Reimagining at the Sources: Probing the Story of Israel from its Origins to Jesus of Nazareth 9780567711946, 0567711943

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REIMAGINING AT THE SOURCES

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REIMAGINING AT THE SOURCES PROBING THE STORY OF ISRAEL FROM ITS ORIGINS TO JESUS OF NAZARETH

James E. Atwell

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T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2024 Copyright © Executors of James E. Atwell, 2024 James E. Atwell has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Preface on pp. xi–xii constitutes an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Jade Barnett Background texture © La Miko / Pexels All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: ePDF: eBook:

978-0-5677-1191-5 978-0-5677-1192-2 978-0-5677-1194-6

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To Simon, who has enabled a dream to become reality

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CONTENTS

F OREWORD P REFACE A BBREVIATIONS Part One

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Israel’s Religious Traditions: A Tale of Two Journeys

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The ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ I Introduction II Conflict with Sea III Piecing Together the New Year Festival IV Six Concluding Insights

3 3 5 7 10

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Righteousness as World Order I The Research of H.H. Schmid II Justice and Peace III Companion Concepts IV A Further Witness V In Summary

13 13 16 19 21 26

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The Primaeval History I A Pearl of Great Price II Universalism III The Right Ordering of Relationships

28 28 31 36

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Reflections on Creator and Creation I The Hebrew Scriptures II The Lord Is King III A Community of Animals and Plants IV Justice V Universalism

42 42 43 49 54 55

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The ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ I God’s Mighty Act in History II The Interweaving of the Mythic and the Epic III Early Traditions in Exodus 1 to 15 IV The Soil of Canaan

59 59 60 64 66

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CONTENTS

Part Two

Israel’s Religious Traditions: Myth and Epic in Creative Tension

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Israel’s Story and the Story Israel Told I Contemplating Dissonance II Using the Major Festivals for Dating Epic Narrative III Engaging with the History of the Religion of Israel through ‘Covenant’ IV The Breaking of the Old Order

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Rewriting the Story of Israel’s Pre-Exilic History I The Transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age II The Arrival of Yahweh III The Early Monarchy IV The Later Monarchy V The Temporary Renaissance of King Josiah VI Beyond the End

88 88 92 93 97 102 104

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Hebrew Ethical Monotheism I Contrasting Processional Ways II Mythic and Epic III Identifying Monotheism IV Applying the Criteria V Accolade VI Critical Voices

109 109 112 117 118 125 126

Part Three 9

73 73 75 78 85

Second Temple Judaism: Law and Last Things

The Persian Period of Second Temple Judaism: With a General Introduction to the Second Temple Period I Mind the Gap: A General Introduction to the Second Temple Period II Second Temple Judaism in the Persian Period III Set Apart from the Nations IV The Jewish Historian Josephus

135 135 138 143 149

10 The Diaspora during Second Temple Judaism I A Jewish Diaspora II Diaspora Achievements in Egypt during the Reign of Ptolemy VI III Egyptian Diaspora Literary Activity IV Philo of Alexandria V Dark Days VI Overview

151 151 155 158 163 172 172

11 The Phenomenon of Apocalyptic I Introduction II Ethiopic Enoch (1 Enoch) III The Book of Watchers and the Astronomical Book IV The Book of Dreams and the Epistle of Enoch V The Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37 to 71)

174 174 177 178 183 189

CONTENTS

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12 The Spiritual Universe of Early Judaism I Is Apocalyptic the Fruit of Judaism? II New Creation III A Distinctive Judaism in Exponential Growth IV A Distinctive Judaism and Jesus of Nazareth

192 192 198 201 204

13 The Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran and the Context They Reveal I Introduction II Interpretive Summary III One Site and Its Narrative IV A Profile of the Scrolls V The Desert Camp VI The End of Days VII Origins VIII In Conclusion

205 205 208 211 217 230 235 242 247

14 Jesus of Nazareth (1) – Palestinian Silhouette I The Shadow of the Galilean II Eschatological Prophet III Charismatic Healer IV Rabbi and Wisdom Teacher V Sourcing the Kingdom of God in the Proclamation of Jesus

250 250 263 269 274 282

15 Jesus of Nazareth (2) – Kingdom Pioneer I The Nature and Identity of the Kingdom of God in the Proclamation of Jesus II The Kingdom Already Breaking In III Son of Man and Messiah IV Passion and Resurrection

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Part Four

290 299 305 310

Conclusion

16 A Landscape of Israel’s Story from Its Origins to Jesus of Nazareth

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B IBLIOGRAPHY I NDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS I NDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

338 357 363

FOREWORD

It has been suggested that, as the wife of the now deceased author, I write a foreword in view of the fact that my husband James died just forty-eight hours after completing the manuscript of this book. I have always been bemused that a Wiltshire lad, brought up on an isolated dairy farm, should declare theology to be his hobby (as well as Land Rovers and fairground organs, it should be said). Despite the protestations of both his headmaster and his parents, he chose to read theology at Oxford, influenced at the time by Archbishop Michael Ramsey. After a World Council of Churches scholarship to Harvard, he completed his ordination training at Cuddesdon and went on to enjoy fifty years of parish and cathedral ministry. He was as happy in a tiny village church as he was running a cathedral. Yet alongside the pastoral and administrative work, he maintained a keen interest in creation theology and went on to complete an Oxford BD thesis which occupied most of his days off and summer holidays. Having established this work pattern, he was determined to follow up The Sources of the Old Testament (the published version of the thesis) with a study bridging the period between the Old and New Testaments, and he spent most of his four years of so-called retirement in pursuit of this task. Living in Cambridge was ideal and I should like to thank the staff of the University Library for their patient and diligent assistance, even during the Covid lockdown. Unexpectedly, at the end of 2020 James was informed that he had a fast-growing tumour in his chest that would impede his ability to breathe within the next few weeks. This stark information concentrated the mind somewhat and he put in sixteen-hour days in order to complete the book. This he managed to achieve and then he died. I am hugely grateful to Dominic Mattos of T&T Clark for his belief in this work, to Professor Graham Davies for his academic supervision and encouragement over forty years, and to Simon Hillson who has diligently checked every single reference – not such an easy task when most libraries were either closed or had limited access. Personally, I am thrilled that the book is being published because it acknowledges the value of James’s extended research which can now be shared with future generations. Lorna Atwell January 2023

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This work is offered as the fruit of a lifetime’s reflection. During that time, I have been immersed in the demands of Christian ministry as a priority. However, I have tried to keep abreast of contemporary scholarship and the challenges it is presenting. If I have any personal credentials then they are not as a specialist academic, but as a ‘bridge builder’ who has been able to call upon constant academic support. This is the offering of a working priest intent on understanding the intellectual challenge that faith has to work through. ‘Faith seeking understanding’ has been its guide. The book is aimed at those on training courses for ministry, who might like to ‘fast track’ a complete view of Israel’s religious traditions from its origins to Jesus of Nazareth. I have sought to do the necessary ‘legwork’ to present a reasonably stand-alone comprehensive picture. I hope it will also be of interest to the more general reader with intellectual curiosity. Two objectives have driven this work. The first is an attempt to encounter the sources of faith and analyse the complex faith-journey that has taken place as Israel’s religious traditions developed. This has given opportunity for some reimagining, crucially needed in the Church’s theological reflection, which has become somewhat undervalued of late. We ignore the truth at our peril. The second objective has been to write a single coherent account which joins up the period covered by Israel’s early religious traditions with that of Second Temple Judaism. These are usually studied in isolation from one another as completely separate periods, each with its own identity, its own fundamental principles of research and discrete academic specialists. The connection between the nascent scripture of the Persian period and the ministry of Jesus may appear bewildering where the significance of early Judaism is omitted or simply abbreviated to accommodate the teaching time available. The result can be that study on training courses tends to telescope or neglect the phase of apocalyptic, Qumran and the ‘spiritual universe’ of early Judaism which are so crucial for understanding the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. This work would have been impossible without a huge amount of collaboration. I owe an enormous debt to Professor Graham Davies of Cambridge University for his unstinting encouragement over many decades. My interest in the Hebrew Scriptures could not have blossomed without his support. I further have to acknowledge those who have generously given their time to peer review various chapters. For the work relating to Israel’s religious traditions, I have to thank Professor Graham Davies. Professor William Horbury, formerly Dean of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge has kindly advised me on much of the period covered by the Persian and Hellenistic eras. Professor Susan Docherty of Newman University, Birmingham has advised on the Jewish diaspora. Professor George Brooke, formerly Rylands Professor at Manchester, made a meticulous job of reading my script. I have to thank him for opening my eyes afresh to the riches of recent decades of research on Qumran. Thank you, also, to Dr Peter Harland (Cambridge Divinity Faculty) for reading through the revised version of the chapter on Qumran. Professor Judith Lieu, xi

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formerly Lady Margaret’s Professor at Cambridge, kindly devoted herself to scrutinising the two chapters on Jesus of Nazareth. For practical support I need to acknowledge the work of the late Tim Pride, former Lay Clerk of Winchester Cathedral, who laboriously and carefully translated – in its entirety – H.H. Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung [Righteousness as World Order] (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1968). My long-suffering PA at Winchester Cathedral, Gill Jarvis, has spent many hours typing up much of the text, particularly in the period before my retirement. She continues to take a keen interest, for which I have been very grateful. My own computer skills have been saved by the intervention of Tony Rogers, who has given me constant technical support throughout. I wonder at his patience! It seems that I could ring him day or night when I was in trouble. Thank you so much, Tony. My wife, Lorna, has lived with this work throughout the final seven years of its gestation. I have had constant encouragement and it would never have seen completion without her having an equal commitment to the project. I hope you and she feel it has been a worthwhile endeavour. James E. Atwell December 2020

ABBREVIATIONS

Abr.

Philo, De Abrahamo (On the life of Abraham)

Aet.

Philo, De aeternitate mundi (On the eternity of the world)

Against Apion

Flavius Josephus, Against Apion

Agr.

Philo, De agricultura (On agriculture)

ANET

J.B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd edition (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969)

Antiquities

Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews

Aristeas

The Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates

ASAE

Annales du service des antiquités de l’Égypte

AV

Authorized Version

BWANT

Beiträge zur Wissenschaft vom Alten und Neuen Testament

BZAW

Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

CBQ

The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CBQMS

Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series

CD

The Damascus Document found in Cairo and Qumran

CRINT

Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum

CTA

A. Herdner, ed., Corpus des tablettes en cunéiformes alphabétiques découvertes à Ras Shamra-Ugarit de 1929 à 1939 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale Geuthner, 1963)

DJD

Discoveries in the Judaean Desert

Ebr.

Philo, De ebrietate (On drunkenness)

ESV

English Standard Version

Exagoge

The Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian

FRLANT

Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments

Her.

Philo, Quis rerum divinarum heres sit (Who is the heir?)

Hist. Eccl.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiae

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ABBREVIATIONS

HSMS

Harvard Semitic Monograph Series

HUCA

Hebrew Union College Annual

Ios.

Philo, De Iosepho (On the life of Joseph)

JAOS

Journal of the American Oriental Society

JARCE

Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt

JBL

Journal of Biblical Literature

JJS

Journal of Jewish Studies

JNES

Journal of Near Eastern Studies

JSJ

Journal for the Study of Judaism

JTS

Journal of Theological Studies

Leg.

Philo, Legum allegoriae (Allegorical interpretation)

Legat.

Philo, Legatio ad Gaium (On the Embassy to Gaius)

Life

Flavius Josephus, Life of Flavius Josephus

Migr.

Philo, De migratione Abrahami (On the migration of Abraham)

Mos.

Philo, De vita Mosis (On the life of Moses)

NRSV

New Revised Standard Version

NT

New Testament

NTS

New Testament Studies

Opif.

Philo, De opificio mundi (On the creation of the world)

OT

Old Testament

PG

Patrologia Graeca. J.-P. Migne (ed.), Patrologia cursus completa . . . Series graeca (166 vols; Paris: Petit Montrouge, 1857–83)

Plant.

Philo, De plantatione (On planting)

Praem.

Philo, De praemiis et poenis (On rewards and punishments)

Praep. Evang.

Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio evangelica

Prob.

Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit (That every good person is free)

Prov.

Philo, De Providentia (On Providence)

RSV

Revised Standard Version

Sacr.

Philo, De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini (On the sacrifices of Abel and Cain)

SBLSP

Society for Biblical Literature Seminar Papers

Somn.

Philo, De somniis (On dreams)

Spec.

Philo, De specialibus legibus (On the special laws)

ABBREVIATIONS

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SSN

Studia semitica Neerlandica

VT

Vetus Testamentum

VTS

Vetus Testamentum Supplements

War

Flavius Josephus, Wars of the Jews

WMANT

Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament

ZAW

Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Unless otherwise stated, all biblical quotations are from the NRSV.

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PART ONE

Israel’s Religious Traditions: A Tale of Two Journeys

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CHAPTER ONE

The ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ I INTRODUCTION This study commences with a sense of expectation. It is based on the recognition of the Hebrew Bible as Scripture and the consequent search within it for its ‘seeds of significance’. That is, there may be the expectation from Scripture of the discovery of moments of disclosure. Research identifies the emergence of the phenomenon of a written Scripture as taking place in the Second Temple era, so until that period it would be an anachronism to refer to the Hebrew Scriptures. In the titles of Part One and Part Two we refer to the period they cover, in retrospect, from Israel’s origins to the exile as ‘Israel’s Religious Traditions’. Nevertheless, the term Hebrew Scriptures is maintained to refer to the corpus as it developed, where this is envisaged. A critical question has to be asked as we embark upon this study. How dare one hope even to search for something approaching an understanding of, still less expect a coherent theology or disclosure from, the Hebrew Scriptures? They represent a library of writings capturing a myriad of voices which are the deposit of a thousand years, with roots which stretch back into the mists of antiquity and the birth of civilization in the Ancient Near East in the final quarter of the fourth millennium BCE . The Hebrew Scriptures chart a particular, even obscure, human engagement with the opportunities and perplexities of life, in an array of evolving circumstances – political, religious and social – in a world far removed from our own. They are the legacy of a tough and vulnerable life lived out without any sense of being a theatre for the future, but for us they have the weight of Scripture. Understanding the mind-set of those who inhabited a pre-classical world is a challenge. It is ambitious to set out to listen to their complex history without imposing our own assumptions upon it. However, like the determination to climb Everest, it seems that the fact of the Hebrew Scriptures insists we engage with their significance, but with real caution in the face of the perceived risk of daring the task at all. We commence this study in Part One by considering two colourful narratives which can give us a purchase on the Hebrew Scriptures. They are put forward as two potential tools useful for relating to the corpus as a whole. They are identified because they represent, arguably, the two most significant foundation traditions writ large in Israel’s psyche throughout the period covered by Israel’s religious traditions and beyond. That the two narratives carry conflicting, indeed incompatible, insights may encourage us to believe that we are not avoiding the challenge of the Hebrew Scriptures. The two accounts are about journey and both can be evidenced from poetry current in the period of the 3

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Hebrew monarchy, that is between the tenth and sixth centuries BCE . They enable us, with some confidence, to access evidence of two traditions cast in an enduring form which we can assume, once ‘published’ to the oral community, permeated the common stock of ideas. One narrative, the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’, represents a defining myth for all who lived in the region of Canaan and is valid for Israel, too. The journey signified a triumphal procession, celebrating the divine defeat of the forces of cosmic disorder, from the place of conflict to enthronement, over a now ordered and fruitful creation, in the Temple. It was celebrated annually in the Jerusalem Temple throughout the period of the monarchy. As a myth it was timeless and so could annually enable an encounter with the primordial archetypal events which constituted the ordered universe. It has not received the recognition it deserves in terms of its cultural and biblical significance. We shall devote Chapter One to this mythic narrative with its cosmic reach. Chapter One is expanded by giving consideration to ‘righteousness’ as a cosmic concept (Chapter Two), dwelling on the significance of the primaeval traditions (Chapter Three), with reflections on creator and creation following (Chapter Four). We shall then move on to consider the second journey (Chapter Five), before concluding Part One. This other narrative is the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’. The hub of the narrative is the specific event of the Exodus from Egypt, which lays claim to a date on the calendar. It takes the form of a ‘rescue at sea’, in which a sudden change in the forces of nature saves the Hebrew escapees from annihilation as they are about to be cut off by the pursuing Egyptians. It has been summarized by F.M. Cross in this way: ‘The poet knew only of a storm at sea and the sinking into the sea of the Egyptians.’1 The story is told in Exodus 15 in an extended ‘Song of Moses’, and in the single verse ‘Song of Miriam’: Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. — Exodus 15:21 Although experienced by only a small group, the moment seared itself into their memory to the extent that it forged Israel’s eventual identity. The outcome is not a journey ‘through sea’, but a journey ‘from sea’. It is the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’. The poetry goes on to recount the liberation in the form of a journey of entry into the Promised Land: ‘In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode’ (Exodus 15:13). The event strikes terror into the current inhabitants of the land. The Exodus event has created the narrative of an extended journey that leads to entry into the Promised Land; it lays claim to be one of Israel’s founding traditions. We shall devote Chapter Five to that second narrative, noting its interplay with the mythic tradition. For now, we must take up the first of our stories which takes us to a vigorous celebration of Canaanite identity.

F.M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 141.

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II CONFLICT WITH SEA The first journey takes us to the Canaanite autumn New Year festival with its cosmic significance and mythic pattern. It is the triumphal procession of the ‘Divine Warrior’ from the subjugation of the forces of chaos, symbolized by the breakers of the sea and often personified as a sea monster, to take up rule over an ordered universe upon the throne of his royal palace. The divine palace was the cult temple and there the deity was physically enthroned in some representational form. The pathos of the threat to order overcome, the breathtaking bravery and skill involved in the triumph of the divine champion were publicly celebrated by a celebratory journey along a processional way from the place of victory to the palace of enthronement. That triumphal procession, in its various versions proclaimed throughout the temples of the Canaanite city states, received its own particular dramatic enactment along a processional way to the Temple at Jerusalem throughout the period of the monarchy. In Jerusalem the deity was symbolized by the ark carried in procession. This symbol of the divine presence was accompanied, as elsewhere, by the earthly king who as vice-regent of God himself had the task of reflecting stable cosmic order in the affairs of the kingdom. There was much jubilation and festivity as the procession wended its way to the Temple. The cry was: ‘The Lord is king. . . . He has established the world’ (Psalm 93:1). The celebration of the kingship of God, in Jerusalem as elsewhere in Canaan, was none other than the celebration of the return of the fertile rains and nature’s accompanying bounty, together with a thriving ordered society. The Temple with its throne was visible assurance that benevolent divinity ruled supreme and that the order of the universe was trustworthy and safe. The very presence of the majestic building adjacent to the royal palace was an eloquent symbol which spoke to all, without the need for literacy, of a world with purposeful order secured. Because a myth was timeless, the renewal of the world in the moment when the order of creation was decisively vindicated could be repeated in an endless annual cycle. We can engage with the festival at the very moment that the procession reaches the Temple in the witness of Psalm 24. In a touch of detail relating firmly to the mythical, the gates are instructed to ‘lift up their heads’; it is reminiscent of the sullen gods in the Ugaritic texts, hanging their heads as they apprehensively await news of the divine victory.2 The Temple liturgy proceeds: Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in. Who is the King of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord, mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

CTA, 2.i.23; see J. Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1978), 41.

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Who is this King of Glory? The Lord of Hosts, he is the King of glory. — Psalm 24:7–10 We have to understand the fashioning of the psalm, with its liturgical dialogue, by its context in the excitement of the culmination of a victory procession full of jubilation and enthusiasm. Its dramatic significance has been encapsulated by John Day: ‘Yahweh the King is here clearly returning victorious from a battle, probably being symbolised by the Ark. But we are not explicitly informed what the battle was. However, in the light of v. 2 it is natural to suppose that it was with the waters of chaos at the time of creation, just as in the psalms discussed above.’3 There has been a struggle for kingship, and therefore for control, in a battle that has brought together the forces of chaos versus the contender for divine rationality and order. From that cosmic clash has triumphed the divine champion of all that is wise and harmonious. By divine fiat the miracle of an ordered world with all of its fruitfulness can now proceed. The celebration of the kingship of God may now be appropriately marked, as the journey of the Divine Warrior gives way to the moment of enthronement. The kingship of Yahweh celebrates God not simply as victor, but as creator. As for the cities of Canaan, so for Jerusalem, the New Year and other festivals gripped, bonded and informed a whole community. The people were on the tiptoe of expectation that the good order of the world would, this time, deliver its potential and yield prosperity. It was through the Temple as a physical symbol and as a centre of worship, with its processions which spilled out into the whole community, that theological ideas relating to creation and order could permeate the common culture. Ballads and poems were devised to give popular explanation of the significance of events being celebrated. Divine king, earthly king and people together celebrated the identity of their culture. These moments for a pre-literate society were the DNA, the transmitters of the essential information for the continuity and renewal of the life of the community. They were conceived to link the present in an immediate way to the glory of the establishment of primordial order with all of its fecundity and wellbeing. The consequence of all this, for the Jerusalem Temple no less than for other great temples of the Ancient Near East, was that the shape of the festivals became a vehicle that inspired literary reflection. The story of creation, told incrementally through the days of the New Year festival, as well as the developing liturgy with its hymns and customs, generated not only oral but also written material. The literate and the wise reflected theologically on the significance of the creation and its order that they celebrated at the festival. The priestly minded among them looked to articulate doctrinal neatness and cohesion. The Wisdom-minded worked within a framework which dissolved the specificness of the local and envisaged all human beings as equidistant from God. In that way the observance of the festivals at Jerusalem contributed to the generation of what was to become Scripture, including the opening chapters of Genesis. To these we shall turn in the following chapter.

3 John Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 38. The psalms referred to as ‘discussed above’ are: Ps. 74:12–17; Ps. 89:9–14; Ps. 104:1–9; Ps. 65:6–7; Ps. 95:1–5.

THE ‘JOURNEY OF THE DIVINE WARRIOR’

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Recent scholarship has challenged any easy assumptions relating to the early identity of Jerusalem, suggesting it may have been little other than an ‘extended chiefdom’ before the eighth century BCE .4 However, the Ancient Egyptian execration texts from the opening of the second millennium reveal Jerusalem as already having significant status in the region of Canaan.5 Contemporary archaeology has uncovered local confirmatory evidence: ‘The second urban period in this country is the Middle Bronze Age II. We can only speak of Jerusalem as a city from the second part of that period, beginning somewhere in the eighteenth century BCE . This period is well represented by huge archaeological remains and historical references also allude to it.’6 Ronny Reich has identified Jerusalem as one of a ‘few dozen’ Canaanite city states of that early period.7 He maintains that each had considerable independence. The continuing significance of Jerusalem in the fourteenth century BCE is evidenced in the Amarna correspondence which contains six letters and a fragment of a seventh from its ruler AbdiHepa to Pharaoh Akhenaten.8 Jerusalem’s context as regards the pre-exilic cultic traditions of its worship is captured by Konrad Schmid: ‘It can be described as a complex of ideas differentiated within itself and existing in certain proximity, as regards its content, with other Canaanite city theologies.’9 There were ancient and distinctive cultural and theological traditions at Jerusalem for the House of David to inherit which were embedded in local Canaanite practice. The voice of the Jerusalem Temple and its festivals must be allowed to be heard. Only so are we to understand the theological, philosophical and cultural significance of God as creator in the biblical context.

III PIECING TOGETHER THE NEW YEAR FESTIVAL A window into the Canaanite religious context, of which we have noted the Jerusalem Temple traditions were a particular and distinct manifestation, has been opened to us. The texts from the Bronze Age city of Ugarit10 have given independent confirmation of the significance of the cosmic battle theme across Canaanite civilization at the end of the Bronze Age. Texts introduce us to the Council of the Gods presided over by El, who is the creator. In particular, they acquaint us with Ba’al – ‘the Lord’ – the title for Hadad, a storm god, who becomes the champion of the gods. He is the one who, as the others cower with heads bowed, takes on the threat of chaos in the form of Prince Yam, the Sea. The contest is for kingship and Ba’al’s struggle is deliberately prolonged: the narrative

D.W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991). Dan Bahat, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1990), 22. 6 Ronny Reich, Excavating the City of David (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Biblical Archaeology Society, 2011), 284. 7 Ibid., 284: ‘Among the others were Hazor, ‘Acco, Beth-Shean, Shechem, Afeq and Ashqelon.’ 8 Ronny Reich sounds a warning to be heeded in interpreting the evidence: ‘In contrast, the archaeological evidence for this period that has so far been unearthed on the hill of the City of David is miniscule.’ Ibid., 288. 9 Konrad Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 56. 10 Ugarit is an ancient city state located at modern Ras Shamra, a headland on the Mediterranean coast of Northern Syria. Enormous quantities of clay tablets have been recovered from the site in early alphabetic script (based on cuneiform) dated to the mid-fourteenth century BCE . A thriving trading port, the city was destroyed by the Sea Peoples in about 1190 BCE . 4 5

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recounts how he sinks under the throne of his adversary. Eventually the outcome is decided, the emotions of the festival can be assuaged, the victory cry goes up: ‘Yam is indeed dead! Ba’al shall be King!’11 The proper recognition of Ba’al’s kingly status requires the construction of a palace or temple12 for which planning permission must be obtained from the high god, El. The materials, including cedars of Lebanon, are reminiscent of those later employed for Solomon’s Temple. Following a banquet of the gods, Ba’al sets out on a triumphal march of macho violence to display his power, which concludes with a regal entry into the temple. He is enthroned; his voice thunders. An episode about a window in the roof enriches the narrative and adds to its significance, doubtless reflecting a liturgical practice. The environment is now secure; the regular return of the fertile rains is assured after the drought of summer. In the Ugaritic texts Ba’al falls short of being the creator, which is the prerogative of El. He is, rather, the sustainer. However, in the Ancient Near East the two concepts are closely linked. There is a further cycle of myths in which Ba’al takes on Mot, the god of death, and in that his character is strikingly different. He succumbs to a cycle of life and death in which he seems to represent the innate seasonal force for life in nature. How the two cycles were related to each other and understood in any coherent way need not concern us here. The Ugaritic texts have introduced us to the drama enacted at the local temple which presented the victory of Ba’al as the champion of order threatened by chaotic sea or Yam. Let us return our focus to the Jerusalem Temple. For there, too, as the Psalmist reminds us: ‘Happy are the people who know the festal shout’ (Psalm 89:15a). It was S. Mowinckel13 who, on the evidence of the psalms, identified an autumn New Year festival at the Jerusalem Temple by analogy with Canaanite practice. The psalms provide plenty of material relating to God’s control of the breakers of the sea: O Lord God of Hosts, who is as mighty as you, O Lord? Your faithfulness surrounds you. You rule the raging of the sea; when its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in it – you have founded them. — Psalm 89:8–1114 The psalms also celebrate God’s consequent enthronement as king: The Lord is King; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! — Psalm 99:115

CTA, 2.iv.32; Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 45. CTA, 3; Gibson, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 46ff. 13 S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1956) and, idem, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (Two Volumes in One) (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004). 14 For further evidence from the psalms, see n. 3 above. 15 Enthronement psalms: 47; 93; 96; 97; and 99. 11 12

THE ‘JOURNEY OF THE DIVINE WARRIOR’

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Some verses seem barely to camouflage language appropriate to Ba’al: The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon. — Psalm 29:5 In the Jerusalem context Yahweh is identified with El Elyon, God Most High, who was worshipped there before it became the seat of the Davidic dynasty. As El Elyon, he is the creator deity; the cosmic conflict, therefore, is more straightforwardly a creation account than could be the case for Ba’al. However, although El Elyon shares that aspect of Ba’al which was combat deity, he never takes on the mantle of Ba’al as opponent of Mot or vegetation deity. This seems to have been true of El Elyon before he was identified with Yahweh, and may have made that identification not only straightforward but theologically tempting. In the psalms the accounts of El Elyon’s conflict with Yam and his enthronement are directly linked to the elements of creation.16 The word ‘linked’ is used advisedly as verses in the psalms relating to conflict and creation tend to be laid side by side rather than expressed causally, which would require a time element. The Temple cult in worship collapsed time and therefore the normal behaviour of act–consequence was suspended; the latter is the hallmark of the Wisdom way of thinking. Creation in the context of worship was always ‘now’ and never a completed event within the flow of time. The present could always participate in the moment of creation and, consequently, where it had fallen from original blessing it could be refreshed. It was for that reason that the New Year festival could put right the present experience of the worshippers where things had gone awry. The triumphal procession of the ark, signifying the presence of God, from the place where the overwhelming of the threat of watery chaos was enacted to enthronement in the Jerusalem Temple, celebrated the order of the world achieved and ever renewed. The real significance of this enacted drama was in its outcome. The local colour of the narrative of the drama of creation enabled those who celebrated it to access a magnificent vision of cosmic order shared across the Ancient Near East. Although the local traditions of how creation was achieved were multiple throughout the Ancient Near East, the outcome that was celebrated was remarkably consistent. It was the miracle of fruitful order. The identity of the ‘wise and wonderful’ achievement of an ordered cosmos is particularly evident in literature that stands close to the great conduits of Ancient Near Eastern culture. These were, for Israel as elsewhere in the Ancient Near East, Temple, Monarchy and Wisdom. In many ways it is the Wisdom tradition which has bequeathed the most poignant portrait of world order. The Wisdom tradition enables us to access the sheer wonder the created order evoked in the connectedness of its different environments with their local ecologies, and the way every part respected a universal overarching unity.17 We might include Psalm 104 and Genesis 1 within Wisdom’s broad circle. These two literary pieces not only seem to relate to one another, but also to Akhenaten’s Hymn to Aten from the New Kingdom period of Ancient Egypt’s long history.18 We may take Psalm 104, therefore, as something of a spokesperson for a genre.

16

For instance: Psalms 65:5–13; 74:12–17; 89:8–14. The breathtaking poetry of Job 38 to 39 is its own evidence from the Wisdom tradition. 18 J.E. Atwell, ‘An Egyptian Source for Genesis 1’, JTS 51 (2000): 441–77. 17

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Psalm 104 praises God because ‘You stretch out the heavens’ (v. 2), ‘set the earth on its foundations’ (v. 5), set a boundary for the waters (v. 9) and ‘make springs gush forth in the valleys’ (v. 10), ‘giving drink to every wild animal’ (v. 11). The grass grows for cattle and plants, as well as wine, oil and bread, for humans (vv. 14 and 15), birds build their nests in the trees (v. 17) and the mountains provide an ecology for the wild goats (v. 18). The psalm continues: You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. People go out to their work and to their labour until the evening. O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. — Psalm 104:19–24 The sheer joy in the complexity and harmony of order, with its interlocking and contrasting activities, as well as its amazing fruitfulness, is evident. Its establishment was the one act of originality cherished across the Ancient Near East. Creation at this stage was not something out of nothing.19 It was the ordering of pre-existent, recalcitrant, dysfunctional, often watery chaos into the marvellous spectacle of a harmonious, functioning whole. The complex way the environments of the heavenly bodies, of nature, of the seasons, of fertility, of human society with its law and kingship, all operated as a total unity was truly awesome and truly beautiful in its connectedness. The Ancient Near East, and Israel as part of it, could not take for granted nor cease to value that intricate order as the most precious of gifts.

IV SIX CONCLUDING INSIGHTS It is helpful to draw out six insights which are emerging from this study and which underlie its thinking. They are useful to bear in mind as we move to the next chapter which delves more deeply into the vocabulary associated with ‘right order’, vocabulary which draws from the wider Canaanite as well as the international context. These insights are as follows: 1. We must recognize Israel’s place within the given of the Ancient Near East. She largely emerged from within Canaan. In adopting kingship, she adopts one of the major conduits of Ancient Near Eastern cultural identity and, through the Jerusalem Temple, relates directly to the cosmic myth of the ‘Divine Warrior’. As we shall note, the fact that Israel’s 19 The concept of something out of nothing is even ambiguous at the stage of the Genesis 1 ‘priestly’ creation account. Not until 2 Maccabees 7:28 in the first century BCE are we clearly in the realm of creation out of nothing rather than the ordering of previously available formless material.

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distinct covenant identity can no longer be traced back to an early period seemed to have left that period rather naked. A radical reorientation of perspective has enabled a new fruit to be garnered from acknowledging the true significance of the sophisticated creation theology available in the cultural context of the Ancient Near East. 2. Israel shared a vision with the common culture of the Ancient Near East that the fundamental fact of existence was grounded in creation theology. The identity of the world was not in dispute. The one event that made a difference was the vanquishing of disorder which had brought into being a remarkable world in which the miracle of order was its treasured hallmark and most significant fact. It was as if Mr Speaker had declared ‘Order!’ to a fractious House of Commons. Consequently, all the disparate members that warred with each other’s words had suddenly found a new coherence in which the verbal fragments created a marvellous harmony. As divinely constituted, the complex of pieces across the created order worked in a harmonious, whole and integrated fashion. ‘And indeed it was very good’ (Genesis 1:31). Everything was conceived as interrelated and interconnected, such that nothing could be considered in isolation. 3. The key to understanding how the Ancient Near East arrived at this gleaming vision is to be found in the institution of kingship. It was strong kingship that could drive out chaos with its threat of the disintegration of the fabric of society. The best of the great empires of the Ancient Near East were able to demonstrate the establishment of law and order, security from enemies, together with the infrastructure of canals and communities. They provided the circumstances for agricultural and commercial activity, art, culture and religion to thrive within a dependable framework of royal governance. In the case of Egypt, it lasted for three millennia despite interruptions and intermediate periods. The Palette of Narmer20 which celebrates the dawn of a united monarchy in Egypt under the pharaoh already makes this very point. The Pallette is the first representation of a single pharaoh pictured wearing the crowns of both Upper and Lower Egypt, albeit separately. The imagery seems to be claiming that Narmer, from his base as king of Upper Egypt, has conquered the delta, Lower Egypt, and united the two lands. He has achieved the balance and harmony essential to a healthy universe as intended by the gods. This is represented in the equilibrium of the two lands, symbolized by the two sides of the palette and the intertwined necks of the mythical beasts represented on it. The image of the pharaoh with raised mace and victim, that appears on the Palette of Narmer, reoccurs in huge form on the pylon of temples for the next three thousand years right down to the Ptolemaic period. It became iconic of kingship in Egypt. It represents the pharaoh overwhelming chaos in the form of his enemies and establishing order. It is a reminder that kingship was the single most significant institution of the whole Ancient Near East.

20 The Palette of Narmer dates from some time in the final two centuries of the fourth millennium BCE and is a fruit of the first awakening of human civilization taking place at that time in the Ancient Near East. It was discovered by the English archaeologists, James Quibell and Frederick Green, in their excavations of 1897–98, in the Temple of Horus at Hierakonopolis in Upper Egypt, just south of Luxor. Just a fraction over two feet high, shaped like a shield, it is made of a slate-like material called siltstone. Such palettes were developed for mixing cosmetics, which were used by men to reduce the glare of the sun on the eye as well as by women. This one was probably crafted as a ceremonial object. It is now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

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4. The fact that the divine governance of the universe was imagined in the likeness of earthly kingship had the effect of transferring the model of the way society operates to the cosmos. The emphasis of interest in the work of the Divine Warrior was not on the violence of conflict, which faded, like the pangs of childbirth, but on the outcome of fruitful, mutual activity that enabled a world of integrated social life to thrive across the cosmos. There had been established a world order, embracing nature and the physical world as well as people, which reflected healthy society in all its complexity and mutuality at the peak of its thriving. The whole was organic and responsive to its context and the treatment it received. The real delight that the mind of the Ancient Near East had in the moment of achievement of pristine interactive order is evident in the book of Job, as the time: ‘when the morning stars sang together and the heavenly beings shouted for joy’ (38:7). A further effect was the transfer of vocabulary that made for a healthy society according to the standards of the Ancient Near East to cosmic engineering. Three concepts that are particularly significant are justice, righteousness and peace. They are deemed crucial to a healthy world order, which otherwise languishes in sickness and disorder. We shall turn to H.H. Schmid to unpack their significance, and the special vocabulary that developed in different parts of the Ancient Near East to express the subtlety of these ideas. 5. When God is referred to as king in the context of the New Year festival, his reign is not primarily over people, but over the whole material cosmos. It is a synonym for creator. In the ordered whole, for which the divine fiat is responsible, the context is the total ecology of plants, animals, the cycle of nature, the revolving of the planets and the mystery of new life. All the material universe is included within the embrace of the analogy of a single complex vibrant society which operates in so remarkably a co-ordinated way. 6. The way the ordered world was presented as the definitive outcome of a divine act vested it with an absolute quality, which was reckoned to be the standard by which all had to be maintained. It represented the proud order which it was the duty of the gods and humanity to nurture. It constantly needed refreshing. The annual New Year festival was a powerful way this was achieved. As a mythic act was timeless, each festival gathered to it the significance and power of the primal event catching out those perpetrating disorder and returning order to its pristine state. There was also a negative in vesting an absolute in what was, in actuality, the snapshot of a particular instant of development in the world’s order. The status quo was elevated to primordial time. The given social structure of society was frozen; each was officially confined to their role. The world was open to repetition, but not to change. Nothing new was to be expected, as the author of Ecclesiastes laments.21

21

Ecclesiastes 1:9.

CHAPTER TWO

Righteousness as World Order I THE RESEARCH OF H.H. SCHMID The rediscovery of the fundamental significance of creation theology for the Hebrew Scriptures, and their participation in the grand vision of the Ancient Near East, represents something of a change of heart from the consciousness of a previous generation of scholarship. One person whose research has been significant in achieving this is H.H. Schmid. In his book Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung,22 he uncovers the significance for biblical interpretation of the family of words that cluster around righteousness (Hebrew root ṣdq). He argues that righteousness is to be associated with world order in a variety of contexts and relates to right order as established at the primal moment. He developed these ideas further in a collection of essays;23 the English title of one of them refers to Creation Theology as the Broad Horizon of Biblical Theology, which encapsulates his insight. He argues that the Hebrew concept of righteousness can only be grasped in a coherent way in all of its variety of occurrences as a technical word drawn from Canaanite vocabulary. It must be understood as relating directly to the concept of a divinely ordered universe and is the counterpart of similar vocabulary, in other areas of the Ancient Near East, that relates to the divinely constituted order of the universe. Not only has the local vocabulary passed into Hebrew usage, but for a large part so has its sense. Israel shared in the common culture for which creation theology was the ‘broad horizon’ of the cultural identity of the whole of the Ancient Near East. In his review of the greater context of the Ancient Near East, Schmid refers to the divine laws known as me from ancient Sumer which were given to human beings and vested in the king.24 In that context it was told that kingship was ‘lowered from heaven’. The laws are the heavenly archetypes of earthly processes. In the Sumerian myth of Inanna and Enki: The Transfer of the Arts of Civilisation from Eridu to Uruk, Inanna succeeds in obtaining the me for her city, Uruk. It is still a time of rivalry between the

22 H.H. Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung: Hintergrund und Geschichte des alttestamentlichen Gerechtigkeitsbegriffes (Tϋbingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1968). 23 H.H. Schmid, Altorientalische Welt in der alttestamentlichen Theologie: Sechs Aufsätze (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1974). One of the essays is partly reproduced in B.W. Anderson, ed., Creation in the Old Testament (London: SPCK; and Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 102–17, as ‘Creation, Righteousness and Salvation: Creation Theology as the Broad Horizon of Biblical Theology’. 24 Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 61–6.

13

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cities which is reflected in competitiveness between the gods. The me themselves are plural rather than singular, which perhaps reveals a certain unevenness to order at this early stage when it is still a concept awaiting refinement. Schmid, referring to the context of this myth, summons the me as a valid witness to that emergent sense of order which came to characterize the Ancient Near East: ‘Here the me are depicted as something concrete and transportable, and they are explained in a list over 100 items long. They are the rules imposed by the gods; laws and prescriptions which will bring about the smooth functioning of world order.’25 There is no doubt that by the second millennium, encouraged by examples such as the ruler Hammurabi, the analogy of kingship had provided a more vigorous model for order in Ancient Mesopotamia. The famous Enuma Elish creation account is the outcome of that process. It recounts, in a way reminiscent of the cosmic battle for kingship familiar from Canaan, a battle of the storm god Marduk, city god of Babylon, with the primaeval ocean, Tiamat, and the consequent establishment of creation’s order with its functioning reliability. The battle theme there may well have Semitic origins and have travelled eastwards from the Mediterranean coast. Violence does not seem to have been a significant or original feature of ancient Sumerian aspects of creation.26 Schmid gives particular emphasis within the Ancient Near East to Ancient Egypt and the concept of ma’at.27 Ma’at represented the golden thread of order which was conceived to run through the whole of creation. That order was reckoned to have been established at ‘the first time’, as creation was known. Creation in Ancient Egypt was not necessarily brutal, but in three major traditions its origins were connected with the watery nun (‘deep’) which took its analogy from the life-giving Nile as its annual flood subsided. Ma’at (‘order’) was personified as a goddess, daughter of the creator, and symbolized with a feather. She is inscribed on the representations of the foundation of the pharaoh’s throne and was ceremonially offered daily in the temple on behalf of the pharaoh. At certain periods her symbol was worn by judges and, in this context, relates directly to the ordered administration of justice. She was reckoned to be dishonoured when the truth was not spoken. She is transparent in the harmony of creation’s natural order. Egyptians cherished the ecological working of nature from the very foundation of the ‘Two Lands’. That preoccupation is evident particularly in the art, which vividly depicts the natural order in all its cycles, on the walls of the Sun Temples of the Old Kingdom.28 Ma’at is also established when the pharaoh defeats the enemies of Egypt, understood as threats to cosmic stability. It was the pharaoh’s main task to be the guardian of that single order expressed in its manifold variety. When Tutankhamun restores the status quo following the ‘experiment’ of Akhenaten it can be said: ‘His Majesty drove out disorder from the Two Lands so that order (ma’at) was again established in its place; he made disorder an abomination of the land as at “the first time”.’29 25

Ibid., 61. S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 230, writes: ‘A possible indicator of Amorite origins comes from the West Semitic name of the weather-god, Addu, which is included among Marduk’s names.’ T. Jacobsen also suggests that the battle between a god and the sea could well have been brought from the Mediterranean coast mediated by the Amorite dynasty of Hammurabi: see T. Jacobsen, ‘The Battle between Marduk and Tiamat’, JAOS, 88, no. 1 (1968): 104–8. 27 Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 46–61. 28 F.W.F. von Bissing, ‘La Chambre des trois saisons du sanctuaire solaire du roi Rathourès (Ve Dynastie) à Abousir’, ASAE 53 (1956): 319–38. 29 Stele of Tutankhamun; see K. Sethe, Urkunden des ägyptischen Altertums IV (Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1904), 2026. English translation from H. Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion (New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1961; first published, 1948), 54. 26

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15

Egypt was the dominant power in Canaan throughout much of the second millennium during the New Kingdom period. That long sojourn seems to be lost to the memory of the Hebrew Scriptures, which suggests they do not take great account of Bronze Age traditions.30 However, that period may well provide the context for the assimilation of specifically Egyptian concepts, particularly as relating to the associated notions of kingship and order. Such is the cosmic background that H.H. Schmid has claimed for the use of righteousness or right order (ṣdq) in the Hebrew context. It is part of a universal coinage within the Ancient Near East. Schmid identifies the use of the root ṣdq in a variety of biblical contexts requiring seemingly quite unrelated vocabulary in translation, but all standing close to the given structure of things. It is at home in a legal context: ‘With an almost unchanging regularity of expression, the whole Old Testament, from the Pentateuch (Exodus 23:7f.) to the Chronicler’s history (2 Chronicles 6:23) uses the root ṣdq to designate the arrangement of things according to justice.’31 It can, therefore, carry a forensic significance which means declared in the right. It is also integral to the Wisdom tradition where it expresses the conviction that the order of creation responds positively to an ordered lifestyle. Righteousness of life is rewarded because it relates organically to the right order of the world.32 There is frictionless integration between act and environment. It seems to have, as well, a special affinity to ideas relating to nature, fertility and growth, evident particularly in the psalms.33 There the hills produce righteousness, i.e. abundance (Psalm 72:3). The same root can occur in connection with war and victory over enemies; for instance, in Judges 5:11 it elicits the translation of a plural noun triumphs in the NRSV.34 The same concept is, further, connected to the arena of worship and sacrifice.35 The psalmist proclaims: ‘Let your priests be clothed with righteousness’ (Psalm 132:9a). In this context, however, Schmid detects a Hebrew variation, particularly found in the lamentation psalms, where ṣdq carries the significance of the ‘sacred judgement of God’.36 All these uses of righteousness find themselves gathered in the notion of kingship. It is the king who rules in ‘justice and righteousness’.37 This significance is captured by Schmid: ‘The six areas of justice, wisdom, nature/fertility, war/victory over foreign peoples, BCE

30 For instance, the redundant reference to ‘Spring of Waters’ in Joshua 15:9 (cf. 18:15), which probably originally referred to the fountain of Merenptah. Clearly the significance has been forgotten. See, J.A. Wilson, ‘The Journal of a Frontier Official’, ANET, 258–9, 258 n. 6. 31 Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 15. He continues: ‘This usage is so frequent, and seems to have been associated with ṣdq from ancient times, that a succession of researchers have described the judicial form of ṣdq as its original.’ 32 Ibid., 15, 96f. and 157ff. 33 Ibid., 15–17. Schmid (16) also draws attention to Joel 2:23 where: ‘The ṣeda¯qâ are the gifts of nature for which to be thankful.’ He also identifies passages from other prophets. 34 ‘To the sound of musicians at the watering places, there they repeat the triumphs of the Lord, the triumphs of his peasantry in Israel’ (Judges 5:11). Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 18–19, comments: ‘Without embarking on all the questions surrounding the Song of Deborah, it is clear that this is in praise of the saving intervention of the Lord. The word ṣeda¯qâ is without doubt linked to the “victories of the Lord” which the Lord lets Israel win over its enemies. The use of the plural shows that this one victory over Sisera can be allied with other victories of the Lord, which could similarly be described by the word ṣeda¯qâ.’ 35 Ibid., 22: ‘The word-root ṣdq also has a very clear connection to worship and sacrifice. The first hint of this comes in the statistics showing that the Psalter, whose roots in worship (along with the Wisdom literature) are not questioned, provides the greater intensity of appearances of ṣdq.’ 36 Ibid. 37 See below, s. II of this chapter.

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worship/sacrifice and kingship that are embraced by the concept ṣdq, have been shown to be unified in the ancient ideology of kingship.’38 He maintains that the masculine form, ṣedeq, ‘originally referred to cosmic order which is shown in wisdom, justice etc. and brought about on earth by the king’ and that the feminine form, ṣeda¯qâ, ‘refers to behaviour and actions undertaken either in accordance with order or as a way of creating it’.39 Schmid has demonstrated that kingship stands out from the list of areas as the one that embraces them all and has a higher function. It gives access to the coherence and unity of all the interrelated areas. That which twenty-first-century understanding breaks up into different compartments signified something whole in the Hebrew context without any special effort of understanding. That wholeness derived from a unified view of the world bestowed in creation; it was the human responsibility to respect and make manifest, in a complex variety of situations, that which was right and in order. The fundamental logic of the universe was its deeply embedded grain of order (ṣdq) which surfaced in manifold different guises, but read as a single reality. Nature’s thriving, reliable justice, economic wellbeing, moral actions, a healthy lifestyle, protection from enemies, proper worship were all aspects of a single right order divinely implemented at the moment of primordial ordering and requiring to be respected. It was exactly that vision which received popular acknowledgement and acclaim when the crowds celebrated the victory procession of the divine king and waited upon the enthronement of God over an ordered cosmos. The complete range of applications of ṣedeq, within its Canaanite context, can be evidenced from the Hebrew Scriptures. However, in terms of assimilating their significance the verdict of Schmid is: ‘Whereas the root (i.e. ṣedeq) is found quite often in the context of ideas of justice, wisdom and kingship, it is noticeably less prominent in the terminology of war and worship; in connection with the themes of nature and fertility a change of meaning is seen, which replaces actual speech with metaphorical language.’40 In other words, Israel has assimilated the Canaanite concept of order wholesale in major areas, adapted it in others and, perhaps in response to its particular sense of the significance of history and event, downplayed it in others that seemed less compatible. With its own local variations, Israel participated in a world for which the key to all else was the broad horizon of creation theology, articulated through a dedicated technical vocabulary evident in ṣdq.

II JUSTICE AND PEACE A clutch of associated concepts cluster around righteousness (ṣdq) and help to draw out its scope and its moral value. Two significant examples are often found in close apposition with righteousness. These associated words, which carry a similar significance as relating to cosmic order, are justice (mišpa¯ṭ) and universal order viewed in its totality, ša¯lôm.41 This latter is usually translated peace, but in the sense of harmony or wholeness and, consequently, therefore, often prosperity.

Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 37. Ibid., 67. 40 Ibid., 171. 41 Ibid., 68. 38 39

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It is a remarkable feature of the biblical text that justice and righteousness appear as a pair in thirty-one passages and again in poetic parallelism on a further twenty-three occasions.42 M. Weinfeld43 has maintained that the regular use of justice and righteousness as a single phrase or in poetic parallelism represents a hendiadys. That is, the two words taken together have a single, well-established meaning which is ‘social justice’. They call not simply for judicial integrity, although this is part of their significance, but more crucially for social responsibility in the care for the widow, the orphan and, in the biblical context, the alien. He traces the dependence of this biblical usage to the established ethical norms of the Ancient Near East. The pairing of justice with righteousness makes it clear that we are dealing with cosmic vocabulary. That is evident when justice is related directly to ‘the foundations of the earth’ in Psalm 82: How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk around in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. — Psalm 82:2–5 Justice is therefore a cardinal principle for responsible kingship. Psalm 72 is a plea for the earthly king, but as the earthly king reigns after the image of the heavenly king we may assume the virtues implored reflect the qualities of the Almighty. The opening verse makes it clear that justice (mišpa¯ṭ) and righteousness (ṣeda¯qâ) requested for the king come from God. Schmid notes: ‘The Israelite king receives his ṣeda¯qâ from his God as the Egyptian King received his ma’at.’44 We may, in this context, helpfully cross-reference with Psalm 97:2 where, like ma’at in Egypt, righteousness and justice are the foundation of God’s throne. Returning to Psalm 72, we may further note that verse two repeats the balanced reference to the two primary qualities sought for the king: May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. It is suggested by Schmid45 that Psalm 72:1–3 is pre-Israelite. If so, we must allow that the balancing of justice and righteousness is part of the given tradition of Canaanite reflection on cosmic order. In that context, not only is fair and responsible justice part of the order over which the king presides, but it is also prioritized as key for cosmic stability.

42 José P. Miranda, Marx and the Bible: A Critique of the Philosophy of Oppression (London: SCM, 1977), 93 and 97. 43 M. Weinfeld, ‘Justice and Righteousness’, in Justice and Righteousness: Biblical Themes and Their Influence, JSOT Supplement Series 137, ed. H.G. Reventlow and Yair Hoffman (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), 228. 44 Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 83. 45 Ibid., 23.

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The very identity of Jerusalem seems to be bound to the concept of ša¯lôm. If Jerusalem is to be translated as foundation of (the god) Shalem,46 then not only is there a claim to divine origin, but it is likely that it is the god Shalem who is responsible for Jerusalem’s association with šâlo¯m.47 Ša¯lôm (‘peace’) is a key word in the cosmic vocabulary associated with ṣedeq. It carries a comprehensiveness. The concept of wholeness, harmony, prosperity, peace – it is impossible to translate ša¯lôm with a single word – embraces the total order of creation across all of its local environments. It encapsulates the conviction of the total connectedness of world order. That is, if right order were disrupted in one local environment it might manifest the rupture in a completely different area. For instance, the failure of the king in the religious sphere might result in a prolonged period of drought and the disruption of the natural order.48 Order, flouted in one area, might manifest its wound in quite another sphere. Consequently, according to the concept of ša¯lôm, the well-being of the created order requires a right functioning within all of its aspects if there is to be an overall bloom. Righteousness and peace occur in complementary contexts in the biblical text and never more beautifully than in Psalm 85:10b: Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.49 We may note the insistence of Psalm 72:3 that the consequence of the king’s justice is that the mountains deliver peace and the hills right order (righteousness). Again, in v. 7 we read: In his days may righteousness flourish and peace abound, until the moon is no more. The significance of this pairing of righteousness and peace in the Jerusalem traditions50 enables the words taken together to express the full significance of the outcome of the divine achievement in the ordering of creation. Here we encounter the essence of the good news proclaimed by the heralds, forerunners of the ark, in the victory procession of the Divine Warrior along the processional way leading to the Temple.51 It has been claimed that Jerusalem’s inalienable association with righteousness and peace alone accounts for the considerable enigma, as expressed by Norman Porteous, of: ‘the name with its originally limited geographical reference eventually becoming the symbol for the universal Kingdom of God.’52 In Psalm 72, peace, which here comes close to the concept of prosperity, works itself out in royal dominion (vv. 8ff.), care for the poor and needy (vv. 12ff.), abundance of grain and fertility (v. 16) and universal blessing (v. 17b). A hope for the blossoming of

46 W.H. Schmidt, The Faith of the Old Testament: A History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 209. (English translation, first published, 1983; published in German as Alttestamentlicher Glaube in seiner Geschichte [1968; 4th edn, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982].) 47 J.E. Atwell, The Sources of the Old Testament: A Guide to the Religious Thought of the Old Testament in Context (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2004), 78f. 48 For instance, 1 Kings 18:17. 49 Translation from RSV. 50 For instance: Psalm 72:2a and 72:3; Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 48:18b. 51 See above, Chapter One, s. II. 52 N. Porteous, ‘Jerusalem-Zion: The Growth of a Symbol’, in Verbannung und Heimkehr: Festschrift für Wilhelm Rudolph: Beiträge zur Geschichte und Theologie Israels im 6. und 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr., ed. Arnulf Kuschke (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1961), 236.

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primordial peace at Jerusalem, cherished by royal justice and expressed in the rich mythological imagery of a restored creation, is given tangible expression in an oracle preserved in the book of Isaiah: Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. — Isaiah 11:5–9 The ša¯lôm associated with Jerusalem is no less than the kingdom of God.

III COMPANION CONCEPTS Further vocabulary associated with righteousness must claim our attention. If we return to Psalm 85:10, reference to the embrace of righteousness and peace is balanced in the Hebrew parallelism by mercy (ḥsd) and truth (’mt). If the initial concept is being restated, then it is in language that also carries cosmic significance. These words occur regularly in that context.53 Mercy (or loving kindness) and truth are, therefore, also to be understood as referring to essential cosmic engineering. They develop and qualify the significance of divinely sanctioned order. Loving kindness and truth are essential elements of a stable cosmos and, conversely, if they are ignored, then order languishes. Weinfeld54 draws attention to a passage from Isaiah which gathers in one place several elements of the cosmic vocabulary which we have identified. Unsurprisingly, it is reflection on kingship that draws it out: Then a throne shall be established in steadfast love (ḥsd) in the tent of David, and on it shall sit in faithfulness (i.e. truth, ’mt) a ruler who seeks justice (mšpt) and is swift to do what is right (ṣdq). — Isaiah 16:5

53

Psalms 33:5, 89:14; Jeremiah 9:24; Hosea 2:19, 12:6; Micah 6:8. Weinfeld, ‘Justice and Righteousness’, 231.

54

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In the same way that these concepts make for an ordered society, so they also relate to an ordered cosmos. Kingship in the cosmos is straightforwardly kingship as manifest in human society writ large. Another word that often occurs in parallel to righteousness is equity (mšr):55 He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. — Psalm 98:9b Equity is also to be understood as part of the associated vocabulary which develops the essential character of divinely constituted right order. There is a balance and fairness to a prospering and wholesome creation. Weinfeld confirms the assumption of H.H. Schmid in identifying righteousness paired with equity as having pre-biblical roots;56 he is able to cite the Ugaritic texts and Phoenician inscriptions as well as the epilogue to Hammurabi’s Code. Equity occurs as one of the key concepts in the introduction to the book of Proverbs which outlines the purpose of the collection: For learning about wisdom (ḥokmâ) and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness (ṣdq), justice (mšpt) and equity (mšr). — Proverbs 1:2–3 The Wisdom tradition,57 as we have identified, is one of the great exemplars of the significance of the concept of order in the Ancient Near East. In contrast to the Jerusalem traditions, Wisdom relativized everything. There was no navel of the universe. All people and places were equidistant from God the creator. There could be no special pleading of place, no particular divine revelation or break in the given pattern of act–consequence. These, for Wisdom, would undermine the inbuilt logic of creation’s order and its quasiscientific regularity and dependability. As regards behaviour, therefore, Wisdom’s advice on human conduct is totally predicated on its conviction that an ordered world responds organically and positively to an equitable lifestyle and, conversely, a life that conflicts with the order of the world will reap the results of the disturbance it generates. That gives rise to the basic principle of Wisdom’s moral teaching in the act–consequence connection: The righteousness (ṣeda¯qâ) of the upright saves them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their schemes. — Proverbs 11:6 Wisdom commends an equitable or measured lifestyle as universally valid. Its teaching shuns excess or hasty behaviour.58 It also commends equity in the sense of fairness.59 The Wisdom tradition as we encounter it in Proverbs exhibits a prophetic edge, which is part of its given ethical perspective when reflecting on order: 55

Psalms 9:8, 58:1, 98:9. Isaiah 11:4, 33:15, 45:19. Weinfeld, ‘Justice and Righteousness’, 229, refers to: ‘the Akkadian word-pair kittum u m¯ı šarum, literally “truth and equity”’. 57 Exemplified in Proverbs, Job and Ecclesiastes, but also scattered through much biblical literature, e.g. Psalms 1, 37, 49, 104. 58 Proverbs 22:24–25. 59 For instance, Proverbs 11:1, 25:21. 56

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To do righteousness (ṣeda¯qâ) and justice (mišpat) is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. — Proverbs 21:3 Cosmic engineering is morally conceived with justice built into its fabric. It is to the significance of God as creator and the given order of the world that Proverbs always returns to justify its moral imperative: Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honour him. — Proverbs 14:31; cf.16:4, 17:5 and 22:2 A particular analogy of the local and the universal in the book of Proverbs requires the valid transfer of balances used in trade to the work of the Almighty as the cosmic engineer: Honest balances and scales are the Lord’s: all the weights in the bag are his work. — Proverbs 16:11 It has been suggested that it could be paraphrased: ‘Who falsifies the balance offends against an order of corporate human life which was established and guaranteed by the creator.’60 That corporate life has to do with the good order of cosmic engineering for which righteousness, justice and peace with their associated vocabulary are part of the structure of creation as well as of the fabric of civil society. The perspective of creation theology is the gift of Israel’s context in the Ancient Near East. It is evident in its cultic traditions associated with the Temple and in the Wisdom tradition, both of which had a greater reference than the local. It is an aspect of the institution of kingship. We have noted that truth, equity, justice and right order represent a clutch of concepts that gather around ma’at in Ancient Egypt. These concepts can be paralleled in other areas of the Ancient Near East. They were primary cosmic concepts within Israel also. It seems that, for the Ancient Near East and for Israel as one of its exemplars, at least in the ideal, the litmus test of whether the king was refreshing cosmic order lay in maintaining a healthy civil society based on care evidenced for the poor and vulnerable. Only then was the right order (ṣdq) of the kingdom in harmony with the right order of the cosmos.

IV A FURTHER WITNESS There is a witness yet to be called, someone who would have been a participant in the life of the Jerusalem Temple with its celebration of cosmic order and who had an awesome respect for its theological validity. He would have witnessed, on many occasions, the

60 Hans-Jürgen Hermisson, ‘Observations on the Creation Theology in Wisdom’, in Creation in the Old Testament, ed. B.W. Anderson (London: SPCK; and Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 122.

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breathless arrival of the heralds at the gates of the Temple, proclaiming the victory of God, and the good order of creation, ahead of the triumphal procession still wending its way along the processional route. That witness is Isaiah of Jerusalem. It is something of a privilege that for our understanding of one of Israel’s foundation traditions we are not simply piecing together traces of liturgy from the psalms, but have direct evidence from an eyewitness who understood and valued that in which he participated. We shall need to consider, also, the total legacy he initiated in the book that bears his name. The Isaianic corpus has been described by G.I. Davies as: ‘above all the book of the prophetic reinterpretation of the Jerusalem cult traditions, one might say, the fall-out from the explosive encounter between the spirit of classical prophecy and the Jerusalem community’s developing pattern of worship over a period of several centuries.’61 The call of Isaiah of Jerusalem takes place in the Temple in the context of worship. He is overwhelmed by a sense of the transcendence of God; as the smoke of the incense billows, he has a vision of the ‘high and lofty’ one (Isaiah 6:1) installed on the cherubim throne. In all likelihood this vision is received at the very moment of God’s installation reflected in the enthronement psalms. It certainly takes its inspiration from all that the autumn festival stands for, with which Isaiah would have been intensely familiar. This inspiration is identified by H.G.M. Williamson: ‘For Isaiah . . . his understanding seems to have been based most particularly on his vision of the Lord as king, enthroned and exalted, as depicted most strikingly in Isaiah 6.’62 Not only does Isaiah’s experience resonate to God’s holiness, but also to God’s judgement consequent on the recovery of order that the divine enthronement establishes. Isaiah’s own unworthiness is purged by a burning coal. Beyond that, the holiness of God finds definition in the familiar twin concepts associated with order: But the Lord of hosts is exalted by justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy by righteousness. — Isaiah 5:16 The Jerusalem traditions are eloquent to the seamlessness of divine order with the delegated order to be established by the king. That, too, is a preoccupation of the Isaianic oracles: For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; . . . His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. — Isaiah 9:6a, 7

61 G.I. Davies, ‘The Destiny of the Nations in the Book of Isaiah’, in The Book of Isaiah, ed. J. Vermeylen (Leuven: University Press, 1989), 119–20. 62 H.G.M. Williamson, He Has Shown You What Is Good: Old Testament Justice Then and Now (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2012), 70.

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In Isaiah’s radical prophetic confrontation of city, king and people with the implications of God’s gleaming primordial order, celebrated in the Temple, two areas seem to stand out. These are, firstly, very specific forensic and legal justice leading to fairness in the courts and, secondly, more general social responsibility leading to coherence in society. As regards the former, H.H. Schmid has highlighted the significance of the judicial use of ṣedeq in Isaiah 5:2363 which condemned those who ‘acquit the guilty for a bribe’. This is literally ‘give righteousness to the guilty’ and, in the second half of the verse, ‘deny righteousness’ to the ‘righteous’ or ‘upright’. In that situation Isaiah is demanding that the courts deliver strict justice and his criticism here is directed at those in positions of responsibility, as is the case in other contexts: Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves. Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts. They do not defend the orphan, and the widow’s cause does not come before them. — Isaiah 1:23 In common with the cultural context of the Ancient Near East, the cause of those who have none to protect them is the litmus test of human justice and the particular concern of heavenly justice. In other words, justice in the human court honours and contributes to cosmic stability. More generally, Isaiah holds up the template of divine order to the way the fabric of society operates. If architectural construction requires the careful use of line and plummet, so does cosmic engineering: I will make justice the line, and righteousness the plummet; hail will sweep away the refuge of lies. — Isaiah 28:17 In a similar way, the well-known Song of the Vineyard, which extols God’s love for Israel, his precious vine, concludes: He expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! — Isaiah 5:7 Exactly the way justice and righteousness should work out in society involves personal moral qualities as well as corporate justice. These qualities include the avoidance of excessive luxury and indulgence, including drunkenness and personal aggrandizement.64 They involve the acts that are regulated against in the Decalogue, including theft and murder,65 and virtues commended by the Wisdom circles evident in the book of Proverbs,

Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 113. Isaiah 3:16–4:1, 32:9–14, 5:11, 5:22, 5:15–19. 65 Isaiah 1:21–23a. 63 64

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such as the protection of land belonging to the vulnerable66 and care of the vulnerable themselves.67 This has led John Barton to observe: ‘Commentators have for a long time noticed that Isaiah offers a more integrated, less piecemeal approach to human sin than the other prophets, and have looked for some unifying theme.’68 The unifying theme of Isaiah’s proclamation is the kingship of God manifested in the primordial ordering of the world in justice and righteousness and celebrated in the drama of the Temple liturgy. The dwellers in Jerusalem dwelt at the very seat of transcendence. They were witnesses at the New Year festival as the majesty of God touched the world with the awesome moment of creation. At its very fountainhead, God Most High expected order to be guarded and implemented by the king and manifested in the honouring of justice and righteousness in the fabric of a socially responsible society. The abuse of these things will be judged by the line and plummet of God’s own cosmic engineering. The prophetic articulation of the Jerusalem traditions by Isaiah of Jerusalem focuses the element of judgement associated with the celebration of the kingship of God and particularly evident at the autumn festival. We have already noted that the celebration of the ordering of the world as the outcome of the divine victory over the forces of disorder was never a one-off celebration of an event of the remote past. The way that the cultic worship operated dispensed with time, so that the cosmic event was always ‘now’ and could draw the present into the primal moment. Not only did the victory procession of the Divine Warrior celebrate the establishment of the ordered world, but it was at the same time a powerful instrument for restoring the world of the present to its original intended pristine state. Those who had something to fear as the Divine Warrior came to impose his will were those caught on the wrong side of correct order; these were those who had allowed themselves to be allied to dysfunctional chaos. They were responsible for the malaise of the world and, as it was turned from inside-out to right order, would find themselves in cosmic outer darkness. Among the ones on the wrong side of order were certainly those who had no pity on the weak and the needy. There is, of course, a sense of excitement and joy associated with the coming of judgement at the annual autumn festival as the world is about to be returned to good order and prosperity. H.G.M. Williamson has commented: We tend to think of judgment in negative terms, something to be afraid of, because it will involve our being found guilty and so punished in some way. In these Psalms, however, the picture is much closer to that which we have seen already elsewhere, namely that the act of judging is primarily to be regarded as a putting to rights of those things that have gone wrong, which in the social realm is above all the vindication of the faithful poor against the oppression of the senior classes.69 The coming of the Divine Warrior can be presented as putting to right that which has gone wrong: He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity. — Psalm 98:9b

66

Isaiah 5:8; cf. Proverbs 23:10. Isaiah 1:17; cf. Proverbs 22:22, 28:3, 31:8–9. 68 John Barton, Isaiah 1–39 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 49. 69 Williamson, He Has Shown You What Is Good, 96. 67

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In the context of the New Year festival, faith in God as creator is coming close to faith in God as saviour. He comes to judge the wicked, those responsible for disorder, and, consequently, to lift up the humble and meek. However, it is a trust in divine action which will return the world to the pristine splendour of the past and not forward, through the veil of tears, to a new destiny. Nevertheless, a faith that God would restore the cosmic kingdom, by returning the primordial equilibrium of the universe, represented a tangible hope. That tangible hope is how Deutero-Isaiah, the prophet responsible for Isaiah 40 to 55, represents the good news of the Jerusalem traditions. It seems that he is in large part motivated by the memory of the victory march of the Divine Warrior as it had been celebrated in the Jerusalem Temple before the exile.70 He proclaims a great triumphal march of epic proportions in its image. The redeemed are to make the journey from the vanquishing of the forces of chaos in Babylon to God’s enthronement in the Temple at Jerusalem. An extended processional way is to be prepared which links the two places: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low . . . . Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. — Isaiah 40:3–5 Heralds are to go ahead proclaiming the victory and announcing peace (ša¯lôm).71 The God of glory will undertake a victory procession. Deutero-Isaiah inherited a situation understood as consequent upon the perceived disintegration of order and its languishing for the awaited full term of the price of Israel’s sin. Jerusalem and its Temple, well over a century after the time of Isaiah of Jerusalem, had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE . The kingdom of Judah had been dismantled and a large part of the population taken into exile in Babylon. The prophet’s message opens with a declaration of comfort to the exiles and the assurance that the price is paid: Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. — Isaiah 40:2 The logic is that the universe could now be rebalanced and God’s good order, as defined by the Jerusalem traditions, could return. Jerusalem will be restored to its rightful pivotal place in the scheme of things. The Temple will be rebuilt, the exiled Jews returned to their homeland and recognized for their true worth by an awed company of the nations.

70 The two foci of the New Year festival find resonance in Deutero-Isaiah’s oracles: the victory of the Divine Warrior (Isaiah 51:9b–10a) and the enthronement of God Proclaimed (Isaiah 52:7). 71 Isaiah 52:7.

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It was for that reason that Deutero-Isaiah’s gospel of creation, with its order (ṣedeq) restored, amounted to salvation in their languishing circumstances: My righteousness [ṣedeq] is near, my salvation [y’šû’a¯] is gone forth. — Isaiah 51:5a [RV translation] The creation traditions of the Temple applied to the exile spelt out salvation. For Deutero-Isaiah the coupling of righteousness with justice no longer carries paradigmatic status. The companion of righteousness is now salvation.72 However, it is important to note that the sense that Jerusalem’s term has been served, ‘that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins’ (Isaiah 40:2b), indicates a moral and forensic identity to order. There is a cosmic justice as well as righteousness which has to be honoured before right order can proceed. There is no shortcut to putting things right that ignores the scales of justice. It has been pointed out that Trito-Isaiah (Isaiah 56 to 66) brings the two pairs of concepts together in a single key verse that recapitulates the message of Isaiah of Jerusalem and exilic Isaiah:73 Thus says the Lord: Maintain justice, and do what is right, for soon my salvation will come, and my deliverance be revealed. — Isaiah 56:1

V IN SUMMARY Even before Israel adopted kingship, it is clear that she came into being within the environment of Canaanite society with its greater context in the Ancient Near East. Certainly, from the time her name was compounded from that of the Canaanite high god El, she consciously drew from local creation traditions. That takes us back at least to the accession of Pharaoh Merenptah (1212 BCE ) and evidence from the Israel Stele. During the period of the kings Israel participated vigorously in the flagship institutions of the Ancient Near East which were transparent to its foundation concept of cosmic order. These were Temple, Monarchy and the Wisdom tradition. In that context, reflections on the significance of righteousness (ṣedeq) and justice (mišpa¯ṭ) for the stability of a complex social order, administered by the earthly king, have been transposed as the essential ingredients for a stable cosmic order presided over by the heavenly king. The moral grain of order, implanted at creation, running through a single complex environment with its diffuse ecologies, had to be respected for creation’s thriving (ša¯lôm). Responsible relationships were everywhere key to the way the world functioned and they could not be flouted without the consequence of disorder, confusion and imbalance. The ordered

72

As well as Isaiah 51:5a, see 45:8, 46:13, 51:6 and 51:8. R. Rendtorff, The Old Testament: An Introduction (London: SCM Press, 1985), 199f. Translated from: Das Alte Testament: Eine Einführung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1983). 73

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behaviour of human beings was essential for cosmic wellbeing. The significance of human beings was ‘a little lower than God’ (Psalm 8:5)74 in the effect they have on creation’s welfare, but not in being given a ‘blank cheque’. Human beings live within the checks and balances of a greater order. The coming of the Divine Warrior was a day of reckoning for those allied to disorder. According to the perspective of the Ancient Near East, of which the biblical outlook is a part, when everything was refreshed, as the creator intended ‘in the beginning’, cosmic order operated in balanced relationship throughout and exhibited extraordinary beauty, fruitfulness and harmony. It was awesome to behold and being a part of it carried an immense responsibility. It needed constant care and refreshment if it was to maintain its bloom. A sense of optimism, hope and excitement, as the order of creation was renewed by contact with the primal moment, was in the forefront of the minds and hearts of those who witnessed the ark, carried shoulder high, making its journey along the processional route to the liturgical drama at the gates of the Jerusalem Temple, with the promise of future fertility already rumbling in the thunder.

NRSV Note on God: ‘Or than the divine beings or angels: Heb. Elohim’.

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CHAPTER THREE

The Primaeval History I A PEARL OF GREAT PRICE A large canvas has enabled us to paint in the story of the Hebrews as part of the greater context from which they emerged. They were native to a common cultural identity across the Ancient Near East as regards the shared conviction in a divinely constituted world order of which humans were conceived to be an integral part. The fact that the reality of the given order could be taken for granted and simply permeated every aspect of life made it part of the common fabric and, therefore, not always obvious to those who have searched the records some millennia later. It is the ‘dark matter’ of biblical theology and, consequently, its significance has been easily undervalued by scholarly commentators. There were occasions when the universally acknowledged presence of world order lurking beneath the surface of daily events, joining up all experiences in a single whole, emerged to consciousness in an evident way. To those who have bequeathed to us the biblical text, the Temple with its festivals enabled creator and creation to be joyously and publicly celebrated. Such festivals were vivid communal moments which punctuated the year with significance; subsequent contact with the written text easily overlooks them. The associated songs of worship remain the biblical thumbprint of that rejoicing: Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. — Psalm 148:5 It does seem, also, that when things were going wrong there were mechanisms at work bringing to consciousness the reassurance of an ordered world. That accounts for the magnificent vision of the work of the creator in Job 38–39 that takes us by surprise in its context. Indeed, it is the exile which draws out of Deutero-Isaiah a ‘gospel of the creator’ to reassure the despairing community. It is beautifully expressed in the extended poem contained in his opening chapter (Isaiah 40:12–31). Perhaps the place where the significance of creator and creation for the whole of biblical theology is brought into sharpest focus, and distilled for posterity, is the Primaeval History in Genesis 1 to 11. The Primaeval History is unique in its biblical context. In it the great dilemmas of existence find articulation. The potential of and the threat to all existence are explored. The beauty and the contingency, the giftedness and the tragedy of things receive expression. All this is in the context of a tradition preoccupied with God’s care for a fairly obscure people who were not significant players on the international scene. There could not be clearer evidence of Israel’s intellectual life as part of the cultural identity of the Ancient Near East and her reflection on God as creator within that larger perspective. It is a pearl of great price that often goes unrecognized. 28

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We must remind ourselves that we are considering primaeval narrative. Primaeval reflection does not maintain that there was a time when everything was perfect: ‘Primeval time in which all takes place cannot be fixed on the calendar.’75 Primaeval narrative holds up a mirror to the human condition in the light of its God-givenness. It uses the device of story to articulate the experience of human existence as at once divinely gifted and yet profoundly estranged. It is not explaining how the present came about, so much as analysing the existential situation in which humans find themselves. The significance of the Primaeval History does not lie in its popular reception within monarchic Israel nor in any mass circulation. Rather, it takes its place as something of a hallmark to the creation theology ubiquitous in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is evidence of Israel participating in the vigorous international life of the Ancient Near East at a time in the first millennium before her theological interests were closed to outside influence. Its lasting value lies in the fact that it heads up the received record of Scripture. It is the bequest of reflection that stretches back to the period of the kings but becomes fixed only in the post-exilic stream of faith. The significance of the creation narratives within the Primaeval History has been expressed in the following way by Stefan Paas: This brings us to the cautious conclusion that the importance of the creation stories for the actual history of the pre-exilic creation theology in Israel is relatively minor. Its importance lies primarily in the sphere of the final redaction of the biblical writings, providing them, as part of the Primeval History, with a worldwide perspective. Furthermore, they collect and rework many older mythical themes with respect to God as Creator, giving these themes a new context and application.76 It is likely that the Temple and its worship contributed to the learned reflection contained in Genesis 1 to 11, which translated popular celebration of the ‘victory of God’ with its processions and vibrant liturgy into a narrative introduction to Israel’s whole scriptural story. The single Primaeval History breaks fairly readily into two traditions. These have, since Wellhausen, usually been identified as a Yahwistic source (J) because of its use of the divine name Yahweh and a priestly source (P).77 Both sources were envisaged as continuing through the record of Israel’s epic story. The priestly source, with the cultic concerns of the book of Leviticus as its defining element, is dated to the exile. The J source, dated by Wellhausen to the eighth century BCE , was re-dated by Gerhard von Rad to his proposed Solomonic Enlightenment.78 A loss of confidence by a new generation of scholars in the literary sources has resulted in J being rebranded by some, identified as non-P and placed in the exilic period also.79 However, alternative views persist: John Day holds to a date

75 C. Westermann, Genesis 1–11: A Continental Commentary (London: SPCK; and Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Press, 1984), 4. (Published in German as Biblischer Kommentar: Genesis 1–11 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974].) 76 Stefan Paas, Creation and Judgement: Creation Texts in Some Eighth Century Prophets (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2003), 36. 77 J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1883; reprint 1885). (First published as Geschichte Israels [Berlin, 1878].) 78 See G. von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1966), 68–74. (First published as Gesammelte Studien zum Alten Testament [Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1958].) 79 For instance, K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 157: ‘Accordingly, there is much to be said for the proposal that the non-Priestly material in Genesis 6–9 should be interpreted as a post-Priestly augmentation.’ See discussion below, Chapter Six, s. III.

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for J of c. 800 BCE 80 and Ronny Reich locates significant literary activity in the seventh century BCE .81 Below, we suggest that the reign of King Josiah might provide the most likely context for the J or non-P perspective.82 An analysis by sources makes sound sense within the primaeval tradition; we shall, therefore, let it be our guide. The J material reveals itself as the Garden of Eden narrative encompassing both the creation of man, animals, woman and then the eating of the forbidden fruit and expulsion from the garden (Genesis 2 to 3). It continues with the Cain and Abel narrative, the genealogy of Cain and the genealogy of Seth (Genesis 4), the liaison of the Sons of God with the Daughters of Humankind (Genesis 6:1–4), the Flood narrative and Noah the Vintner (Genesis 6 to 9), a fragment of national genealogies (Genesis 10) and the Tower of Babel episode (Genesis 11). The link between Primaeval History and Israel’s epic story is provided by the blessing of Abraham (Genesis 12:2–3). Norman Habel has drawn attention to the cultic liturgical connection between the naming of the creator and the pronouncing of a blessing; he argues for its significance reflected in the structure of the Yahwist’s Primaeval History.83 That is, the naming of the creator in Genesis 2:4b announces the coming blessing in Genesis 12:2–3. If this is the case, then the Yahwist’s Primaeval History is constructed around an adapted liturgical form and may be taken as a crucial clue to its author’s familiarity with Temple practice. The structure enables J firmly to connect the Primaeval Narrative with the call of Abraham. The priestly narrative commences with the creation account identified by events dispersed over seven days (Genesis 1). It continues with a genealogical table of ten generations concluding with Noah and breaking into three in the final element. That leads into the priestly fulcrum of the Primaeval Narrative in the Flood story (Genesis 6 to 9), which concludes with the covenant including ‘every living creature’ and the sign of the rainbow. Now begins a further count of ten generations commencing with Noah, breaking into three once again in the final element, the first of the three being Abram (Genesis 11:26). This structure is evidence of the symmetrical and ordered style characteristic of P. It is in the form of a universal family tree in which is embedded the Table of the Nations which has become a rather formal geographical listing, rather than a record of lineal descent, consisting of a snapshot relating to the international situation current in the tradent’s time. Its similarity with the geographical perspective of the prophet Ezekiel indicates an exilic date. With a small amount of manoeuvre, the number seventy (which represents the fullness of the nations, as well as the number of the Sons of El in Ugaritic tradition) emerges as the total sum of the nations. The creation narrative over seven days, although not itself a liturgical piece, probably owes its inspiration to a Temple festival of creation celebrated over seven days.84 Given P’s concerns, most evidently with identifying the institution of the Sabbath as part of the structure of creation, that there should be a

80 John Day, ‘Comparative Ancient Near Eastern Study: The Genesis Flood Narrative in Relation to Ancient Near Eastern Flood Accounts’, in Biblical Interpretation and Method: Essays in Honour of John Barton, ed. K.J. Dell and P.M. Joyce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 84. See also, idem, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1–11 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013). 81 Reich, Excavating the City of David, 292. 82 See below, Chapter Seven, s. V. 83 N. Habel, ‘Yahweh, Maker of Heaven and Earth’, JBL 91, no. 3 (1972): 321–37. 84 Atwell, ‘An Egyptian Source for Genesis 1’, 468f.

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closeness of creation reflection and cultic practice is not surprising. The P tradition is also to be located as close to Temple activity. If J and P can be validly identified as two separate traditions, then they have been brought together by a redactor. That means that originally at least two Primaeval Histories existed in Israel; this suggests a recognized genre with its own integrity. It is the particular qualities of primaeval narrative that must concern us in this context. They are clearly international traditions, which will be evident as our investigation continues. Two features are paramount. Firstly, we must note the universalism of primaeval traditions with their concern for all humanity; that universalism is marked by an impartiality similar to that of the Wisdom tradition. Secondly, the primaeval traditions witness to a concept of creation founded on a right ordering of healthy and wholesome relationships across the whole reach of existence. The vocabulary of ṣdq occurs in the address of God to Noah in Genesis 7:1 (J): ‘you alone are righteous before me in this generation’.85 However, everywhere the significance of the equilibrium of order is apparent. We may take these two features as our guide.

II UNIVERSALISM Universalism is evident in the absolute integrity of the impartiality of the primaeval genre. It is a remarkable fact that the opening chapters of the Bible can present a sophisticated portrait of human beings, utterly relativized, as creatures within the natural order, gifted with the potential of civilization but confronted by contingency and mortality. Throughout Genesis 1 to 11 human beings are considered in almost laboratory conditions with scientific scrutiny. These chapters are a sociological study of humanity which rises above any defining labels of race, religion, culture or imagined superiority. Israel does not even appear in the Table of the Nations (Genesis 10). Biblical Primaeval History is straightforwardly a study in humankind, in the context of the given order, as a creature of God with the gift of life shadowed by the reality of death. The natural world is full of beauty, but also of threat. It is a world of ambiguous relationships in family and society. Life should be lived within constraints and limits imposed by creation’s mutuality, but these are in reality more often honoured in the breach with inevitable consequences. All humanity is equidistant from God and from the divine scrutiny of human behaviour which the device of primaeval time enables. In its impartiality Primaeval History bears a distinct family likeness to the intellectual Wisdom tradition which operated within similarly strict parameters. It is a striking feature of the record of the Hebrew Scriptures and its presence is transformative of the whole. All biblical theology must be undertaken cognisant of this manifesto which acknowledges the significance of God as creator in relativizing all creaturely existence.

85 Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 106, comments: ‘Only one man is deemed by the Yahwist to be ṣdqâ: Noah in Genesis 7:1, and as such he survives the flood – once more ṣdq and life are closely connected.’ In Genesis 6:9 (P) Noah is likewise described as righteous which Schmid sees as borrowed from the Yahwist’s vocabulary and qualified by the more technical priestly term blameless: ‘ṣdq does not belong (any longer) to the specific vocabulary or a language concerning priests or worship’ (111).

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Claus Westermann, a colossus of biblical scholarship of the second half of the twentieth century, pioneered a fresh understanding of the stature of the Primaeval History in the context of a reawakening of the significance of the theology of creation. He has highlighted the iconic quality of universalism which these narratives represent. In the introduction to his monumental commentary on Genesis 1 to 11 he states: ‘These chapters look to the universal; they include all humanity.’86 The universalism of the Primaeval Narratives is something much more sturdy than simply claiming that the God of Israel is the universal creator. This latter was the position adopted by G. von Rad; creation represented a subset within Israel’s theological reflection of God’s saving deeds: ‘We have found a great deal of evidence for the doctrine that Yahweh created the world, but we have not found the doctrine expressed as a religious actuality, standing on its own, forming the main theme of a passage in its own right. It has always been . . . subordinated to the interests and content of the doctrine of redemption.’87 However, for Westermann we touch something primary in the way creation traditions are articulated in the Primaeval History. His approach has been summarized by Stefan Paas: Westermann thereby places creation stories in a category of their own, alongside salvation historical traditions. The creation is not just recorded in the Old Testament to endorse the history of salvation; it has a dimension all of its own. This dimension, however, is not typically Israelite. It belongs, rather, to the genre of ‘creation narrative’. Worldwide we come across the same motifs in myths about the creation, e.g. the moulding of a human being out of clay. Therefore, the biblical creation stories have a previous history in the traditions of mankind. They did not appear out of the blue but are rooted in what families, generations and nations have handed down since time immemorial.88 We have already noted that the immediate context of Israel’s creation traditions is within the shared cultural identity of the Ancient Near East. That fact affords a greater perspective rooted in the awareness of world order. However, Westermann argues that the shared perspective on creation traditions drives more deeply. He maintains that many of the motifs are genuinely foundational and common to human reflection. There is something fundamentally ‘world heritage’ about the issues that reoccur in creation traditions across the globe: ‘The narratives express an understanding of the world and of man which in its broad lines and in an earlier epoch was common to races, peoples, and groups throughout the whole world.’89 Westermann identifies the driving force in the emergence of creation myths as fundamentally practical: ‘It was the reflection of threatened man in a threatened world. The Creation myths then had the function of preserving the world and of giving security to life. . . . But the history of tradition shows that the Creation narratives became intellectual problems only at a later stage. . . . The background was an existential, not an intellectual problem’90 Creation myths universally

Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 4. Von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays, 138. 88 Paas, Creation and Judgement, 7. 89 C. Westermann, Creation (London: SPCK; and Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1974), 10–11. (First published as Schöpfung [Stuttgart and Berlin: Kreuz-Verlag, 1971].) 90 Ibid., 11. 86 87

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articulate a world which is gifted and yet precarious and is always under threat. They seek through the insight of the myths and accompanying ritual to stabilize and preserve the present. This ‘world heritage’ insight into creation traditions allows Westermann to identify the Flood narrative as more than an arbitrary feature of either Hebrew or Babylonian traditions. Westermann maintains that the concept of a flood reaches well beyond the confines of the Ancient Near East. It is archetypal in being able to evoke the constant threat that accompanies existence. He argues that the story of a flood spontaneously springs up in different and unrelated cultures as able vividly to articulate ‘threatened man in a threatened world’. He cites a number of authors who have assembled the evidence.91 He particularly draws attention to the work of H. Baumann92 who has correlated African myths of origins with the themes contained in the biblical Primaeval History. In terms of the history of religions there seems to be a stage of development that exhibits a common human capacity to conceptualize certain archetypal images and stories relating to the beginning without direct borrowing across cultures. This is the well from which the biblical Primaeval History draws and which makes those traditions primary and not derivative from or subordinate to Israel’s redemption traditions. They contribute something distinctive and defining in the range of Israel’s theological reflection. It is well-known that the biblical versions of the Flood narrative are immediately dependent upon Mesopotamian prototypes. The seventeenth-century BCE Atrahasis epic affords the closest parallel.93 There the story is already recounted as part of Primaeval History, including the creation of humankind to relieve the gods from toil. We must now ask, therefore, more specifically, how the biblical Primaeval History uses the local traditions of the Ancient Near East to answer the universal human questions. How do the two different primaeval traditions understand threatened cosmos and threatened humanity? They each have a rather different emphasis. Let us first look at J’s narrative. Westermann has been keen to emphasize that the episode of the taking of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, which in Christian reflection has resulted in the doctrine of ‘the Fall’, should not be lifted out of context. It is important to consider it as part of the whole Primaeval Narrative. It is not saying that human beings have suddenly fallen into a state of hopeless corruption; it is, rather, part of a series of stories that articulate blessing and estrangement in a variety of social circumstances. The Yahwist enables the scrutiny of humanity ‘before Yahweh’ (cf. Genesis 10:9) by assembling a series of stories, like pearls on a thread, which accumulatively explore the enigma of human existence from a variety of perspectives. The consequences of taking the forbidden fruit and the consequences of the murder of Abel by Cain, for

Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 402. H. Baumann, Schöpfung und Urzeit des Menschen im Mythos der afrikanischen Völker (Berlin, 1936; reprint, Berlin: Verlag von Dietrich Reimer/Andrews & Steiner, 1964), ‘Die Weltkatastrophe’, 306–27. 93 The summary of J. Day is helpful here: ‘The Mesopotamian flood story was known in antiquity from the Greek account of Berossus, a Babylonian priest c. 280 BCE . . . . However, the first discovery of a cuneiform account of the flood was of tablet 11 of the Gilgamesh epic in the nineteenth century. It was discovered at Nineveh in the library of Ashurbanipal, the seventh-century Assyrian king, but it is now generally accepted that it was part of the Gilgamesh epic from the later part of the second millennium BCE . . . . However, an even earlier version of the Mesopotamian flood story was later discovered in the form of the Atrahasis epic . . . the best preserved and earliest is the Old Babylonian version from the seventeenth century BCE . . . . A further Mesopotamian version, the Sumerian flood story (seventeenth century BCE ), is preserved only in a fragmentary text from Nippur’: ‘Comparative Ancient Near Eastern Study’, 75–7. 91 92

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instance, result in both cases in the identical alienation of ‘a¯da¯m (the man) from ‘a¯da¯ma¯h (the ground). The tension of repetition is maintained throughout the Primaeval History. Human beings remain creatures of God with all that implies; such gifting has not been lost in the previous episode. However, J does, throughout his succession of illustrative episodes, seem very consciously to blame the ills of the world on humanity’s ‘many inventions’ (Ecclesiastes 7:29). Human behaviour does seem to be primarily responsible for the instability of world order. Although not in narrative order, let us round off these observations with the episode of the Flood. Human fault is writ large in the J flood narrative. J’s own introduction is clear: The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created – people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ — Genesis 6:5–7 The pain of regret means that Yahweh’s decision is not taken lightly. The tension involved in the decision, which in the Mesopotamian setting involves tension between the gods, is here expressed as tension within God. The decision to bring about a flood is not, in this context, due to the disturbance of humanity irritating heaven, as in the Babylonian Atrahasis epic, but is made for moral reasons relating to human wickedness. A whole generation has had a collective moral breakdown. It is that which is the cause of the havoc to be wreaked upon their environment, including all living things, by decision of Yahweh. However, true to its place within the universal significance of flood narratives, the catastrophe becomes a reason for affirming the stability of world order and the reliability of Yahweh, who henceforth overrules the dramatic consequences of human waywardness: And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground [‘a¯da¯ma¯h] because of humankind [‘a¯da¯m], for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’ — Genesis 8:21–22 The claim that the disruption of the created order is totally or mainly due to the consequences of human mischief might itself seem like hubris. However, that human beings are their own worst enemy was the burden of both the Yahwist and the Wisdom tradition. There may be just a chink of something more involved, beyond human telling, in the episode of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Humankind.94 Indeed, to participate in the handling of primaeval stories picks up echoes of the ancient human cry of ‘threatened man in a threatened world’. The Flood story itself could not be told without a spine-chilling dimension that threatened humanity was up against something

94 In 1 Enoch this episode takes on a more sinister aspect and represents rebellion in heaven, which both takes responsibility for a flawed world out of the human arena and provides more adequate justification for the decision to bring about the Flood.

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bigger than itself. The Primaeval Narratives may be playing a tune beyond that heard by the Yahwist. Nevertheless, J’s final analysis remains: humanity bears major responsibility for the world’s disruption, and hope for the world and for humanity is grounded in the forbearance and reliability of God. The hope articulated is universal for creation and creatures. We must now turn to the priestly tradition. For the priestly tradition, certainly human behaviour is a significant factor in the disturbance of creation’s equilibrium. That tradition records in the context of the Flood narrative: Now the earth was corrupt [ša¯ḥath] in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence [ḥa¯ma¯s]. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth. — Genesis 6:11–12 The guilt of humankind is thrown into relief by the statement that, by contrast: Noah was a righteous [ṣadd¯ı q] man, blameless in his generation. — Genesis 6:9 The nature of the guilt, which under ‘all flesh’ seems also to involve the animal world, is probably revealed in the necessary legislation at the conclusion of P’s Flood narrative which carries an almost Darwinian insight: Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person’s blood be shed. — Genesis 9:6a However, P could not make it clearer that original blessing is not lost and that the human being is reaffirmed after the Flood as the creature of God: For in his own image God made humankind. — Genesis 9:6b Additionally, and importantly, the priestly tradition consciously uses the Flood narrative in a way that is in keeping with its significance as a universal phenomenon across unconnected cultures. It is used to express the perceived threat to existence in its various guises, challenging life, growth and potential. The priestly tradition does not contain a set of stories which present human life as at once gifted and threatened in a range of different circumstances as does J. For P that message of ‘threatened man in a threatened world’ is carried very specifically by the Flood narrative. It is achieved by bonding it to the Genesis 1 creation account as its shadow. This is particularly remarkable when it is realized that this creation account has a completely different tradition history from the Flood narrative until the two are brought together in the priestly workshop. We may devote some space to identifying the bonding. The most significant clue is given in the way that the Flood narrative in P is not, as it is for J, an extreme weather event. The coming of a flood in the priestly tradition is portrayed as the breaking up of cosmic order. The deep (teho ¯m), over which the spirit of God moves in Genesis 1 and whose waters are subsequently separated (v. 6) to create the sky and the dry land, is leaking through and threatening to return the cosmos to formlessness:

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On that day all the fountains of the great deep [teho ¯m rabba¯] burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. — Genesis 7:11b Other details may be compared. The spirit (wind) that moves on the waters (Genesis 1:1) is balanced in the Flood narrative by a wind which blows over the earth before the waters subside (Genesis 8:1b). The description of the animals in the ark (Genesis 7:14), those drowned (Genesis 7:21) and those who leave the ark (Genesis 8:7–19) are all a deliberate echo of their creation in Genesis 1: ‘each according to its kind’. Special and conscious provision is made for food both in Genesis 1:29–30 and Genesis 6:21. The creation blessings (Genesis 1:22, 28) are again pronounced over the animals as they leave the ark (Genesis 8:17), and over Noah and his family (Genesis 9:1ff). The latter blessing is followed by the reaffirming of human dominion in rather darker terms and the spelling out of the consequence of human beings having been made ‘in the image of God’ (Genesis 9:2–6). In short, the Flood narrative recapitulates all the essentials of the Genesis 1 creation narrative. The Flood narrative in the priestly tradition does what flood narratives have done since the dawn of time. It brings a sense of contingency, threat, precariousness and creatureliness to the whole gamut of creation’s existence. It provides an accompanying shadow to the light of creation. There can be no being without threat to being, no material without entropy, no understanding of life but in the light of the reality of death and no truth without the shadow of falsehood. It is not that there has been a primaeval sin which has infected everything. Rather, estrangement is the reality of the creature; it is the inevitable cost of being. Human sin is only one aspect of the creation shadow. The priestly Flood account, no less than that of the Yahwist, concludes in a positive and reassuring way. That is, with the double affirmation of the creation blessings, the divine image restated, the covenant of cosmic stability made with all humanity and all living creatures, sealed with the sign of the rainbow. The rehearsing of the threat to cosmic stability has enabled the assertion of divine favour and the trustworthiness of the creator to guarantee the good order of the world by covenant. In the context of the Ancient Near East the creation blessings represent the basis of all confidence in the face of life’s precariousness. For the priestly tradents, the covenant with Abraham was the immediate conduit of the cosmic promises of God from which Israel specifically could draw reassurance even in the circumstances of exile and beyond. Israel consequently becomes a particular and concentrated instance of the overflow of universal creation blessing, but that takes us beyond strictly relativized reflection on all humanity and, therefore, beyond the perspective of Primaeval History.

III THE RIGHT ORDERING OF RELATIONSHIPS ‘To speak of God means to speak of the whole’:95 in that sentence Westermann sums up the power of creation theology. It relates God to absolutely everything and consequently holds in a single embrace the interconnectedness of all things. Nothing can be perceived

95 C. Westermann, ‘Das Alte Testament und die Theologie’, in Theologie, was ist das?, ed. G. Picht and E. Rudolph (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1977), 49.

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in isolation or as mere fragments, because everything is part of a single whole. It is the unique power of creation theology that its perspective is total and that it affirms value to all that has been created. It witnesses to the consequent giftedness or ‘original blessing’96 that attaches itself to everything. Westermann’s observation, quoted above, continues a paragraph or so later: At the same time as the Old Testament is speaking of this great whole, it is speaking of God. If it could not speak of God, then it would not be able to speak of this great whole. God has a connection to everything that there is; everything that there is has a connection to God, for everything that there is is God’s creation. The way that this ‘whole’ is conceived in the biblical context is organically. There is a network of relationships that has to be respected if the wellbeing of the whole is to be served. Relationship, balance and equilibrium are the very identity of order as it is presented to us in the Primaeval History. That relationship and balance are captured in a magisterial way in the priestly creation account in Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a. It is breathtaking both in the scope of its vision and in its observation of the detail of nature, each aspect with its particular ecological niche. We have argued elsewhere that its origins lie in the womb of Ancient Egypt.97 It is further evidence of the international cultural transaction within the Ancient Near East which resourced a common stock of ideas and concepts. It is particularly remarkable that it stands at the head of the priestly tradition which, after the Exile, feeds into a more private phase of Israel’s identity rooted in Sabbath, circumcision and Torah. The identity of the creation account over seven days has upon it the mark of Egyptian ma’at, which corresponds to Canaanite ṣedeq, in the way in which the different environments of creation are enumerated and their provision of particular habitats is recognized in earth, sky and sea. Living things are adapted to and thrive in their context. Yet, these different environments overlap and relate to one another in a beneficial way. A particularly notable detail, and certainly characteristic of the way ma’at enabled careful observation of the natural world, is the differentiation between seed in grain and seed in fruit: The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. — Genesis 1:12 The living world is created in swarms and colonies and each species has its own particular niche. The animals adapted to earth received three classifications – domestic animals, reptiles and wild animals: Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind. — Genesis 1:24

To use the phrase adopted as a title by Matthew Fox, Original Blessing (Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co., 1983). Atwell, ‘An Egyptian Source for Genesis 1’.

96 97

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Human beings are introduced into that order with special privileges, but nonetheless they are part of the whole. They are created in ‘the image of God’ (Genesis 1:27).98 This is a significant feature of the priestly account and repeated with the creation blessings after the Flood (Genesis 9:1–7). Such a designation certainly opens up the possibility of a relationship between human beings and their maker. Westermann uses the word ‘counterpart’ which is particularly significant in a monotheistic context where God has no heavenly companions.99 That humans take their place within the whole order of creation is evident when they receive a creation blessing (Genesis 1:28f.), as had the fish and the birds. The provision of food within the environment of humans (v. 29) is immediately followed by provision of food for all living things (v. 30). This remarkable narrative with its breathtaking scope six times declares the creation in its individual ecologies to be ‘good’ (ṭo ¯b) and once in its entirety ‘very good’ (Genesis 1:31). In an omission which should not be regarded as deliberate, human beings actually miss out and are not included under the ‘good’ designations.100 However, they are part of the total order which is declared ‘very good’. Here ‘good’ carries an echo of the significance of ‘successful’ as opposed to ‘unsuccessful’, which still lurks behind Genesis 2:18. There the ‘not good’ observation initially results in the failure of the animals to fulfil the purpose of human companionship. In Genesis 1, each environment is ‘good’ because it is functioning properly within its appropriate niche. The superlative designation of ‘very good’ has to do with the stunning whole being harmonious, functioning, ordered and completely coherent. It exactly captures the significance of ša¯lôm. That total harmony of appropriate and fruitful relationships is evoked by G. von Rad in his understanding of ṭo ¯b: ‘The word contains less an aesthetic judgement than the designation of purpose and correspondence. (It corresponds, therefore, though with much more restraint to the content of Ps. 104.31; Ps. 104 tells not so much of the beauty as of the marvelous purpose and order of creation.)’101 By contrast, the Yahwistic creation account with its ‘garden in Eden, in the east’ (Genesis 2:8) seems to disclose the origins of the narrative in Mesopotamia. Again, we are aware of the international nature of the creation traditions and of Israel’s cultural positioning within the common stock of narratives circulating in the Ancient Near East. Although the introduction suggests that the author wishes to give an account of ‘the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created’ (Genesis 2:4), in fact the J creation account is quite domestic. Its horizon is the creation of human beings within their local environment which has to do with a garden, birds and field animals and social relationships (Genesis 2:18–20). Compared with the priestly creation account, it is a ‘bite size’ look at the human environment and is quite anthropocentric. Nonetheless, it witnesses to the essential nature of human beings as part of the warp and weft of the fabric of creation. They live in a world of relationships and connections such that their

98 If the Egyptian provenance is accepted for Genesis 1, it is likely that the divine image is a democratization of the dignity afforded to the pharaoh. No doubt the monarch would have been accorded physical beauty (cf. 2 Samuel 14:25) but wisdom would have been the primary quality (cf. 1 Kings 3:5ff). The divine image in Genesis 1 is not far from the hope in Adam’s mind when Eve stretched out her hand for the fruit: ‘and you will be like God [Elo ¯hîm], knowing good and evil’ (Genesis 3:5). 99 Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 157. 100 This omission doubtless relates to the processes of editing to which the text has been subjected as it evolved. It is not therefore significant except that it does indicate that a ‘good’ attached to humanity was not a preoccupation of those who handled the tradition. 101 Gerhard von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary, rev. edn (Louiseville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1973), 52.

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environment responds positively or negatively to their behaviour. It is a world of checks and balances which must be carefully negotiated. The actual creation of humankind (Genesis 2:7ff.) is recounted in stages and is only complete when the ecological and social environments are both established. Yahweh forms (v. 7: yṣr) Adam from the arid ground (‘a¯da¯ma¯h). That establishes at once his relationship with the physical world: he belongs to the earth. The creation of humanity from clay is a familiar tradition of the Ancient Near East.102 God then breathes life into the creature he has made. The next stage is to provide an immediate ecology, which is a garden of Yahweh’s own planting. In fact, it becomes an orchard whose fruit trees include the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These two enigmatic trees introduce a link between two formerly distinct traditions relating to gardens. Their true significance will only emerge in the following chapter. Here Adam is straightforwardly given a natural garden to ‘till and keep’ as his work. It is not simply a task; it is a relationship which acknowledges and sustains his identity. As with all contexts and relationships, boundaries have to be respected if mutuality is to prevail. This one is expressed arbitrarily to Adam: ‘but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat’ (Genesis 2:17). The creation of humanity is still not properly achieved. The physical environment is in place but not the social environment: ‘it is not good that man should be alone’ (v. 18). God forms, again from the ground, ‘every animal of the field and every bird of the air’ (v. 19). They are named by the man, which certainly brings them into a significant relationship with him and in an earlier phase of the tradition would have involved a share in their creation. However, in terms of the creation of humanity, the experiment with the companionship of the animals is a failure. Again, an earlier phase in the tradition history included a tale similar to the failure of the Sumerian god Enki to produce a creature for which the mother goddess Ninhursag can name a destiny.103 Behind the passage, too, lurks a tradition relating to a time when humans drew their companionship from the animals.104 These stories carry and continue to nurture a significance from their tradition history beyond their immediate literary context. Yahweh now solves the man’s lack of social relationship by creating woman. She is received with acclaim: ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’. — Genesis 2:23 Only now is it possible to speak of the successful creation of humanity. Well-being is not possible without a proper environment of natural and social relationships. The antiquity of the traditions which the Yahwist is assembling, rather than creating, is revealed – if J.B. Pritchard is correct in tracing a word play between ‘the rib’ and ‘the lady that makes live’ to the Sumerian language.105 However, in the Genesis narrative Eve is firmly a woman and not a goddess.

102 In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is created in a similar way: ‘Aruru washed her hands/ Pinched off clay and cast it on the steppe’ (I.ii.37; ANET, 74). In the Atrahasis epic the human creation is from clay. The potter-god of Egypt, Khnum, creates people at his wheel. 103 S.N. Kramer, Sumerian Mythology (1944; Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), 71. 104 This is in fact told of Enkidu, the companion of Gilgamesh, in the Epic of Gilgamesh (I.ii.38–40; ANET, 74). 105 J.B. Pritchard, ‘Man’s Predicament in Eden’, Review of Religion 13 (1948/9): 15.

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Chapter three provides the shadow for chapter two. It introduces us to a garden with a rather different tradition history. This one is enchanted with its talking serpent and ‘sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze’ (Genesis 3:8). This is the garden for which the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are native. It carries the echoes of the garden of the gods, the Dilmun of Akkadian myth, where the trees bear lapis lazuli foliage.106 It provides the scene for the human trespass of boundaries and the inevitable breaking of the divine command not to take of the forbidden fruit.107 The eating of the forbidden fruit results in a changed state affecting human beings within their environment; it is ambiguous in its outcome. A similar ambiguous ‘change of state’ occurs in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.108 In the context of Eden, the misdemeanour means that the human beings ‘come of age’, obtaining wisdom (‘the knowledge of good and evil’, cf. Genesis 3:4), gain sexual awareness (‘then the eyes of both were open, and they knew that they were naked’, Genesis 3:7) and take responsibility for their own destiny away from the security of the garden. However, they have been culpably disobedient and the consequences are spelt out in terms of damage to their social and environmental relationships which Yahweh had so carefully evolved. The man’s relationship with the woman is marred by shame and domination, the serpent becomes the human enemy, the relationship with the ground is fractured as humans have to contend against thorns and thistles with sweat and toil. The fact of death alone will reunite humanity with the ground. They lose the immediate presence of God. Yet divine protection is never annulled; even as the human couple leave the garden, and God’s immediate presence, they are under divine care: And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and his wife, and clothed them. — Genesis 3:21 The relationship with God remains, as does the welfare of human beings essentially connected to their environment. As we sum up, we may take notice of the significant fact that J never considers the human being as an individual, except to reflect ‘it is not good that the man should be alone’ (Genesis 2:18). Humanity is otherwise considered in community, whether horizontally across the network of relationships that people the earth or vertically down the generations.

For Dilmun, see Enki and Ninhursag: A Paradise Myth, ANET, 37-41. For the lapis lazuli foliage, see the Epic of Gilgamesh, IX.v.48–51; ANET, 89. 107 There is a similar story of expulsion in Ezekiel 28. It has been summed up by W. Zimmerli: ‘there is reference to a creature who lived in a magnificent place on the mountain of the gods. As a result of his sin he is expelled from this place. In this a part is played by the figure of a cherub, who has to do with the expulsion from this place of the creature who is being addressed’: W. Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25–48 (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983), 90. (First published, Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969.) 108 This involves Enkidu, the companion of Gilgamesh. He is lured from a wild state living close to the animals by a temple prostitute. His appearance changes, the animals fear him and he no longer continues naked. The prostitute says to him: ‘Thou art [wi]se, Enkidu, art become like a god!’ (Epic of Gilgamesh, I.iv.34; ANET, 75). This new state is ambiguous; it seems to be linked to a knowledge of Enkidu’s own mortality which causes him to curse the cult prostitute when confronted by death, although in the end he is persuaded that the benefits have been worth the forfeit. 106

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The network of horizontal relationships ranges from the familial to the global. The drama of Eden allows observations on humanity in its primary unit as a couple. Other episodes include the story of Cain and Abel, which looks at the behaviour of siblings, the story of the Flood, which relates to a whole generation of human beings, and the Babel narrative, which places the spotlight on highly organized human society enabling projects on a vast scale. As regards the vertical generations, J’s style is less like the ticking of a metronome than that of P. The generations evolve in complexity of both promise and threat. They enable the continuing discovery of the richness of creation’s giftedness, but there are always ways that the goodness inherent in progress can be subverted. The ambiguous gift of wisdom identified by the serpent (Genesis 3:4) enables the development of civilization, skills and crafts. These include practical and aesthetic skills: Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch; and he built a city, and named it Enoch after his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad; and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methushael, and Methushael the father of Lamech. Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. — Genesis 4:17–22 Noah the Vintner, clearly a tradition originally separate from the Noah of the Flood narrative, identifies the emergence of the skill of growing vines and making wine (Genesis 9:20–27). It has the resonance of Psalm 104:15: ‘and wine to gladden the human heart’. However, true to the Yahwist’s darker insight the gift is perverted by drunkenness and the lewd behaviour that results. It would seem that the higher human beings climb in culture and knowledge, the greater grows the threat. The conversation with the serpent on the nature of wisdom hovers over all. To come of age is both a God-given blessing to celebrate and a responsibility full of danger. Human beings constantly seek to defy the limits decreed by creatureliness. In each different context new blessing is celebrated, but always with the strange enigma of accompanying threat. The Yahwist never loses grasp of the fact that the fundamental questions about human beings must be placed in the context of the relationships by which they are sustained both by one another and within the larger environment of creation’s order. The threat to human beings most often comes in the form of damage to their social or natural environment which is regularly self-inflicted. It is the hard way by which human beings have to learn their limits as creatures within creation’s checks and balances. All of the Yahwist’s stories remind the reader that: ‘To speak of God means to speak of the whole’. Awareness of God brings awareness of the single context he has created. Humanity has a social identity and beyond that is part of, not separate from, creation’s order. There is a recoil of creation and a souring of relationships if the whole is not taken into account. However, always in these narratives the last word is with God and his gracious presence assuring a future for creation and creatures with continued blessing. God overrules or mitigates the worst consequences of human behaviour; his is the relationship which is key to all relationships and is consistently to be trusted.

CHAPTER FOUR

Reflections on Creator and Creation I THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES What do the Hebrew Scriptures have to say for today to nurture reflection about creator and creation? If we receive the writings of the Hebrews as Scripture, in what way do these writings shape and inspire the understanding of the community of faith in seeking to comprehend the nature of the world in which we find ourselves? The recognition of the validity of the ‘Old Testament’ as Scripture insists that we must allow that tradition to speak for itself. It must be valid for its own wisdom and integrity and not simply be read through the lens of the New Testament, as can often be the temptation. After all, what Christians designate as the Old Testament comprises the Scriptures upon which Jesus of Nazareth was nurtured. It is the Hebrew Scriptures that are referred to in the phrase ‘according to the scriptures’ when St Paul writes his first letter to the Corinthians.109 It is those writings we must now allow to speak as Scripture in the light of the scrupulously analytical journey so far, which has sought to identify without fear or favour the raw material presented to us. We have argued that it is quite impossible to understand the witness of the Hebrew Scriptures to a divinely constituted world order without standing at the gates of the Jerusalem Temple with those who annually celebrated the kingship of God at the New Year festival. They shared an immediate perspective with Canaanite civilization and, beyond that, with the culture of the Ancient Near East. Those gathered included a crowd, representative of the Judaean community, full of anticipation that the blessings of order were about to break upon them, and a prophet passionate that the holiness of God should be reflected in the wholesomeness of ordered relationships across nature and society. At that moment, in a way that gripped the attention of the whole community, the invisible principles which breathed meaning and coherence into daily life throughout the Ancient Near East rose to Hebrew consciousness. Those principles were ‘cosmic and universal’.110 The events of the festival related the individual to a universal equilibrium; each one knew himself as part of something greater. Each belonged to the cosmos. The popular celebration and reaffirmation of the true identity of the world, as it was conceived to be established by divine fiat, made the Temple a focus of communal

109

1 Corinthians 15:3–8. Davies, ‘The Destiny of the Nations’, 119.

110

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pilgrimage and rippled a common cultural perspective through society. It also stimulated the scholarly to reflect in a more literary and structured way. This, too, had a context in which they knew themselves as part of an international discipline as they handled shared primaeval traditions as authoritative texts. These servants of scholarly convention clearly overlapped with those responsible for the transmission of the Wisdom tradition, with its own robust parameters dependent upon the significance of order as the defining reality of existence. They, too, refused to privilege any particular people or perspective. The primaeval traditions may have been unknown and unsung by the crowds but were to have a lasting significance as the opening chapters of a literary deposit which became the Hebrew Scriptures. We have a multiple witness from the Hebrew Scriptures to creator and creation. The very existence of the Temple spoke of God as instigator and defender of cosmic order. More particularly, the New Year festival, for which the earthly king was integral, celebrating the good order of the world, expressed and defined the cultural identity of contemporary society. The lasting influence of that annual celebration echoes through Scripture and sings out in the psalms. It brings with it the wider embrace of regional custom and practice. Further, the primaeval traditions, which are very specifically located in the opening chapters of Genesis, draw on an internationally shared literary form. The related international Wisdom tradition, often close to Temple and kingship, also bore distinctive witness to the significance of order. All were transparent to that broad horizon of creation theology which was the distinguishing characteristic of the perspective of the Ancient Near East.

II THE LORD IS KING At the gates of the Jerusalem Temple the shouts of joy at an ordered cosmos ready to burst with blessings resolved into a single voice: ‘The Lord is king’ (Psalm 93:1). The metaphor of earthly kingship informed the understanding of the kingship of God. That metaphor was the single most distinctive way by which the Ancient Near East, and Israel within that cultural environment, named the creator. The kingship of God instantly spoke of the trustworthiness of an ordered world which would deliver the cycle of the seasons, the regular gift of rain and sunshine, the abundance of cattle and crops and the wellbeing of the human community as part of the whole. Divine kingship was a powerful concept which dominates the theological reflection of the Ancient Near East and consequently is embedded in the Hebrew Scriptures. It had an enduring impact on the whole biblical tradition. Somewhat transposed, it is a concept definitive of the proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth grounded in the ‘Kingdom of God’. Its mighty chords thunderously close the New Testament and the Christian Scriptures: For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. — Revelation 19:6 That far-reaching consequence is to be noted, but beyond the immediate scope of this chapter. Can the metaphor of kingship have any validity in a twenty-first-century culture for which it is no longer a similar political reality? Indeed, it might be said to reflect a political

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perspective which is not simply dated, but damaging. However, the fact that there are Scriptures at all grounds the Judaeo-Christian tradition very specifically in particular historical contexts, as is the case for all the faiths that are ‘a people of the book’. There are certain source texts that have to be grappled with and not simply abandoned. In the case of the Judaeo-Christian tradition, it is a particular essential that history is taken seriously as a series of significant unique moments, even if anchored in the cycle of seasonal return which gives them their organic context. In that case, we cannot simply grow out of the metaphor of kingship; rather, we have to try to understand it within its historical context and assimilate its significance whilst also acknowledging that considerable transposition may be necessary. Every specific human context has insights and blind spots; no doubt, that is as true of our own era as of that which produced the Hebrew Scriptures. In fact, what kingship brings to the biblical reflection on the ordered cosmos is of enormous significance to an environmentally conscious age. It can be argued that in many ways its relevance has returned. The lack of a proper reading of the significance of kingship as a metaphor within its historical context has contributed substantially to a misunderstanding of the portrait of nature, and humans within it, that the biblical perspective presents. The analogy of kingship is one received with caution by many contemporary theologians and biblical commentators. This is summed up by Rowan Williams in relation to two contemporary voices: ‘Both McFague and Ruether . . . see the crises of the age as rooted, to a very significant extent, in the twin problems of dualism and hierarchy.’111 These two theologians would see the legacy of kingship as very much part of the problem rather than the solution. It fits into the traditional pattern of male dominance. It represents imposition by force, which has enabled human beings to see themselves apart from the created order and consequently agents acting upon it, as if it could be taken as royal plunder. Rowan Williams summarizes: The problems are forcefully set out in Rosemary Ruether’s Sexism and God-Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology,[112] which contains an intriguing discussion of the possible agenda underlying the Hebrew myth of creation in its distinctness from Babylonian and Canaanite thought-forms. For the latter, ‘creation is a movement of self-regulation within a single continuum, “the matrix of chaos-cosmos” ’; for the Hebrews, the creator is more like an artisan working on material outside his own nature, by what appears as ‘a combination of male seminal and cultural power (wordact) that shapes it “from above” ’.113 As we have discovered in the previous chapters, the Hebrew creation traditions are part of their wider cultural horizon so it is problematic to contrast them with Babylonian and Canaanite thought-forms. The significance of the metaphor of monarchy is essential to all the cosmic reflections throughout the whole of the Ancient Near East. The nature of cosmic equilibrium as presented in the Temple tradition is self-regulating in the sense that it exists as an organic whole. Further, the action of working on given material is also a common cultural characteristic of the greater regional context. The issues are not as straightforward as Ruether assumes.

R. Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 66–7. Rosemary Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk: Towards a Feminist Theology (London: SCM Press, 1983), 77. 113 Williams, On Christian Theology, 64. 111 112

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Nevertheless, the attractiveness of alternative, more feminine, analogies remains as a response to the current ecological crisis. That position has again been neatly summarized by Williams: . . . pressure has come from certain feminist quarters: has not a redemption-oriented Christian theology functioned as an expression of the male urge to shake off the threatening and humiliating ties that bind spirit to body, to the earth, the cycle of reproduction, woman imaged as the sign of fallenness, of unspiritual nature? Hence the emergence of an interest in ‘creation-centred spirituality’, which ‘begins . . . with the theme of original blessing rather than original sin’[Matthew Fox].[114] Its characteristic language is one of trust in the material order of the world, the rejection of nature-spirit dualism and indeed of the creator-creation divide, in a certain sense: the key term is ‘panentheism’, designating the way in which all things have their life in God, in a simple, ‘synchronous’, interwoven pattern, a timeless moment which breaks in on our awareness as and when we see the transparency of beings to (God’s) Being.115 An analogy which McFague adopts as articulating this perspective is that of the world as the body of God. For her that both frees God from a position of monarchical control and enables focus not so much on the ‘why?’ as the ‘where?’ That is, it enables concentration on the truly significant: ‘the neighbourhood in which we have been set down’. That neighbourhood is planet earth. However, she is mistaken when she maintains that the analogy of kingship is restricted to people: Moreover, a king is both distant from the natural world and indifferent to it, for as a political model, monarchy is limited to human beings. At most, nature enters this model only as the king’s realm or dominion, not with all the complexity, richness, and attention-grabbing qualities of the living, mysterious creation of which we are a part. The king-realm model shuts out the earth as earth; that is, because it allows us to imagine the God-world relationship only in terms of a king and his subjects, it (like all models) encourages us to see some things and not others.116 It is evident from this study that ‘The Lord is King’ refers primarily to God’s relationship with the cosmos rather than with people. The kingship of God relates to an ordered world in which the blessings of fecundity and plenty in nature can be enjoyed and celebrated. It is primarily about the reliable cycles of night and day, the seasons, the autumn rains and the complementary ecologies of earth, sky and sea. This is a matter to which we shall return. The analogy of the world as God’s body has its own shortcomings. In asserting the continuum between God and the world it is able to model the sustaining of creation, but it also has a substantial drawback. It shares a weakness with the perspective of the Ancient Near East which tended to confirm the status quo rather than challenge it. A God who is solely within rather than outwith the creation can simply bring about more of the same. There can be no radical change or newness. Exploitation in all of its forms cannot be challenged.

