foreign woman”; ‫ )נכריה‬in 6:24–35. Banning illicit relations with foreign women/wives may have historical connections with the issue of intermarriage observed in the historical setting of Ezra 10:2, 10, 14, 17–18, 44 and Neh 13:26.55 50 Fishbane, “Torah and Tradition,” 284. 51 In Proverbs, 327, McKane thinks that “figures of speech which are redolent of the piety inspired by the Law” in Prov 6:23 “have been imported into the instruction.” From a different angle, Whybray, Proverbs, 104 argues that Prov 6:23a was added to the present location as a gloss on v. 20. 52 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 61–63. 53 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 62. 54 In the LXX, the phrase ‫ אשׁת רע‬is replaced by the expression ἀπὸ γυναικὸς ὑπάνδρου (“a married woman”). 55 There are plenty of references to the foreign women/wives drawn from the historical context of the Jewish community of the post-exilic period, which is linked to the sin of apostasy from their God. See Harold C. Washington, “The Strange Woman of Proverbs 1–9 and Post-Exilic Judean Society,” in Second Temple Studies 2, ed. Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards, JSOTSup (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 217–42; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “The Social Context of the ‘Outsider Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9,” Biblica 72 (1991): 457–73; Nancy N. H. Tan, The “Foreignness” of the Foreign Woman in Proverbs 1–9: A Study of the Origin and Development of a Biblical Motif, BZAW 381 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008). In Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible, JSOTSup 320 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), Claudia V. Camp places the issue

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 15

The theological concern of the apostasy against Yahweh is most likely associated with the seduction of the foreign women, in contrast to the invitation of Wisdom personified. In this case, the guidance through the internalization of laws in Prov 6:22 might be regarded as resonant of the Deuteronomi(sti)c teaching in Deut 6:7 with repeated terms.56 Nonetheless, the warning in the teaching of Prov 6:20–35 would still be different from the concern of Deuteronomy, as it better fits in the predominant discourse about the foreign woman who stands in contrast to Woman Wisdom or divine wisdom in Proverbs 7–8 and 9. More specifically, Schipper’s unconfirmed notion of “der weisheitlichen Tora” in 6:22–23 would be problematic: Vielmehr ist in den in 6,20 synonym gebrauchten Begriffen ‫ּתֹורה‬ ָ und ‫ ִמ ְצוָ ה‬das Subjekt der femininen Verbalformen (Singular) in 6,22 zu sehen. Tora und Gebot, mithin das eine Gebot (und die eine Tora), vermögen all dazu leisten, was in V. 22 beschrieben wird. Prov 6 ist ganz dem Konzept einer Toraweisheit verpflichtet, bei dem das, was als ‘Weisheit’ gelten kann, von der weisheitlichen Tora her bestimmt wird.57

Although Prov 6:20–24 does not have terms related to “wisdom” (‫חכמה‬, ‫)בינה‬, but contains ‫ מצוה‬and ‫תורה‬, there is little reason to argue that the referent about the one who intervenes in the entire life of people by “leading”/“watching over”/ “speaking” in Prov 6:22 is associated with Yahweh,58 and it can be expanded to a sapiential Torah in 6:23 (Deut 6:7; 11:19). One could trace possible indicators of three main actions in v. 22. Yet, the subject “it” (3rd sg. fem.) of three verbs in Prov 6:22 does not refer to ‫מצוה‬/‫( תורה‬parental “commandment/law”; sg. fem.) in v. 20, which corresponds to something to bind/tie (3rd masc. pl.) in v. 21, nor does it refer to ‫“ ( תוכחות מוסר‬the reproofs of discipline”; pl. fem.) which means ‫ דרך חיים‬in 6:2359 Parental teachings in vv. 20–21 work as learning supplements but cannot be the leader, guardian, and speaker of followers. From a different angle, Richard Clifford identifies “it/she” in 6:22 as a wife by shifting Prov 6:22 after the literary unit of

of foreign wives/women into the relationship with the priestly group. To contrast, in Proverbs 1–9, 48, 252–62, Fox comments: “The Strange Woman is not foreign . . . she is certainly not trying to marry the foolish youth.” Weeks, Instruction and Imagery, 141 supposes that “the author is using the ‘foreignness’ of the woman primarily in a poetic way . . . not setting out an exclusivist agenda.” 56 In Proverbs, 327, McKane supported the “free adaptation” of Prov 6:21–22 from Deuteronomic passages in Deut. 6:7 or 11:9 and argued that “the accompanying instructions amplify those of Deuteronomy, except that there is no reference to sitting in the house.” 57 Schipper, Sprüche 1–15, 411. 58 See Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 62. 59 In Proverbs, 39, Murphy argues that in the parallel with Prov 3:23–24, the subject could be “discretion and prudence.” However, the subject of 3:23–24 is the second masculine singular.

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Prov 5:15–19, where the preeminent way of avoiding the foreign woman (5:20) is to maintain an intimate relationship with his wife and where husbands could be suitably protected and guided by their real wives (6:22).60 Such a reconstruction would give a fresh insight. However, because “she” in v. 22 may be concerned with the foreign woman in vv. 24–35, it seems to be unnecessary to rearrange those texts. More probably, the feminine subjects in v. 22 may be understood as the symbolic figure of Wisdom in a given context.61 According to Bruce Waltke, the subject “she” means Wisdom as an implied subject, because Proverbs 1–9 calls for making a friend and protector of Wisdom (cf. Delitzsch, Meinhold, Gemser, Toy, Fox, Waltke). Fox switches the order of v. 22 and v. 23, which possibly explains “how wisdom guides a person (v. 22a),” and then he claims that verbs of “leading”/“watching over”/“speaking” “allude(s) to the internal dialogue that goes on constantly in mind” and “internalized wisdom is a kind of superego or conscience.”62 The different textual arrangement was suggested by Whybray, arguing that if the incomplete three lines in v. 22 probably have a missing line analogous to 7:4a – ‫אמר לחכמה אחתי‬ ‫“ ) את‬Say to Wisdom, ‘you are my sister’”) – the subject in v. 22 is “wisdom” although it is the “semi-personification.”63 There is a validity to each reconstruction of the given text. It, however, is difficult to determine whether the scribe in Prov 6:22 missed a line, transposed the order of vv. 22–23, or rearranged it from Prov 5:15–19; at least, it is unlikely to accept that the feminine subject in the present form in v. 3 refers to “torah” in vv. 20–21 and v. 23 and even then the Deuteronomi(sti)c Torah. The most reasonable way of seeing the feminine subject in v. 22 is that the embodied Wisdom functions as a protector and a counsellor (v. 22), when the pedagogy, by putting the father’s instructions on the heart and accompanying them on bodies in vv. 20–21, shapes the intellectual faculties of obedient children. This passage relates the role of the divine wisdom in the human heart, which saves children from the foreign woman (cf. Prov 2:9–11, 16–19). No doubt, there are parallels between Proverbs 6 and Deut 6:7, 11:19, which commonly share the significance of Israelite family education, but this cannot prove that Proverbs 6:20–24 leaves wisdom mute or prioritises “Torah.”

60 Clifford, Proverbs, 71. 61 See Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 229; Waltke, Proverbs 1–15, 351. 62 It does not seem to be necessary to transpose vv. 22 and 23. In Proverbs 1–9, 229, Fox’s argument seems to be correct in that he seems to solve the inconsistent arrangement in vv. 20–23. However, though “she” in v. 22 could be “wisdom” as “friend, protector, and teacher,” wisdom itself should not be identified as “precepts” and “teaching” in v. 20. Wisdom here is something to be granted by the internalised process of laws (6:20–21; 2:1–11; 3:1–4). 63 Whybray, Proverbs, 103.

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 17

Secondly, metaphorical words such as “lamp” (‫ )נר‬and “light” (‫)אור‬, which are predicative words of ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ תורה‬in Prov 6:23a, have parallels with Ps 119:105 (cf. Prov 13:9; Job 18:6; 29:3), which likewise connects torah (v. 97) with ‫ נר‬and ‫אור‬ through the use of ‫דבר‬: ‫נר־לרגלי דברך ואור לנתיבתי‬ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Ps 119:105)

Whybray claims that the resemblances between Prov 6:23 and Ps 119:105, where the psalmist praises the value of the Torah, imply that Prov 6:23 is an inserted gloss, and its redactor “had the Law in mind and reinterpreted v. 20 in this sense.”64 To the contrary, McKane claims that ‫ מצוה‬and ‫ – תורה‬though qualifying that these were “borrowed from the milieu of legal piety” – as well as ‫“( תוכחות מוסר‬the reproofs of discipline”) are something “native to the Instruction,” so that Prov 6:23 “has firm associations with old wisdom.”65 Likewise, Schipper supposes that “the concept of the Torah guiding one’s life is expanded in Prov 6:23” and Ps 119:105, and they both “paradigmatically” present the notion of “a sapiential Torah.”66 Then, in the context of a comparison of the light-path metaphor in Proverbs 6 and Psalms 119 with the divine guidance enabled by pillars “of cloud by day” “to lead them along the way” (‫ )לנחתם הדרך‬and “of fire by night” “to be light” (‫ )להאיר להם‬in Exod 13:21, Schipper argues: Es findet sich eine Form von ‚Toraweisheit‘, bei der die Weisheit dergestalt mit der Tora verschmolzen ist, dass Aussagen, die über die Weisheit möglich waren, nun für die Tora gelten.67

While those whom the foreign woman entices will in no way arrive at “the paths of life” (Prov 2:19 [‫ ;]ארח חיים‬5:6 [‫)]ארחות חיים‬, the correcting discipline of torah, like light, will lead disciples of wisdom into “the way of life” (‫ )דרך חיים‬protecting them from the foreign woman (6:23). “The way of life” through instruction is essential to continue the successful life and to escape the netherworld (15:24; cf. 10:17), but it requires moral virtues like “righteousness” to disciples: “in the path of righteousness is life, and in its pathway, there is no death” (12:28; cf. 10:16). The metaphorical dimension of “way”/”path” is prevalent in the typical instruction genre of Egyptian

64 Whybray, Proverbs, 104. 65 In Proverbs, 327, McKane maintains that in v. 23 “figures of speech which are redolent of the piety inspired by the Law have been imported into the Instruction,” while ‫ תוכחות מוסר‬is appreciated as “native to the Instruction.” The dichotomic notion of these terms concerning instructions is misleading and has no firm ground. 66 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 62. 67 Schipper, Hermeneutik der Tora, 238 and idem, Sprüche 1–15, 412.

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sources,68 for example, the same motif of “way of life” appears in Papyrus Chester Beatty IV (6.3–4) and the Instruction of Amenemope (XVI ll. 5–10).69 The metaphor “the way of life” is not only abundant in Proverbs, but also in the rest of the Hebrew Bible: ‫( ארח חיים‬Ps 16:11; Prov 2:19; 5:6; 10:17; 12:28; 15:24); ‫( דרך חיים‬Prov 6:23; 12:28; 2 Chr 6:31; Jer 21:8). The motif of “way” in Proverbs corresponds to the moral virtues and ethical behaviours that pious individuals should perform. The author of Deuteronomy, likewise, prefers using the “way”/”path” motif combined with the religious characteristics of Moses’s laws: Israelites should walk (‫ )הלך‬in the way which Yahweh commanded to Israelites (Deut 5:33; 10:12; 11:22; 13:6; 19:9; 26:17; 28:9; 30:16; 31:29), should remember (‫ )זכר‬the way (Deut 8:2, 6), and should not turn away (‫ )סור‬from the way of Yahweh’s commandments (9:12, 16; 11:28). Deuteronomists are interested in taking the notion of “way” in stating the significance of the Mosaic covenant (2 Kgs 22:2; 2 Chr 34:2).70 Additionally, the path imagery alongside Yahweh’s laws is quite prevalent in prophetic and wisdom literature, in particular in Deutero-Isaiah, Job, and Psalms71 (Isa 42:24; Job 23:10–12; Ps 119:1, 29; cf. Ezek 33:11; Amos 8:14; Mal 2:8). With the metaphor of “way”/”path” in Ezek 33:11, Amos 8:14, Mal 2:8, one could suppose an ancient Israelite would understand such passages of prophetic literature as a nod toward Mosaic laws that they should ultimately follow. In Psalm 25, the path imagery is presented by representing the psalmist’s moral life as a journey equal to the observation of Yahweh’s covenantal laws.72 And this implication may hint at how the “way” metaphor in the exilic and post-exilic periods was extensive throughout Jewish literature regardless of Deuteronomi(sti)c influence. Of course, although the manner of Yahweh’s relationship with the Israelites in Deuteronomy is to some degree associated with the teachings of a father or a mother with a son

68 Markus P. Zehnder, Wegmetaphorik im Alten Testament, BZAW 268 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011); Weeks, Instruction and Imagery, 148–49. 69 See Bernard Couroyer, “Le chemin de vie en Egypte et en Israël,” RB 56 (1949): 412–32; Didier Devauchelle, “Le chemin de vie dans l’Égypte ancienne,” in Sagesses de l’Orient Ancien et Chrétien: La voie de vie et la conduite spirituelle chez les peuples et dans les littératures de l’Orient Chrétien, ed. René Lebrun, STR 2 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1993), 91–122; Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 130; Weeks, Instruction and Imagery, 148–49. 70 Cf. Josh 22:5; Judg 2:22; 1 Kgs 2:3; 3:14; 8:58; 11:33, 38; 2 Kgs 21:22; 2 Chr 6:16, 27. Weeks, Instruction and Imagery, 151. 71 Oystein Lund, Way Metaphors and Way Topics in Isaiah 40–55. FAT II/28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007); Jacques Briend, “Dieu et le chemin de vie (Pr 10–22),” in Lebrun, Sagesses de l’Orient Ancien, 63–90; Werner Quintens, “Le chemin de la vie dans le Psaume 16,” ETL 55 (1979): 233–42. 72 Alec Basson, “The Path Image Schema as Underlying Structure for the Metaphor Moral Life Is a Journey in Psalm 25,” OTE 24 (2011): 19–29, esp. 27.

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 19

as in Proverbs (e.g., 3:11–12),73 the imagery of the pathway in Proverbs is beyond divine teachings in Deuteronomy, and “torah” in Proverbs is recognised chiefly as parental instruction. As noted above, the metaphor of ‫דרך‬/‫“( ארח‬way”) in Deuteronomy is used in combination with the laws and decrees that Moses received from Yahweh and commanded to Israelites (Deut 5:33; 8:2; 9:12, 16; 11:28; 13:6[5]; 30:16; 31:29), and, as a series of moral norms, it entails warnings not to turn aside from the exclusive way of Yahweh, who admonishes in divine anger (5:31–33).74 On the contrary, the “pathway” metaphor in Proverbs 1–9 should not be seen as exclusively suggesting the dichotomy of the two ways,75 but as indicating the plurality of “pathways” (Prov 1:19; 2:13, 15, 19–20; 3:17; 5:6 8:32).76 There are still different routes of “life” in front of “the righteous” (2:19–20; cf. 3:6), and a disciple of wisdom in his journey should keep walking the straight path of life (5:6), keeping far away from the house of the ‫( אשׁה זרה‬5:8). There is no single predetermined fate. More pointedly, individuals’ fates and moral/ethical responsibilities in Proverbs77 are not tied up to the national fate as they are in Deuteronomy but are merely directed by their own individual submission. As Schipper maintained, Yahweh’s word in Ps 119:105 may mean not only the tradition of the Torah but also Yahweh’s “way.” However, this should not be regarded as a clue to justify the claim that the two traditions of Wisdom and Torah have been blended in Psalm 119. According to Jon Levenson, the psalmist in Psalms 119 makes parallels with Deuteronomi(sti)c materials, but not only are Deuteronomic concepts such as “covenant,” “exodus,” and “the promised land” lacking in the psalmist’s mind, but also the figure of Moses as a teacher, as portrayed in Deu73 In Instruction and Imagery, 153, Weeks supposes: “3:11–12 is probably to be taken in the context of an understanding that instruction has more than a single source or author” and “this poses no obstacle to association with the Law, which is to be taught to individuals variously by parents or by God.” 74 Patrick D. Miller, “‘That You May Live’: Dimension of Law in Deuteronomy,” in Concepts of Law in the Sciences, Legal Studies, and Theology, ed. Michael Welker and Grefor Etzelmüller, RPT 72 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 145. 75 Concerning the symbolism of wisdom, the three-stage construction of Norman C. Habel contains the secular international (old) wisdom (esp. chs. 4–6), the wisdom of Yahwistic covenantal way, and the wisdom including cultic and mythological field (cosmological); see “Symbolism of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9,” Interpretation 26 (1972): 131–57. 76 See Fox, Proverbs 1–9, 129; Weeks, Instruction and Imagery, 75. 77 As argued by Kalus Koch, “Gibt es ein Vergeltungsdogma im Alten Testament,” ZTK 52 (1955): 1–42, the way metaphor also might to some degree contain elements of “schicksalwirkende Tatsphäre” (“a fate-effecting sphere of action”); this view is supported by Suzanna R. Millar, “The Path Metaphor and the Construction of a Schicksalwirkende Tatsphäre in Proverbs 10:1–22:16,” VT 69 (2019): 95–108.

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 JiSeong J. Kwon

teronomy, is changed in the psalm by a description of God who becomes a teacher to enlighten people.78 Levenson further argues that the notion of ‫ מצוה‬in Psalm 119 is even closer to that of Proverbs than the juridical norm in Deuteronomy. In the same way, the scribal advice in Prov 6:23 is hardly dependent upon the textual authority of the Pentateuch or Deuteronomy, but rather upon the father’s wise words as authoritative for the continued educating of kinfolk (e.g., Prov 13:13–15; cf. 1:6–8; 4:2–4; 13:13–15; 28:4–7). For instance, in Prov 13:13–15 “the word” (‫)דבר‬ is used as a synonym with ‫“( מצוה‬commandment”) and ‫“( תורת חכם‬the teaching of the wise”) and is called “a source of life,” so much so that ‫ תורת חכם‬has the power to “avoid the snare of death,” while ‫ דרך‬of the treacherous is their own destruction: ‫ שׂכל טוב יתן־חן‬15 ‫ תורת חכם מקור חיים לסור ממקשׁי מות‬14 ‫ בז לדבר יחבל לו וירא מצוה הוא ישׁלם‬13 ‫ודרך בגדים איתן‬ One who despises a word will be ruined by it,79 but one who respects an admonition will be rewarded. 14 The teaching of the wise is a spring of life, so that one may avoid the snares of death. 15Good sense wins favour, but the way of the faithless is their ruin.80 (Prov 13:13–15)

13

Here, the notion that, while people who reject ‫ דבר‬will be destroyed, those who admire ‫ מצוה‬will bring positive consequences should not be understood as drawing on the formulation of Deuteronomy (e.g., Deut 30:11–14), but it should be regarded as general sayings belonging to the advice literature.81 Interestingly, the teaching of the wise (‫ )תורת חכם‬in Prov 13:14 is replaced by “revering Yahweh” (‫)יראת יהוה‬ in 14:27.82 Thus, one should interpret its author (13:14) here as appearing to not entirely detach torah or commandments of the wise from the religious sense, i.e., the piety of fearing Yahweh, rather than seeing this as an occasion of Yahwistic reinterpretation.83

78 Jon D. Levenson, “Sources of Torah: Psalm 119 and the Modes of Revelation in Second Temple Judaism,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. Patrick D. Miller (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 564 supposes that in the mixed form the dominant form of Psalm 119 is “a prayer for illumination and revelation.” 79 The phrase ‫ יחבל לו‬is generally translated as “be ruined by it” or “bring destruction upon himself” in the meaning of “act corruptly” (RSV, ESV, Whybray, Waltke, McKane; ‫ חבל‬III in HALOT). The phrase “pledge is seized from him” has no sense in the given context. 80 The word ‫“( איתן‬ruin”) is rendered as ἐν ἀπωλείᾳ (“in ruin”) in LXX. 81 McKane, Proverbs, 454. 82 In LXX, ‫ יראת יהוה‬is replaced by “a command of the Lord” (πρόσταγμα κυρίου). In Proverbs, 474, McKane argues that “the instruction of the hakam is substituted the Law of Yahweh.” However, I am not sure in what way the phrase of LXX refers to “the Law of Yahweh.” 83 Murphy, Proverbs, 106. In contrast, in Proverbs, 222, Whybray maintains that this is a reinterpretation in Yahwistic terms.

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 21

Accordingly, in Prov 6:23, there is little to deduce from the notion of Toraweisheit, and the instruction in Prov 6:20–24 shows the internalised teachings as the way of life (e.g., 4:2–4). Parental commandments indicate connections with keeping divine words (Prov 14:2, 26, 27; 28:5, 25), but it is hard to assume that the given text fits in the framework of Deuteronomy or was influenced by Deuteronomic ideology or thought. Finally, Schipper argues that although Prov 7:1–5 reflects Deuteronomic expressions (‫מצוה‬, ‫)תורה‬, it neither presents “a sharp distinction between trusting in YHWH and wisdom,” nor is it critical of wisdom, so that the passage is contradictory to the Torah-centered perspective of Prov 6:20–24.84 However, if the analysis that the subject “it” of three verbs in Prov 6:22 refers to Wisdom is reasonable, then it is less persuasive to consider that Prov 6:20–23 and 7:1–5 are contradictory to each other. In this context, where both ‫ חכמה‬and ‫ בינה‬in Prov 7:4 are called ‫אחות‬ (“sister”) and ‫“( מודע‬friend”), it would indicate that the seeker of wisdom should experience the individual familiarity with the divine wisdom as being protected from the allure of the foreign woman: ‫ לשׁמרך מאשׁה זרה מנכריה אמריה החליקה‬5 ‫אמר לחכמה אחתי את ומדע לבינה תקרא‬

4

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your companion, 5 to keep you from the strange woman, from the foreign woman who makes her words smooth. (Prov 7:4–5)

4

The conflicting scheme between the embodiment of instructions and the seductiveness of the foreign woman in Prov 6:20–24 is the same as that of Prov 7:1–3, 5 (also, 2:16–19). In addition to the internalization of those teachings, the intimacy of Wisdom appears in contrast to the peril of the foreign woman/wife in 7:4–5.

3.3 Summary It has been claimed that Proverbs 3, 6, and 7 are directly linked to the Shema (Deuteronomy 6, 11), but as reviewed so far, what the text actually indicates is not. Although substantial parallels of Proverbs 3, 6, and 7 with Deuteronomic texts may tell us that proverbial instructions stand on Jewish tradition, including legal and prophetic traditions, this does not mean that the term “torah” in Proverbs 1–9 refers to the Mosaic Torah or indicates “a sapiential Torah.” All three texts of Proverbs mentioned above talk about the internalization of parental teachings in their daily lives. The father’s voice proceeds to address the religious belief, warning about human hubris and debasement (3:5; 6:23–24; 7:4–5). Prov 3:1–5 shows that 84 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 61.

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 JiSeong J. Kwon

the observation of instructions guarantees the extended length of life and peace (v. 2) and the divine favour and success (v. 4), while Prov 6:20–24 and 7:1–5 highlight the protection from the seductiveness of the foreign woman. Although Prov 3:1–12 lacks the term ‫חכמה‬, the ensuing interlude (3:13–20) praises Wisdom as “a tree of life” whom pious children should seize (esp. v. 18a). Schipper has argued that Prov 6:20–24 adopts a more wisdom-based ideology than 7:1–5 (cf. Deuteronomy 6), which prioritises the Deuteronomic Torah, and that the proverbial admonition in Prov 3:5a (cf. Deut 6:4; 11:13) contrasts with that of Prov 3:5b which addresses the doubt of self-understanding. However, there is no reason to distinguish instructions and warnings of forefathers from Mosaic laws and to treat teachings of Proverbs as inferior to Deuteronomic laws. It is unnecessary to understand wisdom and torah as something that collides with each other in given texts. The difference between Prov 6:20–24 and 7:1–5 should not be interpreted as a conflicting mode between a Wisdom-based ideology and a Torah-centered ideology; instead, both Prov 6:20–35 and 7:1–27 belong to the discourse concerning the needed vigilance in avoiding the foreign woman.

4 Conclusion Schipper’s analysis on the reception of Torah in Proverbs is an overstated supposition. He argues that specific elements in Proverbs 1–9, influenced by the Torah with specifically Deuteronomic formulation, were later redacted to diverse perspectives on Wisdom-Torah according to scribal concerns, whereby wisdom functions either as the advocate of Torah or as the antagonist of Torah. However, in this claim, there is a problematic assumption that “wisdom” is no more than a tool for interpreting the Torah. The book of Proverbs was manufactured by interacting with various historical settings from ancient Israel to early Judaism and shares broad textual and thematic commonalities in the exilic and post-exilic periods. Indeed, the intrinsic peculiarity of instruction, wisdom/Wisdom, and warnings about a foreign woman combined with their religious facets was not essentially transformed into the system of Law, and it should not be treated as being little better than a “hermeneutical construct.”85

85 Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct, was the first to use the expression “hermeneutical construct,” in his monograph where he claims that in Hellenistic wisdom texts “wisdom” was utilised as a tool for reading other biblical materials. This view has been criticised by Stuart Weeks, An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 137, arguing

Instructions and Torah in Proverbs 1–9 

 23

Moreover, such an evolutionary concept in the early and later redactions of Proverbs is anachronistic, although the approach of the redactional critic in such texts is quite reasonable and should not be dismissed outright. For instance, Schipper claims that Agur’s poem in Proverbs 30 is in the same line with the message of late prophecy against the so-called “theological” wisdom in Proverbs 2.86 However, the author(s) of Proverbs 30 unlikely denies the essence of sacred “wisdom,” but rather sees concepts such as the incomprehensibility of life, human ignorance, and the inaccessibility of wisdom as being not that far from other wisdom ideas (e.g., Proverbs 8; Job 28; 38–41) or from sceptical literature in other ancient Near Eastern texts (e.g., The Admonitions of Ipuwer, Instruction of Ankhsheshonq, Prophecies of Neferti, Babylonian Theodicy, The Dialogue of Pessimism). The books of Job and Ecclesiastes were likely finalized at a later time than Proverbs, but this does not mean that some core versions of these texts did not exist at a time either earlier or contemporaneous to that of Proverbs – although one should not overlook that Proverbs most likely also went through its final redactional processes around the 3rd or 2nd century BCE. In addition, the claim that the idea of wisdom turned into the Torah and that theological wisdom becomes more and more reduced into a sort of general knowledge that stands in conflict with late prophecy is a misled supposition and does not present the nature of Israelite instructional literature. For instance, both the story and sayings of Aramaic Ahiqar and the Egyptian Amenemope attest that the secular and sacred instructions did not exist entirely separately in different stages of textual development nor were the mundane instructions developed through some later theologizing practice.87 The following is a summary of what has been demonstrated in this essay: – No doubt, authors of Proverbs would be aware of an important text like the Torah, and they, in its manufacture, might draw attention to the Torah by blending religious faith with the instruction genre in the Persian period. There are many reasons to imagine that the book of Proverbs has mainly been shaped by traditions of Jewish literature such as Deuteronomy and prophetic and wisdom texts, as well as from ancient Near Eastern counterparts. Indeed, images of foreign women/wives and pathways in Proverbs were most likely connected with the semantics of other Hebrew literature during the Persian period.

that “later writers were clearly able to adapt the framework of instruction and wisdom to incorporate not only biblical traditions, but such concepts as the ‘mystery to be.’” 86 Schipper, “Wisdom Not Enough,” 69–75. 87 Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 482–83, 924.

24  –

–

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However, instructions, sayings, and rules in Proverbs are neither externally interconnected with Pentateuchal laws of the cultic system and coercive legislation nor are they presented as having specific references to Deuteronomy, although one might synchronically read them alongside traditions from Deuteronomy and Deuteronomi(sti)c ideology. Maintaining that the author(s) of Proverbs was interested in the internal transformation based on the pedagogical relationship between parents and children would be a more plausible explanation than the unreasonable argument of the reception of the Torah in Proverbs, which leads us to imagine the relationship between law-giving Yahweh and Israelites.

Bibliography Basson, Alec. “The Path Image Schema as Underlying Structure for the Metaphor Moral Life Is a Journey in Psalm 25.” OTE 24 (2011): 19–29. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “The Social Context of the ‘Outsider Woman’ in Proverbs 1–9.” Biblica 72 (1991): 457–73. Boström, Lennart. The God of the Sages: The Portrayal of God in the Book of Proverbs. ConBOT 29. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1990. Braulik, Georg. “Das Deuteronomium und die Bucher Ijob, Sprichworter, Rut: Zur Frage früher Kanonizität des Deuteronomiums.” Pages 61–138 in Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen. Edited by Erich Zenger. Herders Biblische Studien. Freiburg: Herder, 1996. Briend, Jacques. “Dieu et Le Chemin de Vie (Pr 10–22).” Pages 63–90 in Sagesses de l’Orient Ancien et Chrétien: La Voie de Vie et La Conduite Spirituelle Chez Les Peuples et Dans Les Littératures de l’Orient Chrétien. STR 2. Paris: Beauchesne, 1993. Brown, William P. “The Law and the Sages: A Reexamination of Tôrâ in Proverbs.” Pages 251–80 in Constituting the Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride Jr. Edited by John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell. Winona Lake: Penn State University Press, 2005. Buchanan, George W. “Midrashim Pré-Tannaïtes: À Propos de Prov 1–9.” RB 72 (1965): 227–39. Camp, Claudia V. Wise, Strange and Holy: The Strange Woman and the Making of the Bible. JSOTSup 320. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Clements, Ronald E. “Wisdom.” It Is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture : Essays in Honour of Barnabas Lindars. Edited by Donald A. Carson, Hugh G.M. Williamson, and Barnabas Lindars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Clifford, Richard J. Proverbs: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999. Couroyer, Bernard. “Le Chemin de Vie En Egypte et En Israël.” RB 56 (1949): 412–32. Dell, Katharine J. The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2009. Devauchelle, Didier. “Le Chemin de Vie Dans l’Égypte Ancienne.” Pages 91–122 in Sagesses de l’Orient Ancien et Chrétien: La Voie de Vie et La Conduite Spirituelle Chez Les Peuples et Dans Les Littératures de l’Orient Chrétien; Conférences IROC 1991–1992. STR 2. Paris: Beauchesne, 1993. Fishbane, Michael A. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.

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Fishbane, Michael A. “Torah and Tradition.” Pages 275–300 in Tradition and Theology in the Old Testament. Edited by Douglas A. Knight. London: SPCK, 1977. Fontaine, Carole R. “Proverb Performance in the Hebrew Bible.” JSOT 32 (1985): 87–103. Fontaine, Carole R. Traditional Sayings in the Old Testament: A Contextual Study. BLS 5. Sheffield: Almond, 1982. Fox, Michael V. “From Amenemope to Proverbs: Editorial Art in Proverbs 22,17–23,11.” ZAW 126 (2014): 76–91. Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 1–9. AB 18A. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 10–31. AB 18B. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Fox, Michael V. “Who Can Learn: A Dispute in Ancient Pedagogy.” Pages 62–77 in Wisdom, You Are My Sister: Studies in Honor of Roland E Murphy, O Carm, on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday. Edited by Michael L. Barré. CBQMS 29. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1997. Habel, Norman C. “Symbolism of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9.” Interpretation 26 (1972): 131–57. Kellenberger, Edgar. “Häsäd wä’ämät als Ausdruck einer Glaubenserfahrung: Gottes Offen-Werden und Bleiben als Voraussetzung des Lebens.” ATANT 69. Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1982. Koch, Klaus. “Gibt Es Ein Vergeltungsdogma im Alten Testament.” ZTK 52 (1955): 1–42. Kwon, JiSeong J. “Calling-Not-Answering and Internalisation of Torah in Proverbs 1–9: Jeremiah and Israelite Wisdom Literature.” Pages 107–21 in Jeremiah in History and Tradition. Edited by Jim West and Niels P. Lemche. The Copenhagen International Seminar. New York: Routledge, 2019. Kwon, JiSeong J. “Determinism in Ben Sira?” Semitica (forthcoming). Laisney, Vincent Pierre-Michel. L’Enseignement d’Aménémopé. Studia Pohl 19. Roma: Editrice Pontificio Istituto biblico, 2007. Lang, Bernhard. “Women’s Work, Household and Property in Two Mediterranean Societies: Comparative Essay on Proverbs Xxxi 10–31.” VT 54 (2004): 188–207. Levenson, Jon D. “Sources of Torah: Psalm 119 and the Modes of Revelation in Second Temple Judaism.” Pages 559–74 in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross. Edited by Patrick D. Miller. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. Lund, Oystein. Way Metaphors and Way Topics in Isaiah 40–55. FAT II/28. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Maier, Christl. die “fremde Frau” in Proverbien 1–9: Eine exegetische und sozialgeschichtliche Studie. OBO 144. Fribourg: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995. Mathys, Hans-Peter. “Die Tüchtige Hausfrau von Prov 31,10–31: Eine Phönizische Unternehmerin.” TZ 60 (2004): 23–42. McKane, William. Proverbs: A New Approach. London: SCM, 1970. Millar, Suzanna R. “The Path Metaphor and the Construction of a Schicksalwirkende Tatsphäre in Proverbs 10:1–22:16.” VT 69 (2019): 95–108. Miller, Patrick D. “‘That You May Live’: Dimension of Law in Deuteronomy.” Pages 137–57 in Concepts of Law in the Sciences, Legal Studies, and Theology. Edited by Michael Welker and Grefor Etzelmüller. RPT 72. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Murphy, Roland E. Proverbs. WBC 22. Nashville: Nelson, 1998. Otto, Eckart. Deuteronomium 4,44–11,32. HThKAT. Freiburg: Herder, 2012. Overland, Paul. “Did the Sage Draw from the Shema? A Study of Proverbs 3:1–12.” CBQ 62 (2000): 424–40. Pinçon, Bertrand. “La Correction Paternelle de Proverbes 3, 1–12 et Ses Résonnances Deutéronomiques.” Pages 381–93 in Separata de: Estudios Bíblicos. 67. Madrid: Facultad de Teología San Dámaso, 2009. Quintens, Werner. “Le Chemin de La Vie Dans Le Psaume 16.” ETL 55 (1979): 233–42.

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Robert, André. “Les Attaches Littéraires Bibliques de Prov. I–IX.” RB 44 (1935): 344–65. Robert, André. “Les Attaches Littéraires Bibliques de Prov. I–IX.” RB 44 (1935): 502–25. Robert, André. “Les Attaches Littéraires Bibliques de Prov. I–IX.” RB 43 (1934): 42–68. Römer, Thomas. The So-Called Deuteronomistic History: A Sociological, Historical and Literary Introduction. London: T&T Clark, 2005. Routledge, Robin L. “Ḥesed as Obligation: A Re-Examination.” TB 46 (1995): 179–96. Schipper, Bernd U. “Das Proverbienbuch und die Toratradition.” ZTK 108 (2011): 381–404. Schipper, Bernd U.“Die Lehre des Amenemope und Prov 22,17–24,22: Eine Neubestimmung des Literarischen Verhältnisses (Teil 2).” ZAW 117 (2005): 232–48. Schipper, Bernd U.“Die Lehre des Amenemope und Prov 22,17–24,22: Eine Neubestimmung des Literarischen Verhältnisses (Teil 1).” ZAW 117 (2005): 53–72. Schipper, Bernd U. Hermeneutik der Tora: Studien zur Traditionsgeschichte von Prov. 2 und zur Komposition von Prov. 1–9. BZAW 432. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. Schipper, Bernd U. Sprüche (Proverbia) 1–15. Biblischer Kommentar. Altes Testament 17. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Schipper, Bernd U. “When Wisdom Is Not Enough!” Pages 55–79 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of “Torah” in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and David A. Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Schmid, Konrad. The Old Testament: A Literary History. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012. Sheppard, Gerald T. Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament. BZAW 151. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980. Tan, Nancy N. H. The “Foreignness” of the Foreign Woman in Proverbs 1–9: A Study of the Origin and Development of a Biblical Motif. BZAW 381. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Tigay, Jeffrey H. Deuteronomy. Philadelphia: JPS, 1996. Van Leeuwen, Raymond C. “Proverbs.” NIB 5:48. Waltke, Bruce K. The Book of Proverbs: Chapters 1–15. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004. Washington, Harold C. “The Strange Woman of Proverbs 1–9 and Post-Exilic Judean Society.” Pages 217–42 in Second Temple Studies 2. Edited by Tamara C. Eskenazi and Kent H. Richards. JSOTSup. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. Weeks, Stuart. An Introduction to the Study of Wisdom Literature. London: T&T Clark, 2010. Weeks, Stuart. Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9. Oxford: Oxford University, 2007. Whybray, Roger N. Proverbs. NCBC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Whybray, Roger N. The Composition of the Book of Proverbs. JSOTSup 168. Sheffield: JSOT, 1994. Whybray, Roger N. Wisdom in Proverbs: The Concept of Wisdom in Proverbs 1–9. SBT 45. Naperville: A. R. Allenson, 1965. Wolters, Albert M. The Song of the Valiant Woman: Studies in the Interpretation of Proverbs 31:10–31. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2000. Yoder, Christine R. Wisdom as a Woman of Substance: A Socioeconomic Reading of Proverbs 1–9 and 31:10–31. BZAW 304. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2001. Zehnder, Markus P. Wegmetaphorik im Alten Testament. Reprint 2011. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011.

Bernd U. Schipper

Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs Proverbs 28 is one of the most remarkable chapters in the book of Proverbs. Even scholars who argue that the term torah in Proverbs is not to be understood as “law” admit that in Proverbs 28 the term bears a nomistic meaning. This paper evaluates Proverbs 28 with regard to both its position within the book of Proverbs and in view of Proverbs’s reception of Deuteronomy. Although the chapter draws on passages in Proverbs 1–27, it also uses motifs and keywords from the Book of Deuteronomy. It is argued herein that Proverbs 28 presents a distinct perspective on the discourse about Wisdom and torah, which nuances the meaning of wisdom from that found in the previous chapters by developing a new framework for reading Proverbs 30 and 31. Essentially, Proverbs 28 alters the book’s leitmotif of wisdom and prepares the groundwork for a new theological dimension in which the divine word, as imbued in the concept of torah, becomes the sole guide for human conduct and the foundation of sapiential behaviour.

1 Introduction When writing a commentary on the book of Proverbs, it is not only helpful to look into recent commentaries but also into the work of scholars from the 19th century. Franz Delitzsch, Ferdinand Hitzig, and Wilhelm Frankenberg – to mention just a few names – presented an approach to the book of Proverbs that was mainly based on an interpretation of the Hebrew text.1 Trained in ancient languages in a unique way, these scholars made discoveries in the text that are still important. This is particularly true for Wilhelm Frankenberg: in his 1898 commentary, published in the Hand-

1 For the history of research, see Rudolf Smend, “The Interpretation of Wisdom in NineteenthCentury Scholarship,” in Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honor of J. A. Emerton, ed. John Day, Robert P. Gordon, and Hugh G. M. Williamson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 257–68, esp. 262. Note: The following article keeps the oral character of the lecture. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their comments on my argumentation. Bernd U. Schipper, Humboldt-University of Berlin https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-002

28 

 Bernd U. Schipper

kommentar zum Alten Testament,2 Frankenberg presented not only a brilliant translation of the Hebrew text but also important conclusions on the place of the book of Proverbs in relation to other biblical literature and its possible socio-historical background. For Frankenberg, there was no question that the book of Proverbs should be located within the context of canonical and deuterocanonical wisdom literature: The literature of the hokhmah belongs squarely in the postexilic period, since it was only then that the historical conditions for its development existed. It presupposes the Law with its teaching – established as an unshakable truth through the experience of the exile – that God has decreed life for those who heed his commandments and death for those who transgress them.3

For Frankenberg, it was unquestionable that the book of Proverbs presupposes the Torah and should be placed alongside other wisdom literature from the Persian and Hellenistic periods. This position was typical for scholarship on the book of Proverbs at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. It can also be found in the commentaries by Franz Delitzsch (1873) and Ferdinand Hitzig (1858), even into the 1930s and the work of André Robert, who dated the book of Proverbs, based on an extensive analysis of its intertextual connections, to the 4th c. BCE.4 However, when Robert published his series of articles in the Revue Biblique 1934–35,5 a main shift in research on the book of Proverbs had already been made. With the discovery of the connections between the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope and Proverbs 22:17–23:11, ancient Israelite wisdom was seen more and more within the context of ancient Near Eastern, and especially Egyptian, wisdom literature. Two scholars from the University of Berlin, the Egyptologist Adolf Erman and the Old Testament scholar Hugo Gressmann, saw the similarities between the Instruction of Amenemope, first edited by Ernest W. Budge in 1923, and the book of Proverbs.6 As a consequence, 2 The Handkommentar zum Alten Testament was edited by D.W. Nowack, professor for Old Testament at the University of Strassburg. 3 Wilhelm Frankenberg, Die Sprüche, HKAT 2/3.1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1898), 6. The English translation is taken from Bernd U. Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, trans. Stephen Germany, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2019), 2. 4 See the brief sketch of the history of research in Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 2–4. 5 See André Robert, “Les attaches littéraires biblique de Proverbs I–IX,” RB 43 (1934): 42–46, 172– 204, 374–84; 44 (1935): 344–65, 502–25. 6 Adolf Erman, “Eine ägyptische Quelle der Sprüche Salomos,” SPAW 15 (1924): 86–93. The papyrus with the Instruction of Amenemope was purchased in Egypt in 1888 and brought to the British Museum, where it was assigned the inventory number pBM 10474. Ernest Wallis Budge, Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum, 2d series (London: Longmans, 1923); see also Hugo Gressmann, “Die neugefundene Lehre des Amenemope und die vorexilische Spruchdichtung Israels,” ZAW 42 (1924): 272–96.

Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs 

 29

perspectives on the book of Proverbs and its place within Old Testament literature changed significantly. Scholars such as Johannes Fichtner and Walter Baumgartner declared in publications from 1933 that the book of Proverbs should be distinguished from other Old Testament traditions. The same was stressed two decades later by Hartmut Gese in a study from 1958, referring explicitly to Baumgartner: “It is widely acknowledged that the wisdom instruction is a foreign body in the world of the Old Testament.”7 Thus, what was close to ancient Near Eastern traditions must have been alien to the primary Old Testament traditions. Already Johannes Fichtner argued in his 1933 study that the term torah (‫ )תורה‬has a different meaning throughout the book of Proverbs than in the Pentateuch.8 The same position can be found in more recent research, such as in the commentaries of Richard J. Clifford (1999), Leo G.Perdue (2000), and James A. Loader (2014).9 In the following, I present another perspective. In my eyes, the book of Proverbs presents not only different concepts of wisdom but also in most of its parts an intentional use of the term torah (‫)תורה‬. The composition of the book and its final framing can be connected to a discourse about the benefits and limitations of a sapiential worldview. Even though the term torah (‫ )תורה‬has a different meaning in Proverbs than in Deuteronomy, where it always refers to the divine law, there is evidence that not only particular chapters of the book of Proverbs but also its overarching structure interact with Deuteronomy and the idea of a torah (‫ )תורה‬in a certain way, transmitted from one generation to the other (Deuteronomy 6:6–11, 11:18–21).10 Here, I focus on a chapter in which Franz Hitzig, in his 1858 commentary, had already found “a pious emotion” (“eine fromme Gemüthsstimmung”). As one further example from a nineteenth century scholar, Hermann Leberecht Strack stated in 1888 that the term Torah cannot be separated from the law of God.11

7 Hartmut Gese, Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der alten Weisheit: Studien zu den Sprüchen Salomos und dem Buche Hiob (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1958), 2. See also Walter Baumgartner, Israelitische und altorientalische Weisheit, SGV 166 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1933). 8 Johannes Fichtner, Die altorientalische Weisheit in ihrer israelitisch-jüdischen Ausprägung: Eine Studie zur Nationalisierung der Weisheit in Israel, BZAW 62 (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1933), 4–5. 9 Richard J. Clifford, Proverbs: A Commentary, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999), 81; Leo G. Perdue, Proverbs, IBC (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 129; James A. Loader, Proverbs 1–9, HCOT (Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 73 and 274. 10 See more recently Bernd U. Schipper, The Hermeneutics of Torah: Proverbs 2, Deuteronomy, and the Composition of Proverbs 1–9, AIL 43 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021). 11 Ferdinand Hitzig, Die Sprüche Salomo’s (Zurich: Orelli, 1858), 292; Hermann Leberecht Strack, Die Sprüche Salomos, Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften des alten und neuen Testamentes sowie zu den Apokryphen A 6 (Nördlingen: Beck, 1888), 90.

30 

 Bernd U. Schipper

This paper is divided into three parts: it begins with a brief analysis of Proverbs 28, followed by a section evaluating the connections of Proverbs 28 to the book of Deuteronomy. The final section probes the function of Proverbs 28 within the overarching structure of the book of Proverbs.

2 Proverbs 28 Together with Proverbs 29, Proverbs 28 forms a distinct thematic unit that prepares the ground for the final two chapters, Proverbs 30 and Proverbs 31.12 As has already been understood by Arndt Meinhold and Bruce Waltke, the larger unit of Proverbs 28–29 can be subdivided into four thematic paragraphs (Arabic numerals) framed by five structured sayings (Roman numerals):13 (I) 28:1 Structural Saying (1) 28:2–11 Thematic Paragraph (II) 28:12 Structural Saying (2) 28:13–27 Thematic Paragraph (III) 28:28 Structural Saying (3) 29:1–15 Thematic Paragraph (IV) 29:16 Structural Saying (4) 29:17–26 Thematic Paragraph (V) 29:27 Structural Saying All five sayings underline the contrast between the righteous (‫ )צדיק‬and the wicked (‫)רשׁע‬,14 as can be seen, for example, in 28:1: They flee, though there is no pursuer – the wicked, but the righteous – (each of them) like a lion he can be confident.

‫נסו ואין־רדף רשׁע‬ ‫וצדיקים ככפיר יבטח‬

12 The two chapters are part of the larger unit of Proverbs 25–29, which can be divided into two sub-units (25–27 and 28–29); see Hans Ferdinand Fuhs, Sprichwörter, FB 95 (Würzburg: Echter, 2001), 339, and Perdue, Proverbs, 229. 13 See Arndt Meinhold, Sprüche 16–31, ZBK.AT 16.2 (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1991), 464; Bruce K. Waltke, Proverbs 15–31, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 404–5. On the structure, see also the analysis of Douglas Finkbeiner, “An Analysis of the Structure of Proverbs 28 and 29,” CBTJ 11.2 (1995): 1–14. 14 See Raymond van Leeuwen, Proverbs, NIB 5 (Nashville: Abingdon, 1997), 234.

Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs 

 31

Typical for the book of Proverbs, there is an incongruency between singular and plural regarding the nouns and verbs. While for the wicked (singular, ‫ )רשׁע‬the predicate is plural, it is singular for the righteous (plural, ‫)צדיקים‬. The reason for this feature is that the principle mentioned in the verse is true for both the individual and the group.15 The same contrast between the wicked and the righteous can be found in the other structural sayings – 28:12, 28; 29:2, 16, 27 – expressed in similar wording. Four of the structural sayings are nearly identical variants. Apart from the verb, the second half-line of 28:12 and the first half-line of 28:28 are identical:16 (28:12) When the righteous rejoice, (there is) great glory but when the wicked arise, people must be searched out. (28:28) When the wicked arise, people must hide. but when they perish, the righteous increase.

‫בעלץ צדיקים רבה תפארת‬ ‫ובקום רשׁעים יחפשׂ אדם‬ ‫בקום רשׂעים יסתר אדם‬ ‫ובאבדם ירב צדיקים‬

Similarly, Prov 29:2 and 16 are connected through their adoption of wording from 28:28:17 (29:2) When the righteous are many, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rules, people groan. (29:16) When the wicked are many, transgressions abound, but the righteous shall see their downfall.

‫ברבות צדיקים ישׂמח העם ובמשׂל רשׂע‬ ‫יאנח עם‬ ‫ברבות רשׁעים ירבה־פשׁע וצדיקים‬ ‫במפלתם יראו‬

The statements of the first half-lines are antithetical to each other. While 29:2a describes the positive result when the righteous (‫ )צדיקים‬are many, 29:16a teaches a negative outcome for the wicked (‫)רשׁעים‬: when they are many (‫)ירבה‬, transgressions abound. In short, even just the five thematic sayings give reason to take Proverbs 28–29 as a masterfully composed unit. The five proverbs not only structure the two chapters but also present the four subunits within the general antithesis of the “right-

15 Meinhold, Sprüche 15–31, 465. See also Magne Sæbø, Sprüche, ATD 16.1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 338–39. 16 See Knut Heim, Poetic Imagination in Proverbs, BBRSup 4 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 592–99. See also Daniel C. Snell, Twice-Told-Proverbs and the Composition of the Book of Proverbs (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1993), 48 (2.1). 17 See Heim, Poetic Imagination in Proverbs, 598 and Clifford, Proverbs, 250.

32 

 Bernd U. Schipper

eous” (‫ )צדיק‬and the “wicked” (‫)רשׁע‬.18 In regard to the present discussion, the first sub-unit of vv. 2–11 is important because the word torah (‫ )תורה‬appears four times, more than in any other chapter or paragraph in Proverbs. Including 29:16 results in Proverbs 28–29 boasting five of the thirteen total uses of the word torah (‫)תורה‬ in the whole book.19 28:2

Because of a land’s transgression, its princes are many, but through a man, discerning and knowing, right endures.

28:3

A man who is poor and oppresses the lowly, a torrential rain and there is no food.

28:4

Those who forsake Torah praise the wicked, but those who keep Torah strive against them.

28:5

Evil men do not understand what is just, but the one who seeks YHWH understands everything.

28:6

Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity, than one crooked in the two ways, though he is rich.

‫טוב־רשׁ הולך בתמו‬ ‫מעקשׁ דרכים והוא עשׁיר‬

28:7

A discerning son guards Torah, but one who engages with gluttons brings shame to his father.

‫נוצר תורה בן מבין‬ ‫ורעה זוללים יכלים אבין‬

28:8

One who increases wealth by interest and usury gathers it for one who will be gracious to the poor.

‫מרבה הונו בנשׁך ובתרבית לחונן‬ ‫דלים יקבצנו‬

28:9

One who turns his ear away from hearing the Torah, even his prayer is an abomination.

‫מסיר אזנו משׁמע תורה‬ ‫גם־תפלתו תועבה‬

28:10

As for one who misleads the upright into an evil way, into his own pit he will fall, but the blameless will inherit good things.

‫משׁגה ישׁרים בדרך רע‬ ‫בשׁחותו הוא־יפול‬ ‫ותמימים ינחלו־טוב‬

28:11

The rich man is wise in his own eyes, but a poor one who understands searches him out.

‫חכם בעיניו אישׁ עשׁיר‬ ‫ודל מבין יחקרנו‬

‫בפשׁע ארץ רבים שׂריה‬ ‫ובאדם מבין ידע כן יאריך‬ ‫גבר רשׁ ועשׁק דלים‬ ‫מטר סחף ואין לחם‬ ‫עזבי תורה יהללי רשׁע‬ ‫ושׁמרי תורה יתגרו בם‬ ‫אנשׁי־רע לא־יבינו משׁפט ומבקשׁי‬ ‫יהוה יבינו כל‬

When looking at vv. 2–11 more closely, another important word is the lexeme ‫“ בין‬to understand.” Derivations of this lexeme appear in the framing verses 2 and 11 (‫מבין‬, hiphil ptcp. masc. sg.) and in the middle of the section in vv. 5 (finite verb, ‫ )יבינו‬and 7 (‫)מבין‬.20 Given that ‫ בין‬is the book of Proverbs’s central lexical root for the com18 See Waltke, Proverbs 15–31, 404; Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 10–31, AB 18B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 825. 19 See the overview in William P. Brown, “The Law and the Sages: A Reexamination of Tôrâ in Proverbs,” in Constituting the Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride Jr., ed. John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005), 251–80. 20 See Meinhold, Sprüche 15–31, 466; Fuhs, Sprichwörter, 369.

Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs 

 33

petence of the wise person,21 it becomes clear by this point that in Proverbs 28–29, sapiential knowledge and torah (‫ )תורה‬are not antithetical to one other. The masterful composition of 28:2–11 can be seen by the parallel sequences of keywords and contexts in verses 2–6 and 7–11:22 A ‫“ בין‬to understand”; v. 2

A’ ‫“ בין‬to understand”; v. 7

B oppression of the ‫“ דל‬lowly”; v. 3

B’ oppression of the ‫“ דל‬lowly”; v. 8

C ‫ תורה‬as “basis of discernment”; v. 4

C’ ‫ תורה‬as “basis of discernment”; v. 9

D ‫“ רע‬evil” as “basis of discernment”; v. 5

D’ ‫“ רע‬evil” as “basis of discernment”; v. 10

D ‫“ רוש‬poor” and ‫“ תם‬integrity” better than being ‫“ עשׁיר‬rich” and ‫“ עקשׁ‬perverted”; v. 6

D’ ‫“ דל‬low” and “wise” better than being ‫עשׁיר‬ “rich” and ‫“ חכם בעיניו‬wise in their own eyes”; v. 11

There is a parallel construction between vv. 2–6 and vv. 7–11 interwoven with the use of five words: the keywords ‫( תורה‬vv. 4, 7, 9), ‫“( בין‬to understand”) in vv. 2, 5, 7, 11, and the terms “rich” (‫)עשׁיר‬, “low” (‫)דל‬, and “poor” (‫ )רושׁ‬in vv. 3, 6, 8, 11. Some interesting observations can be made when moving from the formal structure to the level of content. Most of the phrases used in vv. 2–11 are also found in other passages of the book of Proverbs. In other words, when looking closer at the textual evidence, one gets the impression that the author of Proverbs 28 intentionally used terminology and coined phrases from the preceding chapters of the book: – The phrase “to oppress the poor” (‫ )עשׁק דלים‬in 28:3a is identical to 14:31 and 22:17 (plural in 28:3, singular in 14:31 and 22:17). – The phrase “to praise someone,” constructed with the verb ‫( הלל‬piel) from 28:4a is also found in 12:8 (pual) but with a contradictory meaning: “according to his intelligence, a man is praised.”23 – The “evil men” (‫ )אנשׁי־רע‬in v. 5a are also mentioned (with slight differences) in 24:1.24 – The motif from v. 5a that “justice” (‫ )משׁפט‬cannot be connected to evil men is also found in 21:7, there expressed for the wicked.

21 See Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9, AB 18A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 30; Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 25. 22 See Ryan O‘Dowd, Proverbs, The Story of God Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 375; Heim, Poetic Imagination of Proverbs, 442. See also the analysis in Daniel P. Bricker, “Proverbs 28.1–11: A Small Poem?” JSOT 34 (2010): 315–30. 23 See Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 422. 24 See also the “woman of evil” in 6:24; Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 241.

34  –

 Bernd U. Schipper

The “better-than” saying (in Hebrew: ‫ )טוב מן‬in v. 6 is similar to 19:1. It is one of the so-called “twice-told proverbs” where, according to the classification of Daniel Snell, we have a “whole verse repeated with two dissimilar words”:25

28:6

Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity, ‫טוב־רשׁ הולך בתמו מעקשׁ דרכים והוא עשׁיר‬ than one crooked in the two ways, though he is rich.

19:1

Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity, than one crooked in his lips, though he is a fool.

– – –

‫טוב־רשׁ הולך בתמו‬ ‫מעקשׁ שׂפתיו והוא כסיל‬

V. 7 resembles the wording of 10:1 and alludes to 13:20 and 18:13. The gluttons (‫ )זללים‬are also mentioned in 23:20–21 (see also Deuteronomy 21:20 below).26 V. 9 ties with the keywords (“abomination”) and (“prayer”) to 15:8.27 With “way of evil” (‫)דרך רע‬, v. 10 presents a common motif of sapiential thought (see 2:12; 8:13; cf. 4:14).28 Moreover, the phrase that the one who leads the upright along an evil path will fall into their own trap resembles the classical principle of wisdom: the deed-consequence nexus (for the motif of the pit, see 26:27).29

Apart from key terms and certain phrases, Proverbs 28:2–11 also connects to the preceding chapters of the book of Proverbs in terms of formal patterns. For example, this unit contains both a “better-than” saying (v. 6) and an antithetical saying (v. 1), both of which are typical of Proverbs 10–15.30 To summarize the evidence so far, three aspects stand out: (1) Prov 28:2–11 is part of a masterful composition structured by thematic sayings that shape the two chapters from its beginning (Proverbs 28:1) to its end – the final verse of Proverbs 29 (v. 26). (2) The section 28:2–11 itself is artfully composed with a double structure in vv. 2–6 and 7–11. Both parts are connected by subjects and are marked by the main keywords of the section (vv. 2–11): “Torah,” “to understand” (‫)בין‬, and the terms “rich” (‫)עשׁיר‬, “low” (‫)דל‬, and “poor” (‫)רוש‬.

25 Snell, Twice-Told Proverbs, category 1.2; see Heim, Poetic Imagination, 438; Sæbø, Sprüche, 340. 26 O’Dowd, Proverbs, 376. 27 R. Norman Whybray, Proverbs, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 228; Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 498. 28 See Schipper, The Hermeneutics of Torah, 56–57. 29 Waltke, Proverbs 15–31, 414. See also Christine Roy Yoder, Proverbs, Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon, 2009), 268. 30 See Sæbø, Sprüche, 338.

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 35

(3) The wording of vv. 2–11 alludes to other sayings in Proverbs 10–27, using coined phrases and classical subjects. This includes main keywords such as the term ‫“( משׁפט‬justice”), the phrase ‫“( עשׁק דלים‬to oppress the poor”), and the “way of evil” (‫)דרך רע‬. In light of these formal and terminological similarities to the preceding chapters of the book, the wording in v. 9 stands out: “Whoever turns his ear away from hearing the Torah (‫)תורה‬, even his prayer is an abomination.” Although using classical terminology such as “ear” (‫ )אזן‬and the verb “to hear” (‫)שׁמע‬, v. 9 refers to a different entity: Torah. Given that the keywords “prayer” (‫ )תפלה‬and “abomination” (‫)תועבה‬ are religious terms, one might not be wrong to take the term “Torah” in v. 9 not as “instruction” but in a similar fashion as in the Pentateuch.31 It is the divine law, God’s Torah, which appears in Proverbs 28–29 as the authority of sapiential teaching and learning.

3 Wisdom and Torah in Proverbs 28:2–11 Previous research had already seen that Proverbs 28–29 contains different positions on certain subjects than Proverbs 10–27. Arndt Meinhold, for example, emphasized that the perspective on ruling and leadership in 28:2–3 is different from its counterpart at the beginning of this part of the book in 25:2–5. While Proverbs 25 describes the king positively, Prov 28:2–3 presents aspects of ruling in negative terms and even without mentioning a king.32 Prov 28:2–11 takes a distinct position on wealth as well. Whereas wealth can be valued according to Proverbs 10–22, Prov 28:11 presents the wealthy man as someone with a limited worldview: “The rich man is wise in his own eyes, but a poor who understands, searches him out.”

31 See for example Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 288, at n. 2, who took Proverbs 28:4–5:9 as the only text in Proverbs in which ‘Torah’ “may have a covenantal sense.” 32 Meinhold, Sprüche 16–31, 467. See also Alexa F. Wilke, Kronerben der Weisheit: Gott, König und Frommer in der didaktischen Literatur Ägyptens und Israels, FAT II/20 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 243. This critical perspective on “rulership” is an important argument against the oft-mentioned thesis that Proverbs 28–29 should be seen as “royal wisdom instructions” (D. Finkbeiner). On this, see the summaries of the history of research by Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 817–18; Ricardo Tavares, Eine königliche Weisheitslehre? Exegetische Analyse von Sprüche 28–29 und Vergleich mit den ägyptischen Lehren Merikaras und Amenemhats, OBO 234 (Fribourg: Presses Universitaires, 2007), 1–5.

36 

 Bernd U. Schipper

Given that the key term ‫“( בין‬to understand”) in v. 5 is connected to those “who seek YHWH” (‫ )יהוה בקש‬and contrasted with “evil people who do not understand what is right” (‫)אנשׁי־רע לא־יבינו משׁפט‬, it becomes clear that the critique on wealth is connected to a different perspective on sapiential knowledge in general.33 This perspective is not new if one looks into the preceding chapters of Proverbs. Within the first part of the book, Proverbs 1–9, a statement can be found that is close to 28:9. The lecture of Prov 3:1–12 states: “Trust in YHWH with all your heart, but do not rely on your own understanding” (3:5). The verse sets a sharp antithesis between traditional wisdom, expressed in the term ‫“( בינה‬understanding”) and “trusting in YHWH” (‫)בטח יהוה‬.34 Interestingly, this position stands in a literary context where not only direct allusions to the Shema Yisrael in Deuteronomy 6:6–9 (11:18–21) can be found but also the term “Torah” is used: “My son, do not forget my torah, and let your heart guard my commandments!” (3:1).35 Even though the teaching is connected to the father (and the mother: 1:8; 6:20) within the didactic strategy of the ten instructions in Proverbs 1–7, it receives deeper meaning through a citation of keywords from Deuteronomy. An example of this literary connection, which I call “textual coherence,”36 can be found in 3:4: “Write them on the tablet of your heart, then you will find favour and good repute in the eyes of God and people.” It would go beyond the scope of the present discussion to speak more elaborately on the intertextual connections between Prov 3:1–5; 6:20–24; 7:1–4; and Deut 6:6–9 (11:18–21), but if one result of my previous analysis is important for my interpretation of Proverbs 28, it is the insight that the wisdom-critical position of Proverbs 3, introducing a theological foundation of wisdom, came to the fore during the final redaction of the book of Proverbs.37 Against the backdrop of Proverbs 3, there can be no doubt that Proverbs 28 ties to a wisdom-critical position that introduces a different norm: torah (‫)תורה‬. The whole paragraph in vv. 2–11 avoids sapiential keywords such as ‫“( חכמה‬Wisdom”), ‫“( תבונה‬insight”), or ‫“( דעת‬knowledge”). From the root ‫בין‬, only the verb “to understand” is used (vv. 2, 5, 7, 11) and not the abstractum ‫“( בינה‬understanding”). Fur-

33 See O’Dowd, Proverbs, 374–77; Roy-Yoder, Proverbs, 264–65. 34 For an analysis, see Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 130–31; for the broader context, Schipper, The Hermeneutics of Torah, 243–56. 35 See Bernd U. Schipper, “When Wisdom is Not Enough! The Discourse on Wisdom and Torah and the Composition of the Book of Proverbs,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 55–79. 36 See Schipper, The Hermeneutics of Torah, 13–34. 37 See Schipper, The Hermeneutics of Torah, 278–85.

Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs 

 37

thermore, at the points where classical sapiential thinking would make reference to wisdom, Proverbs 28 elevates Torah. This can be seen with the use of the participle ‫ מבין‬in 28:7. According to Prov 17:24, wisdom (‫ )חכמה‬is in front of the ‫מבין‬ (“discerning one”). In 28:7, however, a ‫“( בן מבין‬a discerning son”) is not the one who keeps wisdom, but one who keeps (‫ )נצר‬Torah. Derivations of the lexeme ‫“ בין‬to understand” appear in the framing verses 2 and 11 (‫)מבין‬. It becomes clear that in Proverbs 28 the abstractum “Torah” does not refer to a sapiential category in the sense of “instruction,” as for example Michael Fox argues,38 but turns out to be a religious term. According to v. 5, only those who seek YHWH “understand everything” (‫)יבינו כל‬. Interestingly enough, the phrase “to seek YHWH” constructed with ‫ בקש‬is also found in Deut 4:29. This states that if the people of Israel “start searching once more for Yahweh,” they will find him. When looking for other connections between Prov 28:2–11 and Deuteronomy, one can find further important evidence.39 The wording of Prov 28:7b echoes the law of the stubborn and rebellious son in Deut 21:18–21. The son who consorts with “gluttons” (‫ )זוללים‬in 28:7b is also mentioned in Deuteronomy 21:20:40 They shall say to the elders of the city: “This son of ours is a stubborn and rebellious fellow who will not listen to us; he is a glutton and a drunkard.”

‫ואמרו אל־זקני עירו בננו זה סורר ומרה איננו שׁמע בקלנו‬ ‫זולל וסבא‬

The allusion to Deuteronomy sheds interesting light on Prov 28:2–11. We have sapiential language connected across the whole paragraph with standards of justice.41 This is expressed by terms such as torah (‫)תורה‬, ‫( משׁפט‬v. 5), the infrequent word ‫כן‬ (“right”)42 in v. 2, and with allusions to Pentateuchal laws. The final point is true

38 Fox, Proverbs 10–31, 823, where he distances himself from William McKane, who takes the verse as “clear proof” that torah “has been reinterpreted to refer to Yahweh’s demands” (loc. cit.). Similar to Fox is Crawford H. Toy, The Book of Proverbs, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1899), 498 (“not the national law”). 39 For the following overview, see O’Dowd, Proverbs, 374–77. 40 See O’Dowd, Proverbs, 376; Tremper Longman III, Proverbs, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 489. 41 See O’Dowd, Proverbs, 376; van Leeuwen, Proverbs, 234, who gives the whole chapter the title “On Justice and Torah.” 42 See Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, ed. Rudolf Meyer and Herbert Donner, 18th ed. (Berlin: Springer, 2010), 554.

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 Bernd U. Schipper

not only for v. 7 but also for v. 8: “One who increases wealth by interest and usury gathers it for the one who will be kind to the poor.” The first half-verse resembles a law from the Pentateuch. According to Exod 22:24, Lev 25:36, and Deut 23:20–21, the people of Israel shall not demand interest from each other, but as written in Deut 23:21: “From a foreigner you may demand interest (but you may not demand interest from your kindred)”.43 In contrast, Ezek 18:8 rules out all ways of demanding interest: a “man is just” (Ezek 18:4), “if he does not lend at interest or exact usury” (18:8; see 18:13).44 The masterful combination of sapiential terminology with a new norm – Torah – can also be seen in v. 9: (28:9a) One who turns his ear from hearing the Torah. . . (22:17a) Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise. . .

‫מסיר אזנו משׁמע תורה‬ ‫הט אזנך ושׁמע דברי חכמים‬

With the keywords “ear” (‫ )אזן‬and “to hear” (‫)שׁמע‬, v. 9 connects to classical sapiential thought, but with a sharp difference: whereas the wisdom student should attend their ear to sapiential instruction, in v. 9a the Torah is the norm for teaching. This difference becomes even clearer when taking into account that Proverbs 22:17 is one of the seven superscriptions of the book of Proverbs. This verse introduces the third part of the book and uses the phrase “words of the wise” (‫)דברי חכמים‬ to refer to the general norm of sapiential learning.45 This norm also appears, for example, in the prologue of the book of Proverbs, in 1:6 (for the wise, see 14:3 and 15:7; in both cases “the lips of the wise”). Hence, in 28:9, with the Torah another authority of wisdom teaching and learning is mentioned that contrasts to the classical authority within the book of Proverbs, already introduced in its prologue in 1:7, the “words of the wise” (‫)דברי חכמים‬. Interestingly, the wording of Prov 28:9 resembles Deuteronomistic thought. In Deut 5:1, Moses summons all Israel and says, “Hear, Israel, the statues and ordinances” (‫)את־החקים ואת־המשׁפטים‬. According to Deut 31:12, the people of Israel shall

43 See Waltke, Proverbs 15–31, 413. 44 See Meinhold, Sprüche 16–31, 470; O’Dowd, Proverbs, 376. 45 For an analysis of the inner logic of the seven superscriptions, see Bernd U. Schipper, “Wisdom for Beginners and for the Advanced: The Prologue of the Book of Proverbs and the System of the Seven Superscriptions,” in Fromme und Frevler: Studien zu Psalmen und Weisheit, ed. Corinna Körting and Reinhard G. Kratz (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 469–78. See also Jacqueline Vayntrub, “Before Authorship: Solomon and Proverbs 1:1,” BibInt 26 (2018): 182–206; for a different perspective: Matthias Winkler, “Sechs und eine halbe Säule der Weisheit: Spr 22,1–17 und das Gliederungssystem des Sprichwörterbuchs,” BN 174 (2017): 21–40.

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 39

assemble the women and children, “that they may hear and so learn to fear YHWH, your God, and to observe carefully all the words of this law (‫את־כל־דברי התוררה‬ ‫)הזאת‬.” The accentuation of Torah and not wisdom can also be found in the second part of 28:9. The phrase that the prayer of the one who turns their ear away from Torah is also an “abomination” (‫ )תועבה‬contradicts other passages in the book of Proverbs. According to Prov 15:8, the prayer (‫ )תפלה‬of the upright (‫ )ישׁרים‬has YHWH’s favor.46 The upright (‫ )ישׁר‬is a sapiential category. Prov 15:29 states that YHWH is far from the wicked but “he hears the prayer of the righteous.” Within the framework of Proverbs 15, there can be no doubt that the righteous and the upright are people who follow wisdom instruction. Even though Proverbs 15 displays a theologically grounded wisdom, neither Torah nor the law plays a role here.47 Quite the contrary is true for Prov 28:2–11. Everyone who does not hear Torah is on the wrong path since their prayer is an abomination (‫)תועבה‬. With this statement, a demarcation line is drawn within different forms of prayer. This stark theological statement is underlined by the fact that Prov 28:9 is the only case in the whole Hebrew Bible where a prayer (‫ )תפלה‬is called an “abomination.”48 In sum, for the argumentation thus far, three results are important: 1) Prov 28:2–11 weaves together sapiential and nomistic thought. We have sapiential terminology connected with “standards of law.”49 2) Within the argumentation, the main norm is Torah. It may be not accidental that no wisdom abstractum such as ‫“( חכמה‬Wisdom”), ‫“( תבונה‬insight”), or ‫דעת‬ (“knowledge”) can be found in Prov 28:2–11. The Torah is the main norm as expressed in v. 9 with the classical motif of “hearing” the Torah. 3) The orientation toward the divine Torah can also be seen with the allusion to Pentateuchal law, such as with the law of the stubborn and rebellious son in Deut 21:18–21 or the law in Deut 23:20–21. In short, Torah is presented in such a way that it takes the place of wisdom. The term ‫ תורה‬has, following Fishbane’s formulation, “covenant-theological” importance,50 for an orientation toward the Torah has consequences for the relationship with

46 See Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 498; Fuhs, Sprichwörter, 371, who stresses that although YHWH is not explicitly named he is meant by the prayer. 47 See the summary in Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 512–13, and the overview in Sæbø, Sprüche, 210–19. 48 I owe this insight to my research assistant Maximilian Rechholz, who is writing a dissertation on Proverbs 25–29. 49 See O’Dowd, Proverbs, 376. 50 See n. 31 above.

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 Bernd U. Schipper

YHWH. In this regard, it is important that the word ‫ תורה‬appears in Prov 28:4, 7, 9, and in 29:18 in the absolute form, “without specifying whose teaching it is.”51 When looking at Proverbs 28 and 29 as a whole, the concept of Torah is not only combined with the subject of “justice,” it also takes a position that is surprising within a sapiential book: the divine Torah moves into the foreground, while wisdom recedes into the background. However, what does this mean for the interplay between Wisdom and Torah in the book of Proverbs? This leads to the final part of this discussion.

4 Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs Returning to Wilhelm Frankenberg and his 1898 commentary on Proverbs, Frankenberg correctly observed not only that wisdom literature is at home in the postexilic period, but also that the literature of Hokhmah “presupposes the Law.”52 Frankenberg thus paved the way for an understanding of the book of Proverbs that contextualizes it through other biblical literature. My thesis is that the connections between Proverbs and Deuteronomy are not accidental but part of a fundamental way of thinking. In a nutshell: What we find in the postexilic period are two different worldviews – a sapiential one and a distinct theological position based on the theologoumenon of the divine word. What gives orientation in human life? The classical wisdom position is that empirical knowledge, sayings that are grounded on life experience, is worth following. Based on the idea of reciprocity as expressed in the deed-consequence nexus, the sapiential worldview develops a sort of philosophical approach to life grounded in empirical knowledge.53 Its basic idea is that the one who does good will be treated well by others, as paradigmatically expressed in Prov 26:27: “One who digs a pit will fall into it, and one who rolls a stone, it will return to him.” The same thought is found in 28:10: “As for one who misleads the upright into an evil way, into his own pit he will fall (‫)בשׁחותו הוא־יפול‬.” However, it would be a misunderstanding of the book of Proverbs to reduce its complexity to a sapiential theory based on practical knowledge. What can be found in Proverbs is not only the outline of a philosophical worldview based on empiricism but also in its lines of inquiry, because, as a matter of fact, there is life

51 Van Leeuwen, Proverbs, 234. 52 See n. 3 above. 53 This paragraph summarizes some thoughts which are published in more detail in the introduction of my commentary, Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 18–21.

Proverbs 28 and the Discourse on Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Proverbs 

 41

experience that puts classical wisdom thought into question. An example of this critical dimension is found in Prov 14:12 (16:25):54 There is a way (that seems) right before a man, But (at) its end are the ways to death.

A similar thought can be found in Late Egyptian wisdom, where the sapiential scribes emphasized the limits of a concept of wisdom that is based on human experience. In the Demotic instruction of Papyrus Insinger, which is also called the “Great Demotic Wisdom Book,” one can read: There is he who has not been taught, yet he knows how to instruct another. There is he who knows the instruction, yet he does not know how to live by it. He is not a true son who accepts instructions so as to be taught. It is the god who gives the heart, gives the son, and gives the good character. (9:16–19)55

Given the limits of a concept of wisdom based on human experience and empirical knowledge, the theological dimension comes into view, with the deity being the one who gives a person a wise heart out of that deity’s own free will. A similar idea is found in the book of Proverbs. A concept of wisdom based on human experience is relativized through reference to a decidedly different, even “paradoxical” experience, thereby laying the groundwork for a theological understanding of wisdom. In short, the reference to contrafactual life experience paves the way toward a theological definition of wisdom – or, to quote a proverb that builds on the aforementioned saying in Prov 14:12: Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but YHWH examines hearts. (Prov 21:2)

Prov 20:24 states similarly: All of a man’s steps are from YHWH; How then can a man understand his way?

Given the limitations of a concept of wisdom based on lived experience, the theological dimension becomes crucial. What we can see here is a paradigm shift that has consequences for the theoretical foundations of wisdom itself. This is where the idea of Torah becomes important: whether by allusions to the Shema Yisrael in Proverbs 3, 6, and 7 or by references to the Decalogue in Proverbs

54 See Schipper, Proverbs 1–15, 34. 55 For the following chapter, see Bernd U. Schipper, “Late Egyptian Wisdom and the Composition of Proverbs 10:1–15:33,” in Hokhmat Sopher, ed. Jean-Sébastien Rey and Martin Staszak, Études Bibliques 88 (Leuven: Peeters, 2021), 272–74.

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 Bernd U. Schipper

6 and 30 – what one can find in the more recent parts of Proverbs is an intentional use of Deuteronomy. All of this is connected – and this seems to me to be the crucial point – to a different grounding of sapiential thought, one not in terms of a philosophical concept based on life experience and empirical knowledge but based on the idea of a God who determines human life and gave his rules for life through the divine word, his Torah. Against the backdrop of this fundamental shift, the place of Proverbs 28 within the discourse on wisdom and Torah in the book of Proverbs becomes clear. By addressing classical subjects of proverbial wisdom such as the poor, the two ways of life, wealth, rulership, and the contrast between the righteous (‫ )צדיק‬and the wicked (‫)רשׁע‬, the chapter has ties, on the one hand, to Proverbs 1–27. On the other hand, however, these subjects are not presented with reference to empirical knowledge as in the preceding chapters of the book of Proverbs but to the divine word, YHWH’s Torah. In this way, the author of the passage not only introduced a new norm – Torah – but also paved the way for the explicit questioning of sapiential thought in Proverbs 30. The beginning of the words of Agur turn the foundations of traditional wisdom upside down (Prov 30:2–3):56 Surely, I am more a beast than a human being; I do not have the understanding of a human being. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the holy ones.

Insight and knowledge of God that, for example, can be learned according to the instruction of Proverbs 2, end up being impossible for the wisdom student. Given in contrast is the knowledge that comes from God. This idea is developed in Prov 30:1–14 by allusions to Deuteronomy and the Decalogue.57 Furthermore, Proverbs 30 contains a prayer that is the only prayer in the whole book of Proverbs.

5 Summary In summary, whereas previous research often wanted to understand the term “Torah” in the book of Proverbs simply as “instruction,” there are several passages within Proverbs that point instead to a nomistic understanding. These passages refer to an idea of wisdom wherein sapiential knowledge is linked with a theological 56 Schipper, “When Wisdom is not Enough,” 56. 57 See Bernd U. Schipper, “‘Teach Them Diligently to Your Son!’: The Book of Proverbs and Deuteronomy,” in Reading Proverbs Intertextually, ed. Katherine J. Dell and Will Kynes, LHBOTS 629 (London: T & T Clark, 2019), 21–34.

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 43

approach grounded in the divine word, God’s Torah. Among such passages as Proverbs 3, 6 ,7, or 30, the composition of Prov 28:2–11 plays an important role. Traditional subjects of proverbial wisdom as well as formal elements, such as the “tov-min saying” (“better-than saying”), are presented in a way that the norm is not empirical knowledge, but the divine torah. Presenting God’s word as the ultimate norm of sapiential thought paves the way for a theological understanding of the book of Proverbs that becomes visible in both the final chapters of the book and its opening chapters. In Prov 1:7, the fear of YHWH is presented as the beginning of all learning and teaching. Therefore, Prov 28:5 nicely summarizes the new norm of sapiential learning when it states: “Those who seek YHWH understand everything.”

Bibliography Baumgartner, Walter. Israelitische und altorientalische Weisheit. Sammlung gemeinverständlicher Vorträge und Schriften aus dem Gebiet der Theologie und Religionsgeschichte 166. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1933. Bricker, Daniel P. “Proverbs 28.1–11: A Small Poem?” JSOT 34 (2010): 315–30. Brown, William P., “The Law and the Sages: A Reexamination of Tôrâ in Proverbs.” Pages 251–80 in Constituting the Community: Studies on the Polity of Ancient Israel in Honor of S. Dean McBride Jr. Edited by John T. Strong and Steven S. Tuell. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005. Budge, Ernest A.W. Facsimiles of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri in the British Museum. 2nd Series. London: Longmans, 1923. Clifford, Richard J. Proverbs: A Commentary. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999. Delitzsch, Franz. Salomonisches Spruchbuch. Biblische Commentar 3. Leipzig: Dörffling und Franke, 1873. Erman, Adolf. “Eine ägyptische Quelle der Sprüche Salomos.” SPAW 15 (1924): 86–93. Fichtner, Johannes. Die altorientalische Weisheit in ihrer israelitisch-jüdischen Ausprägung: Eine Studie zur Nationalisierung der Weisheit in Israel. BZAW 62. Giessen: Töpelmann, 1933. Finkbeiner, Douglas. “An Analysis of the Structure of Proverbs 28 and 29.” CBTJ 11/2 (1995): 1–14. Fishbane, Michael. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 1–9. AB 18A. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 10–31. AB 18B. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Frankenberg, Wilhelm. Die Sprüche. HKAT II/3.1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895. Fuhs, Hans Ferdinand. Das Buch der Sprichwörter: Ein Kommentar. FB 95. Würzburg: Echter, 2001. Gese, Hartmut. Lehre und Wirklichkeit in der alten Weisheit: Studien zu den Sprüchen Salomos und dem Buche Hiob. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1958. Gesenius, Wilhelm. Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament. Edited by Rudolf Meyer und Herbert Donner. 18th ed. Berlin: Springer, 2010. Gressmann, Hugo. “Die neugefundene Lehre des Amenemope und die vorexilische Spruchdichtung Israels.” ZAW 42 (1924): 272–96. Heim, Knut. Poetic Imagination in Proverbs: Variant Repetitions and the Nature of Poetry. BBRSup 4. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Hitzig, Ferdinand. Die Sprüche Salomo’s. Zurich: Orelli, 1858.

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Leeuwen, Raymond van. Proverbs. NIB 5. Nashville: Abingdon, 1995. Loader, James A. Proverbs 1–9. HCOT. Leuven: Peeters, 2014. Longman, Tremper III. Proverbs. BCOTWP. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006. Meinhold, Arndt. Die Sprüche. ZBK.AT 16.1–2. Zürich: TVZ, 1991. O’Dowd, Ryan. Proverbs. The Story of God Bible Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017. Perdue, Leo G. Proverbs. Interpretation. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000. Robert, André. “Les attaches littéraires bibliques de Proverbs I–IX.” RB 43 (1934): 42–68, 172–204, 374–84. RB 44 (1935): 344–65, 502–25. Roy Yoder, Christine. Proverbs. AOTC 33. Nashville: Abingdon, 2009. Sæbø, Magne. Sprüche. Das Alte Testament Deutsch 16/1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011. Schipper, Bernd U. “When Wisdom is Not Enough! The Discourse on Wisdom and Torah and the Composition of the Book of Proverbs.” Pages 55–79 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Schipper, Bernd U. “‘Teach Them Diligently to Your Son!’: The Book of Proverbs and Deuteronomy.” Pages 21–34 in Reading Proverbs Intertextually. Edited by Katherine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 629. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019. Schipper, Bernd U. “Wisdom for Beginners and for the Advanced: The Prologue of the Book of Proverbs and the System of the Seven Superscriptions.” Pages 469–78 in Fromme und Frevler: Studien zu Psalmen und Weisheit. Edited by Corinna Körting and Reinhard G. Kratz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Schipper, Bernd U. “Late Egyptian Wisdom and the Composition of Proverbs 10:1–15:33.” Pages 261–75 in Hokhmat Sopher: Mélanges offerts au Professeur Émile Puech en l’honneur de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire. Edited by Jean-Sebastien Rey and Martin Staszak. Études Bibliques 88. Leuven: Peeters, 2021. Schipper, Bernd U. The Hermeneutics of Torah: Proverbs 2, Deuteronomy, and the Composition of Proverbs 1–9. AIL 43. Atlanta: SBL, 2021. Smend, Rudolf. “Wisdom in Nineteenth-Century Scholarship.” Pages 257–68 in Wisdom in Ancient Israel: Essays in Honor of J. A. Emerton. Edited by John Day, Robert P. Gordon, and H. G. M. Williamson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Snell, Daniel C. Twice-Told Proverbs and the Composition of the Book of Proverbs. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1993. Strack, Hermann L. Die Sprüche Salomos. Kurzgefasster Kommentar zu den heiligen Schriften des alten und neuen Testamentes sowie zu den Apokryphen A 6. Nördlingen: Beck, 1888. Tavares, Ricardo. Eine königliche Weisheitslehre? Exegetische Analyse von Sprüche 28–29 und Vergleich mit den ägyptischen Lehren Merikaras und Amenemhats. OBO 234. Fribourg: Presses Universitaires, 2007. Toy, Crawford H. The Book of Proverbs. ICC. Edinburgh: Clark, 1899. Vayntrub, Jacqueline. “Before Authorship: Solomon and Proverbs 1:1.” BibInt 26 (2018): 182–206. Waltke, Bruce K. The Book of Proverbs: Chapter 15–31. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005. Whybray, R. Norman. Proverbs. NCBC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Wilke, Alexa F., Kronerben der Weisheit: Gott, König und Frommer in der didaktischen Literatur Ägyptens und Israels, FAT II/20. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Winkler, Matthias, “Sechs und eine halbe Säule der Weisheit: Spr 22,1–17 und das Gliederungssystem des Sprichwörterbuchs.“ BN 174 (2017): 21–40.

Pancratius C. Beentjes

Ben Sira and His Grandson on Torah and Wisdom: Similar or Divergent Views? 1 Introduction Ben Sira was a Jewish sage living in Jerusalem, who published a book of wisdom between 190–180 BCE1. For at least three reasons it has special significance. First, it is a document written in Hebrew, whereas at that time Aramaic was the common language in Judea. Second, this document is the only book in the Hebrew Bible or OT Apocrypha in which the real author presents himself: “Wise instruction and apt proverbs of Simeon, the son of Jeshua, the son of Eleazar, the son of Sira” (Sir 50:27).2 And third, this Hebrew writing has been translated into Greek by Ben Sira’s grandson. Since we know the date on which the Hebrew text of Ben Sira has been translated into Greek by his grandson, viz. “in the thirty-eighth year, in the reign of Euergetes the king,”3 which is either 132 BCE or 117–116 BCE, it is worth investigating in what way the concept ‫ תורה‬is used in the grandfather’s Hebrew text and how – two generations later – it is rendered in the grandson’s Greek text or how it had, in the meantime, undergone changes with respect to content and meaning as compared to its Hebrew parent text. There are two leads that substantiate this investigation. First, there are aspects relating to historical circumstances. Between the Hebrew composition and the Greek

1 I would like to thank Dr Penelope Barter for her generous help with my English, and two anonymous colleagues for their suggestions and comments. 2 Greek: “Instruction in understanding and knowledge I have written in this book, Jesus the son of Sirach, son of Eleazar, of Jerusalem”; Roderick A.F. Mackenzie, Sirach, OTMs 19 (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1983), 191. In other biblical books, such as Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs, Qohelet, and Wisdom, anonymous authors present themselves as ‘David’ or ‘Solomon’ in order to acquire authority. See David G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon, WUNT 39 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986), 44–71. 3 Prologue, line 27. Rudolf Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklärt (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1906), 3 favors the year 132 BCE, whereas Patrick W. Skehan & Alexander A. A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, AB 39 (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 134–35 favor “the interval between 132–117”; Johannes Marböck, Jesus Sirach 1‒23, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2010), 39, on the other hand, favors 116 BCE. Pancratius C. Beentjes, Tilburg University, Netherlands https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-003

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translation, the campaign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV and the religious rejuvenation caused by the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucid Empire (167 BCE) took place. Other events that might in some way have been influential could be Onias IV’s building of the temple in Heliopolis in the 160s and the translation of prophets such as Isaiah into Greek in Alexandria in the 140s.4 Therefore, the Hebrew Book of Ben Sira, dating before this period, and its Greek translation, dating after these events, offer ample opportunity to investigate the use and meaning of the noun ‫ תורה‬and its rendering(s) in Greek. Second, there might be differences between the Hebrew and the Greek as a result of cultural circumstances. Ben Sira’s document originated in a Jewish context (Jerusalem), the grandson’s translation, however, was realized in a Hellenistic society (Egypt, most probably Alexandria). In order to be sure whether transformations have indeed taken place, we must first investigate those passages of which both a Hebrew and a Greek text is available. Before proceeding, however, a statement on methodology is required. As a basic principle, the Hebrew text, as well as the Greek and Syriac translation(s), will be treated as they have been handed down. That is to say, there will be no attempt to (re)construct a new text by combining these textual witnesses, since in that case a hypothetical text is created that does not exist.

2 ‫ תורה‬in the Book of Ben Sira 2.1 Textual Evidence In the following chart, all occurrences of the noun ‫ תורה‬in Hebrew Ben Sira manuscripts have been listed, as well as their rendering in the grandson’s Greek translation.5 It is followed by a list of all occurrences of the noun νόμος in the Greek translation of the grandson.6 4 See, e.g., Gideon Bohak, Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis, EJL 10 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); Isac L. Seeligman, The Septuagint Version of Isaiah and Cognate Studies, ed. Robert Hanhart and Hermann Spieckermann, FAT 40 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004). 5 For detailed information about the Hebrew Ben Sira manuscripts, see Pancratius C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew: A Text Edition of all Extant Hebrew Manuscripts & A Synopsis of all Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts, VTSup 68 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 13–19. For the Greek, see Joseph Ziegler, Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach, Septuaginta 12.2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965). 6 In this investigation, the Syriac translation is rather insignificant, since no less than seven occurrences have no equivalent to the Hebrew and/or the Greek.

Ben Sira and His Grandson on Torah and Wisdom 

Nr 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Sir 15:1b 32[35]:15a 32[35]:17b 32[35]:18d 32[35]:24a 33[36]:2a 33[36]:3b 41:4b 41:8b 42:2a 45:5d 49:4c

MS(S) A, B B9 B, E, F B B, E, F B, E, F B11 B, Mas Mas12 B, Mas B B

Hebrew ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬10 ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫תורת עליון‬ ‫תורת עליון‬ ‫תורת עליון‬ ‫תורת חיים‬ ‫תורת עליון‬

Greek 7 νόμος νόμος σύγκριμα φόβος νόμος νόμος νόμος εὐδοκία ὑψίστου νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος ζωῆς13 νόμος ὑψίστου

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Syriac8 nmws’ -----’wryh ?? ’wryh -------------------------nmws’ dḥy’ nmws’

Now we will have a closer look at some of these occurrences, both in Hebrew and in Greek, focusing on the context(s) in which the nouns ‫ תורה‬and νόμος are used in the book of Ben Sira and whether it will be possible to establish their meaning as accurately as possible.

2.1.1 Ben Sira 15:1 This is the first time the noun ‫ תורה‬is found in Hebrew Ben Sira. The verse belongs to a poetic section on wisdom (14:20–15:10)14 that opens with a beatitude:

7 Jan Liesen, “A Common Background of Ben Sira and the Psalter: The Concept of ‫ תורה‬in Sir 32:14–33:3 and the Torah Psalms,” in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology, ed. A. Passaro & G. Bellia, DCLS 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 200 is incorrect in contending that ‫ תורה‬is “twice translated with ἐλεμός.” 8 In 15:1; 45:5, and 49:4 the Syriac seems to use an onomatopoetic form of νόμος. For the Syriac, see Nuria Calduch-Benages, Joan Ferrer, and Jan Liesen, Wisdom of the Scribe: Diplomatic Edition of the Syriac Version of the Book of Ben Sira according to Codex Ambrosianus with Translations in Spanish and English, Biblioteca Midrásica 26 (Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2003). 9 Sir 32:15 is missing in MSS E and F. 10 MSS E and F have ‫מצוה‬. 11 Sir 33:3 is missing in MSS E and F. 12 In MS B, Sir 41:8 is heavily damaged. 13 The same Greek collocation is found in Sir 17:11. A Hebrew text, however, is missing. 14 Johannes Marböck, Weisheit im Wandel: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie bei Ben Sira, BBB 37 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1971), 104–12; Johannes Marböck, “Zur frühen Wirkungsgeschichte von Psalm 1,” in Freude an der Weisung des Herrn: Beiträge zur Theologie der Psalmen, Festgabe zum 70. Geburtstag von Heinrich Gross, ed. E. Haag & F. Hossfeldt, SBB 13 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1986), 207–22; Émile Puech, “La sagesse dans les béatitudes de Ben Sira: étude du texte

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 Pancratius C. Beentjes

Happy the person who meditates on wisdom / and cares about insight, who sets his heart to her ways / and gives attention to her paths (14:20–21).

It is followed by a circumstantial description of the way in which such a person is “obsessed” with being in the immediate vicinity of wisdom (14:22–27). Thereafter, a new perspective comes to light: ‫ותופש תורה ידריכנה‬

‫כי ירא יי יעשה זאת‬

For the one who fears YY will do this / and the one who takes hold of torah will obtain her (15:1).

“This” at the end of the first colon (15:1a) undoubtedly summarizes all activities as described in 14:20–27. Now it becomes entirely clear that obtaining wisdom is inextricably bound up with faith in God – “fear of the Lord” in Ben Sira’s words – and “taking hold of torah.” Ben Sira’s expression ‫ תופש תורה‬is frequently compared to Jer 2:8, a passage in which “[t]he priests did not say, ‘where is YHWH?’, ‫“( ותפשי התורה‬and those who handle the torah”) did not know me.” I think it quite unlikely that Ben Sira refers to this passage. First, Jer 2:8 is addressed to a specific audience, viz. the priests, the rulers (“shepherds”), and the prophets who fail to do their job. This is precisely the opposite of “the one who fears the Lord.”15 Second, the collocation ‫ ותפשי התורה‬in Jer 2:8 is part of a negative context, whereas Sir 15:1 is the other way around. And third, in Jer 2:8 the noun ‫ תורה‬has a definite article, thus most probably referring to a specific entity. In Sir 15:1, on the other hand, the noun ‫ תורה‬without a definite article might have a more general meaning (“instruction”; “teaching”); torah is likely used analogous to “wisdom” in 14:20–21. The Greek translation of 15:1 is quite similar to the Hebrew original.

de Si 51 :13‒30 et de Si 14 :20‒15:10,” in The Texts and Versions of the Book of Ben Sira: Transmission and Interpretation, ed. Jean Sébastien Rey et al., JSJSup 150 (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 297–329; Michael Reitemeyer, Weisheitslehre als Gotteslob: Psalmentheologie im Buch Jesus Sirach, BBB 127 (Vienna: Philo, 2000), 91–265; Karl-Gustav Sandelin, Wisdom as Nourisher, Acta Academiae Aboensis Series A 64.3 (Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1986), 27–41; Rosario Pistone, “Blessing the Sage, Prophecy of the Scribe: From Ben Sira to Matthew,” in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology, ed. Angel Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia, DCLS 1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 309‒53. 15 In Sir 15:7–8, several descriptions typify people that are exactly the opposite: ‫“( מתי שוא‬men of vanity”), ‫“( אנשי זדון‬men of presumptuousness”), ‫“( מצלים‬scoffers”), and ‫“( אנשי כזב‬liars”). Notice the fine inclusio of the verb ‫ דרך‬hiph between Sir 15:1b and 15:7a.

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2.1.2 Ben Sira 32[35]:15–33[36]:3 For several reasons, this passage is a star witness to the topic at hand.16 First, this pericope comprises half of all occurrences of the Hebrew noun ‫ תורה‬in the Book of Ben Sira. Second, these verses are extant in three witnesses (MSS B, E, F).17 It is noteworthy that these three manuscripts are not presented in identical form. First, as opposed to MS B, in MSS E and F some verses are missing (32:22–23; 33:3) or were transmitted in a different order (32:21 – 33:1 – 32:24 – 33:2). Second, at specific points the Hebrew texts are at variance. Third, MS B contains marginal readings which often are an indication that we are dealing with a text-critically complex passage.18 Finally, in comparison with the Hebrew texts, the Greek translation has a minus of six verses,19 and 33:2–4 is missing in the Syriac. A translation of the verses related to the topic of this essay runs: Sir

From the Hebrew20

From the Greek21

32:14

One who searches for God accepts discipline,

He who fears the Lord will accept instruction,

and he who arises early to seek Him receives an answer.

and those who rise early will find approval.

One who searches for torah obtains it,

He who seeks the law will be filled with it,

32:15 32:16

32:17

but a madman is ensnared by it.

and he who is hypocritical will stumble on it.

One who fears YYY understands judgment

Those who fear the Lord will get a verdict,

and (even) from twilight he will produce directions.

and they will kindle right acts like a light.

A violent person perverts corrections

A sinful person will turn away reproof,

and according to his need he stretches torah.

and according to his will, he will find an interpretation.

16 Pancratius C. Beentjes, “The Hebrew Texts of Ben Sira 32[35]:16–33[36]:2,” in Sirach, Scrolls, and Sages, ed. Takamitsu Muraoka & John F. Elwolde, STDJ 33 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 53‒67; Liesen, “Common background”; Antonino Minissale, La versione greca del Siracide confronto con il testo ebraico alla luce dell’attività midrascica e del metodo targumico, AnBib 133 (Rome: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1995), 78–89. 17 MS E contains 32:16–34:1; MS F contains 31:24–32:7 and 32:12–33:8. A detailed analysis of MSS B, E, and F in Beentjes, “The Hebrew Texts.” 18 In some other passages in Ben Sira such a complexity appears to be caused by theological discussions. 19 See Minissale, Versione greca, 78–89. 20 Translation from the Hebrew (with some changes of my own) adopted from Liesen, “Common background,” 201–2. 21 Translation (with some changes of my own) from NETS, 745–46.

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 Pancratius C. Beentjes

(continued) Sir

From the Hebrew

From the Greek

32:18

A wise person does not conceal insight,

A man of deliberation will never overlook a thought,

an arrogant person and scorner does not accept torah. 32:23

32:24

33:1

33:2

33:3

. . . . . . .

In all your doings watch yourself

for the one who does this observes the commandment.

One who keeps torah watches himself and one who trusts in YYY will not be ashamed.

One who fears YYY will not encounter evil

except in trial, but he will turn around and be saved.

One who hates torah will not become wise,

the stranger and the arrogant will not cower from fear. . . . . . .

In every deed trust your soul,

for this as well is a means of keeping the commandments.

He who has faith in the law attends to the commandments,

and he who trusts in the Lord will not suffer loss. No evil will befall him who fears the Lord,

but in a test he will also be delivered in turn. A wise man will not hate the law,

but he will be shaken as a fleet by stormwind.

but he who is hypocritical with it is like a boat in a storm.

and his torah is secure as the Urim.

and the law for him is as trustworthy as an inquiry of the clear ones.

An intelligent person will discern dabar

An intelligent person will trust in a word,

Contrary to Liesen, I think it quite unlikely that the noun ‫ תורה‬in Sir 32:15, 17, 18, and 33:2 should refer to the five books of Moses or to Pentateuchal law.22 According to the context, its meaning should more likely been in the realm of “guidance” or “guidelines.”23 The noun should better be defined as relating to a religious attitude (“search for God”). Only for Sir 32:24 and 33:3 might one wonder whether Ben Sira is referring to the Pentateuch. At the end of 32:24, the Greek is rather different from the Hebrew. Whereas ‫“( נוצר תורה‬one who keeps torah”) is adequately rendered ὁ πιστεύων νόμῳ (“he who has faith in the law”), the remainder of the first colon in 32:24a – ‫שומר נפשו‬ (“he watches himself”), which in the Greek of 32:3a was adequately rendered 22 Liesen thinks it possible that torah in 32:15a refers to the Pentateuch (“Common background,” 203). In 32:16–18, “torah is understood as Pentateuchal law providing moral guidelines for human beings” (204). His overall conclusion: “In Sir 32:14–33:3 torah covers a wide spectrum of meaning” (205). 23 Sir 32:17 is solid proof to this meaning. “Corrections” and “to stretch torah” have more to do with the way a person behaves than with the Torah as a book. This view seems to be confirmed by the Greek: “to look for an interpretation.”

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 51

(πίστευε τῃ ψυχῃ σου, “trust your soul”) – is rendered quite differently: προσέχει ἐντολαῖς (“he attends to the commandments”). This marked dissimilarity between the Hebrew and the Greek is probably caused by the grandson’s conviction that he had to explain what it means “to have faith in the law,” reusing the noun ἐντολή. As for Sir 33:3, some comment is in order too. This verse is only handed down in MS B; its second colon, however, is heavily damaged: [. . .] ‫“ איש נבון יבין דבר‬A prudent man understands the word [. . .], [. . . . . . . . . . .] ‫ ותורתו ט‬and his torah . . .”.24 The Greek reads: ἄνθρωπος συνετὸς ἐμπιστεύσει λόγῳ, καὶ ὁ νόμος αὐτῳ πιστὸς ὡς ἐρώτημα δήλων. “A prudent man gives credence to a word; to him the law is as dependable as an answer by Urim”. The Old Latin has: Homo sensatus credit legi Dei et lex illi fidelis. Though the Old Latin translation of the Book of Ben Sira frequently follows the Greek, in this particular case “legi Dei” catches the eye, for it might be adduced as evidence that the noun ‫ דבר‬was indeed followed by the symbol ‫ייי‬. Two observations might strengthen this view. First, if the first colon of 33:3 would indeed end with an indefinite ‫דבר‬, the opening of the second colon (“his torah”) can only refer to “a prudent man.” Second, what exactly would be the meaning of that colon ending with ‫ ?דבר‬If, however, it is about “the word of YHWH,” then we have a perfect parallelism between the first and the second colon: “the word of YHWH” // “his torah.” Still, YHWH’s torah may mean either “the lawbook of YHWH” or “YHWH’s guidance.”

2.1.3 ‫( תורת עליון‬Sir 41:4, 8; 42:2; 49:4) The collocation ‫‘ – תורת עליון‬Torah of the Most High’ – is unknown to the Hebrew Bible.25 It is found, however, in 4Q525 2 ii 2–3 and 11QPsa xviii 12.26 It is rendered νόμος ὑψίστου in the Greek of Sir 41:8, 42:2, and 49:4, and – except for 1 Esd 8:19 – does not occur anywhere else in the Septuagint. The collocation νόμος ὑψίστου is found five more times in the grandson’s translation. In three occurrences (Sir 19:17; 23:23; 38:34), there is no Hebrew text. In two instances there is a Hebrew text which differs notably in the Greek rendering:

24 Jansen suggests the reconstruction: [‫“( ותורתו כא]ש מיקוד נאמנה‬und sein Gesetz ist wie Herdfeuer getreu”), referring to Isa 30:14; Andreas Jansen, “Einige textkritische und exegetische Bemerkungen zum Buche Ekklesiastikus,” BZ 4 (1906): 20‒21, at 21. 25 Friedrich V. Reiterer, “The Interpretation of the Wisdom Tradition of the Torah within Ben Sira,” in Passaro and Bellia, Wisdom of Ben Sira, 209‒31, at 219, states: “In the protocanonical Old Testament, ‫ תורה‬is never linked with ‫)אל( עליון‬.” 26 Émile Puech, “4Q525 et les péricopes des béatitudes en Ben Sira et Matthieu,” RB 98 (1991): 80‒106, at 84.

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 Pancratius C. Beentjes

Sir 9:15b – ‫ וכל סודך בינתם‬/ καὶ πάσα διήγησίς σου ἐν νόμῳ ὑψίστου. Sir 44:20 – ‫ אשר שמר מצות עליון‬/ ὅς συνετήρησεν νόμον ὑψίστου.27

This rendering is quite remarkable, since nowhere else in the Greek translation is νόμος the rendering of ‫מצוה‬. The Hebrew noun is consistently translated ἐντολή (6:36; 15:15; 32:22b; 45:5c; 45:17a).

2.1.4 Ben Sira 41:4 This verse, just as 41:8, belongs to a section (Sir 41:1–15) that “refers to death as the fate of all, Sheol as the fate of the wicked specifically, and having a good name and good children as opportunities for surviving death.”28 Sir 41:4 poses a text-critical problem, since there are remarkable differences between the versions:29 Masada This is the end (‫ )קץ‬of all [flesh from God; why should you reject the Law of the] Most High? MS B This is the portion (‫ )חלק‬of all flesh from God; why should you reject the Law (‫ )תורה‬of the Most High? Greek This is the decision (κρίμα) from the Lord for all flesh– and why should you reject the will (εὐδοκία) of the Most High? Latin Hoc iudicium a Domino omni carni et quid superveniet in beneplacita Altissimi.30 Syriac because this is the end (ḥrt’) of all human beings for God.31 Whereas the Masada Scroll in the first colon seems to hint at Gen 6:3, 13 (“the end of all [flesh]”), MS B closely resembles Job 20:9 (“this is the portion . . . from God”). The first thing that catches the eye is that the Syriac reflects the text of the Masada Scroll. It is a pity, therefore, that in the Masada Scroll the end of the first and most of the second colon (41:4b) are missing and that the remainder of this verse (41:4b–d) is absent in Syriac too. Consequently, we have to include MS B and the Greek. 27 For the context of Sir 44:20, see Pancratius C. Beentjes, “Ben Sira 44:19‒23–The Patriarchs: Text, Tradition, Theology,” in Studies in the Book of Ben Sira: Papers of the Third International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Shime‘on Centre, Pápa, Hungary, 18‒20 May, 2006, ed. Géza. G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, JSJSup 127 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 209‒28. 28 Lindsey A. Askin, Scribal Culture in Ben Sira, JSJSup 184 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 144. 29 For a circumstantial analysis of Sir 41:1–4, see Lutz Schrader, Leiden und Gerechtigkeit: Studien zu Theologie und Textgeschichte des Sirachbuches, BBET 27 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994), 233–52. 30 The Latin (Sir 41:5b–6a) reflects the Greek. 31 Translation from Calduch-Benages et al., Wisdom of the Scribe, 234.

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How does the Greek relate to the Hebrew text of MS B? First, we must look at ‫ חלק‬in 41:4a and its translation κρίμα in the Greek. Within Sir 41:1–4, the noun κρίμα occurs three times in a row (vv. 2a, 3a, 4a) and is twice the rendering of ‫חק‬ (41:2a, 3a).32 Neither in Greek Ben Sira nor in the Septuagint, however, is κρίμα ever the rendering of the noun ‫חלק‬. Possibly, the scribe of MS B by a slip of the pen wrote ‫ חלק‬for ‫חוק‬. Thus, if Sir 41:4a in MS B originally had ‫חוק‬, a parallelismus membrorum would occur: ‫ חוק‬// ‫תורה‬, which is a well-known couple in the Hebrew Bible.33 Further, ‫ קץ‬and ‫ חוק‬may have similar connotations, so that the Masada Scroll and the Syriac text could represent an interpretation of an original ‫חוק‬. Second, what is the meaning of ‫ תורה‬in 41:4b since its translation εὐδοκία is unique? The passage in 41:1–4 is about the fact that death is an inevitable fate for humankind, established by God. The content of Sir 41:4b, therefore, must be that one has to accept this, since it is a decision (‫ )תורה‬of the Most High. Here the noun ‫ תורה‬does not refer to the Five Books of Moses. Smend thinks it possible that the grandson misread ‫ בתורת‬as ‫“( ברעות‬arbitrium”) and translated εὐδοκία.34 I do not exclude the possibility that ‫ תורה‬was misread as the rare noun ‫“( תרצה‬pleasure”) that in Cant 6:3 (4) is rendered εὐδοκία.35

2.1.5 Ben Sira 41:8 In MS B, the text of Sir 41:8 is badly damaged and has just a few characters left: only a ‫ ל‬in the first colon, and ‫ ] [יון‬at the end of the second one. In the Masada Scroll, the first colon is damaged, but the second colon is completely intact: ‫] [ אנשי עו] [ עזבי תורת עליון‬ [Woe unto you] men of iniqui[ty] / forsakers of the Law of the Most High.36

32 κρίμα as the rendering of ‫ חק‬is also found in Sir 38:22 and 43:10. In the Septuagint, this is the case in Lev 26:46 and Deut 6:24. 33 At least five times in the Book of Ben Sira, κρίμα is the rendering of ‫( משפט‬20:4; 35:16; 41:16; 42:2; 45:5), a noun that is a “close relative” of ‫חק‬. 34 Smend, Weisheit, 382. 35 The collocation ‫ מאס תורה‬is found in Isa 5:24, Jer 6:19, and Am 2:4. In all these texts there is a parallelismus membrorum: “my torah”// “my words” (Isa 5:24); “my words” // “my teaching” (Jer 6:14); “the torah of the LORD” // “his statutes” (‫חקיו‬, Am 2:4). 36 Yigael Yadin, The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada with Introduction, Emendations and Commentary (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 1965), 41. Syriac: “Woe to them, to the evil men / (may it be) that misery accompany them till the day of their death”; translation from Calduch-Benages et al., Wisdom of the Scribe, 234.

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Although there is a difference of opinion as to the precise subdivisions within Sir 41:1–15, the majority of scholars do agree that 41:8 belongs to a paragraph that opens with 41:5 and reflects on the fate of wicked people and their evil offspring.37 Whether these qualifications refer to “Hellenizing Jews . . . who give up their faith for the Greek way of life”38 or to apostates in general is a question of persistent scholarly debate.39 An argument that the collocation “to forsake / abandon the torah of the Most High” should be interpreted in a general sense is its identical use in Sir 49:4 referring to the kings of Judah. The collocation ‫ תורת עליון‬in 41:8b apparently has a different meaning than is the case in 41:4 where it refers to human death as a fixed decision by God. Its meaning should be more specific, something like a “collection/compilation/tradition with which his students would be familiar” . . . “a specific collection of Mosaic material.”40 However, a meaning such as “the guidance/ways of the Most High” is possible as well.

2.1.6 Ben Sira 42:2 Sir 41:14–42:8 is an extensive section on true (41:14–42,1ab) and false shame (42:1cd–8).41 The entire section is absent in Syriac. The Hebrew text of 42:2 in the Masada Scroll is to be preferred to MS B. ‫] [ ך אל אלה אל תבוש‬ ‫על תורת עליון וחק ועל משפט להצדיק רשע‬ These things you should not be ashamed of: The torah and statute of the Most High, and a legal request to justify the wicked.42

It is not a coincidence, of course, that the positive part of this tractate on shame opens with three significant concepts: “the torah of the Most High,” “the statute,” 37 For different views of the subdivisions of Sir 41:1–15, see Askin, Scribal Culture, 143 n. 4, and 152–53. Askin herself, however, contends “Sir 41:5 does not begin a separate poem but carries on the larger theme of death” (162). 38 Skehan-Di Lella, Wisdom, 474. 39 See Askin, Scribal Culture, 180–81. 40 Benjamin G. Wright, “Conflicted Boundaries: Ben Sira, Sage and Seer,” in Congress Volume Helsinki 2010, ed. Martti Nissinen, VTSup 148 (Leiden: Brill. 2012), 229–53, at 232. 41 See P. J. Botha, “The Ideology of Shame in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Ecclesiasticus 41:14‒42:8.” OTE 9 (1996): 353‒71; Eric D. Reymond, “Remarks om Ben Sira’s ‘Instruction on Shame’: Sirach 41:14‒42:8,” ZAW 115 (2003): 388‒400. Notice the fine inclusio between 42:1cd and 42:8cd. 42 Yadin, The Ben Sira Scroll, 43.

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 55

and legal request.”43 The fact that ‘the torah of the Most High’ is accompanied by ‘the statute’ is an indication that the former should not too soon be identified with the Five Books of Moses. In Sir 42:2 both the Hebrew and the Greek have unique features. Here we find the only occurrence in the Hebrew Ben Sira where ‫ תורה‬and ‫ חק‬are found so close together, a feature that is known to the Hebrew Bible. As to the Greek, rendering ‫ חק‬as διαθήκη is quite common in the grandson’s translation (11:20; 42:2; 44:20; 45:5, 17; 47:11) as opposed to the other books included in the Septuagint where this rendering is totally unknown.44

2.1.7 ‫( תורת חיים‬Sir 45:5) He [God] placed in his [Moses’] hand the commandment, / the law of life and understanding, that he might teach statutes to Jacob, / his testimonies and judgements to Israel.45

The collocation ‫ תורת חיים‬is unique to Hebrew Ben Sira and does not occur in the Hebrew Bible. The rendering νόμος ζωῆς, which is otherwise unknown to the Septuagint,46 is found twice in Greek Ben Sira (17:11; 45:5).47 Whereas both Witte and Van der Kooij are stressing that Ben Sira with “the law of life” refers to the Sinai narrative as it has points of contact with specific words and collocations in the book of Deuteronomy (4:6, 45; 5:31; 6:20; 30:15), Reiterer, on the other hand, argues that

43 Some commentators render ‫ חק‬in the plural and add a possessive pronoun: “his precepts” (e.g., Skehan-Di Lella, Wisdom, 477; “ses préceptes” (e.g., Israel Lévi, L’Écclésiastique ou La Sagesse de Jésus, fils de Sira, Première partie, BEHER 10.2 [Paris: Leroux, 1898], 45). 44 νόμος // διαθήκη in Sir 24:23; 39:8; 42:2; 44:20; 45:5, 17. 45 There are some small similarities to the Hebrew of Ps 147:19 which are completely absent between the Greek of Sir 45:5 and Ps 147:8 (LXX). Moreover, in Psalm 147 God is the agent, whereas in Sir 45:5 it is Moses. 46 In Bar 3:9 the collocation ἐντολὰς ζωῆς is found. 47 For Sir 17:11, see Markus Witte, “Das Gesetz des Lebens: Eine Auslegung von Sir 17:11,” in Texte und Kontexte des Sirachbuches: Gesammelte Studien zu Ben Sira und zur frühjüdischen Weisheit, ed. idem, FAT 98 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 109–21; Johannes Marböck, “Gesetz und Weisheit: Zum Verständnis des Gesetzes bei Jesus Ben Sira.” in Johannes Marböck, Gottes Weisheit unter uns: Zur Theologie des Buches Sirach, ed. I. Fischer, Herders Biblische Studien 6 (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 52‒72. For Sir 45:5, see Markus Witte, “Mose, sein Andenken sei zum Segen (Sir 45:1): Das Mosebild des Sirachbuches,” in idem, Texte und Kontexte, 123‒49; Friedrich V. Reiterer, “Neue Akzente in der Gesetzvorstellung: ‫ תורת חיים‬bei Ben Sira,” in Gott und Mensch im Dialog: Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Markus Witte, BZAW 345.2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 851‒71.

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‫ תורת חיים‬is not so much affected by the Pentateuch but much more by the prophets and wisdom literature, and specifically by Nehemiah 9.48 Two more observations are in order here. First, ‫ תורת חיים‬is without waw copulativum, which suggests that it might be considered an elucidation of ‫“( מצוה‬commandment”). Second, the reference to “the everlasting covenant” in Sir 17:12 – that is in almost parallel position with “the law of life” of 17:11 – might be adduced as an argument that the latter collocation refers to the Mosaic Law, and the same may be the case in 45:5.49

2.2 Conclusions to the Use of ‫ תורה‬in Ben Sira This inventory brings some interesting observations to light: 1. Nowhere in Hebrew Ben Sira does the collocation ‫‘( תורת משה‬Torah of Moses’) occur.50 Its Greek equivalent (νόμος Μωυσης), does not occur in the grandson’s translation either. 2. Nowhere in Hebrew Ben Sira does the noun ‫ תורה‬refer to the Five Books of Moses as a fixed collection.51 With the exception of the grandson’s Prologue (“the Law and the Prophets and the others”), this is also true for νόμος in the Greek translation. 3. As opposed to ‫ חכמה‬and σοφία, to which extensive passages have been devoted (e.g. 1:1–10; 4:11–19; 6:18–37; 14:20–15:10; 24:1–33), nowhere in Hebrew Ben Sira, nor in Greek Sirach, have ‫ תורה‬and νόμος been given similar attention and space. 4. The collocation ‫“ – תורת עליון‬Torah of the Most High” – that is found four times in the book of Ben Sira (Sir 41:4, 8; 42:2; 49:4), is unknown to the Hebrew Bible.52 It is rendered νόμος ὑψίστου in the Greek of Sir 41:8, 42:2, and 49:4.

48 Reiterer, “Neue Akzente,” 871. 49 It catches the eye that the Greek of 45:5d (νόμον ζωῆς καὶ ἐπιστήμης) has the reversed word order of 17:11 (ἐπιστήμην καὶ νόμον ζωῆς). 50 In the Hebrew Bible, ‫ תורת משה‬is found a dozen times: Josh 8:31, 32; 23:6; 1 Kgs 2:3; 2 Kgs 14:6; 23:25; Dan 9:11, 13; Ezra 3:2; Neh 8:1; 2 Chron 23:18. 51 See JiSeong James Kwon, “Re-Examining Torah in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Was Hellenistic Wisdom Torahised?” in The Early Reception of Torah, ed. Kristin de Troyer et al. DCLS 39 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 93–119, at 114: “Until the time of Ben Sira, the Torah of Moses was neither to be identified with or equal to Wisdom, nor was Wisdom displaced by Torah.” 52 Reiterer, “Interpretation,” 219 states: “In the protocanonical Old Testament ‫ תורה‬is never linked with ‫)אל( עליון‬.”

