Perceiving the Other in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament) 9783161549625, 3161549627

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Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Herausgeber / Editor Jörg Frey (Zürich) Mitherausgeber / Associate Editors Markus Bockmuehl (Oxford)  ·  James A. Kelhoffer (Uppsala) Hans-Josef Klauck (Chicago, IL)  ·  Tobias Nicklas (Regensburg) J. Ross Wagner (Durham, NC)

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Perceiving the Other in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity Edited by Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Wolfgang Grünstäudl, and Matthew Thiessen

Mohr Siebeck

Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, born 1979; 2010 PhD in Judaic Studies from Yale University; currently the Rosen Family Career Development Chair in Judaic Studies at The Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, born 1977; 2013 PhD in New Testament Studies from University of Regensburg; currently assistant professor of Biblical and Historical Theology at the University of Wuppertal. Matthew Thiessen, born 1977; 2010 PhD in Religion from Duke University; currently associate professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University.

ISBN 978‑3‑16‑154962‑5 ISSN 0512‑1604 (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament) Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliographie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2017 by Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, Germany.  www.mohr.de This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that permitted by copyright law) without the publisher’s written permission. This applies particularly to reproductions, translations, microfilms and storage and processing in electronic systems. The book was typeset and printed by Laupp & Göbel in Gomaringen, on non-aging paper and bound by Buchbinderei Spinner in Ottersweier. Printed in Germany.

Acknowledgements In May 2014, the editors of this volume met for the first time in the beautiful city of Heidelberg. We had been invited there as recipients of the Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise, which we had been awarded for our first books. Over a weekend filled with Schlösser, Kaffeetrinken, Bier, and Spargelessen (and paper presentations, too), it became apparent that our various research interests overlapped. Each of us in our own way was tackling issues related to outsiders in antiquity, as well as interrogating the way in which modern scholarship narrates interactions between these different groups. We met a number of times during our visit to Heidelberg in order to plot out a way in which we could collaborate together. The current volume is the fruit of such plotting. We are deeply grateful to the Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinäre Theologie (FIIT) at the University of Heidelberg, especially its director, Professor Michael Welker, who is a tireless advocate for international and interdisciplinary collaboration on numerous topics related to the academic study of religion. We are also grateful to Bettina Höhnen for her unflagging and cheerful support for the winners of the Lautenschläger Award. We would also like to thank Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the faculty of the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought for their hospitality in hosting the colloquium out of which the following papers grew. We are grateful for the financial generosity of the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought and its head, Professor Haim Kreisel, as well as for the funds provided by the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University. Asher Benjamin, the administrator at Goldstein-Goren International Center for Jewish Thought, deserves untold thanks. He took care of most of the logistical issues surrounding the conference and enabled participants not only to learn from one another, but also to experience both the hidden delights of Beer Sheva, as well as better-known wonders such as Qumran, the Israel Museum, and the Shrine of the Book. Most of all we are grateful to Manfred Lautenschläger for his support of the critical study of religion. Since 2013 he has generously funded the preeminent award granted to junior scholars of Religious Studies. The recognition and prestige that come with the Lautenschläger Award have done much to advance the careers of numerous recipients, including the careers of the editors. Further, his willingness to fund a conference dedicated to the study of religion enabled the current collaborative work to proceed. With him, we share both the desire and the conviction that the academic study of religion can contribute to the development of a world where difference, religious and otherwise, leads not to strife, but to harmony. Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Matthew Thiessen

Table of Contents Albert I. Baumgarten   1. An Ancient Debate of Disciples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Matthew Thiessen   2. Gentiles as Impure Animals in the Writings of Early Christ Followers

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Nathan Eubank   3. Damned Disciples: The Permeability of the Boundary between Insiders and Outsiders in Matthew and Paul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Tobias Nicklas   4. Creating the Other: The “Jews” in the Gospel of John: Past and Future Lines of Scholarship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Wolfgang Grünstäudl   5. Instant Polemics: Use and Reuse of Charges against Others in Early Christianity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Patricia A. Duncan   6. The Case for Tolerance in the Early Christian (Pseudo-Clementine) Novel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Katell Berthelot   7. The Paradoxical Similarities between the Jews and the Roman Other . .

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Isaiah M. Gafni   8. Various “Others” in Rabbinic Literature: Between Babylonia and the Land of Israel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Haim Weiss   9. The Bodily Images of Shimon Bar Kosibah in Rabbinic Literature . . . .

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Michal Bar-Asher Siegal 10. “The Best of Them Is like a Brier”: On b. ’Eruvin 101a and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue in the Babylonian Talmud . . . . . . . .

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Christine Hayes 11. The Complicated Goy in Classical Rabbinic Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Index of Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Index of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Index of Subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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An Ancient Debate of Disciples Albert I. Baumgarten Bar Ilan University

“Do Unto Others as They Do Unto You.” With Apologies to Leviticus, Hillel, Jesus, Rabbi Akiba, and Immanuel Kant “We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged.” Attributed to Heinrich Heine ”The historian knows . . . that his witnesses can lie or be mistaken. But he is primarily interested in making them speak, so that he can understand them.” Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, 90.

Was There an Ancient Debate of Disciples? In writing a historical account of John the Baptist, or – if that is too difficult due to the nature of the sources – at a minimum the way he was portrayed and perceived, a fundamental choice must be made at the outset. The gospels and Acts remain the principal sources on which a study of this sort must be based. Yet virtually all scholars have recognized that these texts have an explicit bias to lower the status of John at almost every possible opportunity in order to enhance the stature of Jesus. John was not only portrayed as second best, but he explicitly and repeatedly announced his inferiority to Jesus. These circumstances found their visual expression in medieval Christian art, in which one of the standard scenes had John present at the crucifixion declaring the superiority of Jesus (against all chronological logic, since, according to the gospels, John had been executed long before). One example of this theme is the Grünewald Isenheim altarpiece, now in the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar. In this masterpiece, John is pointing to Jesus on the cross, with an open book in his other hand and the lamb of God at his feet, not merely insisting that he is the forerunner of the Messiah (John 3:28), but also foretelling both his own future and that of Jesus by quoting in Latin, John 3:30: “illum oportet crescere me autem minui,” “As he grows greater I must

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grow less.”1 In another famous painting, this one by El Greco (again, against all chronological logic), John is portrayed holding a cross and pointing to the lamb of God. If one follows this path, the critical question as Walter Wink posed it becomes, “What is the role of John the Baptist in God’s redemptive purpose? That is to say, what is the role of John the Baptist in the Gospels and Acts?”2 Not surprisingly, if this is the leading question, John’s proclamations of subordination to Jesus will be taken at face value and the significance of any passage that might suggest tension between John’s disciples and those of Jesus will be diminished.3 Wink therefore summarized his conclusions as follows: polemic against the Baptist and his disciples played a secondary role at best in the gospels. John did not intend to form a movement. Most of those he baptized returned home to their ordinary lives. Only a few stayed with him, were his inner circle, and followed the lifestyle of fasting and prayer that he fostered. Jesus may have been a member of one of these two circles. In their early experience, the disciples of John and Jesus fraternized freely with each other, since both groups endorsed the ministry of John. In the end, for the most part, the Baptist movement was absorbed into the ekklēsia of Jesus. A few holdouts remained, whose voice can be heard in the Pseudo-Clementines. At the same time, many sects that had a central role for purifications in their practice flourished in the desert, and some may have claimed John the Baptist as their paradigm, but these groups quickly faded. They were not a real challenge to followers of Jesus. Therefore, the main goal of the evangelists was not to polemicize against these holdouts or schismatics, but to preserve John the Baptist for the Jesus movement, which was the one great survivor and heir of John the Baptist.4 In light of the way that Wink stated the question that guided his research, this conclusion is not surprising, but I beg to differ. At the very least, the fact that John taught his disciples a distinct prayer, Luke 11:1– 4, perhaps what we call the Lord’s Prayer,5 indicates that there was a significant independent group of disciples of John, who should have posed a problem for the disciples of Jesus. This justifies a search for a meaningful debate of disciples.6 1   The Grünewald Isenheim altarpiece can be viewed at http://www.musee-unterlinden.com/ en/collections/the-isenheim-altarpiece/, El Greco’s “San Juan Bautista” can be viewed at http:// www.xn-espaaescultura-tnb.es/es/obras_de_excelencia/museo_de_bellas_artes_de_valencia/san_ Juan_bautista.html, and Caravaggio’s “The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist,” which will be discussed below, can be viewed at https://www.stjohnscocathedral.com/caravaggio/. 2   Walter Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition, SNTSMS 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), xii. 3  Wink, John the Baptist, 11. 4  Wink, John the Baptist, 107 –15. 5   Much depends on how one understands both the kathōs in Luke 11:1 and the absence of any connection between the Lord’s Prayer and John in Matt 6:9 –13. I plan to devote a paper to analysis of the Lord’s Prayer against the background of Jewish belief in the Second Temple period, in particular to compare that prayer to the maxim of Antigonus of Socho, as analyzed by Elias J. Bickerman, “The Maxim of Antigonus of Socho,” Studies in Jewish and Christian History, 3 vols., AGJU 9 (Leiden: Brill, 1980), 2:270 – 89. 6   Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Urchristentum 1. Buch, Johannes der Täufer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1932), 116. Other scholars attach this same significance to Luke 11:1– 4. See, e. g., Mau-

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From another vantage point, what if one suspects that the gospels protest too much in making John subservient to Jesus? What if one follows the advice of Jonathan Z. Smith, who insisted: While the “other” may be perceived as being LIKE-US or NOT-LIKE-US, he is in fact most problematic when he is TOO-MUCH-LIKE-US, or when he claims to BE‑US. It is here that the real urgency of a “theory of the other” emerges. This urgency is called forth not by the requirement to place the “other” but rather to situate ourselves . . . This is not a matter of the “far” but, preeminently, of the “near.” The problem is not alterity but similarity . . . at times even identity.7

What if John, Jesus, and their groups of disciples were too close to each other and the problem of “similarity . . . at times even identity,” engendered a debate of disciples, which, in turn, was behind the insistence on subordinating John to Jesus in the gospels? However, if there really was a debate between the followers of John and Jesus, which continued until after their deaths, how can one reconstruct it with any degree of certainty? The gospels tell us only one side of the story and that is an inadequate basis for constructing the tenor of a debate. How can we learn what was said by the other side? More than one hundred years ago, at the end of the nineteenth century, Wilhelm Baldensperger attempted just that, focusing his attention on the Gospel of John and particularly on the prologue to that gospel as a basis for reconstructing what John’s disciples thought or said in defense of their belief in John’s place in the scenario of the end of days.8 Not surprisingly, one contemporary reviewer of Baldensperger’s book, Rush Rhees, remarked: This discussion has all the charm of great ingenuity, backed by wide learning; its lack is the failure of any adequate evidence of the existence of so well-defined a Baptist party as this argument requires. The chief evidence for our author is this gospel; for those who find his thesis over-ingenious such evidence is inconclusive.9

In this light, Jean Daniélou is notable for accepting the gospel accounts as true testimony to the Catholic Christian heritage and its interpretation of these texts, insisting that John’s greatness allowed him “to be set aside, as he entered upon the mystery of self-abasement . . . despite the fact that precursors usually want to live on”10 and refuse to step aside, just as the Jews refused when the truth of Christianity was rice Goguel, Au Seuil de l’Évangile: Jean-Baptiste (Paris: Payot, 1928), 75. See also Carl H. Kraeling (John the Baptist [New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1951], 172 – 75), who argued that John’s disciples were an important component of the early Jesus movement. There was close fraternization at the outset; the split and polemics came later, but the polemic did certainly come.  7   Jonathan Z. Smith, “What a Difference a Difference Makes,” in To See Ourselves as Others See Us: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity, ed. Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), 47.  8   Wilhelm Baldensperger, Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums: Sein polemisch-apologetischer Zweck (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1898). Along the same lines as Baldensperger, see Goguel, Seuil, 75 – 85.  9   Rush Rhees, “Review of Baldensperger, Prolog,” AmJT 3 (1899): 370. 10   Jean Daniélou, The Work of John the Baptist, trans. J. A. Horn (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), 109.

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revealed, “wanting to keep to the past when the future was already present.”11 John, according to Daniélou, willingly fell into obscurity, but for John “the fact of falling into obscurity was nothing compared to the joy in his soul as he beheld the fulfillment of the mystery.”12 Nevertheless, and despite the warnings sounded by Rhees, even Daniélou conceded that at least during the period when John the Baptist and Jesus were both baptizing (as described in John 3 – 4) there was some kind of conflict between John’s disciples and those of Jesus – and the impression certainly is given that the evangelist sought to cover it up as much as possible . . . There was, then, an entire history of relations between the Johannine community and the Christian community. We have only one version of the situation, that of Jesus’ disciples. It is certainly unfortunate that we do not have any documents to give us the point of view of John’s disciples. Nevertheless, we can be sure that it was quite a dramatic situation at that time.13

In sum, according to Daniélou, unlike John himself, his “disciples never completely understood what it meant to be the disciples of a precursor,”14 and echoes of this lack of understanding and of the conflict with the disciples of Jesus it engendered can still be heard in the gospels. This line of interpretation forced Daniélou to work hard and heavy to explain why John continued to baptize while Jesus was also ­baptizing, despite the fact that, according to Daniélou, John gladly accepted both his role as precursor and the fact that he was destined to diminish while Jesus would flourish. But then, when John himself was baptizing (John 3:22 – 24, with great success; see also John 4:1) and the disciples of Jesus were also baptizing (John 4:1– 2; observe that the text specifies that Jesus was not baptizing, only his disciples), why did people see Jesus and John as competitors (John 4:1)?15 Daniélou continued to put the blame on John’s disciples and not on John himself (even though the texts are explicit that it was John himself who was baptizing; blaming disciples or successors for later sectarian separation and polemic debates has a long history in many religious traditions),16 conceding, nevertheless, that at least during the period when both John and Jesus were baptizing there was “some kind of conflict between John’s disciples and those of Jesus – and the impression certainly is given that the evangelist sought to cover it up as much as possible.”17

11   Ibid. Daniélou (Work of John, 113) went so far in following the gospels and arguing for John’s self-abasement that he maintained that John 3:30 (“He must increase but I must decrease”), a saying that was at the center of the portrayal of John in later Christian art as noted above, was a genuine logion of John. 12  Daniélou, Work of John, 113. 13  Daniélou, Work of John, 108 – 9. 14  Daniélou, Work of John, 111. 15  Daniélou, Work of John, 95 –108. 16   For ancient Jewish and Christian examples, viewed against the background of classical parallels, see Shaye J. D. Cohen, “A Virgin Defiled: Some Rabbinic and Christian Views on the Origins of Heresy,” USQR 36 (1980): 1–11; now reprinted in idem, The Significance of Yavneh and Other Essays on Jewish Hellenism, TSAJ 136 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 535 – 47. 17  Daniélou, Work of John, 108. Cf. Goguel (Seuil, 92), who understood these verses as evidence of competition and a rupture between Jesus and John themselves.

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It is therefore not surprising that in the many years since Baldensperger wrote there have been numerous attempts to reconstruct the debate between the disciples of Jesus and John, and to overcome the difficulty that almost all our evidence comes from one side, with the position of the other side determined by reading the sources of their opponents against the grain. I have found special merit in the studies by Martin Dibelius,18 Maurice Goguel,19 Ernst Lohmeyer,20 and Carl Kraeling.21 18   Martin Dibelius, Die urchristliche Überlieferung von Johannes dem Täufer, FRLANT 15 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911). 19  Goguel, Seuil. See his summary of the issues that guided his work on p. 12. 20  Lohmeyer, Urchristentum. Lohmeyer (1890 –1946) was notable among German Protestant scholars of his time for his friendship with contemporary Jewish scholars, and for his conviction, expressed in a letter to Martin Buber, that “the Christian faith is only Christian as long as it retains in its heart the Jewish faith.” See Andreas Köhn, Der Neutestamentler Ernst Lohmeyer: Studien zu Biographie und Theologie, WUNT 2/180 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 298. Lohmeyer opposed the Nazis but served as an officer in the Wehrmacht. After the Soviet occupation of East Germany, he was arrested and executed in September of 1946. Nevertheless, despite his consistent attempt to draw a portrait of John that was both historically accurate and sympathetic, and from which I have learned a great deal, Lohmeyer’s Christian (Protestant) convictions were expressed most explicitly in his concluding chapter. There he insisted that John (Urchristentum, 174), despite his protest against conventional Jewish beliefs of his time, never uttered a statement of strong personal belief of the sort made by Luther, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” In addition, according to Lohmeyer (Urchristentum, 179 – 80), John demanded faith in his baptism, but never defined the nature of that faith. As far as John was concerned, his baptism was effective, ex opera operato, as in the Judaism of the time, as exemplified by sacrifice. Inevitably, this is more than somewhat demeaning of Judaism and of John from a Protestant perspective. Or, again (Urchristentum, 185), John’s baptism was a “magical” rite. Alternately, John’s baptism could lead to all sorts of strange and stranger consequences, foreign to Judaism, which ultimately found expression in “syncretistic Gnosticism.” Last of all, according to Lohmeyer (Urchristentum, 182­ – 84), John’s baptism was limited. At most it could create a sect, but not become the basis for a world religion. That possibility only entered the picture with Christianity, where the wide-ranging implications of John’s work were effectively expressed in the gospels. John was a prophet of redemption, at best a witness (as seen clearly and correctly in the Fourth Gospel), pointing to a greater one to come. That is all John was. It is therefore not surprising that Lohmeyer (Urchristentum, 183, 185) concluded that John only had a small group of followers, lost in the greater mass of the Jewish people. Their belief in baptism was insufficient to prescribe a way of life for them; it was too abstract. Only a few could bear this burden. Because his baptism was ultimately so incomprehensible, a miracle of forgiveness and a divine gift, according to Lohmeyer (Urchristentum, 103), it did not have the power to mandate a lived life in history, in which people would remain pure and holy. Not surprisingly, therefore, John’s baptism made its ultimate and everlasting impact only when it became Christian baptism (Urchristentum, 188 – 89). 21  Kraeling, John the Baptist. This list shows my clear preference for the older scholarship on the topic, as opposed to more recent scholarship, which tends to grasp at any opportunity, real, imagined, or invented, to minimize tensions between the Jesus movement and other varieties of Judaism at the time, whether the Baptist and his disciples or the later Rabbis, all suspiciously in service of contemporary agendas, which laudable as they may be may also do a disservice to history. See the note of caution sounded by Robert Kraft (“The Weighing of the Parts: Pivots and Pitfalls in the Study of Early Judaisms and their Early Christian Offspring,” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette ­Yoshiko Reed, TSAJ 95 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 87 – 94 [92]) that scholars must pay attention to the issues that were important to the historical participants and the way these issues affect our historical understandings. This means that there should be a limit to “redemptive criticism” in the name of current theological or political loyalties, or to attempts to achieve some sort of contemporary rapprochement by setting the clock back to a more favorable time and situation.

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Among contemporary scholars, the forthcoming study by Joel Marcus, of which he has kindly sent me a copy in advance of its publication, clearly analyzes the pertinent issues from the perspective of what Marcus calls the “competition hypothesis.”22

Christian Supersessionism and The “Johannine” Response In order to achieve greater clarity, let me state the premise on which this article is based from another perspective. John and his baptism had a foundational role in the career of Jesus. This was a fact that the gospel authors could not deny.23 At the same time, the gospels went to great lengths to subordinate John to Jesus and to insist that John was a forerunner of a greater truth yet to come, at the very best, as John himself asserted over and over again in the gospels. This strikes me as a rough analogy to what will later be known as Christian supersessionism, or replacement theology, visà-vis Judaism. The foundations of Christian belief in the Hebrew Bible were never denied, however the Hebrew Bible was understood as pointing in every place possible to Jesus as Christ and as the absolute fulfillment of the promises of the Hebrew Bible, eternally intended for that role. Despite this goal of Christian interpretation, the Jews were not convinced. In Daniélou’s succinct formulation (cited above at n. 11), the Jews wanted “to keep to the past when the future was already present.” At least some of the ways Jews pushed back against Christian supersessionism can be found in Jewish texts, so that Jews can speak in their own voice on this matter.24 I take Christian supersessionism as a paradigm for the way the gospels dealt with the John/Jesus relationship. I see the John/Jesus connection, as set forth in the ­gospels, as an early example or anticipation (in the context of the discussion in this article, dare I write forerunner?) of the Christian supersessionist strategy in dealing with predecessors. Therefore, if Jews refused to be demoted and replaced, then I would also expect the disciples of John to deny the attempt to make their master a mere herald proclaiming the truth, whose task was only to prepare the way for a greater one to come, specifically, Jesus. This expectation encourages me to look for this “Johannine” response, even if it involves the difficulties and uncertainties of reconstructing a missing voice based almost only on the sources written by their opponents, as already noted by Rhees more than a century ago. 22   Joel Marcus, John the Baptist in History and Theology, The Personalities of the New Testament (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, forthcoming). In contrast, despite the claim that the book offers a new approach in light of recent (i. e., Qumran) evidence, by setting John firmly in a Second Temple Jewish context, I have found less merit and too much theologizing in Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: ­Eerdmans, 1997). 23   See Goguel, Seuil, 141: “Peu de traits de la vie de Jésus . . . nous paraissent d’une histoiricité aussi incontestable.” This conclusion is shared by numerous other scholars. 24   For recent examples from the extensive literature on the topic see Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); idem, The Jewish Jesus: How Judaism and Christianity Shaped Each Other (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).

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Awkward Landings In favor of this attempt to get behind the John/Jesus story and to tell the John story the gospel authors did not want to tell is appreciation of the diverse, fractious, and contentious world of the Second Temple period. Individuals were moving in and out of different groups (e. g., Josephus and Paul), creating longer and shorter term “awkward landings” in which elements of past and present loyalties did not always come together in ways that look coherent or consistent to us, especially when we view them from the perspective of the systems in which these different beliefs and practices were later organized into “orthodoxies.” Put otherwise, it would take some time for those later orthodoxies to work through all the diverse and sometimes contradictory elements that they inherited and put some order into the way of life observed and package of beliefs expected to be held by the members of the various movements.25 It may be that Daniélou, more than any other scholar whose work I have read on John the Baptist, took advantage of the idea that movements do not move forward in full steps in assessing the gospel accounts concerning Jesus and John the Baptist, arguing that the stages of salvation overlap rather than succeed one another by replacement.26 In Acts 18 –19 we read about two strands of “Johannine Christians”27 in Ephesus, two similar but somewhat different “immature” forms of Christianity from the perspective of Luke-Acts, two “awkward landings” in the terms I have proposed. Each strand required a different sort of correction – Apollos, who only knew the baptism of John (Acts 18:25), needed a doctrinal lesson in the “New Way,” as taught by Priscilla and Aquila. The twelve disciples needed a ritual correction – baptism.28 I begin 25   This is my way of restating the larger point made by numerous colleagues concerning “the ways that never parted,” although, as I have argued elsewhere, this valid perspective has sometimes been taken too far in the enthusiasm engendered by a powerful notion that has potential implications for contemporary relations between Jews and Christians. See Albert Baumgarten, “The ‘Rule of the Martian’ in the Ancient Diaspora: Celsus and his Jew,” in Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: How to Write Their History, ed. Peter J. Tomson and Joshua Schwartz, CRINT 13 (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 398 – 430. 26  Daniélou, Work of John, 106. Although, I must note that Daniélou made this point in service of his explicitly Christian perspective in reading the gospels. Note his comment on the Jews, who wanted “to keep to the past when the future was already present.” 27   This term, adopted by Joseph A. Fitzmyer (The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 31 [New York: Doubleday, 1998], 639), goes back to Hans Conzelmann. Robert L. Webb (“John the Baptist and his Relationship to Jesus,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, NTTS 19 [Leiden: Brill, 1994], 179 – 229 [213]) attempted to reduce the anomalies posed by these Johannine Christians in Ephesus by arguing that since Jesus began as a baptizer in the name of John even those who had only received the baptism of John could be considered in some sense disciples of Jesus. 28   Hans Conzelmann (Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary, trans. J. Limburg, T. Kraabel, and D. H. Juel, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987], 158) suggested that in light of these differences the two stories were originally independent. Cf. Goguel (Seuil, 100), who proposed that ­despite their differences the fact that both these episodes took place at Ephesus indicated that they were connected to each other. Goguel (Seuil, 104) added the observation that the fact that the Fourth Gospel, whose final form has some connection to Ephesus, polemicized against the disciples of John strengthened the historicity of the account of the presence in Ephesus of disciples who only knew the baptism of John according to Acts 18 –19.

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with Apollos. He was preaching in synagogues, had full knowledge of Jesus,29 but only knew the baptism of John. How and why did Apollos put these pieces together as he did – beginning by teaching accurately in synagogues the facts about Jesus but knowing only the baptism of John – and then (perhaps after having been instructed in the “New Way” by Priscilla and Aquila) offering in Corinth strong proof from scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah based on the Scriptures? Although it is not mentioned explicitly, perhaps after learning and accepting the “New Way,” Apollos was then baptized into the baptism of Jesus, but that may only be an inference to be drawn from the continuation of the story – would the community in Ephesus have written letters recommending him to the community in Achaia had he not received the baptism of Jesus?30 In any case, Apollos appears to us as a strange hybrid. Just what he was missing and what he needed to learn from Priscilla and Aquila in order to bring him fully into line with the outlook and practice of the disciples of Jesus, whose perspective was represented in Acts, remains unclear.31 However, just to complicate the picture, that 29   This is inherently paradoxical from the perspective of later belief of the followers of Jesus. How could one know ta peri tou Iēsou, “everything about Jesus” but not know baptism? To solve this problem, Baldensperger (Prolog, 94) suggested that ta peri tou Iēsou meant “messianic stuff ” in general, without any special connection to belief in Jesus as the Messiah. However, Baldensperger’s suggestion falters in favor of the usual view. As Dibelius (Überlieferung, 93 – 94) pointed out, at least according to some sources, Paul’s knowledge of Jesus came from direct revelation but did not include baptism. See 1 Cor 1:14 –17 (whose relevance to the story in Acts 18 –19 was pointed out by Benjamin W. Bacon, “New and Old in Jesus’ Relation to John,” JBL 48 [1929]: 40 – 81 [81]), where Paul asserted that he preached the gospel, and had only baptized Crispus, Gaius, and the household of Stephanus, insisting “that Christ did not send me to baptize.” Thus, even Paul, who practiced minimal baptism, knew that faith in Jesus included widespread baptism as performed by others. In light of these circumstances, it is therefore ironic that it was Paul who supposedly offered Christian baptism that brought the gift of the Holy Spirit in Ephesus. Underlying Baldensperger’s understanding of these passages in Acts was his insistence that later Christian sources positioned John’s disciples among Jewish sects and as such separated them completely from believers in Jesus. According to Baldensperger, this was anachronistic. It represented taking as accurate and historical the retrospective perspective of the later winners; the separation of Church and synagogue had not yet taken place in earlier centuries, such as at the time of the events described in Acts. One needed to reconstruct the earlier situation, without being misled by sources that portrayed it from a later perspective. In this, Baldensperger (Prolog, 100 –1, 153) anticipated contemporary scholars on the “ways that never parted.” 30   See B. T. D. Smith, “Apollos and the Twelve Disciples at Ephesus,” JTS 16 (1915): 241– 46 (245 – 46). Another possibility, however, is suggested by the end of the story. Whatever Apollos’s accurate knowledge about Jesus might have been at the beginning, perhaps it only consisted of the simple details of his life and death. The end of the story suggests that Priscilla and Aquila taught him that Jesus was the Messiah, based on scripture, the point concerning which Apollos then strenuously confuted the Jews (Acts 18:28). This explanation of the account keeps the focus on doctrine from beginning to end. 31   Cf. Dibelius (Überlieferung, 95), who argued that Apollos was not a follower of John who then saw the light with the help of Priscilla and Aquila and then was baptized into the baptism of Jesus. Apollos, according to Dibelius, already “lived in the spirit” (Acts 18:25). He did not need the baptism of Jesus to acquire the Holy Spirit. In that case, however, one may wonder just what Apollos learned about the “new way” from Priscilla and Aquila. Continuing his dissent from the usual understanding of Apollos’s “conversion,” Dibelius (Überlieferung, 97 – 98) suggested that prior to meeting Priscilla and Aquila Apollos was unaware that Jesus began his career when he was baptized by John. I find this explanation unlikely, as Jesus’s baptism by John was one of the best known

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same Apollos had a following in Corinth (1 Cor 1:12) and the community there was divided between followers of different apostles. Paul viewed Apollos as a friendly figure, a collaborator, and not as a rival, although one is entitled to wonder whether Paul was trying to put a good face on a potentially tense relationship (1 Cor 3:4 – 5; 4:6). Something analogous took place when Paul arrived in Ephesus, as narrated in Acts 19. There Paul met converts who only knew the baptism of John and therefore had not received the Holy Spirit. From the perspective of Acts, these hybrids were stuck at an earlier intersection along the road to salvation. They needed ritual correction, and when Paul baptized these folks in the name of Jesus they began to speak in tongues and prophesy. The Holy Spirit became active in them and this was proof that they had reached the final destination as believers in Jesus. The events narrated in Acts 18 –19 were told from the perspective of believers in Jesus. For that reason it was easy for Wink to assert that Luke ignored the apologetic/polemical possibilities of these incidents. This supposedly showed that the circumstances described were of little consequence to Luke or possibly no longer existed.32 However, this understanding of the passage is typical of Wink’s overarching interest/objective in reading sources about John from the perspective of the gospels, as discussed above, in a way that loaded the dice in favor of the portrait drawn in the gospels and Acts. Obviously they related the success of apostles of Jesus, Paul in particular. For that reason, the gospels and Acts need to be read with more than one grain of salt. We must ask, “What do these sources want to hide? To what reality are they testifying despite themselves?” Therefore, even if the gospels and Acts told stories from the triumphalist perspective of believers in Jesus they reflected the diverse, fractious, and contentious world of Second Temple Jewish experience and its aftermath, with two strands of “Johannine Christians” as evidence of the diverse “awkward landings” and hybrid combinations of religious identity, in which John’s disciples continued to offer and practice “his” baptism, in some form or other, well after his death and in the diaspora.33 Returning to Acts 18 –19, debates about the status of Jesus were central to the critique of Celsus’s Jew, effectively the only topic on which he wrote.34 According to Acts 18 lively discussions about the messianic status of Jesus were taking place in diaspora synagogues, with Apollos confuting the Jews (who should have known and most widely attested facts of his life. See n. 23 above. Accordingly, if Apollos knew ta peri tou Iēsou accurately (akribōs), how could he not have known this? 32  Wink, John the Baptist, 84. In Wink’s favor, however, it should be noted (as pointed out by Ernst Bammel, “The Baptist in Early Christian Tradition,” NTS [1971–1972]: 95 –128 [122]) that Q shows no signs of conflict between disciples. Matthew 14:12 (if Q) emphasizes strict continuity between the two movements. 33   I expand here a point well made by Lohmeyer, Urchristentum, 26. See also Hermann Lichten­ berger, “Täufergemeinden und frühchristlicher Täuferpolemik im letzten Drittel des 1. Jahrhunderts,” ZTK 84 (1987): 36 – 57 (50 – 51). That John’s disciples formed a movement that continued after his death, whose traces were found in the Ephesus incidents related in Acts 18 –19, was acknowledged by Daniélou (Work of John, 140), although he hastened to add “that the history of this movement cannot be traced very far.” 34   On Celsus and his Jew see Baumgarten, “Rule of the Martian.”

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something about scripture, as opposed to the gentiles who were Paul’s primary audience according to his letters!) that Jesus was the Messiah, according to scripture. However successful or not Apollos was in these debates,35 the account in Acts, when combined with that of Celsus’s Jew, is credible testimony to the existence of such debates in diaspora synagogues. It is therefore significant that the other contentious issue in diaspora synagogues, according to Acts, was the baptism of John versus that of Jesus, as discussed above. The disciples of John and Jesus were apparently in the same diaspora synagogues, but the disciples of Jesus felt the need to encourage disciples of John to complete their spiritual journey either by experiencing the baptism of Jesus or through full belief in Jesus as Messiah. In other words, these were allied but somewhat competitive movements, as has been recognized by many scholars, such as Robert L. Webb, who noted that John’s disciples were the closest analogy for the disciples of Jesus.36 This seems like a situation tailor made for the narcissism of small differences to be a dominant force, for the circumstances indicated by J. Z. Smith, cited above, to come into play. These groups were not “far” but preeminently “near.” Their problem was not alterity but similarity . . . at times even identity. I suggest that this was the context in which the vehement and persistent demotion of John to Jesus was located. It is here that we should devote attempts to read the texts against the grain and attempt to reconstruct how the disciples of John saw the John/Jesus relationship.37

Jesus as the Resurrected John Despite all these considerations from differing points of view, the warning sounded by Rhees concerning the speculative nature of the effort to retrieve the perspective of the disciples of John noted at the outset of this paper remains real. At best, such speculation cannot be avoided but only minimized. In order to reduce that risk this article focuses on one of the few sets of passages in the gospels in which John’s subordination to Jesus was understated, expressed tacitly rather than explicitly. Here we may find traditions about John and his followers that have been less reworked in service to the superiority of Jesus and the inferiority of John. I therefore will take up the traditions reported by Mark, Matthew, and Luke that Jesus was perceived as a reincarnation or resurrection of John the Baptist (Mark 6:14 –16; Matt 14:1– 2; Luke 9:7 – 9).38 35

  A dialogue between Apollos and Celsus’s Jew is an interesting event to imagine. Celsus’s Jew claimed that he knew the “true” account of the life of Jesus (Origen, Contra Celsum 2.13), an anti-gospel, as opposed to that told by Jesus’s disciples, but we have little or no information about the contents of that account. Perhaps the only hint we have is the charge made by Celsus’s Jew that Jesus’s biological father was a Roman soldier named Panthera (Origen, Contra Celsum 1.32). 36   Webb, “John the Baptist,” 228. 37   For an extended analysis of the passages in Acts 18 –19 see Dibelius, Überlieferung, 87 – 98, and Goguel, Seuil, 98 –105. 38  My impetus for pursuing the analysis proposed below comes from the discussion in Lohmeyer (Urchristentum, 16 –17), whose conclusions I want to take a step further.

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John was known to be dead, as he had been executed at the order of Herod Antipas (according to Mark 6:29, the gory work was done by a “professional” and experienced executioner, a spekoulatōr,39 as in the painting by Caravaggio in Malta: the bloody sword was already on the floor, and the executioner held a large knife behind his back, ready to sever the last tendons holding the head). At least as far as the gospel authors were concerned, John’s disciples also knew that he was dead since they had buried him themselves; they even informed Jesus of John’s death (Mark 6:29 // Matt 14:12). From the perspective of the disciples of Jesus the curtain had come down on the final act in the drama of the life and career of John. He was no longer a factor in the scenario of salvation.40 One may wonder how the information in Mark 6:14­ –16; Matt 14:1– 2; Luke 9:7 – 9, which I want to suggest was more favorable to John and reflected the incidents from the perspective of his disciples, managed to make it through the chain of transmission in the gospels without their being reworked to reflect the lower standing of John vis-à-vis Jesus. The first part of the answer is in Mark 6:29 // Matt 14:12. For the gospel authors, Jesus and his disciples knew that John was dead and buried. His career on earth was over and his role in salvation was complete. Furthermore, both the gospel authors and their audiences knew that the popular identification of Jesus with John, Elijah, or one of the prophets was mistaken. The correct explanation of why Jesus was able to perform his miraculous deeds was because he was Jesus. For these reasons, even if Mark 6:14 –16; Matt 14:1– 2; Luke 9:7 – 9 can be understood as favorable to John and deprecatory to Jesus, this possibility did not apparently disturb the gospel authors. Any possible difficulty raised by these verses for the authors or readers of the gospels was thus effectively refuted in advance. However, not everyone saw things that way. Jesus was performing all sorts of miracles, which showed that he had some sort of super-human power. He was a holy man far and above the usual sort (Mark 4:35 – 5:43), whose actions even reached Herod Antipas. These circumstances required an explanation. According to Mark 6:14 –16: King41 Herod heard of it, for the fame of Jesus had spread; and people were saying, “John the Baptist has been raised to life, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.” Others again, “He is a prophet like one of the old prophets.” But Herod, when he heard of it said, “This is John, whom I beheaded, raised from the dead.”

39

  A loanword from Latin, Dibelius, Überlieferung, 80 n. 1. The spekoulatōr was one of the principal “attendants” of Antipas, whose responsibility included executions, as noted by Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 314. 40   Jean Steinmann, Saint John the Baptist and the Desert Tradition, trans. M. Boyes (New York: Harper, 1958), 103. 41   This is famously the place where Antipas was called a king, even though he was only a tetrarch. His lack of full royal status was an increasing irritant, which culminated in conflicts that resulted in his deposition and exile according to Josephus. Joel Marcus (Mark 1– 8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 27 [New York: Doubleday, 2000], 398) suggested that the title “King” is not accidental but was meant to be ironic. See also n. 45.

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At least two possibilities for explaining the deeds of Jesus were abroad: he was either the resurrected John or one of the ancient prophets come back to life. Faced with these choices, Herod, who had ordered John beheaded and therefore should have been well informed, endorsed the notion that Jesus was the resurrected John, and this despite the fact that Jesus had become known for his miracles while no source reports that John performed such deeds of power; in fact, for whatever it is worth as historical evidence, according to John 10:41, “John gave us no miraculous sign.”42 Nevertheless, John, in his new incarnation as Jesus, was the beneficiary of powers that John may not have possessed when alive. In returning to life, John had been transformed and empowered; this was no mere encore. As Joel Marcus has summarized: “There is no other evidence that John the Baptist had a reputation as a wonder worker and indeed John 10:41 seems to imply that he was not . . . The emphasis here is on the transformation wrought by his supposed resurrection.”43 Matthew was more direct: “It was about that time that reports about Jesus reached the ears of Prince Herod. ‘This is John the Baptist,’ he said to his attendants; ‘John has been raised to life, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in him’” (Matt 14:1– 2). There was one and only one way to explain the deeds of Jesus, and Herod voiced that understanding by identifying Jesus as John the Baptist raised to life.44 Luke, a careful historian, treated this information differently and more circumspectly: Now Prince Herod heard of all that was happening, and did not know what to make of it; for some were saying that John had been raised from the dead, others that Elijah had appeared, others again that one of the ancient prophets had come back to life. Herod said, “As for John, I beheaded him myself; but who is this I hear such talk about?” And he was anxious to see him. (Luke  9:7 – 9)

Several possibilities were circulating for identifying Jesus as a figure from the past come back to life: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the ancient prophets. Herod was skeptical, “utterly at a loss,”45 whether this was John, as he had beheaded John him42   W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr. (An Exegetical and Critical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew, 3 vols., ICC [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991], 2:468, n. 19) suggested that this verse in John may not be historical but polemical, insisting that John the Baptist performed no miracles when in fact he did. 43  Marcus, Mark  1– 8, 393. In agreement with Marcus in stressing the supernatural powers that operated through the risen Baptist, see Willoughby C. Allen, An Exegetical and Critical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Matthew, 3d ed., ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1922 [1993 repr.]), 157. See also Ezra P. Gould (An Exegetical and Critical Commentary on the Gospel of St. Mark, ICC [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1896], 109). 44   Cf. Ulrich Luz (Matthew 8 – 20: A Commentary, trans. J. E. Crouch, Hermenia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007], 306), who argued that Herod Antipas had a bad conscience because he had executed John and was afraid that John had been raised by some miracle worker. Luz dismissed the possibility that Matthew and his Jewish-Christian readers would have attributed to the “evil” Herod Antipas any pious ideas such as, for instance, the resurrection of martyrs or even expectations of an eschatological prophet. 45  Cf. François Bovon (Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–  9:50, trans. C. M. Thomas, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002], 350), who explained that Luke described

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self (not quite literally, see above), but wondered nevertheless who this unusually god-gifted man might be and therefore was anxious to meet him. Behind all these explanations stands one basic belief of ancient Jews. Against all the doubts that might be raised concerning the possibility that a dead person could be resurrected,46 the ability of God to resurrect was the ultimate proof of his power. As Celsus’s Jew put it (Origen, Contra Celsum 2.77): “We hope, it is true, to be ­resurrected in the body and have everlasting life, and that he who is sent to us (i. e., the messiah?) will be a pattern and leader of this by showing that it is not impossible for God to raise someone up again with his body.” Along the same lines, Paul had to argue in 1 Cor 15:12 –19 against those who insisted that there was no resurrection of the dead. Paul proclaimed that Jesus was resurrected as the “first fruits of the harvest of the dead” (1 Cor 15:20). However, if and when that “pattern and leader” appeared, and whoever would be the “first fruits of the harvest,” a resurrection was also a sure sign that the scenario for the end of days was in full force and nearing its triumphant magnificent climax. God’s will and power were now being displayed on earth as in heaven. It would therefore be appropriate for the person resurrected, as the beneficiary of the exercise of the supreme divine power, to have the ability to perform the extraordinary miracles associated with Jesus. In light of these beliefs, it was perfectly comprehensible that John on his first round on earth may have performed no miracles, but now, returned as Jesus, became notorious for his superhuman deeds. The only question troubling some was whether Jesus was John, Elijah, or one of the ancient prophets come back to life. According to Mark and Matthew, Antipas, the very ruler who had ordered John put to death, endorsed identifying Jesus with John.47 Herod as a greedy and novelty-hungry personality, who was from the outset certain of only one thing: John was not Jesus, because Herod Antipas knew that he had ordered the execution of John. Bovon further noted the impudence and nonchalance with which the “tyrant” expressed himself. Against Bovon, I prefer to follow the philological insight offered by Alfred Plummer (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary According to the Gospel of St. Luke, ICC [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1914], 241), who indicated that the Greek verb employed in Luke 9:7 to express Herod’s response to Jesus = John was a classical word, unknown in the Septuagint and in the New Testament outside of Luke-Acts: diēporei, which should be translated as “utterly at a loss.” 46   “The hope of worms,” according to Celsus, writing in his own name. Celsus added that some Jews and Christians did not accept this belief, which showed its utter repulsiveness (Origen, Contra Celsum 5.14). According to Claudia Setzer (Resurrection of the Body in Early Judaism and Early Christianity: Doctrine, Community, and Self Definition [Boston: Brill, 2004], 1– 20), belief in bodily resurrection became a major test or marker of orthodoxy in both Judaism and Christianity. 47   In light of the argument in this paragraph, I cannot agree with the conclusion proposed by Collins (Mark, 304) that the return of John as Jesus was not “a release of the powers of the Age to come,” and should be understood in less eschatological terms as the result of “a popular religious idea that an especially good or especially evil person could come back from the dead by some mysterious process.” According to Collins (Mark, 304), “the closest analogy (to the belief attested to in Mark 6:14 –16 that Jesus was John returned to life) is the notion of Nero redivivus.” Collins made this suggestion despite the fact that she recognized the significance of the fact that “John the Baptizer did not work miracles (cf. John 10:41), it belongs to the logic of this popular idea that Jesus, as John redivivus, had extraordinary powers.” Nor can I accept the conclusion of Goguel (Seuil, 48 – 49): “il faut se rappeler que l’idée de la resurrection d’un mort n’était pas alors la chose

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However, if Jesus was nothing other than John resurrected, then Jesus was subordinated to John, as was recognized by Lohmeyer,48 who pointed to the potential significance of this identification: Jesus was now subservient to John the Baptist, not the other way around as was usual in the New Testament. Moreover, Jesus was not the only one who was executed and then subsequently proclaimed to be resurrected: so was John, well before Jesus! John’s career did not end with his execution and burial, as told by Mark and Matthew. Perhaps for the gospels John’s story was over with his execution,49 but not for Herod, in some ways the most unexpected and unusual but therefore also a reliable witness to John’s resurrection, which then indicated that the grand finale of end-times was soon to come and pointed to John’s exalted place in that glorious event.

cui bono At this point one must ask the most basic of all historiographic questions: cui bono.50 Who would have had an interest in promoting John at the expense of Jesus, arguing that John was resurrected first and was therefore the “pattern and leader” in proving the power of God to raise the dead, and that Jesus was nothing more than John returned to life, as even Herod Antipas recognized? Who would have wanted to turn Jesus himself into an unwilling witness to the ultimate status of John? When put this way, the obvious suspects (not merely the speculative/default or “usual” ones) must be the disciples of John. They would have had a ready explanaextraordinaire, paradoxale et, pour tout dire en un mot, impossible qu’elle est pour nous.” The fact that Jesus raised the dead showed that he was much more than the lower sorts of wonder workers, thoroughly despicable, with whom Celsus’s Jew argued that Jesus belonged. These charlatans learned from the Egyptians how to put on a show in the market place, charging only a few obols, in which they displayed expensive banquets and dining tables filled with non-existent cakes, and dishes that moved as though they were alive. At the same time, they drove demons out of men, blew away diseases, and invoked the souls of heroes (Origen, Contra Celsum 1.68). Davies and Allison (Matthew, 2:468) dismissed the notion that Jesus was John resurrected as “a very ill-informed piece of popular superstition.” 48  Lohmeyer, Urchristentum, 16 –17. Marcus (Mark  1– 8, 398 – 99) treated this incident as an example of Herod’s inadequacy as a ruler whose pretensions to royal authority seem “almost farcical.” Cf. Taylor (The Immerser, 294), who waffles on the significance of this tradition, explaining it away as caused by the fact that people did not necessarily know just when John had been executed and therefore they confused Jesus and John. But our sources clearly indicate otherwise. People were fully aware that John was dead. It was central to the popular belief that he had been dead, then resurrected and therefore had the power to perform the miracles attributed to Jesus. Compare the clear conclusion articulated by Bammel (“The Baptist,” 125): “John’s followers believed that he was taken away by God while being put to death – like Elijah and Enoch, and returned to earth as Jesus.” 49  Dibelius, Überlieferung, 85; Steinmann, Saint John, 103. However, as expected, and in accord with his general approach, Wink (John the Baptist, 11) insisted that no polemic against the disciples of John was intended here. 50   As Marc Bloch (The Historian’s Craft, trans. J. R. Strayer [New York: Vintage Books, 1964], 93) put it, “in its effort to achieve knowledge as deep as possible, criticism seeks out the impostor behind the imposture, in order to reveal and then comprehend the motives of the imposture.”