Matthew Fox, ‘Creation-Centred Spirituality’, in A Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, ed. Gordon Wakefield (London: SCM Press, 1983), 99. 115 Williams, On Christian Theology, 63. 116 Sallie McFague, ‘Is God in Charge? Creation and Providence’, in Essentials of Christian Theology, ed. William C. Placher (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003), 107. 114

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In order to round off this aspect of the discussion we must pick up the passing reference by Rowan Williams to Matthew Fox. Fox is keen that ‘original blessing’ is re-established as the primary message of faith in the creator. He is right to highlight the retreat from the celebration of the goodness of God in creation, which is an essential of the Primaeval History in both of its strands. As we noted, in the J tradition the narrative of the Garden of Eden, including the taking of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3), is to be understood within the setting of the rest of the individual episodes that make up that total strand of the Primaeval History. Taking the initial story out of context has led the theology of the Western Church, though not biblical theology, to emphasize a fallen creation as if it had been emptied of blessings. This is clearly not the case; an ambiguity is sustained throughout the Yahwistic narrative, with promise as well as vexation constantly re-presented. In the P tradition, the Genesis 1 narrative sets the scene as God consistently declares creation to be ‘good’; humanity, male and female, is created in the divine image. That human beings are in the image of God is reaffirmed following the Flood (Genesis 9:6) and the creation blessings restated (animals: Genesis 8:17; humans: Genesis 9:1). Original blessing remains intact. Fox states his position succinctly: Specifically, what religion must let go of in the West is an exclusively fall/redemption model of spirituality – a model that has dominated theology, Bible studies, seminary and novitiate training, hagiography, psychology for centuries. It is a dualistic model and a patriarchal one; it begins its theology with sin and original sin, and it generally ends with redemption. Fall/redemption spirituality does not teach believers about the New Creation or creativity, about justice-making and social transformation, or about Eros, play, pleasure, and the God of delight. It fails to teach love of the earth or care for the cosmos, and it is so frightened of passion that it fails to listen to the impassioned pleas of the anawim, the little ones, of human history. The same fear of passion prevents it from helping lovers to celebrate their experiences as spiritual and mystical. This tradition has not proven friendly to artists or prophets or Native American peoples or women.117 If the creation traditions with all their joy and potential are a fundamental human birthright, Fox is quite correct in challenging the way the Christian tradition has often been perceived to bury this treasure. That tendency has been a particular fault of the Church of the west. However, we noted above the insight of Westermann, that the initial human concern to establish a ‘lifeline’ to the moment of creation is a response to the threat that accompanies being. Human beings perceive existence not simply as gifted but also as threatened. They are always aware of creatureliness, contingency, the threat of non-being. In those circumstances there need to be rituals and ceremonies which can evoke the security and protection of the power that first established original blessing. The creation narratives from the very beginning articulate a dilemma which is about the experience of life in the face of death, of promise always undermined by threat and human beings full of potential but also flawed. Westermann, as we noted above, has highlighted the significance of the Flood narrative in this context. We have particularly identified how it bonds itself in the biblical context to the priestly creation narrative and consequently is true to the universal thrust of creation narratives. Their primary purpose was to speak to ‘threatened

Fox, Original Blessing, 11.

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man in a threatened world’.118 Matthew Fox recovers the sense of ‘original blessing’ in a timely and eloquent way. The drawback is that he overlooks ‘original contingency’ or ‘original creatureliness’ or even ‘original sin’ (as far as humankind is concerned), which is the essential obverse of all creation reflection. The Primaeval History gives us the sustained ambiguity of both original blessing and original contingency – both goodness and shadow. We must return to the biblical significance of the analogy of kingship and some general observations. Throughout the Ancient Near East there was only one valid institution of state governance in the settled land and that was monarchy. It might relate to the great super-powers of Egypt and Mesopotamia, where the authority that the rulers wielded gave them semi-divine status. Alternatively, it might relate to a single city state in Canaan, where the power exercised was much more modest, or to the emergent kingdoms of the early Iron Age managing local empires, of which Israel and Judah were examples. In the Egyptian context the pharaoh ruled in the image of God. The name Tutankhamun translates as ‘living image of Amun’. Even in the city states of Canaan there were associations made between the monarch and the primal man in terms of both physical beauty and special God-given wisdom.119 It is not, therefore, surprising that the institution of kingship became a vehicle for theological and anthropological reflection. It is likely that human beings as made in the ‘image of God’ (Genesis 1:27) is a democratization of the theological hedge which surrounded the monarch; more specifically the immediate influence may have been through the Egyptian pharaoh. We first encounter the claim that human beings are fashioned in the divine image in the First Intermediate Period of Egyptian history (c. 2181–2055 BCE ). Further, it is not unlikely that the Genesis 2 to 3 reflection on humanity, both as wise and flawed, came through observation of the monarch. For it was through the royal figure, who lived with the normal human limiting constraints removed, whether of scarcity or conformity, that human behaviour could be scrutinized, for good or ill, in high relief. If that royal figure is seen as intimately related to the primal man, then the paradigm of human behaviour is given. It has to be acknowledged that there can be little doubt that the darker human characteristics associated with the fierce language describing human dominion in the priestly Primaeval Narrative are to be laid at the door of Ancient Near Eastern kingship: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you shall rest on every animal of the earth, and on every bird of the air, on everything that creeps on the ground, and on all the fish of the sea; into your hand they are delivered. — Genesis 9:2 On the other hand, one also has to be realistic about the Darwinian insight in the Origin of Species which has been summarized as ‘a pitiless struggle for existence’. Any myth of creation has to do that justice. When the annual celebration of the victory of God took place in the Jerusalem Temple, we noted that the ceremony was conceived to bring about the refreshing of order. Cosmic order was once again stabilized by encounter with the timeless celebration of primal order in the cultic ceremonial. That refreshing was conceived to involve the ‘putting right’ of those places where good order had lapsed and threatened prosperity:

Westermann, Creation, 11. Atwell, The Sources of the Old Testament, 133ff.

118 119

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But the Lord sits enthroned for ever, He has established his throne for judgement. He judges the world with righteousness; He judges the people with equity. — Psalm 9:7–8 It was an occasion of joy for the populace. It was an occasion of less joy for those who had aided disorder by courting injustice, breaking peace and shunning loving kindness. For them the enthronement of God was a moment of judgement. His coming was not good news. To what extent do we encounter the military model here and the iron fist of monarchy putting things right? The prophet Isaiah is in many ways our spokesman from this situation as he speaks to a people who he felt ignored the demands inherent in the celebration of divine kingship. Rather than emphasizing the military might of God, this situation seemed to develop in Isaiah a sense of the holiness and transcendence of God. He is already taking us to another level which we shall consider in a subsequent chapter. The consequence of ignoring the demands of the holiness of God is that the people open themselves to the radical collapse of their environment. Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate. — Isaiah 6:11 The consequences are certainly dire, including invasion of enemies, but they represent the recoil of abused God-given order rather than direct military punishment by an irascible divine monarch. The waters of chaos can no longer be restrained. Nonetheless, to our ears much of the violent language that the prophets use, often connected with the agency of foreign rulers, requires substantial cultural adjustment. A further necessary cultural adjustment for our modern world in receiving the analogy of kingship is its ‘maleness’, associated with its macho violence. In our gender-conscious age there is a lopsidedness to the culture from which the Bible emerges. There are some mitigating circumstances. The qualities which are identified as integral to cosmic engineering are remarkably ‘feminine’. It might be argued, as we have identified, that the imposition of justice involves the implementation of coercion and the exercise of power that might be considered masculine. However, loving kindness, truth and equity are remarkably soft and lacking in military virtue. It may not, therefore, be simply coincidence that order (Ma’at) in Ancient Egypt is feminine. She is a goddess and the daughter of the creator god. She may be responsible for the fact that Wisdom in Israel is feminine. In the book of Proverbs (cf. Proverbs 8:1–36), Wisdom is portrayed as the anti-type of the loose woman; she is a young woman who seeks to attract to herself those who are wise and sensible and who can be trained to walk in the way of righteousness and find life. We should not too quickly dismiss the presence of the feminine in consideration of the biblical ordering of the cosmos. However, it must be recognized that these can never be more than mitigating circumstances. Any analogy which is grounded in a given historical context is going to be conditioned by its particular perspective. That has to be acknowledged and properly allowed for. Any reading of a text from one historical period to another requires proper interpretation, critical reception and considered judgement. However, that does not necessarily invalidate

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its insight; we can learn from the past. In this case, it is the potential of the analogy of kingship to give insight into the nature of existence. We have already noted that the analogy of kingship has enabled critical consideration of our humanity and a very significant valuing of each human being as in the image of God. We must consider more fully the way the analogy of kingship could give access to a vision of nature and humanity in the embrace of a single cosmic community.

III A COMMUNITY OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS The starting point of our task to recover the biblical portrait of nature and humanity as a single community must be to rediscover the best of earthly kingship as it was promoted in the Ancient Near East. At its most cynical the ‘best of earthly kingship’ may have been propaganda, but at its finest it probably genuinely represented a height to seek to attain. The gold standard of kingship was recognized, and it was remarkably consistent, throughout the Ancient Near East. From the Sumerian era we have the claim of Urukagina (ruler of Lagash c. 2350 BCE ) to have undertaken reforms which stopped palace abuse and exploitation of the poor. The oldest known law code dates to Ur Nammu (c. 2112 BCE ), the founder of the third dynasty of Ur, whose law code establishes financial payment for bodily injury and transcends the old lex talionis. The law code of Hammurabi, the Akkadian king who succeeded in 1792 BCE , is well known. In the preface to those laws, he claims: Anum and Illil [i.e. Enlil] for the prosperity of the people called me by name Hammurabi, the reverent God-fearing prince, to make justice to appear in the land, to destroy the evil and the wicked that the strong might not oppress the weak, to rise indeed like Shamash over the dark-haired folk to give light to the land.120 In Ancient Egypt of the First Intermediate Period there is the Teaching for Merykare. It is cast as the advice of a ruler to his son and it is this text which, in a subsequent portion to that quoted, refers to human beings as in the image of God. Part of the advice reads: Do right and you will live long on earth. Calm the weeper, do not oppress the widow, drive no man from his father’s possessions, do not diminish the property of the great. Be on guard against punishing unjustly. Do not kill, that is of no advantage to you; punish, rather, with beatings and imprisonment, by this the land will be firmly grounded.121 We may add a biblical perspective with some verses from Psalm 72, which if H.H. Schmid is correct are pre-Israelite: Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,

G.R. Driver and J.C. Miles, The Babylonian Laws, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), Vol. 2, 5. Walter Beyerlin, ed., Near Eastern Religious Texts relating to the Old Testament (London: SCM Press, 1978), 45.

120 121

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and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor. — Psalm 72:1–4 These passages all witness the aspiration that the order of the state under the crown should be so governed as to enable the well-being of human society based on justice, especially for the widow and the orphan. At its best, the aim of royal responsibility was to ensure that society was stable and ordered so as to achieve the prospering of its people within their physical environment as an offering to heaven to be valued for its own sake. Compassion was consistently set forth as a significant element that should influence royal justice. The welfare of a complex order fell to the king to maintain as a single whole, seamlessly at one with the natural order. The failure of kingship spelt chaos; that is, the breakdown of the state and the languishing of the people, perhaps as victims of their enemies or of infertility and drought. A responsible king meant a secure state and a thriving community marked by fairness, with a healthy integration within the created order. When King Solomon is portrayed as praying, in such an exemplary way according to the biblical record, for wisdom (1 Kings 3:9), he is presented as seeking guidance to enable him to make responsible decisions, whether judicial, military, agricultural, political or religious. Such wisdom was more than the gift of practical management and decision making. It was insight into the nature of existence and the fundamental structure of the cosmos. There was a correlation between the gift of wisdom and an understanding of all that was seamless with the grain of good order. This was because: The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens. — Proverbs 3:19 In the thinking of the Ancient Near East the earthly kingdom was a microcosm of the heavenly, and the earthly king the viceroy of the heavenly king. Just as the earthly kingdom found its unity and wholeness in the pivotal responsibility of the head of state, so the unity of the cosmos was grounded in the reliability of the heavenly king. The cosmos was, therefore, conceived to be a unity with a moral imperative by analogy with the state. The order of the cosmos could be read from the best of human kingship. It was the responsibility of the monarch, in the estimate of Ancient Near Eastern kingship, to protect the weak. That was, therefore, evident in exemplary manner as a quality of the divine monarch. When at the New Year festival the coming of God established pristine primal order, a new equilibrium was to be expected. It is celebrated in the Song of Hannah, mother of the prophet Samuel: The Lord makes poor and makes rich; he brings low, he also exalts. He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honour. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and on them he has set the world. — 1 Samuel 2:7–8

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The subtle intricacy of a world based on right relationships often received complementary articulation through the notion of balance and equilibrium. Society in the Ancient Near East was familiar with weights and balances both in business transactions and in the process of construction. Indeed, for Ancient Egypt balance and equilibrium were essentials in the way the world was conceived in terms of upper and lower Egypt, war and peace, life and death, all symbolized in the pharaoh’s double crown. The analogy of the scales could be used to portray the soul weighed against the feather of truth (Ma’at). The balance evident in Israel’s poetry may well reflect a similar psychology. DeuteroIsaiah speaks of the construction of the universe by the one who has ‘enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales’ (Isaiah 40:12). The concept of balance represents a significant way in which a world based on relationships might be portrayed. It brought a truly nuanced insight into the delicacy and vulnerability of the poise of the cosmos. It is true that the unity that the great empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt imposed upon their regions and populations, which provided the metaphor for the ordering of the cosmos, involved military conquest and its associated atrocities. Feminist theologians are correct to remind us that brutality and violence were often the darker side of the complex human co-operation that, despite being held up as a parody in the episode of Babel, could achieve ambitious goals. In Canaan, ordering was portrayed as a mighty battle with watery chaos. This was similarly the case with the Marduk creation epic in Mesopotamia, complicated further by the fact that Tiamat (the watery deep) attacked by Marduk is feminine. By contrast, in Ancient Egypt none of the three major cosmologies involved violence, although the pharaoh himself, as we have noted, was venerated as champion of order; his image destroying his enemies regularly appeared on the temple pylons. However, although the analogy of military might was responsible for the imagery of cosmic battle, it does not seem to have infected the presentation of primal order itself. The sacredness of primal order was a common concept throughout the Ancient Near East. The analogy of kingship gave access to a breathtaking vision of the cosmos as a single interrelated, organic whole. It lived and breathed, grew and changed, knew rhythm and balance, give and take, night and day, in a marvellous unity. It is this metaphor that the biblical vision draws upon and it is a quite remarkable achievement. However, that sense of plurality held in unity has its contemporary critics and this is an issue to which we shall need to return in the context of monotheism. It is maintained that in a post-modern world fragmentation should not necessarily be resolved. Nevertheless, the order of the cosmos over which God ruled rejoiced in diversity. That order was emphatically not conceived of in a way that subjected creation to a tyrannical bondage. Throughout the Ancient Near East the sacred order established held up the goal of ša¯lôm, that is, harmony and peace, whose fruitfulness was a source of sheer wonder and delight. It was conceived to be the most precious gift imaginable and the one great miracle of existence. Israel in the monarchical period shared with the rest of the Ancient Near East a fundamental wonderment and respect for the order of things. A sense of the world created out of nothing was foreign to them. The creation was understood as the shaping of pre-existent material into a stunning and awesome unity in diversity that called forth rejoicing; for, it was at the moment of ordering: When the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy. — Job 38:7

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The significance of Psalm 104, which celebrates nature’s order and human beings as a part of that order, has already been identified. The summary is found in v. 24: O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. A sense of joy and pride is also evident in Genesis 1 when God repeatedly declares the world to be ‘good’; that is, wonderfully congruent. The colonies in which things exist are presented in terms of multiple local ecologies, which together overlap and sustain each other, contributing to a remarkable diversity which is yet a whole. The fact that, in the final form of the Genesis 1 creation narrative, ‘God rested on the seventh day’, insists that divine delight and not human dominion is the goal of creation. The nature of the world was discerned not as a mass of isolated fragments but as a working whole. That portrait called forth considerable wonder. The stars in the sky reappear every night ‘not one is missing’ (Isaiah 40:26). The book of Job asks who it is that brings rain ‘on a land where no one lives’ (38:26)? And ‘who provides for the raven its prey’ (38:41)? The lens of kingship provided by the cultural context of the Ancient Near East enabled the biblical tradition to articulate the interconnectedness of the world in all its parts as a single society and value its amazing diversity and mutuality. Sir David Attenborough summarizes the contemporary understanding of the world of which we are a part as: ‘a community of animals and plants living in a geological landscape’.122 The biblical perspective did not know about the geological landscape, but it did know about ‘a community of animals and plants’. It was precisely the insight of the created order as a single community extending across humans, animals and plants that the analogy of kingship supplied. It took the model of society and applied it to the cosmos. The world is based on relationship, on mutuality, on correspondence in a way that is organic, seasonal, revolving and totally interrelated. The kingship of God presented universal order as a remarkable phenomenon of fruitful diversity held in unity, which human beings had to guard as precious and which could not be taken for granted. We have noted H.H. Schmid’s analysis that there were various aspects of order with their own inner logic which had to be respected. These he identified as justice, wisdom, nature/fertility, war/victory over foreign peoples, worship/sacrifice and, finally, kingship that embraced them all. These very different concepts to the modern mind were read, through the lens of kingship, with a single significance within the biblical context and related to the overarching concept of order. The same good order was disturbed by denying justice or neglecting to plough a field. In the biblical context, it did not take mental gymnastics to perceive multiple manifestations of the same basic phenomenon across all life’s experiences. These different contexts were instinctively described in terms of a single vocabulary of which the headlines were righteousness/right order, justice and peace. This vocabulary presented the world, as it manifested itself, as having a profound underlying unity. At its best and as intended it was a single society, even a communion, comprised of harmonious relationships. The first duty of humanity was to acknowledge and respect the communality upon which their welfare depended. The significance of the human community within the great scheme of things is indeed marked out for particular status in the biblical estimate. Humans are ‘a little lower than

Interview on the BBC Today programme, 16 December 2013.

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God’ (Psalm 8:5a) and are given dominion (Genesis 1:28, cf. 9:2). That status has often been portrayed as a ‘blank cheque’, but it is not so. Human beings are creatures and part of cosmic order. They live firmly within the checks and balances that creatureliness decrees. They are constrained by the community of being. The status accorded to human beings makes them more vulnerable to disturbing the equilibrium of the universe and consequently damaging their environment. If human beings choose to ignore the demands of right order, justice, peace and the associated insights into creaturely communion, then the malaise of disorder is unleashed. In many ways the Primaeval History is precisely an illustration of this scenario. Adam’s sin against order disrupts his secure environment and consequently changes his relationship with his partner, the animals and the earth. Cain’s murder of Abel alienates him from the ground; human wickedness brings about the destructive Flood; and overweening human ambition results in the confusion of tongues and scattering at Babel. It could not be clearer that in the biblical perspective the creation is not a stage set, upon which humans may perform their drama without consequence. Human actions are organic and intimately related to the environment, which responds either positively or negatively to their actions. If the Judaeo-Christian tradition has contributed to the environmental crisis, then it has not been on the basis of a proper understanding of the biblical presentation of creation and the human place within it. Human beings are, in the biblical estimate, part of the given order of things which stings them if they abuse it or prospers if they treat it in a sustainable way. The analogy of kingship applied to the cosmos enabled it to be presented as a single community existing in mutual relationship. Such is its unity that disturbance in one area can have dramatic consequences in quite another. For instance, in the judgement of the prophet Amos the waywardness of Israel in the moral realm has affected the climate in the physical realm: And I also withheld the rain from you when there were still three months to the harvest; I would send rain on one city, and send no rain on another city; one field would be rained upon, and the field on which it did not rain withered. — Amos 4:7 Such radical connectedness, which relates human moral action to changes in the weather pattern, was an essential part of the biblical logic. That connectedness was held in the analogy of kingship. Such an insight turns out to have significant contemporary resonance. The perspective of biblical creation theology underwrites and affirms the contemporary concern for the environment and the awareness of its relational nature. To recapitulate, it was the analogy of the community of the state writ large in the processes of the cosmos which meant that the specific vocabulary of ‘right order’ (ṣedeq), which H.H. Schmid has identified, described the perceived nature of the cosmos. There is a cluster of associated vocabulary in justice, peace, loving kindness, truth and equity. These concepts were all reckoned to give insight into the structure of the universe as divine fiat had called it into being. If these reflected the character of the Almighty in his work of ordering, so they were essential to sustaining and maintaining a healthy cosmos. If these qualities were not exhibited in human behaviour and striven for by the human community, then the delicate relationships of order would sicken and the environment that sustained creatures would break up.

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IV JUSTICE The transfer of the moral imperative of justice within human society to the order of the cosmos is a remarkable feature of the biblical reflection on creation. It, too, is a consequence of the analogy of kingship. The conviction of the biblical presentation is that the human flouting of justice fundamentally affects the welfare of the created order. There is perceived to be a moral dimension to cosmic order such that the consequences of human injustice drive deep into creation’s welfare. The prophet Amos proclaims what is necessary for the welfare of creation: But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. — Amos 5:24 In contemporary parlance, justice and the integrity of creation are fundamentally linked in the biblical vision. Justice in human conduct and the right ordering of the environment are inextricably interwoven. We need to recollect that these insights into the cosmic role of justice were not restricted to Israel’s specific faith-identity. Rather, her religious identity transmitted convictions that embraced the whole of the Ancient Near East. For instance, it was reckoned to be a matter of universal agreement that the widow and the orphan deserve protection. In other words, there is a sort of natural law that permeated the thinking of the Ancient Near East and provided an agreed framework within which international business could be done. There were boundaries that breached reasonable human conduct and which would trigger a moral recoil. The prophet Amos is a spokesman for the existence of these universal moral norms in his ‘oracles against the nations’ (Amos 1:3 to 2:8).123 The nations, and indeed finally Israel, are not judged by the standards of Israel’s special knowledge of God, but by what amounts to crimes against humanity. There is certain conduct that trespasses a common understanding of what is just and right arising from an accepted standard of God-given universal order. The broad horizon of creation theology is here the court of appeal. The sense that justice is a part of cosmic engineering, so essential to the biblical perspective, is an insight which contemporary wisdom has come to take seriously. It is captured in words associated with Martin Luther King which received added impetus when they were quoted by Barack Obama: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.’124 The biblical perspective may have a valid contemporary resonance. If it can be argued that there is a moral grain running through the universe, then some inkling of what has been called ‘natural law’ may yet be valid. Elizabeth ButlerSloss, in warning against legalizing assisted dying, makes an interesting observation in this context: ‘Laws, like nation states, are more secure when their boundaries rest on natural frontiers.’125

For discussion of this, see J. Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 94ff. Quoted by Barack Obama on 4 April 2008 on the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King. The words can be traced back to Theodore Parker, American Unitarian minister, born 1810. 125 Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, ‘We Legalise “Assisted Dying” at Our Peril’, Daily Telegraph, 14 December 2013. 123 124

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In our multicultural global world, there might be some common ground that arises out of our shared humanity and our shared sense of what is necessary for the wellbeing of our planet and the life it sustains. Raymond Plant has drawn attention to Isaiah Berlin’s identification of the difference between pluralism and relativism.126 The former need not rule out the possibility of some common values. Plant argues: So there is a case for saying . . . that in fact there can be some types of universals in human life and practice rooted in the common idea of agency and common values relating to those forms of human flourishing which when invoked provide for the intelligibility of practical activity. In particular, this will help to provide an account of the moral context of the public realm, rather than one rooted in the idea of neutrality.127 There remains a bar to which human beings may be summoned to answer for their action. It may be found in a basic human recognition that we live in a universe which responds positively to moral actions. Only that recognition makes for a healthy world order and a sustainable ecology. Such a perspective carries the hallmark of biblical inspiration and its grounding in creation theology.

V UNIVERSALISM An outstanding aspect of the witness of the creation traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures is their genuine universalism. This comes as something of a surprise in dealing with the record of a people of marginal significance to international affairs, whose primary concerns were with their own local identity and destiny under Yahweh, their god. Yet, this destiny was set firmly within a context governed by the recognition that their national god was also the universal creator. That latter fact remained a primary piece of knowledge about God. The adjective ‘primary’ is significant. We have discovered that Israel shared with the Ancient Near East an understanding of the world that took for granted that its order was decreed by divine fiat. This was not something to be debated, but a basic assumption shared across national boundaries upon which all religion, ethics and wisdom were founded. Existence was woven from creation’s order; that was the air which the Ancient Near East breathed and was, therefore, both ubiquitous and often invisible. This is a point made by C. Westermann: Creation was not an article of faith because there was simply no alternative. In other words, the Old Testament had a different understanding of reality from ours, inasmuch as there was no other reality than that established by God. They had no need expressly to believe that the world was created by God because that was a presupposition of their thinking.128 A further observation may be made about the primary nature of creation traditions in the Ancient Near East. They were never simply stories about a remote past. The concept

126 Raymond Plant, ‘Religion in a Liberal State’, in Religion in a Liberal State, ed. G. D’Costa et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 23. 127 Ibid., 32. 128 Westermann, Creation, 5.

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of ‘the beginning’ or ‘the first time’ enabled a crucial insight into the present. It articulated not simply the way the world was, but the way the world is. Creation traditions provide a map and crucial bearings by which life in the present could be properly understood and navigated: Whoever pursues righteousness and kindness will find life and honour. — Proverbs 21:21 The knowledge of God as creator was, therefore, more primary than a creed; it represented an approach to the world which was as basic as grasping, in contemporary parlance, the realities of a space-time continuum. The world as ordered by divine fiat was straightforwardly the fundamental fact of existence. It was the single most significant given, the reality within which life was to be lived out. There was no nation, no area of the natural world, no existence that was not part of that single cosmic order. Israel shared, and did not invent, this general insight which acknowledged the world as a creation. There was, therefore, a universal context to her theological reflection on God as universal creator. The fact that there was a shared perspective with her neighbours and the cultural environment that stretched from Mesopotamia to Egypt, meant that for Israel both the form and the content of the creation message were universal. It arose from an international context which bestowed an absolute validity on the claim that God is the universal creator. We may, perhaps, push further the significance of the particular context and time in history in which Israel emerged. As far as we can gauge, the combustion of civilization first took place in the final quarter of the fourth millennium BCE in the Ancient Near East. Sumer seems to have had the edge, hotly pursued by Ancient Egypt. It is in these places that we first recognize the human capacity, signalled by the invention of writing, to blossom into complex society with city life, crafts, culture, literature, law codes and developed religious reflection and practice. It is a ‘world heritage’ moment. It is that world heritage moment, with its first sophisticated reflection on humans within their environment, which feeds the biblical understanding of creation. The Hebrew Scriptures leapfrog the classics and enable a conduit to humanity’s ‘primaeval youth’. That brings to their universalism a particular richness and validity. The Jerusalem traditions were ‘cosmic and universal’. They celebrated the triumph of God over chaos which brought into being an ordered cosmos. When the ark was placed upon the cherubim throne, those who witnessed that moment reckoned it to be part of something creation-wide. God was enthroned over an ordered world which included the natural environment and the nations: Say among the nations, ‘The Lord (Yahweh) is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.’ Let the heavens be glad; and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with his truth. — Psalm 96:10–13

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Within the Jerusalem traditions the nations and the natural environment had a significant place in the scheme of things: ‘To talk of God was to talk of the whole.’ However, in that scheme Jerusalem had a privileged place and a particular universal role to play. It was the navel of the earth (Ezekiel 38:12), the place God had chosen for himself (Psalm 132:13), and its welfare was ‘the joy of all the earth’ (Psalm 48:1). By contrast the Wisdom tradition, similarly cosmic and universal, recognized no privilege of place or people. Everything was relativized, so there was no navel of the universe. All geographical locations and the complete spectrum of ethnic identity were equidistant from God. Wisdom proceeded on a strict quasi-scientific basis. Its principles allowed for no special divine intervention. Its observations and advice were based on the inevitability of an act–consequence relationship in an ordered world: The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honour and life. Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse. — Proverbs 22:4–5a Israel, in common with all the major centres of cultural life throughout the Ancient Near East, boasted those scholars and scribes who practised Wisdom. They shared with their fellow practitioners a common approach and a common discipline across linguistic, ethnic and religious differences. They contributed a tradition of particular integrity and vitality within the range of Israel’s options. Further light on the nature of the universalism within the biblical creation traditions becomes evident in the Primaeval History contained in Genesis 1 to 11. Firstly, we have noted129 that Westermann places the issues raised in the primaeval narratives within a universal human context which rises above the cultural and geographical confines of the Ancient Near East. Here are insights that arise spontaneously over different cultures, continents and epochs. Secondly, we identified a further remarkable characteristic of universalism in the Primaeval History.130 The Primaeval Narrative represents a particular literary form that operated within its own strict parameters. The two narrative traditions, which together comprise the single Primaeval History in Genesis 1 to 11, share with the Wisdom tradition a distinctive impartiality. There is no privileging of any particular place, time or people. The context of the Primaeval History enables the narratives to reflect in a disciplined and scientific way on a world that is utterly relativized and where there is no place on the globe that has precedence over another. In contrast to the Jerusalem tradition, there is no ‘navel of the universe’.131 Genesis 1 to 11 presents all cultures, languages, races and the whole diversity of humanity as simply ‘before God’. There can be no special pleading, no favouring of particular geography or circumstances. In a way that is quite striking in its context and challenging to those who encounter it, the Primaeval History, which stands at the head of the whole biblical tradition, reflects on human beings in their context in almost laboratory conditions. It is able to hold up to scrutiny in a coolly analytical way a human couple, brothers, a whole generation and humanity in a highly organized society within their total global environment. It is able to portray humanity dispassionately in the development of its rich potential, including civilized life, crafts and skills, and, at the same

129

See above, Chapter Three, s. II. See ibid. 131 Ezekiel 38:12. 130

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time, reveal its flawed nature and vulnerability. Without fear or favour, the Primaeval Narrative simply interrogates human nature before God with searing truthfulness. Humanity is a category that stands above its manifold expression in particular identities of race and culture, and is never considered apart from its social or natural environment. This challenging perspective which opens the Hebrew Scriptures invites dialogue and respect across diverse cultural, linguistic and religious traditions. God’s nature is revealed in the creation which is his work, and which he has named and blessed. Human beings are made in the image of God. All human beings are recipients of revelation. That vision provides common ground which can afford a secure basis for inter-faith dialogue. It also provides a starting point for identifying convergence with those of a secular persuasion. The articulation in the Hebrew Scriptures of the significance of creation theology as relativizing all human attempts to put themselves, their locality, their faith-journey, above that of others is hugely significant. All dialogue, as a consequence, must begin with mutual respect and genuine interest in discovering yet more of creation’s rich tapestry of truth and wonder invested in it by its maker. The challenge of Hans Küng, now from a previous millennium, remains more obvious and more urgent than when he first framed it: ‘No survival without a world ethic. No world peace without peace between the religions.’132 The recovery of creation theology as underwriting all theological reflection in a JudaeoChristian context potentially has enormous consequence for dialogue and common ground in the future. Genesis 1 to 11 affords a scrupulously impartial observation of the human condition without any labels relating to race, religion or nationality. The significance of those chapters as the preface to all that follows in the Hebrew Scriptures cannot be overemphasized. Those chapters are a jewel of great price. They set a context under which the whole of the rest of the Bible sits – both Old and New Testaments. They are cleansing of all tribalism, parochialisms and special interests that are smuggled into religious practice. Religion without this proper sense of the creator is dangerous as it bestows absolutes without a corrective. The Hebrew Scriptures open with a magisterial vision of creation that takes its bearings from God alone. It gives no warrant to sectarianism, racism or any other grounds for local superiority. Contemplation on the quality of universalism in the primaeval traditions can be nothing less than transformative. It leads us to the conclusion articulated by Jonathan Sacks: ‘To have faith in God as creator and ruler of the universe is to do more than to believe that God has spoken to us. It is to believe that God has spoken to others, in a language which we may not understand.’133

Hans Küng, Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic (London: SCM Press, 1991), xv. J. Sacks, The Persistence of Faith: Religion, Morality, and Society in a Secular Age (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1991), 106. 132 133

CHAPTER FIVE

The ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ I GOD’S MIGHTY ACT IN HISTORY Israel’s foundation traditions boasted a second journey. This one was a historical drama which cloaked the community of Israel with significant grounds for hope. It celebrated a mighty act of God in history which was defining for Israel. The ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ was a story which took time and place seriously. Its celebration eventually generated its own festival, which brought to mind a unique act in history and became the badge of Israel’s identity. From the gateway of Israel’s emergence to history in the final centuries of the second millennium BCE to the seventh-century reforms of King Josiah (2 Kings 23:22) and beyond to the post-exilic period, it succeeded in holding on to its integrity. Its narrative generated an epic story of God’s acts in Israel’s history. It was the hub around which salvation history emerged. The essence of the story is one of liberation and it tells of the escape of a group of Hebrews from forced labour in Egypt, where in all likelihood they had worked on Ramesses II’s great projects to build the store cities of Pi-Ramesse and Pithom in the eastern Nile delta. An attempt was made to foil the escape by their Egyptian masters. Despite the advantage that the Egyptians could muster, a dramatic change in the environment intervened to cut off the pursuers from their quarry. The moment fixed itself in the consciousness of the fugitives to the extent that it was as if it had attached itself to their DNA. The earliest record is to be found in the ‘Song of Miriam’ (Exodus 15:21): And Miriam sang to them: Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. An extended ‘Song of Moses’ is more forthcoming. The initial verses read: Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord: I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my might, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a warrior; 59

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the Lord is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his army he cast into the sea; his picked officers were sunk in the Red Sea.[134] The floods covered them; they went down into the depths like a stone. Your right hand, O Lord, glorious in power – your right hand, O Lord, shattered the enemy. In the greatness of your majesty you overthrew your adversaries; you sent out your fury, it consumed them like stubble. At the blast of your nostrils the waters piled up, the floods stood up in a heap; the deeps congealed in the heart of the sea. The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil, my desire shall have its fill of them. I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.’ You blew with your wind, the sea covered them; they sank like lead in the mighty waters. — Exodus 15:1–10 The ‘psalm’ goes on to recount the liberation in the form of a journey: In your steadfast love you led the people whom you redeemed; you guided them by your strength to your holy abode. — Exodus 15:13 Whereas the cosmic myth of creation ‘cannot be fixed on the calendar’,135 Israel believed that the rescue at the sea could indeed be found on the calendar and it represented an act of divine mercy tangibly evident in a moment of history. It constituted their identity, as it came to be adopted as a national tradition, as a people called into being by a special relationship with their God. The experience of the Exodus was most likely claimed by a particular section within Israel’s varied make-up,136 but it was eventually absorbed by the whole community of tribes, bestowing upon them a unity such that ‘Yahweh was acknowledged to be the God who alone stood at the foundation and beginnings of Israel’.137

II THE INTERWEAVING OF THE MYTHIC AND THE EPIC We must note a complication. The mythic form borrowed from the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ has shaped the poetry relating to the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’. The poem, in a way parallel to the cosmic myth, looks to kingship and enthronement in the sanctuary.

NRSV note: ‘Or Sea of Reeds’. Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 4. 136 G.I. Davies, ‘Was There an Exodus?’, in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, ed. J. Day (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2005), 31. 137 E.W. Nicholson, God and His People: Covenant and Theology in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 202. 134 135

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The journey of the redeemed is from ‘rescue at sea’ to installation in ‘the sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established’ (Exodus 15:17c138). The journey is initially presented as striking terror into the hearts of the Canaanites and their neighbours (vv. 14–16). That story is as the ‘conquest’ came to be presented. However, it does not reflect historical memory, but mythic embellishment. The narrative reflects the sort of macho triumphal procession to enthronement that we meet in the Ugaritic texts in the colourful but violent imagery that relates to Ba’al’s cult.139 The journey culminates in a celebration of the kingship of God (v. 18). This clear harnessing of the mythic in both passages is a warning about the ubiquitous relevance of creation theology as the broad horizon of the Canaanite context in which Israel sought to assert the significance of history and event. Cast as a celebration of the victory of the Divine Warrior, it is not a narrative genre. Rather, it uses the traditional poetic imagery of cosmology, even though celebrating a particular victory. We cannot, therefore, look for a detailed historical report of the events it celebrates. If ‘the sanctuary’ refers to the Jerusalem Temple, then a ceiling is put on the antiquity of the poem; G.I. Davies writes: ‘The Song of Moses provides, at the latest, evidence of a deliverance from the Egyptians from the early monarchy period.’140 An earlier date for the poem has been argued by F.M. Cross, which would require decoupling it from what appears to be an evident link with the Jerusalem sanctuary.141 Without that expedient, an earlier date can still be maintained for the short ‘Song of Miriam’ which would make it the earliest surviving statement of the Exodus tradition.142 G.I. Davies has argued that it goes back at least to the period of the judges, and even ventures the suggestion: ‘we might well be justified in regarding this strange little piece as an authentic element of historical memory.’143 F.M. Cross has noted that the journey and the enthronement with the celebration of God as king adopt the traditional mythic pattern of the cosmic warrior, identified above, but he qualifies their significance. He maintains that in this instance they are underwriting the historical in order to express a mighty act of God in vernacular vocabulary. Cross puts it this way: ‘The power of the mythic pattern was enormous. The Song of the Sea reveals this power as mythological themes shape its mode of presenting epic memories. It is proper to speak of this counterforce as the tendency to mythologize historical episodes to reveal their transcendent meaning.’144 The mythic here, according to Cross, is not contradicting the particularity of one historical moment, but underlining its validity. The harnessing of the archetypal mythic

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Revised Version. CTA, 4.v.11:7–14. 140 Davies, ‘Was There an Exodus?’, 32. R. Hendel, ‘The Exodus as Cultural Memory: Egyptian Bondage and the Song of the Sea’, in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective, ed. Thomas E. Levy et al. (New York, NY: Springer, 2015), 71 states: ‘In terms of absolute date, it is unlikely to be later than the mid-eighth century BCE [Y. Bloch, ‘The Third-Person Masculine Plural Suffixed Pronoun -mw and Its Implications for the Dating of Biblical Hebrew Poetry’, in Diachrony in Biblical Hebrew, ed. C.L. Miller-Naudé and Z. Zevit (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2012), 164] and could certainly be earlier. We cannot specify an absolute date more precisely.’ 141 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 121: ‘We have argued elsewhere that the language of Exodus 15 is more consistently archaic than that of any other prose or poetic work of some length in the Bible. The poem conforms throughout to the prosodic patterns and canons of the Late Bronze Age.’ 142 This was the opinion of M. Noth, A History of Pentateuchal Traditions (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 182–3. F.M. Cross views the ‘Song of Miriam’ as two lines indicating the whole (Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 123–4). 143 Davies, ‘Was There an Exodus?’, 32. 144 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 143–4. 139

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battle of the Divine Warrior subduing chaos to the Exodus narrative is evidence of the early theological seriousness attached to the rescue event. However, it is also evidence of the potential threat of myth to history in the Canaanite environment. History could all too easily be subsumed into the ‘eternal now’ and consequently lose its identity and its specific significance. The importance of acknowledging a moment of history in the ‘rescue at sea’ as a foundation event of Israel’s existence, drawing its theological validity from being expressed in terms of the foundation event of all existence, the cosmic victory of the Divine Warrior, cannot be overestimated. It reveals to us the complex interweaving of the mythic and the epic in Israel’s story. It has the potential, if tapped, to release an enormous theological energy into what otherwise might have been a marginal and isolated experience of an insignificant group. If the two traditions dialogue with each other, and the mythic does not swallow up the epic, a tension is established. The Exodus takes on the mantle of a second divine initiative in a single series. If sustained, it has the potential to challenge the status quo theology of the Ancient Near East with a fresh divine initiative that parallels creation itself. It is not fanciful to maintain that it carries, hidden within it, the potential of eschatology if the gene should be activated. In a challenge that proves to be something of a two-edged sword, Konrad Schmid has questioned an early date for the ‘Song of Moses’ in Exodus 15: In its present context the Moses narrative comes to an initial, hymnic conclusion in Exodus 15; however, this psalm (the first in the reading sequence outside the Psalter) appears to contain no ancient traditional material. Pointing to the contrary is the Deutero-Isaianic coloring of the text; in addition, the description and interpretation of the miracle at the sea in Exod 15:8, 13 probably presupposes the Priestly document. Exodus 15 is to be regarded as a literary means, external to the Psalms, to link the Psalter paradigmatically with the first crucial salvation-historical experience of Israel. But probably the Song of Miriam in Exod 15:21b represents more ancient traditional material on which the composition of Exodus 15 was based, even though its liturgical form as an imperative hymn prevents us from saying that we can see here a contemporary document of the experience of rescue at the Sea of Reeds, whatever historical context we may assign to it.145 In many ways K. Schmid is confirming our observation regarding the potential of the ‘Song of Moses’ to identify God’s ‘new thing’ (Isaiah 43:19) when he seeks to relate it to the ideas emerging through the ministry of Deutero-Isaiah at the time of the exile. There, the parallel between the cosmic sea and the ‘rescue at sea’ is a particular motif: Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake, as in days of old, the generations of long ago! Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces, who pierced the dragon? Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep;

K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 82–3.

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who made the depths of the sea a way for the redeemed to cross over? — Isaiah 51:9–11146 Although Exodus 15 and Deutero-Isaiah may be compared, they also have to be contrasted. In the priestly tradition the mythic has shaped the historical memory of the ‘rescue at sea’ to the extent that ‘the way’ is now through the sea itself: The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. — Exodus 14:22 That same picture is also true for the reference in Deutero-Isaiah. It means that the mythic ‘splitting’147 of the waters has formed this aspect of the account. It finds its way into the psalmic celebration of redemption: He divided [bqᶜ] the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. — Psalm 78:13 This is not the case in Exodus 15; the triumphal march is not through the sea, but rather fulfilled in the guiding of the redeemed to their inheritance in Canaan. The case is made by F.M. Cross: The absence in Exodus 15 of the motifs of the splitting (bqᶜ) of Sea, of Israel’s walking through the sea, and of the walls of water is a mark of its high antiquity. The Song of the Sea alone of the traditions of the Exodus escaped this shaping by rite and preserved an older version of the event. The poet knew only of a storm at sea and the sinking into the sea of the Egyptians.148 If we can place the psalm contained in Exodus 15 towards the beginning rather than the end of the monarchy, then it is an early example of emerging epic narrative gathering around ‘rescue at sea’. R. Hendel notes further that the ‘Song of Moses’ turns the traditional Egyptian claim on its head. The classic image of the pharaoh, depicted on the pylon of every temple, is as the one who subdues the forces of chaos and consequently offers good order (ma’at) to the gods. Here pharaoh represents the disorder which is subdued by Yahweh: ‘I would add that the mythological themes serve, in part, to present the memories in such a way that contests Egyptian claims of Pharaonic power. That is, the song’s depiction of the defeat of the Egyptian army provides a countermemory to the Egyptian ideology of Pharaoh as Divine Warrior.’149

146

Compare also Isaiah 43:15f., 50:2. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 135: ‘the term bqᶜ, “split”, is used as in Nehemiah 9:11, a word more appropriate to the smiting of the Sea-dragon than to the drying up of the sea’. 148 Ibid., 140–1. 149 Hendel, ‘The Exodus as Cultural Memory’, 72. 147

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III EARLY TRADITIONS IN EXODUS 1 TO 15 The biblical narrative of the Exodus events is to be found in Exodus 1 to 15. We may ask of those chapters whether there is any evidence of lingering early tradition in addition to the poetry in the final one. G.I. Davies has drawn attention to the significance of the term ‘Hebrew’. He notes: It is striking how often in Exodus 1–10 the term ‘Hebrew’ occurs as an alternative name for the people. Given the relative scarcity of this term in the Old Testament and the existence in both the Exodus tradition and elsewhere of the much more frequent term ‘(children of) Israel’, the occurrences of ‘Hebrew’ and ‘Hebrews’ deserve more attention than they have been given. The word appears seven times in the Masoretic text of Exodus 1–2 and then in a series of six passages which mention ‘the God of the Hebrews’ (Exodus 3:18; 5:3; 7:16; 9:1, 13; 10:3), always in connection with the request to Pharaoh to allow the people to make a pilgrimage into the desert.150 Davies further draws attention to the description ‘apiru as a class of displaced persons, some of whom included prisoners of war from Palestine, who worked on state projects during the New Kingdom era. Not only does this provide some plausible context to the Exodus narrative, but also, if one can connect ‘apiru with the similar word ‘Hebrew’, it implies a genuine piece of ‘specific nomenclature of the New Kingdom period’.151 Exodus 1:11 names two cities which are also worthy of consideration: Therefore they set task masters over them to oppress them with forced labour. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharaoh. Ramesses the Great undertook the building of a new dynastic capital on the eastern Nile delta which was called Pi- or Per-Ramesse. This seems to be identified in the second of the towns named in Exodus 1:11.152 Constructed on the site of the old Hyksos capital at Avaris, it enabled Ramesses II to give architectural expression to his own distinctive religious policy. Amongst other things, the place was noted for its granaries. However, the new city was not to endure: It is patent that late in the 20th Dynasty the Pelusiac branch [of the Nile] had silted up and been blocked in its lower reaches. This culminated in a relocation of the residence from Pi-Ramesse to Tanis. From the 21st Dynasty onwards (after ca. 1086 BC) Tanis was the new residence and harbor town. Pi-Ramesse was abandoned and served as a quarry, particularly during the 22nd Dynasty (ca. 962–736 BC) when not only Tanis but also Bubastis and other towns of the Libyan Dynasty had their monumental buildings fitted with spoliae (reused blocks) from Pi-Ramesse.153 150

Davies, ‘Was There an Exodus?’, 31. Ibid., 33. 152 D.B. Redford, ‘Exodus 1:11’, VT 13 (1963): 401–18, argues that the missing prefix Pi- or Per- in the biblical text suggests that it is not Pi-Ramesse that is identified, but one of many alternatives which use the name Ramesses. However, A.H. Gardiner long ago demonstrated the circumstances in which the prefix can be omitted: ‘The Delta Residence of the Ramessides’, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 5 (1918): 137–8. See also, N.P. Lemche, ‘Is It Still Possible to Write a History of Ancient Israel?’, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 8 (1994): 165–90. 153 Manfred Bietak, ‘On the Historicity of the Exodus: What Egyptology Today Can Contribute to Assessing the Biblical Account of the Sojourn in Egypt’, in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective, ed. T.E. Levy et al. (New York, NY: Springer, 2015), 24. 151

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The glory departed from Pi-Ramesse and moved to Tanis.154 The former city does not reappear in the record until the late revival of secondary cults in Tanis and Bubastis in Ptolemaic times, which in their title acknowledged the prior existence of Pi-Ramesse. The mention of ‘Rameses’ in Exodus 1:11, therefore, does seem to enshrine a genuine memory from the Ramesside period which could not have been incorporated in the later reworking of the tradition. Pithom or Per-Atum (the house of the primaeval sun god Atum)155 is also a place name familiar from the Ramesside era and fits into that context. It is not restricted to that period. An interesting piece of associated evidence is identified by M. Bietak when he observes: However, one has to wonder . . . why the toponym the ‘Lakes of Pithom’ is referred to by Egyptian scribes with the Semitic loanword b-r-k-w.t in syllabic writing and not with its Egyptian name. This is indeed remarkable. We gain the suspicion that this word had become something of a toponym in a region inhabited long enough by a Semitic-speaking population to supplant the original Egyptian name with an idiomatic expression of their own.156 This leads Bietak to speculate on the area as a candidate for the land of Goshen.157 Certainly, it brings an interesting perspective to the potential significance of Pithom in the biblical Exodus narrative. One further possible place name pinpointed by Bietak relates to the sea of the Exodus. He identifies the Ballah lakes east of Pi-Ramesse with the Yam Suph or biblical ‘Sea of Reeds’.158 Those lakes he identifies with (Pa-)Tjuf, ‘the Papyrus thicket’ known from various papyri of the Ramesside period. It is celebrated in Papyrus Anastasi III159 as one of two stretches of water which are ‘purveyors of papyrus and rushes for the Ramses town’.160 Bietak is able to summarize his findings: ‘In conclusion, the toponyms of Raamses, Pithom, and Yam Suph correspond to the Ramesside toponyms of Pi-Ramesse, Pi-Atum, and (Pa-)Tjuf, respectively.’161 He further draws attention to the observation of Sarah Groll that, although the place names do appear in later texts, the combination is distinctive of the Ramesside period.162

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‘Tanis took over the role of major political centre in the eastern Delta. It is this later pre-eminence of Tanis which is reflected in the biblical references to its Hebrew equivalent Zoan as the site of events associated with the Exodus (Psalm 78:12, 43)’: Davies, ‘Was There an Exodus?’, 28. 155 ‘Pithom was a toponym known from the Ramesside Period onwards. It ties up with Per-Atum (the house of the primeval sun god Atum) and is most likely identifiable with the fortress and town at Tell el-Retaba in the Wadi Tumilat, including impressive Ramesside remains’: Bietak, ‘On the Historicity of the Exodus’, 26. 156 Ibid., 21. 157 Genesis 45:10; 46:28–29, 34; 47:1, 4, 6, 27; 50:8. Exodus 8:22; 9:26. 158 ‘In the bible Yam Suph may signify an expanse of water around the eastern border region of Egypt (Exodus 10:19; 13:18; 15:4), but it may also designate the Red Sea in the Gulf of Suez (Exodus 10:19; 13:18; Numbers 33:10–11) or in the Gulf of Aqaba (cf. Exodus 23:31; Numbers 14:25; 21:4; Deuteronomy 1:40; 2:1)’: Bietak, ‘On the Historicity of the Exodus’, 27 n. 45. 159 Papyrus Anastasi III (2:11–12). 160 Bietak, ‘On the Historicity of the Exodus’, 27. 161 Ibid., 28. 162 Sarah Israelit Groll, ‘The Egyptian Background of the Exodus and the Crossing of the Reed Sea: A New Reading of Papyrus Anastasi VIII’, in Jerusalem Studies in Egyptology, Vol. 40, ed. I. Shirun-Grumach (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998), 189.

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The tradition of God’s rescue of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt always remained an uncomfortable memory grounded in a moment of history, which was not dissolved by the interpretative mythic pattern. The validity of that memory is not lightly to be dismissed. Mention of Pi-Ramesse and Pithom in the narrative tradition finds a coherent reference in the Ramesside period. The story was to become the founding principle of Israel’s identity. Already, when we encounter the early witness of the Exodus rescue in the book of Exodus ch. 15, it is not a lone incident. It has generated epic narrative. The received poetry involves the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ from rescue to installation ‘on the mountain of your own possession’ (Exodus 15:17a). The journey strikes terror into the native population of Canaan (v. 15c) and their immediate neighbours (v. 15a and b). The story was also able to harness the mythic to its own advantage, yet not to dissolve history, but to draw out the transcendent significance of the epic tradition.

IV THE SOIL OF CANAAN A generation ago some apologia would have been necessary for identifying Canaanite mythic creation traditions as of foundational significance for Israel’s faith. They were perceived as a threat to the real business of God’s mighty acts in history which were the true identity of Israel’s confession. The classic position was formulated by G. von Rad: ‘The doctrine of redemption had first to be fully safeguarded, in order that the doctrine that nature, too, is a means of divine self-revelation might not encroach upon or distort the doctrine of redemption, but rather broaden and enrich it.’163 We have noted a change of heart in biblical scholarship. In the current climate, one has to show some awareness of those who would dispense with a historical Exodus altogether. The words of William Dever are pertinent here: ‘And with new models of indigenous Canaanite origins for early Israel, there is neither place nor need for an exodus from Egypt.’164 Those who have argued for Israel as indigenous to Canaan and not an incursion from outside the area include G.E. Mendenhall. He maintains: ‘In summary, there was no real conquest of Palestine [i.e. by the Israelites] at all; what happened instead may be termed, from the point of view of the secular historian interested only in socio-political processes, a peasant’s [sic] revolt against the network of interlocking Canaanite city states.’165 Norman K. Gottwald developed Mendenhall’s ideas,166 as also has N.P. Lemche,167 who favours a more evolutionary development but recognizes Israel establishing herself in a conscious act of separation and disaffection from her former way of life. Of course,

Von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch, p. 143. W.G. Dever, ‘Is There Any Archaeological Evidence for the Exodus?’, in Exodus: The Egyptian Evidence, ed. E.S. Frerichs and L.H. Lesko (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1997), 67. Dever has subsequently refined his ideas to allow for the fact that the ‘House of Joseph’ may have told their story as that of all Israel: ‘It is not the whole story of Israelite origins, to be sure; but I would suggest that it may rest on some historical foundations, however minimal’: W.G. Dever, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2003), 231. 165 G.E. Mendenhall, ‘The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine’, Biblical Archaeologist 25 (1962): 73. 166 N.K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE (London: SCM Press, 1980). 167 N.P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988). 163 164

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if Israel’s origin is from within Canaan, this strengthens the significance of Canaanite cultural identity as part of her inner development. Interestingly, a common cultural identity emerges from the archaeological record for early settlements in the hill country of Palestine: ‘Most of the people who formed early Israel were local people – the same people whom we see in the highlands throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. The early Israelites were – irony of ironies – themselves originally Canaanites!’168 That record is also confirmed by the long Canaanite-style tunics worn by what are probably Israelites in the wall pictures relating to the Palestinian campaign in the reign of Pharaoh Merenptah on the external wall of the Cour de la Cachette at the Karnak temple in Egypt.169 The observation of J.C. de Moor is also relevant in this context. He notes that theophoric place names rarely incorporate Yahweh, but contain the names of Canaanite deities familiar from the Ugaritic texts, including Hadad, Anet, Ashteroth, Shemesh and Rephaim. He concludes: This circumstance suggests that the Israelites did not take these cities by force, because in that case it would have been easy enough for them to think up new names. The onomastic evidence speaks in favour of a gradual, non-violent integration of the Israelites into the Canaanite world, because only such a slow development can have made it impractical to change the existing names.170 De Moor’s evidence relating to place names contrasts with the evidence collected from personal names which reflect more immediately developing religious patterns relating to El and Yahweh. His deduction from the evidence further confirms the relatively peaceful emergence of Israel in Canaan. Alongside the strength of the archaeological evidence for the indigenous emergence of Israel on Canaanite soil, it is necessary to set the biblical evidence that witnesses to the Exodus event, not only in the book of Exodus 1 to 15, but as part of the texture of its very fabric. The Exodus is embedded in multiple layers of the traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures. The exceptions are the Wisdom literature, with its particular identity, and the mainstream Jerusalem Temple traditions before the exile, reflected also in the early traditions relating to the ministry of Isaiah of Jerusalem, with their close associations with the Temple. The late evidence for the impact of the Exodus on the Temple traditions, although the ‘Song of Moses’ itself is likely evidence of a Jerusalem psalm of the early monarchy,171 indicates its original entry into Israelite religious identity is of a Northern Israelite provenance.172

168 I. Finkelstein and N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (New York, NY: The Free Press, 2001), 118. 169 J.E. Atwell, ‘Treasures of Merenptah in the Karnak Temple at Luxor: The Record of the Walls of the Cour de la Cachette’, in On Stone and Scroll: Essays in Honour of Graham Ivor Davies, ed. J.K. Atken et al. (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2011), 23–38. 170 J.C. de Moor, The Rise of Yahwism: The Roots of Israelite Monotheism (Leuven: Peeters, 1997), 39. 171 Other similarly dated poetry relating to the Jerusalem Temple traditions is Psalm 114 and, from perhaps the eighth century, Psalm 78. 172 The strength of the Exodus traditions in the Northern Kingdom is reflected in 1 Kings 12:28–29. The refugees from the Northern Kingdom, following the destruction of Samaria by Assyria, would have reinforced the Exodus traditions in Judah: ‘The Exodus-wandering tradition “migrated” to Judah after 720 BCE . Archaeology testifies to dramatic growth in Judah in the Iron IIB – in the number of new settlements, size of existing settlements, and population. This cannot be explained as natural growth and must reflect movement of people from Israel to the south after the fall of the Northern Kingdom. These Israelites brought with them to Judah northern traditions, including the Exodus-wandering narrative’. I. Finkelstein, ‘The Wilderness Narrative and Itineraries and the Evolution of the Exodus Tradition’, in Israel’s Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective, ed. T.E. Levy et al. (New York, NY: Springer, 2015), 49.

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It has been suggested that the Exodus tradition itself may have arisen on Canaanite soil: ‘Given that the Amarna letters demonstrate local consciousness and strong opposition to the collusion between the Canaanite rulers and Egypt, we must interpret the Hebrew traditions of servitude in Egypt as allegories of servitude to Egypt.’173 Ronald Hendel envisages the significance of the Exodus for Israel as providing shared cultural memory and collective identity. All could participate because all had suffered as a subjugated people in Canaan as ‘slaves of Pharaoh’. He maintains that the transition from the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age was experienced as a liberation from the pharaonic grip. That experience was recast into a drama of escape: In this spatial displacement, the Exodus from Egypt becomes the narrative site for forging a new people, who enter Canaan with clearly marked external ethnic boundaries. In this sense the spatial movement overcomes the problem of the basic lack of cultural difference between early Israel and its Canaanite neighbours. Through the strategic processes of cultural memory, Israel projected its origins to ‘outside’ in order to construct a distinctive identity ‘inside’.174 However, Hendel does envisage those who smarted under Egyptian domination in Canaan being joined, perhaps over centuries, by those who had fled subjugation and slavery in the geographical land of Egypt: ‘I would aver that we should not exclude the influence of ‘Asian Semites in Egypt proper’ on the Exodus memory. Canaanites were slaves to Egypt both in Egypt and in Canaan; hence, we should imagine a synthesis of memories of geographical and political slavery rather than conceive of an either/or.’175 A related perspective is provided by Konrad Schmid who, however, focuses on the geographical slavery: ‘Furthermore, there is no question that the biblical exodus has some historical backgrounds. . . . But the Moses narrative [in the early chapters of Exodus] is not a historical account; it is a collective narrative of origins. That alone makes it probable that the building up of the tradition concentrated a number of events in one.’176 It has long been realized that only an element of the twelve tribes who became Israel actually underwent the Exodus experience. Commenting on the term ‘Hebrew’ in the context of Exodus 1 to 10, G.I. Davies suggests: If we accept the historical conclusion that ‘Israel’ was from the outset an entity that came into being on the soil of Canaan (however that took place), we could well envisage that this ‘Hebrew’ form of the tradition belonged to an early stage in the history of one of the constituent groups of later Israel, when they were still independent.177 There is no reason why the native Canaanite hypothesis for the emergence of Israel should not be combined with the Exodus element in some form or other. It is generally agreed that Yahweh is not indigenous to Canaanite religion but was imported from outside the area; he was probably brought from the mountainous region to the south of Canaan.178 173 S. David Sperling, The Original Torah: The Political Intent of the Bible’s Writers (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1998), 54. 174 Hendel, ‘The Exodus as Cultural Memory’, 69. 175 Ibid., 70–1. 176 K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 83. 177 Davies, ‘Was There an Exodus?’, 31. 178 A.J. Frendo, ‘Back to Basics: A Holistic Approach to the Problem of the Emergence of Ancient Israel’, in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, ed. J. Day (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2005), 51: ‘Scholars are now generally agreed that Yahweh was not indigenous to Canaan and that his original homeland lay in Edom or further south among the Midianites.’

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That Yahweh should be introduced to Israel by those who had experienced the Exodus provides a credible explanation for his arrival and dissemination on Canaanite soil. That circumstance would point to a specific event that had the power to attract popular emotional assent from those who had not physically participated in it. It is worth noting that, even at the minimalist view, it is the stubborn fact of the existence of the story of the Hebrews’ rescue at the sea as one of Israel’s definitive stories, not the circumstances of its origin, which generates a profound awareness of the historical in Israel’s consciousness. The very existence of the Exodus tradition is, theologically speaking, full of potential and creative contradiction.

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PART TWO

Israel’s Religious Traditions: Myth and Epic in Creative Tension

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Israel’s Story and the Story Israel Told I CONTEMPLATING DISSONANCE A ‘Tale of Two Journeys’ provides us with two narratives which are both crucial to Israel’s identity. The ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ defines Israel as part of the culture of the Ancient Near East for which creation theology was its foundational principle. The recognition by scholars of the positive impact of the Bible’s transmission of key creation traditions came late. The contemporary environmental crisis has sent researchers back to the biblical text with a new insight. The vision of a created order which is harmonious, whole, self-regulating, interconnected and ecologically balanced is a great prize. It is the gift of the emergence of the Hebrews within their greater context. It is becoming clear that there was a phase in Israel’s development in which her relationship with the natural order was her major preoccupation. This is reflected in the agricultural origins of her three major festivals, as we shall consider. The priority grip which the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ had throughout the period of the monarchy is indicated by the fact that the Festival of Tabernacles, that is the Canaanite New Year festival, was the head of the year throughout that period in the worship of the Jerusalem Temple. This picture is contradicted by the final form of Scripture, which presents Hebrew epic in a connected narrative with direction and pathos. The Exodus tradition has burgeoned into an absorbing ‘Journey of the Redeemed’. The narrative is on a grand scale, commencing with creation and extending through the call of the patriarchs, the descent into Egypt, the Exodus rescue, the sealing of the covenant and the giving of the Law at Sinai, the guidance in the wilderness and the conquest of the Promised Land. However, that ‘final form’ of Scripture turns out to be a projection back in time; it is hard won and a relatively late and idealized self-understanding. We must take seriously the insight garnered from the mythic journey that Israel’s epic narrative tradition only asserts itself institutionally at a relatively late period, with the exile. There is an extended period when Israel’s preoccupation is not its covenant relationship with Yahweh, but its fruitful relationship with the created order. This dissonance between epic story and Israelite history, with its inevitable shockwaves, has been captured by Leo G. Perdue: ‘Are we necessarily faced with two very opposite disciplines: the history of Israelite religion and biblical theology? The collapse of history in much theological discourse of late does not signal necessarily the end of its contribution to Old Testament theology.’179 Leo G. Perdue, The Collapse of History: Reconstructing Old Testament Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 231.

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Epic story has a validity as ‘canon’ in its own right, as has been argued by Brevard Childs.180 However, the dynamic of how it emerged brings an additional depth to scriptural understanding. There is something further going on behind the formation of Israel’s epic story which is the true adventure of the history of the religion of Israel. It is in the light of that adventure that the full dimension of the richness of the Hebrew Scriptures emerges, and perhaps even an indication of the distinctiveness of their contribution to the ‘history of religions’ writ large. The Exodus event has had the ability to generate narrative and bring together originally disconnected blocks of tradition. The patriarchal stories are artificially placed: ‘ “patriarchal religion” is to be defined not as a preliminary stage but as a substratum of Yahweh religion’.181 The forty years of guidance in the wilderness reflect an independent unit. The Sinai traditions, which are doubtless grounded in the historical memory of a lasting bond sealed between Yahweh and the escapees under Mosaic leadership, cannot be connected either with covenant or Torah, both of which have been projected into high antiquity from a date nearer to the exile. The story of the conquest and the gift of the land is presented in Exodus 15:14–16 as striking terror into the hearts of the Canaanites and their neighbours. That story is as the ‘conquest’ came to be presented. However, it does not reflect historical memory, but mythic embellishment. The narrative, we noted previously, reflects the sort of macho triumphal procession to enthronement that we meet in the Ugaritic texts in the colourful but violent imagery that relates to Ba’al’s cult.182 To return to the Exodus narrative itself, in the priestly tradition it has been transformed from a ‘rescue at sea’ to a rescue ‘through sea’ due to the assimilation of the mythic ‘splitting’ or ‘division’ (bqᶜ) of the cosmic sea: The Israelites went into the sea on dry ground, the waters forming a wall for them on their right and on their left. — Exodus 14:22 It finds its way into the psalmic celebration of redemption: He divided [bqᶜ] the sea and let them pass through it, and made the waters stand like a heap. — Psalm 78:13 The miraculous at the ‘rescue at sea’ now takes on a quite different and heightened dimension. History has become story. In relation to the greater context of Israel’s epic traditions E.W. Nicholson has summed up: ‘The narratives of the Yahwist and the Deuteronomist merit the title “story” rather than “history”.’183 J. Van Seters has argued that in the Deuteronomistic work (Joshua to 2 Kings) we have the fruits of Israel’s first historian.184 He regards the Deuteronomistic work as prior to the similar achievement of the Yahwist in the Pentateuch. He compares the achievement with

Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1979). R. Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period: Volume 1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Monarchy, 2 vols (London: SCM Press, 1994), 28–30. 182 CTA, 4.v.11:7–14. 183 E.W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and the Judean Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 151. 184 J. Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983). Idem, ‘Is There Any Historiography in the Hebrew Bible? A Hebrew-Greek Comparison’, Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 28, no. 2 (2002): 1–25. 180 181

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that of Herodotus in fifth-century Greece. This has been refuted by E.W. Nicholson: ‘The Yahwist and Deuteronomist writings are devoid of the critical assessment and evaluation of sources which is such a feature of the writings of Greek historians from Herodotus onwards.’185 Nicholson identifies the Deuteronomistic work as closer to theodicy. It is not attempting to delve into the complex chain of events that brought about the extinction of Judah as a state and the consequent exile. Rather, it is seeking to maintain the credibility of Israel’s faith in Yahweh by presenting an effective argument that the tragedy was Yahweh’s own initiative based on Israel’s consistent unfaithfulness. He maintains that its primary motivation is theological and that it seeks to establish a pattern of ‘promise, fulfilment, and judgement’.186 A further problem with the salvation history perspective that undermined its cornerstone capacity is articulated by James Barr: If we continue to think of ‘God in history’ . . . we do best to modify von Rad’s thinking and think of a history that included much that never found its way into the Bible. It would have to include such things as the history of women and of non-Israelites, and the history of times lying outside the biblical canon. The Hebrew Bible would thus function as a canonical sign that pointed towards this totality.187 The need to differentiate between Hebrew epic narrative, as it presents what has come to be known as salvation history, and the history of Israel, as it is revealing itself to welldirected enquiry, is one of the assured outcomes of contemporary critical scholarship. The way Israel came to present her story, in the light of God’s intimate involvement, in epic narrative is different from the reality insofar as it can be discerned by critical scholarship. Yet that dissonance does not prevent some new ground being broken, as we shall discover.

II USING THE MAJOR FESTIVALS FOR DATING EPIC NARRATIVE A consideration of the festivals enables us to discern a development taking place in which Israel’s epic narrative tradition only asserts itself institutionally at a relatively late period, in the context of the given of creation theology. The biblical tradition records three festival calendars; each is consistent in naming three major festivals. These calendars occur in Exodus 23:14–17, Deuteronomy 16:1–17 and Leviticus 23:1–44. That order probably represents their order of venerability in terms of the likely age of the traditions in which they are found. The three festivals are described in Exodus 23 as Unleavened Bread, Harvest and Ingathering. All of them mark the agricultural year and the round of the seasons. They are indigenous Canaanite celebrations, which relate to the fertility of the field. Unleavened Bread is the festival marking the commencement in spring of the barley harvest as the first ears ripen. It was the time of the year for the clearing away of the old grain. Harvest, or,

Nicholson, Deuteronomy and the Judean Diaspora, 146. Ibid., 177. 187 J. Barr, History and Ideology in the Old Testament: Biblical Studies at the End of a Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 94–5. 185 186

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as it became known, the Feast of Weeks, takes place seven weeks after the previous festival and signifies the beginning of the wheat harvest as the sickle is applied to the standing stalks. Finally, Ingathering, otherwise known as the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, is the great harvest festival coming ‘at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labour’ (Exodus 23:16). Deuteronomy tells us that it celebrated both threshing floor and vineyard, and we may add, also, the harvest of the olives. The booths may well have housed the harvesters out in the field. The gathering in of the fruit of the vine was good reason to celebrate, as is suggested by the book of Judges: Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and watch; when the young women of Shiloh come out to dance in the dances, then come out of the vineyards. — Judges 21:20b–21a The Feast of Booths concluded the year with a sense of the totality of nature’s bounty. It also marked the transition to a renewed cycle. The voice of the thunder announced the coming of the autumn rain that breaks the summer drought. It brought fresh hope for the generous fertility of the coming year. It is that autumn New Year festival that we are familiar with from the Jerusalem Temple and its celebration of the victory procession of the Divine Warrior. It was the festival of festivals for the temples of Canaan. In a Canaanite context it opened the New Year, so the Exodus calendar already exhibits the revision which the calendar underwent under Babylonian influence. All of these feasts were of a sacral nature and related to the necessary rituals and ceremonies to gain permission to harvest nature without causing offence to the divine. They acknowledged the relationship between humanity and its environment and the responsibility to live in right relationship with the order of creation. In Exodus 23:15b there is an undeveloped direction ‘as I commanded you’ that identifies the connection with the month Abib and the coming out of Egypt.188 There is, however, no mention of Passover: ‘possibly because it was not yet a pilgrimage festival at the time of writing’.189 It is with the calendar as we find it in Deuteronomy that the celebration of the escape from Egypt takes centre stage in the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This calendar names the Feast of Passover alongside Unleavened Bread, which very deliberately brings together two spring festivals. Clements suggests that Passover should be understood as: ‘a shepherds’ sacrificial rite, most probably occurring at the time when the flocks were moved into new pasturelands’. He suggests further: ‘It would appear that because an economic situation had developed in which both patterns of agriculture had come to exist side by side, the accompanying religious rites were linked together.’190 The keeping of the Passover by the time of Deuteronomy is firmly associated with the Exodus from Egypt. Unleavened Bread, ‘the bread of affliction’ (16:3), is linked to the haste with which Israel departed. An additional feature of Deuteronomy, as is well known, is that there is only one place at which the feast may be kept and that is the central

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In Exodus 34 there is a more diffused reference to the three festivals, including a passing gloss that associates the Festival of Unleavened Bread with the departure from Egypt: ‘for in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt’ (Exodus 34:18). 189 Walter Houston, ‘Exodus’, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, ed. J. Barton and J. Muddiman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 84. 190 R.E. Clements, Deuteronomy (Old Testament Guides) (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 29.

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sanctuary. There are good reasons for seeing Deuteronomy not as the cause of Josiah’s reforms, but its consequence. We shall note in the following chapter that E.W. Nicholson makes the case for placing Deuteronomy in the exilic period.191 That gives us a firm context for the normalization of the epic interpretation of the Unleavened Bread/Passover traditions in terms of the Exodus events. The levitical calendar embedded in the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17 to 26) brings us to the post-exilic period. This calendar is the most complex in terms of ceremonial instructions, as might be expected. It makes a further association with Israel’s epic narrative in linking the Festival of Booths to Israel’s sojourning in the wilderness: You shall live in booths for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. — Leviticus 23:42–3 Eventually Israel’s religious tradition completes the circle and connects the Feast of Weeks with the giving of the Law at Sinai, but that takes us beyond the period covered by the Hebrew Scriptures. It is clear that Israel’s epic identity and God’s guidance through history only gradually came to be institutionalized in its major pilgrimage festivals, originally reflecting the agricultural cycle. A sea change in Israel’s religious development is signalled when the priority of the autumn New Year festival, seeking to relate human beings to the natural environment and cosmic order, yields pride of place to the spring Feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread, now celebrating the foundation-tradition of the Exodus from Egypt. That tipping of the scales did not come early: ‘It seems clear that in the pre-exilic period it [the Festival of Booths] was the chief of the annual festivals, and only in the Second Temple period did Passover become the main observance.’192 The priority accorded to the Passover celebrations is evident in Exodus 12 where it is identified as taking place in ‘the first month of the year’ (Exodus 12:2b). It is a dating which assumes the Jewish use of the Babylonian calendar which began in the spring, in contrast to the Canaanite marking of the New Year from the autumn. This has been summarized by G.I. Davies: It is entirely plausible to suppose that, as a matter of scribal practice, the adoption of this system including the beginning of the numbering in the spring was due to the influence of Babylonian imperial rule in the Levant. The change evidently affected the priesthood as well as other sectors of Israelite society. There is sufficient evidence to show that this involved an important change from earlier Israelite religious practice. For most of the monarchy period, and perhaps earlier, the New Year began in the autumn.193 191

See Chapter Seven, s. VI. R. Coggins, Introducing the Old Testament, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 136. 193 G.I. Davies, ‘The Passover as the New Year Festival in P (Exodus 12:1–2)’, in Nichts Neues unter der Sonne? Zeitvorstellungen im Alten Testament, ed. Jens Kotjatko-Reeb et al., BZAW (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2014), 162–3. In his essay Davies argues that the Grundschrift of P has no sign of three pilgrimage festivals: ‘The passages that mention them belong to the Holiness Code (Leviticus 23)’ (164–5). The other major focus of P, in addition to Passover, is the Day of Atonement: ‘It is therefore not possible to be sure whether this festival was designed by P to be a direct replacement for the old Autumn festival in particular or for all the three traditional festivals. But the effect of the Grundschrift’s much curtailed festival calendar is the same in either case: the old New Year festival in the autumn is displaced and with it the whole agricultural basis of the sanctuary festivals’ (165–6). 192

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It seems that only from the Babylonian period did Passover establish itself as the festival which opened the New Year. It was, therefore, in the Second Temple period that it became the primary pilgrimage festival of Israel and so displaced the older autumn New Year festival. With that change the balance of Israel’s faith significantly shifted from the cosmic and mythic to the epic. The picture that is coming into focus is not one of Israel emerging with a fully formed sense of identity and religious vocation in an alien world as the Iron Age dawned. Rather, she carried seeds of difference which only gradually germinated and grew to maturity within the womb of Canaanite civilization. Although she projected her fully matured identity back to her origins, the epic narrative tradition, with Passover at the turn of the year, received institutional expression only in the Second Temple period following the labours of the Deuteronomic school and the continuing zeal of later tradents through the post-exilic period. The salvation history perspective had a period of gestation reaching back into the period of the monarchy but was not marked by the round of festivals while the First Temple stood.

III ENGAGING WITH THE HISTORY OF THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL THROUGH ‘COVENANT’ We have noted that the salvation history (Heilsgeschichte) epic story that emerges from a connected reading of the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua194 yields a grand narrative in which ‘rescue at sea’ is the fulcrum of a drama in several acts depicting Yahweh-God’s promise and fulfilment in the destiny of Israel set in the context of the creation itself. Crucial to this epic narrative is the concept of covenant. Covenant (ber¯ı t) is recognized as one of the key concepts of the Hebrew Bible. It is a word which emphasizes the significance of the relationship between Israel and her God. It drives to the heart of Yahweh as the creator of Israel and articulates the ensuing bond, with its mutual obligations, expressed on the human side in Israel’s faithful observance of the Torah. It is the theological reality undergirding mature epic narrative and salvation history. The concept of covenant insists that the primary relationships of Yahweh are not with the opera of the gods, in which the world is to be understood as the outcome of the rise and fall of events in heaven. Rather, covenant indicates that the focus of divine emotions is with the human story and, in particular, the destiny of Israel that divine initiative has called into being. The corollary of covenant is the practice of monolatry. That is, exclusive commitment on the part of Israel to Yahweh for the providential and purposeful care bestowed in her history, which is focused in the spontaneous and gracious ‘rescue at sea’. The fact that covenant is a key biblical concept relating to Israel’s epic identity and to the construct of salvation history offers a useful tool for our study. The presence of the concept of covenant is a sure indicator of mature epic (salvation history) theology. If it is possible to place the concept of covenant in an historical context, it has the potential to help us unravel the history of religion in Israel. Is the concept of covenant, as Israel’s selfunderstanding portrays it, part of her given identity from the beginning? Alternatively, do we discern a journey more like that indicated by a study of the festivals which points in

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The addition of the book of Joshua to the first five books of the Bible creates the Hexateuch.

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an evolutionary direction, with a dissonance between idealization and history? Furthermore, if a concept of covenant represents the fruits of Israel’s distinctive religious synthesis arising from the mythic-epic tension, it may point us towards those elements of Israel’s life that enabled it to be distinct from its context. As it happens, a review of the study of covenant since the nineteenth century is also something of an overview of the changing perspectives of biblical scholarship relating to Pentateuchal studies as a whole. A thorough study of the concept of covenant has been undertaken by E.W. Nicholson195 and we may use him as our guide. Nicholson commences his study with the work of J. Wellhausen, whose ideas in this, as in so many other ways in Pentateuchal criticism, have stimulated and provoked an era of scholarly debate. Wellhausen builds on the work of predecessors including K.H. Graf.196 The significance of Wellhausen’s scholarship is summarized by W. Robertson Smith in his preface to Wellhausen’s English edition of Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel: The work which forms the greater part of the present volume first appeared in 1878 under the title History of Israel. By J. Wellhausen. In two volumes. Volume 1. The book produced a great impression throughout Europe, and its main thesis, that ‘the Mosaic history is not the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, but for the history of Judaism,’ was felt to be so powerfully maintained that many of the leading Hebrew teachers of Germany who had till then stood aloof from the so-called ‘Grafian hypothesis’ – the doctrine, that is, that the Levitical Law and connected parts of the Pentateuch were not written till after the fall of the kingdom of Judah, and that the Pentateuch in its present compass was not publicly accepted as authoritative till the reformation of Ezra – declared themselves convinced by Wellhausen’s arguments. . . . The Old Testament does not furnish a history of Israel, though it supplies the materials from which such a history can be constructed.197 Amongst materials supplied, but in need of interpretation, Wellhausen included the ministry of the canonical prophets, which brought about a watershed in theological understanding, such that they rang down the curtain on the old Israel. Wellhausen connected the earliest form of the epic tradition contained in the Bible (J–E), which he identifies as a literary source, with the ministry of the eighth-century prophets.198 He left it to others to develop the form-critical method and investigate

Nicholson, God and His People. K.H. Graf, Die geschichtlichen Bücher des Alten Testaments: Zwei historisch-kritische Untersuchungen (Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1866). 197 Wellhausen, Prolegomena, v and vii. 198 In the Prolegomena, Wellhausen developed his identification of literary sources. He regarded the Pentateuch with the addition of the book of Joshua as one whole. Within that he separated out the book of Deuteronomy as most obviously an independent law book (D). He next isolated, with its base in the priestly concerns of the book of Leviticus, that strand commencing from Genesis 1 which makes use of the divine name ‘Elohim’ up to the period of Moses, which he called the ‘main stock’ or Priestly Code (P). He in fact used the letter Q signifying ‘Quattuor’ for the Book of the Four Covenants. The remaining material he identified as the Jehovistic historybook (J–E), ‘essentially of a narrative character, and sets forth with full sympathy and enjoyment the materials handed down by tradition’ (Prolegomena, 7). He found in this material some insertions of a further strand that used the divine title ‘Elohim’ (E). He dated the J–E source by comparison with the oldest extant prophetic writings, and therefore to the eighth century BCE . D he associated with the rule of King Josiah towards the end of the seventh century. The priestly work he dated last as relating to the period of the post-exilic restoration. 195 196

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evidence of pre-literary layers in the Pentateuch.199 Wellhausen maintained that, against the complacency they encountered, the eighth-century prophets turned the whole righteousness of Yahweh. The prophets in raising ‘the Deity high above the people, sever the natural bond between them, and put in its place a relation depending on conditions, conditions of a moral character’. No longer could it be said that ‘there was no interval between Him and His people to call for thought and question’.200 The crucial nature of covenant was its identity as a treaty or pact based on agreed conditions and not a natural bond. The outcome was that ‘the abstract ideal was framed into a law’201 and so the Torah, which clearly spelt out the conditions and obligations, was the consequence of this reformation. Wellhausen notes that the word ‘covenant’ is not part of the vocabulary of the eighthcentury prophets: ‘The name Berith, however, does not occur in the old prophets, not even in Hosea, who certainly presents us as clearly as possible with the thing, in his figure of the marriage of Jehovah and Israel.’202 However, he highlights the fact that covenant becomes a characteristic feature of Hebrew faith following the ministry of the eighth-century prophets. It is helpful to conclude this summary of his position with a final extended quotation: The use of the phrase Berith (i.e. treaty) for law fitted very well with the great idea of the prophets, and received from it in turn an interpretation, according to which the relation of Jehovah to Israel was conditioned by the demands of His righteousness, as set forth in His word and instruction. In this view of the matter Jehovah and Israel came to be regarded as the contracting parties of the covenant by which the various representatives of the people had originally pledged each other to keep, say, the Deuteronomic law. After the solemn and far-reaching act by which Josiah introduced this law, the notion of covenant-making between Jehovah and Israel appears to have occupied the central position in religious thought: it prevails in Deuteronomy, in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, in Isaiah 40–66, Leviticus 17–26, and most of all in the Book of the Four Covenants. The Babylonian exile no doubt helped, as the Assyrian exile had previously done, to familiarise the Jewish mind with the idea that the covenant depended on conditions, and might possibly be dissolved.203 Not surprisingly, a period of controversy followed Wellhausen’s observations on covenant. It focused on four main issues that had been provoked by Wellhausen’s

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H. Gunkel in his scholarly work pursued the form-critical or tradition-history approach which sought to peel off the layers of tradition behind the literary text. His work on the book of Genesis, Genesis, übersetzt und erklärt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901), and on Genesis 1, Schöpfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1895), demonstrated the fruitfulness of this approach. Similarly, H. Gressmann, Mose und seine Zeit: Ein Kommentar zu den Mose-Sagen, FRLANT 18 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1913), extended Gunkel’s approach to Pentateuchal traditions relating to Moses. A. Alt (Essays in Old Testament History and Religion [Oxford: Blackwell, 1966]; this publication includes English translations of Die Landnahme der Israeliten in Palästina [Leipzig, 1925] and Der Gott der Väter [Stuttgart, 1929]) applied the same techniques in his God of the Fathers which sought to reach behind the text of the patriarchal narratives to discover something of their religious identity. In his The Settlement of the Israelites in Palestine he argued for a seminomadic origin of the Israelites originating on the fringe between the desert and the settled land. 200 Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 417. 201 J. Wellhausen, ‘Israel’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume XIII (1881). Reprinted as an appendix to Prolegomena to the History of Israel, 491. 202 Wellhausen, Prolegomena, 418. 203 Ibid., 418f.

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conclusions. These were the historicity of the Sinai tradition, the meaning of the term ber¯ı t, the nature of early Israelite religion and the silence of the eighth-century prophets on the subject of covenant.204 This period of controversy Nicholson identifies as the first of four phases in the study of covenant since Wellhausen: The study of the Old Testament covenant traditions during the century or so since the publication of Wellhausen’s Prolegomena in 1878 falls conveniently into four main phases. As we have seen, a generation of controversy, stimulated by Wellhausen’s work, was followed by a period of widespread agreement on essentials. The third phase began in the mid-1950s and introduced into the discussion hitherto unexplored evidence from a study of ancient Near Eastern inter-state treaties which, it is maintained, shed considerable light on the origin, nature, and form of the covenant traditions and texts in the Old Testament. The fourth and current phase began in the 1960s and represents a sharp reaction to the two preceding ones. It argues that the covenant traditions were a late development in Israelite religion and were as yet unknown to the prophets of the eighth century. Thus, Wellhausen’s conclusions have, in essence, found fresh advocacy.205 Nicholson makes the substantial point that in Wellhausen’s estimate the covenant is an ‘idea’ rather than an ‘institution’. It was its conception as an institution which meant that, in the period to which Nicholson ascribes ‘the agreement on all essentials’ between the wars, a broad consensus was established. Covenant became revered in scholarly circles as of high antiquity, definitive of the nation’s self-understanding and of the essence of Israel’s uniqueness. Significant, then, in this development was the supposed discerning of a cultic context for the proclamation of the covenant. For Mowinckel,206 followed by von Rad,207 this was in the context of the autumn New Year festival. Von Rad argued that the covenant tradition associated with Sinai was a tradition completely independent of the settlement tradition. The essence of the latter was captured in the Deuteronomic credos.208 He envisaged that the two traditions were brought together by the Yahwist, the one responsible for Wellhausen’s J literary tradition, whose creative mind was largely responsible for the received shape of the narrative of the Hexateuch (Genesis to Joshua) commencing with creation and the Primaeval History. Martin Noth,209 basing his judgement on Joshua 24, located a pre-monarchical annual renewal of the covenant at Shechem. It was the very basis of his envisaged twelve-tribe sacral amphictyony. It was in the context of the reciting of the foundation narratives by experienced storytellers, when the tribal representatives came together, that his Grundlage (G) emerged. Different groups brought their own ‘occupation traditions’ which crystallized around the ‘miracle at the sea’. Such a process was self-generating and did not require a creative mind to assemble it. The early institutional nature of covenant gathered the

Nicholson, God and His People, 7. Ibid., 56. 206 See above, Chapter One, s. III. 207 Von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch, 20ff. 208 Deuteronomy 26:5b–9, 6:20–24; Joshua 24:2b–13. 209 M. Noth, Das System der zwölf Stämme Israels, BWANT IV, 1 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1930). 204 205

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support of English scholars,210 as well as of G.E. Wright211 and the biblical theology movement in the United States.212 For Wright, biblical theology was about the recital of God’s acts in Israel’s history focused in the Exodus and the gift of the land. The early nature of covenant and its celebration at Shechem carried the key to sustaining that identity: ‘Form criticism and comparative study have shown that the type of organization which distinguished Israel from other nations in the first period of the nation’s history in Palestine, before the establishment of the monarchy, was that of a tribal amphictyony, an organization of tribes held together around a central shrine by a religious compact or covenant.’213 Nicholson also highlights the contribution made in this period by the developing study of sociology. In particular, he identifies the work of Max Weber214 for whom, also, from a different perspective, covenant was conceived to be essential to the political identity of early Israel. In the third phase identified by Nicholson, the institutional nature of covenant was given further context by the work of G.E. Mendenhall.215 He proposed that the covenant form was modelled on Hittite suzerainty treaties made between the Great King and his vassal states. This treaty-form he argued was contemporaneous with Israel’s emergence in the late Bronze Age (c. 1400–1200 BCE ). The publication of further material complicated the comparisons.216 Nicholson’s assessment of the outcome of this avenue of investigation is succinct: ‘in reality it has yielded little that is of permanent value’.217 However, others continue to have a more positive assessment: ‘The idea of a special covenant found in the Pentateuch seems to reflect both the form of international treaties in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200–1000 BCE ) and loyalty oaths in the Assyrian Empire in the time of the kings of Israel and Judah, which focused on the penalties for disobedience.’218 Yet, one might ponder whether Yahweh’s relationship with his people would take its cue from dreaded foreign aggressors against which vassals were regularly plotting. His fourth and final phase Nicholson identifies as ‘covenant as a theological idea’. It paves the way for consideration of the notion of covenant as late in Israel’s theological vocabulary. However, before we return to Nicholson’s specific points, it is important to provide some continuing context in the development of pentateuchal and associated studies in post-1960s scholarship to the present. It has exhibited a trend of re-dating significant theological and literary activity to the exilic period and later. The status quo

H. Wheeler Robinson, Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946); H.H. Rowley, The Biblical Doctrine of Election (London: Lutterworth Press, 1950). 211 G.E. Wright, The Challenge of Israel’s Faith (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944); idem, ‘How Did Early Israel Differ from Her Neighbours?’, Bible and Spade 3, no. 4 (1974); idem, God Who Acts (London: SCM Press, 1952); and idem, The Old Testament Against Its Environment (London: SCM Press, 1962). 212 Perdue, The Collapse of History, 23: ‘Wright joined George E. Mendenhall, Frank Moore Cross, Jr., David Noel Freedman, and John Bright as the major representatives of the Albright school, scholars who trained under W.F. Albright and together forged the dominant tradition of Old Testament studies in North America following World War II.’ 213 Wright, God Who Acts, 52. 214 M. Weber, Ancient Judaism (London: The Free Press, 1952). (Originally published as Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie: Volume III: Das antike Judentum [Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1921].) 215 G.E. Mendenhall, ‘Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition’, Biblical Archaeologist 17 (1954): 50–76. 216 D.J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant, Anelecta Biblica 21a (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1963). 217 Nicholson, God and His People, 81. 218 Martin Goodman, A History of Judaism (London: Allen Lane, 2017), 74. 210

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was substantially challenged in the 1970s, in particular by three publications. Despite their different approaches, they shared a common cause, to move the locus of literary activity and the emergence of Israel’s epic identity from the time of the monarchy to the exilic period. The three authors were J. Van Seters,219 R. Rendtorff220 and H.H. Schmid.221 Rendtorff took Noth’s tradition-historical insights to what he regarded as their logical conclusion. Tradition criticism and literary criticism he maintained are mutually exclusive. The latter can be disposed of, and with it the work of a Yahwist. The development of the Pentateuch can be explained by blocks of self-generating tradition which, as it were, came fully formed and simply needed an editor to ‘join up the dots’. J. Van Seters retained a literary approach and the need for a creative mind to bring together diverse traditions, whilst re-dating the total process to the exilic period and making J subsequent to D. Schmid both deconstructed von Rad’s dating of the Yahwist to the ‘Solomonic enlightenment’ and identified indicators in the Yahwistic material of a date in line with the Deuteronomic corpus and the exilic period. The ‘so-called’ Yahwist does not represent a literary source so much as a first redaction of the Tetrateuch (Genesis to Numbers). Subsequently, Christopher Levin222 has argued that the Yahwist operated in the exilic period collecting earlier written sources which he redacted. E. Blum223 dispenses with connected literary sources in favour of a tradition-history process relating to written text. He posits two composition layers. The first is Kᴰ, which he dates as subsequent to Deuteronomy and to the Deuteronomistic history in the post-exilic first generation. However, he sees it as independent of the Deuteronomistic history. It is Kᴰ which first brings together the two inherited blocks of the patriarchal period and the Mosaic era. That composition layer is responsible for planting the notion of promise in the patriarchal era so as to connect it with the Mosaic era. It is at this time, therefore, that we encounter the first edition of the Tetrateuch with the epic narrative reaching from the call of Abraham to the border of the Promised Land. Blum assumes pre-exilic traditions as part of Kᴰ’s inherited material. The priestly contribution Blum conceives to be a revision and supplement of Kᴰ and not an independent source; this he identifies as KP. The Primaeval History is added at this stage. The re-dating of the material formerly identified as J–E as later than the Deuteronomistic History does allow some scholars who make a similar judgement to see the Hexateuch (Genesis to Joshua) as having emerged as a preface to the Deuteronomistic History, so we should be contemplating a ‘Great Historical Corpus’.224 Konrad Schmid summarizes the current state of affairs in pentateuchal criticism: ‘The latter [E. Blum and subsequent studies] have evoked some consensus at least in some strands of European scholarship to the extent that for the literary beginnings of the Pentateuch we should probably reckon with sources with a limited literary horizon, which only in the (exilic or) early post-exilic period were embedded in comprehensive contexts.’225 The locus of literary activity and

J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1975). R. Rendtorff, Das überliefungsgeschichtliche Problem des Pentateuch (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1977). 221 H.H. Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist: Beobachtungen and Fragen zur Pentateuchforschung (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976). 222 C. Levin, Der Jahwist, FRLANT 157 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993). 223 E. Blum, Die Komposition der Vätergeschichte (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1984); idem, Studien zur Komposition des Pentateuch (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990). 224 Jan Christian Gertz et al., T&T Clark Handbook of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Literature, Religion and History of the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 263. 225 K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 27. 219 220

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the emergence of Israel’s epic identity continues to be firmly located to the exilic period or later. Within the foregoing context we may return to the specific points made by Nicholson in connection with the fourth and final phase of covenant traditions which, we noted, he refers to as ‘covenant as a theological idea’. The studies which Nicholson identifies are those of E. Kutsch226 and L. Perlitt.227 Nicholson summarizes: This current phase is represented by a number of studies which seek to reverse the conclusions widely accepted since the 1920s concerning the antiquity and nature of the covenant between God and Israel. The ‘functional’ understanding of the origin and purpose of this covenant, so widely favoured hitherto, and the view that it was a central feature of Israelite religion from the earliest period, are abandoned. Instead, these studies argue that the notion of such a covenant was developed to meet specifically theological needs and crises which arose at a relatively late time in Israel.228 In the light of the work of Kutsch and Perlitt, Nicholson undertakes a review of the major covenant texts. These he identifies as: Exodus 19:3b–8; 24:1–2, 9–11; 24:3–8; 34:10– 28; Joshua 24:1–28; and Hosea 6:7; 8:1. He provides a convenient summary of his assessment of the texts, apart from those from Hosea, as follows: Of the key texts usually regarded as testimony to the antiquity of a covenant tradition in Israelite religion, our survey has shown that neither Exodus 19:3b–8 nor 34:10–28 nor Joshua 24 can confidently be regarded as pre-Deuteronomic, whilst Exodus 24:9–11, though it may be of ancient origin, is not concerned with the making of a covenant. Only Exodus 24:3–8 may plausibly be regarded as pre-Deuteronomic, but its contents do not enable us to say how long before the Deuteronomic period it came into existence.229 For Nicholson the texts from Hosea become the arbiter of the earliest theological use of the notion of covenant in Israel. He notes that Hosea 6:7, ‘at Adam they transgressed the covenant’, is not controversial in terms of relating it to the prophet, although the meaning is somewhat obscure. This leads him to identify Hosea 8:1. ‘because they have broken my covenant’, as from the mouth of the prophet. He is, therefore, able to conclude: The possibility suggests itself that it was Hosea who first coined such a notion and that it was from him that other circles, notably the Deuteronomic movement, derived it and further developed it. Such a possibility should not be ruled out. In favour of it is the remarkable variety of imagery which this prophet employed. . . . To have coined the image of ber¯ı t between Yahweh and Israel would certainly have been in keeping with his manifest fondness for a wide variety of imagery. The notion of a ber¯ı t between Yahweh and Israel may have suggested itself to him as an alternative to his more familiar ‘marriage metaphor’, so that both metaphors are employed to signal that solemn commitment of Yahweh to Israel and of Israel to Yahweh which Israel’s infidelity and treachery betrayed.230

E. Kutsch, Verheissung und Gesetz: Untersuchungen zum sogenannten ‘Bund’ im Alten Testament, BZAW 131 (Berlin and New York, NY: De Gruyter, 1973). 227 L. Perlitt, Bundestheologie im Alten Testament, WMANT 36 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1969). 228 Nicholson, God and His People, 83. 229 Ibid., 179. 230 Ibid., 187. 226

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As we take leave of Nicholson as our guide through covenant, he has returned us to the insights of Wellhausen with which the review began. Covenant provides a ‘metaphor’ or ‘idea’ for the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. That is, it can no longer be regarded as an ancient institution with its own cultic life and traditions. It was not a concept that Israel knew from the beginning but was added to Hebrew theological vocabulary only from the eighth century BCE . It emerges as a result of the watershed represented by the prophetic ministry responding to Israel’s extended time of trial as the terminal threat posed first by Assyria and then by Babylon became increasingly evident. In that sense it was a newcomer during the second half of the monarchical period. The full gestation period was not over until the fall of Judah. The covenant becomes a characteristic of the conditional Deuteronomic theology with its legislative demands associated with the blessings and the curses. The Torah specifies the conditions of the covenant as demanded by divine authorization. We have reached the period of the exile; the conclusion coincides with that of a study of the festivals. The concept of covenant establishes itself as an essential tool for theological reflection in the exile and beyond. The consequence was that ‘covenantal nomism’, although never without questioning voices, became the norm throughout the Persian period of Judaism and throughout the Persian and Hellenistic diaspora. The period of Hellenism in Palestine saw the development of a plurality of ‘Judaisms’, but covenantal nomism remained foundational. The ruling Hasmonean house were observant of its regulations. The detail of obedience to the Torah may have been disputed by the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes, but all venerated its substance as divine self-disclosure. Early Judaism, in its turn, was able to hand on to Rabbinic Judaism the priority of Torah and covenant.

IV THE BREAKING OF THE OLD ORDER Covenant, then, is an indicator of the presence of the distinctive faith of Israel as mature biblical theology presents it. That single concept is the hallmark of exclusive Yahwism. It is likely that the clue as to the significance of covenant is to be found in the ‘marriage metaphor’ familiar in the prophet Hosea, as suggested by E.W. Nicholson. We may listen to the words of Hosea himself: On that day, says the Lord, you will call me, ‘My husband,’ and no longer will you call me, ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the Lord. — Hosea 2:16–20 Covenant represents a seriousness of relationship between God and his people which requires total commitment. The corollary of covenant is monolatry. That is, the demand of an exclusive commitment to Yahweh, not as the only divine being, but as the one who alone commands the people’s loyalty. The qualities of a marriage relationship are captured in the summary of covenant loyalty in Deuteronomy 7:13:

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He [God] will love you, bless you, and multiply you. It is that quality of intimate relationship to which Israel is now called. It is, perhaps therefore, not surprising that it is in Hosea that we hear the first echo of the Decalogue: Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. — Hosea 4:2 An exclusive relationship with Yahweh makes moral demands which are part of the evidence of covenant loyalty on Israel’s part. These demands are made in response to Yahweh’s prior faithfulness and loving kindness demonstrated in the rescue at the sea and the events of the Exodus: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. — Hosea 11:1 Covenant presents the relationship between Yahweh and his people as conditional. Torah spells out the nature of those conditions which Israel is privileged to be called to live by. The relationship demands loyalty on both sides and if that is not forthcoming it could be broken. Covenant presented the possibility of the fracture of relationship. This represented a new theological chemistry which was unheard of within the given culture of the Ancient Near East. The relationship between a god and people was heretofore a part of the order of things. It finds biblical reference in Deuteronomy: When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord’s own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. — Deuteronomy 32:8–9 The relationship between Yahweh and Israel, within the theological reference of the Ancient Near East, was a given. It was as dependable as the eternal hills. It was part of the structure of the cosmos. There was conceived to be a continuum between the material creation and divinity, such that it was the task of divinity to maintain the given equilibrium. It was a natural bond, not a conditional bond. The contemplation of a fracture in the relationship between the national god and his people could only signify a failure in the ability of the national god to defend and uphold his own. The prophets, in a quite new departure, turned that scenario around and claimed that the righteousness and justice of Yahweh might turn against his people: Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets, I have killed them by the words of my mouth. — Hosea 6:5a The authenticity of Yahweh’s divinity, not his weakness, would be demonstrated by the abandonment of his people.

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A mutation of considerable significance in the creation theology of the Ancient Near East was taking place. No longer could it be said that ‘there was no interval between Him and His people to call for thought or question’. The concept of radical transcendence was emerging. The divine no longer simply guaranteed the stability of creation but could turn against it in judgement; with that judgement came the potential of genuine redemption and change. The breaking of the continuum between God and the created order had many implications. It emerged from the searing pain of the Assyrian and Babylonian scourges. It enables the contemplation of a fresh initiative of God. The frontiers of hope were no longer confined to the return of the best of the past but might anticipate God’s ‘new thing’. Given the outstanding array of religious traditions within the Ancient Near East, it is of some significance that the breakthrough here identified and signalled by the emergence of the concept of covenant should have taken place among the Hebrews. The study of covenant has confirmed the dissonance between the portrait presented in Hebrew epic narrative and the actuality of the history of religion in Israel. It did not originate from high antiquity. It required the double prophetic interpretation of the demise first of Israel and then of Judah. Only in the exilic and post-exilic periods did it come to maturity. However, in the process something of the distinctive contribution of the Hebrews to the history of religions within the Ancient Near East has emerged with some clarity. They discovered and articulated the significance of divine transcendence – the theological potential of that interval between God and creation.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Rewriting the Story of Israel’s Pre-Exilic History I THE TRANSITION FROM THE BRONZE TO THE IRON AGE It remains to try to sketch out the shape of the history of Israel in the pre-exilic period that is emerging from the revised perspective that contemporary scholarship is uncovering. It inevitably has to be broad brush and undertaken with due caution. There is much that is obscure; the context of Canaan is complex; further discoveries of archaeology may radically change the scholarly landscape. Nevertheless, through the mist some contours are emerging. It is these that we can seek to map. Israel emerges to history in the famous stele of the Pharaoh Merenptah (1207 BCE ).231 She is immediately placed within the greater context of the Ancient Near East. Consequently, it is worth pausing to remember that the long roots of Israel’s journey reach back to the world heritage moment of the initial combustion of civilization, first in Sumer and, fast on its heels, in Ancient Egypt, in the final quarter of the fourth millennium. Those who study the Hebrew Scriptures, aware of their Ancient Near Eastern context, encounter lingering conduits that leapfrog the classics to a truly universal moment. From the short poem, at the end of an extended text extolling Pharaoh Merenptah’s victory over the Libyans who, having seized the opportunity of the end of the long reign of Ramesses the Great, had invaded the delta, we learn a significant amount. Israel is included among a roll call of four representative Canaanite victims of the Pharoah’s punishment. The other three mentioned are the Canaanite city states, Askalon, Gezer and Yanoam. The text relating to those cities continues: ‘Israel is laid waste; his seed is no longer.’ Firstly, we may deduce that Israel is already sufficiently an entity to be held up alongside three moderately sized Canaanite city states. Secondly, whereas the city states are identified with the hieroglyphic determinative for ‘foreign country’ which recognizes them as city states, Israel has the determinative for ‘foreign people’. This distinction we may take seriously and not dismiss as a scribal lapse.232 It recognizes Israel as a quite different political entity to the city states, finding her identity in a less sophisticated bond across tribal or village communities.

ANET, 376–8. See, also, W.K. Simpson, ed., The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 356–60. 232 Atwell, ‘Treasures of Merenptah in the Karnak Temple at Luxor’. 231

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Thirdly, the name Israel makes the point that in origin it seems that El was the god of Israel. El was the high god of the Canaanites, now familiar from the Ugaritic texts. Fourthly, we may be justified in turning what is often identified as a further scribal lapse into a piece of significant evidence. The text uses the masculine singular suffix (translation ‘his’) with the word ‘seed’ to refer to a collective noun ‘Israel’. However, if the Egyptian scribe was aware that a people called Israel claimed descent from a single ancestor as ‘children of Israel’ it would make complete sense. Finally, if we may connect the stele with the murals on the external west wall of the Cour de le Cachette in the Karnak Temple at Luxor, as Yurco233 argues, then in all likelihood we find the infantry of Israel dressed in the long robes associated with the convention and culture of Canaan. The Shasu, nomad groups living in Canaan and Sinai, figure in the associated scenes but are clearly distinct from the Israelites. The indications from the Stele of Merenptah need to be considered alongside the deductions of archaeologists. The memory of the period of Egyptian influence in Palestine throughout the New Kingdom does not seem to have been passed on through biblical tradition, apart from casual evidence in the book of Joshua which may be interpreted to refer to ‘the Fountain of Merenptah’ located near Jerusalem.234 In attempting to relate the various snapshots archaeology has given us, we do well to heed the wisdom of G.I. Davies in the introduction to a study he has undertaken: ‘I use the word “Israel” in my title in a broad sense to include what would, in part at least, be better called “proto-Israel” or “proto-Israels”, i.e. groups that were eventually incorporated into “Israel”, whenever and wherever it began to exist.’235 Evidence is being uncovered from settlements in the Galilee, the central hill country of Palestine and the Negeb, relating to the transitional period at the end of the Bronze Age and the emergence of Iron Age 1 (c. 1200 BCE ). It reveals a peaceful context in which the settlement pattern is of unfortified village communities. Some settlements are on former sites occupied in the Middle Bronze Age; those in the highlands are most often on new sites: The central highland settlements of the Early Iron Age in Canaan consisted of small villages which were uniform and which appeared suddenly without any trace of burning or sudden destruction; interestingly enough, no weapons were retrieved from them, ‘although such finds [such as swords or lances] are typical of the cities in the lowlands’ (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001: 110). The villagers were self-sufficient, drawing water from nearby springs or from rock-cut plastered cisterns. Few silos, sickle blades, grinding stones, and a large enclosed courtyard, all together indicate that these highland villagers were both growing grain and herding their flocks. Archaeologically speaking, their religion is unknown as no shrines were found (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001: 107–111). Most of these settlements are found in previously uninhabited areas, and it should be underscored that ‘settlement pattern is precisely the best historical evidence we are in possession of with respect to the emergence of Israel’ (Coote and Whitelam 1987: 18). However, scholars are now generally prone to interpret the evidence of the Early Iron Age highland settlements as

F.J. Yurco, ‘Merenptah’s Canaanite Campaign’, JARCE 23 (1986): 211. Joshua 15:9; 18:15. See Wilson, ‘The Journal of a Frontier Official’, ANET, 258–9, 258 n. 6. 235 G.I. Davies, ‘Genesis and the Early History of Israel: A Survey of Research’, in Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History, ed. A. Wénin (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2001), 107. 233 234

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an instance of the sedentarization of local Canaanite nomads; indeed, early Israel would have emerged largely from within Canaan itself.236 It does seem that the models of a peaceful settlement (for instance, Numbers 32:1–38), with the occasional skirmish (Judges 1:1 to 2:5), are more historically accurate than the ruthless conquest of Joshua 1 to 12, which represents the colour of a later era. Here, we may add the confirmatory evidence of Y. Aharoni following his extended archaeological campaigns in the Negeb region: . . . one thing is beyond a shadow of a doubt: it is impossible to speak of the conquest of Late Bronze Canaanite cities in the Negeb, but only of extensive settlement in an unpopulated area where the new settlements were not subject to actual danger and hence did not find it necessary to fortify themselves. . . . The Israelite tribes had no choice but to settle uninhabited or sparsely populated regions, principally in the forested hilly areas; hundreds of such settlements dating to the beginning of the Israelite period have been found in archaeological surveys in the Galilee, on Mount Ephraim, in Judea and Gilead, and in other areas that had never previously been settled. The same picture has now been brought to light in the Negeb. This was also an unpopulated region and was therefore occupied by various families and clans in spite of the climatic difficulties. The large, substantial settlement at Tel Masos illustrates the dimensions of these settlements and the relative security they enjoyed for more than two hundred years.237 Whether the Merenptah Stele glimpses Israel before or after the crucial arrival of Yahweh we cannot be certain. The confusion of the Libyan invasion may even mark the instant of the fleeing captives. The Bible itself, in the narrative of the patriarchs, assumes a period when Yahweh was not known and El was identified with the ‘god of the Fathers’. It remains to be worked out how those biblical traditions may be related to the new perspectives on the settlement pattern. Given that the biblical tradition has no memory of the Egyptian New Kingdom period in Palestine, we should be cautious of expecting the customs recorded of the patriarchs to represent early material.238 They more likely relate to the time when they received narrative form. Yet, the very fact of the existence of the cycles of tradition associated with specific ancestors and their relation to actual geographical locations may provide significant historical indicators and point us towards the memory of migrant pastoralist nomads as one of the strands of Israel’s origins. John Barton has suggested: that Abraham’s arrival in Palestine from the east, and the trek of Moses and the people with him from the west, may not really have happened in that order, but may be contemporaneous – or even that Abraham and his descendants may have lived after

236

Frendo, ‘Back to Basics’, 50. He refers to I. Finkelstein, ‘The Great Transformation: The “Conquest” of the Highlands Frontiers and the Rise of the Territorial States’, in The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, ed. T.E. Levy (London: Leicester University Press, 1995); Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed; R.B. Coote and K.W. Whitelam, The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1987). 237 Y. Aharoni, ‘Nothing Early and Nothing Late: Re-Writing Israel’s Conquest’, Biblical Archaeologist 39 (1976): 74–5. 238 As was argued by W.F. Albright, who compared the patriarchal traditions with discoveries from both Nuzi and Mari: see W.F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and the Historical Process (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957).

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Moses. They may belong to the period we normally call the time of the judges, in the eleventh century, when we hear of tribes named after the twelve sons of Jacob.239 The Abrahamic cycle of traditions is often, as Wellhausen identified, the youngest element despite being at the head of the originally separate patriarchal traditions which have been artificially assembled under the genealogy Abraham-Isaac-Jacob. We can, with some confidence, trace the Abrahamic tradition back at least to the early Davidic monarchy. Indicators include the obvious political significance for legitimizing the Davidic royal seat at Jerusalem in the account of the blessing of Abraham by Melchizedek ‘king of Salem’ in the name of El Elyon (Genesis 14:18–20).240 The episode must take its authority from an already established veneration of Abrahamic traditions. The likely immediate source of this ancestral authority is to be traced to Hebron from where David first reigned and which with ‘the oaks of Mamre’ is part of the Abrahamic cycle. Quite independent of Davidic validation is the record of the Karnak Temple of the Palestinian campaign in the latter half of the tenth century by Pharaoh Sheshonk I (Biblical Shishak: 1 Kings 14:25), which includes geographical reference in the Negeb to a compound or enclosure designated the ‘Ḥagar of Abra(ha)m’.241 The fact that Abraham became a towering figure in the theological reflection of the exile, when spiritual validity was being traced back beyond the collapsed national institutions and loss of the land, does not negate the authenticity of the source of the tradition.242 The Jacob tradition is reliably traceable back rather further. The place name Jacob-el appears in the list of Tutmosis III in the Karnak Temple from the fifteenth century BCE 243 and is probably to be located near Beth-shan. We may discern the importance of Isaac as a defining ancestor of a significant group from the record of the prophet Amos who identifies Israel (the Northern Kingdom) with ‘the House of Isaac’ (Amos 7:9 and 7:16). All these suggest the significance of ‘family religion’ as a part of Israel’s continuing identity and most likely lead back to pre-Yahwistic roots.244 In that case the insight of A. Alt about ‘the god of the fathers’ may yet have an element of validity.245 The observation of F.M. Cross remains relevant here: ‘It is in this context that we are to understand the kinship elements common in the Amorite names of the second millennium BC and in the earliest onomastic material of Israel: ˊab (“father”), ‘ad (“father”), ˊaɧ (“brother”), ɧal (“uncle”, “kinsman”), ‘amm (“kinsman”), and ɧatn (“relative by marriage”).’246 The natural bond

John Barton, A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths (London: Allen Lane, 2019), 51. J.A. Emerton, ‘Some Problems in Genesis XIV’, in Studies in the Pentateuch, VTS XLI, ed. J.A. Emerton (Leiden: Brill, 1990), 100: ‘Rather, I regarded as “very plausible” the theory that David “adopted, in some form, the Jebusite cult”, and that the story of Abram and Melchizedek implied that offence could not legitimately be taken by Israelites at the adoption.’ He refers to J.A. Emerton, ‘The Riddle of Genesis XIV’, VT 21, no. 4 (1971): 403–39. 241 See Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1979), 329. 242 K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 85: ‘For Abraham, by contrast, it is quickly apparent that no references to him from the monarchical period can be proven outside Genesis. None of the “Abraham” references in Isa 29:22; 41:8; 51:2; 63:16; Ezek 33:24; Jer 33:26; Mic 7:20; Pss 47:10; 105:6, 9, 42; 2 Chron 20:7; Dan 3:35 can be dated before the exile. We should not immediately conclude from this that the Abraham narratives are purely redactional constructions from the seventh or sixth century B.C.E .’ 243 ANET, 242. 244 As previously noted (Chapter Six, s. I), Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, 28–30, argues: ‘So “patriarchal religion” is to be defined not as a preliminary stage but as a substratum of Yahweh religion.’ This is a timely reminder that the different elements of Israel’s make-up could be contemporaneous as well as linear; that is, taking place in parallel as well as consecutively. 245 Alt, Der Gott der Väter. 246 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 6 n. 10. 239 240

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between the deity and the clan indicates an exclusive relationship; it suggests that the familial arrangements of patriarchal religion were based on the practice of monolatry. We may note that in the Ugaritic texts, although El is the ultimate authority who grants kingship, he is nonetheless a patriarchal figure for whom the key concept remains ‘father’. He is ‘the king, father of years’,247 ‘bull El my father’248 and tenderly ‘father of mankind’.249 That could well indicate a context for El as the one invoked as the origin of the identity of Israel.

II THE ARRIVAL OF YAHWEH It remains a solid consensus that Yahweh is a god introduced into Palestine from outside the region as he is not to be found among the Canaanite gods listed in the Ugaritic texts. The character of Yahweh does not seem readily to relate to that of an aspect or ‘epithet’ of El, as has been argued by F.M. Cross.250 Yahweh has the character of a storm god with particular association with mountainous desert terrain. We must assume, therefore, that El and Yahweh were originally separate deities who were brought together in a process of convergence.251 John Day summarizes the consensus: Most scholars who have written on the subject during recent decades support the idea that Yahweh had his origins outside the land of Israel to the south, in the area of Midian (cf. Judges 5:4–5; Deut 33:2; Hab 3:3, 7) and there has been an increasing tendency to locate Mt Sinai and Kadesh in N.W. Arabia rather than the Sinai peninsula itself.252 There is some indication that Yahweh was first envisaged as a member of El’s council before he became identified with El. That seems the immediate logic of the poetry of Deuteronomy 32:8–9, with which we are already familiar: When the Most High [El Elyon] apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord’s [Yahweh’s] own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share. The tradition of the Exodus seems to be the most likely way to account for Yahweh’s arrival and diffusion in Palestine. Certain factors – the recognition of a similar pattern of deity, the energy of the new faith, perhaps the need for the renewal of Israel’s shaken identity after the scourge of Merenptah (if we associate the Exodus with that period) – would have

CTA, 3.v.17. CTA, 2.iii.16, and frequently. 249 CTA, 14.iii.151. 250 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 60ff. 251 R.K. Gnuse, No Other Gods: Emergent Monotheism in Israel (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 226: ‘The process of emergence may be described best with the model of “convergence” and “differentiation”. Yahweh absorbed several deities and their aspects while rejecting particular divine attributes and cultic activities. Perhaps, it is this process of differentiation which is the surest sign of an emergent monotheistic process.’ 252 J. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 15. 247 248

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contributed to the success of Yahwism. At the heart of this faith was the vivid experience of rescue at the sea and its primary resonance in the biblical record, as we noted above, is to be found in Exodus 15. It is with the person of Moses that we must associate the birth of this new faith.253 The human name of Moses and the divine name of Yahweh bridge the two traditions of Exodus and Sinai. Moses is an Egyptian name, which is of considerable significance in the circumstances.254 Correspondingly, Yahweh is the divine name that the earliest tradition associates with the Exodus rescue (Exodus 15). He is also native to the very earliest traditions connected with Sinai (Judges 5:4; Deuteronomy 33:2). Here we encounter a real foundational experience of rescue which became the basis of a profound sense of adoption by Yahweh. In all likelihood, there would have been a strong element of monolatry associated with the experience of Mosaic Yahwism: this despite the assessment of B. Lang that monolatry developed from ‘temporary monolatry’ adopted by various populations in times of crisis.255 The suggestion of M.S. Smith that El might be the original god of the Exodus256 does not fit the evidence. However, the further observation of B. Lang that ‘The lonely Yahweh becomes the only god’257 is rich with reflection on the unique chemistry established by the arrival of Yahweh in Palestine. Lang suggests that from the beginning Yahweh is an outsider with no relatives who is alien to an anthropomorphic representation: ‘It seems that Yahweh himself is never represented in iconic form, but that a bronze serpent, a golden calf-bull and a sacred tree can symbolize his power to heal and to dispense fertility in various domains.’258 As an outsider Yahweh would have introduced an element of disquiet into new circumstances and consequently potentially have been a disturber of the status quo. As a desert storm god, Yahweh’s character brought a more abrasive aspect to El’s magnanimity. His adoption of the Hebrews related well to the familial aspect of patriarchal religion and highlighted the continuing potential for monolatry. The theme of rescue at the sea and guidance into the land steadily encouraged the search for significance not in the cycles of nature, but in the human story.

III THE EARLY MONARCHY The next phase in Israel’s development was the period of the monarchy, commencing tenth/eleventh century BCE . Initially, according to the biblical witness, there was a united monarchy under Saul and then David, which with Solomon divided into two kingdoms of the north and the south. It is helpful to take the era of monarchy in two periods: that is, the initial two centuries and then the period from the eighth century to its doubleextinction.