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3 νομος in Greek Sirach In the grandson’s Greek translation, the noun νόμος has 28 occurrences that are listed in the following chart.53 Nr

Sir

Greek

Hebrew

Syriac

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Prologue 1 Prologue 8 Prologue 24 2:16b 9:15b54 15:1b 17:11b 19:17 19:20b 19:24b 21:11a 23:23 24:23 31[34]:8 32[35]:1

νόμος νόμος νόμος νόμος νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος νόμος ζωῆς νόμος ὑψίστου ποίησις νόμου παραβαίνειν νόμον ὁ φυλάσσων νόμον νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος συντελέω νόμον ὁ συντηρῶν νόμον

----------------‫בינה‬ ‫תורה‬ -------------------------------------

---------------nmws’ ’wrḥth dmry’ nmws’ nmws’ dḥy’ wl’ lkwl ml’ thymnw hy hy ḥkmt w’yt dḥt’ dntr nmws’ nmws’ d’lh’ nmws’ r’‘ ’lh’ ’n ‘brt mdm dktyb bnmws’

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

32[35]:15 32[35]:24 33[36]:2 33[36]:3 38:34d 39:8 41:8 42:2 44:2055 45:5 45:17d56 46:14 49:4

νόμος νόμος νόμος νόμος νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος διαθήκης κυρίου νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος ὑψίστου νόμος ζωῆς νόμος νόμος κυρίου νόμος ὑψίστου

‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ --------‫תורה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫מצוה‬ ‫תורה‬ ‫משפט‬ ‫מצוה‬ ‫תורה‬

------’wrḥh ------------nmws’ dḥy’ nmws’ dḥy’ ------------ptgmwhy d‘ly’ nmws’ dḥy’ ------nmws’ nmws’

53 Nrs 6, 16–19, 22–23, 25, and 28 are also part of the Hebrew chart above. 54 Hebrew ‫בינותם‬. 55 Hebrew ‫מצות עליון‬. 56 Hebrew ‫משפט‬.

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In the grandson’s Prologue, the noun νόμος occurs three times. Most probably it refers to the Pentateuch (‘the Law and the Prophets and the others’).57 Among the remaining occurrences of νόμος, three of them catch the eye, as their rendering in one way or another is quite distinct from the Hebrew parent text.

3.1 Ben Sira 9:15 ‫עם נבון יהי חשבונך וכל סודך בינותם‬ Let your conversation be with a wise man, and all your confidence be among them.58

In the Greek and the Syriac, however, the second colon is rendered quite differently: Μετὰ συνετῶν ἔστω ὁ διαλογισμός σου καὶ πᾶσα διήγησις ἐν νόμῳ ὑψίστου Let your discussion be with intelligent people, and all your exposition in the law of the Most High.59 Syriac: Let your thoughts be with the one who fears God and all your discourses in the ways of the Lord.60

Although ‫ בינותם‬is quite curious, within the context of Sir 9:10–16 dealing with friends it makes sense. Further, as a kind of a fixed pattern, the final line of the pericope (9:16) reaches its climax with the major theological theme of “fear of God.”61

3.2 Ben Sira 44:20 ‫אשר שמר מצות עליון ובא בברית עמו‬ (Abraham) who kept the commandment(s) of the Most High and entered into a covenant with him.62

57 See, e.g., Markus Witte, “Der ‚Kanon‘ heiliger Schriften des antiken Judentums im Spiegel des Buches Jesus Sirach,” in idem, Texte und Kontexte, 39–58. 58 As to the rendering “all your confidence” and “conversation,” see DCH 6: 127. 59 NETS, 726. 60 Calduch-Benages et al., Wisdom of the Scribe, 100. 61 See the extensive analysis of Sir 9:10–16 in Jeremy Corley, Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship, BJS 316 (Providence: Brown University, 2002), 83–115. 62 For the context of Sir 44:20, see Beentjes, “Ben Sira 44:19–23.”

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ὅς συνετήρησεν νόμον ὑψίστου καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν διαθήκῃ μετ’ αὐτου (Abraham) who kept the law of the Most High, and he entered in a covenant with him.63

This rendering is quite remarkable, since nowhere else in the Greek translation of the grandson is νόμος the rendering of ‫מצוה‬. In the Septuagint, there is just one occurrence of νόμος being the rendering of ‫( מצוה‬Prov 6:20a).64 In Greek Sirach, this Hebrew noun is consistently translated ἐντολή (6:36; 15:15; 32:22b; 45:5c; 45:17a). In fact, the collocation ‫ מצות עליון‬is a hapax legomenon.65 With reference to Abraham, Ben Sira seems to emphasize that keeping the commandment[s] should be considered a condition for entering into the covenant. Within this context, the reader should come to a decision how to vocalize ‫מצות‬. (a) If it is interpreted as a plural (mitswōt), it must refer to the Mosaic Law, as is suggested by the Greek (νόμος) and Latin (lex) of Sir 44:20a.66 In that case, Ben Sira would in fact present an anachronistic concept in which Abraham is portrayed as the perfect Torah-devoted Jew, an image that to a high degree has affected Jewish thought in later time. At first it was propagated by Jewish authors like Philo and Josephus; later it achieved great popularity in Rabbinic literature.67 (b) If the noun should be considered a singular (mitswat), then it has a direct bearing on God’s explicit demand at Abraham’s address to carry on the circumcision (Gen 17:9–14). Given that Ben Sira will explicitly mention this in the next verse– “In his flesh he cut for Him an ordinance” (44:20c) – this latter option is to be preferred here.68 It is quite remarkable, for instance, that it is Abraham who “entered into covenant with Him” (44:20b), whereas in Gen 17:2 it is “God Almighty” (‫ )אל שדי‬who makes the covenant.69

63 NETS, 756. 64 Surprisingly, the parallel ‫( תורה‬Prov 6:20b) is rendered θεσμός. 65 Syriac: “who accomplished the word of the Most High and entered into a covenant with Him”; translation from Calduch-Benages et al., Wisdom of the Scribe, 242. 66 For Ben Sira’s concept of the Law and the Commandments, see Eckhard Schnabel, Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul: A Tradition Historical Enquiry into the Relation of Law, Wisdom, and Ethics, WUNT II/16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 29–42. 67 See, e.g., Midrash Rabbah Genesis I, 42–44; b. B. Meṣ. 87a; Sifre 2 and 12. 68 Several scholars have rendered ‫ מצות‬as a singular. The translation “das Gebot” is found in: Norbert Peters, Das Buch Jesus Sirach oder Ecclesiasticus, EHAT 25 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1913), 380; Rudolf Smend, Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach hebräisch und deutsch (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1906), 79; Andreas Eberharter, Das Buch Jesus Sirach oder Ecclesiasticus, HSAT 6.5 (Bonn: Hanstein, 1925), 145. Arthur E. Cowley and Adolf Neubauer, eds., The Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus (XXXIX,15 to XLIX,11) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1897), 23 have “the commandment”; Skehan-Di Lella, The Wisdom, 503 have “the . . . command.” 69 For more details, see Beentjes, “Ben Sira 44:19–23.”

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3.3 Ben Sira 45:17 ‫ויתן לו מצותיו וימשילהו בחוק ומשפט‬ ‫וילמד את עמו חק ומשפט את בני ישראל‬ And he gave him his commandments and responsibility for statute and judgment,70 to teach statute to his people and judgment to the sons of Israel.

The Greek text reads: ἔδωκεν αὐτῳ ἐν ἐντολαις αὐτοῦ ἐξουσίαν ἐν διαθήκαις κριμάτων διδάξαι τὸν Ιακωβ τὰ μαρτύρια καὶ ἐν νόμῳ αὐτῳ φωτίσαι Ισραηλ By his commandments he gave him authority in covenants of judgements, to teach Iakob the testimonies and with his laws to enlighten Israel.71

About this verse Benjamin Wright states: “One occurrence of νόμος remains problematic. 45:17 has ‫ משפט‬corresponding to νόμος. This is a case where it seems likely that the Greek had a different parent text. Not only are the terms different, the Greek has a prepositional phrase ἐν νόμῳ αὐτῳ while the Hebrew of MS B has ‫ומשפט‬.”72 To this I would add some further observations. First, the collocation ἐν διαθήκαις κριμάτων, which has no traces of MS B whatsoever, might be adduced as an additional argument that the grandson had a different Hebrew text in front of him. The same argument goes for the parallel ‘Jakob // Israel’ in the Greek, which is absent in MS B. Second, only once in the Septuagint is νόμος the rendering of ‫משפט‬, viz. in Jer 29[49]:12.

3.4 Conclusions to the Use of νόμος in Greek Sirach Based on the above observations one may reach the following conclusions: 1. In the grandson’s Prologue, νόμος is probably a reference to the Pentateuch (“the Law and the Prophets and the others”).73 This point of view, however, is open to dispute.74 70 Syriac: “and He gave to him commandments and He put him in authority over statutes and judgements”; translation from Calduch-Benages et al., Wisdom of the Scribe. The second bicolon (45:17c–d) is missing in Syriac. 71 NETS, 756. 72 Benjamin G. Wright, No Small Difference: Sirach’s Relationship to its Hebrew Parent Text, SCS 26 (Atlanta: Scholars Press,1989), 182. 73 See, e.g., Witte, “Der Kanon.” 74 See, e.g., Armin Lange, “The Law, the Prophets, and the Other Books of the Fathers (Sir, Prologue): Canonical Lists in Ben Sira and Elsewhere,” in Xeravits and Zsengellér, Studies in the Book of Ben Sira, 55‒80.

Ben Sira and His Grandson on Torah and Wisdom 

2.

3. 4.

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The collocation νόμος ὑψίστου – that does not occur anywhere else in the Septuagint75 – is found five times in the grandson’s translation. In three occurrences (Sir 19:17; 23:23; 38:34) there is no Hebrew text. In two instances the Hebrew text does not match (Sir 9:15b; 44:20). The collocation νόμος κυρίου is found only once in the book of Ben Sira (Sir 46:14)76 as opposed to its frequent occurrences elsewhere in the Septuagint.77 The collocation νόμος διαθήκης κυρίου (Sir 39:8) is unique, not only to Greek Sirach, but also in the Septuagint.78

4 The Correlation of Law and Wisdom in the Book of Ben Sira: A Short Overview A major theological topic in Ben Sira research is the correlation of Law and Wisdom.79 Consequently, scholarly publications about this particular notion are numerous.80 Undoubtedly, the most detailed investigation of this subject is the 75 It is only found in the apocryphal 1 Esd 8:19. 76 The Hebrew text of Sir 46:14 is heavily damaged. 77 4 Kgs 10:31; 1 Chron 16:40; 22:12; 25:4; 31:3; 34:14; 35:26; 1 Esd 1:33; 8:7, 9, 12, 94; 9:48; 2 Esd 7:12. 78 There is no Hebrew text of Sir 39:8. 79 This paragraph is a reworked version from Pancratius C. Beentjes, “The Book of Ben Sira: Some New Perspectives at the Dawn of the 21st Century,” in Goochem in Mokum, Wisdom in Amsterdam: Papers on Biblical and Related Wisdom Read at the Fifteenth Joint Meeting of the Society of Old Testament Studies and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap, Amsterdam, July 2012, ed. George J. Brooke and Pierre van Hecke, OtSt 68 (Leiden: Brill 2016), 13–18. 80 E.g., Marböck, “Gesetz und Weisheit”; Max Küchler, Frühjüdische Weisheitstraditionen: Zum Fortgang weisheitlichen Denkens im Bereich des frühjüdischen Jahweglaubens, OBO 26 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979); Martin Juárez, “Sabiduría y ley in Jesús Ben Sira,” Religión y Cultura 25 (1979): 567‒74; Schnabel, Law and Wisdom; José Ramon Busto Saiz, “Sabiduría y Torá en Jesús Ben Sira,” EstBib 52 (1994): 229‒39; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism; Oxford Bible Series (Oxford: OUP, 1995); Gian L. Prato, “Sapienza e Torah in Ben Sira: meccanismi comparative culturali e conseguenza ideologico-religiose,” RStB 10 (1998): 129‒51; Jessie Rogers, “It Overflows like the Euphrates with Understanding: Another Look at the Relationship between Law and Wisdom,” in Of Scribes and Sages: Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture, Vol. 1 Ancient Versions and Traditions, ed. Craigh A. Evans, SSEJC 9, LSTS 50 (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 114–21; John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997); Friedrich V. Reiterer, “Das Verhältnis der ‫ חכמה‬zur ‫ תורה‬im Buch Ben Sira,” in Xeravits and Zsengellér, Studies in the Book of Ben Sira, 97‒133; Timo Veijola, “Law and Wisdom: The Deuteronomistic Heritage in Ben Sira’s teaching of the Law,” in Leben nach der Weisung: Exegetisch-historische Studien zum Alten Testament, ed. idem

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doctoral thesis by Eckhard Schnabel. He claims that the vast majority of scholars recognize and acknowledge “the complete identification of law and wisdom by Ben Sira.”81 He adduces no less than seven passages being “explicit evidence” for such a “clear and direct identification of wisdom and law”: Sir 15:1; 17:11; 19:20; 21:11; 24:23; 34:8; 45:5c–d.82 Moreover, he adds that “[t]welve passages presuppose, imply, or result in the identification of law and wisdom”: Sir 1:26; 2:15–16; 6:36; 15:15; 19:24; 24:22; 24:32–33; 33:2–3; 38:34–39:8; 44:4c; 51:15c–d; 51:30a–b.83 Prior to Schnabel’s monograph, many scholars were adherents of that point of view.84 At the beginning of the 1990s, however, there came a turning point. One of the first scholars who offered a more thoughtful approach to this topic was Gabriele Boccaccini, who reached the conclusion that “[i]t is not an identification, but a and Walter Dietrich, FRLANT 224 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 144‒64; Reiterer, “Interpretation”; Benjamin G. Wright, “Torah and Sapiential Pedagogy in the Book of Ben Sira,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd Schipper and Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 157–86. 81 Schnabel, Law and Wisdom, 89 n. 443. 82 Schnabel, Law and Wisdom, 69–73. Out of these seven occurrences, only 15:1 and 45:5 are preserved in Hebrew. 83 Schnabel, Law and Wisdom, 73–77 84 To mention just a few advocates: Otto Kaiser, “Die Begründung der Sittlichkeit im Buche Jesus Sirach,” ZTK 55 (1958): 51–63, at 56: “Hier tritt die Identifikation der Weisheit mit dem mosaischen Gesetz deutlich zutage”; Felix Christ, Jesus Sophia: Die Sophia-Christologie bei den Synoptikern, ATANT 57 (Zürich: Zwingli, 1970), 36: “Die Weisheit ist identisch mit dem Gesetz, dem Buche des Bundes”; Burton L. Mack, Logos und Sophia: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie im hellenistischen Judentum, SUNT 10 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 1973), 23: “Bekanntlich wird im Sirachbuch die Weisheit mit dem Gesetz identifiziert”; Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter during the Early Hellenistic Period (London: SCM Press, 1974), 138–39; Küchler, Frühjüdische Weisheitstraditionen, 31–45; Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament, 166: “The really novel element in Ben Sira’s poem comes in the second part (vv. 23–34) in which he identifies this pre-existent Wisdom with Torah . . .”; Marböck, Weisheit im Wandel, 90; Marböck, “Gesetz und Weisheit”, 8; Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study of the Sapientializing of the Old Testament, BZAW 151 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 63: “ full identification . . . between the book of the Torah and Wisdom”; Gottfried Schimanowski, Weisheit und Messias: Die jüdischen Voraussetzungen der urchristlichen Präexistenzchristologie, WUNT II/17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 57: “Die Identifikation von Weisheit und Tora kommt nicht überraschend”; Busto Saiz, “Sabiduría y Torá,” 235: “para Ben Sira, la sabiduría se identifique con la Torá”; Yohanan A. P. Goldman, “Le texte massorétique de Qohélet,” in Sôfer Mahîr: Essays in Honour of Adrian Schenker Offered by the Editors of Biblia Hebraica Quinta, ed. Yohanan A. P. Goldman et al., VTSup 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 69–94, at 76; Collins, Jewish Wisdom, 49–61; Leo Perdue, Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 247: “Sir. 24:23–29 identifies Wisdom with the Torah ”; David Penchansky, Understanding Wisdom Literature: Conflict and Dissonance in the Hebrew Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 6: “Ben Sira equates Woman Wisdom with Torah.”

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complex play of balances within the synergetic prospect proposed to humankind as the road to salvation.”85 Therefore, he preferred the idea of an “asymmetrical relationship.”86 About a decade later, the debate intensified and a growing number of scholars dissociated themselves from the traditional point of view.87 Since scholars unanimously point to Sir 24:23 as the most crucial passage on how law and wisdom are correlated, we have to take a quick look at this verse which is not preserved in Hebrew. Ταῦτα πάντα βίβλος διαθήκης θεοῦ ὑψίστου, νόμον ὃν ἐνετείλατο ἡμῖν Μωυσῆς κληρονομίαν συναγωγαῖς Ιακωβ All this is the book of the covenant of God Most High, the Law which Moses commanded us as an inheritance for the communities of Jacob.

Quite a few scholars claim that (a substantial part of) Sir 24:23 must be secondary. Their arguments, however, are various; to mention just a few of them: (1) The first line is a gloss;88 (2) In the Book of Ben Sira tristichoi cannot be genuine;89 (3) Nowhere in the Book of Ben Sira is the concept διαθήκη used for the covenant with Israel or Moses;90 (4) Sir 24:23a is a later addition caused by Bar 4:1;91 (5) No doubt the most interesting argument, however, is the contention that the pronoun ἡμῖν (‘us’) in Sir 24:23b does not fit in the context, since Ben Sira uses that pronoun only in prayers.92 85 Gabriele Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 81–99. 86 Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, 88. 87 Rogers, “It overflowes”; Jessie Rogers, “Wisdom and Creation in Sirach 24,” JNSL 22 (1996): 141‒56; Reiterer, “Neue Akzente”; Veijola, “Law and Wisdom”; Reiterer, “Das Verhältnis”; Reiterer, “Interpretation”; Samuel L. Adams, Wisdom in Transition: Act and Consequence in Second Temple Instructions, JSJSup 125 (Leiden: Brill 2008), esp. 198–204; Greg Schmidt Goering, Wisdom’s Root Revealed: Ben Sira and the Election of Israel, JSJSup 139 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 88 Johann Kasper Zenner, “Zwei Weisheitslieder,” ZKT 21 (1897): 551–58, at 554. 89 Peters, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, 203 states: “Nirgends ist aber in Ekkli sonst ein Tristichon als ursprünglich sicher überliefert”; cf. Rickenbacher, Weisheitsperikopen, 127, 130–31. 90 Rickenbacher, Weisheitsperikopen, 166–67. 91 Peters, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, 203; Otto Rickenbacher, Weisheitsperikopen bei Ben Sira, OBO 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1973), 127; Maurice Gilbert, “L’éloge de La Sagesse (Siracide 24),” RTL 5 (1974): 337. 92 Rickenbacher, Weisheitsperikopen, 127. In Deut 33:4, Codex Vaticanus has the reading ἡμῖν, just as Codex Venetus and some minuscles in Sir 24:23; see Ziegler, Sapientia Iesu, 240.

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In my view, however, it is precisely the occurrence of “us” in the Ben Sira text that should be considered an argument in favor of its originality because it brings about some irregularity and tension, which is caused by the insertion of the quotation from Deut 33:4 (LXX).93 καὶ ἐδέξατο ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων αὐτου νόμον ὃν ἐνετείλατο ἡμῖν Μωυσῆς κληρονομίαν συναγωγαῖς Ιακωβ.94 And he received of his words the law which Moses commanded us, as an inheritance to the assemblies of Jacob.95

However, if one reads the previous verses (24:19–22), which are an invitation by Lady Wisdom, a particular question comes to mind.96 For, it is obvious that Lady Wisdom’s invitation which ends in verse 22 is incomplete: “He who obeys me will not be ashamed, and those who work with me will not sin.” There can be no doubt that the audience at this point expected to hear from Lady Wisdom herself how her invitation can be accepted and in what way it is to be substantiated. The answer to this crucial question is unequivocal: “the book of the covenant of the Most High / the law that Moses commanded us: (24:23).

93 In fact, this feature bears a close resemblance to Sir 45:21a where suddenly the verb is in 3rd person plural. The criteria Devorah Dimant has formulated are completely valid for Sir 24:23. The phrases from Deut 33:4 are literally reproduced in Sir 24:23, even with the remarkable “us”; there is also explicit mention of the same agents (God, Moses) and addressees (“us”, and “the communities of Jacob”). Both passages have a common literary feature: they are part of a poetic text; see Devorah Dimant, “Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. Martin Jan Mulder and Harry Sysling, CRINT 2/1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988), 379–419. 94 For a overview of how Deut 33:4 is presented in the Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac versions, and a detailed discussion of their relation to Sir 24:23, see Frank Ueberschaer, “Ein Gesetz, das Mose uns geboten hat – Eine synagogale Lesung als Hintergrund für eine Übersetzung des griechischen Buches Jesus Sirach?” in Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge: Orte jüdischen Lernens und Lebens; Festschrift für Wolfgang Kraus, ed. Christian Eberhart et al. (Leiden: Schönigh, 2020), 219‒33. 95 Sheppard, Wisdom a Hermeneutical Construct, 63 remarks: “Consequently, Dt. 33:4 has, by its placement in Sir 24:23, been given a new redactional setting which successfully reveals the writer’s own particular interpretation of it. For the writer, Dt. 33:4 is not only a statement about the Torah, but it is a commentary on the proximity of Wisdom in the history of Israel.” 96 See Pancratius C. Beentjes, “‘Come to me, you who desire me . . .’: Lady Wisdom’s Invitation in Ben Sira 24:19‒22,” in Weisheit als Lebensgrundlage: Festschrift für Friedrich V. Reiterer zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel, Karin Schöpflin, and Johannes Friedrich Diehl, DCLS 15 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 1–11.

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The subsequent passage (Sir 24:25–27) demonstrates that Ben Sira does not identify wisdom and torah. The subject of this passage is either βίβλος (“book”) or νομός (“law”), or both. It is the Torah that supplies wisdom, it is the source of wisdom, the source of understanding, and the source of education. Further, it is not by chance that this explanation is presented with the help of paradisiacal and primordial metaphors, since in a subtle way they harken back to what Lady Wisdom has said about her origin (24:9a). Sir 24:28–29 must refer to Wisdom, since it uses wisdom metaphors and, moreover, “the first man” (v. 28) could not relate to the Torah. In 2004, Jessie Rogers devoted two articles to the question of the relationship of Law and Wisdom. In my view the following descriptions are spot on: (1) The close association between Law and Wisdom in Sirach is undisputed, but there is a growing realization that the relationship is more nuanced than the term ‘identification’ would imply. The question of how Wisdom relates to Law in Sirach is crucial for an understanding of the nature of Wisdom in this work. If the concepts were identified in the strict sense of the word, then Wisdom in Sirach would be completely nationalized and the sage would be a Scripture scholar.97 (2) The implication need not be that the content of Wisdom and Law are identified in a one-to-one correspondence (i.e., that the Law alone is the locus of Wisdom). In this regard it is significant that fulfilling the law and keeping the commandments are most often linked with acquiring wisdom.98 (3) The Law is an already-given gift, which everyone may obey, but Wisdom remains something to be sought after, but not granted to all by virtue of its autonomy with respect to the relationship between human beings and God.99 (4) For Ben Sira, who is steeped in the sapiential tradition, Wisdom remains the primary category, and provides the hermeneutical tool through which to read the sacred texts . . . Law in Sirach is one concrete expression of Wisdom which exists before and beyond it and which can never be fully exhausted by it.100 This line of thought is also upheld by Samuel Adams. He opposes the view of scholars like Schnabel and Hengel that universal wisdom came only to dwell in Israel and specifically on Zion in the temple. “Such arguments,” he says, “attach an ideology of ‘only-ness’ to the book of Ben Sira” and such “a rigid dichotomy between

97 Rogers, “It overflows,” 114. 98 Rogers, “Wisdom,” 74. 99 Rogers, “Wisdom,” 75. 100 Rogers, “It overflows,” 120.

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‘profane wisdom’ and Torah-centred ‘piety’ misses the mark.”101 Adams stresses the fact that “the Torah is encompassed by a more universal Wisdom in Ben Sira, and not vice versa.”102 A substantial and fresh approach to interpreting Ben Sira’s correlation of Wisdom and Torah is offered by Greg Schmidt Goering. He argues that any simple identification of Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Ben Sira is problematic because Wisdom is characterized there as universally available to all human beings, whereas Torah, on the other hand, is characterized as the particular preserve of Israel. In order to avoid this collapse of one category into another, Schmidt Goering suggests that Ben Sira views Wisdom and Torah not as identical but rather as correlated or congruous. In order to emphasize this new approach, he offers an investigation into the concept of “election” which enables a profitable discussion of the relationship of Wisdom and Torah in the Book of Ben Sira. Ben Sira distinguishes between human beings on the basis of two unequal allotments of divine wisdom. One involves a general outpouring of wisdom upon all creation, including all humanity (Sir 1:9b–10a). The other consists of a special distribution of an extra measure of wisdom to a select group of humanity (Sir 1:10b). While most scholars interpret this classification dualistically, Schmidt Goering argues that Ben Sira bases the distinction on an idea of election that has no implication of dualism. That is, Israel’s election does not include a rejection of the non-elect. The notion that a doctrine of opposites lies at the heart of Ben Sira’s view of the world is strongly rejected, even with respect to the famous passage in Sir 33:7–15, which according to the author was his “aha!” moment for finding an interpretative key.103 Ben Sira regards both allotments of wisdom as forms of divine revelation. The outpouring of wisdom upon all creation constitutes a “general wisdom” that is available to all humanity through the natural world. However, the lavish distribution of wisdom upon the elect constitutes a “special wisdom” to which Israel alone is privy. This view complicates most scholars’ simple description that Ben Sira characterizes wisdom as either universal or particular. The sage develops his understanding of the relationship between the elect and special wisdom through the metaphor of inheritance.104 Ben Sira’s description of Israel’s special wisdom as an inheritance suggests a portion to be preserved and transmitted within a lineage from generation to generation. Therefore, Schmidt Goering seeks to identify the mechanisms that the sage 101 Adams, Wisdom in Transition, 200 102 Adams, Wisdom in Transition, 203. 103 Schmidt Goering, Wisdom’s Root, ix. 104 ‫ נחלה‬is found in Sir 8:10; 9:6; 42:3; 44:8, 11, 23; 45:20, 22 (2x), 25 (2x); 46:8, 9; κληρονομία is found in Sir 9:6; 22:23; 23:12; 24:7, 12, 20, 23; 41:6; 42:3; 44:11, 23; 45:20, 22, 25 (2x); 46:8, 9.

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envisioned as the proper means of safeguarding special wisdom and handing it on from generation to generation among the elect. In order to typify Ben Sira’s view, it appears that the role of the king and, to a certain extent, the family in the Book of Ben Sira is marginalized in favor of the scribes and the priests as preservers and transmitters of wisdom. Ben Sira most often associates fear of YHWH with special wisdom. Since nonJews are the recipients of general wisdom, the nations have the capacity to fear YHWH in the general sense of experiencing awe at creation and, as a result, recognizing his sovereignty as creator of the world. If, however, the awesomeness of creation does not move the Gentiles to fear YHWH, then God’s miraculous rescue of his oppressed people becomes necessary (Sir 35:22–36:22). In this way, the elect, as recipients of divine deliverance, play a passive role in bringing about the eschatological reality in which all nations recognize YHWH as sole deity. Finally, the question under discussion has been brought an important step forward on the lexical level by Friedrich Reiterer, who, in a detailed investigation, studied all Ben Sira passages in which “law” and “wisdom” occur in Hebrew, Greek, and Syriac. His conclusion is quite spectacular: “Es gibt keine direkte Parallelsetzung von σοφία / ‫ חכמה‬und νόμος / ‫ תורה‬im Buch Ben Sira . . . Für eine Identifikation von ‫ חכמה‬/ σοφία und ‫ תורה‬/ νόμος konnte kein Beleg gefunden werden.”105 Therefore, we have to conclude that nowhere in the extant Hebrew Ben Sira manuscripts are the nouns ‫ תורה‬and ‫ חכמה‬found together in a parallelismus membrorum.

5 A Remarkable Triplet: νόμος, φόβος κυρίου, and σοφία In Greek Sirach, there are two passages that have a triplet of nouns bound together: νόμος, φόβος κυρίου, and σοφία (Sir 19:20; 21:11).106 Sir 19:20 Πᾶσα σοφία φόβος κυρίου, καὶ ἐν πάσῃ σοφίᾳ ποίησις νόμου Full wisdom is to fear the Lord, complete wisdom to practice the torah.

105 Reiterer, “Das Verhältnis,” 133. 106 See Beentjes, “Full Wisdom.”

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Sir 21:11 ὁ φυλάσσων νόμον κατακρατεῖ τοῦ ἐννοήματος αὐτοῦ, καὶ συντέλεια τοῦ φόβου κυρίου σοφία He who keeps the torah masters his thought, the completion of fearing the Lord is wisdom.

The opening words πᾶσα σοφία in Sir 19:20 are identical to those that open the Book of Ben Sira: Πᾶσα σοφία παρὰ κυρίου (Sir 1:1).107 As I demonstrated in my doctoral thesis, identical wordings do not always ipso facto need to indicate that the author made a deliberate connection or quotation.108 Paying attention, however, to some aspects which Haspecker, Marböck, Rickenbacher, and Schnabel have overlooked in their analysis of Sir 19:20–24, it became increasingly clearer to me that Ben Sira, in every possible way, just wanted to construct a close connection with the opening section of his book.109 The expression πᾶσα σοφία (Sir 1:1; 19:20) is found nowhere else in the Book of Ben Sira.110 It, therefore, might be considered a special signal towards the reader. In the Septuagint we come across this expression just one single time (Job 26:3). As far as I can see, in the Hebrew Old Testament a corresponding ‫ כל חכמה‬does not occur at all! In general, scholars have rendered πᾶσα σοφία of Sir 19:20 in a rather similar way: “all wisdom,”111 “alle Weisheit,”112 “jegliche Weisheit,”113 “jede Weisheit,”114 “all wisdom.”115 This kind of rendering, however, does not take into full account 107 In several Greek manuscripts there have even been made attempts to turn down the text of Sir 19:20a towards the opening sentence of Sir 1:1a. This is, e.g., the case in the Codex Ephraemi Syri rescriptus, in the so-called ‘Lucian recension’ and in minuscule 543 (Paris, 1186 C.E.); cf. Ziegler, Sapientia Iesu, 214. 108 Pancratius C. Beentjes, Jesus Sirach en Tenach: Een onderzoek naar en een classificatie van parallellen (Nieuwegein: Selbstverlag, 1981). 109 I think it quite curious that neither Rickenbacher, Weisheitsperikopen, nor Schnabel, Law and Wisdom provide us with a synopsis of all texts within the Book of Ben Sira in which σοφία/‫חכמה‬ occur. 110 The same wording is also found in the Greek text of Sir 37:21. The entire verse, however, is absent in the Hebrew text (MS B) and in the Syrian and Armenian translations as well. 111 Schnabel, Law and Wisdom, 50; MacKenzie, Sirach, 85. 112 Smend, Hebräisch und deutsch, 32; Peters, Das Buch, 159; Josef Haspecker, Gottesfurcht bei Jesus Sirach: Ihre religiöse Struktur und ihre literarische und doktrinäre Bedeutung (Rome: Päpstliches Bibelinstitut, 1967), 156; Rickenbacher, Weisheitsperikopen, 99; Eberharter, Das Buch Jesus Sirach, 73. 113 Marböck, Weisheit im Wandel, 90; Vinzenz Hamp, Sirach: Die Heilige Schrift deutscher Übersetzung, Die Echter Bibel 13 (Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1951), 51. 114 Otto Fritzsche, Die Weisheit Jesus Sirach’s, Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apokryphen des Altes Testamentum 5 (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1859), 348. 115 NETS, 734.

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the accurate way in which the opening statement of Sir 19:20 has been elaborated in the subsequent lines. Ben Sira emphasizes that not every kind of wisdom can be equated with “Fear of the Lord.” The Jerusalem Sage wants to make it absolutely clear to his audience that it is only a very specific concept of wisdom which can be identified with “fear of the Lord.” For this reason, πᾶσα in Sir 19:20 must be attributed an elative significance: “full,” “total,” “pure.”116 It is very interesting, therefore, to ascertain that some recent translations seem to take this view too.117 Unfortunately, none has added a further explanation to their rendering. It is not the immediate context of Sir 19:20 alone which provides evidence for such an elative use of πᾶσα here.118 That meaning can be deduced from a number of utterances elsewhere in the Book of Ben Sira in which “Wisdom” and “Fear of the Lord” are dealt with at the same time (e.g., Sir 1:16 –“fullness of wisdom is fear of the Lord”; 21:11 – “fulfilment of the fear of the Lord is wisdom”). Considering all this, we cannot rule out the possibility that Πᾶσα σοφία in Sir 1:1 – which is the opening statement of the Book of Ben Sira – should be translated in the same elative sense: “Full wisdom is from the Lord.”119

Bibliography Adams, Samuel L. Wisdom in Transition: Act and Consequence in Second Temple Instructions. JSJSup 125. Leiden: Brill 2008. Askin, Lindsey A. Scribal Culture in Ben Sira. JSJSup 184. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Beentjes, Pancratius C. Jesus Sirach en Tenach: Een onderzoek naar en een classificatie van parallellen. Nieuwegein: Selbstverlag, 1981. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “Sweet is His Memory, like Honey to the Palate: King Josiah in Ben Sira 49,1‒4.” BZ 34 (1990): 262‒66. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “The Hebrew Texts of Ben Sira 32[35]:16–33[36]:2.” Pages 53–67 in Sirach, Scrolls, and Sages. Edited by Takamitsu Muraoka & John F. Elwolde. STDJ 33. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

116 Cf. Bo Reicke, “Πᾶς,” TDNT 5: 888. 117 Georg Sauer, “Jesus Sirach,” in Unterweisung in lehrhafter Form, JSHRZ III/5 (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1981), 553: “Die ganze Weisheit”; Skehan–Di Lella, Wisdom, 295: “The whole of Wisdom / complete wisdom.” 118 Recently, Maurice Gilbert has questioned my view of an elative meaning of πᾶσα in Sir 19:20; see Maurice Gilbert, “Quel est le sens de πᾶσα σοφία en Siracide 1:1a? Notes philologiques et exégétiques,” in Hokhmat sopher: Mélanges Offerts Au Professeur Émile Puech en l’honneur de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire, ed. Jean Sébastien Rey and Martin Staszak, ÉBibNS 88 (Louvain: Peeters, 2021), 103‒14. 119 As far as I can see, it is only Fritzsche who has paid full attention to this possibility. He, however, rejected an elative sense; cf. Fritzsche, Die Weisheit, 12 and 96.

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 Pancratius C. Beentjes

Beentjes, Pancratius C. “‘Come to me, you who desire me . . .’: Lady Wisdom’s Invitation in Ben Sira 24:19‒22.” Pages 1–11 in Weisheit als Lebensgrundlage: Festschrift für Friedrich V. Reiterer zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Renate Egger-Wenzel, Karin Schöpflin, and Johannes Friedrich Diehl. DCLS 15. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “The Book of Ben Sira: Some new Perspectives at the Dawn of the 21st Century.” Pages 1‒19 in Goochem in Mokum, Wisdom in Amsterdam: Papers on Biblical and Related Wisdom Read at the Fifteenth Joint Meeting of the Society of Old Testament Studies and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap, Amsterdam, July 2012. Edited by George J. Brooke and Pierre Van Hecke. OtSt 68. Leiden: Brill 2016. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “Ben Sira 44:19‒23–The Patriarchs: Text, Tradition, Theology.” Pages 209‒28 in Studies in the Book of Ben Sira. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits & József Zsengellér. JSJSup 127. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Beentjes, Pancratius C. The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew: A Text Edition of all Extant Hebrew Manuscripts & A Synopsis of All Parallel Hebrew Ben Sira Texts. VTSup 68. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Beentjes, Pancratius C. “Full Wisdom is Fear of the Lord: Ben Sira 19:20‒20:31: Context, Composition and Concept.” EstBib 47 (1989): 27‒45. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism. Oxford Bible Series. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Boccaccini, Gabriele. Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Bohak, Gideon. Joseph and Aseneth and the Jewish Temple in Heliopolis. EJL 10. Atlanta: Scholars, 1996. Botha, P.J. “The Ideology of Shame in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Ecclesiasticus 41:14‒42:8.” OTE 9 (1996): 353‒71. Busto Saiz, José Ramón. “Sabiduría y Torá en Jesús Ben Sira,” EstBib 52 (1994): 229‒39. Calduch-Benages, Nuria, Joan Ferrer, and Jan Liesen. Wisdom of the Scribe: Diplomatic Edition of the Syriac Version of the Book of Ben Sira according to Codex Ambrosianus with Translations in Spanish and English. Biblioteca Midrásica 26. Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2003. Christ, Felix. Jesus Sophia: Die Sophia-Christologie bei den Synoptikern. ATANT 57. Zürich: Zwingli, 1970. Collins, John J. Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. OTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Corley, Jeremy. Ben Sira’s Teaching on Friendship. BJS 316. Providence: Brown University, 2002. Cowley, Arthur E. and Neubauer, Adolf (eds), The Original Hebrew of a Portion of Ecclesiasticus (XXXIX,15 to XLIX,11). Oxford: Clarendon, 1897. Dimant, Devorah. “Use and Interpretation of Mikra in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.” Pages 379‒419 in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Edited by Martin Jan Mulder and Harry Sysling. CRINT 2/1. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1988. Eberharter, Andreas. Das Buch Jesus Sirach oder Ecclesiasticus. HSAT 6.5. Bonn: Hanstein, 1925. Fritzsche, Otto F. Die Weisheit Jesus Sirach’s. Kurzgefasstes Exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apokryphen des Altes Testamentum 5. Leipzig: Hirzel, 1859. Gilbert, Maurice. “L’éloge de La Sagesse (Siracide 24).” RTL 5 (1974): 326‒48. Gilbert, Maurice. “Quel est le sens de πᾶσα σοφία en Siracide 1:1a? Notes philologiques et exégétiques.” Pages 103‒14 in Hokhmat sopher: Mélanges Offerts Au Professeur Émile Puech en l’honneur de son quatre-vingtième anniversaire. Edited by Jean Sébastien Rey and Martin Staszak. ÉBibNS 88. Louvain: Peeters, 2021. Goldman, Yohanan A.P. “Le texte massorétique de Qohélet.” Pages 69‒93 in Sôfer Mahîr: Essays in Honour of Adrian Schenker Offered by the Editors of Biblia Hebraica Quinta. Leiden: Brill, 2006. Hamp, Vinzenz. Sirach. Die Heilige Schrift deutscher Übersetzung. Die Echter Bibel 13. Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1951.

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Haspecker, Josef. Gottesfurcht bei Jesus Sirach: Ihre religiöse Struktur und ihre literarische und doktrinäre Bedeutung. Rome: Päpstliches Bibelinstitut, 1967. Hengel, Martin. Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter during the Early Hellenistic Period. London: SCM Press, 1974. Jansen, Andreas. “Einige textkritische und exegetische Bemerkungen zum Buche Ekklesiastikus.” BZ 4 (1906): 20‒21. Juárez, M. “Sabiduría y ley in Jesús Ben Sira.” Religión y Cultura 25 (1979): 567‒74. Kaiser, Otto. “Die Begründung der Sittlichkeit im Buche Jesus Sirach.” ZTK 55 (1958): 51‒63. Küchler, Max. Frühjüdische Weisheitstraditionen: Zum Fortgang weisheitlichen Denkens im Bereich des frühjüdischen Jahweglaubens. OBO 26. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979. Kwon, JiSeong James. “Re-Examining Torah in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Was Hellenistic Wisdom Torahised?” Pages 93‒119 in The Early Reception of Torah. Edited by Kristin de Troyer et al. DCLS 39. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020. Lange, Armin. “The Law, the Prophets, and the Other Books of the Fathers (Sir, Prologue): Canonical Lists in Ben Sira and Elsewhere.” Pages 55‒80 in Studies in the Book of Ben Sira: Papers of the Third International Conference on the Deuterocanonical Books, Shime‘on Centre, Pápa, Hungary, 18‒20 May, 2006. Edited by Geza. G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér. JSJSup 127. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Lévi, Israel. L’Écclésiastique ou La Sagesse de Jésus, fils de Sira, Première partie. BEHER 10.2. Paris: Leroux, 1898. Liesen, Jan. “A common background of Ben Sira and the Psalter: The concept of ‫ תורה‬in Sir 32:14–33:3 and the Torah Psalms.” Pages 197‒208 in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology. Edited by Angelo Passaro & Giuseppe Bellia. DCLS 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Mack, Burton L. Logos und Sophia: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie im hellenistischen Judentum. SUNT 10. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht, 1973. MacKenzie, Roderick A.F. Sirach. OTM 19. Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1983. Marböck, Johannes. “Gesetz und Weisheit: Zum Verständnis des Gesetzes bei Jesus Ben Sira.” Pages 52‒72 in Gottes Weisheit unter uns: Zur Theologie des Buches Sirach. Edited by I. Fischer. HBS 6. Freiburg: Herder, 1995. Marböck, Johannes.“Zur frühen Wirkungsgeschichte von Psalm 1.” Pages 207‒22 in Freude an der Weisung des Herrn: Beiträge zur Theologie der Psalmen, Festgabe zum 70. Geburtstag von Heinrich Gross. Edited by Ernst Haag & Frank-Lothar Hossfeldt. SBB 13. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1986. Marböck, Johannes. Jesus Sirach 1‒23. HThKAT. Freiburg : Herder, 2010. Marböck, Johannes. Weisheit im Wandel: Untersuchungen zur Weisheitstheologie bei Ben Sira. BBB 37. Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1971. Margolis, Max L. “Notes on A fifth MS. of Ben Sira.” JQR 21 (1930–31): 439‒40. Meade, David G. Pseudonymity and Canon. WUNT 39. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1986. Minissale, Antonino. La versione greca del Siracide confronto con il testo ebraico alla luce dell’attività midrascica e del metodo targumico. AnBib 133. Rome: Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1995. Penchansky, David. Understanding Wisdom Literature: Conflict and Dissonance in the Hebrew Text. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. Perdue, Leo. Wisdom Literature: A Theological History. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007. Peters, Norbert. Das Buch Jesus Sirach oder Ecclesiasticus. EHAT 25. Münster: Aschendorff, 1913. Pistone, Rosario. “Blessing the sage, prophecy of the scribe: From Ben Sira to Matthew.” Pages 309‒53 in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology. Edited by Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia. DCLS 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Prato, Gian L. “Sapienza e Torah in Ben Sira: meccanismi comparativi culturali e conseguenza ideologico-religiose.” RStB 10 (1998): 129‒51.

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Puech, Émile. “4Q525 et les péricopes des béatitudes en Ben Sira et Matthieu.” RB 98 (1991): 80‒106. Puech, Émile. “La sagesse dans les béatitudes de Ben Sira: étude du texte de Si 51 :13‒30 et de Si 14 :20‒15 :10.” Pages 297‒329 in The Texts and Versions of the Book of Ben Sira: Transmission and Interpretation. Edited by Jean Sébastien Rey et al. JSJSup 150. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Reitemeyer, Michael. Weisheitslehre als Gotteslob: Psalmentheologie im Buch Jesus Sirach. BBB 127. Vienna: Philo, 2000. Reiterer, Friedrich V. “Das Verhältnis der ‫ חכמה‬zur ‫ תורה‬im Buch Ben Sira.“ Pages 97‒133 in Studies in the Book of Ben Sira. Edited by Geza Xeravits & József Zsengellér. JSJS 127. Leiden: Brill 2008. Reiterer, Friedrich V. “The Interpretation of the Wisdom tradition of the Torah within Ben Sira.” Pages 209‒31 in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology. Edited by Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia. DCLS 1. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Reiterer, Friedrich V. “Neue Akzente in der Gesetzvorstellung: ‫ תורת חיים‬bei Ben Sira.” Pages 851‒71 in Gott und Mensch im Dialog: Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 80. Geburtstag. Edited by Markus Witte. BZAW 345. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004. Reymond, Eric D. “Remarks om Ben Sira’s ‘Instruction on Shame,’ Sirach 41:14‒42:8.” ZAW 115 (2003): 388‒400. Rickenbacher, Otto. Weisheitsperikopen bei Ben Sira. OBO 1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &Ruprecht, 1973. Rogers, Jessie. “It Overflows like the Euphrates with Understanding: Another Look at the Relationship between Law and Wisdom.” Pages 114‒21 in Of Scribes and Sages: Early Jewish Interpretation and Transmission of Scripture, Vol. 1 Ancient Versions and Traditions. Edited by Craigh A. Evans. SSEJC 9. LSTS 50. London: T&T Clark, 2004. Rogers, Jessie. “Wisdom and Creation in Sirach 24.” JNWSL 22 (1996): 141‒56. Sandelin, Karl-Gustav. Wisdom as Nourisher. Acta Academiae Aboensis Series A 64.3. Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 1986. Sauer, Georg. “Jesus Sirach.” Pages 481‒644 in Unterweisung in lehrhafter Form. JSHRZ III/5. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1981. Schimanowski, Gottfried. Weisheit und Messias: Die jüdischen Voraussetzungen der urchristlichen Präexistenzchristologie. WUNT II/17. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985. Schmidt Goering, Greg. Wisdom’s Root Revealed: Ben Sira and the Election of Israel. JSJSup139. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Schnabel, Eckhard. Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul: A Tradition Historical Enquiry into the Relation of Law, Wisdom, and Ethics. WUNT II/16. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985. Schrader, Lutz. Leiden und Gerechtigkeit: Studien zu Theologie und Textgeschichte des Sirachbuches. BBET 27. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994. Seeligman, Isac L. The Septuagint Version of Isaiah and Cognate Studies. Edited by Robert Hanhard and Hermann Spieckermann. FAT 40. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Sheppard, Gerald T. Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study of the Sapientializing of the Old Testament. BZAW 151. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980. Skehan, Patrick W. & Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira. AB 39. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Smend, Rudolf. Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach erklärt. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1906. Smend, Rudolf. Die Weisheit des Jesus Sirach hebräisch und deutsch. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1906. Ueberschaer, Frank. “Ein Gesetz, das Mose uns geboten hat – Eine synagogale Lesung als Hintergrund für eine Übersetzung des griechischen Buches Jesus Sirach?” Pages 219‒33 in Tempel, Lehrhaus, Synagoge: Orte jüdischen Lernens und Lebens; Festschrift für Wolfgang Kraus. Leiden: Schöningh, 2020. Veijola, Timo. “Law and Wisdom: The Deuteronomistic heritage in Ben Sira’s teaching of the Law.” Pages 144‒64 in Leben nach der Weisung: Exegetisch-historische Studien zum Alten Testament. Edited by idem and Walter Dietrich. FRLANT 224. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008.

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Witte, Markus, Texte und Kontexte des Sirachbuches: Gesammelte Studien zu Ben Sira und zur frühjüdischen Weisheit. FAT 98. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. Wright, Benjamin G. No Small Difference: Sirach’s Relationship to its Hebrew Parent Text. SCS 26. Atlanta: Scholars Press,1989. Wright, Benjamin G. “Conflicted Boundaries: Ben Sira, Sage and Seer.” Pages 229‒53 in Congress Volume Helsinki 2000. Edited by Martti Nissinen. VTSup 148. Leiden: Brill. 2012. Wright, Benjamin G. “Torah and Sapiential Pedagogy in the Book of Ben Sira.” Pages 157‒86 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd Schipper and Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Yadin, Yigael. The Ben Sira Scroll from Masada with Introduction, Emendations, and Commentary. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 1965. Zenner, Johann Kasper. “Zwei Weisheitslieder.” ZKT 21 (1897): 551‒58. Ziegler, Joseph. Sapientia Iesu Filii Sirach. Septuaginta 12.2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965.

Part II: Wisdom & Torah in Skeptical-Critical Discourse

Tobias Häner

“Things Too Wondrous” (Job 42:3): The Torah and the Limits of Knowledge in the Book of Job 1 Introduction When we approach the relationship between Torah and Wisdom from the perspective of the book of Job, at first glance it might seem that the Torahic traditions are out of view throughout the whole book. In fact, the term ‫ תורה‬itself occurs only once in Job, in 22:22.1 Other characteristic terms of the Pentateuch, such as ‫ברית‬, are completely absent. However, as recent research has shown, regarding intertextual references, Job is strongly connected to the Torah.2 The authors of Job were aware of the textual traditions of the Pentateuch and engaged in a critical discourse with their theological standpoints. As Markus Witte has demonstrated, the base layer of Job takes a critical stance towards the Deuteronomic theology and its causal nexus between the obedience to the Torah, on the one hand, and blessing and prosperity, on the other,

1 According to Markus Witte, “Hiobs ‘Zeichen’ (Hiob 31,35–37),” in Gott und Mensch im Dialog: Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 80. Geburtstag, ed. Markus Witte, BZAW 345 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004), 723–42, esp. 737–742, the “sign” (‫ )תו‬in Job 31:35–37 refers to the Mosaic Torah; by consequence, he claims also that in 22:22 the term ‫ תורה‬is not used in a generic sense (meaning sapiential advice), but may more specifically relate to Torah of Moses; however, the term remains somewhat ambiguous here. 2 On the intertextual relationship between Job and the Pentateuch, see Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes, eds., Reading Job Intertextually, LHBOTS 574 (New York: T&T Clark, 2012), particularly the contributions by Samuel E. Balentine, “Job and the Priests: ‘He Leads Priests Away Stripped’ (Job 12:19),” 42–53; John Burnight, “The ‘Reversal’ of Heilsgeschichte in Job 3,” 30–41; Edward Greenstein, “Parody as a Challenge to Tradition,” 66–78; Manfred Oeming, “To Be Adam or Not To Be Adam,” 19–29; Markus Witte, “Does the Tora Keep Its Promise?” 54–65; Raick Heckl, “The Relationship Between Job 1–2, 42 and 1 Samuel 1–4 as Intertextual Guidance for Reading,” 81–93; cf. also JiSeong J. Kwon, “Divergence of the Book of Job from Deuteronomic/Priestly Torah: Intertextual Reading Between Job and Torah,” SJOT 32 (2018): 49–71. Concerning the different theological standpoints of the book of Job, on the one side, and the Priestly source and Deuteronomy on the other side, see Konrad Schmid, “Innerbiblische Schriftdiskussion im Hiobbuch,” in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf dem Monte Verità vom 14.–19. August 2005, ed. Thomas Krüger et al., ATANT 88 (Zürich: TVZ, 2007), 244–52; Konrad Schmid, Hiob als biblisches und antikes Buch, SBS 219 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2010), 36–45. Tobias Häner, Cologne University of Catholic Theology, Germany https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-004

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whereas later redactional layers tend to reconcile Job with Deuteronomy.3 Further, Konrad Schmid has come to the conclusion that Job “presents a critical evaluation of the theocratic order of the Priestly Code” and “takes an ambivalent position towards its fundamental precepts.”4 However, what has been neglected with respect to the connection between Job and the Torah is the overarching rhetorical strategy of the former and its skepticism in regard to the cognitive capacities of humans. Therefore, what I intend to demonstrate in this brief study is that by means of allusions the book of Job is not only undertaking a critical review of some aspects of the Deuteronomic and the Priestly theology, but more fundamentally it aims at recasting exclusivistic tendencies in the Torah into a decidedly universalistic perspective. As I will try to show, this undermining of both Priestly and Deuteronomic views about God’s administration of the world is happening on the level of epistemology, i.e., by pointing out the limits of human knowledge. Consequently, the standpoint of Job is that of a skeptical Wisdom which is not directed against the Torah but undercuts, to some extent, its truth claims. As has become clear by now, I take an intertextual approach in this study. Moreover, I mainly focus on the text of the book of Job in its final form, taking into account, however, that Job 28 and 32–37, as well as the narrative frame (Job 1–2; 42:7–17), may stem from theological perspectives that differ somewhat from that of the core of poetic part (Job 3–27; 29–31; 38:1–42:6) as it concerns the relation with and view towards the Torahic traditions. Regarding the Torah, I distinguish between Deuteronomy and the Priestly source (and their respective theological concepts).

2 The Book of Job and Deuteronomy In the last decade, Markus Witte, Manfred Oeming, and others have substantially contributed to the research on the relationship between the book of Job (in its different redactional layers) and Deuteronomy.5 These studies have unearthed con-

3 Witte, “Does the Tora,” passim; Witte, “Job in Conversation with the Torah,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 81–100; Witte, “Die Torah in den Augen Hiobs,” in Hiobs viele Gesichter: Studien zur Komposition, Tradition und frühen Rezeption des Hiobbuches, ed. idem, FRLANT 267 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 121–32. 4 Konrad Schmid, “The Authors of Job and Their Historical and Social Setting,” in Scribes, Sages, and Seers: The Sage in the Eastern Mediterranean World, ed. Leo G. Perdue, FRLANT 219 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 145–53, at 151. 5 Manfred Oeming, “Hiob 31 Und Der Dekalog,” in The Book of Job, ed. Willem A. M. Beuken, BETL 114 (Leuven: University Press, 1994), 362–68; Georg Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher

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spicuous textual parallels between passages in Deuteronomy (particularly Deuteronomy 5 and 28) and Job. The following is a brief overview and synthesis of these studies, highlighting the importance of the intertextual references to Deuteronomy in Job. In the prologue narrative, we find two conspicuous parallels to Deuteronomy 28. The description of Job’s blessed status in 1:10 (‫ )מעשה ידיו ברכת‬alludes to the respective promises in Deut 28:12 (‫)לברך את כל מעשה ידך‬, while the description of Job’s skin disease in Job 2:7 (‫ )ויך את איוב בשחין רע מכף רגלו ועד קדקדו‬is strikingly similar to the illness threatened in Deut 28:35 (‫ מכף רגלך ועד קדקדך‬. . . ‫)יככה יהוה בשחין רע‬.6 In other words, Job 1–2 contradicts Deuteronomy in the sense that the righteous Job paradoxically gets deprived of the blessings and instead is “rewarded” with the curses in Deuteronomy 28 that conclude the Deuteronomic legal corpus. In the poetic part, allusions to Deuteronomy are more subtle. At the end of Job’s initial speech (Job 3:25–26), lexical parallels to Deut 28:45, 60, 65–67 are discernible.7 In the speeches of the friends, Eliphaz’s promise of a salutary future offered to Job at the conclusion of his first and his last speech (5:19–26; 22:26–30) corresponds to some degree with Deut 28:3–8.8 Less evident is the critical reception of the Deuteronomic social legislation in Job 24.9 The clearest connection with Deuteronomy in the dialogue instead turns up in Job 31.10 As Daniela Opel has shown, the Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut: Zur Frage früher Kanonizität des Deuteronomiums,” in Studien zum Deuteronomiumund seiner Nachgeschichte, ed. idem, Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände, Altes Testament (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001), 218–42; Raik Heckl, Hiob – vom Gottesfürchtigen zum Repräsentanten Israels, FAT 70 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 381–92; Markus Witte, “Does the Tora,” 54–65; Greenstein, “Parody as a Challenge”; Witte, “Job in Conversation”; Christopher B. Ansberry, “The ‘Revealed Things’: Deuteronomy and the Epistemology of Job,” in For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block, ed. Jason S. DeRouchie, Jason Gile, and Kenneth J. Turner (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 307–25; Witte, “Die Torah.” 6 See Raik Heckl, Hiob, 381–92; David Wolfers, Deep Things Out of Darkness (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 111–18. 7 See Konrad Schmid, “Innerbiblische Schriftdiskussion,” 249–52. According to Schmid (p. 250), Job “erscheint als das individualisierte und protologisierte Paradigma des deuteronomistischen Gerichts an Israel und Juda.” 8 See Markus Witte, “Does the Tora,” 61. In addition, Job 5:18 parallels Deut 32:39; further correspondences between the poetic part of Job and Deuteronomy 32 are pointed out by Edward L. Greenstein, “Parody as a Challenge.” 9 See Georg Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium,” 218–42; Raik Heckl, Hiob, 211. 10 Manfred Oeming, “Hiob 31,” 362–68; Oeming, “Hiobs Weg,” in Hiobs Weg: Stationen von Menschen im Leid, Biblisch Theologische Studien 45, ed. Manfred Oeming and Konrad Schmid (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001), 66–73; Witte, “Hiobs ‘Zeichen,’”; Daniela Opel, Hiobs Anspruch und Widerspruch: Die Herausforderungsreden Hiobs (Hi 29–31) im Kontext frühjüdischer Ethik, WMANT 127 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2010), 135–51; Witte, “Does the Tora,” 57–60; Witte,

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parallels between Job’s confession of innocence and the Decalogue can be termed “weisheitliche Torarezeption.”11 We may summarize these findings by stating that the Deuteronomic precepts are part of the background against which Job and his friends hold their debate. Whereas for the friends Job’s return to God would award him with the blessings promised in Job 28, Job himself declaims God’s failure to acknowledge his obedience to the divine precepts that coincide approximately with the standards of Deuteronomy 5 and to reward him in accordance to his efforts. The allusions to passages in Deuteronomy in both the prologue and the dialogue sections reveal that Job is not only situated in the framework of Wisdom traditions but also engaging intertextually with the Torah in general and Deuteronomy in particular.

3 The Book of Job and the Priestly Source Besides Deuteronomy, the book of Job is also intertextually related to the Priestly source. Already in the prologue, an allusion is discernible. Job’s sacrifice on behalf of his children (Job 1:5), followed by their sudden death caused by means of natural elements that issue from the supernatural (1:18–19), resembles the narrative in Leviticus 8–10, both on the level of vocabulary and of narrative sequence.12 The conspicuous similarities reveal that the Joban prologue subtly undermines human reliance on the cultic system that is of central importance in the Priestly Torah.13

“Job in Conversation,” 85–93; Ansberry, “The ‘Revealed Things,’” 317–24. Ansberry rightly states (pp. 323–24): “While the virtues and vices delineated in the asseveration of innocence correspond with moral concepts documented elsewhere in the Old Testament and the ancient world, the Deuteronomic flavor of certain principles indicate the torah served as a vital source of Job’s moral knowledge.” 11 Daniela Opel, Hiobs Anspruch, 151. 12 Leviticus 8–10 and Job 1–2 share the same combination of lexemes in a coherent storyline: sanctifying (‫)קדשׁ‬, sacrificing of burnt offerings (‫)עלה‬, blessing (‫)ברך‬, drinking wine (‫)יין‬, death (‫)מות‬ of (some or all of) the protagonist’s children by means of “fire” (Job 1:19) or “wind” (Lev 10:2) that is originated by Yhwh (‫ מלפני יהוה‬/ ‫ ;)מעם פני יהוה‬cf. Mark Awabdy and Tobias Häner, “Sacrificial Fathers and the Death of Their Children: How the Story of Job Challenges the Priestly Tradition,” HTR 115 (2022): 149–70. 13 Samuel Balentine, Job (Macon: Smyth and Helwys, 2006), 482 adds: “What is at stake is not only the conventional dogma that God prospers the righteous and punishes the wicked. It is also, and perhaps even more fundamentally, the Priestly tradition’s advocacy for the effectiveness of the entire ritual system.”

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Regarding the dialogue part, Michael Fishbane’s claims of extended parallels between Job 3 and Genesis 1 may have gone too far and have rightly been questioned by, inter alia, David Clines.14 Nonetheless, further studies by Leo Perdue and others have confirmed that Job’s opening speech subtly alludes to the beginning of the Priestly creation narrative.15 Beyond the locution ‫ יהי חשך‬in Job 3:4 that forms a straightforward contradiction to God’s solemn command ‫ יהי אור‬in Gen 1:3, the motif of darkness that is dominant in Job 3:3–10 is opposed to the creation of light in Gen 1:3–5.16 Similarly, at the end of Job 3, the motif of unrest (3:26) contrasts with God’s rest on the seventh day in Gen 2:1–3.17 The allusion to Gen 1:1–2:3 in Job’s initial lament brings to the fore that his suffering stands in paradoxical contradiction not only to the Deuteronomic promises of blessing for those who fear God by obeying the Torah but also to the cosmic order of the Priestly source. Job 9:5–10, a hymnic passage in Job’s third speech, in some way continues the undermining of the cosmic order as described in Gen 1:1–2:3. On the one hand, Job imitates Eliphaz’s hymn of 5:9–16, since he concludes his equivocal praise of God’s might (9:10) with a verbatim repetition of the first line of Eliphaz’s laud of God’s great and marvelous deeds (5:9). On the other hand, however, Job – in contrast to

14 Michael Fishbane, “Jeremiah IV 23–26 and Job III 3–13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern,” VT 21 (1971): 151–67 argues that the pattern of seven days of creation in Gen 1:1–2:4a is reflected in Job 3; his thesis – although backed by Balentine, Job, 84 – is rightly criticized by David J. Clines, Job 1–20, WBC 17 (Waco: Word Books, 1989), 81. 15 See Leo G. Perdue, “Job’s Assault on Creation,” HAR 10 (1986): 295–315; Perdue, Wisdom in Revolt, BLS 29 (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1991); Perdue, “Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job: Theological Anthropology in the First Cycle of Job’s Speeches (Job 3; 6–7; 9–10),” in The Book of Job, ed. Willem A. Beuken, BETL 114 (Leuven: University Press, 1994), 142–49; Valerie F. Pettys, “Let There Be Darkness: Continuity and Discontinuity in the ‘Curse’ of Job 3,” JSOT 26 (2002): 89–104; Yohan Pyeon, You Have Not Spoken What Is Right About Me: Intertextuality and the Book of Job, StBibLit 45 (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), 88–95; Andrea Beyer, “Hiobs Widerworte: Die Querbezüge zwischen Ijob 3,3–9 und Gen 1,1–2,4a,” BZ 55 (2011): 95–102; Balentine, “Job and the Priests,” 44–48; Tobias Häner, “Job’s Dark View of Creation: On the Ironic Allusions to Genesis 1:1–2:4a in Job 3 and their Echo in Job 38–39,” OTE 33 (2020): 267–73. 16 Twelve lexemes are shared by Job 3:3–10 and Gen 1:3–5: ‫( אמר‬Job 3:2, 3); ‫( יהי‬3rd pers. sing. jussive vv. 4, 7); ‫( חשך‬noun vv. 4, 5; verb v. 9); ‫( אור‬vv. 9, 20); ‫( יום‬vv. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8); ‫( לילה‬vv. 3, 6, 7); ‫( ממעל‬v. 4); ‫( שנה‬sing. v. 6); ‫( הנה‬v. 7); ‫( כוכב‬v. 9); ‫( קוה‬v. 9); ‫( ראה‬vv. 9, 16). Concerning shared motifs and themes, the relation between the two texts can be described as a mixture of correspondences (day and night: Gen 1:5, 14, 16, etc.; Job 3:4, 6; light and darkness: Gen 1:3–5, 14–19; Job 3:4–9; measuring units of time: Gen 1:14; Job 3:6; sea dwellers: Gen 1:21; Job 3:8) and contrasts (becoming: Gen 1:10–13, 19–31 / perishing: Job 3:3, 7, 10–16; blessing: Gen 1:22, 28; 2:3) / curse: Job 3:1, 8; bring light: Gen 1:3, 14–17 / bring darkness: Job 3:4–9; order and separation: Gen 1:4, 7, 18 / disorder and confusion: Job 3:4–9, 13–19; rest: Gen 2:1–3 / unrest: Job 3:13, 26b). 17 Cf. Häner, “Job’s Dark View,” 272–73.

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his friend – omits any mention of an inner logic or purpose of God’s actions.18 Like Eliphaz, Job mentions both destructive (9:5–7; cf. 5:12–14) and creative actions (9:8–9; cf. the salvific actions in 5:10–11, 15), but no further target is achieved by either of the two types of deeds. In this context, the phrase “they don’t know” (‫ )ולא ידעו‬in 9:5 may also hint at the futility of God’s exertion of power, and further the locution ‫אין חקר‬ (9:10a) that is part of the repetition of the first line in Eliphaz’ hymn (5:9a) is given an altered connotation:19 in Job’s mouth, Eliphaz’s praise rather sounds like a critique of the arbitrariness and capriciousness of God’s actions.20 Therefore, although Job’s third speech does not directly allude to Gen 1:2–2:3 in terms of shared vocabulary or locutions, against the background of Job 3, the contrast between 9:5–10 and the conception of the created order in the Priestly source comes to the fore, as Job’s false praise of God’s inscrutable and chaotic rule of the world challenges the Priestly conception of the perspicuity and regularity of the cosmic order. At the same time, Job 9:5–10 also reveals the connection between the topic of the created order and epistemological questions in the book of Job, as Job is implicitly blaming God not only for reversing the order of the cosmos but also for concealing it. We may summarize this brief study by concluding that not only Deuteronomic but also Priestly traditions of the Torah come into play both in the narrative framework and in the poetic part of Job. By means of intertextual references, the contradiction between Job’s fate, on the one hand, and the Priestly conceptions of the cosmic order, on the other hand, is highlighted – a contradiction that is denied by the friends but declaimed by Job. Yet, Job’s point in his speeches is not just that he accuses God of transgressing his own juridical and cosmic order; rather, the glance at Job 9:5–10 has shown that Job on a secondary level also enters into an epistemological argumentation by questioning the knowability of God’s administration of the world. This epistemological perspective comes to the foreground when we turn now to God’s speeches.

18 The enumeration of the punitive and salvific effects of God’s actions makes out the bulk of Eliphaz’s hymn (5:11–16); Job instead only mentions that God acts “in his anger” (9:5b), but neither reason nor aim is attributed to God’s destructive and creative deeds. 19 Based on the similarity of Job 9:5–10 to hymnic texts, Clines, Job 1–20, 229 regards the passage as an authentic hymn; however, as the detailed analysis by James A. Loader, “Job 9:5–10 as a Quasi-Hymn,” OTE 14 (2001): 78–83 shows, deviations such as those mentioned above reveal the ironic twist of the seemingly lauding language; see also Choon L. Seow, Job 1–21, Illuminations (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013), 545; Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary, OTL (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), 187. 20 The skeptical tone of 9:10 is underlined by the double negation in the following verse ( / ‫לא אראה‬ ‫“ לא אבין‬I don’t see / I don’t perceive” 9:11).

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4 The Torah and the Limits of Human Knowledge in Yhwh’s Speeches (Job 38–41) Against the background of the allusions to the Torah in the prologue and in Job’s debate with the three friends, Yhwh’s speeches out of the whirlwind come into view as divine revelation that, as Witte states, “is set in opposition to the revelation to Moses at Horeb.”21 In fact, in the Hebrew Bible, after the Sinaitic theophany, no other theophanic revelation is nearly as extensive as that granted to Job. Furthermore, the use of ‫ אלהים‬and ‫ אל שדי‬in the dialogue between Job and the friends followed by God’s revelation to Job under the name of ‫( יהוה‬38:1; 40:1, 6) in some way mirrors the three-phase revelation of God (‫אלהים‬, ‫אל שדי‬, ‫ )יהוה‬in the Priestly account.22 Therefore, with André LaCocque, one might argue that the theophany experienced by Job “corresponds to the Urtheophanie of Exod. 19:9–20.”23 Yet, although under this perspective Yhwh’s speeches might appear as some kind of alternative Torah, in regard to their content both Job 38:1–39:30 and 40:6–41:26 are not intended to criticize or revise the Mosaic traditions. Rather, Yhwh remains conspicuously silent about the issues that are at stake in connection with the allusions to the Torah in Job 1–2 and 3–31, i.e., the just retribution for the obedience to the (Deuteronomic) Torahic precepts, which from Job’s perspective has been withdrawn from him, and the (Priestly) cosmic order, which in Job’s eyes has been disrupted. Concerning Deuteronomy, it is striking that not only “not a single syllable of the Torah”24 is mentioned in the divine speeches, but also juridical vocabulary, in general, is almost completely absent. In particular, roots that are frequently used in the prologue and in the dialogue between Job and his friends, such as ‫ישר‬ and ‫חנף‬, are not taken up at all, and also the roots ‫רשע‬, ‫צדק‬, and ‫ שפט‬appear only rarely.25 Yet, this salient silence does not necessarily mean that, as Witte argues, a

21 Markus Witte, “Job in Conversation,” 93. 22 Markus Witte, “Job in Conversation,” 93 notes: “The climax of a tripartite revelation of God (‫ אלהים‬before the creation of the world, ‫ אל שדי‬of the Patriarchs, and ‫ יהוה‬for Moses and Israel) inaugurated by the Priestly writer is reflected in a modified form in the book of Job.” One might mention also the fact that in the Qumran scrolls Job (4QpaleoJobc = 4Q101) is one of only two texts – the other being 4QpaleoparaJosh – outside of the Pentateuch that is also attested in in Paleo-Hebrew script – a point that might indicate the scribes responsible for the Joban manuscript perceived a relation between the revelation to Job in Job 38–41 and that to Moses in the Pentateuch; I thank George Brooke for this hint. 23 André LaCocque, “Job and Religion at Its Best,” BibInt 4 (1996): 131–53, at 139. 24 Witte, “Job in Conversation,” 93. 25 The root ‫ ישר‬is used eight times in Job 1–31, ‫ חנף‬six times, ‫ רשע‬25 times, ‫ צדק‬16 times, ‫ שפט‬17 times; the recurrence of some of these roots in Job 38–41 is mainly limited to the introductory

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“mythical explanation of the world is set against a juridical rationality”26 or that, as Matitiahu Tsevat claims, God’s speeches negate the retribution principle that has a central role in the Deuteronomic theology.27 Tsevat points out passages that seem to challenge the validity of the principle of retribution, such as the mention of rain which goes down on land “where there is no human in it” (38:26), which conveys the impression of questioning the rewarding function of precipitation to which Eliphaz alludes in his first speech (5:10),28 or the passage on the lion and its kids for whom food is provided (38:39–40) which looks as if to contradict Eliphaz’s metaphor of the starving lions (4:10–11).29 However, the main point of these two passages is not the denial of the retribution principle but rather the unknowability of the purpose and modality of many processes in the world, such as the rain on desert land. In this sense, the silence of Job 38–41 in regard to both Job’s accusations about God’s failure to follow the juridical principles of Deuteronomy and the friends’ apology of God’s Torahic justice is aimed at questioning the epistemological certainty of the Torah.30 A similar silence is observable in Yhwh’s speeches in regard to the Priestly concept of the cosmic order. The fact that human beings are only casually mentioned (Job 38:26; 39:25) and that the freedom of the wild donkey and the wild ox (39:5–8, 9–12), as well as the fearlessness of the horse (39:22), are exalted may indeed indicate that the speeches are intended to challenge an anthropocentric worldview.31 However, this does necessarily lead to the conclusion that, as Leo Perdue argues, Job 38–41 is aimed at questioning the Priestly anthropology (cf. Gen 1:28; 9:2) in section of Yhwh’s second speech in 40:7–14 (‫ שפט‬and ‫ צדק‬in 40:8; ‫ רשע‬in 40:8, 12); only the root ‫רשע‬ turns up also in the first speech (38:13, 15). 26 Witte, “Job in Conversation,” 93. 27 Matitiahu Tsevat, “The Meaning of the Book of Job,” HUCA 37 (1966): 73–106; for a critique of Tsevat see Michael V. Fox, “The Meanings of the Book of Job,” JBL 137 (2018): 7–18. 28 In Deuteronomic-Deuteronomistic theology, the giving of rain (cf. Job 5:10) is often mentioned as a blessing for obedience, its withholding instead as a punishment of disobedience; see Deut 11:14, 17; 28:12, 24; 1 Kgs 8:35–36. 29 That Eliphaz’s lion metaphor in Job 4:10–11 is illustrating the divine retribution is underlined by the repetition of the verb ‫ דבא‬in 4:7, 9, and 11. The verb connects vv. 10–11 with vv. 7–9, where Eliphaz describes the punishment of those who “plow iniquity and sow trouble” (v. 8). 30 David Clines, Job 38–42, WBC 18B (Nashville: Nelson, 2011), 1092 interprets Yhwh’s silence regarding Job’s suffering of injustice as a denial of a response: “Not a word is said for the injustice of Job’s treatment; Yahweh’s silence can only be understood as a deliberate denial of Job’s demand . . . the absence of a response is itself a most telling response.” 31 Cf. Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ein Weg durch das Leid (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 238. In view of the “laughing” (‫ שחק‬Job 39:7, 18, 22) of animals, Barry R. Huff, “From Societal Scorn to Divine Delight: Job’s Transformative Portrayal of Wild Animals,” Int 73 (2019): 248–58, at 249, notes that Job 38–39 is “portraying humans as the laughingstock rather than the crown of creation.”

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which “humans are kings ruling the worlds as his [= Yhwh’s, T.H.] divinely commissioned surrogates.”32 Rather, the divine speeches are dealing with realms of the cosmos that are unreachable (Job 38:4–39:30: the sphere above the firmament, the underworld, the desert or remote areas on the earth) or uncontrollable for humans (Job 40:15–41:26: Behemoth and Leviathan), not in order to affirm the cosmic order of Gen 1:1–2:3 but rather to question the human capacity to grasp this order. Yhwh’s first speech is, as Othmar Keel has demonstrated, aimed at responding to Job’s soliloquy (Job 3).33 At the same time, it also stands in clear contrast to the “parody of a doxology”34 of Job 9:5–10. In this sense, God’s first speech is aimed at reaffirming the created order against Job’s challenge in his first and third speeches (Job 3 and 9:5–10). Namely, the “establishing” of the “earth” (38:4a) inverts the “shaking” of it (9:6a), and the “sinking” of the “bases” (38:6a) reverses the “trembling” of the “pillars” (9:6b), the same as the “commanding” of the “morning” (38:12a) stands in opposition to Job’s statement that God tells the sun not to shine (9:7a).35 Moreover, that God’s speech affirms the Priestly conceptions of the created order is suggested already by the strophic structure of the speech that conveys the impression of an ordered whole, and this general impression is supported by correspondences to Gen 1:1–2:3 such as the setting of boundaries to the Sea (Job 38:8–11; cf. Gen 1:9–10) or the collocation of the celestial bodies (Job 38:31–33, cf. Gen 1:14–19).

32 Leo G. Perdue, “Creation in the Dialogues between Job and his Opponents,” in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf dem Monte Verità vom 14.–19. August 2005, ed. Thomas Krüger et al., ATANT 88 (Zürich: TVZ, 2007), 197–216, at 207. 33 According to Othmar Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob: Eine Deutung von Ijob 38–41 vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenössischen Bildkunst, FRLANT 121 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck  & Ruprecht, 1978), 51–125, the first speech provides an adequate response to Job’s challenges against the created order by highlighting God’s control of the chaotic elements in the world. Keel’s interpretation of God’s speeches was adopted, e.g., by Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job, OTL (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), 517–48; John E. Hartley, The Book of Job, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 503–34; Jürgen Ebach, Streiten mit Gott. Hiob, Kleine biblische Bibliothek (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996), 132–54; further studies, however, brought to the fore that in contrast to the motif of the “Lord of the animals” that has been pointed out by Keel, in Job 38–39 God’s attitude towards the animals is not depicted in terms of domination and control, but rather of protection and care; cf. Manfred Oeming, “‘Kannst du der Löwin ihren Raub zu jagen geben?’ (Hi 38,39): Das Motiv des ‘Herrn der Tiere’ und seine Bedeutung für die Theologie der Gottesreden Hi 38–42,” in “Dort Ziehen Schiffe dahin. . .”: Collected Communications to the XIVth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Paris 1992, ed. Matthias Augustin and Klaus-Dietrich Schunck, BEATAJ 28 (Frankfurt: Lang, 1996), 147–63; Ute Neumann-Gorsolke, “Wer ist der Herr der Tiere”? Eine hermeneutische Problemanzeige, Biblisch-Theologische Studien 85 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2012), 96–160. 34 Seow, Job 1–21, 545. 35 In addition, one might compare also Job 38:14 with 9:5 and 38:7 with 9:7b.

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However, what is at stake in Yhwh’s first speech is not the Priestly notion of the created order (as to be challenged or reaffirmed), but the limits of human cognition thereof. That the emphasis of Job 38–39 lies on pointing out the limits of human knowledge is signaled already in the proem (38:2–3): ‫מי זה מחשיך עצה במלין בלי דעת‬ ‫אזר נא כגבר חלציך ואשאלך והודיעני‬ Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

In sharp contrast to the statement that Job is “without knowledge” (‫ בלי דעת‬38:2), in the subsequent verse God commands Job to “make known” (‫)הודיעני‬. As the linguistic study by Petra Ritter-Müller shows, the antiphrastic irony which we grasp here sets the tone for the first speech by highlighting the limits of Job’s knowledge and insight.36 In fact, the ironic criticism which comes to the fore in 38:3b is echoed throughout the first five strophes of the speech up to v. 21, where the verb ‫ידע‬ recurs in the indicative, pointing out again Job’s lack of knowledge: ‫ידעת כי־אז תולד ומספר ימיך רבים‬ You know (it), for you were born then, and the number of your days is great.

In total, the root ‫ ידע‬is used not less than ten times in the first speech, and the semantic field of “knowledge” is the most important one in the speech as a whole.37 Additionally, a considerable portion of the rhetorical questions in Job 38–39 highlights Job’s ignorance of the subject matter of the question.38 The prominent positions of these questions in the structure of the speech highlight their importance, as 14 of the 17 strophes of the speech begin – and five of them also end – with a rhetorical question which points out Job’s lack of knowledge.39 Therefore, with Annette Schellenberg we may conclude that the first speech of Yhwh mainly has an 36 Cf. Petra Ritter-Müller, Kennst du die Welt? – Gottes Antwort an Ijob, Altes Testament und Moderne 5 (Münster: Lit, 2000), 263–77. 37 Cf. Petra Ritter-Müller, Kennst du, 57, 154–55. The verb ‫ ידע‬is by far the most frequent in Yhwh’s first speech (nine recurrences in 38:3–5, 12, 18, 21, 33; 39:1–2), cf. Petra Ritter, “Die Verben der Gottesrede in Ijob 38 und 39: Eine formal-statistische Untersuchung,” in Liebe zum Wort: Beiträge zur klassischen und biblischen Philologie, ed. Friedrich V. Reiterer and Petrus Eder (Salzburg: Müller, 1993), 215–37. 38 Among the more than 30 ‘yes-no’ questions in Job 38–39, in the four questions with the verb ‫ידע‬ (38:12b, 33a; 39:1a, 2b) but also in 38:4–6, 16–19, 22; 39:1–2, 26, Job is (rhetorically) interrogated about his knowledge. 39 The three strophes whose beginning does not point to Job’s ignorance are: the strophe on the sea (38:8–11); the strophe on the ostrich (39:13–18), where a rhetorical question follows only in

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“erkenntniskritische Funktion,”40 as it emphasizes the limits of human knowledge about the created order and God’s administration of the world.41 This epistemological perspective is not pursued in the second speech (Job 40:7–41:26) as prominently as in the first speech. However, that both speeches as a whole are aimed at demonstrating the limits of the cognitive capacities of humans is confirmed in Job’s second answer (42:2–6), particularly in v. 3: ‫מי זה מעלים עצה בלי דעת לכן הגדתי ולא אבין נפלאות ממני ולא אדע‬ Who is it that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have uttered but do not understand, things too wondrous for me, and I do not know.

The verse encloses a threefold confession of ignorance. First, Job repeats almost verbatim Yhwh’s initial indirect reproach (38:2), acknowledging implicitly to be “without knowledge”; second, he confesses that he does “not understand” and, thirdly, that he does “not know,” as the issue – i.e., God’s administration of the world – is “too wondrous” for him. As our brief analysis of Yhwh’s speeches has shown, the epistemological skepticism informs the critical stance of Job on both the Priestly source and Deuteronomy. In this perspective, the book of Job is not aimed at contradicting – or affirming – either the juridical rationale of Deuteronomy or the cosmic order as the fundamental concept of the Priestly source, but rather questions their certainty from an epistemological point of view.

5 Epistemological Debate in the Dialogue between Job and the Friends (Job 3–31) The emphasis on the limits of human knowledge in Yhwh’s speeches is in line with the importance of the epistemological aspects in Job’s debate with his friends. As we have seen above in his false hymn (Job 9:5–10), Job implicitly blames God for concealing the order of the cosmos. These epistemological implications of Job’s the second colon (v. 13b); the strophe on the wild ox (39:9–12), where the opening questions rather highlight Job’s impotence than his ignorance. 40 Annette Schellenberg, Erkenntnis als Problem: Qohelet und die alttestamentliche Diskussion um das menschliche Erkennen, OBO 188 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 211. 41 This emphasis is highlighted also by Jürgen van Oorschot, “Hiob 28: Die verborgene Weisheit und die Furcht Gottes als Überwindung einer generalisierten ‫חכמה‬,” in The Book of Job, ed. Willem A. M. Beuken, BETL 114 (Leuven: University Press, 1994), 197–201; Schellenberg, Erkenntnis als Problem, 209–12; Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ein Weg, 223–25.

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accusations against God become evident in Zophar’s reaction to them. In 11:7–9, Zophar takes up again the noun ‫( חקר‬11:7) which we encountered in both Eliphaz’s and Job’s hymns (5:9; 9:10), but repudiates Job’s statements on the destructive and disordering actions of God in creation by questioning the epistemological prerequisites of his interlocutor.42 The rhetorical questions thereby blame Job for claiming insights about God’s administration of the world that are beyond his cognitive capacity. Ironically, Zophar, in a certain way, anticipates here God’s speeches; however, as Annette Schellenberg observes, it is only the limits of Job’s knowledge that his friend points out here, whereas Yhwh emphasizes the limits of the human ability of understanding in general.43 In his responding speech (Job 12–14), Job in turn questions the epistemology of his friends, i.e., their appeal to tradition as the source of knowledge.44 Imitating again the wording of his friends, Job’s invitation to learn from the animals in 12:7–8 mocks Bildad’s prompt to search for wisdom from the ancestors in 8:8–10, as, according to Job, even the beasts, the birds, and the fish know what the friends take for venerable insights of the former generations. Finally, in 26:5–14, we find another hymnic passage in a speech of Job, who, contrary to 9:5–10, seems to acknowledge here God’s preservation of the created order. However, in the final verse, the speech turns into a challenge to Eliphaz’s claim of a personal revelation: Job in fact takes up the term ‫“( שמץ‬whisper”) which Eliphaz used in 4:12 to describe his auditory revelation; later on, both Eliphaz himself (in 15:14) and Bildad (in 25:4) refer to this revelation. Therefore, in 26:14 Job implicitly questions Bildad’s source of knowledge. In sum, the brief look into the speeches of Job and his opponents reveals that the problem of Job’s suffering is not restricted to the question of God’s retributive justice, but rather lies in the field of epistemology, i.e., in the limits of the human ability to perceive und understand the created order, since both Job and his friends question each other’s knowledge and the sources from which it is drawn. God’s speeches build on this epistemological dispute by pointing out, as we have seen above, the limits of human knowledge in general, and therefore they convey also a subtle skepticism in regard to the truth claims of the Torah.

42 On the epistemological aspects of the debate between Job and his friends (and in Job in general), see van Oorschot, “Hiob 28,” 191–201; Schellenberg, Erkenntnis als Problem, 205–13; Ansberry, “The ‘Revealed Things,’” 307–25. On the skeptical standpoint of the book as a whole, see also Katharine J. Dell, The Book of Job as Sceptical Literature, BZAW 197 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991). 43 See Schellenberg, Erkenntnis als Problem, 208. Job, in turn, reacts on Zophar’s blame in 12:2 and 13:2 and counters it in 17:4. 44 On the friends’ reference to ancestral wisdom as a source of knowledge in 4:7; 8:8–22; 15:7, 15–16; 20:4–29; 25:4–6 etc., see Ansberry, “The ‘Revealed Things,’” 308–10.

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6 Universalistic Monotheism in the Book of Job and in Deutero-Isaiah In order to sketch out the theological motivations behind the texts analyzed in this brief study, one may recall the similarities between the rhetorical questions in God’s first speech to Job and some passages in Deutero-Isaiah. Analogous to Job 38–39, in Isa 40:12–14, 25–28, and 41:2–4, we find a series of rhetorical ‘who’ questions in Yhwh-speeches. On the one hand, we have to acknowledge the different contextual settings of these passages. The “courtroom imagery”45 in Deutero-Isaiah reveals the polemical intention of these passages which are directed against the foreign deities and their worshipers, whereas God’s questions to Job have an ironical tone. Yet, on the other hand, we may deduce from the analogy that God’s first speech – beyond its epistemological challenge to the Torah and conventional wisdom – shares with Deutero-Isaiah a strong monotheistic impetus.46 Both Deutero-Isaiah and Job in fact share the use of conspicuous juxtapositions of opposites, depicting thereby Yhwh as the creator of both benign and harmful elements in the cosmos. In Isa 45:7, Yhwh is quoted as “forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating evil,” and, similarly, in Job 38:19, Yhwh asks about both the “dwelling of light” and the “place of darkness.”47 Furthermore, the monotheistic universalism in both texts comes to the fore by the integration of hostile

45 Joel Kaminsky and Anne Stewart, “God of All the World: Universalism and Developing Monotheism in Isaiah 40–66,” HTR 99 (2006): 139–63, at 142. 46 On the monotheism in the book of Job in comparison to Deutero-Isaiah, see also Melanie Köhlmoos, Das Auge Gottes: Textstrategie im Hiobbuch, FAT 25 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), 361–62; Heckl, Hiob, 216–19; JiSeong J. Kwon, Scribal Culture and Intertextuality: Literary and Historical Relationships between Job and Deutero-Isaiah, FAT II/85 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 52–54; JiSeong J. Kwon, “Shared Ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah,” ZAW 129 (2017): 39–53, esp. 41–44. 47 One might mention also a similar opposition between the hail that is stored “for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war” (38:23) and the rain that is sent out “to satisfy the waste and desolate land and to make the ground put forth grass” (v. 27), as here again, Yhwh is depicted as the origin of both beneficial and harmful processes in the cosmos, and therefore, in some sense, as the source of both good and evil. According to Reinhard Achenbach, “Monotheistischer Universalismus und frühe Formen eines Völkerrechts in prophetischen Texten Israels aus achämenidischer Zeit,” in Monotheism in Late Prophetic and Early Apocalyptic Literature: Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism Vol. III, ed. Ken Brown and Nathan MacDonald, FAT II/72 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 125–75, at 130, this juxtaposition of opposites might be a reaction to the Persian worship of Ahura-Mazda and its dualistic conceptions: “Mit der expliziten Aussage einer Erschaffung von Licht und Finsternis wird nicht nur die .  .  . priesterschriftliche Schöpfungserzählung weitergeführt, sondern auch der für die Ahura-mazda-Verehrung charakteristische Dualismus integriert.”

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or demonic powers into the realm of Yhwh: in the case of Isaiah, this is worked out in the political sphere, as in the Cyrus oracle (Isa 45:1–7), where the Achaemenid emperor is reduced to an instrument in the hand of Yhwh; analogously, in God’s speeches to Job, the sea as a mythic, chaotic element is ironically likened to a newborn child (Job 38:8–11).48 Against this background, a main difference between the monotheism in Job on the one side and in Deutero-Isaiah and the Priestly source on the other side comes into view: whereas the monotheistic universalism in Isaiah 45–55 is intrinsically linked to Israel’s election (see, e.g., Isa 44:1–3; 45:17, 25)49 and similarly in the Priestly source the monotheistic inclusivism is concomitant with the exclusivism of Yhwh’s relationship to the chosen people,50 God’s speeches undermine such exclusivistic tendencies by focusing on those parts of the cosmos that are beyond human cognition and reach. It is conspicuous that Yhwh draws Job’s attention not to the center of the cosmos, but to its peripheral realms, i.e., to the spheres above the firmament and to the underworld, as well as to the inhabitants of the remote areas, i.e., the wild animals. Under this perspective, the fact that the addressee of Yhwh’s speeches is a non-Israelite – who alone shares Moses’s privilege to see God (Job 42:5; cf. Exod 33:23; Deut 34:10)51 – may be seen as a hint that by questioning the epistemic certainty of the Torah God’s speeches aim at challenging the exclusivistic tendencies that accompany the inclusivism of the Priestly source (and the Torah as a whole). Yhwh’s speeches to Job thus share the monotheistic impetus of Deutero-Isaiah, but, at the same time, they bolster the universalism of the wisdom tradition in order to criticize the exclusivism that is inherent in the Torah. It seems plausible to think that in the political and ideological context of the Achaemenid period,52 when Israel both religiously and politically found itself in a marginalized

48 See Gisela Fuchs, Mythos und Hiobdichtung: Aufnahme und Umdeutung altorientalischer Vorstellungen (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1993), 194–201. As Fuchs demonstrates, there is an irony in regard to the motif of the Chaoskampf in Job 38:8–11. 49 See Kaminsky and Stewart, “God of All the World,” 143–62, who point out the central function of Israel’s election in Isaiah 40–66, that is attenuated only in the Trito-Isaianic framework of Isaiah 56 and 66. 50 On the interplay between exclusivism and inclusivism in the Priestly source, see Annette Schellenberg, Der Mensch, Das Bild Gottes? Zum Gedanken einer Sonderstellung des Menschen im Alten Testament und in weiteren altorientalischen Quellen (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2011), 386–97. 51 This parallel between Moses and Job is pointed out also by André LaCocque, “Job and Religion,” 139. 52 Concerning the scribal context of the Persian period in which the book of Job emerged, see most recently David M. Carr, “Criteria and Periodization in Dating Biblical Texts to Parts of the Persian Period,” in On Dating Biblical Texts to the Persian Period: Discerning Criteria and Establishing Epochs, ed. Richard J. Bautch and Mark Lackowski, FAT 101 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 11–18.

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position, the authors of Job, against a more particularistic, exclusivistic perspective of the Torah (and of Deutero-Isaiah), advocated a decidedly universalistic worldview which involved the attenuation of the epistemic certainty of the Torah. In this way, it was possible to uphold the belief in Yhwh’s sovereignty and universal rule amidst historical circumstances which were contradictive to more exclusivistic claims concerning the centrality of Israel and its election in the cosmos and in history.53

7 Conclusion In conclusion, our analysis has shown that the book of Job is taking a critical stance toward both Deuteronomy and the Priestly source. Yhwh’s speeches to Job reveal the standpoint of a skeptical Wisdom which is aimed at highlighting the limits of human knowledge and which involves in some way an attenuation of the truth claims of the Torah. Against exclusivistic tendencies that are present not only in Deuteronomy, but also in the more universalistic perspective of the Priestly source, the book of Job advocates a non-exclusivistic universalistic monotheism. Therefore, rather than being signed by a crisis of Wisdom, the book somehow radicalizes sapiential thinking by bringing the Torah into relation with a skeptical position that is aimed at a universalistic understanding of Israel’s literary traditions. As the further development in and outside Job reveals, the epistemological standpoint of Job 38–39 did not prevail in Israel’s literary traditions. The Elihu speeches are, as Markus Witte has pointed out, mainly in accordance with Deuteronomy and thus attenuate the Torah-critical tendency of the earlier book.54 Yet, the poem of Job 28, while highlighting the “fear of God” as a core concept of the wisdom tradition, is in line with the epistemological criticism of the speeches of Yhwh as it affirms the inaccessibility of wisdom.55 Finally, when we look beyond Job, in Sirach 24 the critical stance towards the Torah is replaced by the identification of Wisdom with the Torah of Moses, and similarly in Bar 3:9–4:4 Wisdom gets “toraized,” as the

53 A similar historical background is outlined by Van Oorschot, “Hiob 28,” 191–96 regarding Job 28; in fact, as will be mentioned below, both Job 28 and 38–41 share a similar epistemological skepticism. 54 Markus Witte, “Die Torah,” 129–30. 55 As van Oorschot, “Hiob 28,” 183–201 points out, the final statement of Job 28:28 does not annul the emphasis on the hiddenness of divine wisdom that is prevalent Job 28; the poem, therefore, is consonant with Yhwh’s speeches to Job regarding the limits of human knowledge.

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access to Wisdom is exclusively connected to the revelation of the Torah.56 Thus, while imitating the language of Job 28 and 38–41, Bar 3:9–4:4 stands in contrast to the book of Job in regard to its epistemological affirmations about the Torah.

Bibliography Achenbach, Reinhard. “Monotheistischer Universalismus und frühe Formen eines Völkerrechts in prophetischen Texten Israels aus achämenidischer Zeit.” Pages 125–75 in Monotheism in Late Prophetic and Early Apocalyptic Literature: Studies of the Sofja Kovalevskaja Research Group on Early Jewish Monotheism Vol. III. Edited by Ken Brown and Nathan MacDonald. FAT II/72. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Ansberry, Christopher B. “The ‘Revealed Things’: Deuteronomy and the Epistemology of Job.” Pages 307–25 in For Our Good Always: Studies on the Message and Influence of Deuteronomy in Honor of Daniel I. Block. Edited by Jason S. DeRouchie. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Awabdy, Mark and Häner, Tobias. “Sacrificial Fathers and the Death of Their Children: How the Story of Job Challenges the Priestly Tradition.” HTR 115 (2022): 149–70 Balentine, Samuel E. “Job and the Priests: ‘He Leads Priests Away Stripped’ (Job 12:19).” Pages 42–53 in Reading Job Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Balentine, Samuel E. Job. Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary 10. Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2006. Ballhorn, Egbert. “Weisheit, die zur Tora führt: Die Israel-Mahnrede im Buch Baruch (Bar 3,9–4,4).” Pages 259–80 in Juda und Jerusalem in der Seleukidenzeit: Herrschaft – Widerstand – Identität. Edited by Ulrich Dahmen. BBB 159. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010. Beyer, Andrea. “Hiobs Widerworte: Die Querbezüge zwischen Ijob 3,3–9 und Gen 1,1–2,4a.” BZ 55 (2011): 95–102. Braulik, Georg. “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut: Zur Frage früher Kanonizität des Deuteronomiums.” Pages 213–93 in Studien zum Deuteronomium und seiner Nachgeschichte. Edited by Georg Braulik. SBAB 33. Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001. Burnight, John. “The ‘Reversal’ of Heilsgeschichte in Job 3.” Pages 30–41 in Reading Job Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Carr, David M. “Criteria and Periodization in Dating Biblical Texts to Parts of the Persian Period.” Pages 11–18 in On Dating Biblical Texts to the Persian Period: Discerning Criteria and Establishing Epochs. Edited by Richard J. Bautch and Mark Lackowski. FAT 101. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Clines, David J. Job 1–20. WBC 17. Waco: Word Books, 1989. Clines, David J. Job 38–42. WBC 18B. Nashville: Nelson, 2011. Dell, Katharine J. The Book of Job as Sceptical Literature. BZAW 197. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991.

56 On the relationship between wisdom and Torah in Sirach 24 and Bar 3:9–4:3, see Egbert Ballhorn, “Weisheit, die zur Tora führt: Die Israel-Mahnrede im Buch Baruch (Bar 3,9–4,4),” in Juda und Jerusalem in der Seleukidenzeit: Herrschaft – Widerstand – Identität, ed. Ulrich Dahmen, BBB 159 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 259–80, as well as the contribution by Pancratius C. Beentjes in this volume.

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Dell, Katharine J., and Will Kynes, eds. Reading Job Intertextually. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Ebach, Jürgen. Streiten mit Gott: Hiob: Teil 2, Hiob 21–42. Kleine biblische Bibliothek. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1996. Fishbane, Michael. “Jeremiah IV 23–26 and Job III 3–13: A Recovered Use of the Creation Pattern.” VT 21 (1971): 151–67. Fox, Michael V. “The Meanings of the Book of Job.” JBL 137 (2018): 7–18. Fuchs, Gisela. Mythos und Hiobdichtung: Aufnahme und Umdeutung altorientalischer Vorstellungen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1993. Greenstein, Edward L. “Parody as a Challenge to Tradition: The Use of Deuteronomy 32 in the Book of Job.” Pages 66–78 in Reading Job Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Habel, Norman C. The Book of Job: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985. Häner, Tobias. “Job’s Dark View of Creation: On the Ironic Allusions to Genesis 1:1–2:4a in Job 3 and their Echo in Job 38–39.” OTE 33 (2020): 266–84. Hartley, John E. The Book of Job. NICOT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991. Heckl, Raik. “The Relationship Between Job 1–2, 42 and 1 Samuel 1–4 as Intertextual Guidance for Reading.” Pages 81–93 in Reading Job Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Heckl, Raik. Hiob – vom Gottesfürchtigen zum Repräsentanten Israels: Studien zur Buchwerdung des Hiobbuches und zu seinen Quellen. FAT 70. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Huff, Barry R. “From Societal Scorn to Divine Delight: Job’s Transformative Portrayal of Wild Animals.” Interpretation 73 (2019): 248–58. Kaminsky, Joel, and Anne Stewart. “God of All the World: Universalism and Developing Monotheism in Isaiah 40–66.” HTR 99 (2006): 139–63. Keel, Othmar. Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob: Eine Deutung von Ijob 38–41 vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenössischen Bildkunst. FRLANT 121. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978. Köhlmoos, Melanie. Das Auge Gottes: Textstrategie im Hiobbuch. FAT 25. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999. Kwon, JiSeong J. Scribal Culture and Intertextuality: Literary and Historical Relationships between Job and Deutero-Isaiah. FAT II/85. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Kwon, JiSeong J. “Shared Ideas in Job and Deutero-Isaiah.” ZAW 129 (2017): 32–46. Kwon, JiSeong J. “Divergence of the Book of Job from Deuteronomic/Priestly Torah: Intertextual Reading Between Job and Torah.” SJOT 32 (2018): 49–71. LaCocque, André. “Job and Religion at Its Best.” BibInt 4 (1996): 131–53. Loader, James A. “Job 9:5–10 as a Quasi-Hymn.” OTE 14 (2001): 76–88. Neumann-Gorsolke, Ute. Wer ist der “Herr der Tiere”? Eine hermeneutische Problemanzeige. BiblischTheologische Studien 85. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2012. Oeming, Manfred. “‘Kannst du der Löwin ihren Raub zu jagen geben?’ (Hi 38,39): Das Motiv des ‘Herrn der Tiere’ und seine Bedeutung für die Theologie der Gottesreden Hi 38–42.” Pages 147–63 in “Dort Ziehen Schiffe dahin . . .”: Collected Communications to the XIVth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, Paris 1992. Edited by Matthias Augustin and Klaus-Dietrich Schunck. BEATAJ 28. Frankfurt: Lang, 1996. Oeming, Manfred.“Hiob 31 und der Dekalog.” Pages 362–68 in The Book of Job. Edited by Willem A. Beuken. BETL 114. Leuven: University Press, 1994. Oeming, Manfred. “Hiobs Weg.” Pages 66–73 in Hiobs Weg: Stationen von Menschen im Leid. Edited by Manfred Oeming and Konrad Schmid. Biblisch Theologische Studien 45. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2001.

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Oeming, Manfred. “To Be Adam or Not to Be Adam: The Hidden Fundamental Anthropological Discourse Revealed in an Intertextual Reading of ‫ אדם‬in Job and Genesis.” Pages 19–29 in Reading Job Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Opel, Daniela. Hiobs Anspruch und Widerspruch: Die Herausforderungsreden Hiobs (Hi 29–31) im Kontext frühjüdischer Ethik. WMANT 127. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2010. Perdue, Leo G. “Creation in the Dialogues between Job and his Opponents.” Pages 197–216 in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf dem Monte Verità vom 14.–19. August 2005. Edited by Thomas Krüger. ATANT 88. Zürich: TVZ, 2007. Perdue, Leo G. “Job’s Assault on Creation.” HAR 10 (1986): 295–315. Perdue, Leo G. “Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job: Theological Anthropology in the First Cycle of Job’s Speeches (Job 3; 6–7; 9–10).” Pages 129–56 in The Book of Job. Edited by Willem A. Beuken. BETL 114. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994. Perdue, Leo G. Wisdom in Revolt: Metaphorical Theology in the Book of Job. BLS 29. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991. Pettys, Valerie F. “Let There Be Darkness: Continuity and Discontinuity in the ‘Curse’ of Job 3.” JSOT 26 (2002): 89–104. Pyeon, Yohan. You Have Not Spoken What Is Right About Me: Intertextuality and the Book of Job. StBibLit 45. New York: Lang, 2003. Ritter, Petra. “Die Verben der Gottesrede in Ijob 38 und 39: Eine formal-statistische Untersuchung.” Pages 215–37 in Liebe zum Wort: Beiträge zur klassischen und biblischen Philologie, P. Ludger Bernhard OSB zum 80. Geburtstag dargebracht von Kollegen und Schülern. Edited by Friedrich V. Reiterer and Petrus Eder. Salzburg: Müller, 1993. Ritter-Müller, Petra. Kennst du die Welt? – Gottes Antwort an Ijob: Eine sprachwissenschaftliche und exegetische Studie zur ersten Gottesrede Ijob 38 und 39. Altes Testament und Moderne 5. Münster: Lit, 2000. Schellenberg, Annette. Der Mensch, Das Bild Gottes?: Zum Gedanken einer Sonderstellung des Menschen im Alten Testament und in weiteren altorientalischen Quellen. Zürich: TVZ, 2011. Schellenberg, Annette. Erkenntnis als Problem: Qohelet und die alttestamentliche Diskussion um das menschliche Erkennen. OBO 188. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. Schmid, Konrad. “Innerbiblische Schriftdiskussion im Hiobbuch.” Pages 241–61 in Das Buch Hiob und seine Interpretationen: Beiträge zum Hiob-Symposium auf dem Monte Verità vom 14.–19. August 2005. Edited by Thomas Krüger. ATANT 88. Zürich: TVZ, 2007. Schmid, Konrad. “The Authors of Job and Their Historical and Social Setting.” Pages 145–53 in Scribes, Sages, and Seers: The Sage in the Eastern Mediterranean World. Edited by Leo G. Perdue. FRLANT 219. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008. Schmid, Konrad. Hiob als biblisches und antikes Buch: Historische und intellektuelle Kontexte seiner Theologie. SBS 219. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2010. Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger. Ein Weg durch das Leid: Das Buch Ijob. Freiburg: Herder, 2007. Seow, Choon L. Job 1–21: Interpretation and Commentary. Illuminations. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013. Tsevat, Matitiahu. “The Meaning of the Book of Job.” HUCA 37 (1966): 73–106. van Oorschot, Jürgen. “Hiob 28: Die verborgene Weisheit und die Furcht Gottes als Überwindung einer generalisierten ‫חכמה‬.” Pages 183–201 in The Book of Job. Edited by Willem A. Beuken. BETL 114. Leuven: University Press, 1994. Witte, Markus. “Die Torah in den Augen Hiobs.” Pages 121–32 in Hiobs viele Gesichter: Studien zur Komposition, Tradition und frühen Rezeption des Hiobbuches. Edited by Markus Witte. FRLANT 267. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018.

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Witte, Markus. “Does the Tora Keep Its Promise? Job’s Critical Intertextual Dialogue with Deuteronomy.” Pages 54–65 in Reading Job Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 574. New York: T&T Clark, 2012. Witte, Markus. “Hiobs ‘Zeichen’ (Hiob 31,35–37).” Pages 723–42 in Gott und Mensch im Dialog: Festschrift für Otto Kaiser zum 80. Geburtstag. Edited by Markus Witte. BZAW 345. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004. Witte, Markus. “Job in Conversation with the Torah.” Pages 81–100 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and David A. Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Wolfers, David. Deep Things Out of Darkness: The Book of Job, Essays and a New English Translation. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Stuart Weeks

Failing to be Wise: The Case of Qohelet As scholarship has become less committed to the idea of a free-standing wisdom tradition, somewhat detached from the religious ideas found elsewhere in biblical literature, so it has become easier to suppose that the associations between wisdom and some form of torah, which seem so obvious in Ben Sira, for example, can be discerned also in earlier literature – and I long ago argued myself for signs of their presence in Proverbs 1–9.1 It is far from obvious that everybody was making such links, however, and there is notably little evidence of them in Ecclesiastes, or at least in the monologue by Qohelet which makes up the bulk of that work. Qohelet not only portrays wisdom as an entirely human quality, severely limited in its capacity to understand divine activity, and, by extension, divine expectations of humans, but he also appears to suggest that these limitations are imposed deliberately by God. This stands in clear contrast to the idea found elsewhere that wisdom somehow liaises between God and humans, providing a way in which the divine will can be made known to them, and it is that idea which offers a basis for the association of torah with wisdom. On the face of it, a book which is almost certainly later than Proverbs 1–9, and which is unlikely to be much earlier than Ben Sira, works with concepts and definitions that seem simply incompatible with those works.2 Perhaps all this indicates is that opinions could develop independently and that we should not associate all our literature with some comprehensive shift in thinking, but, as we shall see, there are good grounds for thinking that the author of Ecclesiastes was well aware of Proverbs 1–9, at least, and for wondering whether his apparent independence from such ideas might not be, in fact, a deliberate and explicit rejection of them. As always with Ecclesiastes, there are, of course, complications. In another retreat from twentieth-century assumptions, much recent scholarship on Ecclesiastes has returned to an earlier understanding that the book’s epilogue is original, and (at least mostly) composed by the same hand as the monologue.3 This means that the author responsible for Qohelet’s seemingly unconventional sentiments would

1 Stuart Weeks, Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 2 On the date, see my A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ecclesiastes, 2 vols., ICC (London: T&T Clark, 2020), 1: 55–78. 3 Michael V. Fox, “Frame-Narrative and Composition in the Book of Qohelet,” HUCA 48 (1977): 83–106 has been especially influential upon this. Stuart Weeks, Durham University, UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-005

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also have been responsible for the summary advice in 12:13, with its Deuteronomic-sounding call to “fear God and keep his commandments,” and for an epilogue that seems more generally to warn readers off the complexities of the monologue, which it re-characterizes not as an honest intellectual memoir (as Qohelet himself presents it), but as a clever literary composition, designed to get under one’s skin. There are potentially different voices competing for our attention, in other words, and a strong possibility that Qohelet’s ideas are not all supposed to be taken as statements of a position that the author (or perhaps anyone else) would actually have maintained. It is unlikely to be true, I think, that the book’s protagonist constitutes a sort of parody or satire upon some archetypal wise man, as Shields has suggested,4 but it is far from clear that the author intends us to agree with everything that Qohelet says – and even Qohelet does not agree with everything that Qohelet says. It is hard to say whether we are actually ever being prodded to adopt a contrary view, but it is important to be cautious about the status of points that are being made: neither Ecclesiastes as a whole, nor the monologue within it, are presented simply as a manifesto or statement of belief. It may be more accurate, indeed, to see both as akin to the dialogue in Job, with its interplay of different, even contradictory ideas. Correspondingly, we need to be cautious in assuming either that any one voice speaks, as it were, for the book as a whole, or that Qohelet’s explicit statements on the subject alone constitute the entirety of his position on wisdom. This latter issue is very visible, I think, in passages like 7:1–6, where Qohelet presents a series of sayings that are, on the face of it, commendations of the wise, but that progressively paint them as a miserable bunch, wallowing in their own sorrow while the fools laugh and celebrate. The sayings also seem to contradict the whole tenor of Qohelet’s thoughts so far, and, along with some of the subsequent sayings that begin to qualify wisdom, surely contribute to his declaration in 7:23–24 that he has become alienated from wisdom (to which I shall return shortly). Of course, these sorts of tensions have contributed to complicated redaction-critical theories, or to readings of Ecclesiastes itself as a dialogue, with unmarked parts.5 It is simpler to understand, though, that Qohelet is in many respects an unreliable narrator, trying to navigate a path that leads him, from time to time, to revise or re-evaluate ideas that he had previously held, and some of his ideas simply remain in tension with each other. The issue of different voices is of relevance, of course, to the familiar, though often over-stated, problem of “contradictions” within the book. Probably the most 4 Martin A. Shields, The End of Wisdom: A Reappraisal of the Historical and Canonical Function of Ecclesiastes (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006); see also his “Ecclesiastes and the End of Wisdom,” TynBul 50 (1999): 117–39. 5 Weeks, Ecclesiastes, 1: 45–53.

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undeniable tension within Qohelet’s ideas, however, is itself more directly connected to questions of wisdom and instruction: for all his reservations about human understanding, Qohelet maintains throughout his monologue a strong commitment to the belief that humans will be judged by God, and that it is the God-fearing who will in some sense survive that judgment. Even though he believes every human action to be determined by God, therefore, and denies any human capacity to understand the work of God, he also appears to believe that humans bear responsibility for their actions and that they have some capacity to understand what God requires of them. He never, however, specifies the potential source of any such understanding, and so, in the very areas where we might hope to find evidence of the book’s ideas about obedience to God and about instruction, we find contradictory voices and gaping spaces. Even when Qohelet comes close in 5:3 (et 5:4) to citing Deut 23:22 (et 23:21), and surely shows a knowledge of the following verses too, there is no explicit acknowledgment that he is alluding to an existing text, let alone any appeal to this text as reflecting the divine will.6 Nothing Qohelet says denies outright the possibility that God might communicate to humans his expectations of their behaviour, but his determinism makes it hard to affirm that he would have seen any point in such communication. From his interest in judgment, then, we might want to infer that Qohelet would have had some concern with the standard against which behaviour should be judged, and so with concepts of divine instruction and law, but this is borne out by no clear statement on the matter, and in passages like 8:10–13, in particular, he seems rather to portray a humanity that seeks to understand God’s will merely through the observation of actions and consequences. Matters are a little clearer when it comes to Qohelet’s views on wisdom, but in this area there is a different tension, between the ways in which Qohelet portrays his way of thinking at the outset of his investigations and the views he comes to hold as time goes on. The concise but programmatic 1:13–2:2 describes Qohelet’s earliest attempt to identify any benefit which humans might derive from their role in a world where their own actions, and the labour associated with them, are actually designed for the benefit of God, not them. The passage also, arguably, encompasses what has been termed “second-order” thinking,7 when Qohelet goes on to consider

6 See especially Bernard M. Levinson, A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll, CrStHB 1 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013), and his “‘Better That You Should Not Vow than That You Vow and Not Fulfill’: Qoheleth’s Use of Textual Allusion and the Transformation of Deuteronomy’s Law of Vows,” in Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually, ed. Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes, LHBOTS 587 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 28–41. Levinson discusses the recontextualisation of the material in detail. 7 See especially Peter Machinist, “Fate, Miqreh, and Reason: Some Reflections on Qohelet and Biblical Thought,” in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor

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the wisdom that had been his tool in this attempt, and his final investigation, into pleasure, draws into play the idea of experience or sensation as something of value in itself (although it will be some time before Qohelet comes to recognize it in those terms). It is important to observe, however, that these initial investigations are quickly dispatched, providing no answers that satisfy Qohelet, and are replaced by an attempt to solve the same problems by throwing himself into the development of businesses and the living of a luxurious life: it is his reflections on these experiences that generate the frustrations and resentments which drive his subsequent discussion, as well as his now more positive evaluation of pleasure as something to be found in action. If Qohelet ever consciously wore the mantle of a philosopher, he casts it off with alacrity after his initial disappointments, and, ultimately, his ruminations are presented not as an essay or argument, but as reflections allegedly rooted in his experience of life, and explicitly not drawn from his initial applications of wisdom to the problems that obsess him. As we shall see, the monologue goes on to embody a growing disillusionment with wisdom, and a sense of Qohelet’s alienation from his younger self. In dealing, then, with the various statements that might be relevant to establishing any relationship in the book between torah and wisdom, we have to reckon with disparities that arise from the differences between monologue and epilogue, from unresolved tensions between different ideas, and from depictions of development in the thinking of its central protagonist. Some caution is clearly required before making any statements of our own, but it is possible to sketch out the basic framework within which Qohelet’s own claims are to be understood. He understands what happens “under the sun,” that is, within the world, to consist of activities that are entirely in accordance with the divine will. Everything that humans do is a part of those activities, and 3:11 may suggest that God has imbued them with some sense that there is such a bigger picture, but humans are subordinate, with no seat at the table, and are explicitly prevented from understanding what God is doing, what part they have played, and what the longer-term consequences will be. Within the scope of what they can see for themselves, the underlying activities of God are one of various factors that make it difficult to discern how they should act for their own benefit, and this difficulty does offer some common ground with Proverbs 1–9, where discernment is also a key issue, and where the role of instruction is to induce the instructed to embrace a wisdom that brings greater insight. Qohelet acknowledges no such route out of the problems, though, and his outlook arguably is closer to that of Job, whose true situation, brought about by divine actions, is beyond the discernment

of Jonas C. Greenfield, ed. Ziony Zevit, Seymour Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 159–75.

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of the humans around him. After the optimism of his initial investigations, then, Qohelet seemingly comes to share what may have been a common opinion, that the world, and God’s activity within it, are impenetrable to human reason alone, but he offers no reason to suppose that humans may be assisted to overcome their limitations. Correspondingly, he suggests that they can only act in their own best interests, which involves not just taking pleasure in what they do – his most famous conclusion – but also balancing self-preservation with a desire not to anger God. That latter desire is seemingly informed only by the most general or obvious ideas about what would please or displease God. If this is the outlook of Qohelet, however, it is not certainly the outlook of the book as a whole, and the reference to divine commandments at 12:13 in the epilogue seems to imply a very different relationship between humans and God. This is not, perhaps, entirely outside the scope of Qohelet’s thinking, and in 8:2–5 he seems to have used the setting of a human royal court, in which a dangerously powerful king issues his own commands, as a model for the human situation in relation to divine judgment and death. Even there, though, he avoided any suggestion that God communicates with humans, so this has often been a key argument for viewing the epilogue, or at least 12:13–14, as secondary. There are good reasons not to do so (although I shall not rehearse the arguments here), and if we do not jump to that conclusion, then it might seem worth exploring this gap in particular between Qohelet and the epilogist, the two principal voices in the book – but it is hard to identify some radical difference of opinion between them.8 To be sure, as I mentioned already, the epilogue is at pains to suggest that Qohelet’s monologue is a clever literary composition, and by advising against the reading of any other such works, and effectively declaring “that’s enough talking,” the epilogist suggests a simpler formula for living: fear of God and obedience to his commandments, because all that need concern humans is God’s coming judgment of their every deed. Even setting the reference to commandments aside, this is not an epitome of Qohelet’s ideas, and Qohelet would doubtless himself have mentioned, as often, the need for humans to take pleasure in their work. On the other hand, though, it does not directly contradict them, choosing instead to draw out only Qohelet’s message about divine judgment and the need to fear God. What the epilogist seems to believe, in short, is not that Qohelet was wrong, but that his understandings of life introduced a needless, painful complexity, which it is better to avoid – and this is commensurate with Qohelet’s own perception that his wisdom was a source of

8 See my “‘Fear God and Keep His Commandments’: Could Qohelet Have Said This ?,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 101–18.