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tion for why John was the beneficiary of this special grace. At the very least, they might have argued that John died as a martyr to his faith and message.51 As indicated at least twice in the passages discussing the martyrdom of the mother and seven sons in 2 Macc 7:9 and 7:23 martyrs announced their willingness to die in the context of their belief in resurrection. Fiend though you are, you are setting us free from this present life, and, since we die for his laws, the King of the universe will raise us up to a life everlastingly made new. (7:9) It is the creator of the universe who molds man at his birth and plans the origin of all things. Therefore, he, in his mercy, will give you back life and breath again, since now you put his laws above all thought of self. (7:23)

In 2 Maccabees the moment when martyrdom would be rewarded by eternal new life was put in the indefinite future. What made John the Baptist even more special, when Jesus was identified as the resurrected John, was that the Baptist had earned a new life so soon after his death. He did not have to wait, and this proved both that the eschaton was very near and that the Baptist played a central role in the scenario of the end of days.52 All this would have served the disciples of John extremely well in their encounter with the disciples of Jesus. From this perspective, Baldensperger’s argument concerning John 3:13 (“no one has ever ascended to heaven”) is most attractive: this verse was intended to counteract the belief among John’s later followers that John the Baptist was executed, resurrected, ascended to heaven, and then returned to earth with special powers as Jesus.53 Once this step is taken other admittedly sparse pieces of evidence can fall into place. The Ps.‑Clem. Recognitions contain brief statements about disciples of John. They “separated themselves off from the community” – i. e., they were an identifiable community, denounced as is usual in literature of this sort as schismatics – who believed that John was the Messiah: Sed ex discipulis Iohannis, qui videbantur esse magni, segregarunt se a populo et magistrum suum velut Christum praedicarunt. Yes, some even of the disciples of John, who seemed to be great ones, have separated themselves from the people, and proclaimed their own master as the Messiah. (Ps.‑Clem. Recog. 1.54 [GCS 51, 42]) 51   The different accounts of why Antipas put John to death are a topic I hope to treat elsewhere. For John’s death understood as martyrdom see Lohmeyer, Urchristentum, 119 – 22. Bacon (“New and Old,” 78 – 80) raised the interesting possibility that the belief in John the Baptist’s martyrdom and resurrection was among the factors which convinced Jesus to go to Jerusalem and suffer death in imitation of the pattern of John the Baptist. The latter set the pattern for the former, from baptism through martyrdom. 52   Compare Jesus’s prediction that he would be resurrected on the third day, which then came true according to the testimony of the two Marys (Luke 24:7 – 9). Jesus was restored to life almost immediately, which was both proof of his special stature as the Son of Man and an indication of a critical moment in the scenario of the end of days. 53  Baldensperger, Prolog, 84 – 85. Cf. Goguel (Seuil, 48), who argued that the fact that the Fourth Gospel does not dispute John’s resurrection proves that John’s disciples did not believe that he had been resurrected and that Jesus’s identification as the resurrected John is not to be understood in the context of the debate of disciples, as I have suggested.

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According to the Syriac version, these disciples believed that John was still alive but was in hiding: “But those who are the pure disciples of John were exceedingly separated from the people and they called to their teacher as if he existed in hiding.”54 Furthermore, in their dispute with the disciples of Jesus these disciples of John insisted that John was the Messiah and Jesus was not. To support this claim they cited Matt 11:11 // Luke 7:28, where Jesus declared that “there never has appeared on earth a mother’s son greater than John the Baptist.” For them, this was proof that Jesus himself recognized that John was the greatest of the prophets and therefore had to be the Messiah: Et ecce unus ex discipulis Iohannis adfirmabat, Christum Iohannem fuisse, et non Iesum; in tantum, inquit, ut et ipse Iesus omnibus hominibus et prophetis maiorum esse pronuntiaverit Iohannem. Si ergo, inquit, maior est omnibus, sine dubio et Moyseo et ipso Iesu maior habendus est. quod si omnium maior est, ipse est Christus. And, behold, one of the disciples of John asserted that John was the Messiah, and not Jesus, inasmuch as Jesus Himself declared that John was greater than all men and all prophets. “If, then,” said he, “He be greater than all, he must be held to be greater than Moses, and than Jesus himself. But if he be the greatest of all, then he must be the Messiah.” (Ps.‑Clem. Recog. 1.60 [GCS 51, 42])

In the Syriac version, this claim was expressed as follows: And there drew near one from the Disciples of John, who was glorifying John: “He is the Messiah and Jesus was not, as even Jesus said regarding him that he was the Greatest of the Prophets who ever were. If, therefore, he was greater than Moses, he is evidently more so than Jesus, because Jesus rose up like Moses, and it is proper that John, being greater than them, is the Messiah.”55

I want to suggest that it was precisely in order to counter this sort of argument that in Matt 11:2 – 6 // Luke 7:18 – 28 Jesus responded to the queries of the disciples of John as follows: John, who was in prison, heard what Christ was doing, and sent his own disciples to him with this message: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect some other?” Jesus answered, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, the leproi are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor are hearing the good news – and happy is the man who does not find me a stumbling-block.”

As Ephrem noted in his Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron, when John sent his disciples to inquire concerning the stature of Jesus it was not because he had any doubt on the matter (God forbid!), but it was because he wanted Jesus to confirm the things John had said about him, namely that Jesus was greater than John. John was “directing the minds of his disciples towards the Lord.” When Jesus concluded “Happy is the man who does not find me a stumbling block,” according to Ephrem, “Through these [words] he (Jesus) gave a sure pledge to the disciples of John lest 54   Joseph Gebhardt, The Syriac Clementine Recognitions and Homilies: The First Complete Translation (Nashville: Grave Distractions, 2014), 36. 55  Gebhardt, The Syriac Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, 38.

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they be scandalized on his account.”56 That is, lest their belief in the status of John lead them to deny the supreme role of Jesus, as Christ nailed to the cross was a stumbling-block to Jews, according to Paul (1 Cor 1:23).57 In sum, I want to suggest that John’s followers believed he was the Messiah and was therefore greater than Jesus. He was the one resurrected, while Jesus was nothing more than John returned to life; this sequence of events was responsible for Jesus’s extraordinary powers. John’s followers were doing to Jesus what Jesus’s followers had done to John. Jesus’s followers had subordinated John and then turned him into a witness to the higher stature of Jesus. John’s followers were raising the stature of the man they believed to be the savior to perhaps the highest possible level, as the “pattern and leader” in proving that God could resurrect the dead and then demoting his rival by turning that very rival into proof that John had been resurrected, and that this, in fact, was the reason that rival could perform all sorts of miracles. As David Flusser remarked concerning these passages: It is obvious that many of these disciples (of John) shared this belief in their master’s resurrection . . . There were those among his disciples who, even during his life, toyed with the idea that he was greater . . . In any event, after his death there is evidence of belief in the Baptist as the Messiah.58

Quite neat! Your rival’s miracles become proof of the stature of the figure in whom you believe and an argument in his favor against that rival. In light of the way John was portrayed in the gospels, what John’s followers did to Jesus in claiming that Jesus was nothing more than John raised from the dead was truly doing unto others what they were doing unto you.

Imagine59 If I may indulge my imagination a bit more and suggest another point that John’s disciples might have made in their favor, I conclude with a passage from the Mandean Ginza, a text from the eighth century which is far too late to be invoked as 56   Carmel McCarthy, Saint Ephrem’s Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron: An English Translation of Chester Beatty Syriac MS 709, Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), ix, i, 155. 57   As concluded by Goguel (Seuil, 69) at the end of his extended discussion of these passages: “Ce que nous apercevons cependant d’une manière parfaitement nette, c’est que Jésus conçoit qu’il y a un abîme entre Jean-Baptiste et lui. Jean marque la fin d’une économie, celle de la Loi et des prophètes. Lui inaugure une économie nouvelle, le Royaume de Dieu, c’est-à-dire l’ère messianique.” Davies and Allison (Matthew, 2:244 – 46) insisted that these verses were not intended to score points against the followers of John. If that had been the intention, the account would have concluded with John’s acceptance of Jesus as a consequence of receiving the report of the disciples. But it does not! They prefer to understand the passage as historical and to address it in the context of Jesus’s self-consciousness as Messiah. 58   David Flusser with R. Steven Notley, Jesus (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1997), 53 – 54. 59   In anything but the spirit of the John Lennon lyrics, more in the spirit of the saying attributed to Heine in the epigraph to this paper.

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serious evidence for the more ancient dispute between disciples on which I have focused in this essay. Nevertheless, this text represents what I would like to imagine the disciples of John would have said about Jesus, in an analogous manner to what the Grünewald Isenheim painters said visually of John: In those days a child shall be born who will receive the name of Yohana; he will be the son of the old Zakhria, who shall receive this child in his old age, even at the age of a hundred. His mother, Enishbai, advanced in years, shall conceive him and bring forth her child. When Yohana is a man, faith shall repose in his heart, he shall come to the Jordan and shall baptize for forty-two years, before Nebou shall clothe himself with flesh and come into the world. While Yohana lives in Jerusalem, gaining sway over the Jordan and baptizing, Jesus Christ shall come to him, shall humble himself, shall receive the baptism of Yohana and shall become wise with the wisdom of Yohana. But then shall he corrupt the sayings of Yohana, pervert the baptism of Jordan, distort the words of truth, and preach fraud and malice throughout all the world. (Ginza II, 1.151–152)

Gentiles as Impure Animals in the Writings of Early Christ Followers Matthew Thiessen

McMaster University Modern Christian interpreters frequently claim that ancient Jews depicted gentiles as impure animals, in particular, as dogs. For instance, the entry on dogs in the popular Theological Dictionary of the New Testament concludes that the word dog is “a common term to express Jewish contempt for other peoples.”1 This assertion is almost always wedded to a larger narrative of Christian origins, one that portrays Judaism to be a religion characterized by particularism, exclusivism, and ethnocentrism, and thus theologically and morally inferior to the universalistic religion of Christianity.2 Contrary to these claims, though, the limited evidence that we have suggests that this imagery was actually most frequently used by followers of Jesus and was done so in the context of a mission to non-Jews. Mark, Matthew, Luke, and Paul, authors whom modern scholars almost always characterize as inclusivistic thinkers, deploy impure animal imagery in relation to gentiles, and thereby undermine the narratives of many modern Christian interpreters whose work can best be described as theological apologetics, not critical, historical scholarship.3 1

  Otto Michel, “κύων κυνάριον,” TDNT 3:1101– 4 (1103 n. 11).   On the roots of this view of Judaism in the modern field of comparative religious studies, see Tomoko Masuzawa, The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 205. For this characterization of Judaism, which then serves as a foil for a Christianity described as inclusivistic, see, for instance, F. C. Baur, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings; A Contribution to a Critical History of Primitive Christianity, trans. A. Menzies, 2 vols. (London: Williams & Norgate, 1873), and James D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008). On evidence for ethnic reasoning in early Christianity, see Denise Kimber Buell, Why This New Race: Ethnic Reasoning in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). 3   I will not discuss three other New Testament passages that deploy impure animal imagery (Matt 7:6, 2 Pet 2:22, and Rev 22:15), since these texts do not deal with gentiles per se, but with the morally impure more generally. While interpreters do not see any ethnic dimension to the impure animal imagery in either 2 Pet 2:22 or Rev 22:15, David C. Sim (The Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism: The History and Social Setting of the Matthean Community [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1999], 237 – 39) believes that the impure animal imagery in Matt 7:6 does relate to ethnicity. Sim proposes that the saying opposes a gentile mission, and points to b. Hag. 13a (“The teachings of the Torah are not to be transmitted to an idolater”) as containing a similar anti-gentile sentiment. Nonetheless, I follow most interpreters (e. g., Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution, 2d ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994], 123) in understanding this passage to contain no ethnic reference. 2

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Although Paul is the earliest writer amongst the four I will discuss, I choose to end with him because his use of animal language is the least clear and therefore most contested. Instead, I will begin with the later gospel literature, and will treat it based on the assumption of Markan priority.

Mark The Gospel of Mark portrays Jesus’s encounter with a gentile woman, whose daughter is possessed by a polluting pneuma: From there [Jesus] set out and departed to the region of Tyre. And he entered into a house, desiring no one to know, but he was unable to hide. But immediately hearing about him, a woman whose daughter had a polluting pneuma came prostrating herself at his feet. And the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by descent (Συροφοινίκισσα τῷ γένει). And she asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her: “Permit the children to be fed fully first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs (οὐ γάρ ἐστιν καλὸν λαβεῖν τὸν ἄρτον τῶν τέκνων καὶ τοῖς κυναρίοις βαλεῖν).” But she answered and said to him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs of the children.” And he said to her, “For saying this, go, the demon has left your daughter!” And departing to her house, she found her child lying upon her bed and the demon gone. (Mark 7:24 – 30)

The woman approaches Jesus, asking that he cast out the demon from her daughter.4 Surprisingly, given the fact that he has previously cast out demons in Mark’s gospel (Mark 1:23 – 27, 39; 3:15, 22; 5:1– 20; 6:7, 13), Jesus rejects the woman’s request: “Permit the children to be fed fully first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (7:27).5 Clearly these words relate to the woman’s ethnic descent – something Mark stresses: she is Greek, specifically, her ethnicity marks her as Syrophoenician. Of this response, Joseph Klausner, the Jewish scholar of the New Testament, concluded: “[Jesus’s] answer was so brusque and chauvinistic that if any other Jewish teacher of the time had said such a thing Christians would never have forgiven Judaism for it.”6 The ethnocentricity implied by Jesus’s words is, indeed, harsh to modern ears. As Gerd Theissen remarks, Jesus’s initial “response is morally offensive. It is as if a doctor would refuse to treat a foreign child.”7 How could 4   On impure pneumata in the gospels, see Eric Sorensen, Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity, WUNT 2/157 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), and Clinton Wahlen, Jesus and the Impurity of Spirits in the Synoptic Gospels, WUNT 2/185 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004). 5   On dogs in the Hebrew Bible, see Geoffrey D. Miller, “Attitudes toward Dogs in Ancient Israel: A Reassessment,” JSOT 32 (2008): 487 – 500. On dogs in the New Testament, see Stefan Schreiber, “Cavete Canes! Zur wachsenden Ausgrenzungsvalenz einer neutestamentlichen Metapher,” BZ 45 (2001): 170 – 92. 6  Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching, trans. Herbert Danby (Boston: Beacon Press, 1925), 294. 7  Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 61. T. A. Burkill (“Historical Development of the Story of the Syrophoenician Woman (Mark 7:24 – 31),” NovT 9 [1967]: 161– 78 [173]): “We may

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the Jesus of this universalistic religion entertain such an awful idea? Consequently, some have sought to defend Jesus against the apparent ethnocentrism of this saying, claiming that Jesus’s body language or tone of voice would have shown the woman that he was only joking. Perhaps Jesus intended something less offensive, calling the woman a “puppy.”8 Or perhaps Jesus winked or spoke with a comical voice, gesturing toward some ironical meaning to his words.9 Historical Jesus scholars frequently conclude that this ethnic slur against the ­gentile woman must have originated from the lips of Jesus, since it is difficult for them to conceive of a reason why early Christ followers would have invented such a saying.10 The criterion of embarrassment suggests that here Mark preserves an authentic saying of Jesus, not a later creation by his followers, who, presumably, were interested in a mission to the gentiles.11 Mark, for instance, claims that Jesus predicted that the gospel would go to all nations/gentiles (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, 13:10), so it is hard to fathom why he would create a saying that both insulted gentiles and portrayed Jesus as being opposed to ministering to gentiles. Of course, the criterion of embarrassment must still deal with a small embarrassment of its own. If it is implausible to conclude that Mark created this saying because it would be too embarrassing for someone who had such an open attitude toward gentiles, then surely it must be nearly as implausible that Mark would transmit this saying at all. Yet the presence of the saying in Mark’s gospel means that either he invented the saying and placed it on Jesus’s lips or he passed on the saying.12

safely assume that any intelligent Hellenistic woman, addressed in such terms by a barbarian, would have immediately reacted by slapping the man’s face. And, as in English, so in other languages, to call a woman ‘a little bitch’ is no less abusive than to call her ‘a bitch’ without qualification.”  8   E. g., Monika Fander, Die Stellung der Frau im Markusevangelium unter besonderer Berücksichtigung kultur- und religionsgeschichtlicher Hintergründe, MTA  8 (Altenberge: Telos, 1990), 460 – 61.  9   I. Hassler (“The Incident of the Syrophoenician Woman [Math XV,21– 28; Mark VII,24 – 30],” ExpT 45 [1934]: 459 – 61), for instance, suggests that Jesus winked when he spoke to show that he knew better. Similarly, Floyd V. Filson (A Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Matthew, HNTC [New York: Harper, 1960], 180) argues that the effects of Jesus’s words “would depend much on the speaker’s tone and facial expression.” 10   E. g., Reinhard Feldmeier, “Die Syrophönizierin (Mk 7,24 – 30) – Jesus ‘verlorenes’ Streitgespräch?” in Die Heiden: Juden, Christen und das Problem des Fremden, ed. Reinhard Feldmeier and Ulrich Heckel, WUNT 70 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 211– 27. In contrast, see Robert W. Funk and Roy W. Hoover, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 70, and John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1991), 444. 11   E. P. Sanders and Margaret Davies (Studying the Synoptic Gospels [London: SCM, 1989], 304 –15) prefer to speak of stories or sayings that go “against the grain.” 12   On the problematic nature of the criterion of embarrassment, see Dale C. Allison Jr., The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 53 – 78, and Rafael Rodríguez, “The Embarrassing Truth about Jesus: The Criterion of Embarrassment and the Failure of Historical Authenticity,” in Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity, ed. Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne (London: T & T Clark, 2012), 132 – 51.

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Matthew When we turn to the Gospel of Matthew, this saying becomes even more problematic precisely because we can see the way in which Matthew freely edits Mark’s account of Jesus. For instance, Matthew removes all of Mark’s references to an angry Jesus (Mark 1:4113; 3:5; 10:14; cf. Matt 8:3; 12:13; 19:14). Another example: Mark’s gospel contains a story in which Jesus uses spit in order to heal the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22 – 26). Matthew simply omits this story, presumably because he found it to be a source of embarrassment. Perhaps, like Rabbi Akiba according to the Tosefta, Matthew thought that such actions reeked of magic (t. Sanh. 12.10).14 Surely, given the considerable evidence of his liberal editorial handling of the Gospel of Mark, Matthew would have done away with a story in which Jesus calls a gentile woman a dog, had he found it embarrassing. After all, Matthew explicitly places the beginnings of the mission to the gentiles on Jesus’s lips at the end of his gospel: “Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations/gentiles (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη),15 baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the sacred pneuma” (Matt 28:19).16 Instead, Matthew not only transmits this troublesome saying from Mark but also adds to it: And departing from there, Jesus went away into the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a Canaanite woman (γυνὴ Χαναναία) from those regions came out and shouted, “Have mercy on me, sir, son of David. My daughter is possessed by an evil demon.” But [Jesus] did not respond to her. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, “Send her away, since she shouts after us.” And answering, he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But drawing close, she prostrated herself, saying, “Sir, help me!” And answering, he said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs.” But she said, “True, sir! For even the dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the table of their owners.” Then answering, Jesus said to her, “O woman, your confidence is great. Let it be for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that hour. (Matt 15:21– 28) 13   For the text-critical issue in this verse, see Bart Ehrman, “Text and Tradition: The Role of New Testament Manuscripts in Early Christian Studies. Lecture One: Text and Interpretation: The Exegetical Significance of the ‘Original’ Text,” TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism 5 (2000). Online: http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/v05/Ehrman2000a.html. 14   See Julius Preuss, Biblisch-talmudische Medizin: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Heilkunde und der Kultur überhaupt (Berlin: Karger, 1923), 321– 22. 15   Matthias Konradt (Israel, Kirche und die Völker im Matthäusevangelium, WUNT 215 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], 334 – 37) argues that the phrase πάντα τὰ ἔθνη refers to both Israel and all gentiles. 16  On this verse, see B. J. Hubbard, The Matthean Redaction of a Primitive Apostolic Com­ missioning: An Exegesis of Matthew 28:16 – 20, SBLDS 19 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1974); John P. Meier, “Nations or Gentiles in Matthew 28.19?” CBQ 39 (1977): 94 –102; Schuyler Brown, “The Matthean Community and the Gentile Mission,” NovT 22 (1980): 193 – 221; David C. Sim, “The Gospel of Matthew and the Gentiles,” JSNT 57 (1995): 19 – 48; idem, “Matthew, Paul and the Origin and Nature of the Gentile Mission: The Great Commission in Matthew 28:16 – 20 as an ­Anti-Pauline Tradition,” HvTSt 64 (2008): 377 – 92; Axel von Dobbeler, “Die Restitution Israels und die Bekehrung der Heiden: Das Verhältnis von Mt 10:5b – 6 und Mt 28:18 – 20 unter dem Aspekt der Komplementarität: Erwägungen zum Standort des Matthäusevangeliums,” ZNW 91 (2000): 18 – 44; and Benjamin L. White, “The Eschatological Conversion of ‘All the Nations’ in Matthew 28.19 – 20: (Mis)reading Matthew through Paul,” JSNT 36 (2014): 353 – 82.

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Matthew’s Jesus makes even more apparent the ethnic reasoning behind the words of Mark’s Jesus. In addition to the troublesome identification of the woman with a dog, Jesus states: “I was sent only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:24). Matthew’s Jesus, therefore, claims that God had sent him only for Jews, not gentiles. Whereas in Mark the children represent Israel and the dog represents this gentile woman, Matthew adds a corresponding animal. Sheep, a pure, sacrificial animal, represents Israel – even rebellious Israelites or Jews; a dog represents gentiles, even a gentile who comes to Jesus begging for mere scraps. Additionally, Matthew identifies this woman with a Canaanite, one of the more historically loathsome types of non-Jews in Jewish thinking (15:22). Matthew, therefore, shows no embarrassment in regard to this statement; rather, he finds it eminently useful for illustrating his ethnic reasoning for the priority of Israel over the gentiles. Jesus was sent to preach and minister to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, not to treat dogs.17

Luke Scholars often conclude that Mark was Jewish, but writing for gentile followers of Christ.18 And they virtually always assume that Matthew was Jewish and was writing for Jewish followers of Christ.19 When we turn to the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, though, scholars frequently argue that the author of these works was a gentile who wrote for gentile followers of Christ.20 At first glance, such 17

  Again, scholars try to distance Matthew’s Jesus from the ethnocentricity of this comment. For example, R. T. France (The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007], 591) says, “Cold print does not allow us to detect a quizzical eyebrow or a tongue in the check, and it may be that Jesus’ demeanor already hinted that his discouraging reply was not to be his last word on the subject.” 18   The fact that Mark translates Aramaic phrases into Greek (5:41, 7:34, 14:36, 15:34) and explains certain Jewish customs to his readers (e. g., Mark 7:3), might point in the direction of a gentile audience. Nonetheless, as Joel Marcus (Mark 1– 8: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 27 [New York: Doubleday, 2000], 441) argues, such evidence does not preclude the presence of Jews in Mark’s intended audience. 19   E. g., J. Andrew Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990); Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew’s Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Sim, Gospel of Matthew and Christian Judaism; and Benedict T. Viviano, Matthew and His World: The Gospel of the Open Jewish Christians: Studies in Biblical Theology, NTOA 61 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007). A few scholars have argued that Matthew was a gentile: e. g., Kenneth Clark, “The Gentile Bias of Matthew,” JBL 66 (1947): 165 – 72, and Poul Nepper-Christensen, Das Matthäusevangelium, ein judenchristliches Evangelium?, ATDan 1 (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1958). 20   E. g., Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. Luke, ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1901), xx; G. B. Caird, The Gospel of St. Luke, PNTC (Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 105; Werner Georg Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, rev. ed., trans. Howard Clark Kee (London: SCM, 1975), 149; Walter Schmithals, Das Evangelium nach Lukas, ZBK 3.1 (Zurich: Theologischer, 1980), 9; Craig A. Evans, Luke, NIBC 3 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990), 2; Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, new and updated ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 235 – 39; Darrell L. Bock, Luke  1:1– 9:50, BECNT 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 6; François Bovon,

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a hypothesis seems to fit quite nicely with what Luke does with this harsh statement about gentiles, for Luke’s gospel lacks the story entirely. Surely Luke’s omission of this story shows that he, at least, had the good sense to be embarrassed by a saying that equated gentiles with dogs. Surely here scholars finally get to see the evidence that early Christ followers were not ethnocentric and particularistic like Judaism. Perhaps one might concede that both Mark, who was a bit of an undereducated barbarian if his Greek skills are any indication, and Matthew, who was still constrained by his Jewish background, were unable to break the bonds of ethnocentrism. But Luke moves the early Jesus movement forward into becoming an inclusivistic religion free from the constraints of ethnic reasoning! Unfortunately, or at least unfortunately for those seeking evidence that early Christ followers freed themselves of ethnic reasoning, Luke simply does not fit this description. To be sure, Luke omits the story of Jesus calling a gentile woman a dog, but he omits the entirety of Mark 6:47 – 8:27a. In fact, Michael Pettem has made the compelling argument that Luke’s omission of this material from his gospel occurs strategically: Luke intends to delay dealing with this material so that it better fits into his chronological account of the spread of the gospel beyond the boundaries of Israel.21 Luke focuses on the question of the relationship of gentiles to the gospel about Jesus in the story of Cornelius in Acts 10: And [Peter] saw the heaven opening and something like a large sheet descending, being let down to the earth by the four corners. In it were all four-footed animals and reptiles of the earth and birds of the heaven. And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord! For I have never eaten anything koinos or akathartos.” And a voice again, a second time, came to him, “What God has purified, you do not proclaim polluting.” And this happened a third time and immediately the thing was taken into heaven. (Acts 10:11–16)

Here Peter sees a vision of various animals and a heavenly voice commanding him to kill and eat what he sees. That at least some of these animals are impure is suggested by the fact that Peter responds saying that he has never eaten anything koinos or akathartos (10:14). This vision occurs within the context of the conversion of Cornelius, a pious gentile, demonstrating that it relates to anthropology, not diet.22 The subsequent narrative of Acts confirms this interpretation. At no point do Jewish Christ followers in Acts ever abandon Jewish dietary restrictions. Instead, they impose certain dietary restrictions, such as the prohibition of the consumption of blood, upon gentile followers of Christ (15:20, 29; 21:25).23 Immediately after, Luke interprets the vision for his readers by portraying Peter telling Cornelius that “God A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1– 9:50, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 8; and John T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 2. 21   Pettem, “Luke’s Great Omission and His View of the Law,” NTS 42 (1996): 35 – 54. 22   On the relationship between Peter’s vision and Cornelius, see François Bovon, “Tradition et redaction en Actes 10, 1–11, 18,” TZ 26 (1970): 22 – 45, and Clinton Wahlen, “Peter’s Vision and Conflicting Definitions of Purity,” NTS 51 (2005): 505 –18. 23   On this passage, see Isaac Oliver, Torah Praxis after 70 ce: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts, WUNT 2/355 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 370 – 73.

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has shown me not to call any person koinos or akathartos” (10:28). Luke uses animals to discuss gentiles, because, in the words of Claude Lévi-Strauss, animals are good to think with.24 The impure animals that Peter sees represent the gentiles and their incorporation into this community shaped by the gospel. Peter’s vision of these various animals in Acts 10 demonstrates that Luke holds to what anthropologists refer to as an essentialist view of gentile identity. Gentiles are gentiles because they are born that way. There is something innate to gentile identity. Just as unclean animals are genealogically impure, and not impure due to immorality or ritual impurity, so too Luke thinks that gentiles used to be koinos and akathartos from birth and by nature. In other words, gentile identity was not the result of behavior – Cornelius was, after all, a very pious man even though he was a gentile. Nonetheless, he was koinos and akathartos in the same way that a dog or other unclean animal was – born and bred. Only a new act on the part of the God of Israel could, so to speak, rewrite gentile DNA so that what was formerly impure could become truly pure (Acts 10:44 – 47).25 In fact, by portraying gentiles as impure animals, all three Synoptic Gospel writers, Mark, Matthew, and Luke, demonstrate that they hold to an essentializing understanding of gentile identity.26 There is an essence to gentile identity that truly, really, naturally inheres in gentiles and fundamentally distinguishes them from Jews. They are akin to impure animals and, therefore are, by nature, unfit for incorporation. In Mark and Matthew, the woman concedes that her rightful place is under the table, not seated amongst the children. Still, she points out that nature itself shows that dogs are fed from the scraps. The woman remains a dog – she does not become human or a sheep, but she still benefits. The same can be said for Luke’s account. Cornelius and other gentiles remain gentiles, and consequently are not to keep those aspects of the Jewish law that pertain only to Jews. Yet, while they were formerly impure animals, they have now become purified. Israel’s God has purified them. God has rewritten the DNA of these impure animals so that they now qualify as pure. And, being pure, they now become receptacles for the sacred pneuma, which enters into them upon hearing Peter’s gospel proclamation (10:44 – 47).

24   Lévi-Strauss (Le Totémisme Aujourd-hui, 2d ed. [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965], 128): “[L]eur réalité sensible laisse transparaître des notions et des relations, conçues par la pensée spéculative à partir des données de l’observation. On comprend enfin que les espèces naturelles ne sont pas choisies parce que ‘bonnes à manger’ mais parce que ‘bonnes à penser’.” 25   See Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 124 – 40. 26   On ethnic essentialism, see Fredrik Barth, “Introduction,” in Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, ed. Fredrik Barth (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), Francisco J. Gil-White, “How This Is Blood? The Plot Thickens: If Ethnic Actors Are Primordialists, what Remains of the Circumstantialist/Primordialist Controversy?” Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (1999): 789 – 820, and idem, “Are Ethnic Groups Biological ‘Species’ to the Human Brain? Essentialism in Our Cognition of Some Social Categories,” Current Anthropology 42 (2001): 515 – 54.

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Philippians 3 But what about Paul? F. C. Baur averred long ago that in his writings Paul intended “to remove the last remnants of Jewish particularism.”27 And the so-called new perspective on Paul continues to make similar claims. Are these readings of Paul accurate, or do they, too, need to be revised? Like Mark and Matthew, Paul uses dog language in his letter to the Philippians. But here many interpreters believe that Paul has taken the particularistic language of his fellow Jews and turned it against them. The church father Chrysostom was the first to propose such a reading of Phil 3:2: But whom does he style “dogs”? There were at this place some of those, whom he hints at in all his Epistles, base and contemptible Jews, greedy of vile lucre and fond of power, who, desiring to draw aside many of the faithful, preached both Christianity and Judaism at the same time, corrupting the Gospel. As then they were not easily discernible, therefore he says, “beware of the dogs”: the Jews are no longer children; once the gentiles were called dogs, but now the Jews.28

In a recent article Mark Nanos has challenged this scholarly consensus, arguing that it was not, in fact, common for Jews to refer to gentiles as dogs.29 Nanos’s article rightly notes that, while passages from Jewish scriptures can refer to certain gentiles as dogs (obliquely, 1 Sam 17:43; 2 Kgs 8:13), other passages use the same slur in reference to Israelites (cf. 1 Sam 24:14, 2 Sam 3:8; 9:8; 16:9). In other words, Jewish scriptures do not systematically refer to gentiles with either dog language or, more broadly, impure animal language. I suggest that we ought to place Paul’s reference to dogs within the same context as that of Mark, Matthew, and Luke – a mission to gentiles. But, rather than interpreting this passage as Paul’s ironic deployment of the term dog against Jews, I think Paul refers to a group of rival missionaries who are actually non-Jews themselves.30 27

 Baur, Paul the Apostle, 1:308 – 9.  Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians (NPNF1 13:230). Cf. Howard Marshall, The Epistle to the Philippians (London: Epworth, 1991), 79, and Ernst Lohmeyer, Der Brief an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon, 10th ed., KEK 9 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1954), 123. 29   Nanos, “Paul’s Reversal of Jews Calling Gentiles ‘Dogs’ (Philippians 3:2): 1600 Years of an Ideological Tale Wagging an Exegetical Dog?” BibInt 17 (2009): 448 – 82. 30   Others have also suggested some variation of gentile opponents. See Philipp Vielhauer, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur: Einleitung in das Neue Testament, die Apokyphen und die Apostolischen Väter (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975), 164; Ulrich B. Müller, “Der Brief aus Ephesus: Zeitliche Platzierung und theologische Einordnung des Philipperbriefes im Rahmen des Paulusbriefe,” in Das Urchristentum in seiner literarischen Geschichte: Festschrift für Jürgen Becker zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ulrich Mell and Ulrich B. Müller, BZNW 100 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 155 – 72; Kenneth Grayston, “The Opponents in Philippians 3,” ExpT 97 (1986): 170 – 72; Herbert W. Bateman, “Were the Opponents at Philippi Necessarily Jewish?” BSac 155 (1998): 39 – 61; and Michele Murray, “Romans 2 Within the Broader Context of Gentile Judaizing in Early Christianity” in The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, ed. Rafael Rodríguez and Matthew Thiessen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 163 – 82 (171– 74). A number of other scholars, such as Markus Bockmuehl and E. P. Sanders (“Paul on the Law, His Opponents, and the Jewish People in Philippians 3 and 2 Corinthians 11,” in 28

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The problem with determining the historical referent behind Paul’s various epithets here, of course, is that we do not actually know with any certainty their identity. We must perform what John M. G. Barclay has referred to as a mirror reading of Paul’s letters.31 What does the rhetoric of Paul’s letter tell interpreters about those he opposes in Philippians 3? For several reasons, I am convinced that Paul’s opponents are a group of judaizing gentiles who have become convinced that circumcision and adoption of the Jewish law fundamentally changes gentile identity. First, a number of scholars have suggested that Paul’s opponents both in Galatia and in Rome are judaizing gentiles.32 Second, at numerous points Paul’s rhetoric in Philippians 3 suggests that his opponents are not Jews, but gentiles. They may believe that they have become Jews through observance of such works of the law, but Paul argues that such works of the law help them in no way, leaving them self-deceived gentiles. The dog language, then, is not Paul using a Jewish slur for gentiles against Jews, but, like Mark and Matthew, using the term in reference to gentiles. In Paul’s mind, these judaizing gentiles are nothing more than dogs in sheep’s clothing. These workers of the law, ironically, Paul considers to be evil workers (τοὺς κακοὺς ἐργάτας).33 Further, their circumcision and message about the need for gentiles in Philippi to undergo circumcision he considers a mere mutilation (κατατομή, 3:2). While the noun κατατομή does not appear elsewhere in the LXX, NT, or early Jewish literature, the verb κατατέμνω does occur four times in the LXX (Lev 21:4; 1 Kgs 18:28; Isa 15:2; Hos 7:14), and refers to forbidden ritualistic cutting. Most scholars believe Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, ed. Peter Richardson, with David Granskou, Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme 2 [Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1986], 1:75 – 90), while leaning towards identifying the opponents as Jewish Christ followers, recognize the possibility that they might be gentile converts to Judaism. Bockmuehl (The Epistle to the Philippians, BNTC 11 [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998], 186), for instance, states: “It would be ironic if, as seems possible, these opponents are themselves Jewish only by conversion, not by birth . . . As Gentiles who have undergone the rigours of conversion specifically in order to join the people of God, their hostility to Pauline Christianity could then be seen to manifest a characteristic convert resentment at being told their costly decision was pointless and unnecessary.” Brian Dodd (Paul’s Paradigmatic “I”: Personal Example as Literary Strategy, JSNTSup 177 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999], 175) argues that the opponents could be either Jewish or gentile. 31   Barclay, “Mirror-Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case,” JSNT  31 (1987): 73 – 93. 32   For Galatia, see Johannes Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, trans. Frank Clarke (Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1959), 87 –134; Peter Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church, SNTSMS 10 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 84 – 96; and Michele Murray, Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries ce, Studies in Christianity and Judaism/Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme 13 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2004), 34 – 36. For Romans, see Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography, ConBNT 40 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003); Rafael Rodríguez, If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014); and Matthew Thiessen, “Paul’s Argument against Gentile Circumcision in Romans 2:17 – 29,” NovT 56 (2014): 373 – 91. 33   Bockmuehl (Philippians, 188) rightly notes “that there may be a deliberate pun on the opponents’ claim to be doing the so-called ‘works of the law’ (erga nomou).”

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that Paul here demeans circumcision,34 but this is unlikely. As Markus Bockmuehl observes, “Paul never spoke out against circumcision and law observance on the part of Jews; indeed he thought it valuable (Rom. 3.1) and encouraged Jews to continue in it after they [came to faith in Christ] (1 Cor. 7.18) . . . Circumcision was not for Jews incompatible with [faith in Christ] (note Rom. 4.12).”35 Not only does Paul describe circumcision as valuable in Romans, but he also boasts about his own circumcision in his letter to the Philippians (3:5). In other words, it is inconceivable that Paul would dismiss the rite of circumcision in general as nothing more than mutilation. Instead, he criticizes gentiles who want to or who do undergo circumcision, precisely because God did not command them to do so. Paul calls these gentile judaizers “dogs” because their circumcision and law observance have not overcome their genealogical deficiencies as gentiles. Their works of the law amount not to good works, but evil works, and their foreskin removal amounts not to peritomē but to katatomē. In contrast, Paul stresses his own Jewish credentials, acknowledging that if anyone has reason to boast it is he. He claims, “We are the circumcision.” Most scholars take the pronoun “we” (hēmeis) to refer to all who believe in Christ, thereby claiming that all followers of Christ are the circumcision.36 Although it is possible that the “we” refers to Paul and his Philippian readers (cf. 1:2; 3:20, 21; 4:20), another possibility, seldom discussed, also exists: the “we” refers to himself and Timothy, that is, those writing to the Philippians (see 1:1).37 Consequently, Paul contrasts himself and Timothy, two genealogical Jews, to these opponents, genealogical gentiles who have judaized, and who are on the Philippian horizon. Since Paul’s very next use of the first-person plural pronoun refers to himself, or himself and Timothy (3:17),38 it is likely that the “we” of Phil 3:3 does not include the letter’s recipients, but only 34   E. g., Ralph P. Martin and Gerald F. Hawthorne, Philippians, rev. and exp., WBC 43 (Nashville: Nelson, 2004), 175. This reading, too, is ancient. For instance, Origen (Homilies on Genesis 3.4) asserts: “‘Behold,’ he says, ‘the mutilation’ – speaking about the Jews who are mutilated in the flesh – ‘for we,’ he says, ‘are the circumcision, who serve God in spirit and have no confidence in the flesh.’” Translation of Origen’s Homilies on Genesis comes from Origen, Homilies on Genesis and Exodus, trans. Ronald E. Heine, FOC 71 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1982). 35  Bockmuehl, Philippians, 189 – 90. (I have removed Bockmuehl’s original references to “Christians” because I believe it is both anachronistic and misleading to refer to Paul and his readers by this term.) So too D. W. B. Robinson, “We Are the Circumcision,” ABR 15 (1967): 28­ – 35 (31): “We are certainly not entitled to say that for Paul all circumcision, including his own, was a mere ‘concision’, or that he would speak of Jews generally as ‘the concision’.” 36   Cf. Bockmuehl, Philippians, 191, and Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 298 – 99. 37   Cf. Pierre Bonnard, L’Épitre de Saint Paul aux Philippiens, CNT 10 (Neuchatel: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1950), 60, and John Reumann, Philippians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33b (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 474. Robinson (“We Are the Circumcision”) believes that Paul intends to refer to all Jewish Christ followers. 38   Martin and Hawthorne (Philippians, 218 –19) argue that Paul intends the “we” of 3:17 to refer only to himself (cf. BDF § 280). If so, then it is possible that the hēmeis of 3:3 functions similarly. On the other hand, “we” could just as easily refer to Paul and Timothy, as argued by Max Meinertz and Fritz Tillmann, Die Gefangenschaftsbriefe des Heiligen Paulus, HNT 7 (Bonn: Peter Hanstein, 1931), 152; Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, 365 n. 14; and Bockmuehl, Philippians, 229.