K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 84: ‘That Moses himself was a historical figure is suggested by his Egyptian name (cf. Thutmose, Ram[o]ses etc.) and by the multiple traditions of his marriage to a foreign woman: neither would be expected if Moses were simply the product of legend.’ 254 J. Gwyn Griffiths, ‘The Egyptian Derivation of the Name Moses’, JNES 12, no. 4 (1953): 225–31. 255 B. Lang, Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority (Sheffield: The Almond Press, 1983), 33ff. 256 M.S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 146ff. 257 Lang, Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority, 36. 258 Ibid., 23. 253

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Let us first consider the initial phase of monarchy. The biblical record sees its inception as a strategic response to the Philistine threat. It represented the adoption of the Canaanite norm for government and would certainly have been an aspiration for a tribal confederation discovering new economic strength and social potential. It has become increasingly common to question whether the monarchy, as envisaged in the Bible under David and Solomon, is something of a fiction or whether it would be more appropriate to think in terms of ‘chiefdoms’.259 Granted that the achievements of David and Solomon were more modest than the biblical hyperbole, there is no reason to doubt a substantial reality. The ‘House of David’ is referred to in the Tel Dan inscription from the ninth century BCE .260 ‘Ahab, King of Israel’ appears in the Assyrian annals, recording the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BCE ,261 as a substantial monarch with 2,000 chariots. Further, there is a population change that seems to reflect the new circumstances: ‘It is now clear that a dramatic shift from rural settlements to urban centres had taken place by the tenth century BCE . The change was so pervasive that many of the hundreds of small highland villages that were typical (indeed exclusive) for the early settlement horizon were rapidly abandoned, most never to be re-occupied.’262 The era of kingship brought a new focus of unity to Israel and had its impact, therefore, on political as well as theological reflection. The significance of Yahweh as the national god obtained a new definition, which survived the breakup of the kingdoms. The concept of Yahweh as ‘King of the gods’ would have been promulgated alongside the local political analogy of kingship that now obtained, whether as a united monarchy or later with separate kingdoms. Judah/Israel, emergent in Canaan, fully participated in native traditions for which kingship gave access to the notion of the overwhelming of chaos and the establishment of cosmic order. They were part of a culture for which the ‘broad horizon’ was creation theology. In particular, David’s adoption of Jerusalem as his capital with its rich religious tradition was to be of enormous significance for the future. The strengthening of that significance with the building of the Temple institutionalized a strong religious analogy associated with kingship. The Jerusalem traditions provided sophisticated access to the creation theology of the Ancient Near East and its mythic archetypes. Yahweh was there identified with El Elyon in all the majesty of Temple liturgy. As we have seen,263 the great festivals of the Jerusalem Temple, which doubtless attracted community celebrations, representative of Canaan as a whole, were built around the agricultural year and related human beings to the seasonal cyclic processes. As such, they related the people to the natural cycles, gave permission for an ‘enchanted’ world to be wounded in the reaping, and nurtured fertility. The relationship with the natural order could not be taken for granted. In many ways, it could be argued that the loss of covenant as an early concept in Israel’s story is, to some extent, substituted by the growing realization of the significance of creation theology. We have had cause to comment: ‘The vision of a created order

Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah, argues on socio-economic grounds that Judah is an ‘extended chiefdom’ until the eighth century, when it reaches definitive statehood which could warrant a scribal bureaucracy and associated educational institutions. 260 Israel Museum, Jerusalem: IAA 96-1125. 261 ANET, 279. 262 W.G. Dever, ‘Histories and the Non-Histories of Ancient Israel: The Question of the United Monarchy’, in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, ed. J. Day (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2005), 77. 263 See above, Chapter Six, s. II. 259

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which is harmonious, whole, self-regulating, interconnected and ecologically balanced is a great prize. It is the gift of the emergence of the Hebrews within their greater context.’264 Contemporary realization of the significance of the environment has opened the eyes of students of biblical studies to a neglected topic. Its place in the Ancient Near East furnished Israel with a share in the sophisticated creation reflection grounded in righteousness (ṣedeq), with its associations with the Egyptian concept of ma’at. The significant biblical consideration of the nature of God as creator deserves to be included amongst the major achievements of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yahweh as state god was quite able to be recognized and venerated alongside the complexity of Canaanite deities. For the most part, it seems that ‘state Yahwism’ in both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms was fairly relaxed about syncretism. The divinity who was aniconic and was represented by the ark could receive representation as a bull at the national shrines at Bethel and Dan265 and as a bronze serpent in the Temple.266 Israel’s faith belongs fairly unselfconsciously within this environment. Beyond that, the ‘lonely Yahweh’ was on occasions worshipped with a partner ‘Asherah’. This appears to be the implication of the archaeological inscriptions recovered from Kuntillet Ajrud dating to c. 800 BCE which refer to ‘Yahweh of Samaria and his Ashera’ and ‘Yahweh of Teman and his Ashera’.267 It also suggests that there could be local manifestations of Yahweh, as there were of Baal. It has been pointed out by H.H. Schmid that the reforms under Hezekiah and Josiah which reveal what was being cleared out, if we take them as historically reliable, also reveal what had heretofore been taken for granted: The reports about Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s ‘reforms’ in any case permit wide-ranging conclusions to be drawn. The historical reliability of the notes concerned, once assumed, can be established in the following manner: Up as far as Hezekiah, Nehushtan whom the note after Numbers 21:9 expressly included within Yahweh-worship, had his undisputed place in the Temple at Jerusalem. Until Josiah’s time, Ba’al and Ashera had likewise been worshipped there – again apparently undisputedly (2 Kings 23:4). It was Josiah who was first to remove the horse and chariot of the sun set up by the kings of Judah within the context of the worship of Shamash which had been noted since Solomon’s time. The cult of the sun along with the cult of the stars as rooted out by Josiah (2 Kings 23:5) may not have been based on the enforced worship of Assyrian Gods but also on the then current form of Israelite religion. Similar things are true of the altar-worship common since Solomon’s time, which was obviously not rejected until that point, and there are numerous hints that what Hezekiah and Josiah achieved was very soon undone.268 The situation is summed up by R.K. Gnuse: ‘If the customs attacked by the Deuteronomistic Historians and the later prophets were truly part of Yahwism, then any modern attempt to contrast pre-exilic Yahwism with Canaanite religion is bogus.’269

264

See above, Chapter Six, s. I. 1 Kings 12:28–29. 266 Cf. Numbers 21:9. 267 J.A. Emerton, ‘New Light on Israelite Religion: The Implications of the Inscriptions from Kuntillet Ajrud’, ZAW 94 (1982): 2–20. See, also, Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 59–61. 268 Schmid, Altorientalische Welt in der alttestamentlichen Theologie, 48f. 269 Gnuse, No Other Gods, 193. 265

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Probably typical of Judah at this period is an example of the liberal Canaanite perspective on the public practice of religion, aimed at promoting healthy universal order and prosperity. It is evidenced by the existence of the monumental temple complex at Tel Moza, with its courtyard and altar of unhewn field stones. Just four miles northwest of Jerusalem, it existed from c. 900 BCE until the end of the monarchy. Like the Jerusalem Temple it probably found space for the worship of a variety of gods. This temple is not to be understood as an anomaly, but rather ‘must have existed throughout most of the Iron II period as part of the official, royally sanctioned religious construct’.270 The purpose of the temple, integral to the thriving of an agricultural economy, has been put this way: The community maintaining the granaries at Tel Moza depended on agricultural success for their livelihood (i.e., ample rainfall, fertility of the land, and a bountiful harvest) and likely sought it out by worship of the god(s). The construction of a central cult place with regulated worship dedicated to this purpose is a natural progression for a growing community. According to this premise, when the site’s function as a granary intensified, a temple was constructed to ensure economic success.271 It is, however, important to remember that we were able to date the ‘Song of Moses’ celebrating the Exodus rescue and the march of the redeemed in Exodus 15 to the early period of the monarchy. Alongside the political and religious institutions that Judah/Israel shared with mainstream Canaanite culture was a seed of difference. No doubt there was a silent minority that continued to practise monolatry as part of their Yahwistic discipline, without questioning the existence and validity of the other polytheistic gods. It is likely that, at this period, the Exodus traditions were more strongly rooted in the Northern Kingdom. The silence is broken in the Northern Kingdom by Elijah. There he confronts Ahab (ruled 874–853 BCE ) and Queen Jezebel. Jezebel was a Tyrian princess and devotee of its god Ba’al-Shamen, whose cause, with its guild of prophets, she promoted in the Northern Kingdom. This leads to a bloody showdown following the contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:17–40). Elijah is described by Wellhausen as ‘a bird whose song heralds the coming of the morning’. However, it is difficult to discern how much of subsequent issues has been read back into the account by the Deuteronomistic editors. Whatever the actual circumstances, this was clearly a case of differentiation and not convergence. There was a profound incompatibility between Yahweh and Ba’al, but it does not seem to extend to a root-and-branch demand to remove the golden calves, the asherim or even the local baalim. Gnuse comments: ‘This has led critical scholars to conclude that Elijah, Elisha and Jehu engaged in a crusade only to exclude foreign deities, and their actions were more nationalistic in focus than a monotheistic reform movement.’272 It may be that we have to understand this profound incompatibility between Yahweh and Ba’al in the context of the claim to divine kingship. M.S. Smith makes an interesting observation: ‘In comparison, Yahweh in ancient Israel and Ba’al at Ugarit were both outsider warrior gods who stood second in rank to El, but they eventually overshadowed him in power.’273 J.C. de Moor even claims to see a parallel with Yahweh worship in a

Shua Kisilevitz and Oded Lipschits, ‘Another Temple in Judah! The Tale of Tel Moza’, Biblical Archaeology Review 46, no. 1 (2020): 41. 271 Ibid., 48. 272 Gnuse, No Other Gods, 202. 273 Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism, 144. 270

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‘Ba’al only’ movement in Egypt, under the Hyksos king Apophis.274 However, in the reconfiguration of divine authority Yahweh and El are identified, whereas Ba’al usurps the place of El. De Moor discerns a ‘crisis of polytheism’ in Egypt and Mesopotamia brought about by the emergence of the concept of a ‘king of the gods’. By analogy with the unity of the earthly kingdom forged by the strength of the human monarch, it envisaged a single powerful god as responsible for the order of creation. It represents a perspective which is driving towards recognizing the creator as ‘the only god that matters’ and marginalizing the lesser deities. This crisis is already evident in Egypt in the late Bronze Age and typified by Pharaoh Akenhaten’s ‘experiment’.275 The ‘crisis of polytheism’ in Canaan he sees as something different. The Ugaritic texts, he argues, disclose an emerging contest for power between El and Ba’al. This becomes in Canaan a local struggle for divine kingship. It resolves itself in such a way that ‘Ba’al appears to have carried the victory in northern Canaan’,276 whilst ‘a somewhat different development may be assumed for southern Canaan. If we disregard for the moment the Israelite evidence, it is fairly certain that El remained an important god in Palestine and Transjordans.’277 We may have, therefore, something of a ‘clash of the Titans’ at the time of Elijah. Ba’al’s kingship was for Elijah utterly incompatible with that of Yahweh, who could nonetheless happily be identified with El. Yahweh alone, therefore, could be recognized as the high god in contest with Ba’al.

IV THE LATER MONARCHY The second phase of monarchy opening in the eighth century takes us to a quite different place. The international scene has completely changed and the vultures wing their way across the sky. The situation is neatly summed up by W. McKane: From the time that Israel was exposed to the Assyrian menace in the eighth century BC , the old world in which she had existed – a world which had been small and relatively secure – had passed away for ever and she had to confront a perilous and uncertain existence in a much larger world dominated by the struggle for power among the great nations.278 Judah and Israel were now pawns in a much bigger game. They were of little consequence to Assyria and, subsequently, Babylon, except as trophies. The great powers were in the driving seat and those who led them claimed their gods as the bestowers of destiny. It was not so with the eighth-century prophets and their successors. They believed that Yahweh was the ‘king of the gods’ or divine king. It was Yahweh who filled the space of that divine presence identified within the Ancient Near East as the ‘only god who really mattered’. The prophets insisted that it was neither Asshur nor, later, Marduk, who was

De Moor, The Rise of Yahwism, 76. Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV), 1350–1334 BCE , introduced a monotheistic cult of the sun-disc or Aten into Ancient Egypt. The famous ‘Hymn to Aten’ extols the deity as creator and sole-god. The ‘Amarna experiment’ emphasizes the crisis of polytheism brought about by the concept of the ‘king of the gods’. 276 De Moor, The Rise of Yahwism, 76. 277 Ibid., 77. 278 W. McKane, Prophets and Wise Men (London: SCM Press, 1965), 126. 274 275

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in control of world history; it was Yahweh. Their faith in that one reality could not be shaken by events. It was of the essence of Yahwistic faith that the kingship of God worked itself out in the events of history. When the prophets scanned world events, they did not see simply casual and meaningless fluctuations; they read a divine will. The way international events were configured represented Yahweh’s decision. In the threatening nature of international affairs they could only see divine judgement and bitter divine remorse. Divine judgement on wickedness: ‘We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practise deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals’ (Amos 8:5–6). Divine remorse: ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth’ (Amos 3:2). The prophets did not see Judah and Israel caught up in a tsunami of random international political events. They saw the punishment of God directed against his ailing people. That was the only way they could read the signs in the light of their faith in Yahweh as creator of the world and author of historical events. It led to a quite terrible anguish of heart. Was God really turning against his people?279 Was there anything they could do to avoid it? The very status quo of creation theology underwritten by divine fiat was being reconfigured. It called forth the theological analogy of ‘covenant’ to express a conditional relationship between Yahweh and his people. It seems that every one of the pre-exilic prophets, as astute observers of international events, became convinced that the burning wick would be extinguished. They foresaw the end. It is in that context that Julius Wellhausen insists ‘The prophets had been the spiritual destroyers of the old Israel . . . the prophets confronted the nation with an ideal to which it did not correspond.’280 In 722 Judah watched the extinction of Israel, and the Assyrians subsequently laid waste the cities of Judah and boasted of containing Hezekiah in Jerusalem ‘like a bird in a cage’.281 God had turned against his people not simply in reprimand, not even that a remnant should return, but in totality. They were brought to the gates of death: ‘The end has come upon my people Israel’ (Amos 8:2b). The profound rupture over which the prophets were called to preside cannot be overstated. It was the end of the creation theology of the Ancient Near East as it had been understood. The deity no longer unconditionally guaranteed the existence of the state. It broke the continuum between the divine and the created order. God was so other that he could abandon his people: The silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern. — Ecclesiastes 12:6 The strange thing was that, once more against all of the canons of the Ancient Near East, the prophets continued to articulate a hope. It had to be nothing less than a hope beyond death. If God was God, then there could be a fresh order of things, a new covenant, even a new creation. However, none of that could happen, they were convinced, until death had imposed the silence of the grave and the old order had passed away. The prophet Hosea ministered in the Northern Kingdom in its last decades which led to its demise and the destruction of Samaria by Shalmaneser V in 722 BCE . In the

279

The parallel with the grief of God in the Flood narrative where God repents that he has made human beings is palpable (Genesis 6:6). 280 ‘Israel’, in appendix to Prolegomena, 491. 281 ANET, 288.

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judgement of E. Nicholson, a major significance of Hosea is that he is the one who first articulates the concept of covenant; this underlines the significance of his ministry in the developing distinctiveness of Israel’s faith. It is often pointed out that in him we meet for the first time a robust public expression of the ‘Yahweh alone’ movement.282 Hosea certainly expresses in an unsurpassed tenderness the love of Yahweh for Israel in the events of the Exodus: When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. . . . Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms. . . . I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them. — Hosea 11:1–4 That sense of God’s radical love, like a marriage or a covenant, demands a radical response. While not denying the existence of other gods, Hosea condemns syncretism. This includes the worship of the golden calves (Hosea 8:5–6; 10:5–6; 13:2), presented as the equivalent of adultery (Hosea 4:12), and the breaking of the covenant (Hosea 6:7). In utter contrast to his tenderness, there is a harshness, even brutality, about the judgement which he consequently proclaims: So I will become like a lion to them, like a leopard I will lurk beside the way. I will fall upon them like a bear robbed of her cubs, and will tear open the covering of their heart; there I will devour them like a lion, as a wild animal would mangle them. — Hosea 13: 7–8 One can only understand the level of pictorial violence for which Hosea reaches in the light of the events which he foresaw and became increasingly convinced could not be prevented. An archaeological report gives us some indication of the finality of Samaria’s destruction: The excavations at Samaria carried out by the Harvard Expedition (1908–10) and the Joint Expedition (1931–1935) have brought to light evidence of the splendid architecture and fortifications of the Israelite city and also of its devastation by the Assyrians. A layer of ash covered its ruins, and in this were found many fragments of carved ivory, relics of the exotic decoration of the royal palace.283

Lang, Monotheism and the Prophetic Minority, 30: ‘In the period between the coup d’état of Jehu (841) and the appearance of the prophet Hosea (around 750) a religious movement comes into being in the northern kingdom which, following Morton Smith’s suggestion, can be called the “Yahweh-alone party”.’ Lang refers to Morton Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics that Shaped the Old Testament (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1971). 283 G.I. Davies, Hosea (Old Testament Guides) (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 19. 282

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It was not simply the punishment of Israel, but her death that Hosea correctly diagnosed and foresaw and had to try to interpret: When Ephraim spoke, there was trembling; he was exalted in Israel; but he incurred guilt through Ba’al and died. — Hosea 13:1 Is there a hope in Hosea? Somehow he has to find an expression of hope ‘beyond death’ and beyond all the normal theological levers of the Ancient Near East. It seems that Hosea is able to rework the traditions of Ba’al, the very threat to the integrity of Yahwism, to do just that. There is a prophetic reimagination of great ingenuity, which amounts to a significant theological breakthrough, described by J. Day in this way: ‘the imagery of death and resurrection in Hosea (both in chs. 5–6 and 13–14), which likewise refers to Israel’s exile and restoration, is directly taken over by the prophet from the imagery of the dying and rising fertility god, Baal.’284 Day’s point is that Hosea 5 to 6 and 13 to 14 allude to Israel’s death and resurrection. A real death is envisaged which requires not simply healing but genuine life beyond death. Day can adduce significant parallels in concept and vocabulary with the Ba’al cult. The following is an indication: For Hosea it is not Baal who dies and rises but Israel who dies through worshipping Baal, followed, if repentant, by resurrection. In keeping with this Hosea 6:3 associates Israel’s resurrection with the rain (‘he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth’), and Hosea 14:6 (ET5) likewise mentions the dew as bringing about renewed fertility in Israel (‘I will be as the dew to Israel . . .’). This is striking, since in the Ugaritic Baal myth we read that Baal took the rain and two of the dew goddesses with him when he went into the underworld, and it is implied that they reappeared when he rose again.285 Hosea’s prophetic message fractures the theology of the Ancient Near East; absolute transcendence is frighteningly identified. He is the first to chart the new potential of a re-formed faith that has literally passed through the depths of Sheol. The distance between God and his people cannot be measured; it is severed by death. The articulation of any way forward from what appears to be a dead end requires a quantum leap of theological imagination. It requires the ability to hope beyond hope. Hosea finds a new language and a new dimension of reflection upon God’s steadfastness by a radical and utterly unconventional reworking of the resurrection imagery of the dying and rising god that he so disdained. A not dissimilar analysis of the state of affairs with Israel’s sister Judah is the burden of the prophetic message of Isaiah of Jerusalem, who was the younger contemporary of Hosea. Although there may be a reading back of a later perspective into Isaiah’s call, the significance of the words is clear:

284 Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 117. See also idem, ‘Hosea and the Baal Cult’, in Prophecy and the Prophets in Ancient Israel, ed. J. Day (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2014), 202–24. 285 Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 120.

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Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate.’ — Isaiah 6:11 When Isaiah contemplates the utter transcendence of God turning so radically against his people he can only reflect: For the Lord will rise up as on Mount Perazim, he will rage as in the valley of Gibeon to do his deed – strange is his deed! – and to work his work – alien is his work! — Isaiah 28:21 Perhaps Isaiah’s final word is contained in an oracle which may be his response to the jubilation of Jerusalem’s inhabitants in their relief that they have escaped the devastation of the other cities of Judah at the hands of the Assyrians. For Isaiah, it is an utterly inappropriate and heartless reaction. They have not understood: In that day the Lord God of hosts called to weeping and mourning, to baldness and putting on sackcloth; but instead there was joy and festivity, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: surely this iniquity will not be forgiven until you die, says the Lord God of hosts. — Isaiah 22:12–14 The prophet Isaiah was nurtured by the Zion election traditions relating to Jerusalem and its Temple, rather than the Exodus election traditions of which his oracles show no awareness. This seems to indicate that the impact of the Exodus on the Temple traditions is late, despite the ‘Song of Moses’ itself being likely evidence of a Jerusalem psalm of the early monarchy. This would suggest the original entry of the Exodus traditions into Israelite religious identity is of a northern Israelite provenance. Isaiah’s context may well be at something of a cusp, as with the fall of Samaria, King Hezekiah (c. 715–687 BCE ) was faced with a substantial movement of refugees to Jerusalem. They no doubt brought with them the emphasis of the Exodus faith of the Northern Kingdom, which, consequently, would have been reinvigorated in Judah. The reign of Hezekiah is credited with a reform programme (2 Kings 18:3–4; cf. 2 Chronicles 29 to 31) but details in 2 Kings are scant. One can only speculate as to whether Hezekiah’s adventurous foreign policy activities display similar aspirations for a theologically inspired destiny for Judah as those of Josiah, but were curtailed by the Assyrians. Other commentators are less inclined to surmise: ‘Only the destruction of the Nehushtan, a snake-shaped cultic image traced back to none

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other than Moses (cf. Num 21:9), can really be attributed to Hezekiah, though details can no longer be discerned.’286 The burden of the prophet Micah brings us a similar message from the same period as Isaiah of Jerusalem: Therefore because of you Zion shall be ploughed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height. — Micah 3:12

V THE TEMPORARY RENAISSANCE OF KING JOSIAH A glorious but false dawn broke upon Judah in the reign of Josiah (640–609 BCE ), who came to the throne as a boy of eight. It was a period that contributed significantly to the theological evolution of Hebrew religion. The signs of new opportunity were read in the waning power of Assyria, due to internal and external threats, in the final years of the last great monarch, Ashurbanipal (668–631 BCE ). As early as 630 BCE the grip of Assyria was gradually releasing from her far-flung vassal territories which enabled new opportunity for Egyptian enterprise and a new flicker of national ambition for Judah. Subsequent events led on to the destruction of the ceremonial centre, Aššur (614 BCE ), and the fall of the capital city, Nineveh (612 BCE ). Josiah seems to have aspired to a realm driven by a renewed Davidic dream. A ‘monoYahwism’ was rigorously pursued, in which the theological vision underwrote political ambition. There was a lively assertion of the national religion of Yahweh. Josiah purged all non-Yahweh cults, from the Jerusalem Temple to the hill shrines. The corresponding opportunity was seized to reconfigure ‘one Israel’ and to incorporate the former Northern Kingdom under the royal rule of Jerusalem. Josiah desecrated the altars and high places at Bethel and in the towns of Samaria without ambiguity: He slaughtered on the altars all the priests of the high places who were there, and burned human bones on them. — 2 Kings 23:20 It is evident that the momentum of religious reform inspired by ‘Yahweh only’ coincided with national ambition. There seemed the opportunity to throw off the yoke of vassaldom for which political and religious identity were inseparable. Josiah’s sense of destiny as a player on the international scene is evident in his riding out to intercept Pharaoh Necho’s army on its way to fan the dying embers of Assyrian imperial power. Circumstances had delivered both a moment of religious evolution and a window of political opportunity. The context is neatly summarized by I. Finkelstein:

Walter Dietrich, ‘1 and 2 Kings’, in The Oxford Bible Commentary, ed. J. Barton and J. Muddiman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 260.

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The withdrawal of Assyria from the region in the second half of the seventh century brought about a change in the geopolitical situation. Much of the area which had been dominated by the Assyrians was now ruled by the 26th dynasty in Egypt. Judah and Egypt – each with its own goals of territorial expansion and golden-age ideology – were now on a collision course. The Exodus story, especially the victory of YHWH over the pharaoh of Egypt, served well the ideology of Judah in the days of King Josiah, as a fable about the past and a prediction of the future.287 The significance of the Exodus memory was vigorously celebrated in the keeping of Passover as a pilgrim feast in Jerusalem (2 Kings 23:23). We may trace to Josiah the initiation of the momentum which eventually leads to the institutionalizing of Israel’s epic identity in the Temple festivals. The spring festivities of Passover, as enshrining Israel’s rescue at sea, were set to eclipse the significance of the ingathering of the harvest and the related autumn celebration of the divine victory over sea. We have already noted the current scholarly debate about the literary tradition identified by Wellhausen as J, dated by him to the eighth century. It was given a high date by von Rad, who identified a ‘Solomonic enlightenment’. In more recent scholarship, fallen from grace, it has been labelled non-P and given a post-priestly (i.e. post-exilic) date.288 K. Schmid summarizes the current dilemma: The non-Priestly components of the Primeval History (Genesis 1–11) are among the best-known texts of the Old Testament. . . . As regards their location within literary history they are likewise among the most difficult to place. The reason for the present uncertainty amongst scholars, who are at odds regarding nearly all the non-Priestly texts as to whether they should be placed before or after the Priestly document, is associated above all with the crisis of the Yahwist hypothesis, which remains so severe that the assumption of a Yahwist historical work can no longer be taken as a starting point for the analysis.289 Pace Schmid, let us pursue the question: is it possible that an epic narrative could have developed within the period of the monarchy? If there were a Yahwist, could he have pioneered a connected narrative from the creation through Israel’s saving history within the period of the Davidic monarchy? The fundamental contradiction involved in a postexilic date for the J material is identified by J. Emerton: A more important question, however, is whether it is plausible to postulate a date for JE in the exilic or post-exilic period after the disaster of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile. There is no hint of disaster such as may be found in Deuteronomy and the Holiness Code, and it is not easy to reconcile the atmosphere of JE with the hypothesis that it was written . . . after a national disaster.290 The classic expression of J’s sense of Israel’s destiny is to be found in Genesis 12:1–4. It is the passage which connects the universality of God as creator with the call of Abraham and the specific history of Israel. The royal blessing form conferred on Abraham announces

287

Finkelstein, ‘The Wilderness Narrative’, 49. See above, Chapter Six, s. III. 289 K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 155–6. 290 J.A. Emerton, ‘The Date of the Yahwist’, in In Search of Pre-Exilic Israel, ed. J. Day (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2005), 127. 288

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that the prosperity of Abraham’s offspring will overflow to the extent that: ‘In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ That optimistic assessment of Israel’s place in the world reflects a time when political hopes were riding high and there were expectations of the nation being a significant player on the international scene. The reign of Josiah provides just such a context. If we allow that it was the narrative tradition associated with J that prefaced the story of creation to an account of salvation history, we might speculate that it could crystallize in the reign of Josiah. Such a development could not have taken place until after the ministry of the eighth-century prophets had enabled the birth of the concept of covenant and opened the way to the development of a consciousness of a national epic identity. It was precisely in Josiah’s reign that the Passover emerges as crucial to the national identity, with its insistence on the providence of God in Judah-Israel’s story. It is probably the earliest moment that we might envisage the emergence of a salvation history portrait of Israel’s story, which becomes fixed in the consciousness of the post-exilic traditions. The evidence, in the optimism of J, does seem to point to this time. Forthcoming events were substantially to replace the openness and optimism that could be sustained during the reign of Josiah with a certain darkness and foreboding. New circumstances would demand a preoccupation with the confession of guilt and the grit and determination to cling to a precarious sense of religious and cultural identity.

VI BEYOND THE END Hopes were dashed in a brutal fashion. Josiah’s attempt to head off Pharaoh Necho ended in battle near Megiddo (609 BCE ) in which Josiah was slain and his body carried back in his chariot for burial in Jerusalem. The power vacuum was to be short-lived with the rise of Babylon, Assyria’s combative twin. The Babylonian Empire proved no less determined to assert its grip. The spiral of Judah’s extinction was resumed. The prophetic message continued to predict the unthinkable, that Yahweh was not only the author of the dreadful events but would see them through to the bitter end. Josiah’s son, Jehoahaz, who succeeded him, was replaced within three months by his younger brother, Jehoiakim, on the authority of the Egyptian pharaoh. However, the authority to make vassal kings soon passed to Babylon, against which Jehoiakim rebelled. Retaliation fell on his successor, Jehoiachin. The first siege and capture of Jerusalem took place in 598 BCE . Jehoiachin and the skilled of the population were deported: ‘No one remained, except the poorest people of the land’ (2 Kings 24:14). Jehoiachin’s uncle, Zedekiah, was placed upon the throne. He, likewise, could not resist trying to throw off the Babylonian yoke which led to the final catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 587 BCE and the extinction of the state of Judah. A further section of the population was carried into exile. Throughout this period we glean from the book of Jeremiah that the prophet predicted only disaster. That message finds a focus in the arrest of Jeremiah in ‘the court of the Lord’s house’ with the accusation: Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without inhabitant?’ — Jeremiah 26:9

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Following the initial deportation to Babylon, Jeremiah is unable to see a chink of hope for the remaining population. He has a vision of two baskets of figs. One contains ripe and juicy fruit and the other contains fruit too rotten to eat (Jeremiah 24:1–10). The first represents the exiled community and the second the lingering state of Judah under Zedekiah. Yet, there is the same stubborn hope in Jeremiah, based on God’s faithfulness, that we encountered in the eighth-century prophets. The book of Jeremiah carries the tradition that, at the very moment Jerusalem was being besieged by Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah redeems a family field at Anathoth (Jeremiah 32:6–15). There is hope not in the deferral of extinction, but beyond it: The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. . . . I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. — Jeremiah 31:31–33b The priest and prophet Ezekiel handles the final moments of the state of Judah in a similar way to Jeremiah. He is among the first group of exiles taken into captivity: ‘In the period between his call and the second deportation, Ezekiel prophesies that further disaster is yet to come. He does this at least partly through the medium of enacted prophecies. For example, he enacts the conditions of a siege (ch. 4), and in ch. 5 he cuts off all his hair and manipulates it in rather elaborate ways.’291 Not surprisingly as a priest, Ezekiel has a particular preoccupation with the Jerusalem Temple and its cult. In chs 8 to 11 he is transported to Jerusalem in the spirit. He sees the glory of God residing in the Temple, he is shown the syncretistic activities taking place in the Temple including a jealousy-provoking statue and God speaks: Mortal, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations that the house of Israel are committing here, to drive me far from my sanctuary? — Ezekiel 8:6 This is followed by a vision of slaughter in Jerusalem and finally the departure of the divine glory from the Temple. It seems that the ‘good figs’ for Ezekiel, as for Jeremiah, are the exiles who have been through the curtain of death. The hope articulated by Ezekiel is beyond that curtain. That hope is never better exemplified than in the vision of the ‘Valley of Dry Bones’ (Ezekiel 37:1–11). The parable begins with the reality of ‘the end’ – a valley of dismembered dry bones emptied of every shred of the vitality of life. God puts the question to Ezekiel: ‘Can these bones live?’ The prophet is ordered to prophesy life and witnesses a moment of resurrection. God then pronounces the interpretation: Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. — Ezekiel 37:11 Doubtless, that Israel as an entity survived the extinction of the state and the destruction of the Temple is in large measure due to the canonical prophets. They had been able to present the catastrophe of double annihilation as the vindication of Yahweh’s righteousness rather than the public exhibition of his powerlessness. In the process they had to become Henry McKeating, Ezekiel (Old Testament Guides) (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 25.

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‘the spiritual destroyers of the old Israel’. The righteousness of God did not simply build and plant, but also challenged and overthrew. It was the prophets who were able to present to the Judaean exiles their plight not as Yahweh’s failure, but as evidence of that interval between God and his creation which exemplifies transcendence. It is that interval which demands totally new concepts involving a radically fresh initiative, a new covenant and a calling-into-being of that which was dead. There has to be truly a creation out of nothing. One of the first fruits of the stirring of faith beyond the snuffing out of state, Temple and monarchy is probably the book of Deuteronomy. Since the time of de Wette,292 Deuteronomy has been associated with the ‘book of the law’ referred to in 2 Kings 22:8 in the context of inspiring Josiah’s reforms. However, recent scholarship has tended to question the association being made in that way. It is summarized by R.E. Clements: ‘There are undoubtedly some who would view the law book as the product of Josiah’s reform rather than its presupposition, and there are certain features which should point our thinking towards seeing a substantial element of truth in this conclusion.’293 E.W. Nicholson294 has argued that the crucial verses in the account of Josiah’s reform that align the reform with Deuteronomy’s insistence on a single central sanctuary at Jerusalem, namely, 2 Kings 23:8a and 23:9, are most likely the result of Deuteronomistic editing. Once the verses are thus understood, the reform of Josiah is decoupled from any dependence upon the book of Deuteronomy in some form or other. It can be seen clearly in the context of the king’s aspiration to seize the opportunity to reassert the national identity. The book of Deuteronomy can consequently be placed within the perspective of the exile: I offer a reconsideration of the provenance of Deuteronomy. This calls for a fresh assessment of the character and leading features of the book: its ardent and urgent style – exhorting, cautioning, promising, threatening – which suggests a background of crisis; its pervasive preoccupation with ‘encroachment’, the lure of the worship of other gods, generated and encouraged, it seems, not by foreigners but from within the Israelite community itself; its fervent and persistent summons ‘remember’, ‘do not forget’, suggesting a community whose cultural identity is imperilled; its encapsulation in a book of the founding events of Israel as the people of YHWH, a written ‘torah’, a ‘scripture’, to be taken to heart, learned by heart, taught to the children, meditated upon day and night, given visible signs by body-marking, symbolically displayed on the doorpost of homes, publically published and made perennially accessible. Here, it seems, ancestral religion is no longer something that is socially inherited, natural, as it were, and taken for granted. Rather, circumstances have arisen which threaten its continuance, and Israel is confronted with a choice upon which its very survival depends; that is, the relationship with YHWH is now conceived of as a covenant. The case I seek to make . . . is that the exilic period, among the Judaean exiles in Babylonia, is the most likely setting in which such leading concerns and features of Deuteronomy emerged.295

292

W.M.L. de Wette, ‘Dissertatio critica-exegetica’ (Doctoral dissertation, University of Jena, 1805); reprinted in Opuscula (Berlin, 1833). 293 Clements, Deuteronomy, 72. 294 Nicholson, Deuteronomy and the Judean Diaspora. 295 Ibid., 10.

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In commenting on the provision of kingship as envisaged in Deuteronomy 17:18–20, J.J. Collins has noted: ‘The Book of Deuteronomy, while it did not question the legitimacy of the kingship, repudiated much of the traditional royal ideology. Instead, it envisioned a king who would be subject to the Torah.’296 In that, Deuteronomy is already reflecting the exile and beyond for which changed political and religious circumstances called forth fresh thinking. One outcome was a new model expressed in separated royal and priestly leadership (cf. Zechariah 4:11–14). If Deuteronomy is to be understood as bearing the influence of Josiah’s energetic initiatives, this is to be found in its preoccupation with the oneness of Israel and the oneness of Israel’s God. The mono-Yahwism of Josiah’s reforms is of the essence of the Deuteronomic demand. There is to be one central sanctuary. The Shema is set to become the very foundation of Jewish religion: Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. — Deuteronomy 6:4 There is a single obligation put upon Israel: The Lord your God you shall fear; him you shall serve, and by his name alone you shall swear. — Deuteronomy 6:13 It is with the book of Deuteronomy that we reach the essentials of salvation history. Deuteronomy provides us with the oldest version of the Ten Commandments, which open: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. — Deuteronomy 5:6 With great clarity it gives us exemplary expression of monolatry, which is a crucial clue to the seriousness now demanded of Israel’s commitment to her God. The commitment is directly linked as response to God’s gracious act in history in the Exodus rescue. That event, as we noted above, has stamped its identity on the combined feast of Passover and Unleavened Bread in the Deuteronomic calendar (Deuteronomy 16:1–17). It is clearly identified as an anniversary date of an historical event: ‘Observe the month of Abib by keeping the passover to the Lord your God, for in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night’ (16:1). The calendar of salvation history events stretches from the release from Egypt to the gift of the land: ‘The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey’ (26:8–9). The mighty events also include the episode of the forty years of wandering in the wilderness: ‘I have led you forty years in the wilderness. The clothes on your back have not worn out, and the sandals on your feet have not worn out’ (29:5).

J.J. Collins, ‘The Nature of Messianism in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context, ed. T.H. Lim et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 206.

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The election of Israel is affirmed: ‘For you are a people holy to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession’ (Deuteronomy 7:6). That election is of the essence of the special relationship sealed with the covenant: ‘These are the words of the covenant that the Lord commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant that he had made with them at Horeb’ (29:1). The covenant is now placed firmly in a conditional context: ‘All who hear the words of this oath and bless themselves, thinking in their hearts, “We are safe even though we go our own stubborn ways.” . . . The Lord will single them out from all the tribes of Israel for calamity, in accordance with all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law’ (29:19–21). The obligations are mutual. The conditions of the covenant are spelt out in the Torah which Israel is to observe as the sign of her fidelity: ‘These are the statutes and ordinances that you must diligently observe in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to occupy all the days that you live on the earth’ (12:1). Covenantal nomism is firmly established. In order to make fully the transition from monolatry to monotheism we need to consider one further voice of the exile, the prophet Deutero-Isaiah. Further, it is with Trito-Isaiah that the potential for the radical future, honed by the prophets, is finally named. The Ancient Near Eastern vision was constrained by looking backwards to the return of the ‘first time’.297 This has been captured by H. Frankfort with reference to Ancient Egypt: ‘In a static world, creation is the only event that really matters supremely, since it alone can be said to have made a change.’298 In the final section of the book of Isaiah attention turns to the radical future. Definitive expression is given to a new creation, which opens up the limitless possibility of God’s new thing.

297

The ‘first time’ was one of the ways that Ancient Egypt referred to the creation. Frankfort, Ancient Egyptian Religion, 50.

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Hebrew Ethical Monotheism I CONTRASTING PROCESSIONAL WAYS The impressive grandeur of the processional way in Ancient Babylon still awes the visitor who finds their way to the reconstruction in the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin. Brick fragments from the ashes of history have been carefully and lovingly reassembled. The beautifully worked fired tiles, the enamelled finish burnished with vivid colours, the proud marching lions which signify imperial majesty, these convey more than an echo of the glory of Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar II. The original avenue 21 metres wide (70 feet) stretched for half a mile with sixty lions on either side: the avenue was known as Aibur-shabu: ‘the enemy shall never pass’. ‘This was the route along which at the New Year festival Marduk was carried from his temple Esagila through the Ishtar Gate to the Akitu temple outside the city.’299 We may imagine, too, the scene on the eleventh and final day of the festival as the crowds witnessed the grand procession returning to Babylon with Marduk, accompanied by a family of idols, priests in their finery and the king himself: ‘By the time the parade reached Babylon’s gorgeously decorated gates, almost everyone had left the city to reenter triumphantly, the fertility of the next year assured, the power of Marduk reaffirmed, and the king secure on his throne.’300 Little effort of imagination is needed to conjure up the great excitement as religious carnival honoured the Babylonian gods as the patrons of world empire. The celebration of Marduk, city god of Babylon, as the one responsible for imposing the order of the universe, carried all the validity and unassailable evidence of the global extent of subjugated peoples and regions. On the fourth day of the New Year festival Marduk’s deeds in creation were recited from the text Enuma Elish (‘When on high’), which has survived from antiquity. It culminated with the annunciation of his fifty names. He was honoured as first of the gods: Abiding is his [i.e. Marduk’s] command and unchangeable his word, what his mouth spoke no god will change. If he looks (in anger), he does not turn his neck,[301] when he is provoked, no god can withstand his anger. His heart is unfathomable and his purpose is broad.302

H.W.F. Saggs, Babylonians (London: British Museum Press, 1995), 167. Time-Life Books, Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1995), 130. 301 I.e. does not change his mind. 302 Enuma Elish, Tablet VII, 151–5, in S.N. Kramer, Enki and Ninhursag: A Sumerian ‘Paradise’ Myth (New Haven, CT: American School of Oriental Research, 1945). Translation from Beyerlin, ed., Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 84. 299 300

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Those Hebrews who witnessed such festivity, without a song in their heart, could but reflect that they were part of the evidence adduced by the Babylonians of Marduk’s ability to bend the world to his will. Such was the backdrop of the ministry of Deutero-Isaiah, the prophet to the exiles responsible for Isaiah 40 to 55, who is most often credited with the breakthrough to monotheism. Marduk, like the other deities of the Ancient Near East responsible for the ordering of the world, was honoured as ‘king of the gods’. The analogy of kingship was driving him to be one of the candidates for ‘the only god that mattered’. There is evidence in the lines quoted from Enuma Elish of the outcome of that ‘crisis of polytheism’ referred to by de Moor303 when the other gods are simply dismissed: ‘no god can withstand his anger’. The Ancient Near East, and, within it, cosmopolitan Babylon, was reaching towards a breakthrough to monotheism. Yet, for its actual achievement, we are interrogating a Hebrew prophet to a battered exilic community and not one of the priest-philosophers of Marduk. The question which has to be raised is: to what extent was the breakthrough to monotheism which is associated with the Hebrew prophet of the exile in some way enabled by his Babylonian context? Is it more than coincidence that the breakthrough occurs in cosmopolitan Babylon to which many roads brought fresh ideas to a place that had become ‘the navel of civilization’? It is often pointed out that the Jewish exile in Babylonia seems to coincide with one of those kairos moments when the world’s imagination was leaping. That potential has been captured by R.K. Gnuse: Israel was an important part of a dynamic intellectual advance which was occurring across the ancient world, from China to Egypt. This great intellectual movement in the civilised centers of the Old World has been called the ‘Axial Age’ by modern authors, who have analyzed the social, religious, philosophical and technological breakthroughs of that age. Monotheism was one of the great intellectual elements which emerged in that world-wide process. Second Isaiah was part of that advance. Heir to a great Israelite tradition, living in cosmopolitan Babylon where he was surrounded by intellectual currents flowing in from all over the world, he and other Jews were capable of a quantum leap in their religious synthesis. Thus, in that maelstrom of ideas and religious pieties Judaism was born and the breakthrough to monotheism occurred. We must learn to appreciate that their advance was part of a much wider human development also.304 The idea of an ‘Axial Age’ has been much challenged.305 Certainly we cannot deny that varied intellectual currents may have influenced Deutero-Isaiah’s alert mind searching for understanding in a Babylonian context: ‘No man is an island’. It was impossible that he could live and minister in Babylon without constantly reflecting on the predicament of his community in the context of the pageants and events he witnessed and the ideas that were circulating. The fierceness of his dialogue forms directed at his own community reflects the vigour of the argument and debate that was going on, which must, for many, have been tinged with bitterness verging on despair. However, if Babylon was a ferment of

303 De Moor, The Rise of Yahwism, 99: ‘It is justified to speak of a crisis of polytheism which reverberated all over the ancient world.’ He refers to the second half of the second millennium. 304 Gnuse, No Other Gods, 210. 305 I.W. Provan, Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion and the World That Never Was (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013).

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monotheistic potential, we must return to the basic conundrum: ‘Why are we interrogating a Hebrew prophet?’ It is of some consequence that the major source of hope articulated by Deutero-Isaiah is indeed based on a journey along a processional way. However, the journey is not along the sacred way through the gate of Ishtar, with the guardian lions. It is, rather, a way through the wilderness that separates Babylon from Jerusalem. The hills are to be threshed306 and the valleys raised up, expressed in the vocabulary of a massive engineering project that seems to anticipate the skill of Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’ — Isaiah 40:3–5 The processional way conceived by the prophet leaves even the splendour of Babylon’s ceremonial avenue dwarfed. His vision represents a reconfiguration and prophetic reapplication of the New Year festival as it was celebrated at the Jerusalem Temple before the exile. It is a massively bold and imaginative piece of prophetic engineering to dare in the Babylonian context. The ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’, as we identified it in Jerusalem during the monarchy and as witnessed and interpreted by Isaiah of Jerusalem, becomes the grounds for the defiance of the mortal power of Nebuchadnezzar and the divine authority of Marduk. We recognize again that insight of G.I. Davies in connection with the underlying unity of the book of Isaiah: ‘Isaiah is above all the book of the prophetic reinterpretation of the Jerusalem cult traditions.’307 The fact that the Jerusalem Temple had been destroyed, its liturgical practice had become defunct, with the associated earthly kingship abolished, does not deter DeuteroIsaiah from his message. The message of the opening verses of Isaiah 40 is not of a Jerusalem Temple theology in ashes and the need for a new theological basis on which to proceed. Rather, the scales of cosmic justice have now been satisfied; Jerusalem ‘has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins’ (40:2b) and cosmic equilibrium can rebalance, enabling a return to the status quo with the holy city at the navel of the universe. The way that the Jerusalem New Year festival traditions are not simply incidental, but embedded in the prophet’s message, has been identified by John Day. He refers to the passage Isaiah 51:9-11 which recites the mythic battle drama between God and the sea: ‘This reference to the defeat of the dragon is not an isolated allusion in Deutero-Isaiah, but belongs to a wide nexus of motifs associated with the autumn festival in pre-exilic Israel which have greatly influenced his message, motifs connected with the theme of the kingship of God (cf. Is. 52:7, “Your God reigns”).’308 306

Isaiah 41:15–16. Davies, ‘The Destiny of the Nations’, 119. 308 Day, God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea, 92. 307

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The theme of the ‘kingship of God’, and, indeed, the crisis it announces for polytheism, is essential for understanding Deutero-Isaiah’s theological perspective. However, for him divine kingship can relate to no other divinity than Yahweh. Consequently, it is within the Hebrew traditions that we must look for the main source of the prophet’s monotheistic inspiration. For that prophet, ‘Your God reigns’ (Isaiah 52:7) spoke of Yahweh. He alone was the candidate for ‘the only God that mattered’.

II MYTHIC AND EPIC A feature of Deutero-Isaiah is that he holds within his single prophetic ministry the two poles of the mythic and the epic characteristics of Israel’s faith. Each had different, but convergent, pressures working towards monotheism.309 The former mythic model, as we have just observed, has a processional pattern corresponding to the divine Marduk of Babylon. The latter epic model is firmly part of Israel’s own faith traditions that are not part of the common stock of the Ancient Near East. The two journeys of the Divine Warrior and of the Redeemed are evident in Deutero-Isaiah’s argumentation. Unlike Isaiah of Jerusalem, the traditions of the Exodus are part of his toolbox. He is able to move in an agile intellectual way within a double framework which can harness the creation traditions of the Jerusalem Temple with their cosmic and universal perspective, as well as the Exodus traditions with their particular sense of history and event and the hand of providence in Israel’s story. It is a particular feature of Deutero-Isaiah that he works in a disciplined and structured way in the distinct shape or ‘form’ that he adopts for his oracles. He either adapts specific conventions from Temple practice or perhaps invents his own in an epic context. His practice is consistent such that certain forms can be identified as having a mythic application and others an epic application. They represent two ways of ‘doing theology’. It is helpful to consider these two traditions separately; in this instance they will be considered in reverse order taking the epic first and then the mythic. Before we consider the very specific ways in which Deutero-Isaiah applies the epic traditions in his oracles, we need to pay attention to the greater picture. As a prophet working within Israel’s epic context, he is the heir to an alternative tradition whose distinctive feature was monolatry (commitment to a single deity, although recognizing the existence of many). As we have already noted,310 the biblical patriarchal narrative assumes a period before Yahweh’s arrival on the scene, when the ‘god of the Fathers’ was identified with El. That such familial religion associated with pastoralist nomads was part of Israel’s make-up seems likely, even though it probably did not fit into tidy historical periods. It introduces us to the notion of exclusive familial bonds between a deity and his worshippers conceived as next-of-kin.311 Further, it does seem that, in a similar way, there would have been a strong bond of monolatry established by Mosaic Yahwism. The Exodus event was

309 The mythic model throughout the Ancient Near East was isolating the significance of the deity responsible for creation as the ‘king of the gods’. Israel’s epic tradition, as we note below, had the momentum of monolatry urging it towards monotheism. 310 See Chapter Seven, s. I. 311 Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 6 n. 10.

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a foundational experience of rescue which became the basis of a profound sense of adoption by Yahweh, not restricted to the generation of those who experienced it. It created a bond which was definitive for the future, as we noted above: It is, however, important to remember that we were able to date the ‘Song of Moses’ celebrating the Exodus rescue and the march of the redeemed in Exodus 15 to the early period of the monarchy. Alongside the political and religious institutions that Judah/Israel shared with mainstream Canaanite culture was a seed of difference. No doubt there was a silent minority that continued to practise monolatry as part of their Yahwistic discipline, without questioning the existence and validity of the other polytheistic gods. It is likely that, at this period, the Exodus traditions were more strongly rooted in the Northern Kingdom.312 From the time of the prophet Hosea onwards a vigorous ‘Yahweh only’ element in Israel’s life asserts itself. In the circumstances of the exile, it establishes itself as the norm within ‘Covenantal Yahwism’. It is evident that the epic stream within Israel’s religious life, despite the now well-established fact of acceptable syncretism during the monarchic period, contributed a steady impulse towards monolatry and, therefore, helped generate the momentum of monotheism. Exclusive loyalty to a single God had the potential to become exclusive loyalty to the one God. We must now turn to the epic tradition contained in Deutero-Isaiah’s own oracles. In the context of the epic approach, we must identify those forms which take as their basis for Yahweh’s exclusive claims the presupposition that as creator he is the sole author of the great sweep of history and political events. It is that vista, Deutero-Isaiah claims, which establishes his divinity as a singularity beyond all comparison. He has no equal. There are two technical forms involved in this category. These are usually identified as the trial speech and the disputation. The trial speech can be of two sorts, one in which the accusation is against Israel and the other against the nations and their gods.313 They take the form of a summons to trial (rîb), which gives them a somewhat polemical character. In terms of their legal origins, they represent a civil case which involves claims, counterclaims and a judgement. The case against Israel is in the tradition of the pre-exilic prophets, claiming that Israel’s exile is not about Yahweh’s inadequacy but is his deliberate sovereign act on account of Israel’s sin. The force of the argumentation is not to condemn Israel, but to justify what Yahweh has done and the situation in which the exiles find themselves. The case against the nations is in the tradition of the prophetic word: ‘It shall not return to me empty’ (Isaiah 55:11). It argues that the announcing of future events is the true test of deity, because only such a deity owns the sweep of history. Evidence of predictions fulfilled no doubt includes the exile (which connects with the case against Israel), but dwells on the foretelling of the victories of Cyrus, the Persian king. These are often presented in terms of the ‘former things’ and sometimes contrasted with the ‘new things’ or ‘things to come’. The ‘former things’ covers the sweep of Israel’s history which is presented as encompassed within the broad principle of prediction and fulfilment. In Isaiah 43:16–18 the ‘former things’ include specifically the Exodus, and in Isaiah 41:25–26 the initial prophecies concerning

312

See above, Chapter Seven, s. III. Examples of this form include: (i), against Israel, Isaiah 43:22–28; 50:1–3; and (ii), against the nations and their gods, Isaiah 41:1–5; 41:22–29; 43:8–13; 44:6–8; 45:20–25.

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Cyrus. It seems that Deutero-Isaiah identified the potential of Cyrus as the one to implement a new international order early in the latter’s military career and ahead of the obvious (cf. Isaiah 46:11). In this context of prediction and fulfilment, Israel’s role is simply to be Yahweh’s witness of the facts. They prove the deities of the nations ‘a delusion’ and ‘nothing’ (Isaiah 41:29), and Yahweh alone the master of events. The disputation does not contain a summons but is cast in similar argumentative mode to the former category. It establishes an agreed basis which engages the audience at the point of dispute and follows through with a logical deduction that challenges the pessimism of the exiles. This genre is unusual in bridging both the epic and the mythic categories. The disputations relating to Israel’s epic perspective take up the exact argumentation of the trial speech. That is, the prediction proof that confirms Yahweh’s sovereignty over history and his choice of Cyrus314 and the predicament of the exile as the deliberate work of Yahweh.315 Other disputations relating to the mythic perspective switch to take as their starting point the fact that Yahweh is the creator and relate the work of Cyrus to restoring the given cosmic order of creation rather than serving an historical context.316 The content of the initial disputations identified seems to envisage the whole sweep of salvation history. Such a scope of prediction, it is claimed, places the deity in a unique category without peer: I am God, and there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done. — Isaiah 46:9b–10 Within this disputation form we seem to encounter a quantum leap of prophetic imagination. God’s creative act invades the present with something radically new: From this time forward I make you hear new things, hidden things that you have not known. They are created now, not long ago; Before today you have never heard of them, so that you could not say, ‘I already knew them.’ — Isaiah 48:6–7 The new initiative that breaks radically with the past has been identified persuasively by A. Schoors: ‘The really “new” thing is the fact that the salvific events for Israel are brought about by a pagan, Cyrus.’317 Deutero-Isaiah inhabits the epic identity of Israel’s faith and has no difficulty in interpreting events in terms of the working out in history of the prophetic word, which is the word of God. He takes it to the point of breaking the old conventions. The prophetic logic here expressed is that the ‘former things’ are not simply seamlessly continued into the present, but a strikingly new initiative is announced. There is a fresh creative act in which ‘new things’ and ‘hidden things’ are the order of the day. The old wine skins are not to be repaired, but fresh wine skins are called for. Cyrus, 314

Isaiah 46:5–11; 48:1–11. Isaiah 42:18–25. 316 Isaiah 40:12–26; 40:27–31; 44:24–28; 45:9–13. 317 A. Schoors, I am God your Saviour: A Form-Critical Study of the Main Genres of Is. XL–XV, VTS 24 (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 292. 315

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not a descendant of David but a foreign monarch, is identified as the anointed one and shepherd who implements Yahweh’s plans for the return of the exiles. The radical claim is made that it is Yahweh alone who as the sole creator is the author and disposer of unfolding historical events, with all their surprise: To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, as though we were alike? — Isaiah 46:5 The trial speech and the disputation enabled Deutero-Isaiah to claim for Yahweh a unique identity, based firmly on Israel’s epic traditions, that envisaged him as without comparison or equivalent. We must now consider the mythic and cosmic traditions that are the major factor which drive Deutero-Isaiah’s proclamation. It is the fact that Yahweh is the creator of the cosmos which constitutes the heart of his gospel. In particular, the effect of making God as creator actually part of the proclamation is achieved by the device of expanding the prophetic messenger formula. The plain ‘thus says the Lord’ is qualified with glistening participial phrases extolling the fact that God is the creator. This hymnic form brings to the proclamation a note of joyous exultation, and highlights in a remarkably effective way the significance that God as creator has for the prophetic announcement of comfort. A fluent example is found in Isaiah 45:18: For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; he is God; that formed the earth and made it; he established it, he created it not a waste, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.318 Here we see that the fact that Yahweh is the sole creator is now defining him not simply as ‘the only God that matters’, but moving to the claim ‘there is none else’. A similar sense of joy is to be found in the hymn form which Deutero-Isaiah employs: Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. — Isaiah 44:23 It is a genuine psalm-form which the prophet has adapted; its parallels are to be found in the type known as ‘enthronement psalms’ associated with the New Year festival. They praise God for his acts rather than his personal qualities. The whole creation joins in jubilation. Westermann summarizes this particular genre: ‘This is a form of psalm found only in the prophecy of Deutero-Isaiah and is the product of his prophecy. It is an ‘eschatological’ hymn of praise, since Israel’s answering exultation assumes that God’s final act has already taken place.’319

318

Translation from the Revised Version. C. Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary (English translation, London: SCM Press, 1969), 205. (First published, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966.) 319

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The hymnic form places itself on the other side of the coming deliverance and anticipates the outcome of the great processional journey from the overcoming of chaos in Babylon to enthronement in the Temple at Jerusalem. However, despite its ingenious form, the salvific outcome is dependent upon the rebalancing of creation and not on any radically fresh start: ‘Here God’s act of deliverance and salvation and the activity of the creator are regarded as identical.’320 The significance of Temple traditions is further underlined in the use that DeuteroIsaiah makes of the oracle of salvation.321 Again, it is a form at home in the Temple which the prophet has reapplied to the exilic situation. Originally delivered by a priest in response to a lament by an individual figure, perhaps royal, in the circumstances of the exile it is addressed by the prophet to Jacob-Israel. It begins typically: ‘Fear not’. A related form is the proclamation of salvation322 which may have originally been a prophetic response to a communal lament. It lacks the typical formula, ‘Fear not’; it is specific in its words of reassurance. In both forms prophetic reapplication takes the words of assurance that disrupted order will be healed from the former cultic situation in the Jerusalem Temple and transfers them to the community in exile. They are transferred seamlessly without any disconnect or abrupt intervention. We have already had cause to identify the reapplication of the Jerusalem New Year festival traditions of the victory over chaos and the triumphal journey to divine enthronement as constituting the overarching structure of Deutero-Isaiah’s edifice of prophetic hope. It sums up why the fact that God is the creator is of such significance for Deutero-Isaiah’s message of the return of the exiles. At the heart of its logic is the kingship of God and, therefore, the inevitable return of the creation to its intended harmony. The consequent order will re-establish the central place of Jerusalem in the great scheme of things. It is his exalted vision of God as creator which provides the grounds for the prophet’s message of salvation. He therefore extols the sheer majesty of Yahweh as creator in a way which increasingly leaves Yahweh without peer: To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. — Isaiah 40:25 The significance of Temple theology for Deutero-Isaiah’s exultation of the holy one of Israel is captured by Hywel Clifford: ‘It is as if the ‘one’ nexus of Deuteronomy’s already radical centralisation policy (Deut 6:4–9; 12:1–6) has been radicalized even further: rather than there being one Temple because there is one God for Israel, the cultic influence of Jerusalem (the symbol of Yahweh’s righteousness and salvation), will, in time, become international because there is one God for the world.’323

320

Ibid., 144. Examples include: Isaiah 41:8–13; 41:14–16; 43:1–4; 43:5–7; 44:1–5. 322 Examples include: Isaiah 41:17–20; 42:14–17; 43:16–21; 49:7–12. 323 Hywel Clifford, ‘Deutero-Isaiah and Monotheism’ in Prophecy and the Prophets in Ancient Israel, ed. J. Day (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2010), 280. 321

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III IDENTIFYING MONOTHEISM The gold standard of biblical monotheism is usually identified with the proclamation of Deutero-Isaiah. However, before we can proceed, we have to take account of those who would question the appropriateness of asking of an ancient text a question that implies a modern category.324 Their point has been summarized in this way: The final objection to monotheism arises from the origin and early use of the term. It is first attested in the writings of the seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonists. Intellectualist aspects of their context (ontology, classifications of religion, reason and faith) are said to have been carried over into biblical studies, distorting the reading of Old Testament texts with doctrinal theology. On this view, Deutero-Isaiah is not monotheistic because the abstraction implicit in the term invites the rigours of philosophy that merged with Jewish theology much later than the Babylonian Exile, whether in Hellenistic Judaism, the medieval period or in the Enlightenment period of Cambridge’s Cudworth and More. Put bluntly, Deutero-Isaiah is poetry and not doctrine, the one concrete and imaginative and the other abstract and technical.325 Clifford himself delves back into early Greek philosophy to a near contemporary of Deutero-Isaiah, Xenophanes of Colophon.326 Although there is no evidence of direct contact between the two, he argues that the fragments of Xenophanes that survive come close to a contemporary example of what could be identified as monotheism. Clifford also makes much of the ‘idol satire’ in Deutero-Isaiah. These are passages which parody the making of idols to the extent that they dismiss the gods in comparison with Yahweh: ‘It may be inferred that Yahweh’s uniqueness was believed to extend to divinity itself; that is, into the domain of what philosophers and theologians call ontology. The contrast in Isaiah 40–48 of the creator God versus idols, which employs a spiritual-material polarity, encourage[s] the inference that divinity is a class of being with Yahweh as its only member.’327 There are some idol satire passages relating to later redactional activity (cf. Isaiah 44:9–20);328 nonetheless, idol polemic is indeed fully embedded in Deutero-Isaiah’s central message.329 The way forward adopted here is to seek to identify the essential features that might constitute Hebrew ethical monotheism within the context and parameters of the biblical record. The study so far has familiarized us with the issues surrounding the emergence of Israel’s distinctive faith within the greater context of the Ancient Near East. It is possible to frame our criteria so that they relate not to modern philosophical categories but to the biblical perspective. An identity-kit profile might contain five essential features:

N. MacDonald, Deuteronomy and the Meaning of ‘Monotheism’ (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 5–58, 209– 21. W. Moberly, ‘How Appropriate Is “Monotheism” as a Category for Biblical Interpretation?’, in Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, ed. L.T. Stuckenbruck and W.E.S. North (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 218–22. 325 Clifford, ‘Deutero-Isaiah and Monotheism’, 280. 326 Active during the sixth to fifth centuries BCE in Ionia, and then Italy, following the conquest of Cyrus. 327 Clifford, ‘Deutero-Isaiah and Monotheism’, 274. 328 Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 146. 329 For instance: Isaiah 46:1–2; 48:1–11. For a discussion on this, see R. Albertz, Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the 6th Century BCE (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 376–433. Translated from: Die Exilszeit: 6. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2001). 324

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1. God is the creator and sustainer of all that is, without exception. That includes the cycles of the physical world and the world of events and history. 2. God is one and has no companion peers in heaven. 3. God is personal and finds ‘companionship’ in human beings. 4. Hebrew ethical monotheism demands that at the heart of the universe is not a moral vacuum, but the author of universal cosmic righteousness and prophetic critique. 5. God is transcendent. There is an interval between God and creation.

IV APPLYING THE CRITERIA We have acquired some familiarity with Deutero-Isaiah’s theological perspective and the traditions he handled in the circumstances of the Jewish exile. We can now enquire as to how those relate to the five essential features of Hebrew ethical monotheism as we have identified them. (1) God is the creator and sustainer of all that is, without exception; that includes the cycles of the physical world and the world of events and history The message of Deutero-Isaiah does not simply speak of God as creator, it sings out with the significance of the divine ordering of the cosmos. The liturgical resonance of his oracles, not least in the hymnic bursts which call the whole of creation to rejoice, evidences his closeness to the cosmic and universal traditions of the Jerusalem Temple. ‘Your God reigns’ (Isaiah 52:7) is key to much else. God is the creator and sustainer of the physical world without exception. It is because the name of God enthroned over the order of the world is Yahweh that Zion-Jerusalem will once again be restored to its proper place as ‘the joy of all the earth’ (Psalm 48:2; cf. Lamentations 2:15). As world equilibrium is restored, Babylon will be cast down and Jerusalem raised up: My righteousness [ṣedeq] is near, my salvation [ye¯ša’] is gone forth. — Isaiah 51:5a330 That God is not only the creator of the world, but also the sustainer, is evidenced as its equilibrium is called back into right order. The literary structure of Deutero-Isaiah, that is, the way his oracles have been assembled, may reflect that dynamic of cosmic equilibrium which is to be restored to balance and which we have noted previously is a feature of cosmic engineering across the Ancient Near East. The prophetic proclamation contained in Isaiah 40 to 55 falls into two balanced halves, namely chs 40 to 48 and 49 to 55. In the first half there is concentration on the oracles of salvation and the trial and disputation genres. The address is to Jacob-Israel with the assurance that the elective love of Yahweh still holds good. The case is pressed by engagement with the faltering faith of the exiles and carried through to the point of dismissal of the Babylonian gods. Cyrus, foreign king and yet Yahweh’s anointed, is proclaimed as the ‘new thing’ which God is doing. The

330

Translation from the Revised Version. Compare, also, Isaiah 45:8; 46:13; 51:6; 51:8.

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prophet looks to the fall of Babylon and the liberation and return of the exiles. In the second half the emphasis moves from the captivity to the Holy City. The text is completely silent about Cyrus, and there is no more engagement with the spiritual malaise of the exile. Now it is no longer as Jacob-Israel, but Zion-Jerusalem that the redeemed community is addressed. T.N.D. Mettinger331 is one of those who have found an overall interpretive pattern in the structure of Deutero-Isaiah which includes the ‘so called’ ‘Servant Songs’.332 He argues that the use of contrast is a deliberate feature of the work. Thus, he maintains that, just as in chs 40 to 48 the victories of Cyrus lead to the downfall of Babylon, so, intentionally, as a sort of mirror-image, in chs 49 to 55 the sufferings of the servant lead to the reestablished glory of Zion. The two sections exhibit a balance of contrast between hero and anti-hero, namely, Cyrus in the first and the man of sorrows in the second. There is a deliberate contrast in the destined change of fortunes between Babylon in the first section and Zion in the second. If it is correct to discern the dynamic of literary contrasting forces in the two halves of Deutero-Isaiah’s prophecy, then it seems that the disciple who edited the master’s work had marvellous insight into the prophet’s conviction of poised cosmic scales coming back into equilibrium as one side is raised up and the other descends. The prophet’s message turns upon his insistence that it is not Marduk (referred to as Bel in 46:1), but Yahweh-God who is the universal creator and sustainer able to usher in a restored universal order. It is important to remember that as well as the cosmic context, which claims Yahweh to be the creator and sustainer of the physical world, the further claim that Yahweh is the sole author of events and history is also worked out by Deutero-Isaiah from the alternative epic perspective. In the trial speech form, in which Deutero-Isaiah addresses Jacob-Israel, we noted that his message is one with the pre-exilic prophets. The exile is a response to Israel’s iniquity and its burdening of Yahweh333 and it is his initiative alone: I delivered Jacob to utter destruction, and Israel to reviling. — Isaiah 43:28 The anguish involved and the strain it puts upon the identity of God is precisely because Yahweh is envisaged as creator, here responsible for the broad sweep of international affairs, and Yahweh is also God of Israel and its story. The fact that Jacob-Israel is brought to ‘utter destruction’ should spell the end of the theological validity of its god as the upholder of local order. Deutero-Isaiah, in proclaiming Yahweh as sole God, is claiming he is responsible for international affairs without reserve, including the plight of his

T.N.D. Mettinger, A Farewell to the Servant Songs: A Critical Examination of an Exegetical Axiom (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1983), 18ff. 332 The servant songs (after B. Duhm, Das Buch Jesaia [Handkommentar zum Alten Testament III.1] [Göttingen: Vandenbroeck & Ruprecht, 1892]) are usually identified as: Isaiah 42:1–4; Isaiah 49:1–6; Isaiah 50:4–9; and Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12. 333 The language of the trial speech in Isaiah 43:22ff. resonates with the concept of ‘servant’ which is significant throughout Deutero-Isaiah’s proclamation. Westermann has captured this: ‘God answers this by saying, “you did not really serve me. In actual fact you made me into a servant”. This, however, is no more than a clumsy rendering of the Hebrew, which turns on the two forms of the same verb ’a¯bad (to serve or to work) in v. 23b and v. 24b. . . . This key-passage for Deutero-Isaiah’s proclamation contains an echo of the catchword of the servant songs (’ebed, from ’a¯bad).’ Westermann, Isaiah 40–66, 131. 331

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people. There is a tension identified. The one God is in himself responsible for ‘weal and woe’. Not only is he responsible for Israel’s demise, but he also absorbs the consequent complex emotions in a single divine figure. This is a point to which we shall return. Established religious convention as received in the Ancient Near East is being pushed to breaking point as monotheism is articulated. The same claim that Yahweh is the author of historical events without reserve is evident in those disputations which use for evidence the prediction of the activity of Cyrus. The fact that Yahweh predicted his rise through the prophet is evidence of the divine sway over events; it was Yahweh who stirred him up and will see his progress through. Yahweh alone is responsible for historical and political events from beginning to end. Israel is simply called to be the servant witness (Isaiah 43:10). There is no room for competing divine wills: Who has performed and done this, calling the generations from the beginning? I, the Lord, am first, and will be with the last. — Isaiah 41:4 We have fully satisfied our first criterion indicating that Deutero-Isaiah has passed the threshold of monotheism in that he proclaims one God as the creator and sustainer of the natural order and as the one responsible, from the very beginning, for breaking events gathered in the unique flow of history. We may move to our second test. (2) God is one and has no companion peers in heaven We have noted that in the Ancient Near East during the second half of the second millennium BCE there was emerging, under various national guises, the concept of the ‘king of the gods’ conferred upon the deity responsible for the ordered creation. Further, we noted that in the case of Marduk of Babylon, the Enuma Elish reflects the consequent dismissive attitude to the subordinate gods: ‘When he is provoked no god can withstand his anger’. It is a remarkable feature of Deutero-Isaiah that in his ministry this process is taken to its ultimate conclusion. For the first time within the Ancient Near East, so far as we are aware, the presiding god of the universe is conceived to be alone: I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides me there is no god. — Isaiah 45:5a We noted that it is in the context of the trial speech that Deutero-Isaiah contrasts events as ‘former things’ and ‘things to come’; the latter pass into ‘new things’ in the related disputation genre (Isaiah 48:6–7). Given that breaking of new ground, we may surely take seriously the prophet’s parallel breakthrough in the dismissal of the Babylonian deities: No, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their images are empty wind. — Isaiah 41:29334 334

See, also, Isaiah 45:14, 21, 22; 44:6b.

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The prophet reiterates within the epic context that Yahweh is unique: I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no saviour. — Isaiah 43:11 That this is not expressed without some awareness of the profound philosophical consequences is also evident. It involves the working through of a new theological model. It is possible that Deutero-Isaiah’s Babylonian intellectual environment contributed to his developing thought in this. The passage continues: I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things. — Isaiah 45:7 The implications are similar to the Flood narrative as it moves from its polytheistic Babylonian context (the Atrahasis epic) to its biblical context in the J tradition. There, Yahweh’s ‘regret’ is identified (Genesis 6:6). It has been encapsulated by Westermann: ‘dissention between the gods becomes dissention within God’.335 Deutero-Isaiah’s monotheism implies a similar configuration. As we noted above, that regret becomes particularly poignant when it is Jacob delivered ‘to utter destruction’ (Isaiah 43:28). The extremity of the saying already indicates an emotional content. The Almighty is no longer presiding over the council of heaven: ‘besides me there is no god’ (Isaiah 45:5a); the idols are dismissed (Isaiah 41:29). The decisive step has been taken, although the old order only gradually faded into poetic resonance and angelic figures. Clearly, the Ancient Near East was ripe for this development. The analogy of kingship had given access to the concept of a complex cosmos with an underlying unity. There was an intuition that there should be ‘a theory of everything’. It was logical to conclude that a single source of the universe should alone enshrine the origin of that unity. As a matter of fact, it was the proclamation of a Hebrew prophet ministering to the exiles which provides us with the initial evidence that that step had been taken: God is with you alone, and there is no other; there is no god besides him. — Isaiah 45:14 (3) God is personal and finds ‘companionship’ in human beings This third test relates to the personal. Does God, who is no longer conceived to have companions in heaven, nevertheless relate to human beings in a significant way? Expressed from the opposite perspective, is there personhood in the universe beyond human beings? In both the trial speeches and the disputation genres, it is clear that the prophet envisages Yahweh as intimately involved in human affairs and the direction of world history. He both announces it and brings it about; there is for Deutero-Isaiah a profound providential direction to human affairs. The significance of the Exodus (Isaiah 43:16) is clearly fundamental and highlights the importance of Israel’s story to Yahweh. The call of Cyrus

Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 408.

335

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and the destiny decreed for him by Yahweh, although he does not know Yahweh (Isaiah 45:4b), establishes the control that Israel’s God has over secular history. It includes peoples and nations across the globe. The thrust of the prophet’s message, and the locus of Yahweh’s concern as presented, is Israel. This is expressed in very intimate terms in the marriage metaphor.336 Given that perspective, the nations often appear as a backdrop to Israel’s story. Cyrus and the great nexus of international events are serving the return of the Judaean exiles. Any significance in the events themselves goes unrecorded. Deutero-Isaiah can draw vocabulary from the tradition relating to the ‘enemies of God’ which is bitterly vindictive and can deliver some challenging vocabulary to modern ears: I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your saviour. — Isaiah 49:26 However, he does seem to allow a certain generosity on God’s part towards the nations: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. — Isaiah 45:22 The Jerusalem Temple traditions also include the personal dimension as well as handling cosmic concepts. As universal traditions, they, too, are concerned with the world population. In Deutero-Isaiah’s oracles, that population is often a gaping witness to the change in Israel’s fortunes (Isaiah 52:10), rather than of significance in itself. Nevertheless, a healthy order involves ša¯lôm (Isaiah 52:7), which would not only exalt Israel but would enable universal prosperity. The analogy is with the blessing of Abraham in Genesis 12:2– 3 overflowing to the nations. The promise of God’s salvation, which renewed cosmic order is about to make a reality, is very intentionally addressed to ‘my people’ in the opening passage (Isaiah 40:1). In the oracle of salvation, adopting a form delivered to an individual in its original temple setting, the address is to Jacob-Israel. In chs 49 to 55 oracles are addressed to Zion-Jerusalem. However, we sense something deeper in the prophet’s additional call which lifts the tension between Israel and the nations to a new level of resolution: It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. — Isaiah 49:6 We may conclude that in Deutero-Isaiah the emotions of God are directed towards all human beings, for which, however, Jacob-Israel is paradigmatic.

336

Isaiah 54:4–8 (cf. Isaiah 49:14–16).

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(4) Hebrew ethical monotheism demands that at the heart of the universe is not a moral vacuum, but the author of universal cosmic righteousness and prophetic critique We have already identified righteousness (ṣdq) as a key concept for Deutero-Isaiah within his mythic framework. It is the mechanism which enables the restoration of the creation to right order; the rebalancing to normality which will exalt Zion-Jerusalem and disparage Babylon. In that context, it is important to be aware that Deutero-Isaiah works within a tradition. He is part of a stream of prophetic encounter with the Jerusalem traditions. He is an inheritor of their strong moral quality associated with cosmic stability which informs the multiple associations of righteousness (ṣdq). We noted that the ethical imperative emerges with great clarity in the ministry of Isaiah of Jerusalem, where ṣdq is the plumb line of the moral universe (Isaiah 28:17). The forensic nature of righteousness remains evident in Deutero-Isaiah. It is to be noted that in the trial speech genre righteousness often carries its legal significance, referring to the one vindicated or ‘declared in the right’.337 As one who handles the epic prophetic traditions, the prophet stands in a lineage which from the time of the prophet Hosea is already witnessing to the emerging moral claim of what becomes the Ten Commandments (Hosea 4:2). Indeed, he shares the prophetic assessment that Israel is languishing in exile because the people have fallen short of the ethical and religious standards that God decrees. His major preoccupation, it must be recognized, is Israel languishing in exile, so it is to them as ‘the poor and needy’ (Isaiah 41:17) that his energy is devoted. Perhaps the most altruistic elements of chs 40 to 55 are revealed in the second and third servant songs which in all likelihood are DeuteroIsaiah’s own prophetic confession.338 They reveal his travail of soul as he seeks to serve Israel in exile and envisage a vocation to be ‘a light to the nations’ (49:6). That selfsurrender in all likelihood contributes to the final servant song which has become definitive of the moral authority distilled in Isaiah 40 to 55. We may conclude that the significance of universal cosmic righteousness and prophetic critique is evident in DeuteroIsaiah’s proclamation. The final test of Hebrew monotheism relates to transcendence. (5) God is transcendent; there is an interval between God and creation Is there evidence in Deutero-Isaiah of that interval between God and creation? There is no doubt that in his exaltation of the creator Deutero-Isaiah is pushing at those boundaries in the Ancient Near East that were waiting to be broken. There is evidence in the trial speech genre of his breaching those limits. In those speeches directed against Israel we have already noted that he sets up a tension ‘within God’ rather than ‘between the gods’. In those oracles directed against the nations, ‘things to come’ balance the ‘former things’. In the associated disputation genre the ‘things to come’ are transfigured as ‘new things’. That it is genuine newness which is here identified is confirmed when it is claimed ‘they are created now’ (Isaiah 48:7a). We may discern here a radical response to the exile as the ‘death of Israel’ which is the equivalent of Jeremiah’s ‘new covenant’ (Jeremiah 31:31–34)

337

For instance: Isaiah 41:26; 43:9; 43:26. P.E. Dion, ‘L’Universalisme religieux dans les différentes couches rédactionnelles d’Isaïe 40–55’, Biblica 51 (1970): 172: ‘le troisième , pure prophétique d’un caractère éminemment personnel’. 338

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or the resurrection of the nation envisaged by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37:1–14). There is a decisive break with the past and a fresh initiative. Can a similar mutation be identified in the prophetic voice that takes its inspiration from the Jerusalem Temple traditions? It has to be admitted that, against all logic, Deutero-Isaiah does not reach for a radically new act of God within the cosmic perspective. He denies there exists a bill of divorce (Isaiah 50:1–3) or that the Davidic covenant is abrogated (Isaiah 55:3–4). Instead, he proclaims, within the conventions of Ancient Near Eastern theology, the restoration of the old, the return of creation to original order: ‘In Deutero-Isaiah, ṣdq denotes the order of Yahweh, which, corresponding to the order of creation, will break through in the time of salvation which is close at hand.’339 Deutero-Isaiah, in his major vista, presents the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem in terms of a journey along a grand processional way: ‘make straight in the desert a highway for our God’ (40:3b). It is to be an event in history and at the same time it parallels the journey of the Divine Warrior from victory at sea, at the moment of cosmic ordering, to enthronement. It could be read as a two-part act in which the original cosmic victory at sea is superseded by a new and startling finale cosmic event. In taking the mythic and applying it to history, Deutero-Isaiah opens the way to making the creative connection between Israel’s two modes of thought. The potential is similar to that identified in the ‘Song of Moses’ in Exodus 15.340 There, also, the epic (an event in history) is given a mythic (cosmic) context. It has the potential to cloak the ‘new event’ with the significance of a fresh divine initiative that parallels the creation itself. The combination of the two perspectives carries, hidden within it, the potential of radical eschatology if the gene should be activated. However, unsatisfyingly, that potential is never harvested by Deutero-Isaiah. Deutero-Isaiah, as one would expect, does bring together the epic and the mythic, but never so as to discharge their potential. In the unit relating to the mythological battle between God and Rahab (the sea dragon), the connection is made by identifying the two seas of ‘the great deep’ and the Exodus. As we noted above,341 it has affected the narrative of the Exodus as the redeemed travel ‘through’ the sea: Was it not you who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; who made the depth of the sea a way for the redeemed to cross over? — Isaiah 51:10 The tension has been diffused; the mythic has swallowed up the epic. The Exodus is a repeat of the cosmic victory and not its counterpoise. The historical significance of the rescue ‘at sea’ has been lost. More typically, it is the two journeys considered in parallel that enable the prophet to mingle the festal and Exodus themes, as both carry reference to water in the desert, as in this festal hymn: Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea,

Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 133. See above, Chapter Five, s. II. 341 Ibid. 339 340

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declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it forth to the end of the earth; say, ‘the Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!’ They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split open the rock and the water gushed out. — Isaiah 48:20–21 The events that led to the exile were presented by the pre-exilic prophets as final; the last word was with the announcement that Yahweh had abandoned Israel to her death. It was truly evident that: ‘The golden bowl is broken’ (Ecclesiastes 12:6). The renewed prophetic hope proclaimed by Deutero-Isaiah required nothing less than a message of life from the dead. Surely, he was called to proclaim a radically new act of God? However, the prophet to the exiles, who can present Cyrus as God’s anointed and as a new act of God, faltered when it came to handling the creation traditions. He rests his case on the canons of the old order. The renewal of creation’s integrity will restore Jerusalem’s fortunes and the old equilibrium will return. He maintains: For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you. — Isaiah 54:7 Yet it is that very abandonment, and the fact that his message is harnessing and transfiguring the traditions of a temple that has ceased to exist, which require underpinning with the radical ‘new things’ and ‘things to come’ of his legal genre. His disciples soon corrected the error in their master’s workings. They drew out the unassailable logic of the radical nature of reapplying the cosmic traditions of Zion to the end of the exile and the creation of a new future for Jacob-Israel, alternatively identified as Zion-Jerusalem. Trito-Isaiah pushes open Deutero-Isaiah’s door of transcendence. He is able to draw out the stunning implications of the cosmic renewal that Deutero-Isaiah had announced: For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. — Isaiah 65:17 The new creation is named and the latent potential of Israel’s eschatological faith is harvested. Deutero-Isaiah’s cusp of monotheism is recognized and claimed before the Isaianic stream of tradition is closed.

V ACCOLADE In the achievement of monotheism Israel was responsible for a breakthrough which is not simply a landmark in her own destiny, but registers as a high tide mark in the history of religion. It provides a sort of grid-reference of enormous significance which allows us to locate a decisive point not simply in the unfolding story of Israel, but universally in the history of religions.

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As we noted, the breakthrough has been placed in the context of the ‘Axial Age’, as one of its great intellectual achievements when the human imagination and ingenuity were breaking boundaries across the world from China to Egypt. It is certainly a moment deserving universal recognition. In its wake the creation and the world of human affairs have their fragmentary nature resolved into an overarching unity. The metaphor of kingship applied to the lone creator is able to transform the mass of pieces that make up the universal material fabric into a vision of a single whole in balance and relationship. The cosmos becomes a community. A vision is born that captures the high moral ground with the one God as a reliable source of common human values grounded in universal cosmic righteousness and high ethical prophetic critique. Hebrew monotheism reveals the world as personal, with the concern of God no longer directed towards a heavenly entourage, but to the welfare of the human creature within his/her environment. It is a point made by Westermann which he links to humans made in the image of God. He uses the word ‘counterpart’ for the divine-human relationship, which is particularly significant in a monotheistic context where God has no heavenly companions.342 God is envisaged as transcendent, that is other than the world and, therefore, calling it to account, placing the cloak of responsibility on human shoulders and challenging the status quo. Monotheism encourages human beings to trust the rationality of the world and in ‘disenchanting’ the created order opens the door to science. Does this not, surely, represent a world heritage moment and call for recognition and rejoicing? John Day highlights the achievement of monotheism as the characteristic that sets Israel apart from her context: ‘it is arguably monotheism (at first monolatry), rather than God’s mighty acts in history as used to be argued, that most distinguishes the Old Testament from the religion of the other nations of the ancient Near East.’343 This clearly recognizes the landmark achievement of Hebrew ethical monotheism and places it in a category of its own. This study commenced with the recognition of the Hebrew Bible as Scripture and the consequent search within it for its seeds of significance. Here we have discovered one of those mighty seeds of significance.

VI CRITICAL VOICES John Day gives us a salutary warning when he contrasts the achievement of monotheism with God’s mighty acts in history (salvation history), which scholarly research once identified as Israel’s epic identity and a high point of biblical revelation. It transpired to be something of a false dawn. Conceived as a cornerstone of biblical theology, the concept has not been able to bear the weight. Subsequently, what has been called the ‘collapse of history’ has complicated its understanding. The narrative of the mighty acts turns out to be a construct that can at best be described as ‘history-like’.344 It is a warning not to be too

Westermann, Genesis 1–11, 157. Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan, 233. 344 Barr, History and Ideology in the Old Testament, 21: ‘I referred earlier to the expression “history-like” and acknowledged my debt to Hans Frei for the use of this expression, which fits much of the biblical narrative very well.’ Barr refers to Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermaneutics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974). 342 343

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cocksure that in identifying monotheism as a ‘replacement’ high point of biblical revelation, it can, under testing, bear the weight of responsibility that we are placing upon it. That discontent with the salvation history perspective, as the golden key to biblical narrative, is indeed repeating itself in similar dissatisfaction with its replacement by monotheism. Why, then, are there contemporary voices raised in objection to monotheism? How can there be those who no longer see monotheism as a universal good to be welcomed and embraced? The answer is twofold. Two qualities which in the past have commended it are now viewed in some quarters with suspicion. Firstly, the idea of God as one is not received as a blessing, but is perceived to be stifling, hierarchical, monarchical and controlling. Secondly, the lens of unity and coherence that monotheism brings to the way the world is understood is rejected as invalid and supressing the vitality of diversity. The most forceful critique of monotheism has come from feminist theology, which calls attention to the potential vulnerability of this model for understanding the relationship between God and the world in a way that may seem ‘to place oneness and universality above diversity and difference’.345 Such a critique has been eloquently and firmly put by Laurel C. Schneider in her book Beyond Monotheism.346 Schneider takes up the phrase ‘the ruins of the absolute’347 as a reflection on the de facto inability of the three major monotheistic faiths to handle the absolute in a way that can honour multiplicity, diversity and incompleteness without closure and bloodshed. She develops the concept of ruin as something that continues into the present, and, therefore, has a contemporary contribution to make, if a rather lesser one. There remains a diminished task, with a more local reference, for a unifying concept shorn of its ontological status. The ‘ruins of the absolute’ signifies the end of what Schneider describes as ‘stasis, closure and fixity’, that is, the grip of the One in imposing control, which is an inevitable consequence of reality so conceived. Firstly, that control is exercised by the reining in of difference: ‘The reality claim of oneness that undergirds monotheistic religion and culture therefore serves to reduce, by virtue of the imperatives of the number one, the messy complexity and manyness that everyday experience implies.’348 Further, control is exerted through the systemization and categorization that the binary nature of the One versus the many imposes: ‘The logic of the One is dualistic, demanding a process of reasoning that absolutely and certainly separates truth from falsehood, just as it demands that God be clearly and absolutely distinguished from not-God.’349 The doctrine of the Trinity is not reckoned to mitigate or modify monarchical deity in Christian tradition. Schneider maintains that a potential African sense of ‘I am because we are’350 was overwhelmed by the Constantinian model of absolute monarchy. The alternative outcomes, as the metaphor of multiplicity is envisaged to replace that of monotheism with its stultifying grip, are expressed in a clutch of vocabulary which includes: becoming, fluidity, provisional, partial, uncertain, heterogynous, tehomic. The

345 Paul Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2000), 65. 346 Laurel C. Schneider, Beyond Monotheism: A Theology of Multiplicity (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 2008). 347 Ibid., 6. This is a quotation from Kathleen Sands, Escape from Paradise: Evil and Tragedy in Feminist Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1994), 63. 348 Schneider, Beyond Monotheism, 80. 349 Ibid., 74. 350 Ibid., 65. 351 Ibid., 130.

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world needs to be allowed to affirm multiplicity because it is in unique, unrepeatable, unregulated moments, which defy categorization, that divinity (‘what is “real” ’)351 is encountered. Although divinity (Schneider’s preferred word to express the God dimension) is not identified with the world, to espouse pantheism would be a return to the absolute, yet it is in the flesh and in its embodiment in sheer physicality, that moments of divine encounter come to birth – tehomic moments of incarnation. There is no divinity outside the material world: ‘To talk of divinity outside of time and space (and therefore of matter) is to talk of emptiness. Outside of time, space, and matter there is no via negativa, no ‘greater than’, there is only nihil, nothing. Real divinity, real God, matters.’352 The concept of creatio ex nihilo associated with monotheism is not favoured by Schneider. It is the deep with its fluids that encapsulates the feminine birthing powers.353 There is no absolute order of creation. New boundaries of cosmology emerging from the study of relativity and the fuzziness of quantum physics are breaking open the universe to a fresh multiplicity. She sums up with a post-modern insight: ‘The origin turns out to be a middle point of something else.’354 Schneider’s is not a lone voice. We have already noted the works of Rosemary Ruether and Sallie McFague.355 McFague uses the metaphor of the world as ‘the body of God’ to replace traditional models such as kingship. She insists that: ‘Language that supports hierarchical, dualistic, external, unchanging, atomistic, anthropocentric, and deterministic ways of understanding . . . is not appropriate for our time.’356 From within Judaism, Judith Plaskow represents a similar voice. She articulates the way a feminist perspective challenges models of duality which have become institutionalized and taken for granted: But while feminist metaphors are nonexclusive, the experience of God in diverse, egalitarian community is also normative from a feminist perspective and as such functions as a criterion for selecting and rejecting images of divinity. Traditional images like lord and king, for example, evoke by definition relations of domination. Since it is difficult to imagine how such images could be transformed by context, they need to be seen as injurious reflections and supports of a hierarchical social system, and excised from our religious vocabularies.357 Plaskow further seeks to demonstrate the way that processes that have formed and shaped Scripture and tradition have taken for granted the normative status of maleness and consequently obscured and erased the experience of women. Within ancient Israel that includes the significance of the fact that: ‘God incorporates the characteristics of the male deities of Canaan but excludes the qualities of the goddesses.’358 That leads on to a very fluent presentation of ‘hierarchical dualism’ and its potential resolution from a feminist perspective:

352

Ibid., 165. Ibid., 116. 354 Ibid., 178. 355 See above, Chapter Four. 356 Sallie McFague, Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1987), 13. 357 Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (San Francisco, CA: Harper Collins, 1991), 166–7. 358 Ibid., 152–3. 353

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If male/female, culture/nature, spirit/flesh, restraint/sensual indulgence are all dichotomized, and in each case women symbolize the inferior ‘pagan’ side of the dichotomy, then female God-language is bound to arouse deep feelings of discomfort and even revulsion. It threatens to reconsecrate aspects of existence that were once considered holy but were desacralized by Judaism as part of its long battle against paganism. From a feminist perspective, however, this threat of reconsecration and the association of women with body and earth from which it arises are arguments in favour of female language rather than motives to reject it. Female language, precisely because it disturbs and offends, throws into question long-established patterns of dualistic thinking.359 Perhaps, above all, it is in challenging transcendence that feminist criticism encounters the hard rock of monotheism. If it is claimed that ‘Real divinity, real God, matters’,360 then God has no reality outside the physicality of the cosmos. Indeed, it is God’s very transcendence and otherness as expressed in monotheism which it is claimed sets up the unacceptable ‘one versus many’ hierarchical dualism. Yet, transcendence was a breakthrough of enormous significance for Israel, and its consequences characterized subsequent imagination of the ways of God. It brought to Jewish theological identity the characteristic sense of expectation. From now on reflection on creation was balanced by the expectation of ‘new creation’; the concept of eschatology had been minted. The notion of king anticipated messiah; the mention of kingdom brought hope of the kingdom-to-come. There was huge anticipation, but it might sometimes be accompanied by the abject pain of disappointment when God’s new future was not seen to materialize as predicted or anticipated. Inevitably this major innovation in the discovery of transcendence brought pain as well as gain. Indeed, the feminist perspective would emphasize the former. The severance of the divine from the created order had the consequence of desacralizing nature. The old taboos would eventually be dismissed. The round of festivals which had connected human beings to the seasons and to the earth lost their significance. Ceremonial permission was no longer sought for the first sickle to be put to the standing corn. There was no need to appease the divine manifested in the growth of the corn. Max Weber has called this process the ‘disenchantment of the world’.361 It opens up the created order to be viewed not as ‘thou’, but as an ‘it’. From that can unfold the benefits of dispassionate scientific investigation, but also the misapprehension that human beings are no longer in relationship with the created order but radically distinct from it. If the natural world is an object, then the logic installed is that it can be plundered at will without consequence. Human beings have had to learn the hard way that they are creatures and not the creator. Theological reflection has often been painfully slow or reluctant to continue to affirm the integrity of creation, and human beings as an integral part of it. In the context of the perspective delivered by transcendence they are firmly on the side of the creature. The world is not a stage set whose furniture can simply be moved around at will. It is organic and responsive. Human actions deeply affect the continuity of relationships upon which the world is constructed. Justice, righteousness, peace and loving kindness are not

359

Ibid., 153. Schneider, Beyond Monotheism, 165. 361 See H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (London: Routledge, 1948), 51ff. 360

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simply personal qualities, but drive deeply into human and environmental corporate wellbeing. These are all biblical insights which are not undermined by transcendence; but, rather, human beings as creatures and part of creation are radically affirmed by transcendence. That perspective needs constantly to be restated. There is no doubt that the feminist perspective takes us to the ‘hidden side of the moon’; it has established a vantage point from where a new reading of the evidence is revealed. In giving us some new metaphors, however, it does not necessarily have absolute truth either. In particular, its radical rejection of kingship as a metaphor for God is itself something of a banishing of multiplicity. The finality of the jury’s decision is firmly stated by Plaskow: ‘such images . . . need to be seen as injurious’.362 The reality is that as the major institution of government and civil order in the Ancient Near East, the metaphor of monarchy is very deeply embedded in the source documents; that includes the Scriptures of the Judaeo-Christian inheritance. From the book of Psalms to the book of Revelation, it is impossible to do justice to their significance without warming to the metaphor of monarchy. That is the earthy reality with which we are confronted and to deny it is in a significant way to deny ‘incarnation’; otherwise, there is established a ‘nogo zone’ for divinity. The metaphor of kingship is part of the raw material upon which scriptural study has to draw. There is no reason why the additional perspective brought by the feminist vantage point should not also lead us to value and even advantage complementary metaphors such as friend, lover and mother, but not to the exclusion of others. It is not necessary to restate the case for taking monarchy seriously as a metaphor as that has already been undertaken, in the context of the consideration of issues relating to creator and creation, in Chapter Four above. However, it is helpful simply to summarize the insights into human existence, within a complex order, that the lens of monarchy enabled for biblical reflection within its given historical context. Firstly, the metaphor of monarchy transferred a political model to the natural world. The world of nature was, therefore, conceived of as a society. In other words, the monarchical model articulated the cosmos as an organic whole with distinct but interrelated environments for which concepts such as ecology and balance were key. Secondly, it identified all peoples and nations as part of this single whole and, in principle, all were included on the cosmic map. Thirdly, the virtues of good monarchy, expressed in terms of justice, righteousness, equity, truth, loving kindness and peace, were all transferred to world order and understood as a significant element of cosmic engineering and world stability. Fourthly, the analogy of kingship became a vehicle for anthropological reflection. It was responsible for the concept of male and female made in the ‘image of God’ (Genesis 1:27). It contributed significant insights into human behaviour, based upon the scrutiny that the magnified profile of a royal figure enabled, and consequently contributed to ideas relating to the primal human being. Finally, it has become evident that the significance of the creator as ‘king of the gods’ was a crucial factor in the Hebrew achievement of monotheism. No metaphor relating to the divine is ever adequate to the task and, it must be recognized, will eventually break down. For instance, we noted that the violence of human dominion over creation, that is envisaged when the creation of human beings in the image of God is reaffirmed after the Flood narrative (Genesis 9:1–7), does indeed

Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai, 166–7.

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relate to the analogy of kingship. On the other hand, it is realistic to a Darwinian perspective on natural selection (‘nature red in tooth and claw’), which also has to be properly acknowledged. However, as one assesses the balance sheet for the metaphor of monarchy there is much to commend it on the positive side. Every metaphor for God in the end fails. Schneider refers to the ‘metaphoric exemption’.363 Perhaps it is a valid criticism of the feminist approach that rather than identifying the vulnerabilities of kingship as a metaphor, it has demonized it almost to the extent of becoming an anti-absolute. The reality is that different religious and political models give different weight to the local and the central. One is not right and the other wrong. There is a balance to be held. The monarchic model was able to meet the growing sense of a mysterious unity behind the diversity of nature and perceived reality. It encouraged a way of thinking that was cosmic and universal. It turns out to have been a fruitful adventure. Nevertheless, as the Yahwist in his Primaeval History would remind us, all progress is open to corruption. Somehow human best endeavours are flawed. Even monotheism must come with a health warning. The theory of everything is a way of looking at the world with a comprehensiveness which Schneider would argue is a fiction imprinted upon it by the logic of monotheism. The One has no ontological reality either as God or as embedded in the structure of the cosmos. The post-modern reality is that ‘the origin turns out to be the middle of something else’. We are here in an area in which at the very least the jury is still out. As a matter of fact, it was the sense of unity behind the complex diversity of the cosmos which beckoned the instinct of the Ancient Near East towards a unity to be found ‘in the beginning’ and grounded in divinity. That sense of unity has not been lost to modern cosmology with its quest to find how it might be that relativity theory and quantum physics connect. It may be that with chaos theory the messy complexity of the world is quite compatible with its fundamental order. The Latin first words of the Bible, In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, allow us to translate either ‘In the beginning’ or ‘In principle’ that ‘God created the heavens and the earth’ (Genesis 1:1). Perhaps the second translation gives permission to look for the beginning in the middle. The biblical in this is ahead of the post-modern.

Schneider, Beyond Monotheism, 153ff.

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PART THREE

Second Temple Judaism: Law and Last Things

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The Persian Period of Second Temple Judaism: With a General Introduction to the Second Temple Period I MIND THE GAP: A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD Two great conquerors dominate the map of the ancient world during the Second Temple period. Cyrus the Great of Persia appeared from the east and established an empire stretching from the Indus River to the Mediterranean. He conquered Media (550 BCE ), Lydia (547) and the Neo-Babylonian Empire (539). His progress was enthusiastically observed and applauded by Deutero-Isaiah. The Persian Empire was supreme for two hundred years. In terms of Second Temple Judaism, it enabled a period of relatively tranquil consolidation including vigorous literary activity critical to its redefined identity. The demise of the Persian Empire is marked by the emergence from the west of the Hellenistic conqueror, Alexander the Great. He defeated the Persian monarch Darius III at Issus, strategically situated between Asia Minor and Syria, in 333 BCE . The coastal cities of Syria and Palestine, with stubborn opposition from Tyre and Gaza, followed by the territory of Samaria and Judaea, were taken by him. By 331 he had founded Alexandria in Egypt. The ultimate defeat of Darius was achieved at Gaugamela (located in contemporary northern Iraq) in 330 BCE . Alexander’s campaigns continued to the borders of India. In his breathtaking success a cultural shift is inaugurated. In the wake of one whose tutor had been Aristotle came the tide of Greek culture, language and values, creating a distinctive encounter with the indigenous local traditions of the Ancient Near East. The Hellenistic age (identified here also as ‘Early Judaism’) had dawned, which opened a fresh chapter in the story of Second Temple Judaism. Alexander left no mature successor when he died prematurely in 323 BCE . His death was followed by a grim excess of power struggles between his generals, known as the Diadochi. From that extended struggle two leaders finally emerged who were to establish dynasties with rival interests in Palestine. They were Ptolemy, who ruled over Egypt, and Seleucus, whose domain was Syria and Mesopotamia. Both men coveted the province of ‘Coele-Syria’ which consisted of the whole of Palestine and Phoenicia. In the event it was

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acquired by Ptolemy (301 BCE ),364 but without the acquiescence of Seleucus. There was to be a century of Ptolemaic control, but the scene was set for five ‘Syrian wars’ as the two dynasties continued to compete over their claims to the territory. The situation was reversed following Seleucid victory at Panium (Caesarea Philippi) in 200 BCE . Power now decisively changed hands. Josephus reports that the Jews in Jerusalem actively assisted the Seleucid force by allowing them into the city, provisioning the army and the elephants, and contributing to the overthrow of the Ptolemaic guard. Antiochus III had established control over Palestine. That transfer of power was not to confirm the initial jubilation. The reign of Antiochus IV brought about the vicious public persecution of those who followed Torah practice with a reign of terror (167 BCE ). The Jewish cult at Jerusalem was suspended with the introduction of the pagan ‘abomination of desolation’ (Daniel 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). This triggered the Maccabean revolt. Inner tensions in the Jerusalem community seem to have contributed to the tragic episode, between those who advocated the marks of religious separation (Torah obedience with male circumcision and Sabbath observance), distinct from pagan customs, and those who advocated the benefits of closer economic, religious and cultural contact with the dominant culture: ‘Let us go and make a covenant with the Gentiles around us’ (1 Maccabees 1:11). Against all the odds the revolt succeeded largely because the Seleucid dynasty was weakened by exacted Roman tribute from without and dynastic rivalries from within. A Maccabean dynasty of high priest-kings emerged, usurping the established Zadokite dynasty. It is from the reign of the Maccabean brother Simon that 1 Maccabees claims sovereignty for the Hasmonean house: In the one hundred and seventieth year the yoke of the Gentiles was removed from Israel, and the people began to write in their documents and contracts, ‘In the first year of Simon the great high priest and commander and leader of the Jews.’ — 1 Maccabees 13:41–42 The reality of this milestone (142 BCE ) was confirmed when Simon succeeded in ejecting the foreign guard from the Acra fortress in Jerusalem (141 BCE ). In terms of ruthlessness, the use of mercenaries, the exercise of royal prerogatives and dynastic rivalries, the Maccabean rulers were in the image of the Hellenistic kingdoms. However, it was an observant Jewish ruling house; a fact which often carried ominous consequences. John Hyrcanus (134–104 BCE ), the first of the Maccabean line to succeed the close-knit company of brothers, dutifully observed the Sabbath and Pentecost while campaigning with Antiochus VII.365 However, he did not tolerate a separate Samaritan identity; he conquered Shechem and Gerizim and destroyed the Samaritan temple, the latter with lasting negative consequences. He conquered Idumea to the south with its capital at Marisa and insisted the population that remained in the territory converted to Judaism and embraced circumcision. The die was cast with Maccabean success. The nature of Judaism was to find renewed definition in its distinct vocation as the covenant people of God observant of Torah. However, the complexity of schools and factions was not diminished.

364

Control of Tyre and Sidon took somewhat longer as they remained in the control of Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, but this was achieved by 286 BCE . 365 Antiquities 13.8.4.

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The demise of the Maccabean state came following the death of Queen Salome Alexandra (76–61 BCE ) who left the succession unresolved between her two sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. The stage was set for a Hasmonean civil war with an appeal for Roman adjudication. When Pompey himself arrived in Damascus (63 BCE ), he received both parties to the dispute. He also received a third group consisting of two hundred Judaeans, who wanted nothing to do with the outrage of Maccabean monarchy based on mercenaries and murder, and sought a high priest alone.366 When Pompey moved to Jerusalem, he found the supporters of Aristobulus holed up in the Temple; before order could be established the Temple had to be besieged for six months. Given the circumstances of the perceived insolence of the troops of Aristobulus, not surprisingly Pompey judged in favour of Hyrcanus, whose supporters had opened Jerusalem to him. He appointed him high priest, but deprived him of the title of king. Once again, the high priest was the appointment of a foreign military power. The wheel had gone full circle. Pompey imposed heavy tribute and reduced Judah to its former provincial boundaries. He restored various inland cities, including Samaria, Scythopolis and Marisa, the coastal cities and those of Transjordan, to their inhabitants. The whole became part of the Roman province of Syria. The Hellenistic cultural legacy remained the dominant influence throughout the Roman period. The whole Second Temple period had lasted for nearly six hundred years, concluding with the destruction wrought by the Romans in 70 CE in response to the First Jewish Revolt. The achievement of King Herod the Great (37–34 BCE ) in the reordering of the Jerusalem Temple to become a wonder of the world proved short-lived: ‘Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down’ (Matthew 24:2). Major discontinuities mark out both ends of the Second Temple period. There is a profound change brought about by the exile, which marked the end of the First Temple, the Davidic monarchy and the Judaean state. In terms of religious identity, it can be defined as moving from the period of ‘Israelite Religion’ to that of ‘Second Temple Judaism’. There is another profound change that accompanies the destruction of the Second Temple at the conclusion of that period and the eventual expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem by the Emperor Hadrian after the Second Revolt (132–135 CE ). Second Temple Judaism gives place to distinctive ‘Rabbinic Judaism’, which had to learn to operate without a Temple focus. Hebrew religion was deprived of the daily round of sacrifices, as the evidence for the continuing conversation with God, and of the pageant of the great pilgrimage festivals, which were a focus both for Palestinian and world Jewry. It was sustained by its covenant devotion to the Torah as evidence of God’s election of his people. It can be maintained that Rabbinic Judaism and the universal Christian Church are two identifiable outcomes of Second Temple Judaism. However, the messianic movement centred on Jesus of Nazareth was born and nurtured within Hellenistic Judaism. Evidence of that is in the seamlessness of the literary legacy. A great deal of the more speculative literary activity of Hellenistic Judaism esteemed within messianic circles ceased to be valued by Rabbinic Judaism, which implemented some strict winnowing. The reality is, therefore, that it is often difficult to tell whether some works originated in a specifically Jewish or an embryonic Christian context. Literature which is borderline includes such

Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Volume XII: Fragments of Books 33–40, Loeb Classical Library 423, trans. Francis R. Walton (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 40.2; Antiquities 14.3.2.

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examples as the Testament of Job, the Testament of Abraham and the Sibylline Oracles. The much-revered literary legacy of Early Judaism known as 1 Enoch is quoted with the authority of Scripture in the New Testament Epistle of Jude: It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘See, the Lord is coming with tens of thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgement on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him’. — Jude 14–15 [from 1 Enoch 1:9] The phenomenon of ‘Jesus Christ of Nazareth’ (Acts 4:10) is firmly within the embrace of Hellenistic Judaism (Early Judaism). It was that phase of the Second Temple period which provided the context and interpretive tools that articulated the particular Passover and Pentecost events associated with God’s ‘servant Jesus’ (Acts 3:13) in terms of scriptural fulfilment: ‘This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel’ (Acts 2:16). The Second Temple period can be something of a gap in popular perception between, on the one hand, the nascent Hebrew Scriptures with their First Temple focus and, on the other, the outcome of the Jesus messianic movement in the literary legacy of the New Testament. When the Christian Bible in its inclusive form, that is, Hebrew Scriptures, Apocrypha and New Testament, is bound as a single volume, it can still camouflage its true reach. It is possible to be misled into thinking that there is only a narrow gap between the period we defined as Israelite Religion, that is, terminated by the exile, and the way the Hebrew Scriptures are understood and applied in the New Testament. However, there is a gap of well in excess of half a millennium which has to be comprehended and bridged. The very different periods of Persian and Hellenistic ascendancy have to be accounted for. Otherwise, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament remain decoupled, separate continents without immediate connection.

II SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM IN THE PERSIAN PERIOD The Cyrus Cylinder367 takes its place amongst the milestones of the human journey. It records the trophy of Babylon added to the king’s achievement of world empire in 539 BCE . On it the Persian conqueror claims that the divine Marduk, god of the vanquished empire: ‘Without any battle, he made him enter his town Babylon, sparing Babylon any calamity.’368 In line with the enlightened policy he implemented, contrasting with the bloodiness of conquest that brought the imperial army to the gates of Babylon, the monarch continues: ‘I returned to (these) sacred cities on the other side of the Tigris, the sanctuaries of which have been ruins for a long time, the images which (used) to live therein and established for them permanent sanctuaries. I (also) gathered all their (former) inhabitants and returned (to them) their habitations.’369 367

A clay cylinder that Cyrus the Persian monarch had inscribed in cuneiform recording his version of the circumstances of the acquisition of Babylon in 539 BCE . It is housed in the British Museum. 368 ANET, 315. 369 Ibid., 316.

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It is in that context that we can understand the partial fulfilment of the hopes of the prophet Deutero-Isaiah of the exile that the wick of Jacob-Israel’s identity would not be extinguished. King Cyrus may have attributed his success to Marduk, but nonetheless he had served the purpose of Yahweh’s anointed one (Isaiah 45:1). The biblical book of Ezra claims to record the actual decree of the first year of Cyrus from the royal archives: Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the house be rebuilt, the place where sacrifices are offered and burnt offerings are brought; . . . let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Moreover, let the gold and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took out of the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be restored and brought back to the temple in Jerusalem, each to its place; you shall put them in the house of God. — Ezra 6:3–5 In fact, according to the tradition contained in the book of Ezra, the rebuilding of the Temple was not completed until the sixth year of King Darius (Ezra 6:15), which would be 515 BCE . So was inaugurated the Second Temple period of Israel’s story. It commences with two centuries of Persian rule, about which there is not a single negative oracle in the Hebrew Scriptures. We may helpfully repeat a previous summary: ‘The concept of covenant establishes itself as an essential tool for theological reflection in the exile and beyond. The consequence was that “covenantal nomism”, although never without questioning voices, became the norm throughout the Persian Period of Judaism and throughout the Persian and Hellenistic diaspora. The period of Hellenism in Palestine saw the development of a plurality of “Judaisms”, but covenantal nomism remained foundational. The ruling Hasmonean house were observant of its regulations. The detail of obedience to the Torah may have been disputed by the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes, but all venerated its substance as divine self-disclosure. Early Judaism, in its turn, was able to hand on to Rabbinic Judaism the priority of Torah and covenant.’370 The exilic recommissioning of the Temple in Jerusalem was a landmark event. For well over half a millennium it would give the Jewish community, including the diaspora, a focus and emotional centre. The paradigm it exhibited shone throughout world Jewry. The celebration of the Temple festivals acts as a clear indicator of the way the major emphasis in the Persian period of Second Temple Judaism had been reconfigured. The implication of the swing of the pendulum for Second Temple Judaism from the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ to the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ is captured by C.C. Rowland: ‘The deliverance from Egypt and the settlement in the land of Canaan were central to the Jewish apprehension of God. The deity was not to be found primarily in the wonders of nature . . . or in the annual cycle of the seasons, but in the movement of history itself.’371 That judgement relates to the new theological configuration evident in the epic nature of Second Temple Judaism of the Persian period. We noted that from the era of the Second Temple the spring celebration of Passover and Unleavened Bread, with its reference to the Exodus, opened the year in place of the former Canaanite autumn festival with its mythic associations. The Temple as its reinterpreted cycle of festivals developed was able to blazon the story of salvation history as the norm, with its landmarks of election, rescue

370

See above, Chapter Six, s. III. C.C. Rowland, Christian Origins (London: SPCK, 1985), 29.

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from Egypt, covenant at Sinai, Torah and land. The mythic had given pride of place to the epic; covenantal nomism was established as the standard interpretation of Israel’s faith traditions at home and abroad. No doubt the regular temple tax paid by the diaspora alerted them to their Temple commitment. Josephus relates how local depositories were used in Babylon for the ‘half shekel which every one, by the custom of our country, offers unto God’. He continues, perhaps with some overstatement: ‘at a proper time they were transmitted to Jerusalem; and many ten thousand men undertook the carriage of those donations, out of fear of the ravages of the Parthians, to whom the Babylonians were then subject’.372 The raw reality of the brutal extinction of Israel’s national life was the anvil on which Second Temple Judaism received its distinctive shape. Those ferocious events were given a particular interpretive context which reclaimed some meaning despite their enormity: The Lord, the God of their ancestors, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place; but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord against his people became so great that there was no remedy. — 2 Chronicles 36:15–16 Ironically, the exile came close to being a second epic election tradition, on a par with the Exodus. It, paradoxically, gave renewed momentum to the developing sense of God’s relationship with Israel in the events of history. For those who accepted the prophetic word, and its Deuteronomistic reiteration, the terrible events of the exile could be interpreted as tangible evidence, in negative, of the reality of God and the covenant relationship with Israel demonstrated in her history. Quite remarkably, and in defiance of the dissolution of all the instruments of national identity, the absolute end was not only reached (cf. Amos 8:2b), but breached. It does seem that the consistent message of the pre-exilic prophets, their constant anticipation of disaster as a visiting of Yahweh’s punishment on Israel and Judah for their sin, enabled a renewed emphasis on God’s special relationship with his people which the epic tradition articulated. A critical mass stayed connected with those election roots that enabled the embers to burst into life. It is to be noted that there were several workshops involved in the reconstruction of the epic faith of the exiles and that the renewal did not simply ignite from a single ember. There was a remarkable resilience which expressed itself in distinct voices of hope, but with a common thread. In these re-formed theologies of the exile and beyond, exclusive covenant loyalty to Yahweh emerges as the dominant expression of Israel’s faith. Although there were dissenting currents throughout Second Temple Judaism, one can recognize what has been called a ‘tendency towards a certain uniformity in particular fundamental theological positions’.373 A radical monolatry has given place to a distinctive monotheism. The rescue from Egypt focused in the Passover takes centre stage as evidence of God’s love for, and election of, Israel. The experience of God’s searing judgement has defined his holiness and the uncompromising call of obedience to his statutes. Now central to this articulation of Israel’s faith is the Torah as the means by which covenant loyalty may be expressed and maintained. In tandem with the Torah developed the significance of the

Antiquities 18.9.1. K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 145.

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figure of Moses through whom it is given. The Sinai traditions are laden with the detail of the Law, as the experience of the exile and the subsequent gathering of multiple traditions has distilled it. We may encapsulate these immediate observations in the insight of Wellhausen, as expressed by W. Robertson Smith, which we have already noted: ‘The Mosaic history is not the starting-point for the history of ancient Israel, but for the history of Judaism.’374 So it was that the period of the exile and the immediately following Persian era turned out to be one of the intellectually richest and most productive of any phase of Israel’s history. A section of Israel’s scribes, priests and leaders who had experienced exile turned to researching, editing, assembling and reshaping her national traditions. If E.W. Nicholson, as discussed above,375 is correct, we should see the book of Deuteronomy with its emphasis on the covenant people of God, with their reciprocal and urgent personal commitment to the divine statutes given through Moses, as substantially a product of the exile. Belonging now calls for the commitment of the household, conscious choice and purposeful resilience. The Deuteronomistic theological editing of Israel’s archive (Joshua to 2 Kings) to justify the ways of Yahweh in his consistent, if sometimes uncomfortable, care for Israel, was underway. The priestly tradents were editing biblical tradition in line with their understanding of salvation history, with Torah as the setting for gauging covenant loyalty. The Sabbath was written into creation, and a series of covenants intensified into Israel’s cultic life. The oracles of the prophet Deutero-Isaiah were being delivered and collated at this time, insisting that Yahweh had not abandoned his people. The covenant remained valid and, consequently, a glorious future for the nation was about to be revealed centred on a transformed Jerusalem. The major literary activity of the Persian period of Second Temple Judaism is the editing of the Pentateuch (Torah). Clearly, various later biblical books are products of the era of Second Temple.376 However, significant but more hidden activity was underway, which was definitive of the literary legacy of the whole Hebrew Scriptures: . . . it should be emphasized that no book of the Old Testament with origins in the monarchical period has survived in a form arising from before the Persian period. This means in turn that the traditional material of the Old Testament has been subjected redactionally to a certain redefinition and refinement, possibly including various processes of selection, and it is now shaped by certain basic theological decisions that were highly significant for Judaism in the Persian period and later, such as the move towards monotheism, the acknowledgement of the law and the covenant, or marks of cultic identification such as the Sabbath and male circumcision.377 Israel’s identity was always something evolving, fluid and multi-faceted. Clearly, multiple traditions were inherited from the monarchical period. There were royal archives (cf. 1 Kings 22:39). There were the living traditions that built up around the prophets, of which some were oral but others written (cf. Isaiah 8:16; Jeremiah 36:32). Judah-Israel was part of the culture of the Ancient Near East for which law was a significant feature;

Wellhausen, Prolegomena, v and vii. See Chapter Six, s. III. Chapter Seven, s. VI. 376 Besides Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zachariah, which directly relate to the return, there are other biblical books that are post-exilic, including Esther, Job, Ecclesiastes and Daniel. 377 K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 145. 374 375

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as well as customary law there were also collections of statute law. Such statutes, as preserved traditions indicate, included religious and ceremonial provision as well as civil and criminal laws. Nevertheless, something new was going on in the intellectual activity triggered by the exile and its aftermath. A new authority was being invested in the written word which recorded the traditions now being gathered, refined and reconfigured in the light of new circumstances. This process has been described in this way: Critical scholarship has concluded that all of the books in the Pentateuch came into something close to their canonical forms during Second Temple times, although the processes involved continue to be a matter of debate. We can reasonably say that the idea of using written documents to create and maintain a sense of community (i.e., Scripture) was an innovation that firmly established itself in the Second Temple era. It was during that time period that early Judaism first knew itself as ‘the people of the book’. It is likely that the five books of Moses were more or less complete by the late Persian period (ca. 400 BCE ), although signs suggest that small changes continued to be made into the Hellenistic era.378 The First Temple traditions were bequeathed with no single reading or definitive interpretation. It was the particular way that the First Temple traditions were distilled and interpreted, during the exile and the Persian period of the Second Temple era, which provided the lens and the theological tools that shaped the religious imagination. In seeking to understand the watershed between Israelite religion of the pre-exilic period and the Persian period of Second Temple Judaism which followed, we need to take seriously the observation of John J. Collins: ‘Moreover, it is now increasingly apparent that the religion of ancient Israel and Judah before the Babylonian conquest was significantly different from the “Judaism” that emerged after the Exile.’379 It was in the exilic and post-exilic Persian period that a particular reading of the faith of Israel, which we have come to know as ‘covenantal nomism’, established itself as the norm. It promoted the identity of Jewish religion bound to election, covenant and Torah. This seems to have been achieved by acute political manoeuvres as well as theological argument. However, as we shall see from the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah, it was carried by the enthusiasm of those who had undergone the exile and found powerful resistance in the homeland and from those who proposed collaboration with the dominant culture. A case had to be made and won. Branches of the new consensus orthodoxy were able to control the levers of power associated with the Temple and also the emerging authority of the scriptural tradition. There seems also to have been a skilful use of the Persian legal recognition of local religious law. Nevertheless, one has to recognize that this covenantal nomism had its detractors and there were moments when its survival seemed precarious. There remained currents throughout Second Temple Judaism who had not given their assent to the perceived mainstream. K. Schmid summarizes the diversity represented in the biblical literature gathered and handled during the Persian period: ‘this tendency towards a certain uniformity in

William S. Morrow, An Introduction to Biblical Law (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 19–20. He draws attention to W.M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel (Cambridge and New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004), who emphasizes the significance of the late pre-exilic period in the process of scriptural formation. 379 John J. Collins, ‘Early Judaism in Modern Scholarship’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 1. 378

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particular fundamental theological positions, especially as regards the doctrine of God, faced a second tendency that can be described as a broad diversification of positions within the now-orthodox spectrum of possibilities. This was true especially of political theology.’380 Schmid identifies three particular strands in the approach to ‘political theology’, which we might summarize as inaugurated, realized and radically awaited fulfilment of God’s plan for his people. These different perspectives make for deeply contrasting attitudes to citizenship. He provides us with a helpful synopsis: The role of the Persians is differently accented in the three positions we have sketched: for the tradents of the prophetic books they are divine instruments in a gradual process of the realization of salvation. For the Priestly document, Chronicles, and positions related to them they are divinely legitimated representatives of the now-realized universal rule of God. For the adherents of the still active ‘Deuteronomistic’ tradition, finally, they are signs of the judgment under which Israel stands.381 The radically awaited fulfilment of God’s plan for his people finds its definitive expression in the emergence of the apocalyptic genre in the Hellenistic period, which drew on different theological principles. It is fed by bitter disappointment generated by the perceived postponement of the era of salvation. It is motivated by the insistence that, despite appearances to the contrary, the God of Israel is in control of history and events. It led to a very specific theological perspective for which revelation was not always primarily through Torah: ‘Not all of Judaism can be classified as “covenantal nomism”.’382 There is something of a paradox at work. It is as if in the Persian period of Second Temple Judaism the primacy of creation theology departs through the front door, as epic tradition makes its entry, only to reappear through the back door in furnishing the vital imagery of the era of salvation in the subsequent Hellenistic period. An apocalyptic stream of tradition emerged, critical of Temple practice. It characteristically presented an alternative version of salvation history and combined it with cosmic speculation in the vision of a new creation. The mainstream was never without its critical voices.