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pain, and his more general indications that his investigations brought him more sorrow than joy. Indeed, the epilogue shows, if anything, even less enthusiasm for wisdom and instruction than does Qohelet, and if it draws in an idea of divine commandments, so perhaps also then of law and instruction, it makes no effort to relate these to wisdom and might even be said to see them as a substitute for it. That lack of association between torah and wisdom is the product in part, at least, of a characterization of wisdom as little more than human cleverness, which seems to be shared by both Qohelet and the epilogist. In the course of his account, Qohelet acquires wisdom and later declares it distant from him, but he actually finds it of use only in his accumulation of wealth (2:3, 9), and in 2:13–14 he already wonders why he had bothered to acquire so much when it will not save him from the same eventual fate as any fool. After the several strange presentations of it in ch. 7, he does begin to evaluate wisdom more directly, and 8:1 probably begins this evaluation by asking directly whether anyone is really the classic wise man who can interpret anything that has been said, but his subsequent characterizations display a deep ambivalence: the wise man can never discover God’s achievements (8:17), and while wisdom might theoretically be better than physical strength, or might even save a city, in practice it gets drowned out (9:13–18). In the very difficult 10:10–11, his point is probably that wisdom’s benefits are entirely contextual, so that it is only worth having when it serves a purpose,9 but that point is illustrated by nothing more ambitious than a declaration that wise speech wins favour, while fools’ words harm them. There is nothing in all this that even begins to resemble the grander portrayals of wisdom found in some other literature, and no acknowledgment that such wisdom might exist. Equally, and perhaps surprisingly in the light of that understanding, Qohelet’s monologue shows little or no interest in education or instruction. In 1:16, he speaks of amplifying and increasing wisdom, but with no indication of how he has done so; although the text is corrupt, 7:5 probably commends listening to the rebukes of wise men above hearing the singing of fools, but that verse belongs to the strange sequence that associates wisdom with mourning and misery. Here the epilogue does have something to say, inasmuch as it identifies Qohelet himself as a wise man who “taught the people knowledge” (12:9), perhaps through his literary activity, and its imagery of goads and spikes has sometimes been viewed in educational terms. There is no idealization of instruction to be found even here, however, and 12:12 seems actually to warn against unnecessary study, even as it adopts the “my son” address so characteristic of instructional literature. This seems consonant with Qohelet’s own advice to the young, in 11:9, which focuses on the need to enjoy

9 I take ‫ ויתרון הכשיר חכמה‬in 10:10 properly to belong with 10:11; see Weeks, Ecclesiastes, 2: 521–24.

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youth while remembering the coming judgment, and has nothing to say about the acquisition of knowledge or wisdom. Given the book’s broader ambivalence about wisdom, and the constraints placed upon its usefulness, it would be fair to suggest that neither Qohelet nor the epilogist are presented as believing that it is something to be acquired for its own sake or that education, with the pain it can bring, is something to be prioritized – at least so long as one avoids the perils of outright folly (7:17). Qohelet may have taught the people, but it would be fair to say that we find in Ecclesiastes no more real interest in the idea that humans might usefully communicate wisdom to each other than in the idea that God might communicate it to humans, and this seems congruent with the book’s ideas about forgetfulness of the past (1:11) and rejection of the dead (9:3–4). Qohelet’s humans are cut off from previous generations and from any proper understanding of God’s actions, while the epilogue encourages its readers not to learn or attempt such understanding, but simply to do as God tells them. This is a very long way from the ideas in Proverbs 1–9 and Ben Sira about the potential of humans to enhance their understanding through wisdom and instruction. It is important to be clear that none of this is presented explicitly as controversial. As with the wise man’s claim in 8:17 that he will discover what God achieves, Qohelet sometimes sets up straw men, but there is little explicit engagement with the positions of others, and even the epilogue’s suspicions of wise men and their books are couched in terms of self-protection from what is uncomfortable and not presented as a rejection of ideas. There is, however, one crucial exception, and 7:25–29 does, I think, include a rejection, perhaps even a mockery, of the presentation of wisdom in Proverbs 1–9, which may help us to understand more clearly the positions adopted in Ecclesiastes. That passage is notoriously difficult, of course, and much of it has usually been understood in very different terms, so we need to begin by assessing what it actually says – and here I will try to limit the amount of technical discussion by referring readers to the more detailed discussion of it in my commentary.10 For context, 7:25 immediately follows Qohelet’s declaration in 7:23–24: All this I had ventured through wisdom; I had said “Let me be wise!” But it has been far from me: whatever had been has been far away, and deep, deep down – who can find it?

There are various well-known problems in those verses, but they seem to mark a return to the memoir which characterized the presentation in the first two chapters. Where Qohelet had previously accumulated wisdom without difficulty, however, he now finds it to be elusive, and probably suggests that even his own past seems out

10 Weeks, Ecclesiastes, 2: 252–326.

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of reach. This, of course, itself follows the presentation of wisdom as unattractive in 7:1–6 and an admonition against showing oneself too wise in 7:16, amongst other sayings in the chapter that appear to qualify wisdom, so it comes as no surprise, perhaps, that Qohelet has re-evaluated his relationship with his own wisdom. The theme will continue in chapter 8, where, with Seow,11 we should probably read 8:5–8 as listing things that a wise man should know – all of them about the inevitability of judgment and death, and the inability of humans to resist them – and this is followed by remarks on the hiddenness of judgment, which misleads humans when they try to discern what is right and wrong from the experience of others. In 8:16–17 Qohelet will again evoke his quest to understand wisdom and reach his conclusion that humans will try to comprehend divine action, but that even the wise will be prevented from doing so. In short, therefore, 7:25–29 sits within a part of the book where Qohelet is keenly interested in wisdom (which has barely featured in the monologue since his earlier investigations), and in which he shifts from a stuttering commendation of its value toward an emphasis on its limitations. 7:25 itself is difficult, and very probably corrupt, which robs us of any clarity when Qohelet declares the nature of the actions that he took immediately after realizing how distant wisdom had become from him, but the verse does at least suggest that he set out on a new quest involving a search for wisdom, for a ‫חשבון‬ (whatever that means in this context), and for something to do with folly, obtuseness, and mindlessness – it is here that the Hebrew poses the greatest problems. What follows is a description of a woman who is “stronger” or “more bitter” than death, the introduction to which is also problematic in the Hebrew, leaving it unclear what woman Qohelet is talking about.12 She is described as consisting of nets and fetters, and he remarks that God will choose who will escape and who will be trapped in her. A very early and pervasive interpretation suggests that this is a portrayal of any woman, and so a characterization of the female sex, which has set the tone for a similar interpretation of 7:28 as a declaration that Qohelet never met any good woman. Set between these, 7:27 is taken as an introduction to that declaration, in which Qohelet remarks that he has reached his conclusion by adding one thing to another, and then 7:29 is commonly understood to be saying that God created humans morally upright, but they have sought out numerous “devices” – in Christian circles, this has widely been seen as an affirmation of the fall.

11 Choon Leong Seow, Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18C (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 281. 12 The sense “strong” for ‫ מר‬here, rather than “bitter,” was advocated by Mitchell J. Dahood, “Qoheleth and Recent Discoveries,” Bib 39 (1958): 308–10, and has won qualified support: there is at least an ambiguity.

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It may be obvious even at a glance, though, that there are difficulties inherent in any such construal. Why, to start with, does Qohelet set out to find wisdom and then start talking about women? Or, if 7:28 is talking about experience gained through meeting people, why should 7:27 present the conclusion as a result of adding things together? And what does 7:29 have to do with any of that? It is true, to be sure, that Qohelet is often difficult to follow, and sometimes jumps to new topics with little warning, but reading the text this way offers neither any coherence between the various statements nor any consistency with the immediate context. The interpretation has arisen as a result of early exegetical techniques, which, as often, have imposed particular meanings on sections of the text without regard to context, and this atomistic approach has supplied a misogynistic tag in 7:28 which was cited in later Jewish texts.13 Unlike others, it has survived into the modern period, not because it is an obvious reading, but, at least in part, because difficulties in the text have made it hard to establish any persuasive alternative. One alternative that has long had some influence, although mostly just on interpretations of 7:26, sees the initial description of a woman not as generic, but as a reference specifically to the personification of wisdom or folly. Among recent commentators, Krüger has argued persuasively that the description is of personified wisdom and is similar to that in Sir 6:24–31, where the character of wisdom as a harsh discipline is drawn out,14 but a case can also be made for folly on the basis of Prov 7:22, where her seduction of the youth is probably compared with the trapping of an animal. Some affirmation for this general approach can be found in the Greek translation, especially now that, with Gentry’s new Göttingen edition, we are no longer forced to rely on Rahlfs’s very flawed presentation of that version.15 It seems clear that, where the Masoretic text has just a participle and subject pronoun (“and finding I bitter more than death the woman”), the translator of the Greek found a text that read “and finding I her then I would say ‘more bitter than death the woman,’”16 which furnishes an object for the verb, and suggests that Qohelet 13 See, e.g., b. Gittin 45a. The preceding 7:26 was often read with similar connotations: see especially Jean-Jacques Lavoie, “Les pièges de la femme et les ambiguïtés d’un texte: Étude de Qohélet 7,26 dans l’histoire de l’exégèse juive,” SR 49 (2020): 165–92. 14 Thomas Krüger, “‘Frau Weisheit’ in Koh 7,26?” Bib 73 (1992): 394–403. See also his Kohelet: (Prediger), BKAT 19 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2000), 265–68. 15 Peter J. Gentry, Ecclesiastes, Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis Editum XI, 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). 16 Matters are complicated by a hexaplaric addition in some manuscripts, but the original Greek was probably καὶ εὑρίσκω ἐγὼ αὐτὴν καὶ ἐρῶ (so Gentry), which likely reflects ‫;ומוצא אני אתה ואמר‬ cf. Yohanan A.P. Goldman, “Qoheleth,” in Biblia Hebraica Quinta Editione, Cum Apparatu Critico Novis Curis Elaborato: Fasc. 18 General Introduction and Megilloth, ed. Adrian Schenker et al., BHQ 18 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004), 96.

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is referring back to the wisdom or folly mentioned in the previous verse. Through 7:25–26, in other words, he is saying that he set out to find wisdom and/or folly and telling us what he would say if he actually encountered her. Reading 7:26 as a reference to some personified figure does not rely on accepting the version of the text reflected in the Greek, but that version provides a clear context for such a reference and suits the broader theme here: Qohelet has lost wisdom, sets out to find her, and has prepared a somewhat withering denunciation, to be delivered if he succeeds. This speech within a speech explains the subsequent insertion into 7:27 of a clarificatory “says the Qohelet,” which marks a return to the main discourse, but which also has to be taken as parenthetical. The next verse (7:28) should be read with the first word of 7:29, to which it has been relegated very awkwardly by the traditional interpretation, so that the sense of 7:27–28 together is “Look at this: I encountered (says the Qohelet) one woman after another, in order to find a ‫ חשבון‬which my self still sought and I did not find. I met one person from every thousand, but I met no woman who stood apart among all these.” The sense of ‫ חשבון‬will be considered below – but I think a translation in these terms makes it very clear already that Qohelet is alluding to the imagery of Proverbs 1–9. On this reading, the author is employing a literary conceit by having Qohelet claim to take literally the symbolism of Proverbs: the women in that work solicit the attentions of the uneducated very publicly, even calling out to passers-by, but Qohelet fails to find either of them even after encountering a whole multitude of people. Of course, it is hard to be sure that the author is alluding directly to Proverbs 1–9 itself, given the adoption of the ‘woman wisdom’ imagery by other texts, and the various difficulties in the second half of 7:25 exacerbate that problem, obscuring as they do Qohelet’s own characterization of the quest that will follow. At the very least, however, this quest does seem to embrace both wisdom and folly, who are not certainly paired together in any of the other works that personify one or the other. Furthermore, those works, which are all generally dated later than Ecclesiastes anyway, tend not to present wisdom and folly as actual women, occupying public spaces and superficially indistinguishable from other women. While it is impossible to exclude the possibility of some unknown, intermediate source, it seems simplest to suppose that the book does actually know and engage with the imagery of Proverbs 1–9 here, and in that case the author was surely aware of that work’s grander characterization of wisdom and associated concepts. It seems likely as well that he is, at least to some extent, parodying or satirizing the presentation in that work. From that point of view, it is worth noting also both that Qohelet employs in these verses the same motif of “seeking” and “finding” someone, probably borrowed in the first instance from love poetry, that is used quite extensively in Proverbs 1–9 itself, and that, although I should not wish to press the point, wisdom’s famous declaration in Prov 8:35 that “He who finds me finds life” uses the

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same participial construction, with “finding” that Qohelet will use in 7:26, when he associates the woman he seeks with death instead. There are, however, some differences. Proverbs 1–9 is quite restrained in the claims that it makes about wisdom, at least relative to some later texts, although it goes much further than Qohelet would. As noted earlier, the work does have a strong concern with the limitations of purely human discernment, but suggests that these can be overcome by the internalization of instruction, which in turn permits humans to choose wisdom over folly and to enjoy benefits that include obtaining divine favour (8:35) – presumably because wisdom understands the will of God, having been beside him since creation. The instruction that enables one to choose wisdom is not explicitly identified with torah in a more technical sense, but is described in terms that suggest a strong connection with Deuteronomy, and is probably supposed to be understood that way. Qohelet seems to allude directly to very little of this, and his conclusion in 7:29 seems to address an idea, that God inspired humans to search for something, which is not specifically an idea found in Proverbs 1–9. That something, moreover, is described using the term ‫חשבון‬, which is again absent from Proverbs 1–9 but which appears three times in our verses, as a thing that Qohelet intends to seek (7:25), a thing he has not found (7:27), and, in the plural, as things that the humans he has encountered, or perhaps all humans, are seeking (7:29). The meaning is unclear, and the noun was used in a lot of ways, but in 9:10 it sits alongside work, knowledge, and wisdom as something that will be absent from Sheol, and I am inclined to understand it in terms of personal planning: the cognate verb is used of people trying to make plans for themselves, e.g., at Prov 16:9, and this suits the ideas in Sir 9:15 that, along with confidential speech, one’s ‫ חשבון‬should be shared only with the wise and in Sir 27:5 that the cultivation of a man’s mind can be perceived through testing of his ‫חשבון‬. What Qohelet seems to want, and what he perceives others to be seeking, is in some sense a plan or formula, perhaps even a sort of crib-sheet for living life, and it is this that he apparently hopes to find by encountering wisdom or folly, even if he intends to denounce them when he does so. What he apparently does not want is to fling himself back into the shackles of wisdom. We should not take the last part of 7:26 too seriously, because Qohelet is playing off a view that he rejected back in 2:26, according to which wisdom, among other things, is given to those favoured by God: however, if the woman in this verse is wisdom then it is now instead a mark of divine favour to elude her grasp. Qohelet’s closing denial of any divine initiative in this area does not, as I have noted, correspond directly to any idea in Proverbs 1–9 itself, where it is wisdom, unleashed as a happy side-effect of creation, who chooses to help humans. Although the possible association of instruction with torah in that work does open the door to an idea of God offering assistance himself, the author does not himself walk

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through that door, and it is only later writers who push it further open, at the same time placing humans at the forefront of God’s concerns. It is tempting to speculate, therefore, that Qohelet’s resistance to the idea is a reflection of ways in which Proverbs 1–9 was already being interpreted in the period when Ecclesiastes was written, probably not long before God’s active control of wisdom was expounded in Ben Sira and other works. If so, then it is also very possible that the claims and ideas of the work itself had been more generally filtered through an interpretative mesh which informs Qohelet’s reaction against them. Whatever the case, although there may be only very limited direct engagement in Ecclesiastes with the actual claims and ideas of Proverbs 1–9, and although the imagery from that work has been borrowed to deliver a very different presentation of the human situation, it is hard, all the same, to avoid the conclusion that Qohelet quite specifically rejects the characterization of wisdom in that work. She is not out there, looking to be found, and anyone who does encounter her faces a sort of imprisonment that will limit and not liberate them. Wisdom is not a way to gain access to the divine will because God has no interest in the human pursuit of comprehension: within Qohelet’s understanding of the world, the ways in which humans act are always, necessarily in accordance with that will, and, from the divine perspective, there is nothing to gain from human wisdom. Having acquired this particular understanding, Qohelet could never embrace the very different ideas of Proverbs 1–9, and he rejects them without troubling to pick them apart. If this is Qohelet’s position, then it is not without precedents in other ancient literature, and we need think only of the Demotic instruction found on Papyrus Insinger,17 which not dissimilarly questions the value of human plans and advice in a world subordinated entirely to divine control, or of the various sayings in Proverbs which make a similar point. The book of Job handles the issue in a very different way, focusing more upon the ability of humans to control God through their actions if God is always obliged to be just, but the implications of its theology are similar. If Qohelet really is courting controversy in this area, by dismissing the ability of humans to make any real difference through the application of wisdom, he is neither the first character in a book to do so, nor, in all likelihood, fighting a real battle. The recognition of constraints upon human understanding and self-determination seems to have co-existed with the propagation of advice, perhaps from earliest times, and the tension between them seems unlikely to have been perceived as some great clash of ideologies. The echoes of Deuteronomy in the epilogue to Ecclesiastes, moreover, might plausibly suggest that the book’s author

17 There is a helpful translation of the known fragments in Friedhelm Hoffmann and Joachim Friedrich Quack, Anthologie Der Demotischen Literatur, EQÄ 4 (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007), 239–73.

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is fully aware that his protagonist is voicing just one side of a long-standing disagreement, and that it was never his intention simply to promulgate that position. That mention of other texts, though, brings me finally to what I think is one way of understanding the strong distinction between Qohelet himself and Proverbs 1–9 when it comes to wisdom, which is in terms of his very visible universalism and concern with humanity as a whole. This universalism manifests itself in small details – the divine name is never used, for instance, and there are no identifiable names outside the references to Qohelet’s Davidic kingship in 1:1 and 1:12 – but also more generally in the content of his monologue. Even if there is a virtual citation of Deut 23 in chapter 5, the questions raised there around the utility or propriety of vows were not confined to Jewish circles. When vows crop up again, at 9:2, it is in the context of a list of religious ideas and practices that would all, again, have been familiar to almost any ancient audience. It is only really the language in which Qohelet speaks and the association of him with Solomon, itself vague in expression and plausibly secondary in origin, that make him explicitly Jewish. Ecclesiastes works hard to make it clear that Qohelet’s ideas concern all humans, and even allusions to Deuteronomy and Proverbs 1–9 are presented in such a way that they would not be incomprehensible to a non-Jewish reader. The book is probably not, in fact, directed at such readers, and the same is likely true of Job, which more explicitly sets itself outside Israel, while in other respects appearing more Jewish. Not so long ago, such universalism would simply have been put down to some wisdom-traditional “internationalism,” and without falling back on the dubious historical assumptions behind that idea, it is true at least that many of the ancient texts commonly lumped together as wisdom literature do show a similar concern to be universal. The implementation of such concerns can naturally create problems, and its universalism seems likely to have contributed toward an occasional vagueness of expression in Ecclesiastes, and to its lack of clarification in key areas: notions around death and divine judgment, for instance, are unlikely to have been uniform even within Judaism at the time Ecclesiastes was written, and while the concept of “fearing God” might have been commonplace across many religions, it is unlikely that everyone would have understood it in precisely the same way. Correspondingly, even if the author believed, say, that fearing God would entail obedience to some notion of the torah in his own context, he could not have Qohelet declare that explicitly without shifting the address to a Jewish audience in particular, or perhaps to a subset of that audience, and even the epilogue’s addition of divine commandments to the mix, whatever it might have signalled to such a Jewish audience at the time, does not accomplish such a shift. To whatever extent the author was conscious of efforts elsewhere to present wisdom in connection with specifically Jewish religious ideas – and it seems very likely that he knew at least of the attempts to do this in Proverbs 1–9 – nothing in the book suggests any enthusiasm to embrace these.

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Ultimately, then, perhaps the most important aspect of Qohelet’s engagement with Proverbs 1–9, and of his ideas about wisdom more generally, is that they caution us against adopting a monochromatic view of the literary and cultural context within which other ideas of wisdom emerged and against assuming that the proliferation of such other ideas, in various forms, indicates wholesale acceptance of them. Qohelet’s brief delve into the imagery of another work, whether confined to 7:26 or, as I think, extended across several verses, shows us that Ecclesiastes was not simply detached from other discourse around wisdom. In its own complicated way, indeed, it probably preserves an aspect of the conversation that largely disappears in later works and reflects a continuing desire to understand the human situation without using the lens of particularism or the language of piety. The author often sets Qohelet up to provoke more than to persuade, but even if we are intended to question, or even to reject, the more extreme aspects of Qohelet’s disillusionment with wisdom, there is nothing positively pushing us toward the sort of affirmations found in Ben Sira, and the epilogue seems keener even than Qohelet to dispense with wisdom altogether. This is not polemic, in any meaningful way, but, despite all the complications, it probably does reflect a genuine resistance to imposing a framework that would have been alien to most humans upon problems common to all of them.

Bibliography Dahood, Mitchell J. “Qoheleth and Recent Discoveries.” Bib 39 (1958): 308–10. Fox, Michael V. “Frame-Narrative and Composition in the Book of Qohelet.” HUCA 48 (1977): 83–106. Gentry, Peter J. Ecclesiastes, Septuaginta Vetus Testamentum Graecum Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis Editum XI, 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019. Goldman, Yohanan A.P. “Qoheleth.” in Biblia Hebraica Quinta Editione, Cum Apparatu Critico Novis Curis Elaborato: Fasc. 18 General Introduction and Megilloth. Edited by Adrian Schenker et al. BHQ 18. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004. Hoffmann, Friedhelm and Joachim Friedrich Quack. Anthologie Der Demotischen Literatur. EQÄ 4. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007. Krüger, Thomas. “‘Frau Weisheit’ in Koh 7,26?” Bib 73 (1992): 394–403. Krüger, Thomas. Kohelet: (Prediger). BKAT 19.Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2000. Lavoie, Jean-Jacques. “Les pièges de la femme et les ambiguïtés d’un texte: Étude de Qohélet 7,26 dans l’histoire de l’exégèse juive.” SR 49 (2020): 165–92. Levinson, Bernard M. A More Perfect Torah: At the Intersection of Philology and Hermeneutics in Deuteronomy and the Temple Scroll. CrStHB 1. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Levinson, Bernard M. “‘Better That You Should Not Vow than That You Vow and Not Fulfill’: Qoheleth’s Use of Textual Allusion and the Transformation of Deuteronomy’s Law of Vows.” Pages 28–41 in Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually. Edited by Katharine J. Dell and Will Kynes. LHBOTS 587. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014.

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Machinist, Peter. “Fate, Miqreh, and Reason: Some Reflections on Qohelet and Biblical Thought.” Pages 159–75 in Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical, Epigraphic, and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas C. Greenfield. Edited by Ziony Zevit, Seymour Gitin, and Michael Sokoloff. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995. Seow, Choon Leong. Ecclesiastes: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18C. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Shields, Martin A. “Ecclesiastes and the End of Wisdom.” TynBul 50.1 (1999): 117–39. Shields, Martin A. The End of Wisdom: A Reappraisal of the Historical and Canonical Function of Ecclesiastes. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2006. Weeks, Stuart. Instruction and Imagery in Proverbs 1–9. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Weeks, Stuart. “‘Fear God and Keep His Commandments’: Could Qohelet Have Said This ?” Pages 101–18 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Weeks, Stuart. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ecclesiastes. 2 vols. ICC. London: T&T Clark, 2020.

Luca Mazzinghi

Wisdom and Law in the Book of Wisdom: A New Type of Relationship 1 Introduction The Book of Wisdom, composed in Greek at Alexandria of Egypt by the end of 1st century BCE,1 is a work of a Jewish sage that places at the center of his own community the reading of Scriptures, in particular of Torah texts, i.e. the Greek Pentateuch.2 Alexandria, however, is a center where Hellenism displays all its strength, with stimulations and temptations at the same time. Within such a cultural and religious milieu, the Jewish community is called to confront itself. It may choose an apologetic attitude, meaning, a defense of its own identity and thus of the Torah – a position reflected for instance, in 3 Maccabees but also present in Greek-speaking Jewish historiographers (Artapanus, Demetrius, Eupolemus, Pseudo-Eupolemus). The Jewish community of Alexandria, however, also chose other ways, more dialogical in character, beginning with the Letter of Aristeas and culminating in the work of Philo, who will, in any case, distinguish himself as a commentator of the Pentateuch. In my opinion, it is, therefore, possible to continue keeping the centrality of the Torah in Israel’s life, even in a context strongly influenced by Hellenistic culture. From Aristeas to Philo there will be repeated attempts of rereading the Torah, re-presenting it in ways accessible to Jews now immersed in the Alexandrian world. In such a variegated panorama, the Book of Wisdom occupies a rather peculiar place; it in fact attests to an articulated relationship with the Greek world, dialogical but also more critical than Philo’s. Wisdom’s author is desirous or perhaps even hopeful that a positive relationship between the two worlds might be possible, provided that Israel does not lose faith in the biblical God. In Wisdom, in fact, apologetic traits are less stressed than in other works.3 Such an attitude is reflected in

1 See Luca Mazzinghi, Weisheit, IEKAT (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2018), 31–35. 2 Torah can obviously have different meanings, often overlapping each other: the literary corpus of Torah/Pentateuch, the whole of Israel’s laws and traditions (here: the Law), the eternal pre-existing Torah. 3 See Luca Mazzinghi, “Testi autorevoli di epoca ellenistica in analogia con gli scritti biblici. Un esempio illustre: il libro della Sapienza,” in Israele fra le genti in epoca ellenistica: un popolo primogenito cittadino del mondo, ed. Gian Luigi Prato, RStB 27.1 (2015), 157–76. Luca Mazzinghi, Pontifical Gregorian University, Italy https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-006

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the relationship the Sage establishes between wisdom and Law, the object of the present study.4

2 What is Wisdom in the Book of Wisdom? The nature of wisdom in the Book of Wisdom is a topic thoroughly studied.5 Wisdom is at the core of the book (Wisdom 7–9) and in particular in the description contained in the strophe of Wisdom 7:21b–8:1. The author weaves the praise of wisdom through chapters 7–8, describing its nature and origin (see also 6:22–25). In line with Israel’s sapiential tradition, wisdom is personified as a woman that for “Solomon” is not only bride, but also a friend, educator, and counselor;6 from her, the sage receives as a gift those goods left behind precisely in pursuing wisdom. The twenty-one attributes of wisdom found in 7:22b–23, partly inspired by Stoicism, draw wisdom near to the πνεῦμα and present her as a reality superior to the world, extraneous to matter, and not identifiable with created things – a reality that comes from God and at the same time is distinct from Him, present in the world and available to all human beings on whose behalf wisdom acts beneficially. Thus, under the influence of Stoicism, without falling into the pantheistic perspective typical of the Stoics, wisdom is described as close to the “spirit.” Although remaining entirely transcendent, it is also immanent, present, and active, both in the world 4 See Maurice Gilbert, “Volonté de Dieu et don de la Sagesse (Sg 9,17s),” NRT 93 (1971): 145–66; Eckhard J. Schnabel, Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul, WUNT 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 129–33; Antonio Bonora, “Il binomio sapienza-Torah nell’ermeneutica e nella genesi dei testi sapienziali (Gb 28; Pro 8; Sir 1.24; Sap 9),” in Sapienza e Torah: Atti XXIX Settimana Biblica Italiana, ed. Francesco Festorazzi (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1987), 31–48; Joseph Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 168–73; Joachim Schaper, “Νόμος and Νόμοι in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of “Torah” in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163, (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 293–306. 5 For a good introduction on the idea of wisdom in the book of Wisdom, see Chrysostome Larcher, Etudes sur le livre de la Sagesse (Paris: Gabalda, 1969), 329–414. See also Maurice Gilbert, “La structure de la prière de Salomon,” Bib 51 (1970): 301–33; idem, “L’éloge de la Sagesse – Sg 7–9” in La Sagesse et Jésus-Christ, ed. Maurice Gilbert and Jean-Noël Aletti, CaE 32 (Paris: Cerf, 1980), 33–36; Martin Neher, Wesen und Wirken der Weisheit in der Sapientia Salomonis, BZAW 333 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004); Aléxis Leproux, Un discours de sagesse: Etude éxègetique de Sg 7–8, AnBib 167 (Roma: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2007). 6 See Luca Mazzinghi, “‘I loved [Wisdom] and sought her from my youth: I desired to take her for my Counsellor’ (Wis 8,2a): Solomon and Wisdom: An Example of Closest Intimacy,” in Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Angelo Passaro, Deuterocanonical and Cognate Yearbook 2012/13 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 229–52.

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and in humanity. Closeness to God, which for the Stoics was possible for the human soul, is also possible according to the author of Wisdom, although for him it is God’s gift obtained through wisdom.7 Wisdom and spirit thus become models of one and the same divine activity in favor of human beings and the whole cosmos. Related to the spirit, wisdom achieves, therefore, a clear cosmological and anthropological dimension and becomes a token of God’s presence in the world, as well as an active principle in creation (see Wis 8:1; but also 7:24; 12:1, texts with clear Stoic resonances). In Wis 7:27–28, wisdom emerges as an inner moral strength that allows human beings to understand the will of God. Wisdom renews the world (see 7:27; a text that recalls Ps 103[104MT]:30) without identifying itself either with it or God; working in the human being, wisdom “prepares friends of God and prophets” (7:27b). We are looking at an expansion of themes, especially wisdom’s presence in the creation, whose kernel ideas are already present in Prov 8, but also in Job 28 and above all in Sir 24 and Bar 3:9–4:4. Such an idea is subsequently developed in Wis 9:13–17 and is of singular importance to grasp the manner Wisdom’s author conceives the relationship between wisdom and Law, as we shall see further. Furthermore, for the comprehension of wisdom’s nature, the five metaphors found in 7:25–26 are particularly important. There, wisdom appears as an aspect of God’s very nature and activity, distinct from Him, an image of His goodness, a figure of mediation between Him and human beings. In this respect, the author is reiterating an idea already present in Prov 8:22–30 and developing it in light of influences from both Stoicism and Platonism. For example, in Wis 7:24 διήκω is a technical term of Stoic philosophy, while in Wis 7:25 one may consider also the well-known Platonic metaphors of “mirror” and “image.” Wisdom as presented in the central chapters of the book (7–9) excludes neither human values nor cultural achievements, with allusions even to mystery cults and to the figure of Isis.8 Having its origin in God, wisdom can be achieved only as his gift and therefore has to be asked in prayer (see 8:21 and above all Wis 9). In this way, the book of Wisdom can correlate, through the figure of wisdom, God’s transcendence and immanence, developing a theology that is close to the Christian theology of grace.

7 Matthew Edwards, Pneuma and Realized Eschatology in the Book of Wisdom, FRLANT 242 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012), 71 writes: “Sophia operates in the role of Stoic pneuma. This allows God to be understood to remain transcendent, while restraining the philosophical benefits of Stoic physics.”. 8 See Mazzinghi, Weisheit, 226–29, 267–69.

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3 Law in the Book of Wisdom An inquiry about Law/Torah9 in the Book of Wisdom may be carried out in five steps. First, through a survey on the terminology used, in particular that of νόμος but also ἐντολή, λόγιον, and βουλή [θεοῦ], and secondly through an analysis of the use of Torah texts in Wisdom, followed by a study of its references to the figure of Moses. As a fourth step, an investigation of the Hellenistic background of Wisdom’s dealing with the theme of the Law should be added. Finally, based on the results obtained from the above-mentioned steps, a synthesis of what the Law represents for Wisdom’s author may then be drawn. In the following, we resume and comment on the results of some existing studies on some of those aspects.10

3.1 Terminology With respect to the terminology, νόμος occurs in Wis 2:11, 12; 6:4, 18 [bis; in plural]; 9:5 [also in plural]; 14:16; 16:6; 18:4, 9. In only in three of those occasions (2:12; 16:6; 18:4) is the reference clearly to the Mosaic Law, as we will see. There is some discussion about the occurrences of νόμος in 6:4, 18 (see further), and 18:9.11 The term ἐντολή in Wis 9:9 and 16:6 is certainly in reference to the precepts of the Law. This is also the case for 16:11 as well as the expression βουλή [θεοῦ] in 6:4 and 9:13, 17. The vocabulary related to the Law, although present, does not appear to be prominent in the Book of Wisdom, especially when compared with its vocabulary of a sapiential character. We observe that only in 6:18 the term νόμος appears linked with σοφία. To that, it should be added βουλή [θεοῦ] in 9:13, 17. With this in mind it is also remarkable that in Wisdom one may discern a genuine theology of the divine λόγος, the creator God’s word (cf. Gen 1:2). The divine logos appears first in Wis 9:1 as the creator God’s word (cf. Gen 1:2), linked in Wis 9:2 to wisdom, 9 We prefer to use the term “Law” since it mirrors better the Greek term νόμος used in the Book of Wisdom and points not only to the Pentateuch but also to the whole of biblical traditions and norms; see also n. 2. 10 See references in n. 4; to those, two preceding studies of ours may be added: Luca Mazzinghi, “La memoria della legge nel libro della Sapienza” in Torah e Kerygma: dinamiche della tradizione nella Bibbia, Atti della XXXVII Settimana Biblica Nazionale, Roma 9–13 settembre 2002, ed. Innocenzo Cardellini and Ermenegildo Manicardi, RStB 16.1–2 (2004), 153–76; idem, “Law of Nature and Light of the Law in the Book of Wisdom (Wis 18.4c),” in Studies in the Book of Wisdom, ed. Géza Xeravits and Joszéf Zsengellér, JSJSup 142 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 37–60. 11 See Schaper, “Νόμος and Νόμοι”; Schaper also understands Wis 6:4 as referring to Mosaic Law, given the parallel with βουλή [θεοῦ] and the relationship with Deut 17. See also Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, La notion de nomos dans le Pentateuque grec, AnBib 52 (Roma: PIB, 1973), 180–81.

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although in the series of passages where the author refers that theme (9:1; 12:9; 16:12; see especially 18:14–19) there is no reference to the Law, except in 16:12 (see λόγιον in 16:11).

3.2 Use of Scriptures The book of Wisdom, as is known, is a work in which a deep and attentive re-reading of Scripture is brought about.12 We first notice that it uses all the books that compose our present Hebrew Bible (with the exception of the Song of Songs and very probably Leviticus) as well as other books found in the LXX (like Tob, Sir, and 1–4 Macc). Regarding Torah texts, there emerges in Wisdom a pronounced use of Gen 1–3, not surprisingly considering its sapiential and creational perspectives. What is striking is the almost complete absence of allusions to the legislative texts of Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and in particular the complete silence of any clear allusion to Leviticus. The Law understood as a complex of norms to be followed does not appear to be at the core of the Sage’s concern. The book’s third part (Wis 10–19), besides the patriarchal accounts called up in Wis 10, rereads great portions of the narrative sections of Exodus and Numbers; some texts and themes of Deuteronomy are also present. Exodus accounts are reread in light of Alexandrian Jews’ situation and at the same time presented in a historical-salvific and also eschatological perspective. Furthermore, the Book of Wisdom also makes use of other literature dear to the Sage like Isaiah, the Psalms, and Proverbs. Therefore, it is not possible to maintain that in Wisdom the Torah/Pentateuch has a privileged status, as is the case, for instance, in Philo, commentator of the Pentateuch. Moreover, Wisdom lacks any allusion to a well-defined written corpus. It is noteworthy that a vocabulary related to writing and reading or to written texts is completely absent.13 Such silence makes

12 See Maurice Gilbert, “Wisdom of Solomon and Scripture,” in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, The History of Its Interpretation, Volume I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300), ed. Magnus Sæbø (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), 606–17 [= Maurice Gilbert, La Sagesse de Salomon/The Wisdom of Solomon, AnBib 189 (Rome: GBPress, 2011), 45–64]; Gilbert continues and develops upon a series of contributions by Patrick W. Skehan. See also Andrew T. Glicksman, “‘Set your Desire on my Words’: Authoritative Traditions in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Scriptural Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity, ed. Isaac Kalimi, Tobias Nicklas, and Géza G. Xeravits, DCLS 16 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013), 167–84. Regarding Gen 1–3, see Maurice Gilbert, “La relecture de Genèse 1 à 3 dans le livre de la Sagesse,” in La Création dans l’Orient Ancien : Congrès de l’ACFEB, Lille 1985, ed. Louis Derousseaux, LD 127 (Paris: Cerf, 1987), 323–44 [= Gilbert, La Sagesse de Salomon, 405–31]. 13 Wisdom lacks, for instance, terms that are frequently found in the LXX like γράφω, γραφή, ἀναγιγνώσκω, βίβλιος, βίβλος.

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it impossible for us to know – contra the the prologue of Ben Sira or Sir 24:23; 50:27 (see Qoh 12:12; Job 19:23LXX) – whether or not the Sage thought of the Torah as an already well-defined literary corpus, distinct form the other sacred books.

3.3 The Figure of Moses A third aspect related to the concept of Law in Wisdom is the attention the author gives to the figure of Moses.14 Moses is recalled, even if without being explicitly mentioned (as is Wisdom’s style), in Wis 10:16 and 11:1. However, his figure does not receive the same emphasis as in other Alexandrian Jewish writings, such as those of Philo’s. The true protagonist of the Exodus story, in fact, is not Moses, but wisdom (see Wis 10:16a), and from 11:1 it is God himself who takes the place that wisdom occupies in chapter 10. Like Ben Sira (see Sir 45:1–5), the Book of Wisdom avoids turning Moses into a Kulturbringer, a figure that would serve to exalt the superiority of the Jewish culture, even if paradoxically expressed in Greek categories, as it occurs in Artapanus, Eupolemus, Aristobulus, and, albeit in a different manner, in Aristeas. Comparatively speaking, then, Wisdom is notable in that is appears to afford little importance to the link between Moses and the Law. Contrary to Philo (see Mos. 2.1–7, 192), Moses in Wisdom is neither a king nor a philosopher nor a legislator; he remains solely a prophet (see Wis 11:1). Moses is no longer the best living proof of Israel and its divine Law’s excellency and superiority. He is rather an example, although important, of how divine wisdom might act in whomever is disposed to receive it (see Wis 7:27). Such divine wisdom is also, at least in principle, available to all those who put an effort in receiving it. Wis 18:4 alludes to the gift of the Law at Sinai, but without even the slightest mention of Moses. This implicit refusal of a human mediator probably plays a role in a certain elitist vision of the Sage, who considers it possible to reach wisdom through personal study, without any external aid. But, above all, there emerges the idea that wisdom plays a cosmic role (cf. Wis 7:24; 8:1) – in doing so, wisdom, which is further identified as a χάρις that comes directly from God (see 8:21), also incorporates the Law.

14 See Luca Mazzinghi, “The Figure of Moses in the Book of Wisdom,” in Canonicity, Setting, Wisdom in the Deuterocanonicals, ed. Géza G. Xeravits, József Zsengellér, and Xaviér Szabó, DCLS 22 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 183–206.

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3.4 Hellenistic Influence and the Law One of the distinctive features of the Book of Wisdom is its ability to critically and creatively integrate simultaneously the biblical traditions and Israel’s faith in the Lord together with Hellenistic insights. This is also true with regard to the Sage’s conception of the Law. With Wis 18:4 in mind, we have already tried to show elsewhere how the Sage’s presentation of the Law is such that it does not contradict the Stoic idea of a universal “natural law” and that Mosaic Law can be better understood precisely in light of this well-known Stoic concept.15 For Wisdom, however, the existence of a natural law that obliges all human beings and that identifies itself tout court with the Mosaic Law, such as that which occurs at least in part in Philo, is seemingly unthinkable. Yet that is precisely the idea underlying Wisdom’s mention of νόμος in 6:4. Before appealing to obedience to a natural law that should oblige every person in the name of a right and universal divine reason, and one that incarnates itself in the Mosaic Law (as it is precisely the case in Philo), the Sage offers the thought that the Mosaic Law does not contradict those universal values that are at the base of the Hellenistic culture. It is precisely in such a context that it becomes possible to receive it. Furthermore, prior to the Mosaic Law comes wisdom (see Wis 9:2.18: the presence of wisdom in creation and salvation), which in turn is a sign of God’s presence in the world and in humanity, thus emerging as a figure of mediation. For the Sage, it is wisdom and not the Law that is at work in the world before the Sinaitic revelation (see Wis 10). Perhaps precisely for that reason, Mosaic Law is never explicitly identified either with reason or natural law. The dimension of mediation typical of the sapiential theology makes possible for the Book of Wisdom to receive the Stoic universalistic concept of natural law in connection with a perspective typical of Israel: the Law of Moses, God’s revelation to mankind.

3.5 The Law between History and Creation What, then, does the Law represent for Wisdom’s author? In Book’s first part (Wis 1–6), the different destiny of human beings is related neither to the belonging of a certain people nor to the observance of cultural or purity precepts of the Mosaic Law; rather, it depends on the situation of every person before God. On the one hand, 15 See Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” passim (see above, n. 10). According to John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 192, in Philo, such a connection is even more evident: “it is likely that Wis. Sol. also saw the Law of Moses as the embodiment of a universal law.”.

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there are the just ones (see 3:19); on the other, instead, there are the ungodly, the impious (ἀσεβεῖς; see 1:16–2:1a). The discriminating characteristic is the relationship every human being has with justice and wisdom. Justice, in particular, emerges as a practical and concrete expression of the Law, even if an explicit relationship between the two concepts is not found in the Book (see, however, Wis 2:11–12 and 9:5). Jewish identity, therefore, receives a new meaning without explicit reference to the Torah.16 The normative aspect of the Mosaic Law remains marginal in the book of Wisdom. Elements typical of the Torah, like the Sabbath observance, circumcision, purity, and dietary laws, are also excluded. In this regard, the description of the eunuch in Wis 3:14, when confronted with its biblical source, Isa 56:4–5, is exemplary.17 Even in this case, the Law is neither eliminated nor underestimated, but reinterpreted in sapiential categories. In my view, what is most significant in Wisdom’s conception of the Law is the creational perspective that characterizes its author’s thought. In that perspective, the Law becomes the concrete expression of that wisdom of God that is present in the world and with which the world was created (see Wis 7:24; 8:1; 9:1). In this manner, the Law returns to being exemplary and normative, not only for Israel but also for every human being that seeks wisdom (“light for the world”, 18:4). We find, thus, another link with the Hellenistic conception of the “natural law.” The Law is not any more the “norm” in the legal sense; rather, it is the expression of a salvific founding event, both the creation and the exodus. It is, in fact, precisely such an event that becomes the “norm” for Israel, an interpretive key for the present and hope for the future. There emerges also in the book the theme “memory of the Law” (see Wis 16:6.11), a theme that flows into that of the memory of the divine actions in Exodus in favor of Israel. Such actions are narrated and re-proposed to the Jewish community of Alexandria through the filter of a midrashic reading, characterized by the actualization of the biblical texts in the context of the Hellenistic culture within which the community lives. Thus, the Exodus’s events recounted in the written Torah become the model of God’s ways, always actual and enlightening the present. For Wisdom’s author, the Law is not only the revelation of God’s actions, always

16 See Schaper, “Νόμος and Νόμοι”, 301–2. On the relationship between Law and justice in the Book of Wisdom, see Sophie Ramond, “Loi et justice dans les deutérocanoniques du corpus de sagesse (Siracide et Sagesse de Salomon),” in Loi et justice dans la littérature du Proche-Orient ancien, ed. Olivier Artus (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 246–61. See also Ludger Schwienhorst-Schönberger, “Weisheit und Gerechtigkeit in der Sapientia Salomonis – mit einem Ausblick auf die Politeia Platonis,” in Gesellschaft und Religion in der spätbiblischen und deuterokanonischen Literatur, ed. Friedrich V. Reiterer, Renate Egger-Wenzel, and Thomas R. Eißner, DCLS 20 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 129–59. 17 See Mazzinghi, Weisheit, 129.

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actual and exemplary in Exodus: the Exodus itself becomes a sign of hope for the future. The memory of the Law in the book of Wisdom receives, therefore, a clear eschatological perspective.

4 “Wisdom” and “Law” in Some Key Texts of Wisdom The model for the relationship between wisdom and Law in the Book of Wisdom develops a theme that was already present in Alexandrian Judaism (for instance in Aristeas) and which the Sage can then develop from prior texts such as Sir 24 and Bar 3:9–4:4 (see also Deut 4:6–8). Aristobulus had already, to some extent, linked the pre-existent wisdom by assimilating it to the Greek Logos and identifying it with the Mosaic Law (see Eusebius, Praep. Ev. 7.14.1 and 13.12.7–8).18 The Letter of Aristeas considers the Law as full of wisdom (Let. Aris. 31) and Moses as a sage (Let. Aris. 139). In Let. Aris. 144 the goal of the Mosaic Law is the same as wisdom, that is, the pursuit of virtue and moral improvement.19 The rapprochement of wisdom and Law in Aristeas has first and foremost an ethical value: Mosaic Law, which is true wisdom, contains all that is needed for a virtuous life. Law and wisdom in Aristeas have at once both a particular and a universal dimension. The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides has, on the contrary, a marked ethical and sapiential character but avoids mentioning both the Torah and the more common Jewish customs, exploring rather a possible middle ground between Judaism and the Greek world.20 In Wisdom, the starting point for the study of the relationship between wisdom and Law is undoubtedly the text of Wis 2:12. There the ungodly speak against the just who accuse them of sin committed against παιδεία and νόμος. With the term νόμος the author refers almost certainly to the Mosaic Law. Besides the omission of the definite article, its parallel with παιδεία guides us towards that interpretation. The term παιδεία recalls not only the Greek educational ideal but above all the sapiential “education”(‫)מוסר‬.21 The possessive “ours” (παιδείας ἡμῶν, a unique nexus in

18 See André Paul, “La Torah sapienziale a confronto con il mondo culturale ellenistico,” in Festorazzi, Sapienza e Torah, 50–55. 19 See Schnabel, Law and Wisdom, 119–24. 20 See Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, 159–77, esp.175–77; Paul, “La Torah sapienziale,” 63–66. 21 See Mazzinghi, Weisheit, 59–60 and Chrysostome Larcher, Le livre de la Sagesse ou la Sagesse de Salomon, 3 vols., EstBib 1, 3, 5 (Paris: Gabalda, 1983–1985), 1: 242, who adds: “Après la mention de la Loi, celle de la paideia éducatrice va de soi dans un écrit sapiential.”

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the LXX) is decisive. The author of the Book of Wisdom is addressing here, as in all his work, a Jewish audience and not a Gentile one.22 The just, that is, the faithful Israelite, reproaches the ungodly (who also, no doubt, are Jews) and the sins committed against “our” education, meaning, namely, against the wisdom instruction they received. Such reproach leads us to conclude likewise that with νόμος is to be understood the Law as a corpus of traditions and norms (but see above on 3.5) to be observed. The Sage draws, even if through the mouth of the ungodly, an implicit relationship between the Mosaic Law and the sapiential education (παιδεία), two elements that combine for the formation of the “just” Israelite. It is interesting to notice that precisely in the preceding verse (Wis 2:11) the ungodly boasts of their own strength considering it a “law of justice.” The use of the expression νόμος τῆς δικαιοσύνης is undoubtedly intentional. Ironically, the true “law” for the ungodly is not the Mosaic Law, but only their own strength. The connection between νόμος and παιδεία also appears elsewhere in the LXX. It is particularly interesting that the prologue of Ben Sira, which immediately mentions the Mosaic Law (νόμος) together with the prophets and the other books (line 1; and later lines 10–11), shortly thereafter (line 3) mentions Israel’s παιδεία and σοφία side by side. It is clear there that those two elements form some sort of hendiadys: sapiential education (παιδεία and σοφία) expresses itself, according to Ben Sira, through the inspired texts, namely the Law and the prophets. Later, the fourth book of Maccabees probably dating to around 117–118 CE, will identify these three elements: wisdom (σοφία) is none other than the discipline of the Law (ἡ τοῦ νόμου παιδεία: 4 Macc 1:16–17), where τοῦ νόμου is to be understood as a subjective genitive. It is, in fact, the Law that teaches παιδεία to human beings, and in such education that comes from the Law consists wisdom. This is the only text in the LXX, together with Ben Sira’s prologue, where σοφία, παιδεία, and νόμος occur together.23 It is noteworthy, however, that 4 Macc 1:16 gives a typically Stoic definition of wisdom: “knowledge [γνῶσις]24 of the divine and human realities and their causes.” The author of 4 Macc tries to reconcile Greek categories with the centrality of Israel’s Torah. Only marginally does 4 Macc demonstrate the influence of biblical sapiential literature.25 In comparison to those texts, Wis 2:12 does not reveal any prominence of νόμος over παιδεία. The latter is explicitly linked to wisdom in Wis 3:11 (σοφία καὶ παιδεία; see also 6:17; 7:14) rather than to the Law. 22 See Mazzinghi, Weisheit, 54. 23 See Giuseppe Scarpat, Il libro della Sapienza (Brescia: Paideia, 1989), 1:73. 24 This term is intentionally polemical, carrying an anti-gnostic function. See Giuseppe Scarpat, Quarto libro dei Maccabei (Brescia: Paideia, 2006), 119–20. 25 See Corrado Marucci, “La rilevanza sapienziale della Torah nel Quarto Libro dei Maccabei e negli scritti di Flavio Giuseppe,” in Festorazzi, Sapienza e Torah, 83–90, esp. 89–90.

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A certain relationship between “wisdom” and “Law” appears in Wis 6, a chapter centered on the theme of wisdom as a path to kingship.26 In Wis 6:17–20, the Sage uses the literary technique of the sorites, presenting seven stages whereby the desire for wisdom leads to kingship, until reaching God himself. Wisdom’s authentic origin is in the desire of παιδεία, understood, as said before, both as the education offered by Israel’s sages (biblical ‫ )מוסר‬and the Greek educational ideal for man. Such a desire for παιδεία leads to love (ἀγάπη), love for wisdom, which in turn leads to the observance of the Law: τέρησις νόμων αὐτῆς. The term τήρησις is rare in the LXX and only in Sir 32:23 does it carry the same sense of “observance” of laws (τήρησις ἐντολῶν). The link between loving God and observance of laws is by itself Deuteronomic (see Deut 5:10; 10:12–13; 11:1; 30:16; see, in the NT, John 14:15). “To love,” therefore, is not identical to observing laws; it is a mood that needs to be objectified in obedience. Which “laws” is the text speaking of? As in 6:4,27 the Sage seems to have in mind, first of all, the positive laws, i.e., those laws that every human being has to observe. The LXX uses the term ἐντολαί rather than νόμοι to speak of Torah/Pentateuch precepts (see however Jer 38:33 on the law written by God on man’s heart; cf. 2 Macc 4:17). The choice for the plural seems intentional in order to not refer directly to the Torah.28 This notwithstanding, the text speaks of “her” laws, meaning the laws of wisdom and thus of laws that come from God. Therefore, at least an implicit reference to the Mosaic Law is not to be excluded, and, as in 6:4, not even an allusion to the Stoic idea of natural law. The observance (τήρησις) of wisdom’s laws becomes in the third stage of the sorites the προσοχή (respect): a term whose use in this sense is unique in the LXX and whose context indicates precisely respect for the Law (see προσέχειν ἐντολαῖς in Sir 23:27; 32:24; 35:1). Such respect, then, is the assurance (βεβαίωσις) of incorruptibility (ἀφθαρσία) and closeness to God. It is clear that in Wis 6:17–20, “wisdom” and “Law” constitute two distinct concepts. The observance of the Law, which expresses itself here in the positive “laws” and therefore not only in the actual Mosaic Law, is a privileged way to reach wisdom. Only through wisdom, however, one reaches true kingship and that relationship with God that leads to life without end.

26 The Book of Wisdom addresses kingship as it is understood in relation to the political formation of the young Alexandrian Jews, but it should also be read on the background of the Stoic metaphor of the sage as “king” and not without some influence from Hellenistic treatises on kingship. 27 See Mazzinghi, Weisheit, 181. In 6:4 the term νόμος refers to the positive law, perhaps alluding to the Stoic idea of natural law, but also to the Mosaic Law. 28 See Chrysostome Larcher, Le livre de la Sagesse, 2: 428.

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For a deeper comprehension of the relationship between wisdom and Law, a fundamental text is no doubt the prayer to obtain wisdom (Wis 9). In Wis 9:9cd wisdom is described as one who knows God’s works, being present when He created the world. Wisdom, above all, “knows what is pleasing in your eyes and upright (εὐθές) according to your precepts (ἐντολαί).” Wisdom knows the Lord’s will and, therefore, what is upright according to the precepts, i.e., according to God’s Law (see an analogous connection in 1 Kgs 11:38LXX). In that way, in 9:11b wisdom can be defined as a “guide” for every human being. Such a relationship between wisdom and Law is deepened in the third strophe of prayer (9:13–18). In 9:13 the theme of the βουλή θεοῦ is introduced, set in parallel to “that which God wills (θέλει).” God’s will, expressed in the LXX with the term θέλημα, indicates precisely that which God asks of man in the Law (see Pss 39[40TM]:9; 102[103TM]:7; 1 Esd 8:16). To know God’s will, expressed in the Law and its precepts (9:9), every human requires that wisdom which, in 9:17, is linked to the “spirit” (as the author has already done from 1:5; see also 7:22b). The expression βουλὴ δέ σου should be seen as a reference to the will of God expressed especially in the Law.29 That which remains inaccessible to human strength is not the Law itself, but rather its knowledge, its more profound understanding. For that purpose, the gift of wisdom, which teaches human beings (see 9:18b), is indispensable. The Book of Wisdom develops an idea already present in Bar 3:9–4:4: the Law is a path towards wisdom.30 The “book of the Law” evoked in Bar 3:38 is the place where one finds wisdom.31 With Baruch in mind, as well as a nod to Sir 24, the Book of Wisdom distinguishes still more clearly between “wisdom” and “Law,” even while putting them in relation to each other but giving, nonetheless, greater prominence to wisdom, the protagonist on the mainstage who is at the core of the whole book (Wis 7–9). Wisdom is necessary so that humanity may become capable of understanding the demands of the Law. The rapprochement between σοφία and πνεῦμα serves to explain even better the relationship between wisdom and Law. Prophetic tradition, above all texts like Jer 38[31TM]:33–34 and Ezek 36:26–29 (see also Joel 3:1–2 [2:28–29]), spoke of the necessity of interiorizing the Law. That, however, cannot come about if God himself does not intervene with His spirit in man’s heart, enabling him to grasp God’s will 29 See Gilbert, “Volonté de Dieu,” 154. Already in Wis 6,4 νόμος and βουλή θεοῡ were connected. 30 See Nuria Calduch-Benages, “‘Beati siamo noi’: La sapienza di Israele, dono di Dio e luce per l’umanità (Bar 3,9–15.32–4,4),” in La Bibbia si apre a Pasqua, ed. Jean-Pierre Sonnet (Rome: Gregorian and Biblical, 2016), 133–53; Maurice Gilbert, “La loi chemin de sagesse” in La loi dans l’un et l’autre Testament, ed. Camille Focant, LeDiv 168 (Paris: Cerf, 1997), 93–109. 31 See Paul Beauchamp, L’uno e l’altro Testamento (Brescia: Paideia 1985), 163.

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expressed in the Law itself. The interiorization of the Law announced by Jeremiah is brought to fulfillment according to Ezekiel thanks to the gift of the Spirit.32 In Wis 9:17, therefore, the spirit reminded by Ezekiel is linked precisely to wisdom, which assumes, in light of Wis 7–8, the value of an inner moral strength that God grants to man so that he may comprehend his Law (see above). Wisdom appears for the last time in the book in chapter 10. There, the author reflects on the story of eight just men, from Adam to Moses, rereading a lengthy series of Torah/Pentateuch texts (Genesis–Exodus). Salvation’s protagonist is not God but His wisdom (τῇ σοφίᾳ ἐσῷθησαν; 9:18c). Although texts of the Pentateuch are used to form the narrative structure and details, Moses is not presented as a key character, nor does the narrative use language to remind one of the Law or its precepts. In the Book’s third part, besides the references in 16:6.11 already recalled, wisdom disappears from 11:1 onwards.33 The Law is explicitly recalled, in particular in 18:4, where νόμος means the Mosaic Torah. In that text, besides the possible relationship to the Stoic idea of natural law,34 the Law is presented through the metaphor of light. Such presentation creates an further bond with wisdom as presented in the Book’s central part. The light metaphor is precisely that which characterizes wisdom in 6:12 and 7:29–30 (although 7:29 states that, in effect, wisdom is more resplendent than light). Such a metaphor suggests the existence of a link between the two realities: both wisdom and the Law are “light” and, therefore, a guide for the one who embraces it, ideally for the whole world.

5 The Book of Wisdom: Proposal of a New Paradigm In a study on Proverbs 1–9, Bernd Schipper observes that in speaking of “Sapientialisierung der Tora,” three different aspects can be distinguished: first, in light of Deuteronomy 4 and 6, wisdom appears as one of the categories with which to understand the Torah. Second, in light of Proverbs 8, wisdom appears as an independent entity that takes the place of the Torah. Finally, as it occurs in Psalms 19 and 119, the Torah is described in sapiential categories (as it also is, according to Schipper, in

32 See the conclusions of Gilbert, “Volonté de Dieu,” 165–66, repeated in Helmut Engel, Das Buch der Weisheit (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1998), 159–62. 33 See Chrysostome Larcher, Le livre de la Sagesse, 3: 653. 34 See Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” passim.

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Prov 6).35 If we follow Schipper’s analysis, the Book of Wisdom, in line with Proverbs 8, certainly considers wisdom as an independent entity and does not assimilate it to the Law, from which wisdom is distinct.36 However, on the tracks of Ben Sira and Bar 3:9–4:4, Wisdom’s author does make a close connection between wisdom and Law, although presenting it neither as an alternative way nor as taking the place of the Law. The Law offers humanity the possibility of following God’s will and of fulfilling justice within a cosmos governed, ultimately, by wisdom.37 Underlying the abovementioned passages of Wisdom, particularly Wis 9:13,17, is the implied question, both theological and anthropological: is a human being capable of grasping through his own capacity God’s will? The answer is offered in Wisdom by rereading the theology of prophetic texts regarding the new covenant (Jermiah 34) and the new heart/spirit (Ezek 36). The Law needs wisdom to be properly understood and carried out. For the Sage, the Law is not reducible to a series of precepts, even if (as in Wis 2:12) a certain normative aspect is not to be excluded; rather, the Law is inserted into a salvation narrative (as already happens in the five books of the written Torah!), one that is also looking toward the future and thus lays the foundation of the eschatology that characterizes the Book’s first part. The Law is a light that, at least ideally, is destined for the whole world (see 18:4) and accessible, in a certain measure, to all human beings; such a universalistic presentation of the Law is a notion that in some way resonates with the Stoic idea of “natural law.” Martin Hengel observed that the main reason for the rapprochement between wisdom and Law, beginning with Ben Sira, is the encounter with Hellenism. Hebrew wisdom could have resisted Hellenism only by attaching itself to the Law.38 The Book of Wisdom leads us, in my opinion, to overturn Hengel’s thesis: it is the Law that can resist the challenges of the Hellenistic world by attaching itself to wisdom, and that Law in the Book of Wisdom, in light of the Hellenism itself, acquires a clearer cosmological dimension, linked to the “spirit” but also to the logos (see above, 3.1). Thus, the Law, as in Wis 18:4, can also become light for the world. Since wisdom is 35 See Bernd U. Schipper, “Die Sapientialisierung der Tora” in idem, Hermeneutik der Tora: Studien zur Traditionsgeschichte von Prov 2 und zur Komposition von Prov 1–9, BZAW 432 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 264–66. 36 Conclusions shared by several authors. See for example Dieter Georgi, “Weisheit Salomos,” JSHRZ III/4 (1980): 391–401, at 395: “Sap kennt auch nicht die Gleichsetzung von Weisheit und Gesetz.” 37 See Schaper, “Νόμος and Νόμοι,” 302. David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, AB 43 (New York: Doubleday, 1979), at 42–43, exaggerates when talking about wisdom as archetype Torah and defining Torah teachings as “tokens of the Divine Wisdom”; Winston’s thought is in reality influenced by his view that the Book of Wisdom, as Philo, is influenced by Middle Platonism. 38 See Martin Hengel, Giudaismo e ellenismo, trans. S. Monaco (Brescia: Paideia, 2001), 328–31 = Judentum und Hellenismus, 3d ed., WUNT 10 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988); see esp. 348–60 for the development of that idea in Rabbinic and Pharisaic Judaism.

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the assurance of “incorruptibility” (see Wis 6:17–20), so also is the Law an “incorruptible (ἄφθαρτον) light.” Shortly thereafter, Philo shall endeavor to reread Mosaic Law in light of the Stoic idea of the “natural law” and to put it in the relationship not so much with wisdom but rather with the divine Logos. As in Wisdom, as it was already the case in Ben Sira, Philo also links the Law to very idea of creation, projecting it backward to God’s very creative act and to the Sinai event.39 The problem of the relationship between wisdom and Law is analogous to that of the balance between creation and Sinai that was so intensely felt during Hellenistic times from Ben Sira onwards. As G. Boccaccini rightly notices, already in Ben Sira the relationship between wisdom and Law is asymmetric. The Law is a historical manifestation of a pretemporal wisdom, one that exists before the Law and that has an autonomous status, whereas the Law exists in connection with human beings and, in particular, from the perspective of the covenant with Israel.40 That is true even more so for the Book of Wisdom. Therefore, it appears to be a moot question of whether in Wisdom, the Law was incorporated by wisdom or the contrary, i.e., that wisdom has acquired the characteristics proper to the Law. It also appears reductive to consider that wisdom would belong to the domain of immanence whereas the Law to that of transcendence. Wisdom, as described in the Book of Wisdom, is at the same time immanent and transcendent. Wisdom, even if available to humanity, comes from God.41 Between wisdom and Law exists a certain circularity or, better, an inclusion.42 To look for wisdom is at the same time to look for the sense of the world (see Wis 7:17–20) but also for God himself (wisdom is an initiate in the knowledge of God; 39 On Philo’s concept of “Law,” see John W. Martens, One God, one Law: Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Graeco-Roman Law, SPhA 2 ( Leiden: Brill, 2003); Cristina Termini, “Dal Sinai alla creazione: il rapporto tra legge naturale e legge rivelata in Filone di Alessandria,” in La rivelazione in Filone di Alessandria: natura, legge, storia: Atti del VII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su Origene e la Tradizione Alessandrina, ed. Angela M. Mazzanti and Francesca Calabi (Villa Verrucchio: Pazzini, 2004), 159–91. On the difference between Philo’s conception and that of the Book of Wisdom, see Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 45–50. 40 See Gabriele Boccaccini, Il medio giudaismo (Genova: Marietti 1993), 60. 41 See the views of Hartmut Gese, Zur biblischen Theologie, BEvT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), 73 on Sir 24: “Weisheit und Tora, Schöpfungswort und Offenbarungswort, Transzendenz und Immanenz kommen hier zur Einheit.”. 42 I repeat here the conclusions of Bonora, “Il binomio sapienza-Torah,” 48 (translation is my own): “Torah and wisdom are not (. . .) like two separate and opposing cities; the same way Israel and the world (. . .). To seek wisdom is not only to seek the sense of the world but also to seek God; to observe the Torah is not only to obey a revelation, but to live human experience obeying God. Between Torah and wisdom exists neither separation nor succession or development, but an inclusion. Transcendent wisdom for its divine origin, but immanent and operating in creation like a ‘bond’ between God and the world (Prov 8), has dwelt in Israel, ‘incarnating’ in the Torah (Sir 24)

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see Wis 8:4). Thus, to seek the Law is to obey a divine revelation but also to live the human experience obeying God. Wisdom, understood as a form of universal knowledge, communicates its universality to the Law, not without taking into account, at the same time, that the Law is first and foremost Israel’s patrimony.43 Nevertheless, that which characterizes the identity of Israel, “your people” (see Wis 19:22), is not only the Torah but also a wisdom that touches the whole sphere of the relationship between God and humanity. The universalism of the Book of Wisdom is sincere, as sincere is its humanistic attitude, influenced by Greek philosophy, particularly Stoicism, and the Sage’s attachment to Israel’s tradition.44 It is a balance not easy to maintain, but one that leads Wisdom’s author to reread the Law in light of the concept of wisdom more than simply to present it with the characteristics of the Law or as its rival.

Bibliography Blenkinsopp, Joseph,. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Boccaccini, Gabriele. Il medio giudaismo. Genova: Marietti, 1993. Bonora, Antonio. “Il binomio sapienza-Torah nell’ermeneutica e nella genesi dei testi sapienziali (Gb 28; Pro 8; Sir 1.24; Sap 9).” Pages 31–49 in Sapienza e Torah: Atti XXIX Settimana Biblica Italiana. Edited by Francesco Festorazzi. Bologna: EDB, 1987. Calduch-Benages, Nuria. “‘Beati siamo noi’: La sapienza di Israele, dono di Dio e luce per l’umanità (Bar 3,9–15.32–4,4).” Pages 133–53 in La Bibbia si apre a Pasqua. Edited by Jean-Pierre Sonnet. Rome: Gregorian and Biblical, 2016. Collins, John J. Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Edwards, Matthew. Pneuma and Realized Eschatology in the Book of Wisdom. FRLANT 242. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012. Engel, Helmut. Das Buch der Weisheit. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1998. Finan, Thomas. “Hellenistic Humanism in the Book of Wisdom.” ITQ 27 (1960): 30–48. Gese, Harmut. Zur biblischen Theologie. BEvT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989. Gilbert, Maurice. “La structure de la prière de Salomon.” Bib 51 (1970): 301–33. Gilbert, Maurice.“Volonté de Dieu et don de la Sagesse (Sg 9,17s).” NRTh 93 (1971): 145–66. Gilbert, Maurice.“L’éloge de la Sagesse – Sg 7–9.” Pages 33–36 in La Sagesse et Jésus-Christ. Edited by Maurice Gilbert and Jean-Noël Aletti. CaE 32. Paris: Cerf 1980.

and acting in Israel’s history as a divine gift (Wis 9), becomes accessible to human freedom, operating religiously and ethically (Job 28 and Sir 1).” 43 See Gian Luigi Prato, “Sapienza e Torah in Ben Sira,” RStB 10.1–2 (1998): 129–51, esp. 148–51. 44 See Thomas Finan, “Hellenistic Humanism in the Book of Wisdom,” ITQ 27 (1960): 30–48.

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Gilbert, Maurice. “La relecture de Genèse 1 à 3 dans le livre de la Sagesse.” Pages 323–44 in La Création dans l’Orient Ancien: Congrès de l’ACFEB, Lille 1985. Edited by Louis Derousseaux. LeDiv 127. Paris: Cerf, 1987. Gilbert, Maurice. “La loi chemin de sagesse.” Pages 93–109 in La loi dans l’un et l’autre Testament. Edited by Camille Focant. LeDiv 168. Paris: Cerf 1997. Gilbert, Maurice. “Wisdom of Solomon and Scripture.” Pages 606–17 in Hebrew Bible / Old Testament, The History of Its Interpretation, Volume I, From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (Until 1300). Edited by Magnus Sæbø. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000. Glicksman, Andrew T. “‘Set your Desire on my Words’: Authoritative Traditions in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 167–84 in Scriptural Authority in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity. Edited by Isaac Kalimi, Tobias Nicklas, and Géza G. Xeravits. DCLS 16. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. Hengel, Martin. Judentum und Hellenismus. 3d ed. WUNT 10. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988. Larcher, Chrysostome. Etudes sur le livre de la Sagesse. Paris: Gabalda, 1969. Larcher, Chrysostome. Le livre de la Sagesse ou la Sagesse de Salomon. 3 Vols. EBib 1, 3, 5. Paris: Gabalda, 1983–1985. Leproux, Aléxis. Un discours de sagesse: Etude éxègetique de Sg 7–8. AnBib 167. Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2007. Martens, John W. One God, One Law. Philo of Alexandria on the Mosaic and Graeco-Roman Law. SPhA 2. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Marucci, Corrado. “La rilevanza sapienziale della Torah nel Quarto Libro dei Maccabei e negli scritti di Flavio Giuseppe.” Pages 83–90 in Sapienza e Torah: Atti XXIX Settimana Biblica Italiana. Edited by Francesco Festorazzi, Bologna: EDB. Mazzinghi, Luca. “La memoria della legge nel libro della Sapienza.” In Torah e Kerygma: dinamiche della tradizione nella Bibbia: Atti della XXXVII Settimana Biblica Nazionale, Roma 9–13 settembre 2002. Edited by Innocenzo Cardellini and Ermenegildo Manicardi. RStB 16.1–2 (2004): 153–76. Mazzinghi, Luca. “Testi autorevoli di epoca ellenistica in analogia con gli scritti biblici. Un esempio illustre: il libro della Sapienza.” In Israele fra le genti in epoca ellenistica: un popolo primogenito cittadino del mondo. Edited by Gian Luigi Prato. RStB 27.1 (2015): 157–76. Mazzinghi, Luca. “Law of Nature and Light of the Law in the Book of Wisdom (Wis 18.4c).” Pages 37–60 in Studies in the Book of Wisdom. Edited by Géza Xeravits and Joszéf Zsengellér. JSJSup 142. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Mazzinghi, Luca. “‘I loved [Wisdom] and sought her from my youth: I desidered to take her for my Counsellor’ (Wis 8,2a): Solomon and Wisdom: An Example of Closest Intimacy.” Pages 229–52 in Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature. Edited by Angelo Passaro. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Yearbook 2012–2013. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. Mazzinghi, Luca. “The Figure of Moses in the Book of Wisdom.” Pages 183–206 in Canonicity, Setting, Wisdom in the Deuterocanonicals. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits, József Zsengellér, and Xaviér Szabó. DCLS 22. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Mazzinghi, Luca. Weisheit. IEKAT. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2018. Monsengwo Pasinya, Laurent. La notion de nomos dans le Pentateuque grec. AnBib 52. Roma: PIB, 1973. Neher, Martin. Wesen und Wirken der Weisheit in der Sapientia Salomonis. BZAW 333. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2004. Prato, Gian Luigi. “Sapienza e Torah in Ben Sira: meccanismi comparativi culturali e conseguenze ideologico-religiose.” RStB 10.1–2 (1998): 129–51. Ramond, Sophie. “Loi et justice dans les deutérocanoniques du corpus de sagesse (Siracide et Sagesse de Salomon).” Pages 246–61 in Loi et justice dans la littérature du Proche-Orient ancien. Edited by Olivier Artus. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2013.

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Scarpat, Giuseppe. Quarto libro dei Maccabei. Brescia: Paideia, 2006. Schaper, Joachim. “Νόμος and Νόμοι in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 293–306 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of “Torah” in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Schipper, Bernd U. Hermeneutik der Tora: Studien zur Traditionsgeschichte von Prov 2 und zur Komposition von Prov 1–9. BZAW 432. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. Schnabel, Eckhard J. Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul. WUNT 16. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985. Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger. “Weisheit und Gerechtigkeit in der Sapientia Salomonis – mit einem Ausblick auf die Politeia Platonis.” Pages 129–59 in Gesellschaft und Religion in der spätbiblischen und deuterokanonischen Literatur. Edited by Friedrich V. Reiterer, Renate Egger-Wenzel, and Thomas R. Elßner. DCLS 20. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Termini, Cristina. “Dal Sinai alla creazione: Il rapporto tra legge naturale e legge rivelata in Filone di Alessandria.” Pages 159–91 in La rivelazione in Filone di Alessandria: natura, legge, storia. Atti del VII Convegno di Studi del Gruppo Italiano di Ricerca su Origene e la Tradizione Alessandrina. Edited by Angela M. Mazzanti and Francesca Calabi. Villa Verrucchio: Pazzini, 2004. Winston, David. The Wisdom of Solomon. AB 43. New York: Doubleday, 1979.

Lydia Gore-Jones

Sofia and Nomos in the Wisdom of Solomon 1 Introduction The relationship between wisdom and law in the Wisdom of Solomon must inevitably be examined against the background of Jewish life within a Hellenised world. The convergence of wisdom and torah that is often observed in many Second Temple Jewish texts was, to a large extent, an outcome of the dynamic interaction of Judaism with the dominant Hellenistic culture surrounding it. John Barclay very helpfully outlines three general types of Jewish responses to pagan dominance: assimilation by abandoning salient Jewish cultural traits; acculturation by adopting elements of Hellenistic values and practices into a Jewish framework; or accommodation by conforming to the Greco-Roman social, political and even intellectual life while maintaining their unique religious and cultural identity.1 Indeed, Jewish writings in this period reflect constant tension between preserving Jewish heritage and identity, on the one hand, and participating in life in a Gentile world, on the other.2 However, it would be mistaken to think that Jewish responses were either passive acceptance or intense resistance; there were also critiques of pagan cultures and active promotion of the Jewish way of life unto the Gentile world. In Gruen’s words, “they unabashedly called attention to their own characteristic features.”3 It is unsurprising, then, that on the intellectual plane, wisdom, which is a universal concept, and Mosaic torah, which represents Jewish particularity, should become the foci of Jewish endeavours to commend their unique way of life. One common strategy is identifying wisdom with Israel’s torah. A good example is Sirach 24, where the universally acknowledged and praised wisdom is overtly designated as the law of Moses, even the “book of the covenant” (Sir 24:23).4 What constitutes 1 John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE –117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 92–101. 2 David A. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 60. 3 Erich S. Gruen, “Judaism in the Diaspora,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, ed. John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 77–96, here 86. 4 Abundant works have been written on the relationship between wisdom and torah in Sirach. See the long list in Benjamin G. Wright, “Torah and Sapiential Pedagogy in the Book of Ben Sira,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 157–58, n. 3. Lydia Gore-Jones, St Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Theological College, Australia https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-007

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torah in Ben Sira’s mind, of course, still calls for further clarification.5 It has been observed that Ben Sira’s teaching does not directly relate to torah issues in the Mosaic covenant or Deuteronomic laws (e.g. Deut 29:20–21), nor does Sirach adopt the Deuteronomic ideology.6 Nevertheless, Sirach is consciously identifying the universal Wisdom to be the Israel-particular Mosaic torah, even if torah is used in an iconic or symbolic sense. Torah and wisdom are closely intertwined in many writings in the Second Temple period. Two apocalyptic works, 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, composed towards the end of the first century, demonstrate both the sapientialisation of the Mosaic tradition and at the same time a complete submission of the wisdom tradition under Mosaic authority.7 By “sapientialisation” I mean that torah is spoken about in sapiential rather than legal or cultic terms. But wisdom is also subsumed into a Judaism which is increasingly becoming another name for the Mosaic religion, a process which could be termed the “torahization” of wisdom, as observed in Qumran sapiential texts.8 This phenomenon itself is arguably a result of Judaism’s strengthened self-definition under the pressure of the Hellenistic “globalisation.” Making the universal wisdom identical with the torah of Moses, however, is far from the only strategy in Jewish engagement with the world, as the anonymous Alexandrian Jewish sage, who wrote the Wisdom of Solomon (also known as the Book of Wisdom) sometime between the second century BC and the first century AD, shows us.9 The Mosaic tradition plays a minimal role; instead, the author aligned himself with Israel’s Solomonic tradition, in the footsteps of Proverbs, Qoheleth, and Song of Songs. Solomonic wisdom serves not only as the interface with the universal Sofia, but also as the very expression of the Jewish way of life. Unlike the Wisdom of Ben Sira, which makes the universal wisdom identical with the torah of

5 Wright op. cit. observes that torah in Sirach is still a “malleable concept” (159; 168). 6 See JiSeong J. Kwon, “Re-Examining Torah in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Was Hellenistic Wisdom Torahised?,” in The Early Reception of the Torah, ed. Kristin De Troyer, Barbara Schmitz, Joshua Alfaro, and Maximilian Häberlein, DCLS 39 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), 93–120. 7 Lydia Gore-Jones, “Torah as Wisdom in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch,” JSJ 52 (2021): 388–416. 8 As in the studies by William A. Tooman, “Wisdom and Torah at Qumran: Evidence from the Sapiential Texts,” in Schipper and Teeter, Wisdom and Torah, 203–32, and Elisa Uusimäki, Turning Proverbs towards Torah: An Analysis of 4Q525, STDJ 117 (Leiden: Brill, 2016). 9 On the dating, see David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 43 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1979), 20–25. Winston suggests 37–41 CE, during the reign of Caligula, when there were riots in Alexandria against the Jews, who lost their legal status of protection and were declared “aliens and foreigners,” thus risking expulsion. This view is supported by Samuel Cheon, The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation, JSPSup 23 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 125–45. John J. Collins, however, questions whether the book can be tied to specific events, and dates it 30 BCE–70 CE. See his Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 179.

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Moses, the Wisdom of Solomon does the opposite way; it presents what Israel possesses as the universal wisdom commended to the whole world. Not only is Wisdom not equated with Torah, the “law” in our book is also given a universal outlook and not the ethnically particular law of Moses.

2 Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon What kind of book is the Wisdom of Solomon? Ultimately, it is a book of praise and exhortation: praise of God and his dealings with his created world and exhortation for Jews and interested Gentiles to live a righteous life in the knowledge of God.10 The discourse is carried out within the domain of Wisdom and not Law, in accordance with the “sapiential milieu” which Jews in the Second Temple period from Alexandria to Palestine inhabited.11 Wisdom is the common hermeneutical construct,12 or the very platform on which such questions as the right conduct of life and human potential were asked, answered, and debated.13 The Wisdom of Solomon must be considered a participant within such dialogues and debates. The structure of the book also demonstrates the mediating function of Wisdom in the author’s agenda. The book is generally divided into three parts. Part 1, often called the Book of Eschatology, approximately chapters 1–6, is hortatory in genre and compares and contrasts the behaviours and outcomes of the righteous and the wicked. At the centre of the whole book, Part 2 is the so called Book of Wisdom, consisting of approximately chapters 7–10. It is an encomium or praise of Wisdom, which includes a pseudo-autobiographical account of Solomon, although he is never explicitly named. Part 3, the Book of History, covering chapters 11–19, is epideictic in genre. Through a rework of the Exodus account, it serves as a demonstration of

10 I agree with Michael Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical and Biblical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), that the author had two intentions in mind: as encouragement to Jews to hold fast to their way of life, which is shown in no way inferior to non-Jewish philosophies, and as “a bid to gain approval for the Jewish cause and an invitation to learn what makes Jewish wisdom not only distinctive but compelling” (179). 11 Christine Hayes, What’s Divine About Divine Law? Early Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 94. 12 Using here the term of Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament, BZAW 151 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980). 13 In the words of Joseph Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 169, commenting on the book’s approach, “to place the Jewish religion within a broad philosophical context intelligible to educated contemporaries is, in some respects, remarkably innovative.”

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God’s dealing with the righteous and unrighteous nations.14 That Wisdom serves as the hermeneutical lens and that the author’s actual thesis is God and his philanthropia (his love of humanity) can be detected from the beginning and ending of the book.15 It opens through an exhortation addressed to (imagined?) “rulers of the earth” to seek God: “love righteousness,” “think of the Lord,” and “seek him” (1:1; NRSV). It ends with a direct praise to God, “in everything, O Lord, you have exalted your people, and you have not neglected to help them at all times and in all places” (19:22; NRSV). With the Book of Wisdom at the chiastic centre, the Book of Eschatology and the Book of History echo each other through a common binary scheme juxtaposing the godly and the ungodly, on an individual level first and then on a corporate, national level. Close connections between the two parts are made through the use of the same vocabulary.16 Τhe godly man in the Book of Eschatology is “righteous” (δίκαιος; 2:10, 12; 4:7, 16; 5:1, 15 in plural), counted “among the sons of God” (ἐν υἱοῖς θεοῦ), and “among the holy ones” (ἐν ἁγίοις; 5:5), even a “child of the Lord” (παῖδα κυρίου; 2:13) whose father is God (πατέρα θεόν; 2:16). The same terms are used in the Book of History to describe the implied Israelites, “the righteous” (δικαίοις; 18:7), “holy nation” (ἒθνος ἅγιον; 17:2), God’s own people (σου τὸν λαὸν; 12:19; 16:2, 20; 18:7, 13; 19:5, 22), and “holy ones” (τοῖς δὲ ὁσίοις σου; 18:1, 5), even God’s “sons” (τοὺς υἱούς σου; 12:19, 21; 16:10, 26; 18:4) and “children” (οἱ σοὶ παῖδες; 19:6). Clearly, righteousness is defined in relational terms, as a close relationship with God. These two parts are joined together by the Book of Wisdom to show how God’s philanthropic project is achieved through his Wisdom. The book’s presentation of Wisdom would make a universal appeal in the Alexandria of the time, one being found familiar to Greeks and Egyptians alike. The most striking feature is the personification, even hypostatization of Wisdom,17 also presented in relational terms. She is a glorious noble lady who sits by God’s throne (Wis 9:4), whom Solomon desired to take for his bride (8:2). She understands God’s inner thoughts and knows all his works (9:9). Through her the cosmos was created, governed, maintained, and judged (9:1–9). She certainly resembles the Egyptian goddess Isis, a revealer, saviour figure, or Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom,

14 The tripartite division is generally agreed upon, but there are numerous variations on where exactly the parts begin due to the fact that the sections are sophisticatedly interlocked with each other. See Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, 9–12; also Collins, Jewish Wisdom, 179–80. 15 On the theme of divine judgment and mercy, see Moyna McGlynn, Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom, WUNT II/139 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). 16 For a more detailed survey, see Greg Schmidt Goering, “Election and Knowledge in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Studies in the Book of Wisdom, ed. Geza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér, JSJSup 142 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 163–82, esp. 163–66. 17 DeSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha, 148.

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an associate and counsel with the chief deity.18 It was common in both ancient Greece and Israel to bestow abstract concepts and entities with personal attributes (e.g., nemesis for retribution; tyche, for fortune; virgin Israel; daughter of Zion).19 Dame Wisdom, however, is endowed with attributes of Israel’s creator God himself, hence the second striking feature, that is, the presentation of Wisdom as God’s spirit, “holy,” “immortal,” and life-giving pneuma (Wis 1:6–7; 7:7, 22; 9:17; 12:1). At the same time the term pneuma calls to mind the Stoic concept of the nous (mind or intellect) of the universe, and the logos, the active principle of the cosmos, pervading all things and holding all things together, and having knowledge of all things (1:7). Thus she is described almost as God himself, omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. The intimate, inseparable relationship with God is described as “breath of the power of God,” “emanation of the glory of the Almighty,” his very “reflection,” “spotless mirror,” and “image” (7:25–26). Yet she is also extremely close to humankind, “passing into holy souls” and “making them friends of God and prophets” (7:27). Wisdom, then, represents God’s immanent presence among humans and the bridge that connects humans with God. Despite using philosophical notions and concepts, the Wisdom of Solomon is not doing philosophy, but presenting wisdom in the biblical tradition. The voice of the one who has attained Wisdom and is now teaching rulers over the whole world about her is none other than Solomon. Plato may have lofty ideas about the philosopher-king (Resp. 5.473c–d), but such an ideal king is only found in the history of Israel, a nation of royal priesthood (Exod 19:6; 23:22 LXX). As a matter of fact, it turns out that for the sage, the true “rulers of the world” refer to the righteous and the lovers of Wisdom, of whom Solomon stands as a representation. In an interesting sorites, or chain argument, the sage states: The beginning of Wisdom (αὐτῆς) is the most sincere desire for instruction (παιδείας), and concern for instruction is love of her, and love of her is the keeping of her laws, and giving heed to her laws is assurance of immortality (ἀφθαρσίας), and immortality brings one near to God; so the desire for wisdom leads to a kingdom. Therefore if you delight in thrones and sceptres, O monarchs over the peoples, honour Wisdom, so that you may reign forever. (Wis 6:17–21)

This sorites sheds light upon the question of who “rulers of the earth” are supposed to be, whom the book addresses in its opening. It is hard not to identify the 18 DeSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha, 149; Lester L. Grabbe, Wisdom of Solomon (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), 75–76. 19 Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law, 158.

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“monarchs over the peoples” here as the righteous that have been depicted earlier, who were contrasted with the lawless wicked. They are directly the opposite of the wicked, who rebel against Wisdom’s laws and sin against their own paideia (Wis 2:11–12). Here in the sorites of chapter 6, the “monarchs over the peoples” are precisely identified as those who desire paideia and keep Wisdom’s laws. Also just like the righteous, who are previously said to have the hope of immortality (ἀθανασίας; 3:4), the “monarchs over the peoples” are assured of incorruption (ἀφθαρσίας; 6:18). The righteous are described in regal terms, as well. According to the sage, they “will govern nations and rule over peoples” (3:8); even though they may die from persecution, yet “they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord” (5:16). Their reward is described in the language of a king’s coronation. So it seems kingship is used symbolically, and it is in this way the commendation of Wisdom by the unnamed Solomon, Israel’s renowned king, is for everyone, not only actual, specific rulers in the author’s time.20 Hellenistic rhetoric may have envigored the composition and philosophy provided the vocabulary – see, for example, the hymn of Wisdom’s twenty-one (7x3) attributes (Wis 7:22–24)21 – but the sage’s inspirations are from Jewish scriptures. In the Book of Eschatology, the conflict between the righteous and the wicked recalls deeply the numerous individual lament psalms in the Book of Psalms, but it is presented from the wicked man’s point of view instead of the perspective of the psalmist. The righteous one under persecution also parallels the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. In the Book of Wisdom, the autobiographical monologue is based on Solomon’s prayer and legends about him in the Book of Kings (1 Kgs 1–10 // 2 Chr 1–9).22 Dame Sofia finds herself in the character of Lady Ḥokmah in Proverbs 8

20 Here I differ from Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 192, where, although he recognises Solomon here as a “paradigm man,” he conceives Wisdom in the book to have special concerns for rulers. The emphasis on Solomon being just like any other common human being (Wis 7:1–6) actually reinforces the idea that Wisdom is for all who are righteous, and the righteous are true “monarchs of the peoples.” 21 Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, 178. These epithets are largely borrowed from Greek philosophy, especially Stoicism; see David Winston, “Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in In Search of Wisdom: Essay in Memory of John G. Gammie, ed. Leo G. Perdue, Bernard B. Scott, and William J. Wiseman (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 149–64, esp. 152. 22 The author’s main biblical sources in the quasi-autobiography of Solomon (7–9) are the succession narrative (1 Kgs 1:1–2:12), the request for wisdom (3:1–15), the Temple narrative (5:1–8:66), Solomon’s knowledge of the world and wealth (9:15–10:29), and the visit of the Queen of Sheba (10:1–13). But on how the Book of Wisdom adapted the Solomon material in 1 Kings, see Moyna McGlynn, “Solomon, Wisdom and the Philosopher‐Kings,” in Xeravits and Zsengellér, Studies in the Book, 61–81.

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and Sirach 24,23 albeit elevated to new heights.24 Even the resemblance with Ma’at and Isis was first already detectable in the image of Lady Ḥokmah in Proverbs 8;25 therefore, it could be argued that the direct influence on Pseudo-Solomon’s Dame Sofia is from Israel’s wisdom tradition rather than Egyptian religions. Another striking similarity with Proverbs 8 is how Lady Ḥokmah associates herself closely with “kings” ‫מלכים‬, “rulers” ‫רזנים‬, “princes” ‫שׂרים‬, and “nobles” ‫( נדיבים‬Prov 8:15–16), designations for both Israelite and foreign rulers;26 yet three verses later Wisdom speaks about her favour with those who have “righteousness,” “justice,” and “love for her” (Prov 8:20–21), very much the same traits of those favoured by Dame Sofia in the Book of Wisdom.27 This influence of Proverbs should again remind one not to read the “rulers of the world” in Pseudo-Solomon literally as the intended audience. In the Book of History, the synkrisis, or comparison and contrast of the godly and ungodly nations, is a reconfiguration of the Exodus account, now used to teach a wisdom lesson. Most significantly, Dame Sofia is identified as the one who delivered the righteous through the sacred history in the Pentateuch: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and the Israelites. What was exclusively the work and power of God in scriptures is now (also) accredited to Wisdom. The sacred history is used to illustrate the fashion in which the Wisdom of God teaches, through guidance and chastisement of both the righteous and wicked, although to different outcomes. This sapientialisation of biblical history, according to Blenkinsopp, makes Pseudo-Solomon “a kind of treatise which is really sui generis.”28 However, these specific characters and events taken from Jewish scriptures are presented as general models, rather than particulars. We may compare the Wisdom of Solomon with the Wisdom of Ben Sira. In Sirach, Wisdom dwells in Zion, but in 23 Sirach was more likely an influential, older contemporary but not considered scripture by Pseudo-Solomon. 24 It is noticeable that, while in Proverbs 8 Lady Ḥokmah is juxtaposed with a “femme fatale,” the “foreign” woman that stands for alluring but deviant foreign cults (Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law, 159), Dame Sophia in our book does not have a negative counterpart. 25 On Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and Egyptian goddesses, see Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 54; also Marko Marttila and Mika S. Pajunen, “Wisdom, Israel, and Other Nations: Perspectives from the Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanonical Literature, and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” JAJ 3 (2012): 2–26, esp. 7, n. 16. 26 In particular, ‫ רזנים‬denotes foreign officials only. See Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18A (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 273. 27 In “Wisdom, Israel and Other Nations,” 8, Martilla and Parjunen also comment on the “universal” characteristic of Wisdom in Proverbs 8: “From v.17 onward, it becomes obvious that not only kings and other mighty men, but anyone can enjoy the fruits of wisdom.” 28 Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law, 172. On Pseudo-Solomon’s presentation of biblical history, see also Andrew T. Glicksman, Wisdom of Solomon 10: A Jewish Hellenistic Reinterpretation of Early Israelite History through Sapiential Lenses, DCLS 9 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011).

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Pseudo-Solomon, Wisdom dwells in the individual soul (Wis 7:27; 10:16) and penetrates the entire cosmos (8:2). In Sirach, the eight-chapter long hymn to the fathers names every single prominent ancestor worthy of mention in the Hebrew Bible up to Ben Sira’s own time, but in Pseudo-Solomon all characters are unnamed, even Solomon himself, thus serving as general types that may find realisation in any individual and nation. The binary division is drawn between godly and ungodly, rather than Jews and Gentiles.29 While Sirach uses historical figures to hymn the nation, Pseudo-Solomon uses them to hymn divine Wisdom. Wisdom is national without being nationalistic. To have knowledge of God is wise and holy. The opposite is foolish and wicked. It is the pious Jew who really possesses Wisdom; however, the same Wisdom is universally commended to all.

3 Law in the Wisdom of Solomon Just like Wisdom is presented through the lens of divine Wisdom and human folly, a distinction is also drawn not between Jewish law and Gentile law, Mosaic law and non-Mosaic law, but between divine law and human lawlessness.30 Nomos is closely associated with Wisdom, but plays an implicit role, and is subordinated under Wisdom. Knowledge of divine law, like the other goods such as ontology, cosmology, physics, astronomy, biology, botany, esoteric knowledge, all human arts and crafts,31 the full range of human science and philosophy in the catalogue in Solomon’s speech (Wis 7:17–22), is a gift bestowed upon human beings by Wisdom. In his English translation of the book, David Winston wisely makes a distinction between Dame Wisdom (in uppercase) and wisdom (in lowercase) which can be acquired by humans.32 It is in the latter sense that law can be called wisdom, which is learned and not transgressed (6:9), “taught” (6:10) and “instructed” (6:11), as torah in the sense of teaching and instruction in the Israelite wisdom tradition. Divine laws then can be called “her laws” (6:18), laws of Wisdom that lead her disciples to immortality and to God (6:18–19). Nomos in the Wisdom of Solomon is not Israel-specific; what nomos requires applies to both Israelites and Gentiles. Actually, the term is used to refer more to

29 See Michael Legaspi’s critique of the commonly used terms for the polar opposition of “particularism versus nationalism,” which he finds alien to the author and his world; Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 180–81, instead suggests human wisdom versus divine wisdom. 30 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 188. Legaspi’s original words are “divine law and human law.” 31 Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, 172; cf. also his “Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon,” 156–57. 32 See his translation of σοφία in 3:11; 6:9; 7:7, in Wisdom of Solomon.

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the Gentiles than to Israelites, and predominantly in a negative sense, as in ἀνομία “lawlessness,” or ἀνομήματα “lawless deeds” (Wis 1:9; 2:11–12; 4:20; 5:7, 23; 6:4; 14:16; 17:2). Therefore, although Law is not defined directly, through the author’s description of what constitutes lawlessness, it is still possible to establish a definition indirectly. In Chapter 2, such a definition is offered through the self-portrait of the lawless ones in a speech-in-character. The traits of ἀνομία are ignorance about divine purposes and the eternal hope of holiness due to unsound reasoning (2:1–5, 22), extravagance in material pleasures, drunkenness, and debauchery (2:6–9), and using violence to oppress others (2:10–11). In another speech-in-character of the lawless ones, they are portrayed as “shaken with dreadful fear” at their judgement (5:2). Fear is also a trait used repeatedly about the implied Egyptians in the Exodus account (17:4, 6, 9, 11, 14). Thus it seems that the sage defines lawlessness as ignorance, intemperance, injustice, and cowardice. These are very much universal vices, recognised, for example, in Plato’s Republic (10.609b). In contrast to the vices, the virtues are also expressed as self-control, prudence, justice, and courage (Wis 8:7). These again are terms recognisable in Plato’s Republic (4.426–435). This has led some to identify law in the Book of Wisdom as the Stoic concept of natural law νόμος φύσεως,33 fundamental moral principles underlying all human legislation of different nations.34 But the ultimate distinction the righteous man has from the lawless man is the former’s “knowledge of God,” and thus being “a child of the Lord” he is protected by God in life or after death, with hope “full of immortality” (Wis 2:13–20; 3:1–10). Indeed, one of the book’s major thesis statements repeated many times is that God protects the righteous and no torment will touch them (2:20; 3:1, 9; 4:15; 5:15–16; 19:22). Nomos, therefore, hinges upon true knowledge of God; Israel alone possesses this knowledge perhaps, but such knowledge is commended to everyone. The line is drawn between righteous and unrighteous, godly and ungodly, rather than between Jewish uniqueness and the rest of the world. Although nomos is not explicitly defined in Pseudo-Solomon, we may perhaps reach a clearer understanding through a comparison with his contemporary, Josephus. In his Against Apion, Josephus offered a fierce defence of the Jewish way of life, and the only term he used to describe the way of life of his people is

33 See Luca Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature and Light of the Law in the Book of Wisdom (Wis 18:4c),” in Xeravits and Zsengellér, Studies in the Book, 37–59, esp. 39, 42; cf. also Winston, “Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon,” 157. 34 Thus I disagree with Joachim Schaper, who thinks that “law” even in these parts of Wisdom of Solomon refers to the Pentateuch, whereas “laws” refers to the commandments found in the Mosaic Torah; see “Νόμος and Νόμοι in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in Schipper and Teeter, Wisdom and Torah, 293–306, esp. 301.

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nomos.35 For Josephus, the nomos given by Moses the legislator encompasses the entire Jewish way of life, and is equivalent to torah.36 But more specifically, he defines nomos as follows: [W]e possess laws that are extremely well designed with a view to piety, fellowship with one another, and universal benevolence, as well as justice, endurance in labours and contempt for death. (Ag. Ap. 2.146)37

Moreover, he specifies that the purpose of the nomoi is to implant a true belief about God, for all virtues, “justice, moderation, endurance, and harmony among citizens in relation to one another in all matters,” are all parts of piety, and all laws “have reference to piety towards our God” (2.169–71). Further, Josephus compares the nomos of his ancestral tradition with the “philosophies,” naming Plato and the Stoics, regarding them as “members of the same class” with the Mosaic torah.38 The Mosaic torah is superior only because it is “so perfectly designed as to inculcate in all of its receivers correct doctrine about God as well, which the others fail to do owing to their esotericism.”39 Josephus could proudly say: We have introduced others to an enormous number of ideals that are, at the same time, extremely fine. For what could be finer than unswerving piety? What could be more just than to obey the laws? (Ag. Ap. 2.293)40

There are clearly observable commonalities between Josephus and Pseudo-Solomon in their understanding of nomos. In both cases nomos is defined as the cultivation of virtues, with the goal of knowing God. The Mosaic torah or the Jewish way of life is a model of true piety leading to wise living, commended to the whole world. Daniel Boyarin argues through the example of Josephus against the perception that the Jews had a unique way of marking themselves off from all other peoples “as a genus unto themselves.”41 Not all Second Temple writings would prove him right, but he would certainly find a strong support in the Wisdom of Solomon. 35 Daniel Boyarin, “Is There Jewish Law? The Case of Josephus,” in Looking for Law in All the Wrong Places: Justice Beyond and Between, ed. Marianne Constable, Leti Volpp, and Bryan Wagner (New York: Fordham University Press, 2019), 189–200, esp. 191. 36 Boyarin, “Is There Jewish Law,” 191. Boyarin uses Torah with a capital ‘T.’ I am using the lower case instead, to differentiate torah as a generalised term from Torah as the five books of Moses (‫)התורה‬. Torah in lower case certainly encompasses the written Torah, but is a much wider concept for Josephus. 37 Boyarin’s translation, “Is There Jewish Law,” 192. 38 Boyarin, “Is There Jewish Law,” 193. 39 Boyarin, op. cit. 40 Boyarin’s translation, “Is There Jewish Law,” 197. 41 Boyarin, “Is There Jewish Law,” 198.

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However, whereas Josephus identifies the nomos with Moses and defends Moses as legislator par excellence, Pseudo-Solomon makes both Moses and his law anonymous. Even in the three positive uses of the term nomos associated with the Israelites (Wis 16:6; 18:4, 9), there is a clear absence of connection with Mosaic Torah. Moses plays a minor role, unnamed and mentioned briefly only twice. He is “a servant of the Lord,” whose soul Wisdom entered to guide the people (10:16), and “a holy prophet,” who became Wisdom’s instrument to prosper their works (11:1). The recount of the entire Exodus narrative (11–19) otherwise shows God’s direct dealing with the “holy nation” and the “sinful nation.”42 The summative account of Wisdom’s salvific deeds in Chapter 10 ends with the crossing of the Red Sea, thus “excluding the giving of the Law at Sinai,” and so does the elaborate synkrisis which employs seven antitheses (11:1–14; 16:1–19:22) to illustrate how Egypt was punished while Israel benefited measure for measure.43 In both cases Moses and the receiving of the Torah on Mount Sinai are completely circumvented.44 This has led Legaspi to comment that “Wisdom of Solomon does not accord the written law revealed at Sinai a significant role in the national wisdom of the Jewish people. The theatre of wisdom’s activity is markedly, deliberately pre-Sinaitic.”45 In this context, even the positive use of “law” associated with the Israelites (Wis 16:6; 18:4, 9) seems to refer to the universal teaching of Wisdom rather than Mosaic Torah. Verse 16:6 occurs in the third antithesis, showing how the Egyptians are slain by poisonous bites of insects, but the Israelites are healed from the attack of venom of serpents through the bronze serpent – “a symbol of deliverance” (16:5–14). This symbol, says the sage, is to “remind” the Israelites of God’s law, by which he refers to none other than the principle that through the same means in creation God punishes and saves. The people cannot possibly be “reminded” of Mosaic Torah here, for logically speaking it has not been revealed yet.46 Similarly, verse 18:9 appears in the context of the sixth antithesis (18:5–25), where the firstborn of the Egyptians are destroyed whereas the Israelites are unharmed through making the common sacrifice of the Passover lamb, thus “with one mind set forth the divine law that the holy ones should share alike in both blessings and dangers.”47 Here the “divine law” refers back to the moral of the story explained in verse 8: that by the same means God punishes the ungodly and glorifies his own children.

42 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 188. 43 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 188. 44 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 188. 45 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 188. 46 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 190. 47 Winston’s translation; Wisdom of Solomon, 313.

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The only use of “law” in the Wisdom of Solomon that has the potential to mean Mosaic torah is Wis 18:4,48 found within the fifth antithesis (17:1–18:4), where the Egyptians are terrified by darkness, whereas the Israelites are illumined by the pillar of fire. The sage thus concludes, “well did those others deserve to be deprived of light and imprisoned in darkness, since they kept your sons captive, through whom the imperishable light of the Law (τὸ ἄφθαρτον νόμου φῶς) was to be given (ἤμελλε . . . δίδοσθαι) to the world.”49 Three factors might support the Mosaic torah interpretation. Firstly, light is a well attested biblical metaphor for torah (cf. Prov 6:23; Ps 119:105; Isa 2:3–5);50 secondly, the verse indicates a future framework for the giving of the Law;51 and thirdly, it also attests to the common notion of Israel’s obligation to spread the torah to Gentile nations.52 However, the question remains what the sage could mean here by torah. Even in the biblical texts where the torah as light metaphor is used, the meaning of torah remains ambiguous and multivalent. A comparison with Isa 42:1–8 could perhaps shed light on the meaning of torah in Wis 18:4 within the fifth antithesis (17:1–18:4), since Pseudo-Solomon shows clear influence from the Book of Isaiah, and the light and darkness metaphor is ubiquitous in the latter. In the fifth antithesis of Wisdom, the unnamed Egyptians as generalised Gentile nations are called “lawless men” and their situation is portrayed as prisoners shackled by darkness, locked in a dungeon, terrified, for sight is no longer visible, in anguish and panicking for there is no escape, being completely powerless, “all were bound by one chain of darkness” (17:18), “over them alone there stretched oppressive night, an image of the darkness which was to receive them; yet they were to themselves more burdensome than darkness” (17:21). This description seems to be an extensive version of the scenario into which God sends Israel with his torah, expressed in Isaiah (42:4; translated as “teaching” in NRSV), as a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness (Isa 42:7, NRSV).

The light of torah in Isaiah 42 refers to true knowledge of God as YHWH (Isa 42:6, 8), who is the creator of heaven and earth and the giver of spirit to human beings (42:5); true knowledge also means giving glory to God and not to idols (42:8). In the Wisdom of Solomon, idolatry and lack of knowledge of God as Creator indeed

48 So thinks Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 188–89. Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 41 thinks that it “certainly” refers to the Mosaic Law. 49 Winston’s translation; Wisdom of Solomon, 303. 50 Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 41–42. 51 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 191. 52 For evidence in biblical, Second Temple Jewish, and early rabbinic texts, see Winston, Wisdom of Solomon, 311–12.

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mark the distinction between the righteous and lawless. After the first antithesis, the sage digresses to speak emphatically on the origin and the evils of idolatry in contrast to the worship of the true God (13–15). Having provided a full catalogue of lawless deeds, he concludes that the worship of idols “is the beginning and cause and end of every evil” (14:27). This is the darkness that can only be dispelled by the light of torah. This comparison of Wisdom and Isaiah 42 shows that torah in both cases denotes monotheistic belief and worship; Israel alone has the knowledge, but through Israel (δι᾽ὦν, 18:4) it is to be shared as light with the whole world (τῷ αἰῶνι, 18:4).53 The God-centred approach to Wisdom and Law in the Wisdom of Solomon means the tension is ultimately drawn not between Israel and Gentiles, or particularism and universalism, but rather between divine and human.54 Law in Wis 18:9 is indeed called “divine law” (τὸν τῆς θειότητος νόμον). However, as Christine Hayes points out, divine law is conceptualised differently in classical and biblical traditions.55 Whereas in the biblical tradition divine law is divine because it is the expression of a personal being’s will, i.e., God’s will, and its authority is enhanced by the written form as codified instruction and legislation,56 divine law in the classical tradition cannot be the concrete, written rules made by men, but is identified with unchanging, universal truth accessible through reason.57 Jewish writings in the Second Temple period can be seen as various attempts to “bridge the difference between the universal law grounded in reason and the particular Mosaic Law grounded in will.”58 Both Legaspi and Mazzinghi interpret the law in the Wisdom of Solomon to be aligned with the divine law in the Hellenistic philosophical tradition. Legaspi recognises how our sage refers to human law as unjust (2:1), idolatrous (14:16), deriving from cultural norms or expectations (2:12), or arbitrary judgements made by rulers (9:5). These examples conform to the Platonic notion that, unlike divine law based on reason and consistent with just moral order, human law “originates in human perceptions, is not reliably rational, and is subject to the vagaries of human character.”59 On the other hand, Mazzinghi notices that, despite the fact that “in none of the passages in which our sage speaks of the law does he use any of the expressions which could make 53 See also Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 41. 54 Thus I agree with Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 180–81: the dichotomy of particularism and universalism “is more a reflection of modern analytical categories than a structural feature of the book’s wisdom theory.” 55 Hayes, What’s Divine. 56 Hayes, What’s Divine, 2. 57 Hayes, What’s Divine, 3–4. 58 Hayes, What’s Divine, 95. She analyses Sirach, 1 Enoch, and Qumran as Palestinian examples and Aristeas, 4 Maccabees, and Philo as Hellenistic examples, but does not cite Wisdom of Solomon. 59 Legaspi, Wisdom in Classical, 189–90.

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us pinpoint a direct philosophical influence,”60 there is nevertheless strong affinity between law in Wisdom and the Stoic concept of divine law. Divine law according to Stoicism emphasises its close connection with κόσμος and λόγος;61 the law in Wisdom, despite its national flavour, also has a strong universal overtone, and lawlessness is consistently presented as unsoundness of reason (λογισάμενοι οὐκ ὀρθῶς, 2:1; cf. 1:3; 2:21; 17:12–13). However, divine law in Wisdom does not stop at appealing to reason as the highest authority and drastically departs from what constitutes divine in a pantheistic sense. Instead, the source of divine law is God the Creator of the cosmos and the bestower of sound reason to humans. The sage does not see universal law as generated from natural orders, but as created and used by God for pedagogy and justice for human beings. Nomos in Pseudo-Solomon, then, encompasses the concept of the divine law of Hellenistic philosophy in terms of its universality and conformity to reason, but is also elevated to divine will as its origin.

4 Conclusion It has been argued that the purpose of the Book of Wisdom is to assert the Jewish faith and way of life in a Greco-Roman world. How, then, does the sage bridge the gap between the Hellenistic and biblical traditions? I argue that he is not trying to strike a balance between particularism and universalism62 or to adapt Judaism to the Hellenistic context. Nomos is not identified as the written Law of Moses, the Book of Commandment as in Sirach. Rather, nomos in Pseudo-Solomon is the universal divine law–redefined. What Israel has learned through the teaching of Dame Wisdom from their sacred history is the divine law for all humanity; that is to say, monotheistic knowledge of God and a way of life accordingly. What Dame Wisdom does is to instruct this law to the world.

60 Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 54. 61 Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 42–45. 62 This is the view of Mazzinghi, “Law of Nature,” 57.

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Bibliography Barclay, John M. G. Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE –117 CE). Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996. Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Boyarin, Daniel. “Is There Jewish Law? The Case of Josephus.” Pages 189–200 in Looking for the Law in All Wrong Places: Justice Beyond and Between. Edited by Marianne Constable, Leti Volpp, and Bryan Wagner. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019. Cheon, Samuel. The Exodus Story in the Wisdom of Solomon: A Study in Biblical Interpretation. JSPSup 23. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997. Collins, John J. Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997. DeSilva, David A. Introducing the Apocrypha: Message, Context, and Significance. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002. Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 18A. New York: Doubleday, 2000. Glicksman, Andrew T. Wisdom of Solomon 10: A Jewish Hellenistic Reinterpretation of Early Israelite History through Sapiential Lenses. DCLS 9. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011 Goering, Greg S. “Election and Knowledge in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 163–82 in Studies in the Book of Wisdom. Edited by Geza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér. JSJSup 142. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Gore-Jones, Lydia. “Torah as Wisdom in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.” JSJ 52 (2021): 388–416. Grabbe, Lester L. Wisdom of Solomon. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997. Gruen, Erich S. “Judaism in the Diaspora.” Pages 77–96 in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism. Edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. Hayes, Christine. What’s Divine About Divine Law? Early Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Kwon, JiSeong J. “Re-Examining Torah in the Wisdom of Ben Sira: Was Hellenistic Wisdom Torahised?” Pages 93–120 in The Early Reception of the Torah. Edited by Kristin De Troyer, Barbara Schmitz, Joshua Alfaro, and Maximilian Häberlein. DCLS 39. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020. Legaspi, Michael. Wisdom in Classical and Biblical Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Marttila, Marko and Mika S. Pajunen. “Wisdom, Israel and Other Nations: Perspectives from the Hebrew Bible, Deuterocanonical Literature, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” JAJ 3 (2012): 2–26. Mazzinghi, Luca. “Law of Nature and Light of the Law in the Book of Wisdom (Wis 18:4c).” Pages 37–59 in Studies in the Book of Wisdom. Edited by Geza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér. JSJSup 142. Leiden: Brill, 2010. McGlynn, Moyna. Divine Judgement and Divine Benevolence in the Book of Wisdom. WUNT II/139. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. McGlynn, Moyna. “Solomon, Wisdom and the Philosopher‐Kings.” Pages 61–81 in Studies in the Book of Wisdom. Edited by Geza G. Xeravits and József Zsengellér. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Perdue, Leo G. Wisdom Literature: A Theological History. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007. Schaper, Joachim. “Νόμος and Νόμοι in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 293–306 in Wisdom and Torah. Edited by Bernd Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Sheppard, Gerald T. Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament. BZAW 151. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980.

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Tooman, William A. “Wisdom and Torah at Qumran: Evidence from the Sapiential Texts.” Pages 203–32 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Uusimäki, Elisa. Turning Proverbs towards Torah: An Analysis of 4Q525. STDJ 117. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Winston, David. “Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon.” Pages 149–64 in In Search of Wisdom: Essay in Memory of John G. Gammie. Edited by Leo G. Perdue, Bernard B. Scott, and William J. Wiseman. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993. Winston, David. The Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 43. Garden City: Doubleday, 1979. Wright, Benjamin G. III. “Torah and Sapiential Pedagogy in the Book of Ben Sira.” Pages 157–86 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period. Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013.

Part III: Wisdom & Torah in Legal Discourse

Mark Sneed

Explaining the “Confluence” of Biblical Wisdom and Torah: An Anthropological and Rhetorical Approach 1 Introduction It appears to be still the consensus among biblical wisdom literature experts that the wisdom writers would not represent the same authors as the legal material in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, the sages, a professional group of wise men, are viewed as having been, if not anti-cultic, which would pit them against the priests, but, at least, non-cultic or generally disinterested in the legal corpus. With the consensus position, the wisdom corpus represents a type of literature that expresses a different worldview than that reflected in the legal corpus, one that is less sacerdotal or cultic and more rationalistic and universalistic. Thus, priest is pitted against sage. My aim in this essay is to counter such an assumption and show how the differences between the legal and sapiential corpora are merely those of literary conventions that treat distinctive niches1 within the world of ancient Israel’s elite and the broader culture and that the composers of the wisdom corpus could have, in fact, been largely the same group as the scribes who produced the legal corpus or, at the least, they would have received the same scribal training.2 My overall approach will be anthropological but with a bent toward the rhetorical, focusing on how common values shared by the two corpora are expressed distinctly, yet in a complementary and not antagonistic way. I would be amiss if I did not mention three significant other attempts to explain the relationship between the biblical legal and sapiential literature. The three

1 Martin J. Buss, “Dialogue in and among Genres,” Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies, ed. Roland Boer, SemeiaSt 63 (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), 9–19, at 13 states: “The Hebrew Bible is largely arranged according to what appear to be culturally significant genres, which each represent a dimension of life and which engage metaphorically in a dialogue with each other.” 2 See my “Is the ’Wisdom Tradition’ a Tradition?” CBQ 73 (2011): 50–71; cf. Charlotte Hempel, “Wisdom and Law in the Hebrew Bible and at Qumran,” JSJ 48 (2017): 155–81, who has demonstrated a confluence between Proverbs 1–9 and the Community Rule; on the current debate about the wisdom “tradition,” see the articles in Mark Sneed, ed., Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies, AIL 23 (Atlanta: SBL, 2015). Mark Sneed, Lubbock Christian University, USA https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-008

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figures are Joseph Blenkinsopp, Bernard Jackson, and Rodney Hutton.3 First, we start with Blenkinsopp. His book, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament: The Ordering of Life in Israel and Early Judaism, is certainly seminal and important. As one can tell from the subtitle, Blenkinsopp saw a clear relationship between the two literary corpora in that both were about placing order on the chaos of societal life. But I am going to argue that what they share is much deeper than this, that is, they share the very same authors (or type of authors)! Though Blenkinsopp saw a real correlation between the corpora, he was careful to clarify that they still represented distinctive traditions. He used the hydrological analogy of the two traditions as two streams that were separate but running parallel until in later times they finally united and, in a confluence, formed one stream, as represented by the book Sirach, where wisdom and Torah largely go hand in hand.4 He connects them early, during the pre-monarchic period, though still existing separately, by speculating that the African practice today of the timely citation of a proverb in a forensic setting could have happened similarly in ancient Israel.5 He also connects the deed-consequence connection (Tun-Ergehen-Zusammenhang) of the wisdom literature with the similar connecting of behavior and consequences in the biblical case laws and concludes, “In such a society, then, law is simply a specialization of tribal wisdom.”6 But this is as close as Blenkinsopp gets to linking the two traditions originally. Similarly, Bernard Jackson, British lawyer turned biblical scholar, brilliantly argues that the birth of early “law” in ancient Israel had its roots in an oral, “wisdom” milieux, whose adjudicators were considered inspired. Only later were these “codes” coopted by “wisdom circles”7 or scribes who transformed these oral, “self-executing” “wisdom-laws” into sophisticated literary products that were simultaneously

3 Other notables who have recognized a strong affinity between biblical wisdom and law include Erhard Gerstenberger, “Covenant and Commandment,” JBL 84 (1965): 38–51; Moshe Weinfeld, “Deuteronomy: The Present State of Inquiry,” JBL 86 (1967): 249–62; Jack T. Sanders, “When Sacred Canopies Collide: The Reception of the Torah of Moses in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, JSJ 32 (2001): 121–36; cf. Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, “Scribal Wisdom and Theodicy in the Book of the Twelve,” in In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of John G. Gammie, ed. Leo G. Perdue, Bernard Brandon Scott, and William Johnston Wiseman (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), 31–49. 4 Joseph Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament, OBS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 4. 5 Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law, 10 refers to “law scribes” or scribal legal experts in reference to Jer 8:8–9 (“the false pen of the scribes”) and then connects this to Sirach as legal expert and sage, but why could not this have occurred earlier? 6 Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law, 80. 7 Bernard S. Jackson, Wisdom-Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

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theological.8 His classic example of one of these self-executing wisdom-laws is Exod 22:2.9 I will include v. 3, but Jackson sees it as a scribal expansion and clarification of the wisdom-law, a law that originally needed no explanation attached: If a thief is found breaking in and is struck so that he dies, then there is no bloodguilt for him. 3 But if the sun is shining upon him, then there will be bloodguilt for him. (Exod 22:2–3)10

2

Jackson argues that verse 2 is a wisdom-law that is short, originally oral, and easy to  memorize, like a proverb. It is self-executing because it assumes a narrative context that presumes the stereotype of a thief breaking in usually at night. Thus, there is no need to include the stipulation about a daytime burglary (v. 3), which Jackson views as simply a typical legal expansion, reflecting a literary context and not an oral, rural context that the v. 2 assumes. V. 2, then, would be a self-executing wisdom-law that needs no court and that all parties would know and use to decide a case involving burglary. But the two verses together as we have them represent a later stage when legal norms have become elite, scribal literary products, perhaps used in scribal training and perhaps in courts. The problem with Jackson’s thesis is that the assumption of oral laws is totally speculative. All we have are the scribal products.11 I would add that the assumption of an originally oral wisdom milieux behind the current biblical wisdom literature is also just as speculative. The “proverbs” in Proverbs are highly artistic literary products that are even identified by the superscriptions as epigrams, not folk proverbs. But, also, Jackson’s basic intuition that there is common origin and strong relationship between the biblical legal and wisdom corpora is correct. It is just that there is a simpler and better explanation than he gives. Another significant interpreter is Rodney Hutton, who, like Blenkinsopp and Jackson, sees a close connection between the biblical wisdom literature and legal corpus. However, Hutton differs from them by clearly rejecting the notion that the two streams of traditions converged only late. He maintains the convergence occurred as early as the Deuteronomic tradition and states:

8 See Bernard S. Jackson, Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law, JSOTSup 314 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 70–92; idem, Wisdom-Laws, 3–74, 443, 464, 476. 9 See Jackson, Semiotics of Biblical Law, 75–77; idem, Wisdom-Laws, 290–312. 10 Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. 11 See Jeffrey Stackert, Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16, JSS 54 (2009): 271–72; Assnat Bartor, Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16, RBL 3 (2009); cf. G. I. Davies, Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16, JSOT 31 (2007): 188; Nathan MacDonald, Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16, VT 59 (2009): 506.