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its author(s). Second, nowhere else does Paul refer to gentile Christ followers as the circumcision. In fact, as Joel Marcus has documented, in Pauline communities the term “circumcision” was used to refer to Jews, in contrast to “foreskin,” which was used to refer to gentiles.39 This usage is most clear in the deutero-Pauline letter to the Ephesians: gentiles were “called ‘the uncircumcision’ by what is called ‘the circumcision’ (i. e., the Jews)” (οἱ λεγόμενοι ἀκροβυστία ὑπὸ τῆς λεγομένης περιτομῆς, 2:11). It can also be seen in Gal 2:7 (“I was entrusted with the gospel of uncircumcision just as Peter [was entrusted] with [the gospel] of circumcision” [πεπίστευμαι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς ἀκροβυστίας καθὼς Πέτρος τῆς περιτομῆς]) and the Pauline slogan that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision matter (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15). Philippians 3:3 fits within this same trend: Paul and his Jewish co-authors are the circumcision, that is, they are Jews. In contrast, his judaizing gentile opponents are not. Yet another component of Paul’s rhetoric points to the gentile identity of his opponents. In noting the things about which he can boast, Paul continues to stress aspects of his Jewish identity that he inherited: “with regard to circumcision, an eighth-dayer; born from the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born from Hebrews” (περιτομῇ ὀκταήμερος ἐκ γένους Ἰσραήλ φυλῆς Βενιαμίν Ἑβραῖος ἐξ Ἑβραίων, Phil 3:5).40 Of the first claim in this series, Baur says, “What the apostle is made to say about his former life is just what nobody could fail to know. How petty is the mention of the circumcision on the eighth day.”41 Given the obviousness of the timing of Paul’s circumcision, why would Paul feel it important to mention it here? His reference to the timing of his circumcision serves a rhetorical function only if his opponents were not circumcised on the eighth day after their respective births. Paul intends to contrast his own covenantal circumcision with the later circumcisions of his opponents. They were not circumcised on the eighth day after their births precisely because they were not born to Jewish parents.42 They were not born from the people of Israel. And they were not Hebrews born from Hebrews. In doing so, Paul emphasizes that his circumcision is lawful, fulfilling the temporal requirements that Jewish law insists upon for circumcision (Gen 17:12, 14; Lev 12:3).43 39   Marcus, “The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 (1989): 67 – 81. Robinson (“We are the Circumcision,” 30) also points out that every time “circumcision” is used in the NT “it means ‘Jews’ in an actual sense. On no occasion is it used figuratively.” On circumcision in Rom 2:28 – 29, see Thiessen, “Paul’s Argument against Gentile Circumcision.” 40   On the basis of Caroline Johnson Hodge’s argument (If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007], 80), I understand the preposition ek to refer to genealogical descent and thus render it here as “born from.” 41  Baur, Paul the Apostle, 2:55 – 56. 42   Inexplicably, Martin and Hawthorne (Philippians, lv) refer to “the puberty rite of circumcision.” This statement is patently inaccurate, since, in contrast to other ANE cultures, Jews did not practice pubertal circumcision! Cf. Jack M. Sasson, “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East,” JBL 85 (1966): 473 – 76, and William H. Propp, “The Origins of Infant Circumcision in Israel,” HAR 11 (1987): 355 – 70. 43   On this, see Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, and, idem, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). As Alan F. Segal (Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990], 12) notes: “In Phil. 3:4 – 8 he tells us that he was circumcised properly.”

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Already ancient Christian interpreters noticed this rhetorical edge to Paul’s reference to eighth-day circumcision. The fourth-century interpreter known as Ambrosiaster, for instance, claims that Paul exalts himself over “those who were converts to Judaism” (Commentary on Philippians 3:5).44 Likewise, Chrysostom notes: “[Paul] pointed out both these circumstances, that he was neither a proselyte, nor born of proselytes, for from his being circumcised on the eighth day, it follows that he was not a proselyte, and from his being of the stock of Israel, that he was not of proselyte parents (Homilies on Philippians 10 [NPNF1 13:231]). Similarly, Theodoret paraphrases the meaning of Phil 3:5 in the following way:”it was not as a proselyte that I got circumcision . . . neither was I born one of the proselytes, but boast of Israel as my forebear” (Commentary on Philippians 3:5).45 What these early interpreters of Paul picked up, and what I am advocating here, is that Paul distinguishes himself from gentiles who have adopted the Jewish law. Where I differ from these early interpreters is in claiming that Paul did not have a problem with the law per se, but rather with gentile dogs who have undergone non-eighth-day and non-covenantal circumcision in order to shed their doggish identity, without realizing that such a foreskin removal amounts to katatomē not covenantal peritomē. For Paul, circumcised gentiles are mutilated dogs, not covenantal sheep.46 If this reading of Philippians 3 is correct, the passage shows that Paul belongs to this same essentializing stream of thought that stressed the genealogical gap separating Jews from non-Jews.47 Whereas some Jews thought that circumcision enabled gentiles to overcome the distance between Jew and non-Jew, effectively turning dogs into sheep, Paul fits within a stream of Jewish thought that did not believe gentiles could become Jews, and he therefore denigrates gentile circumcision as nothing more than bodily mutilation.48

44   Translation of Ambrosiaster comes from Gerald L. Bray, trans. and ed., Ambrosiaster: Commentaries on Galatians – Philemon, Ancient Christian Texts (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2009). 45   Translation comes from Robert Charles Hill, Theodoret of Cyrus: Commentary on the Letters of St. Paul, 2 vols. (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2001). 46   Dunn (New Perspective on Paul, 475) claims that the implication of Phil 3:5 “is that those not circumcised, not of the people of Israel, could not share the same confidence.” This is incorrect. The implication of Paul’s remarks is that those who were neither circumcised on the eighth day after birth nor born of the people of Israel could not share Paul’s confidence. 47   Paul’s discussion of cultivated olive tree branches (Jews, whether they believe in Jesus or not) and wild olive tree branches (gentiles, whether they believe in Jesus or not) in Romans 11, also demonstrates Paul’s essentializing understanding of Jewish and gentile identity. See Caroline Johnson Hodge, “Olive Trees and Ethnicities: Judeans and Gentiles in Rom. 11:17 – 24,” in Christians as a Religious Minority in a Multicultural City: Modes of Interaction and Identity Formation in Early Imperial Rome, ed. Jürgen Zangenberg and Michael Labahn, JSNTSup 243 (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 77 – 89, and Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 118 – 22. 48   For a larger exposition of this claim, see Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem.

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Conclusion: Ethnic Reasoning in Ancient Judaism As I noted above, Nanos has argued that there is no evidence that early Jews called gentiles dogs. While I understand and sympathize with Nanos’s discomfort with the way in which Christian interpreters often continue to stereotype Jews negatively, I think his conclusion is ultimately unsound. After all, Mark, Matthew, Paul, and even, I am convinced, Luke, were Jews.49 And, while these thinkers were all Jews who believed in Jesus, they fit within a broader (far from universal, but still broader) stream of thought that emphasized the genealogical gap between Jews and non-Jews through the use of animal imagery. Perhaps most powerfully, the Animal Apocalypse, now preserved in 1 Enoch 85 – 90, consistently portrays the Sethite and Shemite lines as bulls and Israelites as sheep. That is, the author depicts Israelites (and their ancestors) as two clean species of animals, while portraying the rest of humanity as a menagerie of unclean animals. For instance, in rewriting the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 and the births of the patriarchs, the author states: There arose out of them all classes of population: lions, leopards, wolves, snakes, hyenas, wild boars, foxes, squirrels, swine, hawks, eagles, kites, striped crow(s), and ravens. Among them there was also born a snow-white cow. Then they began to bite one another among themselves. That snow-white cow which was born in their midst begat a wild ass, and a snow-white cow with it; and the wild asses multiplied. And that cow which was born from him bore a black wild boar and a snow-white sheep; the former then bore many wild boars50 and the latter bore twelve sheep. (1 Enoch 89.10 –12; translation from OTP)

This passage captures a distinction that is fundamental to the author’s worldview, since it systematically distinguishes between Israel and the nations genetically. Israel, as sheep, is ontologically different from the rest of humanity.51 Such a portrayal does not necessarily suggest that the gentiles are evil, although in the Animal Apocalypse it does appear to hint at the violent inclinations of most nations toward Israel. The impure animal imagery always suggests that these nations are not cultically fit.52 What is fascinating about the Animal Apocalypse, though, is that, even as 49   On Luke’s Jewishness, see Jacob Jervell, Luke and the People of God: A New Look at Luke-Acts (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1972), and Oliver, Torah Praxis after 70 ce. 50   Here I follow mss B and C, which read “wild boars,” not ms A, which reads “healthy beasts.” 51   Nanos (“Paul’s Reversal”) dismisses the significance of the references to “dogs” in 1 Enoch 89.42 – 49 and 90.4 because they occur in an allegory about wild animals bent on oppressing Jews, but the work’s consistent effort to distinguish between Israel and gentiles via the conceptual world of pure and impure animals is not something that can simply be dismissed once one has interpreted the allegory. On this fact, see especially David Bryan, Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality, JSPSup 12 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1995). 52   This same distinction and distance can be observed in later rabbinic literature. M. Nedarim 4.3 says that an unclean animal can be given to a dog or a gentile. The basis for this claim is that in Exod 22:32 an animal torn by beasts cannot be consumed by Israelites, but it can be given to the dogs, while Deut 14:21 states that anything that dies of itself can be given to the resident alien (ger/prosēlytos) or sold to a foreigner. That is, food that is unfit for Israelites remains fit for gentiles. These two passages, then, create a parallel between the cuisine of dogs and gentiles, a connection made even more explicit in m. Bekarot 5.6, which refers to both Exod 22:32 and Deut 14:21.

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it emphasizes the genealogical and seemingly irreconcilable distance between Jews and non-Jews, it envisages God’s inclusion of gentiles, as gentiles, in God’s salvation at the culmination of human history: “Then I saw that a snow-white cow was born, with huge horns; all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky feared him and made petition to him all the time. I went on seeing until all their kindred were transformed, and became snow-white cows” (1 Enoch 90.37 – 38).53 This eschatological transformation restores the gentiles to the status of pure animals without turning them into Jews. Gentiles become cows, not sheep.54 What I think Mark, Matthew, Luke, Paul, and the author of the Animal Apocalypse all share in common is what, in relation to the thought of Paul, Christine Hayes has helpfully termed an “exclusivistic view of Gentile inclusion.”55 Each of these authors uses impure animal imagery of gentiles even as they are convinced that Israel’s God is in the process of including gentiles in the eschatological restoration. Gentiles are caught up in God’s salvation, but they are caught up in it as gentiles, not as Jews. This is what the animal imagery in these various Jewish writers suggests – an unchangeable ontological distinction between Jews and gentiles that strikes us modern readers as exclusivistic, when it should actually strike us as both exclusivistic and inclusivistic: difference is acknowledged as real, persistent, and even divinely ordained. Yet Israel’s God includes both Jews and gentiles in his eschatological restoration and therefore affirms and eternalizes the ethnic differentiation between Jews and gentiles.

53   Although there is no textual evidence to support the claim, Günter Reese (Die Geschichte Israels in der Auffassung des frühen Judentums: Eine Untersuchung der Tiervision und der Zehnwochenapokalypse des äthiopischen Henochbuches, der Geschichtsdarstellung der Assumptio Mosis und der des 4Esrabuches, BBB 123 [Berlin: Philo, 1999], 42 – 43), Karlheinz Müller (Studien zur früh­ jüdischen Apokalyptik, SBAB 11 [Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1991], 164 – 66), and Andreas Bedenbender (Der Gott der Welt tritt auf den Sinai: Entstehung, Entwicklung und Funktionsweise der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik, ANTZ 8 [Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2000], 208 –11) argue that these two verses are a later interpolation. 54   See Terence L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 ce) (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), 89, and Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 89 – 94. Since the passage speaks of “their kindred,” a reference to non-sheep species, and since the author continues to call God “the Lord of the sheep,” it appears that the sheep do not become bulls at the eschaton. In other words, gentiles are transformed into bulls, but Jews remain sheep. Here I disagree with the readings of Patrick A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch, SBLEJL 4 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 385; George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1– 36; 81–108, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 403; and Daniel C. Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch: “All Nations Shall be Blessed”, SVTP 24 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 19 – 21. 55  Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 151. On the problematic nature of the terminology of exclusivism and inclusivism, see Anders Runesson, “Particularistic Judaism and Universalistic Christianity? Some Critical Remarks on Terminology and Theology,” JGRChJ 1 (2000): 120 – 44.

Damned Disciples: The Permeability of the Boundary between Insiders and Outsiders in Matthew and Paul Nathan Eubank

University of Oxford How did the earliest Christians explain the difference between insiders and outsiders?1 Were insiders to think of themselves as potential candidates for exclusion, or were outsiders totally other, of different stock such that movement in and out was not possible? Was the current visible assembly of the elect expected to be the same as the real one as it is known to God and will be revealed in the judgment? And if the empirical ekklēsia is not convertible with the real people of God, how was this potentially troubling fact understood? Christians could hardly deny that insiders occasionally apostatized.2 The question to be considered here is whether early followers of Jesus believed God might damn bona fide, confessing followers of Jesus if they failed to measure up in some way. This essay seeks to answer these questions by examining Matthew’s Gospel and the letters of Paul, both chosen for their influence and interestingly contrasting perspectives.

Matthew’s Gospel A major concern of the First Gospel is to show that insiders will retain their position only if they do what God requires. The performance of just deeds is paramount; all other criteria for determining the difference between insiders and outsiders are relativized. Matthew’s special interest in righteous deeds as the main criterion of inclusion can be seen in a number of uniquely Matthean passages and in his distinctive reworking of material shared across the Synoptic Gospels.3

1

  Anders Runesson (“The Question of Terminology: The Architecture of Contemporary Discussions on Paul,” in Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015], 53 – 77) rightly warns that the label “Christian” might encourage one to think of a modern, predominantly gentile, “religion.” Nevertheless, I am unconvinced that it is better to rely solely on circumlocutory alternatives such as “Jesus followers.” Though problematic in certain respects, Χριστιανοί is at least a first-century label, one which was already familiar when the author of Acts offered an explanation of its origin (11:26). 2   E. g., 1 John 2:18 –19; Heb 6:4 – 6. 3   This motif is shared with Mark and Luke where it is less pronounced.

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This theme is first made explicit in John the Baptist’s chilly reception of Pharisees and Sadducees.4 John is in the wilderness of Judea leading crowds to receive baptism in preparation for coming judgment when Pharisees and Sadducees arrive: But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.” (3:7 –10 NRSV; see also 3:11–12)

Matthew’s description of the Pharisees and Sadducees “coming for baptism” (ἐρχομένους ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα) is ambiguous, leading some commentators to suggest they did not come to be baptized, but only to observe or even oppose John (“coming upon the baptism”).5 The Baptist’s response, however, assumes that they, like the others in the wilderness, came to repent and thereby flee the coming wrath.6 John refuses them because their behavior is wicked. Before they can repent and receive baptism they must perform deeds commensurate (ἄξιος) with such repentance.7 Trees that do not bear good fruit – that is, people who do not do good deeds – will be destroyed, even if they are descended from Abraham and attempt to join John’s movement. Matthew’s polemics against the Pharisees and other groups consistently rely on this same idea: the disobedient will be cast aside regardless of their other qualifications. After his demonstration in the temple, the chief priests and elders challenge Jesus (21:23). In response, Jesus tells two parables which these leaders realize are about them (21:28 – 46).8 The first, the parable of the Two Sons (21:28 – 32), contrasts the leaders of the people, who claim to follow God but do not, with tax collectors and prostitutes, who had once refused to be obedient but came to follow John the Baptist in the “way of righteousness” (21:32). It is far better to be a sinner who turns and obeys than someone who seems to be in good standing but does not actually do what God commands. This is followed by the parable of the Wicked Tenants 4

  Cf. Luke 3:7 – 9, where these words are addressed to the crowds. See also Luke 7:29 – 30.   E. g., Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins, 2nd ed. (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 96 – 97; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 3 vols., ICC (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1988 –1997), 1:303 – 4. 6   ἐρχομένους ἐπὶ τὸ βάπτισμα could be rendered “coming for baptism” (LSJ ἐπί III.1; NRSV) or “coming to where he was baptizing” (LSJ ἐπί I.5; NIV), but John’s response presupposes the former meaning. Davies and Allison (Gospel according to Saint Matthew, 1:304) chalk this up to awkward redaction, but appeals to incoherence are unnecessary. Discrepancy between outward shows of piety and inner wickedness is a key element in the portrayal of the Pharisees throughout Matthew (e. g., 23:3; 15:8). See Mary Marshall, The Portrayals of the Pharisees in the Gospels and Acts, ­FRLANT 254 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 117 – 24. 7   Josephus claimed that John the Baptist taught that people should cleanse themselves by living justly (δικαιοσύνῃ) prior to presenting themselves for baptism; otherwise the baptism would not be pleasing to God (Ant. 18.117). Cf. the remarks about ritual immersion and repentance in 1QS in Alexandria Frisch and Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Body in Qumran Literature: Flesh and Spirit, Purity and Impurity in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 23 (2016): 155 – 82. 8   Despite the challenge coming from the chief priests and elders (21:23), in 21:45 it is the chief priests and Pharisees who “realized he was speaking about them.” 5

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(21:33 – 44), which accuses the same opponents that they are about to be set aside because they have failed to render to God the “fruit” they owed him.9 That Matthew has harsh words for Jewish leaders reflecting the conflict of his own day is well known.10 More interesting for our purposes is Matthew’s insistence that disobedient followers of Jesus will themselves be cast out. The status of those in Jesus’s ekklēsia (16:18) depends on their continued obedience to the commands of God, just as it had for the Pharisees and their followers. The parallel fates of Jewish leaders and followers of Jesus who do not measure up are vividly demonstrated in Matthew’s parable of the Wedding Banquet (22:1–14), which follows the parables of the Two Sons and the Wicked Tenants.11 The parable compares the kingdom of heaven to a “king who gave a wedding banquet for his son” (22:2). Those who were invited to the banquet ignore the invitation and murder the king’s messengers. The king retaliates by burning their city – often seen as an allusion to the events of 70 ce.12 Because those who were invited were not “worthy” (ἄξιοι; cf. 3:8), the king’s servants go through the streets and invite everyone they find, both “evil and good” (22:10). If the parable ended here, as it does in the Lukan and Thomasine versions, it would be yet another charge that those who rejected Jesus would be subject to divine judgment. Matthew, however, appends a bizarre epilogue with a warning for those who were just brought in from the streets. When the king joins the new guests he notices one who is not wearing a wedding robe. He tells his attendants, “Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (22:13). Ancient and modern interpreters have agreed that this final twist in the story cries out to be read allegorically.13 Wedding garments were not required for guests, and in any case these guests were just pulled off the streets. Whatever the garment signifies – many have suggested good deeds (cf. Rev 19:8) – this conclusion indicates that Jesus’s new group of insiders can be cast out just as their predecessors had been. Indeed, in the narrative as a whole, Matthew places an even greater emphasis on the possible damnation of Jesus-followers.14  9   For a well-argued case that the parable is directed against these opponents and not against Israel as a whole see Matthias Konradt, Israel, Kirche und die Völker im Matthäusevangelium, WUNT 215 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 187 – 209. See also Tommy Givens, We the People: Israel and the Catholicity of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 330. 10   This basic point enjoys wide consensus, though the question of whether this critique extends to Israel as a whole or simply to its leaders continues to be debated. See, e. g., Isaac W. Oliver, Torah Praxis after 70 ce: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts, WUNT 2/355 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); Anders Runesson, “Rethinking Early Jewish-Christian Relations: Matthean Community History as Pharisaic Intragroup Conflict,” JBL 127 (2008): 95 –132; Konradt, Israel, Kirche und die Völker; and Graham N. Stanton, A Gospel for a New People (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1992). 11   Daniel Marguerat, Le jugement dans l’Évangile de Matthieu, 2nd ed. (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1995), 325 – 31. 12   E. g., Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21– 28: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Minneapolis, Fortress, 2005), 54. 13   E. g., Irenaeus, Haer. 4.36.5; Augustine, Serm. 40.3 – 4; Luz, Matthew 21– 28, 56. 14   Robert Gundry, “In Defense of the Church in Matthew as a Corpus Mixtum,” ZNW  91 (2000): 153 – 65.

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In Matt 7:13 – 27, Jesus claims that only those who do what God commands will avoid destruction. The way to life is a narrow gate that excludes most people (7:13 –14). Not all who claim to follow Jesus are genuine; there are “false prophets,” wolves in sheep’s clothing who fail to do good deeds and will be “thrown into the fire” by God (7:15 – 20). In the judgment there will be “many” who have performed miraculous deeds in Jesus’s name but who will nevertheless be found wanting (7:21– 23). These apparent Jesus-followers will say “Lord, Lord!” and cite their impressive accomplishments. Despite all this they will be sent away because they did not really do the will of God – which for Matthew means following Jesus’s teaching and interpretation of the law.15 This section closes with a warning that those who hear Jesus’s words but do not obey face destruction, whereas those who hear and obey will be secure (7:24 – 27). According to Matthew, insiders are in this sense in no better position than the religious leaders against whom Matthew polemicizes. Both must obey to be in good standing.16 Matthew’s ekklēsia is, as Augustine put it, a permixta ecclesia, a body containing both the “bad and good,” wolves and true disciples.17 The Gospel identifies three ways in which the false members will be discovered and expelled. First, Matthew alone among the gospels sets out instructions for how to identify and expel unrepentant evildoers. Those who refuse to repent after being found guilty of sin are to be ejected from the community (18:15 –17). Second, Matthew warns that some members of the church will defect under duress. In the eschatological discourse, for instance, Jesus predicts that “many will fall away” in times of trial, stooping so low as to hand each other over to hostile authorities (24:9 –14). Those who remain faithful under persecution, however, “will be saved” (24:13).18 15   Justin Martyr, a second-century reader of Matthew, commented, “Let those not found living as he taught not be known as Christians, even if they speak with the mouth the teachings of Christ. For he said it is not those who only profess, but those who do the works who will be saved. For thus he said, ‘Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord’” (1 Apol. 16.9). Cf. 2 Clem. 4.1– 2. 16   Petri Luomanen (“Corpus Mixtum – An Appropriate Description of Matthew’s Community?” JBL 117 [1998]: 469 – 80 [esp. 476]) argues that 7:21– 23 describes outsiders, not members of the church. Regardless of whether Matthew expected such false believers in his own midst – I would suggest there is good evidence that he did (see below) – the figures in this passage are described only as those who do miracles in the name of Jesus. This suggests some affiliation with the Jesus movement. 17   Doctr. chr. 3.32. Augustine modifies Tichonius’s “bipartite body of the Lord” because the “body of Christ” itself will always be with the Lord. Better, Augustine maintains, to speak of the “true and mixed body of the Lord” or simply of the “mixed church” (permixta ecclesia). The use of the label corpus mixtum in modern scholarship is usually traced to Günther Bornkamm, “Enderwartung und Kirche im Matthäusevangelium,” in Überlieferung und Auslegung im Matthäusevangelium, ed. Günther Bornkamm, 2d ed., WMANT 1 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1961), 17. Luomanen (“Corpus Mixtum”) and, regarding select passages, Klyne R. Snodgrass (Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008], 320, 487 – 91) have challenged the label, rightly noting that some of the passages cited actually depict the sifting of the entire world, not just the ekklēsia. Luomanen overstates his case, however, in rejecting the label altogether. Matthew repeatedly indicates that there will be followers of Jesus who fall away in difficult times or who will be condemned in the last judgment. See Gundry’s response, “The Church in Matthew as a Corpus Mixtum.” 18   In the time of the narrative, the first instances of such defection is imminent, as Judas, Peter, and all the Twelve are about to betray Jesus in one way or another. Even in the triumphant conclusion of the narrative when the eleven disciples meet the risen Jesus there is division, as some harbor

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The third and most important sifting of Jesus’s followers will come in the parousia when Jesus returns to judge the world and “repay to each according to his deeds” (16:27), collecting debts and paying wages. Matthew compares this event to the separation of weeds from wheat at harvest time (13:24 – 30, 36 – 43) and to the elimination of rotten things from a catch of fish (13:47 – 50).19 Matthew’s final block of teaching material concludes with five consecutive pericopae describing this sifting (24:36 – 25:46). “That day” will be like the time of Noah, with some saved and others destroyed (24:36 – 40). Leaders in the church will be judged on their faithfulness and the remiss will be damned (24:45 – 51). Jesus’s followers are like ten bridesmaids watching for the coming bridegroom (25:1–12). Five bridesmaids remained vigilant and were able to go with the groom into the wedding banquet, while the other five were not ready and are locked outside. The latter cry “Lord, Lord” but are banished from his sight. In the parable of the Talents (24:14 – 30), disciples are warned to do good work while the master is away or be shut into the outer darkness.20 The final passage (25:31– 46) describes the day when all the nations (τὰ ἔθνη) will be gathered and separated into two groups: those who served the Son of Man by helping the hungry, thirsty, lonely, naked, sick, and incarcerated and those who did not. The former group is welcomed into eternal life, the latter to eternal punishment. All other criteria are ignored in this final depiction of eschatological sifting – only those who helped “the least of these brothers of mine” avoid perdition. Even if there is rhetorical exaggeration here – that is, even if Matthew thinks there is more that determines who is in and who is out than just who helped the needy – Matthew at least gives the impression that everything depends on acts of mercy and anyone can be excluded.21 Matthew does emphasize God’s free forgiveness of “debts,” or sins, but the cancellation of debts comes with strings attached.22 Those who refuse to repent and extend this same forgiveness to others have their forgiveness rescinded. It is worth stressing Matthew’s insistence on good deeds as the principal criterion of inclusion because commentators have often recast Matthew’s language of necessary obedience into vague language of affiliation. That is, whereas Matthew insists that disciples must actually do the will of God or be cast out, commentators have often attempted to make a positive outcome more or less the automatic result of association with Jesus.23 For instance, standing in a long tradition of New doubts while worshipping him (28:16 –17). It is likely such defections and doubts were experienced in Matthew’s own time. See also 13:21 which speaks similarly of those who “hear the word and receive it with joy,” but fall away because of “tribulation or persecution” (13:21). 19   These parables refer to the judgment of the entire world, not just the ekklēsia, but Matthew’s other descriptions of this event show the ekklēsia is also in the crucible. 20   See Gundry (“The Church in Matthew as a Corpus Mixtum,” 156 – 60) on 24:45 – 25:13. 21   Cf. John Chrysostom (Paenit. [PG 49:293]), who cites Matt 25:40 and comments, “Therefore, whatever sins you have, your almsgiving outweighs all of them.” 22   Nathan Eubank, Wages of Cross-Bearing and Debt of Sin: The Economy of Heaven in Matthew’s Gospel, BZNW 196 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 53 – 67. 23   See the surveys of scholarship on this and related questions in Petri Luomanen, Entering the Kingdom of Heaven: A Study on the Structure of Matthew’s View of Salvation, WUNT 2/101 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 7 – 40. For critique and reassessment see Nathan Eubank, “What

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Testament scholarship, Joel Green writes that Matthew does not teach “‘works-righteousness,’ as though one might be regarded as righteous on account of one’s performance.”24 Instead, “[t]hose who align themselves with the kingdom” inevitably produce the required fruit.25 Another recent commentator claims that, for Matthew, one remains in not by doing good deeds but by “belonging to . . . the priorities of the kingdom” and that disciples will be acquitted on the day of judgment on the basis of their relationship with Jesus.26 Some have even claimed that the judgment of the nations in 25:31– 46 is not so much about evaluating people’s deeds as it is about distinguishing between those who “[f]reely receiv[e] their salvation from the grace of Christ” and those who “wear their good works on their sleeve.”27 This interpretation foists on Matthew a foreign works/grace dichotomy and subverts Matthew’s insistence that disciples must actually do what God requires to enter into life. To be sure, Matthew is addressed to people who believed they had been rescued from sin and welcomed by God (1:21; 26:28), but these recipients of divine mercy were not blessedly assured of their position. If they failed to do what God required, they would be thrust into the outer darkness. The boundary between insider and outsider is for Matthew highly permeable.

Damned Disciples in Paul Paul’s letters lack Matthew’s lurid descriptions of weeping and teeth gnashing. Indeed, he never clearly mentions anything like a hell, though he does speak of “death,” “destruction,” or “corruption,” even if it is difficult to understand quite what does Matthew Say about Divine Recompense? On the Misuse of the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard (20.1–16),” JSNT 35 (2013): 242 – 62. 24   Joel Green, “Heaven and Hell,” DJG, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 373. For some modern theologies it is indeed very important to avoid “works righteousness” and to posit that God reckons righteousness without considering the life that person actually lived, but these concerns are manifestly foreign to the First Gospel. 25   Ibid. The claim that “fruit” indicates works which are more or less automatically generated by those with the right “alliances” is common in this stream of interpretation, often relying on a problematic indicative/imperative dichotomy drawn from Pauline studies. One could imagine the metaphor of fruit being used to this effect, but Matthew stresses that even insiders who “align themselves” with Jesus will be damned if they do not perform the necessary deeds. Indeed, for Matthew’s John the Baptist, fruit was required prior to making the right alliance (see above on 3:7 –10). On the distinction between indicative and imperative in Matthew see Marguerat, Le jugement dans l’Évangile de Matthieu, 215 –19. 26   R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 259, 292. See also Hans Weder, Die “Rede der Reden”: Eine Auslegung der Bergpredigt heute (Zürich: TVZ, 1985), 241– 45. 27   Sigurd Gridheim, “Ignorance Is Bliss: Attitudinal Aspects of the Judgment According to Works in Matthew 25:31– 46,” NovT 50 (2008): 313 – 331 (331). See also Bo Reicke, “The New Testament Conception of Reward,” in Aux sources de la tradition chrétienne: Mélanges offerts à M. Maurice Goguel, ed. Oscar Cullmann and Philippe Menoud (Neuchâtel: Delachaux and Niestlé, 1950), 195 – 206, and Joachim Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, 2 vols. (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1971), 1:209.

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this entails.28 In a number of letters, however, he argues that rejection of the gospel message would nullify his converts’ faith. He worries about Satan tempting his converts away, thereby rendering his efforts worthless (1 Thess 3:5; see also 2 Cor 11:1– 4). He thinks that members of his ekklēsiai could be found ἀδόκιμοι, unworthy and without Christ (2 Cor 13:5), and that it is inevitable that ekklēsiai would contain some who are worthy (δόκιμοι) and some who are not (1 Cor 11:19; 2 Cor 6:1; 1 Cor 9:27). He also expects believers to face a final judgment in which rewards and punishments are meted out (Rom 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10; 1 Cor 3:10 –15). His letters warn that failure to “hold fast” to his gospel message would place former believers among those who are not being saved (1 Cor 15:1– 2).29 One of the clearest such warnings appears in his discussion of the unbelief of fellow Israelites in Romans 11. In his well-known allegory of an olive tree, he says the portion of Israel that rejected the gospel was cut off and gentiles – uncultivated branches – were grafted in their place. Paul comments: For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness (ἐὰν ἐπιμένῃς τῇ χρηστότητι); otherwise you also will be cut off. (11:21– 22 NRSV)

Like Matthew, Paul warns that the new in-group will suffer the same fate as their predecessors should they make the same error. Gentile Christians occupy a position that is no less precarious than Israel’s – if anything it is more precarious because it is not “natural” (κατὰ φύσιν) for them to belong.30 God’s kindness to them creates certain obligations: they must remain in that kindness or be eliminated. So, he writes, “do not become haughty, but stand in awe” (11:20).31 What would it mean for the Roman Christians to fail to continue in God’s kindness? In context one thinks first of rejecting Christ as had many of the “natural branches.” There is indeed widespread scholarly agreement that Paul thought disciples could be lost if they rejected the gospel message or one of its core tenets.32 Did Paul think sinful behavior could push an insider into the ranks of the damned? 28   E. g., Rom 6:23; Gal 6:8. Though of dubious authorship, 2 Thess 1:5 –10 is a possible instance of something like “hell” in Paul. 29   See also Gal  1:6 – 9; 4:8 –11; 5:2 – 4. 30   Matthew Thiessen (Paul and the Gentile Problem [New York: Oxford University Press, 2016], 119 – 20) argues that the gentiles remain “sarkically” gentile despite being grafted in, just as the branches that have been broken off retain their sanctity despite lacking the Spirit. See also Benjamin D. Gordon, “On the Sanctity of Mixtures and Branches: Two Halakic Sayings in Romans 11:16 – 24,” JBL 135 (2016): 355 – 68. 31   In John Barclay’s terms (Paul and the Gift [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015], 74), God’s gift to the gentiles does not escape reciprocity. It is circular, demanding a return. Cf. Origen (Comm. Rom. 8.11), who sees in Rom 11:16 – 24 a refutation of Valentinus and Basilides, who are supposed to have used the same passage to argue that it is in the nature of souls to be automatically bound for either salvation or perdition. 32   Even Judith M. Gundry Volf (Paul and Perseverance: Staying In and Falling Away [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990], 159 – 229, 285 – 86), who defends what turns out to be a Reformed view of perseverance (1– 2), allows for this possibility with some qualifications.

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Judith Gundry’s 1990 study, Paul and Perseverance, remains the most influential monograph-length study of this question.33 Gundry argues that for Paul rejection of the gospel message is the only thing that can exclude a Christian from salvation. No ethical failure could ever do so. Gundry recognizes that Paul cautions ekklēsiai against various sins that exclude one from the kingdom (e. g., 1 Cor 6:9 –11), but takes these passages as descriptions of what rank and file pagans will endure, not as a possible future for Paul’s converts.34 It is true that these passages have none of Matthew’s explicit threats of the damnation of professed Jesus-followers. But if Paul thought his converts were somehow immune from becoming confirmed “thieves, greedy people, drunkards, slanderers, or robbers” (1 Cor 6:10), one wonders why Paul consistently warns those to whom he writes that such people would not “inherit the kingdom.”35 More fundamentally, however, one must ask whether Paul maintains a clear dichotomy between belief and behavior such that the former is decisive whereas the latter is not. Is there evidence of such a split, or is this something we have imposed upon him?36 Three examples from Paul’s undisputed letters will serve to query this assumption. 33   The literature that touches on the issue less directly is vast. See, e. g., Barclay’s analysis of the “perfection” of grace in Pauline scholarship, Paul and the Gift, 130 – 82; idem, “Believers and the ‘Last Judgment’ in Paul: Rethinking Grace and Recompense,” in Eschatologie – Eschatology: The Sixth Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium: Eschatology in Old Testament, Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Tübingen, September, 2009), ed. Hans-Joachim Eckstein et al., WUNT 272 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 195 – 208; Douglas A. Campbell, The Deliverance of God: An Apocalyptic Reading of Justification in Paul (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009); Simon J. Gathercole, Where is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1– 5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); B. J. Oropeza, Paul and Apostasy: Eschatology, Perseverance, and Falling Away in the Corinthian Congregation, WUNT 2/115 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); Kent Yinger, Paul, Judaism, and Judgment According to Deeds, SNTSMS 105 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 515 –18. 34   Gundry Volf, Paul and Perseverance, 131– 54. 35   Gundry Volf (Paul and Perseverance, 285, 135 – 36) allows that members of Paul’s congregations might be guilty of these vices, but persistence in such sin may simply be an indication that “they have not yet made the initial step of repentance and conversion.” Gundry Volf thereby excludes genuine defection by definition. Cf. 1 John 2:19, which might support such a view. 36   See Colin D. Miller, The Practice of the Body of Christ: Human Agency in Pauline Theology after MacIntyre, Princeton Theological Monograph Series 200 (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2014). See also recent literature critiquing or refining the distinction between the “indicative” of Paul’s soteriology and the “imperative” of his ethics. E. g., Volker Rabens, “‘Indicative and Imperative’ as the Substructure of Paul’s Theology-and-Ethics in Galatians? A Discussion of Divine and Human Agency in Paul,” in Galatians and Christian Theology: Justification, the Gospel, and Ethics in Paul’s Letter, ed. Mark W. Elliott et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014); Knut Backhaus, “Evangelium als Lebensraum: Christologie und Ethik bei Paulus,” in Paulinische Christologie: Exegetische Beiträge: Hans Hübner zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Udo Schnelle et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000); Udo Schnelle, “Die Begründung und die Gestaltung der Ethik bei Paulus,” in Die bleibende Gegenwart des Evangeliums: Festschrift für Otto Merk zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Roland Gebauer and Martin Meiser, Marburger Theologische Studien 76 (Marburg: Elwert, 2003), 109 – 31. See the helpful review of the debate in Samuli Siikavirta, Baptism and Cognition in Romans 6 – 8: Paul’s Ethics beyond ‘Indicative’ and ‘Imperative’, WUNT 2/407 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015).

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In 1 Thessalonians, often thought to be Paul’s earliest letter, Paul sets out “the will of God” for the Thessalonian converts: For this is the will of God: your sanctification; that you abstain from fornication; that each of you know how to acquire your own vessel [scil., probably, “control your own body”] in sanctity and honour, not in passion of desire like the nations who do not know God; to not wrong or defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger in all these things, just as we told you before and solemnly warned you. For God called us not to impurity but in sanctity. Therefore, whoever rejects these things rejects not a human but rejects God, who gives his sacred Spirit to you. (4:3 – 8)

Though Paul does not use the word ναός (temple), the picture here is of the Thessalonian converts as sacred spaces with certain obligations for maintaining sanctity.37 God gives his sacred Spirit to them and requires them to live accordingly, in holiness, not impurity (ἀκαθαρσία), a word used here with both the cultic and moral senses.38 They are to control their bodies – here described as “vessels” – in sanctity and honor, which requires them to abstain from πορνεία and “passion of lust.”39 If they fail to follow this course of action, they will be punished by Jesus (the likely referent of κύριος in 4:6) and they will be guilty of rejecting God and God’s Spirit (ἀθετεῖ . . . τὸν θεὸν τὸν διδόντα τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ τὸ ἅγιον εἰς ὑμᾶς).40 In short, if the Thessalonians surrender themselves to passion and πορνεία, they will become unclean and will no longer be fitting vessels for the sacred Spirit. Like other keepers of sacred spaces, the Thessalonians needed to preserve the sanctity of their “temple” – i. e., themselves, or lose access to the divine. As Paul puts it in a similar passage in 1 Corinthians, those who belong to Christ must “flee πορνεία” because it is a sin “inside” the body (εἰς τὸ ἴδιον σῶμα), and the Corinthians’ body is a temple of the sacred Spirit (6:15 –19). If some among the Thessalonians should lose their sanctity, it would not be because they simply rejected Paul’s gospel message, but because they failed to behave a certain way. In this passage, moral-cultic impurity is antithetical to the sacred, which means that indulgence in πορνεία is tantamount to apostasy.41 It is true that Paul goes on to say that God had chosen the Thessalonians for salvation 37   See the discussion in Christine M. Thomas, “Locating Purity: Temples, Sexual Prohibitions, and ‘Making a Difference’ in Thessalonikē,” in From Roman to Early Christian Thessalonikē: Studies in Religion and Archaeology, ed. Laura Nasrallah et al., HTS 64 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010), 109 – 29. 38   See Christine E. Hayes’s discussion (Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud [New York: Oxford University Press, 2002], 92 –103) of “carnal impurity” in Paul. 39   The meaning of σκεῦος in 1 Thess 4:4 – 6 is notoriously difficult to determine. In addition to “body,” it is sometimes thought to refer to a particular part of the body (viz., the penis) or to wives. All the main alternatives possess what seem to me fatal flaws. See the discussion and cautious defense of “wife” in Matthias Konradt, “Εἰδέναι ἕκαστον ὑμῶν τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκεῦος κτᾶσθαι . . . Zu Paulus’ sexualethischer Weisung in 1 Thess 4,4 f.,” ZNW 92 (2001): 128 – 35. 40   Cf. 2 Thess 1:7 – 9, which speaks of the punishment (ἐκδίκησις) of those who “do not know God” and “do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” The gospel is something which must be obeyed to escape punishment. Cf. 2 Cor 9:13. 41   The warning here is ideal-typical and does not address the question of the penitent recidivist or other possible scenarios. Paul does leave room for growth by degrees (4:1).

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(5:9).42 This outcome, however, is not yet in hand. The Thessalonians may yet “reject God” through their immoral behavior. A second example illustrating the distorting effects of the belief/behavior dichotomy is found in 1 Corinthians 10, where Paul retells the story of the Israelites in the wilderness as a typological prefiguration of the Corinthian church.43 The Israelites ate spiritual food and drink and were “baptized into Moses” (10:1– 4). Despite these privileges, God destroyed most of them in the wilderness because of their sins (10:5). “These things happened,” Paul says, “as examples for us, so we would not desire evil as they did” (10:6). Do not become idolaters as some of them did, as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to play” [Exod 32:6]. Let us not fornicate (πορνεύωμεν) as some of them fornicated and twenty-three thousand fell in one day [Num 25]. Let us not test Christ, as some of them tested and were killed by serpents [Num 21]. Do not grumble, as some of them grumbled and were killed by the destroyer. (1 Cor 10:7 –10)

Paul’s main concern in this passage is idolatry, but he draws in other sins including πορνεία, which was commonly linked to idolatry (see Num 25) and which was among the major concerns of the letter (5:1–13; 6:12 – 20; 7:2 – 5). Paul drives his point home in verse 12: the Corinthians who assume they are safe from condemnation should take heed lest they end up like the Israelites who perished in the wilderness. Despite giving the Corinthians spiritual food and drink, God is liable to destroy them for these sins.44 It is important to note that there is no question here of the Corinthians holding incorrect beliefs. Indeed, the problem of food sacrificed to idols is triggered by some in Corinth who claim that, since there is only one God, idols are non-entities (8:1– 4). Paul agrees with them on this point (8:6), but warns that those who have this knowledge nevertheless invite destruction through eating, sex, and general rebelliousness.45 A final example of Paul’s insistence on the necessity of correct behavior is found in Galatians, a letter occasioned by Paul’s fear that the Galatians would allow themselves to be circumcised and perform other “works of the law” in an attempt to be in right relationship with God. Paul insists that the Galatians relate to God through Christ and that performance of works of the law would amount to a rejection of Christ. In the penultimate portion of the letter (5:13 – 6:10), Paul turns to moral teaching, describing the behavior that leads to “destruction” (6:8) as well as that which leads to “eternal life” and “inheriting the kingdom” (5:21; 6:8). Interpreters have long struggled to explain how this portion of the letter relates to the central 42   Gundry Volf (Paul and Perseverance, 21) comments, “In 1 Thess 5:9 Paul declares in no uncertain terms what Christians’ final destiny will be . . . God has a set purpose toward believers which God will most assuredly carry out in accomplishing their salvation.” 43   See Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 91–102. 44   B. J. Oropeza, “Apostasy in the Wilderness: Paul’s Message to the Corinthians in a State of Eschatological Liminality,” JSNT 75 (1999): 69 – 86. 45   1 Cor 8:7 –13 warns of the potential idolatry and consequent destruction of those who do not have this knowledge.

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argument, but recent scholarship has increasingly recognized that this passage sets out the way of life that is the alternative to the path set out by Paul’s opponents.46 Though Gal 5:13 – 6:10 is somewhat loosely organized, it is guided by a coherent focus on the opposition of the Spirit and the Flesh. The Spirit is what enables a new way of life (5:5 – 6, 22 – 23).47 Flesh is Paul’s catch-all word for all that is opposed to the work of the Spirit, including everything from gentile circumcision to idolatry. In the final few lines of this section Paul pits flesh against spirit in a concise warning about how to attain eternal life (6:7 –10). He begins by warning that “God is not mocked” because “whatever a person sows, this also he will reap” (6:7). Paul then switches from the question of seed to soil: “For the one who sows in his own flesh will reap destruction from the flesh, but the one who sows in the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing the good, for we will reap in the due time (καιρῷ . . . ἰδίῳ), if we do not give up” (6:8 – 9). To reap eternal life it is necessary to remain steadfast in planting in the Spirit, which is here equated with doing the good (τὸ . . . καλὸν ποιοῦντες). Those who plant in the Spirit by acts of generosity will reap eternal life in the future.48 Thus, in the conclusion of his exhortation, Paul sets out two ways of life. Those who act according to the flesh find ruin, and those who live according the Spirit find eternal life. Living according to the Spirit is defined as working on behalf of others. Fleshly behavior would mean, at the least, the absence of this action, and if read in light of the wider context, behavior which is socially destructive and debauched – rivalry, jealousy, factions, fornication, drunkenness, and so on. Some commentators have denied that Paul presents a choice between two ways of life, as if there were two possible paths which the Galatians have the power to choose.49 There is little doubt that Paul thought this new way of life was enabled by God’s Spirit, but not in a way that erased human choice and striving. To follow a pattern of life governed by the flesh is here, as in 1 Thess 4, a rejection of God’s Spirit and an embrace of death.