III SET APART FROM THE NATIONS A particular challenge faced the Jewish community as the exile and its aftermath forced it to forge its religious identity anew. The answers to that challenge were no less diverse than in other areas of its life. Did the divine favour in election and covenant, which set Israel apart from the nations, overtly signalled in circumcision and Sabbath observance as aspects of Torah obedience, require a life of segregation from the gentiles who should be reckoned outside salvation? Or did Israel’s monotheism and consequent faith in a single creator inevitably involve the nations in the scenario of salvation? Should Israel withdraw from the contamination of idolatry and impurity or engage with other religious traditions as fellow travellers? Who counted as within the community of Israel? Was it only those

K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 145. Ibid., 146–7. 382 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 1998), 193. 380 381

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who had been through the experience of exile and not those who had remained in the land or intermarried? Indeed, how many of those who had experienced the exile were the true Israel and within the covenant? Two very different answers to those questions of exclusiveness are given, for instance, by Deuteronomy and by one of the prophetic voices of Trito-Isaiah. Deuteronomy, despite its ethical stand in the administration of justice and the immediacy of affection in its relationship between Israel’s God and each individual and family, is overtly xenophobic in the ethnic cleansing it espouses: . . . and when the Lord your God gives them [the previous inhabitants of the land] over to you and you defeat them, then you must utterly destroy them. Make no covenant with them and show them no mercy. Do not intermarry with them . . . for that would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods. — Deuteronomy 7:2–4 On the other hand, a prophetic voice, seeking to advise those involved in the reconstruction of Israel’s spiritual life in the lean years of the immediate post-exilic return to Jerusalem, counsels: And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. — Isaiah 56:6–7 Issues of inclusion and the exclusive identity of Israel are to the fore in the record of the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which originally formed a single work. As we have seen, according to the Ezra tradition, completion of the rebuilding of the Temple did not occur until 515 BCE , the sixth year of King Darius (Ezra 6:15). Only a determined element of the exiled population had previously taken up the invitation of Cyrus to return to their homeland (Ezra 1:1ff.); it seems that the initial return led by Sheshbazzar, for whatever reason, failed to achieve its goal to restore the Temple. Cyrus was succeeded by his son, Cambyses II (530–522 BCE ), one of whose successes was to annex Egypt to the empire. When he died, following a power struggle, Darius I (522–486 BCE ) became king. The succession was a signal for uprisings throughout the empire including Babylon; insurrections led by Nebuchadnezzar III and the following year by the pretender Nebuchadnezzar IV were firmly put down by the new monarch. The consequent social and economic upheavals in Babylon may have contributed to the increase in the number of returnees during the initial years of Darius. Those returnees included the official expedition led by Zerubbabel, descendant of King David, together with the High Priest Jeshua; they had the encouragement of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah. We learn from the book of Ezra of an early approach from indigenous folk who worship Yahweh to be included in the temple project:

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‘Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of King Esar-haddon of Assyria who brought us here.’ The dialogue continues: But Zerubbabel, Jeshua, and the rest of the heads of families in Israel said to them, ‘You shall have no part with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus of Persia has commanded us’. — Ezra 4:2–3 Perhaps not surprisingly, the relationship between the returnees and the local population turns sour, and the work is halted until the valid decree of Cyrus is unearthed. The excuse that the order has been given by King Cyrus as to who should undertake the work does not obscure the primary concern that the work should be undertaken only by those reckoned as legitimately Israel and consequently religiously qualified for the sacred task. With Ezra 7 the text moves on some decades to recount the ministry of the scribe Ezra, styled as ‘skilled in the law of Moses’, who is sent from Babylonia to Jerusalem by King Artaxerxes. However, part of the Ezra story has also been placed in the book of Nehemiah, which otherwise is concerned with the two terms of office of the governor of Jerusalem of that name, who is also despatched by King Artaxerxes from Babylonia. The editorial effect has been to overlap the timing of the activity of Nehemiah with the ministry of Ezra; they are presented as colleagues. Both ministries were concerned to recall the Jerusalem community to its covenantal distinctiveness and to establish firm boundaries of Jewish identity. Two observations about this ‘implant’ in the text of Nehemiah may be made. Firstly, the Ezra story creates rather an intrusion in a work that has been concerned with the activity of Nehemiah.383 Secondly, as H.G.M. Williamson has pointed out, although the Nehemiah text gives the impression of referring to the ministry of Ezra in three chapters (Nehemiah 8 to 10), in fact, Ezra is only named in Nehemiah 8. He suggests that this chapter was originally part of the book of Ezra and fits convincingly between Ezra 8 and 9. Chs 9 to 10 need no longer be associated with Ezra.384 The deduction is that there was an overlap of concerns between Ezra and Nehemiah, but no necessary temporal overlap in their respective activities. Ezra’s activity is dated to the seventh year of King Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:8); if this refers to King Artaxerxes I, it gives us the date of c. 458 BCE .385 We are told that he goes armed with royal authority, backed up with gifts of silver and gold including sacred vessels as well as provisions, in the company of a new contingent of priests, Levites and temple

The dilemma is encapsulated in J.C. VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2001), 4–5: ‘Nehemiah effected a number of social reforms in Jerusalem, but the book named after him suddenly deflects attention from the protagonist and places it on Ezra in chapters 8–10. There Ezra finally (fourteen years after his arrival in Jerusalem) did what Artaxerxes had ordered him to do: he read and explained the law to a public assembly consisting of “both men and women and all who could hear with understanding” (8:2).’ 384 H.G.M. Williamson, Ezra and Nehemiah (Old Testament Guides) (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987), 20: ‘Material in which Ezra plays a role is found in Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8. It looks at first sight as though Neh. 9–10 are a direct continuation of this, but Ezra is not mentioned in the Hebrew text of these two chapters (despite the RSV of 9:6), and so a first difficulty to be faced is where they come from originally.’ 385 If the reign referred to is that of Artaxerxes II, then the date of Ezra’s activity would be 398 BCE . However, Ezra’s ministry makes more sense if it precedes, as a basis, rather than follows that of Nehemiah, which would favour Artaxerxes I. 383

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servants. The band gathers at the river Ahavah, where it prepares for the journey by fasting. The commission, which takes the form of a decree,386 specifies: And you, Ezra, according to the God-given wisdom you possess, appoint magistrates and judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River who know the laws of your God; and you shall teach those who do not know of them. All who will not obey the law of your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed upon them, whether for death or for banishment or for confiscation of their goods or for imprisonment. — Ezra 7:25–26 The ‘law of your God’, it seems, has the authority of Persian law within the religious orbit of Judaism. That this recognition of local custom was the Persian practice seems to be confirmed from the Elephantine papyri where the keeping of the Feast of Unleavened Bread has the status of royal instruction.387 On arrival in Jerusalem, in the fifth month (Ezra 7:8) the treasures intended for the Temple were formally handed over, the king’s commission presented to the government officials and by the seventh month (Nehemiah 8:2) Ezra had arranged a public reading and exposition of the Law of Moses when ‘all the people gathered together into the square before the Water Gate’ (Nehemiah 8:1). There was some consternation as the demands of the Law became clear, but immediately the people were encouraged to celebrate the reading of the Law. The Feast of Tabernacles, decreed for the seventh month, was kept in proper fashion as never before. The events following (Ezra 9), however, justify the consternation of the people. Ezra discovers that: The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations. . . . For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons. Thus the holy seed has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands, and in this faithlessness the officials and leaders have led the way. — Ezra 9:1–2 A further public assembly is called for the ninth month; it is now the rainy season and the people come trembling. Ezra’s message is succinctly stated: ‘You have trespassed and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel’ (Ezra 10:10). There seems to have been a general attitude of resigned acceptance and penitence, apart from a minority voice of opposition to Ezra’s demand for reform: ‘Only Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah opposed this, and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levites supported them’ (Ezra 10:15). A judicial process is set up to implement the divorces, which lasts from the first day of the tenth month to the first day of the first month. All those who had married foreign wives were summoned. The substantial list of the offending priests, 386

The decree is amongst those sections of Ezra written not in late biblical Hebrew, but in what is often identified as distinctive ‘Imperial Aramaic’ (Ezra 4:8 to 6:18; 7:12–26). 387 The Elephantine papyri written in Aramaic relate to a Jewish military colony in Egypt and date from early in the fifth to the beginning of the fourth centuries BCE . They include the ‘Jedoniah Archive’; Jedoniah was leader of the Jewish colony: ‘In the so-called Passover Papyrus (Cowley 21) a Jew by the name of Hananiah writes to Jedaniah and the military group to report that in the fifth year of Darius (Darius II, who reigned over the Persian empire from 423–404 BCE ) the king told his satrap in Egypt, Arsames, that the Jews were to keep the feast of unleavened bread.’ VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism, 148. It is interesting that, in a similar way to Ezra’s mission in which local religious legal convention has royal sanction, so Darius II is ordering Jewish communities to keep the Festival of Unleavened Bread as their legal obligation.

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Levites and Israelites is given in Ezra 10, which concludes rather grimly: ‘All these had married foreign women, and they sent them away with their children’ (v. 44). Ezra had succeeded in establishing at least the beginnings of a clear and separate identity for the Jewish community centred on Jerusalem, privileged in keeping the laws of their God. Williamson suggests that what we have in the Ezra material is in the nature of a report, submitted by Ezra to the royal court after the completion of a year’s duty, relating progress made in the tasks with which he had been charged.388 Nehemiah is reminded of the continuing languishing of Jerusalem with its walls still in a state of devastation by the visit of his brother with some Judaeans. A decade after Ezra’s activities all was not well. As butler to King Artaxerxes I, he had his ear and he summons the courage to request: ‘If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favour with you, I ask that you send me to Judah, to the city of my ancestors’ graves, so that I may rebuild it’ (Nehemiah 2:5). The king grants his request. Nehemiah is despatched, with official letters and a guard, in the king’s twentieth year (Nehemiah 1:1; 2:1), that is 445 BCE . This commission results in a governorship which lasts initially twelve years (5:14).389 On arrival, within three days, Nehemiah saddles his donkey by night and secretly surveys the city walls, which are ‘broken down’ and its gates ‘destroyed by fire’(2:13). The episode as recounted is a delicate vignette, which reminds us of the possibility that the first-person reports represent a personal memoir. Nehemiah next motivates the leaders of the Jewish community to undertake the rebuilding project. Not surprisingly, given the ministry of Ezra and his sanction of the withdrawal of the Jewish community from dealings with the local population, the rebuilding of the walls immediately raises animosity. We learn of the disdain of the indigenous leaders including ‘Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official’ (Nehemiah 2:10). They seem to represent substantial local families whose names occur again in the record.390 They, no doubt, were suspicious of the returnees and did not see themselves as ‘bad figs’, but as established residents of the land and probably worshippers of Yahweh according to local custom. They clearly had not bought into Ezra’s reform programme and yet, as we gather, remained significantly connected with Jerusalem society. When Nehemiah returned from

Williamson, Ezra and Nehemiah, 24f. If we have Ezra’s own memoir, then it does contradict those who have doubted Ezra’s existence and seen his story as a literary construct of scribal virtue: i.e. A.S. Kapelud, The Question of Authorship in the Ezra Narrative: A Lexical Investigation (Oslo: Jacob Dybwad, 1944); C.C. Torrey, Ezra Studies (New York, NY: Ktav, 1970); W.T. in der Smitten, Esra: Quellen, Überlieferung und Geschichte, SSN 15 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973), 88. 389 It has been speculated that Judaea from the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem through the Persian period became part of the governorship of Samaria (A. Alt, ‘Die Rolle Samarias bei der Entstehung des Judentums’, Kleine Schriftenzur Geschichte des Volkes Israel [Munich: Beck, 1953], Vol. 2, 316–17; first published, 1934). This would explain the degree of animosity on the part of Sanballat of Samaria, with the appointment of Nehemiah as governor of Judaea. However, this does not seem to have been the case as Nehemiah can refer to ‘former governors who were before me’ (Nehemiah 5:15). 390 The Elephantine papyri, as mentioned in n. 387 above, relate to a Jewish military colony in Egypt; they include a petition to rebuild the colony’s temple (401 BCE ), which contains the line: ‘We have also set the whole matter forth in a letter in our name to Delaiah and Shelemiah, the sons of Sanballat the governor of Samaria’. ANET, 492. The Zeno papyri, CPJ, 4 and 5 (Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, ed. V.A. Tcherikover, A. Fuks and M. Stern, 3 vols. [Jerusalem and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press for the Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1957–64]), refer to one named Tobias in a similar location. H. Jagersma summarizes: ‘Zeno who, on behalf of Apollonius, as it were a finance minister to Ptolemy II, made a tour of inspection to Palestine in about 261–258 BC . Two of these papyri mention a certain Tobias who lived in a kind of fortress in Ammanitis (Transjordan). The papyri detail gifts which Tobias sent to Ptolemy and Apollonius.’ H. Jagersma, A History of Israel (London: SCM Press, 1985), 26. 388

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the royal court to embark on his second period as governor in c. 430 BCE (Nehemiah 13), he finds Tobiah has commandeered a chamber in the Temple. Nehemiah summarily flings out Tobiah’s furniture. It seems that the latter has achieved his privileged perk because the priest Eliashib, who was in charge of the allocation of chambers, was a relative of Tobiah (Nehemiah 13:4). Sanballat is also associated with one of the problems with which Nehemiah is confronted on return. The implication seems to be an unacceptable marriage. A son of the High Priest Jehoiada was also the son-in-law of Sanballat. Nehemiah recounts: ‘I chased him away from me’ (Nehemiah 13:28). Nehemiah’s enthusiasm for a strong separate Jewish religious identity met with some powerful local contradiction. The work on the wall, the task of Nehemiah’s first tour of duty, continued to completion despite adversity, with half the workforce labouring and half bearing arms: ‘So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days’ (Nehemiah 6:15).391 There was duly a ceremony of thanksgiving and dedication (12:31–43). The account of Nehemiah’s first twelve years in office is strangely dominated, in the book that bears his name, by this achievement of building the city wall. Yet, it is a task completed early in his period of office, and surely not the only remarkable endeavour of his tenure. However, it is justifiably prioritized by the editorial activity that the Nehemiah memoir has undergone, because it is as much a spiritual defence as a physical defence. In Nehemiah’s ambition to recall the Jerusalem community to its covenant distinctiveness and establish firm boundaries of Jewish identity he clearly recognized the wall as a crucial factor. A major outcome of the rebuilding of the city wall was that Nehemiah was able to get a building programme underway and repopulate the city with hand-picked families. His own memoir (Nehemiah 7:4–5) indicates that he looked to bring in leading families of those who were first to come back. For this purpose, he consults a genealogical list, although not necessarily the one appended which is also to be found in Ezra 2. The subject of repopulation is continued in Nehemiah 11, which may be a source rather than a memoir. It confirms that the ‘leaders of the people’ were relocated in Jerusalem and indicates that, in addition, one tenth of the ordinary population were chosen by lot to move to Jerusalem. Nehemiah had established a capital city with leaders and a workforce who, according to his understanding, could be reckoned of the true seed of Israel. Moreover, a supply of priests and Levites was at hand for the service of the Temple. The advantage of a walled city with gates in enabling the regulation of commercial activity and market traders, a constant preoccupation for the future, is obvious. The way this was able to operate in order to monitor Torah compliance is exemplified in the action taken by Nehemiah on his taking up his second term of office. He discovered all sorts of commercial activity, as well as fetching and carrying, taking place on the Sabbath. He takes immediate remedial action: When it began to be dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the sabbath, I commanded that the doors should be shut and gave orders that they should not be opened until after the sabbath. And I set some of my servants over the gates, to prevent any burden from being brought in on the sabbath day. — Nehemiah 13:19

391

Another factor in slowing up progress on the wall seems to have been a profound social malaise revealed by a famine during which the wealthy had taken the opportunity to dispossess the poor: ‘We are having to pledge our fields, our vineyards, and our houses in order to get grain during the famine’ (Nehemiah 5:3). Nehemiah had to address a moral and spiritual task.

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Nehemiah surely had in mind to create of Jerusalem a Holy City (cf. Nehemiah 11:1). He wanted it to be exemplary of the Judaism of Law and covenant that had emerged in the golah (the exilic community) and that he recognized as the true ancestral faith. He was building on the foundations of Ezra. When that faith was planted in Jerusalem, it encountered a diversity of practice including a residual faith in Yahweh, which was owned by the people of the land, and that of the previous returnees, many of whom had married into the local population. Nehemiah’s absence between governorships showed how quickly hard boundaries could become permeable in that situation. However, the success of his religious ambition during his time in office can be gauged by the list of practices he sought to address as he began his second tour of duty (Nehemiah 13). These included mixed marriages, Sabbath observance, the wood offering, first fruits, Levitical tithes and neglect of the Temple. All of them are included in the solemn community pledge of separation from the peoples of the lands and adherence to ‘the law of God’ which appears in Nehemiah 10.392 That pledge may be reckoned as evidence of the success, within his own terms, of Nehemiah’s labours, including the goal of his wall building. The tension between exclusivity and openness remained an issue which was to continue to haunt the period of Second Temple Judaism and test its soul. However, it becomes clear that the ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah established a religious identity grounded in covenant and Torah which became deeply embedded in the piety of the people.

IV THE JEWISH HISTORIAN JOSEPHUS Before we continue further, a word needs to be said about a crucial figure in piecing together the narrative of Second Temple Judaism. That person is the Jewish historian Josephus. He was born Yoseph bar Mattityahu in Jerusalem of an aristocratic priestly family in the first year of the emperor Gaius Caligula (37 CE ). He claimed, as a youth, to have experienced the way of life of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes at first hand, as well as spending three years with a desert ascetic. He adopted the Pharisaic way, and at the age of twenty-six was part of a delegation to Rome on behalf of some detained priests (63–64 CE ). He was put in charge of the Galilean military force at the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt. There, one John of Gischala seems to have been a bitter rival, who subsequently joined the Zealot faction in Jerusalem. On being overwhelmed by the Romans, Josephus escaped a suicide pact and gave himself up and was taken prisoner. He tells us that he prophesied that Vespasian would become the emperor. When this duly happened, he was released from prison and assisted the Romans as an interpreter and in negotiations with the rebels at the siege of Jerusalem. After the war, he accompanied the victors to Rome where Vespasian gave him accommodation and a pension. He was given Roman citizenship and adopted the name Titus Flavius Josephus, thus bearing the name of Vespasian’s son Titus and their family name Flavius. He died towards the end of the century. In Rome he wrote prolifically in the Greek tongue about the life, traditions and history of the Jewish nation, for a crucial part of which he was himself an eyewitness. In using Josephus as a major source, we have to be aware that he had his vested interests and brought his own perspective to the interpretation of events. These necessarily 392 Williamson, Ezra and Nehemiah, 27: ‘Accordingly, from a historical point of view Neh. 10 followed after Neh. 13.’

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contributed to the shaping of his record and even generated conflicting accounts in different works. He had his behaviour to justify in abandoning the resistance movement and throwing in his lot with Rome. He was dependent upon Flavian generosity and could hardly bite the hand that fed him. He was genuinely keen to record his ancestral traditions, with their exemplary constitution and lawgiver, in a positive light and presented them in a way that could be received and understood within the frame of reference of a cultured Graeco-Roman audience. He worked within received classical literary conventions, which required a good narrative to be crafted and to have a degree of rhetorical symmetry. Interestingly, his works were transmitted in a Christian rather than Jewish context, which has resulted in the enhancement of the famous passage, Testimonium Flavianum, which refers to Jesus of Nazareth.393 The earliest work of Josephus was Wars of the Jews (in seven books). It commences with the Maccabean period but concentrates on the details of the First Jewish Revolt and its consequences, concluding with the Masada episode. He had first-hand reports available to him: ‘For the War he could call upon several sources: his own experience (on both sides of the conflict), his notes, reports of people whom he interviewed, and the commentaries of Vespasian and Titus’.394 Apparently first composed in Aramaic,395 the extant Greek version was produced with the help of some literary assistants.396 He indicates that he presented copies of the work to Vespasian and Titus.397 As Vespasian died in 79 CE , it must have been in an adequate form to present before that date. This was followed by the major labour of Antiquities of the Jews (in twenty books) finished in the thirteenth year of Domitian (81–96 CE ). It reckons to cover the history of the Jews from their scriptural origins in the Genesis 1 creation narrative to the threshold of the First Revolt, drawing on numerous sources. Appended to that work is another, the Life (of Josephus), perhaps something of an autobiographical literary convention to introduce the author of Antiquities. It includes a colourful recounting, if not exactly a justification, of the actions of Josephus in Galilee during the first six months of the revolt. Finally, Against Apion is an apologetic treatise, a defence of Jewish traditions against various critical and sceptical accusations. It is only in the first half of Book Two that the specific hostile comments of Apion are addressed. Apion was part of the delegation sent by the Greeks of Alexandria that, together with the Jewish delegation headed by Philo, took their dispute to the arbitration of the emperor Caligula. Despite the perceived duplicity of his behaviour in Galilee, which he justified on the grounds that he was the recipient of divine revelation, and the patronage he owed to the Flavians, in his writings Josephus remained an exponent and defender of ‘Judean law, custom, and character as contributions to human existence’.398 His legacy has been summarized in this way: ‘His writings constitute the single most important source for Judaism in the early Roman period and, after the Bible, the most extensive ancient narrative of Jewish history.’399

Antiquities 18.3.3. VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism, 144. 395 War, Preface 1. 396 Against Apion 1.9. 397 Life 1.65; Against Apion 1.9. 398 Steve Mason et al., ‘Josephus’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 316. 399 Ibid., 290. 393 394

CHAPTER TEN

The Diaspora during Second Temple Judaism I A JEWISH DIASPORA The prophet Jeremiah advised the initial wave of exiles who with King Jeconiah had been taken to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. — Jeremiah 29:5–7 That the prophet’s advice had been taken up by the exiles in the region of Nippur on the banks of the River Chebar (cf. Ezekiel 1:1) is disclosed in the Murashu tablets400 from the second half of the fifth century BCE . A vignette gathered from the fascinating tablets is worth quoting: Jews are attested in twenty-eight settlements (out of about 200) distributed over the whole region of Nippur. . . . Some Jews held military fiefs. Their owners were obliged to go to war when ordered, or to furnish substitutes. . . . Other Jews received their land tenures as members of less distinguished groups. . . . There were Jewish shepherds who . . . leased stock and prospered, or fewer who made their living as irrigation experts. In 434 B.C.E ., one Jedaiah mortgaged his land to the house of the Murashu and rented it from his creditor at a yearly rental of some 30,000 litres of barley. Three years later, he with his sons and some other partners could enlarge their holding considerably at three times the rent. . . . Some Jews became agents of the Persian government or of Persian grandees who possessed domains around Nippur. Out of fourteen canal managers known by name, these key workers of the irrigation economy were Jews. One Hanani managed the royal poultry farm. Eliada, a son of the abovementioned Jedaiah, together with a Persian colleague, were agents of Artabara, the steward of royal domains in the region of Nippur in 419 B.C.E .401 400

More than 650 cuneiform tablets, recovered in a room at Nippur, represent the archives of the business house of the Murashu family extending over the period 455–403 BCE . 401 E.J. Bickerman, ‘The Babylonian Captivity’, in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 1: Introduction: The Persian Period, ed. W.D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 346–7.

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Some Jews even named their sons Shulum-babili, that is, ‘welfare of Babylon’.402 Although the exiles in Babylonia, from the time of the decree of Cyrus, had the opportunity to return to Jerusalem and Judaea, the majority chose not to do so. They had become settled in their new surroundings. They had put down roots, found gainful employment and acquired skills which applied to their Babylonian context. They were not inclined to make the hazardous journey to Palestine and face an uncertain future. It seems that many did learn to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land. A distinct community developed that retained its ethnic and religious identity, even its spiritual bond with the land of Israel, but felt no obligation to return. They rejoiced in the shalom of the place to which providence had brought them. Besides those taken into captivity in Babylonia, a crisis of the proportions of Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of Jerusalem would have created some refugees simply intent on escaping the devastation. One direction to look would have been Egypt, which had been a traditional source of refuge in times of trouble; that was particularly the case in periods of drought or famine, as the story of Joseph and his brothers illustrates. It is likely that many, though rather fewer in number, would have sought to flee the terrors being visited upon them in that direction. That instinct is confirmed by the tradition contained in the book of Jeremiah. It relates that a company of Judaeans who had not been taken into Babylonian exile, reluctantly accompanied by Jeremiah himself, fled to Egypt following the assassination of the governor Gedaliah (Jeremiah 43). The next chapter seems to identify several centres of Judaean population in Egypt: The word that came to Jeremiah for all the Judeans living in the land of Egypt, at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Memphis, and in the land of Pathros. — Jeremiah 44:1 Some Jews in the Persian period sought their fortune in Egypt. The accidents of archaeology have given us a window into a Jewish military colony guarding the Nubian border for the Persians at the first Nile cataract on Elephantine Island. Of particular interest is the fact that they had sought the peace of their foreign home by nothing less than the construction of their own temple. The existence of this colony, with some evident syncretism, is known through the discovery of the Elephantine papyri.403 Of particular significance is the Passover Papyrus, which is a letter from one Hananiah to Jedaniah, the leader of the colony, pointing out that King Darius had instructed the satrap that the Jews should keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread and detailing how it should be kept. The correspondence is related to the fifth year of Darius II, which would be 418 BCE . Hananiah seems to be some sort of enforcement officer, like Ezra empowered to act with the authority of the state. The correspondence would suggest that there is sufficient Jewish life in Egypt by this period for it to be regulated through the highest level of government. An associated correspondence in the Jedaniah Archive includes a petition for the rebuilding of the temple, following its destruction involving the connivance of the priests of Khnum, the Egyptian potter-god with a ram’s head associated with the region of the first cataract. It is likely that the letter with the instructions for the Feast of Unleavened 402

Ibid., 348. The collection involves four groups of material: the Jedaniah Archive of ten letters, the Mibtahiah Archive, the Ananiah Archive and Miscellaneous Contracts. The papyri were discovered by a German archaeological expedition during three campaigns (1906–8) and a French expedition during four campaigns (1906–11). The papyri collection as a whole stretches from the fifth century to early in the fourth century BCE .

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Bread included the Passover (the text has deteriorated at this point), and perhaps the slaughtering of sheep was the sensitive issue. It seems that permission to rebuild the temple was given, but only the offering of meal and incense, not animal sacrifices, was to be permitted. The petition and the memorandum of response claim that the initial temple predates Cambyses, who annexed Egypt to the Persian empire. If that is the case, then the temple represents a Jewish presence from the end of the pharaonic era, that is prior to 525 BCE . The temple stood at Elephantine while the Jerusalem Temple still languished in ashes. The Babylonian resettlement and its lesser Egyptian equivalent are the precursors of a phenomenon that was to become, in a curious way, the genius of Judaism. That phenomenon was a universal diaspora. It began in Mesopotamia and Egypt. By the end of the period of Hellenistic Judaism every major city from North Africa to Mesopotamia had a Jewish population. In a startling development, throughout that period, the Jewish presence exploded across the known world in a very public and evident way: ‘The great majority of Jews . . . did not live in Palestine but elsewhere in the Hellenistic world, at some remove from the events in Judaea.’404 J. Jeremias estimates that in the first century CE four million Jews lived in the diaspora, as opposed to half a million in Palestine.405 The ability of the Jewish community to live and thrive across the globe and yet retain a distinct identity enabled such a remarkable happening. It is not possible to ignore the fact that there is an ambiguity involved in the dramatic development of world Jewry. The bookends of Second Temple Judaism in the twicedestroyed Temple of Jerusalem are certainly reminders of the terrible pain and suffering that often drove the momentum that led to the scattering of Jacob’s children. Further, there was always a vulnerability inherent in a very evident minority community within a host environment. The semi-legendary work known as 3 Maccabees, which purports to relate events during the reign of Ptolemy IV, graphically portrays the Jewish community in Alexandria at the mercy of an erratic monarch who orders the Jews to be trampled by elephants. It has a parallel, probably the historical base, in the story told by Josephus which he sets in the reign of Ptolemy VIII, where the king arrested ‘all the Jews that were in the city, with their children and wives, and exposed them naked and in bonds to his elephants, that they might be trodden upon and destroyed’.406 In fact, in both cases there is a legendary twist to encourage the faith of the Jewish community; the elephants turn on the assailants of the Jews thanks to divine intervention. It is that bitter-sweet phenomenon of a diaspora nation that we must now consider. Two narratives from the early Hellenistic period concerning the reign of Ptolemy I (c. 305–282 BCE ) illustrate the ways in which the Jewish population spread beyond the borders of Palestine. These accounts are sometimes considered mutually exclusive. One is transmitted by Josephus in his work Against Apion, in which he is quoting Hecateus of Abdera. There is a voluntary migration to Egypt: Ptolemy got possession of the places in Syria after the battle at Gaza; and many, when they heard of Ptolemy’s moderation and humanity, went along with him to Egypt, and were willing to assist him in his affairs; one of whom (Hecateus says) was Hezekiah, the high priest of the Jews.407 404 S. Docherty, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha: An Introduction to the Literature of the Second Temple Period (London: SPCK, 2014), 6. 405 J. Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, 3rd rev. edn (London: SCM Press, 1972). 406 Against Apion 2.5. 407 Against Apion 1.22.

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The other is the account given by Josephus in Antiquities, which presents a rather different aspect on the activities of Ptolemy: He also seized upon Jerusalem, and for that end made use of deceit and treachery; for as he came into the city on a Sabbath-day, as if he would offer sacrifice, he, without any trouble, gained the city, while the Jews did not oppose him, for they did not suspect him to be their enemy; . . . and when he had gained it, he reigned over it in a cruel manner. . . . But when Ptolemy had taken a great many captives, both from the mountainous parts of Judea and from the places about Jerusalem and Samaria, and the places near mount Gerizzim, he led them all into Egypt, and settled them there. And as he knew that the people of Jerusalem were most faithful in the observation of oaths and covenants . . . so he distributed many of them into garrisons, and at Alexandria gave them equal privileges of citizens with the Macedonians themselves. . . . Nay, there were not a few other Jews who, of their own accord, went into Egypt, as invited by the goodness of the soil, and by the liberality of Ptolemy.408 The Letter of Aristeas clarifies the situation somewhat.409 Although it probably exaggerates when it puts the numbers of those removed into Egypt at one hundred thousand, clearly the population movement was substantial. The ablest were distributed into garrisons to serve in Ptolemy’s defence force. The rest, ‘old men, children and women’ were enslaved. Aristeas claims that the slaves were ordered to be released by Ptolemy II and an indemnity paid. The two traditions relating to Ptolemy I are not necessarily incompatible. If the first incident relates to the time subsequent to the success of the battle of Gaza when Ptolemy was forced to withdraw, there may well have been consternation among the pro-Ptolemaic faction about the future. Subsequently, it seems that after a decade of Antigonid stability the Jewish population, certainly in the wider Judaean territory, were not on the side of Ptolemy’s return; the relationship had soured. Even in recounting the second incident Josephus mentions those who chose to move to Egypt for ‘the goodness of the soil’. There were some, it seems, for whom migration was a deliberate decision. However, it remains substantially true: ‘In the period that followed, Jewish slaves and mercenaries formed the main basis of the Jewish Diaspora in wide areas of the Hellenistic world. It is to be noted however that a considerable Jewish minority had existed in Egypt ever since the period of Persian rule.’410 Another major transfer of population is envisaged in a letter that Josephus preserves, which claims to be from Antiochus III (222–187 BCE ) to Zeuxis, the military commander in Asia Minor. In the letter, the king orders the transfer of two thousand Jewish families from Babylonia to Lydia and Phrygia, where there has been an uprising. They are to be stationed in ‘the castles and places that lie most convenient’.411 This envisaged population movement, like so many others, is driven by strategic necessity: the need to establish

Antiquities 12.1.1. Letter of Aristeas 4, 12ff., 22ff., R.J.H. Shutt, ‘Letter of Aristeas: A New Translation and Introduction’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 2, ed. J.H. Charlesworth (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), 7–34. 410 Martin Hengel, ‘The Political and Social History of Palestine from Alexander to Antiochus III’, in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 2: The Hellenistic Age, ed. W.D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 51. 411 Antiquities 12.3.4. 408 409

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military garrisons within a troubled region. If the letter is reliable, then it shows that the Seleucids as well as the Ptolemies used Jewish mercenaries. It would account for the substantial Jewish population in Asia Minor. According to the letter, the Jewish families were given incentives to move in the way of ground for a house, a plot to till, release from tithes for ten years and an initial supply of wheat. On this occasion the order of the day seems to be carrot rather than stick.

II DIASPORA ACHIEVEMENTS IN EGYPT DURING THE REIGN OF PTOLEMY VI The jewel in the crown of the Hellenistic diaspora was Egypt. It may have been the lesser twin at the beginning, but it blossomed during the era of the Ptolemies into a substantial and vibrant presence with a real stake in economic, administrative and military affairs. Indeed, the renowned intellectual life of Alexandria found a resonance in the achievements of members of the diaspora community. There was a great deal of excellence and success to celebrate. We may use its fortunes as a representative sample for observing the diaspora as it developed in the period of Early Judaism. A window into its affairs is afforded by a consideration of the very specific achievements during the reign of Ptolemy VI. During his reign, it has been maintained, the Jewish influence reached a zenith. We are pointed to the significance of the reign of Ptolemy VI by Harald Hegermann, who identifies three outstanding features: ‘Under Ptolemy VI (181–145 B.C.E .) the Jewish influence in Egypt clearly reached a zenith. These decades witnessed the following far-reaching developments: (1) the building of a temple at Leontopolis; (2) the political and military leadership of Onias and his friend Dositheos; (3) the work of the Jewish philosopher Aristobulus.’412 We commence with the phenomenon of the building of a Jewish Temple at Leontopolis. Josephus relates that Onias IV, the son of the deposed and murdered High Priest Onias III, realized that his ambitions to succeed to the office were thwarted with the Seleucid appointment of Alcimus. He therefore turned for the future to Egypt and Ptolemy VI.413 Ptolemy’s kingdom had recently been saved from the grip of Antiochus IV by Roman intervention. Doubtless, there had also been waves of pro-Ptolemaic refugees from Jerusalem triggered by the sinister shadow of Antiochus and the debacle of the bid by Jason, the uncle of Onias, to regain the office of high priest. It seems that Onias was well received by Ptolemy, given a grant of land at Leontopolis in the nome of Heliopolis, and designated territory for revenue collection. There he built a temple, commissioning priests and Levites, despite the Deuteronomic legislation that forbade it. He seems to have argued that he was fulfilling an Isaianic prophecy. Furthermore, Josephus indicates that Onias thought the new temple might lure many Jews away from the Jerusalem Temple, given its distressed state following the excesses of Antiochus IV.414

412 H. Hegermann, ‘The Diaspora in the Hellenistic Age’, in The Cambridge History of Judaism, Volume 2: The Hellenistic Age, ed. W.D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 141. 413 Antiquities 12.9.7. 414 War 7.10.2–4; Antiquities 13.3.1–3.

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Onias also established a military colony, which gave him a significant power base in the land. Josephus even claims that he and a Jewish colleague named Dositheos held office as generals in supreme command of the Egyptian forces.415 That may overstate the situation, but the significant status of Onias is clear when he is drawn into the dynastic struggle, following the death of Ptolemy VI, between the wife (Cleopatra II) and brother of the deceased king. It seems that he leads an army into Alexandria in support of the queen. In fact, the outcome is in favour of Cleopatra’s rival who becomes Ptolemy VIII. The Jews pay a price for backing the losing side; that circumstance may relate to the saga of the elephants in 3 Maccabees discussed above. The sensitivities having passed, we find the next generation of Oniads, Chelkias and Ananias, generals in the army and involved in further dynastic complexities.416 It is Ananias who is credited by Josephus with convincing Cleopatra III not to invade the Maccabean kingdom of Alexander Jannaeus. He argues on the grounds of the repercussions it would have in the Egyptian diaspora.417 Clearly the Oniads had attained significant political clout among the governing echelons of the empire. The colony at Leontopolis remains effective when, almost a century later, Antipater comes to the rescue of Julius Caesar besieged in Alexandria (48–47 BCE ).418 The works of Aristobulus have not survived independently, but the evidence is sufficient to enable us to glimpse Jewish engagement with the Alexandrian intellectual tradition. There are five fragments embedded in the literary legacy of the Church historian, Eusebius of Caesarea.419 Those fragments give us a tantalising glimpse into the literary activity of Aristobulus, probably in the reign of Ptolemy VI. The work that Bishop Eusebius quotes is not given a title. It is cast in the form of a dialogue involving the king. It is, therefore, presented in terms of the philosophy that thrived under court patronage, with its axis the great library of Alexandria steeped in the aura of academia. A letter contained in 2 Maccabees 1:10ff., probably not the historical document it claims to be, addresses Aristobulus as of the family of the high priests and also a tutor to the Ptolemaic king. Aristobulus argues for a convergence between the revealed Mosaic Torah and Greek learning: ‘He presupposes that reality is a unified whole and that there cannot be contradictions between the truth of Scripture and the truth of philosophy.’420 In Fragment 3 he explains that convergence by maintaining that Plato and Pythagoras borrowed from the Law of Moses in an early translation. In Fragment 4 Aristobulus takes up the matter of ‘the divine voice’ in creation, as a source of common ground between Jewish and Greek concepts. He insists that the expression is not to be taken literally, but understood ‘not as a spoken word, but as the establishment of things’. He then refers specifically to Against Apion 2.5. Antiquities 13.13.1. 417 Antiquities 13.13.2. 418 War 1.9.3–4; Antiquities 14.8.1. 419 Fragment 1: Hist. Eccl. 7:32, 17–18; Fragment 2: Praep. Evang. 8:10, 1–17; Fragment 3: Praep. Evang. 13:12, 1–2; Fragment 4: Praep. Evang. 13:12, 3–8; Fragment 5: Praep. Evang. 13:12, 9–16. J. Stevenson, trans., A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to A.D. 337, 2nd edn, rev. W.H.C. Friend (London: SPCK, 1987). Clement of Alexandria preserves extracts of Aristobulus, but none of them additional to those in Eusebius. Besides references to Aristobulus elsewhere in Eusebius and Clement of Alexandria, there is a reference also in Origen (Contra Celsum 4:51). Extracts are from A. Yarbro Collins, ‘Aristobulus: A New Translation and Introduction’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 2, ed. J.H. Charlesworth (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), 831–42. 420 A.Y. Collins, ‘Aristobulus: A New Translation and Introduction’, 834. 415 416

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the ‘words of God’ in the Genesis 1 creation account in the Mosaic Law. Here, he does not use ‘word’ in its technical philosophical sense, rather ‘words’ and ‘voice’ are being interpreted in an allegorical way as signifying God’s creative activity. He identifies the parallel concepts in Greek philosophy, which he sees as borrowed from Moses: And it seems to me that Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato with great care follow him [Moses] in all respects. They copy him when they say that they hear the voice of God, when they contemplate the arrangement of the universe, so carefully made and so unceasingly held together by God. — Fragment 4.4 In continuing his exposition of the one, invisible, creator God, Aristobulus backs up his observations by quoting supportive texts from classical sources: a supposed Sacred Book of Orpheus and verses from the Stoic Aratus. In the introduction to the former, he particularly draws attention to the mention of the divine logos which he claims for Moses: And further, Orpheus also imitates Moses in verses from his (books) on the Hieros Logos. He expresses himself thus concerning the maintaining of all things by divine power, their being generated and God’s being over all things. — Fragment 4.4 In Fragment 2 the king objects to the anthropomorphic images of God in the Mosaic Law. This leads Aristobulus to declare: I wish to exhort you to receive the interpretations according to the laws of nature and to grasp the fitting conception of God and not to fall into the mythical and human way of thinking about God. — Fragment 2, line 2 He takes the examples of the ‘hands of God’ and ‘God stood’. These are to be understood, respectively, metaphorically as God’s power and allegorically as the subjection of all things to God. The descent of God on Mount Sinai is not to be taken literally as he is everywhere, but to be received symbolically. In Fragment 5, Aristobulus takes up the subject of the Sabbath. He argues that the purpose of the account of the six days of divine activity is to introduce time and order into creation. The Sabbath itself does not mean that God is no longer active: ‘It means that, after he had finished ordering all things, he so orders them for all time’ (5.11). This special significance of the Sabbath, which encapsulates the whole, enables him to link it with the first day and the creation of light. Further, the primal status of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22f. leads him to deduce that Wisdom is the source of light and equally allied to the Sabbath. He can connect this with speculation about the cosmic significance of the number seven for the structure of creation, and consequently refers to the sevenfold logos. He adduces verses from Hesiod, Homer and a non-historical Linus in support of the significance of the seventh day. The remaining Fragment 1 discusses the Passover and associated calendrical matters. Aristobulus is clearly at home with Greek philosophy, its ideas and concepts. He is versed in classical authors and is part of the pursuit of learning that was burgeoning in Alexandria. However, he applies his classical knowledge to elucidate the Mosaic Torah and demonstrate its rationality. The major classical figures, he insists, are dependent for their insights upon the Law of Moses. The allegorical approach to texts, borrowed from the Stoic interpretation of Homer, is skilfully applied where a literal interpretation seems

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to contradict the canons of Greek philosophy. Aristobulus gives a context to the later towering figure of Philo. The latter is seen not to have been a lone voice, but part of a thriving Jewish intellectual life in Alexandria that entered into the arena of classical debate to endorse its own ‘Mosaic philosophy’.

III EGYPTIAN DIASPORA LITERARY ACTIVITY We may now move to consider a representative selection of literary activity in the Egyptian diaspora. A helpful starting point is afforded by Erich Gruen: Jewish writers clearly showed a wide familiarity with the genres, forms, and styles of Greek literature. They wrote in Greek and they adapted Greek literary modes. But they employed those conventions to their own ends. Jewish intellectuals may have embraced Hellenic canons of literature, but they had no interest in recounting the tale of Troy, the labors of Herakles, the house of Atreus, or the Greco-Persian wars, let alone the myths of the Olympian gods. Their heroes were Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. They appropriated Hellenism to the goals of rewriting biblical narratives, recasting the traditions of their forefathers, reinvigorating their ancient legends, and shaping the distinctive identity of Jews within the larger world of Hellenic culture. The challenge for the Jews was not how to surmount barriers, cross boundaries, or assimilate to an alien society. In a world where Hellenic culture held an ascendant position, they strove to present Judaic traditions and express their own self-definition through the media of the Greeks – and even to make those media their own.421 We shall focus on three examples of Egyptian diaspora literary creativity. These are the translation of the Torah into Greek, the related Letter of Aristeas and the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian. The rendition of the Pentateuch into Greek is of momentous significance. It was a substantial achievement in itself which required the availability of considerable resources, including co-ordination and leadership, identifying enough appropriately learned people with professional translation skills, and sufficient patronage to see it through. One should not underestimate the challenge of translating a substantial text, which bears the weight of being divinely inspired, from Semitic to Greek whilst retaining its religious validity. The work needed to win community acceptance and trust for the quality of its translation. It further highlights the significance of Torah and its associated covenant responsibilities as crucial to the religious life of the Greek-speaking diaspora. The fact that a translation was required at all indicates that Greek was becoming the lingua franca of the diaspora community and that Hebrew was no longer widely understood. It signalled a cultural shift in which the Jewish community acknowledged that they belonged to their Hellenistic environment. There was a recognition that not only did they speak its language, but they lived and moved and had their being within it: ‘In Egypt, they learned to speak and write in Greek, appealed to Greek tribunals when the

E.S. Gruen, ‘Judaism in the Diaspora’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 103.

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need arose, and gave Greek names to their children.’422 Yet, it was of the utmost significance that, in adopting the conventions of Hellenism, the children of the exile carried their distinctive religious traditions with them. They insisted that their inspired Torah should be translated because it defined their religious identity and their sense of who they were. The Mosaic Law through which God had revealed himself to his people was nonnegotiable; they trusted it to be robust enough and true enough to be able to find its distinctive voice within their adopted culture. The considerable achievement of the Greek translation of the Torah is duly recognized and celebrated in the Letter of Aristeas. The letter purports to be written by a member of the royal court, addressed to his brother Philocrates who is credited with a scholarly disposition, and to give the circumstances of how the translation came about. It is in the nature of a report. We learn that the initiative for the project comes from Demetrius of Phalerum, in charge of the royal library at Alexandria, who requests of the king that the Law books of the Jews, in translation, be included in the library. The monarch, Ptolemy II Philadelphus (283– 246 BCE), readily agrees and a letter is dispatched to the high priest in Jerusalem, together with expensive gifts of furnishings and money for sacrifices. Aristeas and Andreas (‘of the chief bodyguards’) are despatched to oversee arrangements. The High Priest Eleazar is responsible for the selection of six men of the highest merit with experience of the Law from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, so in all seventy-two, to undertake the work of translation. The Letter of Aristeas is recognized by scholars for its legendary quality and is not, therefore, to be understood as a contemporary account. It is usually dated to the first half of the second century BCE, some one hundred years after the events to which it refers. In recognition of that circumstance, the author is often referred to as Pseudo-Aristeas. Nonetheless, the Greek translation of the Pentateuch is to be dated to the mid-third century BCE. This is clear from the fact that evidence of it appears already from the late third century BCE.423 It is quite possible that Pseudo-Aristeas does correctly link the translation process to the reign of Ptolemy II and it is not impossible that the king was involved in some way; after all, at that stage Jerusalem was under his control. As we noted above,424 there is an incidental episode recounted when Aristeas seizes the moment to request the release of Jewish slaves brought back from Judaea by Ptolemy I. According to the story the request is generously granted by the king; this may well relate to a genuine decree of Ptolemy II that granted the slaves their freedom. The circumstance of the seventy-two scribes identified in the Letter of Aristeas has given the Greek Torah the title of Septuagint (often signified by the Roman numeral LXX). That recognizes the tradition that a ‘round’ seventy were involved in the work.425 It is generally recognized that the 422 Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, ‘Jews among Greeks and Romans’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 371. 423 Eugene Ulrich, ‘The Jewish Scriptures: Texts, Versions, Canons’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 128: ‘Demetrius the Chronographer already in the late third century quotes the Greek Genesis, and Eupolemus in the mid-second century uses the Greek Chronicles, which probably means that the more important Prophets had already been translated as well.’ 424 See this chapter above, s. I. 425 But see, Harry M. Orlinsky, ‘The Septuagint and Its Hebrew text’, in The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 2: The Hellenistic Age, ed. W.D. Davies and L. Finkelstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 539: ‘That “seventy” is not simply a “round number” for “seventy-two” seems clear from the fact that no pertinent examples or parallels of this kind have been cited in any of the Hellenistic, Roman or Jewish records known to us. On the other hand, while the number “seventy-two”, deriving from Aristeas, is original, the widespread use of the number “seventy” because of such pertinent contexts as the seventy elders at Sinai (Exod. 24:1, 9), the seventy elders co-opted by God to help Moses in administering the Law (Num. 11:16), to the seventy members of the Sanhedrin . . . could readily have influenced the use of the number “seventy” in connection with the Septuagint to the point where it became a popular alternative term for “seventy-two”.’

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translation of the Septuagint deliberately tends to the literal. Occasions when it departs from the reading of the Masoretic text are most likely due to its independent textual tradition and not erratic translation.426 We must give further consideration to the Letter of Aristeas in its own right. It provides us with a witness to the way Jewish traditions were being handled in the intellectual circles of Alexandria in the mid-second century BCE . That would be not long after the convulsions in Jerusalem associated with Antiochus IV. There are a number of ways in which the narrative of Pseudo-Aristeas portrays Jewish religious insight as standing alongside the cultural norms of Greek philosophy. Perhaps this happens with the greatest clarity in the section concerned with the release of the Jewish slaves captured by the king’s father. Part of the argument of Aristeas for their release is that both Jews and Greeks worship the same God. The universalism of the passage could not be more evident: The (same) God who appointed them their Law prospers your kingdom, as I have been at pains to show. These people worship God the overseer and creator of all, whom all men worship including ourselves, O King, except that we have a different name. — Aristeas 15–16 A substantial passage is devoted to the answers of the high priest to the questions raised by Aristeas and Andreas before they depart from Jerusalem with the translators. The discussion focuses on things clean and unclean. It confronts a subject that must have been a very sensitive one for Jewish apologetics in a Hellenistic context. The dilemma is well put by Aristeas: ‘For example, we enquired why, since there is one creation only, some things are considered unclean for eating, others for touching’ (Aristeas 129). The response of the High Priest is to tackle the problem by insisting that these prohibitions signify a higher spiritual truth. He is very direct about dispelling a literalist approach to the Law: Do not take the contemptible view that Moses enacted this legislation because of an excessive preoccupation with mice and weasels or suchlike creatures. — Aristeas 144 In fact, the high priest’s solution, again we may parallel Aristobulus, is to use the allegorical interpretive approach to solve a difficult textual challenge. The distinction between clean and unclean is fundamentally to protect individuals from bad relationships and bad influences which are damaging (Aristeas 130, 139 and 142). The high priest, in the question-and-answer session, uses the subject of separation (clean and unclean) to make a quite uncompromising stand: He proceeded to show that all the rest of mankind (‘except ourselves,’ as he said) believe that there are many gods, because men themselves are much more powerful than the gods whom they vainly worship; they make images of stone and wood. . . . Those who have invented these fabrications and myths are usually ranked to be the wisest of the Greeks. There is surely no need to mention the rest of the very foolish 426

Ulrich, ‘The Jewish Scriptures: Texts, Versions, Canons’, 129: ‘Previously, it had mainly been presumed that the parent text was virtually identical with the form in the MT, but the abundant variant editions unearthed at Qumran have freed critics from that myopic vision. One must seriously consider that the Greek is a witness to a Hebrew text that may simply be no longer available.’

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people, Egyptians and those like them, who put their confidence in beasts. . . . In his wisdom the legislator . . . surrounded us with unbroken palisades and iron walls to prevent our mixing with any of the other peoples in any matter, being thus kept pure in body and soul, preserved from false beliefs, and worshiping the only God omnipotent over all creation. — Aristeas 134–139 There could not be a more manifesto-like statement that establishes the true significance of the scrolls that are about to be translated, insisting on their superiority over the religion of Greeks and Egyptians. In assessing the message which the Letter of Aristeas carries, two major themes emerge. One relates to the symbiosis between the Hebrew religion and Greek philosophy. Rightly understood, the two paths are compatible and pursue converging goals. There is common ground for dialogue and similar matters are addressed. On the other hand, the outstanding feature of the narrative is that it places the Torah scrolls centre stage. They receive the homage of the king and an honoured place in the national collection. The stature of Moses is acknowledged as the great lawgiver and the superiority of those laws over other sources of instruction is always implicit. The learned translators, ‘of exemplary lives, with experience of the law’, are recognized for their outstanding excellence even by the philosophers. The Torah is portrayed as recognized for its worth at the very heart of Hellenistic academia – the royal court of Alexandria. The Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian is a prime example of the ability of Jewish intellectuals to inhabit the culture and forms of Hellenism, yet to use them imaginatively to reinvigorate their own distinctive traditions. In this case, a biblical narrative is cast in the form of a Greek tragic drama with Moses as its hero. The work adopts a style familiar from the Greek poets, such as Aeschylus and Euripides. Written in iambic pentameter, it is usually envisaged as having been cast in five acts in the typical pattern of Greek drama. The core narrative is based on Exodus 1 to 15 and is substantially true to the biblical account of the Exodus. The presentation of a biblical story in a Greek narrative form must have been encouraged by the arrival of the Septuagint, which seems to underlie the text.427 We know nothing about Ezekiel, other than his association with this one work, and can only surmise whether there were others. The drama has not come down to us independently or in full, but fortunately substantial parts have survived through being incorporated in the works of Eusebius (who also cites Alexander Polyhistor in connection with the Exagoge), Clement of Alexandria and Pseudo-Eustathius.428 There is some clue as to the date in the Letter of Aristeas which refers, not altogether favourably, to a tragic poet named Theodectus who was ‘about to include in a play a passage from what is written in the Bible’ (Aristeas 316). A similar date to the Letter of Aristeas in the first half of the second century seems likely. Clearly, Ezekiel was not a lone voice. Although it is tempting

R.G. Robertson, ‘Ezekiel the Tragedian: A New Translation and Introduction’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 2, ed. J.H. Charlesworth (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985), 805: ‘Striking parallels have long been noted between certain elements of Ezekiel’s text and the Septuagint text of Exodus. The evidence clearly indicates that Ezekiel was dependent on the Septuagint text. In all probability, he made use of an early recension of the Septuagint, which fact seems to be reflected by the existence of certain variant textual traditions within his text.’ 428 Eusebius, Praep. Evang. 9.28–9; Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.23.155–6; Pseudo-Eustathius, Commentarius in Hexaemeron, PG 18, 729. 427

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to place Ezekiel in Alexandria, he could be anywhere in the western diaspora where ideas associated with Alexandria were thriving. There has been some discussion about whether or not it was intended that the Exagoge should be performed as well as read, and indeed whether there was provision for a chorus. H. Jackson has argued strongly that it was indeed intended to be performed.429 There are indications in the text that this was the case when the author avoids scenes that it would be difficult to capture on stage. The plagues are managed by the voice of God predicting them in detail. The overwhelming of the Egyptians in the sea is included by having a lone Egyptian survivor recount the terrible tale. This latter is one of the occasions that gives Ezekiel a chance to stray from the strict biblical text and exercise his imagination as he contrasts the order of pharaoh’s army with the vulnerability of the unarmed Hebrews.430 An eyewitness messenger from the scene of battle is a common device of Greek drama (cf. The Persians by Aeschylus). Another feature that suggests performance is the way the Exodus narrative has been simplified to give it direction, so that the backsliding of the Israelites is omitted and the thrust of the drama can focus on the call, career and leadership of Moses. There is a further episode which suggests performance and which is a remarkable free invention of the author. Moses has a disturbing dream, which he is able to describe without need of recreating the event dramatically: On Sinai’s peak I saw what seemed a throne so great in size it touched the clouds of heaven. Upon it sat a man of noble mien, becrowned, and with a scepter in one hand while with the other he did beckon me. I made approach and stood before the throne. He handed o’er the scepter and he bade me mount the throne, and gave to me the crown; then he himself withdrew from off the throne. I gazed upon the whole earth round about; things under it, and high above the skies. Then at my feet a multitude of stars fell down, and I their number reckoned up. They passed by me like armed ranks of men. Then I in terror wakened from the dream.431 The dream is interpreted by his father-in-law as signifying that Moses ‘shall rule and govern men’. It is a remarkable piece that Ezekiel has inserted, in which God sits Moses on his throne and then himself withdraws. We should probably resist interpreting this as Moses being some sort of divine being.432 Such speculation certainly occurred in apocalyptic circles. However, in this context we do better to look to the exaltation of Moses as the supreme lawgiver and the consequent significance of the Torah.

H. Jackson, The Exagoge of Ezekiel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). Another opportunity for the poet to exercise his imaginative skills is in the final scene with the semi-paradisical description of the oasis at Elam with its palm trees, including the description of a phoenix bird (cf. Greek phoenix, the same word for the bird and a palm tree). 431 Exagoge 68–82. Translation: Robertson, ‘Ezekiel the Tragedian: A New Translation and Introduction’, 811–12. 432 P. van der Horst, ‘Moses’ Throne Vision in Ezekiel the Dramatist’, JJS 34 (1983): 21–9. 429 430

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Moses is portrayed as the viceroy of the Almighty on the throne of the universe. His significance as lawgiver even has a cosmic reference. There is a daring universalism as he becomes the authority behind every human throne: The author thus reinvents the position of Moses on the model of Hellenistic kingship while making him the precursor of Hellenistic kingship itself. Moses as supreme judge would expound the Law for all nations. The Israelite hero becomes a beacon for humankind, a representative of the divinity, described in phraseology that struck responsive chords among Ezekiel’s Hellenic or Hellenized compatriots. The tragic poet had effectively commandeered a preeminent Greek genre and deployed it as a source of esteem for his Jewish readership.433

IV PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA Finally, consideration must be given to the Jewish philosopher Philo. Although it is not possible to be exhaustive in the space available, yet he warrants significant attention. His literary legacy, as we shall discover, takes us both to the heights and depths of diaspora life. His circumstances are a classic example of the wealth and influence attainable by certain Jewish families in Egypt and, in particular, at Alexandria. Philo’s brother, Gaius Julius Alexander, held the office of Alabarch,434 which seems to have given him oversight of custom dues payable on all goods imported from the east into Egypt. He was clearly very wealthy as his business interests included being the steward of the mother of Emperor Claudius435 and banker for King Agrippa I. He also funded the plating of nine gates of the Jerusalem Temple in gold and silver.436 His younger son, Marcus Julius Alexander, was, until his early death, married to Bernice, the daughter of King Agrippa.437 The elder son, Tiberius Julius Alexander, criticized by Josephus for not remaining true to his Jewish traditions,438 pursued a stunningly successful administrative and military career in the service of Rome. It included being Procurator of Judaea (46–48 CE ), Prefect of Egypt (66–69 CE ) and, ironically, holding substantial military command under Titus at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE . Such were Philo’s brother and nephews. It is a fair assumption that Philo, like his brother, would have inherited Roman citizenship from his father. He would, therefore, have been not simply a citizen of the Jewish politeuma of Alexandria, but of the Greek city and of Rome. In that case, it is likely he would have received a Greek education in the gymnasium, which included instruction in grammar, mathematics and music, and subsequently literature and athletics. That would explain the interests indicated in his writings:

433

Gruen, ‘Judaism in the Diaspora’, 104. Antiquities 18.8.1, 19.5.1. 435 Antiquities 19.5.1. 436 War 5.5.3. 437 Antiquities 19.5.1. 438 Antiquities 20.5.2. 434

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He appears to have enjoyed a lifelong love of athletics, first as a participant while in the gymnasium and then as an observer (Spec. 2.230 and Agr. 113–15; Prob. 26, 110; Prov. 2.58). He commented on what he saw at the theater on at least two occasions (Ebr. 177; Prob. 141). While plays such as Ezekiel’s Exago¯g¯e may suggest that there was a Jewish theater in Alexandria, Philo explicitly commented on a Euripidean play, which indicates that he attended either a Greek theater or Jewish productions of Greek tragedies (Prob. 141). He also speaks of his attendance at banquets where he found it necessary to exercise moderation (Leg. 3.156). In sum, Philo did not feel restricted from participating in Hellenistic culture. The exception to this was participation in a pagan cult.439 There must also have been institutions within the Jewish community through which Philo received a thorough knowledge of his own ancestral traditions, including familiarity with the Greek translation of the Pentateuch, the Septuagint. Greek would have been the medium of his Jewish education, as would have been universally the case in Alexandria and throughout the Egyptian diaspora. It is questionable whether Philo had knowledge of either Hebrew or Aramaic. However, the physical and geographical roots of Hebrew faith were acknowledged in at least one pilgrimage to the Temple at Jerusalem (Prov. 2.64). There must, further, have been places of Jewish learning where Philo later exercised and shared his own academic talent. Perhaps a channel of instruction and enquiry was through the proseuchai or prayer houses to which he refers. These were the equivalent of the synagogues which had developed throughout Jewry, including within Palestine. In tune with the intellectual stimulation of Alexandria, and having the resources to pursue his interests, Philo was well placed to contribute to a synthesis between Greek philosophy and Hebrew religion. The one firm date we have for placing him comes from the final dark period of his life, which we may note here. The two works that concern this period are Against Flaccus440 and Embassy to Gaius.441 In them the ivory tower of the philosopher is cruelly demolished. Philo participated in the fraught delegation to the Emperor Gaius Caligula (39–40 CE ) following the outbreak of ethnic violence against the Jewish community in 38 CE .442 At that time Philo describes himself as ‘we the aged’.443 This might suggest a date c. 20–10 BCE for his birth, and his death perhaps within a decade of his return from the delegation. His life coincides with that of Jesus of Nazareth. Philo’s distress at that final stage in his life is threefold. The historic legal privileges of the Jewish community had been removed

439 G.E. Sterling et al., ‘Philo’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 254. 440 In Flaccum. 441 Legatio ad Gaium. 442 It has been argued that the animosity towards the Jews was mainly the outcome of rivalry that developed with the Greek community, who resented the support the Jews had given the Romans and were determined their privileged status should not be encroached upon by burgeoning Jewish aspirations: W. Bergmann and Ch. Hoffman, ‘Kalkül oder “Massenwahn”? Eine soziologische Interpretation der antijüdischen Unruhen in Alexandria 38 n. Chr.’, in Antisemitismus und jüdische Geschichte, ed. R. Erb and M. Schmidt (Berlin: Wissenschaftlicher Autorenverlag, 1987), 15–46. Another interpretation of events has emphasized the significance of the resentment of the native Egyptian population. Caligula’s accession unsettled the situation in Alexandria and the edict of the Prefect Flaccus abolishing Jewish privileges, which put them on the same footing as the native Egyptians, opened the door to community violence: P. Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 136–60. 443 Legat. 1.1; cf. 28.182.

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at a stroke by the prefect of Egypt, Flaccus (33–38 CE ) and they had been ‘treated as aliens’, which was a dreadful blow to his patrician pride. He had witnessed a terrible trauma for the Jewish community as they had been cruelly persecuted with no protection from the civil authority represented by Flaccus. The optimism, as we shall note, that he displays in The Life of Moses of a prospering Jewish community leading to a general adoption of their laws across the greater society was dashed. Philo is an outstanding practitioner of the intellectual quest to place the truth claims of Judaism within the arena of Greek philosophy, as we have already encountered it in the activity of Aristobulus. That Greek philosophy was eclectic. Taking its inspiration from Plato (‘the sacred authority of Plato’: Prob. 13), contemporary Platonism, often identified as Middle Platonism, included influences from Stoic vocabulary and concepts, Aristotelian logic and Pythagorean ideas, especially numbers. Philo’s literary legacy is extensive with some forty-nine discourses substantially surviving and fragments of three others; this record has been estimated at about two thirds of his total works.444 Philo’s works have survived not through Judaism, but because they were valued and taken up by early Christian scholarship where they had a lasting impact. The Church historian Eusebius has afforded us a comprehensive record of the works known to him.445 Commentaries on the Pentateuch The major part of Philo’s collection relates to his commentaries on the Pentateuch. This certainly reveals his motivation, which is to elucidate what he regarded as a divinely inspired text. His work receives its structure from the methodical exegesis of the text rather than from an ordered exposition of philosophical principles. He develops the allegorical method of interpretation beyond that of Aristobulus. It is not simply a device to employ when the text appears alien in the light of Greek philosophical principles. It is a consistent method to be applied in order to understand the deeper meaning behind the text. However, Philo insists that the allegorical method does not replace a literal understanding of the text but supplements it with greater insight. The allegorical interpretation does not release the student from the literal obligations of the Torah: He was unambiguously committed to Jewish halakot. He criticized fellow Jews who thought that the underlying meaning of Jewish rituals negated the necessity of their observance. Philo argued that they were essential markers of community identity (Migr. 89–93). In particular, he emphasized the importance of circumcision (Spec. 1.1–12), Sabbath observance (Somn. 2.123), the celebration of Yom Kippur (Spec. 1.186), dietary regulations (Spec. 4.100) and endogenous marriage (Spec. 3.29) as essential markers of Jewish identity.446 Philo’s writings relating to the Pentateuch fall into three major works. These are the Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus, the Allegorical Commentary and the

444 Sterling et al., ‘Philo’, 260: ‘We thus have thirty-six treatises fully or mainly extant in Greek, with fragments of another; plus an additional thirteen treatises fully or mainly extant in Armenian, with fragments of two others. This gives us a total of forty-nine fully or mainly preserved treatises and fragments of three others. We know or can reasonably speculate that Philo wrote another twenty-three treatises. We thus have approximately two-thirds of his work.’ 445 Hist. Eccl. 2.18. 446 Sterling et al., ‘Philo’, 254.

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Exposition of the Law. The Questions and Answers was only ever a partial commentary on Genesis and Exodus. All six original component books on Genesis (covering Genesis 2:4 to 28:9) and just two (Exodus 12:2–23 and Exodus 20:25 to 28:34) of the probably five or six component books on Exodus have survived in Armenian translation. The Allegorical Commentary, which has thirty-one component books, of which nineteen survive in Greek, extends across Genesis 2 to 41. The Allegorical Commentary is the more complex and exacting work, perhaps because of the nature of the audience addressed. Both the Questions and Answers and the Allegorical Commentary share the same approach. They are in the nature of commentaries which interrogate the text verse by verse, asking questions of it (Why? What?) regarding both its literal meaning and allegorical significance. As we noted in the context of Aristobulus, the allegorical approach was already a favoured interpretation by Greek intellectuals of Homer’s epic poetic works to bring to the mythological passages a higher philosophical significance beyond the literal. However, the initiative of a verse-byverse commentary seems to be a distinctive development by Philo himself. As an example of Philo’s method it is helpful to consider, within the Allegorical Commentary, the Allegory of the Law (Leg. 1–2). With the eagle eye of a scholar ahead of his time Philo notes that there are two creation accounts relating to humanity, although, in this context, we do not have a specific commentary on Genesis 1. He interprets the creation of humanity in the image of God as the coming into existence of the ideal type: ‘The heavenly man, being made after the image of God, is altogether without part or lot in corruptible and terrestrial substance’. The creation of Adam out of clay is conversely the creation of the specific earth-bound creature given to corruption and without experience of virtue (Leg. 1:31). In other words, the allegorical interpretation of the double creation enables Philo to read from the biblical text the Platonic notion of an ideal transcendent non-physical form and the corresponding material copy as the shadow of the true reality. In this Philo is drawing particularly on Plato’s Timaeus. Philo further develops his thoughts in his exegesis of Genesis 2:7: ‘then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being’. This in-breathing is not to be taken literally ‘for God is not only not in the form of man but belongs to no class or kind’ (Leg. 1.37). Rather, it indicates God’s inspiring of the human mind with life; it is ‘besouled’. However, such a gift remains in a clay vessel; this becomes clear, in referring back to Genesis 1:2, when Philo distinguishes between the significance of ‘spirit’ and ‘breath’: The mind that was made after the image and original might be said to partake of the spirit, for its reasoning faculty possesses robustness; but the mind that was made out of matter must be said to partake of the light and less substantial air. — Leg. 1.42447 In contrast to the original thought-form of the Hebrew text, according to Philo’s Middle Platonic perspective the mind and the material are alien concepts. The mind properly at home in the spiritual realm is exiled to the material.

447 Quotations from Philo’s works are taken from Philo, trans. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, 10 vols, Loeb Classical Library, and 2 supp. vols by Ralph Markus (London: William Heinemann; and Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929–1962). References may be identified and consulted there.

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The Exposition of the Law is in a different style from the other two major works already considered. It provides in a broad sweep an overview of the Pentateuch. Comparison is often made with the genre of ‘Rewritten Bible’. This work is more freely scripted than the rather stricter commentaries. There is scope for reordering and paraphrasing the biblical account, as well as introducing comment and interpretation. Philo himself in On Rewards and Punishments divides the Pentateuch into three parts, namely the part that encompasses the creation, the historical part and the legislative part (Praem. 1.1). It is this interpretive coherence of the Pentateuch, as a whole in three parts, which he wants to draw out in the Exposition of the Law. The initial part finds its focus in the single work On Creation, which deals with Genesis 1 to 3. The significance of the double creation is revisited (Opif. 16, 25). There is an intelligible world of ideas which is incorporeal and a sensible world of material things. He once more contrasts the heavenly prototype and the earthly human. Of the heavenly he says: ‘he that was after the (Divine) image was an idea or type or seal, an object of thought (only), incorporeal, neither male nor female, by nature incorruptible’ (Opif. 134). A clue is given as to the coherence of the Pentateuch that is to be revealed when Philo notes the nature of the opening chapters of Genesis as containing the biblical introduction to the Laws: It consists of an account of the creation of the world, implying that the world is in harmony with the Law, and the Law with the world, and that the man who observes the Law is constituted thereby a loyal citizen of the world, regulating his doings by the purpose and will of Nature, in accordance with which the entire world itself also is administered. — Opif. 3 The coherence of Philo’s interpretation of the Pentateuch grounded in the Creation arises from his concept of the logos (Opif. 25, 31), which it is helpful to consider at this point. In his philosophical scheme God is utterly transcendent and can only be described in negatives. God interacts with the world through mediators of whom the logos is the most significant. Neither uncreated nor created, but eternally begotten, the logos holds an intermediary position (Her. 205–6; Plant. 8–10). As we noted in the context of Aristobulus, ‘word’ is both a Hebrew and a Greek concept associated with creation. However, as a piece of Stoic vocabulary it represents rather more than a creation-command and carries a particular significance approaching that of the soul of the universe. It is associated by Philo with primal Wisdom (Ebr. 30–31; cf. Leg. 2.86, 3.175–6), conceived within Hebrew tradition as the handmaid of the creator at the beginning. In Philo’s scheme the logos as the thought of God is the active cause of creation (Opif. 24; Sacr. 65; Mos. 1.283). The thought or logos of God is itself the pattern, the archetypal model or idea of creation (Opif. 24–25; Leg. 3.96). Philo identifies the logos with the concept of the pure form or the intelligible world conceived by Plato. The material creation, the sensible world, is the image of the logos which itself is the bond of all existence, ever ‘commanding what should be done’ (Ios. 28–31) and is imprinted in the human mind (Prob. 46–47). It can be said: Other things are in themselves without coherence, and if they be condensed, it is because they are held tight by the divine Word, which is a glue and bond, filling up all things with His being. — Her. 188

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We may now return to consider the middle historical section of the threefold analysis of the Pentateuch, which covers the activity of the patriarchs. The surviving works are On Abraham and On Joseph; two further works are lost, namely, On Isaac and On Jacob. On Abraham gives us an insight into Philo’s patriarchal scheme. There are two exemplary sets of three. That is, firstly, Enosh, Enoch and Noah, whose lives are symbolic of, respectively, hope, repentance and justice. They are, nevertheless, children in virtue. Then there are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These are true athletes. Abraham signifies virtue from study, Isaac from nature and Jacob from practice (Abr. 54; Ios. 1). A trinity is associated by Plutarch with Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato.448 In their lives the patriarchs instinctively embodied the cosmic laws given in creation through the activity of the logos. By their example, they exemplify the universality of the Jewish Laws as in fact in ‘conformity with nature’ (Abr. 6). The patriarchs were themselves the originals of which the Laws are copies (Abr. 3). Philo summarizes the significance of Abraham’s life: Such was the life of the first, the founder of the nation, one who obeyed the law, some will say, but rather, as our discourse has shown, himself a law and an unwritten statute. — Abr. 276 There is a precedent, within the traditions of Judaism, both for the anchoring of Mosaic Law in creation and for the patriarchs observing the Law ahead of its being delivered to Moses. For instance, this is found in the Book of Jubilees often classed as ‘Rewritten Bible’. Philo is adapting those traditions to the service of his argument that the Laws of Moses are compatible with, indeed exemplary beyond, Greek philosophy. The third section of the Pentateuch, comprising the legislative part, completes the interpretive coherence that Philo has assembled. The Laws can now be distilled from the groundwork laid in creation by the indwelling logos. Their true nature was discerned in exemplary form by the patriarchs and their written form delivered by Moses. The works under this category are On the Decalogue, On the Special Laws, On the Virtues and On Rewards and Punishments. The first work opens by looking at the context of the giving of the ten commandments in the desert, their number ten, the nature of the voice that announces the commandments, which should not be taken literally, and the significance of the singular of those addressed by ‘thou’. The commandments, divided into two sets of five, are then expounded. Philo explains the commandments as a summary of the Laws which can be gathered under its ten categories. That prepares the way for the four books contained within On the Special Laws, which seek to gather, in more detail, the Laws within the categories provided by the paradigm of the ten commandments. The remaining books dwell on the consequences both for virtue and for rewards and punishments incurred by observance or non-observance of the Law. The Life of Moses Parts I and II may be considered in association with the Exposition of the Law, although it does not readily fit within it. It seems to be a category of its own, but its place alongside the Exposition has been maintained.449 The initial verses of Part I suggest that the concern of the work is not so much for dialogue within the Jewish community as to answer a concern parallel to that of Ptolemy Philadelphus at the 448 Plutarch, De liberis educandis, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, Loeb Classical Library 197 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1927), 2A–C. 449 E.R. Goodenough, ‘Philo’s Exposition of the Law and His De Vita Mosis’, Harvard Theological Review 26, no. 2 (1933): 109–25. 450 Letter of Aristeas 312.

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conclusion of the Letter of Aristeas: ‘How is it that after such great works were (originally) completed, none of the historians or poets took it upon himself to refer to them?’450 In this case, it is the neglect of the lawgiver which is the concern: ‘Greek men of letters have refused to treat him as worthy of memory’ (Mos. 1.2). The hope of Philo must have been that the work would be widely read beyond his own community and broadcast knowledge of Moses. At this stage, which must have been before the events following the delegation to Caligula, he had high hopes that advancing prosperity in the Jewish community would commend its laws universally: But, if a fresh start should be made to brighter prospects, how great a change for the better might we expect to see! I believe that each nation would abandon its peculiar ways, and, throwing overboard their ancestral customs, turn to honouring our laws alone. — Mos. 2.44 Part I is a robust retelling of the story of Moses as leader of Israel, from infancy and model education through the plagues (which in their various forms are interpreted as representing the Greek elemental forces of earth, fire, air and water: Mos. 1.96), escape from Egypt, the Red Sea ‘mighty work of nature’ (Mos. 1.165) and the wilderness narratives. It is influenced by the biographical form popular in Greek literature. It is of the nature of ‘Rewritten Bible’ in that it develops the biblical narrative, which is considerably expanded and supplemented. Philo himself explains: ‘for I always interwove what I was told with what I read’ (Mos. 1.4). The allegorical method is mainly absent. The missing element of the career of Moses is that associated with the giving of the Law at Sinai. It is suggested by Peter Borgen that Philo assumes knowledge of On the Decalogue.451 However, if he is writing for a wider readership, perhaps his assumption is that the Laws are generally better known but not the lawgiver, who is his preoccupation in this work. Philo’s definitive way of identifying Moses in his leadership role is as king. That carries a particular significance within the context of Hellenistic kingship. In many ways the status he accords to Moses is similar to the enthroned Moses in the Exagoge: He Who presides over and takes charge of all things thought good to requite him [Moses] with the kingship of a nation more populous and mightier, a nation destined to be consecrated above all others to offer prayers for ever on behalf of the human race that it may be delivered from evil and participate in what is good. — Mos. 1.149 Part II is of a quite different nature; its structure is arranged around the exposition of three further titles accorded to Moses. These titles are lawgiver, high priest and prophet. As regards the first, Philo has a single point to make: That Moses himself was the best of all lawgivers in all countries, better in fact than any that have ever arisen among either the Greeks or the barbarians, and that his laws are most excellent and truly come from God. — Mos. 2.12

P. Borgen, ‘Philo of Alexandria’, in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (CRINT 2), ed. Michael Stone (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press; and Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984), 234.

451

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The strength of the Mosaic Laws is their permanence as they bear the stamp of nature and will endure as long as creation itself. They are universally valued by those who respect virtue. Proof of this is their translation into Greek on the instigation of Ptolemy Philadephus; for these details Philo draws on the tradition of the Letter of Aristeas. As further evidence of this general recognition he is able to adduce the continuing annual celebration of the translation of the Laws held on Pharos Island, attended by diverse multitudes. He then identifies the shape of the Pentateuch in a way reminiscent of the threefold division of the Exposition of the Law, but set out differently in two parts. Here he envisages a twofold structure of creation-history and legislation. Creation again sets the universal context, so that one who examines the Laws ‘will find that they seek to attain to the harmony of the universe’ (Mos. 2.52). The history is a prelude to the Laws, demonstrating their natural validity with virtue rewarded and vice punished – the story of Noah and the Ark is identified as illustrative of this. Moses as high priest represents exemplary piety towards God, which involves overcoming the passions and physical desires typified by his forty days on Mount Sinai. There he was instructed in the making of the material sanctuary or tabernacle from the immaterial archetypal form disclosed to him and imprinted on his mind. Laborious detail relating to its construction, furnishings and vestments is then covered, followed by the appointment of priests and Levites justified by some unsavoury detail (Mos. 2.172); this latter seems not to disturb Philo as it is repeated with approval in the following section on prophecy.452 Moses as prophet completes the list of the offices required for the ‘perfect ruler’ (Mos. 2.187). It is the task of a prophet to ‘declare by inspiration what cannot be apprehended by reason’ (Mos. 2.187). The gift of prophecy is identified by Philo as threefold; that is, the prophet as interpreter of the words of God, which he declines to discuss further, the prophet in dialogue with God, seeking an answer to a particular question, and the prophet as foretelling the future. For the second and third categories, Philo gives four examples of each from the life of Moses. The work ends with additional examples of prophecy in which Moses bequeaths oracles about the future for all the tribes and foretells the circumstances of his own death. Philo’s Other Works For the sake of completeness, we must now briefly refer to the remainder of Philo’s works. We may do so under two heads, as either philosophical or historical and apologetic. The philosophical works show Philo entering into the learned debates of his time; scriptural references are sparse and his characteristic allegorical interpretation is absent. The remit of the philosophical works is well indicated by their titles. Of the five main works, the first two have come to us in Greek and the remaining three in Armenian translation. On the Eternity of the World enables Philo to present the three main philosophical positions on the subject of the world’s beginning and ending. He identifies Democritus, Epicurus and the Stoic philosophers as maintaining both the creation and

452

Following the episode of the golden calf, one tribe (Levi) comes forward at Moses ‘prophetic challenge’ to mow down the culprits: ‘So they slaughtered three thousand of the principal leaders in godlessness, without meeting any resistance, and thereby not only made good their defence against the charge of having been party to the shameless crime, but were accounted as the noblest of heroes and awarded the prize most suitable for their action, that is the priesthood’ (Mos. 2.274). Cf. Jubilees 30; Antiquities 1:21.

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destruction of the world. The Pythagoreans and Aristotle argue that the world is uncreated and indestructible, whereas Plato envisaged the world as created and indestructible, a view also credited to Hesiod, although Philo claims that long before Hesiod it was set out by Moses as the lawgiver of the Jews (Aet. 18–19). The work breaks off at the end incomplete. That Every Good Man Is Free seems to be the twin of a lost work That Every Bad Person Is a Slave. Philo is taking up a Stoic theme that only the wise are truly free. That wisdom involves the moral good and also the overcoming of passions and desires through love of the divine. For Philo the great exemplar of this is Moses (Prob. 42–44). Among the further examples of such a life he gives some attention to the Essenes, especially their communal life, devotion to God and study of the Law (Prob. 75ff.). On Providence 1 and 2 are presented as dialogues between Philo and his nephew, Alexander. Philo argues for divine governance of the world. Objections are raised by Alexander who, for instance, in the second work maintains that good things happen to the worst of people, whilst the virtuous remain poor and obscure. Examples of the first are Polycrates and Dionysius and, of the latter, Socrates. Philo responds that true good things are not according to the worldly estimate (Prov. 2.10ff). The further dialogue relates to natural disaster and wild animals. Whether Animals Have Reason is again presented as a dialogue with Alexander and with involvement of another relative, Lysimachus. Whereas Alexander argues for the rationality of animals, this is denied by Philo, calling upon Stoic and Platonic arguments. Human reason decisively marks humanity off from other creatures. The historical or apologetic works include Hypothetica, On the Contemplative Life, which features the Therapeutae, who are presented by Philo as balancing the Essenes in that they are similar, but represent the contemplative as opposed to the active life, and On the Virtues. Conclusion Philo, we have discovered, claims a universal significance for the Mosaic Law. Sometimes he implies, as did Aristobulus, that the Greek philosophers, for instance, Heracletus453 and Zeno,454 have borrowed their philosophy from Moses. However, his major claim is that the Laws of the Jews are the revelation of the universal laws of God implanted in nature by the logos when world order was brought into being, after which the Greeks in their philosophy are searching. Moses as the lawgiver ‘had attained the very summit of philosophy’ and ‘had been divinely instructed in the greater and most essential part of Nature’s lore’ (Opif. 8). In Philo’s view their divine Laws uniquely marked out the Jews as spiritual athletes called to rise above the material and inferior world in a way exemplary for humankind (Spec. 2.166–7). Such insight was a reflection of his own Platonic perspective read into the texts, rather than a latent integrity drawn from them. However, Philo was part of a vigorous effort, at home in the Hellenistic environment of the western diaspora, to place the truth claims of Judaism relating to the Torah in a universalistic setting, with the lawgiver Moses as the very foundation of wise kingship. It was on that basis he could entertain the bold but sincere hope that all nations would discard their own traditions and embrace in their place the Laws of the Jews (Mos. 2.44).

Her. 214. Prob. 57.

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V DARK DAYS To return to the final dark phase of Philo’s career, Against Flaccus and Embassy to Gaius remind us that, despite the sparkling achievements of the Egyptian diaspora, its vulnerability was real. Although life resumed in Alexandria and the Jewish community had their former rights, and no more, restored under Caligula’s successor, Claudius, there was more trouble to come. There was a riot involving the Jews in Alexandria which coincided with the first Jewish revolt in 66 CE . It fell to none other than Tiberius Julius Alexander as the Roman prefect of Egypt to suppress the civil commotion, which he did with ruthlessness. There were large numbers of casualties as Josephus reports.455 The closure of the temple at Leontopolis in 72 CE was one of the outcomes of that turmoil. The events of 70 CE and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by Titus must have tested the loyalty of the whole diaspora. The annual half-shekel temple tax and regular pilgrimages had been important in forging a sense of universal Jewish identity. Those bonds were decisively cut; an annual fiscus Iudaicus directed to Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome was imposed in place of the temple tax. No doubt these and many other factors contributed to the major revolts that convulsed the diaspora in 115–117 CE in places including Egypt, Cyrene, Cyprus and Mesopotamia. Trajan sent the Roman general Lusius Quietus to suppress the revolt in Mesopotamia. Quintus Marcius Turbo was dispatched with legions and a fleet, which sailed into Alexandria, to deal with Egypt and Cyrene. The revolt in Egypt flared up in many districts across the country, with the Jewish rebels taking over several areas. Turbo waged war, the rebels were defeated and several thousand Jews lost their lives. The conflict was probably not resolved until the accession of Hadrian.456 That episode rang down a final curtain on the vibrant life of the Jewish presence in Alexandria and throughout Egypt.

VI OVERVIEW The spread of the Jewish diaspora across the globe, we have already noted, is a bittersweet phenomenon. It is ambiguous. It arises from the pain of exile and yet often the decision to seek the peace of a place far from Judaea was deliberate. Diaspora communities blossomed in amazing ways, to the extent that they might be described as the genius of Judaism. In that ambiguity we might compare the significance of the scattering of the children of Abraham with that of the scattering of humanity following the building of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9). In the context of the Yahwist’s Primaeval History the scattering is both a blessing and curse. It is part of the developing complexity and richness of human life, under God, which now moves out to people the earth. However, the scattering is accompanied by the confusion of tongues; it is also divine punishment for the attempt to storm heaven and the hubris of human co-operation on a massive scale breaching its creaturely limits. In that context the scattering accompanied by the division of tongues is unwelcome.

War 2.18.8. William Horbury, Jewish War under Trajan and Hadrian (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 166ff.

455 456

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That same ambiguity relates to the Jewish diaspora. The exile was Nebuchadnezzar’s punishment and an object lesson meted out on rebellious vassals. As far as Israel’s mainstream religious perspective was concerned, it was Yahweh’s punishment for their sin. They had to bear the burden and public shame of being exiled from their homeland as the price of their disloyalty. Yet, there was also a blessing in the way that the scattered Jewish communities so often thrived and, indeed, excelled. That sense of something Godgiven, and evidence of a blessing, is captured by the Jewish historian Josephus. He records the biblical episode of the refusal of the foreign prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites despite the persistence of Balak, king of Moab. Josephus fashions the blessing on the lips of Balaam: You shall retain that land to which he hath sent you, and it shall ever be under the command of your children; and both all the earth, as well as the sea, shall be filled with your glory; and you shall be sufficiently numerous to supply the world in general, and every region of it in particular, with inhabitants out of your stock. However, O blessed army! wonder that you are become so many from one father: and truly, the land of Canaan can now hold you, as being yet comparatively few; but know ye that the whole world is proposed to be your place of habitation forever. The multitude of your posterity also shall live as well in the islands as on the continent, and that more in number than are the stars of heaven.457 The Temple was the symbol of unity for scattered Israel. Throughout the period of Second Temple Judaism its festivals were a beacon of celebration of God’s providence in her sacred salvation history with its demand for covenant loyalty. More and more, the festivals became popular times of joyous pilgrimage, not simply from across Judaea, but from across the globe. The Temple was a glorious hub, a tangible focus of communities that radiated out across the world. Representatives of far-flung diaspora communities would come to the Holy City and return with their lives blessed and stories of their encounters to share. Each Temple festival spoke of a diversity of nations and Yahweh as universal creator, in a way that other ancient Near Eastern deities, such as Marduk of Babylon, had never achieved even at the height of their authority. A sense of the global reach of the Jewish community gathered in the Temple at Pentecost, as it was perceived towards the end of the period of Early Judaism, is given us in the Acts of the Apostles: Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. . . . Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. — Acts 2:5–11

Antiquities 4.6.4.

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The Phenomenon of Apocalyptic I INTRODUCTION The word apocalyptic readily speaks of dread to our contemporary world. It is used to encapsulate a nightmare scenario which defies normal apprehension with its catastrophic cosmic upheaval and human moral breakdown. It retains its force as an indicator of a situation of real desperation. The grim eschatological woes associated with ‘the end of the age’ have come to define the word in the popular imagination. What is the reality? In this chapter we shall carefully survey the landscape of apocalyptic, with emphasis on Enochic apocalyptic, before it is possible to do some reimagining in the next chapter. The apocalypses represent a literary genre in which particular Jewish sages claim to transmit primordial revelation (apokalypsis) from God about the secrets of the cosmos and the perplexing religious circumstances of their time, anticipating a final cosmic judgement and creation’s renewal. Apocalyptic is a phenomenon of the period of Hellenistic Judaism which comes in various shapes and sizes. The centre of gravity of the apocalypses is revelation. They claim to be channels of divine disclosure containing heavenly mysteries. These might be about the structure of the cosmos, the identity of evil, or the shape of history. C.C. Rowland warns against the way that eschatology has come to define the significance of the genre. He rightly highlights the essence of the apocalypse to be found in the knowledge which is imparted in the form of a direct revelation from God whether through dream, vision or divine intermediary.458 The apocalyptic genre most likely has roots reaching back to exilic and immediate post-exilic times, but it emerges fully fledged only during the Hellenistic period. It seems that the essential catalyst is that eclectic period when a swirl of cultures stretching from Greece and Egypt to Babylonia and Persia was unleashed by the empire of Alexander the Great. The discoveries at Qumran have made it clear that the earliest evidence of apocalyptic is to be sought not with the book of Daniel, but in the Enochic tradition.

458 C.C. Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982), 26: ‘In our attempt to ascertain the essence of apocalyptic no place was found for eschatology in our definition. Perhaps this may have caused some surprise, especially in the light of the close connection which is said to exist between apocalyptic and eschatological ideas. The omission was not because it was considered that eschatology has no part to play in the apocalypses; that would be the reverse of the truth. But its presence in them is not their most distinctive feature, nor does it deserve to become the focus of attention in the study of apocalyptic to the exclusion of the other secrets which the apocalypses claim to reveal.’

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There is a characteristic framework to the apocalyptic storyline which has been well captured by J.J. Collins: The Enochic texts may be said to have an apocalyptic view of history. Its course is predetermined; it is the arena of conflict between angels and demons; it will culminate in a judgment. The destiny of the righteous dead is to live with the angels in heaven. The angelic life has no place for sex and marriage (1 Enoch 15–16), and the idealization of this life-style could easily lead to a rejection of marriage, although there is no such rejection in the early Enoch literature. This view of history and of human destiny is broadly similar to what we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls.459 Characteristic of the apocalyptic genre is a pseudonymous identity. The sage speaks in the guise of a revered religious figure of antiquity on behalf of whom is claimed a direct revelation of the veiled mysteries of heaven. There are, in particular, two distinct means of revelation by which the heavenly mysteries might be imparted. This is summarized by J.J. Collins: Within the common framework of the definition, different types of apocalypses may be distinguished. The most obvious distinction is between the ‘historical’ apocalypses such as Daniel and 4 Ezra and the otherworldly journeys. Only one Jewish apocalypse, the Apocalypse of Abraham, combines an otherworldly journey with a review of history, and it is relatively late (end of the first century C.E .). It would seem that there are two strands of tradition in the Jewish apocalypses, one of which is characterized by visions, with an interest in the development of history, while the other is marked by otherworldly journeys with a stronger interest in cosmological speculation. These two strands are interwoven in the Enoch literature.460 The hero of tradition who scaled the heavens and garnered the secrets of astronomy, physics and celestial geography resembled the wise man who travelled upon earth. There was a sense of receiving knowledge for its own sake. However, the knowledge imparted in an apocalypse is not, in an investigatory way, searched out. It was, rather, vouchsafed by revelation. Apocalyptic knowledge was the wisdom of revealed secrets and not the outcome of probing interrogation. The revered hero who remained upon earth received a revelation of a different sort. His was not primarily about cosmology, but rather about the unfolding of history to its ultimate conclusion. The device of the pseudonymous figure from the past enabled a panoramic perspective on the sweep of history. It is a feature of those apocalypses concerned with the development of history that they narrate the unfolding of events from the vantage point of the hero-figure, a person usually of high antiquity. The narrative is cast as fictional prophecy; its accuracy is, therefore, guaranteed until it reaches the present and the very breaking moment. That moment clearly discloses the date of the work. Such prophecy is often presented in fixed periods of time in a metronomic way. The fact that, in this concept, history is totally predictable and inevitable brings to this type of apocalypse its characteristic rigidity. History is predestined and shorn of its spontaneity. Nevertheless, the consequence of the sweeping vista is that contemporary events are presented in a

J.J. Collins, ‘ “Enochic Judaism” and the Sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 295–6. 460 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 6. 459

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hugely greater context. That span enables the present to be highlighted as the ‘hinge of history’ and the narrative brought to its eschatological dénouement. If God is enthroned in heaven, then the time has come for his will to be done also on earth. This type of apocalypse speaks to its contemporary audience with the assurance that their rescue is imminent and that the moment of divine judgement and renewal is about to break on an unsuspecting world. The answer to the prayer recorded in Isaiah 64 is at hand: O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil – to make your name known to your adversaries, so that the nations might tremble at your presence! — Isaiah 64:1–2 The apocalypses are, then, associated with an eschatological scenario which may be very immediate (historical sort) or simply be the assurance that there will be an end of the age with divine judgement in which the righteous will be rewarded and the sinners punished (otherworldly journey): ‘In short, human life is bounded in the present by the supernatural world of angels and demons and in future by the inevitability of a final judgment.’461 Exactly how pseudonymous identity can be compatible with the integrity of the message is something that confounds our contemporary sensibilities. We must assume that in the original circumstances the author could claim genuine religious authenticity. It raises the question of the nature of the identity of the sages as either primarily acute literary craftsmen handling received traditions associated with the celebrated hero figure, or ‘spiritual receptors’ who underwent profound vicarious religious experiences enabling them to be the mouthpieces of revelation. Perhaps the reality was a combination of both characteristics, varying according to personal circumstances. Certainly, there is claimed on behalf of the revered figure of tradition a direct revelation from God. Heaven and earth are conceived to be distinct and separate spheres of existence. Nevertheless, they are connected, often with earthly realities having their heavenly archetypes in an almost Platonic frame of reference. Not least of these archetypes is the dwelling-place of God; the earthly temple is a reflection of the heavenly reality. The forces that shape earthly events also have their prototypes in a heavenly drama. The transcendence of God is emphasized by his dwelling in heaven, attended by myriads of angelic mediators in serried ranks. These stand and serve, are responsible for the proper functioning of the processes of the universe or carry messages between heaven and earth. There is a diagnosis of the world of human affairs which is so pessimistic that it requires crisis management and the intervention of the Almighty to put it right. That pessimism extends to a cosmic dualism involving a radical conflict on earth between the forces of heaven, ranged alongside the righteous, against demons and rebellious angels, allied with the forces of unrighteousness. The pessimism and consequent dualism extended to both types of apocalyptic: ‘The Hellenistic age was marked by widespread nostalgia for the

461 Ibid., 8. The Society of Biblical Literature ‘Genre Project’ defined an apocalypse as: ‘A genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.’ J.J. Collins, ed., Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14) (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979), 9.

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past and alienation from the present. In a broad sense this “Hellenistic mood” may be considered a matrix for the apocalyptic literature.’462

II ETHIOPIC ENOCH ( 1 ENOCH ) The earliest witness to the genre of apocalyptic is the book known as 1 Enoch. The complete version of 1 Enoch is preserved only in Ethiopic translation (Ethiopic Enoch); the work was recognized by the Ethiopic Church as Scripture. The Ethiopic was translated from the Greek version, which in turn was a translation from the Aramaic. The literary unity of Ethiopic Enoch, which represents the ‘final form’ of a lengthy process, tends to obscure the fact that 1 Enoch is not a single work, but a collection of apocalyptic narratives that have, over an extended period, grown together. There was a complex process of tradition by which the component parts emerged and were combined, each one with its own evidence of multi-layered editing. That process is succinctly articulated by M.A. Knibb: This process of evolution is reflected already in the Aramaic Dead Sea manuscripts, and indeed it may be asked whether the title ‘the Book of Enoch’ can properly be applied at the Aramaic stage to the writings that eventually formed the Enochic corpus. The Greek translation, of which we have only partial knowledge, and even more the Ethiopic version, represent further stages in the evolution of this text. The changes evident in the Greek and the Ethiopic are not simply the kind of changes that naturally occur when texts are translated and copied over many centuries, but reflect a process of redaction, and the Ethiopic Book of Enoch represents at the oldest a fifth-sixth century translation of a Greek text that came into existence in the first century CE ; they represent (a) new edition(s) of the original Aramaic.463 Cave 4 of Qumran has preserved eleven scrolls with material from 1 Enoch in the original Aramaic (4Q201–2, 204–12). They include representation of four of the five units of Ethiopic Enoch; missing are the Similitudes. The manuscripts date from early in the second century BCE , ceasing by the Herodian period. They fall into two categories. One category contains fragments of one or more of the three units: the Book of Watchers, the Book of Dreams and the Epistle of Enoch. The other category contains solely fragments of the Astronomical Book (4Q208, 209, 210, 211). The manuscript 4Q204 (4Q Enc ar), which gathers together fragments of the Book of Watchers, the Book of Dreams and the Epistle of Enoch, is the clearest evidence that an Enochic corpus was already assembled at the Aramaic stage which we encounter at Qumran. Milik dates this manuscript to the final third of the first century BCE , but surmises it was copied from an exemplar c. 100 BCE .464 This seems to push back evidence for an established Enochic corpus at least to the end of the second century BCE . Milik argued for a more comprehensive corpus already at this point in the form of a Pentateuch which included the Book of Giants that at a late stage

J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 37. M.A. Knibb, ‘The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch? The Textual Evidence for 1 Enoch’, in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 40. 464 J.T. Milik, ed., The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments from Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 178–83. 462 463

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was replaced by the Similitudes.465 The Aramaic Astronomical Book seems to have been considered a separate Enochic work at Qumran and not yet integrated into an assembled corpus. 1 Enoch purports to be the visions of the biblical antediluvian patriarch Enoch. Genesis 5:18–24 records him as the seventh generation in line from Adam and enumerates his years of life as 365. This figure may indicate an early association with calendrical calculation, already established when the book of Genesis reached its present form. The substantial quasi-scientific speculation about the cosmos centred on his heavenly journeys was doubtless spawned by the intriguing and terse biblical reference: Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him. — Genesis 5:24 The Aramaic manuscripts at Qumran have underlined the Jewish origins and status of 1 Enoch, before the book went on to be revered in Christian circles. Ethiopic Enoch comprises five component books with their own individual identities, which have been collated into a single whole. In this chapter we shall initially consider the four of those component books which found a witness at Qumran, leaving the Similitudes to final consideration as the latest of the books. The two earliest component books are known as the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1 to 36) and the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72 to 82). Both probably date back at least to the late third century BCE ,466 given the evidence of Aramaic copies found at Qumran dated palaeographically to around 200–150 BCE . Both are examples of the type of apocalypse which involve otherworldly journeys. We shall then consider two further books of 1 Enoch. These are the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83 to 90), which includes the Animal Apocalypse, and the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91 to 108) which includes the Apocalypse of Weeks. Both these apocalypses are of the historical sort. Finally, consideration will be given to the Similitudes (1 Enoch 37 to 71), which falls into the category of a heavenly journey.

III THE BOOK OF WATCHERS AND THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK The Astronomical Book (also known as the Book of the Luminaries) has been likened to ‘a cuckoo in a bird’s nest, because it contains no real apocalyptic doctrine familiar from the 465 Ibid., 183: ‘about the year 100 B.C . there existed an Enochic Pentateuch in two volumes, the first containing the Astronomical Book, and the second consisting of four other pseudepigraphical works [Book of Watchers, Book of Giants, Book of Dream Visions, the Epistle of Enoch].’ He reasoned that the manuscript 4Q204 included the Book of Giants 4Q203 (4Q EnGiantsa ar), which is written in the same hand. He envisaged, at a rather late stage, the Book of Giants being replaced by the Similitudes. Milik’s concept of the work as deliberately structured in a pentateuchal form (whether a Mosaic-type or not) has not won general favour. Knibb, ‘The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch?’, 26–7, further comments: ‘However, the evidence for the view that the fragments of 4Q203 belong to the same manuscript as those of 4Q204 is by no means conclusive, and it seems more likely that the fragments, although copied by the same scribe, belong to a different manuscript.’ 466 M.E. Stone, ‘The Book of Enoch and Judaism in the Third Century BCE ’, CBQ 40 (1978): 479–92. Idem, Scriptures, Sects and Visions: A Profile of Judaism from Ezra to the Jewish Revolts (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1980), 31.

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other parts of 1 Enoch but an astronomical treatise, where it is doubtful whether Enoch was originally named as its author’.467 The work is about the observable regularity of the sun, moon and heavenly bodies presented in a way compatible with Babylonian science rather than Wisdom’s mysteries. M. Albani has cogently argued that the main source for the Astronomical Book is to be found in the Babylonian MUL.APIN (Plough Star) written c. 1000 BCE and still copied in the Seleucid era.468 No direct connection is made between the celestial calendar of the Astronomical Book and religious festivals or the keeping of the Sabbath; it seems to stand in pure neutrality. We noted in considering the Aramaic stage of 1 Enoch at Qumran that the Astronomical Book seemed to be treated in isolation and recognized as a somewhat distinct work. J. VanderKam succinctly summarizes the enigma of the Astronomical Book conceived as an apocalypse in his commentary: Collins thinks that 76:1 (‘at the boundaries of the earth I saw twelve gates’) implies a journey. That is possible, but it more likely means that Enoch saw the gates on the horizons, not that he himself was at the ends of the earth. The upshot is that the Book of the Luminaries is questionable as a member of the genre apocalypse; in fact, the only passages that suggest it is an apocalypse are in chaps. 80–81, which appear to be additions to the astronomical composition. It is safe to say that the earlier form of the work – chaps. 72–79; 82 – does not take the form of an apocalypse, though it shares some traits of the genre. About it one could hardly say that it deals with the fundamental problem of all apocalypses – ‘this world is out of joint,’ as it maintains that the laws of nature are unchanging as long as the world endures. When chaps. 80–81 are included, the Book of the Luminaries can be classed as an apocalypse, though one should agree with Collins in saying that, even with these chapters the focus of the Book of the Luminaries on astronomical data makes it ‘a rather peculiar adaptation of apocalyptic writing.’469 As the text stands, Enoch is conducted on a tour of heaven by the angel Uriel470 in which he is introduced to the six pairs of heavenly gates through which rise and fall the cycle of the sun, moon and stars in their complex systems of rotation. These are explained in a quasi-scientific way with its own mathematical calculus. The length of the solar year is given as 364 days and it is noted that those err who do not include the additional four days of the year. Although the solar calendar became a sticking point in traditions associated with Enoch, namely, the Book of Jubilees and the Qumran calendar, the Astronomical Book also records the phases of the moon and the 354 days of the lunar year. The moon is described as illuminated by the reflected light of the sun: ‘Then Uriel

467

Klaus Koch, ‘The Astral Laws as the Basis of Time, Universal History, and the Eschatological Turn in the Astronomical Book and the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch’, in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 119. 468 M. Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube: Untersuchungen zum astronomischen Henochbuch (WMANT 68) (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1994). 469 G.W.E. Nickelsburg and J.C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 368. VanderKam refers the designation Book of Luminaries to the context of Ethiopic Enoch and the designation Astronomical Book to the context of the earlier Aramaic phase of development. 470 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 60: ‘We are given the content of a revelation rather than a report of the revelation itself. (This is also true of the Apocalypse of Weeks.) Yet a heavenly tour is clearly implied. Uriel is the accompanying angel or tour guide.’

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showed me another order (concerning) when light is beamed into the moon, from which (direction) of the bright sun it is beamed’471 (1 Enoch 78:10). Further information which Enoch observes includes the twelve windows of the sun’s course which emit its rays and heat. There are also twelve ‘wide openings’ that emit the winds; through four of these blow out ‘winds of blessing’ and through eight ‘winds of pestilence’. A certain amount of geographical information is included (1 Enoch 77) which uses the significant number seven to enumerate exceptional landmarks relating to mountains, rivers and islands. It seems that the choice of Enoch, patriarch from primaeval time, enables the Astronomical Book to recount a neutral observation of the processes of the universe which are not immediately related to Hebrew identity. It is necessary to understand the significance of the rhythmic reliability of the universe portrayed by the Astronomical Book in the light of the comparison in the introduction of the Book of Watchers, which we shall shortly consider. That is, in the works of nature everything functions as God has ordered, which acts as an exemplar to those of the human community. The order of the heavens exhibits a reliable constancy which invites emulation in the world of human affairs. Further, the Hebrew tradents did not treasure the Babylonian treatise incorporated in the Astronomical Book for its dubious scientific accuracy. The guarantor of its truth was an unassailable heavenly revelation vouchsafed to Enoch. Rather, they were theologically convinced that ‘as a multiple of the number seven the cosmic structure of the 364-[day] year was created as a basic requirement for a wholesome life on earth’.472 The sense of pessimism associated with the apocalyptic identity does intrude rather unexpectedly in the final chapters of the section (80:2 to 82:3). One has to understand these as an adaptation of an astronomical treatise to the apocalyptic context into which they had been drawn. They contradict previous assertions of the stability of the processes of the universe throughout this present age by envisaging the functioning of the natural order being destabilized by sin. These verses serve to sharpen awareness of the moral neutrality and cool observation of the rest of the Astronomical Book. Evincing similar influence, the work places the current order under notice: Just as he [Uriel] showed me all their treatises and the nature of the years of the world unto eternity, till the new creation which abides forever is created. — 1 Enoch 72:1 The Book of Watchers has five introductory chapters which commence with ‘a holy vision from the heavens which the angels showed me’ (1 Enoch 1:2). That vision begins by reassuring ‘the elect and the righteous’ of the reality of divine judgement. Events will not go unrewarded. The eschatological judgement is here described, somewhat uniquely in 1 Enoch for which the Sinai events are not a priority, in terms of a theophany on Mount Sinai. J.J. Collins has flagged up the significance of this construction: ‘In Deuteronomy 33, God comes from Sinai. Here he comes from “his dwelling” and will tread from there upon Mount Sinai. The slight change is significant. Sinai has a place in Enoch’s revelation, but it is not the ultimate source.’473 That ultimate source seems to be appealing to

471 Extracts are taken from the translation by E. Isaac, ‘1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 1, ed. J.H. Charlesworth (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983), 5–89. 472 Koch, ‘The Astral Laws’, 120. 473 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 48.

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something more universal than the Sinai revelation; it rather has a Wisdom resonance and a cosmic perspective compatible with Enoch’s universal vista. In the works of nature everything functions as God has ordered, which contrasts with those of the human community who have not obeyed the commandments of the Lord: ‘The contrast between the order of nature and the disorder of sinful humanity forms the backdrop for the eschatological judgment.’474 Enoch proclaims: His work proceeds and progresses from year to year. And all his work prospers and obeys him, and it does not change; but everything functions in the way in which God has ordered it. . . . But as for you, you have not been long-suffering and you have not done the commandments of the Lord, but you have transgressed and spoken slanderously grave and harsh words with your impure mouths against his greatness. Oh, you hard-hearted, may you not find peace! — 1 Enoch 5:2–4 The introduction to the Book of Watchers annunciates a distinctive Enochian Judaism, but may also reflect a period of deliberate rapprochement with covenantal Judaism in the reference to Sinai. Andreas Bedenbender has suggested: ‘By speaking of Mount Sinai at the beginning of a passage which deals with “the law of nature” (see 1 Enoch 2–5) the texts seems [sic] to intend to build a bridge between Enochic Wisdom and the Mosaic Torah.’475 Chapters 6 to 16 identify the retelling of the significance of the episode of the sons of God and the daughters of humans in Genesis 6:1–4 as of the essence of the Book of Watchers. The story is given an original and sinister twist. Rather than the Fall being traced back to the sin of Adam,476 in the Book of Watchers it is given a pre-human cosmic dimension and related to the Genesis 6 episode, now interpreted as the rebellion of fallen angels. There is a mighty eruption of evil into an otherwise tranquil environment. The story has doubtlessly been developed from the brief mention of the angel marriages in Genesis, much as the terse words about Enoch were able to seed his remarkable destiny. There is no need to imagine, as does J.T. Milik,477 an already existing narrative behind Genesis 6:1–4. Two sources in this further development of the narrative are evident: Two different forms of the myth have been interwoven in the Book of Watchers: according to one, in which the leader of the watchers (a subclass of angels) is Shemihazah, the watchers descend because of their lust for the women, and it is the offspring of their unions, the giants, who are responsible for the spread of sin in the earth (cf. 1 En. 7); according to the other, in which the leader of the watchers is Asael, the watchers descend in order to instruct human beings, and it is their teaching that is the source of evil (cf. 1 En. 8).478

474

Ibid., 49. Andreas Bedenbender, ‘The Place of the Torah in the Early Enoch Literature’, in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 76. 476 Michael A. Knibb, ‘Apocalypticism and Messianism’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. T.H. Lim and J.J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 407: ‘In texts from before the common era the origin of sin is not traced back to the story of Adam and Eve except in a comment in Sir. 25:24.’ 477 Milik, ed., The Books of Enoch, 31: ‘If my hypothesis is correct, the work incorporated in En. 6–19 is earlier than the definitive version of the first chapters of Genesis.’ 478 Knibb, ‘Apocalypticism and Messianism’, 407. 475

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In the resulting narrative the Watchers break the rules of heaven, liaise with human women, illicitly teach them some of the secrets of heaven and father giants. These, according to the Shemihazah tradition, have avaricious appetites to the extent that they consume the food supply, then turn on human beings in the food chain and finally on one another. The violence associated with the Shemihazah scenario has perhaps been adapted from some sort of specific crisis, which may be the vicious wars of the Diadochi following the death of Alexander the Great.479 However, that original event has long been subsumed into an amalgam of subsequent triggers of dark apprehension. ‘An alternative view emphasizes the sexual sin in the Šemihazah material and adduces passages from the Testament of Levi and the Damascus Document (CD) from Qumran in support of an application to the Jerusalem priesthood.’480 The groaning of humanity ascends to heaven: ‘And then spoke the Most High’ (1 Enoch 10:1). The Most High despatches the angel Asuryal to warn Noah of the forthcoming Flood. The scale of wickedness released by the consequences of the union between the Watchers and human women provides more substantial justification for the judgement of the Flood than the narrative in the book of Genesis as it currently stands. The offspring of the heavenly and earthly union are condemned to self-destruction and devour one another; however, evil spirits emerge from the dead bodies of the giants whose mischief consequently continues (1 Enoch 15:8 to 16:1). The Watchers are bound ‘for seventy generations’ until the day of their judgement. The eschatological outcome is declared: And every iniquitous deed will end, and the plant of righteousness and truth will appear forever and he will plant joy. — 1 Enoch 10:16 The recounting of the Flood and its judgement upon the Watchers is a device that anticipates the eschatological judgement, which is the real preoccupation of the narrative, when the total cosmic damage will finally be restored. The faithful are reassured that ‘the plant of righteousness . . . will appear forever’. Various layers of tradition are brought together in the compilation of the Book of Watchers. One of these (chs 12 to 16) now has Enoch, representative of humanity, set out on his heavenly journey (14:8 ff.). He is received in heaven and enters the very presence of God in the awesome heavenly temple, to intercede on behalf of the Watchers. This is a total reversal of what, it is noted, should be the case. God’s judgement is decisive: Tell them, ‘Therefore, you will have no peace!’ — 1 Enoch 16:3 The account now continues (chs 17 to 19) to expand Enoch’s encyclopaedic knowledge as he is taken on a tour guided by angels to the extremities of the universe.481 The tour

See G.W.E. Nickelsburg, ‘Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11’, JBL 96, no. 3 (1977): 383–405. J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 50. See D.W. Suter, ‘Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16’, HUCA 50 (1979): 115–35. 481 Milik (ed., The Books of Enoch, 28) suggests that the interest in travel and geography might point to the perspective of a merchant: ‘We may conclude that it was in Palestine under Lagid hegemony, towards the middle of the third century B.C ., at the height of the intensive commercial and cultural exchanges between East and West, that the Judaean author of the Enochic Book of Watchers lived and prospered, as a merchant and a writer.’ 479 480

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includes ‘the storerooms of all the winds’ (1 Enoch 18:1), but also more ominously ‘the prison house for the stars and the powers of heaven’. The cosmos has its waiting rooms for eschatological judgement. Enoch can say: I saw the vision of the end of everything alone; and none among human beings will see as I have seen. — 1 Enoch 19:3 Additional material now extends Enoch’s heavenly journey, much of which relates to the eschatological judgement, including Jerusalem’s Valley of Gehenna (ch. 27). The final chapters are about knowledge rather than judgement, including a visit to the Garden of Eden (ch. 32). The episode of the Watchers is cast as a significant invasion of earth from heaven and open defiance of the boundaries decreed by the Almighty. There is pre-human fall linked to angelic rebellion. It creates a cosmic fault line which only the final judgement will rectify. The human perspective is that of St Paul when he claims: For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. — Ephesians 6:12

IV THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND THE EPISTLE OF ENOCH We shall take first the Epistle of Enoch and, embedded within it, the Apocalypse of Weeks.482 In the judgement of J.C. VanderKam: ‘The oldest surviving historical apocalypse in Jewish literature is probably the short composition known as the Apocalypse of Weeks. The fact that it does not mention the persecution of Jews and the ban on Judaism by Antiochus IV in 167 BCE implies that it was written before these events, that is, perhaps in approximately 170 BCE .’483 The Apocalypse of Weeks is, therefore, older than the book of Daniel apocalypse, which means that we may not place Daniel as the exemplar of this form. Further, we have to look for the trigger of the Apocalypse of Weeks and the location of the ‘crux of history’ prior to Antiochus IV. The necessary next question is to what extent the setting of the Apocalypse in the Epistle of Enoch provides us with any clue as to its circumstances. Opinions are divided as to whether or not the Apocalypse of Weeks has an originally separate tradition-history before being inserted in its present context.484 The likely 482

It should be noted that, following the indications of the Aramaic fragments from Qumran, it seems that the introduction to the Apocalypse of Weeks has been misplaced in the Ethiopic version. The apocalypse therefore comprises 1 Enoch 93:1–10 followed by 1 Enoch 91:11–17. 483 VanderKam, An Introduction to Early Judaism, 103. 484 R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), Vol. 2, 171, placed the Epistle in the Hasmonean period, that is, early first century, although suggesting a period before the Maccabean revolt for the Apocalypse of Weeks. The fact that the Book of Jubilees seems to know both the Apocalypse and the Epistle (Jubilees 4:18), and Jubilees has provided several witnesses from Qumran dated from the late Hasmonean period, pushes the date of the Epistle to the second century. Matthew Black argues the Apocalypse is older than its context (M. Black, ‘The Apocalypse of Weeks in the Light of 4QeNg’, VT 28, no. 4 [1978]: 464–9). Milik (ed., The Books of Enoch) challenges that the Apocalypse ever was independent of its context.

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second-century date of the Epistle, however, leads us to expect some helpful indicators relating to the provenance of the Apocalypse. The Epistle resembles the testamentary form. Enoch gathers his offspring before he departs (‘for a voice calls me’, 91:1) to give them moral advice and indicate the future direction of history. That moral exhortation is marked by its social concern and condemnation of the evils of society reminiscent of the canonical prophets. In that, it is unique in the early part of Enoch and anticipates the Similitudes to which we shall turn in due course. J.J. Collins has suggested that: ‘The class divisions reflected in the woes were not peculiar to any one period, but they are thoroughly intelligible against the background of the Hellenization of Palestine in the period before the Maccabean revolt, as illustrated by the story of the Tobiads in Josephus.’485 If the Epistle reflects the early tensions generated by the Hellenizing group within Palestinian Judaism, then that gives us a useful context as we approach the circumstances of the Apocalypse embedded within it. In the Apocalypse of Weeks Enoch imparts the destiny of the true Israel identified as the ‘elect ones’ and ‘the plant of truth’. There is a threefold revelation: ‘according to that which was revealed to me from the heavenly vision, that which I learned from the words of the holy angels, and understood from the heavenly tablets’ (1 Enoch 93:2). The veiled nature of the revelation means that the history covered is sketched with clues and innuendoes that need to be read and interpreted. The whole of history from creation to consummation is expressed in ten periods of a ‘week’ each, that is seventy units. That brings a sabbatical element to the whole enumeration of history. The seventh week is the fulcrum of history, in which the pseudonymous author is himself to be located, marking a jubilee (seven times seven). As it has been summed up: ‘Underlying all of this is the notion of the Sabbath and of sabbatical and jubilee years, expounded in the priestly laws of the Torah (Leviticus 25).’486 The Apocalypse is able to present history in an ordered, periodic and purposeful way under the control of God in whose sight everything is preordained and foreseen. Israel’s Law is built into the very identity of time, just as the Book of Jubilees could claim that the angels keep the Sabbath in heaven (Jubilees 2:17–19). The division of history into ten periods has strong precedent.487 Seven was a number favoured by those who dealt in heavenly mysteries. Enoch himself is the seventh generation. The prophecy contained in the book of Jeremiah decrees that the exile will last seventy years (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10). It is reinterpreted in Daniel as ‘seventy weeks of years’ (Daniel 9:24).488 The first six weeks are immediately familiar from the biblical record and summarize many of the essentials of familiar salvation history. The initial week comprises the immediate generations following creation and is assessed positively. Enoch explains:

J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 66. Ibid., 64. 487 Ibid., 63: ‘The division of history into ten periods is most probably derived from the Persian idea of the millennium. It is common in the Sibylline Oracles and is a major structuring element in Sib. Or. 1 and 2 and Sib. Or. 4. It is found in the Melchizedek scroll from Qumran, and Milik cites two fragments of a “commentary on the (book of) periods created by God” (4Q180 & 181), where there are ten weeks from Noah to Abraham.’ 488 Many other examples could be given of sevens. For instance, the Watchers are bound for 70 generations (1 Enoch 10:12); in the Animal Apocalypse 70 shepherds are identified in the period of Israel’s exile. 485 486

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I was born the seventh during the first week, during which time judgment and righteousness continued to endure. — 1 Enoch 93:3 It is in the second week that ‘great and evil things’ (93:4) occur. We are to understand the reference to the episode of the Watchers, which we have noted overshadows the book of Enoch and traces the origin of sin not to Adam but to the fallen angels.489 Events draw the calamity of the Flood: Deceit should grow, and therein the first consummation will take place. But therein (also) a (certain) man shall be saved. — 1 Enoch 93:4 This latter is a reference to Noah, which is followed immediately by the prediction ‘and he shall make a law for the sinners’. By this, we are to understand God’s implementation of the Noahic covenant. We are still in universal history. In the third week comes the era of election and the designation of Abraham ‘as the plant of the righteous judgment’ (93:5). The fourth week clearly identifies the giving of the Law ‘for all the generations’ (93:6) and there may be a reference to the gift of the land.490 However, crucially there is no mention of the Sinaitic covenant. The fifth week refers to the Davidic monarchy and the Temple. The sixth week is somewhat darker, as one where ‘all shall forget wisdom’ (93:8). This reflects the prophetic indictment of God’s people. There is veiled reference to Elijah’s ascension, the destruction of the Temple and exile: ‘the chosen root shall be dispersed’ (93:8). It is in the seventh week that the turning point occurs; the reversal of fortunes is inaugurated. It seems to encompass the time from the Babylonian exile until the time of the author. It is as if the exile has never been lifted. The initial return is not acknowledged as valid in terms of the story of God’s people. That generation is declared ‘apostate’ and ‘criminal’ (1 Enoch 93:9). The rebuilding of the Temple is totally ignored. In the midst of this, the thread of divine election and divine purpose is renewed once more: At its completion, there shall be elected the elect ones of righteousness from the eternal plant of righteousness, to whom shall be given sevenfold instruction concerning all his flock. — 1 Enoch 93:10 It is the beginning of the commissioning of the elect (not the whole plant) in the achievement of God’s eschatological purpose, in whose number the author and his circle are to be included. We may discern the growing crisis within the Jewish community between the Hellenizers and those who resisted their activities as apostasy: ‘the elect ones of righteousness’. No doubt it was the latter who smarted under the economic injustices.