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Because of their common epistemological commitments, wisdom and Torah were from the beginning closely related, and their confluence (if indeed they were every understood to be separate) was essential to their common nature. In fact, the question of whether postexilic Judaism was characterized by a legalizing of wisdom or rather by a sapientializing of Torah is flawed by presuming too great a distance between the basic epistemological commitments of the two . . . the priest’s tôrâ, the prophet’s dābār, and the sage’s ‘ȇṣā are much more closely intertwined than is often assumed and are in fact reflexes of one another.12

He also interestingly speaks of a charisma of order connected with wisdom. However, Hutton is beset by the paradigmatic assumptions of wisdom experts of his time, and so he assumes that the epigrams in Proverbs were originally oral and from popular culture (not elite). I would similarly argue that the two traditions are reflexes of the other but that this is because they were composed by the same professional group of people (scribes) who were trained in both modes13 of literature (legal and sapiential) – a much simpler explanation.14

12 Rodney Hutton, Charisma and Authority in Israelite Society (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 183–84. 13 On modes of literature, see Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982). 14 In Mesopotamia, legal texts were studied as well as sapiential, divinatory, and other types of literature by student scribes; for Mesopotamian scribal schools and curricula, see Laurie E. Pearce, “The Scribes and Scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), 4: 2265–78; cf. Niek Veldhuis, “Sumerian Proverbs in their Curricular Context,” JAOS 120 (2000): 383–87; Piotr Michalowski, “Sumerian Literature: An Overview,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson , 4: 2279–91; on Syrian and Hittite scribal schools and curricula of the Late Bronze Age, see Yoram Cohen, The Scribes and Scholars of the City of Emar in the Late Bronze Age, HSS 59 (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009); idem, Wisdom from the Late Bronze Age, WAW 29 (Atlanta: SBL, 2013); as for ancient Israel, see Simon B. Parker, “The Literatures of Canaan, Ancient Isreal, and Phoenicia: An Overview,” in Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, ed. Jack M. Sasson 4: 2399–2410; Sara J. Milstein, “Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: The Independent Logic of Deuteronomy 22:25–27,” JBL 137 (2018): 625–43 argues that certain “laws” in Deuteronomy closely resonate with pedagogical, fictive, legal texts in Nippur, used by scribes to tease out legal principles and develop a type of legal theory; she also suggests that since certain acrostic Psalms and Proverbs were likely copied by Israelite scribes, so were these kinds of legal texts (p. 639); similarly, William M. Schniedewind, The Finger of the Scribe: How Scribes Learned to Write the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 151–58 speculates that legal texts, as well as other genres, were studied in the advanced Israelite scribal curriculum, whereas wisdom texts were studied in the elementary level; on the comparative scribal curricula of ancient Greece, the ancient Near East, and ancient Israel, see David M. Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); cf. Karel Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); for a broad review of ancient Near Eastern scribal training and curricula and its relation to Israelite scribalism, see Mark Sneed, The Social World of the Sages: An Introduction to Israelite and Jewish Wisdom Literature (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 67–182; on evidence for scribal “schools” in an-

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2 An Anthropological Approach to the Sanctioning of Values Both corpora are all about the reinforcement of cultural values, especially in view of Israel forming an honor-shame society.15 A good way to approach this issue is to view values as reinforced in various ways, depending on how strongly the values are held and how highly they are ranked. This involves a continuum between three anthropological concepts. The following (Table 1) is a graphic way to express this16: Table 1: Continuum of the Enforcement of Values.

Here, starting with a folkway, the values are increasingly reinforced more stringently. A folkway is a norm that if violated would only entail a mild disapproval from a fellow citizen. In modern Western cultures, examples would include chewing food with your mouth open, burping out loud in a formal setting, or wearing shorts to a funeral. As one can tell, these involve mild violations, so the penalties are informal and not extreme, either a disapproving glance or perhaps gossip. The legal corpus does not address folkways but the wisdom corpus does.

cient Israel, see Chris A. Rollston, Writing and Literacy of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence form the Iron Age, ABS 11 (Atlanta: SBL, 2010); André Lemaire, “Sagesse et ecoles,” VT 34: (1984): 271–83. 15 On the feasibility of applying the honor-shame grid to the Israelite culture, see Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, eds., Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible, Semeia 68 (1995); three of the articles focused on the Hebrew Bible; two were by New Testament scholars; two anthropologists responded to the articles (one positive; one negative). For a recent volume devoted to the honor-shame world of the Bible, see Zeba A. Crook, ed., The Ancient Mediterranean Social World: A Sourcebook (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020). The classic anthropological texts on honor-shame cultures are J. G. Peristiany, ed., Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, The Nature of Human Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966; repr. Midway, 1974); J. K. Campbell, Honour, Family, and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974). 16 This notion of a continuum goes back to William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1906).

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This is because what is considered taboo and enforced more formally and severely is the focus of the legal material, in contrast to the wisdom literature. Here is an example of a folkway: When you sit to eat with a ruler, indeed, consider what is before you. Set a knife to your throat, if you have an appetite. (Prov 23:1–2)

Here, this instruction cautions against relaxing too much before a ruler. Note that this instruction assumes that its reader is elite and would find himself, at least occasionally, before the powerful. He is cautioned to eat discretely, and, certainly, not to overeat and create the wrong impression. There is no serious penalty for violating this folkway, only that to do so would not be befitting or “wise” for an elite who seeks to advance in his career as an administrator. By the way, this context fits a scribal setting perfectly. Here is another example: Do not boast before the king, and do not stand in the place of the great. For it is better for one to say to you, “Come up here!” than to be placed lower, before the nobleman whom your eyes have seen. (Prov 25:6–7)

This instruction, similarly, cautions its reader to be careful before the great and to certainly not appear arrogant or as if the individual is on the same footing socially as the superior person. Better to be safe and appear humble and demurring. Again, violation of this folkway incurs no loss of life or imprisonment, but it may mean that one does not advance in one’s career as might be desired. Following the folkway implied here would also prevent unwanted gossip. Note, again, that the context fits a scribal one perfectly. Mores ratch it up to another level. Modern, Western examples of mores include things like watching pornography, committing adultery, and cheating on a test. Here we see that while the penalty for breaking mores does not involve imprisonment or a fine, the negative consequences are greater than for violating a folkway. If caught watching pornography, the consequences could be fairly dire, if you are married. Getting caught cheating on a test might mean a failing grade for a course or even suspension from the school. One might think that legal material in the Hebrew Bible would not address mores, but the line between mores and what is taboo and external, physical enforcement is fluid and permeable. In reality both the legal and sapiential corpora treat what might be called the domain of mores. The difference between mores and the legal sphere is determined by whether legal action is applied to enforce the norm or not. This would involve some sort of police force

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that had the power to enforce the values expressed in the legal codes. Raymond Westbrook and Bruce Wells put the difference succinctly: In modern legal theory, the distinction between legal rules and moral precepts is primarily a question of sanctions. Breach of law is met with an organized response of the society, in the form of coercive sanction, ranging from refusal to enforce rights engendered by the action to pecuniary and physical penalties. Breach of moral precept is met with disapproval by members of the society or a sanction by a suprasocietal being such as a deity.17

Of course, like most heuristic devices, the distinction between these two realms breaks down often in reality, and this is true for the Hebrew Bible. In fact, those places where the legal and the sapiential corpora merge and treat the same value is exactly where I want to focus in the essay. This will do two things. First of all, it will show that the differing corpora differ in degree but not kind; they are closely related, with it being a matter of applying more vigorous sanctioning, in general, in the case of legal matters. Second, it will provide an opportunity to tease out the particular rhetoric which each respective mode of literature employs in its attempt to reinforce cultural norms. This will help us see that we are dealing with two distinct types or modes of literature that differ because they are trying to do different things, even when they share the concern to reinforce morality. These differences are not evidence of a different social or professional group underlying the particular mode of literature. Rather, the differences simply point to the differing functions the two literary modes assume.

3 Is It a Law or Just Advice? In the following we will treat moral topics that are addressed by both corpora, revealing how they share but also differ in the way they treat the value.

3.1 Sobriety Drunkenness itself is not usually a crime or penalized with physical or financial penalty. But it can play a role in certain crimes. For example, in the US and other countries, one can be arrested for driving a motorized vehicle under the influence of a mind-altering substance, like alcohol. Similarly, in the Hebrew Bible drunken-

17 Raymond Westbrook and Bruce Wells, Everyday Law in Biblical Israel: An Introduction (Louisville: Westminster, 2009), 3.

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ness is treated both as a moral indiscretion as well as a taboo that entails legal consequences. The positive value, of course, is sobriety. We will start with the wisdom corpus: Wine is a mocker, beer a brawler. All who go astray by it are not wise. (Prov 20:1) It is not for kings, O Lemuel, not for kings to drink wine or for rulers, beer. (Prov 31:4)

In the first aphorism, wine and beer are both personified as a mocker or brawler. In other words, they are portrayed as agents that have the potential of bringing shame on the object of their insolence. In other words, the advice is that one should avoid alcohol as one would a potential slanderer in a challenge and riposte, a common mechanism in an honor/shame society, especially among males. So, no physical or pecuniary sanctioning here; only reasoning that supports avoiding such a situation as much as possible. In the second, which is an aphorism ensconced in a longer instruction warning about drunkenness and seductive women, the theme shifts from the undesirability of becoming drunk for an individual who values his reputation to its inappropriateness for a governmental leader, like an administrator or a high-level official, as symbolized by the word “king.” It also fits the context of elite scribes, who often functioned in such high roles. Again, failing to be sober does not issue in a severe pecuniary or physical punishment. Rather, for a high official to maintain his position, sobriety would help ensure that political and legal decisions were made fairly and appropriately. So, again, the rhetoric here is one of using reasoning and honor to persuade the reader that sobriety is certainly the best policy, especially in assuming the role of a high official. While the above maxims seem only to warn against instances of drunkenness, the next one goes further in implying a form of alcoholism and even an addictive personality: Neither be among wine-bibbers (‫ )סבא‬nor among the gluttonous (‫ )זולל‬eaters of meat. For a wine-bibber (‫ )סבא‬and glutton (‫ )זולל‬will be dispossessed, and slumber will clothe him in rags. Listen to your father, the one who begat you, and don’t despise your mother when she is old. (Prov 23:20–22)

Here drunkenness is connected with gluttony to indicate a profligate and dissolute lifestyle. Again, there are no penalties, only warnings about negative consequences, which are two: becoming dispossessed, which is what we today would call becoming homeless, and becoming poor, symbolized by the wearing of “rags.” This is an appeal to both avoiding shame and extreme poverty that might, in fact, lead to

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starvation and exposure. But, then, the instruction in the end invokes the reader’s parents, to heed their advice so as to not bring shame on themselves but especially the larger family unit. Here it is all about honor. We now turn to the legal corpora, which also “legislates” on the issue of sobriety for this same particular case: If a man has a rebellious (‫ )סורר‬and disobedient (‫ )מורה‬son, who does not listen to the voice of his father or mother, and they discipline him, but he will not listen to them, then his mother and father will seize him and bring him to the elders of his city, to the gate at that place. And they will say to the elders of his city, “Our son is rebellious (‫ )סורר‬and disobedient (‫)מורה‬, not listening to our voice, gluttonous (‫ )זולל‬and a wine-bibber (‫)סבא‬.” And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones; he shall die. And you will remove the evil in your midst; all Israel will hear and fear. (Deut 21:18–21)

Here the rhetoric changes. It is no longer about warning against the profligate, indolent, and insolent lifestyle, but the norm sobriety has become encased in a legal code that involves physical punishment, in this case a capital crime that necessitates the death penalty. The larger issue, however, is not drunkenness per se, but the son’s unwillingness to listen to his parents. This would be the epitome of disrespect and shame in a honor/shame culture that did not tolerate such nonconformity. Since the parents cannot control such a child, it is better to simply eliminate the problem and save the integrity of the family and regain its lost honorable status. This seems like an extreme response from our own modern Western perspective, but in an honor/shame culture the focus on the family as a whole and not the individuals within it, which are expendable if necessary to retain the honor of the household. Now, there is an implied rhetoric here, in that once this norm becomes taboo and, then, part of a “legal code,” its seriousness is emphasized and the threat of capital punishment would, no doubt, have been a strong incentive for the child to comply with his parents’ wishes. So, the “code” itself, depending on its widespread dissemination would function analogously to the sapiential advisory rhetoric, but only indirectly. In fact, Anselm Hagedorn has argued persuasively that this “code” was never intended to be enforced but was used mainly as a scare tactic to keep children under the subordination of their parents.18 The ending of the “code” indicates that fear of the consequences is intended as a deterrent. So, one sees the high premium placed on both honoring and respecting parents but also maintaining a sober and moderate lifestyle.

18 Anselm Hagedorn, “Guarding the Parents’ Honour – Deuteronomy 21.18–21,” JSOT 25 (2000): 101–21.

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Note also that the couplet “gluttonous (‫ )זולל‬and a wine-bibber (‫ ”)סבא‬is only found in the legal corpus and the wisdom literature.19 This would certainly be compatible with the view that the composers of both types of literature were essentially the same professional group: Israelite scribes. Further, we know from Mesopotamian examples that the copying and composition of legal “codes” was a typical scribal exercise used in their training. Many scribes may have served as judges or what we would call paralegals (cf. Deut 16:18–20; 2 Chr 19:4–11). It would make sense for them to learn this mode of literature and even intellectually engage the mode as an art and skill, as would be fitting for the scribal subculture.

3.2 Marital Fidelity Adultery is another of those areas where the Torah and wisdom literature seem to converge. Here we will start with the legal corpus before examining the sapiential. Adultery is, of course, within the domain of mores for our modern Western culture, but for ancient Israel it was definitely taboo and a capital offense. The high premium placed on this norm, marital integrity, is most likely due to the male insecurity about progeny and also because of the importance placed on the patrimony and its heirs. Adultery inherently interferes with all of these sacred institutions. An “heir” not sired by the head of the household could potentially claim the same rights on the patrimony that the genuine heirs held. The importance of this cultural norm, the martial integrity of the household, is indicated by its codification within the Decalogue, whose form is apodictic: “Do not commit adultery!” (Exod 20:14; Deut 5:18). This fits with the 10th commandment to not covet, among other things, a man’s wife. Again, it is adultery only because it involves one man interfering with another’s man’s wife. This is all viewed from the male’s perspective. Sex with a prostitute is tolerated because it does not involve property rights, even if there is a child conceived (e.g., Tamar; Solomon and the two prostitutes). Here there is no explicit penalty given but since the law is viewed as coming directly from the deity, one can ask whether such is necessary. The apodictic form exudes almost excessive authority on its own. But this prohibition is also found in the following casuistic forms, which makes it similar to other ancient Near Eastern legal “codes”:

19 While I laud Rebekah Welton’s anthropological approach to these two texts (‘He is a Glutton and a Drunkard’: Deviant Consumption in the Hebrew Bible, BI:AJCA 183 [Leiden: Brill, 2020], 278), I am unconvinced that the phrase should be translated as “deviant eater and drinker” and reflects anti-Yahwistic cultic behavior.

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When a man be found lying with the wife of another man, then they will die, indeed, the two of them, the man who laid with the woman and the woman. And you will thereby utterly remove the evil from Israel. (Deut 22:22) And a man who commits adultery with the wife of a neighbor, indeed, he will be killed, both the adulterer and the adulteress. (Lev 20:10)

Again, adultery is defined from the male perspective here, too, and there is an emphasis on it as a capital crime for both parties. There is no reasoning used here or rationale why one should avoid engaging in such activity, only the harshness of the penalty. But, again, the penalty itself is enough of a deterrent to make the reader or hearer of this “code” think twice before violating the sanctity of marriage. The following is a sapiential instruction that focuses not on the severe penalty of a capital crime, as in the legal corpus, but on the vengeance that the cuckolded husband might bring: He who commits adultery with a woman lacks sense, he destroys his life in doing it. Wound and shame he will find. His reproach will not be blotted out, for the jealousy spurs the hatred of the man. He will not spare on the day of vengeance. He will not accept any ransom. He will not be willing, though you increase the bribe (‫)שׁ ַֹחד‬. (Prov 6:32–35)

Here the rhetoric is clear: engaging in adultery is a very risky activity and should be avoided at all cost. Not capital punishment this time, but one faces the prospect of death at the hands of the adulteress’s husband. There is also the emphasis that money (or silver) will not help assuage the violated husband. Note also, at the beginning, that honor is invoked in that one who decides to engage in such risky behavior is described, literally, as not wise. This would resonate with any male Israelite but especially a scribe, whose whole goal is to become and remain wise, as well as pious. This would also be of interest to priests (or priestly scribes who studied such texts), who were forbidden to marry a prostitute and “defiled” (‫ )חלל‬or divorced woman because of their holy status (Lev 21:7). Of course, the theme of this small instruction is the same as the artistically crafted poem in Prov 7 about the adulterous woman, who seduces the young man “without sense.” The seductress’s charms are especially emphasized, and the seduction of the youth is portrayed as if he is being led into an animal trap whose entrails are pieced by an arrow or like a cow being led to the slaughter. This stereotype of the seductress is tantalizing, a true femme fatale, and it is as if the youth is almost completely powerless to ward off her advances. Also, in line with the death penalty

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that is referenced in the legal corpus’s version of this sanctioning, the “loose woman” here brings her victims “down low” (v. 26), which gets defined in the next verse as a “path to Sheol.” Again, the rhetoric is certainly very strong here, not unlike the coded norm in the legal material, where the gravity of the punishment is the motivator.

3.3 Impartiality We will start with the wisdom literature this time. Here are a couple of typical aphorisms that warn against taking a bribe: The wicked will take out a bribe (‫ )שׁ ַֹחד‬from the pocket to distort the way of justice. (Prov 17:23) A gift (‫)מ ָּתן‬ ַ will make opportunity for a person, and it will lead him before the great. (Prov 18:16)

Now it may seem that these two aphorisms contradict, but one must discern the differing statuses of the actors. The first maxim assumes that the actor is a high official or especially a judge and, thus, warns against corrupting oneself through the acceptance of a gift. The second maxim assumes a lower social position, a lower echelon administrator, like a scribe, who might have to use a gift from time to time to procure a hearing from a high official or powerful individual. This would have been common for many scribes.20 So, this would not represent corruption but merely “greasing the wheels” of a system that made it difficult to approach a noble or great person. But the general tenor of the first maxim certainly promotes the norm of being an impartial administrator. This is because corruption would serve to undermine the entire “legal” system. The rhetorical appeal of the first maxim is to honor, because in ancient Israel and the broader ancient Near East, officials, especially high ones, were expected to be above approach and “just,” i.e., righteous, which is nearly a synonym for “wisdom” in the wisdom corpus. Again, a scribe might easily find himself in either the situation of the first maxim or also of the second. As a judge, he should avoid any hint of corruption, but as lower order scribe he might have to do what it takes, not to bring about injustice, but to provide an opportunity for advancing his own career or appeal to a higher power for some favor. Obviously, an aphorism like Prov 18:16 has no parallel in the legal corpus. This is because this maxim treats the non-legal realm of mores on how to get along in an honor/shame culture, where “greasing the wheels” is sometimes necessary. The legal 20 See Sneed, Social World of the Sages, 47–48, 280–81.

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corpus, on the other hand, will only treat “legal” infractions and does not provide such advice for successfully negotiating the ins and outs of scribal advancement. Now for the legal corpus: Do not take a bribe (‫)שׁ ַֹחד‬, for the bribe (‫ )שׁ ַֹחד‬will blind clear-sighted ones (or officials) and pervert the cause of the innocent. (Exod 23:8) Do not “bend” justice; don’t show favoritism and don’t take a bribe (‫)שׁ ַֹחד‬, for the bribe (‫)שׁ ַֹחד‬ blinds the eyes of the wise and perverts the cause of the innocent. (Deut 16:19)

Note the almost verbatim wording of these two “codes.” Like in the wisdom corpus, these really are simply prohibitions regarding the taking of bribes and no penalty is ascribed to violation. The rhetoric here is really identical to that of the sapiential examples. In fact, Bernard Jackson refers to the Exodus verse as a proverb.21 These “codes” are warning against corruption and providing rationale for why one should not engage in such behavior. The appeal to honor is present in that those who are “clear-sighted” = “wise” do not want to be blinded, the opposite of being wise and, thus, foolish. So, the rhetorical appeal here is more about honor than anything else. This advice would have been certainly appropriate for scribes of whatever type. Avoiding corruption would be especially important for scribes that functioned as governmental administrators. A corrupt scribe or judge is here assumed to be a bad one. Interestingly, Blenkinsopp sees the change in terminology of the leadership between the Book of the Covenant and Deuteronomy as the imposition of one separate tradition into another: “By the simple substitution of ‘wise’ for ‘officials’ the Deuteronomic (Deut 16:19) has brought the sapiential tradition of Israel to bear on the administration of justice.”22 However, would not it make better sense to say that the same group of scribes or similar ones composed both legal “codes”? These two legal “codes” align with Jethro’s advice to Moses to delegate judicial authority and king Jehoshaphat’s charge to the newly installed judges to avoid accepting bribes: And you will select from among the people able men who fear God, truthful men who hate a bribe (unjust gain). (Exod 18:21a; cf. Deut 1:16) And now let there be the dread of YHWH upon you. Be careful what you do, for there is no injustice with YHWH our God or showing partiality or the taking of a bribe (2). (‫ שׁ ַֹחד‬Chr 19:7)

21 Jackson, Wisdom-Laws, 414. 22 Blenkinsopp, Wisdom and Law, 23.

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While these statements are simply part of the discourse in narratives, they function in a similar way to both the legal “codes” and the instruction in the wisdom texts. Here the deity is clearly aligned with impartiality and incorruption. “Fearing God” refers to piety and, of course, is intricately connected to the concept of wisdom in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Prov 1:7). The appeal is also to honor in both these statements: a selected judge must be honorable, impartial, pious, as well as wise. Again, these roles and qualifications resonate with the various positions that scribes assumed, but especially as governmental officials.

3.4 Honoring Parents Here, in these next examples, it is not just the content that is so strikingly similar but the form as well. Where they differ is in their rhetoric. We will start with the wisdom corpus first: ‫מקלל אביו ואמו ידעך נרו באישׁון חשׁך‬ He who curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be extinguished in deep darkness. (Prov 20:20) ‫גוזל אביו ואמו ואמר אין־פשׁע חבר הוא לאישׁ משׁחית‬ He who robs his father or his mother And says, “It’s no sin!” He is a companion of a thug. (Prov 28:24)

In Prov 20:20, the appeal is made to self-interest. Cursing or disrespecting parents, literally “to declare worthless,” or to publicly defame and disrespect one’s parents, will result in premature death.23 One’s lamp or life will literally be wiped out. Here there is an allusion made to either divine retribution in the form of sickness or an “act of God” or to capital punishment that is laid out in the legal corpus, as we shall see. Basically, the advice is that to publicly shame your family as a youth is not very smart. In fact, it’s downright dangerous. However, since this epigram was aimed at young apprentice scribes, originally, who would not be prone to such outrageous behavior, the advice here is more likely that one should be careful to train future children to be respectful to parents, which lies at the heart of an honor/shame culture. The epigram generally serves to reinforce a basic tenet of Israelite society, no matter how it might have been specifically applied.

23 See Bruce K. Waltke and Ivan D. V. De Silva, Proverbs: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021), 302–3.

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In Prov 28:24 we have not the cursing of parents or defaming them but robbing them. Perhaps this implies that the parents are old and incapable of handling their assets, so the children take advantage of the situation. Since the inheritance belongs to them anyway, they proclaim that it is no crime.24 But note the rhetoric. The appeal here is definitely to honor. A child who takes advantage of his parents financially is classified as no better than a thug, literally one who “cause violence (or destruction)”! This would place the individual in the category of a mocker or non-conformist, which in an honor/shame culture is socially located at the very bottom. The appeal to honor here would have been a significant motivator for a young scribe intent on furthering his career. Here are the biblical legal corollaries: ‫ומכה אביו ואמו מות יומת‬ And he who smites his father or his mother shall surely die. (Exod 21:15) ‫ומקלל אביו ואמו מות יומת‬ And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely die. (Exod 21:17)

With these the participial form of the verbs describing the offenses resonates with the same form in the sapiential examples. The difference, again, is in the rhetoric. Here, instead of warning about how cursing or robbing parents leads to dire results that should be avoided at all costs, the behavior of cursing or striking parents is defined now legally as a capital crime. The same exemplum of mores here is placed in a casuistic form with behavior and consequences that are enforced by the wider community. But, though the rhetoric is different, is it that different? To connect certain behaviors with capital consequences is actually doing largely what the examples from the wisdom corpus are doing. And, what is added rhetorically is the notion of a command coming directly from God, the ultimate sanction! However, it all depends on the audience, does it not? For a scribe, however, these “codes” would not simply be authoritative for them personally, to help them avoid behavior that had dire consequences. These “codes” would have served also as a ready resource if someday they themselves became judges or paralegals. In fact, for a scribe this would most likely have been one of their primary purposes, beyond helping them to become conversant with the particularities of the forensic domain. For a general audience such as the ancient Israelites, however, the rhetoric of the “codes” would be similar to what is found in the wisdom corpus: avoid at all cost behaviors that are defined as capital crimes.

24 Cf. Waltke and De Silva, Proverbs, 400.

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3.5 Protecting the Most Vulnerable In the Hebrew Bible one finds frequently a triadic formula that expresses concern for the widow (‫)אלמנה‬, orphan (‫)יתום‬, and alien (‫ )גר‬but also often the poor. These terms constitute social categories that represent the margins of society, the most vulnerable of persons.25 This is because these three categories lack any legal options if they find themselves in trouble. A widow indeed would not only lack a husband but also a son who could represent her in court. Orphans, of course, would have no rights or privileges. And the alien could either be a non-Israelite but most likely would be an Israelite from one tribe who was visiting another. What all three social categories have in common is the lack of legal representation in any court. Concern for the widow and orphan is common in other ancient Near Eastern texts as well.26 But Israel is unique in including the alien within this formula. Here is classic legal text: A stranger you shall not oppress. You shall not oppress them for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt. And every widow and orphan you will not oppress. If you oppress them they will cry out to me, and, indeed, I will hear their voice. And I will become very angry and will slay you with a sword. Then your wives will become widows and your children orphans. And when you lend to your brother, who has become poor by you, you will not be to him a usurer, and you will not place upon him your interest. And if you cause your neighbor to pledge with a garment, return it to him before the sun sets. For it is the only covering he has to keep warm by while he sleeps. If he cries out to me, I will hear it because I am merciful. (Exod 22:20–26)

These particular commands specifically engage the domain of mores and not laws with enforceable consequences for violation. To use anthropological terminology, these constitute externalized, informal, negative religious sanctions. This particular type of sanction relies traditionally on threats of punishment from this life (ancestor spirits) or the next to bolster their demands.27 Here divine retribution is appealed to instead of a court of law. The deity promises to hear the cries of the marginal if the wealthy Israelites abuse them. The mores are doubly enforced here. The Israelites are instructed not to oppress the stranger because they were once also strangers in Egypt. This is a version of the golden rule, and so the writer provides support for the command by referring to another accepted ethical principle, and a universal one at that. Another aspect 25 For the following treatment, see Mark Sneed, “Israelite Concern for the Alien, Orphan, and Widow: Altruism or Ideology?” ZAW 111 (1999): 498–507. 26 See F. Charles Fensham, “Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient Near Eastern Legal and Wisdom Literature,” JNES 21 (1962): 129–39. 27 William A. Haviland, Cultural Anthropology, 7th ed. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993), 330.

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of the rhetoric here is that if an Israelite mistreats an alien, he is no better than his archenemies the Egyptians! Similarly, for an Israelite to afflict an alien would call into question his very self-identity as a Hebrew whose ancestors arose from a similar marginal status. Note also that the command starts out in the apodictic form before switching to a casuistic form, though there is no real penalty except a threat from the deity. In other words, there is no fixed penalty, only a future threat and shame attached to the mistreatment of this category of people. Again, as we shall see, the rhetoric will be almost identical to the examples in the sapiential corpus because this domain is simply that of mores, not taboo or legal enforcement by a community. Instead it is about honor and external pressure from the community. Here are sapiential examples of a similar concern, though not in the triadic formula: The house of the proud the Lord will tear down. But He will establish the boundary of a widow. (Prov 15:25) Do not displace the ancient boundary, and in the fields of orphans do not go! For their protector is strong, He will bring their suit against you. (Prov 23:10–11) Open your mouth for the dumb, for the cause of all the destitute. Open your mouth, judge rightly, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. (Prov 31:8–9)

In Prov 15:25, a divine threat is also invoked, here in the contrast made between God destroying the house of the powerful or proud, while preserving the property of the vulnerable. Both shame and the fear of future divine retribution is invoked. The rhetoric is identical to that of the legal corpus, except that here it is not couched in the form of a legal “code” that came directly from the deity. In Prov 23:11 we find a case where a sapiential epigram invokes the rhetoric of the courts! The goel (‫ )גאל‬was usually a well-to-do male representative who could protect any kin who found themselves in dire straits, whether financially or legally. Here the goel is not human, as the term usually applies, but divine. YHWH himself pledges to defend the orphan who, literally, by definition, has no earthly goel. So, here the rhetoric also invokes both the possibility of future divine retribution but also shame. To take advantage of the most vulnerable in an honor/shame culture would be the worst of all possibilities morally. In modern colloquial, to do this would be the lowest of the low, i.e., the lowest of the scum! Again, no enforcement is in view except as possible future divine action, just as with the examples from the legal corpus.

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In Prov 31:8–9, king Lemuel’s mother, the Queen mother, advises him as king to serve as the protector or guardian of the poor, a broader term than that implied by widow, orphan, or alien. As a powerful and high official, the king would be expected to protect such vulnerable social categories. This is also a motif found throughout the ancient Near East and not just in Israel. For example, King Hammurabi claims that he had been installed as king of Babylonia “that justice might be dealt the orphan (and) the widow.”28 This also points to the king’s unique social position between the class of nobles and the poor. The king would need the support of the nobles but also the masses, whose numbers largely came from the poor and oppressed. So, stereotypically, a king or emperor sides with the poor over against the nobles, preserving an interested balance.

3.6 Preserving Land Rights In the previous section, we noted warnings against changing the boundaries of both the orphan and widow. Now we will exam this crime more generally, and the correlations between the examples from the legal and sapiential corpora are striking again. We will start with the wisdom literature first: Do not displace the ancient boundary marker, which your ancestors established. (Prov 22:28)

Note that the first colon (v. 22a) is what has been called a “twice-told proverb,” which is an identical variant of Prov 23:10a. These variants are evidence of scribal compositional production. At any rate, like an apodictic command in one of the legal corpora, this prohibition contains no hint of penalty or punishment or even sanction except the ethos that such a maxim exudes on its own. Here is a legal parallel: Do not displace the boundary marker of your neighbor – which the former generations established--upon your property, which you will inherit in the land that YHWH, your God, gives to you to dispossess. (Deut 19:14)

Here is the exact same prohibition except that the deity’s name is invoked, as well as a reference to the former generations who had established the boundaries. Are these the Canaanites? This seems to create a tension formed by this code being placed in the framework of Deuteronomy, when the Israelites have not yet taken the land. At any rate, the Israelites are also reminded that the land that these properties

28 ANET, 178.

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were on is a gift from the deity. All of these factors serve to rhetorically enforce the sanction here. Yet, the rhetoric is really not much different than in Proverbs.

3.7 Just Business Practices We will begin in the legal corpus again, this time in Deuteronomy as in the previous section: You shall not have in your bag differing weights, one heavy and another light. You shall not have in your house differing measures, one large and another small. You shall have full and just weights and you shall have a full and just measures in order that your days may be extended upon the land which YHWH, your God, is giving you. For it is an abomination (‫ )תועבת‬of YHWH, your God, all who do these, all who do injustice. (Deut 25:13–16)

Here, like the rhetoric about moving boundary markers, there is no penalty invoked. Rather, an appeal to justice and fairness or honor is made. The deity is mentioned again, this time with the taboo-invoking word “abomination.” So, here a taboo is being sanctioned as a law, yet no means of enforcement is given. This is because the form is apodictic again. However, two forms of motivation are given, usually typical for wisdom literature. First, there is the incentive that obeying this command will result in longevity. Second, disobeying this command will mean the deity will be disgusted or repulsed by the nonconformist behavior. Though no penalties are applied, these would have been significant motivators for an ancient Israelite and including a scribe. And here is a wisdom parallel: An abomination (‫ )תבעות‬of YHWH is differing weights, and rigged scales are not good. (Prov 20:23)29

Here note that the cultic term “abomination” is used and that the sentiment is the same here and in the Deuteronomic legislation. But the rhetoric is different. There is no direct appeal to the deity but rather to the self-interest of the reader. However, “abomination” would certainly conjure up the divine, especially for an Israelite. Corrupt business practices are classified as taboo, abominable, and repulsive to the Israelite culture. Here, indirectly, an appeal is made to honor. An honorable Israelite certainly would never want to do something considered “abominable” or repugnant to the values the Israelites held dear. Like in the Deuteronomic legislation, no penalty is listed, but the rhetoric would have served to persuade the reader to avoid such non-conformist behavior at any cost. 29 Cf. 20:10; Sir 26:29–27:3; Amos 8:5–6, where the merchants sell “the chaff of the wheat.”

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4 Conclusion I want to reference an article by Moshe Weinfeld in order to segue into my conclusion. The close correlation, almost verbatim, between the legal, here Deuteronomic, and the sapiential corpora of the last two sections we have treated, as well as the out of place nature of these laws in Deuteronomy, has led Weinfeld to conclude that the author of Deuteronomy had to have used the examples of Proverbs as his source.30 This and other facts led him to conclude, “Deuteronomy represents the fusion of law and wisdom rather than of law and prophecy.”31 He essentially argues that the humanism in Deuteronomy comes from the wisdom literature. But drawing on Ockham’s Razor, instead of speaking of the fusion of two distinctive traditions, would not it be easier to speak of these traditions as scribal, literary traditions that were never separated from the beginning but existed side by side? And would not any “influence” or “fusion” be due to the fact that the same professional body, scribes, had always drawn on such modes of literature as pedagogical tools for the training of scribes? There is nothing unusual, from an ancient Near Eastern standpoint, about scribes composing or engaging both legal and sapiential literature simultaneously.32 And the humanism in the wisdom literature is simply one of the conventions or rules that this type of literature uses to construct itself, since it focuses on humanity in general and less on distinctively Israelite traits, being folk-philosophical in nature.33 The legal corpus by its very nature includes both humanistic laws that would apply to any ancient persons (e.g., the last six laws in the Decalogue) but also very particular laws that only Israelites would observe (e.g., the first four laws of the Decalogue). Another convention of the wisdom literature is its focus on mores rather than taboos, though as we have seen they address these sometimes as well. Our investigation of areas where both the legal and sapiential corpora treat the same domains, whether mores or taboos (laws), reveal that they reflect distinctive modal conventions in the form of their rhetoric. The legal corpus engages more explicit sanctioning, even when they are not structured in casuistic form, whereas the sapiential corpus is less explicit about enforceable sanctions and appeals rather to the reasons or rationale for conforming to the norm. The wisdom literature attempts to persuade more directly than the legal, because it does not have the strong ethos that the legal material assumes as the Law given to Moses on Mt. Sinai or on the plains of 30 Moshe Weinfeld, “The Origin of the Humanism in Deuteronomy,” JBL 80 (1961): 241–47, esp. 243. 31 Weinfeld, “The Origin of the Humanism, 245. 32 See the archaeological and literary evidence for this in Sneed, Social World of the Sages, 1–296. 33 The wisdom literature would constitute a type of folk philosophy; see Jaco Gericke, The Hebrew Bible and Philosophy of Religion, RBS 70 (Atlanta: SBL, 2012), 154–57.

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Moab. Yet Solomon and his sapiential charisma serves to bolster the wisdom corpus with its own particular authority. But, in the end, these two types of literature differ not because they represent worldviews of distinctive professional groups (e.g., priests versus sages) but rather because they are two distinct types of literature that have different functions, that treat differing niches of life: the areas of folkways and mores for the sapiential literature; the areas of mores and especially taboos (laws) for the legal material, with some overlap, as we have seen. The modal conventions would dictate the rules followed. Every type of literature has to follow certain rules or conventions in order to exist as a separate type of literature. However, though distinctive modes of literature, both are types of scribal literature that most scribes had to study for enculturation and learn to engage for skill in composition. The same professional body, i.e., scribes, thus, could compose in the differing modes and simultaneously. So, the question of whether wisdom and Torah eventually converged late in Israelite history is rather moot, when seen from this perspective. Israelite scribes had always been interested in legal issues as enforceable mores and taboos, as well as in sapiential issues as elective folkways and mores.

Bibliography Bartor, Assnat. Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16. RBL 3 (2009). Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament. OBS. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. Buss, Martin J. “Dialogue in and among Genres.” Pages 9–18 in Bakhtin and Genre Theory in Biblical Studies. Edited by Roland Boer. SemeiaSt 63. Atlanta: SBL, 2007. Campbell, J. K. Honour, Family, and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Carr, David M. Writing on the Tablet of the Heart. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Cohen, Yoram. The Scribes and Scholars of the City of Emar in the Late Bronze Age. HSS 59. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2009. Cohen, Yoram. Wisdom from the Late Bronze Age. WAW 29. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Crook, Zeba A., ed. The Ancient Mediterranean Social World: A Sourcebook. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020. Davies, G. I. Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16. JSOT 31 (2007): 188. Fensham, F. Charles. “Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient Near Eastern Legal and Wisdom Literature.” JNES 21 (1962): 129–39. Fowler, Alastair. Kinds of Literature: An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982. Gericke, Jaco. The Hebrew Bible and Philosophy of Religion. RBS 70. Atlanta: SBL, 2012. Gerstenberger, Erhard. “Covenant and Commandment.” JBL 84 (1965): 38–51. Hagedorn, Anselm. “Guarding the Parents’ Honour – Deuteronomy 21.18–21.” JSOT 25 (2000): 101–21. Haviland, William A. Cultural Anthropology. 7th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.

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Hempel, Charlotte. “Wisdom and Law in the Hebrew Bible and at Qumran.” JSJ 48 (2017): 155–81. Hutton, Rodney. Charisma and Authority in Israelite Society. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. Jackson, Bernard S. Studies in the Semiotics of Biblical Law. JSOTSup 314. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Jackson, Bernard S. Wisdom-Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Lemaire, André. “Sagesse et ecoles.” VT 34: (1984): 271–83. Levenson, Jon. “Poverty and State in Biblical Thought.” Judaism 25 (1976): 230–41. MacDonald, Nathan. Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16. VT 59 (2009): 506. Michalowski, Piotr. “Sumerian Literature: An Overview.” Pages 2279–91 in vol. 4 of Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995. Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin, eds. Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible. Semeia 68. Atlanta: SBL, 1995. Milstein, Sara J. “Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: The Independent Logic of Deuteronomy 22:25–27.” JBL 137 (2018): 625–43. Parker, Simon B. “The Literatures of Canaan, Ancient Isreal, and Phoenicia: An Overview.” Pages 2399–410. in vol. 4 of Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995. Pearce, Laurie E. “The Scribes and Scholars of Ancient Mesopotamia.” Pages 2265–78 in vol. 4 of Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995. Peristiany, J. G. ed. Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, The Nature of Human Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Repr. Midway, 1974. Rollston, Chris A. Writing and Literacy of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence form the Iron Age. ABS 11. Atlanta: SBL, 2010. Sanders, Jack T. “When Sacred Canopies Collide: The Reception of the Torah of Moses in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period.” JSJ 32 (2001): 121–36. Schniedewind, William M. The Finger of the Scribe: How Scribes Learned to Write the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Sneed, Mark R. “Is the ‘Wisdom Tradition’ a Tradition?” CBQ 73 (2011): 50–71. Sneed, Mark R. “Israelite Concern for the Alien, Orphan, and Widow: Altruism or Ideology?” ZAW 111 (1999): 498–507. Sneed, Mark R. Social World of the Sages: An Introduction to Israelite and Jewish Wisdom Literature. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Sneed, Mark R. Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies. AIL 23. Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Stackert, Jeffrey. Review of Wisdom Laws: A Study of the Mishpatim of Exodus 21:1–22:16. JSS 54 (2009): 270–72. Sumner, William Graham. Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals. Boston: Ginn, 1906. Van Leeuwen, Raymond C. “Scribal Wisdom and Theodicy in the Book of the Twelve.” Pages 31–49 in In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of John G. Gammie. Edited by Leo G. Perdue, Bernard Brandon Scott, and William Johnston Wiseman. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993. Van der Toorn, Karel. Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Veldhuis, Niek. “Sumerian Proverbs in their Curricular Context.” JAOS 120 (2000): 383–87.

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Waltke, Bruce K. and Ivan D. V. De Silva. Proverbs: A Shorter Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021. Weinfeld, Moshe. “The Origin of the Humanism in Deuteronomy.” JBL 80 (1961): 241–47. Weinfeld, Moshe. “Deuteronomy: The Present State of Inquiry.” JBL 86 (1967): 249–62. Welton, Rebekah. ‘He is a Glutton and a Drunkard’: Deviant Consumption in the Hebrew Bible. BibInt 183. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Westbrook, Raymond and Bruce Wells. Everyday Law in Biblical Israel: An Introduction. Louisville: Westminster, 2009.

Eckart Otto

The Amalgamation of “Wisdom”  in the Post-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy of the Persian and Hellenistic Periods 1 The State of Inquiry of the Relations Between Deuteronomy and Wisdom Literature Biblical scholars have long since recognized a close relation not only between Deuteronomy and prophetic literature but also between the book of Deuteronomy and biblical and even extra-biblical wisdom literature. But up to now no convincing explanation was found for the intensive literary ties between Deuteronomy and biblical wisdom literature. Scholars of the first decades of the twentieth century were of opinion that the book of Deuteronomy was earlier than that of Proverbs – so, e.g., André Roberts,1 William O. E. Oesterley,2 and Robert H. Pfeiffer3 – so that any parallels between Deuteronomy and Proverbs were thought to be the result of a Deuteronomic or Deuteronomistic impact of the book of Deuteronomy on Proverbs or a result of a Deuteronomistic redaction in the book of Proverbs, so Johannes Fichtner.4 But the discovery that Prov 22:17–24:22 was a transformation and, in parts, even a translation of the Egyptian Instruction of Amenemope5 changed the perspective of Hebrew Bible scholarship in this regard. After some scholars had

1 See André Robert, “Les attaches littéraires bibliques de Prov. I–IX,” RB 43 (1934): 42–68, 172–204, 274–84; RB 44 (1935): 344–65, 502–25. 2 See William O. E. Oesterley, The Wisdom of Egypt and the Old Testament (London: Clearance Book, 1927), 27–28. 3 See Robert H. Pfeiffer, “Edomite Wisdom,” ZAW 44 (1926): 13–25, esp. 17 n. 3. 4 See Johannes Fichtner, Die altorientalische Weisheit in ihrer israelitisch-jüdischen Ausprägung: Eine Studie zur Nationalisierung der Weisheit in Israel, BZAW 62 (Gießen: Töpelmann, 1933), 26–27. 5 See Adolf Erman, “Eine ägyptische Quelle der Sprüche Salomos,” SPAW 15 (1924): 86–93; cf. Diethard Römheld, Wege der Weisheit: Die Lehren Amenemopes und Proverbien 22,17 – 24,22, BZAW 184 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1989); Bernd U. Schipper, “Die Lehre des Amenemope und Prov 22,17–24,22: Eine Neubestimmung des literarischen Verhältnisses (Teil I und II),” ZAW 117 (2005): 53–72, 232–48; Vincent Pierre-Michel Laisney, L’enseignement d’Aménémopé, Studia Pohl 19 (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2007); Sirje Reichmann, Bei Übernahme Korrektur? Aufnahme und Wandlung ägyptischer Tradition im Alten Testament anhand der Beispiele Proverbia 22–24 und Psalm 104, AOAT 428 (Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2016). Eckart Otto, Ludwig Maximilians-Universität München, Germany https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-009

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even detected some influence of the instruction of Amenemope on Deuteronomy, it was Moshe Weinfeld, who reversed the direction of reception between Deuteronomy and wisdom literature, asking, “Are we to assume that the book of Deuteronomy also influenced Egyptian and Babylonian wisdom literature?”6 and concluded: “The book of Deuteronomy is consequently a synthesis of Torah and sapiential thought but not of Torah and prophetic thought. Deuteronomy should not be influenced by the prophetic school but by the school of wisdom.”7 For Weinfeld, the provenance of Deuteronomy should be sought among court scribes of Hezekiah and Josiah.8 In 1988 Michael V. Houston summarized the scholarly discourse on Weinfeld’s hypothesis: “Although Weinfeld has not convinced the majority of scholars that Dt. is the product of the wise men of the royal court, he has succeeded in demonstrating the influence of wisdom traditions on the book. At what stage of the tradition history of Dt. these wisdom elements were incorporated by the Deuteronomic movement is difficult to determine.”9 Georg Braulik intended to solve this riddle by contributing and dating a sapientialization of Deuteronomy to pre-exilic Deuteronomists who were using terms of wisdom in order to correlate Deuteronomy with the narratives of Solomon’s wisdom in a pre-exilic Deuteronomistic History (DtrH).10 But apart from the fact that up to now nobody succeeded in correlating pre-exilic Deuteronomistic layers in the book of Deuteronomy, which do not exist, with such layers in the Book of Kings, it became more and more obvious that most of the wisdom terms and motifs in Deuteronomy were part of its exilic and especially post-exilic framework

6 See Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972; reprint Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 261. William O. E. Oesterley and again Johannes Leipoldt and Siegfried Morenz, Heilige Schriften: Betrachtungen zur Religionsgeschichte der antiken Mittelmeerwelt (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1953), 56, exactly assumed this, that Deuteronomy originated in prophetic scribal circles and that they transmitted their religious views to sapiential scribes and even to the Egyptian Book of Amenemope by the book of Deuteronomy. For relations between Deuteronomy and Amenemope, see also Jean Malfroy, “Sagesse et loi dans le Deutéronome,” VT 15 (1965): 49–72. 7 See Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 294. 8 Cf. also Moshe Weinfeld, “The Emergence of the Deuteronomic Movement: The Historical Antecedents,” in Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft, ed. Norbert Lohfink, BETL 86 (Leuven: Peters 1985), 76–98; idem, “Deuteronomy: The Present State of Inquiry,” JBL 86 (1967): 249–62. 9 See Michael V. Houston, “The Identification of Torah as Wisdom: A Traditio-Critical Analysis of Dt. 4:1–8 and 30:11–20” (PhD diss., University of Iowa,1988), 40–41. 10 See Georg Braulik, “Weisheit im Buch Deuteronomium,” in Weisheit außerhalb der kanonischen Weisheitsschriften, ed. Bernd Janowski, Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 8 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 1996), 39–69 (= idem, Studien zum Buch Deuteronomium, SBAB 24 [Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1997], 225–71). For a critical evaluation and refutation of Georg Braulik’s hypothesis, see Lothar Perlitt, Deuteronomium 1–6✶, BKAT 5.1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 66.

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in chs. 1–11 and chs. 27–34 and not from the core legal section of a pre-exilic Deuteronomy in chs. 12–26, where we find the only pre-exilic parts of a Deuteronomic Deuteronomy.11 The references to wisdom terms of the root ‫ חכם‬in connection with the terms ‫נבון‬, ‫בינה‬, ‫בין‬, ‫ידוע‬, and ‫ שכל‬in Deut 1:13,15; 4:6–8; 16:19; 32:6, 7, 29; and 34:9 show that except for Deut 16:19 all of these terms are part of the post-Deuteronomic framework of Deuteronomy and that they are especially concentrated in the post-Deuteronomistic chapters of the framework in Deuteronomy 4 and 32. Moses’s Song in Deuteronomy 32 is one of the latest texts in the Pentateuch.12

2 The Amalgamation of Wisdom in the Post-exilic Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4 and 34) In Deuteronomy 4, wisdom serves as an attribute of Moses in his function to teach the expounded torah to his people of Israel in Moab. In Deut 4:5–1113 we find with ‫ חכמתכם ובינתכם‬and a correlation between torah and wisdom: Observe them (sc. the statutes and rules) and do them, for that will be your wisdom, your understanding in the eyes of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say: Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. (Deut 4:6)

11 For a literary history of the book of Deuteronomy as part of the of the Pentateuch see Eckart Otto, Deuteronomium, 4 vols., HThKAT (Freiburg; Basel; Vienna: Herder, 2012–2017); for a summary of the literary history of the book of Deuteronomy see idem, “The History of the Legal-Religious Hermeneutics of the Book of Deuteronomy,” in Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam, ed. Anselm Hagedorn and Reinhard G. Kratz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 211–50; idem, “Deuteronomy as the Legal Completion and Prophetic Finale of the Pentateuch,” in Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research, ed. Matthias Armgardt, Benjamin Kilchör, and Markus Zehnder, BZABR 22 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019), 179–88. 12 For the Achaemenid background of Deut 32:8–9, see Rudolph Meyer, “Die Bedeutung von Deuteronomium 32,8f. 43 (4Q) für die Auslegung des Moselieds,” in Arnulf Kuschke, Verbannung und Heimkehr: Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theologie Israels im 6. und 5. Jahrhunder v. Chr.; Willhelm Rudolph zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht von seinen Freunden und Schülern, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961), 197–209. Beat Weber, “Mose-Lied (Dtn 32,1–43) and Asaph-Psalmen (Ps 50; 73–83): Untersuchungen zu ihrem Verhältnis,” ZABR 27 (2021): 257–309 argues again for an early dating of Moses’s song in Deut 32:8–9. His arguments fail due to Deut 32:8–9. 13 Deut 4:5–8 is neither an originally independent literary fragment within Deut 4, as Perlitt, Deuteronomium, 311–17 stated, nor an isolated literary genre of a “Kleinform,” so Georg Braulik, “Weisheit, Gottesnähe und Gesetz: Zum Kerygma von Deuteronomium 4,5–8,” in Studien zum Pentateuch: Festschrift Walter Kornfeld zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Georg Braulik (Wien: Herder, 1977), 167–95, at 167–68, but a well-structured literary part of the literary unit in Deut 4: 3–40 and its framing of Deut 4:9–39 in Deut 4:(1–3), 4–8, 40.

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Deuteronmy 4 is part of a post-Deuteronomistic revision of the Deuteronomistic Moab-Covenant in Deut 29:1–3, 6, 8–10a✶, 13–14 by motifs of the Sinai/Horeb-covenant14 and is part of the post-Deuteronomistic transformation and integration of Deuteronomy into the Hexateuch and Pentateuch in the Persian period,15 as the quotation of Gen 1:14–27, the priestly source P, in Deut 4:16–19 demonstrates.16 The amalgamation of Deuteronomistic and priestly motifs in Deuteronomy 4 serves the function of this chapter to integrate Deuteronomy into the post-priestly Pentateuch. But the amalgamation of sapiential motifs needs an explanation too. The post-exilic redactions of Deuteronomy transformed the Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy from a divine revelation into Moses’s expounding of the Sinai-Torah, as is announced in Deut 1:1–5.17 Connected with Moses’s task to expound the Sinai-Torah is his function to teach the torah in Deut 4:5.14: See, I teach (lmd) statutes and rules to you as YHWH, my God, commanded me.

This divine command of YHWH we do not find in the book of Deuteronomy but in the Sinai-pericope in Exod 24:12:18 JHWH said to Moses: “Come up to me on the mountain and stay there. I shall give you the stone tablets with the torā and the miṣwā I have written on them, so that you can teach them.”

The amalgamation of the wisdom tradition in Deuteronomy 4 is related to Moses’s function to expound and teach the expounded Torah. The lexemes of ḥăkmā and

14 See Eckart Otto, “Deuteronomium 4: Die Pentateuchredaktion im Deuteronomiumsrahmen,” in Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen, ed. Timo Veijola, Schriften der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62 (Helsinki: Finnische Exegetische Gesellschaft, 1996), 196–222. 15 See Eckart Otto, “The Integration of the Post-Exilic Book of Deuteronomy into the Post-Priestly Pentateuch,” in The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, ed. Federico Giuntoli and Konrad Schmid, FAT 101 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 331–41. 16 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 532–38. 17 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 308, 319–21; idem, “Mose, der erste Schriftgelehrte: Deuteronomium 1,5 in der Fabel des Pentateuch,” in L’Écrit et l’Esprit: Études d’histoire du texte et de théologie biblique en homage à Adrian Schenker, ed. Dieter Böhler, Innocent Himbaza, and Philippe Hugo, OBO 214 (Fribourg: Academic, 2005), 273–84; cf. Udo Rüterswörden, “Moses’ Last Day,” in Moses in Biblical and Exta-Biblical Traditions, ed. Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter, BZAW 372 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007), 51–59, esp. 54–56; pace Georg Braulik and Norbert Lohfink, Sprache und literarische Gestalt des Buches Deuteronomium: Beobachtungen und Studien, ÖBS 53 (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2021), 218–26. 18 For the function of Exod 24:12 in the narrative of the post-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy and the post-priestly Pentateuch see Eckart Otto, “Geschichte der spätbiblischen und frühjüdischen Schriftgelehrsamkeit,” in Altorientalische und biblische Rechtsgeschichte: Gesammelte Studien, ed. idem, BZABR 8 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 564–602, esp. 594–96; idem, “Mose, der erste Schriftgelehrte,” 486–89.

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bînā are anaphorically related to all the statutes in Deut 4:5 and at the same time kataphoricly to keeping and doing them. In Deuteronomy 4 wisdom is integrated into the post-exilic Deuteronomy as in Ben Sirach the Torah is integrated into wisdom literature. If we ask for the reasons, why in Deuteronomy 4 wisdom motives were amalgamated to the post-exilic Deuteronomy, the answer is rather evident. The reason is Moses’s charge and function to expound and teach the Torah.19 The term bînā is singular here in Deuteronomy and all the Pentateuch and the lexeme ḥăkmā is only used here and in Deut 34:9. This verse, which is part of the post-Deuteronomistic reinterpretation of Deuteronomy in the Persian period, presupposes the postDeuteronomistic integration of Deuteronomy into the post-priestly Pentateuch20 and speaks of Moses’s ruaḥ ḥăkmā, which Moses transferred to Joshua according to Num 27:12–23, as a prerequisite that the people of Israel would obey Joshua as YHWH had commanded it to Moses. The amalgamation of wisdom to the post-exilic Deuteronomy in chs. 4 and 34 has the function to be the prerequisite for Moses’s function in the post-exilic Deuteronomy to expound the Sinai-Torah in Deuteronomy21 and to teach the expounded Torah to the people of Israel in Moab.

3 The Postexilic Transformation of Sapiential Exhortations in the Book of Proverbs into Legal Sentences in the Legal Core Section of Deuteronomy 12–26 in Deuteronomy 19 and 25 The interpreters and editors of the post-Deuteronomistic and post-priestly Deuteronomy of the post-exilic period did not only connect sapiential motifs with Moses’s ruaḥ ḥăkmā as a prerequisite for his function as a scribal interpreter and teacher of the Torah, but they also incorporated proverbs transformed to legal sentences 19 For the program of teaching and learning the Torah in Deuteronomy see Eckart Otto, “Bildung als Herzensbildung durch Lehren und Lernen der Tora: Zur Bildungstheorie der Mosebücher,” in Religion und Bildung: Antipoden oder Weggefährten?: Diskurse aus historischer, systematischer und praktischer Sicht, ed. Jochen Sautermeister and Elisabeth Zwick (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2018), 11–21; on the topic of teaching and learning in Deuteronomy, see also Karin Finsterbusch, Weisung für Israel: Studien zum religiösen Lernen im Deuteronomium und in seinem Umfeld, FAT 44 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), in a purely synchronic perspective without any literary-historical differentations in the book of Deuteronomy. 20 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 227. 21 For the pre-exilic Deutertonomy expounding the Covenant Code in Exodus 20–23, see below in section 5.

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into the legal corpus of Deuteronomy in Deut 19:14 and Deut 25:13–16, which again demonstrates the proximity between the post-exilic book of Deuteronomy and the book of Proverbs: You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, set up by previous generations. (Deut 19:14)

This legal sentence is part of a postexilic updating of the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic legal program in the book of Deuteronomy in Deut 12–26✶ and has its post-exilic parallel in Deut 27:17:22 Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor’s landmark. And all the people shall say, “Amen.” (Deut 27:17)

Deut 19:4 presupposes the Deuteronomic rules for asylum in Deut 19:2–6✶, 11–13 and their post-exilic supplement in Deut 19:7–10 by the order of a division of the land into three parts.23 The post-exilic authors in Deuteronomy used Prov 22:28 for their legal interpretation of the asylum-regulations in Deuteronomy 19: Do not move the ancient landmark, set up by your fathers. (Prov 22:28)

Prov 22:28 is not the only exhortation of this kind in Proverbs but has a parallel in Prov 23:10: Do not move an ancient landmark or enter fields of the fatherless. (Prov 23:10)

Removing landmarks is an important topic in Israelite and Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature.24 The post-exilic authors in Deuteronomy used the sapiential exhortation and adjusted it to its context in Deuteronomy 19 transforming it into a legal sentence, which has the function of a counter-case for Deut 19:3.9 with the function to prevent false analogies for a new distribution of land based on the post-Deuteronomic command of a tripartition of the land for additional towns of asylum25 as a postexilic update of the Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic laws of asylum. A transformation of Proverbs into legal sentences also took place in Deut 25:13–16: You shall not have in your bag alternate weights, larger and smaller, you shall not have in your house alternate measures, larger and a smaller. A full and just weight you shall have. For all, who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to YHWH, your God.

22 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 1953–54. 23 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 1524. 24 See Weinfeld, Deuteronomic School, 265. 25 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 1537–38.

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These post-exilic legal proscriptions, which have a parallel in the Holiness Code in Lev 19:35–36, quote sapiential exhortations in Prov 11:1, 20:10, and 20:23:26 Alternate weights and alternate measures are both alike an abomination to YHWH, but a just weight is His delight. (Prov 11:1) Alternate weights and alternate measures are both alike an abomination to YHWH. (Prov 20:10) Alternate weights are an abomination to YHWH and false scales are not good. (Prov 20:23)

Deut 25:13–16 is a post-exilic inserted supplement and updating of Deuteronomy, which has the function to conclude and summarize the legal section of the postexilic book of Deuteronomy in chs. 12–25. From the perspective of the post-exilic authors and redactors of Deuteronomy Deut 25:13–16 serves as a criterion for the basic requirement of justice for all the Deuteronomic social ethics in chs. 12–25. That the post-exilic authors used sapiential exhortations in Proverbs for their founding completion of the legal corpus of Deuteronomy shows their proximity to sapiential circles and wisdom literature. For these authors, Moses’s ruaḥ ḥăkmā was a prerequisite for his expounding and teaching of the Sinai-Torah according to Exod 24:12. But this was not the only reason for the amalgamation of wisdom traditions in the post-exilic Deuteronomy.

4 The Amalgamation of Wisdom in Moses’s Song in Deuteronomy 32 as a Proto-Canonical Conclusion for the Pentateuch In Moses’s Song in Deut 32:1–43, which together with its frame in Deut 31:16–22, 24–30; 32:44–47, is one of the latest texts in the post-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy and of all the post-priestly Pentateuch,27 still another impulse for the integration 26 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 1832, 1859–60. 27 For the literary history of Deut 32:1–43 in its frame in Deut 31:16–22, 24–30; 32:44–47, see Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 2157–64. The published dissertation of Petra Schmidtkunz, Das Moselied des Deuteronomiums: Untersuchungen zu Text und Theologie von Dtn 32,1–43, FAT II/124 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), suffers from the fact that the author separates the song in Deuteronomy 32 as a piece of originally independent literature from its frame in Deuteronomy as its original literary context, although she realizes the firm literary connections between Deuteronomy 4 and 32; see also the review of this dissertation by Richard D. Nelson in RBL July 2021, who sees a problem of the interpretation of Deuteronomy 32 in the fact that “the poem is so completely unconnected to any specific condition of life or historical era,” which is the result of isolating the

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of wisdom traditions into the Torah became effective. In this chapter of the book of Deuteronomy we find the highest density of sapiential terminology in this book, especially terms of the roots ḥkm and bjn and their derivates in Deut 32:6, 7, 10, 28,  29 and also other terms of wisdom literature like laekaḥ, ṣkl, and nbl in Deut 32:21, 29 and others. This does not at all mean that Deuteronomy 32 was a piece of wisdom-literature, as, e. g., Jean Malfroy,28 James R. Boston,29 and Steven Weitzman30 argued, what would mean to overlook the literary peculiarity of Moses’s Song in Deuteronomy 32, which was to be read as a palimpsestic amphiboly.31 By forming the song this way its late post-exilic authors used this method, which was well-known in biblical and Ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature.32 The reason for using this literary technique in Deuteronomy 32 as a sophisticated patchwork of quotations and allusions to the psalms, especially to the Asaph-psalms, to the prophets, and to sapiential literature33 was to create a biblical-“canonical” subtext to Moses’s Song as the conclusion of the Pentateuch. The addressees of Deuteronomy 32, who were expected to know the subtexts by heart, were invited to read Deuteronomy 32 also as a palimpsest, which at the end of the Torah provided the foundations for a perspective of the salvation for Israel in an eschatological future. Not only the Pentateuch but the whole Bible including torah, prophets, psalms, and wisdom literature should prove Israel’s salvation. The frame of the song in Deut 31:16–22, 24–30 speaks only of doom, but Moses’s song speaks of YHWH’s overcoming of Israel’s doom and even there, where the text of Deuteronomy 32 speaks on its surface of doom, the subtext of the contexts of the quotations already speaks of salvation. As one of the latest texts in the Pentateuch in a time of transition from the late Persian to the early Hellenistic song from its literary context in Deuteronomy, so that it is nearly impossible to define its authors and its intention. In consequence of the literary isolation of Moses’s Song from its literary context, Schmidtkunz reduces the function of the wisdom-motifs in Deut 32 to that of underlining the didactic relation between YHWH and his people Israel as that of parents who are angry with their naughty children. 28 See Malfroy, “Sagesse,” 49–72. 29 See James R. Boston, “The Wisdom Influence upon the Song of Moses,” JBL 87 (1968): 198–202; cf. idem, “The Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32)” (PhD diss. Union Theological Seminary, 1966). 30 See Steven Weitzman, “Lessons from Dying: The Role of Deuteronomy 32 in its Narrative Setting,” HTR 87 (1994): 377–93. 31 See Eckart Otto, “Moses Abschiedslied in Deuteronomium 32: Ein Zeugnis der Kanonsbildung in der Hebräischen Bibel,” in Die Tora: Studien zum Pentateuch; Gesammelte Aufsätze, ed. idem, BZABR 9 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009), 641–78; idem, “Singing Moses: His Farewell Song in Deuteronomy 32,“ in Psalmody and Poetry in Old Testament Ethics, ed. Dirk Human, LHBOTS 572 (New York: T & T Clark, 2012), 169–80. 32 See Gerhard Fecht, Der Habgierige und die Ma’at in der Lehre des Ptahhotep (5. und 19. Maxime), Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo (Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1958). 33 See Otto, Deuteronomium, 2164–96.

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period the song correlates in a proto-canonical way all three parts of the biblical canon. As the receptions of Deuteronomy in late biblical wisdom literature34 demonstrate this was not a unilateral but a reciprocal process.

5 The Institution-Historical Background for the Amalgamation of Wisdom-Traditions to the Torah in the Pre-exilic Covenant Code and its Revision in Deuteronomy If we ask for the historical and institutional background for the amalgamation of wisdom traditions to the post-exilic Deuteronomy as part of the Pentateuch, we must have a look at its Deuteronomic and Deuteronomistic literary pre-history in the pre-exilic and exilic period. In the Deuteronomistic narrative of Moses’s installation of Judges in Deut 1:9–18 we find an intensive reception of sapiential motifs in Deut 1:13,15: Choose for your tribes wise (ḥakamîm), understanding (nebonîm) and experienced (jedu‘îm) men and I shall appoint them as your heads (ră’šîm). (Deut 1:13) So I took the răšîm of your tribes, wise and experienced men, and set them as heads over you . . . (Deut 1:15)

The pre-text in Exod 18:21 as a source for Deut 1:9–18 speaks only of men fearing God.35 The Deuteronomists supplemented the sapiential terminology and motifs in Deut 1:13–15 by using the pre-exilic Deuteronomic program for a judiciary in Deut 16:18–19. You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns, which YHWH, your God, is giving you according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgements. You shall not show partiality and you shall not accept bribe, for bribe blinds the eyes of the wise (ḥakāmîm) and subverts the case of the righteous. (Deut 16:18–19)

34 See Georg Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut: Zur Frage der Kanonizität des Deuteronomiums,” in Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen, ed. Erich Zenger, HBS 10 (Freiburg: Herder, 1996), 61–138. 35 For the literary-historical relations between Deut 1:9–18 and Exod 18:13–26 see Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 340–53.

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This pre-exilic program of the Deuteronomic Deuteronomy for a judiciary in Deut 16:19 is based on that of the Covenant Code in Exod 23:6, 836 as part of the legal order for local law-courts in Exod 23:1–3, 6–8:37 You shall not pervert the justice due to the poor in his lawsuit . . .You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of the righteous. (Exod 23:6, 8)

The prohibition to take any bribe in Exodus 23 is a typical sapiential topic e. g. in Prov 17:23: The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to subvert the ways of justice.

The pre-exilic legal traditions of Covenant Code and Deuteronomy had an affinity to wisdom motifs, especially when they dealt with the order for the courts and judiciaries. This early pre-Deuteronomic amalgamation of law and wisdom in the Covenant Code of the 8th century had its pre-history in the sapiential redactions of legal sentences based on court-decisions in small legal collections of casuistic laws like that on material damages and bodily injuries,38 out of which together with other originally independent legal collections the Covenant Code was formed.39 These 36 See Otto, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 1459–60. 37 See Eckart Otto, Wandel der Rechtsbegründungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israel: Eine Rechtsgeschichte des “Bundesbuches” Ex XX 22–XXIII 13, StudBib 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 47–49; idem, Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments, Theologische Wissenschaft 3.2 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994), 68–69. 38 See Eckart Otto, Körperverletzungen in den Keilschriftrechten und im Alten Testament: Studien zum Rechtstransfer im Alten Orient, AOAT 226 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991), 165–89; idem “Offenses Against Human Beings in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Private and Public Law,” in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 35– 44; idem, “Strafrechtstheorie und Rechtsanthropologie in Platons NOMOI und in der biblischen Tora des Buches Deuteronomium, Zweiter Teil: Strafrechtstheorie und Rechtsanthropologie im Buch Deuteronomium,” ZABR 26 (2020):162–88. It is a fatal exegetical shortage to reduce the legal sentences in the Covenant Code to purely literary phenomena without any legal functions as it is proposed by Jeffrey Stackert, “The Relationship of the Legal Codes,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch, ed. Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 297–314. 39 The techniques of redaction, which were used in the Covenant Code, were correlating redactional methods, which were derived from cuneiform law – see, e.g., Eckart Otto, Rechtsgeschichte der Redaktionen im Kodex Ešnunna und im “Bundesbuch”: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche und rechtsvergleichende Studie zu altbabylonischen und altisraelitischen Rechtsüberlieferungen, OBO 85 (Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1989); idem, Deuteronomium (2012–2017), 1093–99 – with those that were used in sapiential collections of proverbs; cf. Ruth Scoralick, Einzelspruch und Sammlung: Komposition im Buch der Sprichwörter (Kapitel 10–15), BZAW 232 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995), 238–43; for the amalgamation of redaction techniques used in cuneiform law with those used in Proverbs see Eckart Otto, “Weisheitliche Proverbienredaktion und ihre Amalgamierung mit keilschriftlicher Redaktionstechnik in den Sammlungen kasuistischer Rechtssätze im biblischen Recht,” ZAW 134 (2022): 458–82.

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collections were formed by sapientially trained circles of scribes, who were comparable to the legally trained scribes of the Babylonian E.DUBB.A,40 before these collections were taken up by priests, who were responsible for the reaction of the Covenant Code.41 Looking at the literary history of the redaction of the Covenant Code, we have good reasons to assess that the legal history of ancient Israel was accompanied by an amalgamation of wisdom from its beginning and that this connection found its climax in the post-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy as part of the post-priestly Hexateuch and Pentateuch and their theocratic supplements in the late Persian and Hellenistic period.

6 The Amalgamation of Deuteronomy in Post-Exilic Proverbs A final aspect of this contribution shall be the reception of motives of the Deuteronomistic and post-Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy in the book of Proverbs. There are very good reasons to suppose that it was not primarily the Deuteronomistic but the post-exilic Deuteronomy as part of the Pentateuch, which had some influence on postexilic redactions in Proverbs. Already Franz Delitzsch observed in 1873 in his commentary on Proverbs an influence of Deuteronomy on Proverbs especially in Prov 6:20–24.42 Georg Braulik used these observations for his hypothesis of an early canonicity of the book of Deuteronomy.43 But what we find in the reception of Deuteronomy in Proverbs is not the result of early canonicity of this book,44 but of the close relations between priestly scribes, who were responsible for the post-exilic relecture (“Fortschreibung”) of the roles of

40 See Hans Neumann, “Prozeßführung im Edubba’a: Zu einigen Aspekten der Aneignung juristischer Kenntnisse im Rahmen des Curriculums babylonischer Schreiberausbildung,” ZABR 10 (2004): 71–92; cf. Erhard Blum, “Institutionelle und kulturelle Voraussetzungen der israelitischen Traditionsliteratur,” in Tradition (en) im alten Israel: Konstruktion, Transmission und Transformation, ed. Ruth Ebach and Martin Leuenberger, FAT 127 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 3–44; cf. Eckart Otto, “Der Einfluss der Staatsentstehung auf die Rechtsgeschichte des antiken Israel: Tora und Staat in der Hebräischen Bibe,” ZABR 27 (2021): 49–62. 41 See Eckart Otto, “Book of the Covenant,” Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Law, ed. Brent Strawn, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press: 2015), 1:68–77. 42 See Franz Delitzsch, Das Salomonische Spruchbuch, Biblischer Commentar 3 (Leipzig: Dorffling & Franke, 1873), 29. 43 See Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut,” 90–105. 44 See Braulik, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut,” 61–66.

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a Hexateuch and Pentateuch,45 and groups of wisdom-scribes, who were responsible for the redactions in the Book of Proverbs.46 The amalgamation of wisdom in Deuteronomy is only one side of the coin in a post-exilic dialectical process of mutual influence and amalgamations in Deuteronomy and Proverbs. Especially the redactional introductions of the three didactic discourses (“Lehrreden”) in Prov 3:1–5; 6:20–24 and 7:1–5 were formulated on the background of the Deuteronomistic program of learning torah in Deut 6:6–9 and 11:18–21. If we have a close look at Prov 3:1–5 we can detect many allusions to Deuteronomy 6 and 11 but also to Jer 31:31–34. Bernd Schipper used a figure of reasoning, which he has found in Konrad Schmid’s dissertation on Jeremiah,47 who interpreted the Deuteronomistic terminology in Jereremiah 31 as a sign of an anti-Deutreronomistic reception of Deuteronomy in Jereremiah 31, so that for Bernd U. Schipper the Deuteronomistic terminology in Proverbs should be a sign of a sapiential anti-Deuteronomistic reception of Deuteronomy in Proverbs using Deuteronomistic terminology. This figure of reasoning needs some differentiation, because the literary and theological relations between Deuteronomy 30 and Jeremiah 31 are more complicated than just that Jeremiah 31 should be an anti-Deuteronomistic text using Deuteronomistic terminology. If Deuteronomistic terminology should be a sign of an anti-Deuteronomistic reception it could also be argued that a lack of Deuteronomistic terminology could be a sign of a pro-Deuteronomistic reception, what does not make much sense.48 Two observations related to Bernd

45 See Eckart Otto, “Vom biblischen Hebraismus der persischen Zeit zum rabbinischen Judaismus in römischer Zeit: Zur Geschichte der spätbiblischen und frühjüdischen Schriftgelehrsamkeit,” ZABR 10 (2004): 1–49. 46 See Bernd U. Schipper, Sprüche (Proverbia), Teilband 1: Proverbien 1,1–15,33, BKAT 17 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 66–67. For the social context (“Sitz im Leben“) of the proverbial wisdom, see Hans-Jürgen Hermisson, Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit, WMANT 28, (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968), with still helpful insights. 47 See Konrad Schmid, Buchgestalten des Jeremiabuches: Untersuchungen zur Redaktions- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von Jer 30–33 im Kontext des Buches, WMANT 72 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996), 68–69; for a more differentiated perspective, see Eckart Otto, “Jeremia und die Tora: Ein nachexilscher Diskurs,” in Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen, ed. Reinhard Achenbach, Martin Arneth, and Eckart Otto, BZABR 7 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007), 134–82. 48 One can find this kind of reasoning in some analyses of the non-P-Sinai-pericope, which, despite its lack in Deuteronomistic terminology, should still be Deuteronomistic. For the discourse in Deuteronomy 30 and Jeremiah 31 between priestly scribes in the Pentateuch and prophetic scribal circles of a “Tradentenprophetie,” which Odil Hannes Steck, Bereitete Heimkehr: Jesaja 35 als redaktionelle Brücke zwischen dem Ersten und dem Zweiten Jesaja, SBS 121 (Stuttgart; Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985), 81–99 called these redactors in the corpus propheticum, see Otto, “Jeremia,” 134–82; idem, Deuteronomium, 2073, 2076–77; cf. Harald Knobloch, Die nachexilische Prophetentheorie des

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Schippers’s interpretation of the relation between Prov 3:1–5; 6:20–24; 7:1–5 and Deuteronomy 6 and 11 may be allowed. Georg Braulik demonstrated that in Proverbs 6 the allusions were related more intensively to Deuteronomy 11 than to Deuteronomy 6.49 This is important, because the verses Deut 11:18–21✶ are the  only Deuteronomistic part within its post-Deuteronomistic context in Deut 10:12–11:32.50 If we look at this post-exilic context in Deuteronomy 10–11 organized by a framework of the motives of fear of JHWH, hlk on the daeraek of JHWH, ʹahab JHWH, ‘abd JHWH and trust (dbk) in JHWH, then it becomes obvious that also the post-exilic authors in Deuteronomy were rather familiar with sapiential modes of thinking, what is confirmed by their amalgamation of wisdom in other parts of the post-exilic book of Deuteronomy. One may ask, if one should really speak of an anti-Deuteronomistic reception in Proverbs by using Deuteronomistic terminology. Deut 10:16 demands the circumcision of the heart, which is related to Deut 30:6 the circumcision of the heart by JHWH. This motive is related to Jer 31:31–34. So, comparing Deuteronomy with Jeremiah and Proverbs, one should not reduce the comparison between Proverbs and Deuteronomy to Deuteronomistic redactions in Deuteronomy but take especially its post-exilic redactions and relecture (“Fortschreibung”) as part of a post-priestly and post-Deuteronomistic Pentateuch and its intensive amalgamation of wisdom-motives into account.

Bibliography Blum, Erhard. “Institutionelle und kulturelle Voraussetzungen der israelitischen Traditionsliteratur.” Pages 3–44 in: Tradition (en) im alten Israel: Konstruktion, Transmission und Transformation. Edited by Ruth Ebach and Martin Leuenberger. FAT 127. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Boston, James R. “The Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32).” PhD. diss., Union Theological Seminary, 1966. Boston, James R. “The Wisdom Influence upon the Song of Moses.” JBL 87 (1968): 198–202. Braulik, Georg. “Weisheit, Gottesnähe und Gesetz: Zum Kerygma von Deuteronomium 4,5–8.” Pages 167–95 in Studien zum Pentateuch: Festschrift Walter Kornfeld zum 60. Geburtstag. Edited by Georg Braulik. Wien: Herder, 1977. Braulik, Georg. “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut: Zur Frage der Kanonizität des Deuteronomiums.” Pages 61–138 in Die Tora als Kanon für Juden und Christen. Edited by Erich Zenger. HBS 10. Freiburg: Herder, 1996.

Jeremiabuches, BZABR 12 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009); Benedetta Rossi, “Conflicting Patterns of Revelation: Jer 31,33–34 and Its Challenge to the Post-Mosaic Revelation,” Bib 98 (2017): 202–25. 49 See Otto, “Das Deuteronomium und die Bücher Ijob, Sprichwörter, Rut,” 92–105. 50 See Otto, Deuteronomium, 1033, 1058–60.

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Braulik, Georg. “Weisheit im Buch Deuteronomium.” Pages 39–69 in Weisheit außerhalb der kanonischen Weisheitsschriften. Edited by Bernd Janowski. Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie 8. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlag, 1996. Braulik, Georg and Lohfink, Norbert. Sprache und literarische Gestalt des Buches Deuteronomium: Beobachtungen und Studien. ÖBS 53. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2021. Delitzsch, Franz. Das Salomonische Spruchbuch. Biblischer Commentar 3. Leipzig: Dorffling & Franke, 1873. Erman, Adolf. “Eine ägyptische Quelle der Sprüche Salomos.” SPAW 15 (1924): 86–93. Fecht, Gerhard. Der Habgierige und die Ma’at in der Lehre des Ptahhotep (5. und 19. Maxime). Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts Kairo. Glückstadt: J. J. Augustin, 1958. Fichtner, Johannes. Die altorientalische Weisheit in ihrer israelitisch-jüdischen Ausprägung: Eine Studie zur Nationalisierung der Weisheit in Israel. BZAW 62. Gießen: Töpelmann, 1933. Finsterbusch, Karin. Weisung für Israel: Studien zum religiösen Lernen im Deuteronomium und in seinem Umfeld. FAT 44. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005. Hermisson, Hans-Jürgen. Studien zur israelitischen Spruchweisheit. WMANT 28. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1968. Houston, Michael V. “The Identification of Torah as Wisdom: A Traditio-Critical Analysis of Dt. 4:1–8 and 30:11–20.” PhD diss., University of Iowa, 1988. Knobloch, Harald. Die nachexilische Prophetentheorie des Jeremiabuches. BZABR 12. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009. Laisney, Vincent Pierre-Michel. L’Enseignement d’Aménémopé. Studia Pohl 19. Roma: Editrice Pontificio Istituto biblico, 2007. Leipoldt, Johannes and Siegfried Morenz. Heilige Schriften: Betrachtungen zur Religionsgeschichte des antiken Mittelmeerwelt. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1953. Malfroy, Jean. “Sagesse et loi dans le Deutéronome.” VT 15 (1965): 49–72. Meyer, Rudolph. “Die Bedeutung von Deuteronomium 32,8f. 43 (4Q) für die Auslegung des Moselieds.” Pages 197–209 in Verbannung und Heimkehr: Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theologie Israels im 6. und 5. Jahrhunder v. Chr.; Willhelm Rudolph zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht von seinen Freunden und Schülern. Edited by Arnulf Kuschke. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1961. Nelson, Richard D. Review of Das Moselied des Deuteronomiums, by Petra Schmidtkunz. RBL July 2021. Neumann Hans. “Prozeßführung im Edubba’a: Zu einigen Aspekten der Aneignung juristischer Kenntnisse im Rahmen des Curriculums babylonischer Schreiberausbildung.” ZAR 10 (2004): 71–92. Oesterley, William O. E. The Wisdom of Egypt and the Old Testament. London: SPCK, 1927. Otto, Eckart. Wandel der Rechtsbegründungen in der Gesellschaftsgeschichte des antiken Israel: Eine Rechtsgeschichte des Bundesbuches Ex XX 22–XXIII 13. StudBib 3. Leiden: Brill, 1988. Otto, Eckart. Rechtsgeschichte der Redaktionen im Kodex Ešnunna und im „Bundesbuch“: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche und rechtsvergleichende Studie zu altbabylonischen und altisraelitischen Rechtsüberlieferungen. OBO 85. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 1989. Otto, Eckart. Körperverletzungen in den Keilschriftrechten und im Alten Testament: Studien zum Rechtstransfer im Alten Orient. AOAT 226. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1991. Otto, Eckart. Theologische Ethik des Alten Testaments. Theologische Wissenschaft 3.2. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994. Otto, Eckart. “Deuteronomium 4: Die Pentateuchredaktion im Deuteronomiumsrahmen.” Pages 196–222 in Das Deuteronomium und seine Querbeziehungen. Edited by Timo Veijola. Schriften der Finnischen Exegetischen Gesellschaft 62. Helsinki: Finnische Exegetische Gesellschaft, 1996. Otto, Eckart. “Vom biblischen Hebraismus der persischen Zeit zum rabbinischen Judaismus in römischer Zeit: Zur Geschichte der spätbiblischen und frühjüdischen Schriftgelehrsamkeit.” ZABR 10 (2004): 1–49.

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Otto, Eckart. “Mose, der erste Schriftgelehrte: Deuteronomium 1,5 in der Fabel des Pentateuch.” Pages 273–84 in L’Écrit et l’Esprit: Études d’histoire du texte et de théologie biblique en homage à Adrian Schenker. Edited by Dieter Böhler, Innocent Himbaza, and Philippe Hugo. OBO 214. Fribourg: Universitätsverlag, 2005. Otto, Eckart. “Jeremia und die Tora: Ein nachexilscher Diskurs.” Pages 134–82 in Tora in der Hebräischen Bibel: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte und synchronen Logik diachroner Transformationen. Edited by Reinhard Achenbach, Martin Arneth, and Eckart Otto. BZABR 7. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007. Otto, Eckart. “Moses Abschiedslied in Deuteronomium 32: Ein Zeugnis der Kanonsbildung in der Hebräischen Bibel.” Pages 641–78 in Die Tora: Studien zum Pentateuch; Gesammelte Aufsätze. Edited by Eckart Otto. BZABR 9. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009. Otto, Eckart. “Singing Moses: His Farewell Song in Deuteronomy 32.” Pages 169–80 in Psalmody and Poetry in Old Testament Ethics. Edited by Dirk Human. LHBOTS 572. London: T&T Clark, 2012. Otto, Eckart. Deuteronomium. HThKAT, 4 vols. Vienna: Herder, 2012–2017. Otto, Eckart. “The History of the Legal-Religious Hermeneutics of the Book of Deuteronomy.” Pages 211–50 in Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean from Antiquity to Early Islam. Edited by Anselm Hagedorn and Reinhard G. Kratz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Otto, Eckart. “The Integration of the Post-exilic Book of Deuteronomy into the Post-Priestly Pentateuch.” Pages 331–41 in The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles. Edited by Federico Giuntoli and Konrad Schmid. FAT 101. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. Otto, Eckart. “Book of the Covenant.” Pages 68–77 in vol. 1 of Oxford Encyclopedia of Bible and Law. Edited by Brent Strawn. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Otto, Eckart. “Bildung als Herzensbildung durch Lehren und Lernen der Tora: Zur Bildungstheorie der Mosebücher.” Pages 11–21 in Religion und Bildung: Antipoden oder Weggefährten?: Diskurse aus historischer, systematischer und praktischer Sicht. Edited by Jochen Sautermeister and Elisabeth Zwick. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2018. Otto, Eckart. “Offenses Against Human Beings in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Law.” Pages 35–44 in The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Law. Edited by Pamela Barmash. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Otto, Eckart. “Deuteronomy as the Legal Completion and Prophetic Finale of the Pentateuch.” Pages 179–88 in Paradigm Change in Pentateuchal Research. Edited by Matthias Armgardt, Benjamin Kilchör, and Markus Zehnder. BZABR 22. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019. Otto, Eckart. “Strafrechtstheorie und Rechtsanthropologie in Platons NOMOI und in der biblischen Tora des Buches Deuteronomium, Zweiter Teil: Strafrechtstheorie und Rechtsanthropologie im Buch Deuteronomium.” ZABR 26 (2020): 161–234. Otto, Eckart. “Der Einfluss der Staatsentstehung auf die Rechtsgeschichte im antiken Israel: Tora und Staat in der Hebräischen Bibel.” ZABR 27 (2021): 49–62. Otto, Eckart. “Weisheitliche Proverbienredaktion und ihre Amalgamierung mit keilschriftlicher Redaktionstechnik in den Sammlungen kasuistischer Rechtssätze im biblischen Recht.” ZAW 134 (2022): 458–82. Perlitt, Lothar. Deuteronomium 1–6. BKAT 5. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013. Pfeiffer, Robert H. “Edomite Wisdom.” ZAW 44 (1926): 13–25. Reichmann, Sirje. Bei Übernahme Korrektur? Aufnahme und Wandlung ägyptischer Tradition im Alten Testament anhand der Beispiele Proverbia 22–24 und Psalm 104. AOAT 428. Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2016.

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Roberts, André. “Les attaches littéraires bibliques de Prov. I–IX.” RB 43 (1934): 42–68, 172–204, 274–84; RB 44 (1935): 344–65, 502–52. Römheld, Diethard. Wege der Weisheit. Die Lehren Amenemopes und Proverbien 22,17–24,22, BZAW 184. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1989. Rossi, Benedetta. “Conflicting Patterns of Revelation: Jer 31,33–34 and Its Challenge to the Post-Mosaic Revelation.” Bib 98 (2017): 202–25. Rüterswörden, Udo. “Moses’s Last Day.” Pages 51–59 in Moses in Biblical and Exta-Biblical Traditions. Edited by Axel Graupner and Michael Wolter. BZAW 372. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007. Schipper, Bernd U. “Die Lehre des Amenemope und Prov 22,17–24,22: Eine Neubestimmung des literarischen Verhältnisses (Teil I und II).” ZAW 116–117 (2005): 53–72, 232–48. Schipper, Bernd U. Sprüche (Proverbia), Teilband 1: Proverbien 1,1–15,33. BKAT 17. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018. Schmid, Konrad. Buchgestalten des Jeremiabuches: Untersuchungen zur Redaktions- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von Jer 30–33 im Kontext des Buches. WMANT 72. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996. Schmidtkunz, Petra. Das Moselied des Deuteronomiums: Untersuchungen zu Text und Theologie von Dtn 32,1–43. FAT II/124. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Scoralick, Ruth. Einzelspruch und Sammlung: Komposition im Buch der Sprichwörter (Kapitel 10–15). BZAW 232. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1995. Stackert, Jeffrey. “The Relationship of the Legal Codes.” Pages 297–314 in The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch. Edited by Joel S. Baden and Jeffrey Stackert. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Steck, Odil Hannes. Bereitete Heimkehr: Jesaja 35 als redaktionelle Brücke zwischen dem Ersten und dem Zweiten Jesaja. SBS 121. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1985. Steck, Odil Hannes. Studien zu Tritojesaja. BZAW 203. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1991. Weber, Beat. “Mose-Lied (Dtn 32,1–43) and Asaph-Psalmen (Ps 50; 73–78): Untersuchungen zu ihrem Verhältnis.” ZABR 27 (2021): 257–309. Weinfeld, Moshe. “Deuteronomy: The Present State of Inquiry.” JBL 86 (1967): 249–62. Weinfeld, Moshe. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. Weinfeld, Moshe. “The Emergence of the Deuteronomic Movement: The Historical Antecedents.” Pages 76–98 in Das Deuteronomium: Entstehung, Gestalt und Botschaft. Edited by Norbert Lohfink. BETL 86. Leuven: Peters 1985. Weitzman, Steven. “Lessons from Dying: The Role of Deuteronomy 32 in its Narrative Setting.” HTR 87 (1994): 377–93.

Lindsey A. Davidson

Law and Wisdom in the Epitaph of Abramos, Communal Magistrate (JIGRE 39 = SB 5765) 1 Introduction It is singularly rare that a Jewish inscription will mention either law or wisdom, let alone both concepts together, yet both law and wisdom are present in the Jewish epitaph of Abramos, uniquely among funerary inscriptions.1 This inscription describes the deceased as a civic or communal magistrate, and as crowned in wisdom: ἐστέϕετ᾽ ἐν σοϕία. Why would Abramos be described as “crowned in wisdom” and what does the epithet have to do with his role as a civic or communal magistrate (ἀρχή) in two places (two regions or cities)? What is law to do with wisdom, especially in the Jewish law courts of early Roman Egypt? Abramos’s metric inscription is best contextualised in light of epigraphy and papyri, Jewish treatments of law and judges, Judaism in Egypt, and the justice system in Roman Egypt. The inscription offers a witness into early Jewish understandings of the law and wisdom, both broadly conceived. In order to advance these questions, and ensure a solid footing textually and historically, I outline below the analytical steps needed to answer some of the above questions:2 1) establishing the text of the inscription and the extent of the Jewishness of the deceased with a textual and lexical analysis, contextualised within Greco-Roman epigraphy; 2) conducting a comparative textual analysis of the phrase “crowned in wisdom” and whether these are collocated with judges, magistrates, or “law”; 3) contextualising Abramos and his world within Roman Egypt, given its specific political, legal, and language contexts:

1 JIGRE 39, EG 430, SB 5765, IM 16, CPJ III 1530a. The only other Jewish funerary inscription that mentions “wisdom” is also from Leontopolis (JIGRE 30 = IM 14). Lindsey A. Askin, “Wisdom in the Inscription of Demas at Leontopolis: A Lexical Analysis of σοϕία in Hellenistic Jewish Sources,” Henoch (2021): 259–77. 2 The present author is conscious of the pitfalls in working with the laconic qualities of inscriptions: E. Badian, “History from ‘Square Brackets,’” ZPE 79 (1989): 59–70. Lindsey A. Davidson, University of Bristol, UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-010

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considering the multilingual setting of Roman Egypt, in order to better understand in what languages and cultures Abramos would have operated, and thus which legal codes and peoples he would have interacted with as a magistrate; considering the legal organisation of Roman Egypt, in order to better understand Abramos’s role as a magistrate, and whether Jewish law would have been used; considering the prosopographic evidence for, and political status of, Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt, a topic of some debate, but one which would help us better appreciate the historical context of Abramos as a Jew in Egypt.

Altogether there are three aspects to this study: 1) the epitaph itself and what it reads; 2) a comparative lexical and textual analysis of “crowned in wisdom,” magistrates, and the relation between law and wisdom; and 3) the historical background of Jews and magistrates in the legal system of Roman Egypt. Together these aspects piece together the background of a Jewish magistrate “crowned in wisdom.” This study takes a more practical understanding of “law,” given that the lifetime occupation of Abramos was that of a magistrate, and that he was most likely Jewish. Therefore, the text and background of Abramos’s inscription, contextualised in Roman Egypt and its unique political and language situations, add to our understanding of “wisdom” and “law” within Egyptian Judaism in late antiquity.

1.1 Prior Studies on JIGRE 39 Abramos’s inscription is undated, and palaeographic clues do not, unfortunately, offer a more precise range than from second century BCE to second century CE. On palaeographic grounds (below), an early to late Roman dating is preferred by the present author. The provenance of inscription is likely to be Leontopolis, in view of the content, style, and name of the deceased, but its exact place of discovery is unrecorded. The first publications by Emmanuel Miller3 and Georg Kaibel (EG)4 listed Cairo because the squeeze from which Miller worked identified it as being from Cairo. P. Jacobsthal5 offered the first Jewish identification, reading the name as Abramos, not Abbaios as reconstructed by Kaibel and Miller, though Miller

3 Emmanuel Miller, “Inscriptions grecques découvertes en Égypt,” Revue Archéologique 27 (1874): 145–56. 4 Georg Kaibel, Epigrammata graeca ex lapidibus conlecta (Berlin: Reimer, 1878), 171 (no. 430). 5 P. Jacobsthal, “Grabepigramm aus Ägypten,” Hermes 46 (1911): 318–20.

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suggested either Abramios or Abbaios. A. J. Reinach likewise favoured the inscription as Jewish, agreeing with Jacobsthal’s reading of the name as Abramos.6 Louis Robert identified its provenance as Leontopolis, not Cairo, on the basis of the name Abramos and because of other clues in the inscription well suited to a Jewish community near the desert in Egypt.7 The editions of Victor Tcherikover and Alexander Fuks (CPJ),8 and William Horbury and David Noy (JIGRE),9 continued to work with the Jewish identification of the inscription, finding further similarities with other Jewish epitaphs. Other important commentary and publications have been offered by Friedrick Preisigke (SB), W. Peek, Adolf Wilhelm, and Étienne Bernand (IM).10 The most recently reproduced photograph is in Horbury and Noy, who reproduce that of Bernand, who in fact reproduces Robert. In order to address some uncertain readings, I share below a new high-resolution colour photograph, from the Archäologisches Institut of the Universität Göttingen, photo by Stephan Eckardt (see Figure 1). One can observe the majuscule lettering with clear palaeographic indicators of a Hellenistic or early Roman dating. The letter forms of the inscription vary to some extent within the inscription but are largely Hellenistic or early Roman, though not enough to give a more precise dating. The alpha is shaped regularly: Α; the epilson is squared: Ε; the omicron is slightly raised: O; the sigma is squared; upsilon is V-shaped; and omega letter forms are found both rounded and slightly squared. The inscription is carved on an undecorated rectangular stone stela with a recessed field. It is fortunately not broken, though a couple of letters are damaged or illegible.

6 Adolphe J. Reinach, “Basse-Égypte. Le Caire,” Revue Épigraphique 1 (1913): 364. 7 Louis Robert, “Inscriptions Gréco-Juives,” Hellenica 1 (1940): 18–24, no. 197. 8 Victor Tcherikover and Alexander Fuks, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957). 9 William Horbury and David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Graeco-Roman Egypt: With an Index of the Jewish Inscriptions of Egypt and Cyrenaica (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). 10 Friedrich Preisigke et al., eds., Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Ägypten, 18 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1915), 1:635, no. 5765; Adolf Wilhelm, “Drei griechische Epigramme aus Aegypten,” Mélanges Maspero 2 (1937): 265–76; Werner Peek, Griechische Vers-Inschriften, vol 1: Grab Epigramme (Berlin, 1955), 232 (no. 850); Étienne Bernand, Inscriptions métriques de l’Égypte gréco-romaine: Recherches sur la poésie épigrammatique des Grecs en Égypte, Annales littéraires de l’Université de Besançon 98 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1969), 95–100 (no. 16).

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2 The Inscription with a Textual and Lexical Analysis

Figure 1: A new high-resolution colour photograph of the inscription JIGRE 39 (=EG 430, SB 5765, IM 16, CPJ III 1530a), photograph by Stephan Eckardt (taken in 2022), Archäologisches Institut of the Universität Göttingen. Used with permission.

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2.1 Transcription 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

πεντήκοτα τριῶν ἐτέων κύκλον ἤδ’ ἀνύσαντα11  αὐτὸς ὁ πανδαμάτωρ ἥρπασεν εἰς Ἀΐδην. ὦ χθὼν ἀμμοϕανής, οἷον δέμας ἀμϕικαλύπτις  Ἀβράμου ψυχῆς, τοῦ μακαριστοτάτου· οὐκ ἀγέραστος ἔϕυ γὰρ ἀνὰ πτόλιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀρχῇ  πανδήμῳ ἐθνικῇ ἐστέϕετ’ ἐν σοϕίᾳ. δισσῶν γάρ τε τόπων πολιταρχῶν αὐτὸς ἐτειμῶ  τὴν διμερῆ δαπάνην ἐξανύσας χάρισιν. πάντα δέ σοι, ἐπέοιχ’ ὅσα τοι, ψυχή, πρὶν ἔκευθες,  καὶ τέκνων ἀγαθῶν αὔξομεν γενεή. ἀλλὰ σύ, ὦ παροδεῖτα, ἰδὼν ἀγαθοῦ τάϕον ἀνδρὸς  ὅν τε κατευϕημῶν τοῖα ϕράσας ἄπιθι. γαῖαν ἔχοις ἐλαϕρὰν εἰς τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον. πεντήκοτα τριῶν ἐτέων κύκλον (larger text, upside down)

2.2 Translation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

When he had already accomplished a span of fifty-three years,12  The All-subduer himself carried him into Hades. Oh sandy-looking earth, what a notable bodily frame you cover:  that which had the soul of Abramos, most fortunate. For he was not inclined to be unrecompensed in the city, but also (held) a magistracy  of the general community, crowned in wisdom. ‘For you were doubly honoured by holding the office of magistracy  in two cities, fulfilling the expense with gracious liberality. Until you hid yourself in the grave all things that befitted you were yours, soul,  And we, a family of good children, increase them.’ ‘But you, passerby, beholding the grave of a good man,  depart with these favourable words for him: “May you find the earth light upon you for all time.”’

14 A span of fifty-three years. . . (larger text, upside down)

11 The Leiden Conventions of papyrology and epigraphy are used in this paper. In some cases these symbols overlap with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA Handbook), but such cases should be clear from the immediate context which system is meant. 12 The translation is the present author’s own.

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2.3 Lexical and Textual Analysis 2.3.1 Lines 1–2 πεντήκο[ν]τα τριῶν ἐτέων. . . . of fifty-three years . . . The orthography of πεντήκοντα as πεντήκοτα appears to reflect pronunciation, rather than an error or abbreviation. The orthography of πεντήκοτα is intentional (so Miller,13 Bernand,14 Horbury/ Noy). The orthography may be intentional due to two reasons: firstly, the spelling is repeated twice, once in the first attempt (line 14, upside down) and in line 1; and secondly, other examples of the consonant omissions appear in documentary and manuscript sources, many of which are attributable to pronunciation rather than a copyist’s error or abbreviation. If the alternative spelling was found only once on the stele, it might be a case of mistaken omission, but the repetition of the same spelling twice suggests intentional orthography. Horbury and Noy attribute the spelling to pronunciation: πεντήκο[ν]τα.15 Leslie Threatte similarly reports the omissions of liquids in Attic inscriptions.16 The omission of ν before τ occurs in a number of Attic inscriptions.17 In Koine Greek, some consonants and vowels were omitted or changed in pronunciation, reflected in orthography. For vowels, see, e.g., JIGRE 34, 35, et al. and examples in LXX mss.18 Most common of consonantal omissions in phonetic variations, reflected in the orthography, were gutturals /γ/, /κ/, /χ/; dentals /τ/, /δ/, /θ/; and liquids /λ/, /ρ/, /σ/. Less common was the omission of nasals /ν/ and labials /β/.19 The omission of liquids after dentals is especially common, e.g., ἄνθ[ρ]ωπος (‫ א‬Isa 6:4), while dentals after aspirated letters is slightly less common, e.g., αὐτόχ[θ]ων (‫ א‬Jer 14:8). The most frequent assimilation of a consonant before another consonant is the omission of /σ/ before the dental /τ/ and before the unaspirated plosive /π/, e.g., ἔ[σ]τιν (‫ א‬Isa 27:9, 31:3; Zech 1:9).20 The assimilation of a medial or sometimes final nasal consonant in pronunciation is a linguistic occur-

13 Miller, “Inscriptions,” 153. 14 Bernand, IM, 96. Bernand agrees with Robert, Preisigke, and Jacobsthal. 15 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 97; Henry St. J. Thackeray, A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint: Vol. I Introduction, Orthography, and Accidence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), §7.36. Horbury and Noy cite Thackeray. 16 Leslie Threatte, “Unmetrical Spellings in Attic Inscriptions,” CSCA 10 (1977): 169–94 and eadem, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions, 2 vols. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 1:485–92. 17 Threatte, Grammar, 1:486. 18 Thackeray, Grammar, §6.2–4. 19 Thackeray, Grammar, §7.28–30. Thackeray writes that many such examples of omissions should not always be treated as “mere blunders” (115). 20 Thackeray, Grammar, §7.36.

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rence in the development of Greek.21 The omission of ν in words occurring in LXX mss is found quite a few times, though not as frequently as other assimilated or elided consonants, including preceding τ (see Table below).22 Word omitting ν

Textual passage

Manuscript23

ἀναγ[ν]ώσῃ στρωμ[ν]ή ἐ[ν]στάντος ἄκα[ν]θαι βρο[ν]τῆς ποίμ[ν]ιον πε[ν]τακοσίων

Jer 28:61 Job 41:21 1 Esd 5:46 Isa 5:6 Isa 29:6 Jer 13:17 Ezek 42:20

‫א‬ ‫א‬ B, A B, Q B B Q

 

The orthography of πεντήκοτα may also be compared with another example of pronunciation variation: the Leontopolis epitaph of an unnamed boy, JIGRE 35.24 The orthography of this epitaph reflects considerable phonetic variation, e.g., line 3 τύ[μ]βωι, and the added text of line 1, poorly fitted to the width: \ἠτῶν (ἐτῶν) δεκαήχς (δεκαέξ), Παῦνι ἠνάτῃ (ἐνάτη) εἰκάδι ἀβήθανη (ἀπέθανε)/.25 In line 3 this stone reads ΠΕΝΤΑΚΙΕL. Edgar and Bernand read: πεντάκι (πενταἐτην); Peek: πεντάκι (πενταἐτων).26 If L is a reference to years as the editors suppose (Bernand, Edgar, Frey, Horbury/Noy), making the deceased five (Ε) years old, Line 3 would read, rather oddly, “Beat your hands five times for the five year old.”27 Greg H. R. Horsley suggests an error, given the adult tone of the inscription (line 4 refers to marriage and line 6 to friends), reading the two final letters of ΠΕΝΤΑΚΙΕL as a mistake.28 One notes that the deceased is called “untimely dead” (ἄωρε, line 8), but this is an epithet (ἄωρος) used for any unfortunate or unexpected death, including sus-

21 W. Sidney Allen, Vox Graeca: A Guide to the Pronunciation of Classical Greek, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 31–32. 22 Thackeray, Grammar, §7.36. 23 For LXX manuscripts: ‫( א‬Codex Sinaiticus), B (Codex Vaticanus), A (Codex Alexandrinus), Q (Codex Marchalianus). 24 = IM 94. 25 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 80; Thackeray, Grammar, §6.17, §7.16. Bernand of IM 94: “Les vulgarismes sont fréquents dans cette épigramme, dont la langue et la métrique sont particulièrement fautives” (Bernand, IM, 370). 26 πεντάκι is the dative of πεντάκις (“five times”), the adverbial form of πέντε. 27 Frey interprets this action as apotropaic, but Bernand suggests a gesture of mourning; see Jean-Baptiste Frey, ed., Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum, 2 vols. (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1936), 2:1512. 28 Greg H. R. Horsley, NewDocs 4 (1987): 225, no. 114, 2b.

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pected murder and witchcraft, not actually an indicator of age.29 The information of age and date normally appear together, more commonly at the end of the epitaph, but do occur at the beginning in other epitaphs, including the metrical epitaph of Abramos. However, in Attic inscriptions various sigla and marks of abbreviation and punctuation are found, even in metric inscriptions. The editors have largely followed each other, perhaps due to the sheer volume of inscriptions in editions. In fact, the mystery may be due to confusion between letters and sigla: the signs Ε and L are sigla in Attic inscriptions. The symbol L is a form of the diple, which is sometimes the abbreviation for the patronymic siglum Ɔ, a mark that indicates the deceased name is the same as his father’s.30 The symbol Ε is found between two names, and is routinely but not always smaller than other letters; when Ε is the same size as other letters, it is functioning as an abbreviation mark for the patronymic (e.g., II2 3683).31 In this case, the most likely interpretation is actually that the deceased’s name is Pentakis, son of Pentakis (in the dative), followed by two abbreviation signs for the patronymic: ΠΕΝΤΑΚΙ Ε L. This example is a reminder that the recording of numeration, date, and age are not always crystal clear, especially in metrical epitaphs, and epigraphy is a critical witness to Greek pronunciation and orthography.32 In the epitaph of Abramos, the spelling of πεντήκοτα is one of several oddities, but it is better explained by orthography reflecting pronunciation. The word ἐτέων is an epic spelling of the genitive plural ἐτῶν (“years”; sg. ἔτος).33 As with πεντήκοτα, the spelling of ἐτέων is repeated twice in lines 1 and 14. The reason for the spelling is probably both metric and stylistic. As a final remark on the opening line, Line 1 spells out the age of the deceased (“fifty-three”) in words rather than using alphabetic numerals. First adopted in the

29 Compare JIGRE 109, where the deceased is 45 years old, for example. In Greek beliefs, an unnatural death, the deceased being an “untimely dead one” (ἄωρος), risked the haunting of the deceased as a restless spirit. Its occasional occurrence in Jewish inscriptions is therefore unusual and special, but perhaps similar to the adoption of the word Hades, both as location, and personified as in epic expression (cf. JIGRE 38, line 8). See Sarah Iles Johnston, Restless Dead: Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). For untimely dead with suspicious deaths and suspected murder or witchcraft, see Fritz Graf, “Untimely Death, Witchcraft, and Divine Vengeance: A Reasoned Epigraphical Catalog,” ZPE 162 (2007): 139–50. 30 Threatte, Grammar, 1:92. 31 Threatte, Grammar, 1:92. 32 The example is also a reminder of the fact that editors, like commentators, or even traditional catena and manuscript transmission, sometimes repeat earlier mistakes without thorough investigation. 33 The spelling reflects the ε contraction in the stem of ἔτος. The epic and Attic spelling appear in Attic inscriptions as well as epic texts, for example, in Iliad 11.690–691: ἐλθὼν γάρ ῥ᾽ ἐκάκωσε βίη Ἡρακληείη | τῶν προτέρων ἐτέων, κατὰ δ᾽ ἔκταθεν ὅσσοι ἄριστοι. See ἔτος, LSJ.

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sixth century BCE for trade, the Greek alphabetic numeral system enjoyed renewed popularity in Ptolemaic Egypt possibly due to their convenience for translation to Demotic and usefulness in mathematics.34 In Hellenistic papyri and epigraphy, ages and dates tend to use alphabetic numerals. However, the spelling of the numbers does still occur in epitaphs, quite often in metrical epitaphs.35 κύκλον ἤδ’ ἀνύσαντα. When he had already accomplished a span . . . The choice of wording for the length of life, κύκλον (“span”), is also found in JIGRE 33, line 7, referring to the lifetime of the deceased.36 The word ἤδ’ is read by Jacobsthal and others,37 as the stone clearly reads ΗΔ; however, Kaibel corrects the two letters to be ἐξ as in ⟨ἐξ⟩ἀνύσαντα: reading κύκλον ⟨ἐξ⟩ἀνύσαντα.38 The elision of the second syllable of ἤδη (“already”) preserves the metre, but is “clumsy.”39 The verb ἀνύω (“accomplish”), common in literature and documentary sources,40 can refer to the passage of time or accomplishment,41 while forms of ἐξανύω share

34 Stephen Chrisomalis, “The Egyptian Origin of the Greek Alphabetic Numerals,” Antiquity 77.297 (2003): 485–96; Václav Blažek, “Numerals,” Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics, s.v.; Marcus N. Tod, “The Alphabetic Numeral System in Attica,” ABSA 45 (1950): 126–39; Threatte, Grammar, 110–16. Chrisomalis argues that while Attica and Corinth show the earliest usage, the numeral system was actually developed by persons with ties to Asia Minor, especially Miletus and Halicarnassus, where early examples of the numerals can be found. The Greek acrophonic numeral system (similar to Latin numerals, which are acrophonic) dominated from the late fifth to beginning of the Hellenistic period, when contact and translation between Greek and Demotic caused the re-emergence of the Greek alphabetic numerals, except for Athens which continued to use the acrophonic system for centuries. The alphabetic notation allows for the inclusion of zero and easier calculation. Although Chrisomalis does not approach Levantine and Near Eastern Hellenistic regions, the Seleucid and Antigonid encounters with Babylonian Aramaic, both of which have similar numeral systems to Demotic, must have had a similar effect. However, a greater amount of papyri survives from Egypt, which would explain the focus of research on the Ptolemaic encounter with Demotic. 35 Compare JIGRE 23 = IM 37 (twenty-five years old), line 6; JIGRE 32 (= IM 45), line 3 (three decades); JIGRE 35 (= IM 94), line 1 (date of death, not age). 36 Bernand, IM, 97. 37 Preisigke, SB; Bernand, IM, Horbury and Noy, JIGRE. 38 Kaibel, EG, 171. 39 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 97. Jacobsthal: “Man kann dem Verfasser des Epigramms die Elision des η shon zutrauen, er misst πολιταρχῶν in V. 7 ̆ ̆ ̄ ̄ ” (“Grabepigramm,” 319). For elision used to preserve metre in hexameter, see M. L. West, Greek Metre (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 156. 40 LSJ. For papyri, Papyri Navigator, hereafter PN (papyri.info), for epigraphy: Packhum Greek Inscriptions (https://epigraphy.packhum.org/). For ἐξανύω, e.g., ἐξανύσαντα in IG II2 3575, line 8 (Attica). 41 For other metrical inscriptions using forms of ἀνύω compare: IM 118 (“made” a door), temple inscription to Isis (Kharga Oasis); and IM 172 (“obtain”), a hymn inscription to Hermes (Imperial period, Dakkeh). The verb also appears in 4 Macc 9:12.

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this semantic range but also include several occurrences in contexts of time and death. In one funerary epigram an occurrence of ἐξανύσαντα refers to the lifespan,42 and in another epitaph Fate “accomplishes” the end of the deceased.43 In another inscription, a form of ἐξανύω is collocated with Hades.44 With either ἐξανύω or ἀνύω,45 the sense of living and dying is clear, since both verbs appear in contexts of time and finality. Palaeographically, the letters are clearly ΗΔ, making the reading: ἤδ’ ἀνύσαντα. αὐτὸς ὁ πανδαμάτωρ ἥρπασεν εἰς Ἀΐδην. . . . The all-subduer himself carried him into Hades. Line 2 begins with the statement that ὁ πανδαμάτωρ, the “All-subduer,” carried him off to Hades. Miller suggests that the All-subduer is Χρόνος (Time) – cf. a funerary inscription (IM 75, line 12): ὁ πανδαμάτωρ [ὁ Χρ]όνος; and a late epigram from Ephesus (EG 1050, line 4), as well as the similar ὁ πά(ντ)᾽ἐϕορῶν in IM 35, line 13.46 On the other hand, Fate appears more frequently in funerary inscriptions in such contexts.47 Horbury and Noy propose that ὁ πανδαμάτωρ might be a divinity, in this case God, because of the avoidance of any name or entity following the title, but there are problems with this argument.48 The title later is found in early Christianity of God (Acts of John 75), and of Christ (Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 12).49 The cognate verb δαμάζω is found in the Sybilline Oracles (3.501) in reference to diving punishment, but this example is not proof by itself. In the LXX, the Lord has control over life and death.50 In Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 609–610, only the gods are immortal, and for everyone else “Time, the all-subduer, merges in oblivion.” On the other hand, Pindar writes that fear is also the subduer of men (Nemean Odes 3.39). Time would be the most preferable referent meant by the “All-subduer.” Other proposals, based on the inscription’s Jewishness, have been that the All-subduer

42 εἴκοσι καὶ δύ’ ἔτη | ζωῆς βίον ἐξανύσαντα (SEG 47:1649, lines 5–6). The inscription is 2nd c. CE, Lydia. 43 Lines 10–13: τὸ | Μοιράω̣ [ν ἐξ]ανύσαντα τέλος. | χαῖ[ρε] (IK Prusias ad Hypium 75, Bithynia). 44 IG VII 2535 (Boeotia, central Greece). 45 LSJ. For ἀνύω: χρόνος ἄνυτο (Theocritus 2.92). 46 Miller, 151. Bernand, IM, 98. 47 Marcus N. Tod, “A Greek Epigram from Egypt,” JEA 27 (1941): 99–105, esp. 103. Tod is writing with reference to IM 75, citing Abramos’s epitaph as an example. 48 Kaibel, EG, 171, no. 430; Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 98. Compare the “all-subduing daimon” (χὠ πανδαμάτωρ δαίμων), likely Zeus, in Sophocles, Phil. 1467. However, in Sophocles, daimon has been explicitly mentioned, though the god is unnamed. This example makes less persuasive the argument that unnamed divinities are referred to by the epithet “all-subduer” alone. However, the Christian use of the epithet is more convincing. 49 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 98. 50 Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6; Sir 11:14, 17:1; Tob 13:2; Wis 16:13. Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 98.

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is either God or Fate.51 The line continues to mention Hades, which is not unusual for Jewish epitaphs in Greek (e.g., JIGRE 34), and Hades is the common rendering for ‫ שאול‬in the LXX. Comparing Ben Sira, death might also be another possibility, given the vocative address to Death in Sirach 41:1, 2: Ὦ θάνατε.52 The collocation of All-subduer with Hades does not give much more help, since, as mentioned above, Time and Fate are also found in funerary writing. Of the possibilities: Time, Fate, Death, and God, it is probably Time that is the All-subduer, due to the formulaic nature of funerary epigraphy, but it is not impossible to interpret the All-subduer as a divinity either. It is acknowledged that an implied reference to “God” or a single divine source need not require a Jewish context, either. The question more to the point, however, is whether inscriptions tend to allude to a concept or a deity with the label in question. Comparatively speaking, the more formulaic and conventional option for the “All-subduer” here would be Time. For the clause εἰς Ἀΐδην, Hades is commonly found in Greek funerary epigraphy, as one would expect. The spelling here is Attic or epic, though the word in fact receives a variety of spellings, e.g., ἤγαγεν εἰς Ἀοΐδην Θάνατος (ΙΜ 22,),53 some of which seem to override declension (ἄτεκνος ἔβαν εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμους [IM 43; JIGRE 38; CIJud 1530, line 8]),54 including in metrical epitaphs, e.g., εἰς Ἀίδα (IM 7, line 6; IM 96, line 15).55 With metre and other clues, Hades is pronounced with smooth or rough breathing on the alpha depending on the dialect, and with either η or α in the final syllable: Ἅιδης (Attic dialect), Ἀΐδας (Doric dialect), Ἀΐδης (epic). In this case, the epigrapher has opted for the epic (Homeric) pronunciation of Hades. In Jewish epitaphs, Hades appears three other times besides Abramos’s epitaph (JIGRE 39), all are metrical inscriptions from Leontopolis: JIGRE 31 = IM 84 (Ἀίδης), 34 = IM 15 (Ἀείδαν), 38 = IM 43 (Ἀΐδαο). Although in Homeric Ἀΐδης denotes the god of the Underworld, in Attic Greek and other dialects the use is a location (cf. the line here: εἰς + acc.).56 However, the aforementioned JIGRE 38 uses it in the Homeric sense, the ‘house’ of Hades (figure).

51 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 98. 52 Sir 41:1 (Mas1h): ‫ ;הוׄ ]י[ ׄל]מות‬42:2 MS B 10 verso: ‫( חיׄ ים למות‬B mg: הוי‬. 53 Hermopolis Magna, Egypt, 2nd/3rd c. CE. 54 Leontopolis, ca. 14 BCE. 55 IM 7 is Apollonopolis Magna (Idfu), late Ptolemaic period. IM 96 is Memphis, 2nd/3rd c. CE. 56 Robert Beekes and Lucien van Beek, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2 vols., Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10/1–2 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1:34. In poetry, the initial α is sometimes lengthened for metric reasons.