46   For recent arguments that Gal 5:13 – 6:10 is integral to the argument see, e. g. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 423 – 42; Matthias Konradt, “Die Christonomie der Freiheit: Zu Paulus’ Entfaltung seines ethischen Ansatzes in Gal 5,13 – 6,10,” EC 1 (2010): 60 – 81; Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 131– 55. 47   Cf. Gal 6:15: “For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything.” This suggests that “new creation” and “faith working through love” are closely related, if not synonymous (Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 177). Cf. also 1 Cor 7:19. 48   “Doing the good” was strongly associated with material generosity, though its valence here is wider. See Nathan Eubank, “Justice Endures Forever: Paul’s Grammar of Generosity,” JSPL 5 (2015): 169 – 87. 49   E. g., Martinus C. de Boer (Galatians: A Commentary, NTL [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011], 388), “Paul is not asking his readers to choose between Two Ways . . . they have no choice to make.” See also Susan G. Eastman, Recovering Paul’s Mother Tongue: Language and Theology in Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 42 – 43, and J. Louis Martyn, “Apocalyptic Antinomies in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” NTS 31 (1985): 410 – 24.

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The Inward Current Despite Paul’s insistence that certain patterns of life lead to destruction, Paul manifests what one might call a strong inward current: all things being equal, those who are “in Christ” tend to stay there and those without may even get sucked in. This inward current is a persistent feature of his thought that manifests itself in a variety of settings. At times, Paul makes the grace already received by those in Christ all but ensure a positive outcome in the end (e. g., 1 Thess 1:4; 5:9). This dynamic is particularly clear in his letter to the Romans. In Rom 5, Paul points out that it is rare to find someone willing to die even for a good person. Christ, however, died for “the ungodly,” which proves God’s love. With this astonishing event having already occurred – unworthy recipients received God’s gift – it would be less of a surprise if these recipients avoid the coming wrath of God: “God demonstrates his love for us because while we were still sinners Christ died for us. How much more, then (πολλῷ οὖν μᾶλλον), being justified by his blood, will we be saved though him from the wrath?” (5:8 – 9).50 There is, he says later in the same letter, “no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus” (8:1). Those whom God called and foreknew, God also justifies and glorifies (8:29 – 30). Unlike John’s Gospel, which brings judgment into the present (e. g., 3:18 –19), however, this positive outcome remains at the level of hope; it is not a fait accompli. But it does cause Paul to forecast that those who are in will remain.51 Paul also occasionally claims that God punishes or chastises insiders in a way that results somehow in their ultimate inclusion and that this chastisement can take place after death or in the final judgment. These ideas appear above all in the first letter to the Corinthian congregation. In 1 Cor 3:12 –15 he speaks of the day of judgment when the work that he and other missionaries have done will be tested with fire. Workers who have done good, lasting work will receive a wage in proportion to their labor (3:8, 14). Those who did shoddy work which is burnt away in the fire will not be repaid, but will instead be punished, losing out on the payment due other workers (ζημιωθήσεται).52 This testing and punishment leads to the salvation of these workers, however; they will be “saved,” as it were, through fire (αὐτὸς δὲ σωθήσεται οὕτως δὲ ὡς διὰ πυρός).53 In 1 Cor 5 Paul speaks again of punishment leading to a happy outcome in the “day of the Lord.” After castigating the Corin50

  Emphasis added.   Cf. Floyd V. Filson (St. Paul’s Conception of Recompense [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1931], 90): “Although Paul seeks to establish a wholesome fear in the hearts of his readers, the general impression given by his letters is that he has confident assurance that at least the great majority of Christians will surely enter into a blessed eternal life after the judgment.” 52   Jay Shanor, “Paul as Master Builder: Construction Terms in First Corinthians,” NTS  34 (1988): 461– 71. 53   Saved “through the flames” is often taken as a proverb meaning “by the skin of one’s teeth.” Daniel Frayer-Griggs (“Neither Proof Text nor Proverb: The Instrumental Sense of διά and the Soteriological Function of Fire in 1 Corinthians 3.15,” NTS 59 [2013]: 517 – 34) has shown the lack of evidence for such a proverb and has drawn attention to the passage’s echoes of purifying fire in Malachi 3. See also Dan 11:35 Theod; Did. 16:5; Herm. Vis. 4.3.4; T. Ab. 13; and t. Sanh. 13.3. 51

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thians for tolerating incest, he instructs them to hand the incestuous man over to Satan, which may refer simply to expulsion from the assembly or to a curse inviting Satan’s involvement.54 This course of action will lead to “the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit will be saved in the day of the Lord” (ὄλεθρον τῆς σαρκός ἵνα τὸ πνεῦμα σωθῇ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ κυρίου).55 Though they are to force this man out, the purpose of this action is, apparently, his eventual, eschatological reintegration. Thus, Paul is confident that both the incestuous man and the inept missionaries will be condemned, but that this condemnation redounds somehow to their ultimate inclusion.56 Perhaps the clearest instance of judgment as restorative chastisement appears in Paul’s warning about “unworthy” reception of the Eucharistic bread and cup (11:27). Here God is said to use judgment to chastise or instruct God’s people, thereby sparing them the condemnation due the rest of humanity: Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be liable for the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself and thus eat from the bread and drink from the cup. For the one who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. For this reason, many of you are weak and sick and a good number of you have fallen asleep [i. e., probably, “have died”]. But if we judged ourselves (διεκρίνομεν), we would not be judged (ἐκρινόμεθα). (11:27 – 31)

Paul interprets illnesses and deaths in the Corinthian congregation as the punishment due to those “liable for the body and blood of the Lord.” Interestingly, he goes on immediately to say that these ailments show God’s special care for the ekklēsia: “But when we are judged (κρινόμενοι) by the Lord, we are disciplined (παιδευόμεθα), lest we be condemned (κατακριθῶμεν) with the world” (11:32). That is, the “judgment” experienced by those who failed to test themselves is in fact a form of discipline or chastisement which protects the ekklēsia from being condemned along with everyone else.57 Even those who died in sin will escape the condemnation due to outsiders because their death was itself a form of divine instruction.

54   Cf. 1 Tim 1:20. For a review of possible interpretations and defense of a curse, see David Raymond Smith, ‘Hand this Man Over to Satan’: Curse, Exclusion and Salvation in 1 Corinthians 5, LNTS 386 (London: T & T Clark, 2009). 55   It is not clear what “destruction of the flesh” means, and the meaning of ἵνα τὸ πνεῦμα σωθῇ is also contested. Adela Yarbro Collins (“The Function of Excommunication in Paul,” HTR 73 [1980]: 251– 63) argues that the spirit in question is the spirit of God which will be “saved” for the community by their exclusion of the incestuous man. Robert E. Moses (“Physical and/or Spiritual Exclusion? Ecclesial Discipline in 1 Corinthians 5,” NTS 59 [2013]: 172 – 91 [177]) argues that this intriguing suggestion runs contrary to Paul’s “salvation” language elsewhere: nowhere else in Paul does God’s Spirit need to be saved. 56   References to post-mortem atonement are not uncommon in ancient Jewish and Christian literature. See, e. g., 2 Macc 12:39 – 45; Apoc. Zeph. 10 –11; T. Ab. 14; t. Sanh. 13.3. In addition to the passages in 1 Corinthians discussed here, see 15:29 which speaks of baptism on behalf of the dead. 57   Wolfgang Schrage, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 4 vols., EKKNT 7 (Zürich: Benzinger, 1991– 2001), 3:55. Cf. punishment as παιδεία which protects God’s people from the vengeance due the gentiles in 2 Macc 6:12 –16. See also Judith 8:27; Wis 12:22; Pss. Sol. 13.6 –11; Heb  12:5 – 6; and Rev 3:19.

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On two occasions Paul’s “inward current” leads him to suggest that even those outside the ekklēsia might be drawn in. When Paul addresses the problem of mixed marriages in 1 Corinthians he claims that the “unbelieving husband is sanctified by his wife and the unbelieving wife” by her husband (7:14). One might expect him to say that a pagan defiles his or her believing spouse. Instead, sanctity overwhelms impurity in this case, extending to the spouse and their children. Paul does not go so far as to say that the unbelieving spouse will certainly be “saved” – this too remains at the level of hope (7:16) – but the expected movement is in the direction of the inclusion of the unbelieving spouse rather than in the loss of the believer. The second example appears in Romans 11 when Paul says the “disobedience” of Israel will result in its salvation (11:26). Just after warning Roman gentiles of their possible exclusion from the olive tree, Paul claims that the natural branches could easily be grafted back in. This leads to the revelation of τὸ μυστήριον: the exclusion of some of Israel – while tragic in itself (9:1– 5) – is part of a larger plan to bring in the gentiles and ultimately to save “all Israel” (11:26).58 As with the incestuous man and the inept apostles, God turns disobedience into the occasion for mercy (11:32), pulling those inside who do not appear to belong. It is not clear who is signified by “all Israel” – all Israelites throughout time? Those Israelites who accept Paul’s gospel in the future?59 Nevertheless, it is yet another example of Paul straining to find a way to include those who appear to be excluded, presuming that God’s mercy will lead to the inclusion of those who would seem to be hopeless.

Conclusion Both Matthew and Paul warn that ostensible Jesus followers may yet become outsiders. Both use the example of those who had already rejected Jesus to warn current insiders: if God punished the Jewish leaders (so Matthew) or “broke off ” the branches of Israel that did not accept God’s kindness (so Paul), then God will not hesitate to do the same to current insiders. Matthew stresses the necessity of “doing the will of the Father” to remain inside. Paul puts less emphasis on necessary behavior, but he warns that believers can “fall from grace” (Gal 5:4) or “reject God” (1 Thess 4:8) by apostatizing, accepting a rival version of the gospel, or indeed through immoral behavior. The most striking difference between the two is that Matthew insists many ostensible Jesus followers will be found wanting, whereas Paul never says any of his people will be excluded and articulates a strong hope that none of them will be. If Matthew’s “narrow way” threatens to exclude most, Paul hopes for just the opposite: a strong inward tug, keeping the faithful inside and 58   See T. J. Lang, Mystery and the Making of a Christian Historical Consciousness: From Paul to the Second Century, BZNW 219 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). 59   Commentators often cite m. Sanh. 10.1 to show that “all Israel” need not mean every Israelite. For a survey of recent proposals see Christopher Zoccali, “‘And So All Israel Will Be Saved’: Competing Interpretations of Romans 11.26 in Pauline Scholarship,” JSNT 30 (2008): 289 – 318.

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possibly even pulling on outsiders. This difference is not merely a matter of tone but is indicative of a cluster of substantive differences in their thought. Eternal life is for Paul a consequence of union with Christ in the present.60 This eschatological framework – which does not go so far as John’s Gospel to say that the judgment has already occurred – provides a measure of confidence that the current visible ekklēsia will be found blameless in the parousia (1 Thess 3:13). Moreover, though Matthew affirms that Jesus came to “save his people from their sins” (1:21) and that the God of Israel shows kindness even to the wicked (5:43 – 48), Paul is much more concerned to describe his gospel as divine mercy to the undeserving.61 This conviction encourages his tendency – not consistently followed through – to say that divine mercy will overcome human disobedience, leaving some of his later interpreters at a loss to explain who could ever be excluded.62

60   On resurrection as reward for the righteous versus the resurrection of all in early Judaism and Christianity, see Tom McGlothlin, “Raised to Newness of Life: Resurrection and Moral Transformation in Second- and Third-Century Christian Theology” (PhD diss., Duke University, 2015). 61   A distinctive concern of Paul rightly highlighted by Barclay, Paul and the Gift. 62   E. g., 1 Tim 2:4; 4:10; Origen, Comm. Rom. 8.12.8.

Creating the Other: The “Jews” in the Gospel of John: Past and Future Lines of Scholarship Tobias Nicklas

University of Regensburg Interpretation of the Bible is neither a harmless nor an innocent task. As long as biblical stories, images, and motifs are of influence for societies, or at least groups within societies, the (sometimes liberating, but sometimes also destructive) power of biblical texts – both Old and New Testament – should not be underestimated. As interpreters we should thus be aware of the dark side of reception history and the possible outcomes of inhumane, intolerant, and violent uses of biblical texts and motifs.1 One could perhaps quote Alfred Rosenberg (1893 –1946), a chief Nazi ideologist and later “Reichsminister für die besetzten Ostgebiete,” who after the war was executed for his crimes against humanity. In his infamous Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts,2 one of the most important ideological works of National Socialism, he not only argued that Jesus of Nazareth was an Aryan,3 but also complimented the Gospel of John as a text that, in its fight against “Verbastardierung, Verorientalisierung und Verjudung des Christentums,” showed “durchaus noch aristokratischen Geist.”4 Many more examples (like images in Julius Streicher’s infamous “Stürmer” quoting John 8:44 and showing Jesus while blaming the churches for their understanding of Jews as God’s people)5 could be added, but it is clear that anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic authors have used the Gospel of John, with its distinct portrayal of the “Jews” as the main representatives of the dark world rejecting Jesus and the community of Christ followers, in the most horrible of ways.

1   I have formulated theses regarding an “ethos of exegetical responsibilities” in Tobias Nicklas, “Verantwortete Exegese: Reflexionen (auch) anhand der Geschichte der Jesusforschung,” in Jesus Christus: Von alttestamentlichen Messiasvorstellungen bis zur literarischen Figur, ed. Thomas Fornet-Ponse, Jerusalemer Theologisches Forum 25 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2015), 73 – 90. 2   Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Wertung der seelisch-geistigen Gestaltenkämpfe unserer Zeit (Munich: Hoheneichen, 1930). 3   For more information about constructions of Jesus as an Aryan, see Wolfgang Fenske, Wie Jesus zum “Arier” wurde: Auswirkungen der Entjudaisierung Christi im 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), and Susannah Heschel, The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). 4   For more details, see Tobias Nicklas, “The Bible and Anti-Semitism,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Reception of the Bible, ed. Michael Lieb, Emma Mason, and Jonathan Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 267 – 80. 5  See: Der Stürmer Nr. 13, March 1934, p. 1.

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The question whether John’s portrayal of Jews and its use (or abuse) by later authors make the Fourth Gospel an anti-Jewish writing has thus been asked more than once.6 In the following essay I will, however, focus on a related but somewhat different question: how has the unique portrayal of the “Jews” in the Gospel of John as the “others,” the representatives of the dangerous, non-believing world outside the community, been interpreted in the (mainly more recent) history of scholarship?7 And how has scholarship tried to “rescue” John from the charge of being an anti-Jewish writing? After a short overview of the evidence, I will present the main lines of post-World War II scholarship, discuss their strengths and shortcomings, and, finally, propose a few impulses for future interpretation.

The Johannine “Jews” – A Few Data and Observations Before I start with an overview of research, it is necessary to give a few data about the use of the word Ἰουδαῖος in the Fourth Gospel:8 While the narrated world of the Synoptic Gospels is inhabited by Pharisees and Sadducees, scribes and priests, Herodians and Levites, the Gospel of John speaks about priests and Levites only once (1:19) and does not mention scribes, Sadducees, or Herodians at all. At the same time the word Ἰουδαῖος occurs around seventy times, mostly in the plural Ἰουδαῖοι, usually translated “the Jews.” In many cases, like, for example, in John 9, the Ἰουδαῖοι are replaced quite abruptly by the Φαρισαῖοι, that is, the “Pharisees.” This creates the impression that the terms Ἰουδαῖοι and Φαρισαῖοι denote the same group or can, at least, be interchanged. With the passion account, surprisingly, the Jewish people and the Pharisees seem to disappear. From now on we hear about the high priests Annas

6   See, e. g., Urban C. von Wahlde, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John: Fifteen Years of Research (1983 –1998),” ETL 76 (2000): 30 – 55; Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, eds., Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001); Lars Kierspel, The Jews and the World in the Fourth Gospel, WUNT 2/220 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006); and Ruben Zimmermann, “‘The Jews’: Unreliable Figures or Unreliable Narration?,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 71–109. 7   Some of the following is based on Tobias Nicklas, Ablösung und Verstrickung: “Juden” und Jüngergestalten als Charaktere der erzählten Welt des Johannesevangeliums und ihre Wirkung auf den impliziten Leser, RST 60 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2000), and idem, “Grenzen ziehen: Noch einmal zu den ‘Juden’ im Johannesevangelium,” in Lebensdienlich und überlieferungsgerecht: Jüdische und christliche Aktualisierungen der Gott-Mensch-Beziehung. Festschrift für Heinz-Günther Schöttler, ed. Johannes Först and Barbara Schmitz, Beiträge zur Gegenwartsbedeutung jüdischer und christlicher Überlieferungen 1 (Würzburg: Ergon, 2016), 115 – 33. I have, however, added extensive new material (including secondary literature) and come to partially new and deeper conclusions. 8   There are numerous overviews of the data regarding “the Jews” in the Gospel of John. See, e. g., Nicklas, Ablösung, 15 –16, and Ruben Zimmermann, “The ‘Jews’,” 71– 74. Regarding the Pharisees, see Uta Poplutz, “The Pharisees: A House Divided,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 116 – 26.

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(John 18:13, 24) and Caiaphas (John 11:49; 18:13, 14, 24, 28),9 and a meeting of the Synedrion (John 11:47) deciding that Jesus has to die. This group, clearly representing the Jewish authorities of Jesus’s time, is seen as (together with Pilate)10 being responsible for Jesus’s execution. With only a few exceptions the group described as Ἰουδαῖοι/Φαρισαῖοι shows a clearly hostile attitude toward Jesus and his followers: they persecute Jesus and want to kill him (5:16 –18), do not understand Jesus’s sayings, throw Jesus’s followers out of the synagogue (9:22; 12:42; 16:2), are hostile to them (e. g., 9:13 – 34), cause fear (7:13; 19:38; 20:19), and do not come to (abiding and appropriate) belief in Jesus. At the same time, the text uses Ἰουδαῖος for Jesus only once11 – and this in the mouth of a Samaritan woman (4:9) who is astonished that Jesus speaks with her and does not behave like a typical Ἰουδαῖος. We learn a lot about the background of many of Jesus’s followers – e. g., the fact that Philip, Andrew, and Peter come from Bethsaida, close to the Sea of Galilee (1:44), and Nathanael, who does not like people from Nazareth (1:46), is from Cana in Galilee (21:2),12 but they are never called Ἰουδαῖοι themselves, even if they were historically “Jews.” In many ways, John thus creates a distance between Jesus and real believers on the one side and the ones who side with the Ἰουδαῖοι/Φαρισαῖοι on the other.13 Jesus, for example, goes to Jerusalem because of feasts like Passover or Tabernacles: these feasts, however, are usually labelled the Passover of the Jews (2:13; 6:4; 11:55) or a “feast of the Jews” (5:1; 6:4; 7:2). While he acknowledges that “salvation is from the Jews” (4:22), at another occasion Jesus goes so far as to curse some Jews (who a bit earlier [8:31] have even been called believers) as “liars and sons of the Devil” (8:44). Interestingly, there are at least a few figures in the text who seem to be in between one side and the other. While the group just mentioned clearly seems to fall back  9   Regarding the high priests, see Cornelis Bennema, “The Chief Priests: Masterminds of Jesus’ Death,” and Adele Reinhartz, “Caiaphas and Annas: The Villains of the Peace?,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 382 – 87 and 530 – 36. 10   Regarding Pilate’s role in the Fourth Gospel, see D. Francois Tolmie, “Pontius Pilate: Failing in More Ways than One,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 578 – 97. 11   In a few more instances, Jesus is at least implicitly understood as a Jewish character: this is the case in John 3:2, where Nicodemus calls him a (Jewish) teacher (see also the many instances where Jesus is called a “Rabbi”: 1:38; 3:2; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8, etc.), in John 6:42 where the “Jews” identify him as the “son of Joseph” (from Nazareth) whose father they know, and in John 18:35 where Pontius Pilate speaks to Jesus about “your own people” (τὸ ἔθνος τὸ σόν), the “Jews,” and crucifies him as “king of the Jews” (John 18:33, 39; 19:2, 19). 12   Regarding Nathanael, see Steven A. Hunt, “Nathanael: Under the Fig Tree on the Fourth Day,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 189 – 201. 13   In this way, at least within the plot of the Fourth Gospel, the Ἰουδαῖοι and Φαρισαῖοι are the most important representations of the world that “did not perceive him” (John 1:10).

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on the negative side, a character like Nicodemus who is introduced as an ἄρχων τῶν Ἰουδαίων (3:1) and called a teacher of Israel a bit later (3:10) appears to be too fearful to come to an open confession of Jesus of Nazareth. He approaches Jesus only by night (3:2) and seems to continue to misunderstand Jesus’s words to him.14 Does he remain in the dark or is his way to Jesus only a very slow and hesitant one? Joseph of Arimathea, again, is described as a disciple of Jesus, but much too fearful of the “Jews” to confess Jesus openly (John 19:38a).15 Both Nicodemus and Joseph are responsible for Jesus’s almost “royal” burial, but afterwards they disappear and seem to miss Easter morning. Even if it is historically clear that Jesus and his first followers were Jews, at least at first sight the Gospel of John develops the image of two opposing groups: “Jews” (representing the unbelieving world) on the one side and Jesus and his followers on the other. Everybody in between has to take his/her side. According to the text, it is not possible to be (like Joseph and Nicodemus) part of both “world”/“Jews” and the community of believers in Jesus, which seems to understand itself as a new creation.16

Major Lines of Reception and Research History17 Of course, such a text has an immense anti-Jewish potential.18 This is even more the case since its stories want to convince us of John’s perspective while at the same time not wanting to permit its readers to understand why the other side behaves in the way that it does.19

14   On Nicodemus as a character of the Fourth Gospel, see Nicklas, Ablösung, 225 – 39, and R. Alan Culpepper, “Nicodemus: The Travail of New Birth,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 249 – 59. 15   On Joseph, see William John Lyons, “Joseph of Arimathea: One of ‘the Jews’: But with a Fearful Secret!,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 646 – 57. 16   Regarding the role of creation/new creation in John, see Hans-Ulrich Weidemann, “The Victory of Protology over Eschatology? Creation in the Gospel of John,” in Theologies of Creation in Early Judaism and Ancient Christianity: In Honour of Hans Klein, ed. Tobias Nicklas and Korinna Zamfir, DCLS 6 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 299 – 334. 17   The history of research on “the Jews” in the Fourth Gospel has been written several times. See Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, “Wrestling with Johannine Anti-Judaism: A Hermeneutical Framework for the Analysis of the Current Debate,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. Reimund Bieringer, Didier Pollefeyt, and Frederique Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 3 – 37, and Jörg Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten: Studien zu den Johanneischen Schriften I, WUNT 307 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 339 – 77 (340 – 65). 18   I distinguish between the anti-Jewishness of its author and the text’s potential for anti-Jewish receptions. 19   This is one of my main ideas in Nicklas, Ablösung.

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Ancient Receptions of John Interestingly, some, but not all, ancient receptions of the Gospel of John have made use of its anti-Jewish potential. Among the more anti-Jewish receptions of the Gospel of John is the second-century apocryphal Gospel of Peter, an account of Jesus’s passion and resurrection. At least in a few instances, this text makes use of Johannine motifs: The idea that Jesus’s bones should not be broken (John 19:36), for instance, is used to make Jewish cruelty against Jesus even worse (Gos. Pet. 14): “Then they [i. e., “the Jews”] were enraged at him and commanded that (his) legs should not be broken, so that he might die in torment.”20 While John uses the motif to show that Jesus dies as the true paschal lamb,21 the Gospel of Peter uses Jesus’s unbroken bones to depict the cruelty of the “Jews” who refuse to shorten Jesus’s pains on the cross. At the same time, many pre-Constantinian receptions of John 8:44 are not interested in proving that “Jews” are children of devil; rather, they usually take the sentence out of its context and use it against other opponents. Clement of Alexandria, for example, alludes to it in an argument against false prophets. He calls them “prophets of the Liar” and connects them (via John 8:44) with the devil (Strom. I 85,1– 2). Irenaeus of Lyons also uses it several times. In a discussion of the Synoptic stories of Jesus’s temptation (Matt 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13), for example, he argues that the devil – as a liar – would never fulfill his own promises (Haer. V 22,2). In an interpretation of the Creation and Fall, he shows that the snake, which he understands as the devil, was a liar from the beginning (Haer. V 23,2). Tertullian, in turn, uses it against “heretics” like Praxeas (Prax. 1.3), a tendency that perhaps can already be found in Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians 7.1 which does not clearly use John 8:44, but denotes people who refuse to confess the sign of the cross as being “from the devil.” Of course, much more could be said about ancient and medieval receptions of John 8:44,22 but it already becomes clear that the text could serve multiple uses in different polemical, not always anti-Jewish, contexts. As at least a few examples have shown, the immensely dangerous potential of some dimensions of reception, it is time to look into some main lines of interpretation after World War II: 20   Translation comes from Thomas J. Kraus and Tobias Nicklas, eds., Das Petrusevangelium und die Petrusapokalypse: Die griechischen Fragments mit deutscher und englischer Übersetzung, GCS NF 11, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen 1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004), 50. On the Gospel of Peter’s attitude toward Judaism, see Tobias Nicklas, “Die ‘Juden’ im Petrusevangelium (PCair 10759): Ein Testfall,” NTS 47 (2001): 206 – 21, and now, much more extensively, Philipp Augustin, Die Juden im Petrusevangelium: Narratologische Analyse und theologiegeschichtliche Kontextualisierung, BZNW 214 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015). Regarding the Gospel of Peter’s reception of John, see Tobias Nicklas, “Rezeption und Entwicklung johanneischer Motive im Petrusevangelium,” in Studien zu Matthäus und Johannes/Études sur Matthieu et Jean: Festschrift für Jean Zumstein zu seinem 65. Geburtstag/ Mélanges offerts à Jean Zumstein pour son 65e anniversaire, ed. Andreas Dettwiler and Uta Poplutz, ATANT 97 (Zürich: TVZ, 2009), 361– 76. 21   Regarding the use of paschal imagery in the Gospel of John, see Christine Schlund, “Kein Knochen soll gebrochen werden”: Studien zu Bedeutung und Funktion des Pesachfests in Texten des frühen Judentums und im Johannesevangelium, WMANT 107 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2005). 22   As far as I can see, such a reception history of John 8:44 remains a desideratum.

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Lines of Reception after 1945 For the sake of space I will mention theories about the complex history of development of the Fourth Gospel in passing and only where absolutely necessary for our question.23 The discussion between source and redaction theories was en vogue especially after Ruldolf Bultmann’s great commentary of 1941,24 but does not play a major role in Johannine scholarship any more. In addition, such theories are of only minor, partly indirect relevance for the question of how John – that is, the Gospel as a whole – deals with the “Jews” as the “others” outside and opposing his own community. The Meaning of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in John A first group of scholars may be represented by Malcolm Lowe, who suggested that the term οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι should not be translated as “the Jews” but as “the Judeans.”25 According to Lowe, the word Ἰουδαῖοι has three dimensions of meaning. It can denote (1) members of the tribe of Judah (in opposition to members of other tribes), (2) “Judeans” in opposition to “Galileans” and inhabitants of other regions (“geographical” meaning) and (3) “Jews” (in opposition to “Samaritans” or “Romans”) as adherents of a distinct and distinguishable cult. For the Gospel of John, only (2) and (3) are of importance. While most scholars would unanimously use possibility (3), Lowe argues that John mainly uses Ἰουδαῖοι to make geographical distinctions: If a ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων (5:1; 6:4; 7:1) or the πάσχα τῶν Ἰουδαίων (2:13; 11:55) leads Jesus to go to Jerusalem, that is, Judea, this means, if we follow Lowe’s argument, that the term is used with a geographical denotation and distinguishes a feast of the Judeans from a Samaritan feast. And if Jesus is called βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (18:33, 39; 19:3, 19, 21), this title has to be distinguished from the denotation βασιλεὺς Ἰσραήλ: while the first means the “king of the Judeans,” only the latter means a king of all Israel. Even in other passages Lowe tends to translate Ἰουδαῖοι as “Judeans” (in opposition to “Galileans,” for example) as most of the references occur in Judean contexts. The only examples where Lowe would tend to translate Ἰουδαῖος as “Jew” 23   My own ideas about the literary development of the Fourth Gospel come close to models of “relecture” as they are developed by Klaus Scholtissek, In ihm sein und bleiben: Die Sprache der Immanenz in den johanneischen Schriften, Herders Biblische Studien 21 (Freiburg: Herder, 2000), 131– 37; Andreas Dettwiler, Die Gegenwart des Erhöhten: Eine exegetische Studie zu den johanneischen Abschiedsreden (Joh 13,31–16,33) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihres Relecture-Characters, FRLANT 169 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995); Jean Zumstein, “Der Prozeß der Relecture in der johanneischen Literatur,” NTS 42 (1996): 394 – 411; and idem, Das Johannesevangelium, KEK 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 38 – 44. 24  Rudolf Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes, KEK  2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck  & Ruprecht, 1941). 25  Regarding the following passage, see Malcolm F. Lowe, “Who Were the ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ?,” NovT 18 (1976): 101– 31, and also John Ashton, “The Identity and Function of the Ἰουδαῖοι in the Fourth Gospel,” NovT 27 (1985): 40 – 75. I have discussed Lowe’s approach more extensively in Nicklas, Ablösung, 20 – 24 (see also n. 37). For a related view, but one not directly connected to the Gospel of John, see Steve Mason, “Das antike Judentum als Hintergrund des frühen Christentums,” ZNT 37 (2016): 11– 22.

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are John 4:9 and 4:22 where “Jews” are distinguished from Samaritans and Jesus emphasizes that salvation comes from the Jews (and not the Samaritans). While quite a few authors have followed Lowe’s ideas, at least in part,26 it is perhaps already clear that the overall idea cannot withstand criticism. One could ask whether a ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων like Passover or Tabernacles marks a geographical distinction if Jesus (and his followers) crosses regional boundaries to go to Jerusalem and attend a feast that unites people from different regions (according to John 12:20, even “Greeks”) in their adoration of the God of Israel? And why does John 6:4 speak about the πάσχα τῶν Ἰουδαίων in a clearly Galilean context? Why does John 2:6 mention “Judean” purity laws in a Galilean context? And is the debate around the Jerusalem temple and Jesus’s risen body as the future temple really a “Judean” issue even if it takes place in Jerusalem (John 2:18 – 22)? One could multiply these kinds of questions. Lowe is certainly right that John’s Ἰουδαῖοι do not denote a kind of Judaism which is simply the same as Judaism(s) of later (or even our) days. He is also correct that both religious/cultic and geographical dimensions can intermingle in ancient texts as long as special cults are connected to people living in certain regions or countries, but this is not the case with the adherents of the God of Israel in the first century ce. As far as I see, the main problem lies on another level: does the Gospel of John really deal with a Galilean-Judean conflict? Compared to the Synoptic Gospels, Galilee plays only a minor role in the Fourth Gospel. Even if Jesus is referred to as coming “from Nazareth” in John 1:45 – 46, the real answer to the question about his origin is clearly not “from Nazareth” or “from Galilee” (see John 7:52), but “from above,” that is, “from God,” the God of Israel whose glory, according to John, is made visible in the crucified Jesus.27 That is why the real question is: Is he from God, that is, our God who spoke to Moses (John 9:29), or not? The answer to this question cannot be related to a distinction between Galileans and Judeans. The Referent of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in John A second line of interpretation has gained even broader acceptance. The authors of this group are not concerned with the word’s meaning, but ask for the referent of Ἰουδαῖοι in different passages of John’s Gospel. Contrary to Lowe, they would translate the term as “Jew,” but distinguish between its different referents in different contexts. The simplest of these models is to distinguish between positive, neutral, and negative uses of the term “Jew” in the Gospel of John.28 In this case only the negative 26

  See, e. g., Robert T. Fortna, The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor: From Narrative Source to Present Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), and Thomas L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 27   On the significance of the term doxa in the Gospel of John, see Nicole Chibici-Revneanu, Die Herrlichkeit des Verherrlichten: Zum Verständnis der doxa im Johannesevangelium, WUNT 2/231 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). 28   For an overview see, for example, Nicklas, Ablösung, 24 (esp. n. 43 and n. 44) and, more recently, Frey, “Juden,” 342­ – 44. An additional solution has been proposed by Mathias Rissi (“Die ‘Juden’ im Johannesevangelium,” ANRW 26.3:2099 – 2141), who understands Ἰουδαῖοι as Jewish believers. This makes sense in John 8:30 – 31, but not in many other passages of John.

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or pejorative uses are problematic while the others show that the author of the Gospel does not portray the “Jews” as a cipher of “the unbelieving world” and in a simply negative manner. One of the most differentiated overviews has been given in Rudolf Schnackenburg’s magisterial commentary on the Gospel of John.29 Schnackenburg distinguishes between five dimensions of use: (1) designations of the “Jewish people” from the perspective of non-Jews like Pilate or the Samaritan woman (4:9; 18:33, 35, 39; 19:3); (2) a (more or less) neutral use in the story (3:25; 4:22; 11:19, 31, 33, 36; 18:20; 19:20); (3) a more distanced use in the story (2:6, 13; 3:1; 5:1; 6:4; 7:2; 11:55; 19:21, 40, 42); (4) non-believers or undecided figures from the “people” (6:41, 52; 7:11, 15, 35; 8:22, 31; 10:19; 11:45, 54; 12:9, 11; 13:33) and, finally, (5) hostile figures from the Jewish leaders (5:10, 15, 16, 18; 7:1, 13; 8:48, 52, 57; 9:18, 22; 10:24, 31, 33; 11:8, 18; 12:14, 31, 36, 38; 19:7, 12, 14, 31, 38; 20:19). A somewhat different solution is offered by Urban C. von Wahlde who distinguishes between a “neutral use” and a specifically “Johannine use” of the term.30 He writes: “In these instances, the word is used in a way that does not indicate nationality nor even regional affiliation (i. e. ‘Judean’), but seems to refer to a certain class (or classes) of persons within Palestinian society. In addition, these instances of the term also have a note of constant, intense hostility toward Jesus. From the time that they appear on the scene, the ‘Jews’ demonstrate this attitude which neither increases or diminishes as the gospel progresses.”31 According to von Wahlde, the concretely “Johannine use” of the term can be characterized as follows:32 (1) it does not denote the Jewish people as such, but only a part of Jewish society, (2) this group is hostile toward Jesus, (3) their reaction toward Jesus does not change throughout the Gospel. Within this “Johannine use,” one can, however, again distinguish between different uses of the term: (1) clearly denoting hostile authorities (e. g., 5:10, 15, 19:38; 20:19), (2) denoting skeptical authorities (1:19), (3) denoting skeptical Jews which are not clearly characterized as authorities (2:18, 22;33 7:35), and (4) denoting “hostile” Jews who are not clearly characterized as authorities (7:1, 11; 8:22, 48, 52, 57; 10:24, 31, 33; 11:8; 13:33; 18:31, 38; 19:7). In addition, a few passages are not totally clear: (1) the occurrences in 19:12, 14, and 31 seem to be in relation to hostile authorities, (2) John 6:41, 52 seem to be an exception as members of the people are obviously meant, and (3) 8:31 and 10:19 seem to mix “Johannine” and “neutral use.” Patterns like this invite one to criticize details: one could ask Schnackenburg whether and why his point (1) does not distinguish between a neutral, a friendly, or a hostile use of the term, whether 1:19 is still neutral or already negative34 and to 29

  Rudolf Schnackenburg, Das Johannesevangelium I, HThK 4.1 (Freiburg: Herder, 1992), 275 – 76.   Urban C. von Wahlde, “The Johannine ‘Jews’: A Critical Survey,” NTS 28 (1982): 33 – 60. 31   Von Wahlde, “Johannine ‘Jews’,” 35. See also idem, “‘The Jews’ in the Gospel of John,” 74 – 75. 32   See von Wahlde, “Johannine ‘Jews’,” 47. 33   According to von Wahlde, a reading of John 2:18 – 22, together with its Synoptic parallels, suggests that John refers here to authorities. 34   The use of verbs in the scene creates the atmosphere of a trial. See also Nicklas, Ablösung, 108 –16. 30

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what degree a “distanced” and a “hostile” perspective can always be distinguished. One could ask von Wahlde whether category (2) makes sense if it denotes only a single reference, how his categories (3) and (4) can be distinguished, or whether his idea of a special “Johannine use” of the term is not something like a very artificial construct, if he has to acknowledge that there are forms of mixed use and exceptions to the rule. One could also ask whether the different patterns of distinction on which the different overviews are based are really influenced by signals given by the text or remain somewhat arbitrary. The point, however, goes much deeper. All the interpretations of this line see that the concrete use of the term Ἰουδαῖοι in the Fourth Gospel is indeed much more complex than I could describe it in the few lines above. It also becomes clear that not every time where the Fourth Gospel uses the term Ἰουδαῖοι does it denote an enemy or a person hostile to Jesus. This is an important insight that, however, does not go far enough. Is it permissible to “atomize” the text in a way that the above-mentioned authors do? Of course, most of the studies mentioned go back to a period when the Gospel of John was not interpreted as a unified whole, but as a text either using a set of sources or based on a “Grundevangelium” that has been reworked by several (partly contradicting) redactors. In such a context it may make sense to ascribe different forms of the use of a word to different levels of redaction of a work. But this only makes sense if one really wants to use such a paradigm and mount hypothesis upon hypothesis. If we want to understand how a term (or even a figure or a group of figures) works in a narrative, and the Gospel of John as we find it in the New Testament is first and foremost a unified narrative, it is naïve to distinguish between “positive,” “neutral,” and “negative” uses of the word. To put it in a nutshell: a single negative use of a term denoting a figure of a narrative can put a shadow over the whole – but at the same time, a single positive use can change an otherwise totally dark image. The whole of a narrative is much more than the sum of its single and isolated elements.35 Another point should not be overlooked: does the Gospel of John really require a reader who distinguishes between different references of the same term, a reader who speculates whether the term Ἰουδαῖοι in a certain passage refers to authorities, while in another one it denotes people from the am ha-aretz? Could John, if he wanted his readers to make these distinctions, not just have used the same terms that the Synoptic writers used? His language skills, his knowledge of Jewish tradition, his quite concrete information about, for example, the topography of Jerusalem,36 and his (very probable) knowledge of at least one Synoptic Gospel37 make 35   That is why narrative approaches like that of Zimmermann (“Jews”) can help us understand aspects of the text’s reception history. See also my own reader-oriented approach in Nicklas, Ablösung. 36   See, for example, passages like John 5:2, 9:7, or 18:1. 37   The question of John’s relation to the Synoptics has been discussed for decades. For an overview of research, see Michael Labahn and Manfred Lang, “Johannes und die Synoptiker: Positionen und Impulse seit 1990,” in Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums: Das vierte Evangelium in religionsund traditionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive, ed. Jörg Frey and Udo Schnelle, WUNT 175 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 443 – 516, and Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten, 239 – 94.

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clear that he could have done so. Has the technique of intermingling different Jewish groups with different views, different social backgrounds, etc., under one term – as “the Jews” – not always been a sign of anti-Judaism? The Historical Situation behind the Gospel of John If the Synoptic Gospels (even if they partly portray, for instance, concrete groups as opponents) describe a much more vivid image of different Jewish groups at Jesus’s times, plus different forms of interaction with Jesus and his followers, and if this portrayal comes much closer to the images of Second Temple Judaism we can construct from other sources like Josephus, Philo, Qumran, Jewish Pseudepigrapha, etc., it becomes clear that the image of “Jews” drawn by the Gospel of John cannot correctly reflect the situation of Jesus’s time. This is certainly true. A second and very prominent line of research has concluded from this observation that it must reflect another, later situation of conflict between the Johannine community and “the Jews.” In this context, usually an anachronism within the Gospel of John is used as a key to read the text (and its constellation of figures) anew: John 9:22, 12:42, and 16:2 use the New Testament hapax legomenon ἀποσυνάγωγος; they speak about a situation where followers of Jesus are thrown out from “the” synagogue. While according to John 16:2, Jesus prophecies to his disciples that they will be thrown out of the synagogue, 12:42 speaks of leading “Jews” who came to believe in Jesus, but did not dare to confess him because of the Pharisees who would be able to throw them out of the synagogue. John 9, finally, tells us about the Sabbath healing of a man born blind who, after his healing, is confronted by “Jews” (who later turn out to be “Pharisees”). Step by step he comes to defend and confess Jesus who healed him, a confession that results in his being thrown out of the synagogue (9:34).38 At the same time, his parents do not want to say anything positive about Jesus as they “fear the Jews,” since “if someone confesses him as Christ, he is thrown out of the synagogue” (9:22). It was mainly this observation that made scholars look for a situation where a Judaism dominated by Pharisees was able to throw followers of Christ out of the synagogue. It was probably J. Louis Martyn who started to read John 9 as a “Two-Level Drama,” that is, a text that tells a story about Jesus’s lifetime, but at the same time also mirrors almost exactly the situation of a Jesus follower who is examined by members of the council of the synagogue in the Johannine community’s hometown and, finally, banned from it.39 38   For a more detailed interpretation of John 9, see Nicklas, Ablösung, 307 – 90; Wolfgang Harnisch, Die Zumutung der Liebe: Gesammelte Aufsätze, FRLANT 187 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 137 – 48; Michael Labahn, “‘Blinded by Light’: Blindheit, sehen und Licht in Joh 9. Ein Spiel von Variation und Wiederholung durch Erzählung und Metapher,” in Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, ed. Gilbert van Belle, Michael Labahn, and Petrus Maritz, BETL 223 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 453 – 510; and Luc Devillers, “Jean 9, ou la christologie interactive de Jean,” in Studies in the Gospel of John and its Christology: Festschrift Gilbert van Belle, ed. Joseph Verheyden et al., BETL 265 (Leuven: Peeters, 2014), 227 – 38. 39   J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968).

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According to Martyn (and many others who followed him with more or less small changes40), such a situation can be detected. It does indeed not reflect a situation of Jesus’s lifetime with its many different groups, but a situation after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple when the different parties so typical of Second Temple Judaism had dissipated and a strong Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism prevailed. Under Gamaliel II, a Tannaite who died in 114 ce in Lydda, this “Judaism” was strong enough to order a standard form of the Amida including the Twelfth Benediction, the Birkat ha Minim, a benediction against the “heretics” (Martyn refers here to b. Ber. 28b – 29a).41 In a final step, Martyn identifies a form of the prayer discovered in 1896 in the Cairo Geniza with this earliest (or a very early) form of the prayer. This text curses the notzrim, who, according to Martyn, can be identified with Christians.42 While this benediction did not explicitly excommunicate Christ followers from the synagogue, according to Martyn, it aimed to exclude them from the synagogue in four steps. Martyn writes: “a. A member of the synagogue does something to arouse suspicion regarding his orthodoxy (cf. John 3:2; 7:52a). b. The president instructs the overseer to appoint this man to be the delegate of the congregation, i. e. to lead in the Praying of the Eighteen Benedictions. c. Unless the man has a means of avoiding the appointment, he must go before the Ark . . . and recite aloud all of the Eighteen Benedictions, pausing after each to wait the congregation’s Amen. All listen carefully to his recitation of Benediction number 12. d. If he falters on number 12, the Benediction against Heretics, he is removed from his praying . . . He is then, presumably, ‘drummed out’ of the synagogue fellowship.”43 I do not want to discuss here Martyn’s later reconstruction of a three-step history of the Johannine community starting with the intra-synagogue preaching of a group of Jesus followers that became more and more influential, but was thrown out of the synagogue while another group of “Krypto-Christians” remained but feared to confess Jesus openly. Martyn’s reconstruction gave rise to a whole bulk of studies that read the text (or at least parts of it) as a mirror into the history of the Johannine community which – at a decisive point of its history – was thrown out of the rabbinic synagogue because of its confession to Jesus.44 The different studies following the main lines of Martyn’s reconstruction discuss matters of how the aposynagogos concretely took place, where the Johannine community can be located, how many different steps in the history of the community can be detected, etc.