489 An interesting contradiction of this is to be found within the Epistle at 1 Enoch 98:4 which claims that: ‘neither has sin been exported into the world. It is the people who have themselves invented it. And those who commit it shall come under a great curse.’ The concern here is the emphasizing of human responsibility for their own actions. 490 In the translation of Isaac, 74, he refers ‘made with a fence’ to the Law and not to the land.

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Then comes the eighth week, ‘the week of righteousness’ in which we are told that ‘sinners shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous’ (91:12). We are now in the realm of true prediction and beyond the security of known events. Clearly, the righteous play a proactive part in achieving the divine purpose as the text states: ‘A sword shall be given to it.’ This is not a pacifist agenda. There will be established an ideal period; it seems confined to the local geography of the Holy Land, including the building of a new temple. This will be extended in the ninth week by ‘righteous judgment . . . revealed to the whole world’ (91:14) and in the tenth week by the judgement of heaven with the angelic world called to account: The first heaven shall depart and pass away; a new heaven shall appear; and all the powers of heaven shall shine forever sevenfold. — 1 Enoch 91:16 The conclusion of the Apocalypse of Weeks seems to envisage a new heaven, but no mention is made of a new earth. That circumstance has been explained in this way: Because of the gravity of the angels’ misdemeanours one must suppose that nothing short of a completely new heavenly world could be contemplated to rectify the evil with which the angels had contaminated the world above. In the eyes of the apocalypticist removal of the evil from the world by the activities of the righteous was sufficient to make the earth conform to God’s eternal purposes.491 Initially the correspondence between the salvation history, which was a hallmark of the biblical editing of the Persian period, and the salvation history recited in the Apocalypse is striking. On closer encounter there is a distinctiveness to the apocalyptic version of salvation history. The episode of the Watchers is integrated into the summary of history. The covenant at Sinai does not play a significant part in the profile of the history. There is an antipathy towards the restored Temple which leads to its complete exclusion in the account of the seventh week and the condemnation of that generation. The whole setting of apocalyptic salvation history is within the framework of the periodization of history and the sabbatical rhythm. Most significantly, salvation history is not presented as pure epic which is locked away from the mythic. The two are integrated. Trito-Isaiah’s vision of a new creation becomes the goal of the spine of salvation history, which is anticipated by a prior eschatological injection into the course of history. The apocalyptic genre seems very distinctively to have retained the pre-exilic creation traditions. We do seem to be dealing with evidence of a distinct stream of Hellenistic Judaism. The Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83 to 90) consists of two visions given to Enoch which he relates to his son, Methuselah. The first is short and is recounted as taking place when Enoch is still a child staying with his grandfather. He has a nightmare of impending judgement that is coming on the world and sees it, overwhelmed by sin, sinking into the abyss of destruction. The context of the second of the dreams is Enoch as a young man ‘before I married your mother’ (1 Enoch 85:3; cf. 83:2). It is an engaging allegory known as the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85 to 90), in which we again encounter the main events of salvation history. It includes the now familiar addition of the particular perspective of the Enochic tradition relating to the fallen angels. The narrative extends

Rowland, The Open Heaven, 165.

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beyond the exile and return to the Hellenistic period. The story is told in symbols. Domestic animals represent people and wild animals and birds, the nations, the Watchers (fallen angels) are stars, the ministering angels are people, the Temple is a tower and Jerusalem is a house. The way the allegory is related, although creating an aura of apocalyptic enigma, is mainly straightforward to interpret. Interestingly, despite the significance of the episode of the Watchers, the human culpability in sinning is also emphasized. The narrative commences with Adam, who is portrayed as a snow-white bull, and Eve, who is cast as a heifer. Cain is a dark bull and he gores Abel who is a red bull. The patriarchs are all represented as bulls with the colour white signifying the line of promise. The Watchers descend from heaven in the form of stars; their sexual exploits with the heifers produce elephants, camels and donkeys. The Watchers are thrown into the abyss; the offspring are given a sword of self-destruction and then the Flood follows. Noah, born a bull, becomes a man; that is, he obtains angelic status. All three of his sons enter the ark and are portrayed as bulls; one is white. With the patriarch Jacob the promised line metamorphoses from cattle to sheep. Israel now becomes a flock. The story of Joseph is recounted with the Egyptians as wolves. The Hebrew sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus, the rescue at the sea and the time at Sinai are all narrated. Moses, like Noah, becomes a man; that is, he obtains the same angelic status. The theophany on Mount Sinai is recounted, together with the double ascent of the mountain by Moses. However, there is no mention of either the establishing of a covenant or the giving of the Torah (89:29–35). The emphasis seems to be elsewhere, on the anger of the Lord of the sheep, the frailty (‘blindness’) of the flock and the slaying of the sheep that had gone astray. Nickelsburg has commented: ‘In the case of the Animal Apocalypse, the author allows Moses a crucial role in Israel’s history, as the leader of the Exodus. At the same time, he transfers the role of mediator, recipient of revelation, and lawgiver from Moses to Enoch.’492 The death of Moses, the crossing of the Jordan and entry into the Promised Land leads on to the period of the judges. Then follows the united monarchy where Saul, David and Solomon are all rams. The Temple is built and Jerusalem consolidated. The divided monarchy is portrayed as a period of persistent prophetic encounter with wayward Israel. The ascension of Elijah, who joins Enoch in his vantage point of history, receives particular mention; as we noted, the ascension of Elijah was also a feature of the Apocalypse of Weeks. Elijah is identified as an example of Israel’s rejection of the prophetic ministry. The outcome of that whole prophetic period is the handing over of the flock to the wild animals (the gentiles) and, consequently, much slaughter. The city and the Temple are destroyed. The era from the exile to the Hellenistic age is envisaged in four successive periods,493 within which Israel is handed over to seventy shepherds – that is, to the rule of the nations. The seventy shepherds, who represent the number of the nations and their angelic guardians (cf. Deuteronomy 32:5–9), are to be watched by the recording angel to make sure that the punishment of the flock, decreed by God, is not taken to excess. The inevitable excess will in due course be grounds for judgement against the shepherds. Mention is made of the rebuilding of the Temple, but it does not represent a new era of 492 G.W.E. Nickelsburg, ‘Enochic Wisdom and Its Relationship to the Mosaic Torah’, in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 89. 493 They correlate fairly consistently to Babyonian, Persian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid dominion. The seventy shepherds are allocated across the periods as 12, 23, 23 and 12.

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hope: ‘But they started to place a table before the tower, with all the food which is upon it being polluted and impure’ (1 Enoch 89:73). The assessment corresponds with the ‘apostate generation’ of the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 Enoch 93:9). The inkling of hope begins with some lambs,494 who are forerunners of the Maccabean revolt and they, too, have their parallel in the ‘chosen righteous’ of the Apocalypse of Weeks. They lose their blindness and begin to see clearly, call to the sheep and even grow horns, but are vanquished by the ravens. Then emerges a ram with a great horn; he is able to gather the rams among the sheep and take on ‘all those eagles, vultures, ravens and kites’ (90:11) that continue to rip apart the sheep. The ram with the great horn is to be identified with Judas Maccabeus. There is a particular moment when the recording angel intervenes (1 Enoch 90:17). J.J. Collins regards this as a ‘probable reference to the tradition that an angel appeared at the battle of Beth-Zur’,495 which took place in 164 BCE . A further historical reminiscence is, in all likelihood, to be discerned behind the verse following: I kept seeing till the Lord of the sheep came unto them and took in his hand the rod of his wrath and smote the earth; and all the beasts and all the birds of the heaven fell down from the midst of those sheep and were swallowed up in the earth, and it was covered upon them. — 1 Enoch 90:18 Next a great sword is given to the sheep; the time has come for resistance.496 There we reach the author’s own time. He, too, has to gaze into the future. The eschatological events arrive as the throne of God is set up upon earth. The Watchers, the seventy shepherds and the blind sheep (those considered apostate Israel) receive judgement and sentence. There follows the establishment of a new era of peace centred on a transformed Jerusalem.497 The gentiles are gathered into the culmination of history as they recognize the sovereignty of Israel. A resurrection of the righteous sheep seems to be envisaged, in addition to the ingathering of the nations: All those which have been destroyed and dispersed, and all the beasts of the field and the birds of the sky were gathered together in that house. — 1 Enoch 90:33 The sword of conflict is laid up (1 Enoch 90:34). With the coming of a white bull, perhaps the Messiah, the sheep again all become bulls. The end recapitulates the beginning: creation and consummation are balanced as the white bull is correlated with Adam. It has been suggested that nothing less than a new humanity is here envisaged.498

494 These are often identified as including the Hasidim, who certainly supported Judas Maccabeus. They appear at the conclusion of the third period. One of them is killed (1 Enoch 90:8). J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 69, comments: ‘This has been taken as a reference to the murder of the high priest Onias III. No other plausible referent is known. If this is correct, the rejection of the Second Temple must be modified.’ 495 Ibid., 69. Cf. 2 Maccabees 11:6–12. 496 The corresponding moment occurs in the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 Enoch 93:12). 497 If the ‘ancient house’ (1 Enoch 90:28) which is transformed refers to Jerusalem, then a ‘new Jerusalem’ is envisaged, as in the book of Revelation, where there is no need for a temple as God dwells in its midst. Rowland, The Open Heaven, 162–3, suggests that the mention of pillars and ornaments may point to it being the Temple which is transformed, rather than the city of Jerusalem; in which case a ‘new Temple’ is envisaged. 498 Ibid., 163.

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Once again, we find that a form of salvation history defines the direction of the Apocalypse. However, it has similar distinctive features to the Apocalypse of Weeks which distinguish it from the form familiar from the emerging biblical epic of the Persian period. The episode of the Watchers is firmly incorporated in the narrative. The covenant at Sinai and the giving of the Law, so essential to covenantal nomism, are absent. Enoch has a position in terms of the universal scope and quality of his revelation superior to that of Moses. Again. the period encompassed by salvation history is extended into the Hellenistic period and, although the rebuilt Temple is recognized, its offerings are dismissed as polluted. That period is put under the control of seventy shepherds and regulated into four periods. The number seventy represents the number of the nations (cf. Deuteronomy 32), but it retains an apocalyptic resonance: ‘The number seventy corresponds to Daniel’s seventy weeks of years and the common division of history into seventy generations. . . . Both the number seventy and the “shepherd” imagery are found in Jeremiah 25.’499 Once again, the Animal Apocalypse includes a cosmic dimension; there is the injection of an eschatological initiative that first stirs when ‘behold lambs were born from those snowwhite sheep; and they began to open their eyes and see’ (1 Enoch 90:6). That new beginning finds its parallel in the emergence of the ‘chosen righteous’ of the Apocalypse of Weeks. The small awakening is destined to lead on to a new creation, as the end recapitulates the beginning. The epic and the mythic are in dialogue in a way which contradicts the epic notion of standard salvation history.

V THE SIMILITUDES OF ENOCH ( 1 ENOCH 37 TO 71) The Similitudes or Parables of Enoch forms the second element of 1 Enoch (chs 37 to 71), but it represents the latest phase as regards its composition. In those chapters God is referred to as ‘the Lord of the Spirits’ and ‘Head of Days’. We meet an eschatological figure designated by a number of titles, of which the two most significant are ‘Elect One’ and ‘Son of Man’; two less frequent are ‘Righteous One’ and ‘Messiah’. It is clear that the tradition history of the Son of Man figure in the Similitudes is dependent upon the biblical book of Daniel. The description of God in 1 Enoch 46:1 as ‘Head of Days’, whose ‘head was white like wool’ and who is accompanied by one ‘whose face was like that of a human being’ reveals the source. Under either of the two interchangeable titles of Elect One or Son of Man the eschatological leader is enthroned, undertakes judgement and the fortunes of the congregation of the righteous are closely aligned to him. His revelation will provoke their exaltation. The congregation or elect represent a sectarian religious group whose identity and destiny correspond with the eschatological figure. His exaltation is a cosmic event that is synonymous with a new order of existence in which the oppressed are raised up and the ruling classes humbled. The work contains vigorous social protest at the unjust way society is structured. The Parables can seem a fairly eclectic and random selection of material: The writing comprises a strange mixture of eschatological visions, cosmological revelations and oaths, lists of angels, and folktales dealing with the collapse of the earth into the abyss and the subterranean punishment of errant angels. It does not even

J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 69.

499

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manage to maintain a unity of speaker, since passages are attributed variously to Enoch and Noah. The last detail has led to persistent literary-critical theories of interpolations from a so-called Book of Noah.500 However, that assessment does not do total justice to the text with which we are presented. There is a discernible spine which runs through the whole work. It includes an introduction (ch. 37) and a conclusion (chs 70 to 71). Between those two boundaries there are three parables and each begins with a summary of its contents, which is at least aspirational, and leads on to a vision. This apocalypse is of the ‘heavenly journey’ sort, rather than the historical model. Enoch, whilst still living out his earthly term of years, is taken up to heaven in a whirlwind (39:3). There he receives his visions, has the benefit of an angelic interpreter, and is initiated into cosmic and, most crucially, eschatological secrets relating to the time of judgement and universal moral vindication. Eschatology is a particular preoccupation of the Similitudes, which brings to the inevitability of heavenly judgement an immediate rather than postponed significance. That feature is atypical of the category of the heavenly journey apocalypse. Only when the conclusion is reached is Enoch snatched up to heaven permanently (70 to 71). The fact that the Similitudes does not appear at Qumran is not decisive for its being subsequent to the destruction of that community following the end of the first revolt in 70 CE , pace Milik.501 The Similitudes clearly comes from a sectarian group with Enochic interests that are different from those of the Qumran covenanters; the equality of the sun and moon in the calculation of festivals makes that clear (1 Enoch 41:5). In any case, a date in the first half of the first century CE for the Similitudes would hardly have given time for it to be included in the Qumran collection. The clearly exalted position held by Enoch, and the identification of the Son of Man with Enoch in 1 Enoch 71:14, seem to rule out the possibility of its being a Christian work and place it firmly within the developing stream of Jewish apocalyptic ideas. Further, there is no indication in the Similitudes of the scars to Jewish faith inflicted by the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE . The conclusion of J.J. Collins seems amply justified: ‘The Similitudes, then, should be dated to the early or mid first century C.E ., prior to the Jewish revolt of 66–70 C.E. , to which it makes no reference. Although the Ethiopic is the only extant text, it is probable that it derives from an Aramaic original. The Similitudes fully belong in the discussion of ancient Jewish apocalypticism.’502 In the Similitudes we find the Son of Man figure enthroned (62:5; 69:26–29); he is the one passing judgement (62:9), his decision will uproot the mighty and sinners (46:4) and will be the support of the righteous and ensure their welfare (48:4, 7).503 In other words,

500 D.W. Suter, ‘Weighed in the Balance: The Similitudes of Enoch in Recent Discussion’, Religious Studies Review 7 (1981): 217. 501 Milik, ed., The Books of Enoch, 91–2: ‘It seems to me quite certain that it did not exist during the pre-Christian era, in an Aramaic or Hebrew text, since not one fragment of it, Semitic or even Greek, has been located in the very rich assortment of manuscripts from the caves of Qumrân. Hence it is probably a Christian Greek composition (its use of the text of LXX has already been pointed out) which draws its inspiration from the writings of the New Testament, the Gospels especially, beginning with the titles of the pre-existent Messiah: “Son of Man” (Matt. 9:6; 10:23; 12:8 etc.) and “Elect” (Luke 23:35).’ 502 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 178. 503 It is important to acknowledge that, given the complete identification of the Son of Man with the Elect One in the Similitudes, what is said of the one is true of the other.

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he is exercising delegated divine prerogative: ‘In many respects he seems to be assimilated to the Deity (who also sits on the throne of his glory).’504 The Son of Man taking the throne of glory results in the vindication of the righteous in the Similitudes, just as his coming had done in Daniel. We may detect the ‘congregation of the righteous’ to be a more restricted sectarian group than Israel defined as ‘the people of the holy ones of the Most High’ in Daniel. However, something more radical seems to be going on in the Similitudes than a simple pronouncement in favour of the righteous with the appearance of the Son of Man. The expected global transformation has a remarkable affinity with the message of Deutero-Isaiah, where the prophet looks forward to a cosmic rebalancing. The restoration of righteousness/right order (ṣedeq) would tip the balance, exalt Jerusalem and bring down the ruling might of Babylon. That same rebalancing is echoed in the destiny of the servant whose unexpected exaltation ‘shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him’ (Isaiah 52:15). The Similitudes provides us with a perspective on the way the Danielic vision of the ‘one like a Son of Man’ was being received and interpreted at a time contemporary with the ministry of Jesus.505 Daniel 7 had given rise to speculation surrounding a heavenly figure, who stood alongside God, with a stature higher than the angels. According to the Similitudes his disclosure would reverse the power structures of the world. There is a rebalancing of the order of things as the mirror image of received normality is installed. Earthly order revolves as ‘the congregation of the holy ones shall be planted’ and ‘the kings, the governors, the high officials, and those who rule the earth shall fall down before him [the Son of Man] on their faces’ (62:8–9). The two groups exchange perspectives. It is a ‘Magnificat moment’.506

J.J. Collins, ‘The Son of Man in First-Century Judaism’, NTS 38, no. 3 (1992): 458. The Jewish apocalypse of 4 Ezra, from the end of the first century CE , in chapter 13 (‘And I looked, and behold, this wind made something like the figure of a man come up out of the heart of the sea. And I looked, and behold, that man flew with the clouds of heaven’) is further evidence of the ‘history of reception’ of Daniel 7 that generated messianic speculation about a heavenly saviour figure. Translation by B.M. Metzger, ‘The Fourth Book of Ezra: A New Translation and Introduction’, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 1, ed. J.H. Charlesworth (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983), 518–55. J.J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1995), 187, summarizes: ‘Nonetheless, the Similitudes and 4 Ezra have some common features that are significant for the understanding of Daniel 7 in the first century.’ 506 Cf. Luke 1:46–55. 504 505

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Spiritual Universe of Early Judaism I IS APOCALYPTIC THE FRUIT OF JUDAISM? In asking the question: ‘Is apocalyptic the fruit of Judaism?’, we are asking in as broad a context as possible what were the influences that may have been at work to generate this literature. Without doubt, as we shall consider later in this section, the Hellenistic age with its eclectic influences provided the catalyst of the apocalyptic genre. However, it remains anchored in the evolving Hebrew traditions. Those traditions, which include prophecy and Wisdom, must be included in any adequate review of influences. Apocalyptic is the fruit of Judaism garnered in a Hellenistic orchard. It is worth quoting at some length Nickelsburg’s summary of the biblical background: The various authors of 1 Enoch are acquainted with the Pentateuch (as well as much of the rest of the Hebrew Bible). Chapters 6–11 are an eschatological revision of Gen 6:1–4, and, indeed, of elements in the Flood narrative. Chapters 12–16 begin with a paraphrase of Gen 5:24, and chapters 14–15 are heavily indebted to Ezek 1–2. The account of Enoch’s second journey alludes to Gen 4:10 (22:5–7) and Gen 2:4–3:24 (32:6). The introduction to the Book of the Watchers (chaps. 1–5) begins with wording taken from the Blessing of Moses (Deut 33:1–3; cf.1:1, 3–4) and the Balaam oracles (Num 24:15–17; cf. 1:2–3). The Book of Parables (chaps 37–71) constructs its portrait of the eschatological savior from biblical material about the Servant of the Lord (Second Isaiah), the Davidic Messiah (Isaiah 11 and Psalm 2), and also ‘one like a son of man’ (Daniel 7). The Astronomical Book (or Book of the Luminaries) employs language from Genesis 1, as James VanderKam notes.[507] In the Animal Apocalypse (chaps 85–90), Enoch’s account of human history and many of its details and its order have been drawn from the narrative books of the Bible (Genesis 2–2 Kings and perhaps Ezra–Nehemiah) and probably some traditional exegesis of these texts. Especially noteworthy for our purposes are the many points at which the author summarizes the narrative parts of Genesis through Deuteronomy. The first part of the Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1–10) also follows the order of biblical history, albeit very briefly.508 J.C. VanderKam, ‘Scripture in the Astronomical Book of Enoch’, in Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honour of Michael E. Stone, ed. E.G. Chazon, D. Satran and R.A. Clements (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 93–7. 508 Nickelsburg, ‘Enochic Wisdom and Its Relationship to the Mosaic Torah’, 81–2. Details of his argumentation are to be found in idem, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001). 507

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We may commence our search within Israel’s religious traditions. A primary influence that has been advanced is Hebrew prophecy. The prophetic phenomenon in Israel’s life withered on the vine in the post-exilic period, following the prophetic ministries associated with the immediate return. It can be argued that prophecy was a function of monarchy in the Ancient Near East and, consequently, its ecology in Israel was destroyed with the end of the Davidic line.509 Given that circumstance, was the apocalyptic seer in some way the inheritor of the prophetic mantle? Clearly there was a general influence of prophecy on the apocalyptic genre. Susan Docherty summarizes Enoch’s throne vision in the Book of Watchers: ‘He is also granted a vision of God’s heavenly throne (14:8–25), which echoes several scriptural passages, especially those which describe the commissioning of the prophets (e.g. 1 Kings 22:19; Isaiah 6:1–4; Ezekiel 1:3–28; Habakkuk 3:3–15; cf Daniel 7:9–14).’510 The prophets anticipated the apocalyptic seers in handling divine communication, interpreting the flow of international events and pronouncing the judgement of God. Daniel looks to the prophet Jeremiah for guidance, properly interpreted, on the duration of the devastation of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:1–2). It is the visions of Zechariah in the first half of his book (chs 1 to 8) with the interpreting angel that come closest to anticipating the apocalyptic genre. It is also true that the prophetic books continued to be expanded and developed by anonymous voices who felt able to speak in the name of the prophetic tradition they handled. In that sense there was already a tradition of pseudepigrapha. Someone who has argued strongly for the significant line of development between prophecy and apocalyptic is P.D. Hanson,511 building on the similar observations of Otto Plöger.512 The key to Hanson’s interpretation of the evidence is ‘alienation’,513 conceived as a transforming agent at work which generates the apocalyptic perspective out of the prophetic: The most creative response to the vacuum of alienation to emerge in the exile came from the prophetic voice we call Second Isaiah, who puts together pieces derived from prophecy, royal court, and myth in a manner which prepared the way for the transformation of prophetic eschatology into apocalyptic eschatology. Although this prophet did not cut off moorings from historical realities entirely, he was drawn to a lofty vision of cosmic transformation. This infused the prophetic tradition with mythopoeic symbolism (e.g., Isa 51:9–11), which in turn abetted the development of heaven/earth and past aeon/future aeon dichotomies (e.g., 43:18–19). These dichotomies became central features of later apocalyptic movements. Beyond Second Isaiah, all that was required for the dawn of apocalyptic was the final demonstration to

Atwell, The Sources of the Old Testament, 153ff. Docherty, The Jewish Pseudepigrapha, 132. 511 P.D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic, rev. edn (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1979). 512 Otto Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, Neukirchener-Verlag, 1959). 513 Hanson’s insight into ‘alienation’ as a major factor in the generation of the apocalyptic genre is to some extent paralleled in the concept of Ed Sanders who highlights the themes of ‘Revelation’ and ‘Reversal’ and perceives a social function in the apocalyptic genre as the literature of the oppressed. E.P. Sanders, ‘The Genre of Palestinian Jewish Apocalyptic’, in Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East, ed. D. Hellholm (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1983), 447–59. 509 510

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a group of alienated disciples that their vision of a restored Israel could not be realized within mundane structures or through human agency.514 Hanson argues that an embryonic apocalyptic movement develops upon the immediate return to Jerusalem. It focused on the expectation of the cosmic intervention of Yahweh to establish a messianic kingdom under the dual leadership of Zerubbabel, a scion of the House of David, and Joshua, a Zadokite high priest. Hanson surmises that the Persians spotted trouble from the members of this visionary band, decisively dispensed with Zerubbabel and defused any messianic aspirations and chose: ‘to cooperate with its more pragmatic members in evolving a hierocratic program which supplanted all apocalyptic elements with a pragmatic social system cooperating fully with the Persian overlords’.515 The consequence, according to Hanson, was to create two poles in the restored community: the establishment figures (Zadokites), who now controlled Temple activity and policy, on the one hand, and the alienated visionary group, shorn of power, on the other hand. This alienated group retained their vision of Yahweh’s intervention that: According to their deeds, so will he repay; wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies. — Isaiah 59:18 For them, hope was invested not in the current order and its potential improvement, but in the expected new world that was to dawn. The witness to this alternative alienated movement is identified by Hanson in Isaiah 24 to 27; 34 to 35; 56 to 66, Malachi, Zechariah 9 to 14 and the final version of Joel. He is able to discern something of a recrudescence of myth in this retreat into Yahweh’s expected new order and its comparison of ‘end time’ with ‘first time’. Examples include Daniel’s vision of the four beasts arising from the primal sea, the swallowing up of personified Death in the throat of God (Isaiah 25:8), the eschatological banquet on Mount Zion (Isaiah 25:6), and the Divine Warrior myth (Isaiah 59:14ff.). Another example is the way judgement is presented in Isaiah 24:21ff. which echoes with a mythological background at which the text only hints: On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth . . . then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed. More recently, Nickelsburg’s research has identified Isaiah 65 to 66 as a foundational text from the prophetic corpus that was drawn upon by the Enochic tradents. He notes that: ‘Frequent allusions to the Trito-Isaianic scenarios about a new creation and a new Jerusalem color the descriptions of the new age in almost all parts of 1 Enoch (cf. 5:5–9; 10:16–22; 25:5–6; 90:28–38; 91:13–16), and even the Book of Luminaries awaits a “new creation” (72:1).’516 Much development has taken place on apocalyptic research since Hanson wrote, not least in the given assumption that the Enochic corpus, not Daniel, is to be taken as the exemplar. It is also becoming clear that there were different strands of Second Temple

Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic, 438–9. Ibid., 439. 516 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 57. 514 515

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Judaism alongside ‘covenantal nomism’. Boccaccini517 has posited three groups in Jerusalem: namely, Zadokite, Enochian and Sapiential. He similarly envisages tension between the Enochians and the Zadokites. The former he understands as Levites disenfranchised of their priestly status, who consequently became excluded; he associates them with the Essene movement. We noted above that K. Schmid, not dissimilarly, identifies three mindsets of ‘political theology’ amongst those who handled the biblical literature gathered during the Persian period. There are those content with the status quo (represented by the tradents of the Priestly documents and Chronicles), those anticipating gradual development (the tradents of the prophetic books) and a more radical group for whom the Persian overlordship was a sign of the judgement under which Israel still languished (‘Deuteronomistic’ tradition).518 Paulo Sacchi distinguishes four currents within post-exilic Judaism. These are the official Zadokite group, the internal protest of the Sapiential tradition, the Samaritan current (a Yahwistic religion which had its centre in Samaria and Shechem) and an opposition party, whose most ancient phase is documented in the Book of Watchers, which gave rise to the apocalyptic movement. VanderKam helpfully comments: ‘It has become more common in recent decades to speak of Judaisms rather than Judaism, at least for the later parts of our period, with the plural form being coined to designate several, not just two distinguishable kinds of Judaism.’519 Hanson’s speculation about the existence of an embryonic apocalyptic movement in Jerusalem from early in the exilic period is not dependent upon any particular number of alternative identifiable streams of Judaism. His basic thesis of the existence of an alienated group in post-exilic Jerusalem impatient for religious transformation, that exhibits protoapocalyptic sympathies, does seem to have sustained a remarkable validity. Hanson’s reconstruction, of necessity, is conjectural. A major problem, that he himself recognizes, lies in a century of silence: ‘From the beginning of the fourth down to the middle of the third century B.C.E. , however, we have no known apocalyptic writings.’520 However, he has certainly uncovered and highlighted significant connections in the biblical tradition, not least Deutero-Isaiah, that enabled prophecy to prepare the way for the apocalyptic genre. In terms of the perspective of this study, we have established that it was the prophetic development of the notion of radical divine transcendence, as first discerned by J. Wellhausen, that insisted on an ‘interval’ between the holy God and the natural order. That came about through the abandonment experienced by Israel and Judah in their dual experiences of extinction, and the prophetic insistence that it represented divine judgement, not divine weakness. The natural bond between God and his people was severed. The midwives who turned that experience into something with a future were the canonical prophets. The absolute end was foreseen and predicted, yet could against all logic be breached. In that very fundamental sense, the prophets are a bedrock of the eschatological perspective of apocalyptic literature with its pattern of divine judgement leading to radical renewal and even a new creation (Isaiah 65:17). However, Hanson himself is clear that prophecy is not exhaustive in understanding the dawn of apocalyptic: ‘the stream of tradition flowing from prophecy through apocalyptic

G. Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002). 518 See Chapter Nine, s. II. K. Schmid, The Old Testament: A Literary History, 145–7. 519 J.C. VanderKam, ‘Mapping Second Temple Judaism’, in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. G. Boccaccini and J.J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 16. 520 Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic, 440. 517

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does not constitute the whole; for alongside this traditional material are found materials deriving from Greek, Hellenistic, and possibly other foreign sources, as well as indigenous sapiential materials’.521 It is next to those sapiential or Wisdom materials we shall turn. Von Rad was adamant that the source of the apocalyptic perspective could not be the prophetic, but was to be located in the tradition of Wisdom: ‘Once it is realized, however, that knowledge is thus the nerve-centre of apocalyptic literature, knowledge based on a universal Jahwism, surprisingly divorced from the saving history, it should not be difficult to determine the real matrix from which apocalyptic literature originates. This is Wisdom, in which, as we already noted in vol. 1, exactly the same characteristics appear.’522 Von Rad overreacts in redirecting attention to another single source. Nevertheless, his contribution has been to highlight the significant fact that the apocalypses have a great deal to say about cosmology and the significance of its universal context. The perspective generated by Enoch himself immediately opens up the vista of creation and not simply sacred history. He is the seventh generation from Adam; he lived before the good order was flawed or the chosen line of Abraham established. He is a natural exponent of Wisdom. Nickelsburg has argued that the general absence of the profile of Moses and covenant in the Enochic texts, as we have noted in our review above, points us away from covenantal nomism as its source. We need to look in a different direction: It is perhaps not surprising that the Enochic texts have much more in common with the prophetic corpus and the sapiential texts than with the Mosaic Torah. Discussions about the origins of apocalyptic have generally centered around the works of the prophets and the sages. What needs to be emphasized in the present context, however, is the almost complete absence of the figure of Moses in the prophetic corpus, and his slow emergence in the sapiential texts.523 There are many indications in 1 Enoch that sapiential texts are one of the sources of its inspiration. When considering the introductory chapters to the Book of Watchers (1 to 5), we cited an acute observation by J.J. Collins: ‘The contrast between the order of nature and the disorder of sinful humanity forms the backdrop for the eschatological judgment.’524 The standard adopted by these chapters of 1 Enoch is not the Torah holding Israel to account, but the order of nature holding universal court. No less than ‘all flesh’ (1:9) is here envisaged. The two paths of Wisdom are clearly identified later in the introduction: ‘But to the elect there shall be light, joy, and peace, and they shall inherit the earth. To you, wicked ones, on the contrary, there will be a curse. And then wisdom shall be given to the elect’ (5:7). Those who are elect are those to whom Wisdom has been revealed; they follow the right way in Wisdom’s metaphor of the two ways. The dual paths seem to be reflected in the observation that again uses as its comparator the universal standard of nature: ‘And look at the seas: They do not part; they fulfil all their duties. But as for you, you have not been long-suffering and you have not done the commandments

521

Ibid., 430–1. Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology: Volume 2: The Theology of Israel’s Prophetic Traditions (Edinburgh and London: Oliver & Boyd, 1965), 306. (First published, Theologie des Alten Testaments [Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1960].) 523 Nickelsburg, ‘Enochic Wisdom and Its Relationship to the Mosaic Torah’, 90. 524 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 49. 522

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of the Lord’ (5:4). Reference to the two ways is significant in the testimonial-style opening of the Epistle of Enoch: ‘Now I shall speak unto you, my children, and show you the ways of righteousness and the ways of wickedness’ (91:18). Indigenous Wisdom native to Israel with which we are familiar from the biblical texts was a significant influence at work on the development of apocalyptic. However, we yet need to acknowledge the significance of Babylonian mantic Wisdom in the mix of its development. It is important to acknowledge that the literature of apocalyptic owes its formation to the complexity of the Hellenistic environment from which it emerged. Mantic or revealed Wisdom is an example of that and is of the essence of 1 Enoch’s insistence that the divine will has been made known and that its outcome will be the ultimate standard of God’s eschatological judgement. Again, we may quote Nickelsburg: The category of revealed wisdom appears in the Book of the Watchers (5:8; 32:6), the Book of Parables (37:1–2), the Astronomical Book in what appears to have been a redactional bridge that originally joined the Book of the Watchers to the Epistle (82:1– 3), the Epistle (92:1; 98:8; 99:10; 104:12), including the Apocalypse of Weeks (93:10), and possibly in the Animal Apocalypse, which construes law as revelation under the metaphor of opening Israel’s eyes (89:28; 90:6).525 There is a profound difference between the biblical Wisdom represented, for instance, by Proverbs, and much of the Wisdom that is to be detected behind the apocalypses. The Wisdom of Proverbs is inductive, experimental and based on analysis and observation. We could detect a similar trait in 1 Enoch 5:4. However, much of the Wisdom of the apocalypses, we have already noted, is revelatory and given by a heavenly interpreter. It is obscure, encoded and requires hidden knowledge for its understanding. This ‘mantic’ or Babylonian Wisdom includes astrology and the encyclopaedic science of omen reading. We find an example of mantic Wisdom in the book of Daniel. The Wisdom which Daniel displays in chs 1 to 6 is of one who can interpret dreams and obscure writing. He is able to unlock the enigmas and codes with which he is presented because these things are revealed to him: ‘There is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries’ (Daniel 2:28). In chs 7 to 12 the structure flips. Daniel becomes the one who requires the enigmas interpreted to him. The nature of the Wisdom employed is exactly the same, simply presented in the mirror image of the initial chapters. The role that Daniel had in relation to Nebuchadnezzar now becomes the role of the interpreting angel in relation to Daniel. The presence of mantic rather than deductive Wisdom in the revelation contained in the Daniel apocalypse is clear. We may conclude that similar Babylonian-style Wisdom also had a significant impact on the development of the Jewish apocalypse.526 We have already noted, in the previous chapter, the impact of Babylonian science on the formation of the Astronomical Book. It seems likely that Babylonian traditions also influenced the development of the revelatory figure of Enoch himself. However, we should note that the traditions collect around a biblical figure who retains his own complex weave of Hebrew traditions. That enigma of Enoch who ‘walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him’ (Genesis 5:24) cast him in a mysterious aura.

525

Nickelsburg, ’Enochic Wisdom and Its Relationship to the Mosaic Torah’, 83. Scholars who have pressed this case include: H.-P. Müller, ‘Mantische Weisheit und Apocalyptik’, in Congress Volume: Uppsala 1971, VTS 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 268–93; J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel, HSM 16 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977), 67–88; J.C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition, CBQMS 16 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984), ch. 3.

526

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Further, as the seventh generation of humanity, this identification with the perfect number seems to have fostered his association with Mesopotamian Wisdom.527 There is a likely correspondence with the Sumerian King List which records a seventh king whose name is Enmenduranki. He is king of Sippar, a city dedicated to the sun god Shamash. He is brought by the gods Shamash and Adad to the heavens where he is given the ‘tablet of the gods’ and entrusted with heavenly secrets through divine revelation. It seems that Enoch was able to fulfil a similar destiny as one of Israel’s heroes. In the light of these Mesopotamian traditions, we are further familiarized with a particular kind of Wisdom. It is once again mantic Wisdom that claimed knowledge not through deduction, but through the privileged understanding of heavenly secrets. Many influences were filtered through the complex mix that was created by the wave of Greek language, culture and philosophy which followed the conquests of Alexander. They met and mingled with rich and diverse local culture and practice across a great swathe of the globe. Privileged polis communities were planted across the world of the Ancient Near East which spread Greek methods of education and encouraged competitive leisure activities such as athletics, as well as developing religious pluralism. The reality of trade, the recruitment of mercenaries and the setting up of military enclaves all encouraged intercourse. The scourge of wars resulted in population movements across the whole area, which advantaged some and enslaved others. For the majority outside the privileged classes there was often a sense of alienation and for others, understandably, a mood of pessimism prevailed. The Hellenistic world was a melting pot of castes, cultures, religions and ideas: The division of history into a set number of periods is attributed to the pagan sibyl of Cumae in Italy, and the famous schema of four kingdoms, which may also be Persian in origin, is attested in several Roman sources. Chaldean astronomy and astrology enjoyed widespread currency in the Hellenistic age. Analogous material is found in the astrological oracles of Nechepso and Petosiris from Egypt in the second century B.C.E . In the broadest sense the matrix of the Jewish apocalypses is not any single tradition but the Hellenistic milieu, where motifs from various traditions circulated freely.528

II NEW CREATION It can be maintained that the Enochic traditions of apocalyptic stand as a significant outcome of the whole biblical tradition. Rather than being a strange child, there is a sense in which it has a claim to be a direct descendent. This study has sought to identify two foundation narratives which are basic to Israel’s identity and constantly re-emerge in her complex historical and theological pilgrimage over a millennium and more. Both were ‘election traditions’, one based on the Jerusalem Temple traditions and the other on the

P. Grelot, ‘La Légende d’Hénoch dans les apocryphes et dans la Bible: Son origine et signification’, Recherches de science religieuse 46 (1958): 25. The Ancient Near East told a number of tales of heroes who had been taken up to the heavens, including Atrahasis, the hero of the Flood story. An example of a dream vision, not dissimilar to the genre of the apocalypse, is that afforded to one Kummaya, an Assyrian prince, who in a vision of the night is brought before Nergal, the God of the underworld, seated on his throne. See ANET , 109–10. 528 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 33–4. 527

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Exodus-rescue traditions. We were able to identify sources for both in poetry from the early monarchical period. We called them: ‘A Tale of Two Journeys’. They make a somewhat effervescent mix. One was the outcome of a divine ‘victory over sea’ commemorated annually at the autumn New Year festival in the Jerusalem Temple. The victory was over the forces of chaos envisaged as raging sea (Yam). It is immediately celebrated with a triumphal procession leading to enthronement in the Jerusalem Temple. The whole episode establishes universal cosmic stability and defines the moment of primal order. It is a mythic-inspired way of interpreting the world, at home with the Ancient Near Eastern perception of a world needing to be constantly recalled to stability and primal order. These traditions were cosmic and universal, extended Israel’s horizons and involved a sense of mutuality and relationship with the environment, which was more than a stage set or theatre for salvation events. The other journey was an historical ‘rescue at sea’ which liberates the fugitive slaves from their Egyptian masters. The single event of the Exodus echoes down the corridors of Israel’s story with transcendent significance. Whereas the creation of the cosmos was mythic, by contrast the creation of Israel looked to a decisive moment of divine intervention in history. From that conviction of divine rescue developed the notion of salvation history. Already, when we encounter the early witness of the Exodus rescue in the book of Exodus ch. 15, it is not a lone incident. It has generated epic narrative. The story of the Exodus rescue at sea expanded to tell the story of God’s mighty deeds in history on behalf of his people. In this epic tradition, the key concept developed into ‘covenantal nomism’, with its sense of election, covenant, Torah, Temple and land. We earlier quoted a summary by C.C. Rowland: ‘The deliverance from Egypt and the settlement in the land of Canaan were central to the Jewish apprehension of God. The deity was not to be found primarily in the wonders of nature . . . or in the annual cycle of the seasons, but in the movement of history itself.’529 In many ways Israel’s two foundation narratives are seemingly incompatible. They looked in two different directions for theological understanding. One looked to the eternal return of the mythic cycle where nothing was new, all things returned to be the servants of cosmic stability and human beings were in dynamic relationship with their environment. The other, the epic tradition, looked to unique moments of history with intrinsic value. According to this understanding, the course of events was not organically connected with the natural environment or nature’s processes. However, there was a sort of tension in this juxtaposition of foundation narratives, heightened by the significance of sea, which is a crucial element of both narratives. One we identified as ‘victory over sea’ and the other as ‘rescue at sea’. That correspondence planted a latent potential for them to find some sort of mutuality or connection. We noted above that the ‘Song of the Sea’ (Exodus 15) borrows some of the imagery of the ‘victory over sea’ to enhance its unique theological significance, though its claim is of a different order. F.M. Cross speaks of ‘the tendency to mythologize historical episodes to reveal their transcendent meaning’.530 The potential of bringing together these two different theological configurations is one of the most exciting possibilities of the Hebrew Scriptures. We expressed it above in this way:

Rowland, Christian Origins, 29. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, 144.

529 530

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The importance of acknowledging a moment of history in the ‘rescue at sea’ as a foundation event of Israel’s existence, drawing its theological validity from being expressed in terms of the foundation event of all existence, the cosmic victory of the Divine Warrior, cannot be overestimated. . . . It has the potential, if tapped, to release an enormous theological energy into what otherwise might have been a marginal and isolated experience of an insignificant group. If the two traditions dialogue with each other, and the mythic does not swallow up the epic, a tension is established. The Exodus takes on the mantle of a second divine initiative in a single series. If sustained, it has the potential to challenge the status quo theology of the Ancient Near East with a fresh divine initiative that parallels creation itself.531 Deutero-Isaiah is the first to give a masterclass in the ability to move adeptly between the mythic and the epic in Israel’s traditions. He handles adroitly the distinction between the epic Exodus traditions and the mythic traditions associated with the Jerusalem Temple. He counterpoints the cosmic sea and the sea of the Exodus in Isaiah 51:9–11.532 However, we noted that he fails to draw out any radical newness in the cosmic context from the juxtaposition. This clearly breaks through with full force only immediately subsequently in Trito-Isaiah. Here we find the proclamation: For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. — Isaiah 65:17 The ‘recrudesence of myth’ is regularly recognized as one of the qualities that prepares the way for apocalyptic. Its return represents the possibility of the dialogue between the mythic and the epic. Where, we may ask, during the Hellenistic period was the potential assembled to reap the promise of the Hebrew Scriptures in ‘a fresh divine initiative that parallels creation itself ’? We noted above that the correspondence between the salvation history which was a hallmark of the biblical editing of the Persian period, and the salvation history recited in the Enochic apocalypses is striking. Both are aware of the ‘biblical’ record of Israel’s story. However, they seem to be working from distinct streams of Early Judaism. Enoch rather than Moses has pride of place as the source of revelation in the apocalypses. Covenant finds no mention in the Apocalypse of Weeks, neither covenant nor Torah find place in the Animal Apocalypse; both omissions are incompatible with salvation history as it emerged in post-exilic biblical editing. We noted also that the primordial fall of the Watchers is an essential of apocalyptic salvation history, as is an antipathy towards the post-exilic cultic practice of the Temple. Most significantly, salvation history in the apocalypses is not presented as pure epic which is locked away from the mythic. The two are integrated. Trito-Isaiah’s cosmic vision of a new creation (Isaiah 65 to 66) becomes the goal of the apocalyptic version of salvation history. The apocalyptic genre seems very distinctively to have retained an aspect of the pre-exilic creation traditions. Nickelsburg captures something of the difference between the two versions of salvation history: Thus theology is not simply Heilsgeschichte and moral exhortation that exclude the created realm with its material substance and dynamic forces. In a way that is

531

See above, Chapter Five, s. II. Cf. Isaiah 43:15f.; 50:2.

532

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reminiscent of Genesis 1–3, Job, the sapiential psalms, and Second Isaiah, the Enochic corpus draws on some of the mythic sources of Israelite religion that have largely been lost or submerged in the historically oriented texts that constitute the largest part of the Hebrew Bible.533 It seems that the Enochic apocalyptic literature, for all of its strangeness, was able to unleash the potential of the Hebrew Scriptures to break the mould of the Ancient Near East that expected nothing new. It is in the Enochic literature that the anticipation of a new creation becomes firmly established as an article of faith within its circles of Early Judaism. It opens the way to new visions of divine justice beyond the immediate horizon of history that restricted the Deuteronomic vision; it can promise the return of the dead (2 Maccabees 7), final judgement and the hope of eternal life. We may helpfully recall an earlier statement: It is as if in the Persian period of Second Temple Judaism the primacy of creation theology departs through the front door, as epic tradition makes its entry, only to reappear through the back door in furnishing the vital imagery of the era of salvation in the subsequent Hellenistic era. An apocalyptic stream of tradition emerged, critical of Temple practice. It characteristically presented an alternative version of salvation history and combined it with cosmic speculation in the vision of a new creation.534 It is not unreasonable to identify the apocalyptic current as more than a stream of tradition. We may concur with the judgement of J.J. Collins already noted: ‘Not all of Judaism can be classified as “covenantal nomism”.’535 The apocalyptic current is to be identified as a distinctive form of Enochic Judaism which combined the epic and the mythic in such a way as to release their creative tension. A pattern emerges clearly visible in the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse. Trito-Isaiah’s cosmic vision becomes the goal of the spine of apocalyptic salvation history. It is anticipated by a prior eschatological injection into the course of history whose initial modest manifestation (‘there shall be elected the elect ones of righteousness from the eternal plant of righteousness, to whom shall be given sevenfold instruction concerning all his flock’536) will enable nothing less than the blossoming of a new creation.

III A DISTINCTIVE JUDAISM IN EXPONENTIAL GROWTH A further reflection begins with the question of the reach of the apocalyptic influence. Not for the first time, the Enochian literature presents us with an enigma. We have identified an Enochic Judaism within the options of ‘Judaisms’ available in the Hellenistic period. It seems to have developed as a critical presence in relationship to the more robust Temple establishment. The reference to ‘the elect’537 points us to a community associated with the Enochic literature, but there is no reason to assume that it was anything more than modest in size within Judaism’s range of options. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 4. See above, Chapter Nine, s. II. 535 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 193. 536 1 Enoch 93:10. 537 See, for example, above, s. I. 533 534

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Such an unexceptional presence contrasts starkly with the way that the apocalyptic frame of reference seems to have spread to become something of a popular ‘universal view’ within Hellenistic Judaism. Somehow, the effect of the Enochian testimony was to construct a new spiritual universe in the popular imagination of a substantial swathe of the Hellenistic Jewish population. The enigma has been well posed by Philip Jenkins: ‘Whether we are looking at religious themes as fundamental as the beginning of the world and its end, the nature of heaven and hell, or the understanding of good and evil, all these ideas first found clear expression in the Enochian writings. Soon they would become mainstream and commonplace.’538 Jenkins identifies the period from 250–50 BCE as the ‘crucible years’, in which Judaism experienced a revolution in religious thought and culture in response to ‘the collapse of the old political order amid the furor of nationalist religious revolution’.539 A whole innovative battery of images was introduced as new eclectic currents flooded into the Jewish world from its Hellenistic environment. The gentle editing of foundational biblical texts during the Persian era gives place, as the kingdom of heaven is taken by storm: Seemingly without warning or precedent, Enoch’s visions suddenly plunge us into a phantasmagoric universe of angels and demons, judgment and apocalypse, Heaven and Hell. These wildly innovative works were the first to present those ideas in any detailed or systematic form in a Jewish context. They were the first to list the names of the great archangels, to imagine hellfire, to map the phases of the apocalypse, to depict evil figures very much like the later Satan in his demonic court. The book of 1 Enoch and its contemporaries also point to a current of Jewish thought deeply suspicious of the Jerusalem Temple and paying scant attention to such fundamental themes as the Covenant and Torah.540 A similar observation to that of Jenkins, as regards the remarkable spread of Enochian concepts, is made by Seth Schwartz. He refers to apocalypticism as ‘the myth’, having in mind its initial format in the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1 to 36): Only a few books written between 200 B.C.E. and 100 C.E. , most notably Ben Sira, 1 Maccabees, and the works of Josephus (and the last not very vigorously), lack clear traces of the influence of the myth, either because their authors rejected it or because they had no taste for its esotericism or considered it unsuitable for their audience. . . . Thus, by the first century, if not earlier, the myth was a more or less fully naturalized part of the ideology of Judaism, although there remained, at least in some circles, the consciousness that it was separate from the covenantal system, and some individuals or groups may have consciously rejected it.541 We have already noted above, in the words of J.J. Collins, that: ‘The Enochic texts may be said to have an apocalyptic view of history. . . . This view of history and of human destiny is broadly similar to what we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls.’542 One would be

538 Philip Jenkins, Crucible of Faith: The Ancient Revolution That Made Our Modern World (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017), 95. 539 Ibid. 540 Ibid., xx–xxi. 541 Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 81–2. 542 J.J. Collins, ‘ “Enochic Judaism” and the Sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls’, 295–6.

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tempted to ask whether the Pharisees, with whom the group led by the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’543 fell out, were not also under the same apocalyptic influence, if history had but supplied the records. The evidence of the Acts of the Apostles suggests that, while the Sadducees deliberately rejected Enochic speculation, it was embraced by the Pharisees: The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three. — Acts 23:8 Certainly, by the opening of the first century CE the apocalyptic frame of reference was a naturalized part of Early Judaism. John the Baptist works within its reference as he proclaims ‘the wrath to come’ (Matthew 3:7b; Luke 3:7b). He is clearly the leader of a popular movement. Josephus confirms this when he refers to John’s popularity and his influence over the masses, and the consequent potential for sedition, as the reason for his arrest and execution by Herod Antipas.544 Jesus of Nazareth worked within the same worldview as he appears as a millenarian prophet. The sign prophets of the first century CE , who attracted bands of followers to witness the breaking in of Israel’s eschatological salvation, inhabit the same stable. Such expectation played its part in the revolutionary zeal that was to lead to revolt against Rome on two successive occasions: At the heart of revolt ideology, then, to judge by the coins, was the biblically derived hope for a redemption from servitude, modelled on the exodus. At the same time Rome will have been identified as the fourth and last of the heathen empires foreseen by Daniel. The links of redemption with the jubilee laws for the liberation of slaves and the restoration of alienated land show that this hope could speak to the social discontents which emerge through Josephus’s account of the First Revolt, and probably played a part in the later uprisings. The exodus model and the theme of the four kingdoms underline what may be called the national character of the hope.545 One further point is made by Philip Jenkins, upon which we may conclude this section. It is that the ‘spiritual universe’ of Early Judaism is integral for the presentation of the ministry of Jesus; and consequently the unique vision of that period of Judaism has permanently defined the Western religious outlook: Those two critical centuries made the religious world the West has known ever since. Without this spiritual revolution, neither Christianity nor Islam would exist, and Judaism itself would have been unimaginably different. Just how thoroughgoing was the change in religious sensibility can only be understood if we look at the Hebrew Bible, which later faiths so often claimed to be following scrupulously.546

543

See Chapter Thirteen below. Antiquities 18.5.2. 545 Horbury, Jewish War under Trajan and Hadrian, 146. 546 Jenkins, Crucible of Faith, xxxi. 544

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IV A DISTINCTIVE JUDAISM AND JESUS OF NAZARETH The ‘spiritual universe’ in which the Gospels portray the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth enables us to illustrate the apocalyptic view of history that is reflected there, and its correspondence with the Enochic archetype. That spiritual universe charts ideas now mainstream and commonplace in Early Judaism. There is heavenly revelation breaking through as the divine voice sounds both at the baptism of Jesus547 and at his transfiguration.548 In the Gospels the angelic world is taken for granted. St Matthew has Jesus say: ‘Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?’ (Matthew 26:53) The backdrop of resurrection is also taken for granted in the environment Jesus inhabits. The Sadducees, who do not believe in the resurrection, target Jesus who clearly is from circles that do. There is a trick question about the woman who dies after losing several legitimate husbands; the question is: ‘In the resurrection whose wife will she be?’ (Mark 12:23) The answer elicits more details about the angels, compatible with Enochian tradition: ‘For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven’ (Mark 12:25). The world order exhibits a cosmic flaw in which a battle is taking place with satanic forces. Jesus can say of the woman who comes for healing: ‘And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?’ (Luke 13:16) Such healings had eschatological implications in demonstrating the final victory of God. A fresh divine initiative is underway that will lead on to the new creation: ‘The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” ’ (Luke 10:17–18). The new creation for Jesus is most usually expressed in terms of the nearness of the breaking ‘Kingdom of Heaven’, a concept taken from the book of Daniel which promises a new order. Along with eschatological expectation comes the threat of judgement which divides the sheep from the goats; it receives a significantly higher priority in St Matthew’s Gospel. The familiar vocabulary of expected figures of the end time is evident, including the eschatological prophet, the Messiah and the Son of Man. It is clear that the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth is to be located within an apocalyptic view of history, which is fully versed with the newly arrived spiritual universe of Early Judaism.

547

Matthew 3:17; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22b. Matthew 17:5; Mark 9:17; Luke 9:35.

548

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran and the Context They Reveal I INTRODUCTION The world-renowned ancient Library of Alexandria was prevented by the vicissitudes of history from passing on any of its sumptuous collection to future generations. By contrast, the unlikely venue of caves in the vicinity of Khirbet (‘the ruin of ’) Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea has offered up a prolific collection of scrolls from the final centuries of the Second Temple period of Jewish history.549 This treasure-trove in the Judaean desert is a remarkable phenomenon and remains something of an enigma. The initial discovery of Cave 1 by Bedouin from the tribe of the Ta’amireh was made in the winter of 1946 or spring of 1947. Within the cave were ten jars, only one of which contained scrolls, some wrapped in linen. The context was the end of the British Mandate, the UN declaration of the state of Israel in November 1947 and the war that subsequently erupted. Initially, only some of the discovered scrolls were taken by the Bedouin to a contact in Bethlehem, a cobbler and antiquities dealer named Kando; eventually, seven were retrieved. With the help of an intermediary, Kando sought the advice of the Syrian Orthodox archbishop, Mar Athanasius Samuel of the Monastery of St Mark in the Old City of Jerusalem. The archbishop, although unable to identify the significance of the scrolls, sensed their value and eventually acquired four of the scrolls.550 Meanwhile, Professor Eleazar Sukenik of the Hebrew University had been alerted. He made the fraught journey to Bethlehem and was able to purchase the remaining three scrolls.551 He unsuccessfully attempted to purchase those belonging to the archbishop which were eventually taken by Metropolitan Samuel to the United States and became the subject of an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal.552 The advertisement came to the notice of Yigael Yadin, Sukenik’s son, who was by coincidence visiting the United States. By astute

The translation of the scrolls cited is taken from Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, rev. edn (London: Penguin Books, 2011). 550 The Isaiah Scroll, Habakkuk Commentary, Community Rule and Genesis Apocryphon. 551 Fragmentary Isaiah Scroll, Thanksgiving Hymns and War Scroll. 552 1 June 1954. 549

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action he was able to procure them for the state of Israel with the help of a philanthropist.553 The contents of the first cave, therefore, fell into Israeli custody.554 The site of Khirbet Qumran and its vicinity remained under Jordanian control until the Six-Day War of 1967. An investigation of the cave site was, consequently, undertaken by Gerald Lankester Harding, who was director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, with Père Roland de Vaux, of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, during the spring of 1949. Following the discovery of the initial cave, what amounted to a competition ensued between Ta’amireh enthusiasm and the diligence of professional archaeologists. It led to a series of discoveries continuing until 1956, revealing eleven caves with deposited scrolls. The caves are of two sorts: some occur naturally in the limestone cliffs (Caves 1, 2, 3, 6 and 11), while others are artificial, hewn out of the vertical face of the marl terrace by human hand (Caves 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 10). The contents of the scrolls are steeped in the religious concerns of Early Judaism. In all, there were the remains of an estimated 850 manuscripts, many in fragmentary pieces, written mainly in Hebrew, but also in Aramaic and Greek. The best-preserved scrolls were in Caves 1 and 11, and the most prolific collection came from Cave 4, estimated to represent some 600 manuscripts, but reduced to a fragmentary state. De Vaux also noted: ‘the finding of some twenty further caves in which not a single fragment of writing was preserved, though they did yield examples of the same pottery as that of the caves with manuscripts and of Khirbet Qumran itself ’.555 The task of identification, restoration, translation and interpretation of the cache of manuscripts represented a scholarly challenge of enormous proportions. It entailed the assembling of an initial team of editors, a task which fell to de Vaux. There were to be very public issues of scholarly prerogative and copyright. Frustration over the slow rate of publication led to speculation, among those who look for conspiracy theories, about the deliberate suppression of sensitive findings that might have implications for Christian origins. It was not until the autumn of 1991, after some dramas, including legal altercations, that all the scrolls were finally put in the public domain. Adjacent to the caves where the discoveries took place were the archaeological remains of a building complex. Located on the marl terrace, these had received only cursory attention and were initially identified by Harding and de Vaux as the remains of a Roman fort. The question now arose as to whether that site had any relationship with the scrolls in the caves, or whether the scroll deposits were independent. An initial campaign undertaken by de Vaux and Harding in 1951 led to four further joint campaigns over the years 1953 to 1956. De Vaux wrote: ‘Now, as a result of some five campaigns of excavation, a complex of buildings has been uncovered which extends eighty metres from east to west and about a hundred metres from north to south.’556 The complex consists of two principal units divided by a passageway: to the east, the main building and, to the west, the subsidiary building. The former has a distinctive twostorey defence tower at its north-west corner, without access from the ground floor level, located adjacent to the entrance. The rest of this rectangular area, with a central courtyard,

553

D.S. Gottesman. The Bedouin received £16 Jordanian ($64) of the total sale to the archbishop, which amounted to £24 Jordanian ($96). The sale via the Wall Street Journal procured $250,000. 554 The scrolls from Cave 1 are now exhibited in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. 555 Roland de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 55. 556 Ibid., 1. De Vaux notes that: ‘In the last of these campaigns the search was extended to ’Ain Feshkha, three kilometres to the south, where a building was located which had been completely buried’ (viii); ‘Feshkha, then, can be considered as an agricultural and industrial establishment used to benefit the community of Qumran’ (84).

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seems to have served community needs for gathering, eating and cooking. If provision for some accommodation was made on site, it would most likely have been on the first floor in this area. A notable feature is a substantial oblong community room to the south of the main building, with a circular paved area at one end which could have served as a podium. The largest single room in the complex (22 metres by 4.5 metres) seems to have served as a dining room. This was indicated by provision of drainage channels for cleansing the floor, as well as by the contents of an adjacent room, at right angles to it, containing ‘a stock of more than a thousand vessels’.557 Located east of this community room was a potter’s workshop with wheel and kilns. De Vaux further speculated the existence of a scriptorium located in an upper room in the main building, whose contents had collapsed into a community room below. It was found to contain two ink pots and a number of mud brick and plaster fragments which were reassembled into tables. A further inkpot was forthcoming nearby. The adjacent subsidiary building to the west, across the passageway, seems to have served as the industrial and economic sector, with storerooms, workshops, a mill and, further south, stables. The building materials used throughout were of modest quality, with walls of unhewn field stones, rubble and mud plaster, without interior decoration. A dominant feature is the remains of a generous water system fed by an aqueduct commencing in the hills to the north-west. It is skilfully engineered to include channels, cisterns, decantation basins and stepped baths, all designed to harvest flash flooding. Another particular feature of the site was the discovery of multiple deposits of animal bones in neat units covered by shards of pottery. Located in the open areas between buildings, they seemed to relate to ceremonial or sacrificial meals.558 No altar was identified, but the custom evidenced by these deposits was practised throughout the period of occupation. Further archaeological evidence noted by de Vaux included damage he identified as earthquake destruction, which he associated with the event of 31 BCE recorded by Josephus.559 Evidence included the collapsed roof of the pantry adjacent to the community room and a cracked cistern in the main building, neither repaired, as well as associated damage to the tower and a fault line along the eastern side of the main building. De Vaux further identified a layer of external scattered ash which he related to a fire, the silting up of part of the water system, possibly pointing to a period of abandonment of the site, as well as evidence of a final conflagration which included Roman arrowheads. Coin evidence is abundant for the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE ), coins which continued in circulation after his reign. The numismatic evidence continues with modest witness from the period following and Herod the Great, growing again with Archelaus, the period of the procurators and Herod Agrippa. There are a substantial

557

Ibid., 11–12, continues: ‘They had been stacked at the end of the room. To the west were heaped 21 small jars of two different types, 38 dishes and 11 jugs. Against the pilaster 210 plates had been piled. In the eastern part 708 bowls were arranged in piles of a dozen each so as to form a rectangle. In front of these lay 75 beakers. . . . As it happens these vessels comprise everything that would be needed for meals. . . . This, then, was the crockery, stored near the assembly-room, because that room must also have been used as a dining-room.’ Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge UK: Eerdmans, 2003), 122ff., suggests the dining room moved to the level above in the renovations following the earthquake and that there was an additional dining area in the secondary building identified by a further find of crockery. 558 F.M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies, rev. edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1961), 86, raised the possibility that these should be interpreted as evidence of sacrifice. 559 War 1.19.3ff.; Antiquities 15.5.2ff.

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number of bronze coins from the period of the First Revolt.560 A considerable coin hoard of three deposits of Tyrian silver shekels was also recovered. Nearby, to the east of the settlement, was found a cemetery containing in excess of 1,100 burials. All the graves in the western sector de Vaux noted were neatly arranged in even rows with burials oriented north-south, the head laid to the south. All those sampled contained male skeletons except for one female skeleton in a ‘rectangular grave, which is abnormal in type and situated apart from the rows’.561 The extensions of the burial ground included four female skeletons (two with beads and earrings) and that of a child. Two additional secondary cemeteries were also identified, to the north and the south, the former with evidence of mixed-sex burials and the latter including children and a female burial. Such is a brief description of the physical evidence of Khirbet Qumran and its caves.

II INTERPRETIVE SUMMARY This study adopts the position that strong circumstantial evidence indicates that the scrolls deposit in the caves and the complex of buildings nearby stand together and are intimately related. Having established that likelihood, it is reasonable to allow the evidence of archaeology identifying the community features of the building complex to dialogue with indications of the sectarian identity of the scrolls deposit. We draw the conclusion, therefore, of the existence of local members of a Jewish sectarian community occupying the site, with the archaeological testimony pointing to the final century BCE and the first century CE . Along with a consensus of scholarship, it is argued here that the evidence strongly identifies the residents of Qumran and the sectarian slant of certain of the manuscripts with the Essene movement. In that case, we have to understand the inhabitants of Qumran as part of that larger movement and not think of them in isolation. Evidence of two separate rules making provision for life in community has been preserved at Qumran. These are known as the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. The first includes provision for families; the second seems to legislate for a male community. The two rules are interpreted not as evidence of one belonging to a breakaway movement alienated from a parent organization represented by the other, but as both compatible within the single Essene movement. Prima facie evidence is provided by the fact that both were preserved at Qumran in multiple copies. Further, it is maintained that the scrolls that stand close to the Essene perspective, and may have been formative of it, and those that are most likely the creation of the Essene party itself, enable us to discern a significant amount about the ideals and aims of the movement. Two substantial formative currents are identified. Firstly, the Essenes were part of the spirited debate in contemporary Judaism as to what was involved in keeping the revealed Torah of Moses. Evidence of God’s elective destiny for Israel, obedience to the Torah’s precepts was enshrined in a covenantal commitment. The technical differences in legal interpretation which preoccupied the

560

Coins recorded by de Vaux include: Seleucids (11), John Hyrcanus (1), Judas Aristobulus (1), Alexander Jannaeus (143), immediate post-Alexander (10), Herod the Great (16), Archaelaus (16), Procurators (91), Agrippa 1 (78), First Revolt (94). 561 De Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 47.

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parties to that debate are clear in a manuscript identified as 4QMMT.562 It reveals a series of typical halakhic disputes as to the proper interpretation of Torah; their distinctive interpretation had driven the sectarians to separate from the mainstream. It demonstrates the movement as part of an intense dialogue within Judaism as regards very specific legal, cultic and calendrical matters, which divided distinct parties. The proper keeping of the Torah of Moses, as they interpreted it, was the preoccupation of the Essene sectarians. The Community Rule is adamant: Whoever approaches the Council of the Community shall enter the Covenant of God in the presence of all who have freely pledged themselves. He shall undertake by a binding oath to return with all his heart and soul to every commandment of the Law of Moses in accordance with all that has been revealed of it to the sons of Zadok, the Priests, Keepers of the Covenant and Seekers of His will, and to the multitude of the men of their Covenant who together have freely pledged themselves to His truth and to walking in the way of His delight.563 The study of the Law was to be a daily obligation with a ‘watch in community for a third of every night of the year’.564 In the Damascus Document, the meticulous keeping of the Mosaic Law, as interpreted by the sect, is aided by the identification and listing of individual rulings. The second half of the Damascus Document includes an extended list of statutes assembled under distinct headings that are removed from a narrative context familiar from the Pentateuch. Although interpreted in a sectarian way, their later codification is anticipated: ‘the methodical grouping of the Statutes prefigures that of the Mishnah, the oldest extant Jewish code’.565 A further indication of devotion to Torah by the Qumran Essenes is evidenced by the recovery from the caves of tefillin (phylacteries) and mezuzot. Both are devotional items, the former worn on the forehead or arm and the latter attached to the entrance of a house or dwelling place. Both contain compact scriptural texts from Exodus and Deuteronomy and, although the texts were later regulated, anticipate the practice of the Rabbinic era. They indicate intense personal devotion to Torah in the home and in daily life. The sectarians were diligent in their care for the halakhic demands of the Torah, but as they understood them. The residents of Qumran laboured for the Torah’s proper propagation within the community by collecting, conserving, copying, studying, interpreting and passing on their sacred texts. Secondly, the vista generated by apocalyptic traditions had a significant impact on the development of Essene thinking. The apocalyptic hallmark was the claim to divinely revealed knowledge, which was set in a cosmic perspective looking toward the new creation. In particular, a major formative influence is to be identified in the scribal movement centred on the antediluvian patriarch Enoch. It is an influence which should, perhaps, be understood as a distinct stream of ‘Enochic Judaism’. The interest which the Qumran collection displays in the book of Enoch reveals something of the milieu from which the collectors emerged. According to Nickelsburg, there is ‘strong evidence for the

4Q394–399, Miqsat Ma’ase ha-Torah (‘Some Observations of the Law’), the so-called Halakhic Letter. 1QS 5.8–10. 564 1QS 6.6f. 565 Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 129. 562 563

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hypothesis that the Enochic writings stem from circles that were in some significant sense ancestral to the Qumran community’.566 The sectarians felt themselves privy to revealed knowledge, which was not available to the rest of Israel. Consequently, their interpretation of Torah was the only valid one. They had the fresh revelation vouchsafed both in the movement’s initiation and in the sacred vocation of the Teacher of Righteousness, a founding figure of the movement (who we learn about in the Damascus Document and the commentaries or pesharim). They also had the interpretation of ‘wonderful mysteries’, accessible through their inspired communal study of the sacred texts. They read the prophets and the psalms as containing deliberate clues and insights into the current crisis time, to which only they had the interpretive key. The sectarians were essential actors in the drama that was unfolding; they drew on ‘distinctive forms of Bible interpretation which claim that the real meaning of some parts of scripture is related to the history of this community’.567 This stirring of new revelation was indicative of the ‘end of days’. The sectarians believed themselves to be living in the last days, which brought a poignancy and immediacy to the keeping of Torah. As 4QMMT expresses it: ‘And we recognize that some of the blessings and curses which are written in the B[ook of Mo]ses have come. And this is at the end of days when they will come back to Israel for [ever].’568 The concept of living in the last days was not simply a ‘bolt on’ to Torah observance, but was transformative of its understanding. It brought to it a cosmic dimension. Those who faithfully kept the interpretation of the Law according to Essene doctrine were part of a universal struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Where their obedience met with resistance and rejection, it was due to the forces of supernatural evil (identified as ‘Belial’), unleashed in the final age and lined up to oppose the good. They could expect the coming intervention of heaven, with legions of angels, which would marvellously vindicate their path to holiness before an unbelieving Israel, a hostile gentile world and dark cosmic forces. These twin influences were formative of the Essene perspective. The discipline of the keeping of Torah in meticulous detail, according to the strict interpretation of the sect, received a cosmic reach from the influence of the apocalyptic stream of tradition. The blend of influences at work had the effect of placing Israel’s election and Torah obedience, now identified narrowly with the faithfulness of the people of the new covenant, within the overarching context of God’s universal purpose for creation. The faithful were about to witness the intervention of heaven bringing about the vindication of their lifestyle and divine judgement upon the unrighteous. They were open to the miracle of the final age which might bring all Israel into the fold. The members of the new covenant, with their disciplined Torah-observant life, constituted the eschatological community. Eschatology is the child of creation theology in embracing the total consummation of creation’s destiny. The sectarian scrolls, therefore, present us with a reworking of creation theology. This has been captured in the following way:

Summary of Nickelsburg’s view in Adam S. van der Woude, ‘Fifty Years of Qumran Research’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. J.C. VanderKam and P.W. Flint, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1998–99), Vol. 1, 33. 567 Goodman, A History of Judaism, 147. 568 4Q398 11–13. 566

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From a certain perspective the community and its wider movement viewed itself as established by God to be for him what he had originally intended for humanity as a whole. Those who hold fast to the sure house which God has established in Israel ‘are destined to live forever and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs’ (CD III, 20). Or, put another way, God has commanded ‘that a sanctuary of Adam be built for himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of thanksgiving’ (4Q 174 III, 6–7). The community’s Endzeit experience is to be an Urzeit realization.569

III ONE SITE AND ITS NARRATIVE De Vaux pieced together the archaeological evidence to create his classic narrative of the occupation of Khirbet Qumran, which he interpreted in terms of two distinct periods. The initial period he divided into two phases. Period IA around 130 BCE (‘the second half of the second century B.C .’570) was a time of modest occupation and left no evidence of coins or distinctive pottery. Period IB commencing c. 100 BCE , in the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE ), he envisaged as a time of substantial building activity as the site reached the dimensions now visible. De Vaux traced the evidence of structural damage suffered by the settlement to the earthquake in 31 BCE . He surmised that the fire, which had left its deposit of ash, was a consequence of the earthquake. The combination of events led to the abandonment of the site. Confirmation of the period of abandonment was provided by the silting up of the water system with its consequent sediment deposited above the layer of ash in the north-west open area. De Vaux envisaged the following fallow period as lasting thirty years, indicated by a dearth of coins from the lengthy reign of Herod the Great (37–4 BCE ). He points out that the coins of Herod the Great remained in circulation after his reign. It was not until the end of the reign of Herod the Great and the succession of Archelaus (4 BCE –6 CE ) that the site was re-established and Period II commenced. This he interpreted as confirmed by the hoard of Tyrian coins, the latest of which dated to 9/8 BCE with a subsequent break in further minting until 1 CE . That the returning inhabitants represented the same community was evident to de Vaux by the fact that those buildings restored reverted to their original purpose. Occupation continued uninterrupted until the First Jewish Revolt. Josephus reports that the Romans were in the area in 68 CE .571 De Vaux deduced that it was then that the settlement was destroyed. The evidence of the coins and the Roman arrowheads supports that scenario. The very specific Qumran pottery type, including the well-known cylindrical jars with lid, were found both on the site and in the caves. This de Vaux interpreted as a definitive link between the deposit of scrolls and the adjacent building complex. De Vaux envisaged the bulk of the residents of Qumran as living in tents or shelters outside the built compound. The advance of the Romans provided the motive for the Qumran inhabitants to secrete the scrolls in the caves.

George J. Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (London: SPCK, 2005), 36. De Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 112. 571 War 4.8.1–4. 569 570

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De Vaux further identified evidence of a distinct Israelite ‘royal’ phase dating to the eighth/seventh century BCE and a subsequent brief Roman occupation following the destruction during the First Revolt. There have been radical challenges to de Vaux’s interpretation. De Vaux’s own original instinct that the settlement might be a military installation has remained an attractive alternative: ‘On first impressions, the strategic location of the site, on a plateau overlooking the Dead Sea, with walls and a tower, favours a military use and the site ended its occupation as the home of a Roman garrison in the wake of the First Jewish Revolt (66–73/74 CE ).’572 Norman Golb573 has argued that the Qumran buildings are to be interpreted as a fortress, completely independent of the caves. The latter were used quite separately as an emergency depositary at a time of crisis for works of general Judaism originating from a Jerusalem context. This would account for their scale and scope. A Jerusalem origin for the scrolls had already been argued by K.H. Rengstorf.574 Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg posit a military fortress during the Hasmonean period, becoming a centre for the production of pottery and date honey in the Roman period.575 In their view, the scrolls in the caves have nothing to do with the building complex, but were randomly deposited by groups of refugees fleeing the Romans at the time of the First Revolt. Further variations presented have included the possibility that Khirbet Qumran might be a country villa, complete with triclinium,576 or a fortified manor,577 both assuming that its activities were integrated within the local economy. A hybrid between the villa theory and sectarian occupation has been put forward by J.-B. Humbert of the École Biblique.578 He envisages an initial phase in which Khirbet Qumran was a Hasmonean villa serving an agricultural purpose; this was brought to a violent end at the hands of either the Romans or Herod. Post-31 BCE it was settled by the Essenes and established as a cultic centre to serve their local communities. He envisages a modest number actually resident in the settlement, consisting of community leaders living in the main building. His assumption that the Essene cultic centre included a sacrificial system coincides with Jodi Magness’s recent reinterpretation of the ceremonial deposits at Qumran. We noted that the crucial clue for de Vaux that the caves and the ruins represented a single coherent unity was afforded by the common pottery finds of identical date in both venues. These, we noted, include the distinctive Qumran cylindrical ‘scroll jars’ recovered

572 P.R. Davies, G.J. Brooke and P.R. Callaway, The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Thames & Hudson, 2002), 174. 573 Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran (New York, NY: Scribner, 1995). 574 K.H. Rengstorf, Hirbet Qumrân and the Problem of the Library of the Dead Sea Caves (Leiden: Brill, 1963) (German edition: Stuttgart, 1960.) 575 Y. Magen and Y. Peleg, ‘Back to Qumran: Ten Years of Excavation and Research, 1993–2004’, in Qumran, the Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates, ed. Katharina Galor et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 55–113. 576 Robert Donceel and Pauline Donceel-Voûte, ‘The Archaeology of Khirbet Qumran’, in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects, ed. M.O. Wise et al. (New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), 1–38. 577 Yizhar Hirschfeld, ‘The Architectural Context of Qumran’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After Their Discovery 1947–1997, ed. L. Schiffman, E. Tov and J. VanderKam (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000), 673–83. 578 J.-B. Humbert, ‘L’Espace sacré à Qumrân: Propositions pour l’archéologie’, Revue Biblique 101 (1994): 161–214.

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from the caves (those caves with and without manuscripts) and from the building complex. Magness makes the significant point that: ‘Cylindrical and ovoid jars are common at Qumran and in the nearby caves, but are rare or unattested at other sites in the region.’579 Other evidence may be identified. The artificial caves represent particular evidence of association. They indicate a managed development programme over a sustained timescale, not simply a fortuitous hiding place in a time of crisis. There is some evidence that they were used as workshops and temporary accommodation as well as scroll storage. Three of those caves can only be approached through the compound (Caves 7, 8 and 9) and a further cave (Cave 4) is clearly visible from the inhabited terrace. It is situated on the very edge of the compound. The significance of this has been expressed this way: ‘All of these caves located on the marl terrace are part of the “built” environment of Qumran; that is, they are as much part of the architecture of the site as the buildings of the settlement.’580 M. Broshi and H. Eshel581 in a single winter season of archaeological investigation in 1995–6 claimed to identify twenty to forty artificial caves north of the Wadi Qumran which they thought showed evidence of habitation. They also reckoned to locate a path that led from the settlement to Caves 1 to 3 and 11, confirmed by the recovery of some sixty iron nails cast from sandals. The cast nails have left tangible evidence of the connection between Khirbet Qumran and the caves. The combined circumstantial evidence is strong that unites the caves with the settlement. De Vaux argued that the evidence of the archaeology points to community use of the buildings. We have already identified that important for de Vaux’s reasoning is his interpretation of the large communal room. Its scale, together with the adjacent discovery of a considerable quantity of eating utensils, led him to identify a dining room and assembly area. It points to a substantial common life on the part of the inhabitants. An estimate for the number of individuals living at Qumran at any one time, based on the size of the dining room, has been put at a maximum of 120–150, excluding those waiting to join the community.582 This community evidence seems to be backed up by the nature of the main cemetery with its multiple individual burials in a remote, sparsely inhabited, desert wilderness. It witnesses to an ordered community life over a substantial period with consistent customs. The main cemetery contains the remains of mainly male burials. J. Zias has argued that the exceptions to the preponderance of male burials in the western cemetery can be explained: ‘anomalous burials are simply Bedouin burials from recent periods (post-1450 CE ) and thus chronologically intrusive’.583 From the evidence of the main cemetery and the lack of gendered items recovered in excavations at the site, it would seem that the inhabitants of Khirbet Qumran constituted a primarily male community. The evidence

Jodi Magness, Debating Qumran: Collected Essays on Its Archaeology (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 155. Sidnie White Crawford, Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2019), 130. 581 M. Broshi and H. Eshel, ‘Residential Caves at Qumran’, Dead Sea Discoveries 6 (1999): 328–48. 582 M. Broshi, ‘The Archaeology of Qumran – A Reconsideration’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. Devorah Dimont and Uriel Rappaport (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 113–14. Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 70, comments: ‘This number accords better than lower estimates with the presence of over 1000 dining dishes in the pantry.’ J. Patrich, ‘Khirbet Qumran in Light of New Archaeological Explorations in the Qumran Caves’, in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects, ed. M.O. Wise et al. (New York, NY: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), 93–4, has suggested that most members of the community at Qumran lived in the first storey of the main building and not outside; consequently, he estimates a community of 50–70. 583 J. Zias, ‘The Cemeteries of Qumran and Celibacy: Confusion Laid to Rest?’, Dead Sea Discoveries 7 (2000): 237. 579 580

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has been summarized by Jodi Magness: ‘Thus, the archaeological evidence suggests only minimal female presence at Qumran and an absence of families with children.’584 There are further clues as to the nature of the community that inhabited the settlement. A shared scrupulous religious observance and concern for purity is indicated by a particular feature. There is generous provision of pools furnished with steps, some with partitions to separate those entering and departing, which are to be identified as miqva’ot or ritual baths.585 Their number, which has been estimated at ten, suggests they were designed to serve a substantial community. Numerous similar examples of the period can be found to the east of the Herodian steps ascending to the Double Hulda gate of the Jerusalem Temple, in the Herodian Mansions, as well as in the Maccabean and Herodian palaces at Jericho. They were particularly associated with Temple purity and essential for priests when observing their sacrificial duties. They must have served the religious needs of the resident community. Further, the presence of the deposits of animal bones carefully retained and deliberately placed under shards of pottery must be taken into account. They have some sort of ritualistic significance related to a ceremonial meal. These deposits seem to have occurred throughout the period of the habitation of the settlement and point to a shared sacred communal observance on a regular basis. The evidence of archaeology in the ritual baths and the animal bone deposits marks the residents out as having some sort of common religious purpose. We are now in a position to relate the archaeology to the scrolls. The distinctive manifestation of communal life indicated by the archaeology does seem to correspond to a particular concern of the sectarian manuscripts. These include reference to two patterns of community living to be found in the Community Rule and the Damascus Document, as well as associated manuscripts. The former, which makes no mention of marriage and family life, would seem to come closest to what one might envisage for the Qumran residents. As we shall discuss, certain of the manuscripts reflect the stance of a movement which had separated itself from the mainstream of Israel as the true Israel of the new covenant. If we allow the archaeology of the settlement to dialogue with the evidence of the scrolls, then a coherent picture of sectarian community life emerges. The simplicity and lack of luxury in the architecture and the furnishings of Khirbet Qumran are compatible with a strict sectarian way of life. Stopping short of a radical reinterpretation of the history of the site, Jodi Magness’s review of de Vaux’s chronology has led her to modify rather than rewrite the narrative. She presented a revised interpretation of the evidence in The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. There she dispensed with Period IA altogether, for which de Vaux could muster no distinctive evidence. The commencement of Period IB, now representing the beginning of the community’s existence at Qumran, she placed at a similar date to de Vaux’s reckoning (i.e. not before 100 BCE , or even somewhat later). She separated the earthquake from the fire. She maintained that it is more logical to assume that the site was not abandoned after the earthquake of 31 BCE but was immediately repaired. The period of abandonment she connected with the fire, somewhat later. This event, she conjectured,

584 Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 185. See also idem,. Debating Qumran: Collected Essays on Its Archaeology, ch. 7, 112ff., ‘Women and Qumran?’ 585 Bryant G. Wood, ‘To Dip or Sprinkle? The Qumran Cisterns in Perspective’, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 256 (1984): 45–60. Ronny Reich, ‘Miqwa’ot (Jewish Ritual Immersion Baths) in Eretz-Israel in the Second Temple and the Mishna and Talmud Periods’ (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1990) (in Hebrew). In his dissertation Reich identifies ten water installations at Qumran as miqva’ot.

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could relate to the turmoil in Judah following the death of Herod the Great in 4 BCE , at which point: ‘The site was abandoned for a period of one winter season to several years, with a range from 9/8 B.C.E . to some time early in the reign of Herod Archelaus.’586 The hiding of the coin hoard (latest coin 9/8 BCE , but no further minting until 1 CE ), she argued, makes more sense as a response to an impending crisis. It marks the end of Period I, not the commencement of Period II. The evidence of the silting up of the water system she related to this period of abandonment. Period II would now commence early in the reign of Archelaus without any long gap envisaged in de Vaux’s scheme. The received date for the community’s final destruction by the Romans, c. 68 CE , is affirmed. She summarizes elsewhere, resolving the issue of a possible occupation of the site immediately prior to the arrival of the sectarians: This means that the settlement at Qumran was apparently established much later than de Vaux thought, probably some time in the first half of the first century BCE . However, the presence of miqva’ot [ritual baths], the pantry containing over one thousand dishes, and the possible evidence for the custom of depositing animal bones outside the buildings in pre-31 BCE contexts indicate that the settlement was sectarian from the beginning of its establishment.587 Magness has continued to evolve her thinking; two further recent articles have substantially adjusted her position. She now argues for the existence of a sacrificial cult at Qumran, which both has profound implications for our understanding of the theological perspective of the sectarians and also impacts significantly on the narrative interpretation of the site. In her article: ‘Were Sacrifices Offered at Qumran?’,588 Magness reappraises her former position and argues cogently for an affirmative answer: Among the most puzzling features at Qumran are deposits of animal bones belonging to sheep, goat, and cattle, mixed with ash, which were placed on the ground between large potsherds or inside jars and covered with little or no earth. The deposits are concentrated in the open air spaces, mainly on the northwest and southeast sides of the site. Following Roland de Vaux, most scholars have interpreted these deposits as the remains of ritual but non-sacrificial meals eaten by the Qumran sectarians. However, comparisons with remains from ancient sanctuaries around the Mediterranean world and Near East leave little doubt that these deposits represent sacrificial refuse and consumption debris. Furthermore, records from de Vaux’s excavations suggest that in the first century B.C.E. , an altar was located in an open air space on the northwest side of the site. The possibility that animal sacrifices were offered at Qumran is supported by legislation in sectarian works and in non-sectarian works that were considered authoritative by the sect. This evidence suggests that the Qumran sectarians observed the laws of the desert camp with the tabernacle in its midst, including offering animal sacrifices as mandated by biblical law.589

Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 68. Jodi Magness, ‘Qumran Archaeology: Past Perspectives and Future Prospects’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. J.C. VanderKam and P.W. Flint, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1998–9), Vol. 1, 65. 588 Jodi Magness, ‘Were Sacrifices Offered at Qumran? The Animal Bone Deposits Reconsidered’, Journal of Ancient Judaism 7 (2016): 5–34. 589 Ibid., 5 (Summary). 586 587

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Magness suggests that the interpretation of the archaeological evidence at Qumran has been governed by three factors. The first is the assumption that ancient Jews did not offer sacrifices outside the Jerusalem Temple. The second is that parallels have been sought in settlements rather than sanctuaries. Had Qumran occurred in a non-Jewish context, the deposits would have been readily identified as sacrificial. Magness continues: The third factor is de Vaux’s interpretation of the ash layer outside the buildings as the burnt, wind-blown remains of roofs associated with a destruction by fire. Because of this, the animal bone deposits have not been considered in connection with the ash. However, de Vaux’s descriptions make it clear that the animal bones and pottery were mixed with the ash, and indicate that this material was deposited together and is not a wind-blown destruction level. The fact that some of the bones were covered by potsherds or placed inside pottery vessels shows that this material is not dumped destruction debris from the clearing of the buildings but was deposited intentionally.590 We shall return later to the implications of the Qumran sectarians’ self-understanding in terms of the biblical desert camp, which Magness suggests enabled the sectarians to fulfil the law of sacrifice as they interpreted it. The recognition that sacrifices were offered at Qumran brings to the deposit of ash a completely new context. It is no longer evidence of a destruction level, but of the rhythmic sacrificial activity of the community living at Qumran. This clearly reopens the question whether there are any grounds for maintaining that there was a destructive event which led to even a short period of abandonment at Qumran. In a joint article Dennis Mizzi and Jodi Magness have argued that Magness’s previous revision of de Vaux’s chronology, which envisaged that Qumran was destroyed and abandoned for a short period at the end of the reign of Herod the Great, can no longer be substantiated.591 If the ash is not a destruction layer, but rather part of sacrificial debris, there are no longer substantial archaeological grounds for envisaging a settlement-wide destruction. The additional evidence of the coin hoard and the overflow of the water system cannot on their own justify such an interpretation. The coin hoard taken in isolation cannot be read as definitive evidence of an impending crisis; plenty of other interpretations of its existence are possible. Further, the flooding need not indicate the abandonment of the site. The yellow sediment may be no more than the overflow consequent upon a strong flash flood, and there may be evidence that this happened more than once. Mizzi and Magness conclude that there was, therefore, no break in occupation between Phases IB and II. The periods may be helpful in identifying the Hasmonean and Herodian contexts, but are not moments of particular transition for the community. Khirbet Qumran had unbroken occupation by the sectarian colony during the final century BCE and the first century CE : As far as the sectarian occupation is concerned, the only clear evidence for the site’s abandonment relates to the period of the First Revolt. Aside from the earthquake destruction in 31 BCE (which was not followed by a break in occupation, as Magness observed), there appears to be evidence of only localized episodes of damage/

590

Ibid., 26. Dennis Mizzi and Jodi Magness, ‘Was Qumran Abandoned at the End of the First Century (2016): 301–20.

591

BCE ?’,

JBL 135

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destruction throughout the first centuries BCE and CE , and the settlement as a whole appears to have continued to thrive, uninterrupted, until 68 CE .592 It is now clear that the occupancy of Khirbet Qumran by the sectarian colony has its own story commencing from the first half of the first century BCE until the Roman destruction at the time of the First Revolt (68 CE ). This narrative must be distinguished from the history of the Essene sect of which it was a part. The second century BCE witnessed the formative period of the sect before any presence at Qumran had been established.

IV A PROFILE OF THE SCROLLS The mass of scrolls can be given some sort of order to assist their understanding. A helpful categorization has been evolved by Sidnie White Crawford. She musters the collection under four headings; the order in which they are considered here has been adapted and there is not always identity as regards allocation of scrolls to a particular classification.593 These are: (i) classical literature of ancient Judaism composed before the third century BCE ; (ii) non-sectarian works composed in the Hellenistic-Roman period; (iii) affiliated texts, which are works bearing a special affinity for the sectarian community that collected them rather than created them; and (iv) sectarian literature reflecting the vocabulary, ideas and beliefs of the wing of Judaism that collected the Qumran library. We shall consider these four categories in turn. As regards the classical literature of ancient Judaism (category one), every book of what became the canonical Hebrew Bible is found at Qumran, except for Esther and Nehemiah. The classical literature accounts for about one quarter of the total collection. The two oldest texts at Qumran are both from this category. These are 4Q Exodus-Levf and 4QSamb, which are both from the mid-third century BCE . This palaeographic dating is at least one and a half centuries before the existence of a community presence at Qumran. They are a tangible reminder that much of the scrolls collection originated from outside the Qumran settlement and was brought there. The Torah has a high profile at Qumran with an estimate of the following numbers of copies: Deuteronomy (thirty), Genesis (twenty), Exodus (seventeen), Leviticus (fifteen) and Numbers (eight).594 The pesharim (commentaries) reveal that the psalms and prophets were regarded as inspired texts. Of these, the two most prolific are the psalms (thirty-six) and Isaiah (twenty-one). The famous Great Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1, 1QIsaa, dated c. 100 BCE , produced the one near-complete scroll of a future biblical text. It pushes back our earliest Hebrew manuscript evidence of the prophecy by some one thousand years. The version is similar to that which became the standard received Masoretic text. However, Qumran seems to have followed no standard text, but exhibits other contemporary forms, including the text of

592

Ibid., 319. Crawford, Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran, 217ff. Her order is: (1) classical literature; (2) sectarian literature; (3) affiliated texts; and (4) non-sectarian works composed in the Hellenistic-Roman period. 594 See J.C. VanderKam and P.W. Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2002), 148–50, 178–80, for charts of the representation of all biblical books at Qumran. 593

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the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Hebrew text behind the LXX (Greek Septuagint). The collection shows no sectarian tendency in its handling of these ‘biblical’ manuscripts: It appears that the manuscripts of the books of the Scriptures found at Qumran are, as are all witnesses to the scriptural texts until the end of the first century CE , representative of the state of the Law and the Prophets in general Judaism of this period. Though they were found at Qumran and some may have been copied there, they represent the Scriptures of general Judaism.595 We turn next to the non-sectarian works of the Hellenistic-Roman period (category two). Tobit (4Q196–200) and the Wisdom of Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus (2QSir) are already familiar from their place in the biblical apocrypha. The Epistle of Jeremiah (pap7QEpJergr.) is known from Baruch 6 in the Latin Vulgate and also from the LXX. The Psalms Scroll (11QPs) has additional psalms already known; Psalm 151 is included in the LXX and Psalms 154 to 155 occur in the Syriac Old Testament. There are also psalmic extracts from 2 Samuel and Ben Sira. It is probable that this whole collection is simply an alternative collection of ‘canonical psalms’ which circulated separately to the corpus that eventually entered the Hebrew Bible. The textual evidence for Aramaic Levi (4Q213– 214) is supplemented by portions found in the Cairo Genizah and passages in the Greek Testament of Levi from Mount Athos.596 Mention is made of it in CD 4.15. The work is clearly of some antiquity: ‘The Qumran evidence now suggests that Aramaic Levi was composed in the third century BCE and is a source for the exaltation of Levi that features in both the Greek Testament of Levi and Jubilees 30–32.’597 Identifying category two items from fragmentary texts is not a precise science and there needs to be a margin of uncertainty. However, one can surmise that evidence of Testaments ascribed to Naphtali (4Q215) and Judah (3Q7; 4Q484; 4Q538) may be part of a larger work resembling the later Greek Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Further, Vermes notes: ‘Qumran has also added to the Pseudepigrapha several new works dealing with biblical figures such as Joseph, Qahat, Amram, Moses, Joshua, Samuel.’598 We may reasonably concur with the judgement: ‘some of the non-scriptural texts may be as ancient as any scriptural ones and may have originated independently’.599 The fact that the Qumran collection has, in categories one and two, such a substantial corpus of non-sectarian works of diverse general Judaism gives some credence to those who do not relate the scrolls to a sectarian establishment at Qumran, but see them as a Jerusalem deposit or as a random hiding place for the precious scrolls of fleeing refugees. Against this is the apparently deliberate nature of the collection which seems to be consciously missing such ‘obvious’ works as the Wisdom of Solomon, the pro-Hasmonean 1 Maccabees, the Psalms of Solomon and Esther with its justification for the non-biblical feast of Purim. D. Dimant has noted that the evidence is of a single collection. Cave 4, adjacent to the perimeter of the Qumran compound, has a pivotal significance: ‘All the caves contain the same types of works in more or less the same proportions. In fact, on a smaller scale most of the minor caves mirror the picture of cave 4. The links between cave

595 Eugene C. Ulrich, ‘The Qumran Biblical Scrolls: The Scriptures of Late Second Temple Judaism’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context, ed. T.H. Lim et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 85. 596 Monastery of Koutloumous, Codex 39. 597 VanderKam and Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 200. 598 Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 17. 599 Davies, Brooke and Callaway, The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 128.

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4 and the minor caves are also indicated by the presence in both of copies of the same works.’600 The Essene sect, although a house of separation, remained part of the comprehensive literary and religious inheritance of Israel. Category three brings us to affiliated texts; that is, to texts that contributed to the development of the sectarian movement, rather than being generated by it. This list we have restricted to works that had a direct impact on the emerging movement. They stand in close relationship to the milieu from which the sectarians emerged. These works, with an estimate of the number of copies deposited, include the collection of booklets we know as 1 Enoch (twelve), the Book of Jubilees (fifteen), the Temple Scroll (three) and – probably we should include in this list – the ‘biblical’ book of Daniel (eight). As already explained, Cave 4 has preserved eleven scrolls with material from 1 Enoch in the original Aramaic, including four of the five sections found in Ethiopic Enoch, but omitting the Similitudes.601 These date from early in the second century BCE ceasing by the Herodian period.602 This suggests Enochic influence was at its height during the initial period of Qumran’s development, reflecting its early significance for the whole movement. The Enochic tradition exhibits a distinctive identity within Early Judaism, representing a claim to a scribal source of revealed heavenly wisdom distinct from the Torah. As we have seen, the revelations take place in the two modes of apocalyptic, namely via a heavenly journey or via a visionary experience on earth. The heavenly journey type encompasses both the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72 to 82) and the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1 to 36). The heavenly perspective granted to Enoch in the first case gives astronomical and calendrical knowledge including the 364 days of the solar year. The latter revealed knowledge enables Enoch to understand the origin of evil in the world in terms of a heavenly angelic rebellion by the Watchers, their liaison with human women and the sinister consequences wreaked by their gigantic offspring. The assurance is given that the world will be subjected to a final judgement of which the Flood episode, when the Watchers were bound, is the archetype. The revelation of heavenly secrets through visions on earth is recorded in the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83 to 90) and the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91 to 108). These booklets include one apocalypse each (the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks, respectively) which chart the predetermined course of history from creation to the present ‘end of days’. The final age is inaugurated by a fresh divine revelation which encompasses the hope for a new creation. Throughout these quasi-universal events of history from creation to climax, first Israel and finally ‘the elect’ hold central significance. This assortment of concepts characteristic of apocalyptic has profoundly influenced the development of Essene identity. Caves 1 to 4 and 11 have delivered fifteen fragmentary manuscripts in the original Hebrew of the Book of Jubilees. The book was clearly popular and authoritative at Qumran; it is cited in the Damascus Document (CD 16.2–3) as the standard for ‘the exact determination of . . . times’. It takes the form of ‘Rewritten Scripture’, representing an adaptation of the biblical text from Genesis 1 through to the initial covenant ceremony recounted in Exodus 19 to 24. However, the whole is presented as an apocalypse; it is by way of a visionary revelation vouchsafed to Moses through an ‘Angel of the Presence’.

Devorah Dimant, ‘The Qumran Manuscripts: Contents and Significance’, in Time to Prepare the Way in the Wilderness, ed. D. Dimant and L.H. Schiffman (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 35. 601 For the book of Enoch, see above, Chapter Eleven. Cave 7 has preserved fragments of one further scroll in Greek translation; they were formerly erroneously identified by some scholars as NT texts. 602 Milik, ed., The Books of Enoch, 7. 600

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This alternative source of revelation written in the ‘heavenly tablets’ is blended with the Mosaic covenant. The Enochic tradition is clearly known and respected by the author, but there has been a reconciliation between the heavenly knowledge revealed through the apocalypse and the specific covenantal revelation at Sinai largely ignored by early apocalyptic tradition. The Sinai episode now represents a single covenant that gathers prior anticipations into one concept. The covenant was observed in heaven from the day of creation but introduced on earth in the days of Noah. It was annually to be renewed on the Feast of Weeks, Shavuot. It had been neglected following the death of Noah but had been revived by the patriarchs. Forgotten again by the time of the Mosaic era, it needed to be renewed ‘on this mountain’. The Torah anchored in the day of creation had now received a cosmic reference. Israel’s election is placed within an angelic context; she is extended the privilege of sharing the observance of the Sabbath and circumcision, formerly restricted to the senior classes of angels in heaven. The 364-day solar calendar is a matter of absolute concern and preordained history is providentially marked by jubilees (periods of seven weeks of years, i.e. 49 years). Much of the Essene outlook, which has combined an apocalyptic perspective with strict observance of the Torah, is clearly and evidently anticipated in Jubilees. It is a strange characteristic of Jubilees that it is an apocalypse of the historical sort, but the information revealed to the distinguished figure, in this case Moses, is mainly of the past and what has already taken place. However, in two sections the future is addressed: in ch. 1, and again in ch. 23, following the death of Abraham. Both may be interpreted as exhibiting the shape familiar from the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse. An event is identified in the extended period of the exile when there is an eschatological initiative which leads on to the last days and creation’s cosmic consummation. In ch. 23 there is mention of a generation of children arising who ‘will reproach their parents and their elders on account of sin’ (Jubilees 23:16): And in those days, children will begin to search the law, and to search the commandments, and to return to the way of righteousness. — Jubilees 23:26 That initiative is capable of inaugurating a new era of divine activity. From then on, the days of a human lifespan will begin to grow longer ‘until their days approach a thousand years’ (23:27). There will be ‘no Satan and no evil (one) who will destroy’ (23:29). There will be healing and peace; the enemy will be driven out (23:30). It is the equivalent of ‘the day of the new creation when the heaven and earth and all of their creatures shall be renewed according to the powers of heaven and according to the whole nature of earth’ (Jubilees 1:29). The new dimension in Jubilees is that it is the ‘searching’ of the Law and the commandments that ignites the eschatological flame. The Temple Scroll (11QT = 11Q19) at over 8.5 metres (28 feet), is the longest Qumran manuscript. It is supplemented by further fragmentary texts (11Q20, 4Q524, 4Q365a). The mirror image of Jubilees, it traces the legal material from the renewed Mosaic covenant in Exodus 34, following the golden calf incident, through Leviticus and Numbers to Deuteronomy 23. Between them the two works cover the complete Torah. However, the suggestion that the two represent a single composition603 is contradicted by the fact

603

B.Z. Wacholder, ‘The Relationship between 11Q Torah (the Temple Scroll) and the Book of Jubilees: One Single or Two Independent Compositions?’, SBLSP (1985): 205, 207–16.

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that Jubilees presents the legal material within a narrative context, whereas the hallmark of the Temple Scroll is a classification of the Law extracted from its narrative framework. The significance of this was recognized by the scroll’s editor, the military strategist and scholar, Yigael Yadin.604 His knowledge of the halakhic principles within Rabbinic Judaism enabled him to place the method of the author of the Temple Scroll within its proper context: ‘he was aspiring in fact to do what was achieved by the great Rabbinic sages of the Mishnah, which is the codified ‘Halachah’ – the religio-legal system of Judaism – based on oral tradition’.605 However, something more is going on. Disparate laws have not simply been aligned and rearranged; a great deal of new material has been introduced. The Temple Scroll adapts the construction of the tabernacle recounted in Exodus 35ff. into instructions on the building of a vast idealized temple and its courtyards, laying down the festivals and sacrifices to be observed. The festivals indicate that the solar year of 364 days is being followed. The temple itself has a square precinct of three courts; twelve gates, three on each side, representing the tribes of Israel, give access to the holiest area. It is designed on the basis of the camp of Israel in Numbers 2 to 3, with the tribes at the four cardinal points facing the tent of meeting. The holiness radiates out from the holy of holies to the whole land in diminishing intensity. The consequent rules of purity for the temple city area are a new development. The provision for the festivals has been considerably expanded to include vine harvest, new oil and wood offering. The regulation relating to the appointment of a king observant of Torah is inspired by Deuteronomy 17:14–20, but its expansion is largely original. All this is presented as the direct dictation of God himself. It is an outstanding feature of this work that, when it is incorporating Deuteronomy, for whom Moses is the intermediary of the revelation, it usually substitutes the first-person address by God for the third person report of Moses relaying God’s instructions. It makes a strong claim to direct divine inspiration. The work has been called ‘apocalyptic halakha’.606 It relies upon an additional source of revelation, unavailable to all Israel, for its refined knowledge of the true Torah. The work certainly stands close to the sectarian frame of reference. Yadin straightforwardly identified it as a sectarian work. His evidence included the demonstrable connection between the Temple Scroll and the Damascus Document: The kinship between this Damascus Document and the Temple scroll on basic points has been demonstrated throughout this presentation. To mention the most notable examples, both documents – and only these two – use the terminology ‘the city of the Temple’. Both have the rulings, almost in the same words, banning bigamy and divorce. This is also true of the prohibition on sexual intercourse in the city of the Temple, and the rigorous rules of purification following sexual intercourse anywhere. And it is in both these documents that we find the strict laws of purification from uncleanness contracted from the house of a dead person.607

Yadin initially published the Temple Scroll in a Hebrew edition in 1977 and subsequently in a comprehensive English edition: Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 3 vols (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983). 605 Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985), 73. 606 J.M. Baumgarten, ‘Review of Megillat ha-Miqdas, The Temple Scroll by Yigael Yadin’, JBL 97, no. 4 (1978): 586. 607 Yadin, The Temple Scroll: The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect, 230–1. 604

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A number of scholars support Yadin’s assessment that the Temple Scroll is a sectarian work.608 However, this has been challenged. Schiffman609 has noted that the polemical language distinctive of the sectarian scrolls is not evident. Stegemann610 has pointed out that the number of copies of the Temple Scroll in the Qumran collection suggests it was not one of the favoured books compared with the popular texts. George Brooke611 has reworked Yadin’s observations to argue that the Temple Scroll is not the product of the sectarians, but of the circles responsible for Jubilees and the early form of the traditions associated with the Damascus Document. On balance, it seems appropriate to include the work among the affiliated texts, yet acknowledge its closeness to the sectarian formation. Although biblical, the book of Daniel cannot count as a classical text. The earliest (4QDanc) of the eight scrolls of the book of Daniel is to be dated c. 125 BCE ; it ‘has the distinction of being closest in date to when the book itself was composed (about 165 BCE ). It also shows that Daniel was being read at Qumran only forty years after being written.’612 This book is an apocalyptic work, but appears to come from a group distinct from Enochic circles. This is indicated by the fact that the Second Temple is viewed in a positive light and that the stories in the initial part of the book show Daniel observant of the Torah. There are a number of parallels with the scrolls. In Daniel 9:2 and 9:24ff. the prophecy of Jeremiah of seventy years for the duration of the exile613 is given an apocalyptic-style reinterpretation as ‘seventy weeks of years’. This method of scriptural interpretation bears some similarity to the pesharim in the scrolls. Those words of interpretation of prophecy seem to be picked up by the Damascus Document in its calculation of the arc of time from the exile to the messianic age (see below).614 The final chapter of Daniel gives a fleeting clue to those behind the text: ‘Those who are wise [maskilim] shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead many [rabbim] to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever’ (Daniel 12:3). There seems to be a potential correspondence when the Community Rule identifies a significant leadership role as maskil, translated by Vermes as ‘Master’ (1QS 3.13; 9.12, 21). The members of the Yahad (the community) are often referred to as rabbim (i.e. 1QS 6, frequently), translated by Vermes as ‘Congregation’. Further, the promise is given that the wise will shine like stars; that is, they will share the life of the angels hereafter. This is an aspiration enhanced by the sectarians, who already claimed the angelic presence in their midst. The Florilegium (4Q174) has been called a ‘midrash on the last days’. It expounds various biblical texts, and in the final section uses Psalm 2:1 to introduce the notion of the eschatological war of the nations. There it appeals to the book of Daniel 12:10 as a prophetically inspired text for confirmatory detail. This may strengthen the suggestion of J. van der Ploeg615 that a primary literary

Baumgarten, ‘Review of Megillat ha-Miqdas’, 588. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 192. E.P. Sanders, ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Jews: Commonalities, Overlaps and Differences’, in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context, ed. T.H. Lim et al. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 34. 609 L.H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), 257–8. 610 H. Stegemann, ‘The Literary Composition of the Temple Scroll and Its Status at Qumran’, in Temple Scroll Studies, ed. G.J. Brooke (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1989), 123–48. He dates the work by comparison with the books of Chronicles to the time of the restoration of the whole of Israel after the exile (fourth century BCE ). 611 G.J. Brooke, ‘The Temple Scroll: A Law Unto Itself ’, in Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of Law in Israel and Early Christianity, ed. Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1988), 34–43. 612 VanderKam and Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 137–8. 613 Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10. 614 Current chapter, s. VII. 615 J. van der Ploeg, Le Rouleau de la guerre (Leiden: Brill, 1959), 11–22. 608

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layer of the War Scroll (columns i and xv–xix) recounts the battle with the Kittim and draws its inspiration from Daniel 11:40 to 12:3. It is in Daniel that the Romans are identified as the Kittim. Certainly, this modest conclusion is in order: ‘Close connections between those responsible for Daniel and for the scrolls have often been claimed, with some plausibility, though the nature of these connections is still unclear.’616 The final category (four) brings us to the sectarian literature, which amounts to a quarter of the collection. It comes in a wide range of forms. These include rules, legal material, liturgies, hymns, calendars, Wisdom texts, commentaries, Rewritten Scripture, glimpses of heavenly worship and eschatological midrash. While many of these are identified in this chapter, in this context it seems sensible to focus on two key texts that come under the heading of rules, namely the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. The Damascus Document had surfaced before the Qumran discoveries. Two copies (tenth and twelfth centuries CE ) were found in an extensive collection of medieval manuscripts recovered from a genizah (storeroom for ancient sacred manuscripts) in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in old Cairo in 1896. Retrieved by Solomon Schechter, they were subsequently published by him.617 Fragments of ten different copies of this same work have appeared in Caves 4, 5 and 6 at Qumran (4Q265–273; 5Q12 and 6Q15). This rule envisages multiple local groups living alongside established townships throughout Israel (CD 12.19). They are called ‘camps’ (CD 7.7; cf. Numbers 2) and, reminiscent of Israel at Sinai in Exodus 18:25, consist of ‘at least ten men, by Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties, and Tens’ (CD 13.1). The ten men must include a priest. Each camp is under the leadership of a mebaqqer or guardian, who had considerable authority, including in matters of recruitment of new members. Provision is made for an ‘assembly of the camps’ (CD 14.4ff.) for which there is also an overall mebaqqer. The work falls into two parts. The first is an extended ‘admonition’ or sermon. This section identifies a remnant of Israel following the destruction of the First Temple (‘His Sanctuary’) and gives some chronological detail of the exile and the emergence of a chosen group. Clearly sectarian in character, the chosen group represents a covenantal movement: ‘Hear now, all you who enter the Covenant, and I will unstop your ears concerning the ways of the wicked’ (CD 2.2). The covenant is later clarified as ‘the New Covenant’ made ‘in the land of Damascus’ (CDb 2.12). The group is led by one named the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’. It is contrasted with ‘the congregation of traitors, . . . those who departed from the way’ (CD 1.12). The members are warned of the ‘three nets of Belial’; these are fornication, riches and the profanation of the Temple. They are called to meticulous observance of the Torah as the sect interpreted it: They shall take care to act according to the exact interpretation of the Law during the age of wickedness. They shall separate from the sons of the Pit, and shall keep away from the unclean riches of wickedness acquired by vow or anathema or from the Temple treasure; . . . They shall distinguish between clean and unclean, and shall proclaim the difference between holy and profane. They shall keep the Sabbath day according to its exact interpretation, and the feasts and the Day of Fasting according to the finding of the members of the New Covenant in the land of Damascus. — CD 6.14ff. Davies, Brooke and Callaway, The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 129. S. Schechter, Documents of Jewish Sectaries: Volume 1: Fragments of a Zadokite Work (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910).

616 617

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The Temple was clearly regarded as under profane management as the Law was not properly observed by sectarian standards (CD 5.6). There may have been some contact by the sectarians on their own terms; the evidence is ambiguous: ‘None of those brought into the Covenant shall enter the Temple to light His altar in vain’ (CD 6.11). Mention is made of the coming ‘end of days’ and the sectarians looked forward to ‘the coming of the Messiah out of Aaron and Israel’ (CDb 2.1; turn of columns 12/13). The second part of the Damascus Document is a code of laws and regulations with a base in the Pentateuch, but with clear additional sectarian intensity. There is some overlap with the Temple Scroll; for instance, in the extension of regulations to the ‘city of the Sanctuary’: ‘No man shall lie with a woman in the city of the Sanctuary, to defile the city of the Sanctuary with their uncleanness’ (CD 12.2). The extensive Sabbath regulations618 forbade even talking about work. No laxity is indulged: ‘No man shall assist a beast to give birth on the Sabbath day. And if it should fall into a cistern or pit, he shall not lift it out on the Sabbath’ (CD 11.12). There is also instruction that: ‘No man minding a child shall carry it whilst going and coming on the Sabbath’ (CD 11.10). That provision is indicative of the breadth of concern of the statutes, to include family matters, such as children, and the age of enrolment in the covenant, marriage and divorce, as well as trading regulations, vows and relations with gentiles. There is an expectation of giving two days’ wages each month to the local mebaqqer to care for the poor and needy of the community. That suggests some independence as regards property and money. Josephus may indicate that all sectarians, wherever they lived, held the usufruct (right of use) of their property in common.619 One of the very first scrolls to emerge from two millennia of obscurity was a copy of the Community Rule or Serek ah-Yahad (1QS), which was amongst those carefully stored in a jar in Cave 1. Its meticulous storage most probably indicates that it was the rule followed by those resident at Qumran. In a fairly well-preserved state, its eleven columns represent an almost complete text. The same scroll also included the Messianic Rule (1QSa) and the Rule of Blessings (1QSb). Fragments of ten other manuscripts of the Community Rule have been forthcoming from Cave 4 (4Q255–264 = 4QS a–j).620 The Cave 1 manuscript (1QS) opens with (1) instruction to the maskil (‘wise teacher’; Vermes translates ‘Master’) to interpret the Rule to the sectarians with due seriousness: ‘All those who embrace the Community Rule shall enter into the Covenant before God to obey all His commandments so that they may not abandon Him during the dominion of Belial because of fear or terror or affliction’ (1QS 1.18). There follows (2) a liturgy for admission to the covenant to be performed annually (1QS 1.19 to 3.12); next (3) is an extended instruction which amounts to a treatise on radical moral dualism, personified on occasion as the Prince of Light versus the Angel of Darkness ‘for God has established the two spirits in equal measure until the determined end’ (1QS 3.13 to 4.26). The three next columns (1QS 5 to 7) reach the anticipated subject matter (4). They are introduced: ‘And this is the Rule for the men of the Community [Yahad]’, which is ‘under the authority of the sons of Zadok, the Priests who keep the Covenant’. This highly

618

CD 10.15 to 11. War 2.8.4: ‘They have no certain city, but many of them dwell in every city; and if any of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own; and they go into such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them.’ 620 In addition, two small fragments from Cave 5 (5Q11 and 5Q13) quote from the Community Rule. 619

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significant section includes a code of behaviour, the process for new admissions and sanctions for misdemeanours. These latter include penance by diminishment of the food ration, exclusion from the pure meal, temporary exclusion from the community or even, in serious circumstances, dismissal. No provision is made for women or children. The rules seem to legislate for a male community that practised the pooling of wealth and some sort of common ownership of property: ‘All those who freely devote themselves to His truth shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions into the Community of God, that they may purify their knowledge in the truth of God’s precepts and order their powers according to His ways of perfection and all their possessions according to His righteous counsel.’621 As in the Damascus Document, there is similar provision for multiple local cells: ‘Wherever there are ten men of the Council of the Community there shall not lack a priest among them. And they shall all sit before him according to their rank’ (1QS 6.3). The passage subsequently identifies a focal act for the sectarians: ‘And when the table has been prepared for eating, and the new wine for drinking, the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his hand to bless the firstfruits of the bread and new wine’ (1QS 6.5). We learn from reference to the ‘excluded’ that the meal is preceded by a ritual bath: ‘They shall not enter the water to partake of the pure Meal of the men of holiness’ (1QS 5.13). This was a sacred act which prefigured the messianic era (1QSa 2.11ff.). Their prayer was close to the petition: ‘Give us today the bread of tomorrow.’ The process for new admissions involved firstly examination by the Guardian (mebaqqer), instruction in the rules of the Yahad and the approval of the congregation. There then followed a staged process of entry over a period of two years. Only at the end of the probationary year are the property and earnings of the aspirant handed to the care of the bursar, and he could be admitted to the pure meal, but not its drink. Liquids were particularly susceptible to uncleanness. The actual merging of the property of the aspirant and admittance to the drink of the pure meal took place only when the two years were completed in order to protect the purity of the Yahad.622 We may next consider (5) columns viii and ix.1–11. Something new is going on as 1QS 8 opens: ‘In the Council of the Community there shall be twelve men and three Priests’. They seem to be a new initiative and an elite group; they are exemplary as a spiritual temple ‘and shall offer up sweet fragrance’ (1QS 8.9). In particular, the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3 is applied to them: ‘Prepare in the wilderness the way of . . .’. This is something to which we shall return below. The passage following, 1QS 8.17–9.11, seems to be of a more general nature and returns to the maskel’s exhortation. It picks up a notable feature of the whole Yahad as a substitute temple: ‘They shall atone for guilty rebellion and for sins of unfaithfulness, that they may obtain loving-kindness for the Land without the flesh of holocausts and the fat of sacrifice. And prayer rightly offered shall be as an acceptable fragrance of righteousness, and perfection of way as a delectable free-will offering’ (1QS 9.4–5). This section concludes by looking forward to ‘the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel’. We may break off briefly to consider the significance of the manuscript witnesses from Cave 4. The best preserved of these is 4QS d (4Q258), which retains its opening column. The beginning corresponds with 1QS 5; it immediately identifies the heart of the Rule. Clearly there was a recension in circulation without (1), (2) or (3) above. The manuscript

621

1QS 1.11ff. 1QS 6.14ff.