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2.3.2 Lines 3–4 ὦ χθὼν ἀμμοϕανής. Oh sandy-looking earth . . . The epitaph describes the sandy soil or earth, which Robert takes as a reference to a grave in the desert, suiting near Leontopolis. The modifier ἀμμοϕανής (“sandy-looking”) is first attested in this inscription, a Hellenistic neologism perhaps eliciting the language of epic poetry.57 The creation of neologisms from new prefixes is a common feature in Koine Greek. Horbury and Noy compare a Saqqara epitaph describing the body in the tomb lying beneath a “mass of sand”: μεγάλῳ ὐπὸ ψάμμῳ.58 The word χθών does, however, also appear in another Jewish epitaph from Leontopolis, the inscription of Arsinoe.59 The noun χθών is common in metrical funerary inscriptions,60 Attic funerary inscriptions,61 and several times in honorary inscriptions.62 By comparison to literature, however, the LXX uses γῆ for earth and χοῦς for soil, but not χθών. οἷον δέμας ἀμϕικαλύπτις. . . . what a notable bodily frame you cover . . . The person or body is notable or unique (οἷον). In the orthography of ἀμϕικαλύπτις (“you cover”) is the active present indicative 2nd person singular yet reflects the vowel interchange of ει > ι, one of several major vowel contractions and interchanges in Koine Greek.63 For the digraph ει in particular, by Koine Greek there had ceased to be a phonetic distinction between the sounds of /ει/ and long /ι/, reflected in orthography, as some scribes either wrote them interchangeably, or used ει to indicate the long ι. For the latter, the scribes of Codex Vaticanus (B) tend to use ει to indicate long ι. This interchange is repeated again in line 7 (ἐτειμῶ, for ἐτιμῶ). As with the choice of χθών earlier in the line, the epigrapher uses the more Homeric δέμας (instead of, for example, σῶμα). As noted by Carl Holladay, δέμας (body or bodily frame) is found in the poetry of Moschus64 and in Theodotus, in reference to Shechem’s soul leaving his body, being killed by Levi.65 It is also a per-

57 Jacobsthal, Miller, Bernand; Jacobsthal, “Grabepigramm,” 319 states:: “ἀμμοϕανής, sonst nicht belegt, ist eine anschauliche Bezeichnung für den strahlend gelben Sand Ägyptens: es mag aus gleichzeitiger Epik stammen.” 58 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 98–99. 59 Mentioned above in respect to Hades: IM 43 (= JIGRE 38), line 9: ἴη σοὶ κούϕα χθὼν. 60 IM 2, line 1; 6, line 23; 33, line 2; 43, line 9 (as mentioned); 52, line 2; 92, line 1. 61 IG II2 6214; 7227; 7265; 7839a; 8870; 13092; 13113; 13121 (Attica); et al. See also the collocation of σῶμα with χθών on the same line in Peek Att.Grabsch. II 179, line 1 (Attica, 4th c. BCE). 62 IM 125, line 1; 127, line 7. 63 Thackeray, Grammar, §6.18–24. 64 Moschus, Poems, frags. 2.79, 2.84. 65 Theodotus, frag. 8, line 16, apud Eusebius Praep. ev. 9.22.10–11. Carl R. Holladay, ed., Fragments from Hellenistic Jewish Authors, Vol. II: Poets, SBLTT 30 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), 203, n. 146; noted

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sonal name, Δημᾶς, found in a number of sources, including another Jewish epitaph from Leontopolis.66 Ἀβράμου ψυχῆς, τοῦ μακαριστοτάτου. . . . that which had the soul of Abramos, most fortunate. Together with the last few words of line 3, the phrase is made up of a long string of genitives attached to δέμας.67 In Biblical Hebrew, genitives and relative construct clauses are difficult to distinguish.68 Similarly, one may compare Coptic interference in Greek papyri, where there is confusion between the dative and genitive endings when Egyptian scribes are writing in Greek.69 The name Abramos has received the most attention in the study of this epitaph. The transcription of the name is slightly debated. Most editions after Jacobsthal read Ἀβράμος,70 whereas Kaibel and Miller read Ἀββα[ί]ου,71 though Miller offers the alternative ΑΒΡΑΜΙΟΥ. Miller argues for Ἀββα[ί]ου because the latter Ἀβράμος is a Christian name in Roman times.72 Jacobsthal, however, makes the case for ΑΒΡΑΜΟΥ.73 On close examination, the vertical stroke of the third letter is clearly higher than the second letter, indicating it is a Ρ not a Β; even more clearly, the Μ is unmistakeable. The name of the deceased is thus Abramos (Ἀβράμος). The form Ἀβράμος and its undeclinable “short form” Ἄβραμ are likely renderings of the Semitic ‫אברם‬ (cf. Gen 12–17; 1Q20). The form Ἀβράμος is found in ostraca and papyri from the second century BCE onwards;74 it is also the form used in Letter of Aristeas §49 and by Josephus several times for the patriarch in Antiquities (e.g., 1.223ff.). However, the earlier Jewish War uses the Ἀβραάμ spelling for the patriarch (5.380). Likewise, in: Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 100. 66 JIGRE 30 (= IM 14). Askin, “Wisdom in the Inscription,” passim. 67 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 99. 68 Jan H. Kroeze, “Underlying Syntactic Relations in Construct Phrases of Biblical Hebrew,” Journal for Semitics [Tydskrif vir Semitistiek] 5 (1993): 68–88. 69 Joanne Vera Stolk, “Dative and Genitive Case Interchange in Greek Papyri from Roman-Byzantine Egypt,” Glotta 93 (2017): 182–212. 70 Jacobsthal, Preisigke, Bernand, Horbury/Noy. Also in agreement with “Abramos”: Jeanne Robert and Louis Robert, “Note,” Bulletin Épigraphique (1941): 267, no. 172. 71 Miller, “Inscriptions,” 150, 152. 72 The popularity in Christian times is confirmed via a quick search of the name on Packhum Epigraphy. Both the double and single α spellings appear in inscriptions, most commonly in late antique Egypt. 73 Jacobsthal, “Grabepigramm,” 319 states: “Der Mann wird Jude sein,” although he acknowledges he could find no earlier traces of the name in Greek papyri. However, papyrological evidence found since Jacobsthal have made this no longer accurate: the name does appear in four examples in Greek papyri (below note) and two other Greek inscriptions (below note). 74 CPJ 50.3, 412.6, 365.1, 471.1.

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after Gen 17:5, the LXX orthography varies to the undeclinable Ἀβραάμ, which is also the form adopted by Philo,75 and it is the spelling (Ἀβραάμ) witnessed throughout the New Testament. To make matters worse, the Latin-speaking scribe of Codex Bezae has Ἀβραάμ’ with apostrophe mark (9x John, 2x Acts) and without: Ἀβραάμ (16x Luke, 5x Acts, 1x in Matt, Mark, and John), and in the Latin column both Abraham (10x John, 14x Luke, 8x Acts, 1x in Matt and Mark) and Abraam (2x Matt and Luke, 1x John).76 It is uncertain whether the apostrophised Ἀβραάμ’ in Bezae is an elision since the other spelling is Ἀβραάμ without apostrophe. The undeclined variation Ἀβράμ (single α) is found in two epitaphs, one bilingual Hebrew-Greek,77 and scattered across LXX: Gen 20:2, 14, and Sir 44:19. The text of 4 Maccabees varies between the single and double α spellings.78 Linguistically there is nothing unusual about a double alpha in Greek, since it appears in a number of words.79 Cohen hesitates to include the name Ἀβράμ(ος) or Ἄβραμ as an immediate indication of Jewishness in documentary sources, since the names Abraham and Avram are etymologically Persian (see discussion in §4) and because of its use by Coptic Christians, along with other Old Testament names.80 Horbury and Noy contend that the name may be considered a marker of Jewishness, given the name’s occurrence in inscriptions that include other Jewish names and given the name’s currency in Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), Josephus, Philo, and Aristeas,81 as well as the New Testament. Documentary and literary sources give evidence of continued Jewish naming practices of Abraham and Abram(os). Although circularity and underappreciated etymological origins are risks, the archaic origins of a name should not override later signs of cultural adoption. Neither should too much be read into

75 In many of his works, for example: On Abraham (passim); On Drunkenness 7.24, et passim; Allegorical Interpretation 2.59 (of Genesis 2:3), et al. 76 Bezae = Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis, i.e., Dᵉᵃ or 05. David Charles Parker, Codex Bezae: An Early Christian Manuscript and Its Text (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 110–11. 77 The bilingual epitaph, of an Abraam son of Robel, comes from Khirbet Hebra (near Yavne), date unknown (JIGRE 152 = CIJ II 1175). The other is JIGRE 154, in which the name Abraam son of Alosmathous appears in a list of names for a shrine dedication (Ptolemais, 138/7 BCE). 78 These spellings occur in an ethnoreligious marker for Israelites, “son/daughter of Abraham”: 4 Macc 9:21 (Αβραμιαῖος); 18:1 (Αβραμιαῖος), 20 (Ἀβρααμίτις), 23 (Αβραμιαῖος). The orthography of names in 4 Maccabees is otherwise standard in respect to other LXX texts. 79 E.g., sometimes due to the prefixing of ἀ- and disappearance of ϝ: ἀάατος or ἀάϝατος, from ἀάω, “to be invincible.” At the end of a noun, e.g.: γράα (a kind of snake), or λᾶας (“stone”). There are sometimes differences in vowel-length in the pronunciation of ἀάατος (meaning unknown). Beekes and Beek, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 1:2. 80 Naomi G. Cohen, “Jewish Names as Cultural Indicators in Antiquity,” JSJ 7 (1976): 97–128; Naomi G. Cohen, “The Names of the Translators in the Letter of Aristeas,” JSJ 15 (1984): 32–64. 81 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 99–100.

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varying orthographic and pronunciation practices, which suggest that there was no significance between differing spellings of Abram(os).

2.3.3 Lines 5–6 οὐκ ἀγέραστος ἔϕυ γὰρ ἀνὰ πτόλιν. For he was not inclined to be unrecompensed in the city . . . Line 5 begins a new sentence and couplet (line 5–6). For Abramos the choice ἀγέραστος (“without a gift of honour, unrecompensed”) instead of the more common ἄτιμος is probably a choice of metre and possibly style, since ἀγέραστος is known in Classical poetic writing82 and inscriptions,83 usually in respect to gods. It could also be a semantic distinction since ἄτιμος can mean to be deprived of civic rights and has negative connotations.84 However, given the amount of epic word choices in this epitaph, it is probably a stylistic decision. The impression of deservedness of the honour bestowed is emphasised with ἔϕυ.85 The “gift of honour” that Abramos is described as receiving is explained in lines 5b–8 (below). The inscription continues to use elegant and epic lexical choices fit for metre with πτόλιν (πτόλις, e.g., Iliad 2.130, the epic spelling of πόλις).86 The spelling of πτόλιν, rather than πόλιν, is found in epic writing as well as Cypriot, Thessalonian, and Arcadian Greek dialects, as a preservation of old Mycenean Greek, and here seems to imitate epic style.87 ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀρχῇ | πανδήμῳ ἐθνικῇ . . . but also (held) a magistracy of the general community . . . The end of line 5 and beginning of line 6 explain that Abramos held the office of communal or public magistracy, ἀρχή, over the general or ordinary community (πανδήμῳ ἐθνικῇ), in a string of datives.88 Horbury and Noy attach the phrase πανδήμῳ ἐθνικῇ specifically to the Jewish ἔθνος of Egypt, citing Philo’s use

82 Homer, Iliad 1.119; Hesiod, Theogonia 395: τὸν δ’ ἔϕαθ’, ὅστις ἄτιμος ὑπὸ Κρόνου ἠδ’ ἀγέραστος (“And he declared that he who was without office or honour under Kronos, should be raised to both office and rights as is just”); Euripedes, Hecuba 115; Bacchae 1378; Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 3.65: ὅς μ’ ὑπερηνορέῃ θυέων ἀγέραστον ἔθηκεν (“[Pelias] who left me unhonoured with sacrifice”). 83 For example, in a temple dedication, IG II2 7863 (Attica, 317/6 BCE), line 7: ὅ γε δαίμοσιν ἦν ἀγέραστος. This inscription is, it must be said, only somewhat metrical and contains many deviations from metre. See Threatte, “Unmetrical.” 84 ἄτιμος I.2, LSJ. 85 From ϕύω, “beget.” 86 The semantic range of πόλις/πτόλις is varied: community, country/state, city, or town. 87 Beekes and Beek, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2:1219. 88 Compare the confusion of dative and genitive stems in: Stolk, “Dative”; Jean Humbert, La disparition du datif en grec (du Ier au Xe siecle) (Paris: E. Champion, 1930); Geoffrey Horrocks, “Syntax:

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of ἔθνος (Legat. 133).89 Partsch understands ἐθνικός to signify that the magistracy is over a whole province (provincialis),90 but others take the meaning of the allusion as referring to the Jewish community. Reinach argues that Abramos was magistrate (πολιταρχῶν) of the entire Jewish ἔθνος.91 The grammatically masculine ἄρχων is more common than the feminine ἀρχή. The latter, ἀρχή, is usually a term for the office in the singular (“magistracy”) but in the plural means “magistrates,” although there are some attestations of the singular as “magistrate.”92 The term ἐθνική suggests it is a public or communal office.93 Were it not for line 7 (πολιταρχῶν) it would be otherwise unclear that magistracy is meant by ἀρχή, rather than a general leader.94 Miller translates the term temporally, but the others argue that ἀρχή is best understood here as a role, and in some relation to ἐστέϕετ’.95 Abramos’s expertise might have mostly served the Jewish communities (in two places, as the inscription reads), given that Greco-Roman Egypt had devolved courts and localised legal jurisdiction for minority groups and community (see below §4). Roman Egypt had no shortage of formal titles for officials, although these titles did shift over time; as a later example of such development, ἐθνικός is a late antique term for a tax collector.96 The epitaph is clear that the title is ἀρχή, a magistracy or magistrate. The term ἀρχή is attested in numerous literary97 and documentary sources, especially in plural as mentioned above. For example “magistrates and liturgists” are mentioned in one papyri from Oxyrhynchus.98 In LXX Genesis, besides the meaning of ἀρχή as “beginning,” the word is also used in the sense of “office” for the role of the chief cupbearer.99 Robert notes that the magistracy is clarified by the following phrase “crowned in wisdom” in line 6, From Classical Greek to the Koine,” in A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity, ed. A.-F. Christides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 618–31. 89 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 100; citing also other sources: Aryeh Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights, TSAJ 7 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 127. 90 In Preisigke, SB. 91 Reinach, “Basse-Égypt. Le Caire.” 92 For reference to a single magistrate, ἡ ἀρχή (P.Hal.1.226, 3rd c. BCE). 93 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 100; citing: Kasher, Jews, 125–27. 94 Beekes and Beek, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 1:145. 95 Miller translates “pendant” (during): “En effet; il ne fut pas sans recevoir de grands honneurs dans sa ville; et pendant son commandment il mérita la couronne de la science universelle” (“Inscriptions,” 151). For ἀρχή here as magistracy role, see: Kaibel; Jacobsthal; L. Robert, Hellenica 11–12 (1960): 385, no. 3; Bernand. 96 P.Oxy.126.13, 6th c. CE. 97 ἀρχή II.3–4, LSJ. 98 ἀρχαὶ καὶ λειτουργίαι (P.Oxy.119.16, 3rd c. CE). Liturgies were temporary, compulsory public service roles often filled by locals (liturgists). 99 LXX Gen 40:13, 20, 21; 41:13. The chief baker is called ἀρχισῑτοποιός in Gen 40:1.

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below.100 Most of the editors suggest that Abramos’s office was an official function101 and see his magistracy as related to the epithet of wisdom; however, Kaibel says that “crowned in wisdom” indicates Abramos’s achievements relate instead to literary outputs.102 Documentary and legal sources confirm the official nature of magistrates in Roman Egypt (see §4). ἐστέϕετ’ ἐν σοϕίᾳ. . . . crowned in wisdom.103 The crowning of Abramos may not just be figurative,104 since crowning was a part of the election of magistrates and other leaders, and the honouring of athletic champions. Magistrates in office are “crowned”: ὁ ἐστεϕανωμένος ἄρχων.105 In a second century CE papyri, a magistrate is crowned: στεϕέσθω Ἀχιλλεὺς κοσμητείαν.106 An inscription from Alexandria mentioning ἀρχισυναγω[ - - ] (singular or plural)107 honours a generous benefactor named Brasidas, who is honoured and crowned by the rest of the group’s leaders; line 14 reads: [. . .] στεϕάνῳ επ[. . .]. In other inscriptions, especially dedicatory ones, crowning is common, usually of garlands and branches, but also gold, and both branches and gold together.108 Winners of athletic games were crowned.109 A Delphic inscription commemorates Archon of Pella, a general of Alexander the Great, who was crowned as a champion of the games at Isthmius and Pythia.110 The epigrapher chooses the middle indicative perfect (ἐστέϕετο) instead of middle aorist (ἐστέψατο), in poetic effort perhaps, given an increasing lack of semantic distinction between the perfect and aorist in more colloquial Koine Greek.111 The literary context for “crowned in wisdom” is discussed further below (§3).

100 Bernand, IM, 98; Robert, “Inscriptions Gréco-Juives,” 18–24. 101 Jacobsthal, Bernand, Robert, Miller, and Horbury and Noy. 102 Kaibel, EG, 171. 103 Bernand, IM, 97, translates rather freely: “mais il a porté la couronne d’une magistrature de communauté s’exerçant sur tout le peuple, dans la sagesse.” 104 Bernand, IM, 99, citing Robert. 105 Demosthenes, In Midiam 21.17. 106 P.Ryl.77.34. 107 JIGRE 18, line 3. Dated to 3 or 4 CE. Perhaps reconstruct ἀρχισυναγω[γος] (Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 26–27). 108 Branches (e.g., στεϕανῶσαι θαλλοῦ, IG II2 20 Attica); gold (e.g., στεϕανο͂ σαι αὐτὸν χρυσο͂ ι στεϕάνοι, IG I3 102 Attica); both together (e.g., στέϕανος θαλλοῦ χρυσοῦς IG22.1388.33). 109 E.g., CIG 4380m10 (Oenoanda), IG 14.1603 (Rome), IG II2 1006 (Attica). 110 SEG 18.222; BE 71.361. Lines A.2 and B.1. Dated ca. 321 BCE. For more on the inscription, see Lorenzo Pizzoli, “Monumento commemorativo da Delfi per Archon di Pella,” Axon 4.2 (2020): 59–80. 111 This change is reflected in the tendency to use the aorist more than the perfect in Koine, which Horrocks says was assisted by a loss of distinction in vowel pronunciation. Horrocks, “Syntax,” 627.

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2.3.4 Lines 7–8 δισσῶν γάρ τε τόπων πολιταρχῶν αὐτὸς ἐτειμῶ. ‘For you were doubly honoured by holding the office of magistracy . . . The address is now switched to the second person singular in reference to the deceased, for two couplets (lines 7–10). The couplet in lines 7–8 illuminates the meaning of ἀρχῇ in line 6, since the term ἀρχή can mean ruler, leader, or magistrate/magistracy, but the “official” role is made clear with the language of these lines, mentioning an office of some kind, honours, and two cities. The honour is doubled because of the second half of the line (below) explaining that the magistracy was held in two places (διμερῆ). For Miller, the sense of the entire line is a bit vague, in ostensibly poetic Greek, but may imply the expense of the honour was double.112 Indeed, the verb πολιταρχέω is defined in the LSJ as “to hold an office,” though there is only one other attestation besides this epitaph,113 and one example of a nominal form πολιταρχία,114 while another nominal form πολιτάρχης means “civic magistrate,” attested in a few sources from Greece and Egypt.115 Due to the scant attestations of the verbal forms of πολιταρχέω, perhaps a more contextualised translation would be in line with the nominal form πολιτάρχης (civic magistrate), given the supplemental use of τόπος, and thus may be reinforcing the occupation as a magistrate using technical terms. This is the argument taken by Robert, following Reinach, who implies that this epitaph is evidence of the existence of an official Jewish role called a πολιτάρχος, a title otherwise unknown in Egypt but attested in Macedonia for a civic magistrate.116 Robert attaches this πολιτάρχος role to the Jewish πολίτευμα, concluding that Abramos was the head of the πολίτευμα of Leontopolis. Robert’s argument seems to be special pleading, however. If the noun πολιτάρχης means a civic magistrate, it is unclear why the verbal form’s occurrence in a Jewish inscription must refer instead to a leader of the πολίτευμα, a term not mentioned in the inscription. Besides these problems, the adjectival use of τόπος (τόπων πολιταρχῶν) lends little more clarity, since τόπος can mean position or place, but also has a technical meaning in Egyptian toponymy, as a

112 Miller, “Inscriptions,” 152. Kaibel is in agreement. 113 LSJ. The other source is another inscription, from Macedonia: Demitsas.Μακεδ.364, al. (Thessalonica). 114 Defined in LSJ as office of πολιτάρχης, attested in one source: BSA23.73 (Lete, 2nd c. CE). 115 πολιτάρχης (ὁ), LSJ. At Thessalonica, Acts 17:6; at Lete, SIG 700.2 (2nd c. BCE); in Egypt, POxy.745.4 (1st c BCE/1st c. CE). Another spelling is πολίταρχος (Aeneas Tacticus, Poliorcetica 26.12). 116 See note above for the inscriptions. Robert, “Inscriptions Gréco-Juives,” 19–21, Robert and Robert, “Note,” 19–21. The note in Reinach is brief, merely a sentence, stating that Abramos was politarch of the Jewish people.

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sub-division of a νομός (nome) in Egypt.117 Due to the ambiguity of the lines it is not certain that much more clarity can be read from this part of the poem. In all likelihood, the epigrapher was probably searching for formal sounding language, given the repetitiveness and syntactic ambiguities of lines 5–8, but there is a good case for arguing that the verb πολιταρχέω denotes holding some kind of civic magistracy office, linking with ἀρχή in line 6, particularly given the choice of ἀρχή (magistracy) over ἄρχων (magistrate), as mentioned above. The orthography of the verbal form ἐτειμῶ (ἐτιμῶ) shows vowel interchange of long /ι/ and /ει/ in Koine Greek. This phonetic interchange and others are attested in the orthography of inscriptions, papyri, and texts of the period (see above, line 3).118 τὴν διμερῆ δαπάνην ἐξανύσας χάρισιν. . . .in two cities, fulfilling the expense with gracious liberality. Additional clarity concerning Abramos’s occupation is possible from the mention of the two places or cities. Abramos’s position of magistracy (either of civic magistracy, i.e., as a πολιτάρχος, or simply an ἄρχων magistrate) is held in two regions or towns (διμερῆ). There seems to be a poetic or Atticizing effort in using a prefixed dual rather than numeral or word for two.119 The two towns or regions are suggested by Robert to be Leontopolis and another city. Horbury and Noy suggest Leontopolis and either Demerdash or Teberkythis.120 The “double” expense is fulfilled or accomplished (ἐξανύσας). The prior use of ἀνύω, rather than ἐξανύω, in line 1, perhaps suggests that the earlier use is meant to be without the prefix ἐξ, otherwise the wording would be slightly repetitive. The word δαπάνη can mean a figurative or literal cost or expense, in this case the service of being a magistrate in two places, but in most other references seems to refer to literal financial cost.121 In the context of an occupation or role performed during one’s lifetime, the sense of figurative expense is arguable, the costs being time and duties. Additionally, the “expense” could also be a euphemistic reference to the liturgy system in Egypt, liturgies being conscripted or compulsory civil service roles, filled by “liturgists.” Finally, χάρισιν suggests more literally “generous ‘bounties’” in the dative plural, but likely refers to Abramos’s opinion of the liturgical role: “gracious liberality.”122 The plural use could be an attempt to maintain

117 τόπος, LSJ. Either τόπος or τοπαρχία, found in many papyri. Robert and Robert, “Note,” discuss both possibilities of meaning. 118 Thackeray, Grammar, 85–86. 119 Geoffrey Horrocks, Greek: A History of the Language and Its Speakers (London: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 27, 63. 120 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 100. 121 δαπάνη LSJ. 122 Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 100. Bernand, IM, 99: “libéralité” and “générosité.”

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number agreement with the plural, an issue that seemed prone to difficulties in Koine Greek with the increasing use of subordinate clauses to circumvent agreement.123 The semantic range of χάρις is quite broad, but in this context the word probably means gratitude or graciousness.124 This reading would make sense with a magistracy role, which could have been a liturgy.

2.3.5 Lines 9–10 πάντα δέ σοι, ἐπέοιχ’ ὅσα τοι, ψυχή, πρὶν ἔκευθες | καὶ τέκνων ἀγαθῶν αὔξομεν γενεή. Until you hid yourself in the grave all things that befitted you were yours, soul, and we, a family of good children, increase them.’ Lines 9–10 are best approached together given the syntactic ambiguities and uncertain reconstruction of the word after ἀγαθῶν. The direct address to the soul (ψυχή) is common in funerary inscriptions and literary texts125 and is a term of affection for the deceased.126 The majuscules of eta Η and nu Ν are easily confused when the stone is damaged or unclear. Jacobsthal proposes a missing nu missing by haplography: αὐξαμέ⟨ν⟩η γενεή; Robert: αυ. . . ἐν γενεῇ;127 Peek likewise: αὔξαμε⟨ν⟩ ἡ γενεή; however, Wilhelm reads: αὔξομεν γενεή; Bernand, likewise: αὔξομεν γενεή, arguing that the letter before γενεή is ν not η.128 One can therefore read line 10 as having a verb in the present indicative first person plural, αὔξομεν, reading the second half of the couplet: “. . . and we, a family of good children, increase them.” Or, one can read as Jacobsthal, who offers a present participle but judges the final ν to read η: αὐξαμέ⟨ν⟩η γενεή, thus ending the couplet: “and an increasing family of good children.” I obtained a new high-resolution colour photograph, kindly supplied by the Archäologisches Institut of the Universität Göttingen, photo by Stephan Eckardt (see Figure 1). A close up of the words in question, and other examples of the two letters eta and nu, offer some help to address this palaeographic issue:

123 Horrocks, “Syntax,” 624–26. 124 Beekes and Beek, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, 2:1606–7. 125 Sophocles, Phil. 714. Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 102. 126 Bernand, IM, 99, citing Louis Robert, “Note,” Hellenica 11–12 (1960): 328; Jeanne Robert and Louis Robert, “Bulletin épigraphique,” Revue des études grecques 74 (1961): 119–268. 127 Robert, “Inscriptions Gréco-Juives,” 234, translates the couplet: “Avant ta mort ton âme a joui de tous les bonheurs qu’on peut désirer et même de la naissance d’enfants vertueux.” 128 Bernand, IM, 100. Horbury and Noy also agree with this reconstruction.

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Figure 2: Close up images of words and letter forms from same inscription (JIGRE 39, Figure 1).

The eta majuscules have a more square raised element above the horizontal stroke, which is particularly well pronounced, even where damaged, as in the examples in line 6 (see Figure 2). The nu majuscules by contrast tend to have more asymmetrical vertical strokes, somewhat curved in some cases, and less pronounced diagonal connecting stroke. Based on this analysis, I would be in agreement with Wilhelm’s and Bernand’s reconstruction of αὔξομεν γενεή.129 The “fitting” honour may refer to the large family of good children.

129 Horbury and Noy discuss further reasons why this reconstruction is plausible, summarising the argument of Wilhelm concerning the use of ἀέξω / αὐξάνω for the increase of fame of the deceased in other epigraphic and literary sources. Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 101.

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2.3.6 Lines 11–13 ἀλλὰ σύ, ὦ παροδεῖτα, ἰδὼν ἀγαθοῦ τάϕον ἀνδρὸς | ὅν τε κατευϕημῶν τοῖα ϕράσας ἄπιθι. ‘But you, passerby, beholding the grave of a good man, depart with these favourable words for him: While the rest of the epigraph is in elegiac couplets, the final three lines are in pentameter, which is unusual but not unique among metric funerary inscriptions. Kaibel lists Abramos’s inscription among many others which exhibit such mixing.130 The formulas in lines 11–13 are conventional. The passerby is addressed with the vocative, a common habit in funerary epigrams. The deceased is given the additional epithet of good or virtuous (ἀγαθοῦ τάϕον ἀνδρὸς), with freer syntax common in poetic and Attic Greek.131 The choice of ἀνδρός, from ἀνήρ (instead of ἄνθρωπος), is a marker of Attic and Koine Greek, and common in the funerary epigrams, but a more refined choice would have been πόσις, often used to “elevate” or archaize the style.132 Reference to the grave or stone (τάϕον) in the inscription itself is also a stock practice of funerary writing. The beginning of line 12 has two mistakes by the stonecutter. Where the stone reads ΟΝΤΕ (as if ὅν τε),133 Kaibel corrects to [Τ]ΟΝΔΕ ([τ]όν δε). This word is a clear mistake owing to grammar and the stone is missing the initial τ, and metathesis has perhaps resulted in the τ. The switch between dentals /δ/ and /τ/ is understandable, since both τε and δε are clitics. Kaibel, Miller, and others also correct an illegible initial letter, read as κοῖα on the stone, where one should read τοῖα (see Figure 3).134 An exchange of κ for τ is harder to explain. Referring to the colour photo of the stone, the reading of [κ]οῖα is not clear, in fact:

Figure 3: Close up image of word (κοῖα or τοῖα) in line 12 from   same inscription (JIGRE 39, Figure 1).

A kappa seems unlikely since the top vertical stroke is horizontal. To compare other tau majuscules, one may observe that sometimes the top horizonal stroke of Τ is not

130 Kaibel, EG, 703. Kaibel lists fifty-three examples of such cases where either hexameter or pentameter is inserted into metric epigrams in elegiac couplets. 131 Horrocks, “Syntax,” 620. 132 Horrocks, Greek, 21. 133 Robert, Bernand, Horbury/Noy: ὅν τε, Jacobsthal ὅντε. 134 For Miller and Robert, the letter is κ, a mistake of the stone. For Kaibel the letter is illegible [τ]. Preisigke, Jacobsthal, Kaibel, Bernand, and Horbury/Noy correct to τοῖα.

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perfectly balanced and the vertical stroke often appears closer to the left than the right. In this case then, the epigrapher might have cut a little too closely to the left, and the letter is damaged (resulting in what looks like another horizontal stroke at mid-level) but was perhaps Τ, not Κ. γαῖαν ἔχοις ἐλαϕρὰν εἰς τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον. “May you find the earth light upon you for all time.”’ While line 3 mentioned the earth (grave) as the more creative and unusual χθὼν ἀμμοϕανής (sandy-looking earth), the expression here uses different wording. Several other Jewish inscriptions use the same blessing, as it is a conventional theme in Greek and Latin funerary epigraphy.135 Interestingly, the language of this formulaic expression varies considerably. JIGRE 38, line 9 uses χθών and κούϕα (our inscription uses γαῖα and ἅπαντα, respectively), and the subject is the earth, but in our inscription (JIGRE 39) the subject is the deceased and the earth is a direct object.

2.4 Summary Findings of the Inscription The deceased’s name was most certainly Abramos, a Jew, and his occupation a civic magistrate or communal magistrate, depending on how one interprets the verb πολιταρχῶν. The epitaph is written in good Koine Greek with several cases of orthographic variants preserving pronunciation differences that were natural developments of Koine. There are several attempts to choose more poetic or epic vocabulary, a feature of more literary as opposed to spoken colloquial Koine Greek. The grammar and syntax are mostly that of Koine, with some attempts to elevate the poetic style marked by freer syntax of more classical Greek. The metre is elegiac couplets, although the final three lines break into in pentameter. Other funerary inscriptions also preserve this mixing of metre and rhythmics.136 Unmetrical or mixed metric elements in inscriptions is not unusual,137 and so should not entail the suggestion that the epigrapher was amateurish. The chiastic structure of the inscription has not been noticed or commented on by the other editors. The poem is structured with a thematic chiasm:

135 JIGRE 38, 109. For its conventional use, see Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), 65–68. 136 Kaibel, EG, 703. 137 Threatte, “Unmetrical.”

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A. time (a span of age) B. grave, earth C. soul of Abramos, fortunate D. achievements of the deceased C. soul of Abramos, fortunate B. grave, earth A. time The chiasm is found in epic Greek poetry, most notably Homer,138 as well as in Hebrew poetry, as a feature of oral strategies, preserved in the conventions of poetic composition.

3 Comparative Textual Analysis: “Crowned in Wisdom,” Magistrates, and the Law The above section has considered mostly epigraphic sources for comparative analysis of the epitaph. In this section, we will also consider similarities of theme and phrases in other Jewish and early Christian texts, namely the phrase “crowned in wisdom,” and the themes of magistrates and the law. Although some inscriptions do quote scripture, it is not a common convention. Funerary inscriptions, like Aramaic magic bowls in Babylonia or magical papyri in Greek and Demotic, have their own textual conventions and formulas. These sometimes involve allusions and idioms that draw upon literary frameworks, but they are less common in the first centuries. By contrast, invocations or references to figures and divinities, like the “All-subduer” in Abramos’s inscription, are more common in documentary and magical writing, than the occurrence of specific phrases and quotations from scripture. A crown of wisdom occurs in Prov 14:24 (cf. Prov 4:9, 14:18), which is rendered with some difficulties into Greek and Latin: MT LXX Vg

‫עטרת חכמים עשרם אולת כסילים אולת׃‬ στέϕανος σοϕῶν πανοῦργος, ἡ δὲ διατριβὴ ἀϕρόνων κακή. corona sapientium divitiae eorum fatuitas stultorum inprudentia

138 Cedric Hubbell Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958).

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The crown of the wise is riches, but the folly (LXX: leisure) of fools is foolish (LXX: evil; Vg: imprudence).139 In this passage, the use of “crown of the wise (men)” offers the closest idiomatic usage of a metaphorical crown with wisdom or another positive attribute or virtue. A “crown of wisdom” is not found in Greek texts. Prov 14:18, 24 seems to be echoed in Sir 1:18: LXX Vg Syr

στέϕανος σοϕίας ϕόβος κυρίου corona sapientiae timor Domini ‫ܪܝܫ ܚܟܡܬܐ ܕܚܠܬܗ ܕܡܪܝܐ‬

The Syriac exchanges crown with ‫( ܪܝܫ‬Heb: ‫)ראשׁ‬, making it unclear what the Hebrew equivalent would have been for the Greek rendering στέϕανος. Regardless, the phrase is offering a clear allusion to the “crown of wisdom” in Prov 14:24. For comparative examples, the metaphorical “crown of glory” is rather flexibly deployed in literary texts, with its own reception. In Ps 8:6, man is created a little lower than the angels, “crowned with glory and majesty”: MT LXX Vg

‫וכבוד והדר תעטרהו‬ δόξῃ καὶ τιμῇ ἐστεϕάνωσας αὐτόν gloria et decore coronabis eum

Ben Sira quotes this verse in his expression “crowned with glory” in Sir 45:25: ‫המעטר‬ ‫אתכם כבוד‬. In 1 Pet 5:4, there is a further reference to a “crown of glory”: τῆς δόξης στέϕανον. Jer 13:18 and Lam 2:15 also reference a “crown of glory.” Elsewhere in Sirach, there is a crown of joy in Sir 1:11 (for fear of the lord) and 6:31 (for wisdom). Besides these examples, another positive attribute that appears collocated with a metaphorical crown is in Proverbs, with a “crown of grace” in Prov 1:9 and a crown of grace and beauty in 4:9: Prov 1:9 MT: ‫כי לוית חן הם לרשך‬ LXX: στέϕανον γὰρ χαρίτων δέξῃ σῇ κορυϕῇ Vg: ut addatur gratia capiti tuo

139 BHS proposes emending to ‫ וְ ִלוְ יַת‬from ‫“( ִלוְ יָ ה‬wreath, garland”), which would create the same parallelism (“garland” and “crown”) as Prov 4:9. See M. Rotenberg, “The Meaning of ‫ ִאוֶ ֶלת‬in Proverbs,” Lešonenu 25 (1960–1961): 201 [Hebrew]. With thanks to Laura Quick for this observation.

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Prov 4:9 MT ‫תתן לראשך לוית חן עטרת תפארת תמגנך‬ LXX ἵνα δῷ τῇ σῇ κεϕαλῇ στέϕανον χαρίτων, στεϕάνῳ δὲ τρυϕῆς ὑπερασπίσῃ σου. Vg dabit capiti tuo augmenta gratiarum et corona inclita proteget te In these examples, there is a wide range of metaphorical uses of “crowning.” There is the close equivalent of the “crown of wisdom” in Prov 14:24 and Sir 1:18, as well as the comparable “crown of glory” in Ps 8:6 (cf. Sir 45:25, 1 Pet 5:4) and “crown of grace” and of beauty (Prov 1:9, 4:9; cf. Isa 62:3, Ezek 28:12). It must be noted that these examples do not exhaust the occurrences of metaphorical crowning in Hebrew and cognate sources, including crowning with negative attributes, e.g., the “crown of pride” in Isa 28:1, 3 (cf. Ezek 16:12), contrasted with the “crown of hope” (Isa 28:5). In Abramos’s epitaph, we must not be too hasty in assigning a direct textual quotation to a known phrase, particularly when the phrase is linked to idiomatic expression. On the other hand, if a Jewish epigrapher were searching for the right metaphorical use of “crowning,” he might have imagined the famous phrasing of Proverbs, and perhaps even of Sirach, in settling upon the phrase “crowned in wisdom.” It is also tempting to bring in the surrounding mentions of “honour” in Abramos’s inscription (line 5, 7) as evidence that both “glory” and “wisdom” appear correlated with crowning in the style of the epigrapher, perhaps evoking the biblical sources. However, the range of idiomatic uses of “crown + (positive attribute)” in Jewish texts might not be evoking a particular text, but simply echoing known poetic style: the epigrapher knows that conventionally, wisdom and glory are fitting things to attribute to an honoured individual. There are numerous metaphorical uses of crowning for other attributes and gifts besides wisdom.140 Altogether, the collocation of crown, wisdom, and honour, particularly the “crown of wisdom” known from Proverbs and Sirach, is tempting to interpret as implying a Jewish background for the epigrapher. A “crown of wisdom” is for the wise in Proverbs and Sirach, yet the occupation of Abramos offers another facet to this metaphor. A lexical analysis of judgement, judges, and magistrates is far beyond the scope of this essay. Some references to judges and magistrates use a range of words in Greek. The word ἄρχων usually renders words like ‫נשיא‬, ‫שר‬, and other semantic equivalents to a chief or ruler.

140 With thanks to Laura Quick for this observation. Job 31:36 (indictment); Ps 65:12 (blessings); Prov 12:4 (a noble wife); Prov 16:31 (grey hair); Prov 17:6 (grandchildren); Isa 28:5 (army); Isa 35:10, 51:11 (joy); Isa 62:3 (majesty).

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The word “court of justice” occurs in LXX Judg 6:32: Δικαστήριον, rendering the toponym ‫ירבעל‬, and the κριτήριον occurs three times (Exod 21:6; 1 Kgs 7:44; Dan 7:10). The Hebrew ‫ שׁפט‬is usually rendered in LXX with κριτής dozens of times, but only sometimes with δικαστής (9x). In the Greek deuterocanon, there are additional occurrences of κριτής141 and four occurrences of δικαστής.142 It is only in Sirach that we find the Jewish literary use of ἄρχων as magistrate or judge: Sir 41:18, a verse which fortunately also survives in Hebrew. Mas1h LXX Vg

‫]פ[שע‬ ׄ ‫]ע[ל‬ ׄ ‫וגבר]ת[ על קשר ׀ מעדה ועם‬ ׄ ‫מאדון‬ ἀπὸ κριτοῦ καὶ ἄρχοντος περὶ πλημμελείαςκαὶ ἀπὸ συναγωγῆς καὶ λαοῦ περὶ ἀνομίας a principe et iudice de delicto a synagoga et plebe de iniquitate

Note that the words “master” and the uncertain reading of “mistress” in the Hebrew have been rendered as judge and magistrate in the Greek and Vulgate. For our purposes, it is notable that lexemes κριτής and ἄρχων (ἄρχοντος) occur together, and that here ἄρχοντος renders the sense of magistrates rather than rulers, as in the rest of LXX. By contrast, 1 Esd 8:23 mentions “judges and justices” (κριτὰς καὶ δικαστάς) to be appointed throughout Syria and Phoenicia to exercise justice and teach the law. Elsewhere, Sirach has much to say on the relationship between wisdom and law. In Sir 8:14, one should not go to law against a judge. The wise or sensible person (συνετός) will trust in the law, which is as dependable as a divine oracle (33:3). Those who observe the law of the Lord are wise (Sir 9:15, 15:1, 19:20, 21:11, 33:2, 33:3) or faithful (34:8, 35:1). Scribes also study the law (38:34). The law is a guiding force (19:17). Clever people who break the law are worse than those who fear God but lack understanding (Sir 19:24); one should be wary of a breach of the law (41:18) and should not be ashamed of the law (42:2). The law and wisdom are often equated, objects of pursuit and tools of strength (32:15, 24; 39:8). In the Praise of the Fathers (Sir 44–50), Abraham kept the law of the Most High (44:20), Moses was given the commandments and the law of life and knowledge (45:17), Samuel judged Israel by the law (46:14), and the wicked kings abandoned it (49:4). The “judges” are referred to collectively (46:11–12). Ben Sira dedicated himself to the study of the Law and the Prophets and the other writings (Sir Prol.). It is only in Proverbs and Sirach that the phrase “crown of wisdom” occurs, comparing well with Abramos’s inscription. Likewise, it is only in Sirach that we

141 1 Macc 2:55; 2 Macc 2:6; Wis 15:7; Sir 7:6; 8:14; 10:1, 2, 24; 35:12; 41:18; 46:11; et al. 142 Sir 38:33; Wis 6:9; 9:7; Bar 2:1.

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find a use of ἄρχων in the sense of the Egyptian official title, rendering magistrate, as opposed to ruler or leader. It is perhaps interesting to remember then, that Greek Sirach was translated in Egypt (Sir Prol.) during the late second century BCE. On the one hand, funerary epigraphy has a tendency towards euphemistic and laudatory language, and both conventional and creative epithets. One might be able to construct a case for a Jewish literary background informing the metaphorical usage of “crown of wisdom,” particularly considering the additional attributes of honour given to Abramos. The terminology of magistrate opens up further possibilities, as it is clear that the Greek translator of Sirach was aware of the title of ἄρχων for a magistrate in Hellenistic Egypt, whereas the translators of other LXX texts seem unaware of this meaning. These preferences point to a reliable connection to Egypt for Greek Sirach. Conversely, the LXX preference for ἄρχων for “ruler/ chief” is understandable as an isomorphism, so should not have a bearing on the provenance of LXX texts.

4 Jews and the Law in Roman Egypt: Multilingualism, Magistrates, and Historical Context Sources for Jews in Egypt include papyri, inscriptions, references to Jews from Egypt in the rabbinic literature,143 Aristeas, Josephus, Philo, and indirect evidence of the fragmentary Jewish-Greek writers, some of whom were likely Jews of Egypt. There are also a range of literary works, historical sources, and edicts concerning tensions in late antique Egypt (see below). In order to contextualise the Jews of Roman Egypt, this part of the present study will explore three main areas: language, magistrates and the law, and historical knowledge of the Jewish communities of Egypt. Given the language situation of Roman Egypt and plentiful sources, we can estimate the frequency of Abramos’s contact with Greek, Aramaic, and Latin. The Ptolemaic and Roman justice systems in Egypt offer a window into Abramos’s occupation. Lastly, prosopographic data and the historical context of Jews as a group in Greco-Roman Egypt is useful for understanding Abramos and his world.

143 For example, Jewish physicians from Alexandria are mentioned in b. Yebam. 80a, quoting 2nd century CE tanna R. Eliezer. These physicians were reputedly able to cure men with crushed testicles (men who are eunuchs by “natural causes”) so that they could have children.

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4.1 Language, Multilingualism, and the People in Roman Egypt While it may be obvious that Abramos’s primary language was likely Greek, Egyptian courts were multilingual environments; therefore, one should pause and reflect upon the professional and written communicative spheres of a Jewish individual in Egypt. A fuller treatment of language in Egypt is required here, given the rather murky territory of language choice in Jewish funerary epigraphs, an area which begs more questions than it answers. Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt144 was a multilingual environment, spanning several different languages and scripts whose popularity and spheres of utility changed over time. Perceptions of “ethnicity” or “identity” are elusive in Greco-Roman Egypt because recorded classifications mainly seem to be for fiscal use (see below). The Romans (from 30 BCE) categorised individuals in Egypt into two categories in tax records: 1) citizens of Hellenistic cities;145 and 2) everyone else (the χώρα or country people), including Egyptians, non-citizen Greeks, and all minorities.146 In doing so they built upon the Ptolemaic demographic organisation, which distinguished between citizens of the cities, non-citizen Greeks, and the χώρα (Egyptians and everyone else).147 The reasons for these designations are nominal: the taxation system was concerned with land ownership rather than ethnic or metropolitan elitism, since anyone who owned land could be taxed in grain.148 Ethnicity149 in Greco-Roman Egypt is not equatable with language choice, since one of the main features of a multilingual environment is that the languages have different stable spheres where they are used such as the home, trade, businesses, and worship.150 Thus for example, given the laconic nature of surviving evidence, even the choice of Greek for Abramos’s epitaph does not indicate what language(s)

144 See Roger S. Bagnall, Roman Egypt: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) and idem, Egypt in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 145 These cities were Alexandria, Ptolemais, Naukratis, and Antinoopolis. 146 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 232; idem, “Greeks and Egyptians: Ethnicity, Status, and Culture,” in Cleopatra’s Egypt: Age of the Ptolemies, ed. Robert Steven Bianchi (New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1988), 21–27. 147 For more on the classification of people, see Willy Clarysse and Dorothy J. Thompson, Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt, 2 vols., Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 148 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 155–56. 149 Koen Goudriaan, Ethnicity in Ptolemaic Egypt, Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 5 (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988); Simon Davis, Race-Relations in Ancient Egypt: Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, Roman (London: Methuen, 1951). 150 Alex Mullen and Patrick James, eds., Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

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Abramos spoke among family and friends in the home. Indeed, tracing language and script is a multifaceted issue. Interpreters are only occasionally mentioned in papyri, and the written Coptic script does not appear until the third century, meaning that even when Coptic was spoken by all present, the scribe would still have to write down the proceedings in Greek.151 Onomastic data is even more challenging since Egyptians and Greeks in Egypt used either Greek or Egyptian naming conventions interchangeably. The Jewishness of Abramos is a category applied to the deceased namely because of his name, but apart from his name, his Greek metrical epitaph is conventional in nature, and lacks Jewish symbolism or themes. His life and interactions with others in his community in Roman Egypt in the early second century CE, however, can be somewhat enlightened by our knowledge about his occupation. From such a context, we can further analyse what is meant by the epithet of “crowned in wisdom” by asking to what extent would Abramos have spoken and written in Greek and Latin.152 In the early centuries, Greek remained the main language of written court proceedings, but it was in practice a multilingual justice system, as it was under the Ptolemies. After Diocletian (284–305 CE), Latin is found more often in the high court proceedings between Roman magistrates and their staff, but participants still spoke their own vernacular languages.153 In Roman Syria and Palestine, the case is similar: one might occasionally encounter written Latin but for the most part in the Roman Imperial period, Greek continued as an existing lingua franca for ethnically diverse Syria and Judea.154 For a Jewish magistrate such as Abramos in Egypt, one can theorise, spoken vernaculars in the court might have been multiple, while the scribal

151 It is acknowledged that there elite, high literary texts were still being produced in Demotic in the first two centuries CE, such as the Inaros-Petubastis cycles. See Friedhelm Hoffmann, Der Kampf um den Panzer des Inaros: Studien zum P. Krall und seiner Stellung innerhalb des Inaros-Petubastis-Zyklus, Mitteilungen aus der Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek (Vienna: Hollinek, 1996). In late antiquity, the use of Demotic script shrank geographically fairly rapidly, only found in documentary texts in Tebtunis and Soknopaiou Nesos (both in the Fayum), and in religious texts limited to the temples and magical texts. The Demotic script disappearred by the third century CE, replaced by Coptic script. Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 236–37. 152 Latin had a “marginal position” in Egypt, mainly among Roman individuals, according to the documentary and literary evidence, following Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 231. If one wanted a high position in the Roman imperial civil service or army, one would need some Latin, but Egyptian officialdom largely functioned almost entirely in Greek into the fourth century (p. 232). 153 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 231. 154 Maurice Sartre, The Middle East under Rome, trans. Catherine Porter and Elizabeth Rawlings (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 275–77. Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 B.C.-A.D. 337 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 387–436 writes that Syria, Judea, and Nabatea functioned mainly in both Aramaic and Greek.

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court archives would most likely have been in Greek, as they would have been in the native Egyptian courts. Although it may seem speculative to comment upon Abramos’s familiarity with Jewish-Greek literature, his “crown of wisdom” may (or may not) hint explicitly at a literary, not merely legalistic, background to his reputation for sound and wise judgment (cf. Sir 39:1–11). Moreover, Abramos’s ability to become a magistrate also entails a high level of formal education. If Abramos was proficient in Greek and literate, and assuming an education and respectable social status given his honoured occupation, to what extent would he have been expected to be familiar with Jewish-Greek literature, Greek philosophical works, Hebrew and Aramaic texts, or even Demotic wisdom? Would these literary corpora influence the decision of his family to emphasise wisdom, or should his wisdom be understood as strictly pertaining to a legal sense? It may have been the case that many Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt did not know Aramaic or Hebrew well, given the dominance of Greek for written communication in Egypt.155 Thus it is entirely plausible that Aramaic wisdom literature would have been available to Abramos as well as Greek and Egyptian. The question of stable multilingualism of Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt is still unsettled, although there is ample evidence for multilingualism in Palestine during this same period.156 Stable multilingualism consists of the consistent language maintenance of multiple languages: specific groups have different linguistic domains.157 In late antique Egypt, Coptic and Greek continued to be used side by side for centuries, in both cities and rural communities.158 Greek could be found at all levels of both 155 Much of the Aramaic papyri come from Upper Egypt rather than Lower Egypt and the Delta. The presence of Egyptian Aramaic papyri suggests that Greek was not as dominant among Jews of Upper Egypt. 156 For further evidence, see Steven Fraade, “Language Mix and Multilingualism in Ancient Palestine: Literary and Inscriptional Evidence,” Jewish Studies 48 (2012): 1–40. 157 Linguistic domains are situations or environments such as the home, trade, acquaintances, or worship, in which one or another language is used more dominantly than others. James Clackson, “Language Maintenance and Language Shift in the Mediterranean World during the Roman Empire,” in Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds, ed. Alex Mullen and Patrick James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 36–57. Clackson gives examples of dubious early attempts to account for the disappearance or resurgence of indigenous vernacular languages, such as the overall attempt of Ramsay MacMullen, “Provincial Languages in the Roman Empire,” AJP 87 (1966): 1–17. 158 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 230–60. See also discussion in Clackson, “Language,” 48–49, on unpublished Coptic papyri dating as late as the sixth century. Coptic, of course, finally subsided as a vernacular not in the face of Greek, but Arabic. See Arietta Papaconstantinou, “Why Did Coptic Fail Where Aramaic Succeeded? Linguistic Developments in Egypt and the Near East after the Arab Conquest,” in Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds, ed. Alex Mullen and Patrick James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 58–76. According to Papaconstantinou, Coptic’s

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urban and rural society, among both the literate and illiterate.159 Multilingualism, however, could vary according to time, period, social conditions, and according to individual preferences. In fact, between men and women in antiquity, differences of language maintenance and choice have been observed: 1) Egyptian women after the fourth century CE increasingly chose to use Coptic where possible, likely due to use of Greek in more public domains such as administration;160 and 2) there were differences in male and female pronunciation patterns and communication in Greek.161 It must also be remembered that the language and spelling of papyri and inscriptions is that of the scribes and the professional epigraphers,162 not necessarily the client. It is also not easy to distinguish between cases of language interference, genuine mistakes, and non-standard orthography, especially so when the medium is an unforgiving stone instead of papyri.163 Non-standard syntax and case endings witnessed in Greek papyri from Egypt may be a case of Greek syncretism,164 though it should also be remembered that Koine Greek itself had its own sub-varieties.165 Others interpret such syncretism instead as difficulties with the

eventual decline by about the year 1300 was likely due to the fact it had never become an international imperial or mercantile language. MacMullen, “Provincial,” espouses the older framework of thinking, that metropolitan areas were dominated by Greek, a tempting proposition given Egyptians were fiscally classified as “peasantry” (χώρα) or of the “land.” In fact, however, papyrological data indicates that both rural and urban areas were multilingual. 159 Clackson, “Language,” 52–57; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 240–60; Adel Sidarus, “Multilingualism and Lexicography in Egyptian Late Antiquity,” Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft 44 (2007): 173–95. Clackson mentions that in the Veneto, from 150 BCE onwards, there are more female dedicators in Veneto-Latin epigraphic and other inscribed writing, such as dedicated objects, indicating a shift in local cultic practice. Women became associated with these activities. 160 Clackson, “Language,” 52; Roger S. Bagnall and Raffaella Cribiore, Women’s Letters from Ancient Egypt, 300 BC-AD 800 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 19–21. 161 For more on female speech in Greco-Roman antiquity see: Alan H. Sommerstein, “The Language of Athenian Women,” in Lo spettacolo delle voci, ed. Francesco De Martino and Alan H. Sommerstein, Le rane 14 (Bari: Levante, 1995), 60–85; Thorsten Fögen, “Female Speech,” in A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language, ed. Egbert J. Bakker (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 311–26; Thorsten Fögen, “Gender-Specific Communication in Greco-Roman Antiquity: With a Research Bibliography,” Historiographia Linguistica 31 (2004): 199–276. 162 Gian Carlo Susini, The Roman Stonecutter: An Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973). 163 The unforgiving nature of chiselling stone makes erasures and abandoned attempts all the more fascinating for the study of Greek orthography, as seen in Abramos’s epitaph with the upside down line 14. 164 These linguistic developments are extensively documented throughout Horrocks, “Syntax”; Stolk, “Dative”; Humbert, La disparition. 165 Horrocks, “Syntax,” 620.

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Greek case system or incompetence in the language.166 The spellings observed in Abramos’s epitaph can tell us little more than the Greek proficiency of the epigrapher hired by his family. As mentioned, the preference for one language or another can be of limited help in a multilingual environment. At Leontopolis, Greek may have been the appropriate funerary inscriptional language of choice, especially given its quantity of metric inscriptions. Analogous conservatism or customary fashions might also be said of the Palestinian funerary inscriptions and their laconic style.167 Some Jewish inscriptions are also bilingual, or even write Latin in Greek characters or Greek in Latin characters.168 Among the hundreds of Jewish inscriptions of Egypt and Western Europe, several different Greek dialects are witnessed, such as Doric (JIGRE 38), and a variety of non-standard spellings. On the other hand, one may propose Abramos’s epigrapher was probably a member of the Jewish community, though not necessarily. There are too many unknown factors with the Leontopoline epitaphs to compare them fruitfully with bilingual inscriptions or papyri. Apart from several cases where the orthography is questionable, the Leontopoline inscriptions are good Koine Greek, and the metrical inscriptions make somewhat successful attempts to pepper epigraphs with appropriate poetic terms. By contrast, in the bilingual papyri and other papyri known to be written by Egyptian scribes, researchers do observe genuine examples of Coptic interference in Greek in syntax, case endings, and borrowings. Before the early second century BCE onwards, the clearest indication of an Egyptian scribe was the use of the brush instead of the Greek pen (kalamos) in bilingual documents, where the scribe did not switch their writing tool. After the second century BCE, one must rely upon syntax and interference (“Egyptianisms”) and other linguistic indications to decide if the scribe is Egyptian.169 Previous studies have sometimes overstated the amount of Egyptian interference in Greek papyri, due to comparisons with Attic rather than

166 Marja Vierros, Bilingual Notaries in Hellenistic Egypt: A Study of Greek as a Second Language, Collectanea Hellenistica 5 (Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten, 2012); Willy Clarysse, “Egyptian Scribes Writing in Greek,” Chronique d’Egypte 68.135–136 (1993): 186–201. 167 For a comprehensive survey, see Rachel Hachlili, Jewish Funerary Customs, Practices, and Rites in the Second Temple Period, JSJSup 94 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 168 Greek and Hebrew (JIGRE 15, 17, 147, 149, 150, 152, 153); Greek and Latin (JIGRE 125, 141); Hebrew and Latin (JIGRE 142); and JIWE = David Noy, Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 169 Clarysse, “Egyptian Scribes,” 195–201, writes that by the Roman period, one even finds demotic written with a kalamos instead of a brush; cf. James K. Aitken, “Septuagint and Egyptian Translation Methods,” in XV Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies: Munich, 2013, ed. Wolfgang Kraus, Michaël N. van der Meer, and Martin Meiser, SCS 64 (Atlanta: SBL, 2016), 1–26.

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Koine Greek standards.170 Some cases of supposed Coptic interference in Greek are either Koine, unknown non-standard speech, or mistakes in writing. Egyptian scribes were at least somewhat proficient in Greek, although the style and register of the Greek of locals and scribes alike tended to vary. As shown above, the question of Abramos’s language standards extends both to the nature of Roman Egypt and to his choice of occupation. Ptolemaic and Roman courts were multilingual environments as well as being devolved in how the law was applied (see below). Cross-fertilisation would be possible among professional legal experts; by comparison, in Greek and Latin medical manuals one can observe code-switching, language interference, and terminology borrowings between Latin and Greek.171 Thus one can expect some multilingualism and literacy in the professional environment of the law in Roman Egypt, where there are petitions, codifications of law, archives of court proceedings, and other written communications such as summonses.172 In courts, people spoke their preferred vernacular in the courts, as neither Greek nor Latin was the de facto language of justice. In papyri, Latin is found written by Roman jurists to each other and their Roman staff.173 The role of interpreter (ἑρμηνέυς) is rarely mentioned in court minutes,174 yet perhaps was more of an informal function rather than a full-time job. As for written translation, the decline of Demotic script in the first centuries is owed in part to the administrative use of Greek by court scribes, who would also translate spoken Egyptian into Greek for recording proceedings. For a diverse place like Roman Egypt, we must consider the spheres of functional language locations (written customs, vernacular, home, work, business, and worship) in environments of stable multilingualism as an added factor. Language choice and spellings in the funerary epitaph of Abramos itself, moreover, should be seen through the filter of both the epigrapher’s Greek fluency and customary fashions of the time in Leontopolis.

170 Trevor Evans, “Complaints of the Natives in a Greek Dress: The Zenon Archive and the Problem of Egyptian Interference,” in Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds, ed. Alex Mullen and Patrick James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 106–23; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 240–60. 171 David Langslow, “Typologies of Translation Techniques in Greek and Latin,” in Mullen and James, Multilingualism in the Graeco-Roman Worlds, 141–71; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 230–60. 172 See, for example, Benjamin Kelly, Petitions, Litigation, and Social Control in Roman Egypt, Oxford Studies in Ancient Documents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 173 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 231. 174 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 232–40. In general, a few papyri do mention translators: P.Cair. Zen 65 (3rd c. BCE), P.Theb.Bank 9.1 (2nd c. BCE), etc.

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4.2 Magistrates and the Law in Roman Egypt Understanding Abramos’s position as magistrate necessitates a brief overview of the judicial system in imperial Rome and Roman Egypt: its devolved practices, sources, and development.175 In the Athenian legal system, litigants represented themselves, even if they delivered speeches written by a rhetorician.176 In the Roman system there were official elected magistrates, and for advocacy two main types: the praetor or advocate (from 367 BCE), and the jurist, an unpaid legal advisor normally of independent means (from 3rd century BCE). Imperial Rome had a slightly more adaptive legal system, dominated by praetor, jurist, and the emperor.177 The Romans also codified and protected existing laws of the autonomous cities and the laws for Greek citizens (ἀστικοὶ νόμοι), similar to what the Ptolemies had done for the Egyptians.178 Roman Egypt had a largely functional legal system used by many, a system which successfully settled disputes, conflicts, loans, leases, and other private civil matters.179 Many disputes were between people who knew each other, and the impression of exercised justice seems far from that of a corrupt system, though corruption and bribery did exist. James G. Keenan shows from legal and other sources that late Roman Egypt, contrary to popular stereotyping, was not strangulated into static rigidity and decline by a controlling elite central government and heavy taxes.180 In reality, rural and urban people enjoyed

175 For further critical studies, see O. F. Robinson, The Sources of Roman Law: Problems and Methods for Ancient Historians, Approaching the Ancient World (London: Routledge, 1997); Ph. J. Thomas, Introduction to Roman Law (Deventer: Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1986); Kimberley Czajkowski, Benedikt Eckhardt, and Meret Strothmann, eds., Law in the Roman Provinces, Oxford Studies in Roman Society and Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). The prefect in Roman Egypt could introduce edicts, codes, constitutions, and rescripts; the local law, on the other hand, was different in scale and scope. Deborah W. Hobson, “The Impact of Law on Village Life in Roman Egypt,” in Law, Politics and Society in the Ancient Mediterranean World, ed. Baruch Halpern and Deborah W. Hobson (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 193–219. Hobson uses papyri from three Egyptian villages: Soknopaiou Nesos, Tebtunis, and Oxyrhynchus. 176 John Anthony Crook, Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (London: Duckworth, 1995), 30–37. 177 Crook, Legal Advocacy, 37–46; Thomas, Introduction, 7–11. 178 Rafał Taubenschlag, The Law of Greco-Roman Egypt in the Light of the Papyri, 332 B.C.–640 A.D., 2nd ed. (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1955), 8–14. 179 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 148–80. For further significant overviews of the effectiveness of the Egyptian legal system, see Taubenschlag, Law; Kelly, Petitions; Hobson, “Impact”; Naphtali Lewis, Life in Egypt under Roman Rule (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983); Naphtali Lewis, On Government and Law in Roman Egypt: Collected Papers of Naphtali Lewis, ed. Ann Ellis Hanson, American Studies in Papyrology 33 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995). 180 This is the main argument of James G. Keenan, “On Law and Society in Late Roman Egypt,” ZPE 17 (1975): 237–50. Several recent studies do suggest a low crime rate in Egypt, contrary to

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many freedoms and made use of the courts freely and frequently, in both Ptolemaic and Roman times. City taxes were low and flat-rate, and the larger land taxes (grain) constituted the majority of state fiscal income.181 Although the papyri are detailed testimonies, we know little about penalties since the style and register of court writing is often in euphemistic and formal terminology; imprisonment and conscripted service are mentioned for crime and violence.182 Most petitions deal with private disputes, where the desired outcomes were settlements and restitution, not penalties. The justice system and law in Roman Egypt remained largely the same from the Principate to the fourth century CE. The petitions and court records are eye-opening witnesses to court processes and practices. The Ptolemies established separate courts for Egyptians and Greeks, not as a method of discrimination but of local devolution (ὁ τῆς χώρας νόμος): Egyptian courts exercised local Egyptian law, with Greek law often exercised by circuit judges in assizes.183 As a magistrate in Roman Egypt, the law as applied in Abramos’s rulings would have been ὁ τῆς χώρας νόμος; in the Jews’ case this would in effect be ancestral or ethic laws: οἱ πάτριοι νόμοι. Another petition mentions a notary office (archival repository) of the Jews, τοῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἀρχείου.184 The means of deciding which laws to appeal to were usually down to the individuals involved. However, if, for example, a contract signed by both an Egyptian and a Greek became the object of a dispute, then the applicable law was that of the language in which the document was written. This rule only applied, however, when the disputing parties were mixed.185 Most civil disputes tended towards adjudication, or conflict resolution between parties, avoiding litigation. Villagers sought rectification for a wronged or vulnerable individual, rather than citing specific infringed laws,186 and petitioners often opted for informal adjudication

contemporary upper-class Roman gossip that Egypt was full of violent criminals. For further information, see Ari Z. Bryen, Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation, Empire and After (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013); Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 161; John Bauschatz, Law and Enforcement in Ptolemaic Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Jill Harries, Law and Crime in the Roman World, Key Themes in Ancient History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 181 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 155–56. 182 Lewis, Life, 194. 183 Lewis, Life, 186–88. 184 BGU 1151 = CPJ II 143, dated 13 BCE. The reference is concerning a will deposited in the notary office of the Jews. 185 Taubenschlag, Law, 19–21. 186 Hobson, “Impact,” 209. In other words, 1) villagers who needed help sought it through petitions, without too much trouble of access, and 2) it did not matter what the law was to most villag-

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instead of a magistrate’s hearing.187 One could file a petition with the nome’s στρατηγός or during an assizes. Both courts and the assizes were open for use by anyone. The στρατηγός, acting in the role of magistrate, might give a hearing, or send it to one with higher authority such as the ἐπιστράτηγος or prefect.188 Court scribes kept minutes and documentation.189 The courts of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt were effective and used repeatedly, with swift decisions made on the spot by magistrates,190 the opposite of a bureaucratic maze or a Dickensian Jarndyce and Jarndyce. As for law as witnessed by the texts of the Hebrew Bible, Bernard S. Jackson suggests that the biblical law be understood as theologically contingent on divine justice, rather than being a secular code of justice.191 On the other hand, Joshua Berman makes the claim that the laws should be understood as case law rather than statutory law, which would minimise contradictions and other uncertainties, such as whether biblical law was merely idealised or used in practice.192 The members of the Qumran community did not draw a distinction between their application of biblical law and their interpretation of it, despite differences.193 Examples of the legal system of Qumran, including a penal code (1QS 8:16–9:2), can be seen in the Community Rule and Damascus Document.194 Philo offers an additional glimpse into Jewish interpretation of the biblical law in the first centuries.195 Further information about Jewish understandings of justice and the application of the law can be found in evidence for rabbinic legal authority and rabbinic halakhic rulings in

ers, who were likely unfamiliar with any “corpus” of law or specific laws, but they would appeal to a legal official if they needed help. 187 Hobson, “Impact”; Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 168. 188 Lewis, Life, 187–90. 189 For examples of court minutes: P51 1366 (SB 9050ii), P.Oxy 237 vii, P.Ryl 75. 190 Bagnall, Egypt in Late Antiquity, 169 advocates the effectiveness of Roman Egyptian courts (contra Hobson). 191 Bernard S. Jackson, “Law and Religion in the Hebrew Bible,” in Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam, ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn and Reinhard G. Kratz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 188–209. 192 Joshua A. Berman, Inconsistency in the Torah: Ancient Literary Convention and the Limits of Source Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 107–17. 193 Aharon Shemesh, “‘For the Judgment Is God’s’ (Deut. 1:17): Biblical and Communal Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Law and Religion in the Eastern Mediterranean: From Antiquity to Early Islam, ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn and Reinhard G. Kratz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 347–64. 194 Ranon Katzoff and David M. Schaps, eds., Law in the Documents of the Judaean Desert, JSJSup 96 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). 195 Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough, The Jurisprudence of the Jewish Courts in Egypt: Legal Administration by the Jews under the Early Roman Empire as Described by Philo Judaeus, Religion and the Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1929).

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Roman Palestine.196 Robert A. Kugler has given persuasive evidence for the presence of Jewish legal reasoning in documentary papyri in Hellenistic Herakleopolis and its environs.197 These examples point persuasively to the fact that Jews, wherever they were, were able to apply Jewish law in a range of places and settings according to necessity. All in all, there is a sound and firm basis for assuming that while Abramos would have clearly been conversant in Greek, the legal corpuses he would have used as a magistrate would have depended entirely on his clients and which laws they wanted to use for their disputes.

4.3 Historical Sources for Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt Historical and documentary sources concerning the Jews of Roman Egypt can significantly aid our understanding of Jewish magistrates such as Abramos, shedding more light on his epitaph and description as “crowned in wisdom.” In Alexandria, as one of the large free cities, there were five artificial ἔθνοι, which loosely corresponded to neighbourhood wards or territories. The ἔθνοι divided into smaller, artificial δῆμοι. The δῆμοι (townships) in the free cities were artificially created, named after gods and heroes, but in older towns had referred to villages and family clans.198 Not all Greeks were citizens of the cities (ἄστοι), and not all citizens were Greeks. After the Ptolemaic period, the city administration distinguished between Alexandrian inhabitants and Alexandrian citizens enrolled in the δῆμοι, with citizenship often conferred by special privilege or birth.199 In the Roman period, an extra hoop had to be jumped through: civitas or Roman citizenship could not be given to an Egyptian unless they were already a citizen of Alexandria. It is unknown whether inhabitants who were non-citizens had limited political rights, such as the ability to serve on the city Council. In practical terms, all inhabitants had legal rights. The situation is not helped by the fact that the same word Ἀλεξανδρεῖς is used interchangeably for the city’s inhabitants and citizens.200 The poll-tax (λαογραϕία), 196 Aharon Oppenheimer, “Jewish Penal Authority in Roman Judaea,” in Jews in a Graeco-Roman World, ed. Martin Goodman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 181–91; for more on Roman Palestine and Syria, particularly Roman in-roads, see Millar, Roman. 197 Robert A. Kugler, Resolving Disputes in Second Century BCE Herakleopolis: A Study in Jewish Legal Reasoning in Hellenistic Egypt, JSJSup 201 (Leiden: Brill, 2022). 198 Davis, Race-Relations, 93. 199 It is noted that citizenship is understood in Hellenistic terms as municipal, not national, citizenship, i.e., of a particular city. 200 For example, Josephus seems to designate equal rights with Alexandrian full citizens in A.J. 19.281: ἐπιγνοὺς ἀνέκαθεν τοὺς ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ Ἰουδαίους Ἀλεξανδρεῖς λεγομένους συγκατοικισθέντας τοῖς πρώτοις εὐθὺ καιροῖς Ἀλεξανδρεῦσι καὶ ἴσης πολιτείας παρὰ τῶν βασιλέων

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from which citizens were exempt, seems to be a lynchpin. 3 Macc 2:28–30 mentions that Ptolemy Philopator enrolled Jews in the λαογραϕία, which would entail the loss of certain privileges, though is not equated with loss of citizenship. By the Ptolemaic period, the once-ethnic labels of Macedonian, Cretan, and others became fictionalised formalistic accolades, useful for legal or honorific purposes but meaningless as ethnic designations. In some sources, Jews are sometimes called or call themselves Macedonians as an honourary designation.201 One contract mentions a wet-nurse called Theodote daughter of Dositheos, a Persian, and her husband, a Persian of the Epigone, though these two individuals might be Jewish according to Tcherikover and Fuks, perhaps on account of their names.202 In sum, for the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, we might more appropriately speak of fiscal tribes rather than ethnic ones.203 Josephus says that the special privileges of the Jews were a source of constant enmity between Jews and native Egyptians, a dispute that later extended into bitter relations, including riots, between Greeks and Jews in Roman Alexandria.204 Tensions involving Jews in Alexandria led to riots and violence (38 CE, 115–117 CE). Jewish tensions with other groups in Egypt evolved over time, a reflection of general ethnic tensions in Hellenistic cities: in the Ptolemaic period there was hostility between Jews and Egyptians, in the Roman period between Jews and Greeks, and in Roman late antiquity between Jews and Christians.205 These intercultural quarrels sometimes led to riots and desecrations of one another’s sites of worship, e.g., the Greek desecration of synagogues in 38–41 CE.206 The Bar Kochba revolt of 115–117 CE in Palestine also erupted in Egypt, with Jewish rebels attacking Roman forces in the Delta and desecrating several pagan shrines in the Delta, Alexandria,

τετευχότας. “Having from the first known that the Jews in Alexandria called Alexandrians were fellow colonizers from the very earliest times jointly with the Alexandrians and received equal civic rights from the king” (LCL, Feldman). A.J. 19.282 mentions documents and edicts which the Jews hold in their possession to confirm these privileges. 201 BGU 1134, 1151. Cf. Josephus B.J. 2.487–488; C. Ap. 2.35. 202 CPJ II 146. The husband is Sophron son of ---archos, a Persian of the Epigone. 203 Katelijn Vandorpe, “Persian Soldiers and Persians of the Epigone: Social Mobility of Soldiers-herdsmen in Upper Egypt,” APF 54 (2008): 88–108. Vandorpe calls these labels “legal ethnic designations” and discusses the variety of terms scholars use to designate ethnicity in Egypt. 204 B.J. 2.487–493. 205 For more on Jews in cities, see John R. Bartlett, ed., Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities (London: Routledge, 2002). 206 For 38 CE, Josephus B.J. 2.490–498; Suetonius, Claudius 25.4. Edicts: CPJ 435. In 38 CE, Claudius banned Jewish meetings but did not expel the Jews. The 38 CE riots should not be confused with the Chrestus event of 41 CE mentioned in Cassius Dio 60.6.6–7. See Dixon Slingerland, “Suetonius ‘Claudius’ 25.4 and the Account in Cassius Dio,” JQR 79 (1989): 305–22.

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and Cyrenaica, with corresponding sporadic violence against Jews and synagogues including the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Alexandria.207 Eventually Theodosius II expelled Jews from Egypt in 414/415 CE, though the Jewish community in Egypt survived this ruling.208 The setting of hostilities is worth considering in detail, given that Abramos’s epitaph dates to anywhere between the 2nd century BCE to 2nd century CE, and since scholarship on Jewish epigraphy can run the risk of glossing over rather too superficially issues of such historical importance as the status of Alexandrian Jews. Josephus claims that all Jews of Alexandria were enrolled as citizens, and that the Romans preserved this state of affairs.209 He also says that Julius Caesar erected a brass pillar in honour of the Jews of Alexandria (A.J. 14.188), although elsewhere it is a stele (C. Ap. 2.37). Sylvie Honigman critiques many of Josephus’s claims as propagandistic, since in reality only a few Jews would have enjoyed citizenship, not the entire community.210 Philo refers to the special rights of Alexandrian Jews, although it is unclear if Alexandrian inhabitants or citizens is meant (Flacc. 53; 80). He also refers to a Jewish γενάρχης and a council of elders or Gerousia in Alexandria (Flacc. 10.74; cf. Aristeas §310). On the other hand, Philo mentions that even the lowliest Alexandrian Jews enjoy the privilege not to be punished by whipping but with flat rods, like citizens (Flacc. 80). The organisation and status of the Alexandrian Jewish community is made slightly more complicated by Aristeas, which refers to a Jewish πολίτευμα (§310): καθὼς δὲ ἀνεγνώσθη τὰ τεύχη, στάντες οἱ ἱερεῖς καὶ τῶν ἑρμηνέων οἱ πρεσβύτεροι καὶ τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ πολιτεύματος οἵ τε ἡγούμενοι τοῦ πλήθους εἶπον Ἐπεὶ καλῶς καὶ ὁσίως διηρμήνευται καὶ κατὰ πᾶν ἠκριβωμένως, καλῶς ἔχον ἐστίν, ἵνα διαμείνῃ ταῦθ᾽ οὕτως ἔχοντα, καὶ μὴ γένηται μηδεμία διασκευή.

207 Christopher Haas, Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict, Ancient Society and History (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 99–103. The ancient witnesses are Eusebius, Chron. 2.223, Hist. eccl. 4.2.3. The description and account of the destruction of the Great Synagogue is also mentioned in y. Sukkah 5:1, 55a–b. Haas (pp. 125–27) emphasises, however, that not all was bloodshed and hostility between Jews, pagans, and Christians, given periods of peace in between sporadic episodes of violence. Haas also notes that sometimes the teams changed: Jews and pagans attacked Christians in 374, and several lootings of Christian churches occurred in the 330s and 370s. For more on the Jews of Alexandria, see also Erich S. Gruen, Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 54–83. 208 A rejected petition to rebuild the synagogues is mentioned in Michael the Syrian, Chron. 8.12. Haas, Alexandria, 127, n. 89. 209 Vespasian and Titus: Josephus, C. Ap. 2.35–39; B.J. 2.487–488. Edict of Claudius: Josephus, A.J. 19.282–285. 210 Sylvie Honigman, “Politeumata and Ethnicity in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt,” Ancient Society 33 (2003): 61–102.

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And when the rolls were read, the priests and the elders of the translators and some from the πολίτευμα and the leaders of the people stood and said, “Since the exposition has been made well, piously and accurately in every respect, it is good that it remain just as it is and there be no revision at all.”211

Aristeas is the only textual witness to a Jewish πολίτευμα, a social affiliation of compatriots, usually of minorities, in the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires.212 The debate over the Alexandrian Jewish πολίτευμα is over its nature and definition, not its existence, since πολιτεύματα were common associations for foreign groups in all Hellenistic cities.213 Eric Gruen places great emphasis on Strabo’s description of the head of the Jewish πολίτευμα acting generally in an autonomous political capacity in the reign of Augustus (Strabo, apud Josephus A.J. 14.117),214 although it is by no means certain that such functions are either normal or exceptional for the organisations of a minority group, given the functions of the groups in Aristeas acting in a rather “representative” fashion. Aryeh Kasher attributes political autonomy to the Alexandrian Jews, as well.215 Tcherikover defined the Jewish πολίτευμα as a political body or politic status of the community as a whole, ensuring self-governance and jurisdiction of the community.216 It is possible that he did so on the basis of Aristeas more than on the basis of the papyri, which do not give that impression. However, the passage in Aristeas does not incorporate elders and leaders as part of the πολίτευμα, but rather lists members of the πολίτευμα in a longer series, among priests, elders, and leaders. In one papyrus, πολίτευμα refers to the administrative organisation of Alexandria, not to its community.217 Indeed, one cannot infer that a πολίτευμα was an autonomous governing body or a privileged community, implying independent jurisdiction; rather, a better description of a πολίτευμα is a civic

211 Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas, “Aristeas to Philocrates” or “On the Translation of the Law of the Jews,” CEJL (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 441. 212 Gerhard Thür, “Politeuma,” BNP, s.v. 213 Haas, Alexandria, 96; for more recent research, see: Patrick Sänger, Die ptolemäische Organisationsform politeuma: Ein Herrschaftsinstrument zugunsten jüdischer und anderer hellenischer Gemeinschaften, TSAJ 178 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019); Tessa Rajak, “Synagogue and Community in the Graeco-Roman Diaspora,” in Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman Cities, ed. John R. Bartlett (London: Routledge, 2002), 22–38. 214 Gruen, Diaspora, 72 calls Strabo’s comments “fundamental.” 215 Kasher, Jews, 109–17. 216 Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, trans. S. Applebaum (Philadelphia: Magnes, 1959), 296–305. Haas (Alexandria, 92–127) takes the same position. 217 CPJ II 150. Boule Papyrus (= PSI x. 1160), Augustan era. James H. Oliver, “The Βουλή Papyrus,” Aegyptus 11 (1931): 161–68.

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affiliation, like a dining club.218 The πολίτευμα may have acted in political manners upon necessity, weighing in on matters relevant to the Jewish minority group along with other Jewish organisations, but this does not mean that the πολίτευμα was a political authority. Honigman maintains that a πολίτευμα of the Jews was also likely military in origin and largely hereditary.219 The πολιτεύματα did not guarantee rights of city citizenship either. Benjamin G. Wright specifies that Aristeas distinguishes between those who come from the πολίτευμα (τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ πολιτεύματος) and the leaders of the congregation (οἵ τε ἡγούμενοι τοῦ πλήθους), implying that these organisations did not overlap. It is worth noting that epigraphic evidence for synagogues in Alexandria exists. An inscription refers to a synagogue in Schedia, southeast of Alexandria, and another to a synagogue in Crocodilopolis in the Fayum, although this town may have had two synagogues according to another inscription.220 Philo’s account of the events of 38 CE mentions the synagogues in Alexandria,221 as do early patristic writings such as Cyril of Alexandria’s now lost polemic On the Apostasy of the Synagogue. Jews of Alexandria, as in other densely populated Hellenistic cities, such as Antioch, Sardis, Heracleopolis, and Berenice, had both πολιτεύματα and synagogues. The basilica synagogue at Sardis was a particularly splendid building.222 The papyri help give a fuller picture of Alexandrian Jewry in the early Roman era. A letter of Claudius (dated 10 November, 41 CE), regarding ongoing tensions between Jews and “Alexandrians”: Ἀλεξανδρεῖς and Ἰουδαίο⟨ι⟩ς.223 Conversely, this disagreement between Greeks and Jews is unlikely to have been limited to Greek city citizens, so the argument that all Jews were excluded from citizenry altogether is extremely limited. The letter also refers to the fact that the Jews could not take

218 Rajak, “Synagogue”; John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 140–41; Lester L. Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period, Volume II: The Early Hellenistic Period (335-175 BCE) (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 181–85. 219 Honigman, “Politeumata,” 63–7. 220 Schedia district of Alexandria synagogue dedication: CIJ II 1440. Krokodilopolis dedication: CPJ III 1532a. Two synagogues of Krokodilopolis: CPJ I 138. Joseph Modrzejewski, The Jews of Egypt: From Rameses II to Emperor Hadrian, trans. Robert Cornman (Philadelphia: JPS, 1995), 88–89. 221 In Legat. 134, Philo says that the Alexandrian synagogues which were in central, crowded areas of the city were not burned during the events of 38 CE. 222 David G. Mitten, The Ancient Synagogue of Sardis (New York: Committee to Preserve the Ancient Synagogue of Sardis, 1965). For images and details of recent and forthcoming research, see https://sardisexpedition.org/en/essays/about-synagogue. 223 P.London 1912, lines 82, 88, 97 (P.London 1912 = CPJ II 153). Davis, Race-Relations, 105. Note orthography of line 88: Ἰουδέοις.

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part in the athletic contests,224 which likewise does not necessarily mean exclusion from citizenship either.225 Honigman mentions a petition made by a Helenos son of Tryphon (CPJ II 151, dated 5/4 BCE).226 Here, the scribe corrects Ἀλεξανδρέω(ς) to Ἰουδαίου τῶν ἀπὸ Ἀλεξανδρ(ίας).227 As mentioned above, the term Alexandrian could mean either an inhabitant or citizen.228 Furthermore, Helenos’s petitioning opens with the declaration that his father is also an Alexandrian (Ἀλεξανδρέ[ως]). The other point to note about this particular petition is that the scribe made numerous errors and emendations throughout the document. A final additional source of evidence is the ossuary of a man named Nicanor, held at the British Museum.229 This famous ossuary contains a bilingual funerary inscription, rather clumsily describing its bones as belonging to the children of “Nicanor the Alexandrian,” who made gates: ὁστᾶ τῶν τοῦ Νεικά|νορος Ἀλεξανδρέως | ποιήσαντος τὰς θύρας. | ‫נקנר אלכסא‬ The bones of those of Nicanor of Alexandria, maker of gates. Nicanor, Aleksa.

The ossuary and inscription are from Jerusalem, estimated first century BCE/first century CE. There is a tempting connection to be made with the Gate of Nicanor in the Temple of Jerusalem, mentioned in b. Yoma 38a, but this is largely unprovable on its own. The additional τῶν might refer to the children of Nicanor or other relatives.230 What is significant about this inscription for our analysis is that Ἀλεξανδρέως here is applied to a first-century Jewish individual.

224 P.London 1912, line 92–94. 225 Louis H. Feldman, “The Orthodoxy of the Jews in Hellenistic Egypt,” Jewish Social Studies 22 (1960): 215–37, at 225–26, concludes that the Jews must have participated in the athletic games of gymnasia:. 226 BGU 1140. 227 Honigman, “Politeumata,” 93; Tcherikover and Fuks, CPJ, 2:29–33. 228 Honigman, op. cit., comments that Helenos might have claimed to be an Alexandrian but that the scribe realised he was in error. It could also be the case, however, that the scribe assumed Helenos was a Greek (perhaps being fully assimilated?), and only later Helenos pointed out he was a Jew, since normally scribes would read out loud a finished document for approval by witnesses. Helenos might have wanted to mention his Jewishness on record for any number of reasons, such as avoiding having a court summons on the Sabbath or a holy day. 229 CIIP 98 (with plate); JIGRE 153; CIJ II 1256. Inexplicably, the ossuary of Nicanor the Alexandrian is not discussed in the aforementioned studies on the “Jewish Question in Alexandria,” which focus on papyri and literary sources, perhaps because the ossuary is from Jerusalem and not from Egypt. 230 For children, see Hannah Cotton et al., eds., Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, Volume I: Jerusalem, Part 1: 1–704 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 140–41; for relatives, or a mistake, see Horbury and Noy, JIGRE, 244–45.

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The history and status of Jews in Alexandria was for many years a contentious debate over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.231 An artificial dichotomy between Alexandrian and Palestinian Judaism, and of Leontopoline Judaism as heterodox, was promulgated by earlier scholars, with Egyptian Jews supposedly representing a hellenised and hybrid betrayal of true Judaism.232 However, the historical and textual evidence suggests that it was a minor, but legitimate, community, and both Josephus and the rabbis take a neutral view of Leontopolis and its temple.233 The culture and status of the Leontopolitan Jewish community has been redressed in recent studies, with particular attention to the epigraphic evidence of naming practices and use of Greek.234 Indeed, Jews were found in many Hellenistic and Roman cities across the Mediterranean and Near East,and pagans and Christians could be found in Palestinian cities such as Caesarea. Trading and merchants were also interconnected with existing diasporas across the Roman world.235 The proposographic analysis of Roman Egypt is both enriched by plentiful and varied data, and ensuingly beset by such challenges as those listed above, such as how to approach (mostly meaningless) ethnic designations and whether orthographic variants are the result of mistakes, dialect, or interference. The situation is helped by analysis of the documentary data at hand, especially the papyri. The epigraphic evidence crosses paths with onomastic and proposographic issues, the issues of the name Abramos and the cultural world of Abramos and other Jews at Leontopolis. As mentioned, onomastic data tends to be divisive: some researchers take the minimalistic position that few Jews, if any, can be found except by an ethnic designa231 Simon Goldhill, “What Has Alexandria to Do with Jerusalem? Writing the History of the Jews in the Nineteenth Century,” The Historical Journal 59 (2015): 125–51; some further reflections on both sides of the debate are found in Davis, Race-Relations. Those contributing to this dichotomisation were namely Emil Schürer, H. H. Milman, Heinrich Ewald, A. P. Stanley, and Ernest Renan. 232 Goldhill, “What Has Alexandria,” 129. 233 Feldman, “Orthodoxy,” 231. Josephus, A.J. 10.284–287; 12.237–239, 387–388; 13.62–64; 20.235– 237; B.J. 1.33; 1.190; 7.421–436. Cf. m. Menaḥ. 13:10; b. ʿAbod. Zar. 52b; b. Meg. 10a; y. Yoma 6:3. In War, the Leontopolis temple looks like a fortress, but according to Antiquities it is a replica of the Temple of Jerusalem diminished in scale. In Antiquities, Josephus paints a benign picture of the Egyptian Jewry at Leontopolis, according peaceful legitimacy by painting Onias as courtly figure who gives obeisance to Egypt. See also Robert Hayward, “The Jewish Temple at Leontopolis: A Reconsideration,” JJS 33 (1982): 423–43. 234 Walter Ameling, “Die jüdische Gemeinde von Leontopolis nach den Inschriften,” in Die Septuaginta – Texte, Kontexte, Lebenswelten: Internationale Fachtagung veranstaltet von Septuaginta Deutsch (LXX.D), Wuppertal 20.–23. Juli 2006, ed. Martin Karrer, Wolfgang Kraus, and Martin Meiser, WUNT 219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 117–33. 235 Taco T. Terpstra, Trading Communities in the Roman World: A Micro-Economic and Institutional Perspective, CSCT 37 (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Trading communities and foreign merchants held trade networks together across the Roman world.

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tion.236 However, on the other hand, the Moschos inscription of manumission237 is an indisputable example of Ἰουδαῖος used in a religious sense. The final caution is that epigraphic sources are often formulaic and subject to local customs, and overly representative of high status occupations such as physicians, priests, and magistrates. Most epithets are thus unexceptionally conventional or, at best, the result of efforts to sound poetic and sophisticated, with varying results of success. Apart from these formulaic tendencies, the inscription of Abramos honours a Jewish individual who was a respected magistrate. Despite some periodic episodes of political and social tension, much of the evidence points to some degree of autonomy and privileges for the Jews of Egypt, although the question of Alexandrian citizenship is somewhat unanswerable. Given the above historical sources, while Abramos is unlikely to have been a citizen in the Roman period, it is clear that he lived and thrived as a Jewish individual and official magistrate in Roman Egypt.

5 Conclusions As mentioned at the start, the inscription of Abramos is unique among funerary epigrams in combining the concepts of law and wisdom together. Abramos, a Jewish communal or civic magistrate, is crowned in wisdom: ἐστέϕετ᾽ ἐν σοϕία. The documentary and textual sources show that the Jewish diaspora in Greco-Roman Egypt experienced periods of peace as well as political tensions. The devolved judicial and administrative system of Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt would have permitted law courts to operate in preferred vernacular languages and exercise local custom and law, according to the participants’ origins. Hence, there is ample evidence that a Jewish magistrate such as Abramos would have exercised Jewish law in his courts in his two jurisdictions: Leontopolis and another unknown town. Abramos would almost certainly have heard multiple languages spoken in his court, chiefly Greek in all likelihood, but perhaps also Aramaic, Egyptian, and Latin. His notaries, however, would have kept documentation in Greek. We have also seen that Abramos’s inscription is written in good Koine Greek with many examples of orthographic variety as well as archaising attempts to sound more poetic or sophis-

236 Tal Ilan, “Witnesses in the Judaean Desert Documents: Prosopographical Observations,” Scripta Classica Israelica 20 (2001): 169–78. 237 Inscription of “Moschos son of Moschion, Ioudaios” (SEG 15.293 = CIJ I2 1975, Prol. 711b), from Oropos (north of Athens), ca. 300–250 BCE. David Noy, Alexander Panayotov, and Hanswulf Bloedhorn, eds., Inscriptiones Judaicae Orientis, Band I: Eastern Europe, TSAJ 101 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 177–80.

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ticated, executed with some degree of success. Altogether, Abramos’s inscription is a window into early Jewish understandings of law and wisdom as broader concepts, beyond the well-known groundwork of Jewish literary sources. That being said, there is some overlap between the language of Proverbs and Sirach in the phrase “crowned in wisdom,” which could have informed the expression and background of the (Jewish?) epigrapher in the composition of the epitaph. One cannot know for certain that it is a direct use of the language of Prov 14:24 or Sir 1:18, since the idiomatic use of a metaphorical crown appears throughout Proverbs and Sirach, as well as other early Jewish texts, and in 1 Pet 5:4. Epitaphs rarely quote biblical texts, but it is not impossible, especially if the idiom is rather well attested in a range of texts. The metaphorical “crown” combined with wisdom, glory, or another positive attribute is certainly found in early Jewish textuality, while it is absent in pagan Greek sources. The identification of Abramos’s epithet as a reference to a “crown of wisdom” in Prov 14:24 and Sir 1:18 is therefore a good possibility and may serve as an additional support for the epitaph’s Jewish identification. Abramos’s occupation as a magistrate (ἄρχων, and the verb πολιταρχῶν) is clear from the inscription and can offer a new perspective for early Jewish treatments of judges and justice. The text of Sirach particularly identifies a strong relationship between law and wisdom. The Greek translation of Sirach, known to have been translated in Egypt, even uses the Egyptian official title of ἄρχων (ἄρχοντος) appearing in Greek Sir 41:18, whereas other LXX texts use ἄρχων as an isomorphic rendering of “leader.”

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Part IV: Wisdom & Torah in Poetic Reflection

Torleif Elgvin

The Song of Songs: Torah, Creation, Celebration, and Libertinism 1 Introduction Is the Song of Songs really relevant to a volume on wisdom and Torah? How does the book, with all its paradoxes, fit into this theme? The songs it contains describe unchaperoned dating – two young people staying out together out in a field and engaging in premarital petting and sex, activities proscribed by the Torah and Judean cultural conventions across the centuries. They also allude to or echo biblical texts/ themes, however – the Temple service, the garden of Eden, and prophetic oracles relating to the redemption. How are these elements integrated? Did the editors employ different hermeneutical approaches to those reflected in the earlier songs? Most ancient Near Eastern cultures expected women to remain chaste until they married, the prominent exception being Egypt.1 The lovers in Canticles appear to be unmarried, however. While this status violates cultural conventions, it does not challenge generic norms of Akkadian, Egyptian, or Greek poetry, love songs affording a measure of artistic freedom for questioning social customs.2 Although the Akkadian and Egyptian parallels are much earlier than the songs of Canticles, can they cast light on Second Temple Jewish love songs? In the past, some scholars have categorized Canticles as a book of wisdom, a view recently advocated by Andruska. Viewing Canticles as a unified literary composition that contains diverse sub-genres – didactic poems, fables, nature lists, dialogues, and narrative poetry – she interprets Canticles as a didactic text designed to help its readers become wise lovers who learn from life experience and make sound judgments. It thus forms part of the wisdom tradition, imparting advice for success, prosperity, and judicious action.3

1 Michael V. Fox, The Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 231, 287, 313. 2 Jennifer L. Andruska, “Unmarried Lovers in the Song of Songs,” JTS 72 (2021): 1–19. 3 Jennifer L. Andruska, Wise and Foolish Love in the Song of Songs, OtSt 75 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 25–42, 110–22, 166–76. Building on Fox, Andruska argues for the influence of Ramesside-period Egyptian love poems upon Canticles, thus suggesting a pre-exilic date. Biblical texts such as Deut Note: My thanks go to my linguistic editor Liat Keren and to the editors for helpful suggestions. Torleif Elgvin, NLA University College, Norway https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-011

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2 The Qumran Canticles Scrolls 2.1 Pre-Canonical Literary Recensions All literary analysis of Canticles should engage with the textual and material evidence of the Qumran Canticles scrolls.4 As I have demonstrated elsewhere, 4QCantb (ca. 30 BCE) and 4QCanta (turn of the era) preserve two pre-canonical recensions of Canticles. 4QCantb is no less than a literary source to Canticles, preserving a literary section identified by scholars since Herder (1778). Opening with 2:9b and concluding with 5:1, the scroll lacks 3:2b‒5 and 4:4‒7; the text of 3:6–4:1 also differs from 𝔐.5 The writing is rather sloppy. Col. I consists of a single sheet, ca. 11 cm wide, whose skin is better than the following (final) sheet, containing 15 lines. Col.  II has 12 lines, Col. III 13, and Col. IV 12 (reconstructed). Collectively, these features suggest that the scribe made use of leftover sheets of skin, not being particularly bothered about quality. A full “Solomonic scroll” of Canticles was unlikely to have been in circulation when 4QCantb was copied; the fragment may have belonged to a marriage entertainer.6 6:4–9; Isa 5:1–7; Hosea 2; 14; Jer 6:2–5; and Proverbs 7 reuse some of the songs. Like many English-speaking scholars, however, Andruska does not cite the two seminal nineteenth-century studies of Canticles: Anton T. Hartmann, “Über Charakter und Auslegung des Hohenliedes,” ZWT 3 (1829): 397–448; Heinrich Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim oder das salomonische Hohelied (Wien: Braumüller, 1871). Nor does she adduce Hans-Josef Heinevetter’s fine literary analysis “Komm nun, mein Liebster, dein Garten ruft dich!”: Das Hohelied als programmatische Komposition (Königstein: Athenäum, 1988) or interact with Zakovitch’s 2004 German commentary. 4 Torleif Elgvin, The Literary Growth of the Song of Songs in the Hasmonean and Early-Herodian Periods, CBET 89 (Leuven: Peeters, 2018). For the principle in relation to the biblical books in general, see Reinhard Kratz, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible,” DSD 20 (2013): 347–507. For the first-century BCE editing of Canticles, see Torleif Elgvin, “Chasing the Hasmonean and Herodian Editors of the Song of Songs,” in The Song of Songs in its Context: Words for Love, Love for Words, ed. Pierre van Hecke, BETL 310 (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 71–98. 5 Johann Gottfried von Herder, Lieder der Liebe: Die ältesten und schönsten aus Morgenlande – Nebst vierundvierzig alten Minneliedern (Leipzig: Weygandschen Buchhandlung, 1778). Herder identifies 1:14–2:7 as the first scene in the book (p. 112). According to Heinevetter, “Komm nun,” 99–13, 2:8–5:1 constitutes an independent section, 5:1b serving as a Schlusswort in line with 8:6 (the concluding verse of 5:2–8:6). 6 Cf. Akiva’s later proscription against reciting Canticles in banquet halls or turning it into a love song (t. Sanh. 12:10). Regarding 4QCantb as an excerpted version of 𝔐, Hopf maintains that the selection was made on the grounds of dramatic performance: Matthias Hopf, “4QCantb – Ein dramatischer Text,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Study of the Humanities: Method, Theory, Meaning: Proceedings of the Eighth Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies (Munich, 4–7 August, 2013), ed. Pieter B. Hartog, Alison Schofield, and Samuel I. Thomas, STDJ 125 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 117–40. See n. 82 below.

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Dated slightly later, 4QCanta was written in small letters by a professional scribe, who carefully laid out the columns. Lines 2‒3 of the small frg. 1 preserve words from 3:4, line 4 relating to 3:5. With the traces of the first line not corresponding to 𝔐 3:3, 3:2–4a represents a variant text. The preserved sequence runs from 3:4 to 4:3, then jumping to 6:11 (marked by a major section break) and continuing to 7:7 – probably the end of the penultimate column. 7:2–4 exhibits a slightly longer variant text. A reconstruction of the scroll suggests that it opened with 2:1 (one column preceding frg. 1), perhaps leading to a scroll containing 2:1‒6, 9b‒14, 16–17, 3:1– 4:3, and 6:11–8:6. Alternatively, it may have contained a shorter version of Canticles 1–2 (two columns preceding frg. 2). One final column most likely followed the large frg. 2, the scroll possibly ending with 8:6 – an early Schlusswort. The first two columns of 6QCant – a small-sized scroll written in unusually large letters – preserve (large parts of) 1:1–7. While they display textual differences from 𝔐, their late date (50–60 CE) and careful design suggest that they belong to the same literary recension as 𝔐 and the 𝔊 Vorlage. The fact that the two Cave 4 scrolls are missing different sections of the text of 𝔐 indicates a (non-linear) process of literary growth through the first century BCE. The “my sister, my bride” section (4:8–5:1), for example, occurs in the earlier 4QCantb but not the somewhat later 4QCanta. Similarly, 4QCantb omits (the sensual) vv. 4–7 of the song in 4:1–7 found in 4QCanta. These textual variants and literary divergences testify to a complex evolvement during which various recensions circulated simultaneously à la D (Damascus), S (Serekh), and Jubilees.7 The textual tradition remains pluriform through 6QCant and 𝔊 Vorlage (mid-/late-first-century CE) to the second-century Vorlage to the Peshitta.8

7 Based on material evidence from the scrolls, Monger convincingly argues for the literary growth of Jubilees through the first century BCE: Matthew P. Monger, “4Q216 and the State of Jubilees at Qumran,” RevQ 26 (2014): 595–612; idem, “The Development of Jubilees 1 in the Late Second Temple Period,” JSP 27 (2017): 83–112; idem, “4Q216 – A New Material Analysis,” Semitica 60 (2018): 308–33; idem, “The Many Forms of Jubilees: A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence from Qumran and the Lines of Transmission of the Parts and Whole of Jubilees,” RevQ 30 (2018): 191–211. 8 The Peshitta of 1:1–5:1 closely follows 𝔐, increasingly deviating from it from 5:2 onwards, however. Some variants suggest that, while working from the Hebrew, the translator was also familiar with 𝔊 Canticles. The pluses in the otherwise literal translations of 𝔊 and Peshitta suggest that their Vorlagen represent a tradition differing from 𝔐: see Meik Gerhards, Das Hohelied: Studien zu seiner literarischen Gestalt und theologischen Bedeutung (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2011), 284, 287.

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2.2 Textual Differences Like the analysis of the early literary recensions of Canticles, a detailed examination of the Cave 4 scrolls with a digital microscope (2015/2016) revealed a number of previously unnoted textual variants. In some cases, the partially preserved lines evince a text that differs in length from 𝔐, indicating that the textual tradition was still fluid when these two scrolls were written (4QCantb: 2:9, 12, 13, 17; 3:1, 10; 4:1a, 2, 10, 11; 4QCanta: 7:2–4). In others, both the sequence and wording diverge: 4:1b: Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down the hills of Gilead (𝔐) Your hair is like flocks of go[a]ts s[treaming down] the cleft[ hills (4QCantb) Like a flock [of goats is your hair], appearing on the hills of Gilead (4QCanta). 4:2: Your teeth are like a flock prepared for shearing, coming up from the wash (𝔐) Like a fl[oc]k prepared for shearing are your teeth, coming up [from the wash (4QCanta) Your teeth are like flocks of ew[es, coming up from the wash (4QCantb).

4QCantb and 4QCanta also contain some lectiones difficiliores that are smoothed out in the full (canonical) recension. This fact militates against the argument that the two scrolls constitute excerpts of the (already existing) canonical text:9 4:3: ‫“ רקתך‬your temple” (4QCantb 𝔐 𝔊 [μηλον σου]) ¦ ‫“ מזקנתך‬your chin[?]” (4QCanta). ‫מזקנה‬ not being evidenced anywhere else, the other witnesses may have replaced it, the lectio difficilior thus representing the earlier text. 7:3: “Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle” (𝔐) ¦ “Your [two ]breasts are like a fortress [‫( ”]כמעז‬4QCanta). While the image of a high building rising above the landscape is an appropriate image for breasts, and a change from the nature imagery in 𝔐7:2–3 to “fortress” in 4QCanta being implausible, the lectio difficilior of 4QCanta more likely constitutes the earlier text.

In other cases, the Cave 4 scrolls preserve variants that, while not necessarily representing earlier readings than 𝔐, evince the freedom the scribes exercised in copying the text: 3:10: ‫“ תוכו רצוף אהבה מבנות ירושלם‬its interior inlaid with lovemaking by the daughters of Jerusalem” (𝔐) ¦ ἐντὸς αὐτοῦ λιθόστρωτον ἀγάπην ἀπὸ θυγατέρων Ιερουσαλημ “its interior inlaid with stone, a love gift from the daughters of Jerusalem” (𝔊) ¦ ‫ירוש ֗ל ̊ם‬ ֗ ‫[מבתולת‬ ̊ ‫[◦◦◦ן̊ ] אהבה‬. “[. . . love ]from the virgin Jerusalem” (4QCanta) ¦ ‫[ ירושלים‬ (4QCantb) Space considerations indicate a text of 4QCantb that is 2–3 words longer than 𝔐 before ‫[ ירושלים‬. 9 For a survey of the textual variants, see Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 81–88; cf. idem, “Chasing the Editors,” 81 n. 33, 92 n. 56. Lectiones difficiliores do not always constitute the earlier or more original version, of course. In his DJD edition of the Cave 4 Canticles scrolls, Emanuel Tov asserted that 4QCanta,b represent excerpts of the full canonical text. He has later acceded to my view (personal communication).

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4:8a: ‫( את מן לבנון כלה את מן לבנון אבאי ¦ )𝔐( אתי מלבנון כלה אתי מלבנון תבואי‬4QCantb). While 𝔐 𝔊 (δευρο) twice read the feminine imperative – “Come (from Lebanon)” – 4QCantb reads “you (from Lebanon)” on both occasions (2 s.f. pron.). 4:8b: ‫( מן ראשי אומנון ¦ )𝔊 = 𝔐( מראש אמנה מראש שניר וחרמון‬4QCantb). While 𝔐 reads “from the top of Amana” (sing.), 4QCantb renders “from the tops [pl.] of Amnon.” The scribe may have omitted “from Senir and Hermon” (the last two mountain ranges) by way of homoioteleuton, both ‫ אומנון‬and ‫ חרמון‬ending in -‫ון‬. Alternatively, 𝔐 extended “the tops of Amnon” for stylistic reasons. 4:14: “nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon” (𝔐) ¦ “[calamus and cinnamon, nard and saff]ro[n” (4QCantb). 5:1: “I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk” (𝔐) ¦ “[I drink my wine with] my [milk,] I eat my honeycomb with my honey” (4QCantb).

The latest witness – 6QCant, which preserves parts of 1:1–7 – also contains variants: 1:3: ‫“ לריח שמניך טובים שמן תורק שמך על כן עלמות אהבוך‬To your fragrant oils – that are good! Oil, you are poured out(?), your name, therefore the maidens loved you” (𝔐) ¦ ‫ורי[ח‬ ̊ ‫ב[שמך על] כן עלמו[ת אהבוך‬ ̊ ?‫[מי ]מוזל‬ ֗ ‫]ב ָש‬ ְ ‫“ ֗ש ̊מנים טובים‬My [perfu]me has the [sce]nt of fragrant oils, your perfu[me is flowing freely(?)], there[fore the maide]ns loved you” (6QCant).10 1:4: “Let us exult and rejoice in you, extolling your lovemaking more than wine – integrity(?) loved you” (𝔐) ¦ “Let us rejoice [and exult, more than w]ine [we will extol] your breasts, which are loved by the righteous/nobles” (6QCant).

2.3 A Collection The literary growth evinced by the Qumran Canticles scrolls demonstrates that the book is a collection rather than a unified literary work.11 As Segal noted early on, its literary features demonstrate a gradual process of evolution:

10 Cant 1:3 has always constituted an exegetical crux, with 𝔐 making little sense. In contrast, 6QCant flows easily, thus probably constituting the original text – 1:2b–3a best being read as a late editorial recast of the earlier 4:10; see Elgvin, “Chasing the Editors,” 91–92. 11 Contra Michael V. Fox, “Rereading the Song of Songs and the Ancient Egyptian Love Songs Thirty Years Later,” WO 46 (2016): 8–21, at 10: “I read Canticles as a single song whose unity resides in a network of repetends (repetitions with variation), associative sequences, stability of character portrayal, consistency of themes and style, and interwoven dialogue. But there is no overall symmetrical or hierarchical structure. It is as if the author of Canticles loosened up poetic structure to allow for a free-flowing sequence of thoughts and words, and relied instead on the flow of dialogue and cohesiveness of character portrayal to secure the song’s unity”; cf. Andruska, Wise and Foolish Love, 24–25, 33–35.

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The maiden’s search for her soul’s beloved in 3:1–4 recurs in extended form in 5:2–6:2 + the refrain: “I sought him but found him not” (3:2b = 5:6) and repetition of “the watchmen patrolling the city, they found me” (3:3a = 5:7).12 The lover’s encomium to his beloved’s body in 4:1–5.7 occurs more briefly in 6:5b–7 (“probably the work of a copyist”) and in lengthier form in 7:2b–6.13

He thus concludes: The poems and the single stanzas are often arranged in the Song without any apparent logical sequence and without a trace of development .  .  . Interspersed in the Song are exquisite descriptions of the landscape and other details which form the background for the pursuit of the love of the speakers or singers. The Song also contains numerous fragments or brief snatches of poetry which disturb the context.14 Finally there are also a number of repetitions and duplicates scattered in various parts of the Song. . . . A plurality of authorship best explains the unevenness in the sequence of its contents, the contradiction between the picture in 1:5–6.7–8 and in the rest of the Song, the duplicate versions in 3:1–4 and 5:2–6:2; 4:1b–5 (6:5b–7) and 7:2b–6, and in the many disturbing interpolations.15

Elsewhere, I have outlined the (hypothetical) gradual growth of the collection through the first century BCE to the early first century CE, a Grundschrift of material common to 4QCantb and 4QCanta (viz. 2:9b–14, 16–17; 4,1–7) rapidly being supplemented by 3:1–2a, 6.16 New songs commonly repeat or echo songs that already formed part of the collection – cf. the central section of 5:2–6:10 (post-4QCantb,a) with its sub-units (5:2–6:3; 6:4–7, 8–9, 10). This repeats material from Canticles 2–4: the patrolling city guard of 2:4 recurring in 5:7, the description of the maiden’s hair as a “herd of goats, streaming down the hills of Gilead” in 6:5 reiterating 4:1. The recitative dialogue between the maiden and the daughters of Jerusalem (1:5; 2:7; 3:5) reappears in 5:8–9, 16, 6:1, and 8:4–5 – the latter possibly belonging to the same editorial stage. 8:5a – “Who is she coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” – is a partial echo of 3:6. “My beloved is mine and I am his, he pastures among the lilies” (2:16) recurs in 6:3.

12 4QCantb,a suggest that 5:2–6:10 belongs to a later literary stage. 13 Moshe H. Segal, “The Song of Songs,” VT 12 (1962): 470–90. 14 Cf. the composite Canticles 8, in particular vv. 1–6 (see below): 8:1–2, 6aα (love song); 8:3 (displaced echo of an earlier song); 8:4, 5a (repetitive interludes); 8:5b (displaced semi-stich); 8:6aβb (wisdom saying/Schlusswort). 15 Segal, “Song of Songs,” 471, 483. 16 Elgvin, “Chasing the Editors,” 80–94.

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3 Late Features 3.1 Language In the wake of Graetz’s early study (1871), scholars began associating Canticles with the (alleged) cosmopolitan milieu of third-century BCE Jerusalem. Numerous factors indicate a Hasmonean Jerusalem framework, however.17 While Segal (1960), Zakovitch (2004), and Gerhards (2010) convincingly attribute Canticles’s linguistic features to the Hellenistic period, the book’s affinities with late Hebrew usage, Qumran, Mishnaic Hebrew, and Jewish literary Aramaic make a Hasmonean provenance more likely than a Ptolemaic dating.18 Although 4QCantb II–IV has only been preserved in fragmentary form, the surviving text contains five Aramaic terms (seven cases) not present in 𝔐. This suggests that the textual tradition was fluid – or that 𝔐 is a later edition with the Aramaisms removed.19

3.2 Greek Cultural Influence Graetz and Heinevetter identify various aspects of Greek culture in Canticles: a) The term ‫“ מסב‬party” (1:12) refers to the Greek custom of reclining around the table; b) While the ancient Israelites adorned brides with wreaths, the Greeks placed them on the bridegroom (3:11); 17 For Jerusalem’s development from a small city during the Persian and Ptolemaic periods and slow growth under the Seleucids to its rapid expansion under the Hasmoneans, see Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 121–31 and the bibliography cited therein. 18 Segal, “Song of Songs,” 478 states: “Its language represents the latest stage of Biblical Hebrew as current in the Hellenistic period before it passed into the dialect of the Mishnah.” Identifying a long list of terms belonging to Mishnaic or later Hebrew, Gerhards, Das Hohelied, 29–48, tentatively dates the scroll to second-century Seleucid Judea. According to Zakovitch, many forms are typical of post-biblical Hebrew, the present form of the book thus not dating earlier than the third century; see Yair Zakovitch, Das Hohelied (Freiburg: Herder, 2004), 64–66. Setting a terminus a quo to the Hellenistic period, Hopf notes that the text could not have reached its final form at the time of 4QCantb; see Matthias Hopf, Liebesszenen: Eine literaturwissenschaftliche Studie zum Hohenlied als einem dramatisch-performativen Text, ATANT 108 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2016), 22–23. For a survey of the linguistic evidence, see Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 101–4. 19 Both Young and Puech contend that the Aramaic flavor of 4QCantb reflects an earlier stage than the more polished Masoretic text: Ian Young, “Notes on the Language of 4QCantb,” JJS 52 (2001): 122–31; Émile Puech, “Le Cantique des Cantiques dans les manuscrits de Qumran: 4Q106, 4Q107, 4Q108 et 6Q6,” RB 122 (2016): 29–53, esp. 53.

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c)

The burning arrows of love (8:6) derive from the Greek tradition of Eros and his quiver; d) Marble pillars (5:15; cf. Esth 1:6; 1 Chr 29:2) did not exist in Israel prior to the Hellenistic period; e) The custom of dancing in two rows – ‫( מחלת המחנים‬7:1) was a Graeco-Roman tradition.20 Nobles’ chariots (‫[ מרכבות עמי נדיב‬6:12]) and noble women’s sandals (‫ נעלים בת נדיב‬or ‫[ נעלים שלבת נדיב‬my emendation] [7:2]), were similarly non-Israelite elements;21 f) According to Graetz, luxurious palanquins such as Solomon’s (3:7–10) “sind wohl nie in Jerusalem, mit Ausnahme etwa zur Zeit Herodes’ gesehen worden. Der Dichter des H.L. kann eine solche Sänfte nur in Alexandrien oder Antiochien zur Zeit der üppigen Macedonier gesehen haben”;22 g) The ‫ אפריון‬in 3:9 is clearly a Greek loanword derived from ϕορειον.23 Graetz also suggests that some of the songs exhibit a literary dependence upon Theocritus’s Idylls.24 The prominent garden and herding themes in Canticles are a prime example. Catch us the foxes, the small foxes, that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. (Cant 2:15) Two foxes lurk nearby; one prowls down the vine rows, stealing the ripe fruit. (Idylls 1.48–49) I hate the thick-tailed foxes coming at evening time to Micon’s vineyard and stripping all its fruit away. (Idylls 5.111–112)25

While Theocritus envisages real foxes devastating the vineyard in contrast to their metaphorical role in Canticles (symbolizing the young men who endanger the girl’s chastity), the two texts exhibit notable terminological affinities.

20 Arnold B. Ehrlich, Randglossen zum Alten Testament: Textkritisches, Sprachliches und Sachliches, 7 vols. (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1914), 7: 15. 21 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 60–73; Heinevetter, “Komm nun,” 212–23. For a survey, see Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 101–32. 22 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 61–62. 23 This Greek loanword was identified by Carolus Godofredus Schreiber in Thesauro a Mercenariis Aut Fabris Occultato as early as 1748, see Hartmann, “Über Charakter,” 425–27. 24 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 68–73. A member of the Ptolemaic court, Theocritus of Sicilia (ca. 305–250 BCE) composed the Idylls in Greek ca. 270 BCE. 25 Anthony Verity, trans., Theocritus: Idylls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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I have likened you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots. (Cant 1:9) As a tall cypress rises above a garden . . . or as a stallion from Thessalonica the glory of its chariot, just so is Helen’s rosy skin the adornment of Sparta. (Idylls 18.30–32)26

The likening of the girl to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots is only intelligible in light of Theocritus’s marriage song to Helen – ‫“ הסוס‬mare” being a biblical hapax and Pharaoh customarily bearing a negative character in the Hebrew Bible.27 The comparison of the beloved to a prominent tree recurs in Cant 2:3: “Like an apple tree among trees of the forest, so is my lover among the young men.” Both texts address the maiden as “bride,” focusing on the glance of her eyes: You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride, you have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes. (Cant 4:9) Your glance is lovely, but you are stone – my dark-browed bride! (Idylls 3.18)

Cant 5:2–6 (a song replete with sexual euphemisms) contains numerous Leitworten – sleeping, opening the door, bolting/barring the door – that occur in a passage in the second book of the Idylls: If you had let me in, well, that would have turned out well, one kiss on your pretty mouth, and I’d have slept content. But if you had tried to keep me out and barred the door, I tell you, axes and torches would have been your next callers. (Idylls 2.124–128)

Graetz also adduces a “tanning” theme – the sun-burned village girl among the herders (1:6), the goatherd who desires to kiss his “dark-browed bride,” and the depiction of the beloved as a “sunburnt Syrian woman” (Idylls 3.18–19; 10.26). Dionysios’s apples of love (Idylls 2.120, 3.10, 29.38) recur in Cant 2:3.5, 7:8, 8:5, the twin-bearing ewes (Cant 4:2, 6:6) echoing the she-goats with twins (Idylls 1.24, 5.86).28 Both the Hebrew and Greek authors liken the voice to honey (Cant 4:11; Idylls 20.27), love to fire (Cant 8:6; Idylls 2.132–133: “Often love fires up a hotter blaze than Hephaestus kindles on Lipara”), and the neck to ivory (Cant 7:5; Anakreon, Ode 29). The repeated adjuration in the maiden’s dialogue with her peers (2:7; 3:5; 5:8; 8:4) recalls Helen’s group of bride girls (Idylls 18.12–13, 22–25). The dancing Shulammite (7:1[6:13]) is reminiscent of Theocritus’s cheerful dancing 26 Cf. Anselm C. Hagedorn, “Of Foxes and Vineyards: Greek Perspectives on the Song of Songs,” VT 53 (2003): 337–52, esp. 338–44. 27 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 71 notes, “das Hebräische wird erst durch das Griechische verständlich.” 28 Outside Canticles, apples only appear in Prov 25:11: “Like golden apples in silver showpieces is a word fitly spoken” and Joel 2:12: “The vine withers, the fig tree droops; pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are drying up.”