40

  Perhaps the most influential names have been Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple: The Life, Loves, and Hates of an Individual Church in New Testament Times (Mahwah, NY: Paulist, 1979), and Klaus Wengst, Bedrängte Gemeinde und verherrlichter Christus: Der historische Ort des Johannesevangeliums als Schlüssel zu seiner Interpretation (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1981). The number of studies following the main lines of Martyn’s approach is almost uncountable. See, for example, the overview in Nicklas, Ablösung, 46 – 49. 41   See Martyn, History, 51– 54. 42   See Martyn, History, 57 – 59. 43  Martyn, History, 59 – 60. 44   See n. 34 above.

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Today it seems clear that Martyn’s reconstruction of the Aposynagogos cannot withstand criticism (even if an author like Justin Martyr could be quoted as another witness for Jews cursing Christ followers in their synagogues).45 It is also more or less clear that a reconstruction of three, four, or more stages in the history of the Johannine community (like some of Martyn’s followers have suggested) may be a fascinating task, but one which is in danger of going too far and reading a narrative like a letter that mirrors community problems everywhere.46 To say it positively, Martyn’s greatest achievement and the real brilliant point he made was to start understanding the Gospel of John as a text about both Jesus’s time and the situation of the community. I am also sure that he was correct to argue that John anachronistically places the aposynagogos in Jesus’s time.47 As far as I see, however, two major problems of his (and his followers’ approach) have not or have not always been addressed deeply enough. There is first (1) a methodological problem: if I detect an anachronism like the Johannine aposynagogos motif and if this seems to be important for the narrative line of a story, it may be asked how far this story wants to tell a sub-story about the time of its origin. But how does this allow me to read everything as a “two-level drama”? How far may one allegorize narratives to see them as a mirror of later situations? Did the author intentionally write his gospel (or parts of it) as such a two-level drama or do parts of it unintentionally mirror the situation of its historical origins? As far as I can see, we need much more nuanced narratological analyses of the “story” itself before we start reading it as a “two-level drama.” But a second point is perhaps even more important: (2)  a problematic key assumption undergirding the arguments of Martyn and others. According to Martyn, if John’s image of the Jews does not represent the time of Jesus, it must represent another time. This conclusion is logically wrong. John’s image of the “Jews” of Jesus’s time first and foremost is an image. Perhaps I may speculate a bit: if we were able to ask John whether his image of “the Jews” is appropriate for the times of Jesus, he would answer with an immediate and clear “yes.” If we, however, turn the matter around, the problem becomes even clearer: we tend to work with an image (or images) of Second Temple Judaism, and we tend to work with an image (or images) of post-Second Temple Judaism. While most current New Testament scholars‘ images of Second Temple Judaism are quite vivid and colorful, their/our image of post-Second Temple Judaism often remains one-dimensional.48 Do the realities of 45   Regarding arguments criticizing Martyn’s idea of how the aposynagogos took place in relation to the role and function of the Birkat ha Minim see, for example, Nicklas, Ablösung, 49 – 55, and Frey, “Juden,” 354 – 59, 362 – 65. For a recent defense of Martyn’s reconstruction, see Joel Marcus, “Birkat Ha-Minim Revisited,” NTS 55 (2009): 523 – 51. 46   Of course, the three Johannine letters plus perhaps the related Acts of John and the Apocryphon of John can be helpful in demonstrating that there is indeed something like a development of Johannine theologies. 47   See also the reconstruction of Frey (“Juden”), who connects the whole problem to conflicts with a local synagogue. 48   At least in part, this has to do with the fact that most New Testament scholars (including myself) do not have a real overview of the bulk of rabbinic literature, and even know less about how

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post-Second Temple Judaism thus fit John’s image of the Jews better than the realities of Second Temple Judaism? I would say “no” – all this is not a matter of historical realities, but a matter of many New Testament scholars’ one-dimensional image of post-Second Temple Judaism. In other words: Judaism has never been as uniform as Martyn and some of his followers seem to presuppose. Their conclusion relies heavily upon the following presupposition: at the end of the first century ce there was already an influential and essentially unified Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism that controlled many synagogues in a way that it was able to take measures to ban Christians from the synagogue. The Johannine community had suffered from these measures, and that is why John’s Gospel projected this experience back into the times of Jesus. As far as we can see today, this image, which goes back (directly or indirectly) to the influential books of George Foot Moore (1927 –1930), Ephraim E. Urbach (1975), and the revised “Schürer” (1973 –1987), is too simple.49 Today we would criticize almost every detail of this presupposition: while the roots of Rabbinic Judaism certainly go back to the decades after the destruction of the Second Temple, the images of the movement’s roots constructed by rabbinic literature, including a “Council of Jabne/Jamnia,”50 are, again, idealized images that do not have very much to do with historical realities. Rabbinic Judaism at the end of the first century ce was certainly not the same Rabbinic Judaism as in Mishnaic or in Talmudic or even later times. It was certainly not as influential and uniform as many scholars have depicted it. It, finally, was not a purely Pharisaic movement.51 One could go on with a discussion of the history of the Amida, the original text-form and inclusion, but also the function of the Birkat ha minim, the semantics of notzrim, the situation of (a manifold) diaspora Judaism after 70 ce, and vestiges of the Zealot Movement after 70 that led to other catastrophic wars in 115 –117 and 132 –135 ce.52 I would, however, like to turn to the decisive question: what remains after this discussion and where are possible impulses for future research? to date and handle the material. The only classical and widespread handbook on the relation of NT and Rabbinic material, Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, 6 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1922 –1961), is not merely outdated, it also represents the view that New Testament texts must be superior to rabbinic literature. 49   George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1927 –1930); Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975); Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 b. c. – a. d. 135): A New English Version, rev. and ed. by Géza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Matthew Black, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1973 –1986). 50   See, for example, the criticism of Günter Stemberger, “Die sogenannte ‘Synode von Jabne’ und das frühe Christentum,” Kairos 19 (1977): 14 – 21, and idem, Judaica Minora II: Geschichte und Literatur des rabbinischen Judentums, TSAJ 138 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). 51   See Günter Stemberger, “Die Umformung des rabbinischen Judentums nach 70: Der Aufstieg des Rabbinen,” in Jüdische Geschichte in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit: Wege der Forschung: Vom alten zum neuen Schürer, ed. Aharon Oppenheimer, Schriften des historischen Kollegs 44 (Munich: Akademie, 1999), 85 – 99 (87 – 92). 52   For a broad discussion of these items including secondary literature, see Nicklas, Ablösung, 58 – 65.

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Impulses for Future Research It is time to formulate a few ideas that could lead to new ways of thinking about the problem – none of them are yet fully developed, but I hope they can perhaps open the discussion of the topic anew. While we do not know very much about the concrete circumstances of what John means with the aposynagogos, the Gospel of John does not just witness that “the Jews” create a “borderline,” throwing out followers of Jesus from their community. It is, even more directly, a witness for the other side of the movement: with his image of “the Jews,” John itself creates a “borderline.”53 This may have been one of the historical reasons that the Johannine community (or parts of it) was expelled from the local Jewish community.54 This, however, also shows that John himself wants to “de-fine” community in a way that there is no place for “the Jews” anymore. And it seems that the reason for this narrative “de-finition” is not just an impulse from the other side, but the experience that there are people for whom these borders do not exist or do not play the role that they play for John. If we want to see John’s story representing structures of the realities John’s community faces, figures such as Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and even the believing “Jews” of John 8:31 seem to play a decisive role in John’s world. They do not take sides, according to John, because of “fear of the Jews” and/or lack of proper understanding. But they are there – in John’s story – and this make sense if they represent persons in John’s real world. John seems to be faced with people who are followers of Jesus, but in a way that is intolerable for John. In other words, I regard it as probable that John wants to create borders exactly because he has encountered people for whom these borders do not exist. The Fourth Gospel is not the only text doing this: the best example is Ignatius of Antioch who perhaps invented the opposition of the terms “Judaism” and “Christianity” (or at least is the first author whom we know to have used it): Do not be deceived by strange doctrines or antiquated myths, since they are worthless. For if we continue to live in accordance with “Judaism”, we admit that we have not received grace. For the most godly prophets lived in accordance with Christ Jesus . . . [H]aving become his disciples, let us learn to live in accordance with “Christianity.” For whoever is called by another name than this one does not belong to God. Throw out, therefore, the bad yeast, which has become stale and sour, and reach for the new yeast, which is Jesus Christ. Be salted with him, so that none of you become rotten, for by your odor you will be convicted. It is utterly absurd to profess Jesus Christ and to practice “Judaism.” For “Christianity” did not believe in “Judaism,” but “Judaism” in “Christianity,” in which every tongue believed and was brought together with God. (Ignatius, Magn. 8 and 10)55

53   I consciously use the terminology of Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity, Divinations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2007). 54   For a plausible and cautious reconstruction, see Frey (“Juden,” 365 – 72), who focuses on the role of the fiscus Iudaicus. 55   Translation comes from Michael E. Holmes, trans. and ed., The Apostolic Fathers in English, 3d ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 105 – 6.

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This emphasis on the distinction between “Judaism” and “Christianity” in a letter reacting to a crisis only makes sense if Ignatius faced people for whom this distinction did not make sense. Interestingly, Ignatius’s text contains even more parallels with John’s distinction: The sentence “whoever is called by another name than this one does not belong to God” (Magn. 10) comes very close to John’s idea that there are those who have the power of becoming “children of God” (John 1:12) and those who must be called “children of the devil” (John 8:44) as long as they do not believe in what John understands as the living “truth.” We can call these in-between people “Judaizers,” “Christian Jews,” or “followers of Christ” for whom Jewish laws were still of importance, but this does not make a big difference: Ignatius (and obviously John as well) creates a borderline because he thinks it is necessary. Other texts could be mentioned as well: Justin Martyr and his Dialogue, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, or other second/third century texts that partly go the same way.56 At the same time we have writings showing that this discourse did not have only one side: The early second-century Ascension of Isaiah seems not to be interested in a distinction between “Jews” and “Christians,” but between real and false prophets. It is interested in a life of purity and holiness, mystical experiences rescuing the holy ones from this world living under Beliar who will, however, be thrown from his throne via God’s Beloved One.57 At the same time it polemicizes against communities who need bishops and other office holders (see Ascen. Isa. 3.23 – 27), and thus draws borderlines very different from those boundaries found in John or Ignatius.58 The Epistle of James, in addition, seems to come from a milieu where the Torah, understood as the perfect law of freedom (1:25; 2:12) and the royal law (2:8), is observed and followers of Christ can be addressed as members of the “Twelve Tribes in Dispersion” (1:1). We do not know whether and how these different writings relate to each other, but they allow us a glimpse into a world where different texts, and, perhaps behind them, different groups struggle for their definition of identity.59 If we just look into John’s image of “the Jews” we are in danger of overlooking the fact that John not only erects new borderlines, but he also tries to destroy or at least question old and existing ones. This starts with small regional conflicts like the possible rivalry between villages such as Cana and Nazareth mirrored in Nathanael’s 56   See, for example, Tobias Nicklas, Jews and Christians? Second Century “Christian” Perspectives on the “Parting of the Ways” (Annual Deichmann Lectures 2013) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). 57   For more details, see Meghan Henning and Tobias Nicklas, “Jewish, Christian – or What? Matters of Self-Designation in the Ascension of Isaiah,” in The Ascension of Isaiah, ed. Jan N. Bremmer, Thomas Karmann, and Tobias Nicklas, Studies in Early Christian Apocrypha 11 (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 175 – 98. 58   Regarding a possible relation between Ignatius’s writings and the Ascension of Isaiah, see Tobias Nicklas, “A Church Without Spirit? Pneumatology in the Writings of Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Holy Spirit and the Church according to the New Testament, ed. Predrag Dragutinović, Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, and James Buchanan Wallace, WUNT 354 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 405 – 26 (425). 59   The idea that John’s depiction of “the Jews” has to do with the creation of group identity has also been developed by Raimo Hakola, Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness, NovTSup 118 (Leiden: Brill, 2005).

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saying “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” (John 1:46). But more importantly, the text not only addresses the “borderline” between Jews and Samaritans, but it also tries to overcome it. According to John 4:7 – 9 Jesus does not behave like a “Jew” when he meets the Samaritan woman, but starts to talk to her. And after she has recognized that Jesus must be a prophet (John 4:19) she asks the decisive question that separates Jews and Samaritans from one another: “Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem” (John 4:20). Jesus’s answer takes up the distinction, but solves it by putting it on a new level: “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks” (4:21– 23). Jesus clearly remains part of Jewish tradition (against Samaritan tradition), but points to a time where this distinction does not play a role anymore. From the perspective of the Johannine community this time has already come60 – distinctions between Gerizim and the Jerusalem temple mount do not play a role anymore; the question becomes whether one worships the Father, who is not bound to a geographically definable place any longer, “in spirit and truth.” And, finally, the text seems to re-define a border between disciples of Jesus and disciples of John the Baptist.61 John the Baptist is not “the Light” (1:8), he is neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet (1:21), but he gives witness to Jesus (1:7, 26; cf. 3:27 – 36), who (from a historical standpoint) comes after him and perhaps has been his disciple (1:27, 30), but who has not just been before him, but is “before Abraham” (8:58) and has made known God (1:18).62 There is thus still a distinction between being a disciple of John the Baptist and being a disciple of Jesus: disciples of John the Baptist, however, are invited by their teacher himself to join Jesus of Nazareth (1:35) and become his disciple. If the unnamed disciple following Jesus according to John 1:37 can be identified with the Beloved Disciple who, according to John 21:24, himself became a decisive witness for Jesus and responsible for the book, he even becomes a paradigm of how to transcend an old relation and start a new one. The Gospel of John does not merely create borderlines, then, it also opens new discourses by breaking down old limitations and thereby constructs a whole system 60   Regarding the relation of realized and future eschatology in the Fourth Gospel, see Jan G. van der Watt, “Eschatology in John – A Continuous Process of Realizing Events,” in Eschatology of the New Testament and Some Related Documents, ed. Jan G. van der Watt, WUNT 2/315 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 109 – 40, Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten, 663 – 98, and idem, Die johanneische Eschatologie, 3 vols., WUNT 96, 110, 117 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997 – 2000). 61   Here see also the essay of Albert Baumgarten in the present volume. 62   Regarding the description of John the Baptist in the Fourth Gospel, see Catrin H. Williams, “John (the Baptist): The Witness on the Threshold,” in Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John, ed. Steven A. Hunt, D. Francois Tolmie, and Ruben Zimmermann, WUNT 314 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), 46 – 60, and Brian C. Dennert, John the Baptist and the Jewish Setting of Matthew, WUNT 2/403 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 66 – 81.

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of new relations and possibilities. It does this in order to serve the text’s goal: “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Such concerns are inherent in a struggle for the heritage of Israel. According to John 5:45, Moses will accuse “the Jews” before the Father: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me” (5:46): for John, Moses, who according to John 1:17a “has given the Law” and thus represents the “idea” of Israel’s relation to God, cannot be understood properly for someone who does not believe in Jesus. While the Pharisees still believe that they are “disciples of Moses and that God has spoken to Moses” (John 9:28), Jesus is for them only “this man.” The Gospel, however, develops a perspective that only disciples of “this man,” Jesus, can be proper disciples of Moses. This can be shown in relation to other aspects of Israel’s tradition as well: Jesus is understood as the place of God’s dwelling on Earth, his Shekhina,63 he is called the one “about whom Moses and the prophets have written” (1:45),64 he is probably understood as the real paschal lamb (1:29; 19:36),65 he is described as the “Son of Man upon whom the angels of God ascend and descend” (1:51) – and thus can be understood as either the ladder connecting heaven to earth or the Bet-El stone (Gen 28:12)66 – but in any case, he is the real place of worship. This parallels the idea that the temple of Jerusalem is understood as “my Father’s house” (2:16) for which Jesus is full of zeal (2:17), but at the same time the text speaks about the “temple of his body” (2:21) after Jesus’s resurrection. One could provide many other examples, but it becomes clear that in his struggle for the heritage of Israel John tries to create a group identity that goes even so far as to appropriate the great foundation narrative of God’s creation of the world (Gen 1:1/John 1:1), understanding creation as carried out via the Logos (1:3) who became flesh in Jesus (1:14a).67 It thus incorporates the great narratives of both the world’s and Israel’s past, but relates them to a new system of relations: everybody who does not adopt John’s view of the world, which is strictly connected to his understanding of Jesus, is de-fined as being “outside” the border. This is most clearly the case for “the Jews” – that is, believers in the God of Israel who claim Israel’s heritage for themselves, but who do not accept 63   On the impact of Shekhina theology for John’s gospel, see Jörg Frey, “Joh 1,14, die Fleischwerdung des Logos und die Einwohnung Gottes in Jesus Christus: Zur Bedeutung der ‘Schechina-Theologie’ für die johanneische Christologie,” in Das Geheimnis der Gegenwart Gottes: Zur Schechina-Vorstellung in Judentum und Christentum, ed. Bernd Janowski and Enno Edzard Popkes, WUNT 318 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 231– 56, and Uta Poplutz, “‘. . . und hat unter uns gezeltet’ (Joh 1,14): Die Fleischwerdung des Logos im Licht der Schechina-Theologie,” Sacra Scripta 13 (2015): 101–14. 64   Regarding Johannine discourses on Jewish scriptures, see Marion Moser, Schriftdiskurse im Johannesevangelium: Eine narrative Analyse am Paradigma von Joh 4 und Joh 7, WUNT 2/380 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). 65   Regarding Johannine paschal theology, see Schlund, “Kein Knochen soll gebrochen werden”. 66   For an overview and discussion of interpretations of John 1:51, see Nicklas, Ablösung, 190 – 94. 67   Regarding John as a creation story, see Tobias Nicklas, “Zeit, Zeitmodelle und Zeitdeutung in der Bibel Alten und Neuen Testaments,” in Das Testament der Zeit: Die Apokalyptik und ihre gegenwärtige Rezeption, ed. Kurt Appel and Erwin Dirscherl, QD 278 (Freiburg: Herder, 2016), 352 – 77.

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John’s view of Jesus of Nazareth. If we had the chance to ask first- or early second-century readers following John’s way of belief in Jesus whether they understood themselves to be sons or daughters of Israel, I am sure that many of them would say “yes.” I am, however, also quite sure that someone who from John’s perspective is called a “Jew,” would likewise say “yes, I am a son/daughter of Israel,” adding, “no, this new Johannine group is no longer a part of Israel.” Identity has to do with borders, and these borders usually have more than one side. This leads to a final step:68 I am quite sure that a significant amount of John’s anti-Jewish potential could only develop into hatred of Jews69 after John’s Gospel became a fixed part of a Christian canon of the New Testament and its readers started to look on “the Jews” from a growing distance. “The Jews” became faceless figures (or were connected to the grotesque faces of medieval imagery). If John’s implied (first) readership, however, (at least) partly consisted of people who associated themselves with John’s middle group, standing somewhere in between the two groups of “Jews” and “followers of Jesus” – people who perhaps, finally, decided to follow Jesus, become “children of God,” and not remain “children of the devil,” then the question arises: How would these people perceive John’s description of “the Jews”? Would they see them – former peers, friends, partners, relatives, brothers and sisters, some of them still neighbors – in the same way that interpreters of later centuries have seen them? As “ontologically” being “sons of the devil”? As figures without faces? Or would the openness of the depiction of “the Jews” not perhaps mean that they would locate some of their former peers, friends, partners, relatives, brothers, and sisters within the category of “the Jews”? Perhaps it is even possible that their view of the Johannine “Jews” as tragic figures who remain outside “the Light” could be like Paul’s, who in a text like 1 Thess 2:14 –16 can be full of anger and describe them as “hostile to all people,” but years later can come to his final word in Romans 9 –11: I speak the truth in Christ – I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit – I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is the Messiah according to the flesh, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. (Rom 9:1– 5)

68   I owe this final point to a discussion with my friend Christos Karakolis (Athens), who is currently working on a project on John’s depiction of “the Jews” and “dramatic irony.” For an initial foray in this direction, see Christos Karakolis, “Logos Concept and Dramatic Irony in the Johannine Prologue and Narrative,” in The Prologue of the Gospel of John, ed. Jan G. van der Watt, R. Alan Culpepper, and Udo Schnelle, WUNT 359 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 139 – 56. 69   See Kaufmann Kohler’s “classic” description (“New Testament,” Jewish Encyclopedia 9 [1905]: 246 – 54 [251]) of the Fourth Gospel as the “Gospel of Christian Love and Jewish Hatred.”

Instant Polemics: Use and Reuse of Charges against Others in Early Christianity1 Wolfgang Grünstäudl

University of Wuppertal

Polemics in the Epistle of Jude There is no lack of scholarly interest in the form and function of polemics in early Christian writings.2 The present essay aims to contribute to this lively and ongoing debate by analyzing the literary career of a very short and seemingly unimportant3 New Testament writing, namely the Epistle of Jude.4 All of the 25 verses of Jude would fit easily on a single leaf of papyrus5 and in Codex Sinaiticus, probably the oldest “complete” copy of the New Testament (fourth century ce), Jude’s text needs only a little more space than a single page written in four columns (Q89/f8v.c3 – Q90/f1r.c4).6 A classical letter opening (cf. Jude 1– 2) and several remarks on the relationship between author and addressees throughout the text (cf. e. g., Jude 3, 5, 17, 20) make it clear that Jude wants to be understood as a letter, although it ends quite untypically not with wishes and/or greetings but with a doxology (cf. Jude 24 – 25). 1

  I owe special thanks to Nicola Niehues for her support in completing the manuscript.   Cf., e. g., the recent volumes Oda Wischmeyer and Lorenzo Scornaienchi, eds., Polemik in der frühchristlichen Literatur: Texte und Kontexte, BZNW 170 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011) and Michael Tilly and Ulrich Mell, eds., ‘Opponents’: Conflict with Rivals in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, WUNT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming 2017). 3   As just one example of many comparable verdicts by renowned New Testament scholars, the opening statement of Gerhard Sellin (“Die Häretiker des Judasbriefes,” ZNW 77 [1986]: 206 – 22 [206]) is telling: “Wohl das unbedeutendste Dokument unter den in den neutestamentlichen Kanon geratenen Schriften ist der an Umfang und Theologie kümmerliche Judasbrief.” 4   William Brosend (“The Letter of Jude: A Rhetoric of Excess or an Excess of Rhetoric?,” Int 60 [2006]: 292 – 305 [292]) points to many references that bemoan the “lack of commentaries, articles, and monographs on the letter of Jude”, a complaint common in older research on Jude, and states correctly that thanks to an increased scholarly interest in Jude this convention has changed: “[N]ow the commonplace is to note that Jude is no longer neglected.” Helpful accounts of research include Roman Heiligenthal, “Der Judasbrief: Aspekte der Forschung in den letzten Jahrhunderten,” ThR 51 (1986): 117 – 29, Richard Bauckham, “The Letter of Jude: An Account of Research,” ANRW II,25,5:3791– 826, and Peter Müller, “Der Judasbrief,” ThR 63 (1998), 267 – 89. For a biblio­ graphy, see Wolfgang Grünstäudl, “Bibliography on 2 Peter and Jude (1983 – 2013),” available online at http://www.academia.edu/2981150/Bibliography_on_2_Peter_and_Jude_1983 – 2013_. 5   Anton Vögtle (Der Judasbrief, Der zweite Petrusbrief, EKKNT 22 [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag 1994], 14) calls Jude a “Flugblatt.” 6   A splendid digital edition of the complete manuscript is now accesible online at http://www. codexsinaiticus.org. Still helpful is the “Table of Concordance” in the classical work of Herbert J. M. Milne and Theodore C. Skeat, Scribes and Correctors of the Codex Sinaiticus: With Plates and Figures (London: British Museum, 1938), 94 –112. 2

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Probably written at the end of the first or at the beginning of the second century ce,7 the specific context of this letter remains highly unclear. What is clear as daylight, however, is the polemical nature of this text. Beginning with an explicit warning of some “intruders” who have crept in secretly among the addressees and “who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 4), the author of Jude develops an emphatic and vigorous, yet artfully crafted, attack against those “others.”8 The argument is structured by the repeated identification formula οὗτοί εἰσιν (“these are”) connected to warning examples taken from Torah (Jude 5 – 7), Second Temple literature (Jude 14 –15; cf. Jude 9), and – in one instance – from Jesus tradition (Jude 17 –18). To be precise, in each instance the example from “scripture” or “tradition” is presented first and only afterwards applied by the use of οὗτοί. Thus, the main part of the letter (between the opening in Jude 1– 4 and the closing in Jude 20 – 25) appears to be divided in five sections, namely Jude 5 – 8, 9 –10, 11–13, 14 –16, and 17 –19.9 Within this tightly connected chain of arguments we find two members of special importance, one in the middle of the sequence, one at its end. In the middle, the attack culminates in the cry οὐαί (Jude 11), making audible the unavoidable (future) punishment of the evil “others.” The possibility to read this “Weheruf ” as the center of a concentric structure further underlines its importance.10 At the end of the chain, however, Jude quotes explicitly from 1 Enoch and thus forms an impressive climax (cf. Jude 14 –15). Moreover, Jude probably changes the (implicit) subject of the quoted passage from θεός to κύριος in order to enable it to better fit into his own Christological perspective.11 Both structures, the concentric one around the “Weheruf ” and the climactic one heading towards the quotation from 1 Enoch in Jude 14, underline the skillfulness of its author. Compared to the artful structure of Jude’s polemic, its content seems to be much less attractive. Most of Jude’s charges against the “others” are highly typical and par 7   The most recent critical commentary dates Jude roughly (“eine grobe Zeitspanne”) to the first two decades of the second century. See Jörg Frey, Der Brief des Judas und der zweite Brief des Petrus, THKNT 15/2 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2015), 26.  8   I agree with Ruth Anne Reese (2 Peter and Jude, The Two Horizons New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2007], 25) that the term “others” (instead of the still more common “opponents”) might help scholars to appreciate more profoundly the constructedness of Jude’s polemic. Cf. Peter H. Davids, “Are the Others Too Other? The Issue of ‘Others’ in Jude and 2 Peter,” in Reading 1– 2 Peter and Jude: A Resource for Students, ed. Eric F. Mason and Troy W. Martin, SBLRBS 77 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014), 201–13.  9   Cf. Müller, “Judasbrief,” 273. See also most recently on the structure of Jude Blake A. Jurgens, “Is It Pesher? Readdressing the Relationship between the Epistle of Jude and the Qumran Pesharim,” JBL 136 (2017): 491 – 510. 10   Cf. Christian Blumenthal, Prophetie und Gericht: Der Judasbrief als Zeugnis urchristlicher Prophetie, BBB 156 (Göttingen: V & R Unipress, 2008), 59 – 60 (94). 11   According to Frey (Brief des Judas, 107), “fügt der Autor in die Überlieferung, in der das logische Subjekt Gott (1 Hen 1,3) nicht explizit genannt ist, das Subjekt κύριος ein, das in der ara­ mäischen, griechischen und äthiopischen Henochtradition kein Äquivalent hat. Da κύριος im vorliegenden Kontext auf Christus hin zu deuten ist, dessen Parusie der Autor hier angekündigt sieht, erfolgt also in der Rezeption ein Subjektwechsel.”

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alleled many times in Jewish, Christian, and pagan literature from antiquity. Charges like libertinism, greed, feasting, and perfidiousness were easily at hand for anyone who intended to draft a forceful polemical tract against a rivaling philosophical or religious group.12 This kind of “instant polemics” makes it very difficult to learn more about the specific profile of these “others.” It has even been proposed that there were no “others” at all and that Jude’s polemic is just rhetorical artillery barrage supporting its more general theological argument.13 Although this proposal has not found many followers, it perfectly demonstrates the difficulty of identifying the “others” and their own intentions.14 A very important strand of recent scholarship understands Jude’s remarks on different classes of angels (Jude 8 –10) as a window allowing us a glimpse of the “real” conflict between Jude and the “others.”15 According to this reading, Jude defends the veneration of angels against a post-Pauline position similar to that found in the Epistle to the Colossians, which dismisses any veneration of angels in a Christian context (cf. Col 2:18).16 In a medieval manuscript this angelological opposition between Jude and Colossians even seems to be illustrated by means of canonical rearrangement. Minuscule 1241 (according to the numbering of Gregory/Aland), a manuscript from the twelfth century written on parchment and containing all parts of the New Testament with the exception of the Revelation of John, displays a rather unusual order of the epistolographic part of the New Testament (cf. table 1). At the beginning of the 12   Cf. the detailed study of Jörg Frey, “Autorfiktion und Gegnerbild im Judasbrief und im Zweiten Petrusbrief,” in Pseudepi­graphie und Verfasserfiktion in frühchristlichen Briefen, ed. Jörg Frey et al., WUNT 246 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 683 – 732. 13   Cf. especially Frederik Wisse, “The Epistle of Jude in the History of Heresiology,” in Essays on the Nag Hammadi Texts in Honor of A. Böhlig, ed. Martin Krause, NHS 3 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 133 – 43. See also Geert van Oyen, “Is There a Heresy That Necessitated Jude’s Letter?,” in Empsychoi Logoi. Religious Innovations in Antiquity: Studies in Honour of Peter Willem van der Horst, ed. Alberdina Houtman et al., AJEC 73 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 211– 26. 14   George Aichele (The Letters of Jude and Second Peter: Paranoia and the Slaves of Christ, Phoenix Guides to the New Testament 19 [Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2012], 28) rightly notes that “despite its vivid language the letter of Jude tells its reader remarkably little about these infiltrators . . . Unless the reader knows something about the addressed community, these words may merely say that the author doesn’t like the way that the others do things.” 15   Cf. most recently Frey, Brief des Judas, 33 – 37. For a different (alleged) “window” to the social world behind the text, see Hans Joachim Stein, Frühchristliche Mahlfeiern: Ihre Gestalt und Bedeutung nach der neutestamentlichen Briefliteratur und der Johannesoffenbarung, WUNT 2/255 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 229: “Aber weil jenseits aller Topoi gerade in Jud 12 Klartext geredet und den Gegnern ein als problematisch empfundenes Verhalten vorgeworfen wird, soll hier der Versuch unternommen werden, die Agapen als Konfliktherd herauszustellen, an dem die Differenzen offen zutage traten und die Gemeinde zu spalten drohten” (emphasis mine). 16   Cf. Sellin, “Häretiker,” 212 –18, Roman Heiligenthal, Zwischen Henoch und Paulus: Studien zum theologiegeschichtlichen Ort des Judasbriefes, TANZ 6 (Tübingen: Francke, 1992), 10, 148 – 49, Müller, “Judasbrief,” 283 – 85, and Jörg Frey, “Der Judasbrief zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus,” in Frühjudentum und Neues Testament im Horizont Biblischer Theologie, ed. Wolfgang Kraus and Karl-Wilhelm Niebuhr, WUNT 162 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 180 – 210 (207 – 9). Cf. the chart in Petr Pokorný and Ulrich Heckel, Einleitung in das Neue Testament: Seine Literatur und Theologie im Überblick, UTB 2798 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 709.

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Table 1: Arrangement of New Testament writings in Minuscule 1241 (12th century CE) “Expected” Order of New Testament Writings in Byzantine manuscripts

Minuscule 1241

Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Mark Gospel of Luke Gospel of John

Gospel of Matthew Gospel of Mark Gospel of Luke Gospel of John

Acts of the Apostles

Acts of the Apostles

Epistle to the Romans First Epistle to the Corinthians Second Epistle to the Corinthians Epistle to the Galatians Epistle to the Ephesians Epistle to the Philippians Epistle to the Colossians First Epistle to the Thessalonians Second Epistle to the Thessalonians First Epistle to Timothy Second Epistle to Timothy Epistle to Titus Epistle to Philemon Epistle to the Hebrews

First Epistle to the Corinthians Second Epistle to the Corinthians Epistle to the Galatians First Epistle to the Thessalonians Second Epistle to the Thessalonians First Epistle to Timothy Second Epistle to Timothy Epistle to Titus Epistle to Philemon Epistle to the Hebrews Epistle of James



Epistle to the Romans Epistle to the Ephesians Epistle to the Philippians Epistle to the Colossians Epistle of Jude

Epistle of James First Epistle of Peter Second Epistle of Peter First Epistle of John Second Epistle of John Third Epistle of John Epistle of Jude

First Epistle of Peter Second Epistle of Peter First Epistle of John Second Epistle of John Third Epistle of John

Revelation of John

(Rev is not part of the manuscript)

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manuscript we find the four canonical gospels (in the sequence Matthew – Mark – Luke – John) followed by the Acts of the Apostles. After Acts, the Corpus Paulinum starts not with Romans but with First Corinthians which is followed by nine “Pauline” Epistles which are included in a fairly “normal” order (2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1– 2 Thessalonians, 1– 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews).17 The next text after this somewhat shortened Corpus Paulinum is James. Surprisingly, James, usually listed as the first of the Catholic Epistles (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2:23:24 – 5),18 is followed by those Pauline Epistles which are missing above, namely Romans, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. James thus divides two Corpora Paulina: a first one consisting of ten Pauline Epistles starting with 1 Corinthians and ending with Hebrews and another one built by those four epistles missing in the first group. This second Pauline group is followed by the other six Catholic Epistles besides James (Jude, 1– 2 Peter, 1– 3 John). Again, the sequence is a bit unusual as Jude is not placed at the end of the group (after the Johannine Epistles) but appears in first place right before 1 Peter. Summing up, we find a slightly unusual corpus of Catholic Epistles mixed up with a Corpus Paulinum which itself has been divided in two parts by extracting four epistles and grouping them together only after the inclusion of James. Jude’s position within the Catholic Epistles (after James and before the other five letters) creates a much greater nearness between those texts attributed to brothers of Jesus than the usual order with Jude at the end of the collection. As this impression of nearness is somewhat blurred by the insertion of four Pauline Epistles, it might be more appropriate to speak of James and Jude as building a bracket around the second Pauline group in 1241. Moreover, it is interesting to see James and Romans as well as Colossians and Jude standing side by side: It is widely known that James critically resembles motifs of Pauline theology and can be read as a correction of Romans (cf. especially Jas 2:20 – 26) although only few would follow Martin Hengel in describing James as a full-blown anti-Pauline polemic.19 A similar juxtaposition of conflicting theological perspectives can be found in Colossians’ position immediately before Jude, as Colossians is apparently arguing against the veneration of angels (cf. Col 2:18), a behavior that seems to be defended in Jude 8 –11. Should we suggest that the scribes who produced minuscule 1241 (or its Vorlage) wanted to emphasize the controversies between James and Romans (regarding ethics and salvation) as well as those between Colossians and Jude (regarding angelology)? Can we go a step further even and assume that the producers of minuscule 17   On the various arrangements of Pauline corpora in the manuscript tradition, cf. David Trobisch, Die Entstehung der Paulusbriefsammlung: Studien zu den Anfängen christlicher Publizistik, NTOA 10 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989). 18   Cf. the inspiring study of David Nienhuis, Not by Paul Alone: The Formation of the Catholic Epistle Collection and the Christian Canon (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007), and recently Wolfgang Grünstäudl, “Was lange währt . . .: Die Katholischen Briefe und die Formung des neutestamentlichen Kanons,” EC 7 (2016): 71– 94. 19   Cf. Martin Hengel, “Der Jakobusbrief als antipaulinische Polemik,” in Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament: Essays in Honor of E. Earle Ellis, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne and Otto Betz (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 248 – 78, repr. in Paulus und Jakobus: Kleine Schriften III, ed. Martin Hengel, WUNT 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 511– 48.

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1241 wanted to tame some Pauline traditions by bracketing them with the different views of James and Jude? Finally, is it possible to ascribe to those (probably monastic) scribes a certain interest in the defense of ascetic and angelic concepts by means of biblical rearrangement? Such exciting speculations remain unsound, however, as long as there is no detailed study of the manuscript including its codicological and paleographical features, its scribes, its possible Vorlagen, its transmission history, and so on.20 Even if future research on minuscule 1241 should reveal a theologically motivated reordering as one reason for the unique features of this manuscript,21 this would be, of course, only of little value for the reconstruction of the first- or second-century theological debate displayed in Jude. Following an inspiring, yet almost forgotten, contribution by the Norwegian scholar Jarl Fossum might be more helpful in this respect.22 Starting from the text-critical crux interpretum in Jude 5,23 Fossum detects within Jude a pattern of angelomorphic Christology that has close parallels to traditions preserved in Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho. As I have recently shown elsewhere,24 studying these parallels might contribute significantly to our understanding of the crux in Jude 5 and the letter as a whole.

Jude in Disguise: 2 Peter Although focusing on angelology and/or angelic Christology in Jude seems to be helpful in getting a better perception of the conflict behind (better: in) this text, present scholars might easily get frustrated by the topical nature of most of Jude’s polemics. A very early reader of Jude, however, apparently found this polemical material quite useful. Late in the second century,25 the unknown author of the Second Epistle of Peter re-used almost all of Jude within his own writing.26 20   For the text of the gospels in 1241, cf. Kirsopp Lake, “Codex 1241 Sinai 260,” in Six Collations of New Testament Manuscripts, ed. Kirsopp Lake and Silva New, HTS 17 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932), 95 –140. 21   However, the order of the epistles in minuscule 1241 is more than the by-product of careless (re)binding: the end of Colossians and the beginning of Jude appear on the same page and even meet in the very same column. 22   Cf. Jarl Fossum, “Kyrios Jesus as the Angel of the Lord in Jude 5 – 7,” NTS 33 (1987): 226 – 43. 23   In Jude 5, Bruce M. Metzger (A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994], 657) has judged that the best attested reading Ἰησοῦς (instead of κύριος or θεός) is “difficult to the point of impossibility,” as it would suggest that Jesus (instead of the Lord or God) was active during Israel’s journey through the desert. 24   Cf. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, “Jesus in Sodom: Christologisches Anliegen und Gegnerpolemik des Judasbriefes,” in ‘Opponents’: Conflict with Rivals in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, ed. Michael Tilly and Ulrich Mell, WUNT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming 2017). 25   If one accepts my proposal that 2 Peter is dependent upon the Greek-Ethiopic Apocalypse of Peter (cf. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes, WUNT 2/353 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 89 –147; for a precise summary in English see Jörg Frey, “Fire and Water? Apocalyptic Imagination and Hellenistic Worldview in 2 Peter,” in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy, ed. Joel Baden et al., JSJSup 175 [Leiden: Brill, 2016], 451– 71, [457 – 63]), a writing itself most probably stemming

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A quick look on Second Peter’s re-use of Jude (cf. table 2) leads to three observations: (1) Almost each and every verse of Jude is paralleled in 2 Peter and virtually all of this material appears in 2 Peter in the same order as in Jude. Indeed, only three parts of Jude are completely missing in 2 Peter: First, the address in Jude 1, second, the explicit quotation from 1 Enoch in Jude 14 –15, and finally Jude 19 – 23. While the author of 2 Peter could not include Jude 127 in his pseudepigraphical text for obvious reasons, the missing of Jude’s Enoch quotation in 2 Peter is striking. Very often it is assumed that some inchoate “canon awareness” hindered the author of 2 Peter from including a reference to a later noncanonical writing in his text.28 However, this reasoning is highly problematic: as Richard Bauckham has pointed out, 1 Enoch’s popularity among Christians in general seems to be even greater in the second century than it was in the first,29 which makes an assumed rejection for canonical reasons improbable.30 Furthermore, 2 Peter’s use of the Apocalypse of Peter demonstrates from the first third of the second century (cf. Tobias Nicklas, “‘Insider’ und ‘Outsider’: Überlegungen zum historischen Kontext der Darstellung ‘jenseitiger Orte’ in der Offenbarung des Petrus,” in Topographie des Jenseits: Studien zur Geschichte des Todes in Kaiserzeit und Spätantike, ed. Walter Ameling, Altertumswissenschaftliches Kolloquium 21 [Stuttgart: Steiner, 2011], 35 – 48), then 2 Peter should be dated at least to the middle of the second century (Frey, Brief des Judas, 186 – 87: “bleibt eine Zeitspanne um die Mitte des 2. Jh.s [140 –160 n. Chr.] als wahrscheinlichster Zeitraum der Entstehung des Schreibens”). The relationship between 2 Pet 2:1 and Justin Martyr, Dial. 82.1 may point to an even later date (cf. Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 206 – 26, and Frey, Brief des Judas, 186 – 87, who remains sceptical on this point). 26   Not only is the relationship between Jude and 2 Peter more or less intensively discussed in every commentary on these texts (most recently in Frey, Brief des Judas, 154 – 62) but it is also the topic of several detailed studies, cf., e. g., Lauren Thurén, “The Relationship between 2 Peter and Jude: A Classical Problem Resolved?,” in The Catholic Epistles and the Tradition, ed. Jacques Schlosser, BETL 176 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2004), 451– 60, Terence Callan, “Use of the Letter of Jude by the Second Letter of Peter,” Bib 85 (2004): 42 – 64, and Tommy Wasserman, The Epistle of Jude: Its Text and Transmission, ConBNT 43 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2006), 73 – 98. With the vast majority of critical research, my argument assumes that 2 Peter is literarily dependent on Jude. 27   For a careful comparison of 2 Pet 1:1– 2 with Jude 1 (as well as with other early Christian epistolography literature), see Martin G. Ruf (Die heiligen Propheten, eure Apostel und ich: Metatextuelle Studien zum zweiten Petrusbrief, WUNT 2/300 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011], 48 – 67), who states (65­­­ – 66): “Insgesamt zeigt sich also vor allem in der superscriptio und in der salutatio . . . ein Anschluss an die Prima Petri und, von einigen wenigen Merkmalen abgesehen, ein Abrücken vom Judasbrief.” 28   The fact that in 2 Pet 2:4 (compared to Jude 6 – 7) any specific connection to the story of the Watchers in 1 Enoch is missing (Frey, Brief des Judas, 276: “Eine selbständige Bezugnahme auf die Henochtradition liegt nicht vor”) could be understood as pointing in the same direction. 2 Peter’s generalizing transformations of Jude’s polemic are, however, again part of a different communication strategy, as 2 Peter is far less interested in a certain angelological conflict than Jude. 29   Cf. Richard Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter, WBC 50 (Waco, TX: Word, 1983), 139 – 40, Frey, Brief des Judas, 101– 3, 276 n. 834. 30   With Frey, Brief des Judas, 276 n. 834 (cf. 103 – 5), and Ruf, Propheten, 576: “Kurzum, der Verfasser der Secunda Petri ist gerade in den Schriften des Judentums der hellenistisch-römischen Zeit so sehr verankert, dass ein ihm oft unterstelltes ‘Kanonbewusstsein’ bzw. eine ‘Apokryphenscheu’, die gerade die im frühen Christentum einflussreiche und oft geschätzte Henochapokalypse aus­ schließt, nicht so recht in dieses Bild passen will.”