622

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concludes with the maskil’s hymn. Another feature of this manuscript is that, where 1QS identifies ‘the Priests, the Sons of Zadok’, it reads simply ‘the Congregation’ (ha-rabbim). This latter is also true of 4QS b (4Q256), which, however, contains evidence of all sections. The other manuscripts either correspond to 1QS 1 to 4 or 1QS 5 to 11.623 A possible deduction is that the full text of 1QS indicates an original Rule with the liturgy and the instruction prefixed to it as independent works. However, 1QS is an early manuscript, dating from the first quarter of the first century BCE , so, if this is correct, the additions circulated early. Another possibility is that the longer rule was edited; this would allow for the suggestion of Martin Goodman that Zadokite influence waned over time.624 The multiple editions of the Community Rule as recovered from the caves suggest that they may well represent the constitutions of various local branches of the Yahad that were brought to Qumran, perhaps by visitors or perhaps in extremis. Finally, (6) 1QS 9.12 to the end of 11 concludes the Serek ah-Yahad with instructions for the maskil and the maskil’s hymn. The hymn is a reminder of the significance of daily worship for the sectarians ‘at the beginning of the dominion of light, and at its end’, as well as the marking of the holy days and seasons. It concludes the Rule with the reminder that their worship is already in the companionship of the angels. Whereas the apocalypses promised the redeemed a future share in the life of heaven alongside the angelic presence, the vision of the Community Rule is of a fellowship that had already broken through to the divine presence and the companionship of the ministering host of angels: ‘The association of the elect with the angels or holy ones goes to the heart of the problem of the understanding of the blessed afterlife in the scrolls.’625 The consequence of keeping Torah, as understood by the sectarians, was none other than an immediate and direct encounter with the heavenly wellsprings of life. They had already crossed from death to life and entered on eternity: My eyes have gazed on that which is eternal, on wisdom concealed from men, on knowledge and wise design . . . . God has given them to His chosen ones as an everlasting possession, and has caused them to inherit the lot of the Holy Ones. He has joined their assembly to the Sons of Heaven to be a Council of the Community, a foundation of the Building of Holiness, and eternal Plantation throughout all ages to come.626 In summary, we may conclude that the sectarian scrolls have preserved evidence of two sorts of community structure in the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. The community at Qumran seems to have lived by the latter rule. There is enough correspondence between the two to suggest that they are part of a single movement. The

One manuscript (4QS e = 4Q259) substitutes the calendrical text 4QOtot (4Q319) for the maskil’s hymn. Goodman, A History of Judaism, 156. 625 J.J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London and New York, NY: Routledge, 1997), 119. 626 1QS 11.6ff. 623 624

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fact that both sorts were valued and evidenced in the Qumran texts indicates that they were seen as complementary rather than in opposition. It is likely that one form of community developed first and the other evolved from it: ‘The current consensus is that the family-based new covenant of the Damascus Document reflects an earlier stage of development than the quasi-monastic yahad of the Community Rule, although both forms of community eventually persisted, in multiple locations.’627 The identification of this movement with the Essenes is not universally supported by scholars.628 The strong circumstantial evidence from ancient authors as regards the location of Qumran and correspondence with the Community Rule warrant consideration. The significance of ancient sources which locate the Essenes in the region of the western side of the Dead Sea was early on noted by Eleazar Sukenik.629 The Roman geographer Pliny the Elder, who died in 79 CE investigating the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, is one source. In his Natural History,630 he records an Essene settlement to the west of the Dead Sea near Ein Gedi. He remarkably captures the distinctive lifestyle of the community, which he calls a ‘tribe’. He notes that they are isolated (‘only palm-trees for company’), celibate male (‘no women’) and practise some sort of unusual communal ownership (‘no money’). His geographer’s eye for the unusual, which will entertain his audience, notes that the tribe, into which no one is born, is yet continuously reborn by the constant stream of those attracted to it by life’s harrowing experiences. Another source is the biography of Dio Cocceianus (Chrysostomos), a first/second-century CE orator and philosopher, by Synesius of Cyrene (c. 370–413 CE ). It records Dio as commending an Essene settlement near the Dead Sea.631 It represents an independent confirmation of Pliny’s observation. The potential coincidence of the two witnesses which place the location of an Essene community near the Dead Sea is striking. Pliny further specifies the town of Ein Gedi as ‘below the Essenes’, probably signifying ‘south of ’. For further contemporary commentary on the Essenes, we can look to Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. Philo (d. c. 50 CE ) admired the Essenes for their ascetic life and rather idealized them as ‘athletes of virtue’. In his work That Every Good Man Is Free, he argues that only the wise are free, and that true wisdom is in following God and being released from passions and desires. Among the exemplars of this way of life is, of course, Moses; however, he goes on to enumerate others, who include the Essenes.632 His commendation of the Essenes has been summarized in this way: ‘He accentuates their innocence, rejection of slave labor, study of the law, devotion to God and neighbors, sharing of goods, and providing help for the sick and the poor.’633

J.J. Collins, ‘The Origin of the Scrolls Community and Its Historical Context’, Henoch 39, no. 1 (2017): 19. Goodman, A History of Judaism, 147: ‘Hence, rather than interpret the Dead Sea scrolls through the lens of what Josephus tells us about other groups (most often, the Essenes), the nature of the community (or communities) of these distinctive sectarians must be examined in its own right.’ See also, idem, ‘A Note on the Qumran Sectarians, the Essenes and Josephus’, in M. Goodman, Judaism in the Roman World: Collected Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 137–43. 629 E.L. Sukenik, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1955), 29. 630 Pliny, Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 352 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942), 5.73. 631 G. Vermes and M.D. Goodman, eds, The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989), 59. 632 Prob. 75–91. 633 Sterling et al., ‘Philo’, 276. 627 628

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Philo gives further information about the Essenes in his work Hypothetica.634 He notes that: Furthermore they eschew marriage because they clearly discern it to be the sole principal danger to the maintenance of the communal life, as well as because they particularly practise continence. — Hypothetica 11.14 Something of the practice of the Community Rule is captured through Philo’s prism. He also identifies an ascetic group in Egypt called Theraputae,635 whose members in mature years adopted celibacy, united for worship and formed male and female communities. The agreement between Philo’s information on the Essenes and that of Josephus in Antiquities most likely points to dependence on a common source. It is to Josephus that we must now turn. He also had his own motives in presenting the Essenes to an audience steeped in the Graeco-Roman culture. There is a full account of the Essenes in Wars of the Jews636 and a shorter piece in Antiquities.637 Perhaps the most striking similarity with Qumran is the description that Josephus gives of the admission procedure to the Essene community (War 2.8.7). The procedure is remarkably similar to that set out in the Community Rule. Josephus describes a staged process which involves a number of years. Further, he notes the demand for deference to those in authority, which is similarly spelt out in the Rule: ‘the man of lesser rank obeying his superior’ (1QS 5.23). Josephus particularly notes the provision for expulsion from the community (War 2.8.8; cf. 1QS 8.20f.). He draws out the terrible significance of expulsion since the sectarian was not released from his oaths; consequently, he was unable to touch normal food and as a result faced starvation. The description that Josephus gives of the significance of the common meal (War 2.8.5) succinctly states the aspects of the meal which have to be gleaned from clues in the scrolls. He states that, after the morning labours that last until the fifth hour (about 11.00 am), they gather, take their ritual bath, then in their white garments enter the dining room. The sacredness of the meal, with its pure food and drink, focusing the holiness of the community, which can be discerned from the scrolls, is captured by Josephus: they go, after a pure manner, into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down. The baker lays out the loaves, the cook places a single plate before each one, and the priest must say a blessing before the meal can commence. It concludes also with the blessing, after which the white garments are laid aside. Josephus envisages a celibate community: they ‘esteem continence, and the conquest over our passions’ and ‘neglect wedlock’ (2.8.2). That certainly is the logic of the Community Rule. Further, Josephus explains that ‘it is a law among them, that those who come to them must let what they have be common to the whole order’ (2.8.3). In a similar way 1QS 6.24 insists: ‘his property shall be merged and he shall offer his counsel and judgement to the Community’. Josephus specifies: ‘they give every one leave to speak in Hypothetica 11:1–18. On the Contemplative Life. 636 War 2.8.2–13. Hippolytus of Rome, Refutio omnium haeresium, Book IX, has a parallel account which seems to draw on a common source. 637 Antiquities 18.1.5. 634 635

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their turn’ (2.8.5) and this is echoed in 1QS 6.11, which specifies: ‘No man shall interrupt a companion before his speech has ended, nor speak before a man of higher rank; each man shall speak in his turn.’ Josephus refers to what seems a slightly random matter: ‘They also avoid spitting in the midst of them’ (2.8.9). This is exactly paralleled in the Community Rule: ‘Whoever has spat in an Assembly of the Congregation shall do penance for thirty days’ (1QS 7.14). Josephus notes also that: ‘they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labours on the seventh day’ (2.8.9). The mention of foretelling things to come ‘by reading the holy books’ (2.8.12) is certainly reminiscent of the prophetic pesharim. The significance of the study of the Law finds its place in the observation of Josephus: What they most of all honour, after God himself, is the name of their legislator [Moses;] whom, if anyone blaspheme, he is punished capitally. — War 2.8.9 That reference directs us to the significance of the observation: They also take great pains in studying the writings of the ancients, and choose out of them what is most for the advantage of their soul and body. — War 2.8.6 Josephus devotes one section to Essene doctrine (2.8.11). It commences by explaining as their belief: ‘That bodies are corruptible . . . but that the souls are immortal’. He goes on to expound Greek notions of immortality. Clearly, this is not the thinking of a Jewish sect, but Josephus is using the vocabulary familiar to his audience. However, this is not a transposition totally lacking in validity. The Qumran texts do seem to witness to eternal life rather than resurrection. They think in terms of their sectarian worship having already passed from death to life. The fact that they participate with the angels in the worship of heaven is their hope for eternity. The analogy Josephus uses is not without some justification. In Antiquities 18.1.5 Josephus briefly opens another arena: ‘The doctrine of the Essens is this: That all things are best ascribed to God.’ That seems to be a succinct way of expressing the sectarian doctrine that history is predestined by God. It is his preordained purpose that is being worked out in all things, even during the dominion of Belial. It is a perspective inherited from the tradition of apocalyptic which enabled history to be predicted from the vantage point of a figure of ancient history. The description of the Essenes in both Philo and Josephus seems to focus on that aspect of the movement that lived by the Community Rule. However, Josephus concludes his piece on the Essenes in War by expanding the horizons of the movement he is describing: Moreover, there is another order of Essens, who agree with the rest as to their way of living, and customs, and laws, but differ from them in the point of marriage, as thinking that by not marrying they cut off the principal part of human life, which is the prospect of succession; nay rather, that if all men should be of the same opinion, the whole race of mankind would fail. — War 2.8.13 This additional information may have been added from Josephus’s own knowledge and not from sources. It allows room for those who live by the rule of the Damascus Document.

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There are areas of silence in Josephus’s account of the Essenes which we must recognize. There is no mention of the solar calendar that alienated them from the Temple, although there is mention of not participating in Temple sacrificial practice in Antiquities 18.1.5. There is no mention either of the two messiahs, the last days or the final eschatological war between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. Josephus perhaps decided that the latter matters were unsavoury from one living on a pension from the Roman state. They had the smell of conflagration, about which he had had to write too much. The absence of these features is not sufficient to dent the amazing correspondence between the description of the Essenes by Josephus and the Community Rule from Qumran. The vignette given us by Josephus may well draw its substance from the Dead Sea community, although he himself is aware that it is part of a larger movement which he estimates at ‘more than four thousand’. The conclusion of J.J. Collins on this subject is a fitting summary of where our investigation has taken us. He writes: ‘The discrepancies between the Greek sources and the scrolls, significant though they are, are outweighed by the similarities. The correspondence of geographic location and the extensive similarity of community structure make overwhelmingly probable the identification of Qumran, and of the Rule of the Community, as “Essene”.’638

V THE DESERT CAMP The Essene configuration of its own identity appears to be particularly associated with one iconic image. It was that of the desert camp, which permeated their communal organization as reflected in both the Damascus Document and the Community Rule. This association has been expressed in this way: ‘The sect described themselves and structured their internal organization as if they were in the camp of Israel. Following Numbers chs 1–2, they divided themselves up into ‘camps’ (mahanot), and they imitated the language of Exodus by organizing themselves into subunits of 1,000, 100, 50 and 10 (Exodus 18:21–22, 15; cf. CD 13:1, 1QS 2:21–22).’639 In this way the sectarians were able to portray themselves as represented at the very inception of Israel’s covenant at Sinai ready to be obedient to the newly revealed Torah. Their own voice is included in the response to Moses as he ‘came and told the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice [yahdaw = as one], and said, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” ’ (Exodus 24:3). Further, the identity of the movement was grounded in the complementary vision of the opening chapters of Numbers which envisages the camp of Israel assembled in the wilderness of Sinai, tribe by tribe in an orderly fashion at the cardinal points of the compass around the Tabernacle of the Covenant, the precursor of the Temple. In symbol and reality, it was the place of revelation and the place of Israel’s commitment to the covenant. The camp of Israel was also a place of purity which required strict compliance: ‘The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Command the Israelites to put out of the camp

638 J.J. Collins, ‘Essenes’, in Anchor Bible Dictionary: Volume 2, ed. D.N. Freedman (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992), 625. 639 Alison Schofield, ‘The Wilderness Motif in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in Israel in the Wilderness: Interpretations of the Biblical Narratives in Jewish and Christian Traditions, ed. K.E. Pomykala (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 48.

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everyone who is leprous, or has a discharge, and everyone who is unclean through contact with a corpse; you shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp; they must not defile their camp, where I dwell among them’ (Numbers 5:1–3). For the sectarians, it was the holy angels that dwelt among them and connected them directly to the life of heaven. For both the Damascus Document and Community Rule the minimum number or quorum for a local unit of the movement was the ten prescribed by the Exodus enumeration (CD 13.1; 1QS 6.1–8). The Essenes were priestly led, therefore each unit of ten had to include one priest. The local group in the Damascus Document is referred to as a camp (CD 12.22, 13.7, 14.3). The fellowship as a whole in Community Rule is referred to as the Yahad (translated ‘community’ by Vermes). It is literally the ‘Unity’; it was an almost technical self-designation. It has been argued by James VanderKam640 that the background is to be found in the Exodus Sinai narrative where the people answer ‘as one’ (yahdaw), as mentioned above. It returns us to the image of the desert camp. We must understand the local groups of the Yahad, like the camps of the Damascus Document, as distributed across the population centres of Israel.641 Josephus refers to the Essene Gate at Jerusalem.642 The significance of the image of the sectarians as the biblical camp gathered in the wilderness of Sinai receives further confirmation. The celebration of the covenant at Sinai was the liturgical focus of the year for all Essenes. It was the time when the new members were admitted to the community. It was also the time when solemn expulsions took place of those who had transgressed the boundaries and invoked a curse upon themselves. The Community Rule of Cave 1 opens with the liturgy of the covenant (1QS 1.1 to 3.11). It begins with the priests and Levites blessing ‘the God of salvation and all His faithfulness’. Those entering the covenant respond ‘Amen, Amen!’ Acknowledgement of the goodness of God to Israel leads to confession of Israel’s rebellions and to the personal contrition of those to be admitted. There is a Deuteronomic resonance in the acceptance of the consequences of Israel’s sin: ‘[And God has] judged us and our fathers also.’ However, foreign to a Deuteronomic perspective is a world under the dominion of an alien authority identified as Belial. Those who are admitted to the covenant are called not simply to obedience, but to resistance of a dark power which, for the moment, has events in its grip. The liturgy continues, shot through with the sectarian perspective. The priests bless ‘all the men of the lot of God who walk perfectly in all His ways’ and the Levites ‘curse all the men of the lot of Belial’. Then both priests and Levites curse anyone who may be entering the covenant unworthily. This ceremony is to be observed annually in the strict hierarchy of the community reflecting the configuration of the desert camp: Thus shall they do, year by year, for as long as the dominion of Belial endures. The Priests shall enter first, ranked one after another according to the perfection of their spirit; then the Levites; and thirdly, all the people one after another in their Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties, and Tens, that every Israelite may know his place in the Community of God according to the everlasting design. — 1QS 2.19ff.

J. VanderKam, ‘Sinai Revisited’, in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Matthew Henze (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 44–60, esp. 51–6. 641 J.J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 67: ‘On one view, which I hold, yahad was an umbrella term for several communities of variable size.’ 642 War 5.4.2. 640

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Evidence that the annual celebration of the covenant was also observed by the camps of the Damascus Document is forthcoming from two fragmentary manuscripts from Cave 4 (4Q266, fr. 11; 4Q270, fr. 7 i–ii). These conclude with that part of the covenant ritual relating to the expulsion. That source also provides us with the date of the ceremony. It was in the ‘third month’ and, therefore, coincided with the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost) or Shavuot. The concluding lines read: And all [the inhabitants] of the camps shall assemble in the third month and shall curse him who turns aside, to the right [or to the left from the] Law. And this (the foregoing) is the interpretation of the laws which they shall observe in all the age [of visitation which will be visited on them during al]l the age of wrath and in their marches for all those who dwell in their camps and all their towns. Behold all this is according to the last interpretation of the Law. This direction fills out what was involved in the ‘Rule for the assembly of all the camps’ (CD 14.3). Jubilees had already anticipated the covenantal pattern of the sectarians. Geza Vermes suggested that there was a single celebration of the covenant at the Feast of Weeks for the whole Essene movement, which took place at Qumran.643 With the re-dating of the occupation of Qumran to the first century BCE one would have to adapt his theory, but it remains an interesting possibility. The portrayal of the sectarian movement as the camp of Israel gathered at Mount Sinai, at the moment of covenantal obligation, to receive the Torah, clearly presents its fundamental identity. The Essenes participated vigorously in what is often referred to as ‘covenantal nomism’. However, there is an important proviso. A bridge has been crossed. The camp of Israel is no longer Israel without qualification. The camp of Israel is to be identified with the sectarians. It includes those who have freely chosen to align themselves with the movement, the true Israel, not those who are Israel by virtue of common descent. A great gulf is fixed between the sectarians and natural Israel perceived as renegade. The Community Rule instructs the Master: He shall admit into the Covenant of Grace all those who have freely devoted themselves to the observance of God’s precepts, that they may be joined to the counsel of God and may live perfectly before Him in accordance with all that has been revealed concerning their appointed times, and that they may love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in God’s design, and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in God’s vengeance. — 1QS 1.7–10 This is an Israel of Jeremiah’s ‘new covenant’ (Jeremiah 31:31–34; cf. CDb 2.10ff.), available because of ‘all that has been revealed’. The old order has been superseded. We must understand the significance of the camp of Israel for the sectarians in the context of the wilderness motif. At the turn of the millennium, amongst sections of the Jewish population in ancient Palestine, the return to the wilderness raised expectation; it would be the place of renewal. Its geography promised a new manifestation of divine power latent in Israel’s saving history. The camp of Israel was an eschatological concept. Something new was being drawn from the old well. The sectarians waiting afresh for the revelation at Sinai expected an enhanced understanding denied to ancient Israel. They

Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 43.

643

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were to separate from ‘the men of injustice’ because ‘they are not reckoned in His Covenant. They have neither inquired nor sought after Him concerning His laws that they might know the hidden things [nistarot] in which they have sinfully erred; and matters revealed [niglot] they have treated with insolence.’ (1QS 5.12). Schiffman has identified a dual approach to the Law as characteristic of the sectarian perspective. He draws out the distinction between ‘revealed’ and ‘hidden’ Law.644 The revealed Law, he suggests, is the Pentateuch or Torah and available to all Israel. In addition, there was the hidden Law, new revelation, which was disclosed to the sectarians and was not available outside their company. The Damascus Document identifies some of the hidden knowledge: But with the remnant which held fast to the commandments of God He made His Covenant with Israel for ever, revealing to them the hidden things [nistarot] in which all Israel had gone astray. He unfolded before them His holy Sabbaths and his glorious feasts, the testimonies of His righteousness and the ways of His truth, and the desires of His will which a man must do in order to live. — CD 3.12–16 Calendrical matters were included in the special revelation vouchsafed to the sectarians. They followed the calendar of the solar year with its 364 days, which remained paramount although it was regularly calibrated with the lunar calendar. Cleanly divisible by seven, it annually delivered the holy days on the same day of the week and neatly avoided disturbing the Sabbath. This solar calendar is presupposed in a wide range of texts recovered from the caves.645 An edition of the Community Rule,646 which replaces the final hymn with the calendrical Otot text (4Q319), may possibly be evidence of intercalation to relate the ideal calendar to real time.647 Time was revealed in its providential ordering and somewhat veiled aspect as marked by weeks of years, seven of which comprised a jubilee.648 Knowing this calendar was essential not only for marking out the ages of history familiar from the historical apocalypses, but also in aligning the earthly worship with the worship of the heavenly temple and its angelic acolytes. The Temple Scroll (11QT),649 even if it was an affiliated rather than sectarian text, illustrates the method of ‘scriptural’ interpretation adopted by the sectarians. We noted that it is an example of a quite remarkable and comprehensive attempt to lift the Laws

Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, 247–9. For example, the sectarian calendar opening one manuscript version of 4QMMT, the Halakhic Letter (4Q394), concludes: ‘And the year is complete: three-hundred and si[xty-four] days.’ The scrolls 4Q320 and 4Q321 date the priestly courses by the solar calendar, with equivalent dates for the lunar calendar. The Temple Scroll (11QT) festivals presuppose the solar calendar. ‘Rewritten Bible’ Genesis, 4Q252, fragment 1, has Noah leave the ark ‘at the end of a full year of 364 days’. The Psalm Scroll (11Q5) claims King David composed 364 songs for the daily sacrifice. The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400–407; 11Q17; Masada 1039–1200) contain thirteen psalms for a quarter of the year, i.e. of 52 weeks (364 days). 646 4QS e = 4Q259. 647 J.C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (New York, NY: Routledge, 1998), 84: ‘It is likely that the signs of 4Q319 have something to do with a system of intercalation that would bring the 364-day system into harmony with the true solar year.’ Cf. idem, ‘The Origin, Character, and Early History of the 364Day Calendar: A Reassessment of Jaubert’s Hypothesis’, CBQ 41 (1979): 406. 648 The Book of Jubilees receives direct mention in the Damascus Document in this context: ‘As for the exact determination of their times to which Israel turns a blind eye, behold it is strictly defined in the Book of the Divisions of the Times into their Jubilees and Weeks.’ CD 16.2–4. 649 11QT = 11Q 19–21; other fragments: 4Q365a; 4Q524. 644 645

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from their narrative framework scattered throughout the legislative books of the Pentateuch and place them in order to present a systematized legal code. It anticipates the halakhic interests of the Mishnah of the Rabbinic era. However, not only does this work codify and merge laws as well as smooth out discrepancies, but it also adds a considerable amount of additional material. The whole is presented as the direct voice of God. The Temple Scroll is presented in the context of the second giving of the Law following the episode of the golden calf – it is another Deuteronomy. It is a clear example of the ‘hidden things’ of the Torah, unknown to all Israel, revealed to the initiated. It is in the context of the desert camp that we can perhaps best make sense of that enigmatic branch of the Yahad that took root at Khirbet Qumran. Established in the first half of the first century BCE , clearly having some status reflected in its resources and the scale of the manuscript treasures, the question remains as to the motivation of its founders. Various answers have been supplied. Early in scrolls research, the possibility of Qumran as a radical breakaway group from the Essene movement, led by the Teacher of Righteousness, attracted advocates.650 The re-dating of the occupation of the site disassociates it from the Teacher, but its breakaway nature is still championed.651 J.-B. Humbert652 suggested that it was set up as a cultic centre. Sidnie White Crawford653 has made a strong case for it being the Essene central library; that is, a sort of common resource for the movement. John Collins654 has suggested it was set up as an elite group who were to lead an exemplary life in the desert that would enhance the holiness of the whole body. Collins points to 1QS 8:1, which refers to a group of ‘twelve men and three Priests’.655 He does not explain this contrast with a quorum of ten as simply unevenness in the tradition as some scholars suggest,656 but raises the possibility of its reference to the actual establishment of the Qumran group. The resonance of the desert camp seems to be reflected in the significance of the ‘twelve plus three’ if Milik657 is correct in seeing there a reference to the twelve tribes and the three levitical families of Numbers 3:17. A further possibility emerges; it is that Qumran was established as a geographical embodiment of the desert camp. It was to be a unique instance of the Essene identity. Khirbet Qumran and its community were brought into being as a deliberate eschatological sign. It is a tempting supposition that the leadership of the sectarian movement decided to give the iconic image of the desert camp a distinct realization in the wilderness at the spot where, according to Ezekiel, the living waters of the eschatological temple would flow into and transform the Dead Sea (Ezekiel 47:6b–12). If Magness is correct, sacrifices were

J. Murphy-O’Connor, ‘The Essenes and Their History’, Revue Biblique 81 (1974): 215–44; idem, ‘The Essenes in Palestine’, Biblical Archaeologist 40, no. 3 (1977): 100–24. 651 F. García Martínez and A.S. van der Woude, ‘A “Groningen” Hypothesis of Qumran Origins and Early History’, Revue de Qumran 14, no. 4 (1990): 521–41. Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). 652 J.-B. Humbert, ‘L’Espace sacré à Qumrân: Propositions pour l’archéologie’, 161–214. 653 Crawford, Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran. 654 J.J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community, 70–3 and 361. Idem, ‘Sectarian Communities in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. T.H. Lim and J.J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 162. 655 4Q265, a hybrid of the Damascus Document and Community Rule, replaces this phrase with ‘fift[een men]’. 656 Sarianna Metso, ‘Whom Does the Term Yahad Identify?’, in Biblical Traditions in Transmission, ed. Charlotte Hempel and Judith Lieu (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 233. 657 J.T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea, trans. John Strugnell (Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1959), 100. 650

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offered at Qumran on the grounds that the ‘sectarians observed the laws of the desert camp with the tabernacle in its midst, including offering animal sacrifices as mandated by biblical law’.658 This pushed the eschatological horizon of the desert camp to the very breaking of dawn. It envisaged the Jerusalem Temple as almost at the point of being folded up. The pesharim make it clear that eschatological speculation was flourishing in the movement when the Qumran settlement was in its infancy. It is reasonable to speculate that it is the actual Qumran settlement that is directly referred to in the mention of a retreat into the wilderness in CD 8. Its location created a tangible desert camp with all of its mysterious iconic significance. As a response to the prophecy of Isaiah it was imbued with eschatological meaning and was a place where the study of the Law could unlock ‘hidden things’ as well as consider ‘matters revealed’: And when these become members of the Community in Israel according to all these rules, they shall separate from the habitation of unjust men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the way of Him; as it is written, Prepare in the wilderness the way of . . ., make straight in the desert a path for our God (Isa. xl, 3). This (path) is the study of the Law which He commanded by the hand of Moses, that they may do according to all that has been revealed from age to age, and as the Prophets have revealed by his Holy Spirit. — 1QS 8.14f.

VI THE END OF DAYS Column one of the Damascus Document opens with opaque clues as to the emergence of the sect. It refers to the destruction of the Temple (‘His Sanctuary’) and the exile. Then there is a reference to the ‘age of wrath’, which appears not to mean the era of the exile, but the recent inauguration of the age in a new definitive event. That event is dated three hundred and ninety years after the commencement of the exile. For the moment, the significance of the number need not detain us, except to note that the exile is reckoned to have continued throughout that period. The rebuilt Temple is ignored. The nature of the definitive event is announced: ‘He (God) visited them, and he caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth.’ It is as if the divine initiative to end the exile is only now stirring in a fresh divine visitation. Clearly this is not simply a restoration of Israel; the plant root is to supplant its predecessor and ‘inherit the land’. The similarity of this event with the turning point in the Enochic apocalypses has often been noted. The Apocalypse of Weeks refers to the crucial seventh week when ‘the elect ones of righteousness’ will be elected from ‘the eternal plant of righteousness’ and given ‘sevenfold instruction concerning all his flock’ (1 Enoch 93:10).659 The election and the sevenfold instruction clearly represent a new revelation and a fresh divine initiative. The seventh week permits a critical turning point in the intervention of God to bring about the era of salvation. A similar moment is identified in the Animal Apocalypse when it recounts the birth of lambs ‘from those snow-white sheep’ which ‘began to open their eyes and see’ (1 658

Magness, ‘Were Sacrifices Offered at Qumran?’, 5. See above, s. III. See Chapter Eleven, s. IV.

659

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Enoch 90:6).660 To these we might add the turning point envisaged in Jubilees 23:26 when ‘children will begin to search the law’.661 Our immediate concern is not the relationship between these identified moments, whether they correlate to a single historical event. We shall return to that in due course. Rather, it is important to note that here we have recognized a common apocalyptic-style form which identifies a moment of revelation and the intervention of God in the historical process. In the apocalypses of the earthly visionary type Israel’s chequered history is recited; the narrative commences with creation indicating the universal significance of this particular history. It culminates in a decisive fresh divine initiative which triggers a series of eschatological events ushering in the new creation. It is exactly that which is claimed in CD 1 for the founding of the sectarian community. A decisive divine intervention initiates an eschatological community living through the final age. A mark of that era is ‘the age of wrath’; that is, a time of trial when Belial, who represents the supernatural forces of darkness, is let loose against Israel in an ultimate cosmic struggle (CD 4.14; CDb 2.15). That will be ‘until the age is completed, according to the number of those years’ (CD 4.7). This passage of the Damascus Document identifies a second stage in the founding of the community: ‘And they perceived their iniquity and recognized that they were guilty men, yet for twenty years they were like blind men groping for the way. And God observed their deeds, that they sought Him with a whole heart, and He raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart’ (CD 1.9ff.). The Teacher is ‘raised’ by God; he represents a further divine initiative. He partakes in the eschatological election of the initial stage. His status is in a sense messianic, and that may be how he was initially understood662 until history unfolded differently. The expectation subsequently became established of the dawning of the messianic era within a generation of the Teacher’s death (CDb 2.14). Within the multi-layered nature of the Damascus Document, there seems to be another apocalyptic-style text relating to community origins embedded in the end of CD 2 and CD 3. There is a summary recital of salvation history reminiscent of the Enochic apocalypses. It includes the incident of the Heavenly Watchers, the consequent Flood and the iniquity of Noah’s sons. An exception is recorded with faithful Abraham, followed by Isaac and Jacob. All three generations, as in Jubilees, are exemplary and already keep the commandments. The road to judgement continues as the children of Jacob stray and their descendants ‘walk in stubbornness’ in Egypt. The wilderness wandering is a time of waywardness and judgement; the disobedience at Kadesh (Deuteronomy 9:23) and ‘murmuring’ lead to divine anger. There is no mention of the actual giving of the Law, but we read the indictment that they ‘chose their own will and did not heed the voice of their Maker, the commands of their Teacher’, which introduces Moses and the Law. The rest of salvation history is quickly dismissed as calamitous: ‘Through it their sons perished, and through it their kings were cut off.’ The rebuilding of the Temple is omitted. Then the eschatological denouement dawns: ‘But with the remnant which held fast to the commandments of God He made His Covenant with Israel for ever, revealing to them the

660

See ibid. See above, s. IV. 662 M.O. Wise, The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Christ (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), has speculated on this theme in a somewhat novelistic manner. 661

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hidden things in which all Israel had gone astray’ (CD 3.14). A brand-new era commences with an act of divine revelation of ‘hidden things’ shared not with Israel as a whole, but with a chosen remnant. Parallel to the situation encountered in column one of the Damascus Document occurs a period of groping followed by a further divine revelation: ‘He built them a sure house in Israel whose like has never existed from former times till now’ (CD 3.19). That sure house, which we may identify with the Teacher’s activity, was a direct divine initiative (‘wonderful mysteries’) which would lead to the new creation: ‘and all the glory of Adam shall be theirs’ (CD 3.20). The form of an apocalypse is, in this instance, not far below the surface of the text.663 So concludes this second example of apocalyptic-style reflection. We may recall the words of Nickelsburg when he insists that there is ‘strong evidence for the hypothesis that the Enochic writings stem from circles that were in some significant sense ancestral to the Qumran community’.664 The apocalyptic tradition provided the tools which enabled the sectarians to understand their movement as initiated by a new revelatory act of God at the turning point of history. To recapitulate, they were an eschatological community living through the ‘end of days’.665 They were called to live by the Torah, as their knowledge of ‘hidden things’ had given them enhanced understanding. They were obedient in the awareness that the last days would inaugurate a time of trial, ‘the age of wrath’, in which dark cosmic forces identified with Belial would be arrayed against Israel (CD 3.14). All things were predestined and, with correct insight, the events they were destined to pioneer could be read from the prophetic word. The sectarians could look to the inspired instruction of the Teacher of Righteousness. In many ways he had, for the movement, replaced the authority of Enoch as the mouthpiece of divine wisdom. Tangible evidence for that status may be forthcoming from the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hadoyot); the author speaks of ‘the mystery which Thou hast hidden in me’.666 There is some strength in the case that at least some of the Thanksgiving Hymns667 should be assigned to the Teacher of Righteousness himself:668 ‘Without doubt there are certain Hodayot in which the “I” is distinguishable from the community and presents itself as having special responsibilities or leadership functions vis-à-vis other members of the community.’669 The claims articulate what we would expect of one who is the instrument of eschatological revelation: Thou hast revealed Thyself to me in Thy power as perfect Light, and Thou hast not covered my face with shame. All those who are gathered in Thy Covenant inquire of me . . . . Through me Thou hast illumined

A possible text from Qumran that may classify as a true apocalypse is the Aramaic New Jerusalem Text (4Q554– 555, 5Q15, 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q232, 11Q18). Inspired by Ezekiel 40 to 48, it is too fragmentary to be certain. 664 See s. II above. 665 G.J. Brooke, Exegesis at Qumran: 4QFlorilegium in Its Jewish Context (Sheffield: JSOT, 1985), 206–9. A. Steudel, ‘‫ םימיה תירחא‬in the Texts from Qumran’, Revue de Qumran 16 (1993): 225–46. 666 Thanksgiving Hymns 13:25 (Hymn 14). Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 275. 667 1QH, 1Q36, 4Q427–432. 668 G. Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963), 168–267. 669 Carol Newsom, The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 287. She has nuanced her interpretation (288): ‘the “I” in this group of compositions represents the persona of the current leader of the community, perhaps the Mebaqqer rather than the historical Teacher.’ 663

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the face of the Congregation and hast shown Thine infinite power. For Thou hast given me knowledge through Thy marvellous mysteries, and hast shown Thyself mighty within me in the midst of Thy marvellous Council. — Thanksgiving Hymns XII:23ff. [Hymn 12]670 Further evidence of the Teacher’s divinely implanted wisdom is to be found in the Commentaries or pesharim. An area of special knowledge vouchsafed to the Teacher involved the charting of the final age, the ‘end of days’, in which the sectarians found themselves. It was available from inspired interpretation of the prophets and psalms. Thanks to the Teacher, the sectarians knew things that were even veiled to the prophets themselves. The pesher on Habakkuk 2:1–2 (1QpHab 7.1–5) reads: and God told Habakkuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but He did not make known to him when time would come to an end. And as for that which He said, That he who reads may read it speedily; interpreted this concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of His servants the Prophets. The ‘end of days’ (’aharit hayyamim) was woven into the consciousness of a movement that traced its origins to a direct divine initiative to bring about the time of salvation. We noted above that 4QMMT is definite: ‘And this is at the end of days when they will come back to Israel for [ever]’.671 It is an expression which occurs thirty times in the scrolls.672 As was the case for the Enochic apocalypses, the ‘end of days’ was a process rather than a single event. The seventh week of the Apocalypse of Weeks inaugurates an eschatological process leading through weeks eight and nine to the finale of the tenth week. Similarly, the scrolls reflect the apocalyptic division of history into ages and jubilees. The ‘age of wrath’ marks the inauguration of the eschatological cycle of the end of days. J.J. Collins has noted: ‘The phrase, “age of wrath” (Hebrew qes haron) involves a word-play on “the last age” (haqqes ha’aharon) a phrase that we meet in the pesharim, and which can scarcely be distinguished from the end of days, and must also be related to “the last generation” (dor ’aharon) of CD 1:12.’673 The age of wrath, they believed, was to lead to the inauguration of the messianic era. From the point of view of the sectarians, this latter remained in the future. One should allow for some variety in the expectations of a movement that stretched over two centuries and more, with multiple local groups. There

Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 270–1. 4Q398.11–13. 672 J.J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 56–7: ‘The expression “end of days” (’aharit hayyamim) occurs more than thirty times in the Dead Sea scrolls (A. Steudel, ‫ םימיה ‘תירחא‬in the Texts from Qumran’). The so-called Halakhic Letter, 4QMMT, declares that “this is the end of days,” and 1QSa, one of the supplements to the Community Rule, is introduced as “the rule for all the congregation of Israel in the end of days.” There are two references in the Damascus Document. The great majority of the occurrences, however, are found in exegetical literature, in the pesharim, and midrashic texts such as the Melchizedek Scroll especially the so-called “Eschatological Midrash” (4Q174, the Florilegium, + 4Q177, the Catena) which contains approximately one third of the references. Surprisingly, the phrase does not occur in the Community Rule, the Hymns (Hodayot) or the War Rule.’ 673 Ibid., 62. 670 671

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were certainly those whose expectation of the messianic age was threefold. A messianic collection of ‘proof texts’ from the Torah, known as 4QTestim[onia] (4Q175), in its first three of four sections includes the promise to raise up a prophet like Moses (Deuteronomy 18:18–19), the assurance of a ‘sceptre [that] shall rise out of Israel’ from the oracle of Balaam (Numbers 24:15–17), and a blessing on Levi whose offspring ‘shall cause Thy precepts to shine before Jacob and Thy Law before Israel’ (Deuteronomy 33:8–11). The eschatological prophet, the messiah of Israel and the priestly messiah of Aaron seem to be the threefold underlying expectations of this text. If J.J. Collins is correct in his interpretation of 4Q521 (Messiah of Heaven and Earth),674 it also refers to an eschatological prophet, but this time based on the returning Elijah. The evidences of the messianic age, familiar from Jesus’ answer to the messengers of John the Baptist,675 include: ‘For He will heal the wounded, and revive the dead and bring good news to the poor.’ Whether the text is in origin sectarian or not, its presence points to sectarian speculation about an endtime prophet. Further, the Community Rule advocates patience ‘until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel’ (1QS 9.11). The Damascus Document refers to ‘the Messiah out of Aaron and Israel’ (CDb 2.1; cf. turn of columns 12/13). Is this stylized formula to be understood in the singular, or can it be accommodated to the pattern already suggested? Was there a stage of expectation of a single priestly messiah? Against the latter possibility is the foundation laid by Jubilees 3, where both Levi and Judah are identified for special blessings. Further, the Balaam oracle already mentioned recurs at CD 7.19, where the expected ‘Prince of the whole congregation’ is again symbolized by the sceptre: The star is the Interpreter of the Law who shall come to Damascus; as it is written, A star shall come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel (Num. xxiv, 17). The sceptre is the Prince of the whole congregation, and when he comes he shall smite all the children of Seth (Num. xxiv, 17). The star refers to the Teacher of Righteousness, but also looks forward to his ‘twin’, the Priest-Teacher of the messianic era. That is balanced by the sceptre who is the awaited prince of the same future era. The duality remains. The fulfilment of that future time is portrayed in the Messianic Rule (1QSa). It is a work that combines aspects of both the Community Rule and the Damascus Document and, in many ways, is an extension of normality.676 Although provision is made for women and children, the ‘Council of the Community’ is an exclusive group comprising ablebodied males; the lame and the halt are excluded. There is a reminder: ‘for the Angels of Holiness are [with] their [congregation]’ (1QSa 2.9). The gathering of the Council of the Community to share the common table is provided for, each seated according to his dignity. It is clear that the presiding priest (Messiah of Aaron?) is first to extend his hand over the table and bless the first fruits of bread and wine. Only then ‘the Messiah of Israel shall extend his hand over the bread, [and] all the congregation of the Community [shall utter a] blessing, [each man in the order] of his dignity’ (1QSa 2.21). It seems again that a duality is indicated, but the priest takes precedence.

Idem, The Scepter and the Star, 117–20. Matthew 11:2–6; Luke 7:18–23. 676 Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist and Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 113, interprets 1QSa as an immediate (not future) rule for Essene life already participating in ‘the end of days’. 674 675

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The coming of the Messiah of Israel brings us to the final episode of the cycle of events that mark the end of days. It has been expressed this way: ‘This concept of the Davidic messiah as the warrior king who would destroy the enemies of Israel and institute an era of unending peace constitutes the common core of Jewish messianism around the turn of the era.’677 With the arrival of the Messiah of Israel a sword is given to the elect. They have to play their part in a conflict that involves cosmic and angelic forces. An alternative scenario which, like the Similitudes of Enoch (not found at Qumran), envisages a saviour figure revealed from heaven is evident in the text 11Q Melch[izedek] (11Q13). Melchizedek is the heavenly saviour figure who in the tenth jubilee brings about the era of salvation that coincides with the proclamation of the jubilee remission.678 However, the major expectation of the scrolls envisages the participation of the elect in the final duel between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. A scenario of those events is given us in the War Scroll (1QM) and in the few fragments remaining of the Book of War (4Q285 and 11Q14). A cosmic dualism, characteristic of the apocalyptic frame of reference, is transparently evident in the Instruction on the Two Spirits (1QS 3.12 to 4.25) in the Community Rule: Those born of truth spring from a fountain of light, but those born of injustice spring from a source of darkness. All the children of righteousness are ruled by the Prince of Light and walk in the ways of light, but all the children of injustice are ruled by the Angel of Darkness and walk in the ways of darkness. — 1QS 3.20679 That dualism is inherent in the sectarian mentality and is apparent in the oaths of admission which insist that the initiate love ‘the sons of light’ and hate ‘the sons of darkness’ (1QS 1.9–10).680 The account of the disobedience of the fallen angels, the Watchers, from 1 Enoch 1 to 36 told a story of cosmic disruption. Qumran was well aware of that story.681 There were supernatural forces of evil with which to contend.682 Other mixes of eclectic Hellenism were also at work. A profound dualism reminiscent of Persian religion is manifest as the War Scroll reveals the cosmic dimension of the earthly conflict. The opposing forces of darkness and light are locked in an equal combat that does not admit of resolution, until the final intervention of God: On the day of their battle against the Kittim [they shall set out for] carnage. In three lots shall the sons of light brace themselves in battle to strike down iniquity, and in three lots shall Belial’s host gird itself to thrust back the company [of God. And when

J.J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star, 68. Leviticus 25:13; Deuteronomy 15:2. 679 The Instruction is missing from some recensions of the Community Rule: 4QS d (= 4Q258) commences at a point parallel to 1QS 5:1. 4QS b (= 4Q256) seems to witness to the complete text found in 1QS. Other Cave 4 witnesses contain texts parallel to either 1QS 1 to 4 or 1QS 5 to 11. Although, therefore, it represents an editorial addition, it is part of a version of the Rule which palaeographically is dated from the first half of the first century BCE . 680 See s. V, above. 681 CD 2.17–19. 682 The Aramaic Testament of Amram, preserved at Qumran over an extended period in six fragmentary copies (4Q543–548), displays a similar dualism. Amram on his deathbed has a vision of two angels arguing over him. One, a Watcher, rules over darkness and one of his names is Melkiresha (King of Wickedness). He is balanced by one who declares: ‘I rule over all light.’ We may surmise his names include Melchizedek (King of Righteousness). 677 678

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the hearts of the detach]ments of foot-soldiers faint, then shall the might of God fortify [the hearts of the sons of light]. And with the seventh lot, the mighty hand of God shall bring down [the army of Belial, and all] the angels of his kingdom, and all the members [of his company in everlasting destruction]. — 1QM 1.12–15 Probably a composite work,683 much of the War Scroll is preoccupied with cultic and ceremonial matters including appropriate sabbatical observances, the reordering of Temple worship, the purity of the camp as the holy angels are in their midst, the correct inscription on standards and shields and when the trumpets are to be blown. The forces of darkness include the biblical enemies of Israel as well as the Kittim, here to be identified with the Romans. The military Messiah is referred to as ‘Prince of the Congregation’, but rather surprisingly does not receive a major profile in the text as we have received it. However, allied to the War Scroll are a series of fragments which have been designated the Book of War,684 which probably represents the missing end section of the War Scroll. Although in parts poorly preserved, it is clear that the Prince of the Congregation, also referred to as the Branch of David, has a major part to play in the military confrontation with and defeat of the Kittim. The resolution of the struggle between good and evil is the vindication of the covenant and the final triumph of an eschatological Israel over the nations who are the adversaries of God: ‘The work should not be mistaken for a manual of military warfare pure and simple. It is a theological writing, and the war of which it treats symbolizes the eternal struggle between the spirits of Light and Darkness. The phases of its battle are fixed in advance, its plan established and its duration predetermined.’685 It is clear that Israel’s conflict is with principalities and powers. At issue is nothing less than God’s purpose for the world; the destiny of the elect has always been hidden in the act of creation. The outcome is decisively assured by the will of God in the intervention of the heavenly host: This is the day appointed by Him for the defeat and overthrow of the Prince of the kingdom of wickedness, and He will send eternal succour to the company of His redeemed by the might of the princely Angel of the kingdom of Michael. . . . He will raise up the kingdom of Michael in the midst of the gods, and the realm of Israel in the midst of all flesh. Righteousness shall rejoice on high, and all the children of His truth shall jubilate in eternal knowledge. — 1QM 17.5ff.

Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 164: ‘I am myself inclined to follow the theory first advanced by J. van der Ploeg (Le Rouleau de la guerre, Leiden, 1959, 11–22). The primitive work, represented in the present composition by columns I and XV–XIX, draws its inspiration from Daniel xi, 40 – xii, 3, and describes the final battle against the Kittim. This account was later combined with the concept of a holy forty years’ war against the entire Gentile world, and was extended by the addition of a long series of Rules concerned with the military and religious preparation and with the conduct of the fighting (columns II-XIV).’ 684 4Q285, fragments 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. J.J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 105–6: ‘There was a short-lived controversy about fragment 5, because it was claimed that it referred to the death of the messiah. (Line 4 was read as “they will kill the Prince of the Congregation, the Br[anch of David]”.) It is now apparent, however that the Prince is the one who does the killing in this passage. The whole passage is based on the prophecy about the shoot from the stump of Jesse in Isaiah 11.’ 685 Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 165. 683

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It is at that point that the new age can dawn. In the words of the Temple Scroll, the time had come for ‘the day of creation on which I shall create my sanctuary, establishing it for myself for all time according to the covenant which I have made with Jacob in Bethel’ (11QT 29.9–10).

VII ORIGINS As we have already noted, the Damascus Document carries a strong awareness of the emergence of the sect, and of the significance of the Teacher of Righteousness in the process. That recognition has to be accompanied by a warning. The complexity of the traditions relating to origins embedded in the layers of editing of the work has to be acknowledged. Charlotte Hempel has identified four accounts of community origins.686 She distinguishes between ‘one stage’ and ‘complex descriptions’ of the beginnings of the movement. Nevertheless, in this consideration of origins we shall continue to focus on the perceived memory of a two-stage process which acknowledges the significance of the Teacher of Righteousness in the origins of the sect, but dates its roots to a prior occurrence. We may note that the Exhortation of CD significantly concludes by twice commending those who have heeded ‘the voice of the Teacher’ (b 2.28ff.). The opening lines of the Damascus Document (CD 1.3ff.), we may recapitulate, refer to the calamity of the exile as divine abandonment for Israel’s waywardness. Then 390 years of fallow time are counted before the inauguration of the ‘age of wrath’. This is activated by a visitation of God to effect a new era of grace: ‘He (God) visited them, and He caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth.’ We noted the striking correspondence between this passage and various apocalypses which identify a turning point brought about by divine initiative. The Apocalypse of Weeks refers to ‘the elect ones of righteousness from the eternal plant of righteousness, to whom shall be given sevenfold instruction concerning all his flock’ (1 Enoch 93:10). The Animal Apocalypse refers to lambs who ‘began to open their eyes and see’ (1 Enoch 90:6). Jubilees 23:26 insists: ‘children will begin to search the law’. The deferred question may now be considered whether these perceived radical turning points correlate to a common historical circumstance. Charlotte Hempel has answered that question affirmatively: It has frequently been pointed out that where the Damascus Document is talking about the Qumran community’s earliest history it is most probably referring to the same pious movement the emergence of which is mentioned in the pseudepigrapha. One can deduce from my discussion above that those parts of the Damascus Document are not only talking about the same pious movement but were also composed by the same movement.687 The passages from the apocalypses all seem to be referring to the Hellenizing period c. 170 BCE , ahead of the Maccabean revolt. The Apocalypse of Weeks is probably the earliest

686 Charlotte Hempel, The Qumran Rule Texts in Context: Collected Studies (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), ch. 4, ‘The Damascus Document and Community Origins’, identifies four accounts of community origins embedded in the text: (1) CD 1.3–11; (2) CD 2.8b–13 (3) CD 3.12b to 4.12c in four sections; and (4) CD 5.20 to 6.11a. 687 Ibid., 78.

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of the apocalypses in their present form and shows no awareness of the reign of terror of Antiochus IV. In the Animal Apocalypse reference is made to the death of one of the sheep who open their eyes (1 Enoch 90:8); this seems to refer to the murder of Onias III in 171 BCE .688 The apocalypses all share with the Damascus Document a common perception that: ‘The hope for restoration was focused on a group within Israel endowed with a new revelation.’689 We may assent to the moderate conclusion of J. VanderKam as regards these works: ‘All may point to roughly the same period and possibly to the same people.’690 We have a relatively firm date for the birth of a penitential group which, according to the passage in CD, the Teacher of Righteousness was to lead some half a generation later. With the arrival of the Teacher, we may speak of the Essene movement. That would bring us to the period of the high priesthood of the Maccabean brothers Jonathan (152– 142 BCE ) and Simon (142–134 BCE ), who maintained the usurpation of the Zadokite high priesthood. The Teacher was clearly a character of some substance; we gather from the pesharim that he attracted the enmity (‘venomous fury’) of one identified as the ‘Wicked Priest’ (hak-kohen ha-rasha). The nickname seems to be a pun on high priest (hak-kohen ha-ro’sh). We are told of a particular incident from Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab) 2:15. The Wicked Priest springs a surprise on the Teacher by confronting him ‘at his place of exile’ on the occasion he observed the Day of Atonement. Clearly, the Teacher was working from a sectarian calendar. It has sometimes been speculated that he stood in as high priest during the vacancy in that office which Josephus refers to as lasting from 159 to 152 BCE .691 In that case he might have been a Zadokite contender ousted by the novel Maccabean line.692 That would certainly be a basis for enmity and exile, but, if it were the case, it is never mentioned in the scrolls, where the dispute is recorded as differences over the interpretation of the Law. It does seem that the Teacher claimed divine inspiration, which left no room for contradiction, in his interpretation of both the Law and the prophets. Pesher Psalm (4QpPsa) 37:32–33 records of the Teacher’s action, that the Wicked Priest was incensed: ‘[because of the ordinance] and the law which he sent to him’.693 The Teacher felt able to instruct the high priest on the Law. Other pesharim, we have already noted, accord to the Teacher unique ability to interpret the significance of the prophetic word for the present end of days. Circumstances and the Teacher’s conviction of his unique divine calling led to an irreconcilable split with the Temple establishment and mainstream Israel, resulting in exile. The party which the Teacher led was now a ‘House of Separation who went out of the Holy City and leaned on God at the time when Israel sinned and defiled the Temple’ (CDb 2.23). The Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) announces: ‘we have separated from the mass of the peo[ple]’.694 The Damascus Document speaks of ‘the members of the

688 J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 69, comments: ‘This has been taken as a reference to Onias III. No other plausible referent is known.’ 689 J.J. Collins, ‘Was the Dead Sea Sect an Apocalyptic Movement?’, in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. L.H. Schiffman (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 35. 690 J. VanderKam, ‘The Book of Enoch and the Qumran Scrolls’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. T.H. Lim and J.J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 263. 691 Antiquities 20.10.3. 692 J.C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 103f. 693 E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4, Vol. 5, DJD X (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 175, suggest the Torah in question was the text 4QMMT. 694 4Q397.14.

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New Covenant in the land of Damascus’ (CD 6.19). The Hodayot 12:8 laments: ‘They have banished me from my land like a bird from its nest.’ We cannot be certain whether the actual Damascus is intended as the place of exile, which is a real possibility,695 or whether it is a cypher for some other location away from Jerusalem. Involved in this rupture is another group ‘who sought smooth things and preferred illusions’ (CD 1.18), whose leader is caricatured in the Damascus Document as ‘the Scoffer’ (1.14), ‘a spouter’ (4.20) and ‘the Liar’ (b 2.14). This figure reappears in the pesharim, where we are reacquainted with the designations ‘the Spouter of Lies’ (Pesher Habakkuk 2.12–13) and ‘the Liar’ (Pesher Habakkuk 1.13b; Pesher Psalm 37.7a, 35–6). The issue is over this other group’s perceived inadequate interpretation of the Law: ‘removing the boundary’. Some of the Teacher’s group seem to have become disaffected and ‘deserted to the Scoffer’ (CDb 2.14).696 The members of this rival community are described as ‘builders of the wall’ (CD 4.19). The context for this designation in the Damascus Document accuses the group of supporting ‘niece marriage’ (5.10), a halakhic issue with the Pharisees. The Pharisees also acquired the nickname ‘seekers after smooth things’.697 The conclusion has been neatly encapsulated: The Man of Mockery – Man of the Lie – Spreader of the Lie may have been the founder of the Pharisaic movement. He was a contemporary of the Teacher and came into sharp conflict with him regarding the interpretation of the law. Some members of the Teacher’s community were considered traitors for going over to his side. Who this person was we do not know.698 One might hope to confirm the dates of these events more precisely by using the reference to 390 years. The problem is that this period seems to be dependent on the prophecy of Ezekiel 4:5, rather than any precise calculation.699 There is also the problem as to how far there was any contemporary accurate awareness of the actual length of the period since the exile. Evidence of artificial apocalyptic-style time measurement seems to underlie the CD framework. If the 390 years has added to it the twenty years of groping, then forty years (a generation) to represent the ministry of the Teacher, and, finally, a further forty years from the Teacher’s passing until the time that leads to the messianic age (b 2.14), the result is 490 years; that is, the arc of time from the exile to the messianic age is seventy weeks of years (cf. Daniel 9:24). Josephus locates the sects (haireseis) in the context of the high priesthood of Jonathan (Antiquities 13.5.9ff.). He commences deliberately: ‘At this time there were three sects among the Jews’. That seems fairly secure confirmation of the period of Essene emergence in company with the other parties. However, attention has been drawn to the fact that in

B.Z. Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College, 1983), 181. By contrast, Murphy O’Connor, ‘The Essenes and Their History’, 221, identifies Damascus as a symbolic name for Babylon. 696 Cf. the disloyalty of a group designated ‘the House of Absolom’, who ‘were silent at the time of the chastisement of the Teacher of Righteousness and gave him no help against the Liar who flouted the Law in the midst of their whole [congregation]’ (Pesher Habakkuk 1.13b). 697 VanderKam and Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 279: ‘rather than searching the Scriptures for the ways in which to conduct themselves (halakhot), the Pharisees, in the opinion of the Qumranites, searched it for easy or smooth things, the easy way out (halaqot)’. 698 Ibid., 289. 699 Using the modern dating of the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar to 587 BCE , taking the number 390 literally, the date for the ‘plant root’ would be 197 BCE . 695

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War (2.8.1) Josephus mentions the three ‘philosophical sects’ much later, in the early first century CE , in connection with the revolt of Judas the Galilean as ‘a teacher of a peculiar sect of his own’.700 This has given some impetus to a review of the time of the emergence of the Essenes. M.O. Wise has drawn attention to the significant fact that the identification in the scrolls of particular historical individuals, often veiled, is restricted to the period from Alexander Jannaeus to the Roman (Kittim) conquest by Pompey. For instance, Herod the Great is nowhere mentioned. He advocates the re-dating of the Teacher to this significant period.701 The context of the confrontation with the Wicked Priest is, therefore, set at the time when Alexandra took over the throne (76 BCE ) from her late husband, Alexander Jannaeus, and empowered the Pharisees at the expense of the Sadducees, with ensuing victimization.702 The ‘Wicked Priest’ would then be Hyrcanus II. However, the likely matrix for the emergence of the sects, who all took their bearings from a particular stance on the Torah, is the white heat of the period that anticipated and consolidated the Maccabean revolt. Further, time has to be allowed for the Sadducees and Pharisees to develop serious political clout. Additionally, the palaeographical date for the sophisticated Community Rule recovered from Cave 1 (1QS) is 100–75 BCE . This seems to contradict the dating of the founding of the fledgling sect to c. 100 BCE .703 On our preferred reckoning, the Teacher must have been dead well before the end of the second century BCE . It remains possible to relate the flurry of prediction in the pesharim to a keen searching for the dawning of the messianic era from the time immediately prior to and about the time of Alexandra’s succession to the throne. That would coincide with the significant period identified by Wise. The messianic era was expected a generation, a rather fluid designation, after the Teacher’s death.704 The intention of the pesharim is captured by J.J. Collins: ‘Rather, it is their purpose to reassure the members of the yahad that history was unfolding as had been foretold by the prophets, and that they would be vindicated in the not too distant future.’705 He points to the parallel with prophecy ex eventu in apocalyptic literature. The logic is the same; events are predetermined and decreed to unfold in a particular way, which revealed knowledge can discern. Some awareness of a hiatus and the postponement of the eschaton is evident towards the end of the Maccabean era (perhaps c. 40 BCE ). It is expressed in Pesher Habakkuk 2.3a: ‘Interpreted, this means that the final age shall be prolonged, and shall exceed all that the Prophets have said; for the mysteries of God are astounding.’ Can we delve further into the pedigree of the Essene movement from the inklings afforded by the opening lines of the Damascus Document? Is it possible to glean any historically valid information that may lie behind the earliest memory of the sect that

700 J. Sievers, ‘Josephus, First Maccabees, Sparta, the Three “Haireseis” – and Cicero’, JSJ 32, no. 3 (2001): 241–51. He argues Antiquities 13 is out of context and is a secondary addition. 701 M.O. Wise, ‘The Origins and History of the Teacher’s Movement’, in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. T.H. Lim and J.J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 92–122. This redating is supported by Collins, ‘The Origin of the Scrolls Community and Its Historical Context’, and idem, Beyond the Qumran Community, 88–129. 702 War 1.5.1–3. The victimization was a retaliation for Alexander Jannaeus having crucified 800 Pharisees for inviting the Seleucid King Demetrius III into Jerusalem. Pesher Nahum 2.11: ‘[Interpreted, this concerns Deme] trius king of Greece who sought, on the counsel of those who seek smooth things, to enter Jerusalem.’ 703 J.J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community, 121. 704 The pesharim are to be dated to the middle of the first century BCE . Nahum refers to Demetrius III and to the Kittim (Romans). Habakkuk refers to the latter. 705 J.J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community, 101.

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looked to a decisive moment of renewal when: ‘He (God) visited them, and He caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth’? The significant fact was established that the context of this turning point is provided by comparison with contemporary passages from three apocalypses. The Essene movement, as we encounter it in the scrolls, is decisively set within the current of Enochic apocalyptic. This relationship has been traced in various ways by academic exponents. In early scrolls scholarship the Hasidim mentioned in the Maccabean books were identified as the forerunners of the Essenes, with M. Hengel, in particular, stressing their apocalyptic credentials.706 They are described as ‘mighty warriors of Israel, all who offered themselves willingly for the law’ (1 Maccabees 2:42); they initially supported Judas Maccabeus in the uprising (2 Maccabees 14:6), but subsequently sued for peace when they put misplaced trust in the appointment of Alcimus as an Aaronite high priest (1 Maccabees 7:12–13). The problem is that the connection is based on a hunch rather than any direct evidence of a link. It can be no more than a possibility. The ‘Groningen Hypothesis’ looks for the origins of the Essene movement to apocalyptic circles before the Maccabean revolt, as indicated by the parallels in the apocalypses identified above.707 Gabriele Boccaccini equates Essenism straightforwardly with the stream of apocalyptic he identifies as ‘Enochic Judaism’, which he understands as a distinct variety of Early Judaism: ‘My claim is that Enochic Judaism is the modern name for the mainstream body of the Essene party, from which the Qumran community parted as a radical, dissident, and marginal offspring.’708 We may identify a current of apocalyptic associated with Enoch within Early Judaism (‘Enochic Judaism’); it was a distinctive stream with its own tradition history.709 That distinctive stream offered an alternative interpretation of the Hebrew story to that centred on Torah and covenant: In short, the heart of the religion of 1 Enoch juxtaposes election, revealed wisdom, the right and wrong ways to respond to this wisdom, and God’s rewards and punishments for this conduct. Although all of the components of ‘covenantal nomism’ are present in this scheme, the words ‘covenant’ and ‘law’ rarely appear and Enoch takes the place of Moses as the mediator of revelation.710 However, there is not an uninterrupted continuity between Enochic Judaism and the Essene identity; in the latter Enoch has vanished, distinctive forms of community life have evolved and halakhic matters relating to the Mosaic Torah are a preoccupation. A metamorphosis has taken place. We can find the catalyst in the notorious persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes: ‘the situation of 167 BCE offers an explanation for the ideological re-orientation of Enochic Judaism. Suddenly, they found themselves on the same side as the circles they

M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1974), Vol. 1, 175–80, links the first flowering of apocalyptic to the Hasidim; he traces its development through to the Qumran Essenes. See, also, Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies; H. Stegemann, Die Entstehung der Qumrangemeinde (Bonn: printed privately, 1971). 707 García Martínez and van der Woude, ‘A “Groningen” Hypothesis of Qumran Origins and Early History’. The Qumran community is identified as a subsequent breakaway sect from the Essene movement. 708 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 16. 709 See above, discussion in Chapter Twelve. 710 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 53. 706

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formerly had opposed.’711 The clue is in the words of Jubilees 23:26 we have already noted: ‘children will begin to search the law’. Jubilees itself witnesses to the crosspollination of the form of the apocalypse encountered in the Enochic traditions with the institution of the covenant at Sinai for which Moses is the spokesperson. We noted that it was a work valued in the Qumran collection and anticipates much that is characteristic of Essene identity. It is indicative of the milieu which gave birth to the Essene movement and identifies a transition period. We may conclude that the existence of the Essenes cannot be proposed before the ‘ideological re-orientation’ and the defining ministry of the Teacher of Righteousness had taken place.

VIII IN CONCLUSION The literary inheritance of the caves and the archaeology of Khirbet Qumran afford the privilege of a window into an intense moment of human religious aspiration. We glimpse a life in community seeking to ‘eat in common and bless in common and deliberate in common’ (1QS 6.3). The sectarians strove in a disciplined and ordered way to offer to God the very best of that of which they were capable as ‘an acceptable fragrance of righteousness, and perfection of way as a delectable free-will offering’ (1QS 9.5). The community’s exclusiveness was, therefore, motivated less by a sense of superiority over all others, than by a preoccupation with holiness. They thought of themselves as the true Israel; to them alone fell the keeping of God’s special relationship with his covenant people, and they now carried the awesome responsibility for the worship which, in the interim, replaced the impure sacrifices of the Temple. There was a passionate priority given to the reality of that vocation. At best it bore fruit in genuine religious humility: What shall one born of woman be accounted before Thee? Kneaded from the dust, his abode is the nourishment of worms. — 1QS 11.21f. Of the three parties that Josephus identifies, although the other two had the greater political weight, it was the Essenes who often commanded the most interest because of the alternative way of life they exemplified. Their distinctive behaviour manifested in community life and strict observance of the Law attracted curiosity, as was the case for Pliny, Dio, Philo and Josephus. They were an intriguing, if humble, part of the variety of Jewish life in the Hellenistic and Roman period. As a result of the discovery of the scrolls we now know more about this particular manifestation of the Essene party than any other group in early Judaism. We have their sacred texts and their community rulebooks, their eating utensils and their ritual baths, even their cemetery. We can call to life their communal discipline, their liturgy, their daily routine and sacred meal, their religious hope. We can empathize with the sectarian expelled from the community, yet still burdened by the oaths. Qumran is worth studying for its own sake.

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Bedenbender, ‘The Place of the Torah in the Early Enoch Literature’, 76.

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Qumran’s window also offers a bigger vista. It has presented us with a view into the faith, life, priorities and spirituality of Early Judaism in the Maccabean and Herodian eras. We have noted that the scrolls witness to all but two of the books which became the Hebrew Scriptures. These represent the texts circulating in normative Judaism. Such is the breadth of insight afforded into the identification of a developing collection of authoritative texts that some commentators have maintained they must come from a Jerusalem source and cannot represent a sectarian collection. The three most popular works, namely, Psalms, Deuteronomy and Isaiah, are those that find a similar approval rating in the New Testament. The substantial collection of previously unknown nonsectarian works of the Hellenistic and Roman periods has added to our knowledge of texts circulating in wider Judaism. The presence of the Enochic corpus raises questions about its significance and the varieties of Judaism that flourished but were later unacknowledged. The Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) demonstrates the Qumran community in dialogue with official ‘Temple Judaism’. The issues that were raised by the sectarians interacted with the matters being widely debated. All had in common an engagement with the Law as the revealed will of God and the pattern for a godly life. As a result of scrolls studies, issues relating to Torah assumed to be restricted to Rabbinic Judaism have been clearly recognized as having their origins in the Maccabean era. The codification of legal material in the Damascus Document and the Temple Scroll anticipates the Mishnah of the Rabbinic era. The discovery of tefillin and mezuzot witnesses to a piety which became popular much later within Judaism as a whole. The study of the scrolls reveals them as something of a trailblazer: Thus, for example, the corpus contains the oldest Hebrew and Greek biblical manuscripts, the first Aramaic translations of biblical books, the oldest tefillin, the earliest liturgies for fixed prayers, the oldest nonbiblical halakic works, as well as the oldest exorcistic prayers. In many cases we find hitherto-unknown precursors to or roots for phenomena found in rabbinic Judaism, such as the hymns embedded in the Hekhalot literature.712 Further, the scrolls introduce us to a remarkable set of religious values, language, symbolism and concepts which were characteristic of one wing of Judaism in its encounter with Hellenism. The ‘ideological re-orientation’ that created Essenism became the powerhouse for a new and different theological alignment which produced the sectarian scrolls. It generated the phenomenon of an apocalyptic-style frame of reference, which infused into normative religious practice a cosmic context, the era of revelation, the time of trial as a showdown with heavenly powers, and the impending summing up of all things in a new creation. The earthly liturgy claimed to participate in the worship of the angels in heaven. The study of the Law, a universal characteristic of Judaism, becomes an opportunity to look for new revelation. The waiting upon the prophets is not simply an openness to future expectation, but the search for signs of fulfilment in contemporary events. The sabbatical rhythm integral to the sacred texts, for instance, relating to the year of jubilee in Leviticus 25, is translated into grounds for expecting the imminent intervention of God. Such an orientation was not simply responsible for generating the

Eibert Tigchelaar, ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls’, in Early Judaism: A Comprehensive Overview, ed. J.J. Collins and D.C. Harlow (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2012), 204.

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Essene identity evident in the scrolls, but entered popular Judaism at the turn of the eras. The success of the preaching of John the Baptist is evidence of this. That apocalyptic-style frame of reference had the potential to contribute to the volatile mix that was first-century Palestine under Roman occupation. It also had the potential to energize a new religious movement. That new religious movement was Christianity; the new faith sustained this innovative, radical, even esoteric, theology to become the new normal. The fact that it provided much of the background to the perception of the ministry of Jesus gave it a permanent validity. It became the theological language of the Christian tradition.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jesus of Nazareth (1) – Palestinian Silhouette I THE SHADOW OF THE GALILEAN In his narrative story in which a first-century merchant, Andreas, travels around Palestine encountering evidence of the presence of Jesus, but never actually coming face-to-face with him, Gerd Theissen finally allows his central character a glimpse of the Crucifixion: ‘I wanted to see Jesus at least from afar. I had kept coming upon traces of him in Galilee. I had never met him. Now would be my only meeting: with a man who had been executed as a criminal. . . . We could see the place of execution from the second wall of the city.’713 In a similar way, the reality of the search for the historical Jesus of Nazareth is that we are denied a direct encounter with him either within or outside the biblical record. We have to look from afar. It is his shadow that moves. Of course, there is also a religious strength in that enigma which is beyond our possessing. Nevertheless, we are impelled to find a station on the second wall. There are certain facts which, like Andreas, we may consider from a distance. Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee.714 We know something of his family circumstances; Mary and Joseph are named as well as his male siblings, and further the fact of his female siblings is also identified. He was baptized by John the Baptist and he called twelve to be close to him and represent the restored Israel. He based his ministry at the lakeside fishing village of Capernaum, from where he had an itinerant ministry throughout Galilee amongst the poorer communities. He went to Jerusalem for a fateful Passover around the

Gerd Theissen, The Shadow of the Galilean (London: SCM, 1987), 161. Omitted from this sketch biography is the ‘fact’ which is most commonly celebrated, that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The consensus of modern NT scholarship would place his birth in Nazareth. That is because the two distinct nativity traditions of Matthew and Luke, similarly, as we shall see, to the passion narrative, are heavily influenced by the fulfilment of OT prophecy. The question is whether OT expectation and the events of history might occasionally coincide, or even be deliberately manipulated so to do. Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land, 199, surmises: ‘Mary and Joseph were natives of Bethlehem, and only moved to Nazareth because of the atmosphere of insecurity generated by the Herodian dynasty (Matt. 2). Their long residence in Galilee gave Luke the impression that they had always lived there and he had to find a reason which would place them in Bethlehem at the moment of the birth of Jesus (Luke 2:1–7). He mistakenly invoked the census of Quirinius, but this took place in AD 6.’ He further suggests (412): ‘His [Herod Antipas’] decision to rebuild [Sepphoris] in 3 BC probably drew the artisan Joseph and his family to settle in nearby Nazareth (Matt. 2:21–3); the project would provide work for many years.’ 713 714

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year 30 CE ,715 where he was arrested by the Jewish authorities and handed over to the Roman prefect, who condemned him to be crucified as a messianic pretender: ‘The King of the Jews’. His activity can be placed by reference to names well known to history, including Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate,716 Herod Antipas, Annas and Caiaphas. The information we can glean outside the biblical witness is modest. The reference by the Jewish historian Josephus in the Testimonium Flavianum is sensitive as it has been enhanced by Christian copyists. Geza Vermes has argued that the references to Jesus as ‘a wise man’ and ‘a doer of startling things’ have an authenticity as coming from the hand of Josephus.717 It is generally agreed that there is a core of reliable witness, which has been identified by James Dunn as follows: At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man. For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and among many of Greek origin. And when Pilate, because of an accusation made by the leading men among us, condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him previously did not cease to do so. And up until this very day the tribe of Christians (named after him) has not died out.718 Josephus also refers to the execution in 62 CE in Jerusalem of James, ‘the brother of Jesus who is called Messiah’.719 This is a reliable and succinct further witness. The Roman historian Tacitus (c. 55–120 CE ) mentions Christians, in a rather disparaging context, in relation to the fire in Rome in 64 CE in the dark days of the persecution by the Emperor Nero. The key passage reads: ‘Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus.’720 Another reference, this time to Christ in the context of Christian worship, may be found in the official correspondence of Pliny the Younger with the emperor Trajan (c. 112 CE ). He is seeking advice as to what to do with those denounced as Christians. He reports on his own interrogations about Christian practice: . . . that it was their habit on a fixed day to assemble before daylight and recite by turns a form of words to Christ as a god; and that they bound themselves with an oath, not for any crime, but not to commit theft or robbery or adultery, not to break their word, and not to deny a deposit when demanded.721

715

Pontius Pilate was in office as Prefect of Judaea 26–36 CE . Within those dates, taking the chronology of St John, Passover eve (14 Nisan), when the lambs were sacrificed, probably fell on a Friday in 30 and 33 CE . The Synoptic chronology assumes Jesus was crucified on 15 Nisan; that probably fell on a Friday in 27, (possibly) 31 and 34 CE . The element of probability is introduced by the fact that the calendar was fixed by the sighting of the new moon, which would be weather dependent. For discussions, see J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1966), 36ff; G. Theissen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (London: SCM Press, 1997), 159–60; E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin Books, 1995; first published, 1993), 282ff. 716 Pontius Pilate is identified as ‘Prefect’ in the inscription on the ceremonial stone discovered at the archaeological site of Caesarea Maritima in 1961. 717 G. Vermes, ‘The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-Examined’, JJS 38 (1987): 1–10. 718 Antiquities 18.3.3. See James Dunn, Christianity in the Making: Volume 1: Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids, MI, and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2003), 141. 719 Antiquities 20.9.1. See Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 141. 720 Tacitus, Annals, translated by John Jackson, Loeb Classical Library 322 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937), XV, 44. 721 Stevenson, trans., A New Eusebius, 18.

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Further, the Roman historian Suetonius (contemporary of Pliny the Younger) has a slightly confused reference to one ‘Chrestus’ responsible for disturbances in the Jewish community in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius (41–54 CE ). The commotion probably refers to the activity of arriving Jewish Christians active in the synagogues: ‘Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he [Claudius] expelled them from Rome.’722 It is simply the shadow of the Galilean that is discernible from the secular record. As we research the biblical record and associated material, it becomes evident that a direct encounter with Jesus of Nazareth is not available from here either. Jesus himself left no written memoir of his own. We are crucially dependent upon the record of the four gospels; in addition, some recent scholarship has drawn attention to genuine tradition that may have survived in the non-canonical gospels, especially the Gospel of Thomas. None of these are biographies in the modern sense. We may not expect any considered detail of Jesus’ physical stature, emotional make-up, formative influences, religious training, linguistic or scribal skills, or a host of other unanswered questions. We cannot be certain of the length of his ministry which in the Synoptic Gospels could be a single year, but in St John extends over three Passovers. The realization of the historical distance and cultural separation from Jesus dawned with the impact of the Enlightenment.723 It opened the human mind to a scientific, forensic historical method which disallowed an appeal to the discontinuity of divine intervention. The supernatural and the revelatory were no longer an acceptable category of historical investigation. There became apparent what G.E. Lessing described as ‘the ugly, broad ditch’ which separated history from faith, or, as he expressed it, ‘accidental truths of history can never become the proof of necessary truths of reason’.724 It was that ditch with which the initial quest for the historical Jesus had to contend. The origin of the ‘Quest’ is usually traced to Herman Reimarus, whose posthumous Wolfenbüttal Fragments were published anonymously by G.E. Lessing.725 Reimarus dispensed with the miracle of the resurrection by explaining it as an apostolic deceit in terms already anticipated in Matthew 27:64 in the request of a guard for the tomb of Jesus: Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead’, and the last deception would be worse than the first. By contrast D.F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835),726 introduced the category of myth, already applied to the Old Testament, to the whole Gospel tradition.

Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars: Claudius, trans. J.C. Rolfe, Loeb Classical Library 38 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 25.4. 723 But see Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 17: ‘The beginning of the “quest of the historical Jesus” is usually traced quite properly to the European Enlightenment (c. 1650–1780) and the emergence of “modernity”. It is important, however, to recognize that interest in historical inquiry and in the human Jesus began much earlier. The more appropriate place to start is with the Renaissance (the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) and the Reformation (the sixteenth century).’ 724 G.E. Lessing, On the Proof of the Spirit and of Power (1777). English translation in H. Chadwick, Lessing’s Theological Writings (London: A. & C. Black, 1956), 53, 55. 725 ‘On the Resurrection Narratives’ (1777) and ‘On the Intentions of Jesus and His Disciples’ (1778). See H.S. Reimarus, Fragments, ed. C.H. Talbert and trans. R.S. Fraser (London; SCM Press, 1971). 726 D.F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (1835) (English translation, Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1846). 722

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This enabled him to recognize the significance of the miraculous in the Gospels whilst adopting a rationalist approach. The Gospels were not to be received as a literal historical record but, nonetheless, in their completeness had a valid religious identity. He used the concept of myth to bridge the ‘ugly broad ditch’. The Romantic Movement appealed to inner religious experience, so that Schleiermacher, its theological exemplar, could describe Jesus in terms of ‘the constant potency of His God-consciousness’.727 Ernest Rénan and Adolf Harnack are examples from different stables of the liberal assessment of the life of Jesus.728 Both stressed Jesus’ consciousness of God, his grasp of the universal fatherhood of God, his exemplary ethical standards and the simplicity and freedom of his religion. The true message of the historical Jesus, stripped of its accretions, turns out to be one that has been summarized as ‘the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man’. This assessment of the life of Jesus was of its time and avoided the supernatural. It assumed that there was a true Jesus, amazingly in accord with the spirit of the age, simply waiting to be discovered behind the accretions of tradition. Despite the immediate cultural attractiveness of the liberal quest, its shortcomings, in this case directed at Harnack, were famously encapsulated by the English Jesuit George Tyrrell: ‘The Christ that Harnack sees, looking back through nineteen centuries of Catholic darkness, is only the reflection of a Liberal Protestant face, seen at the bottom of a deep well.’729 With the search for the historical Jesus comes the warning that each age brings its own baggage. However, in the same year that Rénan published his La Vie de Jésus, Holtzmann was able in the introduction to his Die synoptischen Evangelien730 to spell out, as the foundation for biblical scholarship, the two-document hypothesis. That construction, he maintained, identified Mark and Q (the sayings source, Quelle, common to Matthew and Luke) as reliable primary sources for knowledge of the historical Jesus. The Gospel of John he no longer reckoned a reliable historical witness. The initial Quest could be said to reach its conclusion with Albert Schweitzer. He takes up the work of J. Weiss,731 who had understood the Kingdom of God in the preaching of Jesus not as the gentle spreading of an ethical brotherhood across the globe, envisaged by his father-in-law A. Ritschl,732 but as the expectation of a decisive apocalyptic intervention by God to bring the present order to an abrupt and disconcerting end. For Schweitzer this was the third of the significant challenges that a study of the Jesus of history had presented: ‘The first was laid down by Strauss: either purely historical or purely supernatural. The

F.D. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (1821–22) (English translation, Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1989), 385, see especially 377ff. 728 E. Rénan, La Vie de Jésus (1863) (English translation, The Life of Jesus [London: Trubner & Co., 1864]). Adolf Harnack, Das Wesen des Christentums (1900) (English translation, What Is Christianity? [London: Williams & Norgate, 1901]). 729 George Tyrrell, Christianity at the Crossroads (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1913), 44. 730 H.J. Holtzmann, Die synoptischen Evangelien: Ihr Ursprung und geschichtlicher Charakter (Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann, 1863), 1–9. 731 Johannes Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892) (English translation, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God [Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press; and London: SCM Press, 1971]). 732 A. Ritschl, Die christliche Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, 3 vols (Bonn, 1888), Vol. 3, 271; English translation, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1900), 285: Those who believe in Christ ‘constitute the Kingdom of God in so far as, forgetting distinctions of sex, rank, or nationality, they act reciprocally from love, and thus call into existence that fellowship of moral disposition and moral blessings which extends . . . to the limits of the human race.’ 727

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second had been worked out by the Tübingen school and Holtzmann: either Synoptic or Johannine. Now came the third: either eschatological or non-eschatological!’733 Schweitzer had restored the cultural distance between Jesus and the student of the Quest. The image of Jesus that he carefully recovers, with the layers of encrusted varnish removed, turns out to be of one living in a world of apocalyptic expectation with all of its strangeness and remote alien imagery, which could but shake the liberal expectation: The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Saviour. It loosed the bonds by which He had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine, and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to meet it. But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His own.734 The First World War destroyed the optimistic assessment of human nature inherent in either the romantic or liberal approach to theological truth. The new priority of dialectical or crisis theology maintained that the basis of faith was to be found not in human questing, but solely in divine revelation. The emphatic voice of Karl Barth (1886–1968) rocked the former liberal consensus: ‘Revelation encounters man under the presupposition and in confirmation of the fact that man’s attempts to know God from his own point of view are futile – wholly and completely – on the basis not of a necessity in principle, but rather of a necessity in practice and in fact.’735 Of great significance for the shaping of theology for a generation was the decision of Rudolf Bultmann to move from the liberalism of his formative years to share Karl Barth’s dialectical perspective. However, Barth and Bultmann parted company; the former was content to deal in paradox in his reading of the scriptural witness to revelation, whereas Bultmann felt biblical myth needed radical reinterpretation and he exposed the uncertainties and dilemmas characteristic of the pursuit of the Jesus of history. He was to become the magisterial exponent of form criticism, using the approach pioneered by H. Gunkel on the Old Testament. Form criticism sought to uncover the history of the oral tradition before it took literary form in the Gospels. Its tools of critical study revealed the extent to which the pre-history of the synoptic texts was drastically shaped by the post-Easter proclamation of the Church, tending to obscure information about the historical Jesus. It undermined confidence in what could be known of the Jesus of history. That simply confirmed the logic of Bultmann’s existential kerygmatic approach to the Christ event. A consideration of form criticism necessitates a brief prior examination of the process of gospel formation. The Gospels were written only when the fervour of eschatological expectation was passing; the apostolic generation was dying out and vehicles of institutional memory were becoming vital. The Gospel according to St Mark, by (almost) common consent the earliest Gospel, is usually dated to the time following the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt, which is perhaps reflected in some of the vividness of Mark 13 and the direct question as to the time of the destruction of the Temple (Mark 13:4). If St Mark’s Gospel is from the eventful years leading up to c. 70 CE , then Matthew and Luke, which according

733 A. Schweitzer, Von Reimarus zu Wrede (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1906); English translation, The Quest of the Historical Jesus: A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede (1911; London: SCM Press, 1954), 237. 734 Ibid., 397. 735 Karl Barth, On Religion: The Revelation of God as the Sublimation of Religion, trans. Garrett Green (London and New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2006), 57.

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to the two-document hypothesis use Mark as a basis together with material assembled from Q, must be dated subsequently in their literary form, not before 80 CE or even a little later. St John’s Gospel, in its final form, is normally regarded as the last, coming at the end of the century when even the long-lived ‘beloved disciple’ had not survived to see the return of Jesus (John 21:20–23).736 The Q material may well be early. Its colour is Galilean and its sights still seem to be set on the mission to Israel. In as much as it took literary rather than purely oral form, that would suggest that written collections alongside oral traditions were circulating in the Christian community within three decades or so of the ministry of Jesus. One has to allow, then, for a generation of oral tradition from the ministry of Jesus, with his words delivered in the vernacular Aramaic, to the first Gospel written in Greek. Oral memory would have continued alongside the appearance of St Mark’s Gospel, still available to be captured by St Luke and St Matthew for their distinct traditions (L and M). Perhaps, through bilingual disciples, a process of translation was already taking place soon after the first post-Easter Pentecost for those Jewish Christians associated with the Greek-speaking synagogues of Jerusalem (cf. Acts 6:1). Form criticism (Formgeschichte) looks to the form of the oral units to be discerned behind the received narrative of the Gospels. This is distinct from redaction criticism which seeks to engage with the theological tendencies and creativity of the compilers and editors of biblical material, including the individual evangelists. Redaction represents another lens in the transmission process. Form criticism attempts to identify scientific method in the way oral tradition operates and to apply those principles to the biblical phenomenon. A fundamental insight has been the recognition that the pre-literary stage of the gospel material consisted of many small units which were transmitted independently. It was K. L. Schmidt who concluded that the connections in St Mark’s Gospel which provide its sense of historical development are, therefore, for the most part the editorial invention of the evangelist.737 This confirmed the deduction that each nugget of oral tradition no longer carried any indication of its original location in the flow of events. Each unit is like an individual pearl ordered on its thread by the evangelist. It is, therefore, no longer possible to read confidently from a gospel text any sense of the evolving events of Jesus’ actual ministry, their temporal setting or connectedness. The way individual pericopes are assembled tells us rather of the redaction methods of the evangelists and any extended units they may have inherited. Two scholars are particularly associated with the development of form criticism. Martin Dibelius identified specific categories of oral units and looked for their transmission setting (Sitz im Leben) in the diverse needs of the life of the developing Christian community.738 In a similar way, Rudolf Bultmann identified distinct types of units or pericopes as the vehicles of oral transmission that evolved through serving the varied needs of the Church. These included such categories as miracle stories, conflict dialogues and didactic dialogues.

736

Despite the lateness of John and its theological sophistication, its knowledge of Palestinian geography and the presence of reliable traditions have been recognized, notably by C.H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). 737 K.L. Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesus: Literarkritische Untersuchungen zur ältesten Jesusüberlieferung (Berlin: Trowitzsch & Sohn, 1919). 738 M. Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1919) (English translation, From Tradition to Gospel [London: Nicholson & Watson, 1934]).

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An example of a conflict dialogue is Mark 2:23-28, the story of the plucking of the corn on the sabbath. Bultmann noted that it was the disciples not Jesus who were accused of not observing the sabbath. He interpreted this as a clue to the fact that the Sitz im Leben of the pericope in the life of the Church is the emerging conflict with the Jewish community, as followers of Jesus separated from the synagogue. Consequently, the deduction would be that those traditions that survived about Jesus were not only selected by, but also shaped by, the needs of the Church. The oral process was far from neutral and had overprinted the individual units with the Church’s story. According to this interpretation they had become a sort of palimpsest with perhaps a lingering glimmer of the original significance. Beyond that, some of the pericopes would be the creation of the Church through, for instance, prophetic utterance of the words of the risen Jesus responding to particular circumstances. On this understanding, the perceived needs of the emerging early Christian community stand in the transmission history between the Jesus of history and the received Gospels. It seemed that it was often but a faint shadow of the Galilean that was mediated by the tradition as form criticism revealed it. Bultmann devoted a book to Jesus739 and recognized that something of the message of Jesus of Nazareth could be known. He himself summarizes his endeavour and the constraints he perceived: The subject of this book is, as I have said, not the life or the personality of Jesus, but only his teaching, his message. Little as we know of his life and personality, we know enough of his message to make for ourselves a consistent picture. Here, too, great caution is demanded by the nature of our sources. What the sources offer us is first of all the message of the early Christian community, which for the most part the church freely attributed to Jesus. This naturally gives no proof that all the words which are put into his mouth were actually spoken by him. As can be easily proved, many sayings originated in the church itself; others were modified by the church.740 The essence of Bultmann’s ‘consistent picture’ takes the Schweitzer insight of the eschatological Jesus, the present confronted by the immediacy of eternity, and transforms it from an alien concept into a timeless existential challenge. It is captured in the Translators’ Preface to the English edition: [The book] forces recognition of the fact that Jesus’ teaching did not center around such ideas as the infinite worth of personality, the cultivation of the inner life, the development of man toward an ideal; that Jesus spoke rather of the coming Kingdom of God, which was to be God’s gift, not man’s achievement, of man’s decision for or against the Kingdom, and of the divine demand for obedience.741 Bultmann’s radicalism in the conclusions he drew from form criticism went a good deal further than Dibelius. In part Bultmann’s position reflects his philosophical presuppositions. The Jesus of history was not relevant for faith and our historical knowledge was too fragile to be in any way absolute; what mattered was the individual’s existential response to the proclamation of the kingdom subsumed by the Hellenistic Church into the kerygmatic proclamation of the mystical death and resurrection of Christ.

R. Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, new edn (New York, NY: Scribners, 1958) (German edition, 1926). Ibid., 12. 741 Ibid., Translators’ Preface, by Louise Pettibone Smith and Erminie Huntress Lantero, vi. 739 740

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Distinctive of Bultmann’s approach was a concern with what he considered as ‘the one chief problem of primitive Christianity, the relationship of the primitive Palestinian and Hellenistic Christianity’.742 The former was an eschatological community whose traditions were taken into ‘the Christ-myth and the Christ-cult of Hellenistic Christianity’.743 It is a demythologized interpretation of the kerygma, stripped of its first-century presuppositions, which calls for decision and challenges the interpretation of existence. In terms of the historical Jesus, Bultmann brings us to the point often described as ‘No Quest’. A note of dissatisfaction with the impasse was signalled in a lecture given by Ernst Käsemann, entitled ‘The Problem of the Historical Jesus’ (1954). As a pupil of Bultmann, he did not believe that the conclusions of the master could be avoided: We have been endeavouring to discover an answer to the problem of the position of the historical element in our Gospels. We owe the recognition of the existence of the problem to that radical criticism which, in the logic of its long and painful journey towards the ultimate datum of the Gospel tradition, arrived not, as it had hoped, at the historical Jesus but at the primitive Christian kerygma.744 However, Käsemann insisted there had to be recognized as inherent in the received tradition a continuity between the Jesus of history and the kerygmatic Christ, however obscured it had become: But conversely, neither am I prepared to concede that, in the face of these facts [conclusions of form criticism], defeatism and scepticism must have the last word and lead us on to a complete disengagement of interest from the earthly Jesus. If this were to happen, we should either be failing to grasp the nature of the primitive Christian concern with the identity between the exalted and the humiliated Lord; or else we should be emptying that concern of any real content, as did the docetists. We should also be overlooking the fact that there are still pieces of the Synoptic tradition which the historian has to acknowledge as authentic if he wishes to remain an historian at all.745 The way forward that was indicated by Käsemann was of a Jesus whose distinctiveness could be found ‘when there are no grounds either for deriving a tradition from Judaism or for ascribing it to primitive Christianity’.746 This tool of biblical criticism was to become a characteristic of the ‘Second Quest’. Günther Bornkamm, in his book entitled Jesus of Nazareth (1956),747 took up the challenge made by Käsemann. The very first sentence began with a warning and acknowledged the impasse reached by New Testament critical research: ‘No one is any longer in the position to write a life of Jesus.’748 However, that recognition did not close the door on historical enquiry:

R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (1921, 1931) (English translation, Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), 5. 743 Ibid., 373–4. See also ibid., 370–1: ‘Thus the kerygma of Christ is cultic legend and the Gospels are expanded cult legends.’ 744 E. Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes (London: SCM Press, 1964), 22–3. 745 Ibid., 45–46. 746 Ibid., 37. 747 English translation: G. Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1960). 748 Ibid., 13. 742

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But it cannot be seriously maintained that the Gospels and their tradition do not allow enquiry after the historical Jesus. Not only do they allow, they demand this effort. For whatever the opinions of historians on matters of detail, none can dispute that the tradition of the Gospels is itself very considerably concerned with the pre-Easter history of Jesus, different though this interest is from that of modern historical science.749 Bornkamm acknowledges the significance of the Jewishness of Jesus in the chapter he devotes both to sketching Second Temple history and to identifying the Galilean and Judaean environment of Jesus, linking him firmly to the ministry of John the Baptist. Yet, it is in contrast to that environment that the distinctiveness of Jesus emerges. ‘Jesus belongs to this world. Yet in the midst of it he is of unmistakable otherness.’750 That otherness is found in the context of Judaism: ‘There is nothing in contemporary Judaism which corresponds to the immediacy with which he teaches. This is true to such a degree that he even dares to confront the literal text of the law with the immediately present will of God.’751 It is an otherness also found in comparison with the life of the Church. For instance, this is the case in his discussion of Jesus’ own messianic claims: ‘In recognising this, we must not allow ourselves to be misled by the fact that the Gospels themselves contain many passages which are clearly Messianic. These should be regarded first of all as the Credo of the believers, and as the theology of the early Church.’752 The criterion of otherness emerges as the yardstick for identifying the historical Jesus. Bornkamm distinguishes the authentic teaching and ministry of Jesus as that which stands out from its context. In his Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus,753 Norman Perrin also fully recognized and accepted the block to knowledge of the historical Jesus established by the form-critical method. He maintained that the continuity perceived by the early Christian community between the Jesus of history and the risen Lord led them to draw no distinction between the voice of Jesus in Palestine and his post-resurrection prophetic word to the Church: ‘much of the tradition will have been created in the early Church and will lead us at most to an aspect of the Church’s understanding of the risen Lord’.754 Further, he identifies a tendency for the received tradition to adapt and accommodate to Judaism and consequently to lose the cutting edge imparted by Jesus. Perrin points to evidence of this in St Matthew’s Gospel. He, therefore, argued that the criterion of dissimilarity is the only way to identify authentic sayings of Jesus with any assurance. It is sayings distinct from the priorities of the Early Church and which cast Jesus in a role ‘new and startling’755 within Judaism that can be trusted. Perrin recognized the ambiguities of this approach: This, then, is the criterion of dissimilarity, and it must be regarded as the basis for all contemporary attempts to reconstruct the teaching of Jesus. Of course, it is limited in scope – by definition it will exclude all teaching in which Jesus may have been at one with Judaism or the early Church at one with him. But the brutal fact of the matter is

749

Ibid., 22. Ibid., 56. 751 Ibid., 57. 752 Ibid., 172–3. 753 Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1967). 754 Ibid., 32. 755 Ibid., 40. 750

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that we have no choice. There simply is no other starting-point that takes seriously enough the radical view of the nature of the sources which the results of contemporary research are forcing upon us.756 Perrin allowed the extension of the criterion of dissimilarity to a further principle, that which he identified as the criterion of coherence. Material in the earliest strata of tradition which coheres with the initial principle may be regarded as authentic. He further gave qualified acceptance to a third principle, the criterion of multiple attestation: ‘We may say that a motif which can be detected in a multiplicity of strands of tradition and in various forms (pronouncement stories, parables, sayings, etc.) will have a high claim to authenticity, always provided that it is not characteristic of an activity, interest or emphasis of the earliest Church.’757 He gives as an example the concern of Jesus with the outcasts and tax collectors. Clearly there were substantial limitations imposed by the criterion of dissimilarity on the scope of the renewed quest for the historical Jesus. It was not satisfactory that Jesus should be radically severed from his cultural roots in Judaism or denied any continuity with the Church which grew from his ministry. However, the Second Quest represented a renewed ambition to recover the authentic Jesus tradition. The publication by Geza Vermes of Jesus the Jew (1973), the first of a trilogy,758 indicated a new era in Jesus studies which has been called the ‘Third Quest’. It charted a new direction which maintained that Jesus of Nazareth can only be understood, not in contrast to the world of Judaism, but as part of the vibrant Second Temple landscape to which he belonged. Vermes envisages nothing less than a Copernican revolution in New Testament studies: For him [the historian], the New Testament, however marvellous and influential, is but a fraction of the literary legacy of first-century Judaism. In fact, I believe it not improper to suggest that for a historical understanding, the age-old distinction between the New Testament and its Jewish background should be abolished and the former looked at deliberately as part of a larger whole.759 He spells this out in its total context: ‘Furthermore, a good deal of the New Testament appears as reflecting a brief moment in the age-long religious development of Israel that starts with the Bible and continues via the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran, Philo, the New Testament, Josephus, Pseudo-Philo, the Mishnah, Tosefta, Targum, Midrash, Talmud – and so on and so forth.’760 This perspective received further scholarly impetus with the publication of Jesus and Judaism (1985) by E.P. Sanders.761 The quest for the historical Jesus took on a new vitality in the context of the rich panorama of Early Judaism. New contours appear against the background of Temple, Torah and covenant, Passover expectation, apocalyptic fervour, Qumran material and archaeological discoveries. Pace the habit of the Jesus Seminar to vote on which sayings of Jesus are

756

Ibid., 43. Ibid., 46. 758 G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels (London: Collins, 1973); idem, Jesus and the World of Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1983); idem, The Religion of Jesus the Jew (London: SCM Press, 1993). 759 Vermes, Jesus and the World of Judaism, 70. 760 Ibid., 86. 761 E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM Press, 1985). 757

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authentic,762 there has been a scholarly tendency to try to correlate the Jesus material with a bigger picture, rather than depending simply on the authenticity of individual sayings; that is, to seek out the accumulative evidence from the tradition and its record, including Jesus’ actions and the impact of his behaviour, as well as its context within contemporary Judaism. The tools of a previous era still have their place, but now supplementing the main consideration: ‘what is plausible in the Jewish context’.763 The form-critical approach has continued to have a lasting impact upon New Testament studies, with the settled conclusion that our knowledge of the Jesus of history is mediated and not direct. Behind the written sources is an oral tradition reaching over several decades. The basic fabric of that oral tradition is made up of individual units which have mainly lost the moorings of historical particularity, with the exception of the passion narrative. The Sitz im Leben of the production and handling of these units was the community life of the developing Church. It was the priorities of the faith community which selected, and to some extent shaped, the units that have been handed on. However, form criticism as it was practised by Bultmann has been challenged and refined; its more rigid assumptions have found a greater flexibility. The pathways of tradition prove to be more variegated than Bultmann allowed. Dibelius had already suggested that Bultmann’s presuppositions influenced his verdict on the historical reliability of the Jesus tradition.764 Form criticism has proved to be more of an art than a science. Its former appeal to laws by which biblical oral tradition operates, by analogy with folk literature, has not found favour: ‘There are no hard and fast laws of the development of the Synoptic tradition. On all counts the tradition developed in opposite directions. It became both longer and shorter, both more and less detailed, and both more and less Semitic.’765 Bultmann stresses the shaping of the tradition by the post-Easter Christian community. However, it is likely that Jesus’ teaching would have circulated in oral form amongst his followers from the very beginning and would have been well established in Galilee before Easter. An indication of this early phase was identified in the scholarship of a previous generation which discerned Aramaisms behind the Greek and found indications of original underlying structures.766 These latter include parallelism and rhythm similar to that characteristic of the poetry of the psalms, as well as alliteration and assonance. This would indicate that Jesus deliberately cast his teaching in readily memorable form which would also have served to guard its integrity. Dunn has suggested that, when Jesus sent out his disciples on their Galilean mission (Mark 6:7–13), as an extension of his own mission, they would have been equipped with his teaching, with which they were by now familiar and which they were charged to share. ‘We may be confident that a good deal at least of the retellings of Jesus tradition now in the Synoptic Gospels were already beginning to take shape in that early pre-Easter preaching of the first disciples.’767 Further,

762 R.W. Funk, R.W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1993). 763 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 11. 764 M. Dibelius, ‘Review of R. Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (1931)’, Deutsche Literaturzeitung 53, no. 24 (1932): 1105–11. 765 E.P. Sanders, The Tendencies of the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 272. 766 C.F. Burney, The Poetry of Our Lord: An Examination of the Formal Elements of Hebrew Poetry in the Discourses of Jesus Christ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925); M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts, 3rd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967); J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology (London: SCM Press, 1971), 3–29. 767 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 243. A similar point is made by Dale Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1998), 71f.

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Dunn has suggested that some of the oral units identified by form criticism may have been gathered into groupings at an early stage, or even have been delivered in a connected way by Jesus himself. A significant revision of Bultmann’s analysis of the way the oral tradition behind the Gospels developed has been put forward by Dunn. He identifies a literary model governing Bultmann’s assumptions. That is, Bultmann conceives of an original pure form which is gradually overlaid by successive editorial activity at each republication of the tradition. The challenge is then to peel back the successive layers to return to the original. However, Dunn maintains that oral tradition is living; it is something much fresher and more akin to ‘performance’: ‘In oral transmission a tradition is performed, not edited.’768 Each performance has elements which are free, the supporting detail with which the narrator can be creative, and key elements of subject and theme which are fixed and by which the narrator is bound. In summary: ‘performance involves both elements of stability and elements of variability’.769 The fixed elements represent the heart of the memory. The biblical oral tradition has captured the impact of Jesus on the first eyewitnesses in the moment of unfolding. Such oral memory was always a co-operative community endeavour. The vivid initial impact is rehearsed at each performance in the context of community; the dramatization does not become increasingly remote from, or opaque to, some supposed original pure layer. Each performance is ‘Jesus Remembered’; the remembering began with the immediate impact of the words or actions of Jesus on the shared memory of the initial disciples or witnesses, which is freshly re-presented on each occasion. A further interesting deduction is drawn by both Dunn and Hengel,770 which follows from the form-critical insight that the Church community in its shared memory was responsible for the oral tradition. The fact that the oral memory circulated within the community implies that there was likely to be some sort of regulatory control. A great deal of travelling and interchange went on between the various congregations and communities. There would have been the delegated authority of recognized leaders as well as the continuing presence of eyewitnesses in the local churches. No doubt it would have taken a substantial authority to validate and authorize the written Gospels. Such oversight would have tended to prevent the tradition from getting out of control, and its likely existence emerges in the preface to St Luke’s Gospel where the author refers to: ‘those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word’ (Luke 1:2).

768 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 249. W. Kelber, The Oral and Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1983), identified the relevance of the particular characteristics of oral as distinct from literary transmission for NT studies, building on previous research across different disciplines; he noted the presence of both fixed and flexible elements in oral transmission. 769 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 249. For this insight Dunn draws particularly upon the observations of Kenneth Bailey, which, although anecdotal, relate to extended first-hand experience of oral culture in Near Eastern village life. See K.E. Bailey, ‘Informal Controlled Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels’, Asia Journal of Theology 5, no. 1 (1991): 34–54; idem, ‘Middle Eastern Oral Tradition and the Synoptic Gospels’, Expository Times 106, no. 12 (1995): 363–7. Dunn (Jesus Remembered, 206) summarizes: ‘These villages have retained their identity over many generations, so that, arguably, their oral culture is as close as we will ever be able to find to the village culture of first-century Galilee. Bailey puts forward the idea of “informal controlled tradition”, to distinguish it from the models used by both Bultmann (“informal uncontrolled tradition”) and Gerhardsson (“formal controlled tradition”).’ B. Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Lund: Gleerup, 1961), envisaged a ‘rigidly controlled transmission’ of the teaching of Jesus handed on in a similar way to that found in later Rabbinic Judaism. 770 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 180f., 242f.; M. Hengel, ‘Eye-witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels’, in The Written Gospel, ed. M. Bockmuehl and D.A. Hagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 86ff.

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St Paul has a casual reference in 1 Corinthians 15:6 to a witness by ‘more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died’ to an appearance of the risen Lord. Richard Bauckham’s renewed appeal to Papias (c. 60–130 CE ), bishop of Hierapolis,771 for the significance of eyewitness testimony in the origins of the Gospels remains debatable. However, his point that eyewitness testimony remained throughout the period of pre-gospel oral transmission is a valid observation: ‘The eyewitnesses were still around.’772 The observation has been made from Dibelius onwards that the synoptic tradition has remained remarkably impervious to the theological developments, for instance, encountered in the epistles, running parallel to the decades of oral tradition. Further, the gospel tradition has retained its Palestinian geography and identity. This is summarized by Martin Hengel: A typical example of this ‘conservative’ character is the fact that in Mark and texts dependent upon him, James the son of Zebedee, who was executed by Agrippa I in AD 43, always stands first in the catalogue of disciples before John, although John outlived him and later became influential, while James did not thereafter have any more significance for the church. . . . That, conversely, the Palestinian community itself, which stood under the leadership of the brother of Jesus from the persecution through Agrippa I to the stoning of James in AD 62, had no more influence upon the Synoptic tradition from the beginning of the 40s is shown by the fact that James and Jesus’ other brothers play no positive role in the Gospels. The evangelists admittedly knew them, but in Jesus’ lifetime his brothers were not yet among his followers. In this essential point too, history was not falsified. . . . This geographical and historical interest in Jewish Palestine still pertains even in the Gospel of John, whose high Christology goes far beyond the Synoptic tradition and fundamentally changes the portrayal of Jesus.773 The Quest, then, has been reinvigorated by the burgeoning interest in ‘Jesus Within Judaism’.774 The shadow of the Galilean falls more distinctly against the emerging Palestinian silhouette. This study will adopt an eschatological interpretation for the context of the ministry of Jesus, whilst recognizing there are some substantial dissenting voices. We may now consider Jesus of Nazareth within the framework of three comprehensive categories taken from his Jewish context that are compatible with the broad canvas of the received tradition. These are (i) eschatological prophet, (ii) charismatic healer and (iii) rabbi and Wisdom teacher. The last two correspond to the assessment of Josephus; he recognizes Jesus as ‘a doer of startling things’ and ‘a wise man’. It is not surprising that Josephus does not recognize the eschatological dimension either in Jesus or John the Baptist. Given its subverting potential, it is an element he tends to suppress in deference to his Graeco-Roman audience.

771 Papias’ work, Expositions of the Oracles of the Lord, survives only in fragmentary form in quotations in Irenaeus and Eusebius (especially Hist. Eccl. 3.39.14–16). 772 Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017), 355. 773 Hengel, ‘Eye-witness Memory and the Writing of the Gospels’, 82–3. 774 The title of a book: James H. Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (London: SPCK, 1989).

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II ESCHATOLOGICAL PROPHET ‘Eschatological prophet’ represents an initial category by which to seek to place the ministry of Jesus, both as he himself may have perceived it and as those who witnessed it may have reached for an understanding of the phenomenon that encountered them. In this, Jesus takes his place in the ‘spiritual universe’ of Early Judaism discussed in Chapter Twelve. In that context, our review must first begin with a more general consideration of the link between the phenomenon of prophecy and the expectation of imminent divine intervention in the world of first-century Palestine. In the years following John the Baptist and Jesus there continued a succession of figures known as the ‘sign prophets’. This emergence of public prophecy was typically associated with the awakening of eschatological expectation and the anticipated fulfilment of God’s promises to Israel.775 Often a location in the desert or a new crossing of the Jordan was involved. These phenomena are paralleled in the Qumran community locating itself in the Judaean desert and, in the case of John the Baptist’s ministry, combined both desert and Jordan river. The call to return to Israel’s desert origins contained its own signal about God’s coming restoration of Israel (cf. Hosea 2:14), as has been noted: ‘In post-Maccabean Judaism, especially in eschatologically oriented groups, flight to the desert or sojourn in the desert was typologically understood as a New Exodus which would be followed by a New Conquest.’776 We learn of the activity of the sign prophets through brief, largely disparaging, mentions by Josephus. They were clearly seen as a threat by the authorities and dealt with harshly. There was a Samaritan777 who claimed that he would reveal on Mount Gerazim the whereabouts of the lost sacred vessels of the Temple, buried by Moses; he consequently succeeded in gathering a following. They were brutally massacred by Pilate, which led to protests and Pilate’s deposition. One Theudas,778 when Cuspius Fadus was procurator (44–46 CE ), invited his followers to witness the dividing of the Jordan, thus recapturing the salvific events associated with Joshua and Elijah. This movement, too, was brutally suppressed. A group of anonymous prophets779 at the time of the procurator Felix (52–60 CE ) announced miracles in the wilderness, evidently promising a new Exodus. This was seen as a threat and put down by force. There was, further, ‘the Egyptian’780 who, according to Josephus’s generous estimate, assembled 30,000 followers781 whom he led

A previous generation of scholarship (for instance, J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 80) set this in the greater context of the lifting of the ‘quenching of the Spirit’ reckoned as a phenomenon of the Second Temple period. Often referenced is Tosefta Sotah 13.3: ‘When Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the last prophets, died, the Holy Spirit ceased in Israel. Nevertheless, a Bath Qol was heard by them’. F.E. Greenspahn, ‘Why Prophecy Ceased’, JBL 108, no. 1 (1989): 37, makes the point: ‘One must distinguish what actually happened from what was later believed.’ J.R. Levison, ‘Did the Spirit Withdraw from Israel? An Evaluation of the Earliest Jewish Data’, NTS 43 (1997): 35–57, argues that texts within the Second Temple period itself do not ever refer to the permanent quenching of the Spirit; texts usually adduced, including the later Tosefta Sotah, cannot support an earlier supposition. 776 Adela Yarbro Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1976), 29. 777 Antiquities 18.4.1–2. 778 Antiquities 20.5.1. 779 Antiquities 20.8.6; War 2.8.4. 780 Antiquities 20.8.6; War 2.8.5. 781 Acts 21:38 refers to this event in connection with a conversation between Paul and the tribune in Jerusalem. The estimate of the numbers is 4,000. 775

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from the desert to the Mount of Olives where they would witness the walls of Jerusalem, like those of Jericho of old, come tumbling down and gain entry into the city by overpowering the Roman garrison. He was resisted by Felix with a Roman force; his followers were killed, captured, or fled along with their leader. A further episode782 under Porcius Festus (60–62) relates to an anonymous figure who led people into the wilderness offering salvation; the event was significant enough for all to be destroyed by force. A different figure, who is not associated with followers, was Jesus Son of Ananias783 who first appeared under Albinus (62–64); he went around declaring woe to Jerusalem, its inhabitants and the Temple. Similarly to his namesake from Nazareth, he was arrested, handed over to the procurator, and scourged, but later released. He continued with his obsessive message until struck by a stone from a catapult at the siege of Jerusalem as his prophecies were coming to fulfilment. Finally, Josephus tells us of a ‘false prophet’784 who in 70 CE led 6,000 defenceless people, including women and children, to their death, promising they would see ‘signs of deliverance’ if they assembled in the Temple during the thick of the conflict. Rebecca Gray summarizes the overall picture: From Josephus’ spare and hostile accounts, we can determine that Theudas, the Egyptian, and the other sign prophets were leaders of large popular movements; that they claimed to be prophets; that they announced to their followers that God was about to act to deliver them in some dramatic way; and that they promised to perform miracles that would either constitute that deliverance itself (in the case of Theudas and the Egyptian) or confirm that they were God’s messengers and that what they said was true.785 The sign prophets were brokers of the embers of expectation of their time. They indicate that the phenomenon of public prophecy in the first century CE was cloaked with an eschatological dimension. It does seem that Jesus was remembered as resisting being understood as a ‘sign prophet’ (cf. Q temptation saying, Luke 4:9; Matthew 4:5). He was, however, presented with that expectation: ‘The Pharisees came and began to argue with him, asking him for a sign from heaven, to test him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and said, “Why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation” ’ (Mark 8:11–12 and parallels; but cf. John 6:30–31 which looks to a sign in the wilderness).786 Jesus himself, as we shall discuss, seems to have used prophetic symbolism and pointed to evidence of divine activity at work in his ministry, but shunned the sort of stunts of the sign prophets. However, the distinction would have been subtle to observers. If St John’s Gospel is modelled on a ‘Book of Signs’, then it would suggest that later tradition was happy to apply the category of sign prophet to Jesus. Theudas and his followers are mentioned as a comparable test case in Acts 5:36 in Gamaliel’s speech,

Antiquities 20.8.10. War 6.5.3. 784 War 6.5.2. 785 R. Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine: The Evidence from Josephus (New York, NY, and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 164–5. 786 Q Luke 11:16, 29–32 (Matthew 12:38–42); cf. Matthew 16:1–2, 4; all refer to the exception of ‘the sign of Jonah’. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 660 writes: ‘[Jesus] may have referred enigmatically to Jonah and (probably) Jonah’s success in his preaching to the notoriously wicked city of Nineveh.’ Matthew 12:40 further refers to an analogy between Jonah’s period in the whale and Jesus in the tomb, which is clearly a post-resurrection reflection. 782 783

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which commends restraint in dealing with Peter and the apostles. This suggests that for an outside observer the Jesus movement appeared to be a similar phenomenon. The renewal of public prophecy evident in the ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus, as well as the activity of those sign prophets who followed them, would inevitably have ignited popular expectations of divine intervention and the age of salvation. The retreat to the wilderness and the re-enacted crossing of the Jordan were, for them all including the Baptist and Jesus, symbolic of the stirring of God’s fresh initiative.787 The category of prophet is firmly attached to Jesus in the tradition. When Jesus contemplated his rejection at Nazareth, it is as a prophet that he comes to terms with it: ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house’ (Mark 6:4; cf. Luke 4:24). When he considered his own mortality, it was as a prophet that he reflected: ‘it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem’ (Luke 13:33). When St Luke recounts the raising of the son of the widow of Nain, he concludes with the deduction of the crowd: ‘A great prophet has risen among us!’ (Luke 7:16). When Jesus enters Jerusalem at the commencement of the final week of his ministry, St Matthew recounts: ‘The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee” ’ (21:11). Jesus put the question to his disciples: ‘Who do people say that I am?’ The answer he received is grounded in Israel’s prophetic heritage: And they answered him, ‘John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.’ — Mark 8:28; cf. Matthew 16:14, which adds reference to the prophet Jeremiah Jesus places himself, and is placed, in the long line of God’s prophetic call to Israel with its chequered response. His destiny is to be understood in that context, with the expectation it awakens. Characteristic of Hebrew prophecy was a directness as spokesmen for God which was evident in the phrase that often prefaced their message: ‘Thus says the Lord’. In the same way, Jesus was emphatic with his teaching: ‘Amen! Amen! I say unto you’.788 Similarly to the prophets, Jesus challenged conventional religion with a radical recall to the moral priorities of faith including care for the poor and disadvantaged, something to which we shall give later consideration. As did the prophets of old, Jesus used prophetic symbolism to communicate his message. This was true of his whole lifestyle: ‘The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them’ (Mark 2:19, cf. Matthew 9:15). It was further evident in specific ways, such as putting a child in their midst (Mark 9:36; cf. Matthew 18:2) or, more controversially, the cleansing of the Temple (Mark 11:15ff.; cf. Matthew 21:12f., Luke 19:45, John 2:13ff.). It is clear that Jesus demonstrated the prophetic assurance of being God’s representative with unabashed conviction. The direct prophetic authority that Jesus exercised, neither drawn immediately from Scripture, nor tradition, led to the report of the evangelist St Mark: ‘They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes’ (Mark 1:22). The question of the source of the authority of Jesus was a constant provocation,

787 N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), 538f., 611, 651ff., has argued for the scenario of the final ending of the exile, the defeat of evil and the return of Yahweh to Zion as the anticipatory narrative that drives the prophetic activity of Jesus and the movement he engendered. 788 For instance: Matthew 18:3; Mark 3:28; John 8:51.

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but arose acutely following the cleansing of the Temple. Jesus responded to the precise question put to him regarding the source of his authority with another question: Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me. — Mark 11:30 When his questioners fail to give a straight answer, Jesus refuses to answer their question. Nonetheless, it is clear that he is pointing towards the baptism of John for the source of his own authority. Mark tells us that the questioners avoid denying John’s divine inspiration because ‘they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet’ (11:32). John bore the mantle of prophet in the eyes of the multitude. It seems that it was from within the movement of John the Baptist that Jesus received his authority; that is, his own prophetic vocation. It has been noted that the portrayal in the Gospels of the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ baptism appears to reflect subsequent mature community reflection, rather than immediate personal testimony. The anointing with the spirit and the heavenly voice symbolize empowerment and calling. They encapsulate both messiahship and sonship.789 Theissen sees an apologetic tendency: ‘If Jesus is God’s beloved son, he is more than John.’790 Dunn identifies the fact that the baptism and the vocation episodes are not integral.791 Nonetheless, in the light of Mark 11:27, there is independent intimation that traces the vocation of Jesus to his baptism.792 Wider evidence indicates that: ‘Jesus himself probably claimed to have been anointed with the Spirit (Isaiah 61:1), and thought of his relationship to God as son to father.’793 Jesus certainly experienced powerful visionary and mystical episodes. St Luke, in the context of the return of the seventy, reports words of Jesus which characterize an apocalyptic visionary experience: ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning’ (Luke 10:18). His sense of sonship is encapsulated in the distinguishing word Abba on his lips in prayer. It represents an intimate childlike trust in God; the Aramaic word survived into the Greekspeaking Church (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). It is behind the opening address of the Lord’s Prayer. This vocation needs a source. Jesus’ baptism at the hands of John, we may surmise, was the moment when he was overwhelmed by his divine commission. It corresponds to the moment of call recorded of the great Old Testament prophets. The recounting of the baptism of Jesus at the hands of John is noted by many scholars as a sure indication of the historical reliability of the event.794 It was clearly a subsequent embarrassment to the Church that Jesus had submitted to John’s ministry for the cleansing of sins (cf. Matthew 3:13). That Jesus should have been originally subordinate to John was not easily compatible with John’s role in Christian narrative as the forerunner. The fact that John built a following around him, for whom he was revered as their rabbi or teacher is evidenced in the discipline of fasting put upon his disciples (Mark 2:18 and

789

The heavenly voice represents scriptural reflection: it seems to combine Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 208. 791 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 372: ‘All three [Synoptic] Evangelists indicate that the baptism, that is, immersion (baptisth¯enai) in the Jordan, had been completed before the next events took place.’ 792 In a similar way the tradition in Acts traces Jesus’ ministry from the activity of John the Baptist and identifies separately the anointing with the Holy Spirit in that immediate context (Acts 10:37–38; 13:24–25). 793 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 376. 794 J.D. Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1995), 49: ‘That Jesus was baptized by John is as historically certain as anything about either of them ever can be.’ 790

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parallels) and to their having a distinctive prayer (Luke 11:1). Disciples could still be encountered many years after John’s death by St Paul in Ephesus (Acts 19:1). It is St John’s Gospel which gives us clues as to the origin of the ministry of Jesus within this movement of John the Baptist and, indeed, the potential overlap of their work. The opening chapter of the Gospel (John 1:35ff.) records Jesus calling two of John’s disciples, one of whom was Andrew. That same day, Andrew brings his brother Simon Peter to Jesus. There is even the suggestion that Jesus is baptizing and attracting disciples from John (John 3:22ff.); although, that Jesus baptized is later denied and it is claimed that it was not Jesus but, rather, his disciples who were baptizing (4:2). The Gospel of John, although preserving the historical reality and locating the origins of the Jesus movement from within that of the Baptist, seeks from theological motives to diminish the towering figure of John the Baptist. The actual baptism of Jesus by John is not recorded, and the evangelist not only denies the Baptist the status of Messiah, but also of the returning Elijah or the eschatological prophet (John 1:19–21); this is because all of these designations he wishes to reserve for Jesus. However, the Gospel of John, in common with the Synoptic Gospels, has the Baptist give an account of his identity based on the prophecy of Isaiah 40:3:795 I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’, as the prophet Isaiah said. — John 1:23 The context of the prophecy of Isaiah, as interpreted by those reading the signs of the times, already places John the Baptist at the fulcrum of the ages. As we have seen, the passage from Isaiah is precisely the one appealed to in the Community Rule of Qumran to explain the location of the community in the wilderness as they wait for the expected breaking in of the reign of God.796 The mention in St John’s Gospel of the Messiah, the returning Elijah and the eschatological prophet (cf. Deuteronomy 18:15) in terms of the relative significance of John the Baptist and Jesus, as well as a similar synoptic combination in the context of Peter’s confession (Mark 8:27–30; Matthew 16:13–20), casts us into the world of eschatological expectancy. Jesus himself seems to identify John the Baptist with Elijah, contrary to St John’s Gospel, in his assertion ‘Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased’ (Mark 9:13; Matthew 17:12). The expectancy of the return of Elijah was fuelled by the promise in the final verses of the last book of the Hebrew Scriptures: Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse. — Malachi 4:5–6; cf. 3:1ff. In this tradition, the ‘day of the Lord’ will involve the return of the prophet Elijah, the exemplar of Old Testament prophecy, who according to biblical tradition, similarly to Enoch, had been taken up directly into heaven (2 Kings 2:11). Elijah’s significance for

795

The LXX version has: ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness’, as opposed to the Masoretic text: ‘A voice cries out “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord”.’ 796 See Chapter Thirteen, s. V.

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contemporary Judaism, including his ascent into heaven, is evident in the fact that he is singled out for special mention in the summary of Israel’s sacred history in both the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse. As regards the coming of the eschatological prophet combined with messianic expectation, the Community Rule of Qumran looks forward to ‘the Prophet’ who will accompany the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel in the final age.797 John the Baptist finds his place in this context of burning expectancy. In the Q material relating to the Baptist, he preaches radical repentance in anticipation of the coming eschatological judgement. That judgement is described in terms of ‘the wrath to come’ (Matthew 3:7); the axe is already laid to the root of the tree (3:10). Those who reckoned themselves as examples of piety are described as: ‘You brood of vipers’ (3:7). The agent of divine judgement is at hand: ‘His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire’ (3:12). John’s baptism offered shelter from the immediate prospect of the final judgement, for which simply being Israelite by birth without the fruit of repentance would have no status. That John’s ministry offered forgiveness of sins apart from the apparatus of the Temple cult was, at the least, an implicit criticism of the Temple’s effectiveness prior to the coming restoration of Israel; that circumstance has a resonance to the perspective of Qumran. It seems that John’s preaching was not beyond direct political confrontation. St Mark recounts John’s criticism of Herod Antipas for marrying his brother’s wife (Mark 6:17– 29 and parallels). This was a sensitive issue with which to be associated; the wife Antipas had shunned was a Nabotean princess and her rejection was to lead to military confrontation.798 On Mark’s interpretation of events, that criticism led to the arrest and subsequent execution of John the Baptist. Josephus explains things differently;799 he identifies John’s popularity and his influence over the masses, and the consequent potential for sedition, as leading to his arrest and execution by Herod Antipas. Josephus does not care to mention the specific significance of the volatile nature of the eschatological expectations of John’s movement – expectations which, more generally, throughout the first century CE , as we noted with the sign prophets, were such an unsettling dynamic of Jewish society and resisted firmly by the authorities. It was from within the fire of the eschatological expectation generated by the preaching and ministry of John the Baptist that Jesus received his prophetic vocation. He was a part of the Baptist’s movement and, in all likelihood, at least some of his disciples were drawn from that movement. Although Jesus grew beyond the movement of John, it was John’s perspective which was to inform the urgency of the message of Jesus and his sense of crisis. The significance of John the Baptist for understanding the ministry of Jesus has been captured by E.P. Sanders, who further observes that not only is the ministry of Jesus topped by John the Baptist, but it is also tailed by Pauline800 and early Church eschatological expectation: ‘At the beginning of Jesus’ career, then, we find him accepting the mission of John the Baptist, who said that the climax of history was at hand. Within no more than a decade after Jesus’ execution, we have firm proof that his followers expected this dramatic

797

1QS 9.11. A confrontation (c. 36 CE ) in which Antipas was soundly defeated and the events were popularly interpreted as divine punishment for John’s execution some eight years after the event (Antiquities 18.5.2). 799 Ibid. 800 For example, 1 Thessalonians 4:13–17. 798

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event very soon. Jesus must fit this context.’801 The prophetic ministry of Jesus, driven by the power of the spirit, grew out of the circle of John the Baptist. It has every indication of being a ministry that handled and interpreted the immediacy of the expected eschatological intervention of God and the hinge of the ages.