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girls (Idylls 1.90–91). Theocritus also repeats virtual verbatim stichs (Idylls 8.29, 30, 80), with Canticles employing the same device in 1:13–14, 2:10, 13, and 3:1–2. The scene of the herdsman pasturing his flock “among the lilies” (2:16) is a romantic description closer to Theocritus than the hills of Judea.29 Following Graetz, Gerhards has evinced numerous parallels between Canticles and Hellenistic love poetry.30 As one example, a Greek graffito on a grave in Maresha dated to the late third/mid-second century BCE evinces the penetration of this genre into the ancient Levant.

3.3 Socio-Cultural Hasmonean Markers Graetz further observes the book’s idealization of the pastoral life, when considering that post-exilic Yehud possessed little grazing territory: In der damalige judäischen Welt, in der nachexilischen Zeit, war das Hirtenleben durch nichts ausgezeichnet, als dass es zur poetischen Folie hätte dienen können. In Gegenteil waren die Kleinviehhirten verachtet. Der Ackerbau war nämlich so sehr vorherrschend, dass man grosse Heerden als schädlich für denselben ansah, weil sie die Getreidefelder beschädigten, und Hirten galten deswegen halb als Räuber, weil sie auf fremdem Eigenthum weiden liessen. In Judäa selbst gab es in der nachexilischen Zeit . . . nur noch wenig Weideplätze für nomadisirende Hirten. Daher verlegt das Hohelied die Ziegenheerden nach Gilead (IV, 1; VI, 5), nach dem peräischen Lande, wo es noch Weideplätze für Nomaden gab. In der judäischen Welt konnte der Dichter also keinen Anhalt finden, die Hirten zu idealisieren.31

From the late second century onwards, however, the inhabitants of the growing Judean state enjoyed an abundance of pasture. Other markers also point to the first-century Hasmonean state as the book’s social and cultural setting – the reference to the king’s concubines in 6:8–9 indicating either David and Solomon’s reigns or the Hasmonean/Herodian period, for example.

29 Graetz unambiguously concludes: “... der Dichter des Hohenliedes Theokrit’s Idyllen und noch Anderes aus der vervandten Literatur gelesen haben” (Schir Ha-Schirim, 73). Burton adduces further common themes: the woman whose clothes are torn (off) by men in the street (Cant 5:7; Idylls 15.69–72), separation from/longing for the beloved (Cant 3:1–4, 5:6–7; Idylls 2.1–10, 158–162), Ptolemy’s and Solomon’s wealth, power, and sexual vigor (Cant 3:7–11; 6:8–9; 8:11–12; Idylls 15.22, 119–127; 17:128–130; 14:61–62; 17.93–94), and the focus on female sexuality (very rare in the Hebrew Bible); see Joan B. Burton, “Themes of Female Desire and Self-Assertion in the Song of Songs and Hellenistic Poetry,” in Perspectives on the Song of Songs/ Perspektiven der Hoheliedauslegung, ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn, BZAW 346 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 180–205, esp. 187–92. 30 Gerhards, Das Hohelied, 48–61, 115–52. 31 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 68–70.

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During the Hasmonean period, Jerusalem grew from a town of around 1,500 inhabitants to a city of 6,000.32 For the first time in its history, it became a cosmopolitan complex, displaying evidence of Graeco-Roman architecture.33 The watchmen guarding the city (3:1–5; 5:7) reflect the Greek peripoloi – armed police who patrolled conquered and occupied cities during the Macedonian period.34 Possessing no more than five hundred inhabitants, third-century Jerusalem did not merit Ptolemaic investment in a city guard. Hasmonean/Herodian Jerusalem was surrounded by a circle of agricultural villages, 4–6 km distant, which provided for the city’s needs.35 The gardens, orchards, and vineyards described in Canticles best fit these settlements, which grew and flourished as the city expanded.36 Not cited elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Ein Gedi’s “vineyards” (1:14) may reflect the author’s personal knowledge of the burgeoning Hasmonean village, whose agricultural activity was intensifying after 112 BCE. According to Hirschfeld, Cant 6:2 – “My lover has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices” – alludes to the irrigated terraces constructed there during the Hasmonean period.37 Jericho and Ein Gedi were the primary spice plantations, no terraces being cultivated on the plains of Jericho, with balsam and other perfume plants being grown here and in other oases in the Dead Sea region from the late fourth century onwards (Theophrastes, History of Plants 6.6; cf. Jer 8:22; 46:11; Ezek 27:17). This industry was one of the principal reasons Ein Gedi was awarded royal-estate status. The well-watered spice garden in Cant 4:13–15 fits Hasmonean Ein Gedi better than any other location: Your trees – an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, henna with nard – nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of fragrance, myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices – there is a fountain that feeds orchards, a well of living water, flowing streams of Lebanon.

Of the 38 references to Heshbon in the Bible, Cant 7:4[5] alone refers to its pools: “Your eyes are like the pools of Heshbon by the Bath-Rabbim Gate.” The Heshbon

32 Hillel Geva, “Estimating Jerusalem’s Population in Antiquity: A Minimalist View,” Eretz Israel 28 (2007): 50‒65 (Hebrew); idem, “Jerusalem in the Light of Archaeology: Notes on Urban Topography,” Eretz Israel 31 (2015): 57‒75, 184✶ (Hebrew). 33 Cf. Zechariah’s and Absalom’s tombs in the Kidron Valley and Jason’s in Rehaviah, all of which are topped with pyramids. 34 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 63; Heinevetter, “Komm nun,” 108. 35 David Amit, “Remains of Jewish Settlements from the Second Temple Period Near Teddy Stadium, Jerusalem,” Eretz Israel 28 (2007): 152–58 (Hebrew). 36 Cf. in particular Cant 7:12–13: “Come, my lover, let us go forth into the fields and lodge in the villages, let us go out early to the vineyards.” 37 Yizhar Hirschfeld, En-Gedi Excavations II: Final Report (1996‒2002) (Jerusalem: IES, 2007), 9–11.

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water reservoirs unearthed by excavators date to two periods – Iron Age II and early Roman times (63 BCE–130 CE).38 Heshbon was only an Israelite city under the early-ninth-century Omride dynasty and the Hasmoneans/Herodians, Hyrcanus conquering the area around Madaba and Heshbon soon after the death of the Seleucid Antiochus VII in 129 BCE (A.J. 13.254–255). Cant 7:4 further gives the impression of personal acquaintance by a Judean songster.

3.4 Egyptian Love Songs Some scholars still hold that (the early form of many of the songs in) Canticles dates to the pre-exilic period, with Akkadian and ancient Egyptian love poetry forming the closest parallels.39 The Akkadian material comes from the late-third/ early-second millennium, while the Egyptian manuscripts belong to the Nineteenth (1305–1200 BCE)/first decades of the Twentieth (1200–1150 BCE) Dynasty.40 One of the foremost promoters of this view is Michael Fox, who dates the extant text of Canticles to the fourth–second centuries BCE while containing pre-exilic material.41 Although acknowledging that the two corpora are separated by 800–1000 years and that “nothing quite like the Ramesside love poetry was composed, or, so far as we know, transmitted in later periods,” he concurs with Nissinen’s assertion of “an  intercultural reservoir of metaphors and symbols circulating around the eastern Mediterranean area and crossing cultural boundaries over more than two millennia.”42 Some scholars have suggested that the Ramesside love-song tradition continued through to the Late/Ptolemaic periods, possibly influencing Hebrew love poetry.43 If so, the relevant texts would have had to be turned into Demotic script or translated into Greek – neither phenomenon being documented. A post-Ptolemaic

38 See Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 115–17 and the bibliography cited therein. 39 Andruska, “Unmarried Lovers”; Fox, Song of Songs and “Rereading.” 40 Fox, Song of Songs, 181. 41 Fox, “Rereading,” 13: “Whatever the nature of the connection between the Egyptian love songs and Canticles, the former offer much comparative material that can help illuminate Canticles in various ways, even without assuming a historical linkage”; Andruska, “Unmarried Lovers,” passim, argues for more immediate influence. 42 Fox, “Rereading the Song,” 12; Marti Nissinen, “Love Lyrics of Nabû and Tašmetu: An Assyrian Song of Songs?” in “Und Moses schrieb diese Lied auf”: Studien zum Alten Testament und zum alten Orient, ed. Manfried Dietrich and Ingo Kottsieper (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1998), 585–634, esp. 624. 43 Pascal Vernus, “Le Cantique des Cantiques et l’Egypte pharaonique,” in Perspectives on the Song of Songs / Perspektiven der Hoheliedauslegung, ed. Anselm C. Hagedorn, BZAW 346 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005), 150–62.

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Judean origin for Canticles would make such a route even less tenable, with any cultural bridge having to span a millennium! While a late date allows for a transtextual relation to biblical texts, the line of dependence must be from Hosea 2, 14; Isaiah 5; Jeremiah 31; and Proverbs 7 to Canticles.

3.5 Open-Minded Scribes in a Hasmonean Library? The Psalms of Solomon – a collection of songs from the mid-first century BCE associated with circles critical of the luxurious, libertine lifestyle of the Hasmonean rulers – depicts the Roman conquest as just punishment for the sins of the preceding generations and their Hasmonean leaders (2; 4; 8; 17:5–9). Some are a reverse mirror of specific scenes in Canticles, reflecting the more open, sensual, male-female relations that prevailed in Hasmonean and Early-Roman Jerusalem: They set up the sons of Jerusalem for derision because of her prostitutes. Everyone passing by entered in broad daylight . . . And the daughters of Jerusalem were available to all because they defiled themselves with improper intercourse. (2:11, 13)44 His eyes are on every woman indiscriminately . . . With his eyes he speaks to every woman of illicit affairs. (4:4, 5) In secret places underground was their provoking lawbreaking, Son involved with mother and father with daughter, Everyone committed adultery with his neighbor’s wife. (8:9‒10) Restrain me, O God, from sordid sin, and from every evil woman who seduces the foolish. And may the beauty of a criminal woman not deceive me, nor anyone subject to useless sin. (16:7‒8)

Could the growing collection of songs in Canticles have formed part of the scribal discourse of late-Hasmonean and early-Herodian Jerusalem, interacting and conflicting with the pious group responsible for the Psalms of Solomon? The maiden’s independent role concurs with another late-Hasmonean scribal voice, the book of Judith, which reflects the strong character of Salome Alexandra (76–63 BCE) and her wisdom in the face of the Armenian king Tigranes’s threat of invasion.45 An acting ruling queen could open the way for new attitudes towards

44 The “daughters of Jerusalem” recur in Canticles (1:5; 2:7; 3:5; 5:8, 16; 8:4). 45 Samuele Rocca, “The Book of Judith, Queen Sholomzion and King Tigranes of Armenia: A Sadducee Appraisal,” Materia Giudaica 10.1 (2005): 1–14; Tal Ilan, Silencing the Queen: The Literary Histories of Shelamzion and Other Jewish Women (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006); Gabriele Boccacini,

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women – with some of the songs in Canticles indeed recognizing female autonomy and strength. In their open-minded questioning of traditional family ethics, the editors of the collection may also have been inspired by the “Solomonic” Qoheleth, which challenges traditional wisdom. Their drawing on Greek literary tradition – as exemplified by Theocritus’s pastoral songs – evinces an inclusive attitude towards foreign cultures, acknowledging that traces of the Creator can be identified therein. While this approach is characteristic of the wisdom corpus, it does not automatically make a poet or songster a sapiential sage, however. The appeal to Greek tradition may suggest the existence of a “public library” in Hasmonean Jerusalem. This proposal is supported by 2 Macc 2:13–15, part of a fictive letter (2 Macc 1:10b–2:18) that presupposes a stable state seeking to expand its Jewish population: the memoirs of Nehemiah . . . he founded a library and collected the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings . . . In the same way Judah collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war that had come upon us, and they are in our possession. If you have need of them, send people to get them for you.

Portraying Nehemiah and Judah the Maccabee as creating a library in line with Hellenistic norms, this passage may suggest the existence of a Hellenistic-style royal library in Jerusalem from the time of Hyrcanus.46 The conquest of Idumea in 107 and the incorporation of its (now circumcised) inhabitants into the Judean commonwealth further boosted Hellenistic influence. Lying 40 km southwest of Jerusalem, the capital Maresha was heavily permeated by Greek culture, as evidenced by archaeological excavations revealing 200 inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic (including elegant poems) and altars to Greek gods.47 Judean personal names on Idumean ostraca indicate a notable Jewish presence in Idumea, suggesting cultural interaction between the two societies both prior and subsequent to Idumea’s formal Judaization. A Hasmonean state-sponsored library would likely have led to a class of more secular officials, familiar with both Hebrew and Greek literature, than the puri-

“Tigranes the Great as ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ in the Book of Judith,” in A Pious Seductress: Studies in the Book of Judith, ed. Geza Xeravits (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 55–69. 46 2 Maccabees dates to the reign of Hyrcanus: Robert Doran, 2 Maccabees: A Critical Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 52, 62–63. In a personal communication, Doran ascribed the book to the decade prior to the Hasmonean destruction of Gerizim in 112 BCE (cf. 2 Macc 5:23; 6:1–2). 47 Walter Ameling et al., Corpus Inscriptorum Iudaea/Palaestinae. Vol. IV: Iudaea/Idumaea (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018).

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ty-oriented scribes of the Temple and the Yahad. At an even earlier stage, a scribal hub appears to have existed in the Persian-era governor’s complex at Ramat Rachel, four kilometers south of Jerusalem. The composition of Judith and parts of the literary growth of Canticles may be linked to such a Jerusalemite scribal milieu.

4 Message 4.1 Instruction or Anti-Instruction? The songs in Canticles do not match Proverbs, Job, Qoheleth, or Ben Sira. Not forming advice or instructional literature, they fly in the face of the parental desire for uprightness rather than reflecting the instruction of a father, mother, or senior sage. The maiden can only dream of introducing her lover to her parents, for example: If only you could be as a brother to me, then I could kiss you when I met you in the street, and I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother. (8:1–2) I found my soul’s beloved, I held him, and would not let him go until I could bring him into my mother’s house, into the chamber of her that conceived me. (3:4)

The two young lovers’ behavior fulfils Ben Sira’s worst nightmare regarding his own daughters. Do you have daughters? Be concerned for their chastity, and do not show yourself too indulgent with them. (Sir 7:24)

While the songs convey a message, the book does not belong to the instructional genre: in contrast to traditional oriental patterns, the maiden chooses her own path rather than obeying her father.

4.2 Use of Scriptures 4.2.1 Proverbs, Sirach, Sapiential Texts According to Andruska, Proverbs 7 draws terms from Canticles – streets and squares (‫שוקים‬, ‫)רחב‬, the finding/kissing of the beloved (‫מצא‬, ‫)נשק‬, the use of myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon in a love context, reclining on couch/bed (‫ערש‬, ‫( )משכב‬Prov 7:8, 12,

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13, 15, 16, 17; Cant 1:16; 3:2; 4:14; 8:1). The seductress also “borrows” language from Canticles to lure the naïve young man into sexual intercourse.48 Embedded in the sapiential speeches of Proverbs 1–9, Proverbs 7 is an admonition against being seduced by Dame Folly. While its intertextual links with Canticles do not make Canticles a wisdom book, the fact that first-century love songs engage with a proverbs collection associated with Solomon evinces a daring interaction with the sapiential tradition: a) The “my sister, my bride” poem (4:8–5:1) employs the “cinnamon, aloes, and myrrh” associated with the seductress’s couch (Prov 7:17) to describe the maiden as a paradisiacal garden and the water source of Eden, inverting the adulterous scene: Your trees – an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, henna with nard – nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of fragrance, myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices – there is a fountain that feeds orchards, a well of living water, flowing streams of Lebanon. (4:13–15)49

b) The maiden’s poem of longing (3:1–4) echoes Prov 7:6–23 (cf. vv. 8, 12, 15; Theocritus [see above]). While her pursuit of her beloved through the streets and squares echoes the seductress’s search for the young man, her intense longing is to introduce him to her parents so that they can formalize their relationship. c) The seductress’s statement: “let us drink our fill of lovemaking until morning” (Prov 7:18) finds thematic sequels in the songs: Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my lover, be like a deer buck or a young stag on the cleft mountains. (2:17) Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. (4:6, the climax of the lover’s encomium to the maiden’s body) Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with lovemaking. (Schlusswort added to 4:8–5:1) I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, of her who taught me, there I would give you spiced wine to drink, sweet juice of my pomegranates. (8:2)

48 Andruska, Wise and Foolish Love, 35–42. 49 The repetition of three Leitworten in the context of lovemaking demonstrates that Cant 4:14 alludes to Prov 7:17. While the catchwords “my sister, my bride” in Cant 4:8–5:1a mitigate the licentious invitations and allusions to premarital sex in other songs, the double entendre in 5:1 may allude to the sexual encounter: “I come to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gather my myrrh with my spice, I eat my honeycomb with my honey, I drink my wine with my milk.” Together with the frivolous Schlusswort (5:1b), the “my sister, my bride” poem concludes the early 4QCantb.

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The lacuna at the beginning of 4QCantb 1 13 precludes the full text of 𝔐 with its rather awkward syntax. The tentative reconstruction I offer renders a shorter and smoother text that fits the size of the lacuna: “Turn around, [my darling, who looks like a stag] on the cleft hills.”50 In the lover’s song, “the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense” are euphemisms for the girl’s intimate parts. Her invitation to the beloved thus relates to his moving over her breasts. These two songs therefore appear to draw directly on Prov 7:18, albeit neutralizing the negative connotations. In the maiden’s dream of bringing her lover into her mother’s chamber (8:2), wine stimulates erotic activity (cf. Theocritus, Idylls 2.152), pomegranates naturally symbolizing breasts.51 The editors of Canticles make even bolder use of the caution against adultery in Proverbs 7. The Schlusswort of the first principal section of Canticles: ‫אכלו רעים‬ ‫“ שתו ושכרו דודים‬Eat friends, drink and be drunk of lovemaking!” (5:1b) rephrases the seductress’s invitation: ‫“ לכה נרוה דדים עד־הבקר‬let us drink our fill of lovemaking until morning” (Prov 7:18).52 Proverbs 7 concludes with a characterization of the temptress: “Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death” (7:27). One of the Canticles’s editors follows suit in his sapiential Schlusswort to 6:11–8:6 that closes the larger section 5:2–8:6: “For love is fierce as death, passion mighty as Sheol. Its darts are darts of fire, a blazing flame” (8:6aβb). Matching death and the underworld in both depth and strength, love(making) is no gateway to Sheol. The association between love and Sheol may echo Theocritus and the Odyssey – Odysseus escaping Hades to be reunited with his beloved Penelope.53 In their polemical reception of Proverbs 7, the songwriters and editors of Canticles relate to a Solomonic section of the Ketubim – a collection-in-the-making of “writings of the fathers” seeking a place in those texts regarded as authoritative, following the Torah and the Prophets, during the second century BCE.54 The first literary candidate “knocking on the door” was the Davidic psalter. Formed around the third century of scrolls 3–41, 42–50, and 51–72, an early Psalter was prefaced by Psalm 2 – an early Davidic psalm expanded to include vv. 10–12 50 Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 41. 51 Hagedorn, “Of Foxes and Vineyards,” 346–51. 52 ‫ דודים‬clearly signifying lovemaking (cf. Prov 7:18; Ezek 16:8.17, 23:17), ‫ דודים‬and ‫ דודי‬should be rendered “lovemaking”/“my lover”: Ehrlich, Randglossen zum Alten Testament, 7: 11; Fox, The Song of Songs, 97, 313. 53 “For ten long years Odysseus wandered throughout the world, reached remote Hades alive, and escaped from the murderous Cyclops’ cave” (Idylls 16.51–52). 54 Ancient origin or authorship by an early biblical sage served as positive criteria in the process of authorization; see Arie van der Kooij, “Authoritative Scriptures and Scribal Culture,” in Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism, ed. Mladen Popovic, JSJSup 141 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 55–71, esp. 55–57.

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during the Hellenistic period.55 Psalms 2–72 appear to constitute a third-century messianic psalter.56 Ca. 200 BCE, a sapiential rereading of the Davidic psalms emerged, with the editors broadening the psalmodic frame via the addition of two wisdom psalms (1 and 119) and presenting the psalter both as a scriptural text to be read and meditated upon in dialogue with the Mosaic Torah (cf. Ps 1:2) and a collection of psalms to be sung in the Temple.57 Willgren states: “Used in the Second Temple cult and relating to the public reading of the torah of Moses, they were also to become authoritative for the community, eventually becoming scripture themselves.”58 The early-first century translation of the Psalter into Greek testifies to its reception as an authoritative book, the Davidic psalms rapidly taking center stage amongst the Ketubim.59 David was assigned prophetic status and associated with both Psalms and Ruth, while Solomon’s stature was being assured and cemented herein on the basis of Proverbs.60

55 For the early date of Ps 2:1–9, see Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 101–150, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2008), 204–5; Reinard Feldmeier and Hermann Spieckermann, God of the Living: A Biblical Theology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2011), 55–65; Ronald Hendel et al., How Old is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 19; Gard Granerød, “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation? Psalm 2:6 in Light of Egyptian Royal Ideology,” VT 60 (2010): 323–36. 56 See Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51–100 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 5–6. Psalm 72 serves as a better postlude to an early messianic psalter than the lament in Psalm 89, however (Hermann Spieckermann, personal communication). 57 According to Willgren, Pss 1–72 and 73–119 date to the Persian period, being extended to 1–135/136 in the third century; see David Willgren, The Formation of the “Book” of Psalms: Reconsidering the Transmission and Canonization of Psalmody in Light of Material Culture and the Poetics of Anthologies, FAT II/88 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 379–82. Böhler regards Psalms 1–2 as second-century texts written as an introduction to the full psalter; see Dieter Böhler, Psalmen 1–50, HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2021), 74–75, 83–88. Hossfeld and Zenger argue that Ben Sira programmatically refers to Ps 1 in Sir 14:20–15:10 – a possible but far from certain claim; see Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalmen 1–50, HThKAT (Würzburg: Echter, 1993), 8–9. 58 Willgren, Formation, 386. 59 According to van der Kooij, the translation was made early in the first century: Arie van der Kooij, “On the Place of Origin of the Old Greek of Psalms,” VT 33 (1983): 67–74. The reference to Moab and Idumea in GPs 59:9–10 (𝔐 60:9–10[60:7–8]) and 107:9–10 [𝔐 108:9–10(8–9)] suggests a date after the Hasmonean conquest of Idumea (107 BCE): cf. Joachim Schaper, Eschatology in the Greek Psalter, WUNT II/76 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 42–45. 60 Cf. Acts 2:25–34; the Qumran pesharim to the psalms; 11QPsa XXVII 3–11: “The Lord gave him [David] a brilliant and discerning spirit, so that he wrote: psalms . . . songs to sing before the altars . . . for the festival days . . . altogether 4050 songs he composed through prophecy given him by the Most High.” The late-third century “Last Words of David” (2 Sam 23:1–7) are formatted as a prophetic oracle, David speaking inspired words through God’s spirit; see Torleif Elgvin, Warrior, King,

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The latter never achieving the same position as the Torah and Prophets or gaining the same prophetic status as the Davidic psalms, however, songsters and editors felt free to invert Proverbs 7 and treat Solomon and his speech in Proverbs 7 ironically: “Among biblical sages, Solomon should be the one to teach us chastity, fidelity, and traditional family ethics? Really? His legacy has other features, which we choose to draw upon in formulating our love songs.”61 Some scholars argue for a close affinity between Lady Wisdom/the wife of one’s youth and the maiden in Canticles.62 Here, Canticles may be in dialogue with second-and first- century BCE non-biblical writings – the most important being Ben Sira, who describes heavenly Wisdom in Sirach 24 and incorporates a sensual paean to Lady Wisdom in 51:13–27. Extra-sectarian Qumran writings relate to Lady Wisdom as God’s right hand and vehicle of revelation. 4Q184 (4QWiles of the Wicked Woman) and 4Q185 (4QSapiential Work) exhort their readers to distance themselves from Dame Folly (4Q184) and heed Lady Wisdom (4Q185). According to 4Q185 1–2 ii 10, God gave Wisdom to the people of Israel “and with a good measure he measures her out, and all his people he will redeem.” Wisdom is also personified/elevated in 4Q525 (4QBeatitudes) 2 ii 2–8; 2 iii 1–3; 5 6–13; 11QPsa 154:5–15; 11QPsaCreat; and 1 Enoch 42 (the later, non-Qumran Similitudes). Like Sirach 24 and Bar 3:9–4:4, 4Q525 and 11QPsa 154 explicitly link W/wisdom with the Torah: “Blessed is the man who attains Wisdom and walks in the Torah of the Most High” (4Q525 2 ii 3–4); “For to make known the glory of the Lord is Wisdom given, and for recounting his many deeds she is revealed to man . . . their meditation is on the Torah of the Most High” (11QPsa 154:5–6, 14). (Personified) Wisdom and Dame Folly being well-known figures in Judean literary circles, they may thus have colored the description of the maiden in Canticles. God is omnipotent in the Yahad texts, in contrast, leaving no room for Lady Wisdom. The exception to this rule is 4Q420/421 (4QWays of Righteousness), which exhorts the community to carry the yoke of personified/elevated Wisdom. Its wisdom sentences – including the reference to the yoke of Wisdom – represent older sapiential traditions reworked by a sectarian editor, however.63

Servant, Savior: Messianism in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Texts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2022), 168–72. 61 Cf. the number of these books found in Qumran – two (or three/four) Proverbs scrolls and 36 “Psalms scrolls” (some of which only contain one or a few psalms). 62 Edmée Kingsmill, The Song of Songs and the Eros of God: A Study in Biblical Intertextuality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 54–59; Martin Ravndal Hauge, Solomon the Lover and the Shape of the Song of Songs (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015), 132–65. 63 Elgvin in DJD 20:173, 188–90. 4Q421 1a ii–b 10 reads ‫חכמ]ה‬ ֗ ‫[ עול‬: see photo B-364386.

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The two closest ancient Hebrew parallels to the sensual descriptions in Canticles come from Seleucid and Hasmonean Judea – 11QPsaSir and the description of Sarah in 1QapGen XX 1–8. The acrostic poem in the former – composed by Ben Sira? – is far more lascivious than the polished Greek version in Sir 51:13–30.64 The sexual metaphors it employs in depicting the eager search for and devotion to Lady Wisdom presage Canticles’s language and symbolism: When I was still young and had not yet strayed or sought her, she came to me in her beauty – and right to the end I will seek her. Even when the blossoms fade, the grapes still rejoice the heart. My foot trod in the plain field, for from my youth have I known her closely. Scarcely bending my ear I found much instruction. She became a wet-nurse to me, to my teacher I pay respect. I pondered, I wanted to play, I desired the good things and did not let anything distract me. I was in fire with her and would not turn back. I was stirred up with her and did not stray from her heights. My “hand” opened [the mountain of myrrh(?)], I gazed on her nakedness, I purified my hand towards [65

This passage contains numerous double entendres. We may note that: a) “Foot” and “hand” both serve as euphemisms for the male organ in biblical and Qumran texts; b) Canticles 4–5 echoes Sirach 24 and its portrait of Lady Wisdom (cf. in particular the garden motifs in 24:25–31); c) Cant 2:9 (“Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice”) similarly recalls Sir 14:20–27: “He who peers through her windows will also listen at her doorways” (14:23).66 The (late-second century?) Genesis Apocryphon paints Sarah in bright colors: How splen[did] and beautiful is the aspect of her face, and how [. . . And] h[ow] supple is the hair of her head. How lovely are her eyes; how pleasant her nose and all the radiance of her face [. . .] How shapely is her breast, how gorgeous all her fairness! Her arms, how comely! Her hands, how perfect – how [lovely] is every aspect of her hands! How exquisite are her

64 Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, AB 39 (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 572–79. 65 11QPsa XXI 11–18 (my translation). 66 Kingsmill, The Song of Songs, 8, 49–54 (dating Canticles to the century following Ben Sira). Zimmermann suggests that Sirach 51 is a religious reworking of a profane love song; see Ruben Zimmermann, “The Love Triangle of Lady Wisdom: Sacred Marriage in Jewish Wisdom Literature,” in Sacred Marriages: The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity, ed. Marti Nissinen and Risto Uro (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), 243–58, esp. 247. Early on, Hartmann, “Über Charakter,” 437 noted Ben Sira’s unfamiliarity with Canticles: “das Buch Sirach, welches das Lob des gefeierten Israelitischen Königes Kap. 47,12 ff. mit den glänzendsten Farben ausmahlt, zwar v. 17. vgl. mit K. 39,2.3 der Sprüchwörter, Denksprüche und Räthsel gedenkt die Salomo’s Ruhm verkündigen, aber über das reizende Lied der Liebe das tiefste Stillschweigen beobachtet.”

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palms, how long and delicate all her fingers! Her feet, how attractive! How perfect are her thighs! Neither virgins nor brides entering the bridal chamber exceed her charms. Over all women is her beauty supreme, her loveliness far above them all. Yet with all this comeliness, she possesses great wisdom, and all that she has is beautiful.67

Most likely lying chronologically between Ben Sira and Canticles, the Genesis Apocryphon evinces that scribes interacting with biblical tradition did not refrain from phrasing sensual texts. The use of three texts from Ben Sira in the love songs does not make the latter sapiential psalms or poems, however. In contrast to Canticles’s interaction with Ben Sira, the continued tradition of Lady Wisdom – including her blending with the Mosaic Torah in Sirach 24, Baruch 3–4, 5Q525, and 11QPsa 154 – did not become a formative feature of Canticles.

4.2.2 Genesis 1–2, Gardens, Orchards, and Utopia Canticles makes very different use of Genesis and related prophetic texts than of Proverbs 7. In dialogue with various prophetic texts, Genesis 1 and 2 serve as a base text for the love songs, the garden theme directly echoing Eden. While the pastoral features are inspired by Theocritus – the first to link the themes of shepherding and love – the scenes of courting and love are set in the rapidly expanding Hasmonean state ruled by Hyrcanus and Janneus.68 As the songs indicate, descriptions of locations and landscapes from the newly-conquered territories became the stock fare of Jerusalemite poets and scribes, giving rise to a “land mysticism” that adduced romantic features in order to induce attraction, awe, and reflection.69 Many songs speak of the fruit of the land – grapes, wine, raisins, apples, figs, dates, oil, pomegranates, nuts, wheat, and even the Greek apples of love (7:13). The maiden’s

67 1QapGen 20: 3–8 (my translation). In the context of the bridal chamber, “feet” and “thighs” may be euphemisms for the female organ. 1QapGen was copied in the late first century BCE; Machiela dates the original text to the early second century: Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13–17, STDJ 79 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 105–42. This argument rests partially on parallels with Jubilees 8–9, the two texts drawing on a common cartographic source. In light of Monger’s redating of Jubilees (cf. n. 7 above), a late-second- or early-first-century date may be preferable, however. 68 Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 111–20 and the bibliography cited therein. 69 Heinevetter, Komm nun, 213, 217 contends that this romanticism (“was deren idyllische Verkläring steigert”) reflects the anti-urban Hellenistic tradition that emerged in the third century (cf. most prominently 6:10–8:6) – also suggesting that “Sexualität frei von Moralisierung, un-orientalische Frauenrolle, Wiederverszauberung der Natur – wäre ohne Einflüsse aus einer anderen Kultur nicht vorstellbar” (cf. Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 85).

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beauty is compared to the (sand-)lily. Like the land as a whole, Ein Gedi’s fertile vineyards and spice gardens form the mise en scène for lovemaking and symbolize love. The recurring images of vineyards, gardens, orchards, fountains, and water channels allude to the Garden of Eden, whose harmony and fertility are reflected in male-female love relationships – including extramarital dating and sexuality outside family control: the orchards and blossoming spring parallel human love and sexual relations. This utopia also extends to the animal kingdom: domestic and wild animals – sheep, fawn, goats, the mares that draw Pharaoh’s chariots, deer, gazelles, stags, doves, turtledoves, and leopards – being summoned to praise the beloved’s body and beauty. This accord recalls the literary addition to the messianic “shoot of Jesse” unit: The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid, the calf, the beast of prey, and the fatling together, with a little boy to herd them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, And the lion, like the ox, shall eat straw. A babe shall play over a viper’s hole, and an infant pass his hand over an adder’s den. (Isa 11:6–8 [JPS])

Although the eschaton/redemption do not feature in Canticles, the harmonious setting invokes Eden – which in late biblical texts colors the description of the end times. Bob Dylan eloquently sums up Genesis 2 in his “Man gave names to all the animals, in the beginning, long time ago,” the final strophe playing on Genesis 3: He saw an animal as smooth as glass Slithering his way through the grass. Saw him disappear by a tree near a lake . . .70

The snake plays no role in Canticles, however, as the songs make no reference to temptation, sin, breaking God’s law, or human subjection to the curses of Genesis 3. The maiden possesses an independent role and status, taking her lover as booty rather than vice versa: ‫“ אני לדודי ועלי תשוקתו‬I am my lover’s, and his desire is for me” (7:11; cf. 3:1–5).71 In sharp contrast to Gen 3:16, 4:7, this use of ‫ תשוקה‬suggests a gender-equal relation, as at the beginning of creation. Just as the songsters and scribes relate to Genesis 1 and 2 and ignore Genesis 3, so too does the author of Psalm 8. While Genesis 1 is frequently classified as a wisdom text, its employment in first-century love songs hardly makes the growing collection a sapiential composition. 70 Bob Dylan, “Man Gave Names to All the Animals,” Slow Train Coming, 1980. 71 Herder, Lieder der Liebe, 113.

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4.2.3 The Divine Presence in the Temple, the Wandering in the Desert, and Human Love Cant 3:6 and 4:5‒6 exhibit close intertextual relations: Who is she coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?

3:6

Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies. 4:6 Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. 4:5

The maiden coming up from the wilderness alludes to the pillar of cloud of God’s presence that accompanied the Israelites during their wanderings in the desert and the incense offered in the Temple. The young man’s love song in 4:1–7 sensuously describes his beloved’s body, climaxing in 4:6, the images of myrrh and frankincense recurring in his longing to enter her sacred parts. This may be a covert poetic gibe against the Temple scribes, the poets, singers, and scribal editors rhetorically mocking the latter’s exegesis: “You do not have a monopoly on interpreting the Torah or the ways of the Creator!” Alternatively, it may be intended to sacralize gender love, boldly proclaiming that sexual union embodies the active and indwelling presence of the Creator – whether within marriage or in pre-marital dating.

4.2.4 Love Relations and Nature in Prophetic Texts The songsters may have been inspired by Isa 5:1–7, in particular 5:1, with “vineyard” being a common metaphor for female sexuality: ‫≈𝔐( אשירה נא לידידי שירת דודי לכרמו‬1QIsaa) I will sing for my beloved, my lovemaking song about his vineyard I will sing for the beloved, a love song to my vineyard (𝔊)72

Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel all speak of Israel as being unfaithful to her divine husband, baring her breasts and genitals to her lovers (cf. Jer 2:20–25; 3:6–9;

72 𝔊’s reading ‫( לכרמי‬cf. the graphical similarity between yod and waw) suggests the original sense: “I will sing to my beloved, my lovemaking song about my vineyard [i.e., female sexual partner].”

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Ezekiel 16, 23; Hos 2:4–12[2–10]). While none of these passages romanticize the female body, Hosea and Jeremiah describe God’s initial love for the young and untouched virgin Israel. Employing images of the land, vineyards, fruit, wine, oil, dancing, and virgin Israel (images that recur in Canticles), Hos 2:16–25[14–23] and Jer 31:2–14 envision God as fully reunited with his beloved in harmony and fidelity. Jer 31:4 describes “virgin Israel” dancing when God restores his people. 4QCanta’s “virgin Jerusalem” in 3:10 (for 𝔐, 𝔊: “the daughters of Jerusalem”) may be influenced by this verse.73 These two prophetic passages depicting the harmony of love and love-making in the land (cf. Isa 54:4–6, 62:4–5) serve as primary base texts for Canticles. Imbued with a similar spirit, rather than criticizing pre-marital sex the latter creates the impression – when read in the light of some of the editorial additions (2:7; 3:4b–5; 4:8–5:1; 8:4, 6–7) – that the two lovers seek to belong to one another forever. Hos 14:5–9’s floral description of restored Israel is of particular relevance in this context. Both texts both refer to ‫“ אהב‬love,” ‫“ פרח‬blossom,” ‫יין‬/‫“ גפן‬vine tree,” ‫“ שושנה‬lily,” ‫“ זית‬olive tree,” ‫“ דגן‬grain,” ‫“ רענן‬green,” ‫“ טל‬dew,” ‫“ רח‬fragrance,” and ‫“ לבנון‬Lebanon.” The phrase ‫“ בצלו חמדתי וישבתי‬with delight I sat in his shadow” in Cant 2:3 recalls Hos 14:8: ‫“ ישבו ישבי בצלו‬they will again live in his shade,” the maiden turning Israel’s dwelling in God’s shade into shading under her beloved. The sylvan account of the time of redemption gives color and fragrance to the two lovers’ songs. Together, these biblical allusions suggest that the editors – and some of the poets – advocated a double reading of the dynamically growing collection, celebrating male-female love as a reflection of God’s relationship with his people. While the protagonists of the Akkadian, Egyptian, and Greek love songs often appeal to the gods – Theocritus’s characters to Zeus, Athena, and other deities, and Egyptian texts primarily to Hathor, goddess of love, and Amon, the Sun-god – the maiden of Canticles speaks of gazelles, doves, and the wind blowing through her garden (2:7, 3:5, 4:16). Canticles thus reflects a theology of creation by alluding to biblical texts and love as the “fire of Yah,” the lovers standing in the midst of creation, in gardens and orchards scented by Eden, devoid of any need to appeal to heaven.

4.3 Editing with a Sapiential Touch Despite not forming a sapiential collection, two wisdom sayings found their way into Canticles towards the end of its editorial growth. The song 8:1–2, 6aα concludes

73 Cf. also the dancing Shulamite in 7:1.

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with an expression of desire for a permanent relationship: “Let me be a seal upon your heart and a seal upon your arm.”74 An editor added the wisdom saying 8:6aβb as a Schlusswort to 6:11–8:6 (cf. this section in 4QCanta). At a later stage, it became the conclusion to the second principal section (5:2–8:6), finally constituting the epilogue to the main body of the book (2:1–8:6?): For love is fierce as death, passion mighty as Sheol. Its darts are darts of fire, a blazing flame.75

Regarding male-female love as strong as death and the netherworld, he drew on a neighboring tradition – Eros’s burning arrows of love – to describe its nature.76 The hapax ‫ אש שלהבתיה‬can be read either as “blazing flame” or “fire of Yah.”77 Hereby, he attributes the love and lovemaking praised in the book to God. We may sense an inclusive doctrine of creation informed by liberal attitudes such as those exhibited towards chastity in late-Hasmonean and Herodian Jerusalem. The love song in 8:1–2, 6aα is inappropriate for a conclusion and 8:4, 5a – which echo 2:7/3:5/5:8 and 3:6 – represent editorial bridges. While 8:6 could form a powerful Schlusswort to the full book, 1:2 lacked the emphatic weight of an opening colon. An editor thus further expanded the collection around the turn of the era.78 At this stage we may sense diverse modes of “Solomonic” polishing, inspired by two Solomonic texts already incorporated into the collection. The poem in 3:7–11 (present in all three Cave 4 copies) describing Solomon’s palanquin as “glowing with lovemaking by the daughters of Jerusalem” distances itself from Solomon’s court, covertly criticizing Janneus’s lifestyle via its sharp contrast with the fidelity

74 Cf. an Egyptian love song: “If only I were her little seal-ring, the keeper of her finger” (trans. Fox, Song of Songs, 38). 8:3 is a repetition of 2:6, 8:4 a recurring refrain (cf. 2:7; 3:5; 5:8), 8:5a a rephrasing of the mythological question in 3:6 (“Who is she . . .?”), and 8:5b a half-verse displaced from one of the love songs marked by fruit motifs. 75 Heinevetter, Komm nun, 155, 164–66. For the Wirkungsgeschichte of the first saying, consider, e.g., Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire: “Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring. Bringing me the wild desire, I fell into a ring of fire, I fell into the burning ring of fire.” Written by June Carter (Cash) and Merle Kilgore, the song became famed through Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire: The Best of Johnny Cash, 1963. 76 Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 65–67. For the deliberate contrast with Prov 7:27, where the seductress’s paths lead down to Sheol, see above. 77 According to Segal,“Song of Songs,” 479 n. 2, rather than referring to God ‫ ַשׁ ְל ֶה ֶב ְתיָ ה‬is a vernacular expression, the suffix serving as a superlative in line with ‫י־אל‬ ֵ ֵ‫אַרז‬ ְ “mighty cedars” (Ps 80:11), ‫י־אל‬ ֵ ‫“ ַה ְר ֵר‬mighty mountains” (Ps 36:7). In my view, this stylistic use of -yah is deliberate. Graetz, Schir Ha-Schirim, 20 interprets “lightning/heavenly fire.” 78 For the final editorial polish, see Elgvin, “Chasing the Editors”; Heinevetter, Komm nun, 166–69.

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the maiden and her beloved display.79 Solomon is also the unnamed bridegroom of the wedding scene in 6:8–9 – a scene inspired by the wedding depicted in Ps 45:10– 16, a royal/messianic psalm. Building upon the presence of these two Solomonic passages and the maiden’s designation of her lover as “king” (1:4, 12; 7:5), the final editor framed the book between a Solomonic text at the end and the opening title. Another wisdom saying, forming a bridge with 8:8–14, highlights the power and value of love: Vast floods cannot quench love, nor rivers drown it. If a man offered all his wealth for love, he would be laughed to scorn. (8:7)

8:8–10 is a short song relating to the brothers’ responsibility for their small sister – who finally vindicates herself. The Solomonic verses 11–12 pick up earlier themes – the vineyards pointing to the gardens and orchards that frequently occur in the songs. The word “vineyard” carries a double meaning, the concrete sense appearing in v. 11, the metaphorical in v. 12 (= female sexuality).80 The “thousand” and “two hundred” allude to Solomon’s wives and concubines à la 1 Kgs 11:3: “Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines.” The maiden’s vineyard represents her sexuality and independence, not being subordinate to king, sheikh, father, or brothers. We also hear an echo of 1:6, in which the village girl does not guard her own vineyard – i.e., virginity. The Solomonic verses in 8:11–12 do not form a fitting conclusion to the book, which rather ends with a dialogue that reiterates important themes – the maiden in the gardens/orchards, her companions, and voice (2:14), and the comparison of the young man to a deer buck or stag (2:9, 17). The final exhortation (8:13–14) invokes the double entendre that runs through the book – the stag leaping on the “hills of spices” (= the Judean hills/spice gardens of Ein Gedi/the maiden’s most intimate parts). It also alludes to the “mountain of myrrh and hill of frankincense” and “cleft hills” from the earliest songs (4:6; 2:17): O maiden who dwells in the gardens, companions are listening for your voice, let me hear it!

79 For the “glowing lovemaking,” see Zakovitch, Hohelied, 178. To tone down the frivolity, 4QCanta altered “lovemaking by the daughters of Jerusalem” to “[love ]from the virgin Jerusalem”: see Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 18–20, 84–85. 80 8:11 is best rendered: “Solomon entrusted a vineyard to a wealthy steward (‫היה לשׁלמה בבעל המון‬ ‫)כרם‬, who [in turn] gave the vineyard over to keepers, each of whom was to bring a thousand shekels for its fruit”: see Naphtali H. Tur-Sinai, Die Heilige Schrift (Holzgerlingen: Hänssler, 1993 [1934]), 1168. Heinevetter, Komm nun, 113; Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 129. While feasting with his concubines in Jerusalem, Janneus crucified 800 of his opponents, for example (A.J. 13:380).

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Make haste, my lover, be like a buck or a young stag upon the hills of spices!81

Solomon was originally absent from 1:5: “I am black and beautiful, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Salma.” Kedar and Salma are desert tribes, tents (‫ )אהלים‬and tent curtains (‫ )יריעות‬parallel terms. Once references to Solomon had been added to the beginning and end of the collection, towards the completion of the editorial process, it became easy to read ‫ שלמה‬as Shlomo – as per 𝔊. The title added in the final stages – “The Song of Songs that is Solomon’s” – conveys the impression that the full text is “one song” (a literary whole). Rather than serving as an authorial designation, 1:1 is best read as a dedicatory preamble: “The Song of Songs that is Solomon’s/for Solomon.” If/when later readers treated the title as an authorial ascription, the sexual activities described or hinted at throughout the book would presumably have been moved from their own period back to Solomon’s, thus making the book less provocative. In light of the polemical reception of Proverbs 7, the title may carry a hint of irony: although Solomon talks about chastity in the recognized Scriptures, this collection of songs also forms part of his legacy! Through to the fall of the Temple, Jerusalemites would have recognized popular and sensual songs relating to earthly love, some of which were recited at weddings.82

81 Cf. an Egyptian song: “If only you would come to (your) sister swiftly, like a gazelle bounding over the desert” (trans. Fox, Song of Songs, 66). 82 Hopf’s recent dramatic reading of Canticles is closer to the text than Andruska’s forced sapiential interpretation. Regarding Canticles’s final form as designed for an oral-dramatic performance, he adduces Origen’s argument that Canticles was a wedding song performed by a choir and rabbinic references to the daughters of Jerusalem dancing in vineyards during festivals (Liebesszenen, 354–55). Although m. Ta’an. 4:8 expressly links Cant 3:11 with dancing on tu bishvat and Yom Kippur, the metaphorical reading – the dancing glorifies the Temple and Torah – is rather stretched. The gemara understands the dancing as a kind of “betrothing and wedding market” (b. Ta’an. 31a; cf. Segal, “Song of Songs,” 484–86). If Hopf’s reading hits the mark, the final editors merely elaborated dimensions present in the early songs. Supporting Tov’s view of 4QCantb as an excerpted version of 𝔐, he proposes that the paleo-Hebrew letters on the left margin of 4QCantb Col. I serve as liturgical-performative signals. Pace Tov (DJD 16:210–11), however, these are only three rather than five (Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 36–38). Citing the sensual Schlusswort in 5:1b, he thus concludes: “Diese Schlusszeile legt nahe, 4QCantb als liturgischen Gebrauchstext, also als das Skript einer unterhaltender und gleichzeitig lehrreichen Liturgie-Performanz zur Eröffnung eines Frühlingsfestes zu verstehen – eine Feierlichkeit, die wohl im Grenzbereich zwischen profan und sakral lag” (p. 140).

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5 Concluding Comments While Canticles is not a (prominently) sapiential text, the two wisdom sayings added during the final editorial stages serve as a hermeneutical key to the collection. The songsters/editors’ drawing on Greek tradition evinces a worldview that exhibits close affinities with the Israelite sapiential tradition – namely, the belief that traces of the Creator can be found in other cultures. Numerous factors indicate that the collection was compiled during the first century BCE: a) The pre-canonical literary recensions in the late-first-century Qumran scrolls; b) The large number of textual variants, some of which are undoubtedly pre-Masoretic; c) The use of Late or post-Biblical Hebrew; d) The presence of Greek cultural features in a Jerusalem developing into a cosmopolitan city; e) A sociocultural setting fitting the Hasmonean state. The majority of the songs were written and performed without any intention of creating a collection that would serve as a Solomonic text or book with aspirations of “defiling the hands.” The better paradigm is that of modern Israeli poets and singers who allude to biblical texts in popular songs or theatre plays. The songsters and editors thus evince a selective use of earlier texts: Genesis 1–2, Jeremiah, Hosea, Proverbs 7, and Sirach.83 During the first or second century CE, sages appear to have replaced the symbolic double entendres with a metaphorical reading of the book. They could not erase the popular performance of the songs, however. Akiva’s well-known dictum: “He who warbles the Song of Songs in a banquet-hall and makes it into a kind of love-song has no portion in the world to come” (t. Sanh. 12:10) demonstrates that songs from the collection continued to be performed, recited, and sung at weddings and “pubs.” Considering the Mishnah’s quoting his praise of the book (metaphorically read): “The whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the holiest of the holy” (m. Yad. 3:5), he may have accurately identified the original background of some of the songs.84

83 Sirach was well known in Judea throughout this era, two copies being found in Cave 4, the Johannine prologue drawing on Sirach 24, and rabbinic literature frequently quoting the text. 84 For rabbinic interpretations of Canticles, see, for example, Elgvin, The Literary Growth, 182–90.

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The editors who bound these songs together picked up the themes of primal accord in Genesis 1 and 2 and eschatological utopia in Hosea 14, asserting that elements of this paradisiacal harmony are experienced and celebrated in the male-female love relationship – both within and outside marriage. Hereby, the songsters and editors elaborate on the ways of creation – the primary motif in the wisdom tradition – taking the motif in new directions. Like the Jesus saying regarding the treasure of a scribe – “Therefore every scribe trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a household master who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old” (Matt 13:52)85 – the poets, scribes, and editors responsible for the Canticles collection appear to have delved into the treasures of biblical texts: “here we have material for love songs and weddings.” Medieval Andalusian and Egyptian poets likewise drew on Canticles both in love poems to their fiancés or wives and in religious poetry, reading it as a symbolic text with a twofold message.86 Despite their linkage with Solomon, the reason why the Sages included these songs in the canon during the first half of the second century remains a riddle. How could the authors take such a daring step? In the wake of the devastation of the Judean community during the two Jewish revolts, which broke the living cultural chain to Herodian Jerusalem, the original free and liberated milieu in which the collection was edited may have been forgotten, leaving the metaphorical or allegorical reading as the strongest voice, both in synagogue and church. Through the centuries, other views have continued to be voiced, however. Theodore of Mopsuestia advocated a literal reading of the Scriptures, including Canticles, for which he was condemned at a Western synod. The (Nestorian) Church of the East having taken little notice of this, Theodore remained their hero and founding father. Medieval Jewish poets and Reformation exegetes such as Sebastien Cast-

85 The unusual order of “new” before “old” recalls Cant 7:14: “over our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old I have stored up for you, my lover.” “Treasure” is associated with the idea of “storing up,” the wordplay between ‫“ גנ"ז‬store” and ‫“ גנזא‬storage, treasure” pointing to the Aramaic-speaking milieu of the early Jesus-tradition rather than the evangelist’s own: Peter J. Tomson, “The Song of Songs in the Teachings of Jesus and the Development of the Exposition on the Song,” NTS 61 (2015): 429–47. He also identifies allusions to Canticles in Mk 13:28–29 (Cant 2:10–13), Mk 2:18–22/John 3:28–30 (wedding guests, bridegroom/his voice, best man), Matt 25:1–12/Luke 12:35– 36 (Cant 5:2), John 12:1–8/Mk 14:3–9 (Cant 1:3, 12) – all examples of the early Semitic gospel tradition. Jesus may thus have been the first Jewish sage to evoke Canticles. Unfortunately, we cannot determine whether he treats it as an authoritative book or merely relates to wedding songs known in Galilee. 86 Joachim J. M. S. Yeshaya, “Lips Like Lilies and Breasts Like Pomegranates?: Song of Songs Imagery in Hebrew Poetry from Medieval Egypt,” in The Song of Songs in Context: Words for Love, Love for Words, ed. Pierre van Hecke, BETL 310 (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 601–10.

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alion (1515–1563), Jean Leclerc (1657–1736), Johann David Michaelis (1717–1791), and Wilhelm Abraham Teller (1734–1804) followed suit, with modern Israeli poets and singers forming the latest link in the chain.

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Granerød, Gard. “A Forgotten Reference to Divine Procreation? Psalm 2:6 in Light of Egyptian Royal Ideology.” VT 60 (2010): 323–36. Hartmann, Anton T. “Über Charakter und Auslegung des Hohenliedes.” ZWT 3 (1829): 397–448. Hauge, Martin Ravndal. Solomon the Lover and the Shape of the Song of Songs. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015. Heinevetter, Hans-Josef. “Komm nun, mein Liebster, dein Garten ruft dich!”: Das Hohelied als programmatische Komposition. Königstein: Athenäum, 1988. Hendel, Ronald et al. How Old is the Hebrew Bible? A Linguistic, Textual, and Historical Study. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Herder, Johann Gottfried von. Lieder der Liebe: Die ältesten und schönsten aus Morgenlande – Nebst vierundvierzig alten Minneliedern. Leipzig: Weygandschen Buchhandlung, 1778. Hirschfeld, Yizhar. En-Gedi Excavations II: Final Report (1996‒2002). Jerusalem: IES, 2007. Hopf, Mathias. “4QCantb – Ein dramatischer Text.” Pages 117–40 in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Study of the Humanities: Method, Theory, Meaning: Proceedings of the Eighth Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies (Munich, 4–7 August, 2013). Edited by Pieter B. Hartog, Alison Scofield, and Samuel I. Thomas. STDJ 125. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Hopf, Mathias. Liebesszenen: Eine literaturwissenschaftliche Studie zum Hohenlied als einem dramatischperformativen Text. ATANT 108. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2016. Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Die Psalmen 1–50. HThKAT. Würzburg: Echter, 1993. Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51–100. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. Die Psalmen 101–150. HThKAT. Freiburg: Herder, 2008. Ilan, Tal. Silencing the Queen: The Literary Histories of Shelamzion and Other Jewish Women. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Kingsmill, Edmée. The Song of Songs and the Eros of God. A Study in Biblical Intertextuality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Kooij, Arie, van der. “On the Place of Origin of the Old Greek of Psalms.” VT 33 (1983): 67–74. Kooij, Arie, van der. “Authoritative Scriptures and Scribal Culture.” Pages 55–71 in Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism. Edited by Mladen Popovic. JSJSup 141. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Kratz, Reinhard. “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible.” DSD 20 (2013): 347–507. Machiela, Daniel A. The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13–17. STDJ 79. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Monger, Matthew P. “4Q216 and the State of Jubilees at Qumran.” RevQ 26 (2014): 595–612. Monger, Matthew P. “The Development of Jubilees 1 in the Late Second Temple Period.” JSP 27 (2017): 83–112. Monger, Matthew P. “4Q216 – A New Material Analysis.” Semitica 60 (2018): 308–33. Monger, Matthew P. “The Many Forms of Jubilees: A Reassessment of the Manuscript Evidence from Qumran and the Lines of Transmission of the Parts and Whole of Jubilees.” RevQ 30 (2018): 191–211. Nissinen, Marti. “Love Lyrics of Nabû and Tašmetu: An Assyrian Song of Songs?” Pages 585–634 in “Und Moses schrieb diese Lied auf”: Studien zum Alten Testament und zum alten Orient. Edited by Manfred Dietrich and Inge Kottsieper. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1998. Puech, Émile. “Le Cantique des Cantiques dans les manuscrits de Qumran: 4Q106, 4Q107, 4Q108 et 6Q6.” RB 122 (2016): 29–53. Rocca, Samuele. “The Book of Judith, Queen Sholomzion and King Tigranes of Armenia: A Sadducee Appraisal.” Materia Giudaica 10.1 (2005): 1–14. Schaper, Joachim. Eschatology in the Greek Psalter. WUNT II/76. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995.

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Segal, Moshe H. “The Song of Songs.” VT 12 (1962): 470–90. Skehan, Patrick W. and Alexander A. di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira. AB 39. New York: Doubleday, 1987. Tomson, Peter J. “The Song of Songs in the Teachings of Jesus and the Development of the Exposition on the Song.” NTS 61 (2015): 429–47. Tur-Sinai, Naphtali H. Die Heilige Schrift: Ins Deutsche übertragen von Naftali Herz Tur-Sinai. Reprint Holzgerlingen, Hänssler, 1993 [repr. 1934]. Verity, Anthony, trans. Theocritus. Idylls: With an Introduction and Explanatory Notes by Richard Hunter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Vernus, Pascal. “Le Cantique des Cantiques et l’Egypte pharaonique.” Pages 150–62 in Perspectives on the Song of Songs / Perspektiven der Hoheliedauslegung. Edited by Anselm Hagedorn. BZAW 346, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005. Willgren, David. The Formation of the “Book” of Psalms: Reconsidering the Transmission and Canonization of Psalmody in Light of Material Culture and the Poetics of Anthologies. FAT II/88. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. Yeshaya, Joachim J.M.S. “Lips Like Lilies and Breasts Like Pomegranates? Song of Songs Imagery in Hebrew Poetry from Medieval Egypt.” Pages 601–10 in The Song of Songs in its Context: Words for Love, Love for Words. Edited by Pierre van Hecke. BETL 310. Leuven: Peeters, 2020. Young, “Notes on the Language of 4QCantb.” JJS 52 (2001): 122–31. Zakovitch, Yair. Das Hohelied. Freiburg: Herder, 2004. Zimmermann, Ruben. “The Love Triangle of Lady Wisdom: Sacred Marriage in Jewish Wisdom Literature.” Pages 243–58 in Sacred Marriages: The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity. Edited by Marti Nissinen and Risto Uro. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008.

George J. Brooke

Wisdom and Torah in the Hodayot and the Great Psalms Scroll: The Place of Prayer in Understanding Some Early Jewish Pedagogy 1 Introduction This paper will describe some of the dynamics of the presentation of wisdom and torah in three parts of one manuscript of the Hodayot (1QHa) and in three sections of the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa); some other compositions from the Qumran caves will also be mentioned. The paper will seek to address how the integrative juxtaposition of wisdom and torah in some early Jewish pedagogy is facilitated by and reflected in poetry and prayer. Although it can now be readily acknowledged that sapiential motifs are interwoven in both the Hodayot and the Great Psalms Scroll, the strong suggestion of this essay is that the juxtaposition of the Hodayot and the Great Psalms Scroll allows the modern reader to see a striking difference between the two concerning the understanding and appropriation of torah. In the Hodayot there is no certain reference to the Torah as a set of authoritative writings; in the Great Psalms Scroll the appearance of torah alongside very explicit wisdom motifs suggests a pattern that is discernible in other compositions such as Ben Sira 24 in which the prominence of torah can be most readily linked with its scriptural authority. It is argued here that this difference reflects two strands of self-discipline, the one more private and self-reflective, the other more public and socially constructed. I consider that this volume is in part indebted to the ongoing importance of two publishing landmarks involving the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the one hand, the general release in the early 1990s of the non-scriptural early Jewish sapiential compositions found in the caves at and near Qumran has provided a wealth of new data that has to be factored in to the discussion of Jewish wisdom traditions. Although much has taken place in the study of wisdom of the Second Temple period since the landmark studies by Gerhard von Rad and James Crenshaw,1 it is indeed the 1 Gerhard von Rad, Weisheit in Israel (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970); trans. James D. Martin: Wisdom in Israel (London: SCM Press; Nashville: Abingdon, 1972); James L. Crenshaw, Old Testament Wisdom: An Introduction (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981). As an indication of how far the discourse has moved on, it is noteworthy that neither von Rad’s book nor any work by CrenGeorge J. Brooke, University of Manchester, UK https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-012

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varied compositions of the Scrolls from the Qumran caves that have engendered more specific questions about the sapiential developments taking place in Judaism of the Hellenistic period broadly conceived.2 On the other hand, in relation to torah in Judaism of the Hellenistic period the publication of Miqṣat Ma’aśeh ha-Torah in various forms in the late 1980s built on the implications of the 1977 publication of the Temple Scroll to stimulate discussions, beyond the so-called sectarian rule books, about legal texts and traditions, their systematizing principles and their intertexts, their continuities and discontinuities.3

2 The Context for Discussing Wisdom and Torah in the Scrolls In relation to the juxtaposition of wisdom and torah, three more particular matters need to be set out as a way of establishing the context for discussing wisdom and torah in the two compositions discussed in this paper. Firstly, it is well known that the categories of both wisdom and torah are highly contested.4 However, it seems that the contests surrounding each term have somewhat different characteristics. The contest surrounding the designation “wisdom” has arisen, at least in a significant way in recent years, as scholars of the late Second Temple period have recognized the breadth of the sapiential literature found in the caves at and near Qumran. As a result they have moved away from using the canonshaw is explicitly listed in the recent survey study by Katharine J. Dell, “Wisdom,” in The Biblical World, ed. Katharine J. Dell, 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022), 151–71. 2 See especially the surveys by John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age, OTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997); Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls, VTSup 116 (Leiden: Brill, 2007); John Kampen, Wisdom Literature, Eerdmans Commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011); Matthew J. Goff, “Wisdom,” in T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. George J. Brooke and Charlotte Hempel (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 449–66. 3 See, amongst others, Aharon Shemesh, Halakhah in the Making: The Development of Jewish Law from Qumran to the Rabbis, Taubman Lectures in Jewish Studies 6 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009); Alex P. Jassen, Scripture and Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Aryeh Amihay, Theory and Practice in Essene Law (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017); Vered Noam, “Halakhah,” in T&T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. George J. Brooke and Charlotte Hempel (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 395–404. 4 See the comments of D. Andrew Teeter in “Torah, Wisdom, and the Composition of Rewritten Scripture: Jubilees and 11QPsa in Comparative Perspective,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 233–72, at 233, n. 1.

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ical wisdom books as normative, especially in generic terms, for what can be said for Judaism for the whole period.5 Although certain literary features of the scriptural wisdom compositions remain very significant, wisdom is no longer chiefly a narrowly defined literary genre, with a few significant outliers, but a label susceptible of multiple definitions, several of which can all be working at the same time in a scholarly essay.6 Furthermore, as for the ancient evidence being considered, Andrew Teeter, for one, has made an important point when he has proposed that the very breadth of the material now put under an overall umbrella category of wisdom in the Hellenistic period is highly suggestive of a basic intellectual and literary eclecticism that is still in need of careful description and analysis as it comes to be more fully appreciated.7 Something similar goes for the definitions of torah; they are multi-faceted and can often overlap. However, whereas in several respects the release of all the Cave 4 sapiential compositions provoked a genre challenge for scholars of wisdom, the case is more a matter of the history of authoritative traditions for those engaged with the analysis of torah.8 That there is a difference in the discourses on wisdom and on torah can perhaps be noticed most obviously in the way in which there is much variety in the scholarly use of the term wisdom, whether capitalized or not, but that much more regularly, the label torah is given an upper-case initial letter as if its primary referents are easily recognized, notably as the Pentateuch or, more likely, some significant part of it. The historical issue is that, although most of the components of many of the five books are known before the Hasmonean period, it is possible to assert that it is only in the late third or early second century BCE that torah is clearly used as a label for the five books as an entity. John Kampen, for one, 5 See the literature discussed in George J. Brooke, “Esoteric Wisdom Texts from Qumran,” JSP 30 (2020): 102–4, especially Mark R. Sneed, “‘Grasping after the Wind’: The Elusive Attempt to Define and Delimit Wisdom,” in Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Prospects in Israelite Wisdom Studies, ed. Mark R. Sneed, AIL 23 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015), 39–67; Stuart Weeks, “Is ‘Wisdom Literature’ a Useful Category?” in Tracing Sapiential Traditions in Ancient Judaism, ed. Hindy Najman, JeanSébastien Rey, and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, JSJSup 174 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 3–23; Will Kynes, “The ‘Wisdom Literature’ Category: An Obituary,” JTS 69 (2018): 1–24; idem, An Obituary for “Wisdom Literature”: The Birth, Death, and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 6 See Hindy Najman, “Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Period: Towards the Study of a Semantic Constellation,” in Is There a Text in This Cave? Studies in the Textuality of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of George J. Brooke, ed. Ariel Feldman, Maria Cioată, and Charlotte Hempel, STDJ 119 (Leiden:Brill, 2017), 459–72. 7 Teeter, “Torah, Wisdom, and the Composition of Rewritten Scripture,” 234. 8 See, e.g., John Kampen, “‘Torah’ and Authority in the Major Sectarian Rule Texts from Qumran,” in The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions: Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki, ed. George J. Brooke et al., STDJ 103 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 231–54.

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has convincingly argued that it is really only in the aftermath of the Maccabean revolt that there is a strong impetus in some circles to speak of the identification of wisdom with torah understood as a set of writings.9 In the case of torah itself the multiple meanings, the range of referents, have been known for a long time and have been variously handled by scholars, whether those definitions involve written sources or instruction of one kind or another.10 The Scrolls from the Caves at and near Qumran have contributed substantial confirmation of this rich multiplicity at an early stage in Judaism, and they have highlighted the ongoing need for precise definition of terms and careful usage. For example, the very phrase Tôrat Môšeh in 1QS 5:8 (and elsewhere) implies that the term torah by itself could be construed in several ways, so that a further defining adjective was needed for referential precision.11 Even when qualified with the name of Moses, several scholars remain open to the possibility that the idiom is not a straightforward reference to the five books of the Law, the Pentateuch.12 Secondly, if there are refined contests about the very definitions of wisdom and torah, there is something more akin to widespread guesswork when it comes to attempts to understand the situations, the Sitzen im Leben, in which various sapiential and legal texts were developed and their traditions were transmitted in Second Temple times. The Scrolls have stimulated recent discussions about literacy amongst Jews and about Jewish types of education, but the emphasis has tended to be projected back from the evidence from Qumran and elsewhere into the earlier Second Temple period. As that has been done, so the major concern has become a large set of re-evaluations of scribes and scribalism, rather than a more general attempt to explain cultural developments which might both reflect a rich and varied institutional context of textual production and transmission and also have encouraged such richness as well. There are exceptions to this observation, but such works stand out in the field for their distinctive or innovative character. One such work is Eva Mroczek’s The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity; whilst the book 9 John Kampen, “Tôrah and Wisdom in the Rule Texts from Qumran,” in Sacred Texts and Disparate Interpretations: Qumran Manuscripts Seventy Years Later, ed. Henryk Drawnel, STDJ 133 (Leiden: Brill, 2020), 316–40, esp. 325–26. 10 See the reference to the association of wisdom and torah/statutes and ordinances in Deut 4:5– 6, Jer 8:8, and Ezra 7:25 in William A. Tooman, “Wisdom and Torah at Qumran: Evidence from the Sapiential Texts,” in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period, ed. Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter, JSJSup 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 202–32, at 204. 11 See Kampen, “‘Torah’ and Authority in the Major Sectarian Rule Texts from Qumran,” in The Scrolls and Biblical Traditions: Proceedings of the Seventh Meeting of the IOQS in Helsinki, ed. George J. Brooke et al., STDJ 103 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 231–54. 12 E.g., Kampen, “Tôrah and Wisdom in the Rule Texts from Qumran,” 331.

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depends on the insights of many others, especially her teacher Hindy Najman, it tries to see literary developments within shifting cultural perspectives, so that, for example, she can fairly state with Ben Sira in mind that “Wisdom-Torah’s iconicity is not tied to its bookishness.”13 She stresses rather the nexus of metaphors associated with Wisdom-Torah and what that might imply about authority and didactic contexts. Thus, whilst it remains worthwhile for scholars to attempt to trace textual genealogies, even describing the minutiae of text-critical affiliations, it is also important to ask for suggestions about how textual developments occur and what their significance is for individuals and groups. Such suggestions might have their initial focus, for example, in considering the relationship of wisdom traditions and developments in apocalypticism, such as were picked up dynamically from Gerhard von Rad by the SBL group on Wisdom and Apocalypticism, but they need to move beyond such concerns to appreciate wider Jewish cultural dynamics and their settings.14 This is not an easy task, as Bill Tooman has noted, given the overlaps in roles between priests, sages, and scribes.15 Thus, it is intriguing to see an increasing number of studies engaging with education and pedagogy as it might have been for some in the Second Temple period: both schools as places of learning and schools of thought. The direction of scholarly travel seems good to me and allows for a number of differing approaches in the attempt to understand how people appropriated their heritage and worked with it. In the case of scribes handling literature, the evidence from the Qumran caves, which is the most concrete evidence that we have, is that scribes were not merely copyist transmitters but active participants in the transmission process. Alongside or indeed as part of the study context, the role of prayer and cult also needs revisiting.16 Part of the matter seems to rest in the way in which it is becoming increasingly apparent that the search for the identity and context of the sage (maśkîl) or of the interpreter of the law (dôreš ha-tôrāh) is not straightforward. Carol Newsom’s landmark book The Self as Symbolic Space highlighted the need for a clear methodology in discussing and setting out the components of identity for any individual in the

13 Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 93. 14 See Benjamin G. Wright III and Lawrence M. Wills, eds., Conflicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism, SymS 35 (Atlanta: SBL, 2005). 15 Tooman, “Wisdom and Torah at Qumran,” 205. 16 As I have hinted at in detail for 1QS 6:6–8: George J. Brooke, “Reading, Searching and Blessing: A Functional Approach to Scriptural Interpretation in the ‫יחד‬,” in The Temple in Text and Tradition: A Festschrift in Honour of Robert Hayward, ed. R. Timothy McLay, LSTS 83 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 140–56.

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late Second Temple period.17 Newsom’s work is concerned quite explicitly with the search for the self in Jewish antiquity, not least in the Hodayot. More recently her concern for uncovering the self has been expanded by others with a concern for the adequate description of multiple identities. For example, in a paper of 2016 I tried to argue that the unnamed Teacher of Righteousness might have been so successful as a leader because he had just such multiple identities: as a result he could appeal to varied factions, not least those concerned with engaging with a wide range of wisdom traditions and those concerned with what they deemed to be the correct interpretation of the law.18 He was a priest, yet able to serve as the model for subsequent maśkîlîm in the movement in prayer and interpretation, as well as being an anticipation of the eschatological Interpreter of the Law. Having in mind such hybrid or blended role-playing, based on multiple identities, we can turn again to the texts. So, thirdly, for the Dead Sea Scrolls there is an increasing number of studies that describe and analyze individual compositions amongst those newly available or which engage with a group of texts already assumed to belong to one type of text or another. Such descriptive and analytical works are very valuable for the astute observations they make, especially on particular details of the material remains and their contents. However, overall it is increasingly apparent that such scholarship is often already pre-set in its approach through the way that it delimits its agenda. Although detailed descriptions can indicate how various traditions can be interwoven and combined, much of the basic analysis remains either concerned with wisdom or with torah. That could well be the case because the specific term torah is largely absent from the newly available wisdom compositions. For example, Benjamin Wold has shown how the term seems to be deliberately supplanted by rāz nihyeh in Instruction.19 In a different mode Elisa Uusimäki has demonstrated how 4Q525 has an elaborate though largely implicit torah discourse as it turns much of what is pedagogically appropriated from the Book of Proverbs towards torah, but only naming the tôrat ‘elyôn in a single significant instance (4Q525 2 ii 3–4).20

17 Carol A. Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran, STDJ 52 (Leiden: Brill, 2004). 18 George J. Brooke, “The Place of Wisdom in the Formation of the Movement behind the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Goochem in Mokum: Papers on Biblical and Related Wisdom Read at the Fifteenth Joint Meeting of the Society for Old Testament Study and the Oudtestamentisch Werkgezelschap, Amsterdam, July 2012, ed. George J. Brooke and Pierre van Hecke, OtSt 68 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 20–33. 19 Benjamin Wold, 4QInstruction: Divisions and Hierarchies, STDJ 123 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 154–72. 20 Elisa Uusimäki, Turning Proverbs towards Torah: An Analysis of 4Q525, STDJ 117 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 246–56.

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There are indeed some scholarly works which have sought to move closer to the description and explanation of the blending of traditions of law and wisdom. The reader can enjoy, for example, the strong presentation by Menahem Kister in his contribution to the 2001 Orion Symposium on Sapiential Perspectives.21 While it appears to be a discussion of genre, something that more recent writing on wisdom has problematized, in fact Kister’s argument is that priority should be given to torah in the reading of any sapiential text from Ben Sira onwards. Kister makes his point by looking at the pursuits of any sage (Sir 38:34–39:8) who studies the law of the Most High: the first items on the well-wrought curriculum vitae concerns the wisdom of the ancients, prophecies, sayings, and parables. Of central concern is the manner of the sage as a person of prayer consisting of petition, confession, and thanksgiving, all of which will be reflected in the way the sage will be filled with understanding and be enabled to pour forth wisdom of his own. All is rounded out with divinely directed application of his knowledge, his understanding of mysteries, his wisdom, and his ability to glory in the torah. Thus, for Kister, torah (what he calls “the Law given to Moses”) provides the fundamental frame of reference, and he sees that as evident also in the prayers of Sir 36:1–22 and 51:1–12 together with the Praise of the Fathers (44:1–50:24) – all those texts distinctively lack much sapiential vocabulary whereas obedience to the torah is “of central importance.” Kister’s agenda is as follows: “It is true, for instance, that ‘wisdom functions for post-exilic writers as a hermeneutical construct to interpret the Torah.’ But it is equally true that the Torah functioned as hermeneutical construct to interpret wisdom, and probably to a larger extent.”22 Kister’s study then proceeds to assess how the composition known as Mysteries engages in the definition of true wisdom through its appeal to the legal and prophetic polemic against astrology. A somewhat similar approach is adopted by Elisa Uusimäki. Her analysis of 4Q525, the so-called Beatitudes composition, is a reflection on the development of sapiential pedagogy as wisdom is turned towards torah, which she understands to be something written. She has argued that the opening columns are an extensive development of Proverbs 1–9 which set up an ongoing curriculum which then is appropriated by the discerning reader through their engagement with various

21 Menahem Kister, “Wisdom Literature and its Relation to Other Genres: From Ben Sira to Mysteries,” in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Sixth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 20–22 May, 2001, ed. John J. Collins, Gregory E. Sterling, and Ruth A. Clements, STDJ 51 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 13–47. 22 Kister, “Wisdom Literature and Its Relation to Other Genres,” 19; citing Gerald T. Sheppard, Wisdom as a Hermeneutical Construct: A Study in the Sapientializing of the Old Testament, BZAW 151 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980), 118.

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motifs found most notably in a selection of Psalms. Just as the Psalter itself in its final stages of compilation can be seen as reflecting the juxtaposition of wisdom and torah, “in a similar vein, the use of scripture in 4Q525 changes the instruction of Proverbs to resonate with the literary heritage of Judaism. The author’s activity is tied to the pragmatic purpose of guiding the audience into a torah-devoted life.”23 Whereas Kister would project the widespread prominence of torah right across all forms of Judaism of the late Second Temple period, Uusimäki allows that the author of 4Q525 is promoting such a view about torah because he is aware that some Jews had a literary heritage in which torah was not so dominant. Uusimäki’s work also highlights that the impact of scripture in 4Q525 “is not merely a matter of overlap between one tradition and another, but something psychologically more integrative. The integration of psalms points to the educational role of the cult and demonstrates that 4Q525 has an eminent role to play in the spiritual formation of its audience.”24 Both Kister and Uusimäki in their various ways, along with others, have thus noted the role of prayer in the appropriation of knowledge and understanding, in the individual’s engagement with wisdom and torah.

3 Wisdom and Torah, Poetry and Prayer The tracing of traditions has sometimes been depicted largely as an ancient desk exercise in which earlier texts are understood as influential on those of subsequent generations, either as the basis of rewritten works or as sources of citations functioning as proof-texts. The modern scholarly analysis of the transmission of textual traditions has adjusted such a model by revisiting the role of orality in the process and by recognizing that there are several and various settings in which such transmission might take place.25 Beyond the scribal copying workshop, transmission can take place in both didactic and liturgical settings. Within the framing agenda of consideration of the relationship of wisdom and torah, the purpose of looking at portions of the Hodayot and the Great Psalms Scroll is to add to those voices some consideration of how motifs might have been appropriated by a reader or listener. It is thus possible that the attention given here variously to wisdom and torah in the Hodayot and 11QPsa is a demonstration that their mutual interpretation was promoted through developments in prayer as much as

23 Uusimäki, Turning Proverbs Towards Torah, 150. 24 Uusimäki, Turning Proverbs Towards Torah, 150. 25 See, e.g., Shem Miller, Dead Sea Media: Orality, Textuality, and Memory in the Scrolls from the Judean Desert, STDJ 129 (Leiden: Brill, 2019).

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in any instructional setting. There are two matters of concern. First, there is a brief description of how motifs associated with wisdom or with torah are present and interwoven in certain compositions. In making the description we can attempt to discern whether certain wisdom motifs are dominant, being supplemented with the language of torah, or whether it is the other way round, that certain torah motifs are dominant, being supplemented by the language of wisdom. In other words, has the wisdom been turned towards torah or has torah been sapientialized? Second, it is worth trying to understand the purpose of the linguistic juxtapositions in certain passages of prose poetry and in prayers. What were readers or listeners supposed to appropriate through their use of such compositions?

3.1 The Hodayot Although ḥokmāh occurs only twelve times in what survives of 1QHa, there are some extensive sections of material in the Hodayot which can be deemed as having strong correlations with wisdom literature as has been demonstrated for the so-called lemaskîl hymns by Katri Antin in her 2019 Helsinki dissertation.26 Antin’s work is the most extensive discussion of such wisdom motifs since the unpublished 1987 Harvard dissertation by Sarah Tanzer, but because of the relative paucity of explicit sapiential motifs, Antin does not engage with the Teacher Hymns from which come the three examples discussed here. Tanzer’s work is more wide-ranging, though it has become somewhat dated since its attention to certain details is restricted by what was known of sapiential vocabulary and form before the general release of the sapiential texts from Cave 4.27 Nevertheless, her observations still have some resonance as is demonstrated in the summary remarks on wisdom in the Hodayot by Daniel Harrington.28 Tanzer grouped wisdom elements under three headings. Forms, themes, and words divided the Hodayot into three groups: those with multiple features of wisdom, those that might be classified as non-wisdom hodayot, and those in which wisdom elements are limited. Rather than rehearse all of Tanzer’s insights I wish to consider briefly the three extant passages in the

26 Katri Antin, “Transmission of Divine Knowledge in the Sapiential Thanksgiving Psalms from Qumran,” (PhD diss., University of Helsinki, 2019). 27 Sarah Tanzer, “The Sages at Qumran: Wisdom in the Hodayot” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1987). 28 Daniel J. Harrington, Wisdom Texts from Qumran, The Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1996), 78–80: “Indeed the work provides evidence for the sect’s assimilation of wisdom terminology and conceptuality into its own world view.”

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Hodayot where the term torah is used. Intriguingly these three uses occur in a sequence of three thanksgiving psalms in columns 12 to 14 of the compilation. The first of these is in a hodayah that belongs to Tanzer’s group in which the presence of wisdom is limited, though such terms as “knowledge” (12:12) and “counsel” (12:14) do occur. The poem as a whole is introduced with thanksgiving for the illumination that comes from the covenant. The term torah occurs at 1QHa 12:11 (12:9–13): They have no regard for me when you show your strength through me, for they drive me away from the land 10like a bird from its nest. All my friends and relatives are driven away from me, and they regard me as a broken pot. But they are lying interpreters 11and deceitful seers. They have planned devilry against me to exchange your law (‫)תורתכה‬, which you spoke repeatedly in my heart, for slippery words 12for your people. They withhold the drink of knowledge from the thirsty, and for their thirst give them sour wine to drink so that they may gaze on 13their error, acting like madmen on their feast days, snaring themselves in their nets.29 9

Overall this section of the poem is concerned with the salvation of the righteous while warning readers or those praying the hodayah against being seduced away from the leadership of the psalmist so that they are “without understanding” (12:8). There is an emphasis on the covenant through which God provides salvation for the individual. Despite a thoroughgoing weaving of a few wisdom elements throughout the poem, Tanzer has identified two sections as more explicitly resonating with sapiential ingredients. The first of these is the very passage cited here, together with some further lines before and after in which occurs the idiom of “understanding the wonderful mysteries” (12:28–29).30 Julie Hughes has engaged with the allusions to scripture in the whole poem, noting the Deuteronomistic feel of the vocabulary and the likely allusion to the figure of Moses which she sees as lying behind the self-understanding of the poet.31 Alongside the elements of understanding, deceit, knowledge, mysteries, etc., there is also an explicit mention of torah. Furthermore, the mention of torah is followed by an inversion of that commensality that plays strongly in 11QPsa 18: the drink of knowledge is withheld, substituted with sour wine. For Newsom, this reference to torah in relation to other hidden things that need to be revealed is indicative of the need for additional revelation, the correct

29 Trans. Carol Newsom in Hartmut Stegemann with Eileen Schuller, Qumran Cave 1.III. 1QHodayota with Incorporation of 1QHodayotb and 4QHodayota-f, DJD 40 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009), 165. 30 See the descriptive discussion of key elements in Tanzer, “The Sages at Qumran,” 115. The second passage in the poem with strong wisdom components is 1QHa 12:30–34 which includes rhetorical statements and questions. 31 Julie A. Hughes, Scriptural Allusions and Exegesis in the Hodayot, STDJ 59 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 95–134.

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interpretation of the Law.32 The way in which the text reverberates with the covenantal law that is written on the heart leads Newsom to compare the passage with parts of Barkhi Nafshi (4Q436 1 i 4–9), where there is an interest in parts of the body and a similar play on the internalized Jeremianic writing of torah on the heart. For Newsom the prevalent ideas are those of a consciousness of sin which is dealt with through a recognition that moral agency belongs to God and is appropriated through profound reflection on an interior view of the self.33 It thus seems to me that it would be much better in 1QHa 12:11 not to translate torah by “Law” (even with a lower-case letter), since that primarily echoes of something substantive and external.34 Rather a rendering such as “instruction” or “teaching” might be more appropriate:35 it is not the socially constructed objective law that is at issue, but the individual’s appropriation of its meaning and interpretation through prayer. Indeed, overall it is intriguing to note that those who have been most explicitly concerned with the way that there is interest in the formation or journey of the self in Second Temple Jewish literature have commonly been led to discuss the Hodayot rather than other compositions from the Qumran caves.36 The second passage from the Hodayot that speaks of torah belongs to the thanksgiving hymn (1QHa 13:7–21) that follows on from the previous one that is mostly extant in column 12. In column 13:10–15 there is a similar interest in what belongs in the heart, with the mention of covenant also recalling the internalized torah of Jer 31:33:

32 Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space, 68–73; Newsom’s view is confirmed by Katri Antin, “Sages in Divine Council” in Crossing Imaginary Boundaries: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Context of Second Temple Judaism, ed. Mika S. Pajunen and Hanna Tervanotko, Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 108 (Helsinki: The Finnish Exegetical Society, 2015), 200–201. 33 Carol A. Newsom, The Spirit within Me: Self and Agency in Ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism, AYBRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021), 89–90. 34 Johann Maier, Die Qumran-Essener: Die Texte vom Toten Meer. Band I, UTB 1862 (München: Reinhardt Verlag, 1995), 73: “zu vertauschen Deine Torah.” 35 “Teaching” is proposed by Menahem Mansoor, The Thanksgiving Hymns Translated and Annotated with an Introduction, STDJ 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1961), 124. John Kampen, “Tôrah and Wisdom in the Rule Texts from Qumran,” 327, comments as follows: Tôrah “only appears three times in 1QHa (XII, 11; XIII, 13; XIV, 13), within contexts that suggest a very general reference to ‘teaching’ rather than the more specific authoritative associations, e.g., the Tôrat Môšeh of the Community Rule.” 36 See, e.g., Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space, 191–346; Angela K. Harkins, Reading with an “I” to the Heavens: Looking at the Qumran Hodayot through the Lens of Visionary Traditions, Ekstasis 3 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012); Hindy Najman, “Imitatio Dei and the Formation of the Subject in Ancient Judaism,” JBL 140 (2021): 309–32, at 319 n. 24 (1QHa 9: 27–31); Newsom, The Spirit within Me, 143–69 (“For a study on self and agency, no text is more significant than the Hodayot from Qumran,” p. 143).

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And there, for judgement, 11you established me, and the counsel of truth you strengthened in my heart. From this comes a covenant for those who seek it. And you closed the mouth of the young lions whose 12teeth are like a sword and whose jaw teeth are like a pointed spear. Snake venom – such is all their scheming. They lie in wait for robbery, but they have not 13opened their mouths against me. For you, O my God, have sheltered me against mortals, and your law you have hidden in [me] until the time 14when your salvation is revealed to me. For you have not abandoned me in the distress of my soul, you have heard my cry for help in the bitterness of my soul, 15and the outcry of my misery you have recognized in my groaning.37

10

This extract belongs to a poem which is also part of the series of so-called Teacher hymns. For Tanzer the hymn lacks wisdom terminology and sapiential forms of speech. It is a poem of thanksgiving for deliverance and can be characterized as engaging with the theme of the persecution of the righteous man, though the psalmist only claims to be righteous indirectly. More significantly for our purposes, as has been brought together in a series of observations about the imagery of the psalm by Bonnie Kittel and others, there seem to be strong allusions to the story of Daniel being rescued from the lion’s den.38 As Daniel’s fate is tied up with the external keeping of the Law when surrounded by enemies, so there is a counterpart divine deliverance for the Teacher who has the divine torah hidden within him through all his praying until the time of salvation. In noting the absence of sapiential terminology in this passage it is possible to observe in a more profound manner than for 1QHa 12:11 that the perception of what is hidden in the heart until the time of salvation is a construal of the self that does not explicitly reflect its disciplining through the consensual social mores discernible in wisdom teaching. Rather, once again, the self is dependent upon the gift of God that is deeply internalized. Though Newsom renders tôrāh in 1QHa 13:13 as “law,”39 the external reference of such a translation mildly undermines what might be better construed as a divine gift understood in prayer, not law alone but also its meaning and interpretation. Thus, a rendering such as “teaching” might reflect the dynamic of the text as prayer more suitably, incorporating elements of law and its interpretation.40 The third and final passage of the Hodayot where torah occurs is at 1QHa 14:13: And you refine them in order to purify from guilt [and from s]in all 12their deeds by means of your truth. And in your kindness you judge them with overflowing compassion and abundant forgiveness, teaching them according to your command 13and establishing them in your 11

37 Trans. Carol Newsom, DJD 40: 179–80. 38 Bonnie Kittel, The Hymns of Qumran: Translation and Commentary, SBLDS 50 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 96–97. 39 Cf. Maier, Die Qumran-Essener. Band I, 78: “und Deine Torah verbargst in[.” 40 As is proposed by Mansoor, The Thanksgiving Hymns, 133.

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counsel, according to your proper truth for the sake of your glory. And for your own sake [you] have acted to magnify the teaching and [. . .] l 14the people of your counsel in the midst of humankind that they may recite for everlasting generations your wonderful deeds, and they [medi]tate on [your] mighty acts 15without ceasing. Thus all nations will acknowledge your truth and all the peoples your glory, for you have brought [. . .] your secret counsel 16all the people of your council, and in a common lot with the angels of the presence, without an intermediary between them lq[ . . . to] reply 17according to the spirit.41

This third use of torah occurs in a passage that Tanzer has identified as replete with wisdom motifs (1QHa 14:6–18), though lacking in what she understands as sapiential forms. Tanzer sees the central concern of this sapiential section as one of “soteriological confessions” with an interest in the reward of the righteous and the destruction of the wicked.42 In this passage Carol Newsom has translated torah as “teaching.” In the light of the wisdom elements in this section of the poem something more explicit might be appropriate. It is intriguing to see that Menahem Mansoor translated the term as “Law” in this place, though these things are matters of debate.43 These lines are part of a long poem (13:20–15:8) which considers the anxiety of the psalmist, not least because some of his companions seem to have backslid, and there is a stress on the ultimate destruction of the wicked at the time of divine judgement. It is thus the case that the hodayah is less concerned with the interior life of the poet and more with the external relationships in which he finds himself. The suggestion, then, is that in the Hodayot where tôrāh occurs in a context with several explicit sapiential motifs, it is most suitably rendered in an objective manner, even by the concrete designation “Law.” Wisdom motifs and their basis in consensual social constructions occur in the Hodayot in at least one context that makes Law explicit. Is there any overall significance in these three references to torah in these Teacher hymns? Perhaps three matters can be proposed. (1) In general, the Teacher hymns have less sapiential resonance than the richly sapiential lemaśkîl hodayot that in 1QHa are grouped both before and after the Teacher hymns. Nevertheless, there are some paragraphs within the Teacher hymns with wisdom terminology and even wisdom forms of speech. (2) In two instances (1QHa 12:11 and 13:13) it could be argued that the prayer has little or no sapiential resonances and so seems to engage with those understandings of the self, based on a profound sense of the internal reception of divine instruction which is both law and its interpretation that discloses and constructs meaning. (3) In the third reference to torah in the Hodayot

41 Trans. Carol Newsom, DJD 40: 196. 42 Tanzer, “The Sages at Qumran,” 115. 43 Mansoor, The Thanksgiving Hymns, 142. Cf. Maier, Die Qumran-Essener. Band I, 82: “zu lassen Torah.”

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(1QHa 14:13) the discussion of the poet is mostly about external relations within a framework that is more explicitly sapiential. The increased sapiential terminology and its referential basis in consensual social mores offers the opportunity for torah in this instance to be similarly construed as something objective, the law as externally received rather than as divine instruction internally gifted and understood.

3.2 The Great Psalms Scroll In his essay on the nexus of torah and wisdom as represented in some of the compositions that have come from the Qumran caves and which might be labelled rewritten scripture, Andrew Teeter has drawn attention to the so-called Great Psalms Scroll from Cave 11 (11QPsa) and has asked: “To what degree does the process of rewriting scriptural text that results in such compositions as these reflect aspects of wisdom, and to what extent do these sapiential aspects shape the presentation of Torah? And what does the literary shape of these documents suggest about the relationship between wisdom and Torah?”44 Whether or not the Great Psalms Scroll is an attempt to represent part of an independent quasi-sectarian or 364-day calendar collection, the psalms are arranged not least so that several repeated key themes emerge, notably the role of David and Zion, and amongst those themes are both torah and wisdom. Within some important framing questions Teeter has drawn attention to three examples of prominence given to wisdom. Like the poetic compositions in the Great Psalms Scroll, the Hodayot are also replete with scriptural allusions as Hughes has pointed out in detail.45 However, in some instances the function of such allusions, as has been discussed above, is most likely to have been based on private prayer in which a profound process of self-understanding is taking place. The rewriting that can be observed in the compositions of the Great Psalms Scroll is most likely to have served a different purpose, in public prayer and worship, given that many of the psalms in the Scroll are known in other forms of the Psalter, indicating a similar purpose for those presented additionally in the Scroll. As such, the process of rewriting is concerned with promoting a public identity, the kind of matter which can also be seen in the didactic purposes of many wisdom compositions. It is worth rehearsing the first of the passages that Teeter has highlighted to insist that wisdom and law are conjoined most notably in the additional material in the collection. Thus, whoever promoted the particular compilation of 11QPsa was

44 Teeter, “Torah, Wisdom, and the Composition of Rewritten Scripture,” 235. 45 Hughes, Scriptural Allusions and Exegesis in the Hodayot, passim.

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eager to extend the identification of wisdom and torah. The Psalm in column 18 was previously known from the Syriac Psalter as Psalm 154. It is a call to worship of unknown provenance and date. In one of its earliest descriptions, James Sanders described it as follows: The psalm is highly sapiential . . . Wisdom is here personified as a woman who sings (v. 12). She has gates of her own, but her voice may be heard in the gateways of the righteous (vv. 8 and 12). Wicked and insolent men do not know her (v. 15), although she is intimately known by the righteous ones, who supposedly are called into the assembly by this psalm. Wisdom’s principal function here is to aid man in proclaiming the glory of God.46

In the earlier verses of the Psalm we read: “For to make known the glory of the Lord is Wisdom given, and for recounting his many deeds she is revealed to man.”47 On that basis it is fair for the third person feminine suffix attached to ‫ קול‬to be made explicit in 11QPsa 18:10 as Wisdom: From the gates of the righteous is Wisdom’s voice heard, from the assembly of the pious her song. When they eat to satiety she is cited, when they drink, bound together as one: their conversation is on the Law of the Most High, their words but declaring His might. How far from the wicked her word! To know her, from all the haughty!48

This call to worship is an exhortation that ensures that those who sing the song identify themselves as among the righteous, the pious, the good, the humble and the pure. Significantly, in a way still to be explored, it is in shared table fellowship that thoughts are about the torah as an expression of the power of God, and so the prayer’s marking of commensality underpins how communal identity is constructed and affirmed. There is no need for this to be understood as referring to the exclusive practices of a sect, though that might be a setting where the force of the song was indeed apparent.49 All this is to underscore the perspective barely found in the Hodayot. Here in 11QPsa the concern is with explicit social topics, and both the Law and the figure of Wisdom are explicitly objectified together. A second poem in the Great Psalms Scroll, also previously known from the Syriac psalter as Psalm 155, is of a somewhat different sort. It is a plea for deliverance which includes the request “grant me understanding, O Lord, in thy law (‫ )בתורתכה‬and teach me thine ordinances, that many may hear of thy deeds and

46 James A. Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 108. 47 Trans. James A. Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll, 69. 48 Trans. Teeter, “Torah, Wisdom, and the Composition of Rewritten Scripture,” 261. 49 On commensality see Charlotte Hempel, “Who is Making Dinner at Qumran,” JTS 63 (2012): 49–65; Cecilia Wassén, “Rations, Refreshments, Reading, and Revelation: The Multifunction of the Common Meal in the Qumran Movement,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture, ed. Travis B. Williams, Chris Keith, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, STDJ 144 (Leiden: Brill, 2023), forthcoming.

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peoples may honor thy glory.”50 For our purposes it is appropriate to put Psalm 155 alongside 154, though that does not reflect the purpose of the sequence of 11QPsa. In Ps 154 the psalmist proclaims that Wisdom is given so that those who receive her can make known the glory of the Lord. Here in Psalm 155 understanding of the law and ordinances is sought from God so that the individual might come to honour his glory. Psalm 155 is indeed a plea for deliverance from personal sin, but like some other scriptural psalms the one who makes the plea can already anticipate its outcome inasmuch as the same motif is echoed: “Glory are you, YHWH, therefore my plea is achieved in your presence. . . . My trust stems from be[fo]re you, YHWH. I called ‘YHWH’ and he answered me, [and he healed] my broken heart.”51 The purpose of wisdom in Psalm 154 is to enable the community to recognize and worship God as glory; the individuals who pray the plea for personal deliverance in Psalm 155, knowing full well that God has answered their pleas, operate in the prayer as those who are under divine instruction and teaching whose grasp of the law and the ordinances enables them to proclaim God as glory. Psalm 154 is more communal than Psalm 155 but both psalms avoid introspection; in both the law is an objective source of instruction. A third poem, widely known as the Hymn to the Creator, is also important: Great and holy are you, YHWH, the Most Holy from generation to generation. In front of him walks glory and behind him the din of many waters. Kindness and truth are around his face, truth, uprightness, and justice are the base of his throne. He separated light from darkness, the dawn he established with the knowledge of his heart. Then all his angels saw and sang for he showed them what they had not known. He crowns the mountains with produce perfect nourishment for all the living. Blessed be he who made the earth with his strength, who established the world with his wisdom. With his knowledge he spread out the heavens, and brought out [the wind} from [his] sto[rehouses: lightning flashes] he made [for the rai]n and made the fogs go up from the end of [ ].52

Whether or not this prayer-poem is taken as another example of derivative pastiche, it is clear that it combines several well-known motifs together. Amongst them are the allusions to the Exodus, the theophany at Sinai (‫)חסד ואמת‬, the key components of torah (‫אמת‬, ‫משפט‬, ‫)צדק‬, the creation account adjusted through the language of Job, and thanksgiving for food – that last one hinting yet again at the endorsement of the appropriation of wisdom and torah through prayer in commensality. This is not the kind of personal search for the self so evident in the Hodayot but the

50 Trans, Sanders, The Dead Sea Psalms Scroll, 81 51 Trans. García Martínez and Tigchelaar, DSSE, 2: 1177 52 Trans. García Martínez and Tigchelaar, DSSE, 2: 1179

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praise of the creator and sustainer of the world with explicit and objective motifs of wisdom and torah subtly and suitably intertwined.

4 Conclusion The argument of this essay has been that the juxtaposition of wisdom and law is taking place in poetry and prayer in various ways. Let us return to the three scene-setting points of view: genre, scribalism attested in prayer, and the balance of wisdom and torah. To begin with, attention to genre is important. Within a wide range of prayer texts, exemplified here by the Hodayot and some compositions in the Great Psalms Scroll, there is the need to differentiate between, on the one hand, those texts that treat most intimately the search for the self and, on the other hand, those that are communal or individual psalms of praise. The more explicit the sapiential elements in the prayers, the more objective is the understanding of the torah. In addition, it is easy to identify the scribal dexterity through which various poetic compositions have come to be. Earlier traditions of multiple kinds are woven into new texts, each with its own distinctiveness. The scholarly appreciation of textual composition and appropriation from generation to generation is increasingly giving some place to prayer as the performative location of the traditions both of wisdom and of torah. Those traditions are most explicit, even objectively so, in communal prayers and praises; they are present in rather different ways in those poems that are concerned especially with self-understanding. Both the Cave 1 copy of the Hodayot and the Great Psalms Scroll are elegantly produced manuscripts, but it seems likely that the former was produced for private use and the opportunity for self-understanding, whereas the latter was produced for the endorsement of communal mores through public performance (as the paleo-Hebrew tetragrammata suggest). As for the balance of wisdom and torah, Kister’s discussion of the place of prayer as revealing the preeminence of torah in all things needs qualification. In the Hodayot the rare use of the term torah means that covenant takes pride of place, especially as that is conceived as written on the heart, as a matter of individual self-understanding. The presence of sapiential motifs in some places is notable; neither tradition seems to supplant or have preeminence over the other. In the Great Psalms Scroll some compositions present an integrated law-wisdom discourse which is a strong indicator that prayer and the cult was used as a locus for the appropriation of a particular social identity, objectively constructed, through which a spiritual way of living in relation to the divine was endorsed.

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Tooman, William A. “Wisdom and Torah at Qumran: Evidence from the Sapiential Texts.” Pages 203–32 in Wisdom and Torah: The Reception of ‘Torah’ in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period Edited by Bernd U. Schipper and D. Andrew Teeter. JSJSup 163. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Uusimäki, Elisa. Turning Proverbs towards Torah: An Analysis of 4Q525. STDJ 117. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Wassén, Cecilia. “Rations, Refreshments, Reading, and Revelation: The Multifunction of the Common Meal in the Qumran Movement.” Forthcoming in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture. Edited by Travis B. Williams, Chris Keith, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck STDJ. Leiden: Brill, 2023. Weeks, Stuart. “Is ‘Wisdom Literature’ a Useful Category?” Pages 3–23 in Tracing Sapiential Traditions in Ancient Judaism. Edited by Hindy Najman, Jean-Sébastien Rey, and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar. JSJSup 174. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Wold, Benjamin. 4QInstruction: Divisions and Hierarchies. STDJ 123. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Wright III, Benjamin G., and Lawrence M. Wills, eds. Conflicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism, SBLSymposium 35. Atlanta: SBL, 2005.

Part V: Wisdom & Torah in Narrative Imagination

Thomas Römer

The Question of Wisdom Influence in the Composition of the Joseph Narrative 1 From Older to Later Wisdom In his contribution to the first congress of the International Organization of Old Testament Scholars in 1953 Gerhard von Rad presented a paper about “Josephsgeschichte und ältere Chokmah” in which he argued that the Joseph narrative should be understood as a didactic wisdom narrative. According to von Rad, the “older wisdom” (Proverbs 10–24) was located in the royal court and its aim was to educate young people who should become skillful servants of the king.1 The Joseph novella would reflect the context of the “Solomonic enlightenment”2 during which Israel was in contact with Egypt and developed its own wisdom traditions. Von Rad understood the Joseph story as the narrative application of Prov 22:29: “You have seen the one who is skillful in his work? He will serve kings”3 and of the Maxims of Ptahotep 27: “If you are as a man of excellence, sitting in the council of his master, rally every heart to excellence. Your silence is more benefit than creeping talk. You should say what you know how to explain.”4 Von Rad further considered the story of Joseph and the Egyptian wife as “eine ad hoc verfasste Beispielerzählung zu den Mahnungen der Weisen.”5 With many others, von Rad held Gen 50:20 to be the summary of the message of the Joseph narrative: “You intended to do bad things to me, God intended it for 1 Gerhard von Rad, “Josephsgeschichte und ältere Chokmah,” in Congress Volume: Copenhagen 1953, ed. Georg W. Anderson et al., VTSup 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 120–27. 2 For this influential idea see especially Gerhard von Rad, “The Form Critical Problem of the Hexateuch,” in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, ed. Gerhard von Rad (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd Ltd., 1965; repr. London: SCM Press, 1984), 1–78. 3 Translations, unless otherwise noted, are mine. 4 Translation follows “Teaching of Ptahhotep,” https://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums-static/digitalegypt/ literature/ptahhotep.html. Gerhard von Rad refers to these instructions as number 24, see von Rad, “Josephsgeschichte,” 122. 5 See von Rad, “Josephsgeschichte,” 123. He quotes Prov 22:14, 23, 27–28 (astonishingly not Prov 7:6–27 [see below]) and Instructions of Any 3: “Beware of a woman who is a stranger . . . ‘I am pretty’ she tells you daily, when she has no witnesses; She is ready to ensnare you, a great deadly crime when it is heard”; translation from Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 3 vols. (Oakland: University of California Press, 1978), 2:137. Thomas Römer, Collège de France, France; University of Pretoria, South Africa https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-013

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good,”6 and understood this phrase as a wisdom sentence, which comes very close to Prov 20:24: “From Yhwh comes guidance of the strong, and a human how could he understand his way” and also to the Instructions of Amenemope: “The words men say are one thing. The deeds of the god are another”7 (19.16).8 Von Rad’s understanding of the Joseph story has been followed by some9 but has also been criticized especially by Donald B. Redford, who noted that, except for Genesis 39, an addition to the original narrative, and 45:8 and 50:20, which also belong to later layers, there is “no reason to believe that the story per se originated in, or belongs to, the sphere of Wisdom Literature.”10 Redford admitted that Joseph and other biblical and Egyptian literary figures “do resemble the paragon of virtue described by Wisdom literature; but this is surely to be ascribed to a common, human ideal, widely disseminated throughout all strata of ancient Near Eastern Societies.”11 In the recent discussion about the Joseph narrative, its characterization as a “didactic wisdom novella” does not play a major role. First of all, very few scholars would advocate assigning the Joseph narrative to the reign of Solomon. Von Rad’s ideas of a Solomonic empire and a “Solomonic enlightenment” do not correspond to any historical reality.12 Although a setting of the Joseph story in the time of the Northern kingdom finds support,13 there is a clear trend to understand this literary 6 See also Gerhard von Rad, Weisheit in Israel, GTB 1437 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970; reprinted Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn, 1992), 258. 7 Trans. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:157. 8 Von Rad, “Josephsgeschichte,” 125. 9 See the summary of the reception of Gerhard von Rad’s idea in Lindsay Wilson, Joseph, Wise and Otherwise: The Intersection of Wisdom and Covenant in Genesis 37–50, PBM (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2004), 7–27. 10 Donald B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50), VTSup 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1970), 100–105, at 105. Cf James L. Crenshaw, “Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon ‘Historical’ Literature,” JBL 88 (1969): 127–42, esp. 135–37; Stuart Weeks, Early Israelite Wisdom, OTMs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994): 93–109. Cf. further Michael V. Fox, “Wisdom in the Joseph Story,” VT 51 (2002): 26–41, who denies a “didactic wisdom” in the Joseph story and speaks of “mantic wisdom” that brings Joseph into a close connection with Daniel. 11 Redford, Study of the Biblical, 105. 12 Konrad Schmid, “Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch,” in Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, ed. Jan C. Gertz et al., BZAW 315 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002), 83–118, esp. 105–6. 13 Walter Dietrich, Die Josephserzählung als Novelle und Geschichtsschreibung: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchfrage, Biblisch-Theologische Studien 14 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989); Norbert Kebekus, Die Joseferzählung: Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Genesis 37–50, Internationale Hochschulschriften (Münster: Waxmann, 1990); Ina Willi-Plein, Das Buch Genesis: Kapitel 12–50, NSKAT 1/2 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2011), 244 (see, however, 252: between the 8th and 6th century BCE), and especially Erhard Blum

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work as a “Diaspora novella,” which was probably written down during the Persian period in order to legitimate the lifestyle of Israelites and Judeans in the (Egyptian) Diaspora. Arndt Meinhold was one of the first to suggest this theory.14 He noticed the structural parallels in the stories of Esther, Daniel 2–6, and Genesis 37–50. His proposal has become increasingly accepted in scholarship15 and offers the best model to explain almost all features of the original narrative. Even the “Northern connections” fit perfectly into such an understanding of the Joseph story.

and Kristin Weingart, “The Joseph Story: Diaspora Novella or North-Israelite Narrative,” ZAW 129 (2017): 501–21; cf. already Erhard Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte, WMANT 57 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984), 239–44 and Kristin Weingart, Stämmevolk – Staatsvolk – Gottesvolk?: Studien zur Verwendung des Israel-Namens im Alten Testament, FAT II/68 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 247–55. For similar arguments, see now also Rainer Albertz, Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch : Ein Beitrag zur Überwindung einer anhaltenden Forschungskontroverse, FAT 153 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021). According to Blum and Weingart the Joseph story should be read as “political propaganda,” the aim of which is to demonstrate that Benjamin belongs to Joseph, i.e., the Northern kingdom. However, this kind of “historical allegory” is problematic. Benjamin has a narratological role; he is constructed as Joseph’s mirror; Joseph and Benjamin are the only sons of Rachel; and the author of the Joseph story subtly constructs Benjamin as a “second Joseph” in order to demonstrate that the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers can take place when the brothers accept the privileges that Joseph is giving to him and when they show solidarity with their younger brother, wrongly accused by Joseph. A Northern setting and a preexilic date for the Joseph story also fails to give a satisfying explanation for the forced descent of Joseph to Egypt and for the fact that Joseph stays there until his death and is even embalmed like an Egyptian of high rank. For a critical assessment of Blum and Weingart, see also Thomas Römer, “How ‘Persian’ or ‘Hellenistic’ is the Joseph Narrative?” in The Joseph Story Between Egypt and Israel, ed. Thomas Römer, Konrad Schmid, and Axel Bühler, Archaeology and Bible 5 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 35–53 and Konrad Schmid, “Die Datierung der Josephsgeschichte: Ein Gespräch mit Erhard Blum und Kristin Weingart,” in Eigensinn und Entstehung der Hebräischen Bibel: Erhard Blum zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. Joachim J. Krause, Wolfgang Oswald, and Kristin Weingart, FAT 136 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 99–109. 14 Arndt Meinhold, “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovelle I, II,” ZAW 87/88 (1975–1976): 306–24; 72–93. 15 For instance, Thomas Römer, “Joseph approché: Source du cycle, corpus, unité,” in Le livre de traverse: De l’exégèse biblique à l’anthropologie, ed. Olivier Abel and Françoise Smyth, Patriomoines (Paris: Cerf, 1992), 73–85; Jean-Marie Husser, “L’histoire de Joseph,” in La Bible et sa culture : Ancien Testament, ed. Michel Quesnel and Philippe Gruson (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2000), 112–22; Christoph Uehlinger, “Fratrie, filiations et paternités dans l’histoire de Joseph (Genèse 37–50✶),” in Jacob: Commentaire à plusieurs voix de Gen. 25–36; Mélanges offerts à Albert de Pury, ed. Jean-Daniel Macchi and Thomas Römer, MdB 44 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2001): 303–28; Michael Fieger and Sigrid Hodel-Hoenes, Der Einzug in Ägypten: Ein Beitrag zur alttestamentlichen Josefsgeschichte, Das Alte Testament im Dialog 1 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2007), 375–76; Hyun Chul Paul Kim, “Reading the Joseph Story (Genesis 37–50) as a Diaspora Narrative,” CBQ 75 (2013): 219–38; Bernd U. Schipper, “Joseph, Ahiqar, and Elephantine: The Joseph Story as a Diaspora Novella,” JAEI 18 (2018): 71–84.

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One could argue with Matthew C. Genung that the Joseph story was composed in Samaria “nonetheless in communication with the Egyptian Diaspora community,”16 written as an independent narrative after P and before the LXX.17 Nevertheless, it is also possible that the Joseph story originated in the Diaspora. One could, for instance, locate the author(s) of the story in Elephantine,18 a colony that may have had Northern origins.19 Although this Aramaic-speaking and writing community was mainly composed of soldiers, mercenaries, and peasants, there is evidence of literacy as shown by the significant number of administrative and economic documents in addition to the Aramaic version of the Ahiqar story discovered in Elephantine. But it is also possible to locate the origin of the Joseph story in the Delta, which would also fit the Northern character of Joseph. According to Flavius Josephus, there were Samaritans living in Egypt during the Hellenistic period and perhaps even from the end of the Persian period (Ant. 11.321–322; 12.710). He also reports that under Ptolemy VI (180–145 BCE) there was a conflict between Jews and Samaritans living together in Alexandria over the question of whether the temple of Jerusalem or the sanctuary at Gerizim had been built “in accordance with the laws of Moses” (13.74–79). If these tensions between Judeans and Samaritans arose only in the second century BCE,20 we might assume that there was a quite peaceful cohabitation of both groups in Egypt in late Persian and early Hellenistic times. If this were the case, the Joseph story could have originated in a Samaritan Diaspora context. The Northern Joseph who reconciles with his “southern” brothers, especially Judah, is one of the major themes of the narrative21 and may reflect a cohabita-

16 Matthew C. Genung, The Composition of Genesis 37: Incoherence and Meaning in the Exposition of the Joseph story, FAT II/95 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 210. 17 Genung, Composition of Genesis, 212. 18 Fieger and Hodel-Hoenes, Einzug in Ägypten, 373–75. 19 Karel van der Toorn, “Anat-Yahu, Some Other Deities, and the Jews of Elephantine,” Numen 39 (1992): 80–101. 20 A hint on this conflict is given in 4Q371–373 which focus on the figure of Joseph and contain a clear polemic against the Samaritans. In a prayer Joseph says that he will “teach the rebellious Your statues, all who have abandoned You, [Your] La[. . .]” (4Q372 1 27); translation according to Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg, and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, rev. ed. (New York: Harper San Francisco, 2005), 423. I thank George Brooke, who drew my attention to this text. 21 See Georg Fischer, “Die Josefsgeschichte als Modell für Versöhnung,” in Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History, ed. André Wénin, BETL 155 (Leuven: Peeters, 2001): 243–71, and also Peter Weimar, “Josef – Eine Geschichte vom schwierigen Prozeß der Versöhnung (1995),” in Studien zur Josefsgeschichte, ed. Peter Weimar, SBAB 44 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2008), 9–26.

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tion between Northern and Southern “Israelites” and a collaboration between the authorities of Samaria and Jerusalem. The documentation from Elephantine shows that the Israelite-Judean Diaspora living there wrote simultaneously to the governors of Jerusalem and Samaria concerning the question of rebuilding the temple of Yahu. They received as an answer a common statement of Bagavahyah, governor of Judah, and of Delaiah, the son of the governor of Samaria, Sanballat. This suggests a friendly relationship between Samaria and Jerusalem at the end of the fifth century BCE,22 at a time where the sanctuary on Gerizim probably already existed. These observations indicate a close collaboration between Jerusalem and Samaria, between the North and the South, that may be reflected in the Joseph narrative. Finally, the theme of the Joseph story also fits a “pan-Israelite” ideology corresponding to post-exilic prophetic texts, which announce a restoration and reconciliation of “Joseph” and “Judah” (Ezek 37:19; Zech 10:6). Another point on which recent research is increasingly coming to an agreement is forfeiting the idea to reconstruct separate Yahwistic and Elohistic Joseph stories.23 The many “doublets” that occur in the Joseph narrative are either part of the narrative construction or can be explained with the theory of several redactional layers. There is some agreement about the assumption that Genesis 38, 46–48, and 49 are not an original part of the Joseph story. Genesis 38 is a story about Judah, who, in contrast to the Joseph narrative, is already a quite old and married man. The tribal sentences in Genesis 49 were originally unrelated to the Joseph narrative.24 Genesis 46 and 48 are insertions aiming to strengthen the link with the foregoing Patriarchal narratives and to prepare for the Exodus story.25 The passage where Joseph invents capitalism and makes the Egyptians into slaves of Pharaoh (47:13– 26) is also an addition,26 because it does not fit well with the context of the Joseph narrative: it does not mention Joseph’s brothers and contradicts Joseph’s advice to Pharaoh as well as his actions in 41:25–56✶. Additionally, the end of Joseph story was reworked by the addition of Gen 50:24–25, a late passage that combines a Pentateuchal and a Hexateuchal redac-

22 Gard Granerød, Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean Community at Elephantine, BZAW 488 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 41–44. 23 Despite some recent attempts, as, for instance, Joel S. Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis, ABRL (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 34–44. 24 Jean-Daniel Macchi, Israël et ses tribus selon Genèse 49, OBO 171 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 235–43. 25 See Blum, Komposition, 246–54. See also Blum and Weingart, “The Joseph Story,” 507–10. 26 Horst Seebass, Geschichtliche Zeit und theonome Tradition in der Joseph-Erzählung (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 1978), 58–61.

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tion. V. 24 connects with Deut 34:4 through the theme of the oath to the Patriarchs and provides an overall frame for the Pentateuch. It also appears that v. 25 belongs to a Hexateuchal redaction introducing the motif of Joseph’s bones that are buried in Josh 24:32.27 More disputed is the case of the “competition” between Reuben and Judah, the main characters and spokesmen among Joseph’s brothers. This competition has led to the assumption that one should distinguish between a “Reuben version” and a “Judah version” in the Joseph narrative, or that the original story contained only Reuben and was later revised with the introduction of Judah28 in order to present the Joseph narrative as a story showing the reconciliation between the North (Joseph) and the South (Judah).29 But yet another option is still possible: the Judah layer belonged to the original story, because his personal guarantee as well as his speech in Gen 44:18–34 are necessary for the scene of reconciliation in chapter 44.30 The Reuben layer would then have been added by a later redactor31 who wanted to clear all brothers of blame by presenting a positive image of the firstborn.32 As several authors have noted, it is not easy to reconstruct an older story that contains only the interventions either of Reuben or of Judah. One could perhaps explain the shift from Reuben to Judah in a way similar to Numbers 1–2. In Numbers 1–2, the census of Israel’s tribes starts with the tribe of Reuben, the first-born, but, when it comes to the organization of the camp, the east side led by Judah is mentioned first, which is a subtle way to emphasize Judah’s importance.33 The Joseph narrative may be crafted along similar lines: the author presupposes an audience familiar with the list of the twelve tribes or Jacob’s twelve 27 See Blum, Vätergeschichte, 255–57; Thomas Römer, Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition, OBO 99 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 561–66. 28 Dietrich, Josephserzählung als Novelle, 20–22; Kebekus, Joseferzählung, 231–336, who distinguishes a Reuben basic layer, a Reuben redaction, and a Judah redaction. See also Jean-Daniel Macchi, Israël, 127–28 and Jean-Louis Ska, Introduction à la lecture du Pentateuque: Clés pour l’interprétation des cinq premiers livres de la Bible, trans. Frédéric Vermorel, Le livre et le Rouleau 5 (Bruxelles: Éditions Lessius, 2000), 207. 29 For this interpretation see Fischer, “Josefsgeschichte,” 270–71. 30 Schmid, “Josephsgeschichte,” 105. 31 See especially Hans-Christoph Schmitt, Die nichtpriesterliche Josephsgeschichte: Ein Beitrag zur neuesten Pentateuchkritik, BZAW 154 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980); Franziska Ede, Die Josefsgeschichte: Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Entstehung von Gen 37–50, BZAW 485 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016), 65–67. 32 Schmid, “Josephsgeschichte,” 105. 33 See also Dennis T. Olson, The Death of the Old and the Birth of the New: The Framework of the Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch, BJS 71 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 60–61. A similar phenomenon can be observed in Deut 33:6–7, where Judah is mentioned immediately after Reuben.