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Table 2:  Re-Use of Jude in Second Peter Epistle of Jude (1– 25)

Epistle of Second Peter (1:1– 3:18)

1 2 2 3 4 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 5* 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Chapter 1

4 1 2 3 6 4 5 7 6 7 8 9 7 10a 8 10b 9 11 10 12 12* 13 14 11 15 16 12 17 13 16 18 19 20 21 22

Chapter 2

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Epistle of Second Peter (1:1– 3:18)

1 17 2 18 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 24 14 15 16 17 25 18

Chapter 3

that at least one text which later did not become part of the Christian canon31 was of crucial importance for the author of 2 Peter. Finally, those passages in 2 Peter dealing with hermeneutical troubles in regard to scripture (2 Pet 1:19 – 21; 3:14 –16)32 focus much more on the correct use of scripture then on its definitive extent. A much simpler explanation for the absence of Jude’s quotation of 1 Enoch in 2 Peter pays attention to the different function of eschatological concepts in both texts. In Jude, the expectation of the coming judgment at Christ’s parousia is used as a paraenetical instrument to strengthen the addressees’ belief in the inevitable and horrible fate of the “others”: like Enoch (almost) said, those “others” will be judged and punished by the Lord. The author of 2 Peter, however, faces “others” who, at least in his view, doubt the very realization of Christ’s parousia33 as such. It would be 31   On the reception history of Apoc. Pet., see Dennis D. Buchholz, Your Eyes Will Be Opened: A Study of the Greek (Ethiopic) Apocalypse of Peter, SBLDS 97 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 20 – 81. 32   For a recent treatment of 2 Pet 1:19 – 21, see Wolfgang Grünstäudl, “‘Vom Heiligen Geist ­getragen’ (2 Petr 1,21): Prolegomena zu einem polytopischen Inspirationsverständnis,” in Der zweite Petrusbrief und das Neue Testament, ed. Wolfgang Grünstäudl, Uta Poplutz, and Tobias Nicklas, WUNT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming 2017). For a fresh approach to 2 Pet 3:14 –16, see Tobias Nicklas, “‘Der geliebte Bruder’: Zur Paulusrezeption im zweiten Petrusbrief,” forthcoming in the same volume. 33   On the proposal of Edward Adams (“‘Where is the Promise of his Coming?’ The Complaint of the Scoffers in 2 Peter 3.4,” NTS 51 [2005]: 106 – 22) that not Christ’s but God’s parousia is at stake in 2 Peter 3:4, see the critique in Wolfgang Grünstäudl, “Petrus, das Feuer und die Interpretation der Schrift: Beobachtungen zum Weltenbrandmotiv im zweiten Petrusbrief,” in Der eine Gott und die Völker in eschatologischer Perspektive: Studien zur Inklusion und Exklusion im biblischen Monotheismus, ed. Luke Neubert and Michael Tilly, Biblisch-Theologische Studien 137 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 183 – 208 (192 – 97).

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pointless to repeat Jude’s statement in order to counter these doubts. What is needed is a profoundly theological argument for the reasonableness of the contested eschatological conception. Therefore, the author of 2 Peter drops the reference to 1 Enoch and replaces it with a passage on hermeneutics, scripture, and time. The question why 2 Peter did not take over Jude 19 – 23 is more difficult to answer. On the one hand, the οὗτοί-phrase in Jude 19 lost its place to the “quotation” of the critical question of the “others” in 2 Pet 3:4, which is closely connected to the prophecy of future ἐμπαῖκται (cf. Jude 18 // 2 Pet  3:3)34 and in a certain respect can be called the core verse of 2 Peter. On the other hand, the paraenetic passage in Jude 20 – 23, which seems to echo at least some of the metaphorical concepts of Zech  3:1– 535 (a passage most probably lying behind Michael’s rebuke in Jude 9), was possibly too optimistic for the author of 2 Peter, since it encourages merciful (but also fearful) behavior and teaches that endangered (“infected”36) members of the addressed community/communities can still be saved.37 Such reasoning about auctorial intentions behind missing textual elements is always highly speculative. However, the forceful imagery of 2 Pet 2:2238 betrays 2 Peter’s strong emphasis on the evil fate of those who once came to be believers in Christ but then left again the “way of righteousness.” (2) Regarding the material of Jude taken over by 2 Peter, most parallels occur in 2 Pet 2, where 2 Peter uses the material provided by Jude to draft his own polemics against so-called πσευδοδιδάσκαλοι (2 Pet 2:1; cf. Justin Martyr, Dial. 82.1). Further connections to Jude can be detected at several crucial points in chapters one and three (2 Pet 1:2 // Jude 2; 2 Pet 1:5 // Jude 3; 2 Pet 1:12 // Jude 5; 2 Pet 3:2 – 3 // Jude 17 –18; 2 Pet 3:14 // Jude 24; 2 Pet 3:18 // Jude 25). Between these parallels to Jude, the author of 2 Peter has inserted blocks of different size (in most cases covering several verses) with material foreign to Jude (2 Pet 1:3 – 4; 2 Pet 1:6 –11; 2 Pet 1:13 – 21; 2 Pet 2:5; 2 Pet 2:7 – 9; 2 Pet 2:14; 2 Pet 2:19 – 3:1; 2 Pet 3:4 –13; 2 Pet 3:15 –17). To be sure, further study of this “block technique,” which is in some way reminiscent of Luke’s use of Mark, would shed new light on 2 Peter’s use of his sources as well as on his compositional practices. As a further result of 2 Peter’s working method, the powerful chain of οὗτοίphrases in Jude almost completely disappears in 2 Peter (cf. 2 Pet 2:12, 17 with 34   According to Udo Schnelle (Einleitung in das Neue Testament, 6th ed., UTB 1830 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007], 465), 2 Peter does not include Jude 19 “weil die Geistproblematik offenbar nicht im Zentrum seiner Kontroverse mit den Gegnern stand.” 35   Cf. Frey, Brief des Judas, 127 – 30. For a comparison of Jude and Justin’s Dial. regarding this point, see Grünstäudl, Anliegen, passim. 36  Bauckham, Jude, 116. 37   Of Jude 22, Bauckham (Jude, 115) states: “Those who are snatched from the fire are evidently church members who, under the influence of the false teachers, are indulging in sinful behavior, but will repent when their error is pointed out to them.” For the many textual problems (some of them hardly solvable) which are caused by the pluriform transmission of Jude 22 – 23, see now Frey, Brief des Judas, 119 – 21. 38   See now the detailed study of Thomas J. Kraus, “Von Hund und Schwein . . .: Das Doppelsprichwort 2 Petr 2,22 und seine Hapax Legomena aus linguistischer, textkritischer und motivge­ schichtlicher Sicht,” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 30 (2013): 43 – 67.

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Jude 8, 10, 12, 16, 19). To put it another way: the author of 2 Peter uses Jude to structure his own text, but does not use the structure of Jude to develop his polemical argument. Therefore, the common designation of 2 Peter as a “doublet” or “twin” of Jude might be a bit imprecise, while George Aichele’s cinematic proposal (“remake”39) appears to be closer to the point. (3) Interestingly, 2 Peter’s reuse of Jude does not include a single explicit quotation. This is especially striking if one notes the explicit references to another letter of Peter (2 Pet 3:1), most probably identical with 1 Peter, and to the letters of Paul (2 Pet 3:13 –16), which are treated as some kind of a collection or unity. This aspect of the reception of Jude in 2 Peter is paralleled by the way 2 Peter treats the Apocalypse of Peter. Despite reusing (and expanding) the Peter image of Apoc. Pet. and developing its eschatological teaching, 2 Peter avoids any clear reference to Apoc. Pet. as a text. Should we dare to imagine an author who frankly quotes from various writings and integrates them into his argument while hiding main sources of his text?40 These observations lead to the question of whether readers of 2 Peter were meant to recognize the similarity between 2 Peter and Jude. While some have argued that the pseudepigraphical design of 2 Peter requires (first) readers who do not know about Jude, in my opinion quite the opposite is true: readers who know and value Jude as an authentic document from the beginnings of Christianity would probably tend to understand 2 Peter’s Jude-likeness as a sign of same or comparable origin – and this is exactly what the real author of 2 Peter wants.41 Karl Matthias Schmidt, carefully analyzing the changed time structure in 2 Pet 3:2 – 3 compared to Jude 17 –18, even argues that the present warning from future ἐμπαῖκται in 2 Pet 3:2 – 3 can be read as exactly that apostolic warning which is referred to as an event in Jude’s past (cf. Jude 17 –18).42 Thus, ancient readers who received both Jude and 2 Peter may have appreciated the latter as the older and more original text. In any case, it is worth noting that, according to Jerome, 2 Peter was suspected by “many” because of its difference in relation to 1 Peter, while we have no ancient information about doubts based on 2 Peter’s similarity to Jude (cf. Jerome, vir. ill. 1). 39  Aichele, Jude, 27. Whether the aim of 2 Peter’s author was only an adaption or also a correction (thus Ruf, Propheten, 577) of Jude is difficult to judge. 40   Maybe Clement of Alexandria’s treatment of Philo provides a helpful parallel: Although Clement is eager to integrate a huge amount of explicit quotations from a wide range of sources, he is reluctant in mentioning Philo who is without doubt one of his main sources. Cf. Annewies van den Hoek, “Techniques of Quotation in Clement of Alexandria: A View of Ancient Literary Working Methods,” VC 50 (1996): 223 – 43. 41   Cf. Grünstäudl, Petrus Alexandrinus, 17 –19 (Lit.). 42   The reasoning of Karl Matthias Schmidt (Mahnung und Erinnerung im Maskenspiel: Epistolographie, Rhetorik und Narrativik der pseudepigraphen Petrusbriefe, Herders Biblische Studien 38 [Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2003], 403 – 4) deserves to be quoted in full: “Während Jud 17 –18 von einer Prophezeiung der Apostel spricht, deren Ankündigung der kommenden Spötter aber in die Vergangenheit verlegt, nimmt 2 Petr 3,2 – 3 den Hinweis auf die Prophetie der Apostel auf, fügt die Warnung vor den Spöttern dann aber als originäre Ermahnung des Verfassers an. Dadurch entsteht der Eindruck, der Apostel Petrus habe prophetisch vor den Spöttern gewarnt und sei später im Judasbrief zitiert worden.”

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Summing up, 2 Peter uses almost every single verse of Jude, builds its structure by destroying much of Jude’s structure, avoids explicit quotation from Jude and (maybe) addresses readers who know about Jude. It is obvious that “the author of 2 Peter re-wrote Jude”43 in order to apply Jude’s forceful polemic to a new and different situation. Arguing within a totally different (“other”) historical context, 2 Peter’s use of the same (or very similar) charges against other “others” helps to hide the “otherness” of its real author, who is not a member of the first generation of Christians like the fictive author of Jude.

Jude and the Carpocratians: Clement of Alexandria A little later, Jude was re-used in quite a different way by Clement of Alexandria. This theologian from the end of the second and the beginning of the third centuries did not create a single text with (not so) hidden material from Jude, but rather quoted explicitly from Jude in various writings and in a wide range of argumentative contexts.44 To start with something very typical for Clement, one can point to the pedagogical use of Jude within the third book of Clement’s Paedagogus (cf. Paed. 3.43 – 45). The divine educator, Clement explains, teaches and leads humankind in various ways: he provides helpful doctrines and rules, but also admonishes (rather harshly) if necessary. Moreover, he uses the punishment of those who went wrong to warn all the others and to encourage them to avoid sin and vice. According to Clement, the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah is a prime example of this pedagogy of threats and castigations. In Paed. 3.44:1– 3 Clement retells the story of Gen 19 without explicit reference to Jude 7 (but with qualification as ὑπόδειγμα like in 2 Pet 2:6) and follows up with a quotation of Jude 5 (introduced with φησὶν ὁ Ἰούδας; cf. Paed. 3.44:4). After that, he adds καὶ κατὰ μικρόν (“and shortly hereafter”) and quotes from Jude 11 (cf. Paed. 3.45:1). This sequence – material parallel to Jude 7, quotation from Jude 5, quotation from Jude 11 – gives the impression that Clement first looked up the story of Sodom and its neighbor cities in his exemplar of Jude and then also took over fitting material that precedes and follows this passage.45 Clement uses Jude, however, not only as a source of threatening examples. On the contrary, he is able to describe the perfect Christian, whom he consistently labels “the gnostic,” as a man that fulfills Jude 22 – 23 (!) and is merciful toward his fellow Christians (cf. Strom. 6.65:4). Besides this pedagogical use of Jude, we also recognize a polemical use of Jude in Clement’s writings. This is most obvious in a lengthy passage of the third book of his Stromateis (Strom. 3.5 –11; cf. also 25.5; 54.1– 2), where he attacks a group 43

  Callan, “Use,” 43.   Clement even wrote a commentary on selected verses of Jude. On this facinating document, see now Davide Dainese, Clemente Alessandrino: Adombrazioni, Letture Christiane del Primero Millenio 51 (Milan: Paoline, 2014), 164 – 75. 45   Van den Hoek (“Techniques,” 225) describes a similar working method of Clement which she calls the “jump backwards.” 44

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that he calls the Carpocratians. In the context of this passage, Clement teaches about marriage, chastity, and the right sexual behavior in general. He pictures the Carpocratians as “libertinists” who dismiss the importance of marriage and take part in every imaginable sinful sexual practice. To prove his point, he quotes extensively from a writing of Epiphanius called “On Justice.”46 The mere fact that the passages of “On Justice” constitute the longest extant quotation of an original “gnostic” writing within the Stromateis perfectly illustrates the importance of this group for Clement.47 Accordingly, he develops several exegetical and theological arguments to refute their position. The final element of his refutation (Strom. 3.11:2) is, however, quite a simple one: Clement states that already Jude had prophesized about the Carpocratians and quotes Jude 8 –16 in this regard: ἐπὶ τούτων οἶμαι καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων αἱρέσεων προφητικῶς Ἰούδαν ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ εἰρηκέναι· “ὁμοίως μέντοι καὶ οὗτοι ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι” (οὐ γὰρ ὕπαρ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἐπιβάλλουσιν) ἕως “καὶ τὸ στόμα αὐτῶν λαλεῖ ὑπέρογκα.”

Although Jude does not talk in the future tense about the “others,” Clement clearly reads Jude’s polemic as prophetic “information” about a certain group in Jude’s future. Moreover, he explains the designation of the others in Jude 8 (ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι) by οὐ γὰρ ὕπαρ τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἐπιβάλλουσιν (“they do not try to grasp the truth in a state of wakening”) and therefore makes it clear that he focuses on a dogmatic controversy. Finally, the use of ἕως (“until”) is striking. Clement does quote all of Jude 8 –16, but does not include all of Jude’s text in his own writing. Rather, he gives a short passage (Jude 8), adds a commentary note, and then jumps with ἕως (“until”) right to the middle of Jude 16. In my opinion, that is instant polemics at its best: Clement is not interested in the details of Jude 8 –16 and does not try to show how the teaching and behavior of the Carpocratians corresponds to that of the “others” as described/constructed by the author of Jude. He just takes all of Jude’s polemics and throws it en bloc right at his opponent’s head – obviously thinking this to be a decisive “argument.”48 In any case, Clement of Alexandria appears as an author who held Jude in high regard and used it in various contexts – to illustrate the educational work of God, to describe the behavior of the ideal Christian, and to fight against rivaling Christian teachers. 46   For a careful treatment, see Winfried A. Löhr, “Epiphanes’ Schrift ‘Περὶ δικαιοσύνης’ (= Clemens Alexandrinus, Str. III,6,1– 9,3),” in Logos: Festschrift für Luise Abramowski zum 8. Juli 1993, ed. Hanns C. Brennecke, Christoph Markschies, and Ernst Grasmück, BZNW 67 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993), 12 – 29. 47   Cf. Löhr, “Epiphanes’ Schrift,” 16. 48   It should be mentioned that we find this anti-Carpocratic use of Jude also in the Letter to Theodorus (cf. Jude 13 in Theod. 1.3,6) which became famous because of its reference to a so-called Secret Gospel of Mark. Even if this letter, published in 1973 by Morton Smith, is a modern forgery, it would be fascinating to see a forger using this particular reception of Jude as a typical element of Clement’s writing style. For a balanced and reflected discussion, see Eckhard Rau, “Weder gefälscht noch authentisch? Überlegungen zum Status des geheimen Markusevangeliums als Quelle des antiken Christentums,” in Jesus in apokryphen Evangelienüberlieferungen: Beiträge zu außer­ kanonischen Jesusüberlieferungen aus verschiedenen Sprach- und Kulturtraditionen, ed. Jörg Frey and Jens Schröter, WUNT 254 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 139 – 86.

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Jude and his Modern Readers In many respects Jude is a prime example of early Christian polemics against others. Despite the (modern) difficulties of identifying the exact nature of the theological conflict addressed by this letter, Jude was intensively reused both by the author of 2 Peter and by Clement of Alexandria to fuel their polemical interventions in the context of new and different controversies. Other examples of Jude’s “usefulness,” like Tertullian’s defense of 1 Enoch by pointing to the authority of Jude (cf. Cult. fem. 1.3) or the presence of Jude on an amulet from the fourth or fifth century (P. Oxy. XXXIV 2684 = P78 Gregory/Aland),49 could easily be added. But of what value (if any) is a highly polemical text like Jude today? I would like to address briefly this question by discussing the proposed answers of Geert van Oyen, who formulates the challenge as follows: More than ever before, in this post 9/11 era with all its international, political and military consequences, we are confronted with apocalyptic language and ideology on an almost daily basis. Especially in the justification of violence, biblical and universal motifs of dualism, imminent judgement, good and evil, God and Satan are used. In the letter of Jude there is no exhortation to fight, but there is a strong polarizing tendency. Does it make sense today for Christians (but not only Christians) to read such a text? And if it is read, how do readers have to deal with it?50

Van Oyen begins his threefold answer with a remark on the main thematic issue of Jude: First, the letter is a document for internal Christian usage to focus on the fundamental issue of the central position of Jesus and God for Christians.51

Two elements of this first observation seem to be of special importance. On the one hand, it is worth noting that Jude is definitely not intended as a guideline for the cohabitation of different religious groups within a pluralistic society, but is intended as a reaction to a concrete crisis in early Christianity linked to specific theological challenges within a community of followers of Jesus deeply rooted in Hellenistic Jewish traditions. Yet describing Jude as “a document for internal Christian usage” makes it no easier to deal with the text’s polemical exclusiveness. If even the others of Jude, who were close enough to take part in meals of the community (cf. Jude 12), can be labeled as ἀσεβεῖς, one can hardly assume that such a statement does not exclude all the other others beyond this inner-Christian controversy.52 On the other hand, Jude’s strong Christological concern – maybe crucial for Jude’s incorporation into most Christian canons – might be appreciated by Christian readers even today. 49   Cf. Brice C. Jones, New Testament Texts on Greek Amulets from Late Antiquity, LNTS 554 (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 175 – 80. 50   Cf. Van Oyen, “Heresy,” 224. 51   Cf. Van Oyen, “Heresy,” 224. 52   Using terms like “inner-Christian controversy” with regard to texts from the first and second centuries is, of course, always a bit anachronistic. On this much debated issue, see recently Tobias Nicklas, Jews and Christians? Second-Century “Christian” Perspectives on the “Parting of the Ways” (Annual Deichmann Lectures 2013) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014).

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Second, one should not read the letter to solve conflict situations by creating schisms. One should rather be cautious to draw a sharp line between for instance orthodoxy and heresy, for we have seen that the apocalyptic language of the letter is situated within the context of a dominant ideology and a position of authority. Reading this letter makes sense when it stimulates [us] to think critically about the contexts of power and authority in which a conflict is taking place. Who decides what is right or wrong? We should learn from the letter of Jude that it is more convenient to listen to the other than to reproach him.53

Again, I basically agree with van Oyen’s observation that “one should not read the letter [in order] to solve conflict situations by creating schisms” and that “[r]eading the letter makes sense when it stimulates [us] to think critically about the contexts of power and authority.” But it has to be added that such a reading must include a severe critique of the author’s rhetorical strategy and a profound resistance to the text’s attempt to lure its readers into drawing very sharp lines. If one wants to learn from the letter of Jude “to listen to the other,” the process of critical reading might be even more important than the actual words of the text. To put it another way: only a deconstructed letter of Jude will teach us to approach the other with openness and interest. Third, apocalyptic language is not the only language within the Christian religious tradition and it should not be isolated from for instance the gospels. Severe apocalyptic language can help to keep the eye of the Christians focused on the majesty of God, while in the concrete attitude towards others the mercifulness of the gospel message is a practical guide. And if we can learn anything from apocalyptic language, it is that one should keep in mind that the final judgement always belongs to God and that no human being will ever be allowed to take this over.54

Van Oyen’s third and last point combines a canonical observation with a note on the nature of apocalyptic language. In respect to the effort to learn “from apocalyptic language [in Jude], . . . that one should keep in mind that the final judgement always belongs to God,” pretty much the same can be said with regard to “listen[ing] to the other” above. Yes, Jude’s apocalyptic discourse might remind us about this important theological insight, but only if we resist the temptation to agree with Jude’s very precise knowledge about the nature of God’s judgment. The note on canonical connections is, however, extremely important as the canon provides a framework of unique intertextual dynamics: while some readers will feel the need to criticize and correct Jude in light of other traditions (e. g., the gospels), others might even wonder if Jude’s fear of otherness does harm to the biblical message as such.55 Things become even more complicated if one appreciates that Jude 19 – 23 contains some elements of “the mercifulness of the gospel mes53

  Cf. Van Oyen, “Heresy,” 224 – 25.   Cf. Van Oyen, “Heresy,” 225. 55   Aichele (Jude, 76) states: “One consequence of the inclusion of these letters in the New Testament is that the currents of fear and paranoia that drive both Jude and 2 Peter may themselves contaminate the entire canon-machine, tainting each text that it controls in the Christian reading. In other words, the two authors’ own fears of contamination may have themselves infected the Word of God, not with the opponents’ heresies, but with their own fears of difference.” 54

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sage” (a construction which is itself closely tied to numerous examples of polemical and exclusivist language in the canonical gospels) not preserved in 2 Peter. Therefore, any canonical reading of the New Testament will be well advised to go beyond stressing the alleged harmony of scripture and to be aware also of all the dissenting and conflicting voices within this fascinating corpus of texts. Both consent and conflict contribute to the richness of the message of the New Testament.

The Case for Tolerance in the Early Christian (Pseudo-Clementine) Novel Patricia A. Duncan

Texas Christian University The two early Christian novels known as the Pseudo-Clementines are notorious for the difficulties they present to scholarship. Many of the infamous quandaries of Pseudo-Clementine research are, in one sense, rather accidental, growing out of the simple fact that the work has survived in full in two versions, the Greek Klementia and a Latin translation of a similar work entitled Recognition.1 Still, it was no exaggeration when Graham Stanton wrote of the Pseudo-Clementines that, in them, we find a synoptic problem “whose complexity turns the inter-relationship of the synoptic Gospels into child’s play.”2 The current consensus in scholarship holds that each of the main versions of the novel represents an independent reworking of a lost third-century text, now generally referred to as the Grundschrift, or the Basic Writing.3 This theory of redaction, coupled with the general impression that some form of ancient “Jewish Christianity”4 has left traces in the tradition, has rendered the search for earlier writings behind the existing works a major preoccupation in the study of the Pseudo-Clementines. One of the rather odd consequences of this state of affairs is that the novels as we have them are still not as well understood as we might expect. 1   The titular terminology employed in this essay is not the traditional nomenclature. The Klementia is widely known as the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Recognition as Recognitions, but see F. Stanley Jones, “Photius’s Witness to the Pseudo-Clementines,” in Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies, OLA 203 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 345 – 55, which appeared originally in Nouvelles intrigues pseudo-clémentines, ed. Frédéric Amsler et al., Publications de l’Institut romand des sciences bibliques 6 (Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2008), 93 –101. 2   Graham Stanton, “Jewish Christian Elements in the Pseudo-Clementine Writings,” in Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 305 – 24 (308). 3   Precise dating of the “final forms” of the two novels is not possible, but most scholars place them in the early part of the fourth century ce. See Jones, Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque, 38 – 41. 4   For a discussion of the history of this terminology and the problems surrounding it, see Matt Jackson-McCabe, “What’s in a Name? The Problem of ‘Jewish Christianity’,” in Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts, ed. Matt Jackson-McCabe (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 7 – 38, and James Carleton Paget, “The Definition of the Terms Jewish Christian and Jewish Christianity in the History of Research,” in Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries, ed. Oskar Skarsaune and Reidar Hvalvik (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007), 22 – 52. The literature on the “Jewish Christianity” of the Pseudo-Clementines is vast, but a concise introduction can be found in Part II of F. Stanley Jones’s history of research, originally published as “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research,” SecCent 2 (1982): 63 – 96, but now also available in Jones, Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque, 81–113.

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It is my view that we find in the less orthodox of the two versions of the Pseudo-Clementine novel, the Klementia, a bold and creative attempt to redraw the contours of the contemporaneous religious landscape (probably of the early fourth century) by means of an imaginatively revised history of the apostolic period. Through the rather long-winded and abstruse teachings of the apostle Peter, and through countless moments of biblical exegesis, boundary lines bordering on various religious “others” are, in effect, shifted and redrawn in order to de-emphasize the differences on some fronts and to sharpen them on other fronts. In this essay, I would like to draw our attention to an especially critical moment in the novel where we find the clearest and most direct statement about the precise nature of the relationship between Peter’s “Christian” group and an “other” we should like to call “Jewish,” though the passage in question calls them “Hebrews, who believe in Moses.”5 The relationship between these groups was probably, in reality, marked by tension, but the Peter of the Klementia prescribes a mutual tolerance grounded in the disclosure of a fundamental, if invisible, source of unity.

The Tripolis Discourses To flesh out the contours of the religious landscape in the Klementia, let us accompany the apostle Peter and his entourage to the city of Tripolis on the coast of Syria. In Tripolis, at roughly the midpoint of the novel, the action of the Pseudo-Clementine narrative takes a lengthy pause, allowing Peter to stop and educate a massive throng of local polytheists about the causes of their present state of demon-afflicted misery, the remedy for which can be found in Peter’s piety.6 These “Tripolis Discourses” occupy three days in the Recognition (Books 4 – 6), but they have been modified to span four days in the Klementia (Books 8 –11). There are several other important differences between the two versions, including substantial interpolations in each, but on the whole the Tripolis Discourses represent the closest extended parallel in the Pseudo-Clementine novels and provide an excellent site for comparing 5   The question of terminology for Peter’s group and for the “followers of Moses” in the novel is complicated by the fact that the Klementia judiciously avoids applying “Christian” nomenclature to its followers of Jesus Christ and sometimes uses the adjective Ioudaios to describe gentile converts to its own perspective. For example, when the narrator, Clement, meets up with an old friend named Appion, the latter describes him as a noble Roman who has been “deceived to do and say the things of the Jews” (Klem. 4.7.2). The minor character Justa is described as a proselyte of the Jews (Klem. 13.7.3), and after she buys Clement’s shipwrecked brothers from pirates, the young men report that they too came to love her religion (Klem. 13.7.4). Toward the end of the novel, a rumor arises suggesting that Clement’s father, Faustus, no longer wishes to associate with his sons, since they have “become Jews” (Klem. 20.22.2). For the theory that these “Jewish” conversions are the residue of an earlier source, see Bernard Pouderon, La genèse du Roman pseudo-clémentin: Études littéraires et historiques, Collection de la Revue des Études Juives 53 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012). We need not assume, however, that the author of the Klementia was so sloppy as to leave such critical terms of identity accidentally untouched. 6   The subject of the Tripolis Discourses is expressly περὶ θεοσεβείας (Klem. 8.2.1).

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the views of the two versions.7 Although our interest is primarily in the perspective of the Klementia, our understanding can be considerably enhanced through synoptic analysis. We join the story just as Peter enters the city of Tripolis and is welcomed into the home of a wealthy Tripolitan named Maroones (Klem. 8.1.2), or Maro (Rec. 4.2.1). Before retiring to bed, Peter expresses the intention to spend the subsequent day out of the public eye, resting from the road with his own cohort, which consists of his twelve original disciples plus Clement, Nicetas, and Aquila.8 When he awakens the next morning, however, the apostle is informed that a multitude of locals is already pressing at the gates of the estate, eager to hear his preaching. The anticipated day of quiet, private conversation will not be possible, but before the apostle goes out to address the seekers, he will deliver a brief but fascinating lesson to his circle of trusted confidants. Like much of the Tripolis Discourses, this miniature speech derives its essential contours, its basic subject matter, and many of its details from the Grundschrift.9 It is not possible to reconstruct the portion of Grundschrift that is here in question with precise certainty, but what does seem clear is that the source novel must have dealt in some way with the question of what it is that God contributes to the salvation of his human subjects and what things are left to human initiative. The Klementia and the Recognition formulate rather different conclusions on the subject, and it is difficult to say which may have been more faithful to the Grundschrift.10 In my estimation, each has probably made significant changes at one point or another. In both versions of our passage, the private discourse begins with the apostle marveling over the impressive magnitude of the crowd of gentile seekers clamoring for his attention. The situation reminds him of two sayings of Jesus that, in retrospect, appear to have been prophetic, coming to fulfillment in the narrative moment. Within this identical formal framework, however, only one of the two sayings remembered by Peter is shared by the two versions, and thus clearly dependent upon the Grundschrift. The version of the Klementia goes as follows: And Peter, marveling at the zeal of the crowd, replied, “See, brethren, how the words of our Lord are manifestly fulfilled. For I remember him saying, Many shall come from the east and the west, the north and the south, and shall recline in the bosoms of Abraham and Isaac and  7   For a full and insightful comparison of the Tripolis Discourses, see Joe Snowden, “The Redactors of the ‘Pseudo-Clementines’ in the Tripolis Discourses: A Thesis” (ThD diss., Harvard Divinity School, 1990).  8   The reader does not yet know it, but Nicetas and Aquila will turn out to be Clement’s longlost twin brothers. Thus, the group consists of Peter, his twelve disciples, and members of the family who are the subject of the family romance of recognitions.  9   See the comparative analysis of Klem.  8.5 – 7 and Rec. 4.5 in F. Stanley Jones, “Jewish Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines,” in Pseudoclementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies, OLA 203 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 147 – 49. Jones provides these parallel passages in English translation and italicizes the words he thinks can be securely regarded as derived from the “Basic Writing,” which he also calls Circuits. 10   Jones (“Jewish Christianity of the Pseudo-Clementines”) appears to conclude that the Recognition is somewhat closer to the Grundschrift in its presentation of the main point of the discourse.

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Jacob,11 but also (ἀλλὰ καὶ), Many are called, few chosen.12 On the one hand, therefore, the coming of the ones who were called has been fulfilled. But since this does not belong to them, but to the God who called them and has made them come, they have no reward for this alone, because it does not belong to them, but to him who is at work. But if, after being called, they do good deeds, which are their own, then for this they will have a reward.” (Klem.  8.4.1– 4)13

The two prophetic statements of Jesus that our apostolic eyewitness brings into interpretive juxtaposition with one another are two of the “many” sayings from the Gospel of Matthew. The first logion is structurally closer to Matt 8:11 than it is to the Lukan parallel (13:28 – 29), although Luke, in different vocabulary than the Klementia, also includes north and south in the directional scheme.14 Given the narrative context in the novel, it is possible that the Clementine exegete added “north and south” (ἄρκτου τε καὶ μεσημβρίας) to make the saying better match the description of the crowd that has come to hear Peter. They have followed the apostle from Tyre, Sidon, Berytos, and Byblos (Klem. 8.1.1), cities almost directly south of Tripolis. The second logion appears in Matt 22:14, the concluding sentence of the Parable of the Wedding Feast/Wedding Garment, which is engaged later in both versions of the Tripolis Discourses, in Klem. 8.22 // Rec. 4.35.15 Together, these two citations in juxtaposition manifest the concern that is at the heart of both versions of the discourse, the question about what part of salvation is the work of God and what part must be provided by human initiative. Thus far into the discourse, I am inclined to think that the version of the Klementia is more faithful to the source document. If we attend closely to the particles, we find statements connected to one another with a coherence that is lacking in the version of the Recognition, as we shall see below. The ἀλλὰ καί conjunction that is interposed between the two sayings of Jesus suggests that the first saying is to be understood in light of the second. With the first logion, Peter interprets the coming of the crowd as the result of an ineluctable divine calling. The second logion, related to the first by ἀλλὰ καὶ, immediately qualifies the value of this election.16 The “coming” that Jesus predicted is being fulfilled, but something more, something of human initiative, will be required, if those who have come want to earn a wage, or a reward (μισθός). 11

  Cf. Matt 8:11; Luke 13:28 – 29.   Cf. Matt 22:14. 13   Unless otherwise attributed, all translations of the Klementia are my own, based on the standard edition of the text found in Bernhard Rehm, ed., Die Pseudoklementinen I: Homilien, 3d ed., rev. Georg Strecker, GCS 42 (Berlin: Akademie, 1992). 14   Leslie L. Kline (The Sayings of Jesus in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, SBLDS 14 [Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975], 51– 53) does not find conclusive evidence for the influence of Luke 13:29 here. It is possible, however, that the phrase εἰς κόλπους Ἀβραάμ may have been influenced by Luke 16:22. 15   The saying is found also at the conclusion of the parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matt 20:16) in some manuscripts. 16   Note that, while the language of “calling” is introduced into the discussion via the saying from the parable of the Wedding Feast, it functions quite differently in the gospel context. The gospel parable demonstrates that the invitees are free to decline the invitation and not come to the wedding, however dire the consequences may turn out to be. In the Klementia, the “calling” is apparently inexorable. 12

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Within a nearly identical framework, the Latin version appears to have made a substitution of sayings that will take the first part of the discourse in a different direction. Upon close observation, its connections appear somewhat counterintuitive. The focus does not remain on the crowd, as it does in the Klementia, but it moves back and forth between the crowd and another entity, namely, the evangelists who are needed to spread the message of salvation: Then Peter, marveling, said: “See, brethren, how every word of the Lord spoken prophetically is fulfilled. For I remember that he said, The harvest indeed is great, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he send forth laborers into his harvest.17 See, therefore, what things spoken before in a mystery now are accomplished. But what he also said – Many shall come from the east and the west, from the north and the south, and shall recline in the bosoms of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob – this is now likewise, as you see, fulfilled. On account of this I beseech you, my fellow servants and assistants, that you may learn attentively the order of preaching and the ways of absolution, that you may be able to save the souls of men, who by the secret power of God recognize whom they ought to love before they are instructed. Indeed you see that they, like good servants, long for him whom they hope will announce to them the arrival of their Lord, in order that they might be able to accomplish his will when they have learned it. Therefore, they have from God the desire to hear the words of God and to seek his will, and this is the beginning of the gift of God that is given to the gentiles, that they may be able to receive the truth through this teaching.” (Rec.  4.4.1– 6)18

In formal terms, we find at the beginning of this passage a situation very much like the one in the Klementia. We have two sayings of Jesus connected to one another by an adversative particle. Curiously, however, the two sayings seem to express, on one level, virtually the same sentiment. Both speak to the fact that the crowd of seekers pressing at the gate is large. Furthermore, both are framed as prophetic statements come to fruition in the present moment, as Peter’s commentary on the second saying reiterates: This is now likewise, as you see, fulfilled (Rec. 4.4.3). It is likely, in my view, that the author of the Recognition has added the first citation to the passage. After mentioning a large harvest that is approximated in the present crowd, the saying introduces an image of gospel “laborers” that will allow Peter to shift his focus momentarily and take off in an hortatory direction not seen in the Klementia. The content of the exhortation to these laborers appears to manifest a distinctive concern that can be detected elsewhere in the Recognition. In his hortatory statements, Peter urges an attentiveness to the “order” of preaching, which aligns with a broader interest of the Recognition in maintaining the correct sequence in teaching.19 In the final clauses of this first segment of the passage, the focus returns to the crowd of gentiles, where it remains all along in the version of the Klementia.

17

  Cf. Matt 9:37 – 38 and Luke 10:2.   The translation is my own, based upon the text in Bernhard Rehm, ed. Die Pseudoklementinen II: Rekognitionen in Rufins Übersetzung, 2nd ed., rev. Georg Strecker, GCS 51 (Berlin: Aka­ demie, 1994). 19   See Nicole Kelley, Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth Century Syria, WUNT 2/213 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 170 – 74. 18

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After these opening parallel paragraphs, each of which invokes two sayings of Jesus as prophecy coming to fulfillment, each version begins to home in on the question of the proper balance of grace and works in the matter of salvation, with both affirming that human effort is, in some way or another, necessary. At precisely this juncture, each version invokes “the Hebrews,” but they do so in different ways. In the Recognition, the Hebrews are summoned as a kind of antecedent to the crowd of gentiles pressing at Maro’s gates. Peter has described the crowd’s desire to learn God’s will as the beginning of a certain “gift” (initium doni) in Rec. 4.4.6 (above), and he now goes on to say that the Hebrews had a form of this gift “from the beginning (ex initio), manifest in their love for Moses and their desire to keep his teachings, as scripture attests: The people believed in God and in his servant Moses” (Rec.  4.5.1– 2).20 However, what was once a peculiar gift (proprii muneris) of the Hebrews – a desire oriented toward a teacher of truth (doctor veritatis) – is now being given also to those “called to the faith from the gentiles” (ex gentibus convocantur ad fidem).21 For any recipient of the gift, whether Hebrew or gentile, salvation still rests also upon doing the will of the teacher to whom one is drawn (Rec. 4.5.4). Jesus has not been cited explicitly as one of the “teachers of truth” in question, but Peter signals him in the subsequent admonishment that the audience would not like to hear directed at them the saying, Why do you say to me, ‘Lord, Lord!’ and do not do what I say? (Rec. 4.5.4).22 The version of the Klementia is similar in many ways, but the differences are nonetheless significant. As he does in the Recognition, Peter claims that belief in a teacher of truth is “from God” and that good deeds are the responsibility of the believer. The Hebrews are invoked at precisely the same juncture in the discourse, but they are put to rather different rhetorical use.23 In the Klementia, they appear to serve as a kind of supreme example that is lifted up in order to illustrate the fact that 20

  Exod 14:31.   The fact that the language of “calling” is applied to the gentile crowd in both versions (Rec. 4.5.2; Klem. 8.5.3) further suggests that Matt 22:14 was the second “prophetic” citation that was present in the opening paragraph of this lesson in the Grundschrift and that it is the Recognition which has altered the citations, swapping the harvest saying for Matt 22:14, reversing the order, and adding the elaboration on evangelistic training that is drawn from the harvest saying. 22   Luke 6:46; cf. Matt 7:21. 23   The term “Hebrew” is not a particularly common one in the Klementia, but clearly refers to the people and practices belonging to the elect ethnos Israel (cf. Simon Magus’s description of that entity in Klem. 18.4.3 – 4, a passage containing two of the Klementia’s six uses of the word outside of the passage presently under consideration (see Georg Strecker, ed., Die Pseudoklementinen III: Konkordanz zu den Pseudoklementinen, 2 vols., GCS 61 [Berlin: Akadamie, 1986 –1989], 2:531). The term is also applied to Barnabas by the Egyptians (Klem. 1.9.1), to Peter’s manner of giving thanks at table (Klem. 10.26.3), and to the church at Jerusalem that is under the supervision of James (Ep. Clem. 1.1; Klem. 11.35.4). In each of the latter three instances, the persons or practices described as “Hebrew” are, at the same time, affiliated with the religious movement of Jesus and Peter. The discussion in Klem. 8.4 – 7 is rather distinctive in the Klementia for portraying “Hebrews,” qualified as those who believe in Moses (Μωυσεῖ πιστεύοντες, 8.5.1), as a collective that is at least ostensibly “other,” though the argument will work to show how any differences in practice between that group and the followers of Jesus are essentially superficial. 21

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one must do good works in order to receive a reward (now qualified as salvation) from God. As Peter explains, not even the Hebrews (οὐδὲ γὰρ Ἑβραῖοι) are saved if they merely believe in Moses and do not keep his teachings (Klem. 8.5.1). In other words, if we might expect anyone to be saved without doing good works, it would be the Hebrews. But since they are not saved by only believing in their teacher, it stands to reason that all people must be attentive to the doing of good deeds (Klem. 8.5.3).24 To summarize thus far, the Klementia and the Recognition have dealt with basically the same constellation of issues. Both are concerned with distinguishing between the part of the religious and ethical life that is granted by God (i. e., belief in a teacher of truth) and the part that is, subsequently, the responsibility of the human being (good works, or adherence to the teachings of that teacher). Both show the likeness of the Hebrews and “those called from the gentiles” in this regard. The Recognition, however, appears to emphasize the “gift” of faith (donum, 4.4.6; munus, 4.5.2; cf. Eph 2:8 – 9) and its new “beginning” among the gentiles, while the Klementia diminishes the importance of the calling, at least as it is relative to what must be done in exchange for a “reward.” The Recognition knows the importance of doing good works (4.5.3 – 4), to be sure, but the subject is presented as an interlude in the broader discussion of the “gift” of belief given to the Hebrews and certain “called” gentiles. In the Klementia, the necessity of doing good deeds is a consistent focus. Nonetheless, if the differences thus far have been largely matters of emphasis, significantly different perspectives will emerge in the final sentences of the lesson. At the conclusion of its version of the lesson, the Recognition returns to the notion of the “gift” of belief in Moses that was once peculiar to the Hebrews but now has a counterpart among the gentiles, as is witnessed in their belief in Jesus. Another saying of Jesus is invoked to prove the point: For the master also intimated this where he said: I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have concealed these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to children.25 By this it is certainly declared that the people of the Hebrews, who were instructed out of the law, did not know him, but the people of the gentiles have acknowledged Jesus and venerate him, on account of which they also shall be saved, not only acknowledging him but also doing his will. (Rec.  4.5.5 – 6)

The version of the Recognition becomes most interesting in the concluding set of exhortations that are appended to this vision of two groups, each adhering to its own teacher through the gift of faith given to it by God. The author has already 24

  Here again, it appears that one of the two versions has substituted one scriptural citation for another without changing the basic structure of the discourse. Where the Recognition cites Exod 14:31 (see above), the Klementia invokes Exod 19:9 as proof that the Hebrews’ belief in Moses was not of their own will. It was the will of the God “who said to Moses, Behold, I come to you in a pillar of cloud, in order that the people might hear me speaking to you and believe in you forever” (Klem. 8.5.2). It is impossible to say for certain which version follows the Grundschrift, or indeed if either follows it in the matter of the Exodus citation. However, the “eternal” belief that is referenced by the Klementia’s citation sits well with the admiration that the Klementia elsewhere expresses for the enduring faithfulness of the followers of Moses (cf. the prefatory Epistula Petri). 25   Matt  11:25 // Luke  10:21.