III CHARISMATIC HEALER All strata of the Gospel traditions witness to Jesus as a charismatic healer and exorcist.802 Not only are the events themselves embedded in the separate traditions, but also the sayings collection refers to them. These ‘startling deeds’, identified by Josephus, are clearly integral to any comprehensive portrait of the historical Jesus: ‘Put dramatically but with not too much exaggeration: if the miracle tradition from Jesus’ public ministry were to be rejected in toto as unhistorical, so should every Gospel tradition about him.’803 Marcus Borg is equally assertive: ‘His healings attracted attention; indeed, without them, it is possible that neither his contemporaries nor we would have heard of him.’804 In this remarkable feature Jesus seems to be distinct from John the Baptist, about whom no tradition of miraculous activity has survived (cf. John 10:41). Clearly, Jesus found within himself the gift of healing and the ability to restore to wholeness those whom contemporary society diagnosed as possessed. Although the tales of marvellous deeds would have abounded and multiplied in popular folk culture, the basic insistence that this was an outstanding feature of the ministry of Jesus is reliable enough. Some of those cured are named or identified, for instance, Peter’s mother-in-law,805 the daughter of Jairus,806 blind Bartimaeus,807 and Mary Magdalene.808 On two occasions the Aramaic words used by Jesus in a healing have been retained in the corporate memory: talitha cumi809 and ephatha.810 The clamour for healing that Jesus’ reputation must have created would at times have been overwhelming. It is likely that, in a world where disease and illness were commonplace, with no medical treatment, Jesus’ reputation would have generated considerable excitement and gathered crowds. The removal of the roof in order to let down the paralysed man and gain access to Jesus is tangible evidence of that.811 His renown as a healer would have resulted in greater crowds than would have gathered simply for a straightforward teacher or rabbi, however good. People would have brought their sick and also congregated out of inquisitiveness to witness the spectacle. The

Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, 95. The exception is the Gospel of Thomas which has no miracle stories or reference to them. In Saying 14, the disciples are instructed ‘when you go into any land’ to eat what is set before them without defilement and heal the sick. However, no mention is made of the expulsion of evil spirits. 803 J.P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Volume 2: Mentor, Message and Miracles (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1994), 630. 804 Marcus Borg and N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions (London: SPCK, 1999), 73. 805 Mark 1:29–31 and parallels. 806 Mark 5:21ff. and parallels. 807 Mark 10:46ff. and parallels. 808 Luke 8:2. 809 Mark 5:41. 810 Mark 7:34. 811 Mark 2:1–12. 801 802

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assembled crowds gave Jesus opportunity to disseminate his teaching. Doubtless, they also brought him to the attention of the authorities. It is likely that some cures were administered to psychosomatic conditions, whether of body or mind. Others, it seems, were inexplicable recoveries from medical conditions. Many of the restorations to health would have returned the patient to wholeness of community life. In particular, that was true of those who had suffered from various skin diseases classified under the umbrella term of leprosy, or of the woman who suffered from a flow of blood. J.D. Crossan812 is right to identify that circumstance but is not doing justice to the evidence when he differentiates between disease and illness, the former medical condition remaining and the latter social ostracization addressed by Jesus. The tradition of healings and exorcisms is not simply the consequence of ‘open commensality’, however radical. Nonetheless, there were physical limits to those Jesus could cure, and there must have been plenty of disappointments. A particular feature of Jesus’ healing is that he often referred to a quality in the person concerned which had contributed to their restoration: ‘Your faith has made you well’.813 Healing was not something automatic. St Mark’s Gospel reports that in Nazareth he was unable to heal, apart from an apologetic few (that are perhaps a fiction): ‘And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.’814 It is a feature of the gospel tradition that the gift of healing and expelling demons is not portrayed as vested in Jesus alone. That makes it a phenomenon open to sociological and anthropological investigation. When Jesus is being accused of exorcizing in the name of the prince of demons, Beelzebul, he responds: ‘Now if I cast out the demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your exorcists cast them out?’815 The disciples are indignant about someone using the name of Jesus to exorcise who is not one of their number.816 Acts 19:13 refers to some itinerant Jewish exorcists. Jesus himself sends out ‘the twelve’ in St Luke’s Gospel, ‘and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases’.817 In the same Gospel ‘the seventy’ are dispatched to ‘cure the sick’;818 when they return they declare: ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’819 Josephus expands our knowledge of Jewish exorcists when he tells with evident approval and delight of a scene that he had witnessed.820 One Eleazar, in front of Vespasian and other notables, drew a demon out of a possessed man through the nose using a root prescribed by Solomon located under the seal of a ring. The ceremony was accompanied by suitable incantations. The man fell over and the exorcist adjured the spirit never to return again. Eleazar contrived as evidence of the cure to place a cup of water near the man, to be overturned by the spirit as it departed. The closest biblical narrative to this is the episode of the Gadarene swine;821 it is the most legendary of the healing narratives credited to Jesus and heavy with theological resonance. There Jesus seeks the name of the spirit, ‘Legion’, enters into a verbal dual, and the evidence of the exit of the multiple demons is the demise of the herd of swine in the water.

Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 90ff. Mark 5:34 and parallels. 814 Mark 6:5–6; cf. Luke 4:23b. 815 Luke 11:19. 816 Mark 9:38ff. 817 Luke 9:1; cf. Matthew 10:1. 818 Luke 10:9a. 819 Luke 10:17. 820 Antiquities 8.2.5. 821 Mark 5:1–20 and parallels. 812 813

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Can we, then, place Jesus within a given context as a type of one who exorcises and cures the sick? An attempt has been made to place Jesus’ activity within the wider context of the Hellenistic world. Morton Smith has looked to the category of magician (go¯es and magos), and a corresponding concept of divine man (theios an¯er) which he argues might link to the appellation ‘son of god’. He refers to the common use of spells and amulets, and finds a context in the Egyptian Magical Papyri for the visionary circumstances of Jesus’ baptism, which he interprets as deification. His argument is that the gospel writers have suppressed the evidence of this background, but it still lingers. For instance, he suggests that, when Jesus’ family come to take him away as being mad,822 this may mean that, like many exorcists, he has been emulating the condition of one possessed in order to effect a cure. Smith sees the accusation of casting out demons by Beelzebul as representing something rather more vulnerable about Jesus’ method than the gospel writers allow. Harvey refers to the ‘dangerous ambiguity’ of the miraculous healings of Jesus.823 Smith cites the neoPythagorean Apollonius of Tyana as an example of ‘divine man’, a first-century itinerant philosopher, miracle worker and preacher, who had allegedly sojourned in Babylon and India. He identifies various parallel features with Jesus, including the tradition of having raised a young woman from her bier at her funeral procession, as well as the accusation of being a magician. An account of his Life was not written until the early years of the third century. Smith’s conclusion is that the basic category in which Jesus should be placed is that of magician, which provides the springboard of his ministry: ‘We argued . . . that Jesus won his following primarily as a miracle worker and that if we begin with the miracles we can understand his authority as a teacher, his involvement in messianic speculation, and his ultimate crucifixion, but if we begin with the teaching, his role as a miracle worker and the consequent events and beliefs are unexplained.’824 However, it is difficult to reconcile the witness of the gospel tradition to the fairly modest practice of Jesus, involving a direct command, the laying on of hands or occasional use of spittle, with the extravagant practice of incantations and rituals. Although the ancient world was connected, Smith’s analysis does not give full justice to the immediate Jewish context of Jesus. That in the end provides the decisive verdict for Sanders: ‘his hypothesis as a whole is unsatisfactory because it leaves largely out of account the persuasive evidence which makes us look to Jewish eschatology as defining the general contours of Jesus’ career’.825 A context which sets Jesus firmly within a Jewish Palestinian milieu is put forward by Geza Vermes. He has drawn attention to the Jewish charismatic miracle-workers, heirs of a prophetic religious line stretching back to Elijah and Elisha, which he associates particularly with Galilee. Their inspiration was not based on esoteric powers, but on the immediacy of their relationship with God. He identifies the first-century-BCE holy man, Honi the Circle-Drawer. His prayers were reckoned to be efficacious in ending drought. Famously, he was recorded as drawing a circle, standing in it and announcing to God he

822

Mark 3:21. A.E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History (London: Duckworth, 1982), 109. That ambiguity seems to have been felt by those who handled the tradition (Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 297): ‘The way in which exorcisms retreat in Matthew – for example, Mark 1:23ff. is omitted – and the complete absence of exorcisms from John shows that this aspect of Jesus’ miracle-working activity also caused confusion to Christians.’ 824 Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (London: Victor Gollancz, 1978), 142. 825 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 169. 823

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would not move out of it until he sent ‘a rain of grace’.826 The Mishnah is critical of Honi, but Vermes clarifies this with a comment attributed to a contemporary leading Pharisee: ‘What can I do with you, since even though you importune God, he does what you wish in the same way that a father does whatever his importuning son asks him?’827 Josephus records that Honi (Greek Onias) died by stoning for refusing to curse one side rather than the other in the Maccabean succession conflict that invited the intervention of Pompey.828 The efficaciousness of his prayer was not in doubt. A tradition related of Hanan, the grandson of Honi, also a rainmaker, would seem to indicate that the charismatics related to God as ‘Abba’: When the world was in need of rain, the rabbis used to send school-children to him, who seized the train of his cloak and said to him, Abba, Abba, give us rain! He said to God: Lord of the universe, render a service to those who cannot distinguish between the Abba who gives rain and the Abba who does not.829 Vermes also identifies Hanina ben Dosa, a first-century-CE figure whom Rabbinic sources located in Galilee from a village near Sepphoris: ‘The principal source of the renown won by this Galilean Hasid was his ability to heal from a distance and to announce from there an immediate cure. In this respect, the best story is that which tells of the cure of the son of the famous Gamaliel.’830 He is noted for the intensity of his lengthy prayer sessions. We learn both of his self-imposed poverty and his relationship with God perceived as son: Every day a heavenly voice (bat qo¯l) comes forth [from Mount Horeb (bBer 17b)], saying: ‘The whole world is sustained only on account of Hanina my son, yet for Hanina my son one qab of carob suffices from one sabbath eve to the next (bTaan 24b/ bHul 86a).831 Hanina is credited with authority over the queen of demons and protection from snake bites. Vermes notes: ‘Nevertheless, though later hailed as the saviour and benefactor of his generation, there are signs that he was in part resented by the leaders of contemporary Pharisaism and by representatives of the later Rabbinic establishment.’832 We may agree with Theissen when he compares this Jewish phenomenon with the evidence from the Hellenistic magicians: ‘The Jewish charismatic miracle-workers . . . stand considerably closer to Jesus.’833 However, they fail to furnish us with a category into which Jesus fits. There is no parallel with Jesus’ restoration agenda and his passionate call to Israel to respond to God’s coming new thing. The verdict of Sanders on Morton Smith holds in this circumstance also. If the healings and exorcisms reported of Jesus fail to fit into any prior classification, then we must interrogate the record of the deeds themselves to see whether there is an interpretive significance to be found. We are faced with an initial blank; the individual

826

See mTaan. 3:8. Ibid. The Pharisee is Simeon ben Shetah. See Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 70. 828 Antiquities 14.2.1. 829 See bTaan. 23b. Also Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 211. 830 Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 75. 831 Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew, 178. 832 Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 74. 833 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 306. 827

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accounts of the happenings for the most part carry no interpretation. They are simply recounted as need presenting itself, to which Jesus responds, and the people are amazed. It is only in the later process of redaction that the healing event may receive an interpretive framework from the evangelists. For instance, Mark seems to parallel Jesus labouring to cure a blind man at Bethsaida with the spiritual blindness of the disciples at Caesarea Philippi.834 A subliminal message is carried by those episodes that are identified as taking place on the sabbath.835 Beyond the healing, they divulge an underlying tension generated by Jesus’ permissive interpretation of sabbath observance. For the most part, however, we are confronted with the unadorned nature of the independent pericopes; this may have to do with the traditioning process. Theissen suggests there was a ‘popular shift’836 in which the sensational nature of the miracle stories associated with Jesus meant that they often circulated outside the circle of Jesus’ followers: ‘So we have in the miracle stories a tradition which in contrast to all the other Jesus traditions has also been shaped by those standing further from it.’837 It is in the sayings tradition that we find an interpretative significance put upon the miracles of Jesus which integrates them with the total scope of his mission. There are two key passages.838 One relating to exorcisms adduces them as primary evidence of the efficacy of Jesus’ kingdom proclamation: ‘But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you’.839 Matthew has ‘Spirit of God’ in place of ‘finger of God’; the latter has resonances of Moses in Egypt confronting pharaoh with the plagues (Exodus 8:19). Given the context of the parable of the Strong Man,840 the commissioning of ‘the twelve’ and ‘the seventy’ referred to above (whether these represent a single event or not), and Jesus’ elation at his vision of Satan falling from heaven,841 there is every reason to confirm the authenticity of the saying. The other key passage relates to Jesus’ healings and his answer to the messengers of John the Baptist: ‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.’842 It is the healings which are here adduced as signs of the dawning new age and evidence that Jesus is indeed ‘the one who is to come’. As we shall note subsequently, this passage is core to the identity of the ministry of Jesus as we encounter it in the initial Beatitudes of Luke and the text of the address in the synagogue at Nazareth. The healings alone, and not the exorcisms, are identified in this passage; that is because it is only the healings that are foreshadowed in the book of Isaiah on which it is based. Each healing was for Jesus evidence of the fulfilment of the promises of God. His remarkable healings and exorcisms taken together carried enormous significance as tokens of the breaking kingdom; they identified Jesus as God’s eschatological agent. The insistence that the present age could be the harbinger of

834

Mark 8:22–26, cf. 8:27 ff. Cf. Mark 3:1–5 and parallels. 836 G. Theissen, The Gospels in Context (Edinburgh and Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1992), 99–115. 837 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 302. 838 Sanders is reticent about using individual sayings as evidence for Jesus’ thinking as it is difficult to establish their authenticity. He prefers to establish a framework or hypothesis, which can be tested. For his reticence regarding these particular passages, see Jesus and Judaism, 140–1. 839 Q Luke 11:20; cf. Matthew 12:28. 840 Q Luke 11:21–22; Matthew 12:29. 841 Luke 10:18. 842 Q Luke 7:22–23; Matthew 11:4–6. 835

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the age to come and already manifest the future salvation is ‘contrary to an apocalyptic pessimism which sees in the present only the great crisis in which the new world is born in pain’.843 This is an insight which connects with the positive evaluation that Jesus has of the order of creation, a point which we shall explore further below. We may conclude that Jesus’ ministry as charismatic healer and exorcist does not fit neatly into any pre-existing category or labelling. He was distinctive both in the profusion of stories that he generated and in the insistence that each healing was a unique evidence of the eschatological breaking in of the kingdom of God. Yet, there still lingers the question articulated by Morton Smith as to the priority of either the healing or the awareness of being God’s eschatological agent. Which produced the other? Was Jesus aware of his gift of healing before his baptism? We noted that it is likely that his prophetic charisma, the immediacy of his relationship with God and the sense of anointing with the Spirit, are to be traced to his baptism at the hands of John. As part of the Baptist’s movement he was already committed to an eschatological vision of the renewal of Israel. It seems that it was within that framework that he discovered and placed his gift of healing. It represented extraordinary confirmation of the dawning of God’s grace with good news for the poor. He was able to reflect: Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem. — Luke 13:32b–33

IV RABBI AND WISDOM TEACHER A third category that we identified in seeking to place Jesus within the life and activity of first-century Judaism is that of rabbi and Wisdom teacher. Jesus is consistently addressed as ‘Rabbi’ or ‘Teacher’ in the gospels. The address ‘Rabbi’, the Aramaic original, has been retained eight times in St John’s Gospel, if we include that of Mary Magdalene at the first resurrection appearance (here: Rabbouni – John 20:16). It has been transmitted in significant places in the Synoptic Gospels; for instance, it is used by Peter at the Transfiguration (in St Mark only of the parallel versions in the Synoptic Gospels),844 and by Judas in the Garden of Gethsemane in the Gospels of both St Mark and St Matthew.845 Gerd Theissen gives an evaluation: In discussing with other scribes, gathering disciples (math¯etai) around him, teaching in synagogue worship and answering the theological enquiries of lay people, Jesus, the former disciple of the rabbi John, corresponded to the contemporary notions of a rabbi. Such activity as a scribe presupposes a certain degree of education – even if we can certainly exclude an education lasting over many years. Unfortunately we can no longer discover how Jesus acquired this.846

Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 309. Mark 9:5. 845 Mark 14:45; Matthew 26:49. (Cf. Matthew 26:25 at the Last Supper.) 846 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 355. 843 844

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The Greek translation didaskalos, rendered ‘teacher’ in English, appears some twelve times in St Mark (thirty-nine times overall in the Synoptics) and six times in St John. For example, in a memory which bears all the marks of authenticity, Jesus refuses the appellation ‘Good Teacher’, referring the goodness to God alone (Mark 10:17 and parallels). He is even recognized as sufficiently authoritative in his command of Torah to be asked to adjudicate in a family inheritance dispute: ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me’ (Luke 12:13). Teacher is often used as a mode of respectful address by the immediate disciples.847 The word teacher is on the lips of a wide variety of people who approach Jesus and is used by him of himself.848 It seems that Jesus attended synagogue regularly on the sabbath,849 taught and even performed miracles in that context.850 He was remembered as paying the Temple tax (Matthew 17:24ff.) and perhaps even wore the fringe on his robe prescribed in Numbers 15:38–40.851 He instructed those cleansed of leprosy to follow the instructions in the Torah for their reintegration into society,852 and assumed the practice of ‘offering a gift at the altar’ (Matthew 5:23–24) in his radicalized moral teaching. The Johannine account of the Last Supper is distinctive for its episode of the foot washing. When Peter, having first refused to have his feet washed, asks for his hands and head to be washed as well, Jesus replies ‘one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet’ (John 13:10). That remark suggests that the tradition underlying the account understood that Jesus and his disciples had undergone the ritual bath of Jewish purity. The significance of Israel, Jerusalem, Temple, covenant and Passover to Jesus’ theological coinage is evident. It is in the context of these observations that we can understand that Jesus is portrayed as at ease with quite sophisticated discussion of the areas of Torah regularly disputed in his time. Jesus is shown as entering into discussions about the most important commandments in the Law. He combines Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 in his summary of the Law: One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ — Mark 12:28–31; cf. Matthew 22:35–40; Luke 10:5–28 St Mark includes the whole of the shema, whereas it is shortened in the other versions. The fact that St Luke allows the questioner to come back with the answer makes the point that Jesus is working within the parameters of contemporary Judaism. Clearly, Jesus is contributing creatively to a contemporary Torah debate.

847

Mark 4:38; 9:38; 10:35; 13:1; Luke 21:7; John 13:13–14. Matthew 10:24–25; Mark 14:4 and parallels; Luke 6:40; John 13:14. 849 Luke 4:16. 850 Mark 1:21; cf. Mark 3:1ff. 851 Matthew 9:20 and Luke 8:44 refer to the woman with bleeding who touched the ‘hem’ of Jesus’ robe. Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew, 16: ‘In conformity with the Mosaic precept . . . he wore a garment . . . fitted with “tassels”.’ Cf. Matthew 14:36. 852 Luke 5:14; 17:14. 848

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On another occasion Jesus is asked whether it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, something which the volatile Zealot-leaning elements of the population would have resisted. He famously steers a careful course avoiding backing the militants or denying the authority of Torah: ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Mark 12:17, ESV translation and parallels). He enters into debate with the Pharisees in which he is critical of the oral law when it enables something to be declared ‘dedicated to God’ (corban) and consequently is able to override the basic duty contained in the Ten Commandments towards parents (Mark 7:9ff.). This contrasts with Jesus’ more eschatological teaching when he instructs, ‘let the dead bury their own dead’ (Matthew 8:22; Luke 9:60), to which we shall return. There are many discussions about Sabbath observance, not least on an occasion when Jesus heals on the Sabbath and begins a halakhic debate: ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’853 On another occasion when the disciples are passing through the cornfields and rubbing ears of grain (Mark 2:23ff. and parallels), he is remembered as arguing cogently on their behalf. His overriding priority seems to be to receive the Sabbath as gift: ‘The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the sabbath’ (Mark 2:27). Jesus teaches about not parading almsgiving, public fasting or public praying before others, but rather entering the secret chamber of the soul.854 He teaches about prayer, giving his disciples a model form.855 He enters into discussion about the permissibility or otherwise of divorce. In this he seems to override one part of the Torah, by referring to another; he appeals to the intention of God in creation.856 Jesus also enters into discussions about purity. The report in St Mark reads: ‘Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles.’ — Mark 7:18–20 The sentence in italics is clearly a consequence drawn by the later interpretation of the Church, when the observance of Jewish food regulations became a live topic in the Gentile mission. However, the basis of the teaching is certainly compatible with Jesus’ prophetic priorities. This brief synopsis of the teaching of Jesus shows him operating within his Jewish environment, deft with handling legal matters, but with the radical edge of a prophet. Always the moral imperative embedded in the Law overrides any minute attention to legalistic detail. He is a critical friend to the Torah. He certainly does not make a decisive break with the Law, but is happy to critique it in favour of, what he regards as, its primary principle: ‘Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Matthew 5:48). It is an instruction based on Leviticus 19:2: ‘You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.’ The Lucan version of his teaching reads: ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’ (Luke 6:36). Vermes identifies Luke’s witness as the likely ‘genuine’ translation,857 and places it within its Jewish context including the Aramaic paraphrase of Leviticus 22:28 in

853

Mark 3:1–6 and parallels. Cf. John 7:23: ‘If a man receives circumcision on the sabbath in order that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I healed a man’s whole body on the sabbath?’ 854 Matthew 6:1–6, 16–18. 855 Matthew 6:7ff.; Luke 11:1ff. 856 Mark 10:2–9; Matthew 19:1–9. 857 Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew, 204.

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Targum Pseudo Jonathan: ‘My people, children of Israel, as your Father is merciful in heaven, so you must be merciful on earth.’858 Marcus Borg suggests that Jesus replaces the ‘Holiness Code’ with the ‘Mercy Code’.859 The principle of God-likeness enunciated in the Torah overrides everything. In the understanding of Jesus, mercy, compassion and generosity are the primary characteristics of God; they must inform any interpretation of the Law. That leads not to a denial of Torah, but rather to its intensification: You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times. . . . But I say to you . . . — Matthew 5:21ff.860 The significance of the intensification of the Law reveals a crucial clue to the search for a unity in Jesus’ teaching. To this we must return. For the moment we may note that Jesus was a teacher who engaged seriously and creatively with the interpretation of the Law and entered into the public debate. He displayed the radicalism of a prophet in appealing to first principles based on the Imitatio Dei; that is, the imitation of the mercy of God. In that, he is in the tradition of the classical prophets: He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8 It is evident that Jesus took for granted the raw material of his Jewish context grounded in the revelation of Torah. There is another dimension to the instruction of Jesus which takes us to Wisdom teacher. It is as if he has a parallel and distinct source of authority to Torah, and that is grounded in God as creator. In this his application of the principles of Wisdom seems to have much in common with the older Wisdom still evident in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job, rather than the later Wisdom of Ecclesiasticus and of Solomon which had integrated Torah and covenant into a single synthesis with creation reflection. The former position is captured one and a half millennia later by the statesman, philosopher and father of the scientific method, Francis Bacon: ‘God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation.’861 Jesus accords the authority of a ‘second Scripture’ to the Wisdom source upon which he draws for knowledge of the character of God. There is a distinct originality in Jesus’ adaptation of the Wisdom tradition in that he uses the physical environment of the Galilee as the basis for his creation observation. It is from this geography that he deduces his understanding of the character and identity of the Heavenly Father. This is captured by Vermes: ‘He is to begin with an appreciative child of the Galilean countryside.’862 The riot of colour of the spring flowers, more flamboyant than Solomon in all his glory, is evidence

858

Ibid., 158. Marcus Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1984), 123–43. 860 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 701, sounds a word of caution: ‘We have already noted . . . the strong likelihood that the repetition of the motif is the work of the teacher (Matthew?) who laid out the antitheses of the Sermon. . . . However, the motif itself is too firmly rooted within the Jesus tradition to be dismissed entirely, both in affirmative and adversative form (between which there is often not much difference).’ 861 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605). 862 Vermes, Jesus the Jew, 48. 859

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of God’s provision. God cares for the birds of the air, indeed not one falls to the ground without his knowledge.863 Grapes and figs, thorns and thistles,864 sunset and sunrise, rain and sunshine are all woven into his metaphors. The daily tasks of Galilee inform his parables with the casting of nets, the raising of sheep, the broadcasting of seed and the tending of vineyards. The natural order of Galilee and the human working of its rich provision provide constant lessons for understanding the identity of the generous hand of the Heavenly Father. Typical of the teaching of Jesus is a cascade of individual sayings or aphorisms. It is characteristic of his style that he could distil the significance of a particular piece of teaching into a single proverb-like, arresting, pithy statement. The tradition is full of such examples: ●

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21; cf. Luke 12:34)

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A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master. (Matthew 10:24)

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Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. (Mark 2:17 and parallels)

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For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life [for my sake] will find it. (Matthew 16:25; cf. Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; John 12:25)

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Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. (AV translation of Matthew 6:34b)

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The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them. (Mark 2:19 and parallels)

The significance of these aphorisms comes from their intrinsic authority and is not based on an exposition of Scripture or tradition. Their only counterpart is in the individual sayings of the Wisdom tradition. The discrete units of the book of Proverbs have a similar identity. Each stands independently and the collection takes on an accumulative value. Their validity comes from their evident correspondence with the world of human observation; yet, they have the ability to give striking, even unexpected, insight into the structure of things. The aphorisms which Jesus either reuses or, we may surmise, more often creates, are evidence of that alternative Wisdom-identity to his teaching. There are some occasions when Jesus identifies folk proverbs, directly drawing on creation, which are not his own, but which he is able to adapt to his purpose. For instance: When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. — Matthew 16:2–3; cf. Luke 12:54–56 These examples are indicative of the way Jesus was at home in the realm of the Wisdom teacher and expected to interpret the signals from the natural world as intimations of the creator. He could say: ‘From the fig tree learn its lesson’ (Mark 13:28). The profusion of parables in the synoptic tradition clearly identifies Jesus as a teacher, and one who searched for ways to communicate with clarity and impact. They, like the

863

Matthew 6:25ff.; 10:29. Matthew 7:16.

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aphorisms, lie within the Wisdom category. They are, similarly, self-authenticating and rely on their ability to capture an insight into reality that finds confirmation in the perception of those listening. Often the insight is surprising, even disconcerting, and contradictory of popular predisposition. The parables of Jesus are dissimilar to those of the later rabbis in not seeking to interpret Torah. They have an intrinsic authority which does not arise from the exposition of tradition, but from creation’s transparency to the creator. The insight of a parable has to be validated by engaging with the contours of daily life and existence. In consequence, the texture and design of the parables of Jesus are drawn from the familiar life of the Galilean countryside and the social conventions of the day. All of these activities are illustrative of the way God works and carry the imprint of his purpose. They are the fruits of a Wisdom approach to the natural order and the human activity which is a seamless part of it. It is for this reason that the parables of Jesus are a unique insight into the life and customs of the Palestine of his day. We learn of the work of the arable farmer, with the threats to the propagation of the seed; even the weeds sown by an enemy can be instructional, as also the miracle of growth that simply requires patience. We hear of the shepherd, who, despite the incongruity of the act, leaves a whole flock to search out the one sheep he has lost. There is the patient gardener who insists on manuring the fig tree to give it one more chance. There are the children playing in the marketplace. More stressful is the situation of the day labourers, waiting to be hired in the same marketplace; then there are the vineyard owners with the wherewithal to give them work. There are the stockists of olive oil that the bridesmaids need to seek out to replenish their lamps, the joy of the bridegroom and the eventualities of the wedding banquet. Other vignettes include the woman who has lost her coin, the merchant who deals in pearls, the unjust judge, the absentee landlord and the dishonest steward. Each one finds a place in the acute observation of Jesus. All of these fragments of daily life are the raw material of the parables of Jesus. It is in these that he perceives meaning, waiting to be interpreted, as he reads from the musical score of existence the song of God. We may note one further instance of Jesus using the ‘second Scripture’. There is no more characteristic teaching of Jesus than his uncompromising insistence: ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven’ (Matthew 5:44–45a; cf. Luke 6:35). The principle on which this is based exposes a significant source of Jesus’ inspiration. It turns out to be straightforwardly a Wisdom principle. There is an appeal to the character of God discernible in the creation: For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. — Matthew 5:45 The generosity of God as creator is clear from the lesson evident in the natural order. It is a generosity unrestricted and overwhelming, without condition. Nothing could make it clearer that the creation has the authority of a ‘second Scripture’. God is revealed in a parallel and independent way through Torah and through the creation. As a Wisdom teacher, Jesus is able to read and teach of the overflowing generosity and mercy of God through the pages of creation. The Heavenly Father is the creator of heaven and earth, and most especially of the benevolent environment of the Galilee. For the apocalyptic writers, Wisdom was esoteric heavenly knowledge. That was because Wisdom had found no place on a benighted earth and had taken off to heaven

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(1 Enoch 42:1–2). Heaven had to be scaled if humanity was to find Wisdom. Jesus, despite his eschatological horizon, is in total contrast to this assessment. Wisdom indwells creation with the signature of the Almighty. The created order has a mandate which reflects its divine origin. God is authoritatively revealed in his creation. The universal nature of the creator brings to the teaching of Jesus a quality of generosity and mercy. He can make the claim that ‘my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ (Matthew 11:30; cf. Ecclesiasticus 51:26) and that ‘wisdom is vindicated by all her children’ (Luke 7:35; cf. Matthew 11:19). Jesus is clearly an outstanding teacher and communicator in his skill at handling the complexities of Torah exposition, crafting original aphorisms and parables, as well as in gathering disciples. He is a poet and storyteller of considerable ability, sensitive to the Galilean landscape. He has sharp repartee, but equally a compassionate empathy for the plight of the poor communities to whom he is called. It is hard to believe that the sophistication of Jesus as teacher can possibly be compatible with the assessment of Crossan that Jesus is best understood as a Mediterranean peasant.865 Bultmann’s rhetorical question identifies the dilemma: ‘Is it perhaps true that this prophet came forth from the ranks of the scribes?’866 A further question of Bultmann is well placed: ‘How are Jesus the rabbi and Jesus the prophet related?’867 How can the eschatological prophet working to a crisis timetable embrace the serenity of a Wisdom teacher whose soul is moved by the Galilean landscape or the rabbi whose mind is agile in legal debate? For some scholars the only way to solve that riddle is to separate Jesus from the eschatological perspective of his mentor, John the Baptist. J.D. Crossan insists: ‘By the time Jesus emerged from John’s shadow with his own vision and his own program, they were quite different from John’s, but it may well have been John’s own execution that led Jesus to understand a God who did not and would not operate through imminent apocalyptic restoration.’868 Similarly, D. Flusser maintains that, unlike the Baptist, Jesus did not see the coming of the son of man and the last judgement as imminent.869 Nonetheless, it may be that we can bridge the seeming divide in the Jesus figure portrayed by tradition as both eschatological prophet and also rabbi and sage. As regards the legal debate, Jesus’ radical intensification of the Torah to breaking point goes beyond the possibility of straightforward legal compliance. It is visionary: ‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement”. But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement’ (Matthew 5:21). In Jesus’ teaching, compliance with Torah has been put through the eschatological lemon squeezer. In the new age, what is required is nothing less than participating in the life of God himself: ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’ (Luke 6:36; cf. Matthew 5:48). It involves entering fully into the potential of humanity ‘from the beginning’ made in the image of God. It is letting that image burn with pentecostal fire. Far from an intensification of legal demand, it is a dream of liberation. The sense is captured in the collect adopted in Anglican mattins: ‘whose

Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, xvi: ‘If, for example, we are tempted to describe Jesus as a literate middle-class carpenter, cross-cultural anthropology reminds us that there was no middle class in ancient societies and that peasants are usually illiterate; so how could Jesus become what never existed at his time?’ 866 Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, 58. 867 Ibid., 121. 868 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 53. 869 D. Flusser, Jesus, 2nd edn (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1998), 48. 865

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service is perfect freedom’. That phrase translates the Latin: Cui servare regnare est (‘Whom to serve is to reign’). It is in the eschatological dimension of the identity of Jesus that we discover the true perspective of his Torah teaching. He does not replace difficult demands with an impossible load. Rather, he moves from the duty inherent in the old order to the joy that anticipates the new age. The second mile is the kingdom mile. The invitation is to a world about to be transformed by the joyous contagion of the very life of God. There is a convergence between Jesus’ teaching based on Torah and his deductions based on the Wisdom principles. It becomes clear in his instruction on divorce. In the intensification of the demands of the Torah, he appeals to the creation ordinance in Genesis 1:27b and 2:24: Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate. — Matthew 19:4–6 Matthew himself treats Jesus’ demand in legalistic terms and consequently reduces its absolute demand to something approaching the realistic ‘except for unchastity’ (19:9, as also 5:32, but cf. Luke 16:18). However, for Jesus there is a correspondence between his eschatological intensification of the Torah and the ultimate purposes of God in creation which are about to be restored in the coming consummation. The absoluteness of Torah and the renewed order of creation would be as one in the eschatological scenario. A similar convergence is to be discerned in the unqualified demand of Leviticus 19:2 that expects a holiness that reflects God’s own perfection, which Jesus underwrites, and its mirror image in the unqualified generosity of God in creation (Matthew 5:45) which humans are called upon to match. The looming crisis of salvation brings an urgency to the ethical imperative. It is in the context of that immediacy that we must understand the deliberately provocative saying of Jesus: ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead’ (Matthew 8:22). The question remains: how is it that creation held such a priority for Jesus that he uses it as an authority on a par with the Torah? He is able to discern in its processes the indications of God’s coming consummation. The parable of the Sower indicates the eventual triumph of creation’s potential for good growth,870 and the analogies of the leaven and the salt871 demonstrate creation’s potential for transformation. There is a continuity, an unfolding, between the present and God’s imminent future which his intervention will secure. That imminent future, to which we give the label of eschatology, was portrayed in Second Temple Judaism in the vocabulary of creation theology. We need to be reminded of the observation made in a previous chapter in relation to the significant change in Israel’s theological orientation precipitated by the exile and its aftermath: ‘It is as if . . . the primacy of creation theology departs through the front door, as epic tradition makes its entry, only to reappear through the back door in furnishing the vital imagery of the era of salvation.’872 The old proclamation of the kingdom in the renewal

870

Mark 4:1–9 and parallels. Luke 13:20–21 (Matthew 13:33); Luke 14:34 (Matthew 11:15). 872 Chapter Nine above, s. II. 871

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of creation – ‘your God reigns’ – now gives voice to the good news of a transformed creation, with all of its relationships renewed, in the eschaton. The priority which Jesus gives to creation theology is intimately related to his concern to press the finality of God’s coming intervention. The tradition furnished him with the tools of creation theology to give tongue to the eschatological consummation. In particular, he used the specific imagery of the kingdom of God to focus his message. It is to that concept we must now turn.

V SOURCING THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE PROCLAMATION OF JESUS The enigma of the New Testament lies in the fact that Jesus announced the good news of the kingdom of God and the Church proclaimed Jesus as the heart of its gospel message. If we are to encounter the Jesus of history, we have to delve behind the proclamation of the Church to the urgent message of the kingdom which was first announced in Galilee: Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news’. — Mark 1:14–15 Q recalls that Jesus commissioned his disciples with a similar message: ‘As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” ’ (Matthew 10:7; cf. Luke 10:9). The kingdom of God is the hallmark of the teaching and proclamation of the historical Jesus.873 It is not a concept that was much apparent in contemporary Judaism, the modest exception being the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran in which the vocabulary of king (mlk) and kingdom (mlkut) are evident.874 It is not widely used in the New Testament outside Jesus’ own reported words.875 We are close to the fire.876 The announcement of John, at best, was sombre. He proclaimed that the time was fulfilled for the final judgement of God to be unleashed. The great crisis now at hand was to be feared and required repentance sealed by baptism: ‘Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ (Q, Luke 3:7b; Matthew 3:7b). Jesus, although having emerged as John’s disciple, had a different emphasis. For Jesus, the breaking in of God’s final purpose was no less real or immediate, the judgement no less final, but it resulted in the establishment of the kingdom. That was unremittingly good news. Although Mark’s

873 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 384: ‘The phrase “kingdom of God” occurs regularly in the Evangelists’ recollection of Jesus’ words – thirteen times in Mark, another nine times in the material shared by Matthew and Luke (q/Q), a further twenty-eight times in tradition distinctive of Matthew, and a further twelve times in tradition attested only by Luke.’ He notes also (fn. 8): ‘Twenty-two of Thomas’s one-hundred fourteen sayings refer to “the kingdom (of God/heaven)”.’ St John’s Gospel has the phrase just five times; the substitute is ‘eternal life’, cf. John 3:3, 5. 874 C. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1985). 875 Acts 1:3, 6; 8:12; 14:22; 28:31; Romans 14:17; 1 Corinthians 4:20; 6:9, 10; 15:50; cf. 15:24; Galatians 5:21; Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 4:11, cf. 1:13; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; Revelation 12:10. 876 Cf. Gospel of Thomas 82: ‘The one who is near me is near the fire; and the one who is far from me is far from the kingdom.’ Translation from B.D. Ehrman and Z. Plese, eds and trans, The Other Gospels (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 170.

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frequent use of ‘good news’ (euangelion) as a noun is a redactional trait,877 it nonetheless captures the positive energy of the kingdom’s proclamation. As the Q source reminds us, the activity of bringing ‘good news to the poor’ characterizes the message of Jesus (Matthew 11:5; Luke 7:22). The verb (euangelizesthai) has an Isaianic ring (cf. Isaiah 52:7; 61:1). The classic analogy of the kingdom in the parables of Jesus was a banquet, and the hallmark of such an occasion was sheer joy. The kingdom comes with delight and not with threat. How are we to understand this profound difference of perspective? The answer must lie in the nature of the kingdom. There are plenty of analogies and metaphors to be found in the psalms and the prophets relating to the rule of God and kingship. Scripture,878 worship and prayer,879 as well as the often-testing experience under contemporary kingship (Maccabean and Herodian), and the messianic hopes associated with a Davidic renaissance, would all have contributed to the mix of familiarity and hope represented by the metaphor of God’s kingship in the popular perception of first-century Palestine. Yet, where is there a parallel to the driven good news of the kingdom ablaze with excitement anywhere else in the biblical tradition? The perspective of this study has identified a strangely similar proclamation with runners urgently taking the good news of the reign of God and the establishment of his kingly rule to the people. It is to be found in the mythic rather than the epic character of Israel’s traditions. It takes us back to the significance of kingship in the understanding of world order in the Ancient Near East, in which cultural identity Israel and Judah had participated as sovereign states governed by a king. The worship and liturgy of the Jerusalem Temple in the period of the kings was transparent to the mythic perspective. We noted that, in common with the Canaanite temples, the Jerusalem Temple kept the autumn New Year festival. It was a festival of creation with cosmic reach, which celebrated the kingship of God over an ordered world. It began with an enacted conflict between God and the forces of chaos. The victory of God was celebrated with a triumphal procession. The ark, carried shoulder high, represented the presence of God; runners went ahead announcing the good news of the divine victory. The ceremony concluded with the enthronement of the ark in the Temple on the cherubim throne. That enthronement symbolized the kingship of God over an ordered world in which righteousness, justice and peace were established by divine fiat. Nature and human society were part of a single order which was now restored and healthily integrated under the reign of God. Each year, as the world was restored to primal order, the festival was a time of holy carnival, joy and celebration responding to the proclamation of the good news: ‘Your God reigns’. We summarized above:

877 W. Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist: Studies on the Redaction History of the Gospel (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1969), 117–50. Mark uses euangelion at 1:1, 14, 15; 8:35; 10:29; 13:10; 14:9. The association of the noun with Augustan and later Roman ruler-cult relating to an auspicious reign has been noted. William Horbury summarizes: ‘In the discussion below I have taken it that influence from ruler-cult should indeed be recognized, but in convergence with rather than as an alternative to biblical and later Jewish influence.’ W. Horbury, ‘ “Gospel” in Herodian Judaea’, in The Written Gospel, ed. M. Bockmuehl and D.A. Hagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 11. 878 A sample cross-section might be: 2 Samuel 7:12ff.; 1 Chronicles 17:11ff.; Jeremiah 10:10; Isaiah 43:15; Zechariah 14:9; Deuteronomy 13:14ff.; Psalms 2; 24:7ff., 89, 93, 95:1–7 etc. 879 Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 198, draws attention to the Aramaic Kaddish prayer used in the synagogue, with its resonances with the Lord’s Prayer: ‘May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime and in your days and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon.’ Mishnah Berakhoth 2:2 refers to ‘the yoke of the kingdom’.

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Not only did the victory procession of the Divine Warrior celebrate the establishment of the ordered world, but it was at the same time a powerful instrument for restoring the world of the present to its original intended pristine state. Those who had something to fear as the Divine Warrior came to impose his will were those caught on the wrong side of correct order; these were those who had allowed themselves to be allied to dysfunctional chaos. They were responsible for the malaise of the world and, as it was turned from inside-out to right order, would find themselves in cosmic outer darkness. Among the ones on the wrong side of order were certainly those who had no pity on the weak and the needy. There is, of course, a sense of excitement and joy associated with the coming of judgement at the annual autumn festival as the world is about to be returned to good order and prosperity.880 The reign of God assured the good order of the universe, and of human society within it. That universal good order was celebrated most eloquently by picturing God enthroned: Say among the nations, ‘The Lord is king!’ The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. — Psalm 96:10 We noted that in the post-exilic period the epic nature of Israel’s faith crystallized. Scripture emerged witnessing to a history of salvation which emphasized God’s providential hand in Israel’s election and sacred story grounded in the Exodus rescue. Whereas the story of creation involved the heavenly drama of the Divine Warrior and brought a mythic interpretation to existence, Israel’s sacred history was about God’s relationship with his people in their journey through time and space. However, with the yearning of God’s people for evidence of God’s salvation, after the catastrophe of the exile, there developed the characteristic eschatological expectation that waited upon a significant divine initiative. For some, the working out of God’s providential purpose for Israel was seamless with the unfolding of history and involved no abrupt break. By contrast, the hope for a decisive eschatological intervention also developed; it was characteristic especially of some apocalyptic circles. They developed a literature which adapted the mythic idiom to express the expected intervention of God in history. There was a return of creation mythology, but now harnessed to express the moment of consummation. A radical divine eruption into the flow of events was predicted, bringing about nothing less than a new creation. The decisive influence in this development is usually credited to Deutero-Isaiah.881 We noted above that he took the mythic imagery of the New Year festival with its key image of the reign of God, as it had been celebrated in the Jerusalem Temple, and in a prophetic ploy reapplied it to the liberation of the exiles.882 He announced that the restoration of God’s good order, which involved the rebalancing of creation according to the principles

880

See above, Chapter Two, s. IV. Deutero-Isaiah signals what has been called ‘a recrudescence of myth’. For instance, see: Obadiah 21; Zephaniah 3:15; Isaiah 33; 24 to 27; Zechariah 12 to 14. 882 See above, Chapter Eight, ss. I and II. These are precisely the elements identified by N.T. Wright in his scheme (see n. 787 above) of the end of exile, the overcoming of evil and Yahweh’s return to Zion which, we would argue, configure into a single mythic pattern relating to cosmology. 881

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of justice, righteousness and peace, would result in the exaltation of Jerusalem and the corresponding casting down of Babylon. Nothing less than a new equilibrium is anticipated. The grounds of the prophet’s inexorable logic that the exaltation of Jerusalem is crucial to returning creation to right order (sedeq ̣ ) under the kingship of God is captured by H.H. Schmid: ‘In Deutero-Isaiah, sdq denotes the order of Yahweh, which, corresponding to the order of creation, will break through in the time of salvation which is close at hand.’883 The sense of good news that drives the whole message of DeuteroIsaiah is as a direct result of his harnessing the New Year festival traditions to the arena of history. The grand processional way through the desert will be a highway through which the glory of God will pass (Isaiah 40:3–5). The divine messengers will proclaim the return of the victorious God to Jerusalem’s waiting sentinels: How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.’ — Isaiah 52:7 The remarkable thing is that these reconfigured New Year festival traditions, originally associated with Temple worship, emerge with a new energy at the time of the book of Daniel, some four hundred years after the extinction of Temple liturgy. Commenting on Daniel 7, Professor J. Emerton refers to A. Bentzen: He accepts Mowinckel’s theory that, in pre-exilic Israel, the autumn festival included a celebration of Yahweh’s victory over the chaos monster and of his enthronement as king, and that this festival played a decisive role in the rise of eschatology. If Mowinckel’s theory be accepted – and it must suffice here to express the opinion that it is essentially right, however much it may need to be modified in details – then it can hardly be denied that Dan. vii reflects the imagery of the festival. The beasts rising from the sea, the salvation of Israel, and the act of receiving kingship all suggest the complex of ideas of the enthronement festival. Dan. vii is an eschatological form of the situation at that festival.884 The book of Daniel has impacted on the Jesus tradition. In particular, the mention of the Son of Man is a reliable indicator: Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. — Mark 8:38; cf. Luke 9:26 [adapted Matthew 10:32] This quotation begs the question whether Jesus is to be identified with the coming Son of Man, although Matthew makes that connection. The reference to God not as king but as Father is a Jesus trait. Although the image of the Son of Man is developed in the tradition, which by Matthew’s stage may be influenced by the Similitudes,885 there is no

Schmid, Gerechtigkeit als Weltordnung, 133. J.A. Emerton, ‘The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery’, JTS 9, no. 2 (1958): 230–1. 885 J. Theisohn, Der auserwählte Richter (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 149–82, has argued that the particular references to the Son of Man in Matthew (19:28 and 25:31) which describe him as ‘seated on the throne of his glory’ bear all the hallmarks of the influence of the Similitudes. 883 884

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good reason to deny that the origin of the Danielic link should be traced back to Jesus himself. Adela Yarbro Collins comments: ‘If Jesus’ outlook was eschatological, it is likely that he understood the Book of Daniel to refer to his own time and to the near future.’886 It is most probably in the continuing tradition history of the interpretation of Daniel 7, within its context in the whole book of Daniel, that Jesus would have encountered the vitality and authority of the ancient creation imagery reapplied to God’s decisive and final intervention in history. The witness of the book of Revelation provides a significant parallel and is evidence of the contemporary vitality of the mythic traditions. It is full of mythical and Old Testament references, in which the book of Daniel plays a decisive role. It has been said: ‘The Book of Daniel has influenced John’s vision from almost the first verse to the last: for example, the vision of “one like the Son of Man” in chapter 1, the vision of the beast in chapter 13, and the description of the book as “what is to take place after this” (Rev 1:19).’887 The victory of the Divine Warrior resonates throughout the book of Revelation, with its classic outcome expressed in terms of the definitive final kingdom: The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever. — Revelation 11:15b Revelation has a pulse which beats to the proclamation of the kingdom as no other New Testament work. It points us in the direction of the book of Daniel. We cannot know the exact form in which Jesus may have encountered the Danielic stream of tradition associated with the New Year festival, and the developing interpretation arising from the use of the phrase ‘one like a son of man’. The specific significance of the Son of Man for Jesus we shall have to consider later. The interpretation of the Danielic tradition may have been mediated to him either orally or in written form now lost. The Similitudes of Enoch are evidence of a particular written outcome of ongoing interpretation, which also absorbed other influences, composed at approximately the time of Jesus. Although probably not known to him, it is comparative evidence of the way the Danielic tradition was developing and having a lively impact in certain circles on theological reflection. Certainly, Jesus would have brought his own originality to the mix of interpretation he inherited. As we cannot know in what form the tradition was mediated to Jesus, we have no option but to base our analysis on the stage of the tradition as encountered in the book of Daniel. The vision of Daniel 7 opens with the heavenly court in session, its members seated on their thrones, with the Ancient of Days likewise enthroned. The books are opened ready to record the court’s decision. In the background is the clamour of the persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. The account continues: As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations and languages

886 Adela Yarbro Collins, ‘The Influence of Daniel on the New Testament’, in Daniel: A Commentary, ed. J.J. Collins (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1994), 93. 887 Judith Kovacs and Christopher Rowland, Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 3.

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should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed. — Daniel 7:13–14 This judgement is recapitulated some verses later. Antiochus loses his kingship: Then the court shall sit in judgement, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and totally destroyed. The kingship and dominion and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High; their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them. — Daniel 7:26–27 Daniel 7 poses a number of interpretive challenges, several of which were discussed in Chapter Thirteen above. In contrast to the usage of Jesus, the exact phrase, the ‘kingdom of God’, does not appear in Daniel 7. In terms of the proclamation of the kingdom, Jesus seems to have more in common with the tradition to be discerned behind Daniel 7. However, it remains clear that what is at stake in Daniel 7 is the kingdom. The succession of beastly chaotic kingdoms is to be destroyed. The Ancient of Days, enthroned and source of kingship, in bestowing kingship on ‘one like a son of man’ indicates that ‘judgement was given for the holy ones of the Most High, and the time arrived when the holy ones gained possession of the kingdom’ (7:22). That kingdom is final and is to be ‘an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey them’ (7:27). The greater context of the book of Daniel provides further insight into the likely interpretive influences at work on the reception of Daniel 7. Immediately prior to that chapter, there is reference to the kingdom as God’s. Daniel 6, following the episode of Daniel in the lions’ den, ends with the proclamation of a royal decree. It commends Daniel’s God, but in terms of a static established kingdom rather than a dynamic emerging one: For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. — Daniel 6:26b; cf. also Daniel 4:3; 4:34 However, the dynamic establishment of the kingdom as the direct initiative of God is articulated following the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a huge statue made of different materials. The statue is destroyed by a cut stone made ‘not by human hands’, with a decisive outcome: And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever. — Daniel 2:44 There is material in the book of Daniel to feed the concept of God’s intervention to establish the kingdom and to give context to the interpretation of Daniel 7. An interpretive puzzle of Daniel 7 is that God is never referred to as king. God is enthroned, he is the authoritative source of kingship, but that kingship is awarded to the one like a son of man. It is the one like a son of man who has ‘dominion and glory and kingship’, although he is not actually said to be enthroned. God is identified as the Ancient

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of Days or the Most High. This is a significant difference from the witness of the enthronement psalms and the tradition represented by Deutero-Isaiah which both celebrate God as king. In this, we may note, Daniel 7 corresponds directly with the usage of Jesus. Although he constantly refers to the kingdom of God, he almost never refers to God as king (some parables perhaps being the exception). Jesus prefers, rather, Father or Heavenly Father. That is clear in the words of the Lord’s Prayer, where we find ‘Father’ (not ‘king’) balancing ‘kingdom’. It is likely, then, that Jesus draws upon the rich seam of Ancient Near Eastern creation theology for his proclamation of the kingdom of God. It is embedded deep in Israel’s own traditions relating to the Jerusalem Temple and taken up in prophetic reinterpretation pioneered by Deutero-Isaiah. It finds a particular apogee in the eschatological imagery of apocalyptic literature. More specifically, it is mediated by the ongoing interpretive tradition associated with Daniel 7. If this insight is valid, then we are able to identify several crucial qualities generic to the concept of the kingdom which Jesus would have inherited and handled. First, as with all creation traditions, the concept of the kingdom was cosmic and universal. God’s good order is not restricted to Israel; it extends to all nations and peoples. The scope of order also extends to the physical world of which human beings are a part and from which their destiny cannot be separated. The good order of the cosmos is seamless as regards individuals, society and nature. Second, the New Year festival traditions as they shaped theological reflection were associated with Temple liturgy and the ancient mythology of Jerusalem. Within this perspective the concept of universal order was not neutral in the way that Wisdom relativized everything, reckoning all peoples and places equidistant from God. Rather, Jerusalem was conceived as ‘the joy of all the earth’ (Psalm 48:2); the Holy City and its Temple were at the fulcrum of the universal dawning of the kingdom of God. Only when Jerusalem was raised up would the universal kingdom be safe and secure. By extension, it meant that Israel as a whole had an essential part to play in the establishment of God’s kingly rule. Third, the notion of the eschatological dawning of the kingdom is not so much individual as corporate. In a creation context, the world is a single balanced system and one part cannot be changed without there being implications for the whole. In order for creation to be redeemed it has to ‘flip’; there is a reversal of fortunes. That is, order has to be rebalanced and find a new equilibrium in which all of its relationships are recalibrated and given a fresh alignment. Finally, fourth, we noted in a previous chapter that there were certain defining moral characteristics of God’s kingly rule as constituted at Jerusalem in the context of the New Year festival.888 They reflected the character and identity of the one calling ‘order’. They were expressed in three classic qualities: righteousness, justice and peace. A further subset of qualities was discerned: truth, mercy (loving kindness) and equity. These qualities remain essential to the identity of the kingdom as it was reapplied in an eschatological context. For instance, as we have seen, in 1 Enoch 10:16 righteousness and truth are complementary and define the coming eschatological age: ‘And every iniquitous deed will end, and the plant of righteousness and truth will appear forever and he will plant joy.’ Of course, we have to allow for changes of nuance in the significance of the vocabulary

888

See above, Chapter Two, ss. I, II and III.

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and its application over the timespan involved. Righteousness in the sense of right conduct comes to be identified with Torah in the Second Temple period.889 In apocalyptic circles it tends to be given a creation reference. We noted that, in Jubilees, Sabbath, covenant and circumcision are all part of the creation ordinance and, therefore, keeping them contributes to universal proper order. The eschatological force of justice in the context of the Similitudes890 is evident in its radical social application. That work rejoices ‘in the spirit of mercy, in the spirit of justice and peace’ (1 Enoch 61:11). In 1 Enoch 16:3, when Enoch approaches God on behalf of the Watchers, the impossibility of their reintegration into the order which they have damaged receives definitive expression: ‘Tell them, “Therefore, you will have no peace!” ’ The assayer’s marks of the kingdom are consistent throughout its developing significance.

889

For instance, ‘The Teacher of Righteousness’ at Qumran, who is to lead the community in the study of the Law. See above Chapter Eleven, s. V. Further discussion in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jesus of Nazareth (2) – Kingdom Pioneer I THE NATURE AND IDENTITY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE PROCLAMATION OF JESUS The proclamation of Jesus does not give us a definitive description, let alone a map, of the kingdom of God as he anticipated it. Rather he gives us glimpses of the moment of transition as the kingdom comes into being and of the impact of its dawning as he envisaged it. We catch the kingdom as breaking news with many of the contrasts with the old order profiled. A fundamental aspect of the kingdom is that it exhibits the qualities and the universalism of creation theology. A passage which was significant for Jesus’ own self-understanding was Isaiah 35 which looks to the release of the blind, the deaf, the lame and the dumb. That liberation is portrayed as part of the gift of abundant fertility bestowed across creation: ‘For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert’ (Isaiah 35:6). We must understand that ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness’ spoke of the fulfilment of both Israel’s vocation and creation’s purpose. The importance for the kingdom of the renewal of creation accounts for the inclusion of the stilling of the storm in the Jesus tradition. God’s word over chaos is recapitulated: He [Jesus] woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. — Mark 4:39; cf. Luke 8:24891 The incident, as portrayed, echoes the mythic battle with the chaotic waters and enables the tradition to signal that the message of Jesus anticipates a renewed creation. That renewal is summed up by ‘Peace’, used as an imperative and defining a creation resplendent in its harmony. Here, although the tradition has been developed and shaped, it nonetheless resonates to Jesus’ kingdom proclamation. We are reminded that the eschatological perspective of Jesus furnished him with the tools of creation theology and highlighted the significance of a renewed natural order in God’s future. That perspective enabled him to look to the creation as well as to the Torah as a source of revelation. Universalism in connection with Jesus’ own proclamation is captured in some Q material:

891

Cf. John 6:16–21, where a similar story may be a misplaced resurrection appearance.

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I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. — Matthew 8:11–12; cf. Luke 13:28–29 That universalism is to be taken at face value. It is not about the gathering of the diaspora, but about the fulfilment of the promise of the book of Isaiah: On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear. And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; he will swallow up death forever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. — Isaiah 25:6–8 The communal meal as a sign of the kingdom could represent unity in diversity. That is, the potential of a complex and fragmented world to be drawn by divine fiat into a single society, living in wholeness and harmony, right order and peace. It was crucial for the prophetic symbolism of the ministry of Jesus. We observed in connection with the Qumran community, in a contrasting way, ‘the pure meal’ was similarly significant in anticipating the messianic age.892 The physicality of the kingdom in the very renewal of creation’s infrastructure receives tangible expression in what seems to be the expectation of Jesus in regard to the Temple. The incident known as the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’, recorded in all four Gospels, was an act of prophetic symbolism by Jesus which involved a deliberately provocative demonstration: And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. — Mark 11:15–16 and parallels; cf. John 2:13ff. In what context are we to set this act? Is this a protest against the very nature of sacrifice or, perhaps, the economic exploitation entailed in the commercialism associated with obtaining sacrificial animals? Or beyond protest, is Jesus by his symbolic action announcing the coming destruction of the Temple, in a similar way to the prophetic activity of Jeremiah when he shattered a pot to declare the demise of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 19)? Or is this an eschatological act which anticipates the oracle of the final verse of the prophecy of Zechariah: ‘And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day’?893 Sanders argues against seeing Jesus’ action as a protest against perceived Temple abuse, as such polemic does not figure in the sayings tradition which takes Temple practice for granted (cf. Matthew 5:23–24 and Luke 5:14; 17:14) and left no imprint on the early Jesus movement, which continued to frequent the Temple (cf. Luke 24:53; Acts 2:46). He does see Jesus’ prophetic demonstration as enacting the destruction of the Temple: ‘The 892

1QS 5.13f.; cf. 1QSa (1Q28a) 2.16ff. Zechariah 14:21.

893

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turning over of even one table points towards destruction.’894 There is certainly the memory that Jesus predicted the destruction of the Temple (Mark 13:1-2 and parallels). In a literal way those words were fulfilled in the events of 70 CE . Did Jesus have such an attack on the Temple ‘by the nations’ in mind895 or is that timescale incompatible with his time horizon? There is an enigma to be addressed in the tradition that associates Jesus with the prophecy of the destruction of the Temple. He is associated also with the prediction of the restoration of the Temple. This emerges in the so-called ‘false testimony’ at his trial: ‘We heard him say, “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands” ’ (Mark 14:58; cf. Matthew 26:61). The same accusation is repeated by bystanders at the cross.896 There is a further similar reference in St John’s Gospel, where the ‘Cleansing of the Temple’ is placed early in the ministry of Jesus. In that context the direct speech of Jesus claims: ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up’ (2:19). This may be close to an original parabolic riddle annunciated by Jesus. The evangelist explains that these words were understood later by Jesus’ disciples, in the light of Easter, in terms of the resurrection. There is a further resonance of the accusation against Jesus regarding the destruction of the Temple at the trial of Stephen (Acts 6:14). What are we to make of the persistent memory of this allegation against Jesus? The mysterious juxtaposition of destruction and restoration of the Temple, with perhaps a resonance of Hosea 6:2, ‘on the third day he will raise us up’, points towards an eschatological context for Jesus’ action which proved so provocative. The conclusion of E.P. Sanders seems to set us in the right direction: ‘Jesus probably thought that in the new age, when the twelve tribes of Israel were again assembled, there would be a new and perfect Temple, built by God himself. That was standard eschatological or new-age thinking.’897 That was certainly the hope of the Apocalypse of Weeks,898 which records of the eighth week: Then I stood still, looking at that ancient house being transformed: All the pillars and all the columns were pulled out; and the ornaments of that house were packed and taken out together with them and abandoned . . . I went on seeing until the Lord of the sheep brought about a new house, greater and loftier than the first one. — 1 Enoch 90:28–29 A similar eschatological picture is expressed in Jubilees 1:29. This eschatological context is confirmed by the insight of Ben F. Meyer. He is able to make sense of the first-person pronoun in the report of the words of Jesus. He suggests that the clue to understanding the sequence of motifs in the trial of Jesus in St Mark’s Gospel is to be found in Nathan’s oracle in 2 Samuel 7. Both texts exhibit a 899

Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 70. N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 342: ‘All was focused on the central point, that the Temple’s destruction would constitute his own [Jesus’] vindication.’ Wright argues that the destruction of the Temple foretold by Jesus with apocalyptic symbolism is the metaphorical coming of the Son of Man (cf. Mark 13) and Yahweh’s return to Zion in judgement and liberation. 896 Mark 15:29; Matthew 27:40. 897 Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, 261. 898 See above Chapter Eleven, s. IV. 899 See above, Chapter Thirteen, s. IV. 894 895

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correspondence in Temple building (Mark 14:58), divine sonship (Mark 14:61) and definitive enthronement (Mark 14:62). Nathan, on behalf of God, promises David concerning his heir: He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. — 2 Samuel 7:13–14a Interpreted as an eschatological prophecy, the passage promises that the Messiah will build the final Temple. Qumran provides a precedent for Nathan’s prophecy being cast in an eschatological framework.900 This leads to the observation by Meyer: ‘We conclude that in the word on building the temple in three days we have found a solid point of departure for dealing with messiahship as a determining factor in Jesus’ understanding of himself and his mission.’901 It seems that Jesus envisaged the eschatological dismantling of the Temple and its replacement with a new one, ‘not the work of human hands’, under the initiative of the Messiah, as focal for the new age. The glory of the latter house would surpass Herod’s best endeavours. This both coincides with and contrasts with the vision of the book of Revelation, where the new Jerusalem similarly descends from heaven ready-made, but the presence of God precludes the necessity of a temple (Revelation 21:2 and 21:22). The demonstration by Jesus in the Temple amounted to the proclamation of the kingdom’s breaking. In it he anticipated a new Temple as part of the new creation, with himself as its agent, the Messiah. We shall return to the implications in terms of Jesus’ messianic claim. It is clear that the universalism of Jesus’ concept of kingdom radiates out from Jerusalem with its Temple and from Israel with its ancestral traditions. It was Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with whom the nations would be invited to dine. In preparing for the coming kingdom, it was, therefore, to the ‘lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matthew 15:24) that Jesus addressed his mission. That is evident in that he calls twelve special disciples to represent the restored Israel and to take a pivotal role in the cosmic regeneration. He clearly expected that renewal to include the return of the ‘lost tribes’ as he promised the twelve ‘and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Q Luke 22:30). In that scenario of world transformation breaking out from a restored Israel, Jesus himself would have a still more pivotal position; this is indeed indicated in the request of James and John to sit ‘one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom’.902 In preaching the kingdom, Jesus looked to the coming restoration of Israel as its hinge. The nature of the expected transition brought about by the dawning of the kingdom is evident from the Beatitudes. In both Matthew and Luke they open the initial presentation of the teaching of Jesus taken from the Q source.903 In both Gospels the first blessing pronounced on the poor is linked to the kingdom of God. In Luke the blessings are stark and almost shocking: ‘Blessed are you who are poor’; in Matthew they have become

900

4QFlor 1–13 (4Q174). Ben F. Meyer, The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM Press, 1979), 180. The given interpretation of 2 Samuel 7:12–14 may be traced back to O. Betz, ‘Die Frage nach dem messianischen Bewusstsein Jesu’, Novum Testamentum 6 (1963): 24–37. 902 Matthew 20:21 (where the request is directed by the apostles’ mother); Mark 10:37 replaces ‘glory’ for ‘kingdom’. 903 Matthew 5:3ff.; Luke 6:20ff. 901

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somewhat tamed and less immediate: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’. A fragmentary scroll from Qumran indicates a contemporary Wisdom form by which Matthew’s inherited tradition has shaped this teaching of Jesus.904 The Lucan recension has the prior claim to originality. This has been summarized by G. Theissen: The beatitudes on the poor, the hungry, the sorrowing and the persecuted were in the Logia source. Whereas the last of them could reflect the experiences of post-Easter persecutions, the first may be original in the following form: Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God. Blessed are those who hunger (now), for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are those who weep (now), for they shall be comforted.905 The reason why the poor, the hungry and those who weep are blessed is because their situation is about to be alleviated. The poor will find themselves in the kingdom; those who are hungry now will find themselves participating in the messianic banquet. God himself will wipe away the tears from the faces of those who weep (cf. Revelation 21:4). The immediacy of the hope could not be more forcefully put. A radical justice is of the very essence of the kingdom. St Luke highlights the eschatological reversal in recording woes to the rich, the well-nourished and those who laugh (Luke 6:24ff.). That cosmic rebalancing, involved in the kingdom’s dawning, is similarly picked up by St Luke in the Song of Mary (the Magnificat). Based on the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1ff., which is itself the product of common cultural themes relating to Ancient Near Eastern kingship, it could be called a ‘Song of the Kingdom’: He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. — Luke 1:52–53 Justice involves evenness and fairness; a new cosmic ecology is established in which relationships are reordered to reflect the righteousness of God. The plight of the rich is identified in a characteristic saying of Jesus: ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God’ (Matthew 19:24). The reversal characteristic of the kingdom is the subject of a number of parables and aphorisms recorded of him. For instance, after the parable of the guests at the wedding feast, where the host reverses the status of the one who is diffident, there is a summary: ‘For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted’ (Luke 14:11). The parable of the Labourers

904 4QBeatitudes (4Q525). Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, 233–4, summarizes: ‘Although there is no need to argue for literary dependence of Matthew upon 4QBeatitudes, their similarities in structure, content, genre and theology suggest that in presenting the teaching of Jesus in the way he does Matthew is standing firmly in line with the developing Wisdom traditions of some section of first-century Palestinian Judaism and Jewish Christianity (“Q”).’ 905 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 253–4.

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in the Vineyard evens out the playing field in favour of those popularly regarded as less deserving, and likewise concludes with a summary statement: ‘So the last will be first, and the first will be last’ (Matthew 20:16). Such is the nature of the coming initiative of God. There is a necessary rebalancing of creation’s equilibrium in favour of the poor and the outcast. Jesus may have been influenced in composing the initial three Beatitudes by Isaiah 61:1–3.906 Those verses are programmatic for St Luke’s Gospel where vv. 1–2 occur, slightly adapted and supplemented (cf. Isaiah 58:6b), in the initial sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. — Luke 4:18–19 Although the placing of these verses reflects Luke’s editorial activity, their significance for the ministry of Jesus is not to be doubted. The words represent a manifesto of the dawning kingdom. Their significance for Jesus’ own understanding of his ministry may be deduced from his answer to the messengers of John the Baptist. The summary given by Jesus of the marks of his ministry concludes with a final summation using the Isaianic words: ‘and the poor have good news brought to them’ (Matthew 11:5; cf. Luke 7:22). Other elements of the summary identified there are found elsewhere in the prophecies of Isaiah. That is, recovery of sight for the blind,907 the lame walking,908 the deaf hearing909 and the dead raised.910 A parallel list occurs in an eschatological passage at Qumran911 which ‘talks of a future Messiah and an eternal kingdom in almost the same breath’.912 Jesus is claiming to be fulfilling the expectations for the messianic kingdom of the end time, a hope already articulated in similar language at Qumran, but now brought forward in anticipation of its consummation. The marks of the kingdom lie in the transformation of the condition of the marginalized and the lifting up of the poor. The ‘year of the Lord’s favour’ points us to the concept of jubilee or amnesty, which constituted a significant theological factor for Early Judaism. According to the priestly estimate, the Sabbath is built into the seven days of creation in Genesis 1: ‘and he [God] rested on the seventh day’ (Genesis 2:2). There was a sabbatical rhythm to creation, which became a priestly standard for regulating the calendar. Consequently, the book of Leviticus legislates for a seven-year cycle for agriculture: Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard, and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for the land, a sabbath for the Lord: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard. — Leviticus 25:3–4

See Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 516. Cf. also Isaiah 29:18; 35:5; 42:7; 42:18. 908 Isaiah 35:6. 909 Isaiah 29:18; 35:5. 910 Isaiah 26:19. 911 4Q521, col. 2. 912 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 448. 906 907

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We have previously noted evidence from Maccabees that this agricultural cycle was observed in practice during some periods.913 Leviticus goes on to make a further sabbatical announcement, which may have been more ideal than real in its observation. It proclaims that after seven times seven years, in the fiftieth year, there shall be a jubilee or amnesty year: You shall count off seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the period of seven weeks of years gives forty-nine years. Then you shall have the trumpet sounded loud; on the tenth day of the seventh month – on the day of atonement – you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all your land. And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family. — Leviticus 25:8–10 Provision is made that every fifty years there shall be a jubilee. In that year every Israelite slave goes free and returns to their family. In that year, also, every person returns to their ancestral land. Whatever has been mortgaged or sold returns again to the original owner. There is a release of captives and it is good news for the poor. The intertestamental Book of Jubilees sets the Exodus and the entry into the Promised Land in a jubilee context. Jubilees rewrites the biblical story from creation (Genesis 1) to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24) and marks out the progress of time in terms of jubilee units of 49 years. When it gets to Israel at Mount Sinai, on the verge of entering the Promised Land, its calendar records that it is the forty-ninth jubilee since creation. Israel enters the Promised Land on the jubilee of jubilees; that is, the fiftieth jubilee counting from creation. The point is that it is appropriately auspicious timing for the divine initiative enabling the whole of Israel to be redeemed from slavery in Egypt and to receive back the ancestral land of Canaan from which it had been alienated. The occasion was an amnesty celebration for the whole nation. This concept of jubilee was something of a background theological reflection at the time of Jesus. It brought a sense of redemption to the concept of time and a rhythmic ripening of its processes. It underpinned a great deal of apocalyptic speculation, as with Daniel interpreting the seventy years of Jeremiah’s prophecy regarding the end of the exile as seventy weeks of years.914 In taking Isaiah 61:1–3 as a guiding principle of his proclamation, Jesus is portraying the kingdom in terms of a great jubilee of redemption marking the end time. The trumpet will be sounded over creation itself, signifying the final and absolute release of captives and good news to the poor. Once again, we find some precedent from Qumran in fragments usually dated to the middle of the first century BCE .915 This manuscript evidence combines the cycle of Levitical jubilee with the finality of eschatological judgement. In this scenario the judge is the heavenly Melchizedek; the release takes place at the end of the tenth jubilee cycle on the Day of Atonement. The content of this witness from Cave 11 has been summarized by Vermes: ‘It takes the form of an eschatological midrash in which the proclamation of liberty to the captives at the end of days (Isa. lxi, 1) is understood as being part of the general restoration of property

913

1 Maccabees 6:49, 53. Daniel 9:24. 915 11QMelch[izedek] (11Q13). 914

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during the year of Jubilee (Lev. xxv, 13), seen in the Bible (Deut. xv, 2) as a remission of debts.’916 The remission of debts in the Qumran witness includes: ‘forgiving them [the wrongdoings] of all their iniquities’. Included in the assembling of biblical texts is Isaiah 52:7 which refers to the messenger of good news to Zion. We learn from Qumran that casting the final judgement in terms of the good news of jubilee redemption is an identification that was already a feature of some thinking in Early Judaism. It was at the heart of the proclamation of Jesus. The dawning of the kingdom was good news; its characteristic was joy because it was the time of the final jubilee marked by an extraordinary divine amnesty of freedom and debt release including forgiveness. The justice of God can only be understood in the light of the radical mercy and compassion which define the divine nature. Crucial to Jesus’ presentation of the kingdom, therefore, was his understanding of the character of God. That character was defined by the stunning generosity of jubilee debt remission which was the hallmark of the breaking kingdom. It was confirmed by Jesus’ Wisdom-inspired reading of creation’s liberality which insisted that God’s generous provision reached the evil and the unrighteous as immediately as the good and the righteous (Matthew 5:45). The character of the Heavenly Father is clearly presented in certain parables. An instance is the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32), which, in fact, involves a triangle of relationships between a father and two sons. In part one of the parable the emphasis is on the relationship between the father and the younger son who demands his share of his father’s estate and then squanders it in a ‘distant country’ on a wanton lifestyle. When he finds himself reduced to poverty and herding swine, he decides to return to his father and seek to be taken on, no longer as a son, but as a hired hand. However, while he is still far off, the father spots him and ‘is filled with compassion’ (splanchnizomai), runs to meet him and, before the recalcitrant son can announce his rehearsed confession, embraces him. The father gives the prodigal a gorgeous robe, has a ring pressed on his finger, sandals placed on his feet, kills the fatted calf and throws a feast. The returnee is restored as a son who ‘was lost and is found’ (15:24). Clearly, the father in the parable represents the divine compassion that seeks out and welcomes the lost and the sinner to the heavenly banquet without condition. Klyne Snodgrass has noted: ‘With the forgiveness and restoration of the prodigal and the insistence on joy and celebration the parable exemplifies the proclamation of the year of the Lord’s favor (cf. Luke 4:18–22).’917 A parallel theme with joy at finding the lost is the subject of the two immediately preceding parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. In part two of the parable the elder son takes umbrage at what he regards as the father’s equally prodigal behaviour in receiving the younger son with such delight and eagerness. He had laboured for no reward and, like the cast of the labourers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16), saw the generosity of the master as unfair and unjust. He refuses to join the celebration. The father graciously comes out and implores him, reminding him that ‘all that is mine is yours’ (Luke 15:31). The parable never tells us the outcome of the conversation. It seems that Jesus has in mind those who were scandalized by his proclamation of the radical grace of God and who would not be reconciled to his

Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 532. Klyne Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 130.

916 917

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message. At the stage that the parable was told, the logic of part two suggests that Jesus still hoped he might win over those like-minded with the Pharisees and scribes to understand the full consequences of the true nature of God’s boundless love in the breaking kingdom. Another relevant parable is that of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:23–35). Eyewatering arrears, the size of a national debt, are forgiven the servant. The king or lord is clearly a metaphor for God. The lavish scale of the generosity suggests, again, that Jesus has in mind the eschatological jubilee remission. The key to the magnanimity recounted lies in the description of the king as ‘filled with compassion’ (splanchnizomai). It is an image for God with which we are already familiar, and the verb occurs again as an emotion demonstrated by the Good Samaritan in that parable (Luke 10:33). However, the servant fails to repeat the generosity; he demands from a fellow-servant the exaction of a very modest debt. The quality of having mercy (eleisai) is identified by the lord as a quality evident in his own action which should have been reflected in the action of the unforgiving servant. Clearly, this parable is close to the teaching of Jesus enshrined in the Lord’s Prayer; in the form preserved by Matthew it reads: ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors’ (Matthew 6:12). In failing that test the unforgiving servant finds himself condemned. That consequence raises the issue of the place of judgement in Jesus’ magnanimous proclamation of jubilee-kingdom eschatology. Jesus’ presentation of the kingdom emphasizes the compassion of God and places judgement in the background. The order of priorities has been expressed in this way: ‘For Jesus’ contemporaries, forgiveness was not extended until repentance took place; with Jesus, forgiveness seems to have been extended first with the expectation that repentance would follow.’918 The pattern which Jesus looked for is, perhaps, exemplified by the story of Zacchaeus whose response to Jesus dining with him was to declare: ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much’ (Luke 19:8). A cycle of grace is called into being in response to God’s overwhelming generosity. It is embodied in the Lord’s Prayer.919 Given that Jesus was working to an eschatological horizon, he may well have anticipated the fulfilment of prophetic hopes articulated in the Old Testament. There Jeremiah promises Israel a new covenant: ‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts’ (Jeremiah 31:33). Similarly, Ezekiel promises a new heart when God says: ‘I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances’ (Ezekiel 36:27). The radical eschatological hopes of Jesus for the dawning kingdom may have extended not only to the excluded and the poor, whose lot was being reversed, but also to the eventual reconciliation of those who stood aloof and judged themselves as pure, who were to be reduced in rank as universal order was rebalanced. Nevertheless, Jesus envisaged a transition, with thrones and judgement. His ministry divided opinion, created dispute and demanded decision. The images of judgement remained for those who chose to exclude themselves from the kingdom. Jesus instructed the twelve, when they were sent out on their mission: ‘If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a

918

Klyne Snodgrass, ‘The Gospel of Jesus’, in The Written Gospel, ed. M. Bockmuehl and D.A. Hagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 37. 919 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.’ Matthew 6:12; cf. Luke 11:4a.

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testimony against them’ (Mark 6:11 and parallels). It may be that Jesus’ perceptions developed during his ministry. The positive hope in the treatment of the elder son in the parable of the Prodigal Son seems to have retreated in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Matthew 21:33–44 and parallels), which envisages the rejection of the leaders of Israel. If the woes against Capernaum and Chorazin (Q Luke 10:13) come from Jesus, there seems to be anguish expressed that repentance was not forthcoming from those to whom Jesus had primarily addressed his appeal. On the other hand, as we must later consider, if Jesus came to see his death as sealing a new covenant, there remained yet God’s final word. It is in the way that the final judgement is to be understood that we encounter the fundamental difference between Jesus and his mentor, John the Baptist. Both expected the final eschatological intervention of God which would establish a new world reset at the dials of righteousness, justice and peace. For John the Baptist the pain of such a transition was uppermost in his consciousness as the new equilibrium was established, which involved rewarding deeds with their just recompense. His theme was judgement. His question was: ‘Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ (Q Luke 3:7). Jesus had moved away from that position and had to some extent broken with his former mentor. For Jesus, the jubilee nature of the final judgement took precedence. It was the time when the amazing grace of God would be unleashed with the lavish generosity of the final amnesty. The liberation of the oppressed, the raising of the poor and a pardon for sinners were all reasons for great rejoicing. For Jesus the key insight was: ‘There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance’ (Luke 15:7). His emphasis was on the exaltation involved in the new dynamics of the kingdom. The coming reign of God was a reason for holy carnival.

II THE KINGDOM ALREADY BREAKING IN One of the characteristics of the kingdom as proclaimed by Jesus was that it was already breaking in through his ministry. It does seem that the proleptic announcement of the kingdom was a distinctive, perhaps unique, feature of his message.920 For John the Baptist the moment of crisis was near, but it was not yet present. For Jesus, the breaking kingdom was already evident in the signs accompanying his activity. The eschatological era, a feature of popular anticipation, was already unleashed. That accounts for the way a gulf is presented between the ministry of Jesus and that of his mentor: ‘I tell you, among those born of women no one is greater than John; yet the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he’ (Q Luke 7:28; cf. Q Luke 16:16). For Jesus, we noted, the exorcisms which he carried out were a definitive sign of the overwhelming of the power of Satan and the arrival of the kingdom: ‘But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you’ (Q Luke 11:20). As we noted, further, in his reply to the messengers of John the Baptist,

920 Claiming something may be unique is always dangerous. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 138, queries: ‘Can we be sure that neither Theudas (Josephus, AJ XX.97–9) nor the Egyptian (AJ XX.168–72; BJ II.261–3) thought that the kingdom was breaking in with him as God’s viceroy? I do not think that we can.’ The Qumran sectarians already saw themselves as participating in the end time (‘the age of wrath’) but the messianic phase with the breaking in of the kingdom was still to come.

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Jesus pointed to his healings and other signs, including the bringing of the good news to the poor, as evidence that the eschatological activity expected in the new age was already present. Now was the time for the new wine to be poured into fresh wineskins (Luke 5:37–38). This phenomenon even led C.H. Dodd to claim that Jesus understood that the kingdom in all its fullness had arrived in his ministry: ‘in the fateful choice before the Jewish people, and the disasters that threaten – God is confronting them in His kingdom, power and glory. This world has become the scene of a divine drama, in which the eternal issues are laid bare. It is the hour of decision. It is realized eschatology.’921 Dodd overstates the case; the kingdom remains an enigma awaiting fulfilment for which Jesus instructs his disciples to pray. Nonetheless, the crisis of the present is real enough as the flag of expectancy is raised and the divine drama unfurls. We may speak of ‘inaugurated eschatology’. The prophetic symbolism of Jesus had passed into the reality it signified. Jesus deliberately created an aura of festivity in his lifestyle that tangibly celebrated the already present time of jubilee. For instance, his disciples did not fast. Jesus responded to critics with the vocabulary of the new age: ‘The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them’ (Mark 2:19; cf. Matthew 9:15; Luke 5:34). There was a significant overlap of the dimension of festivity with the good news to the excluded, in this instance again using the contrast with the Baptist: To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ — Q Luke 7:31–35 Jesus’ proclamation of God’s extravagant jubilee amnesty was already evident in the company he kept, the purity taboos that he broke and those with whom he shared meals. He deflected the criticism he received with proverbial wisdom: ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners’ (Mark 2:17; cf. Matthew 9:12; Luke 5:31). The liberation of the oppressed, the raising of the poor and a pardon for sinners were, then, not only characteristic of Jesus’ message but also features of his lifestyle. Jesus’ understanding of the limitless grace of God accounted for his prophetic anticipation of the inclusiveness of the kingdom which so shocked and offended those who sincerely laboured for Israel’s purity.922 He strove to demonstrate God’s compassion by associating with those usually shunned as immoral or unclean, and by sharing bread with the marginalized and outcast. In his teaching he stung those who regarded themselves as upright members of the chosen people, who were proud of their superior purity and discipline: ‘Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you’ (Matthew 21:31b). This same message is clearly illustrated

921 C.H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (London: Nisbet & Co., 1935; revised and reprinted, 1952 edition), 197–8. 922 Salutary is the list from Qumran of those whose disabilities or imperfections exclude them from the community: 1QSa 2.3–9.

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in the Lucan parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:15–24).923 The servants are sent to source alternative guests: ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame’ (14:21). The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican (Luke 18:9–14) has a similar significance. Jesus was open to the criticism that St Paul later faced: ‘Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?’ (Romans 6:1). The perceived dishonour involved in indulging the unclean and outcast, dismissed by the observant as sinners, has been summarized by J. Jeremias: ‘For the offence after Easter was Jesus’ accursed death on the cross – his table-fellowship with sinners was the pre-Easter scandal.’924 This Achilles heel is recognized by Jesus himself. After the list of kingdom signs, he concludes: ‘And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me’ (Q Luke 7:23). Nonetheless, a movement was growing out of the proclamation of Jesus that enfleshed the kingdom values, a point agreed by biblical commentators from different perspectives: ‘At this point Marcus and I more or less agree: Jesus was, in his phrase, a “movement initiator”.’925 Those scholars who do not recognize the eschatology of apocalyptic as the context of the ministry of Jesus do nonetheless emphasize the challenging significance of his lifestyle and the strong counter-cultural signal that it emitted. All are agreed that the kingdom, however conceived, is strikingly coming into being around Jesus and is rooted in a contagious social movement. For J.D. Crossan Jesus adopts a cynic-like926 lifestyle which is not bound by place, nor concerned with possessions, including apparel. He is identified by his ‘open commensality’ and radical egalitarianism. In his teaching and healing he empowers others to share his ministry. There is no hierarchy. His is a kingdom without a broker: You are healed healers, he said, so take the Kingdom to others, for I am not its patron and you are not its brokers. It is, was, and always will be available to any who want it. Dress as I do, like a beggar, but do not beg. Bring a miracle and request a table. Those you heal must accept you into their homes.927 Richard Horsley928 understands the activity of Jesus as initiating a social revolution within Israel, the ‘collective activity and solidarity of a popular movement’,929 directed at the poverty, hunger, debt and social malaise suffered by the village communities. Over against the ‘great tradition’ of the Temple, which served the repressive interests of the Roman and Herodian establishment, Jesus released the subversive ‘little tradition’, which had a different take inspired by the liberating ministries of Moses, Joshua and Elijah. Referring to the Q discourses, Horsley states: ‘Jesus’ speeches must have supplied cultural dissent, an alternative symbolic universe, and social links among the oppressed.’930 A final example we may take is the work of the feminist theologian Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza. For her there is an error embedded in the whole approach of students of Jesus

923

This is a companion parable of the Great Wedding Banquet in Matthew 22:1–14, which is complicated by a part two (vv. 11–14) giving the account of the man without a wedding garment. 924 J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 121. 925 N.T. Wright in Borg and Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, 38. 926 Gerald Downing, ‘The Jewish Cynic Jesus’, in Jesus, Mark and Q: The Teaching of Jesus and Its Earliest Records, ed. M. Labahn and A. Schmidt (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 184–214, argues for the likelihood of direct Cynic influence on Galilean Israelite culture and Jesus. 927 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 219–20. 928 R. Horsley, Jesus in Context: Power, People, and Performance (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008). 929 Ibid., 137. 930 Ibid., 221.

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studies. She identifies the need ‘to shift their theoretical focus and frame of reference away from the Historical-Jesus, the exceptional man and charismatic leader, to the emancipatory Divine Wisdom movement of which he was a part and whose values and visions decisively shaped him’.931 To focus on the genius of Jesus ‘is the product of an elite masculinist Eurocentric liberal imagination’.932 It is important to understand the movement of which Jesus was a part as emerging from within Judaism, not against it, responsive to potential within its own traditions and continuous with ‘the struggles that are ongoing throughout Christian history between those who understand Christian identity as radically inclusive and egalitarian and those who advocate kyriarchal domination and submission’.933 That radically inclusive phenomenon she defines as an ‘emancipatory basileia-movement’.934 She dismisses the eschatological model of millenarianism constructed by social anthropologists in favour of the model of social science that emphasizes its identity as a social movement for change: The crucial question in this contextual model of social movement is not whether Jesus and the movements gathered in his name did or did not expect the imminent end of the world. Rather, the crucial research question is whether they were compelled by the vision of a ‘different basileia’ that radically changed the oppressive situation in which they found themselves and that abolished all status privileges among themselves.935 The issue of an apocalyptic Jesus or not, and how the kingdom lifestyle he initiated is to be understood, have been opened up with additional vigour in recent decades by Q studies and by issues relating to extra-canonical material, especially the Gospel of Thomas. The significance of Q has advanced since it has been championed not simply as a neutral sayings source, but as potentially a ‘gospel’ with its own redaction history, theological tendency and sponsoring community. Its likely origin in Galilee, indicated by the mention of Capernaum, Chorazin and Bethsaida, raises the possibility of a window into a sample of the early Jesus movement(s) on home ground. In form it has often been compared to the Gospel of Thomas. Helmut Koester has argued that the Gospel of Thomas936 represents a stage of tradition that predates the canonical Gospels and gives us insight into the earliest form of gospel. He maintains that it attests a sayings format which is based on the genre of Wisdom literature. It has a single Son of Man saying which is non-apocalyptic, has no passion narrative and no specific reference to the resurrection. It represents an earlier but similar type to the Q format. When Q is shorn of its apocalyptic references to the Son of Man, it, too, displays a non-apocalyptic-sayings Wisdom format, similarly without reference to either the passion or resurrection. Koester is able to conclude: ‘The Gospel of Thomas

931 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus and the Politics of Interpretation (London and New York, NY: Continuum, 2000), 21. 932 Ibid., 36. 933 Ibid., 49. 934 Ibid., 50. 935 Ibid., 114. 936 The Gospel of Thomas was among a cache of mainly Gnostic documents written in Coptic, known as the Nag Hammadi Library, found in Upper Egypt in 1945. They are dated to the third and fourth centuries CE . It was realized that excerpts from the Gospel of Thomas in Greek were already known from several of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri recovered in Egypt 1897–1904, to be dated to c. 200 CE .

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and Q challenge the assumption that the early church was unanimous in making Jesus’ death and resurrection the fulcrum of Christian faith. Both documents presuppose that Jesus’ significance lay in his words, and in his words alone.’937 The work of John Kloppenborg938 has underwritten Koester’s insight by arguing for a series of redactions of Q in which the primary sapiental level consists of six units corresponding to the genre of instruction, without apocalyptic reference. He envisages a first redaction with the introduction of prophetic polemical material of a Deuteronomistic character calling down judgement against ‘this generation’, representing impenitent Israel that had rejected the message of the Q movement. It was at this stage that the apocalyptic Son of Man was introduced. A further redaction added the temptation story, which nudged Q in the direction of a biography. The authority of Jesus (and John the Baptist), articulated by the mature Q of the second redaction, is summarized by Kloppenborg in the following two quotations which refer to Sophia or Lady Wisdom: Q’s sayings are attributed to known teachers, Jesus and John, and they find their ultimate warrant in Sophia whose children Jesus and John are (Q7:35) and who is responsible for the sending of the prophets (Q11:49). . . .[939] [T]he soteriological intensification of Jesus’ sayings and the authority that accrued to them are not grounded in an event at the end of his life, but instead arise out of the character of his words as words of, and ultimately guaranteed by, Sophia.940 Clearly the Gospel of Thomas has early material, but scholarship is divided as to whether or not it is evidence of independent tradition or, rather, dependent upon the Synoptics.941 Further, Dunn has pointed out that it is quite possible that the lack of apocalyptic material in the Gospel of Thomas could well be as a result of a sifting process to reflect Gnostic priorities rather than indicating any claim to an original identity.942 Whereas Thomas is a series of independent, mainly unrelated, sayings reminiscent of the biblical book of Proverbs, this is not quite the case with Q, which seems to be organized in a series of clusters. Caution needs to be exercised in comparing Q and the Gospel of Thomas. As regards Kloppenborg’s proposed redactional layers, the point is made by Dunn that tension discerned within a text should not necessarily be used as evidence of subsequent editing.943 Such a tension is identified as integral to the Q presentation by Jens Schröter.944 He argues that for both Mark and Q: two aspects will emerge as particularly important, namely the proclamation of the Kingdom and the self-designation of Jesus as ‘o uios tou anthr¯o pou (‘the Son of Man’). It is just these points that manifest the connection of Jesus’ preaching with the meaning H. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: SCM Press; and Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1990), 86. 938 See, especially, John S. Kloppenborg, Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000). 939 John S. Kloppenborg, ‘ “Easter Faith” and the Sayings Gospel Q’, Semeia 49 (1990): 87. 940 Ibid., 92. 941 C. Tuckett, ‘Thomas and the Synoptics’, Novum Testamentum 30, no. 2 (1988): 132–57, identifies five sayings that show evidence of Marcan or Lucan redaction. 942 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 164. 943 Ibid., 155–6. 944 Jens Schröter, ‘The Son of Man as the Representative of God’s Kingdom: On the Interpretation of Jesus in Mark and Q’, in Jesus, Mark and Q: The Teaching of Jesus and Its Earliest Records, ed. M. Labahn and A. Schmidt (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 34–68. 937

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of his person. Therefore, the approaches which are based on a rather strict separation of both aspects must be called into question.945 Schröter argues that the designation ‘Son of Man’ could well be an early Galilean Christology which enables the activity and destiny of Jesus to be linked to the reign of God. It bridged the earthly ministry of Jesus, continued now by his disciples, with his expected glorious return and the kingdom’s consummation. It enables Schröter to conclude: ‘The consequence of what has been presented here for the history of theology could be that the combination of the proclamation of the Kingdom with the Son of Man concept presents an independent model of early Christian thinking about Jesus, that was linked to the Antiochene model of the pre-Pauline tradition by Mark.’946 The conclusion of our investigation is to demur as regards Koester’s analysis of an original non-apocalyptic layer of Jesus tradition,947 but to concur with his deduction that there is evidence for an alternative and parallel early Christology to that which proclaimed the death and resurrection of Jesus as God’s eschatological event. It may be that in Q we meet the continuing ripples of Jesus’ own kingdom proclamation in his Galilean ministry at the eschatological threshold. Something greater than Solomon is here (Q Luke 11:31). Jesus’ words are the words of Wisdom (Q 7:35) and in themselves lifegiving. His works of power are known to Q but are not its preoccupation. His death (‘Blessed are you when people hate you’ Q Luke 6:22) and resurrection (‘All things have been handed over to me by my Father’ Q Luke 10:22) are known but are incorporated in a subtle way into the continuing proclamation. They are not presented as landmarks of history. Jesus is understood in terms of the final and absolute (eschatological) culmination of the long line of the ministry of the prophets, all commissioned by Wisdom (Q Luke 11:49–51). That same pattern is presented succinctly by Jesus himself in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mark 12:1–12 and parallels, including Thomas 65). There are parallels to the understanding of this significance of Jesus’ ministry in the early speeches in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. Stephen’s speech in Acts 7:1–53). His death is not seen as an offering for sin, but rather in the context of prophetic rejection. His righteousness will be vindicated by God in his coming revelation as the glorious Son of Man, which will justify the faithful (Q Luke 12:8–9). One can expect there to have been recognizable continuity between the activity of Jesus and the continuing life of the early Jesus movement in Galilee reflected in Q. Merz, in the work co-authored with Theissen, envisages a movement encapsulated in the saying: ‘the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’ (Q Luke 9:58). She summarizes: ‘The sayings were probably collected and disseminated by the earliest Christian itinerant charismatics, who continued the lifestyle and preaching of Jesus’.948 Kloppenborg offers a sympathetic precis for Q as a whole, whether itinerant or settled, when he summarizes: ‘The kingdom sayings of Q1 are connected with exhortations to a countercultural lifestyle that includes love of enemies, nonretaliation, debt forgiveness, and a willingness to expose oneself to danger, all undergirded by appeals to the superabundant care of a provident God.’949 It is a lifestyle presented as an anticipation of the kingdom. The Q community introduces us

945

Ibid., 43. Ibid., 68. 947 Pace, Burton L. Mack, ‘Lord of the Logia: Savior or Sage’, in Gospel Origins and Christian Beginnings, ed. James E. Goehring et al. (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990), 3–18. 948 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 28. 949 Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 392. 946

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to the practice of a way of life faithful to the teaching of Jesus, and mysteriously continuous with its anticipated vindication in his coming return as the glorious Son of Man.

III SON OF MAN AND MESSIAH How are we to understand the figure of the Son of Man? Consideration must begin with the text of Daniel 7. The concept of the Son of Man was not a looming theological issue in ancient Israel to be traced to some universal speculation about the primaeval man. Rather, all theological reflection arising from the Son of Man can be traced back to a single source in the exegesis of Daniel 7. In origin it is not a title, but simply the identification of a human-like being. In the words of K. Koch, ‘the various types of a son of man and their association with concepts of a messiah may have only been the product of the history of the reception of Daniel 7’.950 The question arises as to how quickly the development took place that transposed a poetic simile using a human being into a theological speculation about a heavenly role. Could Jesus have known such a speculation, or was it shaped by the creative wave of reflection that was a response to his resurrection? Jesus was not working in a vacuum as regards developing reflection on the role of the Son of Man, even if it was not a long-established title in Judaism. In all likelihood, there was already a tradition of interpretation of Daniel 7, which Jesus would have had scope to handle creatively himself. It is helpful at this point to give some brief consideration to the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37 to 71). We have already concluded above that it is a work that should be dated to a time similar to that of the ministry of Jesus.951 Its significance is not that it influenced Jesus, but rather that it gives an insight into how the tradition associated with Daniel 7 was being received at that time in a different context. The Similitudes has been of particular interest because of its focus on the revealing of an eschatological agent whose two major designations are Son of Man952 and Elect One; the names are interchangeable. A further, less emphasized, equivalent is Messiah. The Son of Man acts as a viceroy for God in being enthroned and in undertaking judgement. God is referred to as Lord of the Spirits; neither the Deity nor the Son of Man are referred to as king. It seems that kingship is now associated with exploitation and greed. Further, the new order which the revealing of the Son of Man brings about is never referred to as a kingdom. However, the public proclamation of the authority of God takes place through the visible enthronement of the Son of Man. It becomes clear that the vision of the Similitudes is not about moving individual pieces on a chessboard, but rather about the rebalancing of global order. Earthly order revolves as ‘the congregation of the holy ones shall be planted’ and ‘the kings, the governors, the high officials, and those who rule the earth shall fall down before him [the Son of Man] on their faces’ (1 Enoch 62:8–9). The Similitudes witnesses to a radical sense of justice as essential to the divine order which is falling into place as the enthroned Son of Man is revealed. The new order comes as God’s

K. Koch, ‘Der “Menschensohn” in Daniel’, ZAW 119 (2007): 369–87. English translation in J.C. Gertz et al., T&T Clark Handbook of the Old Testament: An Introduction to the Literature, Religion and History of the Old Testament (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 647. 951 Chapter Eleven above, s. V. 952 Typically referred to as ‘that Son of Man’, which suggests a designation that is still in the process of becoming an established title. 950

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gift and in his time, not by human striving. We do, therefore, have evidence in the Similitudes, from a time approximate with that of Jesus, of an established role for the Son of Man figure as champion of God’s eschatological order. We have noted already in the previous chapter the potential direct influence of the Similitudes on the formation of the tradition handled by the evangelist St Matthew.953 In Daniel 7 we find the reference to the ‘one like a son of man’ and the establishment of ‘the everlasting kingdom’ of the saints of the Most High within a single tradition history. Daniel 7 is, therefore, potentially able to gather the proclamation of the kingdom by Jesus and the impact of the Son of Man concept on the Jesus tradition as part of a single whole. We have already noted the insight of Schröter that both Mark and Q witness to an early Christology that brought together the proclamation of the kingdom with the Son of Man concept. Adela Yarbro Collins envisages the concepts of the kingdom and the Son of Man being brought into creative relationship within the ministry of Jesus, albeit in a particular and distinct way.954 She, as did Bultmann, assumes that Jesus distinguishes himself from the figure of the coming Son of Man. It is significant that Son of Man is almost exclusively a self-designation that appears on Jesus’ own lips in all strata of the tradition; it is not a title by which he is addressed by others. There seems a strong inference to be made that the concepts of kingdom and Son of Man are to be associated and that association goes back to Jesus himself; if that is the case, then the eschatological role of the Son of Man is not a creation of the post-Easter community.955 Just as the proclamation of the kingdom by Jesus was his own creative reworking of the potential of Israel’s religious traditions, likewise, its counterpart in the Son of Man was equally open to innovative development of the given interpretive tradition of Daniel 7. Consistent with Daniel 7, and similarly to the Similitudes, the Son of Man and the new order he brings are the initiative of heaven and not of human striving. It was a somewhat obscure role, rather than a familiar well-worked title that was already full of content and preconceptions in the popular imagination. Son of Man represented a fledgling concept that Jesus could mould to his understanding of the kingdom and even develop during his ministry. It is likely that his use of the phrase Son of Man created deliberate puzzlement and debate. The phrase had a certain enigmatic character, which perhaps played between its generic (human being) and specific (eschatological agent) significances. Whereas for the Similitudes the revealing of the Son of Man was straightforwardly about the instant of transformation, the message of Jesus had to balance the ‘now and the not yet’. The Son of Man had to represent the continuity between the vulnerability of the breaking kingdom and its coming glorious consummation. That accounts for what seem like three separate groups of Son of Man sayings – his present authority, his suffering and his future coming in glory. The significance is captured by Schröter, albeit for the Marcan and Q phase of tradition: ‘Moreover, the expression “Son of Man” serves to link Jesus’ earthly power and lowliness with his function as a judge at the end of time.’956 Jesus identifies himself with the Son of Man when he exhibits the authority of the kingdom in

953

See Chapter Fourteen, s. V, n. 885. Adela Yarbro Collins, ‘The Apocalyptic Son of Man Sayings’, in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, ed. B.A. Pearson (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1991), 228. 955 As was assumed by Barnabas Lindars, Jesus Son of Man (London: SPCK, 1983), 189: ‘So the Son of Man, as traditionally understood, belongs to the development of Christology, which took place in the burst of creativity which accompanied the emergence of Christianity in the post-resurrection period.’ 956 Schröter, ‘The Son of Man as the Representative of God’s Kingdom’, 56. 954

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his ministry in the jubilee remission of sins (Mark 2:10), when he has to carry the suffering of its birth pangs (the passion predictions: Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:32 and parallels) and when he is to be the instrument of its consummation. The basis of the ‘passion predictions’ may perhaps be traced to an Aramaic mašal or riddle still discernible from the text of Mark 9:31: ‘The son of man is (about) to be handed over into the hands of men’.957 Dunn summarizes: ‘Sooner or later, he [Jesus] probably concluded that he himself would have to endure the eschatological tribulation (the cup of suffering, the fiery baptism) predicted by the Baptist – perhaps on behalf of his disciples/renewed Israel.’958 Further, there is no reason to deny Jesus’ conviction of his role in the kingdom’s consummation. In the double witness of the Marcan and Q traditions there is a poetic parallelism between those who are ashamed of Jesus ‘in this adulterous and sinful generation’, and those of whom the Son of Man will be ashamed ‘when he comes in the glory of his Father’ (Mark 8:38; cf. Q Luke 12:8–9). Clearly this suggests a significant correspondence between Jesus’ earthly activity and the glorious day of the Son of Man, but it seems to stop short of unambiguous outright identification. C.C. Rowland comments: ‘I would not want to interpret the apparent separation between Jesus and the son of man as a reference to different figures. Rather, we should see this separation as a way of speaking of the differentiation between Jesus’ earthly existence and the glorious role he was destined to occupy in the future.’959 When Sanders refers to Jesus’ own conception of his role as God’s ‘viceroy’,960 that is precisely what is envisaged in the role of the returning Son of Man in the eschatological reversal. Our conclusion is that Son of Man seems to be Jesus’ preferred way of expressing his identity as God’s eschatological agent, both in the condition of his present exposed authority and in his future vindication with the kingdom’s glorious consummation. There is a further important designation to be considered referring to the eschatological agent of the new era. It is the Semitic title ‘Messiah’, or its Greek equivalent ‘Christ’, meaning the ‘anointed one’, which historically could refer to the commissioning of a king, a priest or a prophet. The end of the Maccabean era and the rise of Roman rule nurtured a yearning for a renewal of Davidic glory. Certain Old Testament texts that looked to God’s providence at work in the Davidic house961 took on an eschatological interpretation. Classic is the expectation in the Psalms of Solomon, which reflect a perspective subsequent to the arrival of Rome on the scene. There the anticipation of a Davidic Messiah takes the form of a warrior king who will expel the gentiles from Jerusalem and purge Israel of all impurities.962 Messiah was, therefore, a more volatile concept than Son of Man and brought with it more definition in terms of popular expectation. It was a title that would certainly have been much more difficult for Jesus to manage or to adapt to his own purposes. The title Messiah did not exclusively dominate the eschatological horizon of Hellenistic and Roman Judaism. Eschatological expectation, as we have seen, was much more complex and varied. There were a number of substantial figures of the past who were associated as eschatological agents with the end time, such as Enoch, Abraham and Melchizedek. There were hopes kindled by Israel’s saving history of a return to the

Translation of Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 801. Cf. J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 281f. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 817. 959 Rowland, Christian Origins, 185–6. 960 Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, 248. 961 2 Samuel 7:12–13, 16; Isaiah 11:1–2; Jeremiah 23:5; 33:15; Ezekiel 34:24; 37:25. 962 Psalms of Solomon 17 to 18. 957 958

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wilderness or a new crossing of the Jordan, often linked with renewed dreams of Moses (cf. the Transfiguration, Mark 9:2–8 and parallels) or Joshua. There was expectation in many quarters of an eschatological prophet, often associated with the return of Elijah who was kept ‘in waiting’ in heaven. Sometimes the hope was for the direct intervention of God. When the eschatological hope took the form of a royal Messiah, the profile varied considerably. Qumran seems to have expected two Messiahs, one priestly and one Davidic, as well as the eschatological prophet. The Messiah might be revealed from heaven as the initiative of God, as is the case in the Similitudes where, we noted, he is identified with the Son of Man. More often there was a military expectation and the taking up of the sword was envisaged, where human forces might hope to be accompanied by the heavenly armies and ‘legions of angels’ (Matthew 26:53). The fateful end of the Jewish aspiration for independence came with the defeat in the Second Jewish Revolt (132–5) of Bar Kosevah (Bar Kochba), named as Messiah by Rabbi Akiva. Collins sums up the landscape: ‘Jewish ideas of messianism were not uniform. There was a dominant notion of a Davidic messiah, as the king who would restore the kingdom of Israel, which was part of the common Judaism around the turn of the era’.963 Despite the fact that the word Christ has become so attached to Jesus that it served as a proper name, rather than a title, already in the biblical period, he seems very reticent to accept it during his ministry. There is not a single reference to Messiah in the Q tradition. In Mark the word is rarely on Jesus’ lips, but veiled in the phenomenon of the ‘messianic secret’. Only at his trial in Jerusalem before Caiaphas, the high priest, does Jesus assent to the designation, and that only in St Mark’s Gospel. Although the title Messiah or ‘king’ might seem the obvious designation for the eschatological agent of the kingdom, as its companion concept, Jesus seems to have shunned it publicly. Nonetheless, there was an overlap between the concept of the eschatological agency of the Son of Man and the Messiah, such that the nuance would be difficult for observers to differentiate. If Jesus claimed that in his ministry the signs of the messianic age were evident, then the natural conclusion would be that he was claiming to fulfil the role of the Messiah. There can be no doubt that his ministry created popular expectation among the crowds and suspicion from the Herodian and religious establishment. The Feeding of the Five Thousand seems to confirm that the expectation could become ugly. It is St John’s Gospel that brings this into the open when it concludes: ‘When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself ’ (John 6:15). If Jesus felt the kingdom was the initiative of God, he had to be very wary of those who would press him into becoming a messianic pretender. No wonder he was cautious about the title Messiah. Of considerable importance in assessing the significance of the title Messiah for Jesus is the dialogue near Caesarea Philippi, which is a substantial turning point in St Mark’s Gospel. There Peter confesses Jesus as the Christ but is forbidden to mention it (Mark 8:30). It is followed by the first of Jesus’ sayings that the Son of Man must suffer (8:31) and the rebuke to Peter: ‘Get behind me, Satan!’ (8:33).964 That this may be more significant historically than simply an example of Marcan redaction is worthy of serious consideration. The geographical location of the region of Caesarea Philippi attached to Peter’s confession does seem to anchor it in a remembered event. There is evidence of a

J.J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star, 209. For the episode of Mark 8:27ff., cf. Matthew 16:13ff., cf. Luke 9:18ff.

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similar, but independent, tradition in St John 6:69 of a turning point in Galilee and a confession by Peter. Bockmuehl points out the significance of the combination of the initial passion prediction and a potential second tempting by Satan.965 Was this an important turning point in the ministry of Jesus? Does he now contemplate that he must turn from the Galilean ministry to set his face to go to Jerusalem and inevitable suffering? In this context, Jesus does not deny that he is the Messiah, but he certainly denies any triumphalism. The popular notion of Messiah could only be misleading if it became public. Yet, here may be the seeds of what is to unravel in Jerusalem. In contradiction to all the caution of Jesus’ public ministry, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that in the final week of his ministry Jesus goes public with the claim to Messiahship. It commences with the entry into Jerusalem, which has every indication of being a deliberately arranged fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah: Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. — Zechariah 9:9 The crowd in St Mark’s Gospel respond appropriately joyfully to a messianic procession. This fulfilment of prophecy is characteristically identified by Matthew. Jesus had carefully chosen his beast of burden to annunciate the humility of the king who comes. The subsequent Cleansing of the Temple represents a deliberate act of prophetic confrontation with the religious establishment. We have already identified above the connection between the prophetic act of Jesus in disrupting normal Temple activity and the accusation at his trial that he had threatened the destruction and rebuilding of the Temple. We followed the argument of Ben F. Meyer that this latter activity was precisely what was expected of the Messiah in some restoration-eschatological circles. As we move to the hearing before the high priest, it becomes clear that in establishing the nature of the threat to the Temple made by Jesus, the enquiry, despite the embarrassment of those who subsequently handled the Jesus tradition and claimed false witness, had established to their satisfaction that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. Did his threat to the Temple also amount, in the eyes of Caiaphas, to blasphemy? ‘Whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it’ (Matthew 23:21). In that Messianic charge Caiaphas had all he needed to hand Jesus over to Pilate. When Pilate was handed one who claimed to be ‘King of the Jews’, he had little judicial alternative but to condemn Jesus to be crucified as a Messianic pretender. The charge was attached to the Cross as a sombre warning to all who entered Jerusalem at the explosive time of Passover. Jesus at the hearings before Caiaphas and before Pilate seems to be silent, and apart from St Mark’s Gospel (in the interrogation before Caiaphas), answers his accusers ‘You say so’. In this instance, Mark’s version of the high priestly hearing is most likely to be the one in need of correction. Jesus seems not to deny the charge, but perhaps in his reticence resists the interpretation of it held by his accusers. He had not succeeded in publicly redefining the concept of Messiah, a fact which certainly justified the reason for his previous caution. For Caiaphas the motive for having Jesus crucified may well have been to discredit him as a prophet in view of the curse in Deuteronomy 21:22–23, which stoning would not have achieved.

M. Bockmuehl, This Jesus: Martyr, Lord, Messiah (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 85ff.

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Why did Jesus break the silence of his public ministry and claim to be the Messiah in the final week in Jerusalem? He knew how volatile that claim would be. Presumably the answer is because he thought that chronos had become kairos. This was God’s moment for the inauguration of the kingdom. Now was the time of testing before the glorious dawn.

IV PASSION AND RESURRECTION The passion account stands apart from the rest of the material handled by the synoptic evangelists in presenting a connected whole with an established thread of narrative. The mass of units or pericopes without indication of temporal connection, which have been woven together by the evangelists or earlier tradition, give place to a storyline in which connectedness, indications of place and temporal setting are striking features. Further, the Gospel of John, having been distinct in the way it recounts the ministry of Jesus, converges in a common tradition when it reaches the passion narrative. These circumstances suggest that there may have been a common pre-Synoptic outline of the episodes of the unfolding passion which has shaped all four Gospel narratives. It was a narrative thread that did not extend to the resurrection appearances, which return to the characteristic of random units of tradition without obvious connection. The circumstances are captured by J. Jeremias: In the passion narrative, all the gospels, apart from some differences in detail, have a basic framework of common traditions: entry – last supper – Gethsemane – arrest – hearing before the Sanhedrin – Peter’s denial – the Barabbas story – condemnation by Pilate – crucifixion – burial – empty tomb. The Easter stories are quite different. At best, we can speak of a common framework in the sequence: empty tomb – appearances. Otherwise, the picture is quite a varied one.966 The supposition of a pre-Marcan, connected passion narrative has not gone unchallenged. The variant opinions are summarized by M.L. Soards: ‘On one side, there are scholars who maintain that Mark had a primitive source for the PN which he took over virtually intact; on the other side, there are scholars who argue that Mark created the PN using existing independent traditions and did not draw on a continuous earlier PN.’967 A cogent example of the latter opinion is to be found in the collection of essays by different authors edited by Werner Kelber.968 In contrast, Adela Yarbro Collins maintains that: ‘There are no historical or aesthetic-literary reasons why a written passion narrative could not have been composed prior to Mark.’969 She has assembled a number of indicators that suggest a pre-Marcan passion narrative. These include the greater narrative coherence

J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 300. M.L. Soards, ‘The Question of a PreMarcan Passion Narrative’, in Raymond Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave, 2 vols (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), Vol. 2, Appendix IX, 1492. 968 Werner Kelber, ed., The Passion in Mark: Studies on Mark 14–16 (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1976). The collective argument is summarized by Adela Yarbro Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 99: ‘Since Mark 14–16 constitutes a theologically inseparable and homogeneous part of the Gospel, the classic form-critical thesis concerning an independent and coherent passion narrative prior to Mark is called into question.’ 969 A.Y. Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel, 102. 966 967

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within the passion story when compared to the rest of St Mark’s Gospel, the early motif of the silence of Jesus maintained in the narrative, and the relatively undeveloped theology of the interpretation of the death of Jesus. Perhaps the most persuasive argument is the pressure on the renewed Jesus movement to form a connected narrative of the crucial events of the passion, to meet its own needs, well before St Mark was writing c. 70 CE : ‘The form-critical approach taken by Schmidt and Dibelius has certain strengths. The argument that there was both a need (preaching and catechesis) and a setting in life (the liturgy) for an extended narrative that would make sense of Jesus’ death is persuasive.’970 Yarbro Collins assumes a passion narrative in documentary form. However, Dunn has drawn attention to the transparency of the passion tradition to its oral stage with the stability of the core elements allowing for variations of oral performance in some detail. He suggests something of a compromise: ‘Here again we need to be more open to the reality of oral tradition, including the use of written sources in oral mode.’971 The varieties of oral performance may have given rise to several literary versions of the pre-Synoptic passion narrative in circulation at the same time, all with a common structure as regards fundamentals. We may conclude that the events of passion week were essential to the post-Easter proclamation of the renewed Jesus movement. It is reasonable to think of the connected tradition forming at an early stage in oral form, while eyewitness testimony was still current, probably within the Jerusalem community. However, one has to allow for a particular and significant exception to the eyewitness testimony which we must consider next. The received tradition, which St Paul hands on in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff., twice uses the expression ‘according to the scriptures’ in interpreting the significance of the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The authority of the (Hebrew) Scriptures for insight into what God intended for the final days, now unfolding, was of paramount importance for Second Temple Judaism. Peter Tomson has succinctly explained this outlook: ‘Jews of the period “read” the events of history alongside Scripture, and the significance of particular happenings would be expressed and measured by their correspondence with the sacred verses. This was also the spiritual and historical context of Jesus and his disciples, and it is in this context that they must be understood.’972 The account of Jesus’ suffering on the Cross, therefore, was told not simply by virtue of eyewitness testimony, but by reference to the fulfilment of Scripture. For instance, Psalm 22 has had a profound effect in shaping the core of the passion narrative (22:18, ‘for my clothing they cast lots’; 22:7, ‘they shake their heads’; 22:8, let God ‘rescue the one in whom he delights’).973 Psalm 69:21 similarly provides a significant episode (‘For my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink’).974 Psalm 31 provides some of the last words from the Cross (31:5, ‘Into your hand I commit my spirit’).975 Conversely, it is necessary to allow that Jesus might on occasion have deliberately fulfilled Scripture, as with the

Ibid., 103. See K.L. Schmidt, ‘Die literarische Eigenart der Leidensgeschichte Jesu’, Die Christliche Welt 32 (1918): 114–16. Reproduced in Redaktion und Theologie des Passionsberichts nach den Synoptikern, ed. M. Limbeck (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), 17–20. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, 22–3, 178–80. 971 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 767. 972 Peter J. Tomson, ‘Jesus and His Judaism’, in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, 2nd edn, ed. M. Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 25. 973 Psalm 22:18, cf. Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; John 19:24. Psalm 22:7, cf. Matthew 27:39; Mark 15:29. Psalm 22:8, cf. Matthew 27:43. 974 Cf. Matthew 27:48; Mark 15:35; John 19:29. 975 Cf. Luke 23:46; see also Acts 7:59. 970

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entry into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9) or that he might indeed have reached for Scripture to express his profound sense of abandonment: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22:1). However, there is no denying the ability of scriptural fulfilment on occasion to write the script. The significance of Scripture, rather than history, shaping the pre-Synoptic form of the passion tradition finds its most radical exponent in Dominic Crossan: ‘My proposal is that Jesus’ first followers knew almost nothing whatsoever about the details of his crucifixion, death, or burial. What we have now in those detailed passion accounts is not history remembered but prophecy historicized.’976 He takes up the observation of Vielhauer977 that the apocryphal Gospel of Peter is early evidence for the connected account of the passion using narrative constructed from the Old Testament, told without the interruption of identifying sources. Crossan argues that an early ‘Cross Gospel’ based on Old Testament exegesis lies behind the passion narrative of apocryphal Peter, which was also used by the four canonical evangelists.978 Helmut Koester has not endorsed the hypothesis of a ‘Cross Gospel’. However, he concludes: ‘No question, the Gospel of Peter has preserved the most original narrative version of the tradition of scriptural interpretation.’979 Beyond the influence of the psalms already mentioned, Koester identifies from the Gospel of Peter the hand-washing scene of Pilate as based on Deuteronomy 21:6–8; using the evidence of the Epistle of Barnabas he is able to identify the purple robe, crown of thorns, spitting and piercing/striking with a reed as based on Isaiah 50:6, Zechariah 12:10 and the scapegoat ritual of Leviticus 16. He concludes: ‘One can assume that the only historical information about Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death was that he was condemned to death by Pilate and crucified. The details and individual scenes of the narrative do not rest on historical memory, but were developed on the basis of allegorical interpretation of Scripture.’980 Whether Koester’s confidence in the Gospel of Peter is well placed is open to question; that there are historical memories beyond the straight facts of condemnation and crucifixion is not to be doubted. Nonetheless, it is evident that to a considerable extent at the very heart of Christ’s sufferings the fulfilment of Scripture shaped the narrative. It was a crucial way of understanding the humiliating events of crucifixion as revealing the purpose and plan of God. Leaving aside the urgent claim to eyewitness testimony in the fourth Gospel as Jesus’ body hangs on the Cross (John 19:35), it is evident that in the requisition of Simon of Cyrene to carry the Cross we touch solid historical ground. The fact that he is described in St Mark as ‘the father of Alexander and Rufus’ (Mark 15:21) means that the two sons were known to Mark’s community and that the narrative was taking shape while the eyewitnesses were alive. Gerd Theissen981 has identified ‘indications of familiarity’ throughout the passion narrative with its intimate knowledge of names and places. Where names are avoided, in the case of the one who draws his sword to injure one of the

976 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 163. Crossan allows the historicity of the Temple demonstration with its overthrowing of the moneychangers’ tables. 977 Philipp Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975), 646. 978 J.D. Crossan, The Cross That Spoke: The Origins of the Passion Narrative (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988). 979 Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 230. 980 Ibid., 224. 981 Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 447. G. Theissen, The New Testament (London: T&T Clark, 2003), 41ff.