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sons, according to which Reuben is the first-born. As a first-born, he has to play an important role. Yet, the author also wanted to show the importance of Judah, who ends up becoming a more central figure than Reuben. It would also be interesting to relate the figure of Reuben to the critical presentations of Jacob’s first-born in Gen 35:21–22a and in 49:4b, which may belong to a later revision of the tribal sentences. Another disputed chapter is the story about Joseph’s “temptation” in Genesis 39. Since this chapter plays a major role in the discussion about sapiential motifs and influences in the Joseph narrative, we will come back to this question later. The question of the link between the Joseph story and wisdom has been taken up recently again in an article by Christoph Levin, the title of which alludes to von Rad’s 1953 piece transforming the “older wisdom” into “late wisdom”: “Josefsgeschichte und späte Chokma.”34 According to Levin, the original Joseph story, which should be qualified as a “fairy tale” (Märchen), was later transformed by a redactor, whom he calls the Yahwist, into a “diaspora novella.”35 Passages that characterize Joseph as a wise and god-fearing man in Genesis 40–42 are due to a later “wisdom redaction.” The redactor responsible for these passages wanted to underline that Joseph’s skill in interpreting dreams was given to him by the god of Israel.36 The wisdom at stake in the Joseph story is according to Levin “späte, gesetzesfromme Weisheit.”37 However, an examination of the Joseph narrative shows that Joseph can hardly be characterized as gesetzesfromm (“a pious man following the Torah”). Although Joseph is depicted as a wise man, his wisdom does not presuppose an equation between wisdom and Torah. In the following, I will analyze the attitude of Joseph toward the Law, the presentation of Joseph as a wise man, the strange confusion of Joseph and God, and finally the depiction of Joseph in Genesis 39 and the links of this chapter with the book of Proverbs.

For details on this passage, see Eckart Otto, Deuteronomium, 11 vols., HThKAT (Freiburg: Herder, 2016), 2.2: 2215–16. 34 Christoph Levin, “Josefsgeschichte und späte Chokma,” in Fromme und Frevler: Studien zu Psalmen und Weisheit, Festschrift für Hermann Spieckermann zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Corinna Körting and Reinhard G. Kratz (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 353–70. 35 Christoph Levin, “Josef und seine Brüder: Ein biblisches Märchen,” Das Plateau: Die Zeitschrift im Radius-Verlag 177 (2020): 4–19, esp. 7–14. See already Hermann Gunkel, Genesis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977), 399. 36 Levin “Josef und seine Brüder,” 17; Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 354. 37 Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 364.

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2 Joseph and the Law It is difficult to know which laws and narratives of the Pentateuch were known to the author (and redactors) of the Joseph narrative. The story about Joseph and his brothers clearly presupposes the audience’s knowledge of the Jacob story and probably also the exodus narrative (in the sense that the Joseph narrative can be understood as a “counter history” to the exodus). If the first edition of the Joseph story can be located in the second half of the Persian period, it is also quite plausible that its author was familiar with the Deuteronomic law and its frame. In this regard, it is interesting to note that Joseph on several occasions “violates” the Law. According to Deut 18:10, “No one shall be found among you . . . who practices divination” (‫ ;)ומנחשׁ‬according to Gen 44:5, however, Joseph uses a silver cup through which he practices divination (‫)נחשׁ ינחשׁ בו‬. Deuteronomy exhorts its addressees several times not to follow “other gods,” for instance, in 6:14–15: “You shall not follow other gods from the gods of the people who are around you. Indeed, a jealous deity (‫ )אל‬is Yhwh your god.” Yet, in the Joseph story, Joseph has no theological problem when Pharaoh speaks of the Egyptian god(s). In Gen 41:25–45, Joseph interprets the king’s dreams by stating that “God has revealed to Pharaoh what he is about to do” (v. 25); Pharaoh identifies Joseph as having the “spirit of the god(s)” (‫רוח אלהים‬, v. 38) and says to him that “God has let you know this” (v. 39).38 Joseph never pronounces the name of Yhwh,39 and he integrates himself into Egypt’s social and religious system. This integration is extensive. Pharaoh marries Joseph to Aseneth (Gen 41:45), daughter of the priest of On (Heliopolis), worshipping the sun-god Ra. Joseph’s “mixed marriage” stands in clear conflict with the ideology of Deuteronomy (7:1–6) and Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezra 9–10; Nehemiah 13).40 According to Gen 41:50–52, Joseph’s sons Manasseh and Ephraim are half-Egyptians; they are mamzerim, who according to Deut 23:2 are not allowed to enter into the assembly of Yhwh: “No half-breed (‫ )ממזר‬shall enter into the assembly of Yhwh.” Joseph’s second dream, according to which his parents shall bow before him (Gen 37:9–10), contradicts the respect due to the parents as formulated in the Dec38 In the Hebrew Bible, the closest parallel to the idea that an Egyptian king shares the same belief in ‫ אלהים‬as the Israelites is found in the Chronicler’s account of Josiah’s death in 2 Chronicles 35. Cf. Thomas Römer, “Der Pharao als Gotteswortvermittler: Josia und Josef,” in Nächstenliebe und Gottesfurcht: Beiträge aus alttestamentlicher, semitistischer und altorientalischer Wissenschaft für Hans-Peter Mathys zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Hanna Jenni and Markus Saur, AOAT 439 (Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2016), 339–49. 39 In the original Joseph narrative, the name of the god of Israel is never used, and even in Gen 39 (a later addition, see below) the tetragrammaton is only used by the narrator. 40 See also Rüdiger Lux, Josef: der Auserwählte unter seinen Brüdern, 2d ed., Biblische Gestalten 1 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014), 132.

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alogue (Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16). When Joseph accuses his brother Benjamin of being a thief (44:1–13) he violates Lev 19:11b: “Do not lie (‫ )לא תשׁקרו‬to one another.” And finally, Joseph does not apply the law of Deut 24:7 and Exod 21:16 to his brothers, which stipulates the death penalty for a man who sells one of his brothers for profit. It is therefore difficult to characterize Joseph and the author of the Joseph narrative as a pious follower of the Torah. The Joseph narrative expresses a very “liberal” attitude towards the laws, by showing that some laws should be transgressed and others should be subordinated under higher concerns. Joseph’s wisdom is, therefore, not a wisdom connected to the Torah. In some passages, this wisdom is connected to the god(s) and even places Joseph in the role of the divine.

3 Joseph’s Wisdom and Divine Wisdom Like in the Hebrew text of Esther the author of the Joseph story never describes any direct divine intervention.41 All comments about God’s involvement appear on the lips of the protagonists (Joseph, Jacob, Pharaoh, and the brothers). Therefore, one can read the story in a totally “profane” way or accept the theological interpretations given by Joseph or other actors. This is also the case for Gen 50:20, often considered to be the theological conclusion of the Joseph story: “You intended to do bad things to me, God intended it for good.”42 Just before, when the brothers ask Joseph to forgive them, he answers: “Am I in the place of ’elohim?” (50:19). In a way, the question remains open, and one may indeed read the narrative as a story about divine providence or as the story of a powerful manipulation organized by Joseph in Egypt. Therefore, the readers may themselves ask the question of who is responsible for the reconciliation or new relationship between Joseph and his brothers: God, or Joseph, or both? Joseph’s rise in Egypt is due to his capacity for dream interpretation. Three pairs of dreams bind together the first part of the Joseph story (37; 40–41): Joseph’s own dreams, the dreams of the two royal prisoners, and Pharaoh’s two dreams. There is a progression in the way Joseph deals with these dreams. In regard to his own dreams, he only tells them to his family, without any interpretation. As for the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker he provides interpretation, and for Pharaoh’s dream he not only gives the right meaning he also gives advice to the king on how to deal with the events that were revealed through his dreams.

41 If one accepts the hypothesis that Gen 39 did not belong to the original Joseph story (see below). 42 See above with n. 6 and also Claus Westermann, Genesis 37–50: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986), 205; Wilson, Joseph, 206–7; Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 368–69.

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The confusion between Joseph and the divine sphere is a topic that begins in Joseph’s second dream, in which the sun, the moon, and the stars bow down before him (37:9–11). This means that sun, moon, and stars are under the control of a human being; in the ancient Near East, the celestial bodies are deities; in the Bible, they constitute Yhwh’s celestial host (cf. Neh 9:6). In this dream, which is sometimes considered as a later expansion,43 the sun, moon, and stars prostrate themselves before Joseph as if he were a god. When the cupbearer and the baker tell Joseph about their dreams and that there is no one to interpret each dream (‫)פתר אין אתו‬, Joseph answers: “Is it not to god/to the gods that interpretations belong? Tell [the dream] to me (‫הלוא לאלהים‬ ‫( ”)פתרנים ספרו נא לי‬Gen 40:6–8). One may have expected “Tell it to God,”44 but Joseph has taken God’s place and established himself as a divinely authorized interpreter of dreams.45 A similar scenario takes place in the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams in Genesis 41. When Joseph interprets the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker, there is still no hint that this capacity is related to wisdom. This changes in 41:8 when Pharaoh calls the diviners and wise men of Egypt (‫כל חרטמי מצרים ואת כל‬ ‫ )חכמיה‬to explain his dreams. The lexeme ‫ חרטמים‬appears only in Gen 41:8 and 24, the priestly passages of the plague narratives (Exod 7:11, 22; 8:3, 14, 15; 9:11), and the Daniel narratives (Dan 1:20; 2:2; 4:4; 5:11). It is apparently an Egyptian loanword designating specialists in liturgical books.46 Whereas in the priestly plague narrative these “magicians” are competing with the magical skills of (Moses and) Aaron,47 they appear in the Joseph and Daniel narratives together with wise men in their capacity to interpret dreams. In the Joseph story, as well as in Daniel 1–5,48 they figure in contrast to the Hebrew/Judean hero as a narrative foil, since Joseph is the only one who can understand and explain the royal dreams and vision. Contrary to

43 For instance, Ede, Josefsgeschichte, 48–49 and Genung, Composition, 129–33. See, however, Konrad Schmid, “Josephs zweiter Traum,” ZAW 128 (2016): 374–88. 44 This is also noted by Wilson, Joseph, 115. 45 There is no need to consider Gen 40:6–7 as a later addition (contra Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 357–58). V. 9 does not connect “fugenlos” with v. 5aα, because there is no explanation why the imprisoned officials should tell their dreams to Joseph. 46 Joseph Vergote, Joseph en Égypte: Genèse chap. 37–50 à la lumière des études égyptologiques récentes, OBL 3 (Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1959), 66–73. 47 John van Seters, “A Contest of Magicians? The Plague Stories in P,” in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom, ed. David P. Wright, David N. Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995), 569–80. 48 For the parallel expressions in Daniel, see Jean-Marie Husser, Le Songe et la Parole: Étude sur le rêve et sa fonction dans l’ancien Israël, BZAW 210 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994), 245–46 with n. 42.

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Exodus 7–9 and Daniel 2–5, very little is made of the failure of the Egyptian dream specialists;49 the focus is on the fact that the real wise man is Joseph. But this wise man firstly tells the Egyptian king that not he but ’elohim will give an answer to the king: Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and there is no one to interpret it. I have heard about you: you hear a dream in order to interpret it.” Joseph answered Pharaoh, “Not me;50 ’elohim will answer favorably (‫)שׁלום‬51 to Pharaoh.” (Gen 41:15–16)

But again, the one who interprets and gives advice is Joseph, representing the (international) god on whom Pharaoh and Joseph agree. Once Joseph has explained Pharaoh’s two dreams or the two parts of the dream, he immediately suggests how to respond to the message of the dreams: “And now may Pharaoh select a man who is discerning and wise (‫)נבון וחכם‬, and set him over the land of Egypt.”52 . . . Pharaoh said to his servants, “Can one find a man like this one in whom is the spirit of God?” So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Since God has let you know all this, there is no one discerning and wise (‫ )נבון וחכם‬as you. You, you will be over my house.” (Gen 41:33, 38–40)

Although the root ‫ חכם‬appears across the entire Joseph story and only here in the book of Genesis, there is no need to consider these verses as being part of a “wisdom redaction,” because without this passage it is difficult to understand Joseph’s rise.53 Joseph participates in his rise by suggesting that Pharaoh should appoint a wise man. Pharaoh takes up this suggestion in applying it to Joseph. Again, one can see here either divine providence or a very clever Joseph who knows how to profit from his dream interpretation.

49 Wilson, Joseph, 125. 50 For the meaning of ‫בלעדי‬, see, for instance, John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis, ICC 1 (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1910), 467 and Weeks, Early Israelite, 102–3. 51 There is some discussion how to understand the use of ‫ שׁלום‬here. Either it means that Joseph wants to calm down the troubled Pharaoh (v. 8), or he already alludes to the fact that through his mouth God will deliver a favorable interpretation and solution of his dreams; see the discussion in Krzysztof D. Lisewski, Studien zu Motiven und Themen zur Josefsgeschichte der Genesis, Europäische Hochschulschriften 23.881 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2008), 363–64. For the variants in SP and LXX, see Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 357 with n. 26. 52 Vv. 34a, 35–36 [37] are a later addition that explains that Joseph cannot handle all the stockage alone (vv. 48–49). He would need overseers. The term ‫ פקדים‬appears often in the documents from Elephantine. These overseers do not appear elsewhere; this is an indication of a midrashic addition. V. 34b (the idea of taxing the Egyptians) was later inserted in order to prepare 47:13–24, where Joseph invents a state-capitalism of sorts. 53 Against Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 35, and others.

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Joseph is presented as the real “wise” man compared to the wise men of Egypt. In order to strengthen this statement, the root ‫ חכם‬is linked with ‫נבון‬. This double expression also appears in 1 Kgs 3:12, where God promises to give Solomon a wise and discerning heart. It is not impossible that the author was influenced by this passage and wanted to present Joseph as a forerunner of the wise king Solomon to whom God spoke in a dream (1 Kgs 3:5–14). Both roots (wise/wisdom and discerning/discernment) also appear together in Prov 10:13, 14:33, and 16:21, as well as in Deut 1:13, Isa 5:21, 29:14, and Hos 14:10 in order to characterize the real wise individuals and in Deut 4:6 in order to present Israel as a wise people. In some cases, as observed by Jean-Marie Husser, this wisdom refers to the royal court and royal counsellors,54 which may explain the use of ‫ נבון וחכם‬in the context of Joseph’s rise at Pharaoh’s court. In summary, in Genesis 40 and 41 Joseph’s wisdom is used to present him as having mantic powers that enable him to become second-in-command after Pharaoh. Contrary to Daniel, whose wisdom is related to the “law of his god” (‫דת‬ ‫אלהה‬, Dan 6:6) Joseph’s god is also Pharaoh’s god, which inspires (cf. 41:38, ‫רוח‬ ‫ )אלהים‬and enables him to be a good interpreter and a wise counsellor.

4 Joseph’s Fear of God In Gen 42:18, Joseph presents himself to his brothers, who are unaware of his real identity as a god-fearer: “Joseph said to them on the third day, ‘Do this and you will live; the deity/the gods (‫ )האלהים‬I fear.’” The fear of God or Yhwh is a refrain that occurs in all parts of the book of Proverbs, which opens in 1:7 with the statement: “The fear of Yhwh is the beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction fools despise.” Joseph, who still presents himself to his brothers as an Egyptian, does not use the tetragrammaton but the “international” ’elohim. In several wisdom texts “the fear of god/of Yhwh” denotes an ethical statement aiming for the conservation of life. This is also the case in the story of the Egyptian midwives in Exod 1:15–21, whose “fear of God” (also with ‫ האלהים‬as in Gen 42:18) motivates them to violate the king’s order to kill the newborn Hebrew males. A similar idea underlies Genesis 20, where Abraham explains to Abimelech that he presented Sarah as his sister because he was afraid that there was no fear of god in Gerar. The comparison of Prov 14:27 and 13:14 shows that the fear of god/Yhwh is identical to the instruction of wisdom: 54 Husser, Le Songe, 242.

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The fear of Yhwh is a fountain of life, to avoid the snares of death. (14:27) The instruction (‫)תורה‬55 of the wise is a fountain of life, to avoid the snares of death. (13:14)

The presentation of Joseph as fearing the god(s) in 42:18b may be a later insertion56 in order to connect Joseph more closely to a central idea of the book of Proverbs. However, this wisdom attitude is international and not Torah-centric. The same holds true for Joseph’s behavior in Genesis 39.

5 Joseph’s Sapiential Behavior in Genesis 39 and the Book of Proverbs Although some scholars still postulate that Gen 39 was part of the original Joseph story,57 there are many reasons to consider this chapter as a (twofold) supplementation of the original narrative.58 The story of Joseph’s resistance to the sexual advances of his master’s wife and her false accusations that lead to his arrest (vv. 7–20) is framed by two passages that emphasize Joseph’s ascent: first, in the house of his master who puts him in charge of his whole household (vv. 1–6) and, secondly, at the end in the prison (vv. 21–23). All the mentions of Yhwh occur within these frames; the parallel between vv. 1–6 and vv. 21–23 is reinforced by the use of the root ‫ צלח‬in vv. 2, 3, and 23, as well as the use of the substantive ‫ חן‬in v. 4 and v. 21 (Joseph finds “favor” in the sight of his Egyptian master and the chief jailer). However, Genesis 39 does not fit smoothly in its context. Following the false accusation of his master’s wife, Joseph is thrown in jail probably in order to wait

55 The term ‫ תורה‬does not refer to the Law or the Pentateuch, but to general teaching or instruction. 56 See also Christoph Levin, Der Jahwist, FRLANT 157 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 291, who argues that v. 18 is younger than v. 19. The statement about Joseph fearing the god is indeed somewhat redundant. One can easily read v. 18a followed by v. 19. 57 See, e.g., Levin, Der Jahwist, 274–78; Lux, Josef, 74; Ede, Josefsgeschichte, 137–40; cf. George W. Coats, “The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom,” CBQ 35 (1975): 285–97. The idea that the original story consisted of Genesis 39–41 is impossible; cf. Husser, Le Songe, 233–36. 58 See my detailed treatment in Thomas Römer, “Joseph and the Egyptian Wife (Genesis 39): A Case of Double Supplementation,” in Supplementation and the Study of the Hebrew Bible, ed. Saul M. Olyan and Jacob L. Wright, BJS 361 (Providence: Brown University, 2018), 69–83 and “Genesis 39 and the Composition of the Joseph Narrative,” HBAI 8 (2019): 44–60.

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for judgment.59 At the end of the story, Joseph, because of Yhwh, curiously finds so much favor in the sight of the chief jailer that he gives him everything under his authority (“in his hand”) so that Joseph is bestowed with a similar position in v. 4, in which he is established “over his house” (‫)על ביתו‬.60 Neither scenario fits with the beginning of chapter 40. In this narrative, where Joseph interprets the dreams of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker, he is neither a prisoner (as suggested by 39:19–20) nor the overseer of the jail (as suggested in 39:22–23). Joseph is, according to 40:4, a servant of the “chief of the guard,” who charges him with the royal prisoners in order to be at their service (‫)שרת‬. Curiously the chief jailer bears here the same title as the Egyptian man who, according to 39:1, buys Joseph when he is brought to Egypt. That would mean that Joseph’s buyer in 39:1 was originally the overseer of the jail, mentioned in Genesis 40, or, in other words, that Gen 39:1 in its primitive form was originally the introduction to the story of Joseph’s encounter with the two royal prisoners in Genesis 40 and his interpretation of their dreams. Since Joseph’s function according to 40:3 is to serve (‫ )שרת‬the royal prisoners and according to Gen 39:4a his activity in his master’s house is described with the same root ‫שרת‬, it is possible that 39:4a belongs, along with 39:1, to the oldest story.61 The transition between Genesis 37 and 40 can be reconstructed as follows: Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. The captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there (39:1). Joseph found favor in his sight and waited on him (39:4a). Some time after this (40:1aα),62 Pharaoh became angry with his two officers, the chief cupbearer and the chief baker (40:2), and he put them in custody in the house of the captain of the guard (40:3a).63 The captain of the guard charged Joseph with them, and he waited on them (40:4).

Another indication for the later insertion of Genesis 39 is the theme of the dreams that structure the first part of the Joseph narrative: in Genesis 37 Joseph’s two 59 The idea of a prison as a punishment for a crime is not attested in Egypt before the Ptolemies. See Renate Müller-Wollermann, Vergehen und Strafen: zur Sanktionierung abweichenden Verhaltens im alten Ägypten, PÄ 21 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 217 and Vergote, Joseph en Égypte, 37–40. 60 For this title see 1 Kgs 18:3, 2 Kgs 15:5, Isa 22:15, and the so-called “Shebna-Inscription.” 61 See, similarly, Ede, Josefsgeschichte, 103 and 111, who wants to count the entirety of verse 4 to the oldest narrative. 4b, however, presents Joseph as ‫על הבית‬, a title that denotes a very high position (the second in the house) which fits well within Genesis 39, but not really with Joseph’s role in Genesis 40. 62 It is clear that 40:1aßb is a supplement introduced by a redactor who wanted to explain why the Pharaoh became angry against his officers by claiming that they both “sinned” against the king of Egypt. Note also that this verse omits the lexeme ‫ שר‬when speaking of the cupbearer and the baker. 63  40:3b presents Joseph as “captured” in the prison and belongs, therefore, to the same revision of chapter 40, which was made when the story of the Egyptian wife in Genesis 39 was introduced into the Joseph story; see also Kebekus, Joseferzählung, 48.

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dreams are then immediately followed by the two dreams of the royal prisoners, which are a prelude of sorts to the two dreams of Pharaoh. Genesis 39 displays some stylistic particularities in comparison with the other parts of the Joseph novella: the preposition -‫ כ‬followed by an infinitive occurs in the whole Joseph story five times in Genesis 39, and only twice elsewhere (44:30–31).64 Furthermore, fifty percent of all usages of ‫ ויהי‬are concentrated in Genesis 3965 and the adverb ‫“( באשר‬because”) only occurs in Gen 39:9 and 23,66 whereas in the other parts the author prefers ‫( כאשר‬12x). Finally, in the context of the Joseph novella, the story of Joseph’s encounter with the Egyptian woman lacks a conclusion, because the woman’s lie remains undiscovered and unpunished in contrast to the crime committed by Joseph’s brothers. There is almost no doubt that the author of Genesis 39 found his inspiration in the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers,67 as most commentators agree. Of course, the motif of the spurned wife is quite common and occurs in the legends of Bellerophon, Hippolytus, and others,68 but the parallels between Genesis 39 and the Egyptian Tale, of which only one manuscript is conserved, are much closer.69 Both contain the motif of the clothes (although used differently). In the Egyptian tale, the woman speaks to Bata, the younger brother, quite similarly as in Genesis 39 and also tries to grab him: “She got up took hold of him, and said to him: Come let us [. . .] [lie] together. It will be good for you and I will make fine clothes for you.” Bata delivers a similar speech as Joseph condemning the woman’s proposal as “this great wrong that you said to me,”70 and, likewise in Genesis 39, the woman perverts the events in the presence of her husband by taking up Bata’s speech as if she would have protested. 64 Redford, Study of the Biblical, 43. In other chapters the construction appears with the preposition -‫ב‬. 65 See the list in Redford, Study of the Biblical, 53. 66 The other occurrences in the HB are Eccl 7:2 and 8:4, a further indication of a “late Biblical Hebrew.” 67 For a translation, see Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:203–11. 68 Redford, Study of the Biblical, 92. 69 See also Hans Jochen Boecker, “Überlegungen zur Erzählung von der Versuchung Josephs (Genesis 39),” in Altes Testament, Forschung und Wirkung: Festschrift für Henning Graf Reventlow, ed. Peter Mommer and Winfried Thiel (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994), 3–13, esp. 8. If one postulates that the author-redactor who inserted the first version of Genesis 39 was familiar with the Tale of the Two Brothers, one has to explain that this tale exists only in one copy, which is from the New Kingdom. But this cannot be used as an argument to claim that Genesis 39 must be very old, since allusions to Bata and his castration are also mentioned in the Papyrus Jumilhac which was written in the Ptolemaic period. This means that the tale was still known in the Persian or Hellenistic times. See Jacques Vandier, Le Papyrus Jumilhac (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1962), 46–47, 105, 114–15. I thank my colleagues Bernd U. Schipper (Berlin) and Nicolas Grimal (Paris) for their help with this question. 70 Translations according to Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, 2:204–5.

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If the author had access to this tale, it seems likely that he was familiar with Egyptian literature. He used the Tale of the Two Brothers for several reasons: first of all, he transforms Joseph with this story into a model of loyalty and chastity by presenting him as the ideal young lad who follows the exhortations of the first part of the book of Proverbs, which constantly warns against the “foreign” woman (see Table 1). Table 1: Comparison of Proverbs 7 and Genesis 39. Proverbs 771

Genesis 39

13: She seizes him (‫ )והחזיקה‬and kisses him, and with impudent face she says to him: [. . .] 16: I have decked my couch with coverings, colored spreads of Egyptian linen; [. . .] 18: Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love. 19: For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey. [. . .] 21: With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. [. . .] 23: [. . .] He is like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost him his life. 24: And now, my children, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth. 25: Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths, 26: for many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims. 27: Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the rooms of death.

7: And this his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie down with me.” 8: He refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand. 9: There is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness (‫)הרעה הגדלה‬, and sin (‫)וחטאתי‬ against God?” 10: She spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or to be with her. 11: One day, he went into the house to do his work, and no man from all the men was in the house. 12: She seized him (‫ )ותתפשׂהו‬by his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside. 13: When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside, 14: she called out to the men of her house and said to them, “See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I shouted with a loud voice; 15: when he heard me raise my voice and shouted, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.” 16: She kept his garment by her until his master came home. 17: She said to him those words, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to have fun with me; 18: When I raised my voice and shouted, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.” [. . .] 20a: Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison.

71 Translation follows mainly NRSV.

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The author of Genesis 39 was familiar with this text72 and other texts from the book of Proverbs (2:1–22; 5:1–23; 6:20–35; 9:16, 13–18),73 which date to the late Persian74 or early Hellenistic75 periods. Joseph appears here as following the advice of the first part of the book of Proverbs. Joseph’s answer to the Egyptian wife in v. 9 has been understood by Franziska Ede as belonging to a “gesetzesorientierte Bearbeitung.”76 But the only “reference to law” that we can find is Deut 22:22–24,77 yet even here there is no indication of a direct quotation.78 Adultery was just as stigmatized in Egypt as in the ancient Levant and Mesopotamia. The expression “great wickedness” and sin against the deity refers more to the episode of Abimelech who wants to sleep with Sarah in Gen 20:9 (‫)חטאה גדלה‬79 and to the Egyptian Tale of the Two Brothers (see above). The author of the first version of Genesis 39 wanted to present Joseph’s wisdom differently than in Genesis 40–41 by presenting Joseph in light of the book of Proverbs, but not exclusively, since the danger of seduction also appears in the Tale of the Two Brothers and in the Instruction of Any (chapter 3).80 Joseph’s sapiential behavior remains international, and when he speaks to his master’s wife he refers to ’elohim and to a general taboo against adultery. A “Yahwistic” redactor, however, was somewhat unhappy with the exclusive use of ’elohim in the Joseph story (39:2–3, 5, 21–23). By supplementing Genesis 39 72 The author may also allude to the story of 2 Samuel 13, where Amnon rapes his half-sister Tamar. Both stories share several expressions and motifs (the beauty of the person who is sexually harassed, the seizing, the order “sleep with me,” and the shouting). See Yair Zakovitch, “Through the Looking Glass: Reflections / Inversions of Genesis Stories in the Bible,” BibInt 1 (1993): 139–52, esp. 149–51; Lisewski, Studien zu Motiven, 328–31. 73 On this text, see also Christl Maier, Die “fremde Frau” in Proverbien 1–9: Eine exegetische und sozialgeschichtliche Studie, OBO 144 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995). 74 Maier, Die “fremde Frau”, 266–67; Gerlinde Baumann, Die Weisheitsgestalt in Proverbien 1–9: traditionsgeschichtliche und theologische Studien, FAT 16 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 272; Achim Müller, Proverbien 1–9: der Weisheit neue Kleider, BZAW 291 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000), 314– 15; Bernd U. Schipper, Hermeneutik der Tora: Studien zur Traditionsgeschichte von Prov 2 und zur Komposition von Prov 1–9, BZAW 432 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 266–70. 75 Michael V. Fox, Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 18A (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 5–7. 76 Ede, Josefsgeschichte, 93–102, 105–6. 77 See also Levin, “Josefsgeschichte,” 367 and Christoph Levin, “Righteousness in the Joseph Story: Joseph Resists Seduction (Genesis 39),” in The Pentateuch: International Perspectives on Current Research, ed. Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz, FAT 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 223–40, esp. 232–35. 78 The only parallel is the root ‫רעע‬, which is, however, used in different forms (‫ הרעה‬in Gen 39:9 and ‫ הרע‬in Deut 2:22). 79 See on these parallels also Ede, Josefsgeschichte, 94–97. 80 Which was also quoted by Gerhard von Rad, see footnote 5.

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and mentioning the name of the god of Israel eight times, he emphasizes that in contrast to the original Joseph novella, Yhwh was present in Egypt from the very beginning and not only protected Joseph but also blessed the Egyptians, who were very friendly with him.

6 Summary Von Rad’s theory about the Joseph story as a “didactic and wisdom novella” needs some modification. The Joseph story is above all a “Diaspora novella” that nevertheless integrates sapiential elements into its story. Joseph’s rise due to his capacity to interpret the dreams of the royal officers is characterized by the narrator as wisdom coming directly from ’elohim. It is a “mantic wisdom” of sorts. In the first edition of the Joseph story, there is deliberate confusion between Joseph and ’elohim, because the narrative can be understood on two levels: a story of divine intervention or a story of a skilled and smart Joseph who, in regard to his brothers, behaves like ’elohim. A later revision of the Joseph story stressed the ethical dimension of his wisdom by introducing the concept of the “fear of God” and demonstrating, in light of Proverbs 7, Joseph’s loyalty and chastity (Gen 39:6–21). But even then, Joseph’s wisdom remains “international,” since he also conforms in this regard to Egyptian texts, as rightly observed by von Rad. The constant use of ’elohim (with the exception of the late Yahwistic revision of Genesis 39) contributes to this international flair. In many cases, there is also possibly a “double entendre,” as ’elohim can refer to the god of Israel as well as to the god(s) of Egypt, and there is no need for Joseph and the Egyptians to have a theological confrontation about the identity of this ’elohim. The wisdom elements in the Joseph story should therefore not be qualified as related to the Torah.

Bibliography Albertz, Rainer, Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch: Ein Beitrag zur Überwindung einer anhaltenden Forschungskontroverse. FAT 153. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021. Baden, Joel S. The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis. ABRL. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012. Baumann, Gerlinde. Die Weisheitsgestalt in Proverbien 1–9: traditionsgeschichtliche und theologische Studien. FAT 16. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996. Blum, Erhard. Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte. WMANT 57. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984.

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Blum, Erhard and Weingart, Kristin. “The Joseph Story: Diaspora Novella or North-Israelite Narrative.” ZAW 129 (2017): 501–21. Boecker, Hans Jochen. “Überlegungen zur Erzählung von der Versuchung Josephs (Genesis 39).” Pages 3–13 in Altes Testament. Forschung und Wirkung: Festschrift für Henning Graf Reventlow. Edited by Peter Mommer and Winfried Thiel. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1994. Coats, George W. “The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom.” CBQ 35 (1975): 285–97. Crenshaw, James L. “Method in Determining Wisdom Influence upon ‘Historical’ Literature.” JBL 88 (1969): 127–42. Dietrich, Walter. Die Josephserzählung als Novelle und Geschichtsschreibung: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchfrage. Biblisch-Theologische Studien 14. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989. Ede, Franziska. Die Josefsgeschichte. Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Entstehung von Gen 37–50. BZAW 485. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Fieger, Michael and Sigrid Hodel-Hoenes, Der Einzug in Ägypten: Ein Beitrag zur alttestamentlichen Josefsgeschichte. Das Alte Testament im Dialog 1. Bern: Peter Lang, 2007. Fischer, Georg. “Die Josefsgeschichte als Modell für Versöhnung.” Pages 243–71 in Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History. Edited by André Wénin. BETL 155. Leuven: Peeters, 2001. Fox, Michael V. Proverbs 1–9: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 18A. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Fox, Michael V. “Wisdom in the Joseph Story.” VT 51 (2002): 26–41. Genung, Matthew C. The Composition of Genesis 37: Incoherence and Meaning in the Exposition of the Joseph story. FAT II/95. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Granerød, Gard. Dimensions of Yahwism in the Persian Period: Studies in the Religion and Society of the Judaean community at Elephantine. BZAW 488. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Gunkel, Hermann. Genesis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977. Husser, Jean-Marie. Le Songe et la Parole: Étude sur le rêve et sa fonction dans l’ancien Israël. BZAW 210. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1994. Husser, Jean-Marie. “L’histoire de Joseph.” Pages 112–22 in La Bible et sa culture: Ancien Testament. Edited by Michel Quesnel and Philippe Gruson. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2000. Kebekus, Norbert. Die Joseferzählung. Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Genesis 37–50. Internationale Hochschulschriften. Münster: Waxmann, 1990. Kim, Hyun Chul Paul. “Reading the Joseph Story (Genesis 37–50) as a Diaspora Narrative.” CBQ 75 (2013): 219–38. Levin, Christoph. Der Jahwist. FRLANT 157. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993. Levin, Christoph.“Josefsgeschichte und späte Chokma.” Pages 353–70 in Fromme und Frevler: Studien zu Psalmen und Weisheit: Festschrift für Hermann Spieckermann zum 70. Geburtstag. Edited by Corinna Körting and Reinhard G. Kratz. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Levin, Christoph.“Josef und seine Brüder. Ein biblisches Märchen.” Das Plateau: Die Zeitschrift im Radius-Verlag 177 (2020): 4–19. Levin, Christoph. “Righteousness in the Joseph Story: Joseph Resists Seduction (Genesis 39).” Pages 223–40 in The Pentateuch, International Perspectives on Current Research. Edited by Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, and Baruch J. Schwartz. FAT 78. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011. Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 Vols. Oakland: University of California Press, 1973. Lisewski, Krzysztof D. Studien zu Motiven und Themen zur Josefsgeschichte der Genesis. Europäische Hochschulschriften 23.881. Bern: Peter Lang, 2008. Lux, Rüdiger. Josef: der Auserwählte unter seinen Brüdern. 2d ed. Biblische Gestalten 1. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014.

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Macchi, Jean-Daniel. Israël et ses tribus selon Genèse 49. OBO 171. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. Maier, Christl. Die “fremde Frau” in Proverbien 1–9: Eine exegetische und sozialgeschichtliche Studie. OBO 144. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995. Meinhold, Arndt. “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovelle I, II.” ZAW 87/88 (1975–1976): 306–24, 372–93. Müller, Achim. Proverbien 1–9: der Weisheit neue Kleider. BZAW 291. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2000. Müller-Wollermann, Renate. Vergehen und Strafen: zur Sanktionierung abweichenden Verhaltens im alten Ägypten. PÄ 21. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Olson, Dennis T. The Death of the Old and the Birth of the New: The Framework of the Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch. BJS 71. Chico: Scholars Press, 1985. Otto, Eckart. Deuteronomium. 11 vols., HThKAT. Freiburg: Herder, 2016. Rad, Gerhard von. “Josephsgeschichte und ältere Chokmah.” Pages 120–27 in Congress Volume: Copenhagen 1953. Edited by Georg W. Anderson et al. VTSup 1. Leiden: Brill, 1953. Rad, Gerhard von. “The Form Critical Problem of the Hexateuch.” Pages 1–78 in The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays. Edited by Gerhard von Rad. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd Ltd., 1965. Rad, Gerhard von. Weisheit in Israel. GTB 1437. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1970. Redford, Donald B. A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37–50). VTSup 20. Leiden: Brill, 1970. Römer, Thomas. “Der Pharao als Gotteswortvermittler: Josia und Josef.” Pages 339–29 in Nächstenliebe und Gottesfurcht: Beiträge aus alttestamentlicher, semitistischer und altorientalischer Wissenschaft für Hans-Peter Mathys zum 65. Geburtstag. Edited by Hanna Jenni and Markus Saur. AOAT 439. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2016. Römer, Thomas. “Genesis 39 and the Composition of the Joseph Narrative.” HBAI 8 (2019): 44–60. Römer, Thomas. “How ‘Persian’ or ‘Hellenistic’ is the Joseph Narrative?” Pages 35–53 in The Joseph Story Between Egypt and Israel. Edited by Thomas Römer, Konrad Schmid, and Axel Bühler. Archaeology and Bible 5. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021. Römer, Thomas. Israels Väter: Untersuchungen zur Väterthematik im Deuteronomium und in der deuteronomistischen Tradition. OBO 99. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990. Römer, Thomas. “Joseph and the Egyptian Wife (Genesis 39): A Case of Double Supplementation.” Pages 69–83 in Supplementation and the Study of the Hebrew Bible. Edited by Saul M. Olyan and Jacob L. Wright. BJS 361. Providence: Brown University, 2018. Römer, Thomas. “Joseph approché. Source du cycle, corpus, unité.” Pages 73–85 in Le livre de traverse. De l’exégèse biblique à l’anthropologie. Edited by Olivier Abel and Françoise Smyth. Patrimoines. Paris: Cerf, 1992. Schipper, Bernd U. Hermeneutik der Tora: Studien zur Traditionsgeschichte von Prov 2 und zur Komposition von Prov 1–9. BZAW 432. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012. Schipper, Bernd U. “Joseph, Ahiqar, and Elephantine: The Joseph Story as a Diaspora Novella.” JAEI 18 (2018): 71–84. Schmid, Konrad. “Die Datierung der Josephsgeschichte. Ein Gespräch mit Erhard Blum und Kristin Weingart.” Pages 99–109 in Eigensinn und Entstehung der Hebräischen Bibel: Erhard Blum zum siebzigsten Geburtstag. Edited by Joachim J. Krause et al. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020. Schmid, Konrad.“Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch.” Pages 83–118 in Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion. Edited by Jan C. Gertz et al. BZAW 315. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002. Schmid, Konrad. “Josephs zweiter Traum.” ZAW 128 (2016): 374–88. Schmitt, Hans-Christoph. Die nichtpriesterliche Josephsgeschichte: Ein Beitrag zur neuesten Pentateuchkritik. BZAW 154. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1980.

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Seebass, Horst. Geschichtliche Zeit und theonome Tradition in der Joseph-Erzählung. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 1978. Ska, Jean-Louis. Introduction à la lecture du Pentateuque: Clés pour l’interprétation des cinq premiers livres de la Bible. Translated by Frédéric Vermorel. Le livre et le Rouleau 5. Bruxelles: Éditions Lessius, 2000. Skinner, John. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis. ICC 1. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1910. van der Toorn, Karel. “Anat-Yahu, Some Other Deities, and the Jews of Elephantine.” Numen 39 (1992): 80–101. Uehlinger, Christoph. “Fratrie, filiations et paternités dans l’histoire de Joseph (Genèse 37–50✶).” Pages 303–28 in Jacob: Commentaire à plusieurs voix de Gen. 25–36. Mélanges offerts à Albert de Pury. Edited by Jean-Daniel Macchi and Thomas Römer. MdB 44. Genève: Labor et Fides, 2001. Vandier, Jacques. Le Papyrus Jumilhac. Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1962. Van Seters, John. “A Contest of Magicians? The Plague Stories in P.” Pages 569–80 in Pomegranates and Golden Bells: Studies in Biblical, Jewish, and Near Eastern Ritual, Law, and Literature in Honor of Jacob Milgrom. Edited by David P. Wright, David N. Freedman, and Avi Hurvitz. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1995. Vergote, Joseph. Joseph en Égypte: Genèse chap. 37–50 à la lumière des études égyptologiques récentes. OBL 3. Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1959. Weeks, Stuart. Early Israelite Wisdom. OTMs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Weimar, Peter. “Josef – Eine Geschichte vom schwierigen Prozeß der Versöhnung (1995).” Pages 9–26 in Studien zur Josefsgeschichte. Edited by Peter Weimar. SBAB 44. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2008. Weingart, Kristin. Stämmevolk – Staatsvolk – Gottesvolk?: Studien zur Verwendung des Israel-Namens im Alten Testament. FAT II/68. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Westermann, Claus. Genesis 37–50: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986. Willi-Plein, Ina. Das Buch Genesis: Kapitel 12–50. NSKAT 1/2. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2011. Wilson, Lindsay. Joseph, Wise and Otherwise: The Intersection of Wisdom and Covenant in Genesis 37–50. PBM. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2004. Wise Michael O. Martin G. Abegg, and Edward M. Cook. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. Rev ed. New York: Harper San Francisco, 2005. Zakovitch, Yair. “Through the Looking Glass: Reflections / Inversions of Genesis Stories in the Bible.” BibInt 1 (1993): 139–52.

Seth A. Bledsoe

Ahiqar the “Patriarch”: Tobit’s Interpretation of the Wisdom of Ahiqar through a Torahizing Lens 1 Introduction: Limitations & Strategies In a volume on “Wisdom and Torah,” an essay on Ahiqar may seem out of place. While the famous sage’s connection with a sapiential tradition hardly raises eyebrows, few would consider Ahiqar as sufficiently “Jewish” to elicit any consideration of a connection to Torah. The Book of Tobit disagrees. Ahiqar features prominently in the Book of Tobit, but, even more, Tobit makes it abundantly clear that Ahiqar is Jewish. Tobit names Ahiqar ἐξάδελφός μου και ἐκ τῆς συγγενείας μου “my nephew and among my close relatives.”1 Yet for some interpreters, this supposed “Aramean” sage could hardly be Jewish and, as one prominent commentary says of Tobit, such a designation simply “goes too far.”2 1 The text cited here is based on Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus (= GII); GI lacks και ἐκ τῆς συγγενείας μου; cf. 1:21 where in both ms. traditions Tobit calls Ahiqar τὸν Αναηλ υἱὸν τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ μου “the son of my brother Anael (cf. 4Q196 2 5 ‫)בר ענאל אחי‬. The manuscript tradition for Tobit is quite complicated, with two (or three) major text traditions in Greek recognized (GI and GII), some fragmentary manuscripts from Qumran in both Aramaic (4Q196–199) and Hebrew (4Q200), as well as the oft important Latin, Syriac, and other translational recensions. For this essay I use the GII or “long” version as the base text, although with a close eye to both the Qumran evidence and GI (the so-called “short” version). In particular, it should be noted that the preponderance of GII text-types (including Sinaiticus) lacks an important section for this study, namely Tobit’s first instructional speech to Tobias 4:7–19. However, Francis Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions in the Book of Tobit, DCLS 12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 49–53, has recently made a compelling case for including this section, even when using the GII as the base text – and, notably, this has been standard practice anyway for many modern translations, including NRSV. Citations of the English translation of Tobit follow that of the NRSV, though I make occasional emendations to translation when highlighting a particular aspect; for the Greek text I generally rely on Rahlf’s edition of the LXX unless otherwise citing an alternate reading; for the Aramaic and Hebrew I look to the editions by Joseph Fitzmyer, DJD 19, 1–76 and Michaela Hallermayer, Text und Überlieferung des Buches Tobit, DCLS 3 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008). For a recent, clear outline and description of the various texts and text-types of Tobit, see Naomi S. S. Jacobs, Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink, JSJSup 188 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 16–21. 2 Joseph Fitzmyer, Tobit, CEJL (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), 32, whose comment should be read in context: “There is good reason to consider Ahiqar a historical person and a Gentile, but to imply Seth A. Bledsoe, Radboud University, Netherlands https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-014

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Of course, the uncomfortableness with seeing Ahiqar as Jewish lies squarely with our (= the modern scholar’s) perspective. Nothing in the Book of Tobit suggests that this is a bold or contentious claim. Why, then, is it problematic that Ahiqar is Jewish and, secondly, what might be the result of taking Ahiqar’s Jewishness at face value? For the first question, the issue has to do with the way scholars categorize ancient literature and the way such categories affect our efforts at redescription. For one set of texts, it is their later trajectory that has been and continues to be decisive for their categorization. Those texts which eventually become biblical” or “canonical” rest comfortably in discussions about Jewish (or Israelite) literary production, with little to no need for qualification. For much of the rest of ancient literature, Ahiqar included, texts are assigned by scholars to a particular culture and category of literature based on a hypothesized original provenance and date. Even if there is some debate about the origins, the implications for arriving at the “proper” designation are clear: once this formative context is identified it becomes determinative for how scholars interpret both the textual evidence itself as well as its interpretive “afterlife.” A given text, once adequately put through the historical-critical interpretive machine, is thus assigned a “fundamental identity” and any subsequent vestige or recension is merely secondary.3

that he was son of a Jewish ἀδελφός goes too far” (emphasis added). One might ask Fitzmyer: too far for whom? It certainly does not seem to be the case for Tobit or his audience. In fact, Fitzmyer’s passing suggestion that Ahiqar was “a historical person” seems more unwarranted than his apparent Jewishness, at least when it comes to what such a statement means in relation to a commentary on Tobit. Of course, the problem here has to do with framing and perspective. The author of Tobit and his audience might very well have considered Ahiqar to be a “real” historical person (or not) and Jewish (or not), just like any number of Second Temple period audiences may (or may not) have considered the famous figures of their stories as historical. Fitzmyer has unfortunately not sufficiently demarcated his methodological point of view from that of Tobit’s. The book of Tobit is not a reliable historical source for making any claim about Ahiqar’s “real” existence; however, Tobit very much can be read as a reliable historical source for what a given Jewish audience of the late Second Temple period might have thought or imagined to be true about the persona “Ahiqar.” In this case, Tobit clues us into a context within which Ahiqar very clearly could be and seemingly “is” Jewish. 3 Eva Mroczek, The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 96. Part of the problem, according to Mroczek (pp. 5–11), has to do with the very metaphors scholars continue to use – or, in some respects, the lack of recognition that such are even metaphors – when undertaking (re)descriptive analysis. The predominance of “bookish categories,” including “author” and “book,” presumes a “bibliographic temper,” which for the modern reader conjures up notions of “original,” “completeness,” and “singularity.” Hence the metaphor employed here of “afterlife,’ which gestures toward a text’s “real” life in its original context. This is the presumption that lies behind statements like that of Fitzmyer’s (see note above), for when he says “too far” he means that Tobit, in naming Ahiqar “Jewish,” has diverged “too far” from what (scholars think) “Ahiqar” really was. In Fitzmyer’s view Ahiqar was “secular folklore” (Tobit, 36–37).

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For Ahiqar, there has been some debate on establishing its supposed identity, but a relative consensus has landed on a 6th or possibly 7th c. BCE Aramean context.4 Regardless of the precise provenance, since the discovery of the 5th c. BCE Elephantine fragments of Ahiqar, there has been a near unanimity among scholars that Ahiqar is most certainly not Jewish.5 He is Aramean, a foreigner and a pagan. This conclusion stands at odds with the world of Tobit’s narrative, wherein Ahiqar has συγγένεια “kinship ties” or, more rigidly, is “of the same genealogy” with Tobit. Indeed, in attempting to answer the second question above, this essay looks to Tobit’s literary imagination and, to some extent, its presumed ancient context, particularly as it relates to how the narrative configures “familial,” i.e., Jewish, identity. In this paper, therefore, I attempt to offer a re-reading of Ahiqar in Tobit that takes quite seriously its claim that Ahiqar is Jewish. In doing so, it becomes clear that for Tobit’s supposed Second Temple audience Ahiqar functions not only as a paragon of wisdom but at the same time as an exemplary Jewish ancestor or “patriarch.” To be clear, I am not using “patriarch” in the strictest sense here, i.e., as ‘progenitor’ of a people group, rather the term is applied here to signify that, for the presumed readership of Tobit, Ahiqar stands in the same category of well-known and exemplary ancestors as do the other figures named in the book, including the patriarch Abraham. That such a category or way of thinking about the past had significance for Tobit’s audience is evident not only in his several direct and indirect allusions to such figures, but may also be supposed by considering the near contemporaneous text of Ben Sira. Like Tobit, the author of this 2nd c. BCE wisdom text turns to “famous men and our ancestors” (44:1; ἄνδρας ἐνδόξους καὶ τοὺς πατέρας ἡμῶν) as embodiments of wisdom and exemplars of the ethical values espoused throughout his work, whom the presumed audience – literarily configured in both texts as the “son” or “pupil” of the sage – ought to imitate. Ben Sira draws a seamless line from the “real” patriarchs (according to the scholarly use of the term) of Genesis6 4 The situation is a bit more complicated since most scholars, when referring to the composition of Ahiqar, treat the narrative and sayings separately. The 7th/6th c. date refers to the production of the story and possibly also the integration of the wisdom instructions. Nevertheless, even most scholars who assign such a date still acknowledge that the story and sayings of Ahiqar underwent significant development in subsequent eras. For a detailed summary of these issues, see Seth A. Bledsoe, The Wisdom of the Aramaic Book of Ahiqar: Unravelling a Discourse of Uncertainty and Distress, JSJSup199 (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 37–52. 5 Ironically, the Aramaic fragments of Ahiqar were found alongside documents that largely belonged or were directly related to members of a Jewish/Yehudean community resident at Elephantine. 6 Of particular interest is that Ben Sira begins with Enoch, followed by Noah and then the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and then moves on to Moses, skipping Joseph. In Tobit 4:12

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all the way through the monarchic and exilic period up to Ben Sira’s “present day” with the high priest Simon.7 Prophets, kings, judges, and others, the sage names all of them as “our ancestors (= patriarchs).” Importantly, Ben Sira’s presentation of these figures, like Tobit’s, are not always simple, straightforward allusions based on the biblical texts. They instead reflect interpretive summaries that suggest a robust discursive tradition around these “ancestors” that extend beyond the bounds of the texts that later are dubbed “canonical.” For Tobit, the “ancestors” and the establishing of kinship ties with both past and present characters is a crucial factor for the plot and ethic of the narrative, as many interpreters of the work have demonstrated. Ahiqar’s role in this respect, however, has not been sufficiently appreciated, and his “Jewishness” is largely treated as exceptional for Tobit to the point that it is either dismissed outright or simply ignored as insignificant for understanding Tobit’s literary and cultural milieu. In contrast, this essay illustrates how Ahiqar functions in much the same way as the other “patriarchs” in the narrative. To have such a prominent role one must imagine a context where Ahiqar was considered “Jewish.” This essay, therefore, considers what significance this might have, not only for our internal reading of Tobit, but also the ripple effect for seeing Tobit as part of a larger Aramaic literary milieu. In short, this essay argues that Tobit has appropriated and reinterpreted the “wisdom” of Ahiqar through a Torahizing lens by casting the sage as one whose actions are emblematic of Torah-faithfulness, and in so doing likens the wise sage to the Patriarchs. To accomplish this task, after a brief discussion of the theoretical framing, I begin with some background on Ahiqar, focusing especially on its textual history and attestation in antiquity such that one might speak of an “Ahiqar discourse,” in which Tobit’s “Ahiqar” takes part. The next section highlights the key themes and ethical features in the Book of Tobit, specifically as they evoke the concepts of “wisdom” and “Torah.” With Tobit’s literary and conceptual context in mind, I then turn to an analysis of Ahiqar in Tobit, focusing not only on the specific passages in which the sage features, but also considering the thematic and rhetorical features evident in the narrative that might reflect upon the “Ahiqar discourse.” A final section summarizes Ahiqar’s role as “patriarch” in Tobit and offers

Enoch is not mentioned, but Tobit does begin, oddly, with Noah (see comments below), names the three patriarchs but, like Ben Sira, does not mention Joseph. Note, though, Ben Sira does eventually mention Joseph, alongside others from Genesis (Shem, Seth, Enosh, Adam, Enoch) in the small section (49:14–16) that interrupts the otherwise generally chronological survey. 7 For a brief discussion on the dating and context of Ben Sira with respect to Simon (II), see Seth A. Bledsoe, “Ben Sira,” Cambridge Companion to Wisdom Literature, ed. Katharine Dell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 261–82, esp. 262–63.

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some further reflection on how this reading can contribute to a broader discussion among scholars of Second Temple period Judaism about how we conceptualize and frame discussions of Jewish identity and literary production.

2 “Wisdom” and “Torah”: A Brief Note on Concepts In using inverted commas for “Torah” and “wisdom” this essay means to signal that that which is under discussion is not strictly in reference to an object or text.8 With respect to “Torah,” in addition to the generally agreed upon instability and pluriformity of Torah-as-written text at this stage – with respect to transmission, scribal/ communal idiosyncrasies, or ongoing redactional activity – and even beyond the secondary understandings in ancient discourses that anchor their respective imaginaries to such a “text” through descriptors like “exegetical” or “rewritten,” this essay follows a few scholars who have sought to reframe “Torah” in such a way that it does not constitute a fixed entity but rather, in David Lambert’s words, “a series of particular constructions deeply embedded in specific communal contexts, particular reading moments, that happened to attain a degree of staying power, objective reality, without ever escaping from their contingent, historical subjective quality.”9 In other words, in Tobit, as well as throughout the Second Temple period, “Torah” signifies “something more inclusive than the written text of the Torah, and roughly equivalent to ‘normative Jewish tradition’ as a given author understood it.”10 “Torah” is indicative of a type of discourse, one that may (or may not) have a “text” as a symbolic referent, but functionally speaking was a metaphor for asserting Jewish identity and practice, often in a context where such assertions were continuously being contested, reconfigured, and reimagined to suit the needs of a specific audience. What we are analyzing, then, is not Tobit and Pentateuch,11 but instead Tobit’s engagement with a much broader, dynamic discourse of “Torah” as

8 See David Lambert, “Tôrâ as Mode of Conveyance: The Problem with ‘Teaching’ and ‘Law,’” in Torah: Functions Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity, ed. William M. Schniedewind, Jason M. Zurawski, and Gabriele Boccaccini, EJL 56 (Atlanta: SBL, 2021), 61–80, esp. 64–66. 9 Lambert, “Tôrâ as Mode,” 65–66. 10 John J. Collins, “The Judaism of the Book of Tobit,” in The Book of Tobit: Text, Tradition, Theology, ed. Géza Xeravits and József Zsengellér, JSJSup 98 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 23–40, at 34 (emphasis added). 11 I use the term Pentateuch here, and elsewhere, when referring to the written text that makes up the first five books of the Bible and thus to distinguish it from “Torah.”

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a contested and contestable aspect of conceptualizing, reinscribing, and renegotiating what it means to be “Jewish” for a given community. A related approach determines the way in which this essay employs the term “wisdom,” although here it is even more explicitly used as a second-level description. Dozens of recent studies over the past decade or so have rehashed a long-standing argument about whether such a term is appropriate for categorizing and describing a variable set of ancient literature.12 For me, despite the uproar, I still find heuristic value in continuing to use “wisdom” as an operative category, at least so long as one acknowledges how and why such a category is being used. At times, for instance, it is convenient to use the related term “wisdom literature” as a means to refer to a (variable) set of texts identified by scholars to have a demonstrable affinity with one another in terms of form, content, and function. This may be understood as a reference to a “genre,” and even one carefully conceptualized according to a model of family resemblance – although in practice the book of Proverbs tends to stand as the central barometer against which other potential candidates are adjudged.13 For the most part, though, I employ the term “wisdom” in this essay as a way of pointing to a type of discourse typified by paraenetic and/or noetic impulses. When describing a particular text, passage, literary aspect, theme, or structure as “wisdom,” this is in reference to a rhetorical and ethical posturing, one that seeks to inculcate a set of values, typically by drawing on a body of knowledge, whether received or learned, about the cosmos and its workings. How such a posturing is identified could be on formal, thematic, or functional grounds, or some combination thereof. In any case, “wisdom” signifies a communicative act.14 How “wisdom” functions as an interpretive category for the book of Tobit specifically will be outlined in the discussion below.

12 See, e.g., Mark R. Sneed, ed., Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Perspectives in Israelite Wisdom Studies, AIL (Atlanta: SBL), 2015 and Will Kynes, An Obituary for “Wisdom Literature”: The Birth, Death, and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 13 See the brief discussion and bibliography in Samuel L. Adams and Matthew Goff, “Editor’s Introduction,” in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature, ed. eidem (Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell, 2020), 1–10, esp. 2–5. 14 Of course, a third use of the term is in reference to a specific lexeme in Hebrew (‫)חכמה‬, Aramaic (‫)חכמתא‬, or Greek (σοφία). It will be clear when and if such a usage is being made.

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3 Ahiqar: Text, Legacy, and Discourse Ahiqar is a legendary figure, known throughout the ancient Mediterranean world as early as the latter half of the first millennium BCE and widely attested in subsequent centuries among a variety of sources and contexts. Ahiqar is associated with the Neo-Assyrian court, specifically the kings Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, for whom he is depicted as a prominent advisor. In most cases, Ahiqar’s fame rests on two aspects: (1) he was considered to be inordinately wise, usually credited with making several proverbial statements; (2) he suffered unjustly, through betrayal by his successor and kinsman and sentenced to death by the king, but is ultimately vindicated and restored to his position, usually through the assistance of another court official. Both of these aspects seem to feature in Tobit’s portrayal of Ahiqar, though to varying degrees.

3.1 Ahiqar in Text and Tradition Like much of ancient literature the most prolific material evidence for Ahiqar comes from medieval manuscript traditions. Dozens of medieval and early modern manuscripts in several languages – Syriac, Armenian, Arabic, Old Slavonic, Ethiopic, inter alia – have been preserved, although only a few of these have been published.15 A passing glance suggests that, for the most part, the broad strokes of the story’s structure and character are the same, and most also include a set of proverbial instructions. Yet, careful comparison of even the few published editions makes it clear that there are many differences in detail among the various witnesses. There are also a number of ancient witnesses. The most significant are the several papyrus fragments from Elephantine, dated generally to the late 5th c. BCE. The Elephantine papyri attest to at least two “versions” of Ahiqar, though one of which is an erased (in antiquity) text and incomplete.16 The main version is also 15 For some of the editions, though over a century-old translations, see F. C. Conybeare, J. Rendel Harris, and Agnes Smith Lewis, The Story of Aḥiḳar: From the Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Old Turkish, Greek and Slavonic Versions, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913). 16 See James D. Moore, “‘Ahikariana’: New Readings of Berlin P. 13446 and Developments in Ahiqar Research,” in Elephantine in Context: Studies on the History, Religion and Literature of the Judeans in Persian Period Egypt, ed. Reinhard G. Kratz and Bernd U. Schipper (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 237–64, esp. 253–57, who suggests a possible third “version.” I only cautiously use the word “version” here given that the erased text and the errant (?) incipit are clearly incomplete. That is, in their ancient context, the scribe appears to have stopped and thus one cannot accurately speak of a “version” but rather an abbreviated extract.

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quite fragmentary, but nevertheless a total of five columns of narrative and nine columns of instructions are preserved, while it is estimated that at least a further seven or more entire columns of text are entirely missing.17 Translation and interpretation of the manuscript are challenging as a result of the poor condition of the fragments. Still, one can get some sense of the contours of the text, including the themes and concerns both in the narrative and sayings. According to the Elephantine text, Ahiqar is a wise and skillful scribe in the court of Sennacherib. After the death of the king and the succession by his son Esarhaddon, Ahiqar begins to contemplate his own old age and, importantly, his lack of an heir. He then decides to adopt the “son of his sister” Nadan and train him as his successor. The Aramaic story is muddled here but Ahiqar apparently leaves court, having retired to his country estate. Immediately after his departure Nadan betrays his uncle, accusing him of some treason against the crown. Esarhaddon promptly sentences Ahiqar to death. When the executioner, named Nabusumiskun, arrives at Ahiqar’s estate, the wise old sage fears for his life and pleads with Nabusumiskun to save him. The basis for Ahiqar’s argument is to remind Nabusumiskun that Ahiqar had once saved him from a similar unjust death-sentence. Ahiqar tells the would-be executioner that he once “supported [Nabusumiskun], like a person does for his kinsman (‫ )אח‬. . . and now, just as I have done for you, so also do for me!”18 Nabusumiskun is convinced. He persuades his fellow-executioners to save Ahiqar, they execute a ‫“( סריס‬eunuch-slave”) instead to show the king, and Nabusumiskun hides Ahiqar in his house. At this point, the Aramaic narrative breaks off. The remaining extant columns are comprised of instructional sayings, employing several forms (exhortation, prohibition, and fables are prominent) and covering a wide variety of topics (e.g., discretion in speech, discipline of children, financial advice).19 In addition to the Elephantine Aramaic texts, at least two other ancient witnesses are extant, both in translation. There are several Demotic fragments of Ahiqar, dated to either the early Roman or late Ptolemaic-era Egypt. Additionally, the Greek Aesop romance contains what is typically considered to be direct adaptation of the Ahiqar story, though it is Aesop who endures the tribulations and recites proverbial wisdom, and the setting has been changed to Babylon. Beyond the ancient and medieval witnesses, there are several secondary attestations to Ahiqar among ancient sources. A 2nd c. BCE cuneiform tablet from Uruk 17 For brief discussion of the condition of the manuscript and its history of publication see Seth A. Bledsoe, “Ahiqar and Other Legendary Sages,” in Adams and Goff, Wiley Blackwell Companion to Wisdom Literature, 289–309, esp. 290–91. 18 TAD C1.1.48–52 (translation is my own). 19 See Bledsoe, “Ahiqar and Other,” 296–303 for a survey of the prominent themes and topics of the Aramaic Ahiqar text.

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includes Ahiqar in its list of famous legendary sages, identifying him as one of the ummānu “court scholars” of Esarhaddon. Strabo, in a section of his Geographica discussing Moses and his successors, likens them to other famous “prophets . . . that promulgated to us ordinances and amendments from the gods” and includes in this list one “Achaecarus” (LCL 241:288–89). Clement (Strom. 1.15.69) tells of Democritus who appropriated a “stele of Ahiqar,” which he classifies as an example of “Babylonian ethical discourses.” In his “Life of Theophrastus,” Diogenes Laertius lists the philosopher’s rather prolific set of writings and mentions a book title Ἀκιχαρος (Lives, 5.2.50). Additionally, several scholars have suggested that, like with Tobit, Ahiqar was a source that later texts either borrowed from or were modeled on. Michael Fox, for example, citing numerous close parallels and distinctive features between the two sets of proverbial instructions, has suggested that the compilers of Proverbs “knew the book of Ahiqar.”20 As noted, Aesop’s romance, if not a direct borrowing, was certainly inspired by Ahiqar’s story, and some have said the same about the Demotic Instruction of Ankhsheshonqe. Other supposed intertextual connections have been proposed over the years, although admittedly establishing direct lines of dependence are usually tenuous.21 This is not the case, of course, for Tobit, where Ahiqar is both directly named and several details in Tobit’s narrative make it clear that he was quite familiar with Ahiqar. What becomes clear, then, when considering Ahiqar we are not simply dealing with a “text,” nor in the case of Tobit are we dealing with a simple notion of “intertextuality” but rather there is a large body of evidence indicating that each instance of “Ahiqar” is but one “part of a growing tradition that had a very wide circulation and has informed the cultural ethos of a large number of communities over a very long period of time.”22

3.2 An “Ahiqar” Discourse and the Book of Tobit To what do we or Tobit refer when we say “Ahiqar”? For scholars, the starting point has generally been the Elephantine manuscript. To be sure, the Aramaic fragments are extremely important because they provide some ancient textual basis for the specific details of Ahiqar’s story and didactic concerns. As a result, most assessments of Tobit’s “Ahiqar” are evaluated against the Elephantine text. This is not 20 Michael Fox, Proverbs 10–31, AB 18B (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 767. 21 See Bledsoe, “Ahiqar and Other,” 303–7, for a fuller outline and bibliography of studies concerning Ahiqar’s reception in antiquity. 22 Bledsoe, Wisdom of Ahiqar, 60.

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problematic per se, but the way such studies are framed can be misleading. As with the biblical texts, though not nearly to the same extent, the Aramaic Ahiqar has been subject to numerous linguistic, historical, and compositional evaluations. At the same time, it has long been noted that the ancient Aramaic version differs in some significant ways from the medieval recensions. Thus, some have proposed complex lines of transmission and even hypothesized a “standard” version of Ahiqar from which, incredibly, the Elephantine version is seen as an errant form.23 A comparison between Tobit’s “Ahiqar” and the Aramaic witness, therefore, is hardly a simplistic one. The point here is not to realign or even trace out specifically the lines of transmission. Quite the contrary, this essay takes as a starting point that such a way of conceptualizing ancient literary production is problematic to begin with. As indicated in the introduction, the scholarly framework for describing and assigning meaning to Ahiqar is built around, to use Mroczek’s phrase, “bookish categories,” which, among other things, come with normative assumptions about a text’s “fundamental identity.”24 In the case of Ahiqar, the language used by scholars, even when speaking about “Ahiqar” in the 2nd c. context of Tobit, furthers essentialist notions about a text and the literary persona portrayed therein. Even the phrase “a text” reinforces such a paradigm that presumes there is an “authentic” version of Ahiqar, or, in text-critical terms, a “best” or “original” version on which scholars ought to rely when making any historical claims. Instead, we might better refer to “Ahiqar” not as “text” or “book” but with a different metaphor, such as “project,” to better enunciate the “ongoing-ness” of literary production.25 This approach to mapping ancient literary production accords well with the theoretical arguments about discourse outlined in Lambert’s article about “Torah.” Hence, in much the same way that works like Ben Sira or others make reference to “Torah,” even if one might rightly presume a specific textual referent, Tobit’s citation of “Ahiqar,” is not a simple allusion to some (version of a) “text” but rather is “for all intents and purposes, relating to a different object than we [are]. . . a quasi-object whose very conceptualization and contours are defined by radically different subjectivities.”26 With both Mroczek’s idiom of “project” or Lambert’s “constructed quasi-object” in mind, I suggest using the phrase “Ahiqar discourse” as an operative category for qualifying and describing how and for what purpose “Ahiqar” figures in Tobit. By “Ahiqar discourse” I mean the constellation of textual, oral, and concep23 See, e.g., the figure in James M. Lindenberger, The Aramaic Proverbs of Ahiqar (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 7. 24 Mroczkek, Literary Imagination, 5, 40. 25 Mroczek, Literary Imagination, 16, 89, 110 (in reference to Ben Sira). 26 Lambert, Tôrâ as Mode,” 66.

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tual instances of “Ahiqar” among a diverse set of receiving communities, such that each occasion or reference is both constituted by and constitutive of an “ongoing production” of meaning. “Ahiqar,” then, refers not to an individual, whether text or person, but a personality, a character whose literary articulation evokes a partly-stable, partly-fluid set of attitudes, ideas, and actions. When one thinks of Ahiqar as “character”27 or, more broadly, as part of a large “discourse,” there arises a host of new “opportunities for redescription.”28

4 Tobit: Wisdom, Torah, and the Ethic of Tobit This sections begins with a brief discussion of certain literary and thematic qualities of Tobit’s narrative that have led scholars to connect the work with both “Torah” and “wisdom” traditions. Then, I turn to the major themes in Tobit, drawing particular attention to the twin narratological themes of endogamy and proper burial in addition to the overarching ethical directive of acting charitably. Tobit’s instructive promotion of these actions is equally described in terms of the broader ethic of family loyalty or obligation that permeates the narrative. In other words, acts of charity, which, according to Tobit, include marrying and/or properly burying a kinsperson, are a performance of familial loyalty. Such actions, espoused by Tobit himself and the narratological logic of the story, serve to create a functional equivalency between the ethical and ethnic (i.e., Jewish group identity) concerns. In short, one may say that acting wisely is the same as being Torah-observant, according to how both those categories are defined by Tobit.

4.1 Tobit’s Exemplification of “Torah” and “Wisdom” As many interpreters have observed, the Book of Tobit is thoroughly seeped in “Torah.” There are several direct and indirect bits of evidence that lead commentators to conclude that Tobit was “well acquainted with Hebrew Scriptures.”29 There is direct reference to “the law of Moses,”30 and some have pointed to distinctly Deuteronomic aspects, such as the exclusivist Jerusalem-centric cult and belying a

27 Mroczek, Literary Imagination, 16, 89. 28 Lambert, “Tôrâ as Mode,” 66. 29 Fitzmyer, Tobit, 35. 30 There is variation depending on which text tradition one follows. GII: 1:8, 7:13, 14; GI: 6:13, 7:13, though νόμος, with προστάγματα “commandments,” also appears in 14:9 (GI).

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strong awareness of a Judean experience of exile and (hoped for) restoration (Tob 1:4; 13:15–17), even despite the Northern (Naphtalite) and Neo-Assyrian setting. Yet what links Tobit most closely to “Torah” are the very contours of the narrative itself and the themes promoted therein. This is particularly so for the ancestral narratives in Genesis. One scholar has recently quipped: “the story radiates the atmosphere of patriarchal traditions.”31 As Irene Nowell has argued, the characters in Tobit, particularly the father-figures Tobit and Raguel, are “modeled on the patriarchs, especially Abraham.”32 The same could be said of the female characters, Anna and Sarah, and the matriarchs. The character correspondences are evident in the situational and thematic circumstances of the narratives. Like the ancestral stories of Genesis, the book of Tobit may be read as a family drama, centered around an aging parent and his wife and child, where there is need for travel to secure a marriage within the family, further complications arise from trying to secure said marriage, and all the while there is a lingering presence of an angel as well as an external threat by way of foreign rulers. All these features echo the various pericopes in the patriarchal cycle of Genesis 12–50, such that one may regard the Pentateuchal traditions as “the primary templates or analogues for Tobit.”33 With respect to “Wisdom,” Tobit likewise appears to draw on texts identified with this scholarly category, especially Proverbs, Ben Sira, and Job. Tobit’s dependence can be described in terms of both direct allusion as well as literary modeling. On a formal level, three lengthy speeches – two by Tobit (4:3–21; 14:2–11a) and one by Raphael (12:2–16) – have a distinctly exhortatory character, where an authority figure relates a set of maxims and advice to a subordinate. In Tobit’s case it is to his son Tobias, while the angel Raphael offers exhortations to both Tobit and Tobias. Within the speeches themselves, there are a variety of stylistic and formal utterances that are at least reminiscent of the proverbial instruction literature typified by the book of Proverbs and Ben Sira, if not some direct parallels – such as Tob 4:10 and Prov 10:2 (“righteousness delivers from death”).34 The themes addressed in these sayings, but also throughout Tobit, bear a strong resemblance with “wisdom” discourses. Daniel Machiela, for example, in an essay on the wisdom motifs in Aramaic texts from Qumran, points to similarities between Tobit and other wisdom passages, drawing special attention to the familiar motif of the two “ways” (ὁδός/

31 Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 29. 32 Irene Nowell, “The Book of Tobit: An Ancestral Story,” in Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit, ed. Jeremy Corley and Vincent Skemp, CBQMS 38 (Washington DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2005), 3–13, at 4. Figures from Genesis 1–11 are also referenced, including Noah (4:12) and Adam and Eve (8:6). Nowell offers a lengthy analysis on Tobit’s use of Genesis. 33 Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 29. 34 For further examples, see Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 33. See also Fitzmyer, Tobit, 36.

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‫ )דרך‬evident in Tobit (e.g., 1:3, 4:5).35 Further, the overall narrative that concerns the trials of Tobit as a “righteous sufferer” has been likened to the book of Job.36 How, then, do both “Torah” and “wisdom” interact or intersect in Tobit? Whether one thinks in terms of “text” and intertextuality or in terms of “discourse,” there is good reason to argue that in Tobit we have a confluence of Wisdom and Torah. Moreover, this confluence is coincident. That is, the same episodes and aspects which invoke the one at the same time invoke the other: the most “Torah-esque” aspects of Tobit – e.g., allusions to Torah figures, the “law of Moses,” and specific normative practices that “originate” in the Deuteronomic text – overlap with the most “wisdom-esque” features – e.g., the instructional setting, the form of “instructional exhortation,” and the engagement with the “wisdom tradition” especially Proverbs and Job. As a result, wisdom and Torah are intertwined and difficult to disentangle. A specific example of this overlap comes in the very first lines. In Tobit’s opening narratorial monologue (1:3–22), the protagonist sets the scene by recounting his many “acts of charity” (1:3; ), most of which involved his offering of various foodstuffs in the context of proper sacrifices during festivals at the Temple (1:6– 7a), with tithes directed toward priests, Levites, or generally in Jerusalem (1:7b). He continues noting a “third tithe” he would give for widows, orphans, and “converts” (προσηλύτοις; 1:8). Tobit adds that in so doing he would share a meal with these marginalized groups (cf. 2:2). He specifies that they “would eat it according to the ordinance decreed concerning it in the law of Moses and according to the instructions of Deborah,” his paternal grandmother.37 Deborah’s role here hardly gets commented upon by interpreters beyond a discussion of her exact relation to Tobit.38 However, here it seems there is a complementary parallel between the “law of Moses” and the “instructing” of one’s grandmother. A mundane reading might simply see this as indicating that in order to follow proper eating procedures one

35 Daniel Machiela, “‘Wisdom Motifs’ in the Compositional Strategy of the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20) and Other Aramaic Texts from Qumran,” in HA’ISH MOSHE: Studies in Scriptural Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Moshe J. Bernstein, ed. Binyamin Goldstein, Michael Segal, and George J. Brooke, STDJ 122 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 223–47, at 235. 36 See, e.g., Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 32. For a thorough bibliography on Tobit and Job’s intertextuality, although in the context of an argument lessening the strict interdependence, see JiSeong James Kwon, “Meaning and Context in Job and Tobit,” JSOT 43 (2019): 627–43. 37 GII: ἐν τῷ νόμῳ Μωσῆ καὶ κατὰ τὰς ἐντολάς ἃς ἐνετείλατο Δεββωρα; GI lacks reference to “the law of Moses,” only mentioning instruction from his grandmother Deborah, with similar phrasing καθὼς ἐνετείλατο Δεββωρα. 38 Some interpreters understand Deborah to be Tobit’s great-grandmother since she is named (in GII) as the mother of one Tobiel, while Tobit’s father was previously called Hananiel (1:1); see, Fitzmyer, Tobit, 111.

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must, pragmatically speaking, be shown how to do so. Yet, one could also surmise that the “instructions” of the parental figure have a prominent place in Tobit given the several “instructions” (Tob 5:1; 14:3, 8) Tobit gives Tobias. Karin Schöpflin, for example, has suggested that “Deborah is mentioned as a female prefiguration and counterpart of Tobit as a wisdom teacher.”39 Further, as at least some scholars have noted, even in passing, the “detail of a woman instructing a young man in Jewish practice . . . may evoke other female instructors such as Lady Wisdom (Prov 1:20–33) or even one’s own mother (Prov 31:8).”40 Indeed, one may understand this doubled notice as an indication of the collusion of “Torah,” as a symbolic source for Jewish ethical practice, with “wisdom” as the social-familial domain within which the ethical practice is conditioned and transmitted. Thus, it is tempting to frame the situation in such a way to describe this verse as the confluence, i.e., the bringing together, of two traditions: Torah and Wisdom. The former is the “content” – divine and revealed – while the latter is the means of conveyance, instruction, and performance thereof.

4.2 Family and Charity as Tobit’s Foundational Ethic Narratologically speaking, proper burial and endogamy are the twin moral impetuses which propel the overlapping plot sequences. The external narrative of Tobit’s turmoil is enacted by his decision to properly bury his kinspeople, even against the threats of the foreign king. The internal drama of Tobias and Sarah is more complex, but nevertheless their mutual plot tensions center around marriage within the kinship group. Tobias’s departure from his home is ostensibly to retrieve money, but the concern for retrieving the money from Gabael quite literally exits center stage as he hands off this duty to Raphael, who promptly and without trouble accomplishes the task. This is in stark contrast to the extended focus and tension related to the drama of marriage to Sarah. Like his father, Tobias is directly confronted with the threat of death if he chooses to remain committed to his familial duty of endogamy. Of note, this mirrored plot point may subtly link the demon Asmodeus with the Assyrian king Esarhaddon. In any case, the three main characters’ commitments to proper burial rites and endogamy, respectively, are what create and, ultimately, resolve the tension.

39 Karin Schöpflin, “Women’s Roles in the Narrative and Theology of the Book of Tobit,” in Religion and Female Body in Ancient Judaism and its Environments, ed. Géza G. Xeravits, DCLS 28 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 173–85, at 174; cf. Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 63. 40 Jacobs, Delicious Prose, 42; cf. Fitzmyer, Tobit, 112 who passingly refers to Prov 31:1.

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Proper burial and endogamy are correlated beyond the plot structure through their association to the broader ethical and ideological posturing of the work, namely “acting charitably” as a fulfilment of a familial obligation. The two ethical ideals cannot be easily separated, much like the overlapping plot’s of Tobit’s and Sarah’s dilemmas. Demonstrating loyal behavior to family, whether through proper burial or endogamous union, is qualified as an act of “charity” (ἐλεημοσύνη). Thus, they are the twin foundational ethics upon which the narrative rests.

4.3 Familial Loyalty Family is paramount in the book of Tobit. There is a clear concern for not only establishing who belongs (and thus who does not belong) but also for promoting mutual support within the kinship group. Nearly every character, aside from the foreign kings and the demon, is expressly identified as related to Tobit. Several passages emphasize the “tribe” (φυλή),41 “nation” (ἐθνή),42 “people (group)” (γένος),43 and, most especially, “relative(s)” (ἀδελφός) of Tobit.44 The family of Tobit is broadly conceived, being identified with “all Israel” (1:6). The family-centeredness of Tobit is reinforced by several specific themes that point to engagement with “Torah” or a “Torah” discourse inasmuch as it is refracted through the lens of a Hellenistic, diaspora Jewish experience and its attendant (literary) means of expressing Jewish identity. A key example of a Torah-inspired literary feature that has been reimagined for a Second Temple audience is the issue of proper burial. Attention to proper burial can rightly be seen as Tobit’s self-proclaimed connection to the patriarchal narratives and, at the same time, functions to highlight the ethic of familial loyalty. Thus, Tobit’s commitment to proper burial makes him like the patriarchs. It echoes, for example, the final chapters of Genesis, where Jacob, in a testamentary fashion, makes repeated mention of the importance of burial in the land of Canaan: he exhorts Joseph to bury him “with my ancestors” (Gen 47:29–31);45 he makes explicit

41 Tob 1:1, 4, 5; 4:12; 5:9, 11, 12, 14. 42 Tob 1:3, 10; 3:4; 4:19; 13:3, 5, 8, 13; 14:6. 43 Tob 1:10, 17; 2:3; 5:12; 6:12, 16. 44 Tob 1:3, 10, 14, 16, 21; 2:2; 3:15; 4:12, 13; 5:6, 11, 12, 13, 14; 6:7, 11, 14, 16; 7:3, 4, 9, 12; 9:2; 10:13; 11:2, 18 (GII: Ἰουδαῖοι); 14:4, 7. 45 Note also that Jacob frames this exhortation for proper burial as an expression of his son behaving “loyally and truthfully” (‫ )חסד ואמת‬with him; this is partially echoed in Tobit where the protagonist claims to “walk in the ways of truth and righteousness” (Tob 1:3), a claim that is later exemplified by, among other things, attending to the proper burial of his kinspeople (1:16–20).

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that Joseph’s mother, Rachel, was buried in Canaan (48:7); he again exhorts Joseph to bury him “with my ancestors,” this time specifying not only the place in Canaan (“the cave in the field of Ephron the Hittite”) but also that the other patriarchs and matriarchs are buried there (49:29–32); finally, Jacob speaks indirectly and posthumously through the mouth of Joseph who repeats his father’s wishes to be buried in Canaan as he requests permission from Pharaoh to bury his father (50:4–14). Endogamy is the most prominent issue related to family in Tobit and, beyond being just a simple plot device, directly links Tobit’s narrative with that of the patriarchs as well as an exemplar of the ethic of familial loyalty. Both Jacob and Tobias leave the home and go to a distant relative to find a wife after receiving commands from their fathers to marry within the family. Notably, they each also have a doubled-reason for the journey: Tobias for the money, Jacob to flee his brother Esau (Gen 27:43–45). Tobit grounds his appeal for endogamy in an interesting manner. He begins with the “traditional” argument that marriage outside of the fold is tantamount to fornication (4:12a) – this may be seen as a subtle gesture to the expansive trope of Israelites from the Torah (and beyond) whose sexual exploits outside the confines of Israelite identity was problematic in that it led to, or was concurrent with, idolatry (e.g., Num 25). But here in Tobit the issue of idolatry via fornication quickly takes a back seat. Tobias is told to “remember . . . our ancestors of old” (μνήσθητι . . . οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰῶνος; 4:12c), who also married within the family. After linking their endogamous unions to the promise of land and prosperity, Tobit continues by justifying and extoling endogamy as an act that fulfills the expectation of reciprocity among kindred. Marrying one’s kinsperson may be understood as good Torah observance (cf. Gen 28:1), but it is also explicitly described as a performative act of kinship obligations. To marry one’s “kindred” (ἀδελφούς) is to show them “love” (ἀγαπάω); to refuse would be “to behave arrogantly” (ὑπερηφανεύω; 4:13a) both with respect to oneself but also in a more combative manner “against one’s kindred” (ἀπὸ τῶν ἀδελφῶν).46 Oddly, Tobit adds that refusing to marry one’s kin is tantamount to idleness (ἀχρειότης; 4:13c), yet the blending of issues is driven home by the subsequent familial metaphor – “idleness is the mother of famine” – a pun which is not lost on the reader. In short, the pseudo-testament of Tobit in ch. 4 makes it abundantly clear that what’s at stake for Tobias vis-à-vis the endogamous directive is more than simple obedience to a “dying” father.47 The protagonist’s

46 Much of the language here (4:13) is echoed later in ch. 6 when Raphael tells Tobias to “remember” (μιμνήσκομαι; 6:16) his father’s command to marry within the family, which is followed by Tobit “loving” (GI φιλέω/ GII ἀγαπάω) his “kinswoman” Sarah. 47 I refer to the parenetic section in Tobit 4 as the “false” testament given that Tobit recovers and, later, offers a second “real” death-bed instruction in ch. 14.

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efforts to get his son to marry “one of their own” are, in a sense, subsumed under a broader rubric of both ethical and familial expectation. In cautioning against the πορνεία and hubris of intermarriage, Tobit legitimizes his appeal for endogamy by telling Tobias to “remember, my son, that Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our ancestors of old, all took wives from among their kindred” (4:12). In so doing, according to Tobit, they all prospered, having many children. In other words, Tobit tells his son that if he acts like the famed patriarchs, then he too will prosper. What stands out, though, is the precise list of patriarchs. Tobit lumps Noah in with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but leaves out Joseph. Why include Noah? Not only is Noah “pre”-Jewish, in a sense, given that he is basically the progenitor of all humans (cf. Gen 9:9), but also nowhere in Genesis does it explicitly state who Noah’s wife was. She is not named, nor is it made clear that she is “from the family” – because, again, in some respects there was no family yet. Of course, scholars have recognized this issue for years, and most point to Jubilees 4:33 as evidence of a tradition that clearly identifies Noah’s wife as “the son of his father’s brother.” Even if an explicit reference to Jubilees is not being made, importantly, the inclusion of Noah is indicative of a “Torah” discourse that extends beyond the confines of any explicit textual reference. Further, in its effort to promote a type of Jewish social identity that restricts marriage to within the kinship group, Tobit unsurprisingly leaves out reference to Joseph, who famously married the foreigner Aseneth. A reader is inclined to see this as an intentional oversight, signaling an apprehension for a “foreigner” being brought into the family. In short, Tobit’s treatment of endogamy accomplishes several things simultaneously: (1) it reveals a certain “Torah” discourse within the narrative; (2) it rhetorically links, and thus legitimizes, Tobit and his family with the patriarchs; and (3) it reinforces the ethical aims of the book related to familial loyalty and charitable behavior.

4.4 Charity The attention to familial concerns, and expectations extends well beyond the oftnoted theme of endogamy.48 All of the actions taken by Tobit, including the initial commitment to proper burial and those further promoted by him to Tobias, are subsumed under the broader umbrella of the text’s primary ethic: to act charitably. This is illustrated throughout the narrative in its frequent attention to “acting

48 See Devorah Dimant, “The Family of Tobit,” in From Enoch to Tobit: Collected Studies in Ancient Jewish Literature, FAT 114 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 223–28, esp. 223.

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charitably” (n. ἐλεημοσύνη; v. ἐλεέω; a. ἔλεος).49 Yet, the ethical directive to act charitably, while seemingly a universal “wisdom” ideal, takes on a specific, familial dimension in Tobit. Performing acts of charity are an expression of kinship obligation. Some interpreters have already noted this. Kottsieper, for example, has argued that for the author of Tobit “truth” and “righteousness” should not be understood as “common ethical values, but as the base (sic) on which solidarity between Jews is grounded.”50 Tobit’s initial righteousness is established by his self-claim of having done many “acts of charity for my kindred and my people/tribe” (1:3, 16), a claim made explicitly in reference to giving alms and the key issue of proper burial (1:17). Later, when Tobit is called out for questioning Anna’s integrity, his wife asks: “Where are your acts of charity?” (2:14). The expectation behind this rhetorical questions is what matters: she expects his “charitable” demeanor and, as we were explicitly informed earlier (1:9) Anna is “a member of (Tobit’s) own family.” Thus, narratively, there is an expectation on Anna’s part that Tobit should be “charitable” to her, i.e., to his family member.51 The concepts of “charity” or “charitableness” are also attributes of God. In Tobit’s prayer to God, he praises the deity, exclaiming: “all your ways are mercy (ἐλεημοσύνη) and truth” (3:2; cf. Sarah’s similar phrasing in her prayer in 3:11). This may be understood as a general reference to God’s “mercy,” but the lexeme is the same as the “acts of charity” attributed to Tobit and others throughout. Just as God is the truly charitable one, so too should God’s people be so. Of course, this reference is not strictly about familial obligation. However, the context of the prayer is such that the “mercy” or, rather, “acts of charity and truth” appear to be in reference to

49 Note that the term here is often rendered “almsgiving,” including in the NRSV. I find this to be too restrictive of a translation as it does not adequately correspond to the way such a term is used today. The term, for instance, also occurs where “almsgiving” does not really fit well (e.g., 3:2), as even many modern translations recognize. A more general but still semantically meaningful rendering is preferred: “act(s) of charity or beneficence”; thus even when relying on the NRSV I will typically substitute “(acts of) charity” for “almsgiving.” 50 Ingo Kottsieper, “‘Look, son, what Nadab did to Ahikaros . . .’: The Aramaic Ahiqar Tradition and its Relationship to the Book of Tobit,” in The Dynamics of Language and Exegesis at Qumran, ed. Devorah Dimant and Reinhard G. Kratz, FAT II/35 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 145–67, at 145. Kottsieper’s reference to ‫“ אמת‬truth” and ‫“ צדקה‬righteousness” are based on the fragmentary Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran; whereas the Greek versions typically feature the term “(an act of) charity” (ἐλεημοσύνη). 51 There is also a bit of humor in the scene through irony, in that Tobit is accusing Anna of stealing when, in fact, the young goat in question is itself an “act of charity,” with Anna explicitly referring to it as a “gift” (δῶρον; 2:14). Later Tobit himself refers to “acts of charity” as a “good gift” (δῶρον . . . ἀγαθον) in his ethical advice to Tobias (4:11)

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the Lord’s dealings specifically with the Jewish people, and further that Tobit links the Lord’s potential judgment to a broader communal sense of responsibility: “Do not punish me for my sins and for my unwitting offenses and those that my ancestors committed against you.” The prayer proceeds to blur the lines between Tobit’s sense of self and the “they” of his ancestors: “they sinned” (3b); the Lord “gave us” to plunder and “dispersed us” (4); the Lord is punishing “my sins” (5a) but “we have not kept the commandments” (5b). In short, even when the Lord is called upon to be “charitable,” it appears to be specifically in reference to the expected “familial” relationship between God and the Jewish people. In Tobit’s first testamentary speech to Tobias (4:7–11, 14–17), we find what is perhaps the most prominent reflection on “acts of charity” in Tobit.52 After a quick command for Tobias to properly bury him and Anna, Tobit transitions into a series of exhortations that formally resemble wisdom instructions. In this litany, Tobit highlights the command to “act charitably,” especially to the poor (4:6). At first glance, the passage stands out relative to the previous ones given that there does not seem to be an explicit tie to acting charitably with one’s family. Tobit tells his son, “do not turn your face away from anyone who is poor.” Yet it should be noted that the pericope is fronted with a qualifier: “To all those who practice righteousness, act charitably . . .” (4:6–7a). This qualification is again picked up at the second mention about “charitable acts” (4:14–17), where the specification of to whom one may demonstrate charity is made more explicit: “place your bread on the grave of the righteous, but give none to sinners.” To be sure, the tone suggests a more egalitarian approach to charity – and the division between “righteous” and “sinner” need not be read as code for “Jew” and “Gentile” – yet it may not be insignificant that the two subsections on acting charitably (4:6–11 and 4:14–17), with the repetition of “righteousness/righteous” forming a bracket as it were for the entire speech, are sandwiching an internal passage centered chiefly on endogamy and familial relations. Structurally, then, “charitable acts” and marrying “within the family” are linked. Specific references to “acting charitably” do not figure in the internal narrative of Tobias’s journey and Sarah’s demonic marriage woes, but as noted above this part of the story can be understood as the expositional playing out of the ethical directives that precede and follow this section. The ethical language of Tobit’s speech before Tobias’s departure is immediately picked up again after the conclusion to the internal plot. Importantly, the exhortation to act charitably is repeated

52 It should be noted that much of this passage is not fully extant in the Sinaiticus (GII) version of Tobit, but there is strong indication that it is ancient; see discussion in Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 14–16, 24–25.

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first by the angel Raphael in his revelation speech to Tobit and Tobias (12:8–9). The divine messenger emphasizes that acting charitably and with righteousness are more desirable qualities than either piety (e.g., prayer and fasting) or security (e.g., having wealth). Notably, Raphael here, as earlier (6:16), echoes Tobit’s wise instructions to Tobias, with some alterations. In any case, the primary ethical directive is that one should “act charitably.” Indeed the angel goes so far as to make explicit that the acting charitably has the ability to save one from death, particularly as it has the function of “purging away every sin” (12:9). The mention of sin and forgiveness in the context of both prayer and fasting points both backward to Tobit’s earlier prayer in 3:1–4 and forward to the one in ch. 13. Both prayers feature the protagonist’s appeals to the “mercy” or “charitable behavior” of God, and both prayers preface a subsequent ethical instruction that elaborates on how “charitable behavior” might alleviate the judgment of sin. Raphael’s speech also forms an interpretive link between the two lengthy testaments of Tobit in chs. 4 and 14. The protagonist’s wisdom instructions share several similarities. Notable for this study is the reference to “darkness” in 4:10: “For acting charitably delivers from death and prevents you from entering into darkness.” The saving power of acting charitably is echoed in Raphael’s speech (12:9) but even more explicitly in Tobit’s final testament. Reference to darkness, particularly as a metaphor for death, only occurs on one other occasion in Tobit: in the epitome of Ahiqar’s story in 14. Unlike the hypothetical charitable “son/student” in 4:10 (and 12:8–9), Nadan “went into darkness” because he very clearly did not act charitably toward his elder family; while Ahiqar, though suffering a “false” death like Tobit, “entered into the light” and was saved from death because he “acted charitably” (14:10). Ahiqar’s charitable behavior, which proved to be his salvation, was done on behalf of family (cf. 1:22, 2:10; see discussion below). In short, for Tobit, acting charitably is the key ethical directive. But even more so, this exhortation to act charitably is generally conditioned as an act that reflects one’s obligatory loyalty toward and support of fellow Jewish people.

4.5 Summary: Tobit’s “Wisdom” and “Torah”-Faithfulness The combination of several literary styles, character references, and themes in Tobit indicates engagement with “Torah” and “wisdom.” The overall contours of the narrative, the plot points, the characters involved and their relationships, and the pietistic interludes are all reminiscent of the patriarchal narratives in Genesis. Some of the same narrative aspects could also be ascribed to the wisdom tradition, but nevertheless the three instructional speeches (two by Tobit and one by Raphael) and the specific proverbial forms and topics therein evoke the tradition

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of Proverbs and Ben Sira. Similarly, Tobit’s avowed righteousness and subsequent unjust suffering echo the plight of Job on several levels. To separate “Torah” and “wisdom” as distinct threads interwoven in Tobit may be a helpful heuristic tool for redescription of the text, as the above discussions have illustrated. However, what may also be clear from the analyses above is that such a division is not altogether simple. The discourses of “Torah” and “wisdom” are coincident and, thus, for Tobit’s implied audience – and perhaps also for a scholarly one – there is hardly any space in between. Put simply, in Tobit’s terms, being “Torah”-like is equivalent to being “wisdom”-like. This point is abundantly clear in the several “wisdom” speeches (chs. 4, 12, 14) that may likewise be labeled patriarchal testaments. Macatangay, for example, argues that the speech of Raphael (12:6–20; cf. 6:11–18) is particularly important on a narratological and didactic level. For one, in its recall of Tobit’s exhortation in ch. 4 and in its anticipation of the final deathbed instruction in ch. 14, the angelic speech gives an unquestionable authority to the protagonist’s words, adding further: “More importantly, since Tobit’s wisdom teachings supply the pragmatic content by enumerating the practical conduct that constitutes observance of a major Deuteronomic injunction, it grounds acquired wisdom and the construction of personal ethics on revealed law.”53 We should not see it as exceptional, therefore, that precisely in the two “wisdom instructions” (chs. 4 and 14) of Tobit are the only two explicit references to the patriarchs of the “Torah.” In sum, Tobit’s narrative may rightly be said to incorporate both “Torah” and “wisdom” inasmuch as those terms are typically used by scholars. In such a reading, the normative values espoused by the narrative, both in its overall logic and through direct speech, are the abiding concern for familial loyalty and the ethical directive of acting charitably. Yet, it becomes increasingly clear that the two themes cannot simply be ascribed to the discourses of “Torah” and “wisdom,” respectively.

5 Ahiqar and “Ahiqar Discourse” in the Book of Tobit At this point a few things have been established that are important for supporting the re-reading of Ahiqar in Tobit that I offer in this section. First, Tobit’s primary norm is that family matters and acting charitably, especially toward family, is the

53 Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 208.

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abiding ethic. In nearly every scene and for basically every character, there is a familial aspect explicitly remarked upon. The result is that Tobit belies a profound anxiety about who belongs and what expectations come with such belonging. Tobit’s paraenetic impulse is the promotion of charitable behavior, particularly on behalf of one’s Jewish relatives, with an assumption of both theological and social reciprocity: acting charitably is expected and will be, ultimately, rewarded. Further, Tobit makes a number of rhetorical maneuvers to support this agenda, the most prominent of which is through the location of its titular hero directly in the line of tradition that stretches back to ancestral heroes, who are, according to Tobit, the best exemplars of Jewish values. For the presumed Hellenistic audience, the story, in effect, makes an argument that “Tobit” is one of those ancestors, whose charity and familial-loyalty are performed in the context of threat of foreign empire. With this outline in mind, we may question what function Ahiqar plays in this context. When evaluating “Ahiqar” in the Book of Tobit, there are a few aspects to consider. First are the four explicit mentions of Ahiqar: 1:21–22; 2:10; 11:18; 14:10–11a. In three of these episodes Ahiqar is an actual character present within the narrative, while the fourth and final reference imagines Ahiqar at a distance. Secondly, as several scholars have noted over the years, the broader structure and even specific formal aspects of Tobit can be understood as echoing, if not directly influenced by, the Book of Ahiqar. Lastly, the reference to Ahiqar is generally seen as more than a casual connection. The story of Ahiqar, which is epitomized and interpreted in Tobit 14:10, appears to have a direct bearing on the thematic concerns of Tobit. In other words, Ahiqar’s story affects, in some way, the message and purpose of the Book of Tobit.

5.1 “Ahiqar” in Tobit 5.1.1 Tobit 1:21–22 Ahiqar appears for the first time in the opening chapter of Tobit, during the first-person narrator’s lengthy “autobiographical retrospective.”54 Here Ahiqar is introduced as a high official in the court of Sennacherib and his successor Esarhaddon. Ahiqar is further identified as a direct and close relative to Tobit, specifically “the son of [Tobit’s] brother Han(na)ael.”55 54 Schöpflin, “Women’s Roles,” 174. 55 “Brother” (ἀδέλφος) here, probably rendering the Aramaic ‫ אח‬is regularly used, both in Tobit and more broadly, as the generic term for “kinsman.” In 1:22 the familial connection is again noted, but this time using the term ἐξάδελφος which translators typically render as “nephew,” but could

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Ahiqar’s prominent service spanning the two Neo-Assyrian kings matches the situation in the 5th c. BCE Aramaic version.56 The attention to the transfer of power between kings is also significant for the immediate literary context. Tobit makes it clear that his service (“acts of charity” 1:16), specifically the burial of his kindred, spans the reigns of the various Neo-Assyrian kings, from Shalmaneser to Esarhaddon, the latter’s reign being the narrative “present” during which the remainder of the plot takes place.57 Thus, in a nearly exact parallel to Ahiqar’s tale, the initial setting of Tobit, including important backstory for the plot, takes place during a previous ruler and the transition to the “present” of the story is signaled, in part, by the transition from one king to the next and the attendant (renewed) threat that comes with it. Significantly, Ahiqar is not just part of the narrative’s contextual trappings. There is already a complete drama in Tobit’s introduction, and Ahiqar plays an integral part in its resolution. Tobit’s opening prologue tells a brief story that both sets the stage and foreshadows the plot of the main narrative. Tobit has been in hiding for drawing the ire of King Sennacherib. This came about because of Tobit’s “many acts of charity” (1:16), primarily his secretive burials of kinspeople who were executed by the king. Enter Ahiqar, who is doubly introduced as having a prominent position under Sennacherib and then later, with some alteration, a similarly powerful position under Esarhaddon.58 Thus, the kinsman of Tobit is well poised to

be understood as a cousin/relative; cf. Tob 11:18 where the term is used in the plural to refer to both Ahiqar and Nadan together in relation to Tobit (GII). 56 The same is the case for many of the much later medieval versions, although it is common for these witnesses to have the order of the kings reversed. 57 Shalmaneser (1:16) probably refers to Shalmaneser V, who is here erroneously called the father of Sennacherib (1:15), though not a completely egregious historical inaccuracy since Shalmaneser (r. 727–721) did indeed precede Sennacherib’s reign (r. 705–682); Sargon II (r. 721–705) is the missing link and who was actually the father of Sennacherib. 58 The “double” introduction of Ahiqar in Tob 1:21b (“he was appointed . . . over the accounts of [Sennacherib’s] kingdom and he had authority over the entire administration) and then again in 1:22b (“Now Ahiqar was chief cupbearer, keeper of the signet, and in charge of administration and accounts under Sennacherib of Assyria; so Esarhaddon reappointed him”) has previously been cited by scholars as indication of a redactional layering; see, e.g., Kottsieper, “Look Nadab,” 150. However, this is not necessary; as indicated above, the double-introduction fits with the narrative’s attention to the double-appointment of Ahiqar from one king to the next. Some have also highlighted the potential chiastic structure of this Ahiqar pericope: (a) Ahiqar’s relation to Tobit “son of my brother”; (b) Ahiqar’s position at Sennacherib’s court over “administration/accounts”; (c) “Ahiqar interceded for me [Tobit] and I returned to Nineveh”; (b✶) Ahiqar’s position at Sennacherib’s and Esarhaddon’s court over “administration/accounts”; (a✶) Ahiqar’s relation to Tobit as “nephew.” See Devorah Dimant, “Tobit and Ahiqar,” in Wisdom Poured out Like Water: Studies on Jewish and

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“intercede” on his behalf (1:22). Narratologically, Ahiqar’s introduction at this point is to resolve the tension of the narrative past so that the “present” story can begin at a state of equilibrium (Tob 2:1).

5.1.2 Tobit 2:10 Ahiqar returns to assist his kinsman Tobit who again finds himself in dire circumstances that came as a result of his repeated “acts of charity,” i.e., the burial of a murdered kinsman. In this scenario, however, Tobit’s suffering comes not as a result of an execution order but through a potentially comedic scene of bird droppings having fallen into the eyes of the protagonist. Ahiqar gets a brief, but important, mention. While “all” of Tobit’s kindred were sympathetic, only Ahiqar explicitly “supported” (ἔτρεφεν) Tobit. Notably this verb only occurs on one other occasion in Tobit: in 14:10 where Tobit tells Tobias how Ahiqar had “supported” Nadan.59 This suggests not only a familial relation, but also a potentially hierarchical one. Ahiqar, as “supporter,” occupies the role of caregiver and thus authority over Tobit/Nadan. Regardless, this is yet another occasion where Ahiqar alleviates, at least partly, the difficult circumstances within which Tobit finds himself. Tobit also includes a small notation: “Ahiqar took care of me two years before he went to Elymais.”60

5.1.3 Tobit 11:18 After mention of “rejoicing among all the Jews who were in Nineveh,” the narrator adds a comment that “Ahiqar and his nephew Nadan were also present to share Tobit’s joy.” This notice comes almost as an afterthought to the description of the public celebrations of Tobit’s rehabilitation and the wedding feast of Tobias and Sarah. Here, not only is Ahiqar mentioned but, for the first time, we hear of

Christian Antiquity in Honor of Gabriele Boccaccini, ed. J. Harold Ellens et al., DCLS 38 (De Gruyter: Berlin, 2018), 276–91, at 286–87; Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 12 n. 21. 59 GI τῷ θρέψαντι αὐτόν; GII τῷ ἐκθρέψαντι αὐτόν. 60 It is not entirely clear why Ahiqar is going to Elymais (= Elam). Perhaps there is some connection in an alternate version of Ahiqar’s tale and thus the audience would understand the reference, but this is uncertain. Some have suggested that this signals when Ahiqar “retired” from court or even went into hiding, since his point of departure from Tobit would be away from the Assyrian capital (in this story’s imagination) of Nineveh. However, the presence of Nadan at the wedding feast in 11:18 suggests this is not the case.

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Nadan,61 his “nephew.”62 That Nadan is present at a time of joy and celebration would suggest that this takes place after Ahiqar has adopted Nadan but before the latter has betrayed him, thus in the middle of Ahiqar’s story.63 Perhaps this was during the period of Nadan’s training. Given the reference to Nadan’s “destruction” in 14:10 (see below), it seems, at the very least, unlikely that Tobias’s wedding took place some time after the ordeal of Nadan’s betrayal. Indeed, the mention of Nadan in the context of Tobias’s celebration and restoration seems a bit off-putting given what the reader is presumed to know about the disobedient nephew, although perhaps this is done to heighten the fact that the two are complete opposites in terms of their fulfillment of familial loyalty and charitable behavior and to foreshadow, by way of dramatic contrast, the opposing fates of the two “sons” of the righteous heroes. Either way, the reference to Ahiqar at this point, while also seemingly unnecessary, could actually have some structural purpose in signifying the resolution to Tobit’s suffering and thus forming an inclusio around the drama that began at the same time as the previous mention of Ahiqar in 2:10.64

5.1.4 Tobit 14:10 The final mention of Ahiqar by name is the most extensive and, from the perspective of Ahiqar studies, the most significant. Yet its position within the book of Tobit itself also hints at Ahiqar’s overall importance for the meaning of Tobit itself. The final chapter of Tobit, largely comprises the death-bed speech or testament of the titular character to his son Tobias. Many of the elements in this speech echo details throughout the story, but the most prominent are the connections to the earlier pseudo-testament of ch. 4. After “predicting” the destruction and exile of both the

61 I refer to this figure as “Nadan” throughout for sake of consistency and in reference to the Aramaic version. In the Greek mss. he is variously named Ναδαβ, Νασβας, Ναβαδ, and Ἀμαν. 62 The Greek term here is ἐξάδελφος, thus Nadan’s relationship to Ahiqar is described is similar terms as Ahiqar’s to Tobit’s in 2:22. GII, interestingly, differs from most other manuscripts and simply refers to both Ahiqar and Nadan as ἐξάδελφοι of Tobit, thus either implying Ahiqar and Nadan were both nephews of Tobit (without noting anything about their relationship to each other) or we may alternatively see the Greek term as a generic one for “relative.” 63 Generally every extant version, from ancient to medieval, begins with Ahiqar childless (or, at least, without a son) and only subsequently in the narrative does Ahiqar actually decide to adopt/ train Nadan, who later betrays him. 64 See further comments below on the structural arguments and timing mechanisms related to Ahiqar and the overall plot.

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Northern and Southern kingdoms as well as the restoration of Jerusalem, Tobit offers pointed commands to his son. The exhortations are brief, but they touch on the major themes of the narrative, including charitable acts (v. 8–9) and proper burial of family, in this case of Tobit and Anna themselves (v. 10a; cf. 4:3). Tobit concludes with a final illustration of charity and its opposite, “wickedness and deceit” (ἀδικία, δόλος; v. 10b).65 Tobias is told to “Look!” at what Nadan did to his uncle Ahiqar. The details of what Nadan actually did are never stated, thus it is assumed that Tobias (i.e., representing the implied audience’s perspective) knows the story already. Tobit uses Ahiqar as the exemplar of how “acts of charity” can be redemptive, for it enabled him to emerge “into the light” (εἰς τὸ φῶς). Meanwhile, Nadan represents the consequences of not being charitable and of not following the commandments. As a result, he was the one who ultimately went “into darkness” (εἰς τὸ σκότος).66 The juxtaposition of “charity” bringing salvation and deceit leading one into darkness directly recalls the earlier testament of chapter 4: “For charity delivers from death and keeps you from going into the darkness” (4:10). Further, the description not only offers the contrast of light/dark and charity/wickedness, but the explicit use of the image of “trap” (παγίδα) invokes the familiar wisdom trope of the wicked one who is hoisted by his own petard, as it were. A common phrasing of this is found in Sirach 27:26: “Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and whoever sets a snare (παγίδα) will be caught in it.” In Tobit’s final speech, the implication is that Ahiqar (and Tobit) were restored due to their “acts of charity,” specifically those done on behalf of fellow Jews.

5.2 Ahiqar and Tobit: A Structural & Thematic Intersection Beyond the explicit references to Ahiqar, Tobit demonstrates clear formal and thematic overlaps with the sage’s narrative that can add to the conversation about Ahiqar’s function within the wisdom and Torah discourses in Tobit. Further, even within the Book of Tobit alone, the multiple Ahiqar scenes contribute to the overall structuring of the narrative. Thus, treating “Ahiqar” as a discursive site within Tobit provides a method for interpreting the text.

65 Following GII here. GI lacks some of these details, but does include the important reference to Ahiqar, immediately following the command for Tobias to properly bury his parents. 66 GI lacks the phrase “he (Ahiqar) came out into the light.”

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5.2.1 Narrative Resonances between Ahiqar and Tobit First of all, a broad view of both stories indicates some formal similarities. Like Ahiqar, Tobit is established at the beginning of the narrative as a prominent, righteous figure operating in the Neo-Assyrian court. They both give lengthy exhortative speeches to their child/student. They both suffer unjustly through royal execution orders. Ultimately, both are restored to their place of prominence.67 There are, of course, some important differences. For one, the secondary figures, though paralleled in some ways, are contrasting characters. Ahiqar’s nephew and adoptive son Nadan betrays Ahiqar, spurning his charitable support and wise advice. Meanwhile, Tobias remains loyal to Tobit. In Ahiqar, however, the “student” role may be said to be split among two characters: Nadan and Nabusumiskun. The latter, in direct contrast to the former, does indeed fulfill the expectations of reciprocity. Tobit, too, has a complicated layer that is not matched in Ahiqar, particularly the addition of his wife Anna, the prominence of Sarah, and, notably, the angelic figure of Raphal (Azariah). Still, the basic contours and themes of the stories bear enough resemblance such that a comparative reading can be fruitful. For both characters, their ultimate fate depends, in large part, on a child acting charitably toward them. In Tobit both Ahiqar and Tobit descend “into darkness.” Ahiqar’s brush with death is recounted in 14:10 where he is said to have gown down “into darkness,” but later came back “into the light.” This is contrasted with Nadan who went “into the darkness.” Similarly, Tobit describes his blindness as one who lies “in darkness like the dead who no longer see the light” (5:10). Both suffer these similar dead-but-not-dead experiences despite being righteous. Ultimately, it was an act of charity that accounts for their deliverance: Ahiqar’s previous support of Nabusumiskun anticipates the would-be executioner’s support of the sage. Tobit makes this reciprocal relationship explicit, telling Tobias that “because Ahiqar acted charitably, he escaped the fatal trap” (14:10). Likewise, Raphael tells Tobit and Tobias that “acting charitably saves from death” and that Tobit was healed because he buried the dead (12:9, 13–14), an action previously given as an example of “acting charitably” (1:16–17). Further, on a thematic level, like Ahiqar, Tobit’s narrative attends to the anxiety of life’s vicissitudes, particularly those that come with living under a foreign empire. This uncertainty, in the literary imagination at least, becomes acutely felt 67 Another structural similarity between Tobit and Ahiqar is the shift from third to first-person perspective in the stories’ respective prefaces. The result is that both Tobit and Ahiqar tell their own story and, moreover, when the characters themselves give focalized speeches (i.e., to the “you”) the implied reader is inclined to take on the role of the student of the sage, whether Tobias or Nadan/Nabusumiskun.

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during times of transition. Tobit’s first reference to Ahiqar, with its explicit attention to Ahiqar’s double-appointment under Sennacherib and then again under Esarhaddon, draws attention to the tenuousness of one’s status, even at the heights of power. Yet, Tobit’s mini-drama also hints at the insecurity of one’s status during such transitions. On a more specifically structural level, the opening autobiographical prologue in Tobit (1:3–22) mirrors, and thus foreshadows, the overall plot in the rest of the book, at least from the perspective of Tobit. This pattern has some similarities to Ahiqar’s narrative which also includes an inserted “past narrative” that prefigures the main narrative. However, in Ahiqar, the telling of this past narrative – i.e., Nabusumiskun’s salvation from an unjust execution by Ahiqar – features in the middle of the story, rather than at the beginning as in Tobit. Still, the conceptual and structural overlaps are telling: Ahiqar performed an act of charity to Nabusumiskun (Book of Ahiqar, internal story) a) When the latter had been sentenced to death unjustly (from the narrator’s point of view); b) The act of charity was twofold: to “support” (implied shelter and food) and to eventually intercede on Nabusumiskun’s behalf with the new king to have him restored; c) The act of charity is described in kinship terms: “to act as a brother/kinsman” (l. 49); d) The story is “retold” within the narrative present to another character, a pupil in order to elicit the proper ethical response. Ahiqar performed an act of charity to Tobit (Book of Tobit, preface) a) When the latter had been sentenced to death unjustly (from the narrator’s point of view); b) The act of charity was twofold: to “intercede” on Tobit’s behalf with the new king to have him restored and later to “support” (implied food) Tobit when he was blind; c) The act of charity is described in kinship terms: Ahiqar’s kinship with Tobit is emphasized, suggesting familial obligation as fulfillment of “acting charitably”; d) The story is “retold” within the narrative present to another character, a pupil to elicit the proper ethical response. The similarities are striking, but what a careful reader may observe is that (d) is not present in Tobit 1, since the preface is not directed toward any character but instead the reader. The ethical evaluation of Ahiqar’s “act of charity” and “support” of Tobit is later completed at the very end of the narrative. In his final testament

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in ch. 14. Tobit tells Tobias the story of Ahiqar’s betrayal by Nadan, his descent and rehabilitation, and Nadan’s punishment. Herein he also alludes directly to Ahiqar’s “act of charity,” which within the confines of Tobit’s narrative, leads one to think not (only) of Ahiqar’s behavior toward Nabusumiskun but also of Ahiqar’s earlier support of Tobit. Notably, this retelling of Ahiqar’s story and its moral implications are Tobit’s final spoken words.68 As is clear, the introduction of Tobit strongly resembles the backstory of the Ahiqar narrative. In his plea for compassion, Ahiqar relates to Nabusumiskun (and the audience) how he had previously saved Nabusumiskun from execution under the previous king Sennacherib by interceding with the king on his behalf. Tobit’s first “telling” of the Ahiqar narrative likewise relates a time in the narrative past where Ahiqar “interceded for me” (Tob 1:22). Notably the expression in the Aramaic fragments of Tobit (4Q196a 2 5) bears some resemblance to the Elephantine text, at least in how it describes the ideal relation among kin. In what is seemingly an internal monologue or perhaps a statement to the king, Ahiqar supposes what the installation of the “son of his sister” would entail: that Nadan “would seek the good [on my behalf] ([‫)הו טבתא יבעה ]עלי‬.” Though the context is fragmentary, the narrative setting indicates that Ahiqar expects his son Nadan to represent his interests (i.e., speak well on his behalf) at court. Of course, the exact opposite turns out to be the case, but the words are revealing in that they indicate what one expects of kin. In direct contrast to Nadan’s obvious disregard of this expectation to “seek the good” on behalf of a family member, Tobit’s Ahiqar has dutifully “interceded on my (= Tobit’s) behalf” (ἠξίωσεν Αχιαχαρος περὶ ἐμοῦ; 1:22)69 or, in the (fragmentary) Aramaic, “Ahiqar sought [. . .] on my behalf” (‫) ובעה אחיקר על]י‬.70 Thus, in a certain way, Tobit draws on the presumably well-established nature of Ahiqar as one who displays charitably loyal behavior to family – i.e., to both Nadan and Nabusumiskun – and transfers this quality to the context of Tobit’s story, where Ahiqar likewise performs such loyal behavior specifically toward a 68 GI makes this explicit: “as he was saying these words, his spirt departed from him”; GII has a slightly different phrasing, adding a final note from Tobit himself “But now my breath comes to an end.” 69 The verb in combination with the preposition can carry the sense of “intercede/make a request on behalf of” (e.g., Plutarch, Philopoemen 17.6.5) or more generally “pay proper heed/attention to” (e.g., Demosthenes, Pro Phormione, 26.3) 70 4Q196 2 6. Given the similarity with the Elephantine Ahiqar text in other locations, it is tempting to suggest ‫“ טב‬good(ness)” as the missing direct object; cf. 4Q196 18 14 (= Tob 14:2) Tobit “lived in goodness (‫ ”)חי בטב‬in his last days (GII: ἔζησεν ἐν ἀγαθοῖς), and 4Q197 4 iii 10–11 [and Raguel said, “May there be] goodness upon [you, my child]” (‫ ;טבא על]ך ברי‬Grk εὐλογία σοι γένοιτο παιδίον). Alternatively, one can read the Aramaic verb, like the Greek ἀξιόω, instranitively (though with a factitive sense) “He made a request on my behalf.”