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stated that “works” lie within the power of the individual and must be added to the gift of faith for salvation (Rec.  4.5.3 – 4), but belief is now also placed in the realm of human industry: But he who is of the gentiles and has it from God that he love Jesus ought to have it of his own resolve that he believe also Moses. On the other hand, the Hebrew who has it from God that he believe Moses ought to have it from his own resolve that he believe in Jesus, so that each one of them, having in himself something of the divine gift and something of his own industry, might be in both ways perfect. (Rec.  4.5.7 – 8)

With these superficially balanced statements, the Recognition essentially equates “perfection” with “orthodox” Christianity, for that is more or less where both individuals come out in the end.26 The Hebrew who has not made an effort to recognize Jesus and the gentile “Christian” who has not made an effort to recognize Moses are both deficient. The portrait of the perfect man is, in the final sentence of the discourse, simply and elegantly fleshed out via one last allusion to the words of Jesus: For our Lord spoke of such a rich man, who brings forth from his treasures things new and old (Rec. 4.5.9).27 In the Klementia, the groundwork for a more radical notion is laid in 8.5.4, in the observation that, ideally, no teacher of truth would have been necessary at all. If people had wanted to “understand what is reasonable”28 of their own accord, then neither Moses nor the parousia of Jesus would have been required. Here Peter echoes the saying of Jesus found in Luke 6:46 in order to substantiate his view, noting that “salvation is not in believing in teachers and calling them lords.” Then, beginning already to interpret the divine act of “concealment” that Jesus praises in Matt  11:25 // Luke  10:21, the Klementia shows why, while not even one teacher is necessary, one is sufficient. Whereas the Recognition cites Matt  11:25 // Luke  10:21 in its canonical form and interprets it explicitly as commentary on the fact that the Hebrews (i. e., the “wise and prudent ones”) have not accepted Jesus while the gentiles (the “children”) have accepted him, the Klementia makes two slight changes to create a new, balanced juxtaposition of groups in the citation (8.6.4). The critical difference is made via the alteration of the second of the two substantival adjectives in the pair σοφῶν καὶ συνετῶν. The replacement of συνετῶν with πρεσβυτέρων and the removal of the coordinating conjunction has resulted in an attributive relation26   According to Jones (“Jewish Christianity,” 148), this mutual recognition of the “other” teacher is a detail that belonged to the Grundschrift. 27   The allusion is apparently to Matt 13:52, which likens “every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven” to a “householder” who casts forth from his treasure things new and old (διὰ τοῦτο πᾶς γραμματεὺς μαθητευθεὶς τῇ βασιλείᾳ τῶν οὐρανῶν ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδεσπότῃ ὅστις ἐκβάλλει ἐκ τοῦ θησαυροῦ αὐτοῦ καινὰ καὶ παλαιά). The “rich man” may have been introduced on the influence of a number of other gospel sayings, though it is rather unusual to find him invoked as a positive type. Cf. Mark 10:23 – 24 // Matt 19:23 – 24 // Luke 18:24 – 2 5; Luke 6:24; 16:19 – 31; 18:23. 28   The collocation νοεῖν τὸ εὔλογον (or another verb of knowing with the same object) is used throughout the Klementia to connote a kind of innate moral and hermeneutical compass. Cf. Klem. 2.6.4; 3.32.1; 3.50.2; 7.4.3 – 5.

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ship between the two adjectives, or a single group of “wise elders” from whom the Father hid “these things.”29 The other group of “infants” (νήπιοι) has been made to match the form of the first group with the addition of the attributive verbal adjective θηλάζουσιν, perhaps on the influence of the citation of Ps 8:3 LXX in Matt 21:16 (ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον). Essentially, these changes work to emphasize a “difference in time”30 with respect to the revelation of true teaching to the Hebrews and the gentiles that nonetheless remains free from any radical difference in value. As Peter goes on to expound upon God’s interactions with these two groups in the sentences that follow, he will portray a carefully balanced scenario. It is worth noting that the author of the Recognition has interpreted the logion of Jesus preserved in Matt 11:25 // 10:21 so as to gloss over the act of divine concealment that the saying mentions. Immediately after citing the logion, the Peter of the Recognition changes the subject and informs the reader that the point is that the Hebrews did not recognize Jesus – never mind that the saying speaks of God concealing “these things” from them. In the Klementia, however, it is precisely the concealing activity of the divine that becomes central, remaining the focus for the entire paragraph of Klem. 8.6. The balanced concealment of Jesus from the Hebrews who follow Moses, and of Moses from the gentiles who have believed in Jesus (8.6.1), is an act of God that is not meant to be overcome, as it is by the effort of the “rich man” in the Recognition. There is simply no need to espouse two teachers because the teaching is fundamentally the same (God’s). As the Klementia puts it, “For since there is one teaching through both, God accepts the one who has believed one of these” (Klem. 8.6.2). Furthermore, it must be emphasized that the concealing activity of God is not to be understood as punitive. In fact, it is quite the contrary. According to the Klementia, God has hidden a teacher (Jesus) from those wise elders who already knew “what it is necessary to do” (8.6.5). And because one teacher is sufficient, those gentiles who have now learned what to do from Jesus need not concern themselves with Moses. The system of concealment, in effect, provides each group with the one teacher that it needs and nothing more.31 But the Klementia is not quite done with these two groups of followers of the True Prophets of God. The part of the discussion that is perhaps most revealing 29   The translation of Annette Yoshiko Reed (“‘Jewish Christianity’ after the ‘Parting of the Ways’: Approaches to Historiography and Self-Definition in the Pseudo-Clementines,’” in The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, TSAJ 95 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 188 – 231 (216]) follows the O manuscript in 8.6.4, “from the wise and prudent,” whereas I have followed the balanced contrast of clauses in the P manuscript. 30   I borrow the phrase from Elizabeth Clark (Reading Renunciation [Princeton: Princeton University, 1999], 145 – 52), who identifies “Difference in Times” as one of the exegetical and rhetorical strategies employed by Christian ascetics in Late Antiquity in their efforts to preserve the integrity of writings that were not always easily aligned with an ascetic program. 31   Kelley Coblentz Bautch, “Obscured by the Scriptures, Revealed by the Prophets: God in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies,” in Histories of the Hidden God: Concealment and Revelation in Western Gnostic, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions, ed. April D. DeConick and Grant Adamson (Durham: Acumen, 2013), 120­ – 36 (128).

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of the author’s circumstances emerges in the last paragraph (Klem. 8.7). Up to this point, Peter has taken care to describe two groups, the Hebrews who believe in Moses and the gentiles who are called to believe in Jesus, as fundamentally united by a common teaching but ideally distinct from one another. Peter urges that the followers of Moses should continue keeping the commandments of Moses, and the adherents of Jesus should keep doing what Jesus taught. And yet, the author of the Klementia is apparently aware of tensions that make one further set of qualifications necessary: Therefore, neither are the Hebrews condemned over ignorance of Jesus, on account of the one who concealed him, if indeed they do the things commanded through Moses and do not hate him of whom they are ignorant – again, neither are those from the gentiles who are ignorant of Moses condemned, on account of the one who hid him, if in fact they do the things spoken through Jesus and do not hate him of whom they are ignorant. (Klem.  8.7.1– 2)

In this way, the Klementia argues for a tolerance of the “other,” and a willingness to let the other be other, born out of the conviction that God is not thwarted or divided in his purposes, however things may seem on the surface. God has concealed teachers as he saw fit, and human beings need concern themselves only with what God has chosen to reveal to them. For the system to work, however, there is need of one more thing – a “rich man” who is, in God’s eyes, worthy of perceiving that the teaching of both teachers is fundamentally the same. For the Klementia, the rich man is decidedly not the ideal “everyman,” or the “orthodox” Christian conjured in the Recognition. He is essentially Peter, a Hebrew follower of Moses to whom Jesus, too, was revealed. While the apostle of the Recognition makes no claim of identity or equality between the teachings of Moses and Jesus, the Peter of the Klementia has come to see that “one teaching has been proclaimed by them” (Klem. 8.7.5). This knowledge is not the prize of industry (like the knowledge of the “other” teacher in the Recognition), but it is a product of revelation. Indeed, it is a special revelation granted by God to certain exceptional individuals, and it is patently not apparent to the majority.32 By virtue of his special perspective, Peter is rather uniquely poised to dissolve tensions between the followers of Moses and the followers of Jesus, providing secret assurance that both groups are equally acceptable before God.

32   The revelation of Jesus to Peter is described by the Klementia in a fascinating exegesis of the gospel recognition scene at Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27 – 30 and parallels) in Klem. 17.18. The supposed “anti-Pauline” stance of the Klementia has frequently been exaggerated in scholarship, but the argument over sources of authority in Book Seventeen is one of the rare moments in the Klementia where Simon Magus does indeed appear to mask Paul. On this passage, see Georg Strecker, Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen, TUGAL 70 (Berlin: Akademie, 1981), 191– 94; Jürgen Wehnert, “Petrus versus Paulus in den pseudoklementinischen Homilien 17,” in Christians as a Religious Minority in a Multicultural City: Modes of Interaction and Identity Formation in Early Imperial Rome, ed. Jürgen Zangenberg and Michael Labahn, JSNTSup 243 (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 175 – 83; Gerd Lüdemann, Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 185 – 88.

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Conclusion As our analysis of the private lesson at the beginning of the Tripolis Discourses has revealed, the Recognition and the Klementia perceive the “other” who adheres to Moses in radically different ways. The more orthodox of the Pseudo-Clementine novels, the Recognition, proposes that this other can and should believe in Jesus (essentially joining “us”). The Peter of the Klementia, however, describes an other who does not need Jesus precisely because Moses is already sufficient. Properly understood, the very fact that he does not believe in Jesus is his stamp of approval from a God who provides teachers only as needed. It is the proof that he already knows how to live in a way that is pleasing to God and that he is faithfully following the teacher he was given. If we understand this lesson of the Klementia to be an editorial production of the early fourth century, it seems reasonable to read its vision of two distinct communities, each following either Moses or Jesus, as both descriptive and prescriptive. Here we find not just a clear-eyed recognition of parted ways, but even a theological justification and creative idealization of this state of affairs. The author of the Klementia is well aware that the followers of Jesus and the people of Moses are sociologically separate entities, each with its own communal formations and distinctive practices. This is the way things are, but it is also the way things should be and must be. God has not called either group to believe in the teacher of the other or to follow the teachings of the other. In his wisdom, God has even “hidden” the possibility. It must be noted, by the way, that this perspective of the Klementia is not a view that should be called “Jewish Christian” if, by this, we mean to indicate the mindset of Christians who believe that they should continue to keep the law of Moses. As we have seen, such a proposition is expressly disavowed in the Klementia. The author of the Klementia certainly hopes for a separation that is characterized by mutual tolerance and respect, but his words seem to betray that he knew a different reality. The alterity he experienced was probably characterized, at least to some extent, by the kind of hatred he expressly prohibits.33 In this light, the Klementia may strike us as remarkably creative in its use of the medium of historical fiction, taking the broken pieces of a painful split and retrojecting the separation onto the apostolic age and into the will of God. With the brief, esoteric lesson we have examined, the Klementia has conjured a fundamental and hidden source of unity that, when disclosed, might yet sustain a mutual sense of tolerance and respect.

33   On the likely animosity toward the Pseudo-Clementines from the side of rabbinic Jews, see Albert I. Baumgarten, “Literary Evidence for Jewish Christianity in the Galilee,” in The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I. Levine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992), 39 – 50 (47 – 50).

The Paradoxical Similarities between the Jews and the Roman Other Katell Berthelot

CNRS /Aix-Marseille University1 The question raised in this essay is both simple and intricate: in which way(s) was the Roman “other” perceived as a different “other” than previous enemies of Israel known from Jewish scriptures and from the Second Temple period, such as the Philistines, Edomites, Babylonians, and the Greeks? In particular, what made the Roman Empire different from other empires which had once subjugated Israel?2 To answer this question, I focus on rabbinic evidence from the Land of Israel, starting with a few remarks on the well-known identification of Rome with Esau or Edom, before examining the wider historical context in which the violent interactions between the Romans and the Jews took place. I argue that the Roman Empire did in fact represent a unique challenge for the Jews due to the similarities in how Romans and Jews each conceived of themselves as a people with a divine calling and a universal mission, and that this challenge became all the more problematic in the face of repeated Jewish defeats at the hands of Rome in the first two centuries ce.

Esau/Edom: Christian Rome or Pagan Rome? The identification of Rome with Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, found repeatedly in rabbinic literature, is based on a paradoxical choice. If one was looking for a biblical character or a people exemplifying the arch-enemy of Israel, why not identify Rome with Babylon, another city representing an empire that destroyed Israel’s Temple?3 Why 1   This research has been funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP/2007 – 2013)/ERC Grant Agreement no. 614 424. It has been conducted within the framework of the ERC project JUDAISM AND ROME, under the auspices of the Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Aix-Marseille University, UMR 7297 TDMAM (Aix-en-Provence, France). I wish to thank the participants of the conference on “Perceiving the Other: Ancient and Modern Interactions with Outsiders” at Ben-Gurion University for the helpful discussion of the paper I presented there. 2   For a survey of the encounters between Israel and different empires, see, for example, Leo G. Perdue and Warren Carter, Israel and Empire: A Postcolonial History of Israel and Early Judaism, ed. Coleman A. Baker (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 3   This is, in fact, the case in Jewish apocalypses, such as 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. See, for example, Kenneth R. Jones, Jewish Reactions to the Destruction of Jerusalem in a. d. 70: Apocalypses and Related Pseudepigrapha, JSJSup 151 (Leiden: Brill, 2011). On the various representations of Rome in

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not choose to identify Rome with Amalek, who was a descendant of Esau? The rabbis, however, mainly chose to identify Rome with Esau himself, Israel’s twin brother. As Carol Bakhos correctly emphasizes, the reference to Esau in rabbinic literature serves different purposes. Esau may in some cases represent an ultimate “other” with no particular historical background, so that not all references to Esau or Edom are to be read in connection with Rome.4 Many, however, can be shown to be closely linked to Rome. The identification of Rome with Esau/Edom has been explained in reference to King Herod, who was a client king of Rome and whose ancestors were Idumeans, or Edomites, as the Idumeans were considered the descendants of the Edomites.5 This explanation, however, is not particularly convincing, especially in light of Josephus’s account in The Jewish War, according to which the Idumeans, who were integrated into Judea by Hyrcanus I at the end of the second century bce, fought alongside the Judeans and against the Romans to protect the Jerusalem Temple during the war of 66 – 70.6 This remarkable display of patriotic loyalty could hardly have been forgotten by the rabbis, at least not in the late first and second centuries ce. Several scholars have proposed a different explanation based on the prophecies of Edom’s doom, which are numerous in the Bible.7 Moreover, Gerson Cohen has emphasized the particular relevance of the passages concerning the Edomites in the Lamentations of Jeremiah in connection with the destruction of the First Temple in order to understand the identification of Rome with Edom following the destruction of the Second Temple.8 Jewish writings, see Nicolas de Lange, “Jewish Attitudes to the Roman Empire,” in Imperialism in the Ancient World, ed. P. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 255 – 81; Mireille Hadas-Lebel, Jérusalem contre Rome (Paris: Cerf, 1990), 433. 4   Carol Bakhos, “Figuring (out) Esau: The Rabbis and Their Others,” JJS 58 (2007): 250 – 62. See also Friedrich Avemarie, “Esaus Hände, Jakobs Stimme: Edom als Sinnbild Roms in der frühen rabbinischen Literatur,” in Die Heiden: Juden, Christen und das Problem des Fremden, ed. Reinhard Feldmeier, WUNT 70 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 177 – 208. 5   See Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1968), 5:272, n. 19: “The use of the name Edom, Seir, Esau, and similar ones, to describe Rome is very old, and was probably coined at the time of Herod, whose designation ‘the Idumean’ was applied to his masters, the Romans.” This hypothesis, however, has been rejected by almost all scholars working on this topic during the last half century, one notable exception being Irit Aminoff, “The Figures of Esau and the Kingdom of Edom in Palestinian Midrashic-Talmudic Literature in the Tannaic and Amoraic Period” (PhD diss., Melbourne University, 1981). 6   See Flavius Josephus, War 4.224, 229, 566 – 576; 5.248 – 249; 6.378 – 383; Alan Appelbaum, “‘The Idumaeans’ in Josephus’ The Jewish War,” JSJ 40 (2009): 1– 22; Israel Ronen, “Formation of Jewish Nationalism Among the Idumeans,” Appendix B in Jews, Idumaeans, and Ancient Arabs: Relations of the Jews in Eretz-Israel with the Nations of the Frontier and the Desert during the Hellenistic and Roman Era (332 bce – 70  ce), by Aryeh Kasher, TSAJ 18 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 214 – 39, esp. 224 – 39. 7   See in particular the Book of Obadiah, which, with 21 verses, is very short but is directed exclusively at Edom. See also Gerson D. Cohen, “Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval Thought,” in Jewish Medieval and Renaissance Studies, ed. Alexander Altmann (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), 19 – 48, esp. 24 – 25; Mireille Hadas-Lebel, “Jacob et Esaü ou Israël et Rome dans le Talmud et le Midrash,” RHR 201 (1984): 369 – 92, esp. 377 – 78. 8   Cohen, “Esau as Symbol.”

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The explanation put forward by Jacob Neusner differs from earlier theories, because he claims that, prior to the fourth century, Rome was just a place and an empire among others, with no particular significance for the rabbis: “To invoke a modern category, Rome stood for a perfectly secular matter: a place, where things happened. Rome in no way symbolized anything beyond itself.”9 According to Neusner, the identification of Rome with Esau was a late phenomenon, closely linked to the Christianization of the empire, because “Christian Rome posed a threat without precedent.”10 In rabbinic literature, Esau or Edom would thus refer to a Christian Rome, and ultimately to Christianity itself. Some scholars disagree with Neusner and claim that the identification of Rome with Esau/Edom occurred well before the fourth century  ce. Israel Yuval, for instance, dates the identification to the first half of the second century ce.11 Neusner’s theory has also been challenged by Adiel Schremer, who, in his book Brothers Estranged, argues that “Constantine’s conversion and the resulting Christianization of the Roman Empire were, from the rabbinic point of view, of relatively little significance.” According to Schremer, the link between Edom and Rome can already be found in Tannaitic literature.12 The main problem with the identification of Rome with Esau/Edom in rabbinic sources is methodological: the rabbis who actually identify Rome with Edom date back at least to the third generation of Tannaim in the second century ce. However, the earliest sources in which the sayings of these rabbis are mentioned, the Jerusalem Talmud and Genesis Rabbah, date from the fourth or fifth century ce. During the fourth and fifth centuries ce, Rome progressively became Christian. Therefore, some scholars who, like Neusner, disregard the identification of the rabbi to whom a particular saying is attributed and focus on the date of the last redaction of the work as a whole, argue that one should not interpret Edom or Esau as referring to  9

  Jacob Neusner, Judaism in the Matrix of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1996), 77.  Neusner, Judaism in the Matrix, 78. 11   See Israel J. Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. Barbara Harshav and Jonathan Chipman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 10 –11. His main reference is to y. Ta’anit 4.8, 68d, which builds upon Num 24:17 –19, an oracle pertaining to the Messiah: “I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth. And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies; and Israel shall do valiantly. Out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion, and shall destroy him that remains of the city.” During the revolt of 132 –135  ce, this prophecy seems to have been applied to Bar Kokhba and, as a consequence, Edom in Num 24:18 was meant to refer to Rome. This interpretation may have been strengthened by the reference to the city (‘ir) at the end of Num 24:19, which could be interpreted as referring to the Urbs. Yuval actually follows Gerson Cohen’s article published in 1969, and Cohen himself refers to George Foot Moore’s Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, the Age of the Tannaim, 3 vols. (New York: Schocken Books, 1971), 2:116, 329. 12   Adiel Schremer, Brothers Estranged: Heresy, Christianity, and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 22 (for the quotation). See ibid., 131– 34 and 227 n. 61 for early examples of the identification of Rome with Edom, and Chapter 6 for his analysis of the impact of the empire’s Christianization. 10

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the Roman Empire during the second or third century ce, but rather to the Christian Roman Empire, or to Christianity itself. In this debate, I tend to side with those who want to balance Neusner’s approach by considering the attribution of a saying to a particular rabbi while acknowledging that, of course, this must be done critically.13 Moreover, some ancient sources, including Tannaitic texts and not merely Tannaitic figures, while admittedly more allusive than later sources, tend to corroborate the view that Rome was identified with Esau or Edom from at least the third century ce onward, and perhaps already during the first century ce.14 Sifre Deuteronomy § 343, which comments upon Deut 33:2, needs to be taken into account in this regard.15 The biblical verse states: “And he said, YHWH came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery law for them” (trans. NRSV). The midrashic interpretation is as follows: And he said, YHWH came from Sinai. When the Holy One Blessed be He revealed himself to give the Torah to Israel, He did not reveal himself in one language only, but in four languages. And he said, YHWH came from Sinai. This is the Hebrew language. He rose up from Seir unto them. This is the Roman language [i. e., Latin]. He shined forth from Mount Paran. This is the Arabic language. He came with ten thousands of saints. This is the Aramaic language.16

The passage from Deuteronomy deals with the revelation of the Torah, described as “a fiery law,” at Sinai. Yet, strangely enough, in addition to Sinai, the biblical verse mentions two other places, Seir and Paran. In the Bible, Mount Seir is consistently associated with Esau and Edom, whereas Mount Paran is the territory of Ishmael, later considered the ancestor of the Arabs. This gives rise to the proposition that the biblical verse alludes to the possibility that God revealed the Torah in Arabic.17 Now, in the 13   See, in particular, Seth Schwartz (Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 b. c. e. to 640 c. e. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001], 8), who aptly writes: “To insist on questioning the accuracy of ‘attributions’ in rabbinic literature [. . .] on the grounds that later rabbis and/or the editors of the documents had some motivation to falsify them, and may in any case simply have misremembered, is salutary. But to conclude that we must assume the falsity of attributions, that therefore (?) the documents are essentially pseudepigraphic and can be assumed to provide evidence only for the interests of their redactors, is in fact no longer a skeptical but a positivist position and is less plausible than the one it replaced.” See also Christine E. Hayes, “Halakhah le-Moshe mi-Sinai in Rabbinic Sources: A Methodological Case Study,” in The Synoptic Problem in Rabbinic Literature, ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen, BJS 326 (Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 2000), 61–117. 14   A passage from 4 Ezra is particularly interesting in this respect (see 4 Ezra 6.7 –10). The interpretation of the passage is disputed, but it is very probable that, in this context, Esau represents the Roman Empire, to which the kingdom of Israel shall succeed. See Michael Stone, Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 159 – 61. 15   Another Tannaitic text that corroborates the idea that Rome was identified with Edom already during the Tannaitic period is Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Pish.a (Bo) 14 (ed. Horovitz-Rabin, 52), which refers to the exile to Edom as the last exile in the history of Israel. I thank Yael Wilfand for drawing my attention to this passage. 16   Author’s translation, based on the edition of Louis Finkelstein, Sifre on Deuteronomy (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2001 [first edition 1939]), 395. 17   On Seir and Esau/Edom, see Gen 32:3; 33:14, 16; 36:8 – 9; Num 24:18; Deut 2:4; etc. On Paran and Ishmael, see Gen 21:21. On Arabs as descendants of Ishmael already during the Second Temple

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case of Seir, in order to make sense of the association between Seir, Esau, and Edom on the one hand, and the Roman language on the other, one must presuppose the identification of Edom with Rome. This is the only interpretation that can explain the text. Moreover, a subsequent passage in Sifre Deuteronomy § 343 alludes to a future vengeance of God against Seir/Edom, which in this case can only designate Rome.18 Since the final redaction of Sifre Deuteronomy is dated from the third century ce, this passage represents a clear example showing that the identification of the Roman Empire with Esau or Edom predates the Christianization of the empire. Hence the question: if the identification of Rome with Esau/Edom was not originally based on the rivalry between Jews and Christians, what prompted Jews to identify the Roman Empire with Israel’s twin brother?

The Similarity of the Roman Other An Encounter between Two Peoples Beyond “Rome,” there was a city and there was a people. From the point of view of many Romans, the city, the Urbs, was meant to grow and progressively include the entire world, the orbs or orbis, into its imperium. As Ovid explained, “The land of other nations has a fixed boundary, [whereas] the territory of Rome is identical to that of the City and that of the world (Romanae spatium est Urbis et orbis idem)” (Fasti 2.684).19 Similarly, according to biblical and Jewish representations, the destiny of Israel was also closely associated with that of a city, Jerusalem, toward which all peoples were expected to gather and congregate at the end of times in order to offer their tribute to the God of Israel.20 From the Jewish perspective, it was Jerusalem that was the center of the earth, tabur ha-aretz or omphalos tēs gēs.21 During the Second Temple period, Jerusalem was conceived of as a temple city with a universal dimension and a universal vocation. When the Jews encountered the Romans, they were to a certain extent confronted with a city with a rival claim to universalism. Moreover, beyond the city of Rome, there was also a people. An obvious, but generally overlooked, element of the answer to the question “What prompted Jews to identify the Roman Empire with Israel’s twin brother?” lies in the fact that for period, see Israel Eph’al, “Ishmael and ‘Arab(s)’: A Transformation of Ethnological Terms,” JNES 35 (1976): 225 – 31; Fergus Millar, “Hagar, Ishmael, Josephus and the Origins of Islam,” JJS 44 (1993): 23 – 45; Erich S. Gruen, “Kinship Relations and Jewish Identity,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz, TSAJ 130 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 101–16. 18   See Finkelstein, Sifre on Deuteronomy, 397. 19   Author’s translation. 20   See, for example, Isaiah 60. 21   See Ezek 38:12, Jub. 8.19, and Moshe Weinfeld, “Jerusalem: A Political and Spiritual Capital,” in Capital Cities: Urban Planning and Spiritual Dimensions, ed. J. Goodnick Westenholz (Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum, 1998), 15 – 40.

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Israel, the confrontation with Rome was originally a confrontation with another people, the populus Romanus. Israel had to face several empires in antiquity, but the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian Empires were those of kings. They did not belong to a people, nor was conquest carried out in the name of a people. The fact that the Romans had no king impressed the author of the First Book of Maccabees, who, after describing Roman imperialism and Roman victories against their enemies at length, concluded with the words: “And in all this not even one of them has put on a crown nor have they wrapped themselves in purple so as to show their power by it” (1 Macc 8:14).22 Of course, the Roman rejection of a monarchy-like type of government ended with the founding of the Principate in 27 bce and the growing importance and sacrality of the emperor and the imperial family during the centuries that followed. Yet the testimony of Augustus’s Res Gestae indicates that the Roman people and the Senate remained very present in imperial discourse even after the end of the Republic and that the princeps presented his actions as subordinate to the will of the people and the Senate. At least one of the inscriptions on which the text of the Res Gestae is preserved opens as follows: “Below is a copy of the achievements of the deified Augustus, by which he made the world subject to the rule of the Roman people, and of the expenses which he incurred for the state and people of Rome, as inscribed upon two bronze columns which have been set up at Rome.”23 In § 26.1 of Res Gestae, we also read: “I enlarged the boundaries of all provinces of the Roman people, which had as neighbors peoples that were not subject to our rule.”24 The close association between Augustus and the Roman people is apparent also in the statement at § 26.4 that “Cimbri and Charydes and Semnones and many other tribes of Germans sought through embassies my friendship and that of the Roman people.” Even after Augustus, as Clifford Ando aptly notes, “the notional sovereignty of the populus Romanus remained integral to imperial ideology and received expression in the continued holding of elections through the early third century.”25 The references 22

  Trans. George T. Zervos, NETS, 490.   Trans. Alison E. Cooley, Res gestae divi Augusti: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 58. Cooley’s translation is based on a composite text of both Latin and Greek versions, which takes into account the inscriptions from Ancyra, Pisidian Antioch, and Apollonia. For a detailed edition and French translation of the different versions of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, see John Scheid, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: Hauts faits du divin Auguste (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2007). 24  Cooley, Res gestae divi Augusti, 91. See also §§ 13, 27.1, 30.1– 2, 32.2. As Andrew Erskine (Roman Imperialism [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2010], 10) notes, “The most forceful expression of Roman power and the ideology of empire . . . is surely the voice of the emperor Augustus himself as recorded in the inscription known as the Res Gestae Divi Augusti.” On the double meaning of imperium, see J. S. Richardson, “Imperium Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power,” JRS 81 (1991): 1– 9. 25   Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 28. Ando relies on the work of Jean Béranger published in collaboration with François Paschoud and Pierre Ducrey in Principatus: Études de notions et d’histoire politiques dans l’Antiquité gréco-romaine, Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Lausanne 20 (Genève: Droz, 1973), 209 – 42 and 261. 23

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to the Roman people in texts, inscriptions, or coins were not merely a rhetorical aspect of imperial discourse, but a truly ideological one. As early as the first century bce, numismatic representations of the Genius Populi Romani, the personification of the Roman people, can be found that display him as a man seated on a curule chair, holding a sceptre and a globe, and crowned by Victoria, the personification or goddess of victory.26 This is a very explicit iconographic representation of the Roman people’s rule and domination over the world.27 Similar representations of the Genius of the Roman people can be found on later imperial coins, as well as on provincial coinage from different cities in the empire.28 Under Nero, for example, billon tetradrachms were minted in Alexandria with the inscription dēmos Rōmaiōn, the “people of the Romans” in Greek, on the reverse side, together with a representation of the Genius of the Roman people standing holding a sceptre and a cornucopia.29 The coins offer just one example of how the dominion of the Roman people, implying their superiority, was proclaimed and represented visually on a great variety of objects and monuments.30 A Rivalry of “Election” and “Vocation” between Israel and Rome Roman imperial ideology represented a challenge for Israel not merely because Rome stood for a people, but because of what could be perceived, from a Jewish perspective, as a rivalry between Rome and Israel over the issues of election and vocation. As Gerson Cohen has aptly described it: “Each considered itself divinely chosen and destined for a unique history. Each was obsessed with its glorious anti­ 26   See Michael H. Crawford, Roman Republican Coinage, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 1:409, no. 397, which consists of a denarius minted by P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther in 74 bce. See also Crawford, no. 393, for another clear iconographic association between the Genius Populi Romani and worldly domination. It should be emphasized that the Genius Populi Romani became the focus of a cult as early as the end of the third century bce (as early as 218 – 217 bce, according to Livy 21.62.9). As J. Rufus Fears (“Ο ΔΗΜΟΣ Ο ΡΩΜΑΙΩΝ Genius Populi Romani: A Note on the Origin of Dea Roma,” Mnemosyne 31 [1978]: 274 – 86, esp. 280 – 81, and 286 for the quotation) notes, “the concept of Genius Publicus-Genius Populi Romani provided a traditional context through which the Romans could absorb and propagate such a fundamental element in Hellenistic statecraft as the ruler cult;” in other terms, the Roman people took the place of the Hellenistic king. 27   On the iconography of the Genius of the Roman people, as well as that of the Senate or the emperor, see Hille Kunckel, Der Römische Genius (Heidelberg: F. H. Kale Verlag, 1974). 28   Under Antoninus Pius, for instance, coins with the Genius of the Roman people standing and holding a sceptre and a cornucopia can be found (RIC III no. 70, 71, 682, 683). Under the reign of Julian the Apostate from 361 to 363, one still finds a coin with the inscription victoria Romanorum, “the victory of the Romans,” and the representation of Victory with VOT XX inscribed in two lines on a shield supported by a small winged Genius (RIC VIII no. 207). 29   See BMC Alexandria 19; RPC I nos. 5214, 5243. 30  The Genius Populi Romani was represented on reliefs of monuments, such as the Cancelleria reliefs, dating from the period of Domitian and Nerva. Moreover, the Genius was also found on precious objects such as cups; see for example, the Boscoreale silver cup representing the triumph of Tiberius, dated from the first half of the first century ce. See François Baratte, Le trésor d’orfèvrerie romaine de Boscoreale (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1986).

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quity. Each was convinced that heaven had selected it to rule the world. Neither could accept with equanimity any challenge to its claims.”31 Both the Romans and the Jews had a clear sense of bearing a unique historical destiny that was the result of the will of the gods or of God. Beginning with the period of the Principate, Roman authors were particularly keen to emphasize the Romans’ Trojan origins, proving that the gods had planned Rome a very long time in advance.32 As Moshe Weinfeld has argued, Aeneas’s story shows similarities with Greek founding myths, but there are also striking parallels between Virgil’s epic and the biblical narrative of Abraham.33 Both Aeneas and Abraham are called upon to leave their fatherlands in order to receive a new land and give birth to a new people, which is fated ultimately to prevail over all others and rule the world. Moreover, one of the main characteristics of both Aeneas and Abraham is their piety. Of course, Roman pietas – the fact that the Romans kept their obligations toward the gods and were scrupulous in performing religious rites – is not the equivalent of the Hebrew h.esed or yirat YHWH.34 However, Aeneas’s exemplary pietas, which later came to characterize the Roman people as a whole, may to some extent be compared to the exemplary piety or obedience of Abraham, which made him a worthy partner of God’s covenant, and was emulated by his descendants through the observance of the Torah.35 While a Greek writer like Polybius took note of the Romans’ extraordinary piety but did not see in it the decisive factor in their victories against other nations, Roman authors firmly made such a connection.36 Roman pietas was regarded as the source of the gods’ support for Roman imperialism. Horace, for example, makes the point very clear when he writes: “[O Roman,] It is because you hold yourselves inferior to the gods that you rule. For every beginning seek their approval; to them attribute its outcome.”37 Cicero makes a similar point: Who, once convinced that divinity does exist, can fail at the same time to be convinced that it is by its power that this great empire has been created, extended, and sustained? However good be our conceit of ourselves, conscript fathers, we have excelled neither Spain in population, nor Gaul in vigor, nor Carthage in versatility, nor Greece in art, nor indeed Italy and Latium itself in the innate sensibility characteristic of this land and its peoples; but in piety, in religion, and in that special wisdom which consists in the recognition of the truth that

31

  Cohen, “Esau as Symbol,” 25.   See Virgil, Aeneid 1.278 – 279, 6.851– 853, etc.; Tibullus, Elegies 2.5.39 – 2.5.62. The representation on coins of the palladium, a statue of Pallas, whose preservation was believed to ensure the safety of Troy, played a similar function, since it symbolized the Trojan origins of the Romans. 33   See Moshe Weinfeld, The Promise of the Land: The Inheritance of the Land of Canaan by the Israelites (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 2 – 22. 34   In Isa 11:2 and 33:6, the expression yirat YHWH (“fear of God”) is translated by eusebeia, the Greek term for piety. 35   On Roman piety, see Pierre Boyancé, “Les Romains, peuple de la Fides,” Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé 23 (1964): 419 – 35 (see 419 in particular); on Romans’ scrupulous care for religious rites, see John Scheid, Quand faire, c’est croire: les rites sacrificiels des Romains (Paris: Aubier, 2005). 36   See Polybius, Histories 6.56. 37   Odes 3.6.5 – 6, trans. Niall Rudd, LCL, 163. 32

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the world is swayed and directed by divine disposal, we have excelled every race and every nation.38

According to Cicero, the Romans excelled not only in fulfilling their obligations toward the gods and in performing religious rites, but also in understanding Providence’s designs. From a Roman perspective, these designs clearly favored Rome, which had been granted a worldly dominion by the gods themselves!39 However, from a Jewish perspective, the repeated affirmations that the Romans excelled in piety and had been granted a universal empire by divine providence amounted to claims that competed with their belief in the election of Israel, the truly pious people, chosen by the only true God, whose designs the Jews understood better than did the idolaters. Hence, Josephus, for example, insists on presenting the Jews as particularly pious. In Against Apion 1.60, he writes: “above all we take pride in raising children, and make keeping the laws and preserving the traditional piety that accords with them the most essential task of our whole life.”40 As John Barclay comments, “The preservation of tradition parallels Roman conservatism in relation to mos maiorum, but Josephus’ superlatives (the ‘most essential’ task of our ‘whole’ life) suggest a Judean superiority in this regard.”41 The comparison with the Romans is implicit but highly probable in Josephus’s context. Finally, as far as the understanding of Providence’s designs is concerned, it is well known that Josephus claimed a special expertise in this respect, and even suggested a certain resemblance between himself and the prophet Jeremiah.42 More generally, from Josephus’s perspective, biblical prophecy showed that Israel, or at least the priests versed in Jewish scriptures, had been granted by God a special knowledge of his designs. However, after the defeat against Rome, and the rebels’ erroneous interpretation of certain heavenly signs reported at length by Josephus himself, it was difficult for him to argue that the Jews excelled in understanding God’s plans.43 This rivalry of election between Israel and Rome – a rivalry in the Jews’ perspective, rather than in that of the Romans – went hand in hand with a rivalry of vocation or mission. From at least the period of the Principate onward, Rome was presented as a power that brought peace and order to the world, and in the Romans’ perspective this order was predicated on law and not on military force alone. The

38   De haruspicum responsis 19, trans. N. H. Watts, LCL, 339 – 341 (very slightly modified): sed pietate ac religione atque hac una sapientia, quod deorum numine omnia regi gubernarique perspeximus, omnes gentes nationesque superavimus. 39   On the iconographic manifestations in urban space of the idea that Providence was supporting the Romans, see Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), 203. 40   Flavius Josephus, Against Apion: Translation and Commentary, trans. John M. G. Barclay, FJTC 10 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 43. See also Against Apion 1.212, 2.146, 170 –171, 181, 291, etc. 41   Ibid., 43. 42   See Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Josephus, Jeremiah, and Polybius,” History and Theory 21 (1982): 366 – 81. 43   See Josephus, War 6.288 – 315 for examples of signs that were given but misinterpreted by most of the Jews.

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passage in Virgil’s Aeneid in which Anchises foretells to Aeneas the fate of the people to whom he will give birth ascribes this mission to the Romans: Others, I doubt not, shall with softer mould beat out the breathing bronze, coax from the marble features to the life, plead cases with greater eloquence and with a pointer trace heaven’s motions and predict the risings of the stars: you, Roman, be sure to rule the world (be these your arts), to establish law with peace, to spare the vanquished and to crush the proud.44

Some Jewish sources echo this Roman discourse, and do not reject it outright. In the Legatio ad Gaium, for example, Philo praises the peace that prevailed during Augustus’s Principate: This is he who not only loosed but broke the chains which had shackled and pressed so hard on the habitable world. This is he who exterminated wars both of the open kind and the covert which are brought about by the raids of brigands. This is he who cleared the sea of pirate ships and filled it with merchant vessels. This is he who reclaimed every state to liberty, who led disorder into order and brought gentle manners and harmony to all unsociable and brutish nations, who enlarged Hellas by many a new Hellas and hellenized the outside world in its most important regions, the guardian of the peace, who dispensed their dues to each and all, who did not hoard his favours but gave them to be common property, who kept nothing good and excellent hidden throughout his life.45

This passage has a clear rhetorical dimension: Augustus is described as a good emperor in order to contrast him with Caligula, the bad emperor who did not respect the rights of the Jews. Moreover, in this specific passage, Philo aims to discredit the Alexandrians by showing that they did not honor Augustus in the way they sought to honor Caligula, despite the former’s superiority over the latter. Philo’s assessment of Roman imperial power is complex, as I have shown elsewhere, and his praise of Augustus should not be taken entirely at face value.46 Nonetheless, the fact remains that Philo mirrors some aspects of Roman imperial ideology and of pro-Roman Greek discourse.47 Similar echoes can be found in other first-century Jewish texts or early Christian texts quoting Jewish speakers. In the Book of Acts, for example, the high priest Ana44   Aeneid 6.847 – 853, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, rev. by G. P. Goold, LCL, 593 (slightly modified). Latin text: 847 excudent alii spirantia mollius aera / (credo equidem), vivos ducent de marmore vultus, / orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus / 850 describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent: / tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento / (hae tibi erunt artes), pacique imponere morem, / 853 parcere subiectis et debellare superbos. 45   Legatio 146 –147, trans. F. H. Colson, LCL, 75. 46   See Katell Berthelot, “Philo’s Perception of the Roman Empire,” JSJ  42 (2011): 166 – 87; eadem, “Philo on the Impermanence of Empires” (forthcoming). For a different perspective on this passage, see Maren Niehoff, Philo on Jewish Identity and Culture, TSAJ 86 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 113 –18. 47   In this particular passage, Philo uses topoi that were penned by Greek authors who praised Rome. His insistence on the Hellenization of barbarian countries and peoples in the context of empire, for example, is typically Greek and not Roman. Roman imperial discourse was about peace and order, not about Hellenization or civilization; see Hervé Inglebert, “Les processus de roma­ nisation,” in Histoire de la civilisation romaine, ed. Hervé Inglebert (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005), 421– 49, at 438 – 40.

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nias and the elders are reported to have addressed the Roman governor, Felix, with the help of a spokesman named Tertullus, in the following terms: “Since through you we enjoy much peace, and since by your provision, most excellent Felix, reforms are introduced on behalf of this nation, in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude” (Acts 24:2 – 3, trans. NRSV). The historical accuracy of the account is of course questionable, and in any case, the discourse may be dismissed as mere flattery or captatio benevolentiae, but the very fact that the high priest and the elders are described as speaking to the governor in such terms is significant. Interestingly enough, some late rabbinic texts also reflect the discourse about the benefits of the Pax Romana and of the Roman legal order. In Genesis Rabbah, for example, in connection with Gen 1:31 (“And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” [K‫והנה טוב מאד‬K]), the following opinion is attributed to Resh Laqish: Resh Laqish says: Behold, it was very good: this is the kingdom of heaven. And behold, it was very good: this is the earthly kingdom. How is the earthly kingdom very good? How strange! Only because it exacts justice for the creatures [for human beings]. I made the earth and created man/Adam/Edom upon it (Isa 45:12).48

Resh Laqish seems to interpret the presence of the waw in K‫והנה‬K, the “and” in “And behold . . .,” as meaning that two things were declared very good: the kingdom of heaven and the earthly kingdom. The expression malkhut ha-aretz, literally, kingdom of the earth, can designate any worldly government, but in the context of the Palestinian rabbis, this kingdom was the Roman Empire. Moreover, the surprise expressed in the commentary at the possibility that the earthly kingdom might be considered good also corroborates the identification of the latter with Rome, rather than with a general and vague entity. In rabbinic literature, Rome was in fact frequently described as “the evil kingdom.” If we understand malkhut ha-aretz as designating Rome in this context, then it is possible to consider that Resh Laqish’s use of Isa 45:12 is not based on the reading adam, or human being, but rather, with a different vocalization, on the reading Edom, which designates Rome.49 The verse may then be understood to mean that God created the Roman Empire and established its power over the nations of the earth. According to the midrash, the explanation for such a paradoxical divine decision lies in the fact that the Roman Empire “exacts justice for the creatures.” In other terms, it establishes a proper legal order. This passage is exceptional in rabbinic literature and quite revealing.50 The problem with the Roman definition of Rome’s mission of peace, law, and universal rule was that it displayed similarities with the mission ascribed to Israel in biblical and Jewish tradition, which states that all the nations are to be blessed in Abraham, and that through Israel the nations are called to discover God’s law, to 48

  Gen. Rab. 9.13 (author’s translation, based on the Theodor-Albeck edition, 73 – 74).   See the commentary of Albeck in the Theodor-Albeck edition, 74. 50   As correctly noted by Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology, 56. This passage from Genesis Rabbah may be compared with m. Avot 3.2, which is also positive about the Roman order, but in a more minimalist way. 49

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submit to God and finally to live in peace with one another, possibly in the messianic age.51 The Book of Isaiah, for example, describes the eschatological peace resulting from universal recognition of the God of Israel. And even Philo, who rarely indulges in eschatological conjectures, expects Israel and its laws to be universally recognized at the end of days.52 From a Jewish perspective, the quasi-universal peace promised by Rome could sound like a claim to be fulfilling the covenant God had made with Israel. In other terms, by promoting a Roman messianic age, Rome could be perceived as taking the place of Israel.