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arresting party and the youth who fled naked from the garden, he suggests this may be ‘protective anonymity’ indicating that members of the party who arrested Jesus are still alive at the time of recounting the traditions. The Last Supper is anchored in the events of ‘the night when he was betrayed’ (1 Corinthians 11:23). Its memory echoes through the liturgical tradition passed on in the synoptic and Pauline formulae, which both reflect living practice. In the dilemma whether the tradition recounts a meal at Passover (as the synoptic narrative context) or on the eve of Passover (as St John) no absolute certainty is achievable. J. Jeremias points to features that seem to indicate Passover.982 The meal is eaten in the evening, within the boundaries of Jerusalem and contains the element of interpretation. Yet, it seems unlikely that Jesus would have been crucified on the solemn day of the Passover festival. Whichever day, the significance of Passover as the context would have been plain. There are two families of the tradition. That of Mark, with Matthew dependent upon it, and that of Paul with Luke witnessing to an independent, but related, tradition.983 The Gospel of St John does not have the Eucharistic words at the Last Supper; perhaps by now the words of institution were too sacred. However, the words over the bread and cup are clearly echoed in John 6:52–58. The key concepts associated with the two Last Supper traditions seem to be bread, cup, covenant and kingdom. The Pauline tradition has retained the original form of a meal introduced by the breaking of the bread and concluded with the wine (‘after supper’ – 1 Corinthians 11:25; cf. Luke 22:20). In this the Last Supper tradition preserves the significance of the regular open hospitality in sharing meals by which Jesus had anticipated the kingdom.984 On this specific occasion, however, Jesus sees, in the bread broken to nourish, his own broken body. His coming death will be for life. The Pauline version has, in all likelihood, retained another primitive aspect, this time in relation to the wine. The formula lacks symmetry in referring to ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood’ (1 Corinthians 11:25; cf. Luke 22:20). One must assume that constant liturgical practice would have shaped and modified the Marcan words over the wine to correspond more closely with the bread: ‘This is my body’, ‘This is my blood of the covenant’ (Mark 14:22 and 14:24). The prior imagery of the cup picks up Jesus’ dialogue with James and John985 and the prayer of Gethsemane.986 The cup of suffering that Jesus must drink to the dregs does not actually identify the wine with his blood, which is sensitive to a consideration raised by Vermes: ‘In any case, the imagery of eating a man’s body and especially drinking his blood, . . . even after allowance is made for metaphorical language, strikes a totally foreign note in a Palestinian Jewish cultural setting.’987 Mark refers to ‘covenant’, Paul to ‘new covenant’. Theissen commends the Pauline version as the more original by comparison with the ‘new commandment’ of the Johannine Last Supper (John 13:34f.). If this analysis, as outlined, takes us close to the original words of Jesus, he sees, in anticipation, in his broken body and the cup to be drunk the sacrifice which inaugurates the new covenant promised by the prophet Jeremiah (31:31–34) as the radical renewal of

J. Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words, 41–62. Idem, New Testament Theology, 290. Mark 14:22–25; Matthew 26:26–29; 1 Corinthians 11:23–26; Luke 22:17–20. 984 The Didache 9–10 contains the order for a sacramental meal that does not refer to the death of Jesus. 985 Mark 10:38; Matthew 20:22. 986 Mark 14:36; Matthew 26:39; Luke 22:42. 987 Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew, 16. 982 983

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the foundational covenant of Exodus (24:3–8).988 In Mark’s version the blood of the covenant is ‘for many’. The Pauline tradition is more domesticated; the words, which are here attached to the body, state ‘for you’. J. Jeremias sees the Marcan version original here, reflecting the suffering servant of Isaiah 53:11c: ‘My servant shall make many righteous’: ‘Without Isaiah 53 the eucharistic words remain incomprehensible.’989 He argues that the meaning of many bears the significance of the original Aramaic of Jesus, where the inconceivable many, the whole host, all is the sense.990 We have already noted that the concept of the kingdom is drawn from creation reflection and is universal. That universal significance (identified by the italics) is spelt out in the Johannine context: ‘and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh’ (6:51c). If Jeremias is correct, we find Jesus in extremis at the Last Supper reaching for the imagery of the suffering servant as he contemplates the sealing of the new covenant. In that case the dialogue with the risen Christ on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:26; cf. Acts 8:26ff.) already has precedent in Jesus’ reflection ‘on the night when he was betrayed’. Jesus’ eucharistic words take us to the time of trial, to the moment of the cup and the baptism, which he envisaged would inaugurate the kingdom. He was not expecting to establish a new rite; the time was too short. Those words ‘do this in remembrance of me’991 are post-Easter. Perhaps only at the Last Supper did it become clear to Jesus that the offering of the covenant sacrifice was about to be demanded of him: ‘Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.’ (Mark 14:36 and parallels). In that sacrificial denouement, even as Isaac at the hands of Abraham, perhaps he hoped that the will to go through with it would prove sufficient. He expected the kingdom to break and the heavens to rend. The time had come for the radical transformation of creation and the universal rebalancing of righteousness, justice and peace. The Messiah of Israel was about to bear its birth pangs: ‘Truly I tell you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God’ (Mark 14:25). The episodes associated with the Garden of Gethsemane bear the marks of true event. As regards the venue itself, there is the inside knowledge that it was a familiar haunt for Jesus with the disciples.992 The seeming collapse of Jesus’ mission, with his agitation, the betrayal by Judas, his arrest by the Temple police and the desertion of the disciples, bear no trace of idealized history. The same is true of the denial by Peter, who had lingered at a distance, with its detail of the brazier, the serving girl and the give-away Galilean accent.

Gerd Theissen (Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 423) suggests one must go yet further back in search of the ipsissima verba of Jesus: ‘The historical eucharistic words underlying the original form in the history of the tradition could have been: “This is my (or “the” . . .) body for you. This is the new covenant.” ’ He points out that drinking blood was offensive to any Jew and may, therefore, originate not with Jesus but in post-passion reflection in a pagan (Hellenistic) milieu. In that case what Jesus initiated were spiritual sacrifices, similar to the covenant meal at Qumran, as an alternative to the Temple bloody sacrifices: ‘By a new interpretation, the last supper becomes a substitute for the temple cult – a pledge of the eating and drinking in the kingdom of God which is soon to dawn’ (434). Theissen acknowledges this is conjecture. 989 J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology, 291. 990 Ibid., 291. See also, commenting on Matthew 22:14, 130: ‘To understand this crux interpretum we must first note that polloi [‘many’] here, as often in Semitic languages, has an inclusive meaning (“the many”, “the great crowd”, “all”); connected with this is the fact that Semitic languages have no words which describe totality and plurality at the same time (like our “all”).’ 991 Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:25. 992 Luke 22:39 (cf. 21:37); John 18:2. 988

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The narrative moves to the various accounts of Jesus arraigned before the high priest and other assembled priestly and scribal worthies. Here the report is consistent across the different Gospels in referring to a prior hearing by the Jewish authorities whose task is to assemble the case to put before Pilate. There is some discrepancy in detail, as one might expect from three separate receptors of originally oral tradition in Mark (Matthew), Luke and John. St Mark (followed by St Matthew) seems to indicate that there was a formal trial before the Sanhedrin chaired by the high priest (Mark 14:53 and 14:55) that evening, followed by a closed consultation in the morning. This has given rise to objections that a capital trial at night, on the eve of a festival and in a single day would have been illegal on three counts according to the practice recorded in the Mishnah.993 The difficulty is discerning whether regulations codified at the end of the second century were in force at the time of Jesus. In St Luke’s account Jesus is brought to the high priest’s house and held, but the interrogation before the council is in the morning. St John recounts Jesus being brought first, for the initial evening encounter, to Annas, father-in-law of Caiaphas, and subsequently to Caiaphas, whence he is taken to Pilate’s headquarters. There is no mention of the council. The solution of Christopher Rowland seems the most probable (italics his): it seems likely that the pattern of informal hearings hinted at in Luke and found explicitly in John corresponds more nearly with the situation than the formal trial we have in Mark. We may say, therefore, that Mark is wrong in the impression he gives of a formal legal process confined to the last fateful Passover leading to an official condemnation, though the possibility should not be excluded that some sort of official legal inquiry had been in action over a much longer period of Jesus’ ministry.994 The high priestly consultations aimed at assembling a coherent case against Jesus. The Synoptic narratives refer to blasphemy, but there would need to be a political charge to hand Jesus over to Pilate for crucifixion. That would have included the charge of Jesus being a messianic pretender, which we have already suggested related to the Temple demonstration and the charge of claiming to destroy and rebuild the Temple associated with the ‘false witnesses’. Schweitzer, in his classic work, suggested that the crucial information that Judas was able to share with the priestly establishment, when he informed on Jesus, was that Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah.995 St Luke gives the most coherent summary of the brief passed to Pilate, even if it is the typical surmisal of a practising ‘historian’ of his era: ‘We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king’ (Luke 23:2). Jesus is handed over to Pilate by the Jewish priestly aristocratic establishment on political charges.996 According to the Gospel accounts Pilate is wary of the charges and has to be convinced. There is no doubt that there is an explicit tendency in the biblical passion narrative to exonerate Pilate and to put the blame on the Jews. Post-Easter the new movement was keen not to be seen as subversive by Roman justice, and antipathy was growing between

993

Mishnah San. 4.1. Rowland, Christian Origins, 172–3. 995 Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, 394–5. This is a point picked up by Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 309. Schweitzer conceived of a ‘messianic secret’ known only to the apostles divulged by Judas. 996 A similar process of handing over is recorded by Josephus as the fate of ‘Jesus, son of Ananias’ in the 60s of the first century CE ; however, he is scourged and then released by the Roman procurator (War 6.3.5). 994

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the charismatic sect and its parental institutions. The motif of silence is a reflection of Isaiah 53, but could perhaps be deliberate on the part of Jesus. As we noted above, the detail of the passion narrative at this juncture is open to shaping by Old Testament ‘prophecy’. The question of the historicity of the release of Barabbas under a Passover amnesty, recorded in all of the biblical sources, has been raised. It is pointed out that there is no evidence for this outside the biblical account either in Josephus or elsewhere. As an argument from silence, the case against the historicity of the event is, at the least, inconclusive. St Luke has the additional scene of Pilate sending Jesus to Herod Antipas, who was in Jerusalem for Passover. We need not doubt that genuine political manoeuvrings are reflected in the narrative. Pilate, for all his grim cruelty charted by Josephus, would not want to be used by the Jewish high priestly establishment as a tool of political manipulation. The final verdict was with him. It is he who condemns Jesus to crucifixion under the accusation ‘King of the Jews’; the titulus was attached to the Cross in three languages.997 The flight of the male disciples brings into focus another group whose activities are often invisible. That is, the women who accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry and who are loyally present in the final dramatic episode. Their witness is noted as an integral part of the whole passion narrative and several are named. Mark names three women at the crucifixion ‘looking on from a distance’ – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome (Mark 15:40). Matthew’s list is similar, but the third woman he designates as ‘the mother of the sons of Zebedee’ (Matthew 27:56). Luke has a general reference: ‘But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things’ (23:49). John identifies three Marys ‘standing near the cross’ (John 19:25) – Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary the wife of Clopas (also identified as the first Mary’s sister) and Mary Magdalene. The significance of this additional Johannine witness is highlighted by Raymond Brown: ‘John in 19:25– 27 seems to have combined his own source involving the mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple with another tradition of three Galilean women at the crucifixion, thus indirectly attesting the antiquity of the latter.’998 The witness of the women at the Cross is clearly established as part of the pre-Marcan passion narrative. Mark and Matthew both report the initiative of Joseph of Arimathea in approaching Pilate, taking Jesus’ body999 and placing it in a rock-hewn tomb. Raymond Brown points out that this may be the deed of a pious member of the Sanhedrin wishing to obey the Torah instruction about not leaving bodies on the gallows after sunset, rather than the action of a disciple of Jesus.1000 In that case no washing and anointing of the body may be envisaged. That makes sense of the tradition of the pre-anointing at Bethany (Mark 14:8; cf. Matthew 21:17).1001 Both Mark and Matthew state that Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joseph were present as observers (Mark 15:47; Matthew 27:61). Luke records events similarly with a note: ‘The women who had come with him from Galilee

997

Mark 15:26, cf. Matthew 27:37; Luke 23:38; John 19:19–20 (‘written in Hebrew, in Latin and in Greek’). R. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemene to the Grave, 2 vols (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), Vol. 2, 1195. This tells against the interpretation of A.Y. Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel, 129: ‘The statement about the women in 15:40–41 was placed there by Mark to prepare for the narrative about the discovery of the empty tomb.’ 999 Mark mentions ‘taking down the body’ (15:46), as also Luke (23:53). 1000 Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Vol. 2, 1243. We may compare Acts 13:29b: ‘they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb’. ‘They’ seems to be those who asked Pilate to have Jesus crucified, not disciples. 1001 Luke’s anointing story has a quite different context (7:36ff.). 998

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followed, and they saw the tomb and how his body was laid’ (23:55). Raymond Brown1002 suggests that this witness may be ‘back formation’ inferred from the women at the empty tomb. He notes that the tradition of the witness of the women to the burial is not mentioned in St John’s Gospel, suggesting it was not in his received tradition. He envisages the passion narrative concluding with the initiative of Joseph of Arimathea and the burial. Adela Yarbro Collins notes the burial narrative lacks the ‘topographical specificity’ characteristic of the passion narrative;1003 she doubts that it was part of the older tradition at all. She maintains that: ‘It is likely that the pre-Markan passion narrative ended with the death of Jesus and the theophany expressed in 15:38.’1004 Either scenario would account for the need for Mark to connect crucifixion and empty tomb with the device of the women witnessing the burial. Against this, the authenticity of the women’s witness both to the Crucifixion and to the empty tomb (as we discuss below) is strongly embedded in the tradition. It would be strange if this female witness was not linked in the early oral memory. The connecting thread of the women’s witness from Cross, through burial, to resurrection, has a coherence. Dunn has commented: ‘Similarly the presence of the women at the cross and their involvement in Jesus’ burial can be attributed more plausibly to early oral memory than to creative story-telling.’1005 The sense of connected narrative continues without interruption from Crucifixion through to the empty tomb; this is true also of St John’s Gospel where both the garden and the new tomb ‘in which no one had ever been laid’ (John 19:41b) act as connectors to Easter Sunday. The fissure in the tradition history comes between the ending of connected narrative at the empty tomb and the rather diverse and independent resurrection appearances. This is a seam to which the shorter ending of St Mark’s Gospel bears eloquent testimony. St John’s decision to use the episode of the women at the Cross to give occasion for the conversation between Jesus and the beloved disciple replaced the primary significance in the Synoptics of the presence of the women as silent witnesses to the event. That may have led him to omit the reference to the women at the burial as no longer part of his narrative structure, even if it was in his inherited tradition. St John has both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus involved in the burial; it is with Nicodemus that the notion of the anointing of Jesus’ body, now by a disciple, decisively enters the narrative. The Fourth Gospel does not specifically identify the women at this juncture. However, there is a geographical description of the tomb’s location: ‘Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. And so, because it was the Jewish day of Preparation, and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there’ (John 19:41–42). Although Crossan1006 doubts that a victim of crucifixion would get anything beyond an anonymous shallow burial in a common grave, easily uncovered by scavenging beasts, the transmitted witness to the initiative of Joseph of Arimathea at the pre-Marcan phase of the passion tradition is not easily dismissed. Further, there is now archaeological evidence of a first-century victim of crucifixion receiving a proper burial in a family tomb, so such was clearly a

Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Vol. 2, 1277. This is not true of the Johannine burial narrative which does include topographical details. 1004 A.Y. Collins, The Beginning of the Gospel, 117. 1005 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 782–3. 1006 Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, 139ff. 1002 1003

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possibility.1007 The tradition that Jesus was buried in a tomb is contained in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff. as part of the early credo which St Paul had himself received and which he passes on to the Corinthians: ‘that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried’. Archaeological evidence has remarkably confirmed the setting for the tomb as John describes it in the context of the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem; this is a detail to which we shall return. The witness of the women continues into Easter morning, as does the connecting timeframe which is characteristic only of the passion narrative: ‘And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb’ (Mark 16:2). According to Mark, all three of his identified group of women (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome) were present, ready to anoint the body of Jesus. They are dumbfounded to find the tomb empty and the stone rolled away. They receive a vision in which they are instructed to ‘go, tell his disciples and Peter’ (16:7) that the risen Jesus will appear in Galilee. Far from passing on the message, the women flee in panic ‘and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid’ (16:8). In such abrupt manner the earliest version of St Mark’s Gospel breaks off. Matthew’s account is initially similar to that of Mark, relating the early visit on the first day of the week to the tomb by ‘Mary Magdalene and the other Mary’ (28:1). Matthew then introduces legendary material with an earthquake and the rolling back of the stone by an angel. The angel addresses the women with a message that the risen Lord will appear to the disciples in Galilee, which they convey. Matthew continues with an immediate resurrection appearance to the women in which Jesus repeats the instruction to tell the disciples to go to Galilee. There follows the climax of a final commissioning of the disciples in Galilee by the risen Jesus. In St Luke’s Gospel the women who find the tomb empty are named as ‘Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them’ (24:10). The message at the tomb is now subtly adapted ‘remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee’ (24:6), which enables Luke to relate the resurrection appearances in the vicinity of Jerusalem (the Emmaus road scene and an appearance to the disciples). Jerusalem is part of Luke’s theological construction; there the disciples must await the coming of the ‘power from on high’ (24:49). The Gospel concludes with a parting at Bethany. St John records a visit to the tomb by Mary Magdalene early on the first day of the week, without specification of companions (20:1). She finds it opened and runs to tell Peter and the beloved disciple. They find Jesus’ body gone from the tomb with the grave clothes remaining; they depart ‘to their homes’ (20:10). There seems to be a resonance of this episode in Luke 24:22–24. In a touching narrative, Mary then encounters the risen Lord; next, she announces the news to the disciples. On the same day, in the evening, Jesus appears to the disciples, but Thomas is absent. One week later there is a further appearance with Thomas present, a climactic confession, and the initial conclusion of the Gospel (John 20:30–31). In the further material which is contained in the Gospel the action switches to Galilee where Jesus appears to seven disciples by the Sea of Tiberias. The extended narrative includes the threefold recommissioning of Peter and clarification about what Jesus had said regarding the longevity of the beloved disciple. The Fourth Gospel reprise concludes.

1007 N. Haas, ‘Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv’at ha-Mivtar’, Israel Exploration Journal 20, nos 1–2 (1970): 38-59. J. Zias and E. Sekeles, ‘The Crucified Man from Giv’at ha-Mivtar: A Reappraisal’, Israel Exploration Journal 35, no. 1 (1985): 22–27.

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The presence of the women in the passion narrative creates an arc of witness. They stand at a distance from the Cross taking in the whole grim event (Synoptics; John moves them nearer the Cross1008); they watch as the body of Jesus is placed in a nearby tomb (Synoptics), and Mary Magdalene (John) with other women (Synoptics) return at the crack of dawn when the Sabbath is over, on the first day of the week, and discover an empty tomb with the stone rolled away. Mary Magdalene is consistently named at each stage: Of the three appearances of these women . . . the one most agreed upon by the evangelists involved Mary Magdalene (explicitly or implicitly with companions) coming to the tomb on Easter and finding it empty. That, plus another early tradition that Mary Magdalene was accorded the first Jerusalem appearance of the risen Lord, was the primary factor in preserving the memory of the Galilean women.1009 The presence of Mary Magdalene, therefore, ensures that the Crucifixion and the empty tomb accounts are part of a single whole. The empty tomb is not an isolated item tacked on to the passion narrative, but an integral part of it. This image from the third day is a remembered part of a series of searing events. In the first instance, Easter Sunday doubtless added to the distress. Initially, the disturbed tomb was at best an ambiguous discovery. It is most probably the stark discovery of the empty tomb that brings the first day of the week into sharp focus. It is at this point of discovery that the historian parts company with the theologian. The historian can follow the women through the events of Crucifixion and burial, but can know no more than that the tomb was found to be disturbed on the Sunday morning. That seems to be the inevitable conclusion of the evidence. The ending of St Mark’s Gospel is absolutely consistent with the termination of the passion tradition with the events of Easter morning. Connected narrative ends with the empty tomb and the perplexed women. Mark has taken things a stage further than the historian and provides a transcendent interpretation of the enigma. There is a ‘holy dread’ in the women’s fear as they flee the tomb; the clue to which is the anticipation that Jesus is risen and will appear in Galilee. The numinous is already anticipated in Mark 10:32 on the journey to Jerusalem: ‘they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid’.1010 The only perplexing feature is not the point at which the Gospel breaks off, but why the women fail to carry out the instruction to take the message to the disciples. Is it simply a dramatic touch or an additional example of the Marcan secrecy motif? A further word about the tomb is in order, and the traditional location now identified with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Dunn suggests that there is no evidence for the veneration of the tomb.1011 However, a vigorously held memory of where the tomb was to be found seems to have survived into the time of Constantine. This despite the construction by Hadrian, in his foundation of Aelia Capitolina, of a temple to Aphrodite

1008 Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Vol. 2, 1019, argues that the fact that the women are not addressed directly suggests ‘the localization of them near the cross is secondary’. 1009 Ibid., 1275–6. 1010 Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew, 75: ‘This passage renders with supreme simplicity and force the immediate impression of the numinous that issued from the man Jesus, and no artistry of characterization could do it so powerfully as these few masterly and pregnant words.’ 1011 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 837–8. He does acknowledge concerning the location of the tomb that ‘the memory may have lasted through to the time of Constantine’, 838. By contrast, the tradition history of the angelic words at the tomb in Mark 16:6 has been traced back to a cultic event: L. Schenke, Auferstehungsverkündigung und leeres Grab: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung von Mk 16:1–8 (Stuttgart: KBW, 1969).

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immediately over the identified site. The Israeli archaeologist Dan Bahat suggests that this memory of the location of the tomb was preserved by a continuing Gentile Christian community in Jerusalem, as it was specifically ‘the circumcised’ who were expelled by Hadrian.1012 The tradition that identifies the adjacent sites of the Crucifixion and entombment within the area of the Holy Sepulchre Church is certainly primitive as it must antedate the reign of Herod Agrippa I (41–44 CE ), when the walls of Jerusalem were extended to include that area within the city. Jerome Murphy O’Connor writes: The value of the Jerusalem tradition must have been scrutinized very carefully when in the early C4 the emperor Constantine decided to build a church commemorating the Resurrection. Acceptance of the tradition involved a double expense: substantial buildings had to be torn down, and a new one put in their place. And just to the south was the open space of Hadrian’s forum! The suggestion must have been made that the church be built there, but the insistence of the community that the tomb was under Hadrian’s temple prevailed, and, as the eyewitness Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, tells us, ‘At once the work was carried out, and, as layer after layer of the subsoil came into view, the venerable and most holy memorial of the Saviour’s resurrection, beyond all our hopes, came into view’ (Life of Constantine 3:28).1013 Were there graffiti that made them so sure that the tomb had been found? Certainly, the area has provided evidence of first-century Jewish tombs. The archaeological context of the site venerated as Golgotha and the tomb, both canopied by the Holy Sepulchre Church, is an abandoned quarry from the eighth century BC , reopened during the time of Herod the Great. An outcrop of rock juts into the quarry, unharvested because it is flawed. The cracks remain clearly visible. The stony platform of the outcrop is identified as Golgotha; tombs were dug into the vertical face at the level of the quarry base. Archaeological excavations below the adjacent Lutheran Church of the Redeemer have revealed that debris accumulated at the bottom of the quarry to a depth of two metres which in the first century produced a fertile garden area with partitioning wall: ‘This matches very neatly the name given by Josephus of the nearby city gate in the northern section of the “First wall” as “Gennat Gate” – “Garden Gate” (Bell 4.2 V §146).’1014 The picture as portrayed by St John’s Gospel is consistent with what has been pieced together: ‘Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified, and in the garden there was a new tomb’ (John 19:41). If, indeed, the memory of the tomb’s location survived the period from Hadrian to Constantine, that suggests that the whereabouts of the tomb was significant during the period from the initial paschal events to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE . That gives

1012 Dan Bahat, personal correspondence with the author (8 June 2019): ‘Eusebius who was an eyewitness to the construction of the church by Constantine does not say anything about how he knew the place. When Eusebius talks about the visit of the empress, he speaks about the Cave of the Nativity and the Cave of the Apostles on the Mount of Olives. A visit of the empress to the Holy Sepulchre is not mentioned at all. The first time that connection between the church and the empress is mentioned is by Eudocia in 385, exactly fifty years after the construction of the church. I believe that the way Constantine learned about the site was through the Christians who were of Gentile origins or Jewish origin who were not circumcised, because the circumcised were not allowed by Hadrian to live in the city. Of course there are many problems to be solved but there is, in my opinion, no question about the authenticity of the church.’ 1013 Murphy-O’Connor, The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide, 46–7. 1014 D. Vieweger and C. Förder-Hoff, The Archaeological Park under the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem (Jerusalem: German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, 2012), 27.

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some credence to the suggestion of James Charlesworth of the particular significance of some verses from Psalm 118, quoted in early layers of the New Testament.1015 The verses are attached to the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in all three Synoptic Gospels and in the Gospel of Thomas,1016 a parable which was early associated with the passion of Jesus. They also occur as a scriptural proof-text relating to crucifixion and resurrection in the apologia of Peter before Annas and Caiaphas in Acts.1017 Charlesworth speculates that the verses may have been used liturgically at the site of Golgotha each Passover. They seem to resonate to both geography and history; that is, the Crucifixion of the rejected Lord on the correspondingly discarded rock, and the unexpected turnaround of events: The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. — Psalm 118:22–23 The resurrection appearances represent tradition of a quite different order from that of the passion narrative concluding with the empty tomb. The connecting thread of remembered events has ceased. The resurrection appearances are more fragmentary and diverse. Some are in Galilee, others are in Jerusalem. Jesus appears to individuals and to groups. Sometimes he is quite physical and eats with his disciples and at other times he is more ethereal and appears despite locked doors. It is impossible to reconstruct a likely course of events. Was Mary first to see the Lord in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday? Were the immediate disciples still in Jerusalem to receive a collective appearance on that first Sunday evening?1018 If so, they still seem to have returned to Galilee and to have resumed their mundane responsibilities. It is in Galilee that Mark and Matthew anticipate the foundational resurrection appearances take place, and John includes a significant appearance there. However, the new movement is initiated in Jerusalem and forms an early cell there; for Luke, with his specific theological motivation, Jerusalem is the sole place of the appearances. An immediate reason to bring the Galilean disciples back to Jerusalem may have been to make a pilgrimage for the Feast of Pentecost, having gained new confidence drawn from the resurrection appearances in Galilee. James Dunn has identified certain consistent patterns, despite significant variations, across the individual resurrection traditions.1019 Firstly, the encounters were remembered as visionary experiences: ‘seeings of Jesus alive after he had been dead’.1020 Jesus ‘appeared’ (¯ophth¯e – Luke 24:34; 1 Corinthians 15:5–8); the disciples exclaim, ‘We have seen the Lord’ (John 20:25; cf. Matthew 28:17) or it could be said that he had ‘showed himself ’ (John 21:1). Secondly, Jesus’ identity often seems veiled from recognition when he first appears. This is true of Mary Magdalene in John, of the Emmaus disciples in Luke and of ‘some who doubt’ in Matthew.1021 Thirdly, each resurrection appearance represents for Charlesworth, Jesus Within Judaism, 123ff. Matthew 21:33–42; Mark 12:1–11; Luke 20:9–17; Thomas 65. 1017 Acts 4:10–11; cf. 1 Peter 2:7. 1018 Both Luke (24:12, 24) and John (20:3ff.) refer to verification of the empty tomb on the Sunday by male disciples. 1019 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 858ff. 1020 Ibid., 861. Dunn clarifies, 866: ‘We can be confident that there was a visual and auditory element to these seeings.’ 1021 John 20:14; Luke 24:15–16; Matthew 28:17. 1015 1016

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the recipients a commissioning, a little Pentecost, to the extent that it became the necessary credential of apostolic office. Further, regularly associated with Jesus’ resurrection is the ‘third day’ or the ‘first day of the week’. N.T. Wright has identified a further feature; the narratives share a surprising absence in that they exhibit ‘virtually no embroidery from the biblical tradition’.1022 This silence is in strong contrast to the passion tradition, throughout which, we noted, the fulfilment of Scripture is the validating feature. It suggests that the resurrection accounts may have retained a freshness and authentic spontaneity which resisted being tamed or neatly classified. They came as moments of surprise which defied precedent or categorization. Significant light is shed on the resurrection traditions by the short credal formula, already referred to, in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff. There St Paul is passing on a fixed tradition which he had received, probably tracing its origins from very early in the life of the infant Jesus movement.1023 It is difficult to be certain about what was in the original credal statement and what St Paul may have added by way of commentary as regards the resurrection traditions. We have already established that the statement refers to the burial of Jesus. Michael Ramsey1024 classically pointed out that in the stages: died – buried – raised (1 Corinthians 15:3–4), the statement assumes the empty tomb. It is unlikely that St Paul could claim that Jesus was ‘declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead’ (Romans 1:4), unless he, too, envisaged the same succession of died, buried, raised.1025 1 Corinthians 15:5 – ‘and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve’ – is clearly part of the original text. An appearance to the core disciples was an essential of the tradition and of the essence of their authority, with Peter as the foundation witness. That significance of Petrine witness is reflected in what appears to be another fragment of fixed tradition at the end of the Emmaus story in St Luke’s Gospel, where the two returned travellers, reunited with the disciples, learn: ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ (Luke 24:34). We touch the heart of the earliest apostolic witness to the appearances of the risen Jesus in the naming of Peter and ‘the twelve’.1026 There is silence in the credal statement, however, concerning any prior appearance to Mary Magdalene; a woman’s testimony has vanished in a world of male power, where women’s witness carried no legal weight. The next element is intriguing: ‘Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died’ (1 Corinthians 15:6). The second half certainly represents Pauline commentary. The speculation that this may well represent Pentecost1027 and be another version of the story in Acts 2 seems to make sound sense. It is difficult to believe that such an event as that transmitted by Paul would not have created

N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (London: SPCK, 2003), 599. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 855: ‘This tradition, we can be entirely confident, was formulated as tradition within months of Jesus’ death.’ 1024 A.M. Ramsey, The Resurrection of Christ: An Essay in Biblical Theology (London: The Centenary Press, 1945), 42f. 1025 N.T. Wright in Borg and Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, 113, makes the point that ‘resurrection’ has a very specific significance: ‘For the first-century Jew, resurrection was not a general term for “life after death”. It was one point on a spectrum of beliefs about life after death.’ Cf. idem., The Resurrection of the Son of God, 200ff. 1026 Notably not ‘the eleven’. The significance of twelve was too deeply embedded in the consciousness of the Jesus tradition. 1027 S.M. Gilmour, ‘The Christophany to More than Five Hundred Brethren’, JBL 80, no. 3 (1961): 248–52; idem., ‘Easter and Pentecost’, JBL 81, no. 1 (1962): 62–6; G. Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (London: SCM Press, 1994), 100–8; R.W. Funk, The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 455. 1022 1023

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a ripple somewhere else within the New Testament tradition. The fact that Paul notes that ‘some have died’ makes it clear that he understands the witness to the resurrection to be time-limited and finite. Being a witness of the resurrection could not simply be equated with having an experience of the Spirit. The witnesses of the resurrection were confined to the apostolic generation. Taken conversely, however, it does seem every resurrection experience was indeed an experience of Whitsun and empowerment. The next portion is curiously similar to the Petrine component and almost seems to be in competition with it: ‘Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles’ (15:7). It reflects the authority that James, the brother of the Lord, came to exercise in Jerusalem, and suggests a certain primacy over ‘the apostles’ who were presumably a wider group than ‘the twelve’.1028 Those identified as apostles also drew their authority by being witnesses of the resurrection appearances. Was James’ authority at least partially at the expense of that of Peter? The former is listed first by Paul in his reference to ‘James and Cephas and John, who were acknowledged pillars’ (Galatians 2:9). The final element once again bases apostolic authority on resurrection witness, that of Paul himself: ‘Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me’ (1 Corinthians 15:8). It was absolutely vital for Paul’s apostolic authority that he could claim to have received a resurrection appearance: ‘Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?’ (1 Corinthians 9:1). Paul has to include himself within the quota of resurrection appearances to maintain his credibility. However, he refers to being ‘last of all’ and ‘untimely born’. He concedes a break with the normal pattern of revelatory events. He is unusual, perhaps unique, in receiving an appearance not having known Jesus in his earthly ministry (‘after the flesh’, cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16). There should probably be more caution exercised than is normally found in taking Paul’s experiences,1029 including the ‘blinding light’, recorded three times in Acts, as typical of resurrection experiences.1030 The general reality seems to have been something more continuous with the person they had known. It is salutary that the appearances of the risen Lord, who taught his disciples humility in leadership, were already badges of honour in the process of vying for leadership and authority in the early days of the infant movement. The way in which the resurrection was understood gave to the new movement its identity. It was received not as an isolated event, but within an interpretive framework. The insistence of Jesus that the breaking kingdom of God was at hand became the key to understanding the startling enigma of the paschal events. The eschatology of apocalyptic, which had driven the expectation associated with the ministry of Jesus, carried over into the reading of his death and resurrection. There was a continuity in the transition from pre-Easter to post-Easter. We have noted how the passion was very early recast as the meticulous fulfilment of scriptural prophecy expected to unfold at the end of the era. Peter is recorded as announcing that the events of Pentecost are the fulfilment of the prophecy of Joel, which describes the portents of the end time: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh’ (Acts 2:17; cf. Joel 2:28). The early legendary material associated with the passion in St Matthew’s Gospel cloaks it in the awesome events of the moment of the kingdom’s breaking. The birth pangs of the

1028

See Romans 16:17; Acts 14:1–7, 14. Galatians 1:11–16; Acts 9:1–19, 22:4–16, 26:12–18. 1030 If this is correct, then it questions the deduction of Gerd Theissen that the Transfiguration episode should be understood as a misplaced resurrection narrative (Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 295–6). 1029

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new age accomplished in the Crucifixion enable the beginning of the general resurrection to be brought forward to Good Friday. The apocalyptic scenario of the end time is unleashed: At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. — Matthew 27:51–52 In a similar way St Paul refers to the resurrection of Jesus as the ‘first fruits of those who have died’ (1 Corinthians 15:20). In 1 Thessalonians Paul anticipates the imminent return of Jesus to complete what he has begun: ‘For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first’ (4:16). In the resurrection, a process is underway which will not only raise the dead, but transform the universe: ‘We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.’ (Romans 8:22–23). The resurrection of Jesus is the pledge of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Revelation 21:1), where the chaotic threat of the old enemy Yam or Sea shall be no more. The claim is made that the yearning of Israel’s mythic tradition, which looked to the healing of creation, the gift of her place within the Ancient Near East, finds its fulfilment within her epic story in the prophet from Nazareth.

PART FOUR

Conclusion

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A Landscape of Israel’s Story from Its Origins to Jesus of Nazareth History’s first encounter with Israel reveals her deeply involved in the affairs of the Ancient Near East as Pharaoh Merenptah (1213–1203 BCE ) seeks to stabilize the Egyptian New Kingdom consequent upon the inevitable turmoil as the end closed on the long reign of Ramesses II ‘the Great’ (1279–1213 BCE ). The Victory Hymn of Merenptah1031 celebrates the driving out of the Libyans, who had invaded the delta, and the re-establishment of good order. An additional poem at the conclusion of the text claims a further successful campaign in Canaan: The princes are prostrate, saying: ‘Mercy!’ Not one raises his head among the Nine Bows.[1032] Desolation is for Tehenu; Hatti is pacified; Plundered is the Canaan with every evil; Carried off is Ashkelon; seized upon is Gezer; Yanoam is made as that which does not exist;[1033] Israel is laid waste, his seed is not;[1034] Hurru is become a widow for Egypt![1035] All lands together, they are pacified. At this stage we should not be thinking of Israel already formed, but as ‘proto-Israel(s)’. We have already noted that whenever the city states of Ashkalon, Gezer and Yanoam are identified, it is with the hieroglyphic determinative for ‘foreign country’, but Israel has the determinative for ‘foreign people’. This recognizes Israel as a different political entity, finding her identity in a less sophisticated bond across tribal or village communities. If, as suggested, Ramesses II provides the context for the slavery of the Hebrews, it is at least a distinct possibility that they, too, may have made their bid for freedom in the turmoil which Merenptah inherited.

1031 ANET , 376–8. The stela, now Cairo 34025, was discovered by Petrie in the ruins of Merenptah’s mortuary temple at Thebes. There is also a fragmentary duplicate in the Temple of Karnak. 1032 The nine traditional enemies of Egypt. 1033 Hatti was the land of the Hittites. Yanoam was an important town of northern Palestine. 1034 The statement that the ‘seed’, i.e. offspring, of Israel had been wiped out is a conventional boast of power at this period. 1035 The land of the biblical Horites, or Greater Palestine.

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Despite this initial turbulent introduction of Israel to public life, the archaeological record of the emergence of Israel in the hill country of Palestine is a peaceful one. The evidence is of multiple settlements in remoter uncontested areas on Galilee, Mount Ephraim, Judaea and Gilead, as well as the Negev. None of these settlements are furnished with defences. We earlier noted the succinct conclusion of A.J. Frendo: ‘scholars are now generally prone to interpret the evidence of the Early Iron Age highland settlements as an instance of the sedentarization of local Canaanite nomads; indeed, early Israel would have emerged largely from within Canaan itself.’1036 A picture emerges which is rather different from the consensus of the 1940s and 1950s referred to by E.W. Nicholson.1037 For the biblical theology movement and G.E. Wright, the recital of God’s acts in history, focused on the Exodus and the gift of the land, was definitive. Israel’s distinctive epic faith could be defined against the prevailing mythic of Canaanite culture. This is no longer sustainable; Israel takes her place within the context of the Ancient Near East. The peaceful emergence of Israel from within Canaan, its development during the period of the judges and the adoption of the institution of kingship were all part of a coming of age within the given culture which she inhabited. By the Iron Age and the period of the monarchy she shared in the major institutions that defined Canaanite culture: that is, kingship itself, the practice of the Jerusalem Temple, representative of much of the common custom of all Canaanite temples, and also the intellectual tradition of Wisdom as royal court sophistication developed. From Israel’s origins and throughout the period of the monarchy we see her settled in a Canaanite environment, for which creation theology is the ‘broad horizon’ and for which nurture of the environment to bring about plenty and fertility was its main preoccupation. We noted, for instance, that the temple Tel Moza near Jerusalem, probably accommodating the worship of a variety of gods, existed throughout the whole period of the monarchy. Although from the eighth century BCE onwards the ministry of the prophets was instigating the seeds of religious reformation, the nature of society, regulated by its seasonal festivals, remained conservative and largely constant. Far from this early period of Israel’s development being empty of consequence, the rediscovery of a true context has opened up a new vista. The ‘dark matter’ of creation theology, so long ignored, takes on a new significance. The creation theology of the Ancient Near East, particularly in the context of a global crisis currently experienced by contemporary society, assumes crucial importance. In the search for the ‘treasures of great price’ that represent Scripture’s ‘seeds of significance’, this must be identified as one of them. Without retracing the issues discussed in Part One, two points may be made. The first relates particularly to the psalms and the second to the Primaeval History. It is in the psalms that all the colour of the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ is to be found, from conflict, through triumphal procession to enthronement. It is in the psalms, sometimes in a pre-Israelite form, that we meet the significance of royal rule and its connection with righteousness, peace and justice, with their cosmic consequence. These have been able to feed on concepts that drive deep into the identity of the Ancient Near East in the form of the me of Ancient Sumer and Ma’at of Ancient Egypt.

1036

Frendo, ‘Back to Basics’, 50. See above Chapter Seven, s. I. Nicholson, God and His People, 56. See discussion above, Chapter Six, s. III.

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The result was that the Ancient Near East produced a model not of a static universe on which human activity was a stage set, dead to its environment. Rather, by recognizing the complexity of society in its different areas (justice, wisdom, nature/fertility, war/victory, worship/sacrifice), held together by a concept of kingship, it offered a model of harmonious, integrated, cooperative interaction as key to understanding the nature of reality. It was the transfer of the ordering of society to the order of the cosmos which was able to present dynamic interaction as of the essence of the physical and natural fabric of the world into which humans are integrated under the divine monarch. Psalm 104 and Genesis 1 are particular jewels representative of the way the vision of the Ancient Near East presented the physical world in terms of its ecologies: its enhancing overlapping, its mutuality, balance and equilibrium. The Ancient Near Eastern mind could only admire the one miracle of existence which had brought into being a whole that was so totally interdependent, regular, organic and responsive. The annual celebration of the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ is a reminder that creation’s order required constant care and refreshing. Good order could not be taken for granted and was vulnerable to human mischief, evil forces, neglect or the failure to implement justice. Such is the interconnection of things that failure in one area (the cult) might have a consequence in quite another (drought), as in the episode of Elijah and Ahab. Such a link once seemed far-fetched, yet exactly that connection between moral behaviour and climate change is now evident. The good equilibrium of the universe can languish and ail. The creation vision of the Ancient Near East is a remarkable fit with modern understanding, but takes things further, insisting on the moral quality of cosmic engineering from which there may be much yet to learn. We summed this up earlier in this way: ‘The vision of a created order which is harmonious, whole, self-regulating, interconnected and ecologically balanced is a great prize. It is the gift of the emergence of the Hebrews within their greater context.’1038 We turn now to the Primaeval History. We have drawn attention to the integrity of the Wisdom tradition. Whereas the Jerusalem traditions locate the fulcrum of the universe at Jerusalem (cf. Psalm 125:1–2), that is not the case for Wisdom. For Wisdom there is no centre of the world; absolutely everything is relativized. In its cosmic and universal vision, all people and places are equidistant from God. Wisdom’s insights do not recognize local special pleading, which in Israel’s case include the Davidic monarchy, Jerusalem, covenant and Torah. It brings a quasi-scientific approach to all things, which applies strict logic and looks for the thread of rationality. The ‘act–consequence syndrome’ is its measure of everything. The world is responsive to stimuli for good or for ill. The integrity of Wisdom is shared by the Primaeval Narrative. We see this in Genesis 1 to 11, which is able to handle the concept of humanity in such a way that it never considers the specific local, but always has an anthropological example of all humanity. Humanity is totally relativized; all human beings are equidistant from God. One can compare this intellectual feat with the modern laboratory conditions of a social scientist. It is an amazing achievement from an era of pressing local concerns and competing intentions. Primaeval Narrative seeks to reflect on the human condition per se. It is not saying that there was a moment of history where the perfection of creation was broken. It uses the

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See above, Chapter Six, s. I.

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device of story to articulate the experience of human existence as at once profoundly gifted and yet profoundly estranged. It is not explaining how the present came about, so much as analysing the existential situation in which humans find themselves. This is done in the J tradition by a series of stories and generational links which chart both cultural progress and the flaw which inevitably accompanies such progress. The P tradition particularly uses the Flood story bonded with the creation account and, in so doing, harnesses the Flood narrative to its archetypal significance across the whole of humanity. The combination articulates beauty and contingency, ‘giftedness’ and ‘original threat’. Genesis 1 to 11 affords a scrupulously impartial observation of the human condition without any labels relating to race, religion or nationality. The significance of those chapters as the preface to all that follows in the Hebrew Scriptures cannot be overemphasized. They set a context within which the whole of the rest of the Bible sits – both Old and New Testaments. They are cleansing of all tribalism, parochialisms and special interests that are smuggled into religious practice. Religion without this proper sense of the creator is dangerous as it bestows absolutes without a corrective. The Hebrew Scriptures open with a magisterial vision of creation that takes its bearings from God alone. It gives no warrant to sectarianism, racism or any other grounds for local superiority. Already in the early monarchy the epic introduces itself onto the mythic scene. The psalmic form contained in Exodus 15 identifies a moment of history ‘fixed on the calendar’ which is distinctively different from a cyclic concept of the world. The ‘rescue at sea’ created a powerful bond between those who experienced the rescue and Yahweh, so the tenacity of monolatry would shape an alternative epic model of faith. In the early monarchy, the epic story would create its own major Festival of Passover/Unleavened Bread which was able from the exile to replace the major Canaanite New Year festival. We have seen how in the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ the Exodus event was able to generate a narrative of salvation history. The emphasis now moved from the archetypal behaviour of the gods collectively, whose mythic adventures defined creation’s processes. Rather, the story was now about the relationship between God and human beings as the real ‘counterpart’ of God’s interest. This was a contributory factor in the development of monotheism. In retrospect, it is clear that the salvation history emphasis on the relationship between God and His people involved a lengthy period of development as the whole notion of covenant relationship was broken and redefined. The ministry of the canonical prophets enshrined the transcendence of God who could turn against His people from strength, rather than weakness. From that gruelling period emerged a real sense of election, with its new understanding of covenant, attached to which were its curses as well as its blessings. With that understanding went a deep commitment to Torah as Israel’s way of expressing and preserving covenant faithfulness. Hebrew epic by its nature retained an emphasis on the relationship between God and His people. However, the fact that the Exodus event could and did claim to be history, did not make it such. Salvation history, we discovered, is a construct, ‘ “story” rather than “history” ’.1039 Yet, it remains a significant fact that the Exodus event itself claims to be a calendar anniversary. In the ‘Journey of the Redeemed’ and its outcome we may identify a further significant moment of disclosure: one of those ‘seeds of difference’ we might expect from Scripture.

Nicholson, Deuteronomy and the Judean Diaspora, 151. See above, Chapter Six, s. I.

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One further point needs to be made. It concerns the tension raised by the juxtaposition of the mythic and the epic. Their connection is highlighted by the role of sea, which is common to both narratives and initiates creative interplay. In commenting on Exodus 15 we noted the potential for a two-act drama to develop in which the foundation event of creation is followed by a final episode in a ‘new creation’. We may discern in this further potential of Israel’s faith another distinctive ‘seed of difference’, one to which we shall return in the context of apocalyptic. The next milestone in Israel’s unfolding landscape is Hebrew ethical monotheism, which registers high on any scale of the history of religions. It is a significant achievement and an accolade to the Hebrew stream of faith. We acknowledged that the theological direction of the Ancient Near East was towards monotheism. The ‘king of the gods’ responsible for the created order had presented a crisis in polytheism and was fast becoming ‘the only god that mattered’. That was true in Ancient Egypt, in Babylon, with Marduk as the example, and in Jerusalem, where the ‘Journey of the Divine Warrior’ had its own particular manifestation in the Temple New Year festival. The epic side of Israel’s faith was pushing in the same direction towards monotheism. We have seen how agile Deutero-Isaiah was in handling deftly the two sets of mythic and epic traditions. The monolatry of the epic tradition highlighted the significance of a single god, if not yet the significance of an only god. The former was inevitably leading towards the latter in isolating a single deity. Further, the nature of monolatry, with its exclusive bond emphasizing the covenant relationship between God and His people, marginalized the significance of the archetypal ‘opera of the gods’. The interesting story, in the estimate of monolatry, moved from mythic narrative to God’s care for His people from day to day. God’s companionship was not to be found in heaven; His counterpart was now humanity. Israel’s epic faith provided the additional momentum which enabled her to be the first in embracing monotheism. We noted ‘objections’ levelled at monotheism: its hierarchical and controlling nature, as well as its suppression of diversity. Nevertheless, the five marks of monotheism are an impressive list: 1. God is the creator and sustainer of all that is, without exception. That includes the cycles of the physical world and the world of events and history. 2. God is one and has no companion peers in heaven. 3. God is personal and finds ‘companionship’ in human beings. 4. Hebrew ethical monotheism demands that at the heart of the universe is not a moral vacuum, but the author of universal cosmic righteousness and prophetic critique. 5. God is transcendent. There is an interval between God and creation. It is with the exile that the mature epic faith of Israel fully emerges. We noted that this was indicated both by the late development of the concept of covenant and by the changing nature of the festivals, which turned from marking key features of the natural cycle of the year to commemorating Israel’s epic story. Amongst these, Passover/ Unleavened Bread becomes primary and takes the head of the year, now moved from autumn to spring. It is during the Persian period that the Torah/Pentateuch is written. It is in the Persian period and beyond that the biblical books are edited. The significance of Scripture with its written authority now emerges as definitive.

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Although we saw that Judaism was never totally uniform, it is also during the Persian period that ‘covenantal nomism’ became established as a recognizable norm. The reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah largely won hearts and minds, but with the energy coming from those who had undergone the exile, rather than those who had remained in the land and whose pedigree was suspect. The Hellenistic period of Early Judaism introduces us to the phenomenon of apocalyptic. The rich cultural diversity of that period is clearly its catalyst. We remarked on the influence of Babylonian mantic Wisdom with its privileged knowledge of heavenly secrets. However, there is much that anchors apocalyptic to Israel’s religious traditions: in its biblical allusions as well as the influence of Hebrew prophecy and Wisdom. The sin of the fallen angels brings to the apocalyptic analysis of the condition of the world a degree of pessimism and accounts for its deep sense of alienation. The myth of the Flood sounds as a day of reckoning that will find its consummation in a final judgement and a new creation. For the heavenly journey type of apocalypse, this judgement may still be fairly remote. For the historical apocalypse, the divine intervention is at the threshold. The creation will become as God intended. Apocalyptic remarkably completes the potential of Israel’s religious traditions in its vision leading to a new creation. The potential for a two-act drama of creation and new creation arising from the tension between the mythic and the epic blossomed before the Isaianic work closed. That the world will conclude with a new creation is of the essence of apocalyptic conviction: ‘Frequent allusions to the Trito-Isaianic scenarios about a new creation and a new Jerusalem colour the descriptions of the new age in almost all parts of 1 Enoch . . ., and even the Book of Luminaries awaits a new creation.’1040 We suggested that ‘Enochic apocalyptic’ should be identified as a distinct form of Hellenistic Judaism. The salvation history of mainstream Judaism is substantially different from the salvation history as narrated in the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse. The latter gave rise to an eschatological initiative, which led on to the fullscale new creation. By setting up a tension between the epic and mythic, apocalyptic enabled the mythic, with its cosmic vision, to conclude history. Such a vision would be an impossible leap from epic alone. As we concluded earlier: It is as if in the Persian period of Second Temple Judaism the primacy of creation theology departs through the front door, as epic tradition makes its entry, only to reappear through the back door in furnishing the vital imagery of the era of salvation in the subsequent Hellenistic era. An apocalyptic stream of tradition emerged, critical of Temple practice. It characteristically presented an alternative version of salvation history and combined it with cosmic speculation in the vision of a new creation.1041 Apocalyptic paints a colourful picture of the ‘spiritual universe’ of Early Judaism. It includes fallen angels, imprisoned stars, a heavenly court, geographic wonders and other revealed knowledge. The enigma remains the way in which that vision of a spiritual universe explodes to become an integral part of popular Judaism. It provides a background for the understanding of Qumran and much else, as well as the context within which the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth is presented.

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 57. See above, Chapter Twelve, s. I. See above, Chapter Nine, s. II.

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The ministry of Jesus inherits the epic perspective of Israel’s identity. The background within which he operates takes for granted the national story. That includes the patriarchs, the leadership of Moses with the focus of the Exodus, the gift of the Torah, the covenant identity, the Davidic dynasty, the ministry of the prophets, the Temple and its pilgrimage festivals, including the significance of the Passover celebration. Jesus was also an astute practitioner of Wisdom in his teaching and parables. The landscape of Galilee raised in him a poetic resonance to the Heavenly Father’s care for creation. The story of Jesus is further bathed in myth. It is myth in which the historical Jesus consciously participated. It was not simply attracted to him; he adopted it. His preaching of the kingdom linked him to the ‘back story’ which had its roots in the great cosmic imagery of the divine victory over chaos and the universal establishment of justice, righteousness and peace. It was a foundation myth associated with Ancient Near Eastern kingship. That mythic narrative, refined by Israel’s encounter with apocalyptic, by the first century of the common era, had morphed into an intense conviction that Israel was at the threshold of a new divine initiative which would unleash nothing less than a new creation. The former creation myth now carried an ‘end-time’ eschatological perspective. The seed of that event would be the restoration of Israel and the fulfilment of God’s covenant promises which were yet outstanding, as Israel still languished in virtual exile, dispersed abroad and humiliated in her own land. Jesus saw himself as the crucial agent of the amazing transformation about to take place, which he perceived as already breaking through in his ministry. Something of his own understanding is evident in his self-identification with the figure of the enigmatic Son of Man and, in his final week, his direct messianic claim. Despite his deflecting of adulation away from himself – ‘No one is good but God alone’ (Mark 10:18) – he placed his own significance as that of the viceroy of God. Two of his disciples, who were all promised thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel, sought places at his side when he inherited the kingdom (Mark 10:35ff.; Matthew 20:20ff.). Jesus was able to make very substantial claims for his part in the expected cosmic transformation by adopting the powerful myths circulating in contemporary Judaism as the context of his ministry and specific to his own destiny. Jesus placed himself within a mythic context characterized by the immediate expectation of divine intervention with the jubilee amnesty of the kingdom. He moved within the context of the spiritual universe of Early Judaism. Thus understood, every instant of life was lived under the intense scrutiny of the breaking transitional moment which would test the dross of the old order. Yet, Jesus emphasized the joy of a world about to be transformed by the revealing of the character of God. That was because he understood the divine character to be generous beyond imagination, merciful, compassionate, forgiving and just. The poor, the mourner and the outcast were to be prioritized for divine favour. If the kingdom was to be anticipated by those moved by Jesus’ ministry, then it was in seeking a radical emulation of the merciful character of God, by which the divine image was liberated in the human breast. Such a lifestyle was not simply an individual moral conversion, but contributed to a new equilibrium throughout human society which rippled through creation. Israel was called to prepare to be the place where the kingdom would first break through. It seems that an initial ‘kingdom movement’ developed from Jesus’ Galilean ministry which had an established momentum with its own identity; in due course it coalesced with the additional and decisive stream of energy generated by the paschal events of Good Friday and Easter Day.

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The evidence is that Jesus felt secure in his own proclamation because his vocation was nurtured and confirmed by intense personal experience. That remained true for the three moments of testing that the Gospels identify; the significance of such moments is captured in the final phrase of the Lord’s Prayer: ‘Do not bring us to the time of trial’.1042 Those occasions were his baptism, the events in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi and in the Garden of Gethsemane; each one an occasion of coming to terms with the recognition of a distinct stage of evolving vocation. The baptism of Jesus seems to have been the foundation experience of his whole ministry. It may be compared to the prophetic calls in the Hebrew Scriptures or the turning point in apocalyptic narrative. He has a vision of the heavens open and he hears a divine voice. The core reality was an intense sense of relationship with his Heavenly Father. It is encapsulated in Jesus’ characteristic address in prayer: ‘Abba’, which became imprinted on the tradition. Other visionary experiences of Jesus are recorded in the scriptural tradition. One is disclosed by Jesus’ own words as the disciples (‘the seventy’ according to St Luke) return from their mission: ‘He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning”’ (Luke 10:18). Another is the occasion known as the Transfiguration;1043 a visionary experience is shared with Jesus’ inner group of disciples, which again includes a voice. The voice seems to have been part of a pattern of visionary experience in contemporary Judaism.1044 Further, Jesus is recorded as taking himself off for sustained periods of prayer (cf. Mark 1:35). Important to Jesus in nurturing his own confidence in his vocation were the remarkable healings and exorcisms that accompanied his ministry. Their significance is evident in the sermon placed by Luke, as an initial manifesto, in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16ff.), and also in the answer Jesus gives to the enquiry from the disciples of John the Baptist (Luke 7:22; Matthew 11:4). There was a spiritual buoyancy about all aspects of the ministry of Jesus which is captured in St Mark’s Gospel: ‘They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid’ (Mark 10:32). The aura which accompanied Jesus, fed by his powerful sense of sonship and divine favour, failed only once in his ministry. That was at the Crucifixion. His sense of the presence and purpose of God, the driving power of the Holy Spirit unleashed at his baptism, which was the well of his authority, drained away. The Father had not intervened despite Jesus’ loyalty to the point of breaking; there was silence in heaven. It is impossible to overestimate the sense of devastation that Jesus must have felt. The Father, always so intimately close, had abandoned him at the point of his most daring trust: ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’1045 Jesus died with a prayer of bewilderment on his lips. The everlasting arms were absent. Nor were his followers any less bewildered: ‘But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’ (Luke 24:21a). The Crucifixion seemed to have exposed the whole mythic dimension of the life of Jesus, which set his ministry in the perspective of the breaking kingdom and the fulfilment of Israel’s destiny, as a charade, a false hope, a terrible mistake. Jesus as the Son of Man, the high destiny of the twelve, the divine amnesty which would welcome the outcast and raise the poor, were all a mirage. Israel had been led astray. Jesus was another discredited prophet.

1042

Matthew 6:13; Luke 11:4b. Mark 9:2–8; Matthew 17:1–8; Luke 9:28–36. 1044 Vermes, The Religion of Jesus the Jew, 170: ‘The bat qo ¯l or heavenly voice is an intermediary device in Jewish religious speculation, replacing not only direct speech from God to man, but also divine communication through prophets. Its inauguration is dated by Tannaitic rabbis to the early post-exilic era.’ 1045 ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Mark 15:34; cf. Matthew 27:46). 1043

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It was the resurrection that dispelled the gloom. The discovery of the empty tomb by Mary Magdalene and the other women on the Sunday morning was disconcerting, and perhaps more a reason for anxiety than hope. The empty tomb tradition, characterized by the ‘short ending’ of St Mark’s Gospel, is an integral part of the historical memory of the passion events, held together in the final ‘three days’ by the presence throughout of Mary Magdalene. The historian is able to walk with the theologian up to that point. It was the resurrection appearances that required a fundamental reassessment of what had happened and brought to the empty tomb a new significance that its initial discovery had not necessarily implied. The depth of despair of the disciples requires something substantial to turn it around; their own claim was that the risen Jesus appeared to them on a number of occasions over a limited period of time. The resurrection appearances represent a tradition of their own, which is separate from the consecutive passion narrative. Unlike the Transfiguration or the ‘untimely birth’ of St Paul (1 Corinthians 15:8), the appearances do not seem to have been the blinding light or marvellous angelic presence of apocalyptic that imagination might anticipate. They are often enigmatic and the recipients slow to grasp the reality. There is a continuity with the earthly Jesus, yet he is not simply returned to those he encounters. There is a forward movement. The appearance tradition has not been shaped by biblical prototypes, despite the strong contemporary assumption that the scriptural word reveals the detail of the end time. No attempt has been made to standardize the way an appearance unfolds. There remains a degree of surprise and randomness which has not been tamed. Appearances are in Jerusalem and Galilee, to individuals and groups, physical to the point of eating food and, contrastingly, more restrained: ‘Do not hold on to me’ (John 20:17a). Startling is the unexpected priority of Mary Magdalene and the women, who have not held centre stage in the Gospel narratives and whose testimony carried no credence in a male-oriented society. The assorted nature of the appearances was distilled into a foundation witness: ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ (Luke 24:34). The twelve shared that basic witness.1046 The conviction that Jesus had ‘risen and appeared’ was the event which ensured that the Jesus movement had a future, now refashioned and recommissioned as the Pentecostal community. That conviction was distilled in a credo of the Early Church which St Paul had inherited and shared.1047 The credo reveals the additional significance of appearances to ‘James’ (brother of Jesus) and ‘all the apostles’ with its incipient tensions as regards community leadership. The resurrection event had to be interpreted. It was most naturally placed within the context of Jesus’ own expectation of the imminent kingdom brokered by the Son of Man. The first fruits of the intervention of God in the dawning new age had broken upon the old order. Jesus’ resurrection was conceived to have inaugurated a process that would fulfil Israel’s expectations and transform creation. Overarching Israel’s identity from its very origins is the interplay of myth and epic. The myth of the divine overwhelming of chaos in favour of order and the establishment of righteousness, justice and peace throughout creation, which needed to be continually refreshed, took particular liturgical shape in the Jerusalem Temple and informed Israel’s native traditions. It was a myth that underwrote the authority of the royal house. That myth was harnessed by Deutero-Isaiah and the later prophets to express Yahweh’s new future. It was adopted by Daniel in his vision of ‘one like a son of man’ (Daniel 7), from

1046

1 Corinthians 15:5 and Acts 1:21–22. 1 Corinthians 15:3ff.

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which it was probably drawn by Jesus. In his proclamation of the kingdom Jesus entered fully into those mythic traditions. The resurrection of Jesus in the apprehension of his initial band of devotees validated the mythic associations which had become attached to him during his life. The hopes fixed upon him were not illusory, but to be trusted as secure. However, the notion of ‘true myth’ is not the same as ‘literal myth’. The latter would be an oxymoron; a myth cannot be literal and maintain its authority as a parable of hidden reality. Myth is able to interpret mundane events in the light of their veiled transcendent significance. Its storyline is not a narrative of daily events, but rather an archetypal narrative that gives insight into the structure of things. The first disciples understood the resurrection to validate the myth associated with the cosmic ‘back story’ of the kingdom of God. As myth it signifies something deeper than the literal. Jesus was wrong about a literal intervention of God; day still followed day in an uninterrupted way. The world had not become a paradise in which the violence of evolution was replaced by the wolf and the lamb lying down together (Isaiah 11:6a). How, then, do we read the myth? That reading takes a particular form within the community of faith, which receives the resurrection as in some sense a new fact with which to come to terms. It cannot be subsumed merely into poetry, a new mental attitude on the part of the apostles or ‘the psychological inability of Jesus’ followers to accept his death . . . and the hallucinations this resistance produced in them’.1048 The implication for faith is that in the life of Jesus of Nazareth myth and history truly intersect. That is to say, there is the revelation of the divine within the ongoing processes of creation; within that great vista, we are confronted by the very specific self-disclosure of God within human history. The way for that intimacy had been prepared by Israel’s story with its mixture of mythic and epic narrative. Her sense of covenant relationship, her ethical monotheism structured in Torah, the hope for liberation and jubilee, all these were crucial ingredients which enabled ‘God in Christ’ to take shape in the material world. The particular Hebrew mythic pattern, leavened by Wisdom, is to be read as a divine imperative to work for justice, mercy and peace which in a mysterious way is embedded in creation’s purpose. The revelation in Christ has cosmic significance. It asserts the goodness of the created order and contains a hope for the whole of creation, which because it has its origin in God must find its consummation in God. How this might be transposed into a non-literal interpretation of the intersection of myth and history is articulated by Michael Ramsey: by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ the inauguration of a new creation has begun, and this new creation will include both mankind brought to sonship and to glory, . . . and nature renewed in union with man in the worship and praise of God. . . . The Christian hope is therefore far more than the salvaging of human souls into a spiritual salvation: it is the re-creation of the world, through the power of the Resurrection of Christ.1049 The revelation in Christ also affirms the uniqueness of events in the human story which are not simply subsumed into the repetitive cycle of nature’s return. It insists on the truth of the giftedness of things; that is, the overwhelming truth that all is underpinned by

Smith, Jesus the Magician, 4. Michael Ramsey, The Glory of God and the Transfiguration of Christ (London: Longmans Green & Co., 1949), 90. 1048 1049

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grace. Evident in God’s revelation in Christ is a bias to the poor and the affirmation of the human hope that ‘earth shall be fair and all its people one’. There is not a naïve correlation between Jesus and God; we cannot talk about the child of Bethlehem throwing stars into the galaxies. However, we can understand Jesus of Nazareth in terms of his proclamation of the kingdom, and the associated self-designations of Son of Man and Messiah. They represent a clutch of eschatological concepts grounded in true myth. Creation and consummation, Urzeit und Endzeit, are distilled as the absolute end, the true significance of things; they come to meet us in the middle. We may speak of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God and, in the words of Michael Ramsey, insist that: ‘God is Christlike and in him is no un-Christlikeness at all.’1050 Jesus reveals the God of jubilee, of infinite generosity, mercy and forgiveness. The Cross was not part of Jesus’ plan; he probably came to anticipate a prophet’s death by stoning (Q Luke 13:34; Matthew 23:37). He had to struggle with the prospect of a rather more terrifying ordeal in the Garden of Gethsemane; an ordeal which he hoped might yet be taken from him. He endured the nightmare of abandonment on the Cross. In retrospect, however, the Cross came to represent the full extent of the mysterious revelation of divine love in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. There he takes on total identification with the outcast, the despairing, the rejected and those who weep (cf. Hebrews 13:12–13). Consequently, God is revealed in Christ, as the universal equilibrium of the kingdom is decisively reset to inspire and sustain those in every generation who hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Michael Ramsey, God, Christ and the World: A Study in Contemporary Theology (London: SCM Press, 1969), 98.

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Vermes, G. ‘The Jesus Notice of Josephus Re-Examined’. JJS 38 (1987): 1–10. Vermes, G. Jesus the Jew: A Historian’s Reading of the Gospels. London: Collins, 1973. Vermes, G. The Religion of Jesus the Jew. London: SCM Press, 1993. Vermes, G., and M.D. Goodman, eds. The Essenes: According to the Classical Sources. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989. Vermeylen, J., ed. The Book of Isaiah. Leuven: University Press, 1989. Vielhauer, P. Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1975. Vieweger, D., and C. Förder-Hoff. The Archaeological Park under the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. Jerusalem: German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, 2012. Wacholder, B.Z. The Dawn of Qumran. Cincinnati, OH : Hebrew Union College, 1983. Wacholder, B.Z. ‘The Relationship between 11Q Torah (the Temple Scroll) and the Book of Jubilees: One Single or Two Independent Compositions?’ SBLSP 24 (1985): 205–16. Weber, M. Ancient Judaism. London: The Free Press, 1952. Originally published as Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie: Volume III: Das antike Judentum. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1921. Weinfeld, M. ‘Justice and Righteousness’. In Justice and Righteousness: Biblical Themes and Their Influence, JSOT Supplement Series 137, edited by H.G. Reventlow and Y. Hoffman, 228–46. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992. Weiss, J. Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892. English translation. Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press; and London: SCM Press, 1971. Wellhausen, J. ‘Israel’. In Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume XIII . 1881. Reprinted as an appendix to Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. Franklin Classics, 2018. Wellhausen, J. Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1883–5). First published as Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels. Berlin, 1878. Reprinted. New York, NY: The Meridian Library, 1957. Westermann, C. ‘Das Alte Testament und die Theologie’. In Theologie, was ist das?, edited by G. Picht and E. Rudolph, 49–66. Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1977. Westermann, C. Creation. London: SPCK ; and Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1974. First published as Schöpfung. Stuttgart and Berlin: Kreuz-Verlag, 1971. Westermann, C. Genesis 1–11: A Continental Comentary. London: SPCK ; and Minneapolis, MN : Augsburg Publishing House, 1984. First published as Biblischer Kommentar: Genesis 1–11. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974. Westermann, C. Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary. English translation. London: SCM Press, 1969. First published, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966. Wette, W.M.L. de. ‘Dissertatio critica-exegetica’. Doctoral dissertation, University of Jena, 1805. Reprinted in Opuscula. Berlin, 1833. Williams, R. On Christian Theology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Williamson, H.G.M. Ezra and Nehemiah. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987. Williamson, H.G.M., He Has Shown You What Is Good: Old Testament Justice Then and Now. Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 2012. Wilson, J.A. ‘The Journal of a Frontier Official’. ANET : 258–9. Wintermute, O.S. ‘Jubilees: A New Translation and Introduction’. In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Volume 2, edited by J.H. Charlesworth, 35–142. London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1985. Wise, M.O. The First Messiah: Investigating the Savior Before Christ. San Francisco, CA : HarperSanFrancisco, 1999.

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INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS

Aharoni, Y. Albani, M. Albertz, R. Albright, W.F. Allison, D. Alt, A. Attenborough, D. Atwell, J.E.

Bacon, F. Bahat, D. Bailey, K. Barr, J. Barth, K. Barton, J. Barton, J. & J. Muddiman Bauckham, R. Baumann, H. Baumgarten, J.M. Bedenbender, A. Bentzen, A. Ben Zeev, M.P. Bergmann, W & C. Hoffman Berlin, I. Betz, O. Beyerlin, W. Bickerman, E.J. Bietak, M. Bissing, F.W.F. von Black, M. Bloch, Y. Blum, E. Boccaccini, G. Bockmuehl, M. Borg, M. Borg, M. & N.T. Wright

90, 91 n.241 179 74, 91 n.244, 117 n.329 82 n.212, 90 n.238 260 n.767 80 n.199, 91, 147 n.389 52 9 n.18, 18 n.47, 30 n.84, 37 n.97, 47 n.119, 67 n.169, 88 n.232, 193 n.509 277 7 n.5, 320 261 n.769 75, 126 254 24, 90–1 76 n.189, 102 n.286 262 33 221, 222 n.608 181, 246–7 285 158–9 164 n.442 55 293 n.901 49 n.121 151–2 64–5 14 n.28 183 n.484, 260 n.766 61 n.140 83 195, 234 n.651, 246 309 277 269, 301, 322 n.1025

Borgen, P. Bornkamm, G. Bright, J. Brooke, G.J.

Broshi, M. & H. Eshel Brown, R. Bultmann, R. Burney, C.F. Butler-Sloss, E. Charles, R.H. Charlesworth, J.H. Childs, B. Clements, R.E. Clifford, H. Coggins, R. Collins, A.Y.

Collins, J.J.

Coote, R.B. & K.W. Whitelam Crawford, S.W. Cross, F.M.

Crossan, J.D.

169 257–8 82 n.212 211 n.569, 222, 237 n.665, 294 n.904 213 316–7, 319 254, 255, 256–7, 260–1, 280, 306 260 n.766 54 183 n.484 262 n.774, 321 74 76, 106 116, 117 77 156, 263, 286, 306, 310–11, 316 n.998, 317 107, 142, 143, 175, 176–7, 179, 180–2, 184–5, 188, 189, 190–91, 196, 197 n.526, 198, 201, 202, 226, 227, 230, 231 n.641, 234, 238, 239, 240, 241 n.684, 243, 245, 308 89, 90 n.236 213, 217, 234 4, 61–2, 63, 82 n.212, 91, 92, 112 n.311, 199, 207 n.558, 246 n.706 266 n.794, 270, 280, 301, 312, 317

357

358

Dalley, S. Darwin, C. Davies, G.I

Davies, P.R., G.J. Brooke & P.R. Callaway Day, J.

Dever, W.G. Dibelius, M. Dietrich, W. Dimant, D. Dion, P.E. Docherty, S. Dodd, C.H. Donceel, R. & P. Donceel-Voûte Downing, G. Driver G.R. & J.C. Miles Duhm, B. Dunn, J.

INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS

14 n.26 47 6, 29–30, 60 n.136, 61, 64, 65 n.154, 68, 77

Gertz, J.C. Gibson, J.

212, 218, 223 22, 70, 33 n.93, 92, 94 n.262, 95 n.267, 100, 103 n.290, 111, 126 66, 262 255, 256, 260, 262, 311 101–2 218–9 123 n.338 153, 193 255 n.736, 300

Golb, N. Goodenough, E.R. Goodman, M.

212 n.576 301 n.926 49 119 n.332 251, 252 n.723, 260–1, 264 n.786, 266, 277 n.860, 282 n.873, 295, 303, 307, 311, 317, 319, 321, 322

Emerton, J.A.

91 n.240, 95 n.267, 103, 285

Fiddes, P. Finkelstein, I.

127 67 n.172, 90 n.236, 102–3

Finkelstein, I. & N.A. Silberman Flusser, D. Fox, M. Frankfort, H. Freedman, D.N. Frei, H. Frendo, A.J.

67, 89, 90 n.236 280 37 n.96, 45, 46–7 14 n.29, 108 82 n.212 126 n.144 68 n.178, 90 n.236, 328 322 n.1027

Funk, R.W. Funk, R.W., Hoover, R.W. & the Jesus Seminar 259–60

Gardiner, A.H. 64 n.152 Gerhardsson, B. 261 n.769 Gerth, H.H. & C.W. Mills 129 n.361

Gilmour, S.M. Gnuse, R.K.

Gottwald, N.K. Graf, K.H. Gray, R. Greenspahn. F.E. Grelot, P. Gressmann, H. Griffiths, J.G. Groll, S.I. Gruen, E. Gunkel, H. Haas, N. Habel, N. Hanson, P.D. Harnack, A. Harvey, A.E. Hegermann, H. Hempel, C. Hendel, R. Hengel, M. Hermisson, H-J. Hirschfeld, Y Holtzmann, H.J. Horbury, W.

Horsley, R. Horst, P. van der Houston, W. Humbert, J.-B. Jackson, H. Jacobsen, T. Jagersma, H. Jamieson-Drake, D.W. Jenkins, P. Jeremias, G. Jeremias, J.

83 n.224 5 n.2, 8 n.11, 8 n.12 322 n.1027 92 n.251, 95, 96, 110 212 168 n.449 82, 210, 226, 227 n.628 66 79 264 263 n.775 198 n.527 80 n.199 93 n.254 65 158, 163 80 n.199, 254 318 n.1007 30 193–6 253 271 155 242 61 n.140, 63, 68 154, 246, 261, 262 21 n.60 212 n.577 253–4 172 n.456, 203 n.545, 283 n.877 301 162 n.432 76 212, 234 162 14 n.26 147 n.390 7 n.4, 94 202–3 237 n.668 153, 251 n.715, 260 n.766, 263 n.775, 283 n.879, 301, 307 n.957, 310, 313, 314

INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS

Kapelud, A.S. Käsemann, E. Kelber, W. King, M.L. Kisilevitz, S. & O. Lipschits Kloppenborg, J. Knibb, M.A. Koch, K. Koester, H. Kovacs, J. & C.C. Rowland Kramer, S.N. Küng, H. Kutsch, E.

147 n.388 257 261 n.768, 310 124 96 303, 304 177, 178 n.465, 181 178–9, 180, 305 302–3, 312 286 39 n.103, 109 n.302 58 84

Lang, B. Lemche, N.P. Lessing, G.E. Levin, C. Levison, J.R. Levy, T.E. Lindars, B. Lüdemann, G.

93, 99 n.282 64 n.152, 66 252 83 263 n.775 90 n.236 306 n.955 322 n.1027

MacDonald, M. Mack, B.L. Magen, Y. & Y. Peleg Magness, J.

117 n.324 304 n.947 212 207 n.557, 212, 213, 214–6, 234, 235

Martínez, F.G. & A.S. van der Woude Marxsen, W. Mason, S., J.S. McLaren & J.M.B. Barclay McCarthy, D.J. McFague, S. McKane, W. McKeating, H. Meier, J.P. Mendenhall, G.E. Metso, S. Mettinger, T.N.D. Meyer, B.F. Milik, J.T.

234 n.651, 246 n.707 283 n.877 150 82 n.216 44–5, 128 97 105 269 66, 82 234 n.656 119 292–3, 309 177–8, 181, 182 n.481, 183 n.484, 184 n.487, 190, 219 n.602, 234

359

Miranda, J.P. Mizzi, D. & J. Magness Moberly, W. Moor, J.C. de Morrow, W.S. Mowinckel, S. Müller, H.-P. Murphy-O’Connor, J.

17 n.42 216–7 117 n.324 67, 96–7, 110 142 8, 81, 285 197 n.526 234 n.650, 244 n.695, 250 n.714, 320

Newsom, C. Nicholson, E.W.

237, 282 n.874 60, 74–5, 77, 79, 81–2, 84–5, 99, 106, 141, 328, 330 182 n.479, 187, 192, 194, 196, 197, 200–1, 209–10, 237, 246, 332

Nickelsburg, G.W.E

Nickelsburg, G.W.E & J.C. VanderKam Noth, M.

179 61 n.142, 81, 83

Orlinsky, H.M.

159 n.425

Paas, S. Patrich, J. Perdue, L.G. Perlitt, L. Perrin, N. Plant, R. Plaskow, J. Ploeg, J. van der Plöger, O. Porteous, N. Pritchard, J.B. Provan, I.W.

29, 32 213 n.582 73, 82 n.212 84 258–9 55 128–9, 130 222–3, 241 n.683 193 18 39 110 n.305

Qimron, E. & J. Strugnell

243 n.693

Rad, G. von

29, 32, 38, 66, 75, 81, 83, 103, 196 322, 336, 337 64 n.152 7, 30, 214 n.585 252 253 26 n.73, 83 212 253 161 n.427

Ramsey, A.M. Redford, D.B. Reich, R. Reimarus, H. Rénan, E. Rendtorff, R. Rengstorf, K.H. Ritschl, A. Robertson, R.G.

360

Robinson, H.W. Rowland, C.C.

Rowley, H.H. Ruether, R. Sacchi, P, Sacks, J. Saggs, H.W.F. Sanders, E.P.

Sands, K. Schäfer, P Schechter, S. Schenke, L. Schiffman, L.H. Schleiermacher, F.D. Schmid, H.H.

Schmid, K.

Schmidt, K.H. Schmidt, K.L. Schmidt, W.H. Schneider, L.C. Schniedewind, W.M. Schofield, A. Schoors, A. Schröter, J. Schüssler Fiorenza, E. Schwartz, S. Schweitzer, A. Sethe, K. Shutt, R.J.H. Sievers, J. Simpson, W.K. Smith, L.P. & E.H. Lantero Smith, M.

INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS

82 n.210 139, 174, 186, 188 n.497, 188 n.498, 199, 307, 315 82 n.210 44, 128 195 58 109 193 n.513, 222 n.608, 251 n.715, 259, 260, 268–9, 271–2, 273 n.838, 291–2, 299 n.920, 307, 215 n.995 127 n.347 164 n.442 223 319 n.1011 222, 233 253 12, 13–16, 17, 20, 23, 31 n.85, 49, 52, 53, 83, 95, 124, 285 7, 29 n.79, 62, 68, 83, 91 n.242, 93 n.253, 103, 140, 141, 142–3, 195 255 311 18 n.46 127–9, 131 142 n.378 230 114 303–4, 306 301–2 202 253–4, 256, 215 n.995 14 n.29 154 n.409 245 88 n.231 256 n.741 99 n.282, 271–2, 274, 336

Smith, M.S. Smith, W.R. Smitten, W.T. in der Snodgrass, K. Soards, M.L. Sperling, S.D. Stegemann, H. Sterling, G.E., D.T. Runia, M.R. Niehoff & A. van den Hoek Steudel, A. Stevenson, J. Stone, M.E. Strauss, D.F. Stuckenbruck, L.T. & W.E.S. North Sukenik, E. Suter, D.W. Tcherikover, V.A., A. Fuks & M. Stern Theisohn, J. Theissen, G. Theissen, G. & A. Merz

Tigchelaar, E. Tomson, P. Torrey, C.C. Tuckett, C. Tyrrell, G. Ulrich, E.

VanderKam, J.C.

93, 96 79, 141 147 n.388 297, 298 310 68 222, 239 n.676

164, 165, 227 237 n.665, 238 n.672 156 n.419 178 n.466 252–3 117 n.324 227 182 n.480, 189–90

147 n.390 285 n.885 250, 273, 312–13 251 n.715, 260, 266, 271 n.823, 272, 273, 274, 294, 304, 312–13, 314 n.988, 323 n.1030 248 311 147 n.388 303 n.941 253 159 n.423, 160 n.426, 218

145 n.383, 146 n.387, 150, 183, 192, 195, 197 n.526, 231, 233 n.647, 243 VanderKam, J.C. & P.W. Flint 217 n.594, 222, 244 n.697, 244 n.698 Van Seters, J. 74–5, 83 Vaux, R. de 206–8, 211–3, 214–6 Vermes, G. 209, 218,

INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS

222 n.608, 231, 232, 237 n.666, 238 n.670, 241, 251, 259, 271–2, 275 n.851, 276, 277, 296–7, 313, 319 n.1010, 334 n.1044 Vermes, G. & Goodman, M. Vielhauer, P. Vieweger, D. & C. Förder-Hoff Wacholder, B.Z. Weber, M. Weinfeld, M. Weiss, J. Wellhausen, J.

Westermann, C.

361

Wette, W.M.L. de Williams, R. Williamson, H.G.M. Wilson, J.A.

227 n.631 312 320 220 n.603, 244 n.695 82, 129 17, 19, 20 253 29, 79–81, 85, 91, 96, 98, 103, 141, 195 29 n.75, 32–33, 36, 38, 46–7, 55, 57,

Wise, M.O. Wood, B.G. Woude, A.S. van der Wright, G.E. Wright, N.T.

60, 115–6, 117 n.328, 119 n.333, 121, 126 106 44–5, 46 22, 24, 145, 147, 149 n.392 15 n.30, 89 n.234 236 n.662, 245 214 n.585 210 n.566 82, 328 265 n.787, 284 n.882, 292 n.895, 322

Yadin, Y. Yurco, F.K.

221–2 89

Zias, J. Zimmerli, W.

213 40 n.107

362

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

HEBREW SCRIPTURES Genesis 1–11 1–3 1

1:1–2:4 1:1 1:2 1:6 1:12 1:22 1:24 1:27 1:28f. 1:28 1:29–30 1:31 2–41 2–3 2:2 2:4–28:9 2:4–3:24 2:4 2:7ff. 2:7 2:8 2:17 2:18–20 2:18 2:19 2:23 2:24 3 3:4 3:5 3:7 3:8 3:21 4 4:10 4:17–22

28, 29, 31, 32, 57–8, 103, 329–30 167, 201 9, 10 n.19, 30, 35, 38, 46, 52, 166, 192, 295, 329 37 36, 131 166 35 37 36 37 38, 47, 130, 281 38 36, 53 36, 38 11, 38 166 30, 40, 47 295 166 192 30, 38 39 166 38 39 38 38, 39, 40 39 39 281 46 40, 41 38 n.98 40 40 40 30 192 41

5:18–24 5:24 6–9 6:1–4 6:5–7 6:6 6:9 6:11–12 6:21 7:1 7:11 7:14 7:21 8:1 8:7–19 8:17 8:21–22 9:1ff. 9:1–7 9:1 9:2–6 9:2 9:6 9:20–7 10 10:9 11 11:1–9 11:26 12:1–4 12:2–3 14:18–20 45:10 46:28–29 46:34 47:1 47:4 47:6 47:27 50:8

178 192, 197 29 n.79, 30 30, 181, 192 34 98 n.279, 121 31 n.85, 35 35 36 31 36 36 36 36 36 36, 46 34 36 38, 130 46 36 47, 53 46, 35 41 30, 31 33 30 172 10 103 30, 122 91 65 n.157 65 n.157 65 n.157 65 n.157 65 n.157 65 n.157 65 n.157 65 n.157

Exodus 1–15 1–10

64, 67, 161 64, 68 363

364

1–2 1:11 3:18 5:3 7:16 8:18 8:19 9:1 9:26 10:3 10:19 12 12:1–2 12:2–23 12:2 13 13:18 14:22 15 15:1–10 15:4 15:8 15:13 15:14–16 15:15 15:17 15:18 15:21 18:15 18:21–22 18:25 19:3–8 20:25–28:34 23 23:7f. 23:14–17 23:15 23:16 23:31 24:1–2 24:1 24:3–8 24:3 24:9–11 24:9 34 76 n.188, 220 34:10–28 34:18 35ff.

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

64 64–5 64 64 64 65 n.157 273 64 65 n.157 64 65 n.158, 77 77 n.193 166 77 64 65 n.158 63,74 4, 62–3, 66, 93, 96, 113, 124, 199, 330 60 65 n.158 62 4, 60, 62 61, 74 66 61, 66 61 4, 62, 59 230 230 223 84 166 75 15 75 76 76 65 n.158 84 159 n.425 84, 314 230 84 159 n.425 84 76 n.188 221

Leviticus 16 17–26 19:2 19:18 22:28 23 23:1–44 23:42–43 25 25:3–4 25:8–10 25:13

312 77 276, 281 275 276 7 7 n.193 75 77 184, 248 295 296 240 n.678, 297

Numbers 2–3 2 3:17 5:1–3 11:16 14:25 15:38–40 21:4 21:9 24:15–17 24:17 32:1–38 33:10–11

221 223 234 230–1 159 n.425 65 n.158 275 65 n.158 95, 102 192, 239 239 90 65 n.158

Deuteronomy 1:40 2:1 5:6 6:4–9 6:4 6:5 6:13 6:20–24 7:2–4 7:6 7:13 9:23 12:1–6 12:1 13:14ff. 15:2 16:1–17 16:1 16:3 17:14–20 17:18–20

65 n.158 65 n.158 107 116 107 275 107 81 n.208 144 108 85 236 116 108 283 n.878 240 n.678, 297 75, 107 107 76 221 107

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

18:15 18:18–19 21:6–8 21:22–23 23 26:5–9 29:1 29:5 29:19–21 32 32:5–9 32:8–9 33:1–3 33:2 33:8–11

267 239 312 309 220 81 n.208 108 107 108 189 187 86, 92, 107 192 92, 93 239

Joshua 1–12 15:9 18:15 24 24:1–28 24:2–13

90 15 n.30, 89 n.234 15 n.30 81, 84 84 81 n.208

Judges 1:1–2:5 5:4–5 5:4 5:11 21:20–21

90 92 93 15 76

1 Samuel 2:1ff. 2:7–8

294 50

2 Samuel 7 7:12ff. 7:12–13 7:13–14 7:16 14:25

292 283 n.878 307 n.961 293 307 n.961 38 n.98

1 Kings 3:9 3:56ff. 12:28–29 14:25 18:17–40 18:17 22:19 22:39

50 38 n.98 67 n.172, 95 n.265 91 96 18 n.48 193 141

365

2 Kings 2:11 18:3–4 22:8 23:4 23:5 23:8 23:9 23:20 23:22 23:23 24:14

267 101 106 95 95 106 106 102 59 103 104

1 Chronicles 17:11ff.

283 n.878

2 Chronicles 6:23 20:7 29–31 36:15–16

15 91 n.242 101 140

Ezra 1:1ff. 2 4:2–3 4:8–6:18 6:3–5 6:15 7 7:8 7:12–26 7:25–26 8–9 9 9:1–2 10 10:10 10:15 10:44

144 148 145 146 n.386 139 139, 144 145 145, 146 146 n.386 146 145 146 146 147 146 146 147

Nehemiah 1:1 2:1 2:5 2:10 2:13 5:3 5:14 5:15 6:15 7:4–5 8–10

147 147 147 147 147 148 n.391 147 147 n.389 148 148 145

366

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

8:1 8:2 9:11 10 11 11:1 12:31–43 13 13:4 13:19 13:28

146 146 63 n.147 149 148 149 148 148, 149 148 148 148

Job 38–39 38:7 38:26 38:41

9 n.17, 28 12, 51 52 52

Psalms 1 2 2:1 2:7 8:5 9:7–8 9:8 22 22:1 22:7 22:8 22:18 24 24:7ff. 24:7–10 29:5 31:5 33:5 37 47 47:10 48:1 48:2 49 58:1 65:5–13 65:6–7 69:21 72 72:1–4 72:2 72:3 72:7

20 n.57 192, 283 n.878 222 266 n.789 27, 53 48 20 n.55 311 312 311 311 311 5 283 n.878 5, 6 9 311 19 n.53 20 n.57 8 n.15 91 n.242 57 118, 288 20 n.57 20 n.55 9 n.16 6 n.3 311 17–18 49–50 18 n.50 15, 18 18

74:12–17 78 78:12 78:13 78:43 82:2–5 85:10 89 89:8–14 89:8–11 89:9–14 89:14 89:15 93 93:1 95:1–7 95:1–5 96 96:10–13 96:10 97 97:2 98:9 99 99:1 104 104:1–9 104:15 104:24 104:31 105:6 105:9 105:42 114 118 118:22–23 132:9 132:13 148:5 151 154–155

6 n.3, 9 n.16 68 n.171 65 n.154 63,74 65 n.154 17 18, 19 283 n.878 9 n.16 8 6 n.3 19 n.53 8 8 n.15, 283 n.878 5, 43 283 n.878 6 n.3 8 n.15 56 284 8 n.15 17 20, 24 8 n.15 8 9, 10, 20 n.57, 38, 329 6 n.3 41 52 38 91 n.242 91 n.242 91 n.242 68 n.171 321 321 15 57 28 218 218

Proverbs 1:2–3 3:19 8:1–36 8:22ff. 11:1 11:6 14:31 16:4

20 50 48 157 20 n.59 20 21 21

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

367

29:22 32:9–14 33 33:15 34–35 35 35:5

91 n.242 23 n.64 284 n.881 20 n.55 194 290 295 n.907, 295 n.909 290, 295 n.908 25, 110, 118, 123 117, 118, 119 111 122 25, 26, 111 25, 111, 285 124, 267 28 114 n.316 51 116 52 114 n.316 113 n.313 120 116 n.321 91 n.242 116 n.321 111 n.306 116 n.322 123 113 n.313 113 123 n.337 114, 120, 121 119 n.332 266 n.789 295 n.907 116 n.322 114 n.315 295 n.907 116 n.321 116 n.321 113 n.313 123 n.337 120 121 63 n.146, 200 n.532 283 n.878 116 n.322 121 193 62 119 n.333

16:11 17:5 21:3 21:21 22:2 22:4–5 22:22 22:24–25 23:10 25:21 28:3 31:8–9

21 21 21 56 21 57 24 n.67 20 n.58 24 n.66 20 n.59 24 n.67 24 n.67

Ecclesiastes 1:7 8:29 12:6

12 n.21 34 98, 125

Isaiah 1:17 1:21–23 1:23 3:16–4:1 5:7 5:8 5:11 5:16 5:23 6 6:1–4 6:1 6:11 8:16 9:6–7 9:6 11 11:1–2 11:4 11:5–9 11:6 16:5 22:12–14 22:15–19: 24–27 24:21ff. 25:6–8 25:6 25:8 26:19 28:17 28:21 29:18

24 n.67 23 n.65 23 23 n.64 23 24 n.66 23 n.64 22 23 22 193 22 48, 101 141 22 18 n.50 192, 241 n.684 307 n.961 20 n.55 19 336 19 101 23 n.64 194, 284 n.881 194 291 194 194 295 n.910 23, 123 101 295 n.907, 295 n.909

35:6 40–55 40–48 40 40:1 40:2 40:3–5 40:3 40:12–31 40:12–26 40:12 40:25 40:26 40:27–31 41:1–5 41:4 41:8–13 41:8 41:14–16 41:15–16 41:17–20 41:17 41:22–29 41:25–26 41:26 41:29 42:1–4 42:1 42:7 42:14–17 42:18–25 42:18 43:1–4 43:5–7 43:8–13 43:9 43:10 43:11 43:15f. 43:15 43:16–21 43:16 43:18–19 43:19 43:22ff.

368

43:22–28 43:26 43:28 44:1–5 44:6–8 44:6 44:9–20 44:23 44:24–28 45:1 45:4 45:5 45:7 45:8 45:9–13 45:14 45:18 45:19 45:20–25 45:21 45:22 46:1–2 46:1 46:5–11 46:5 46:9–10 46:11 46:13 43:16–18 48:1–11 48:6–7 48:7 48:18 48:20–21 49–55 49:1–6 49:6 49:7–12 49:14–16 49:26 50:1–3 50:2 50:4–9 50:6 51:2 51:5 51:6 51:8 51:9–11 51:9–10 51:10

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

113 n.313 123 n.337 119, 121 116 n.321 113 n.313 120 n.334 117 115 114 n.316 139 122 120, 121 121 26 n.72, 118 n.330 114 n.316 120 n.334, 121 115 20 n.55 113 n.313 120 n.334 120 n.334, 122 117 n.329 119 114 n.314 115 114 114 26 n.72, 118 n.330 113 114 n.314, 117 n.329 114, 120 123 18 n.50 124–5 118, 119, 122 119 n.332 122, 123 116 n.322 122 n.336 122 113 n.313, 124 63 n.146, 200 n.532 119 n.332 312 91 n.242 26, 118 26 n.72, 118 n.330 26 n.72, 118 n.330 62–3, 111, 193, 200 25 n.70 124

52:7

52:10 52:13–53:12 52:15 53 53:11 54:4–8 54:7 55:3–4 55:11 56–66 56:1 56:6–7 58:6 59:14ff. 59:18 61:1–3 61:1 61:13 63:16 64:1–2 65–66 65:17

25 n.70, 25 n.71, 111, 112, 118, 122, 283, 285, 297 122 119 n.332 191 316 314 122 n.336 125 124 113 26, 194 26 144 295 194 194 295, 296 266, 283, 296 296 91 n.242 176–7 194, 200 125, 195, 200

Jeremiah 9:24 10:10 19 23:5 24:10 25 25:11–12 26:9 29:5–7 29:10 31:31–34 31:31–33 31:33 32:6–15 33:15 33:26 36:32 43 44:1

19 n.53 283 n.878 291 307 n.961 105 189 184, 222 n.613 104 151 184, 222 n.613 123, 232, 313 105 298 105 307 n.961 91 n.242 141 152 152

Lamentations 2:15

118

Ezekiel 1–2 1:1

192 151

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

1:3–28 4 4:5 5 8–11 8:6 28 33:24 34:24 36:27 37:1–14 37:1–11 37:11 37:25 38:12 40–48 47:6–12 Daniel 1–6 2:28 2:44 3:35 4:3 4:34 6 6:26 7–12 7

193 105 244 105 105 105 40 n.107 91 n.242 307 n.961 298 124 105 105 307 n.961 57 237 n.663 234

9:27 11:31 11:40–12:3 12:3 12:10 12:11

197 197 287 91 n.242 287 287 287 287 197 191, 192, 285–8, 305–6, 335 193 286–7 287 287 193 222 222 184, 244, 296 n.914 136 136 223, 241 n.683 222 222 136

Hosea 2:14 2:16–20 2:19 4:2

263 85 19 n.53 86, 123

7:9–14 7:13–14 7:22 7:26–27 9:1–2 9:2 9:24ff. 9:24

369

4:12 5–6 6:2 6:3 6:5 6:7 8:1 8:5–6 10:5–6 11:1–4 11:1 12:6 13–14 13:1 13:2 13:7–8 14:6

99 100 292 100 86 84, 99 84 99 99 99 86 19 n.53 100 100 99 99 100

Joel 2:23 2:28

15 n.33 323

Amos 1:3–2:8 3:2 4:7 5:24 7:9 7:16 8:2 8:5–6

54 98 53 54 91 91 98, 140 98

Obadiah 21

284 n.881

Micah 3:12 6:8 7:20

102 19 n.53, 277 91 n.242

Habakkuk 2:1–2 3:3–15 3:3 3:7

238 92 92

Zephaniah 3:15

284 n.881

Zechariah 1–8

193

370

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

4:11–14 9–14 9:9 12–14 12:10 14:9 14:21

107 194 309, 312 284 n.881 312 283 n.878 291

Malachi 3:1ff. 4:5–6

267 267

APOCRYPHA Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 25:24 51:26

181 n.476 280

Baruch 6

218

1 Maccabees 1:11 2:42 6:49 6:53 7:12–13 13:41–42

136 246 296 n.913 296 n.913 246 136

2 Maccabees 1:10ff. 7 7:28 11:6–12 14:6

156 201 32 n.18 188 n.494 246

NEW TESTAMENT Matthew 2:21–23 3:7 3:10 3:12 3:13 3:17 4:5 5:3ff. 5:21ff. 5:21 5:23–24 5:32 5:44–45 5:45 5:48

250 n.714 203, 268, 282 268 268 266 204 n.547 264 293 n.903 276 280 275, 291 281 279 281, 297 276, 280

6:1–6 6:7ff. 6:12 6:13 6:16–18 6:21 6:25ff. 6:34 7:16 8:11–12 8:22 9:6 9:12 9:15 9:20 10:1 10:7 10:23 10:24–25 10:24 10:29 10:32 11:2–6 11:4–6 11:4 11:5 11:15 11:19 11:30 12:8 12:28 12:29 12:38–42 12:40 13:33 14:36 15:24 16:1–2 16:2–3 16:4 16:13ff. 16:13–20 16:14 16:25 17:1–8 17:5 17:12 17:24ff. 18:2 18:3 18:23–35 19:1–9

276 n.854 276 n.855 298 334 276 n.854 278 278 n.863 278 278 n.864 291 276, 281 190 n.501 300 265, 300 275 n.851 270 n.817 282 190 n.501 275 n.848 278 278 n.863 285 239 273 n.842 334 283 281 n.871, 295 280 280 190 n.501 273 n.839 273 n.840 264 n.786 264 n.786 281 n.871 275 n.851 293 264 n.786 278 264 n.786 308 n.964 267 265 278 334 n.1043 204 n.548 267 275 265 265 n.788 298 276 n.856

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

19:4–6 19:9 19:24 19:28 20:1–16 20:16 20:20ff. 20:21 20:22 21:11 21:12f. 21:17 21:31 21:33–44 21:33–42 22:1–14 22:14 22:35–40 23:21 23:37 23:49 24:2 25:31 26:25 26:26–29 26:39 26:49 26:53 26:61 27:35 27:37 27:39 27:40 27:43 27:46 27:48 27:51–52 27:56 27:61 27:64 28:1 28:17

281 281 294 285 n.885 297 295 333 293 313 n.985 265 265 316 300 299 321 n.1016 301 n.923 314 n.990 275 309 337 316 137 285 n.885 274 n.845 313 n.983 313 n.986 274 n.845 204, 308 292 311 n.973 316 n.997 311 n.973 292 n.896 311 n.973 334 n.1045 311 n.974 324 316 316 252 318 321, 321 n.1021

Mark 1:2 1:11 1:14–15 1:21 1:22 1:23ff. 1:29–31 1:35

283 n.877 204 n.547 282, 283 n.877 275 n.850 265 271 n.823 269 n.805 334

2:1–12 2:10 2:17 2:18 2:19 2:23ff. 2:23–28 2:27 3:1ff. 3:1–6 3:1–5 3:21 3:28 4:1–9 4:38 4:39 5:1–20 5:21ff. 5:34 5:41 6:4 6:5–6 6:7–13 6:11 6:17–29 7:9ff. 7:18–20 7:34 8:11–12 8:22–26 8:27ff. 8:27–30 8:28 8:30 8:31 8:33 8:35 8:38 9:2–8 9:5 9:13 9:17 9:31 9:36 9:38ff. 9:38 10:2–9 10:17 10:18 10:29 10:32

371

269 n.811 307 278, 300 266 265, 278, 300 276 256 276 275 n.850 276 273 n.835 271 n.822 265 n.788 281 n.870 275 n.847 290 270 n.821 269 n.806 270 269 n.809 265 270 260 298–9 268 276 276 269 n.810 264 273 n.834 273 n.834, 308 n.964 267 265 308 307, 308 308 278, 283 n.877 285, 307 308, 334 n.1043 274 n.844 267 204 n.548 307 265 270 n.816 275 n.847 276 n.856 275 333 283 n.877 307, 319, 334

372

10:35ff. 10:35 10:37 10:38 10:46ff. 11:15ff. 11:15–16 11:27 11:30 11:32 12:1–12 12:1–11 12:17 12:23 12:25 12:28–31 13 13:1 13:1–2 13:4 13:10 13:28 14–16 14:4 14:8 14:9 14:22–25 14:22 14:24 14:25 14:36 14:45 14:53 14:55 14:58 14:61 15:21 15:24 15:26 15:29 15:34 15:35 15:38 15:40–41 15:40 15:46 15:47 16:2 16:6 16:7 16:8

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

333 275 n.847 293 n.902 313 n.985 269 n.807 265 291 266 266 266 304 321 n.1016 276 204 204 275 254, 292 n.895 275 n.847 292 254 283 n.877 278 310 n.968 275 n.848 316 283 n.877 313 n.983 313 313 314 266, 313 n.986, 314 274 n.845 315 315 292 –3 293 312 311 n.973 316 n.997 292 n.896, 311 n.973 334 311 n.974 317 316 n.998 316 316 n.999 316 318 319 n.1011 318 318

Luke 1:2 1:46–55 1:52–53 2:1–7 3:7 3:22 4:9 4:16ff. 4:18–22 4:18–19 4:23 4:24 5:14 5:31 5:34 5:37–38 6:20ff. 6:22 6:24ff. 6:35 6:36 6:40 7:16 7:18–23 7:22–23 7:22 7:23 7:28 7:31–35 7:35 7:36ff. 8:2 8:24 8:44 9:1 9:18ff. 9:24 9:26 9:28–36 9:35 9:58 9:60 10:5–28 10:9 10:13 10:17–18 10:17 10:18 10:22 10:33 11:1ff.

261 191 n.506 294 250 n.714 203, 282, 299 204 n.547 264 275 n.849, 334 297 295 270 n.814 265 275 n.852, 291 300 300 300 293 n.903 304 294 279 276, 280 275 n.848 265 239 273 283, 295 301, 334 299 300 280, 303, 304 316 n.1001 269 n.808 290 275 n.851 270 308 n.964 278 285 334 n.1043 204 n.548 304 276 275 270, 282 299 204 270 266, 273 n.841, 334 304 298 276 n.855

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

11:1 11:4 11:16 11:19 11:20 11:21–22 11:29–32 11:31 11:49–51 11:49 12:8–9 12:13 12:34 12:54–56 13:16 13:20–21 13:28–29 13:32–33 13:33 13:34 14:11 4:15–24 14:34 15:7 15:11–32 16:16 16:18 17:14 18:9–14 19:8 19:45 20:9–17 21:7 21:37 22:17–20 22:19 22:20 22:30 22:39 22:42 23:2 23:35 23:38 23:46 23:53 23:55 24:6 24:10 24:12 24:15–16 24:21 24:22–24 24:24

267 298 n.919, 334 264 n.786 270 273, 299 273 n.840 264 n.786 304 304 303 304, 307 275 278 278 204 281 n.871 291 274 265 337 294 301 281 n.871 299 297 299 281 275 n.852, 291 301 298 265 321 n.1016 275 n.847 314 n.992 313 n.983 314 313 293 314 n.992 313 n.986 315 190 n.501 316 n.997 311 n.975 316 n.999 317 318 318 321 n.1018 321 n.1021 334 318 321 n.1018

373

24:26 24:34 24:49 24:53

314 321, 322, 335 318 291

John 1:19–21 1:23 1:35ff. 2:13ff. 2:19 3:3 3:5 3:22ff. 4:2 6:15 6:16–21 6:30–31 6:51 6:52–58 6:69 7:23 8:51 10:41 12:25 13:10 13:13–14 13:14 13:34f. 18:2 19:19–20 19:24 19:25–27 19:25 19:29 19:35 19:41–42 19:41 20:1 20:3ff. 20:10 20:14 20:16 20:17 20:25 20:30–31 21:1 21:20–23

267 267 267 265, 291 292 282 n.873 282 n.873 267 267 308 290 n.891 264 314 313 309 276 n.853 265 n.788 269 278 275 275 n.847 275 n.848 313 314 n.992 316 n.997 311 n.973 316 316 311 n.974 312 317 317, 320 318 321 n.1018 318 321 n.1021 274 335 321 318 321 255

Acts 1:3 1:6 1:21–22

282 n.875 282 n.875 335 n.1046

374

2 2:5–11 2:16 2:17 2:46 3:13 4:10–11 4:10 5:36 6:1 6:14 7:1–53 7:59 8:12 8:26ff. 9:1–19 10:37–38 13:24–25 13:29 14:1–7 14:14 14:22 19:1 19:13 21:38 22:4–16 23:8 26:12–18 28:31 Romans 1:4 6:1 8:15 8:22–23 14:17 16:17 1 Corinthians 4:20 6:9 6:10 9:1 11:23–26 11:23 11:25 15:3ff. 15:3–8 15:3–4 15:5–8 15:5

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

322 173 138 323 291 138 321 n.1017 138 264 254 292 304 311 n.975 282 n.875 314 323 n.1029 266 n.792 266 n.792 316 n.1000 323 n.1028 323 n.1028 282 n.875 267 270 263 n.781 323 n.1029 203 323 n.1029 282 n.875

322 301 266 324 282 n.875 323 n.1028

282 n.875 282 n.875 282 n.875 323 313 n.983 313 313, 314 n.991 311, 318, 322, 335 n.1047 42 n.109 322 321 322, 335 n.1046

15:6 15:7 15:8 15:16 15:24 15:50

322 323 323, 335 262 282 n.875 282 n.875, 324

2 Corinthians 5:16

323

Galatians 1:11–16 2:9 4:6 5:21

323 n.1029 323 266 282 n.875

Ephesians 5:5 6:12

282 n.875 183

Colossians 1:13 4:11

282 n.875 282 n.875

1 Thessalonians 4:13–17 4:16

268 n.800 324

2 Thessalonians 1:5

282 n.875

Hebrews 13:12=13

337

1 Peter 2:7

321 n.107

Jude 14–15

138

Revelation 1 1:19 11:15 12:10 13 19:6 21:1 21:2 21:4 21:22

286 286 286 282 n.875 286 43 324 293 294 293

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

PSEUDEPIGRAPHA I Enoch 1–36 1–5 1:1 1:2–5 1:2–3 1:2 1:3–4 1:7 1:8 1:9 5:2–4 5:4 5:5–9 5:7 5:8 6–18 6–16 6–11 10:1 10:12 10:16–22 10:16 12–16 14–15 14:8ff. 14:8–25 15–16 15:8–16:1 16:3 17–19 18:1 19:3 22:5–7 25:5–6 27 32 32:6 37–71 37 37:1–2 41:5 42:1–2 46:1 46:4 48:4 48:7 61:11 62:5 62:8–9 62:9 69:26–29

202, 219, 240 192, 196 192 181 192 180 192 181 181 138, 196 181 1 96–7 194 196 197 181 n.477 181, 182 n.480 192 182 184 n.488 194 182, 288 182, 192 192 182 193 175 182 182, 289 182 183 183 192 194 183 183 192, 197 178, 189, 192, 305 190 197 190 279–80 189 190 190 190 289 190 191, 305 190 190

70–71 71:14 72–82 72–79 72:1 76:1 77 78:10 80–81 80:2–82:3 82 82:1–3 83–90 83:2 85–90 85:3 89:28 89:29–35 89:73 90:6 90:8 90:11 90:17 90:18 90:28–38 90:28–29 90:28 90:33 90:34 91–108 91:1 91:11–17 91:12 91:13–16 91:14 91:16 91:18 92:1 93:1–10 93:2 93:3–10 93:9 93:10 93:12 98:4 98:8 99:10 104:12

375

190 190 219 179 180, 194 179 180 179–80 179 180 179 197 178, 186, 219 186 186, 192 186 197 187 188 189, 197, 235–6, 242 188 n.494, 243 188 188 188 194 292 188 n.497 188 188 178, 219 184 183 186 194 186 186 197 197 183, 192 184 185 188 197, 201, 235, 242 188 n.496 185 n.489 197 197 197

Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian 68–82 162

376

4 Ezra 13 Jubilees 1 1:29 2:17–19 3 4:18 23 220 23:6 23:16 23:26–30 23:26 30–32 30 170 n.452

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

191 n.505

220 220, 292 184 239 183 n.484 242 220 220 236, 246 218

Letter of Aristeas 4 12ff. 15–16 22ff. 129 130 134–139 139 142 144 312 316

154 154 160 154 160 160 160–1 160 160 160 168 n.450 161

Psalms of Solomon 17–18

307 n.962

Sibylline Oracles 1 2 4

184 n.487 184 n.487 184 n.487

ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN TEXTS Amarna correspondence 7 Assyrian annals 94 Atrahasis Epic 33, 34, 39 n.102, 121 Cyrus Cylinder 138 Elephantine Papyri 147 n.390, 152–3 Enki and Ninhursag: a Paradise Myth 40 n.106 Enuma Elish 14, 109–110, 120 Gilgamesh Epic 33 n.93, 39 n.102, 39 n.104, 40 Hammurabi’s Code 20, 49

Hymn to Aten Inanna and Enki: The Transfer of the Arts of Civilisation from Eridu to Uruk Kuntillet Ajrud inscriptions Murashu tablets Papyrus Anastasi III Stele of Merenptah Stele of Tutankhamun Sumerian Flood Story Sumerian King List Teaching of Merikare Tel Dan inscription Ugaritic texts

Ur Nammu Law Code Victory Hymn of Merenptah Zeno papyri DEAD SEA SCROLLS CD 1 1:3ff. 1:3–11 1:9ff. 1:12 1:14 1:18 2:1 2:2 2:8–13 2:10ff. 2:12 2:14 2:15 2:17–19 2:23 2:28ff. 3:12–4:12 3:12–16 3:14 3:19 3:20 4:7 4:14 4:15 4:19 4:20 5:6

9

13–14 95 151 65 88–90 14 33 n.93 198 49 94 5, 7–8, 20, 21, 26–7, 52, 61, 89, 92, 97 49 327 147 n.390

236 242 242 n.686 236 223, 238 244 244 223, 239 223 242 n.686 232 223 236, 244 236 240 n.681 243 242 242 n.686 233 236–7 237 211, 237 236 236 218 244 244 224

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

5:10 5:20–6:11 6:11 6:14ff. 6:19 7:7 7:19 8 11:10 11:12 12:2 12:19 12:22 13:1 13:7 14:3 14:4ff. 16:2–4 16:2–3

244 242 n.686 224 213 243–4 223 239 235 224 224 224 223 231 223, 230, 231 231 231, 232 223 233 n.648 219

1Q 28 32 36

291 n.892 237 n.663 237 n.667

1QH

237 n.667

1QIsaa

217

1QM 1:12–15 17:5ff.

240 240–1 241

1QpHab 1:13 2:3 2:12–13 2:15 7:1–5

244 245 244 243 238

1QS 1–4 1:1–3:11 1:7–10 1:9–10 1:11ff. 1:18 1:19–3:12 2:19ff. 2:21–22 3:12–4:25 3:13–4:26 3:13

226 231 232 240 225 224 224 231 230 240 224 222

377

3:20 5–7 5 5:1 5:3 5:8–10 5:11 5:12 5:13f. 5:13 5:23 6 6:1–8 6:3 6:5 6:6f. 6:11 6:14ff. 6:24 7:14 8 8:1 8:9 8:14f. 8:17–9:11 8:20f. 9:4–5 9:5 9:11 9:12–11:end 9:12 9:21 10:5–11 11:6ff. 11:21f.

240 224 225 240 n.678 247 209 226 233 291 n.892 225 228 222 231 225 225 209 229 225 228 229 225 234 225 235 225 228 225 247 239, 268 n.797 226 222 222 224 n.618 226 247

1QSa 2:3–9 2:9 2:11ff. 2:16ff. 2:21

224, 239 n.676 300 n.922 239 225 291 n.892 239

1QSb

224

2Q 24

237 n.663

2QSir

218

3Q 7

218

378

4Q 169 174

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

265–273 265 266 270 285 319 320–321 365 394–399 394 397 398 400–407 427–432 484 521 524 525 538 543–548 554–555

245 n.702 211, 222, 238 n.672, 293 n.900 239 238 n.672 184 n.487 218 177 178 177 177, 178 177 177 177 177 218 218 237 n.663 233 n.645 224 226, 240 n.679 225, 240 n.679 226 n.623, 233 n.646 223 234 n.655 232 232 240, 241 n.684 226 n.623, 233 233 n.645 220, 233 n.649 209 n.562 233 n.645 243 210, 238 233 n.645 237 n.667 218 239, 295 n.911 220, 233 n.649 294 n.904 218 240 n.682 237 n.663

4QDanc

222

4QExodus–Levf

217

175 177 180–181 196–200 201–202 203 204–212 204 208 209 210 211 213–214 215 232 252 255–264 256 258 259

4QpPsa 37:7 37:32–33 37:35–36

244 243 244

4QSamb

217

5Q 11 224 n.620 12 223 13 224 n.620 15 237 n.663 6Q 15 223 pap7QEpJergr:

218

11Q 5 13 14 17 18 19–21 20 220

233 n.645 240, 296 n.915 240 233 n.645 237 n.663 233 n.649

11QPs

218

11QT

220, 233, 242

Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot) 12:8 244 12:23ff. 237–8 13:25 237 n.666 RABBINIC LITERATURE Babylonian Talmud bTaan23b 272 Mishnah mBer 2:2 mTaan 3:8 San 4:1

283 n.879 272 215 n.993

Tosefta Sotah 13:3

263 n.775

EARLY CHRISTIAN WRITINGS Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1:23:155–6 161 n.428

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

379

12:1:1 12:3:4 12:9:7 13 13:3:1–3 13:5:9ff. 13:8:4 13:13:1 13:13:2 14:2:1 14:3:2 14:8:1 15:5:2ff. 18:1:5 18:3:3

20:8:10 20:10:3

154 154–5 155 n.413 245 n.700 155 n.414 244 136 n.365 156 n.416 156 n.417 272 n.828 137 n.366 156 n.418 207 n.559 228 n.637, 229–30 150 n.393, 251 n.718 263 n.777 203 n.544, 268 n.798, 268 n.799 163 n.434 140 163 n.434, 163 n.435, 163 n.437 263 n.778, 299 n.920 163 n.438 263 n.779, 263 n.780, 299 n.920 264 n.782 243 n.691

Josephus, Life 1:65

150 n.397

Didache 9–10

313 n.984

Epistle of Barnabas

312

Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia Ecclesiae 2:18 165 n.445 3:39:14–16 262 n.771 7:32:17–18 156 n.419, 157 Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio evangelica 8:10:1–17 156 n.419, 157 9:28–9 161 n.428 13:12:9–16 156 n.419, 157 13:12:3–8 156–7 13:12:1–2 156 n.419 Eusebius of Caesarea, Vita Constantini 3:28 320 Gospel of Peter

312

Gospel of Thomas

252, 269 n.802, 282 n.873, 302–3 269 n.802 304, 321 n.1016 282 n.876

14 65 82

Hippolytus of Rome, Refutio omnium haeresium 9 228 n.636 Origen, Contra Celsum 4:51

CLASSICAL AND HELLENISTIC LITERATURE Diodorus Siculus 137 n.366

2:5

18:8:1 18:9:1 19:5:1

20:5:1 20:5:2 20:8:6

156 n.419

Pseudo–Eustathius, Commentarius in Hexaemeron PG 18, 729 161 n.428

Josephus, Against Apion 1:9

18:4:1–2 18:5:2

150 n.396, 150 n.397 153, 156 n.415

Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 1:21 170 n.452 4:6:4 173 8:2:5 270 n.820

Josephus, Wars of the Jews Preface 1 150 n.395 1:5:1–3 245 n.702 1:9:3–4 156 n.418 1:19:3ff. 207 n.559 2:8:1 245 2:8:2–13 228–9 2:8:4 224 n.619, 263 n.779 2:8:5 263 n.780, 299 n.920 2:18:8 172 n.455 4:8:1–4 211 n.571 5:4:2 231 n.642 5:5:3 163 n.436

380

6:3:5 6:5:2 6:5:3 7:10:2–4 Philo, De Abrahamo 3 6 54 276

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

215 n.996 264 264 n.783 155 n.414

168 168 168 168

Philo, De aeternitate mundi 18–19 171 Philo, De agricultura 113–15

164

Philo, De ebrietate 30–31 177

167 164

Philo, Hypothetica 11:1–18

228

Philo, De Iosepho 1 28–31

168 167

Philo, Legatio ad Gaium 1–2 1:1 1:31 1:37 1:42 2:86 3:96 3:175–6 28:182

166 164 n.443 166 166 166 167 176 176 164 n.443

Philo, Legum allegoriae 3:156

164

Philo, De migratione Abrahami 89–93 165 Philo, De opificio mundi 3 8 16 24–25 24 25

167 171 167 167 167 167

31 134

167 167

Philo, De plantatione 8–10

167

Philo, De praemiis et poemis 1:1 167 Philo, De Providentia 2:10ff. 2:58 2:64

171 164 164

Philo, Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 188 167 205–6 167 214 171 Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit 13 165 26 164 42–44 171 46–47 167 57 171 75ff. 171 75–91 227 110 164 141 164 Philo, De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 65 167 Philo, De somniis 2:123

165

Philo, De specialibus legibus 1:1–12 165 1:186 165 2:166–167 171 2:230 164 3:29 165 4:100 165 Philo, De vita contemplativa

228 n.635

Philo, De vita Mosis 1:2 1:4 1:96 1:149

169 169 169 169

INDEX OF SCRIPTURE AND OTHER ANCIENT WRITINGS

1:165 1:283 2:12 2:44 2:52 2:172 2:187 2:274

169 167 169 169, 171 170 170 170 170 n.452

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 5:73 227

Pliny the Younger

381

251

Plutarch, De liberis educandis 2A–C 168 n.448 Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars: Claudius 25:4 252 Synesius of Cyrene, Dio

227

Tacitus, Annals XV:44

251

382

383

384