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well-deserving family member. Indeed, Ahiqar’s support of his kindred Tobit during the latter’s blindness is described in similar terms to his support for his kindred Nadan.71 Likewise, Ahiqar’s support and intercession to a foreign king on behalf of Tobit mirrors the same support and intercession he made for Nabusumiskun, except here in Tobit it is in fulfilment of Tobit’s previous righteousness through his familial loyalty of burying fellow Jews. In short, familial loyalty through acts of charity works on a sort of “pay it forward” system. Much like Ahiqar’s previous demonstration of charity to Nabusumiskun ultimately results in a reciprocal act of support in a time of distress, so too does the narrative and ethical logic of Tobit suggest that it is Tobit’s earlier commitments to charity, specifically directed toward fellow Jews (i.e., proper burial), that result in his support from Ahiqar in a time of distress. This support and restoration are perfected in the initial cycle of the first chapter of Tobit.

5.2.2 Ahiqar’s Structural & Thematic Function within Tobit Aside from the potential external reference and symmetry to the Ahiqar narrative (in whatever form), the specific ways that the Ahiqar passages figure in Tobit affect the plot internally. Both the initial preface-story of Tobit (ch. 1) and the larger meta-narrative (chs. 2–14) begin with establishing Tobit’s piety by means of celebrating the proper festivals: (a) Tobit invites the poor and marginalized to the festival meal as an act of charity (1:5–8; 2:2–3); (b) the invitees are explicitly identified as Tobit’s “kindred” (thus Jewish) and mention is made of their piety (1:16; 2:2); (c) Tobit then buries Jewish individuals who were murdered, and the burial is a crime against the foreign king (1:18; 2:4, 8); (d) mention is made of Tobit “hiding and running away” (1:19; 2:8); (e) Tobit loses a something very precious to him (1:20; 2:10);72 (f) Ahiqar aids Tobit (1:22; 2:10); (g) that which Tobit lost is ultimately restored (1:22; 11:9–18). Ahiqar’s role in both the initial preface and the broader narrative signal how the two stories work together.

71 The Greek term used in 2:10 with respect to Tobit and in 14:10 with respect to Nadan is the same: τρέφω, meaning “to feed” but with the metaphorical extension of “to support (materially/financially).” Notably, this verb only occurs in Tobit in these two instances in connection with Ahiqar’s behavior toward his relatives. Unfortunately the Aramaic mss. do not preserve the corresponding verb in either case. 72 In 1:20 Tobit loses all his property, everything except his wife and son. In 2:10 Tobit loses his sight completely. Also, the initial duration of the loss is signaled in both cases by a number related to “four” (1:21 “forty days”; 2:20 “four years”).

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In the first mini-drama of chapter 1 Ahiqar’s involvement is what directly leads to Tobit’s restoration, yet in the second “main” narrative Ahiqar’s support is not enough. Tobit says that he was blind for “four years” (2:10). Aside from spoiling the plot somewhat, for it seems to imply that he was blind for only four years and thus presumes an afterwards, the narrator then says that Ahiqar’s support was only “two years,” before he left for Elymais. In other words, Ahiqar’s help was only half done; he did not “finish the job,” as it were. Indeed the remainder of the story, and its numerous sub-plots, appears to stretch over these missing two years. This is indicated by the repeated emphasis on things happening “at that/ the same time” (2:11; 3:11, 17), “on the same/that day” (3:7, 10), or “at that very moment” (3:16). To what day/time do all these sub-plot vignettes refer? The initial referent is none other than Ahiqar’s departure to Elymais in 2:10. In other words, the sequence and impending resolution of both plots – that of the preface and the main narrative – depend on Ahiqar’s actions. Intuitively, we may surmise that Ahiqar’s support sustained Tobit for two years, then on the same day that Ahiqar departed, Raphael was sent to take over (3:17). In this way, Tobit’s narrative artistry may actually mimic that of Ahiqar’s. As noted above, the role of Nadan as subordinate family member who is expected to demonstrate kinship loyalty is incomplete. He instead betrays Ahiqar. Once he betrays his father/uncle, he no longer is “son/family”; instead, this role is overtaken by Nabusumiskun, whom Ahiqar notably names “one like a brother” (Ahiqar 49). Within Tobit’s narrative world alone, though, Ahiqar plays an important role. His reappearance at the wedding feast (11:18) recalls his previous role and thus marks, at least structurally, the resolution to the internal drama. Later, his reappearance in Tobit’s death-bed speech in ch. 14 likewise recalls the initial prologue, thus forming an external inclusio to the greater narrative. The structural overlaps are reinforced by the familial dynamics that impress upon the plot’s drama. Ahiqar is the nephew (or cousin) of Tobit, thus their relationship is the inverse of Ahiqar and Nadan’s. Within the book of Tobit, therefore, Ahiqar is emblematic both of his own “character” (in Tobit’s preface) and of the narratologically equivalent sub-character Nadan (in Tobit’s main narrative). Ahiqar’s familial standing further aligns him with Tobit himself as well as both Raphael/ Azariah and Tobias. Tobit makes no explicit mention of Ahiqar as “wise instructor,” but its likely that his reputation as such likewise correlates him with Tobit and Raphael, both of whom give “wise speeches.” To link Ahiqar with nearly every character may be overstating matters, but it is worth noting that the book of Tobit explicitly and symbolically links all of these sub-characters by drawing attention to their “relatedness” to the main character. They are all the same relative to the protagonist in the sense that they are all “family” and, ethically speaking, are expected to act accordingly.

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Indeed, on the level of the story’s overall ethic, Ahiqar’s role fits in smoothly. The primary ethic of Tobit is kinship obligations, whether it be in terms of burial obligations, marriage, or reciprocal support. Ahiqar intercedes on behalf of Tobit (1:22) as one expects from a “relative” (1:21). This behavior is mirrored by Ahiqar himself (2:10) and by both Tobias and his “relative” Raphael. Functionally, Ahiqar’s material support (echoing Tobit’s earlier support of the poor) is ethically equivalent to Tobias’s commitment to marry within the family: both directly result in Tobit’s restoration.73 Ahiqar’s intercession, we are reminded in Tobit’s very last words, were an “act of charity” (14:11). This final passage, not coincidentally, also links Ahiqar’s charitable act of support with Tobit’s concern for proper burial (14:10). Functionally, then, Tobit’s acts of proper burial of family in the opening chapters, as well as Tobit’s expectation that Tobias will do the same in his final testament, are the ethical equivalent of Ahiqar’s “acts of charity.” This same ethical equivalency is explicitly extended to the “charitable act” of endogamy that dominates the internal drama of Sarah and Tobias. As noted above, endogamy, according to Tobit, is at once a rejection of fornication and an expression of kinship obligation (4:12–13). To marry within the family is to “act charitably” toward the family; to refuse to do so is to spurn them (4:12–13). Categorically, then, Tobias’s fulfillment of his father’s command to marry within the family by marrying Sarah is the same as Ahiqar’s earlier intercession and support for Tobit and is directly contrasted in Nadan’s treatment of Ahiqar. Finally, there is an important formal distinction between the first three occasions of “Ahiqar” in Tobit and the final one. In the former, Ahiqar appears as an actual character in the story; in the latter he is an external referent, someone whose “meaning” is but one particular construction embedded in a specific communal context or reading moment.74 Ahiqar’s story is “told” within the narrative as an external reference point that has some bearing on the greater narrative. Its position as the final speech of Tobit – in addition to the thematic and ethical links noted already above – recalls the opening “story” that Tobit (as narrator) tells about himself in ch. 1. The two mini-narratives are echoes of each other, even as much as they form an inclusio around the broader main narrative. Lest the reader think Ahiqar got a bad deal in comparison with Tobit by having an ungrateful nephew, Tobit emphasizes how Ahiqar was eventually saved, notably adding: “Because he [= Ahiqar] had done a charitable deed (ποιῆσαι/ἐποίησεν ἐλεημοσύνην), he escaped

73 This structural/ethical parallel is mirrored in the intertwined third sub-plot of Sarah’s (and by extension Raguel’s) marriage-demon predicament. 74 Much of the language here is dependent on Lambert, “Tôrâ as Mode,” 65–66.

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the fatal trap that Nadab had set for him.”75 In all likelihood a reader familiar with Ahiqar’s story would understand this to be an oblique reference to Ahiqar’s dealings with Nabusumiskun. Yet Tobit, in leaving out this explicit connection, allows an interpretive window for reimagining the Ahiqar story within the literary imagination of Tobit’s world. Hence, Ahiqar’s salvific acts of charity were his intercession and support for Tobit in scene one of the Tobit metanarrative; whose resolution or reciprocal “pay off” come to fruition in the final scene of Tobit. This is not a complete revision of Ahiqar but a clever appropriation for the purposes of Tobit’s rhetorical agenda. The acts of “interceding” and “supporting” are exactly the actions that Ahiqar made on behalf of Nabusumiskun and vice versa. Tobit’s integration of Ahiqar into his own narrative, therefore, has appropriated what is “well known” about the character of Ahiqar and thus adds a measure of credibility to his purported role in the “new” story about Tobit. In other words, it is reasonable to imagine that a given audience in the late Second Temple period was familiar with the Ahiqar story and further that “Ahiqar” in Tobit’s story signified a certain set of ideas or qualities, one of which being that Ahiqar helps out and supports his comrades, even under threat from a dangerous and tyrannical king. Perhaps further, Tobit seems to have merged together Ahiqar’s record of charitable behavior into a single descriptor that at once obscures its otherwise (supposed) “non-Jewish” character by the non-mention of Nabusumiskun and emphasizes its familial and ethical alignment with Tobit’s overall message Obligation to act charitably to one’s family – whatever that may specifically entail (e.g., proper burial, endogamy, giving alms, public support) – is the “moral ethos”76 of the book of Tobit and reflects what may be one of the primary means of performing, whether literally or imaginatively, Jewish identity in the diaspora. For the book of Tobit, therefore, Ahiqar stands as the premiere example of just such an imaginative reflection on familial obligation and, importantly, the dire consequences of when one fails to realize those obligations. Much of the above discussion has drawn on previous scholars’ arguments about Tobit’s ethic and themes. However, the aspect of the narrative that has yet to be taken seriously through all of this is the fact that Ahiqar, according to Tobit, is Jewish. How, then, might this identification affect not only the way Ahiqar may have had a significance for Tobit’s imagined audience but also for how scholars conceptualize “Jewish” identity, especially in a discussion of wisdom and Torah? What, we may ask, might the protagonist’s final spoken words being made in refer75 Translation adapted from NRSV. The GI and GII text have slightly different syntaxes here. Note also that some manuscripts (especially in GI tradition) oddly include the name “Manasseh” here instead of Ahiqar. 76 Dimant, “The Family of Tobit,” 227.

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ence to such a character suggest about a narrative that has rightly been described as one utterly concerned with Jewish belonging and the kinship obligations that go with such belonging, as well as an anxiety about maintaining such a firm boundary with those outside the kinship group?

5.3 Ahiqar’s “Jewishness” in Tobit (and Beyond) To be direct: for the audience of Tobit, Ahiqar is Jewish. The importance of stating this is that it stands in contradistinction to how the situation has been regularly framed previously, where Ahiqar is said to become Jewish in Tobit.77 Such a statement makes one of two unstated assumptions, depending on the methodological approach of the interpreter. For those that think in essentialist (and, often, concomitantly positivist-historical) terms, Ahiqar was “in fact” Aramean, and Tobit has literarily “converted” him into a Jewish sage.78 For others, who understand Ahiqar as a literary construction with a broad reception, there lies, at the very least, behind the phrase “becomes Jewish” an assumption that Ahiqar was understood by Tobit and, presumably, Tobit’s audience to be a famous foreign sage whose fame and prestige are being appropriated or “integrated” by the Jewish storyteller, whether to add authority or an aura of prestige to the titular character or otherwise.79 A recent example of this kind of reading is offered by Daniel Machiela in an essay identifying broad trends across Aramaic literature from Qumran. Machiela identifies Tobit’s use of Ahiqar as one of the key examples of the authors of these Aramaic texts being open to adopting “foreign” elements and promoting an accommodationist attitude to foreigners.80 Here, Machiela suggests that “Ahiqar and Nadin are

77 See, e.g., J. R. C. Couslan, “Tobit: A Comedy in Error?” CBQ 65 (2003): 535–53, who says (p. 541) “Ahiqar is made into a Jew”; Fitzmyer, Tobit, 32: “the narrative makes Ahiqar . . . not only an acquaintance of Tobit, but even a Jewish relative.” For an alternate appraisal, see Kottsieper, “Look Nadab,” 151 n. 17, who assumes that Ahiqar must have already been seen as “Jewish/Israelite” by Tobit’s readership, countering both general claims that Ahiqar only “becomes” Jewish in the text of Tobit or even more elaborate arguments that attempt to show how the very narrative of Tobit reveals Ahiqar’s “step-by-step” integration into the Jewish fold (e.g., Michael Weigl, “Die rettende Macht der Barmherzigkeit: Achikar im Buch Tobit,” BZ 50 [2006]: 212–34, esp. 213). 78 Cf. the reference to Fitzmyer in n. 2 above. 79 For a recent survey of scholarship on the function of Ahiqar in the Book of Tobit, see Macatangay, Wisdom Instructions, 10–13. 80 Daniel A. Machiela, “The Compositional Setting and Implied Audience of Some Aramaic Texts from Qumran: A Working Hypothesis,” in Vision, Narrative, and Wisdom in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran: Essays from the Copenhagen Symposium, 14–15 August, 2017, ed. Mette Bundvad and Kasper Siegismund, STDJ 131 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 168–202, at 190–92.

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transformed into Naphtalites in Tobit,” referring to such traditions as a “foreign admixture” that has been “reshape(d)” with the result that they are “domesticated and reascribed to the God Most-High.”81 While Tobit may have been comfortable with drawing on “non-Jewish” traditions,82 this can hardly be the case with Ahiqar, who is explicitly stated to be Tobit’s relative. The narrative takes this as a given, or, at least, cannot reasonably be understood as having the goal of turning Ahiqar into “one of us.” If one were to assume that, for Tobit’s audience, Ahiqar was a well-known “foreign” sage, then this would potentially undercut not only the reliability of the author, but also the prominent attention in Tobit to maintaining strict boundaries between insiders and outsiders.83 One might, however, suggest that the attention to Ahiqar’s familial connection, whether through the double-formula in 1:21–22 or the seemingly unnecessary mention of Ahiqar’s presence “with all the family” at Tobias’s wedding feast (11:8), is overstated and thus actually speaks to the author’s awareness of Ahiqar’s non-Jewishness, thereby representing an effort to overcompensate in “making” Ahiqar Jewish. However, Tobit’s somewhat repeated emphasis

81 Machiela, “Compositional,” 191. 82 See, e.g., Dennis MacDonald’s argument for Greek literature’s influence on Tobit in “Tobit and the Odyssey,” in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity, ed. idem (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2001), 11–40. 83 To be sure, interpreters have pointed to other aspects of Tobit that suggest a more inclusive attitude to foreign elements than the talk of endogamy, inter alia, suggests. In particular, there is the reference to the “whole world . . . being converted” and worshipping God (14:6). Notably, though, even in this seemingly open eschatological vision, Tobit still maintains a distinction between “the nations” and “the Israelites.” While the former may convert and worship the true God, only the latter are able to “be gathered together” in safety in Jerusalem (14:7). Also, it is important to note, by the way, that this is not a direct critique of Machiela’s point that certain elements within Tobit (or other Qumran Aramaic texts) may be traced to non-Jewish contexts. The aim, rather, is to demonstrate that the presence of such elements does not necessitate an accommodationist attitude. While they can play a role in evaluating sources along sociological (i.e., group identity) lines, it is not their observableness that is at issue but rather the way in which the discourse of the text frames Jewish identity and the general attitude, inasmuch as that can be discerned, toward the presumed demarcations between Jewish and non-Jewish. 1 Maccabees is a great example, for even though the text is written in Greek – and thus to some would represent a “foreign” element – the attitudes espoused therein are, ostensibly, far from accommodationist. The insular attitude observable in Tobit may not be as strictly formulated as in 1 Maccabees, but the potential presence of “foreign admixtures” would have little bearing on the perspective adopted by the narrative voice, particularly in the case here of Ahiqar, who is explicitly said to be not foreign. Further, even if one allows that Tobit’s audience “knows” Ahiqar to be foreign, the rhetorical effect of “making Ahiqar Jewish” in the narrative is unlikely to reflect an accommodationist attitude; instead, it is more akin to a revisionist, ethno-centrism that reimagines a famous figure as “actually” one of “ours” and not “yours,” thus functionally reaffirming a division.

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on Ahiqar’s kinship should not be read as an overly-done effort to “make” Ahiqar Jewish, which would presume an audience who was familiar with Ahiqar’s story but assumed he was “other,” or “foreigner,” and then have to take Tobit’s word for it that he was actually “one of their own.” Instead, the emphasis on kinship with Ahiqar can be read alongside the otherwise prominent ethical and thematic thread of kinship that runs throughout the narrative. Thus, there are good structural and stylistic reasons for both of these passages to appear as they are and, moreover, that Ahiqar’s relationship to Tobit is emphasized – if one can call it “emphasis” – is far from exceptional. Every major character in the story has their familial connections established plainly. This is true even for Tobit himself. Like Ahiqar, Tobit also has a doubled explanation of his genealogical chops, but his are even more overly done, with many seemingly superfluous details, including obscure (at least to modern readers) geographical references (1:2) and the somewhat extreme argument that he, and only he, of all the house of Naphtali spurned Jeroboam’s calf and instead came to temple in David’s Jerusalem (1:4–5). A similar concern features in the introduction to the angel Raphael/Azariah, where his genealogical connections are overly questioned (5:4–14). If, in contrast to most readings, we take Ahiqar’s “Jewishness” at face value, how does the specific hailing of the “Ahiqar discourse” in Tobit relate to the other prominent figures, including the patriarchs? In asking such a question, there are interesting points of resonance that arise. For example, Ahiqar is twice referenced in close proximity to Abraham.84 Both Ahiqar and Abraham are known for being concerned with their lack of progeny, with specific attention to their old age (Ahiqar 1, 15; Gen 17:17). Both figures have stories circulating about them where they descend into Egypt with an anticipation of conflict but are ultimately successful in “defeating” Pharaoh and departing Egypt loaded with goods.85 For all the discussion of Tobit as reflecting “traditional” figures of the Jewish past and their prominent concerns (e.g., endogamy), though refracted through a Hellenistic-Jewish lens and its concomitant concerns (e.g., kashrut), it may be surprising that Tobit only once mentions such figures by name (4:12).86 Granted, Tobit

84 The two references to Abraham are in 4:12 and 14:7. The first is slightly distant from the Ahiqar references in chs. 1 and 2, but still in the general prologue (i.e., before the travel narrative begins in ch. 5). The second directly precedes the important Ahiqar reference in 14:10. 85 Genesis 12. The Egyptian episode in Ahiqar is not extant in the Elephantine text, though ubiquitous in the medieval recensions. There are, however, indications that this episode is ancient. 86 Abraham, as noted, is mentioned once again in the idyllic future imagined by Tobit (14:5–7), when “the nations throughout the world will all be converted and worship God” and that “all the Israelites . . . will go to Jerusalem and live in safety forever in the land of Abraham.” Here, though, the reference is somewhat oblique (“land of”).

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makes mention of several figures from texts that come to be “Scripture,” including Adam and Eve (8:6) and the prophets Amos (2:6) and Nahum (14:4). Yet Ahiqar is mentioned by name on four different occasions in four separate parts of the plot. In other words, if one were to group Ahiqar with the other “famous” Jewish figures of the past that add an air of authority to Tobit, Ahiqar stands as the most prominent by far. Why, one might ask, is Ahiqar so important compared to the other ancestral exemplars? The most obvious answer is probably the correct one: because Ahiqar fits within the historical context of Tobit’s narrative. What better “Jewish hero” of the past could be used to buttress the credentials of this new hero of the Neo-Assyrian era than someone who is already famously known for being the epitome of the good and proper Jewish value of familial loyalty during that very time period? In any case, one can consider that part of Tobit’s rhetorical strategy for promoting his ethic of acting charitably and familial loyalty is accomplished by his frequent allusions to such exemplary figures and traditions. Tobit does this both directly, in mentioning patriarchs and prophets by name, but also more subtly in his appropriation of themes, situations, and formal structures. The result is that Tobit’s literary contours reinforce the assertion within the narrative world itself as well as on the level of discourse (i.e., the imaginary author to the imaginary audience) that performing certain acts of charity and familial obligation is to be both “Torah-like” and “wisdom-like.” Quite strikingly, in Tobit Ahiqar performs this “wisdom/Torah-faithfulness” on two levels: as a character within the narrative world Ahiqar “performs” the ideals of Jewishness as defined in Tobit through his intercession and support of Tobit and also as external referent, whose “project” is one with which the implied audience is assumed to be familiar as with the other Jewish ancestors. The function of Ahiqar as an external referent rather than a character within the story itself is also telling vis-à-vis Ahiqar’s Jewishness. In ch. 14 in Tobit’s final speech to Tobias – and thus, in terms of focalization, to the implied audience – the exonerated protagonist recalls the opening events of the narrative in bringing up the issue of the exile and making reference to Jerusalem (cf. 1:1–6; 14:4–7). This passage has drawn interpreters’ attention for good reason, not the least of which is the suggestion that “the nations throughout the whole world will all be converted and worship God in truth” (14:6a). While the reference to foreigners potentially joining the fold may be taken to connect with the subsequent reference to Ahiqar, this is not the best way of understanding the rhetorical structure of the passage, especially since Ahiqar is already explicitly said to be part of the family of Israel. Instead, we may better read the speech’s opening prophetic retelling of the destruction and ultimate restoration of Israel as one that is immediately likened to the (near) death of Ahiqar “for a while” (μέχρι χρόνου; 14:4), who is ultimately redeemed. Likewise, just as Tobit’s prophetic rehashing tells of the permanent pun-

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ishment of “those who commit sin and injustice” (οἱ ποιοῦντες τὴν ἁμαρτίαν καὶ τὴν ἀδικίαν) by their complete “eradication from all the earth” (ἐκλείψουσιν ἀπὸ πάσης τῆς γῆς; 14:7), so too is Nadan said to be destroyed because of his “injustice” (ἀδικία) by going into “eternal darkness” (τὸ σκότος τοῦ αιῶνος).87 In other words, when one considers the overall structure of Tobit’s final testament, there is a noticeable symmetry such that the final section, which is the retelling of Ahiqar’s story, stands as an individualized, exemplary model of the national narrative offered in the first section of the testament. The language for describing Israel’s restoration is also telling: “they will go to Jerusalem and live in safety forever in the land of Abraham” (14:7). This is the only other mention of Abraham – or any patriarch, for that matter – in Tobit outside of the first reference that also occurs in the earlier testamentary speech of Tobit. In this way, being in the “land of Abraham” is paralleled with Ahiqar’s “being in the light.” The prophetic narrative of the downfall but ultimate restoration of Israel, one anchored in the patriarchal tradition, is mirrored in the story of Ahiqar. The Jewish people, therefore, may be understood to be metonymically represented by the person of Ahiqar. Recalling again the didactic context, where the exhortatory form of speech directly aligns the (imaginary) reader’s perspective with Tobias, we, as readers/ hearers, are being told to consider Ahiqar’s story in light of corporate Israel’s story. Both stories carry an ethical-moral implication vis-à-vis “our” relationship to the divine. “We” as readers are being told to “look” to Ahiqar/the “true” Israel (14:7), to learn and emulate, lest we suffer destruction like Nadan/the apostate Israelites – a contrast Tobit earlier drew between himself and the followers of Jeroboam at the opening of the narrative (1:5–6). By the end of the story, “we” as readers, therefore, are in effect being told to go out and be as “Jewish” as Tobit and Ahiqar.

6 Conclusion: Ahiqar, Tobit, and “Wisdom and Torah” in the Second Temple Period Most commentators on Tobit hardly deal with the Ahiqar references beyond a casual acknowledgment of the earlier Aramaic sage’s tale as evidenced from Elephantine and, occasionally, with some remark that Tobit has “made” Ahiqar Jewish. But what if Ahiqar was already “Jewish”? What if Ahiqar’s story, reputation, and import – however fluid – had already held a fixed status in at least some circles of the Jewish

87 The Greek references follow GII; some of the language is evident in GI but there are some different phrasings.

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historical imagination? What if the ancient reader saw Ahiqar as part of “our” (= Jewish) shared past, and thus Tobit’s rhetorical utilization of “Ahiqar” as sage and ancestral exemplar was “natural” to its Jewish audience? In such a situation, an interpreter might better frame the situation not as the author of Tobit using his Jewish protagonist to make or establish the Jewishness of Ahiqar, but instead the author is actually using the Jewishness of Ahiqar to establish Tobit as an “authentic” Jewish hero. Indeed, that is what this essay is suggesting: the story of Tobit elaborates on a relatively (or completely) unknown figure of the Jewish past, but whose credentials are affirmed by association with and emulation of the “known” ancestral heroes. The unknown figure, of course, is Tobit himself. The implied audience, presumably introduced to this Tobit for the first time, is immediately and at length told of his proper genealogical connections and, lest one have negative associations with “those Northerners,” we are informed of his pristine Torah-faithfulness (1:1–7). His noteworthy actions, even in the face of mortal danger, are further qualified in their likening to familiar, reputable Jewish heroes of the past. Tobit, through the course of the narrative, emulates several of these “patriarchal” figures, including Noah, Abraham, Amos, but also Ahiqar. It is not only that Ahiqar is mentioned alongside these other figures, but how he is mentioned. Reference to these famous figures of the Jewish past are rhetorical devices that anchor and affirm the norms and values espoused by the narrative. Their reputable actions are presented in such a way as to highlight how they are emblematic of what it means to be Jewish. In each case, being Jewish means performing acts of charity and doing so to support “the family” – an act subsequently played out by the characters in the present narrative. Endogamy, for instance, is promoted by explicit allusion to the patriarchs of Genesis as well as more general reference to the “law of Moses.” But it is further buttressed in the very structure of the narrative which echoes quite closely the patriarchal narratives, both in specifics of plot (e.g., travel to find a wife from one’s family) and in the communicative settings (e.g., the “testamentary” speeches). For Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it was their commitment to endogamous unions that symbolized their “love” for their kindred and their offering of charity (4:12–13). For Ahiqar, it was his intercession and support on behalf of his kinsman Tobit. In turn, for Tobias, who symbolically represents the imagined audience and thus the intended social function of the narrative, it is both: marry within the family and support one’s relatives in times of distress. Tobit’s “Ahiqar,” both the character and the external “discourse,” shares exactly the same function as the patriarchs. According to Tobit, he is a model of the primary ethical and moral obligation of acting charitably to one’s family members. His story, like the patriarchal stories, seems to underlie the literary structure of the narrative. In fact, one could argue that Ahiqar’s role in the narrative is structurally and

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functionally necessary. Were it not for Ahiqar’s initial act of familial charity, Tobit would not have been restored to his place of prominence. Ahiqar, though, is not just a character in Tobit. Ahiqar is also a story of the past to be looked to and emulated. He is Tobit’s instructional paradigm in the final testament of ch. 14, which explicitly echoes the role of the patriarchs (Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) in Tobit’s earlier testament in ch. 4. For all intents and purposes, Ahiqar is a “patriarch” in the book of Tobit. To suggest otherwise would be to impose a division between Ahiqar and Abraham. So far as I can tell, for the specific communal context of Tobit, there is simply no reason to make such a categorical distinction. Yet Ahiqar’s role in Tobit, together with other formal and thematic features, signals another mode of discourse that scholars have generally identified as “wisdom.” Tobit, like Ahiqar, speaks in lengthy didactic, exhortatory discourses to his son and successor. The ethos of the narrative overall could be described as one of paraenesis. Ahiqar plays a central role in Tobit in this regard. He is emblematic of the principle of reciprocity. Further, inasmuch as his story looms in the background, Ahiqar symbolizes the “two paths,” one light, one dark, with which the student/audience is presented. Tobit’s narrative exemplifies the results of choosing light/righteousness, while Ahiqar’s narrative – by way of direct (14:11) and indirect allusion – exemplifies the results of choosing darkness/unrighteousness. Tobit’s story ends with a final lesson to Tobias (= the audience): whom will you emulate – Ahiqar or Nadan? To summarize and offer some concluding reflections: this re-reading of Ahiqar in Tobit, beyond offering some nuance to the narratological and rhetorical interpretations already present in scholarship, has implications for a broader scholarly discourse on Wisdom and Torah in Second Temple Period Jewish literature. Specifically, I have drawn our attention to the ways that scholars have demarcated intertextual and conceptual aspects of Tobit according to the previously constructed models of “wisdom” and “Torah” as distinctive traditions. By rethinking the function of Ahiqar’s Jewishness in Tobit and treating it not as an incidental “Judaizing” of a foreign sage, but instead as an authentically meaningful signifier for the Second Temple readership, I have suggested that Ahiqar is just as much emblematic of Tobit’s engagement with “Torah” (= scholarly cipher for uniquely Jewish traditions) as it is of his engagement with “Wisdom” (= scholarly cipher for acceptably “foreign” or, at best, “universal” influences). This coalescence calls for a rethinking of the categories themselves, not only with the specific result that Ahiqar might have actually been, in the eyes of at least some Jewish circles, an exemplary ancestor or “patriarch” of the Jewish past but also with the broader consequence of problematizing the very demarcation of such categories in the first place. If Tobit can so easily and seamlessly align Ahiqar, the wise sage, with the patriarchal heroes of Pentateuch, then it challenges the dichotomous way they are treated in the first

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place. Where, we might ask, in Tobit’s deathbed speech (14:3–11) does the patriarchal “testament” end and the wisdom “instruction” begin? The result is that the previous hypotheses of their “confluence” in this period is problematic for it presumes a previously separate “flow” that only later comes together. These categories can be useful, but they can also get in the way, especially if they are treated as sui generis and mutually exclusive. We may better understand Tobit and, in particular, Tobit’s “Ahiqar discourse” as part of a broader virtue discourse prevalent among Jewish literary production in the late Second Temple period and within which one may identify a variable set of rhetorical techniques – including especially a type of “ancestral reworking” – along with a diverse range of moral or ethical positions that are being extolled.88 Tobit thus can be understood as a reflection on what it means to “live ethically” as a Jewish individual in any number of political or geographical contexts. The narrative’s utilization of Ahiqar stands out, then, as one of the primary rhetorical means for asserting its particular ethical message. To borrow and slightly adjust Elisa Uusimäki’s words for 4Q542 (the Testament of Qahat), I argue that the book of Tobit likewise “constructs moral models and paths for living by recognizing virtues of [prominent] figures of the past.”89 Following Uusimäki’s line of argument further, we may recognize in Tobit’s retellings and/or expansions of stories about “patriarchs” and Ahiqar a literary occasion wherein “Jewish” identity is imaginatively “(re)constructed.” More broadly, therefore, this reflection on Ahiqar in Tobit might contribute to recent efforts at reconsidering the ways we organize and signify literary production or (with Mroczek “bookish” critique in mind) literary imagination in the late Second Temple period. In doing so, we might ask: where does Tobit fit into the picture of late Second Temple period literary production, particularly in Aramaic? On the one hand, Tobit has been somewhat of an outlier when measured alongside other Jewish Aramaic literature from the era. This likely has to do with the fact that Tobit is a totally unknown figure – at least as far as we know based on the current evidence – prior to the telling of this story, while the other Qumran Aramaic 88 See Elisa Uusimäki, “In Search of Virtue: Ancestral Inheritance in the Testament of Qahat (4Q542),” BibInt 29 (2021): 206–28. Uusimäki’s analysis of Testament of Qahat elucidates a number of scholarly interpretive strategies for describing the book of Tobit’s “testamentary” qualities – without, incidentally, making any specific claims of genre – as it relates to the text’s virtue-discourse vis-à-vis the figure of Ahiqar. 89 Uusimäki, “In Search of Virtue,” 208. Where I insert “prominent” Uusimäki employs the term “biblical.” The substitution is not meant to be critical of Uusimäki’s argument per se. Indeed, she later indicates that by reconfiguring 4Q542 in this way – i.e., as part of a broader context of virtue discourses in the ancient Mediterranean – she hopes to signal “a shift away from canonically oriented enterprises, which have largely dominated the analysis of ethical issues in the field of biblical studies” (p. 208).

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narratives feature some familiar character or characters from the “biblical” tradition, even if they are only mentioned by name in some genealogical list. In other words, despite also being a “Qumran” text, Tobit has rarely featured in the many discussions of rewritten, parabiblical, and exegetical expansions of “Scripture/authoritative literature.” Recent developments, however, have shifted matters somewhat, as studies are increasingly seeing Tobit as reflecting the broader trends of Aramaic (and, to some extent, Hebrew) literary imagination, namely the observable popularity of developing expansive stories based on famous ancient figures or those related to them.90 Devorah Dimant has offered the most recent description for understanding Tobit’s place vis-à-vis the “Aramaic literary scene” of the late Second Temple period, arguing, “one of the literary facts to emerge from the Qumran evidence is the existence in the Aramaic corpus of distinct thematic cycles. Among them are the two that shaped Tobit: a) the biographies of the biblical patriarchs; b) court tales about great kings and courtiers.”91 Daniel Machiela likewise has suggested that Tobit should be read more closely alongside other Aramaic texts from Qumran, especially those that have been variously identified as “rewritten Bible” like the Genesis Apocryphon, arguing that both “share a deep concern for Israelite identity and conduct in a world beset by widespread impiety and foreign domination.”92 If this is our guiding assumption for Tobit, then it would, to some degree, support the reading offered above concerning Ahiqar’s role in Tobit. We could, that is, understand Ahiqar as the “authoritative” figure whose legacy is the foundation out of which this new literary production (i.e., the Book of Tobit) has grown. Thus, it is on Ahiqar’s credentials as an exemplary figure of the Jewish past that Tobit’s story depends. It may be the case that Tobit could rightly be categorized as a narrative expansion of the “Ahiqar tradition” much the same way that the Testament of Qahat is understood as an expansion of the Genesis tradition. This would presume, of course, a context within which “Ahiqar” signified an authoritative (or authorizing) kind of discourse. As a result, it could be argued that Ahiqar held a much more formative place for at least some Jewish communities than has previously been realized. This may seem a rather bold argument to make, and I offer it only tenuously here. For one, Ahiqar, unlike Qahat, Enoch, or several other examples of “narrative expansions” of authoritative traditions, is not from that all-important formative period as outlined in Genesis. But it is tempting to point to other examples that 90 See Dimant, “Tobit and Qumran,” 176–77, for a brief survey of the few articles over the past 15 years where Tobit was included in the conversation with other Aramaic texts from Qumran. 91 Dimant, “Tobit and Qumran,” 177. 92 Daniel Machiela, “Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon: Toward a Family Portrait,” JBL 133 (2014): 111–32, at 132.

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may have had a very similar development from “pagan” celebrity to “famed Jewish persona,” and likewise are imagined to be from later eras. In particular I am thinking of Daniel/Danel, Job, and perhaps even Esther and Mordecai. For each of these personalities, scholars have, at one point or another, suggested that they were “originally” foreign and only later grafted into the Jewish tradition, primarily by literary means. Yet hardly anyone questions their credentials as rightly “Jewish” or “biblical/ authoritative” for the late Second Temple period. When it comes to Ahiqar, however, my hunch is that much of the hesitation for hypothesizing a similar process has little to do with the logic of the argument or even with the possibility of such a process taking place,93 but with the fact that Ahiqar has been a more or less obscure figure within the Western academic-confessional tradition and, unlike the rest, never held “canonical” status (as far as we know). Indeed, the reading I have offered here has attempted, in the words of Mroczek, to “leave teleological questions in the margins” and to describe a text within a literary milieu that “had no awareness of a canonical finish line.”94 Might there not have been a time when Ahiqar was a Jewish hero of the past, whose wisdom and pious actions were examples of good “Torah-faithfulness” and therefore worthy to be emulated? This may be pressing things too far, even if we were to completely set these “canonical” presumptions aside. Nevertheless, given the evidence we do have, it seems reasonable to interpret Tobit as a narrative reimagination of a Jewish past that illustrates how ancestral Jews were paragons of virtuous behavior over against external threats of empire and the potential loss of communal identity – the maintenance of which required a configuration of Jewishness that championed familial acts of reciprocity and charity, values that have good, “Torah” precedents. Tobit has thus crafted a pastiche-like rhetorical emulation of those stories, set during a period that has particular importance for later Jewish self-understanding, namely a time of foreign oppression – an oppression that is specifically manifested in the foreign authority’s attempt to restrict the public practice of Jewish custom.95 To be sure the specific “customs” that define what it means to be Jewish are subject to change – here in Tobit it may be endogamy, proper burial, and supporting family even against public threat, while in other contemporaneous texts like 1 Maccabees

93 By way of a perhaps clunky analogy, one might consider how certain groups in the “West” likewise (re)imagine figures of a tremendously diverse past that are constructed as “theirs” and thus see themselves as “natural” inheritors to their legacy, i.e., the so-called “Golden Nugget” myth; for an outline and critique thereof, see the impactful essay by Kwame Anthony Appiah, “There is No Such Thing as Western Civilization,” The Guardian, 9 November 2016, https://www.theguardian. com/world/2016/nov/09/western-civilisation-appiah-reith-lecture. 94 Mroczek, Literary Imagination, 12. 95 For some language used here I am indebted to Molly Zahn, Genres of Rewriting, esp. 186–89.

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it may be dietary practices, circumcision, and dressing properly – but on a discursive level the book of Tobit accords nicely with broader trends in the imaginative (re)formulating of Jewish identity through recourse to “past” figures evident in the literary record. In the same way, though somewhat ironically from our perspective, Ahiqar’s presence in Tobit may actually serve a legitimizing function much like Phinehas’s does for the Maccabees (e.g., 1 Macc 2:26). With Ahiqar being an already well known figure of the past, it is, in fact, his credentials that “hook” the audience into the viability of this “new” story about an unheard of, but apparently important, figure from “our” history. What better way to establish this newly remembered hero of the Jewish past than to make him a relative of an already established Jewish figure, one whose reputation is uniquely suited to illustrate the issues at hand? So what I propose then is the very opposite of how matters have been framed up to this point. That is, instead of seeing Tobit’s Jewish credentials being used to bring Ahiqar into the fold; it is precisely the opposite: Ahiqar is the one who makes Tobit Jewish, who gives his story some reasonable credence for an audience that had never heard of him before. Of course, the accomplishment does not rest entirely on Ahiqar’s shoulders, not by any stretch. This essay is simply suggesting that Ahiqar is one of many “authoritative” sources on which the author of Tobit has drawn to craft his compelling tale of a hitherto unknown Jewish hero of the past. This is a figure who has been instructed in the law of Moses and performs them admirably even in the face of persecution, like the famous prophets of the same era, Amos and Nahum, but also like the ancestors of old, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His ethical example extends beyond the Torah (as text), and, in a move reminiscent of Ben Sira’s praise of ancestors (Sir 44–50), Tobit’s “Ahiqar” is an ancestor who exemplifies the virtues of wisdom. For Tobit, Torah and Wisdom coalesce in Ahiqar. Lastly, in light of the social context of the work that seems to care a great deal about establishing family ties, to confirm an “new” individual as authentically “kindred” Tobit must make it clear that its titular character and protagonist is related to “the right people.” Against all scholarly expectations, the right person to make Tobit into a Jewish hero and sage is none other than the patriarch Ahiqar.

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Collins, John J. “The Judaism of the Book of Tobit.” Pages 23–40 in The Book of Tobit: Text, Tradition, Theology. Edited by ed. Géza Xeravits and József Zsengellér. JSJSup 98. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Conybeare, F. C., J. Rendel Harris, and Agnes Smith Lewis. The Story of Aḥiḳar: From the Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Old Turkish, Greek and Slavonic Versions. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1913. Couslan, J.R. “Tobit: A Comedy in Error?” CBQ 65 (2003): 535–53. Dimant, Devorah. From Enoch to Tobit: Collected Studies in Ancient Jewish Literature. FAT 114. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017. Dimant, Devorah. “Tobit and Ahiqar.” Pages 276–291 in Wisdom Poured out Like Water: Studies on Jewish and Christian Antiquity in Honor of Gabriele Boccaccini. Edited by J. Harold Ellens, Isaac W. Olliver, Jason von Ehrenkrook, James Waddell, and Jason M. Zurawski. DCLS 38. De Gruyter: Berlin, 2018. Fitzmyer, Joseph. A. Tobit. CEJL. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003. Greenfield, Jonas C. “Ahiqar in the Book of Tobit.” Pages 329–36 in De la Torah au Messie: Études d’exégèse et d’herméneutique bibliques offertes à Henri Cazelles. Edited by Maurice Carrez, Joseph Doré, and Pierre Grelot. Paris: Desclée, 1981. Hallermayer, Michaela. Text und Überlieferung des Buches Tobit. DCLS 3. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. Hieke, Thomas. “Endogamy in the Book of Tobit, Genesis, and Ezra-Nehemiah.” Pages 103–21 in The Book of Tobit: Text, Tradition, Theology. JSJSup 98. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Jacobs, Naomi S. S. Delicious Prose: Reading the Tale of Tobit with Food and Drink. JSJSup 188. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Justnes, Årstein. “Fake Fragments, Flexible Provenances: Eight Aramaic ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ from the 21st century.” Pages 242–71 in Vision, Narrative, and Wisdom in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran: Essays from the Copenhagen Symposium, 14–15 August, 2017. Edited by Mette Bundvard and Kasper Siegismund. STDJ 131. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Kottsieper, Ingo. “‘Look, son, what Nadab did to Ahikaros. . .’: The Aramaic Ahiqar Tradition and its Relationship to the Book of Tobit.” Pages 145–67 in The Dynamics of Language and Exegesis at Qumran. Edited by Devorah Dimant and Reinhard G. Kratz. FAT II/35. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Kwon, JiSeong James. “Meaning and Context in Job and Tobit.” JSOT 43 (2019): 627–43. Kynes, Will. An Obituary for “Wisdom Literature”: The Birth, Death, and Intertextual Reintegration of a Biblical Corpus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Lambert, David. “Tôrâ as Mode of Conveyance: The Problem with ‘Teaching’ and ‘Law.’” Pages 61–80 in Torah: Functions Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity. Edited by William M. Schniedewind, Jason M. Zurawski, and Gabriele Boccaccini. EJL 56. Atlanta: SBL, 2021. Macatangay, Francis M. The Wisdom Instructions in the Book of Tobit. DCLS 12. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. MacDonal, Dennis R. “Tobit and the Odyssey.” Pages 11–40 in Mimesis and Intertextuality in Antiquity and Christianity. Edited by Dennis R. MacDonald. Harrisburg: Trinity, 2001. Machiela, Daniel A. “Tobit and the Genesis Apocryphon: Toward a Family Portrait.” JBL 133 (2014): 111–32. Machiela, Daniel A. “‘Wisdom Motifs’ in the Compositional Strategy of the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20) and Other Aramaic Texts from Qumran.” Pages 223–47 in HA’ISH MOSHE: Studies in Scriptural Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Moshe J. Bernstein. Edited by Binyamin Goldstein, Michael Segal, and George J. Brooke. STDJ 122. Leiden: Brill, 2017. Machiela, Daniel A. “The Compositional Setting and Implied Audience of Some Aramaic Texts from Qumran: A Working Hypothesis.” Pages 168–202 in Vision, Narrative, and Wisdom in the Aramaic Texts from Qumran: Essays from the Copenhagen Symposium, 14–15 August, 2017. Edited by Mette Bundvad and Kasper Siegismund. STDJ 131. Leiden: Brill, 2019. Miller, Geoffrey David. Marriage in the Book of Tobit. DCLS 10. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011. Mroczek, Eva. The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

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Nicklas, Tobias. “Marriage in the Book of Tobit: A Synoptic Approach.” Pages 139–54 in The Book of Tobit: Text, Tradition, Theology. JSJSup 98. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Nowell, Irene. “The Book of Tobit: An Ancestral Story.” Pages 3–13 in Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit. Edited by Jeremy Corley and Vincent Skemp. CBQMS 38 (Washington DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2005. Schöpflin, Karin. “Women’s Roles in the Narrative and Theology of the Book of Tobit.” Pages 173–85 in Religion and Female Body in Ancient Judaism and its Environments. Edited by Géza G. Xeravits. DCLS 28. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Sneed, Mark R., ed. Was There a Wisdom Tradition? New Perspectives in Israelite Wisdom Studies. AIL. Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Uusimäki, Elisa. “In Search of Virtue: Ancestral Inheritance in the Testament of Qahat (4Q542).” BibInt 29 (2021): 206–28. Uusimäki, Elisa. “The Rise of the Sage in Greek and Jewish Antiquity.” JSJ 49 (2017): 1–29. Weigl, Michael. “Die rettende Macht der Barmherzigkeit: Achikar im Buch Tobit.” BZ 50 (2006): 212–34. Wright, Benjamin G., III. “Where is the Torah in Ben Sira?” Pages 145–65 in Torah: Functions Meanings, and Diverse Manifestations in Early Judaism and Christianity. Edited by William M. Schniedewind, Jason M. Zurawski, and Gabriele Boccaccini. EJL 56. Atlanta: SBL, 2021. Yoshiko Reed, Annette. Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020. Zahn, Molly M. Genres of Rewriting in Second Temple Judaism: Scribal Composition and Transmission. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Index of Modern Authors Achenbach, Reinhard 89, 184 Adams, Samuel 63, 66, 324, 326 Aitken, James 221 Aletti, Jean-Noël 114 Ameling, Walter 232, 256 Amihay, Aryeh 276 Amit, David 253 Andruska, Jennifer 243–44, 247, 254, 258 Ansberry, Christopher 79–80, 88 Antin, Katri 283, 285 Appiah, Kwame Anthony 361 Armgardt, Matthias 175 Arneth, Martin 184 Artus, Olivier 119 Askin, Lindsey A. 52, 54, 189, 201 Awabdy, Mark 80 Baden, Joel S. 182, 301 Badien, E. 189 Bagnall, Roger 217–19, 222–25 Balentine, Samuel 77, 80–81 Ballhorn, Egbert 92 Barclay, John 131 Barré, Michael L. 12 Bartlett, John 227 Bartor, Assnat 151 Basson, Alec 18 Baumgartner, Walter 29 Bautch, Richard 90 Beauchamp, Paul 124 Beekes, Robert 199, 204–5, 208 Beentjees, Pancratius 46, 49, 52, 58–59, 61, 64, 67–68 Benjamin, Don 153 Bernand, Étienne 191, 194–95, 198, 200–201, 204–5, 208–10 Beuken, Willem A. M. 78, 81, 87 Beyer, Andrea 81 Blažek, Václav 197 Bledsoe, Seth 320–321, 326–27 Blenkinsopp, Joseph 14, 61–62, 114, 133, 135, 137, 150–51, 161 Blum, Erhard 299, 301–2 Boccaccini, Gabriele 63, 127, 255, 323 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-015

Boecker, Hans Jochen 311 Boer, Roland 149 Bohak, Gideon 46 Böhler, Dieter 176, 260 Bonora, Antonio 114, 127 Boston, James 180 Boström, Lennart 7 Botha, P. J. 54 Boyarin, Daniel 140 Braulik, Georg 3, 8, 78–79, 174–76, 181, 183, 185 Brooke, George 83, 276–80, 331 Brown, Ken 89 Brown, William 4, 32 Buchanan, George W. 3 Budge, Ernest W. 28 Bundvad, Mette 352 Burnight, John 77 Burton, Joan 252 Buss, Martin 149 Busto Saiz, José Ramon 61–62 Calabi, Francesca 127 Calduch-Benages, Nuria 47, 52–53, 58, 60, 124 Camp, Claudia 14 Campbell, J. K. 153 Carr, David 90, 152 Cheon, Samuel 132 Chrisomalis, Stephen 197 Christ, Felix 62 Cioată, Maria 277 Clackson, James 219–220 Clarysse, Willy 221 Clements, Ronald E. 5 Clifford, Richard J. 5, 15–16, 29, 31 Clines, David 81–82, 84 Coats, Jacob 309 Cohen, Naomi 202 Cohen, Yoram 152 Collins, John J. 62, 118, 121, 131–34, 229, 276, 281, 323 Constable, Marianne 140 Conybeare, F. C. 325

366 

 Index of Modern Authors

Corley, Jeremy 58, 330 Cotton, Hannah 231 Couroyer, Bernard 18 Couslan, J. R. C. 352 Crenshaw, James 275, 298 Cribiore, Raffaella 220 Crook, John Anthony 223 Crook, Zeba 153 Dahood, Mitchell 104 Davies, G. I. 151 Davis, Simon 217, 226, 230 Delitzsch, Franz 27–28, 183 Dell, Katharine 4, 9, 11, 77, 88, 99, 276 DeSilva, David 131, 134–135, 162–63 DeTroyer, Kristin 56, 132 Devauchelle, Didier 18 Dietrich, Walter 298, 302 DiLella, Alexander A. A. 45, 54–55, 59, 262 Dimant, Devorah 64, 335–36, 341, 351, 360 Doran, Robert 256 Dozeman, Thomas 313 Dylan, Bob 264 Ebach, Jürgen 85 Ebach, Ruth 183 Eberharter, Andreas 59, 68 Ede, Franziska 302, 306, 310, 313 Eder, Petrus 86 Edwards, Matthew 115 Ehrlick, Arnold 250, 259 Elgvin, Torleif 244–49, 254, 259, 261, 263, 267–70 Ellens, J. Harold 342 Erman, Adolf 28, 173 Evans, Craigh 61 Evans, Trevor 222 Falk, Daniel 278 Fecht, Gerhard 180 Feldman, Ariel 277 Feldman, Louis 231–32 Feldmeier, Reinard 260 Fensham, F. Charles 164 Ferrer, Joan 47 Fichtner, Johannes 29, 173 Fieger, Michael 300

Finkbeiner, Douglas 30, 35 Finsterbusch, Karin 177 Fischer, Georg 300 Fishbane, Michael 3, 8, 14, 35, 39, 81 Fitzmyer, Joseph 319–20, 329–30, 332, 352 Focant, Camille 124 Fögen, Thorsten 220 Fontaine, Carole R. 5 Fowler, Alastair 152 Fox, Michael V. 6, 7, 12, 15–16, 19, 23, 32–33, 35, 37, 84, 97, 243, 247, 254, 259, 267, 269, 299, 313, 327 Frankenberg, Wilhelm 27, 28, 40 Freedman, David 306 Frey, Jean-Baptiste 195 Fuchs, Gisela 90 Fuhs, Hans Ferdinand 30, 32 Fuks, Alexander 191, 231 Gentry, Peter 105 Genung, Matthew 300 Georgi, Dieter 126 Gerhards, Meik 245, 249, 252 Gericke, Jaco 168 Gerstenberger, Erhard 150 Gese, Hartmut 29, 127 Gesenius, Wilhelm 37 Geva, Hillel 252 Gilbert, Maurice 114, 117, 124–25 Giuntoli, Federico 176 Glicksman, Andrew 117, 137 Goff, Matthew 276, 324, 326 Goldhill, Simon 232 Goldman, Yohanan A. P. 62, 105 Goldstein, Binyamin 331 Goodenough, Erwin Ramsdell 225 Goodman, Martin 226 Gore-Jones, Lydia 132 Goudriaan, Koen 217 Grabbe, Lester 229 Graetz, Heinrich 244, 249–53, 263, 267 Graf, Fritz 196 Granerød, Gard 260, 301 Greenstein, Edward 77 Gressmann, Hugo 28 Gruen, Erich 131, 228–29 Gunkel, Hermann 303

Index of Modern Authors 

Habel, Norman 82, 85 Hachlilli, Rachel 221 Hagedorn, Anselm 157, 175, 251–52, 254, 259 Hallermayer, Michaela 319 Halpern, Baruch 223 Häner, Tobias 80–81 Hanhart, Robert 46 Harris, J. Rendel 325 Hartley, John 85 Harlow, Daniel 131 Hartmann, Anton 244, 250 Hartog, Pieter B. 244 Harrington, Daniel 283 Haspecker, Josef 68 Hass, Christopher 228–29 Hauge, Martin Ravndal 261 Haviland, William 164 Hayes, Christine 133, 143 Heckl, Raick 77, 79 Heim, Knut 31, 33 Heinevetter, Hans–Josef 263, 267–68 Hempel, Charlotte 149, 276–77, 289 Hendel, Ronald 260 Hengel, Martin 62, 65, 126 Himbaza, Innocent 176 Hirschfeld, Yizhar 252 Hitzig, Ferdinand 28–29 Hobson, Devorah 223–25 Hodel-Hoenes, Sigrid 299–300 Hoffman, Friedhelm 108, 218 Holladay, Carl 200 Honigman, Sylvie 228, 230–31 Hopf, Mathias 269 Horbury, William 191, 194–95, 197–203, 205, 207–10, 231 Horrocks, Geoffrey 207–8, 210, 220 Horsley, Greg H. R. 195 Hossfeld, Frank–Lothar 260 Houston, Michael 174 Huff, Barry 84 Hughes, Julie 285, 288 Hugo, Philippe 176 Human, Dirk 180 Humbert, Jean 203, 220 Hurvitz, Avi 306 Husser, Jean-Marie 299, 306–7, 309 Hutton, Rodney 150–52

 367

Ilan, Tal 233, 255 Jackson, Bernard 150–51, 161, 225 Jacobs, Naomi S. S. 319, 332 Jacobsthal, Cairo 190, 194, 200–201, 204–5, 210 James, Patrick 217, 219, 222 Janowski, Bernd 174 Jansen, Andreas 51 Jassen, Alex 276 Jenni, Hanna 304 Johnston, Sarah Iles 196 Juárez, Martin 61 Kaibel, Georg 190, 197–98, 204–6, 210–11 Kaiser, Otto 62 Kalimi, Isaac 117 Kaminsky, Joel 89–90 Kampen, John 276–78, 285 Kasher, Aryeh 204, 229 Katzoff, Ranon 225 Kebekus, Norbert 298, 310 Keel, Othmar 85 Keenan, James 223 Kellenberger, Edgar 11 Kelly, Benjamin 222 Kilchör, Benjamin 175 Kingsmill, Edmée 262 Kister, Menahem 281 Kittel, Bonnie 286 Knobloch, Harald 184 Koch, Kalus 19 Köhlmoos, Melanie 89 Körting, Corinna 38, 303 Kottsieper, Ingo 336, 341, 352 Kratz, Reinhard 38, 175, 225, 303, 325, 336 Kroeze, Jan 201 Krüger, Thomas 105 Küchler, Max 62 Kugler, Robert 226 Kuschke, Arnulf 175 Kwon, JiSeong J. 12, 56, 89, 132, 331 Kynes, Will 42, 77, 99, 324 Lackowski, Mark 90 LaCocque, André 83, 90 Laisney, Vincent Pierre–Michel 173 Lambert, David 323, 328–329

368 

 Index of Modern Authors

Lange, Armin 60 Langslow, David 222 Larcher, Chrysostome 121, 123, 125 Lavoie, Jean-Jacques 105 Legaspi, Michael 133, 136, 138, 141–43 Leipoldt, Johannes 174 Leproux, Aléxis 114 Leuenberger, Martin 183 Levenson, Jon 19–20 Levin, Christoph 303, 305, 307, 309, 313 Levinson, Bernard 99 Lewis, Agnes Smith 325 Lewis, Naphtali 223–25 Lichtheim, Miriam 311 Liesen, Jan 47, 49–50 Lindenberger, James 328 Lisewski, Krzysztoff 307, 313 Loader, James 29, 82 Lohfink, Norbert 174, 176 Longman III, Tremper 37 Lund, Oystein 18 Lux, Rüdiger 304 Macatangay, Francis 319, 330–32, 337, 339, 342, 352–53 Macchi, Jean-Daniel 301–2 MacDonald, Dennis 353 MacDonald, Nathan 89, 151 Machiela, Daniel 263, 330–31, 352, 360 Machinist, Peter 99 Mack, Burton 62 Mackenzie, Roderick A. F. 45 MacMullen, Ramsay 219 Maier, Christl 3, 8, 313 Maier, Johann 285–287 Malfroy, Jean 174, 180 Mansoor, 286–287 Marböck, Johannes 45, 47, 55, 61–62, 68 Martens, John 127 Martínez, García 290 Marttila, Marco 137 Marucci, Corrado 122 Matthews, Victor 153 Mazzanti, Angela 127 Mazzinghi, Luca 113–23, 125, 139, 142–44 McGlynn, Moyna 134, 136

McKane, William 9, 13–15, 17, 20, 37 McLay, R. Timothy 279 Meade, David 45 Meinhold, Arndt 30–32, 35, 38, 299 Meyer, Rudolph 175 Millar, Fergus 218, 226 Millar, Suzanna 19 Miller, Emmanuel 190, 194, 200–201, 204, 206, 210 Miller, Patrick D. 19–20 Miller, Shem 282 Milstein, Sara 152 Minissale, Antonino 49, 262 Mitten, David 230 Modrzejewski, Joseph 230 Monger, Matthew 245 Monsengwo Pasinya, Laurent Moore, James 325 Morenz, Siegfried 174 Mroczek, Eva 279, 320, 328–29, 359, 361 Mullens, Alex 217, 219, 222 Müller, Achim 313 Müller-Wollermann, Renate 310 Murphy, Roland E. 13, 15, 20 Najman, Hindy 277, 285 Neher, Martin 114 Nelson, Richard 179 Neumann, Hans 183 Neumann-Gorsolke 85 Newsome, Carol 280, 285–87 Nicklas, Tobias 117 Nissinen, Marti 254 Noam, Vered 276 Nowell, Irene 330 Noy, David 191, 194–95, 197–203, 204–5, 207–10, 221, 231, 233 O’Dowd, Ryan 33–34, 36–39 Oeming, Manfred 78–79, 85 Oesterley, William O. E. 173–74 Oliver, James 229 Olson, Dennis 302 Olyan, Saul 309 Opela, Daniela 79–80 Oppenheimer, Aharon 226

Index of Modern Authors 

Otto, Eckart 9, 175–185 Overland, Paul 4, 11 Pajunen, Mika 137, 285–86 Papaconstantinou, Arietta 219 Parker, David Charles 202 Parker, Simon 152 Passaro, Angelo, 114 Paul, André 121 Pearce, Laurie 152 Penchansky, David 62 Perdue, Leo 29, 62, 81, 85, 136–37, 150 Peristiany, J. G. 153 Perlitt, Lothar 174 Peters, Norbert 59, 63 Pettys, Valerie 81 Pfeiffer, Robert 173 Pistone, Rosario 48 Pizzoli, Lorenzo 205 Popovic, Mladen 259 Porter, Catherine 218 Prato, Gian 61 Preisigke, Friedrick 191, 194, 197, 201, 210 Puech, Émile 47, 51, 249 Pyeon, Yohan 81 Quack, Joachim Friedrich 106 Rajak, Tessa 229 Ramond, Sophie 119 Rawlings, Elizabeth 218 Redford, Donald 298, 311 Reinach, A. J. 191, 204–6 Reitemeyer, Michael 48 Reiterer, Friedrich 51, 55–56, 61, 63, 67, 86, 119 Rey, Jean-Sébastien 41, 277 Reymond, Eric D. 54 Rickenbacher, Otto 64, 68 Ritter-Müller, Petra 86 Robert, André 3, 9, 28, 173 Robert, Jeanne 201, 204–8, 210 Robert, Louis 191, 194, 201, 204–8 Rocca, Samuele 255 Rogers, Jesse, 61, 63, 65 Rollston, Chris 152 Römer, Thomas 9, 10, 12, 299, 304, 309

 369

Rossi, Benedetta 185 Rotenberg, M. 213 Routledge, Robin L. 11 Rüterswörden, Udo 176 Sæbø, Magne 31, 34, 39 Sandelin, Karl–Gustav 48 Sanders, Jack 150 Sanders, James 289–90 Sartre, Maurice 218 Sasson, Jack 152 Saur, Markus 304 Sautermeister, Jochen 177 Scarpat, Giuseppe 122 Schaper, Joachim 114, 116, 119, 126, 139 Schaps, David 225 Schellenberg, Annette 86–88, 90 Schipper, Bernd 4, 7–8, 12–15, 17, 19, 21–22, 28–29, 33–34, 36, 38–42, 62, 78, 101, 114, 126, 131–32, 173, 184–85, 276, 278, 299, 313, 325 Schmid, Konrad 77–79, 176, 184, 298–99, 302, 306, 313 Schmidt Goering, Greg 63, 66, 134 Schmidtkunz, Petra 179 Schnabel Eckhard 59, 62, 65, 68, 114, 121 Schniedewind, William 152, 324 Schofield, Alison 244 Schöpflin, Karin 332 Schrader, Lutz 52 Schwartz, Baruch 313 Schwienhorst-Schönberger, Ludger 84, 87 Scoralick, Ruth 182 Scott, Bernard 136, 150 Seebass, Horst 301 Seeligman, Isac L. 46 Segal, Moshe 248–49, 267, 331 Seow, Choon 82, 85, 104 Shemesh, Aharon 225, 276 Sheppard, Gerald 64, 133 Shields, Martin 98 Sidarus, Adel 220 Sidney Allen, W. 195 Siegismund, Kasper 352 Skehan, Patrick 45, 54–55, 59, 117, 262 Skemp, Vincent 330

370 

 Index of Modern Authors

Skinner, Joseph 307 Slingerland, Dixon 227 Smend, Rudolf 27, 45, 53, 59, 68 Sneed, Mark 149, 160, 277, 324 Snell, Daniel 31, 34 Sommerstein, Alan 220 Sonnet, Jean-Pierre 124 Spieckermann, Hermann 46, 260 Stackert, Jeffrey 151, 182 Staszak, Martin 40–41 Steck, Odil Hannes 184 Stewart, Anne 89–90 Stolk, Joanne Vera 201, 203, 220 Sumner, William Graham 153 Szabó, Xaviér 118 Tanzer, Sarah 283, 285, 287 Taubenschlag, Rafal 223–24 Tavares, Ricardo 35 Tcherikover, Victor 191, 229, 231 Teeter, D. Andrew 36, 62, 68, 101, 114, 131–32, 276–78, 288–89 Termini, Cristina 127 Terpstra, Taco 232 Thackeray, Henry St. J. 194–95, 200, 207 Threatte, Leslie 194, 196–97, 211 Tigay, Jeffrey H. 11 Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C. 277–78, 290 Tod, Marcus 197 Tomson, Peter 271 Tooman, William 132, 278–79 Toorn, van der, Karel 152, 300 Toy, Crawford 37 Tsevat, Matitiahu 84 Tur-Sinai, Naphtali H. 268 Ueberschaer, Frank 64 Uusimäki, Elisa 132, 280, 282, 359 VanBeek, Lucien 199, 204–5, 208 VanderKooij, Arie 259–60 Vandorpe, Katelijn 227 VanLeeuwen, Raymond C. 11, 30, 37, 40, 150 VanOorschot, Jürgen 87–88, 91 Vayntrub, Jacqueline 38 Veldhuis, Niek 152 Vergote, Joseph 306

Vernus, Pascal 254 Viejola, Timo 61, 63, 176 Vierros, Marja 221 Volpp, Leti 140 VonHerder, Johann Gottfried 244, 264 VonRad, Gerhard 275, 297–98, 313–14 Wagner, Bryan 140 Waltke, Bruce 16, 30, 32, 34, 38, 162–63 Washington, Harold C. 14 Wassén, Cecilia 289 Weber, Beat 175 Weeks, Stuart 5, 18, 19, 22–23, 97–98, 101, 103, 277, 298 Weigl, Michael 352 Weimar, Peter 300 Weinfeld, Moshe 150, 168, 174, 178 Weingart, Kristin 301 Weitzman, Steven 180 Wells, Bruce 155 Welton, Rebekah 158 Westbrook, Raymond 155 Westermann, Claus 305 Whitman, Cedric 212 Whybray, Roger N. 5, 7, 9, 16–17, 34 Wilhelm, Adolf 191, 209 Wilke, Alexa 35 Wills, Lawrence 279 Wilson, Lindsay 306–7 Winkler, Matthias 38 Winston, David 126, 132, 134, 136, 138–139, 141–42 Wiseman, William 136, 150 Witte, Markus 55, 58, 60, 77–79, 83–84, 91 Wold, Benjamin 280 Wolfers, David 79 Wright, Benjamin G. 54, 60, 62, 131–32, 229, 279 Wright, David P. 306 Wright, Jacob 309 Xeravits, Géza 116–18, 134, 136, 139, 256, 323, 332 Yadin, Yigael 53–54 Yeshaya, Joachim 272 Yoder, Christine 7 Young, Ian 249

Index of Modern Authors 

Zahn, Molly 278, 361 Zakovitch, Yair 249, 268, 313 Zehnder, Markus P. 18 Zeigler, Joseph 46 Zenger, Erich 181, 260

Zenner, Johann K. 63 Zsengellér, Joszéf 116–18, 134, 136, 139, 323 Zurawski, Jason 323 Zwick, Elisabeth 177

 371

Index of Sources Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Gen 1 81, 264, 271 Gen 1–3 117 Gen 1–2 270 Gen 1:1–2.3 81, 85 Gen 1:1–2.4a 81 Gen 1:2–2:3 82 Gen 1:2 116 Gen 1:3–5 81 Gen 1:3 81 Gen 1:4 81 Gen 1:5 81 Gen 1:7 81 Gen 1:9–10 85 Gen 1:14–19 85 Gen 1:15 81 Gen 1:16 81 Gen 1:18 81 Gen 1:28 84 Gen 2 264, 271 Gen 2:1–3 81 Gen 3 264 Gen 3:16 264 Gen 4:7 264 Gen 9:2 84 Gen 9:9 335 Gen 12–50 298, 330 Gen 12–17 201 Gen 12 354 Gen 17:2 59 Gen 17:9–14 59 Gen 20 308 Gen 20:2 LXX 202 Gen 20:14 LXX 202 Gen 24:27 14 Gen 27:42–45 334 Gen 28:1 334 Gen 35:21–22a 303 Gen 37–50 298–99, 305–6 Gen 37 305 Gen 37:9–11 306 Gen 37:9–10 304 Gen 38–40 307 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111069579-016

Gen 38 301 Gen 39–41 309 Gen 39 298, 303–4, 309 Gen 39:1–6 309 Gen 39:2 309 Gen 39:3 309 Gen 39:7–20 309 Gen 39:18 309 Gen 39:18a 309 Gen 39:19 309 Gen 39:21–23 309 Gen 39:21 309 Gen 39:23 309 Gen 40–42 303 Gen 40–41 305 Gen 40:1 LXX 204 Gen 40:6–8 306 Gen 40:6–7 306 Gen 40:14 LXX 204 Gen 40:20 LXX 204 Gen 40:21 LXX 204 Gen 41 306 Gen 41:8 306 Gen 41:13 204 Gen 41:15–16 307 Gen 41:24 306 Gen 41:25–56 301 Gen 41:25–45 304 Gen 41:25 304 Gen 41:33 307 Gen 41:34a 307 Gen 41:34b 307 Gen 41:35–36 307 Gen 41:38 304, 308 Gen 41:39 304 Gen 41:45 304 Gen 41:48–49 307 Gen 42:18 308 Gen 42:18b 309 Gen 44:1–14 305 Gen 44:5 304 Gen 44:18–34 302

374 

 Index of Sources

Gen 45:8 298 Gen 46–48 301 Gen 47:13–26 301 Gen 47:13–24 307 Gen 48:7 334 Gen 49 301 Gen 49:4b 303 Gen 49:29–32 334 Gen 50:4–14 334 Gen 50:19 305 Gen 50:20 297–98, 305 Gen 50:24–25 301 Gen 50:24 302 Gen 50:25 302 Exod 1:15–21 308 Exod 4:22–23 9 Exod 7–9 306 Exod 7:11 306 Exod 7:22 306 Exod 8:3 306 Exod 8:14 306 Exod 8:15 306 Exod 9:11 306 Exod 13:17 14 Exod 13:21 17 Exod 17:4 139 Exod 17:6 139 Exod 17:9 139 Exod 17:11 139 Exod 17:14 139 Exod 18:13–26 181 Exod 18:21a 161 Exod 19:9–20 83 Exod 20–23 177 Exod 20:14 158 Exod 21:1–22:16 150–51 Exod 21:6 LXX 215 Exod 21:15 163 Exod 21:17 163 Exod 22:2–3 151 Exod 22:2 151 Exod 22:3 151 Exod 22:20–26 164 Exod 22:24 38 Exod 23:1–3 182 Exod 23:6–8 182

Exod 23:6 182 Exod 23:8 161, 182 Exod 24:12 176, 179 Exod 33:23 90 Lev 8–10 80 Lev 10:2 80 Lev 19:35–36 179 Lev 20:10 159 Lev 21:7 159 Lev 25:36 38 Lev 26:46 53 Num 1–2 302 Num 25 334 Num 27:12–23 177 Deut 1–11 175 Deut 1:1–5 176 Deut 1:5 176 Deut 1:1–18 181 Deut 1:13–15 181 Deut 1:13 175, 181, 308 Deut 1:15 175, 181 Deut 1:16 161 Deut 1:17 225 Deut 1:31 5, 9 Deut 4 125, 175–78 Deut 4:1–8 174 Deut 4:5–11 175 Deut 4:5–8 175 Deut 4:5–6 278 Deut 4:5 177 Deut 4:6–8 121, 175 Deut 4:6 3, 55, 175, 308 Deut 4:16–19 176 Deut 4:29 37 Deut 4:45 55 Deut 5 79–80 Deut 5:1 39 Deut 5:10 123 Deut 5:18 159 Deut 5:31 55 Deut 5:33 18–19 Deut 6 125, 184–85 Deut 6:4–9 4–5, 243–44 Deut 6:4 22

Index of Sources 

Deut 6:5 11 Deut 6:6–8 7–9, 11 Deut 6:6–9 36, 184 Deut 6:6–11 29 Deut 6:7 13–15 Deut 6:9 10 Deut 6:20 55 Deut 6:22 15 Deut 6:24 53 Deut 7:1–6 304 Deut 8:2 18–19 Deut 8:5 5, 9 Deut 8:6 18 Deut 9:4–5 11 Deut 9:12 19 Deut 10–11 185 Deut 10:12–11:32 185 Deut 10:12–13 123 Deut 10:12 18 Deut 10:16 185 Deut 11 184–85 Deut 11:1 123 Deut 11:13 22 Deut 11:14 84 Deut 11:16 11 Deut 11:17 84 Deut 11:18–21 3, 8–11, 29, 184–85 Deut 11:19 13–14 Deut 11:22 18 Deut 11:28 19 Deut 12–26 175, 177–78 Deut 12–25 178 Deut 13:2–3 11 Deut 13:6 18 Deut 16 19 Deut 16:18–20 158 Deut 16:18–19 181 Deut 16:19 161, 182 Deut 18:10 304 Deut 19 177–78 Deut 19:4 178 Deut 19:7–10 178 Deut 19:9 18, 175 Deut 19:14 166, 178 Deut 21:18–21 157 Deut 21:20 34, 37 Deut 22:22 159

Deut 23 109 Deut 23:2 304 Deut 23:21 38 Deut 25 177 Deut 25:13–16 167, 178–79 Deut 26:17 18 Deut 27–34 175 Deut 27:17 178 Deut 28 79 Deut 28:3–8 79 Deut 28:9 18 Deut 28:12 79, 84 Deut 28:24 84 Deut 28:35 79 Deut 28:45 79 Deut 28:60 79 Deut 28:65–70 79 Deut 29:1–3 176 Deut 29:6 176 Deut 29:8–10a 176 Deut 29:13–14 176 Deut 29:20–21 132 Deut 30 184 Deut 30:6 185 Deut 30:11–20 174 Deut 30:11–14 20 Deut 30:14 11 Deut 30:15 55 Deut 30:16 18, 123 Deut 30:17 11 Deut 31:12 39 Deut 31:16–22 179–80 Deut 31:24–30 179–80 Deut 31:29 18 Deut 32 79, 175, 179–80 Deut 32:1–43 179 Deut 32:5–6 9 Deut 32:6 5, 175, 180 Deut 32:7 175, 180 Deut 32:8–9 175 Deut 32:10 180 Deut 32:28 180 Deut 32:29 180 Deut 32:39 79, 175, 189 Deut 32:44–47 179 Deut 33:4 63–64 Deut 33:4 LXX 64

 375

376 

 Index of Sources

Deut 33:6–7 302 Deut 34 177 Deut 34:4 302 Deut 34:9 175, 177 Deut 34:10 90 Josh 8:31 56 Josh 8:32 56 Josh 23:6 56 Josh 24:32 302 Judg 6:32 LXX 215 1 Sam 1–4 77 1 Sam 2:6 198 2 Sam 23:1–7 260 1 Kgs 1–10 136 1 Kgs 1:1–2:12 136 1 Kgs 2:3 56 1 Kgs 3:1–15 136 1 Kgs 3:5–14 308 1 Kgs 3:12 308 1 Kgs 5:1–8:66 136 1 Kgs 7:44 LXX 215 1 Kgs 9:15–10:29 136 1 Kgs 10:1–13 136 1 Kgs 11:38 LXX 125 2 Kgs/4 Kgdms 10:31 61 2 Kgs 14:6 56 2 Kgs 22:2 18 2 Kgs 23:25 56 Isa 2:3–5 142 Isa 5 255 Isa 5:1–7 244, 265 Isa 5:1–5 244 Isa 5:1 265 Isa 5:6 LXX 195 Isa 5:21 13, 308 Isa 5:24 53 Isa 6:4 194 Isa 11:6–8 264 Isa 27:9 194 Isa 28:1 214

Isa 28:3 214 Isa 28:5 214 Isa 29:6 LXX 195 Isa 29:14 308 Isa 30:14 51 Isa 31:3 194 Isa 35:10 214 Isa 40:12–14 89 Isa 40:25–28 89 Isa 41:2–4 89 Isa 42 142–43 Isa 42:1–8 142 Isa 42:4 142 Isa 42:5 142 Isa 42:6 142 Isa 42:7 142 Isa 42:8 142 Isa 42:24 18 Isa 44:1–3 90 Isa 45–55 90 Isa 45:1–7 90 Isa 45:7 89 Isa 45:17 90 Isa 45:25 90 Isa 51:11 214 Isa 53 136 Isa 54:4–6 266 Isa 56:1–5 120 Isa 62:3 214 Isa 62:4–5 266 Isa 63:8–9 9 Jer 2:8 48 Jer 2:20–25 265 Jer 3:6–8 265 Jer 3:14–15 9 Jer 6:2–5 244 Jer 6:14 53 Jer 6:19 53 Jer 8:8–9 150 Jer 8:8 278 Jer 8:22 253 Jer 13:17 195 Jer 13:18 213 Jer 14:8 194 Jer 21:8 18 Jer 28:33 123

Index of Sources 

Jer 28:61 195 Jer 29:12 60 Jer 30–33 184 Jer 31 184, 255 Jer 31:2–14 266 Jer 31:4 266 Jer 31:31–34 184–85 Jer 31:33 12, 285 Jer 34 126 Jer 38:33–34 124 Jer 46:11 253 Ezek 16 266 Ezek 16:8–17 259 Ezek 16:12 214 Ezek 18:4 38 Ezek 18:8 38 Ezek 23 266 Ezek 23:17 259 Ezek 27:17 253 Ezek 28:12 214 Ezek 33:11 18 Ezek 36 126 Ezek 36:26–29 124 Ezek 37:19 301 Ezek 42:20 LXX 195 Hos 2 244, 255 Hos 2:4–12 266 Hos 2:2–10 LXX 266 Hos 2:16–25 266 Hos 2:14–23 266 Hos 11:1–4 9 Hos 14 244, 255, 271 Hos 14:5–9 266 Hos 14:8 266 Hos 14:11 308 Joel 2:12 251 Joel 3:1–2 124 Amos 2:4 53 Amos 8:5–6 167 Amos 8:14 18 Zech 1:9 194

Mal 2:8 18 Ps 1–72 260 Ps 1–50 260 Ps 1–2 260 Ps 1 260 Ps 1:2 260 Ps 2 259 Ps 2–72 260 Ps 2:1–9 260 Ps 2:10–12 259 Ps 3–41 259 Ps 8 264 Ps 8:6 213 Ps 8:6 LXX 213 Ps 16:11 18 Ps 19 125 Ps 36:7 267 Ps 42–50 259 Ps 45:10–16 268 Ps 51–72 259 Ps 65:12 214 Ps 72 260 Ps 73–119 260 Ps 80:11 267 Ps 89 260 Ps 101–50 260 Ps 103:30 115 Ps 104 173 Ps 119 19–20, 125, 260 Ps 119:1 18 Ps 119:29 18 Ps 119:105 17, 19, 142 Ps 147 55 Ps 147:8 55 Ps 147:19 55 Ps 154 289 Ps 155 289 Job 1–2 77–79, 83 Job 1–20 81–82 Job 1–21 85 Job 1–31 84 Job 1:5 80 Job 1:10 79 Job 1:18–19 80 Job 1:19 80

 377

378 

 Index of Sources

Job 2:7 79 Job 3–21 83 Job 3–27 78 Job 3 77, 81–82, 85 Job 3:3–10 81 Job 3:4–9 81 Job 3:4 81 Job 3:6 81 Job 3:8 81 Job 3:13 81 Job 3:25–26 79 Job 3:26 81 Job 3:26b 81 Job 4:7 88 Job 4:12 88 Job 5:9 81, 88 Job 5:9a 82 Job 5:9–16 81 Job 5:10–11 82 Job 5:10 84 Job 5:11–16 82 Job 5:12–14 82 Job 5:15 82 Job 5:18 79 Job 5:19–26 79 Job 8:8–22 88 Job 8:8–10 88 Job 9:5–10 81, 85, 87–88 Job 9:5–7 82 Job 9:5 82, 85 Job 9:5b 82 Job 9:6a 85 Job 9:6b 85 Job 9:7a 85 Job 9:7b 85 Job 9:8–9 82 Job 9:10 81–82, 88 Job 9:10a 82 Job 9:11 82 Job 11:7–9 88 Job 11:7 88 Job 12–14 88 Job 12:2 88 Job 12:7–8 88 Job 13:2 88 Job 15–16 88 Job 15:7 88

Job 15:14 88 Job 17:4 88 Job 18:6 17 Job 19:23 LXX 118 Job 20:4–29 88 Job 20:9 52 Job 22:22 77 Job 22:26–30 79 Job 23:10–12 18 Job 24 79 Job 25:4 88 Job 24:5–6 88 Job 26:3 68 Job 26:5–14 88 Job 26:14 88 Job 28 23, 78, 80, 88, 91–92, 115 Job 28:22 86 Job 28:28 91 Job 29–31 78 Job 29:3 17 Job 31 79 Job 31:36 214 Job 32–27 78 Job 33:16–30 9 Job 38–39 84, 86, 89, 91 Job 38–41 23, 83–84, 91–92 Job 38–42 84 Job 38:1–42:6 78 Job 38:1–39:30 83 Job 38:1 83 Job 38:2 86–87 Job 38:3–5 86 Job 38:3b 86 Job 38:4–6 85 Job 38:4–39:30 85 Job 38:4a 85 Job 38:7 85 Job 38:8–11 85–86, 90 Job 38:12 86 Job 38:12a 85 Job 38:12b 86 Job 38:13 84 Job 38:14 85 Job 38:15 84 Job 38:16–19 85 Job 38:18 86 Job 38:19 89

Index of Sources 

Job 38:21 86 Job 38:26 84 Job 38:31–33 85 Job 38:33 86 Job 38:33a 86 Job 38:39–40 84 Job 39:1–2 86 Job 39:1a 86 Job 39:2b 86 Job 39:7 84 Job 39:13–18 86 Job 39:18 84 Job 39:22 84 Job 39:25 84 Job 39:26 86 Job 40:1 83 Job 40:6 83 Job 40:6–41:26 83 Job 40:7–14 84 Job 40:7–41:26 87 Job 40:8 84 Job 40:12 84 Job 40:15–41:26 85 Job 41:21 195 Job 42:2–6 87 Job 42:3 77, 87 Job 42:5 90 Job 42:7–17 77 Job 43 77 Prov 1 3 Prov 1–9 3–9, 11, 13, 16, 21–22, 36, 97, 100, 103, 106–10, 125–26, 149, 173, 258, 281 Prov 1–15 28, 40 Prov 1–27 27, 41–42 Prov 1:1–15:33 184 Prov 1:1 7 Prov 1:6 38 Prov 1:7 43, 162, 308 Prov 1:8 36 Prov 1:9 213–14 Prov 1:9 LXX 213 Prov 1:19 19 Prov 1:20–33 332 Prov 2 4, 23 Prov 2:1–4 4 Prov 2:1–22 7

Prov 2:6 12 Prov 2:12 34 Prov 2:13 19 Prov 2:15 19 Prov 2:16–19 21 Prov 2:19 17–18 Prov 2:19–20 19 Prov 3 4, 7, 21, 36, 40, 43 Prov 3:1 36 Prov 3:1–5 8–11, 36, 184 Prov 3:1–7:27 7 Prov 3:1–12 9, 13, 36 Prov 3:1–35 3 Prov 3:1–5 184–85 Prov 3:2 8 Prov 3:3 11–12 Prov 3:4 8, 36 Prov 3:5–6 13 Prov 3:5 8, 36 Prov 3:5a 12, 22 Prov 3:5b 13 Prov 3:7 13 Prov 3:11–1 9 Prov 3:17 19 Prov 3:21–24 9 Prov 3:23–24 15 Prov 4:2–4 20–21 Prov 4:9 212–14 Prov 4:9 LXX 214 Prov 4:14 34 Prov 5:6 17–19 Prov 5:15–19 16 Prov 5:20 16 Prov 6 7, 21, 40–42, 126 Prov 6:20 36 Prov 6:20a LXX 59 Prov 6:20b 59 Prov 6:20–23 21 Prov 6:20–24 8, 13, 15–16, 21–22, 36, 183–85 Prov 6:20–35 3, 14–15, 22 Prov 6:21 12 Prov 6:22–23 15 Prov 6:23 14–15, 17–18, 21, 142 Prov 6:23 LXX 13 Prov 6:24–35 14 Prov 6:32–35 159

 379

380 

 Index of Sources

Prov 7 7, 21, 40, 43, 159, 244, 255, 257, 259, 261, 263, 269 Prov 7:1–4 36 Prov 7:1–5 8, 21, 184–85 Prov 7:1–27 22 Prov 7:2 8 Prov 7:2–4 8 Prov 7:3 11–12 Prov 7:4 21 Prov 7:4a 16 Prov 7:6–27 297 Prov 7:6–23 258 Prov 7:8 257–58 Prov 7:12 257–58 Prov 7:13 258 Prov 7:15 258 Prov 7:16 258 Prov 7:17 258 Prov 7:18 258–59 Prov 7:22 105 Prov 7:26 159 Prov 7:27 259, 267 Prov 8 23, 115, 125–126, 136–137 Prov 8:13 34 Prov 8:15–16 137 Prov 8:20–21 137 Prov 8:22–30 115 Prov 8:32 19 Prov 10–15 34 Prov 10–22 35 Prov 10–24 297 Prov 10–27 34–35 Prov 10–29 7 Prov 10–31 6, 327 Prov 10:1–15:33 40 Prov 10:1 7, 34 Prov 10:2 330 Prov 10:13 308 Prov 10:16 17 Prov 10:17 17–18 Prov 11:1 179 Prov 11:18–21 36 Prov 12:4 214 Prov 12:28 17–18 Prov 13:13–15 20 Prov 13:14 20, 308–9 Prov 13:19 17

Prov 13:20 34 Prov 14:2 21 Prov 14:3 38 Prov 14:12 40 Prov 14:18 212–13 Prov 14:18 LXX 213 Prov 14:24 212, 214, 234 Prov 14:24 LXX 212, 234 Prov 14:26 21 Prov 14:27 20–21, 309 Prov 14:31 33 Prov 14:33 308 Prov 15 39 Prov 15:7 38 Prov 15:8 34, 39 Prov 15:24 17–18 Prov 15:25 165 Prov 15:29 39 Prov 16:9 107 Prov 16:21 308 Prov 16:31 214 Prov 17:6 214 Prov 17:23 160, 182 Prov 17:24 37 Prov 18:13 34 Prov 18:16 160 Prov 19:1 34 Prov 20:1 156 Prov 20:10 167, 179 Prov 20:20 162 Prov 20:23 167, 179 Prov 20:24 40, 298 Prov 21:7 33 Prov 21:12 40 Prov 21:18–21 37 Prov 22–24 173 Prov 22:14 297 Prov 22:17 33 Prov 22:17–23:11 28 Prov 22:17–24:22  6, 173 Prov 22:23 297 Prov 22:27–28 297 Prov 22:28 166, 178 Prov 22:29 297 Prov 23 8 Prov 23:1–2 154 Prov 23:10–11 165

Index of Sources 

Prov 23:10 178 Prov 23:10a 166 Prov 23:11 165 Prov 23:20–22 156 Prov 23:20–21 34, 39 Prov 24:1 33 Prov 25:1 7 Prov 25:2–5 35 Prov 25:6–7 154 Prov 25:11 251 Prov 26:12 13 Prov 26:27 40 Prov 28 5, 27, 30, 36–37, 40–41 Prov 28–29 30, 32, 35, 38 Prov 28:1 30, 34 Prov 28:2 32, 36–37 Prov 28:2–3 35 Prov 28:2–6 34 Prov 28:2–11 30, 32–37, 39, 43 Prov 28:3 32–33 Prov 28:3a 32 Prov 28:4 32, 40 Prov 28:4a 32 Prov 28:4–7 20 Prov 28:5 21, 32, 36–37, 43 Prov 28:5a 33 Prov 28:6 32, 34 Prov 28:7–11 34 Prov 28:7 32, 36–38, 40 Prov 28:7b 37  Prov 28:8 32, 38 Prov 28:9 32, 36, 38–40 Prov 28:10 32, 40 Prov 28:11 32, 35–36 Prov 28:12 30–31 Prov 28:13–27 30 Prov 28:24 162–63 Prov 28:25 21 Prov 28:28 30–31 Prov 29 30, 40 Prov 29:1–15 30 Prov 29:2 31 Prov 29:16 30–32 Prov 29:16a 31 Prov 29:17–26 30 Prov 29:18 40 Prov 29:26 34

Prov 29:27 30 Prov 30 23, 27, 42–43 Prov 30–31 6 Prov 30:1–14 42 Prov 30:2–3 42 Prov 31 27, 30 Prov 31:1 332 Prov 31:4 156 Prov 31:8–9 165–66 Prov 31:8 332 Song 1–2 245 Song 1:1–5:1 Syr 245 Song 1:1–7 245, 247 Song 1:1 269 Song 1:2 267 Song 1:3 271 Song 1:4 268 Song 1:5 255, 269 Song 1:6 251 Song 1:9 251 Song 1:2b–3a 247 Song 1:3 247 Song 1:4 247 Song 1:5 248 Song 1:12 249, 268, 271 Song 1:13–14 252 Song 1:14 253 Song 1:16 258 Song 2–4 248 Song 2:1–8:6 267 Song 2:1–6 245 Song 2:1 245 Song 2:3–5 251 Song 2:3 251, 266 Song 2:4 248 Song 2:6 267 Song 2:7 248, 251, 255, 266–67 Song 2:9 246, 262, 268 Song 2:9b–14 245, 248 Song 2:9b 244 Song 2:10 252 Song 2:12 246 Song 2:13 246, 252 Song 2:14 268 Song 2:15 250 Song 2:16–17 245, 248

 381

382 

 Index of Sources

Song 2:16 248, 252 Song 2:17 246, 258, 268 Song 3:1–2 252 Song 3:1–2a 248 Song 3:1–5 253, 264 Song 3:1–4 248, 252 Song 3:1–4:3 245 Song 3:1 246 Song 3:2–4a 245 Song 3:2b–5 244, 248 Song 3:2 258 Song 3:3 245 Song 3:3a 248 Song 3:4–4:3 245 Song 3:4 245, 257 Song 3:4b–5 266 Song 3:5 245, 248, 251, 255, 266–67 Song 3:6–4:1 244 Song 3:6 248, 265, 267 Song 3:7–11 252, 267 Song 3:7–10 250 Song 3:9 250 Song 3:10 246 Song 3:11 249, 269 Song 4–5 262 Song 4:1–7 245, 248, 265 Song 4:1–5:7 248 Song 4:1 248 Song 4:1a 246 Song 4:1b 246 Song 4:2 246, 251 Song 4:3 246 Song 4:4–7 244–45 Song 4:5–6 265 Song 4:6 258, 269 Song 4:8–5:1a 258 Song 4:8–5:1 245, 258, 266 Song 4:8a 247 Song 4:8b 247 Song 4:9 251 Song 4:10 246–47 Song 4:11 246, 251 Song 4:13–15 253, 258 Song 4:14 247, 258 Song 4:16 266 Song 5:1 244, 247, 258

Song 5:1b 258–59, 269 Song 5:2–8:6 259, 267 Song 5:2–6:10 248 Song 5:2–6:3 248 Song 5:2–6:2 248 Song 5:2–6 251 Song 5:2 271 Song 5:6–7 252 Song 5:7 248, 252–53 Song 5:8–9 248 Song 5:8 251, 255, 267 Song 5:15 250 Song 5:16 248, 255 Song 6:1 248 Song 6:2 253 Song 6:3 53, 248 Song 6:4–7 248 Song 6:4 LXX 53 Song 6:5 248 Song 6:5b–7 248 Song 6:6 251 Song 6:8–9 248, 252, 268 Song 6:10–8:6 263, 267 Song 6:10 248 Song 6:11–8:6 245, 249 Song 6:11–7:7 245 Song 6:12 250 Song 7:1 250, 266 Song 7:2–4 245–46 Song 7:2 250 Song 7:2b–6 248 Song 7:3 246 Song 7:4 253–54 Song 7:5 LXX 253 Song 7:5 251, 268 Song 7:8 251 Song 7:11 264 Song 7:12–13 253 Song 7:13 263 Song 7:14 271 Song 8 248 Song 8:1–2 248, 257, 266–67 Song 8:1 258 Song 8:2 258 Song 8:3 248, 267 Song 8:4–5 248

Index of Sources 

Song 8:4 251, 255, 266–67 Song 8:5 251 Song 8:5a 248, 267 Song 8:6–7 266 Song 8:6 245, 250–51, 267 Song 8:6a 259 Song 8:8–14 268 Song 8:8–10 268 Song 8:11–12 252, 268 Song 8:11 268 Song 8:12 268 Song 8:13–14 268

Qoh 9:3–4 103 Qoh 9:10 107 Qoh 9:13–18 102 Qoh 10:10–11 102 Qoh 10:10 102 Qoh 10:11 102 Qoh 11:9 102 Qoh 12:12 118 Qoh 12:9 102 Qoh 12:12 102 Qoh 12:13–14 101 Qoh 12:13 98, 101

Qoh 1:1 109 Qoh 1:11 102 Qoh 1:12 109 Qoh 1:13–2:2 98 Qoh 1:16 102 Qoh 2:3 102 Qoh 2:9 102 Qoh 2:13–14 102 Qoh 2:26 107 Qoh 3:11 100 Qoh 5 109 Qoh 5:3 98 Qoh 7 102 Qoh 7:5 102 Qoh 7:1–6 98, 104 Qoh 7:16 103 Qoh 7:17 103 Qoh 7:23–24 98, 103 Qoh 7:25–29 103–4 Qoh 7:25–26 106 Qoh 7:25 103–5, 107 Qoh 7:26 105, 107, 110 Qoh 7:27 104–7 Qoh 7:28 104–6 Qoh 7:29 104–7 Qoh 8 103–4 Qoh 8:1 102 Qoh 8:2–5 101 Qoh 8:5–8 104 Qoh 8:10–13 98 Qoh 8:16–17 104 Qoh 8:17 102–3 Qoh 9:2 109

Lam 2:15 213 Esth 1:6 250 Dan 1–5 306 Dan 1:20 306 Dan 2–6 298 Dan 2–5 307 Dan 2:2 206 Dan 4:4 306 Dan 5:11 306 Dan 6:6 308 Dan 7:10 LXX 215 Dan 9:11 56 Dan 9:13 56 Ezra 3:2 56 Ezra 7:25 278 Ezra 9–10 304 Ezra 10:2 14 Ezra 10:14 14 Ezra 10:17–18 14 Ezra 10:44 14 Neh 8:1 56 Neh 8:2 56 Neh 9 56 Neh 9:6 306 Neh 13 304 Neh 13:26 14 1 Chr 16:40 61 1 Chr 22:12 61

 383

384 

 Index of Sources

1 Chr 25:4 61 1 Chr 29:2 250 1 Chr 31:3 61 1 Chr 34:14 61 1 Chr 35:26 61 2 Chr 1–9 136 2 Chr 6:31 18 2 Chr 19:4–11 158 2 Chr 19:7 161 2 Chr 23:18 56 2 Chr 34:2 18

Deuterocanonical Works Tob 1 346, 348, 350, 354 Tob 1:1–7 357 Tob 1:1–6 355 Tob 1:1 331, 333 Tob 1:2 354 Tob 1:3–22 331, 346 Tob 1:3 331, 333, 336 Tob 1:4–5 354 Tob 1:4 330, 333 Tob 1:5–8 348 Tob 1:5–6 356 Tob 1:5 333 Tob 1:6–7a 331 Tob 1:6 333 Tob 1:7b 331 Tob 1:8 329, 331 Tob 1:9 336 Tob 1:10 333 Tob 1:14 333 Tob 1:15 341 Tob 1:16–20 333 Tob 1:16–17 345 Tob 1:16 333, 336, 341, 348 Tob 1:17 333, 336 Tob 1:18 348 Tob 1:19 348 Tob 1:20 348 Tob 1:21–22 340, 353 Tob 1:21 319, 333, 348, 350

Tob 1:21b 341 Tob 1:22 338, 340, 342, 347, 348, 350 Tob 1:22b 341 Tob 2 354 Tob 2–14 348 Tob 2:1 342 Tob 2:2–3 348 Tob 2:2 331, 333, 348 Tob 2:3 333 Tob 2:4 348 Tob 2:6 355 Tob 2:8 348 Tob 2:10 338, 340, 342–43, 348–49 Tob 2:11 349 Tob 2:14 336 Tob 2:20 348 Tob 2:22 343 Tob 3:1–4 338 Tob 3:2 336 Tob 3:3b 337 Tob 3:4 333, 337 Tob 3:5a 337 Tob 3:5b 337 Tob 3:7 349 Tob 3:10 349 Tob 3:11 336, 349 Tob 3:15 333 Tob 3:16 349 Tob 3:17 349 Tob 4 334, 338–39, 343–44, 358 Tob 4:3–21 330 Tob 4:3 344 Tob 4:5 331 Tob 4:6–11 337 Tob 4:6–7a 337 Tob 4:6 337 Tob 4:7–19 319 Tob 4:7–11 337 Tob 4:8–9 344 Tob 4:10 330, 338, 344 Tob 4:10a 344 Tob 4:10b 344 Tob 4:11 336 Tob 4:12–13 350, 357 Tob 4:12 321, 333, 335, 354 Tob 4:12a 334

Index of Sources 

Tob 4:12c 334 Tob 4:13 333 Tob 4:13a 334 Tob 4:13c 334 Tob 4:14–17 337 Tob 4:19 333 Tob 5:1 332 Tob 5:4–14 354 Tob 5:6 333 Tob 5:9 333 Tob 5:10 345 Tob 5:11 333 Tob 5:12 333 Tob 5:13 333 Tob 5:14 333 Tob 6 334 Tob 6:7 333 Tob 6:11–18 339 Tob 6:11 333 Tob 6:12 333 Tob 6:13 329 Tob 6:14 333 Tob 6:16 333–34, 338 Tob 7:3 333 Tob 7:4 333 Tob 7:9 333 Tob 7:12 333 Tob 7:13 329 Tob 7:14 329 Tob 8:6 355 Tob 9:2 333 Tob 10:13 333 Tob 11:2 333 Tob 11:8 353 Tob 11:9–18 348 Tob 11:18 333, 340, 342, 349 Tob 12 339 Tob 12:2–6 330 Tob 12:6–20 339 Tob 12:8–9 338 Tob 12:9 338, 345 Tob 12:13–14 345 Tob 13 338 Tob 13:2 198 Tob 13:3 333 Tob 13:5 333 Tob 13:8 333

Tob 13:13 333 Tob 13:15–17 330 Tob 14 334, 338–39, 347, 349, 355, 358 Tob 14:2–11a 330 Tob 14:2 347 Tob 14:3–11 359 Tob 14:3 332 Tob 14:4 333, 355 Tob 14:4–7 355 Tob 14:5–7 354 Tob 14:6 333, 353 Tob 14:6a 355 Tob 14:7 333, 353–54, 356 Tob 14:8 332 Tob 14:10–11a 340 Tob 14:10 340, 342–45, 348, 350, 354 Tob 14:11 350, 358 Tob 36–7 320 Tob 44:1 321 Wis 1–6 119, 133 Wis 1:1 134 Wis 1:3 144 Wis 1:5 124 Wis 1:6–7 135 Wis 1:7 135 Wis 1:9 139 Wis 1:16–2:1a 120 Wis 2 139 Wis 2:1–5 139 Wis 2:1 144 Wis 2:6–9 139 Wis 2:10–11 139 Wis 2:10 134 Wis 2:11–12 120, 136, 139 Wis 2:11 116, 122 Wis 2:12 116, 121–22, 126, 134, 143 Wis 2:13–20 139 Wis 2:13 134 Wis 2:16 134 Wis 2:20 139 Wis 2:21 144 Wis 2:22 139 Wis 3:1–10 139 Wis 3:1 126, 139 Wis 3:5 122 Wis 3:8 136

 385

386 

 Index of Sources

Wis 3:9 139 Wis 3:11 122, 138 Wis 3:14 120 Wis 3:19 120 Wis 4:7 134 Wis 4:15 139 Wis 4:16 134 Wis 4:20 139 Wis 5:1 134 Wis 5:2 139 Wis 5:5 134 Wis 5:7 139 Wis 5:15–16 139 Wis 5:15 134 Wis 5:16 136 Wis 5:23 139 Wis 6 123, 136 Wis 6:4 116, 119, 123, 139 Wis 6:9 138, 215 Wis 6:10 138 Wis 6:11 138 Wis 6:12 125 Wis 6:17–21 135 Wis 6:17–20 122–123, 127 Wis 6:17 122 Wis 6:18–19 138 Wis 6:18 116, 136, 138 Wis 6:22–25 114 Wis 7–8 114, 125 Wis 7–9 114–15, 124 Wis 7–10 133 Wis 7:7 135, 138 Wis 7:14 122 Wis 7:17–20 126 Wis 7:17–22 138 Wis 7:21–28 115 Wis 7:21b–8:1 114 Wis 7:22–34 136 Wis 7:22b–23 114 Wis 7:22 135 Wis 7:22b 124 Wis 7:24 115, 118, 120 Wis 7:25–26 115, 135 Wis 7:25 115 Wis 7:27 115, 118, 135, 138 Wis 7:27b 115

Wis 7:29–30 125 Wis 7:29 125 Wis 8:1 115, 119–20 Wis 8:2 134, 138 Wis 8:2a 114 Wis 8:4 128 Wis 8:7 139 Wis 8:21 115 Wis 9 115, 124 Wis 9:1–9 134 Wis 9:1 116, 120 Wis 9:2–18 119 Wis 9:2 116 Wis 9:5 116, 143 Wis 9:7 215 Wis 9:9 124, 134 Wis 9:9c–d 124 Wis 9:11b 124 Wis 9:13–18 124 Wis 9:13–17 115 Wis 9:13 116, 124, 126 Wis 9:17 116, 124–26, 135 Wis 9:18b 124 Wis 9:18c 125 Wis 10–19 117 Wis 10 117–19, 125, 141 Wis 10:16 118, 138, 141 Wis 11–19 133, 141 Wis 11:1–14 141 Wis 11:1 118, 125, 141 Wis 12:1 115, 135 Wis 12:19 134 Wis 12:21 134 Wis 13–15 143 Wis 14:16 116, 139, 143 Wis 14:27 143 Wis 15:7 215 Wis 16:1–19:22 141 Wis 16:2 134 Wis 16:5–14 141 Wis 16:6–11 120, 125 Wis 16:6 116, 141 Wis 16:10 134 Wis 16:13 198 Wis 16:20 134 Wis 16:26 134

Index of Sources 

Wis 17:1–18:4 142 Wis 17:2 134, 139 Wis 17:12–13 144 Wis 17:18 142 Wis 17:21 142 Wis 18:1 134 Wis 18:4 116, 118–20, 126, 134, 141–43 Wis 18:4c 139 Wis 18:5–25 141 Wis 18:5 134 Wis 18:7 134 Wis 18:8 141 Wis 18:9 116, 141, 143 Wis 18:13 134 Wis 19:5 134 Wis 19:22 128, 134–135, 139 Sir 1:1 68–69 Sir 1:1a 68 Sir 1:9b–10a 66 Sir 1:10b 66 Sir 1:11 213 Sir 1.14–15 12 Sir 1:16 69 Sir 1:18 213–14, 234 Sir 1:19 213 Sir 1:24 114 Sir 1:26 62 Sir 2:15–16 62 Sir 6:24–31 105 Sir 6:36 59, 62 Sir 7:6 215 Sir 7:24 257 Sir 8:10 66 Sir 8:14 215 Sir 9:6 66 Sir 9:10–16 58 Sir 9:14 58 Sir 9:15 107, 215 Sir 9:15b 52 Sir 9:16 58 Sir 10:1 215 Sir 10:2 215 Sir 10:24 215 Sir 11:18 198 Sir 14:20–15:10 47, 260 Sir 14:20–21 48

 387

Sir 14:20–27 48, 262 Sir 14:21 48 Sir 14:22–27 48 Sir 14:23 262 Sir 15:1 47–48, 62, 215 Sir 15:1a 48 Sir 15:1b 47–48 Sir 15:7–8 48 Sir 15:7a 48 Sir 15:15 59, 62 Sir 17:1 198 Sir 17:11 55–56, 62 Sir 17:12 56 Sir 19:17 51, 61, 215 Sir 19:20–24 68 Sir 19:20 62, 67–69, 215 Sir 19:24 215 Sir 19:25 62 Sir 21:11 62, 67–69, 215 Sir 22:23 66 Sir 23:12 66 Sir 23:23 51 Sir 23:27 123 Sir 24 63, 115, 121, 124, 126, 137, 261–63, 275 Sir 24:7 66 Sir 24:12 66 Sir 24:9a 64 Sir 24:19–22 64 Sir 24:20 66 Sir 24:22 62 Sir 24:23 55, 62–64, 66, 118, 131 Sir 24:23a 63 Sir 24:23b 63 Sir 24:25–31 262 Sir 24:25–27 64 Sir 24:28–29 64 Sir 24:32–33 62 Sir 26:29–27:3 167 Sir 27:5 107 Sir 27:26 344 Sir 6:31 213 Sir 32:14–33:3 47, 50 Sir 32:14 49 Sir 32:15 47, 49–50, 215 Sir 32:15a 47, 50 Sir 32:16–18 50 Sir 32:16–34:1 49

388 

 Index of Sources

Sir 32:16 49 Sir 32:17 49–50 Sir 32:17b 47 Sir 32:18 50 Sir 32:18d 47 Sir 32:21 49 Sir 32:22–23 49 Sir 32:22b 59 Sir 32:23 50, 122 Sir 32:24 49–50, 123, 215 Sir 32:24a 47, 50 Sir 33:1 49–50 Sir 33:2–4 49 Sir 33:2–3 62 Sir 33:2 49–50, 215 Sir 33:2a 47 Sir 33:3 47, 49–50, 215 Sir 33:3b 47 Sir 33:7–15 66 Sir 34:8 62, 215 Sir 35:1 123, 215 Sir 35:12 215 Sir 35:22–36:22 67 Sir 36:1–22 281 Sir 37:21 68 Sir 38:22 53 Sir 38:33 215 Sir 38:34 51, 215 Sir 38:34–39:8 62 Sir 39:1–11 219 Sir 39:8 55, 215 Sir 39:16–35 12 Sir 41:1–15 52, 54 Sir 41:1–4 52–53 Sir 41:1 199 Sir 41:2a 53 Sir 41:3a 53 Sir 41:4 52, 54 Sir 41:4a 53 Sir 41:4b 47, 53 Sir 41:5 54 Sir 41:5b–6a 52 Sir 41:6 66 Sir 41:8 47, 51–54, 56 Sir 41:8b 47, 54 Sir 41:14–42:8 54 Sir 41:14–28 54

Sir 41:18 215, 234 Sir 42:2 51, 54–56, 199, 215 Sir 42:2a 47 Sir 42:3 66 Sir 42:15–43:33 12 Sir 43:10 53 Sir 44–50 215, 362 Sir 44:1–50:24 281 Sir 44:4c 62 Sir 44:8 66 Sir 44:11 66 Sir 44:19–23 52, 58–59 Sir 44:19 202 Sir 44:20 52, 55, 58, 215 Sir 44:20a 59 Sir 44:20b 59 Sir 44:20c 59 Sir 44:22 52 Sir 44:23 66 Sir 45:5 47, 55–56 Sir 45:5c–d 62 Sir 45:5c 59 Sir 45:5d 47, 56 Sir 45:17 55, 60, 215 Sir 45:17a 59 Sir 45:21a 64 Sir 45:25 213 Sir 46:8 66 Sir 46:9 66 Sir 46:11–12 215 Sir 46:11 215 Sir 46:14 215 Sir 49:4 47, 51, 54, 56 Sir 49:4c 47 Sir 49:14–16 321 Sir 50:27 45, 118 Sir 51 262 Sir 51:1–12 281 Sir 51:13–30 262 Sir 51:13–27 261 Sir 51:15c–d 62 Sir 51:30a–b 62 Bar 2:1 215 Bar 3–4 263 Bar 3:9–4:4 91–92, 115, 121, 124, 261 Bar 3:9 55

Index of Sources 

Bar 3:38 124 Bar 4:1 63 1 Macc 2:26 362 1 Macc 2:55 215 2 Macc 1:10b–2:18 256 2 Macc 2:6 215 2 Macc 2:13–15 256 2 Macc 4:17 123 2 Macc 5:23 256 2 Macc 6:1–2 256 1 Esd 1:33 61 1 Esd 5:26 195 1 Esd 8:16 124 1 Esd 8:19 51, 61 3 Macc 2:28–30 227 2 Esd 7:12 61 4 Macc 1:16–17 122 4 Macc 1:16 122 4 Macc 9:12 197 4 Macc 9:21 202 4 Macc 18:1 202 4 Macc 20 202 4 Macc 23 202

Pss. Sol. 4 255 Pss. Sol. 4:4–5 255 Pss. Sol. 8 255 Pss. Sol. 8:9–10 255 Pss. Sol. 16:7–8 255 Pss. Sol. 17:5–9 255 Sib. Or. 3:501 198 Theod. Shechem 200

Dead Sea Scrolls 1Q20 201–2, 262, 331, 360 1Q20 xx 1–8 262 1Q20 xx 3–8 263 1QHa 275, 283, 287 1QHa ix 27–21 285 1QHa xii–xiv 284 1QHa xii 11 286–87 1QHa xii 30–34 284 1QHa xii 30 285 1QHa xiii 7–21 285 1QHa xiii 10–15 285 1QHa xiii 13 285–87 1QHa xiv 6–8 287 1QHa xiv 13 286, 288

1 En. 42 261

1QS 278 1QS v 8 278 1QS vi 6–8 278 1QS viii 16–20 225

Jub. 4:33 335

4Q106 244, 248, 266–67

Let. Aris. §31 121 Let. Aris. §49 201 Let. Aris. §139 121 Let. Aris. §144 121 Let. Aris. §310 228–29

4Q107 244, 248, 258, 269 4Q107 i 244, 269 4Q107 i 13 259 4Q107 ii–iv 249 4Q107 ii 244 4Q107 iii 13 244 4Q107 iv 12 244

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha

Pss. Sol. 2 255 Pss. Sol. 2:11 255 Pss. Sol. 2:13 255

4Q184 261

 389

390 

 Index of Sources

4Q185 261 4Q185 1–2 ii 10 261

New Testament

4Q196–99 319 4Q196a 2 5 347 4Q196 2 5 319 4Q196 14 18 347 4Q197 4 iii 10–11 347

Matt 13:52 271 Matt 25:1–12 271

4Q200 319 4Q371–73 300 4Q372 1 27 300

Mark 2:18–22 271 Mark 13:28–29 271 Mark 14:3–9 271 Luke 12:25–36 271

4Q420 261

John 3:38–30 271 John 12:1–8 271 John 14:15 123

4Q421 261 4Q421 1a ii 10 261

Acts 2:25–34 260 Acts 17:6 206

4Q436 1 i 4–9 285

1 Pet 5:4 213–14, 234

4Q525 51, 261, 163, 280–82 4Q525 2 ii 2–8 261 4Q525 2 ii 2–3 51, 280 4Q525 2 ii 3–4 261 4Q525 2 iii 1–3 261 4Q525 5 6–13 261 4Q542 359–60 6Q6 245, 247 6Q6 ii 245 11Q5 275, 282, 288 11Q5 xviii 10 289 11Q5 xviii 12 51, 284 11QPsa 261, 262 11QPsa xxi 11–18 262 11QPsa xxvii 3–11 260 11QPsa 154 261, 263 11QPsa 154:5–15 261 11QPsa 154:5–6 261 11QPsa 154:14 261

Philo Abr. 202 Ebr. 7.24 202 Leg. 2.59 202 Legat. 133 204 Legat. 134 230 Flacc. 10.74 228 Flacc. 53 228 Flacc. 80 228 Mos. 2.1–7 118 Mos. 2.192 118

Josephus A.J. 1.223 201 A.J. 10.284–87 232 A.J. 11.321–22 300 A.J. 12.237–9 232 A.J. 12.287–8 232

Index of Sources 

A.J. 12.710 300 A.J. 13.62–4 232 A.J. 13.74–9 300 A.J. 13.254–55 254 A.J. 14.117 229 A.J. 14.188 228 A.J. 19.281 225 A.J. 19.282 227 A.J. 20.235–7 232 B.J. 1.33 232 B.J. 1.190 232 B.J. 2.487–93 227 B.J. 2.487–88 227–28 B.J. 2.490–98 227 B.J. 5.380 201 B.J. 7.421–36 232 C. Ap. 2.126 140 C. Ap. 2.169–171 140 C. Ap. 2.35–39 228 C. Ap. 2.35 227 C. Ap. 2.37 228 C. Ap. 2.293 140

Other Rabbinic Works Rab. Gen. 1:42–44 59 Sifre 2 59 Sifre 12 59

New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha Acts of John 75 198

Classical and Ancient Christian Writings Apoll. Rhodes, Arg. 365  203 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 12  189 Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.15.169 327 Demosthenes, Pro. Phorm. 26.3 347

Mishna, Talmud, and Related Literature b. ‘Abod. Zar. 52b 231 b. Gittin 45a 105 b. Meg. 10a 231 b. Meṣa 87a 59 b. Ta’an 31a 269 b. Yebam 80a 216 b. Yoma 38a 231 m. Menaḥ 13:10 231 m. Ta’an 4:8 269 m. Yad. 3:5 270 t. Sanh. 12:10 244, 270 y.Yoma 6:3 231

 391

Diogenes Laertius, Lives 5.2.50 327 Euripides, Hec. 115 203 Euripides, Bacch. 1378 203 Eus., Chron. 2.223 228 Eus., Hist. eccl. 4.2.3 228 Eus., Praep. ev. 7.14, 1 121 Eus., Praep. ev. 9.22.10–11  200 Eus., Praep. ev. 13.12, 7–8 121 Hesiod, Theog. 395 203 Homer, Iliad 1.119 203 Homer, Iliad 2.130 203 Homer, Iliad 11.690–91 195 Moschus, Poems 2.79 200 Moschus, Poems 2.84 200

392 

 Index of Sources

Pindar, Nem. 3.39 198

Ancient Near Eastern Sources

Plato, Resp. 4, 426–35 139 Plato, Resp. 5, 473c–d 135 Plato, Resp. 10, 609b 139

Admonitions of Ipuwer  23

Plutarch, Phil. 17.6.5 347

Babylonian Theodicy  5, 23 Dialogue of Pessimism  5, 23

Soph., Oed. col. 609–10  189 Soph., Phil. 714 208 Soph., Phil. 1467 198

Ahiqar (Aramaic)  23, 300, 320–21, 325–27, 328, 341, 344-49, 354

Strabo, Geogr. 241.288–9 327

Eloquent Peasant  5

Sue., Claud. 25.4 227

Instruction of Amenemope  6, 18, 28, 173–74, 298

Theocritus, Id. 1.24 251 Theocritus, Id. 1.48–49 250 Theocritus, Id. 1.90–91 252 Theocritus, Id. 2.120 251 Theocritus, Id. 2.124–28 251 Theocritus, Id. 2.132–33 251 Theocritus, Id. 2.152 259 Theocritus, Id. 3.10 251 Theocritus, Id. 3.18–19 251 Theocritus, Id. 3.18 251 Theocritus, Id. 5.86 251 Theocritus, Id. 5.111–12 250 Theocritus, Id. 7.1 251 Theocritus, Id. 8.29–30 252 Theocritus, Id. 8.80 252 Theocritus, Id. 10.26 251 Theocritus, Id. 14.61–62 252 Theocritus, Id. 15.22 252 Theocritus, Id. 15.69–72 252 Theocritus, Id. 15.119–127 252 Theocritus, Id. 16.51–52 259 Theocritus, Id. 17.93–94 252 Theocritus, Id. 17.128–130 252 Theocritus, Id. 18.12–13 251 Theocritus, Id. 18.22–25 251 Theocritus, Id. 18.30–32 251 Theocritus, Id. 20.27 251 Theocritus, Id. 29.38 251 Theophrastes, Hist. plant. 6.6 253

Instruction of Ankhsheshonqe  12 P. Chester Beatty IV 18 P. Berlin 13446 325 P. Insinger 41, 108 P. London 1912 230 P.Oxy. 119.6 204 P.Oxy. 126.13 204 P.Oxy. 237.7 225 P.Oxy. 745.4 206 P.Ryl. 75 225 Prophecies of Neferti  23 Teachings of Ptahhotep  297

Other (Material Collections) BE 71.361 204 BGU 1134 227 BGU 1140 231 BGU 1151 224, 227

Index of Sources 

CIIP 98 231 CIJ II 1175 202 CIJ II 1256 231 CIJ II 1440 230 CPJ I 138 230 CPJ 11 143 224 CPJ II 146 227 CPJ II 150 229 CPJ II 151 231 CPJ II 153 230 CPJ III 1530a 189–91, 193 CPJ III 1532a 230 EG 1050 198 EJ 430 189, 193 IG I3 102 204 IG II2 20 204 IG II2 1006 204 IG II2 3575 197 IG II2 7863 203 IG VII 2535 198 IG XIV 1603 204 IM 2 200 IM 7 199 IM 15 199 IM 16 189, 191–93 IM 35 197–98

IM 37 197 IM 43 199–200 IM 45 197 IM 75 198 IM 84 199 IM 94 195, 197 IM 96 199 IM 118 197 IM 125 200 IM 172 197 JIGRE 18 204 JIGRE 23 197 JIGRE 32 197 JIGRE 33 197 JIGRE 34 194, 199 JIGRE 35 194–95, 197 JIGRE 38 199–200, 211, 221 JIGRE 39 189–96, 199–211 JIGRE 109 195, 211 JIGRE 152 202 JIGRE 153 231 JIGRE 154 202 P51 1366 225 SB 5765 189, 191–92 SB 1050ii 225 SEG 15.293 233 SEG 19.222 204

 393