Conflict, Military Victory and Substitution With the violent clashes between the Romans and the Jews at the end of the first century and during the second century ce, the Roman claim of bringing peace to the world was to prove extremely bitter for the Jews. The three revolts that occurred in less than seventy years failed and led to national disasters, resulting in a deep despair.53 Beyond the heavy losses of Jewish lives, the destruction of the temple and of most of Jerusalem, I would like to point to an aspect of the defeats that deserves particular attention and that, in my view, contributed to the rabbinic perception of the Romans as rivals who threatened Israel’s place and role in the world. First, the Jewish defeat at the end of the first revolt led to the creation of the fiscus Iudaicus for the collection of a tax of two denarii to be paid every year by all Jews, men and women alike, apparently from the age of three until the age of 62 51

  See Gen 12:1– 3; Isa 11:1–10; Isaiah 60; and Daniel 7. See also 4Q246 frag. 1, col. ii, 1– 9.  On Philo’s eschatological or messianic expectations, see De Praemiis et Poeniis, esp. §§  163 –171; QE 2.76; Erwin R. Goodenough, The Politics of Philo Judaeus: Practice and Theory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938), 115 – 20; J. de Savignac, “Le messianisme de Philon d ­ ’Alexandrie,” NovT 4 (1960): 319 – 24; Yehoshua Amir, “The Messianic Idea in Hellenistic Judaism,” Imm 2 (1973): 58 – 60; Ray Barraclough, “Philo’s Politics: Roman Rule and Hellenistic Judaism,” ANRW 2.21.2:417 – 553, esp. 480 – 81; Peder Borgen, “There Shall Come Forth a Man: Reflections on Messianic Ideas in Philo,” in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 341– 61; idem, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time, NovTSup 86 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 261– 81; James M. Scott, “Philo and the Restoration of Israel,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1995 Seminar Papers, ed. J. H. Lovering, SBLSPS 34 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 1995), 553 – 75, esp. 567 – 75. 53   See Gedalyahu Alon, The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age, trans. and ed. Gershon Levi, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1980), 2:648; Moshe David Herr, “Persecutions and Martyrdom in Hadrian’s Days,” ScrHier 23 (1972): 85 –125; Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 15, and Part 2, in which Schwartz aims “to provide a description of a society that disintegrated under the impact of an imperialism sharpened by the failure of the two Palestinian revolts” (103); Schremer, Brothers Estranged, Chapter 1, esp. 42 – 44. For an attempt to reconsider the impact of the defeat of 70 ce, see Jacob Neusner, How Important Was the Destruction of the Second Temple in the Formation of Rabbinic Judaism? (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006); Daniel R. Schwartz and Zeev Weiss, in collaboration with Ruth A. Clements, eds., Was 70 ce a Watershed in Jewish History? On Jews and Judaism before and after the Destruction of the Second Temple, AJEC 78 (Leiden: Brill, 2012). According to Herr (“Persecutions and Martyrdom,” 116), the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt was even more devastating than the outcome of the first revolt. 52

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for women, and perhaps even until death for men.54 According to Josephus (War 7.218), this tax replaced the tax of the half-shekel that used to be paid annually to the Jerusalem temple by Jewish men over the age of twenty. Moreover, part of the money gathered through the fiscus Iudaicus may have initially contributed to fund the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple of Jupiter in Rome, which had burnt down in 69 ce during the civil war between the pretenders to the throne.55 The Capitoline temple thus replaced the Jerusalem temple as the beneficiary of the tax before the money was used for other purposes by the Roman state.56 Second, the founding of the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina led to the replacement of the center of Jewish cultic life by a Roman city replete with pagan temples.57 If the Capitoline temple to Jupiter was built on the Temple Mount, as many scholars argue, then the replacement of Israel’s institutions and symbols by Roman ones was all the more striking.58 The name of the colony, Aelia Capitolina, was in itself 54  See CPJ 2:204 – 208, no. 421, dated from 73 ce (Arsinoe papyrus). Apparently the tax was also due for slaves owned by Jews. On the Jewish tax, see E. Mary Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian, SJLA 20 (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 371– 78; Martin Goodman, “Nerva, the Fiscus Judaicus and Jewish Identity,” JRS 79 (1989): 40 – 44; idem, “The Fiscus Iudaicus and Gentile Attitudes to Judaism in Flavian Rome,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 167 – 77; Silvia Cappelletti, The Jewish Community of Rome: From the Second Century b. c. e. to the Third Century c. e., JSJSup 113 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 100 –17 (or through 139 to include the discussion of Domitian’s policy). Cappelletti (117) concludes: “The tax [. . .] assumed a political and ideological value that, in many Jews’ view, overlooked the heavy economic burden.” 55   See Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.7.2. In War 7.218, Josephus writes that all Jews now bring to the Capitole what they had previously paid to the Jerusalem temple. However, Josephus’s formulation is ambiguous; see Mason, Josephus. Judean War 2, FJTC 1B (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 170 – 71, n. 1282. On the Jewish tax and the Capitoline temple, see Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule, 374 – 75; Marius Heemstra, The Fiscus Judaicus and the Parting of the Ways, WUNT 2/277 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 10; Christopher B. Zeichmann, “Martial and the fiscus Iudaicus Once More,” JSP 25 (2015): 111–17 (with arguments supporting the understanding that the Capitole in Josephus’s account refers to the Capitoline temple). 56   According to Origen, Ep. ad Africanum 20 (14), the Jewish tax was still in force in the middle of the third century ce, and its abolition may have occurred only in the fourth century, during the emperor Julian’s reign. 57   On the cults in Aelia Capitolina, see Nicole Belayche, Iudaea-Palaestina: The Pagan Cults in Roman Palestine (Second to Fourth Century) (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). 58   Not all scholars agree on the Capitoline temple’s location, however. Some of them claim that it stood where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would later be built. Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.12.1– 2 (transmitted through a late Byzantine author), is the only author who explicitly locates the Capitoline temple on the Temple Mount at the place where the Jewish temple stood. Among authors who favor locating the Capitoline temple on the Temple Mount but not necessarily at the place where the Jewish temple stood, see Amos Kloner, “The Dating of the Southern Decumanus of Aelia Capitolina and Wilson’s Arch,” in New Studies on Jerusalem (Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies), ed. E. Baruch, Z. Greenhut, and A. Faust (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University, 2006), 2:239 – 47 (in Hebrew); Hillel Newman, “The Temple Mount of Jerusalem and the Capitolium of Aelia Capitolina,” in Knowledge and Wisdom: Archaeological and Historical Essays in Honour of Leah Di Segni, ed. Giovanni C. Bottini, L. Daniel Chrupcała and Joseph Patrich (Milano: Edizioni terra santa, 2014), 35 – 42. For the opposing view holding that the Capitoline temple was built in the higher part of the city near the Golgotha, see in particular Nicole Belayche, “Du Mont du Temple au Golgotha: le Capitole de la colonie d’Aelia Capitolina,” RHR 214 (1997): 387 – 413.

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a reminder that Jerusalem was no more and had been supplanted by a city reproducing Roman institutions and cult places. As a result, the Roman victories over the Jews meant not only death, slavery, and increased taxes, but also the replacement of Jewish norms, institutions, and buildings by Roman ones and the substitution of Rome for Israel in the very heart of Israel’s cultic life, Zion-Jerusalem. These defeats at the hands of Rome must have been resented all the more bitterly by the Jews as they occurred during a period of expansion and stabilization of the empire, characterized by considerable economic and urban development and the creation of new provinces, such as Germania inferior and superior under Domitian, Pannonia inferior and superior in 105, Arabia in 106, Dacia in 107, replaced by three Dacian provinces in 129, Mesopotamia briefly in 115, etc. The second century ce is in fact often described as a golden century, a period of peace and prosperity under the Antonine dynasty. A certain optimism prevailed, the empire seemed unshakable and discourses about the eternity of Rome and Roman rule abounded. As a matter of fact, the idea of the eternity of Roman rule dates back to the period of the Principate. In a well-known passage of the Aeneid, Jupiter promises Venus that the descendants of Aeneas, the Romans, will rule over an “endless empire” (imperium sine fine).59 From the reign of Vespasian onward, the imperial coinage repeatedly proclaimed the message of Rome’s eternity to the empire’s inhabitants, either by an explicit inscription or through the representation of Aeternitas, and provincials occasionally reproduced this discourse too.60 Thus, numerous pro-Roman Greek authors, from Dionysus of Halicarnassus to Aelius Aristides, claimed that the Roman Empire distinguished itself from all previous empires in terms of both geographical expanse and duration.61 Such discourses raised the question of whether Israel had been displaced by Rome not only from a spatial point of view, but also from a temporal one, the Romans having become the truly chosen and eternal people instead of Israel.62 59  Virgil, Aeneid 1.278 – 279. On the aeterna urbs, see, for example, Ovid, Fasti 3.71– 72; Tibullus, Elegies 2.5.23; Livy, History of Rome 5.7.8. 60   On coins, for example, the expressions Roma perpetua, Roma aeterna, aeternitas imperii, or simply aeternitas can be found. See Harold Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. II. Vespasian to Domitian (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 86, nos. 423 – 24; RIC II (2007), 839, BMC 272 – 74 (Vespasian); RIC II, 218 – 20 (Titus); RIC II, 38, 48, 81, 263, 265, 597 (Hadrian); RIC III, 621– 23, 664, 1051 (Antoninus Pius); etc. The reference to the eternity of Rome or of the empire is particularly frequent on coins minted during the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, and then under those of Septimius Severus and his sons. Provincial echoes of the idea of Rome’s eternity may be found in literary sources (see following footnote), in inscriptions and on provincial coinage. See, for example, the inscription from Cyprus published by Terence Bruce Mitford (“A Cypriot Oath of Allegiance to Tiberius,” JRS 50 [1960]: 75 – 79), which mentions tēn aenaon Rōmēn. 61   Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.2.1 and 1.3.3 – 5; Appian, Roman History, § 8 of the Preface; Aelius Aristides, Roman Oration 28 – 29, 108. 62   A certain anxiety about the duration of the Roman Empire is perceptible in the famous passage from the midrash Lev. Rab. 29.2 that interprets Jacob’s vision of the ladder and the angels ascending and descending (Gen 28:12) in terms of empires that have oppressed Israel, but have then fallen. In the midrash, Jacob asks about the angel representing the Prince of Edom (Rome): “Is it possible that this one will never be brought down?” On Jews who embraced the idea that God

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Conclusion Thus, at both the level of ideological discourse and that of the reality on the ground, Rome threatened the Jews in a very particular way, and could be perceived as taking Israel’s place in the world. Long before the Roman Empire became Christian, the issue of substitution was already a major one. This aspect of Israel’s encounter with the Roman Empire was clearly recognized by the Jews who chose to identify Rome with Esau. In order to describe what could be seen as a struggle between Israel and Rome for first place in God’s plan, “what more appropriate picture could come to mind than Jacob and Esau contending for the same blessing?”63 The Roman other was all the more threatening since he was perceived to be particularly close; a conclusion that applies to other historical contexts as well.

had sided with the Romans, although not necessarily forever, see Julia Wilker, “‘God is with Italy now’: Pro-Roman Jews and the Jewish Revolt,” in Jewish Identity and Politics between the Maccabees and Bar Kokhba: Groups, Normativity, and Rituals, ed. Benedikt Eckhardt, JSJSup 155 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 157 – 87. 63   Cohen, “Esau as Symbol,” 25 – 26.

Various “Others” in Rabbinic Literature: Between Babylonia and the Land of Israel Isaiah M. Gafni

Hebrew University “Otherness” in the rabbinic discourse appears to have assumed a variety of images, and reflects not only social demarcations but tensions between various geographical centers as well.1 In certain rabbinic circles the “other” may have been a non-rabbinic Jew, while in other cases the focus might be on an apostate Jew who, through actions or beliefs, had removed himself from the community. In yet other contexts the “other” was simply a gentile. At the same time, rabbis of a particular town or larger district might consider those residing elsewhere as “others” to be avoided. The following paper will address various representations of the “other” as reflected in the literature of the two rabbinic communities, that of the Land of Israel and their contemporaries in Babylonia. The varying geographical, political, and social contexts of the rabbinic circles in the two centers appear to have produced different images of the “other,” and these will serve as the focus of the following pages. My first instinct upon accepting the challenge of identifying “others” and “otherness” in rabbinic literature was to take the philological route. The word for other in Hebrew, K‫אחר‬K (ah.er), immediately conjures up the most famous rabbinic “other,” Elisha ben Avuyah.2 And so I set out to ascertain what particular “otherness” was indicated in his case, and whether there is any correlation between the designation of ah.er attached to him and his behavior. Not that we lack for scholarship on Elisha, going back to the middle ages, followed by Wissenschaft des Judentums,3 and culminating with recent works by Alon Goshen-Gottstein,4 Jeffrey Ruben1   For an overview of “others” in rabbinic literature see Christine E. Hayes, “The ‘Other’ in Rabbinic Literature,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Talmud and Rabbinic Literature, ed. Charlotte E. Fonrobert and Martin S. Jaffee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2007), 243 – 69. Hayes reviews a wide range of “others” in rabbinic eyes, distinguishing between “external others” such as gentiles, converts, and “God-fearers,” and “internal others” among whom she lists non-rabbis or non-observant Jews, as well as Jewish Christians, heretics, and “holy men” (= Hasidim). 2   The two major sources for Elisha as ah.er are: y. Hag. 2.1 77b and b. Hag. 14b –15b; all further references to the Elisha traditions will be taken from these two main sources, unless otherwise noted. 3   For a useful review of medieval references and modern discussions of the Elisha ben Avuyah traditions, see Nurit Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses: Elisha ben Avuyah – Ah.er (Tel-Aviv: Yediot Ahronot-Sifre Hemed, 2007 [Hebrew]), 9 – 30, and Yehuda Liebes, Elisha’s Sin (Jerusalem: Academon, 1990 [Hebrew]), 20 – 22. 4   Alon Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner and the Amnesiac: The Rabbinic Invention of Elisha ben Abuya and Eleazar ben Arach, Contraversions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

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stein,5 Yehuda Liebes,6 and Nurit Be’eri.7 Indeed, my initial comments will employ some of their observations, but as will become apparent, Elisha-Ah.er is only a point of departure for this paper, rather than its primary focus. To begin, Elisha’s designated “otherness” is uniquely Babylonian. As Goshen-Gottstein8 and Be’eri note,9 it is only the Bavli that consistently labels Elisha as ah.er, whereas the Yerushalmi primarily refers to him by name.10 Parenthetically, I would note that in another story from the Bavli,11 when Elisha’s disciple, R. Meir, unsuccessfully instigates a putsch in the Bet Midrash with the intention of deposing Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel II, his punishment was to have his name removed from his teachings, which would henceforth be attributed to “others” (K‫אחרים אומרים‬K).12 I will return to this momentarily. Having established this discrepancy of designations, I naturally proceeded to search for discrepancies in the Elisha narratives themselves, thereby searching for a correlation between labels and depictions of “otherness” in the two Talmudic corpora. Here things are not that clear-cut, given that the stages of redaction in the two talmudim are complex, and obvious points of contact in the Elisha stories make it apparent that mutual, two-way influences determined the final versions in each corpus.13 But there are, nevertheless, major differences as well. It is only in the Yerushalmi that we encounter a link between time, place, and events to the apostasy of Elisha. The clear historical background to Elisha’s behavior is the Bar Kokhba Uprising and the ensuing religious persecution.14 The setting is the Land of Israel, and the literary context is Elisha’s behavior in response to K‫שעת השמד‬K (a period of persecution), with the outstanding catalyst being his encountering the bloodied tongue of Rabbi Judah Ha-Nahtom being dragged by a dog.15 This causes Elisha to cross over to the other side, and interestingly when he passes by R. Meir’s academy the latter is informed “behold your master is outside” (K‫הנה רבך בחוץ‬K). Numerous other hints in the Palestinian version seem to allude to the nature of this crossing over: We encounter him outside the academy of Tiberias “riding a horse on Sabbath.” While transgressing Shabbat may simply render him a sinner, his appearance on a horse provides us with the depiction of a total outsider, for as  5   Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1999), 64 –104.  6  Liebes, Elisha’s Sin.  7  Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses.  8  Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner, 62 – 63.  9  Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 182 – 83. 10   Thus the version in the Yerushalmi (above, n. 2) begins with “Who is Ah.er? (listed in t. Hag. 2:3) Elisha ben Abuya . . .” and continues to refer to Elisha by name throughout the narrative. 11   b. Hor. 13b –14a. 12  Goshen-Gottstein, The Sinner, 137, 209. 13   See the summary in Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 173 – 84. 14  Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 174 – 75. 15   y. H.ag. 2.1 77b. The same source describes how, “in a time of persecution,” Elisha would advise the authorities on how to enforce labor on Jews in a manner that would require them to desecrate the Sabbath.

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shown by Moshe Beer,16 the rabbis place almost exclusively gentiles on horses; a story in the scholion to Megillat Ta’anit (17th of Adar) describes how Alexander Jannaeus sent out to kill the sages and they fled to Chalkis in Syria where they were tracked down by gentiles; there, according to R. Judah, they remained undiscovered because their place of refuge had a horse tied outside “and anyone who saw the horse assumed there was no Jew there”17; good Jews ride donkeys, and good rabbinic Jews actually have righteous donkeys that refuse to work on Sabbath or eat untithed food.18 According to one legend, this removal of Elisha to beyond the Jewish fold by Palestinian sources may have been set into motion even before his birth, as Elisha’s mother, we are told, while pregnant with him, would pass near houses of idolatry, and the toxic smells she inhaled had a deleterious effect on the future Elisha.19 In clear contradistinction to the Yerushalmi’s presentation of Elisha, the Bavli makes no reference to non-Jewish intervention or influence on Elisha’s Jewish behavior or beliefs. As Be’eri argues,20 the story moves between this world and the next, and similarly between the Bet-Midrash and what lies outside.21 Elisha’s otherness is the result of contemplation, not political or military realities, and is driven by his refusal to accept the rabbinic (and previously Pharisaic) notion of free will, with his belief in determinism serving as the basis for his undoing22. In short, the Bavli projects Elisha as a non-rabbinic Jew, whereas Palestinian sources find him close to abandoning his national-religious identity. His removal from the rabbinic fold in the Bavli23 is reinforced by the thirteenth and final child to recite random verses when R. Meir enjoins Elisha to enter with him into thirteen synagogues (where the schoolhouse is located): “To the wicked God has said: What right have you to declare my statutes?” (Ps 50:16). Elisha can no longer function as a rabbi, and his removal from the activity of the Bet Midrash may consciously have been adopted by the storytellers in the episode involving R. Meir’s plot, wherein he too was removed from the Bet Midrash and renamed ah.erim (others), with his traditions henceforth attributed 16

  Moshe Beer, “The Attitude of the Sages Toward Riding Horse,” Cathedra 60 (1991): 17 – 35 [Hebrew]; see also Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 196 n. 10. For horses as symbols of wealth and prestige, see also Gregg E. Gardner, The Origins of Organized Charity in Rabbinic Judaism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 122 – 23. 17   See Vered Noam, Megillat Ta’anit: Versions, Interpretation, History (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2003), 122, 306. 18   For example, the donkey of Pinhas b. Yair (b. H.ul. 7a); The horse in the Elisha story, it should be noted, does in fact appear in the Bavli as well, albeit in the form of a baraita, but as shown by Be’eri (Went Forth into Evil Courses, 133), its source is the Yerushalmi’s version. 19   y. H.ag. 2.1 77b. 20  Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 175. 21  The Bavli has Elisha metaphorically separating himself from R. Meir, who wishes to continue learning from his master, by stressing that Elisha has crossed over the permissible boundary of Shabbat. 22   In the Bavli story Elisha informs R. Meir that he has heard from the heavens (“beyond the curtain”) that his fate has been determined and that he is prevented from repenting; cf. Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 174. 23   b. H.ag. 15a –15b.

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to that anonymous source and not to R. Meir. In line with the Bavli’s statement, attributed to Rava (b. Hag. 16b): “A sage, even though he has sinned,24 his Torah is not soiled.” From this, Be’eri concludes that Elisha too is “a sage that has sinned.”25 To what extent do the disparate representations of Elisha in the two Talmudic versions reflect different social realities? The Bavli, I would suggest, may reflect a far more insular rabbinic world: one is either part of the rabbinic milieu or an outsider – even while remaining part of the broader Jewish fold. In attempting to define the Babylonian “other” I tend to follow, to a degree, Richard Kalmin’s observation regarding “Babylonian aloofness from individual non-rabbis.”26 “Babylonian sages,” he claims, “are depicted maintaining social distance from non-rabbinic Jews,” whereas “Palestinian sources depict informal relations between Palestinian rabbis and non-rabbinic Jews: they casually greet one another in the street, dine together in each other’s homes, and literally and figuratively touch one another.” Kalmin explains this difference as reflecting social realities, namely the stronger position of Babylonian rabbis in society, compared with Palestinian rabbis who were socially weaker and thus forced to cultivate relationships with non-rabbis.27 While I am not sure that we can derive such social disparities based on the material Kalmin cites (a subject to which I shall return), what is apparent are the varying images of communal leadership and organization that the two talmudim wish to project. Palestinian sources describe a number of public officials or institutions that serve the Jewish community, including the rabbis, but are not part of the rabbinic community itself. Among these non-rabbinic officials we find charity collectors, (frequently anonymous persons in Palestinian sources, but mostly sages in the Bavli)28 heads of the synagogue – archisynagogoi, and even the seven tuvei ha’ir that represent the city at large and are empowered to buy or sell town property.29 The Bavli, on the other hand, projects a far more central role for the sages even in those areas that are not necessarily related to Torah knowledge.30 Consequently, the outsider for the Bavli need not be a gentile or even a Jewish apostate, but simply a Jew who for one reason or another (lack of learning, improper behavior, or doubtful pedigree being the most important criteria) was either located by the Talmud outside the rabbinic fold, or warranted that removal by some action that would have alienated him, at least temporarily, from the rabbinic community, such as R. Meir’s failed plot.   K‫סרח‬K (sarah.); cf. Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories, 324 n. 10: literally “rot, spoil, stink.”  Be’eri, Went Forth into Evil Courses, 179 – 80. 26   Richard Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society of Late Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1999), 27. 27  Kalmin, The Sage in Jewish Society, 28. 28   E. g., t. Pe’ah 4.15, where charity collectors are required to work in pairs to allay any suspicions, clearly not understood as referring to rabbis. A baraita quoted in b. Pesah.. 49b suggests a clear distinction of social status between sages and “heads of synagogues” (= archisynagogoi) and charity collectors, but compare b. Meg. 27b, where Rav Huna claims a central role in charity distribution, and see also b. B. Bat. 8b, where Rav Ashi makes a similar statement regarding his role. 29   Their civic role is cited explicitly in y. Meg. 3.2 74a, and the reference to them in b. Meg. 21a appears to have been derived from a Palestinian source as well. 30   For this disparity see Isaiah M. Gafni, The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era: A Social and Cultural History (Jerusalem: Mercaz Zalman Shazar, 1990), 105 – 6. 24 25

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This distinction plays itself out on a geographical level as well. In Palestinian eyes, geographical “otherness” was attached to the attraction of hutz la’aretz (“outside the Land”), that is, fear that one might abandon the Holy Land by going abroad. The Mishnah decrees that “all may be compelled to go up [to the Land of Israel] but may not be compelled to leave it,”31 and we are reminded of the fellow whose brother died childless in Tyre of the Lebanon and approached R. Hanina bar Hama (probably in Sepphoris) asking if he might go abroad to fulfill the cardinal mitzvah of levirate marriage, or conversely of removing the shackles preventing his sister-in-law from remarrying by performing halitza: “Your brother left [the Land] – the rabbi responds – blessed is God that killed him; some say he replied: Your brother abandoned his mother’s bosom and embraced a foreign bosom,”32 and thus hutz-la’aretz is metaphorically described as the other, or foreign woman. Interestingly, a parallel story appears in the Bavli,33 but there the brother apparently wishes to perform levirate marriage in Khuzistan, and is forbidden because the Jews residing there do not meet the high lineage standards of “purer Babylonia,” and thus the foreign woman image takes on a more immediate meaning, whereby the issue was on of proper lineage rather than the abandoning of The Land of Israel. In the Bavli, however, a totally different fear exists, namely that one might abandon the local rabbinic community for its counterpart in Eretz Israel. Rav Judah declared that “all who go up to Eretz Israel from Babylonia transgress a positive commandment,”34 thereby causing his disciple R. Zera, who was considering just such a move, to avoid his mentor. That R. Zera was perceived as abandoning the Babylonian rabbinic milieu becomes apparent when we hear that, upon arrival in Eretz Israel, he undertakes a series of one hundred fasts to enable him to forget his Babylonian teaching.35 While R. Zera was not rendered an outsider, the Babylonians did not hesitate to denigrate others of their community who left the local academies for Palestine, claiming that they merely represent the less talented of their number, who while in Babylonia could not comprehend the discussions taking place in the local study-centers (and in the case of Rabbi Yirmiyah were even removed from the academy),36 but upon moving to Palestine suddenly claim superiority to their previous Babylonian fellow-rabbis. “The Babylonians are fools,” decrees the former Babylonian R. Yirmiyah, “because they dwell in a land of darkness they engage in obscure discussions.”37 Indeed, leaving the rabbinic center even for other Jewish towns in Bavel would emerge as the Babylonian equivalent to “yerida” (“going down” from the Land), and thus not only was the departure from Pumbeditha to Palestine considered abandonment, but even the local transfer from Pumbeditha to the adjacent village of Be 31

  m. Ketub. 13.11.   y. Mo'ed Qat. 3.1 81c. 33   b. Ketub. 111a. 34   b. Ketub. 110b. 35   b. B. Mes.. 85a. 36   b. Ketub. 75a. 37   b. Pesah.. 34b; b. Yoma 57a; b. Zebah.. 60b. 32

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Kube was deemed improper, whether because of the dubious ancestry of the local inhabitants (“they are all from slaves”) or their lack of learning.38 When an unnamed person indeed departed from Pumbeditha to Be Kube he was banned by Rav Joseph, the rosh yeshiva of Pumbeditha. A similar case involved a person specifically designated in the Talmud as a disciple of the sages (K‫צורבא מרבנן‬K), who departed from Pumbeditha to Astunia and, according to Abayye, was actually punished with an untimely death for removing himself from the rabbinic center to another adjacent town.39 Inasmuch as more than one rabbinic center existed in Babylonia, “otherness” manifests itself through a heightened sense of regionalism. Different rabbinic spheres of influence emerged, and thus, for instance, regarding aspects of the marriage contract, we hear that “Babylonia (= Sura) and all its environs followed Rav, Nehardea and all its environs followed Samuel.”40 Loyalty to one region effected what I elsewhere called a unique Babylonian “Local-Patriotism,”41 whereby each center came to attach all sorts of derogatory characterizations to the others: the citizens of Mahoza are alternately described as drunkards, descended of converts, spoiled, and ostentatious (especially their wives),42 those of Nehardea are boorish or even sinners (Elijah informs us that the Messiah refuses to appear because of those virgins deflowered in Nehardea on the Day of Atonement,43 and those of Pumbeditha are crooked and even thieves. One rabbi would thus advise his son: “Sit on the refuse heaps of Mata Mehasya and do not sit in the mansions of Pumbeditha.”44 Some centers in particular were singled out for such negative characterization, such as the propensity for theft in the city of Naresh: “If a Nareshan kisses you, count your teeth; if a Nehar Pekodan accompanies you, it is because of the fine cloth that he saw on you; if a Pumbedithan accompanies you, change your accommodations.”45 Interestingly, by the nineteenth century all sorts of maskilim quoted these sources to render all of Babylonian Jewry corrupt, thereby strengthening their new love affair with the Palestinian Talmud and providing a thinly veiled attack on nineteenth-century Orthodoxy, for whom the Bavli represented the one authentic legal basis for Jewish existence.46 What emerges is that communal “otherness” and the casting of aspersions on specific communities was based on different criteria in Palestine and Babylonia, 38

  b. Qidd. 70b.   b. Ketub. 111a. 40   b. Ketub. 54a. 41   Isaiah M. Gafni, “Expressions and Types of ‘Local Patriotism’ among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia,” Irano-Judaica II: Studies Relating to Jewish Contacts with Persian Culture throughout the Ages, ed. Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 1990), 63 – 71. 42   b. Ta’an. 26a; b. Ketub. 65a. 43   b. Yoma 19b. 44   b. Hor. 12a. 45   b. H.ul. 127a. 46   cf. Isaiah M. Gafni, “Talmudic Research in Modern Times: Between Scholarship and Ideology,” in Jüdische Geschichte in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit: Wege der Forschung: Vom alten zum neuen Schürer, ed. Aharon Oppenheimer, SHK 44 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999), 133 – 48. 39

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and the following midrashim to Lam 1:17 that appear in the two centers make this abundantly clear: “The scripture reads: ‘The Lord has commanded against Jacob that his neighbors be his foes.’ ” Who are Jacob’s neighboring foes? The Palestinian Midrash47 proceeds to list those neighboring cities that are foes: Lod and Onno, Na’aran and Jericho, Haifa and Castra. In Palestine, it appears, the distinction was commonly between a Jewish and gentile, or Christian, town of the Byzantine period. In Babylonia, however, the antagonists are both Jewish: “Rav said: Like Humanya to Pum Nahara” (the latter city, Pum Nahara, was considered elsewhere to be a proper Jewish center, as opposed to Humanya).48 If, indeed, Babylonian “others” were those who did not meet rabbinic standards of learning, behavior, or lineage, while Palestinians preferred to draw the line between Jews and non-Jews, how is it that our sources nevertheless attribute to Palestinian sages a sense of extreme animosity leveled at them by the am ha-aretz?49 A wellknown talmudic passage50 describes at length and in great detail the depths of that hatred, where, for example, a renowned sage such as Rabbi Akiva remembers that while still outside the rabbinic fold he yearned to cause physical pain to rabbis by biting one of them as a donkey, the strength of which would break bones. Another Tanna, Rabbi Eleazer, refers to a reverse situation, whereby it is permitted to tear an am ha-aretz apart like a fish, and this on the holiest of days (Yom Kippur that falls on Shabbat). This social dichotomy, in light of our discussion up to now, would appear to reflect a Babylonian mentality rather than a Palestinian one, and sure enough this apparently is the case. In a critical analysis of the Pesah.im sugya,51 Stephen G. Wald has conclusively shown that while the cast of rabbinic characters in the am ha-aretz sugya is Palestinian, all the extreme and violent components of the Talmudic exposition of earlier Palestinian sources regarding am ha-aretz are clearly Babylonian. Thus, for example, all the statements equating the relationships between am ha-aretz and rabbis with violent animal behavior, in both directions, are totally lacking in the earlier Palestinian literature.52 Whereas the Tosefta53 quotes Rabbi Meir as stipulating that one may not give them (amei ha-aretz) daughters (in marriage), neither older ones nor younger ones (the reason being that they may transgress the laws of purity under the husband’s influence), the Bavli54 quotes Rabbi Meir as saying: “Whoever marries his daughter to an am ha-aretz, is as though he 47

  Lam. Rab. 1.17, ed. Buber 46a.   b. Yebam. 16b; b. Qidd. 72b. 49   See Hayes (“The ‘Other’ in Rabbinic Literature,” 260 – 62) for the changing inference of this term, which shifted from a designation in tannaitic literature to those people not careful about laws of tithing and purity, to a general reference to non-rabbinic (or even anti-rabbinic) Jews who are described in later rabbinic literature with extreme contempt. 50   b. Pesah.. 49a – 49b. 51   Stephen G. Wald, BT Pesahim III: Critical Edition with Comprehensive Commentary (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2000), 211– 39. 52   Wald (BT Pesahim III, 234) concludes: “We have searched early Palestinian literature for the slightest hint of such an attitude towards amei ha-aretz, but have found nothing.” 53   t. ‘Abod. Zar. 3.9. 54   b. Pesah.. 49b. 48

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bound and laid her before a lion: just as a lion tears [his prey] and devours it and has no shame, so an am ha-aretz strikes and cohabits and has no shame.” Wald’s conclusion, which has slowly found its way into more recent scholarship,55 provides a major corrective to the heretofore common assumption of extreme dissension between rabbis and laypeople in the Palestinian context, and dovetails precisely with our varied delineation of rabbis and “others” in the two rabbinic centers. What emerges in the Bavli seems quite understandable. Babylonian sages came to stress two major factors that elevated them to an equal, and even superior, status vis-à-vis their Palestinian colleagues. To begin, their Torah expertise surpassed that of the Palestinians, and therefore when Torah was periodically forgotten in the Land of Israel it was the Babylonians that were required to come to the Land and re-establish it.56 In addition, the Babylonian Jewish pedigree was the purest among all Jewish communities, Palestine included.57 Consequently, it was precisely those Babylonian Jews who could not live up to these standards, either because they were lacking in Torah or had aspersions cast on their family background, that might be considered as “others” in rabbinic eyes. Palestinian rabbis, on the other hand, tended to claim primacy based on their presence in the Holy Land, and thus the dichotomy between themselves and laypeople was vastly diminished. A prime example of this radically different hierarchal status in Palestine relates to the authority to intercalate the calendar: “Even when there are sages and righteous outside the Land, and only a shepherd or a herdsman in the Land, it is the shepherd or the herdsman who is to declare the new year. Even if you have prophets outside the Land of Israel, authority to proclaim the calendar rests with the commoners in the Land of Israel.”58 In Palestine the greater tension appears to be with the true outsiders, be they gentiles or various minim,59 and just as we have noted that the adversarial relationship between adjacent cities was one that pitted Jewish and non-Jewish centers, the same relationship seems to hold true for other literary projections of this discord. The well-known homiletical formula K‫אומות העולם מונין לישראל‬K (“The nations of the world scoff at Israel”), usually followed by what was assumed to be either a pagan or Christian argument proving Israel’s abandonment by God and consequential inferior status,60 does not appear to have occupied as central a role in the discourse of the Babylonian Talmud, but appears to be a uniquely Palestinian projection of the other, one that represents the ultimate adversary. 55   Cf. Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Judaism to the Mishnah: 135 – 220 c. e.,” in Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of their Origins and Early Development, ed. Hershel Shanks, 2d ed. (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2011), 211– 38, 391– 96 (394 n. 53). 56   b. Sukkah 20a. 57   b. Qidd. 71a; b. Ketub. 111a. 58   PRE chap. 8. 59   The term “min” is frequently employed in reference to a variety of “others,” such as Christians, Judaeo-Christians, and at times simply gentiles. For the use of “min” as “the other,” see Hayes, “The ‘Other’ in Rabbinic Literature,” 258 – 59, and Martin Goodman, Judaism in the Roman World – Collected Essays, AJEC 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 163 – 73. 60   E. g., Cant. Rab. 8:10: “The nations of the world scoff at Israel and proclaim: Why has God exiled you from your land and destroyed His Temple?”

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One word of caution is nevertheless in order. The distinction between a Palestinian and Babylonia rabbinic “otherness” does not necessarily inform us of the relative strength of each rabbinic community within its larger Jewish setting, as Kalmin suggests. Rather, I suspect that they are indicative of the two rabbinic centers’ foci on what each considered to be the critical elements of Jewish self-definition. Among the sages of Palestine one still encounters a national and ethnic criterion, which pitted the Land against hutz-la’aretz and Jews against gentiles, be they pagan or Christian, or even Judaeo-Christian. For the Babylonians, on the other hand, Israel is to be defined more and more as a Torah-centered community, based far more on an intellectual capacity and legal expertise, with the “other” now singled out as those who do not operate within the confines of these criteria.61 The clash, then, is between two literary corpora that reflect two variant (and at times opposing) ideologies, and does not necessarily reflect the actual discrepancy of the two social hierarchies and power structures that functioned within each of the two Jewish communities.

61   For more on this clash between “scholarship” and “geography” see Isaiah M. Gafni, “How Babylonia became ‘Zion’: Shifting Identities in late Antiquity,” in Jewish Identities in Antiquity: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, ed. Lee I. Levine and Daniel R. Schwartz, TSAJ 130 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 333 – 48.

The Bodily Images of Shimon Bar Kosibah in Rabbinic Literature Haim Weiss*

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev During the reign of Hadrian, between 132 –135 ce (or, according to some scholars, 136 ce), a grueling and bitter revolt broke out against the Romans.1 Leading this revolt was a man named Shimon Bar Kosibah (K‫שמעון בר כֹו ִס ָבּה‬K).2 This revolt, apparently crowned with some success at first, was eventually cruelly and decisively suppressed by the Roman legions under the command of Sextus Julius Severus. Our historical knowledge of the revolt, its course and various crucial events, is minimal. Even such fundamental questions as why the revolt broke out, how it progressed, and what its final outcomes were remain sources of never-ending dispute among historians studying the period.3 The meager amount of information we pos*  I wish to thank Matthew Thiessen, Wolfgang Grünstäudl, and Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, the editors of this volume and the enthusiastic organizers of the conference “Perceiving the Other: Ancient and Modern Interactions with Outsiders” (the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Symposium). This article is part of a research project on the image of Shimon Bar Kosibah in Jewish culture that is supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) grant number: 1258/11. 1   As a rule, a scholarly consensus reigns regarding the dating of the revolt; however, there is some debate over whether the revolt ended in 135 or 136 ce. Some scholars argue that the revolt ended in 135; see, for instance, Samuel Yevin, Milchemet Bar-Kokhva (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1946), 53, 116 [Hebrew]; Shmuel Abramski, Bar-Kokhva Nesi Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Masadah, 1961), 52 [Hebrew]; Menachem Mor, The Bar-Kochba Revolt: Its Extent and Effect (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, 1991), 7 [Hebrew]. In contrast to these scholars, Werner Eck (“The Bar-Kokhba Revolt: The Roman Point of View,” JRS 89 [1999]: 76 – 89, esp. 87 – 88, and the bibliographical references in n. 92) claims that the revolt ended in 136 ce. Instead of offering his own authoritative view on this point, Aharon Oppenheimer presents the two aforementioned approaches in “Developments in the Study of the Bar-Kokhva Revolt During the Sixty Years of the State of Israel,” Zion 74 (2009): 65 – 94. 2   Regarding the different names of Bar Kosibah and their significance, see Haim Weiss, “There Was a Man in Israel – Bar-Kosibah Was His Name!,” JSQ 21 (2014): 99 –115. 3   See, for instance, Peter Schäfer’s general assertion (“Preface,” in The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome, ed. Peter Schäfer, TSAJ 100 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], vii – xx [vii]): “Unlike the First War to which a multi-volume book by an eyewitness, the Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, is dedicated, the Second War did not find its contemporary historian . . . Many questions regarding the precise circumstances of the war remain unanswered.” Within the context of this article, I do not intend to engage in the complex historical debate over the reasons for the revolt. However, a few basic reasons may be adduced: a) the plowing of Jerusalem to ready it for its rebirth as Aelia Capitolina; b) the prohibition against performing circumcision; and c) the peasants’ revolt. Eck’s overview (“Bar-Kokhba Revolt,” 76) speaks volumes in this regard: “The papyrological finds in the Judean Desert, the large scale archaeological surveys resulting in the discovery of the scores of ‘hiding places’ at different sites, and the evaluation of the coinage and the coinhoards all extended our knowledge, but failed to create more unanimity regarding different aspects of the revolt – its causes, its course, and finally its result for the history of Judaism and that of Rome.”

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sess is based on a complex and politically charged mixture of history, folklore, literature, and theology. In what follows I would like to examine a key text in rabbinic literature concerning Bar Kosibah and his last battle, which took place in Bethar. This textual unit will help us decipher the complex attitude of the Sages to the revolt and to one of the most interesting questions regarding Bar Kosibah – the question of his physical otherness, and its relation to his image as Messiah. I intend to show that the literary structure of this unit uncovers an unresolved rabbinic ambivalence toward the use of force. I will further argue that the Sages harbored mixed feelings towards Bar Kosibah and his fellow warriors: a mixture of dread, fear, and reserve on the one hand, and a messianically bent admiration for that selfsame force on the other hand. In Lamentations Rabbah, a Rabbinic Palestinian text from fifth or sixth century, there is a long and detailed literary unit about the revolt and its leader. This unit is part of a longer literary framework dealing with the Bar Kosibah revolt and its bitter consequences.4 Lamentations Rabbah 2:2 (Buber)5 Translation Text Rabbi interpreted the verse “The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands are the hands of Esau” the voice of Jacob cries out because of what the hands of Esau did in Bethar. R. Yoh.anan interpreted the verse in this way: The voice is the voice of Caesar Hadrian who killed eighty thousand myriads in Bethar. Said R. Yoh.anan: “Eighty thousand pairs of trumpeters besieged Bethar, each commanding several companies and Ben Kozbah commanded two hundred thousand men with amputated fingers. The Sages sent word to him: “Till when will you go on mutilating the men of Israel?” Said he: “How else shall I test them?” They answered: “Do not enlist anyone who cannot pull up a cedar from Lebanon.” He had done so and had two hundred thousand men of one sort and two hundred thousand of the other.

K‫רבי היה דורש “הקול קול יעקב‬ ,)‫והידים ידי עשו” (בראשית כז כב‬ ‫קולו של יעקב צווחת ממה שעשו ידי‬ ‫ ור' יוחנן היה דורש קול‬,‫עשו בביתר‬ ‫אדריינוס קיסר שהרג בביתר שמונים‬ ‫ א“ר יוחנן שמונים‬.‫אלף רבוא בני אדם‬ ‫אלף זוגות של תוקעי קרנות היו צרים‬ ‫ וכל אחד מהם היה ממונה על‬,‫על ביתר‬ ‫ והיה שם בן כוזבא והיו‬,‫כמה חיילות‬ ‫ שלחו‬,‫לו מאתים אלף מטיפי אצבע‬ ‫חכמים ואמרו לו עד מתי אתה מעמיד‬ ‫ א“ל ואיך אעשה‬,‫בעלי מומין בישראל‬ ‫ שלחו לו ואמרו כל מי שאינו‬,‫לבודקן‬ ‫ אל תכתבהו‬,‫תולש ארז מן לבנון‬ ‫ והיו לו‬,‫ עבד כן‬.‫באיסטרטיא שלך‬ ‫ ומאתים אלף מכאן‬,‫מאתים אלף מכאן‬K

1

4   This textual unit has parallels in the Palestinian Talmud (y. Ta’anit 4.5), as well as in other manuscripts of Lamentations Rabbah. For a more detailed literary and cultural discussion of this unit, see Galit Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature, trans. Batya Stein, Contraversions (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 160 – 69. 5   The translation is based on Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life, 161– 62.

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123

Translation Text When going into battle, he said: “Lord of the Universe, do not help us and do not shame us, as it is written: ‘Is it not you, God, you who have now rejected us and no longer go out with our armies’ (Psalm 60).”

‫ן‬K ‫ובשעה שיוצא למלחמה היה אומר רבו‬ ,‫כל העולמים לא תסעדינן ולא תכספינן‬ ‫הה“ד “הלא אלהים זנחתנו ולא תצא‬ )‫אלהים בצבאותינו” (תהלים ס‬K

2

What was Ben-Kozbah strength? They said: “When going into battle, he caught the catapults with one of his knees and hurled them back, killing several people”

K‫בשעה‬

3

K‫לבן‬

‫ אמרו‬,‫מה היה כחו של בן כוזבא‬ ‫שיוצא למלחמה היה מקבל אבני בליס־‬ ‫ והיה ניתזת‬,‫טרא באחד מארכובותיו‬ .‫ממנו והולכת והורגת כמה אנשים‬K

Said R. Yoh.anan: “When R. Akiva looked at Ben-Kozbah he said, ‘There shall come a star out of Jacob’ (Num 24:17). ‘A star of Jacob,’ this refers to the king Messiah.” R. Yoh.anan b. Toratha said: “Akiva, grass will grow on your cheeks and still the son of David will not have come.”

‫א“ר יוחנן כד הוה חזי ר‘ עקיבה‬ ”‫כוזבא הוה אמר “דרך כוכב מיעקב‬ ‫ זה‬,‫ דרך כוכבא מיעקב‬,)‫(במדבר כד יז‬ ‫ א“ר יוחנן בן תורתא‬,‫מלך המשיח‬ ‫ ועדיין בן‬,‫עקיבא יעלו עשבים בלחייך‬ .‫דוד אינו בא‬K

4

For three and a half year, Hadrian besieged Bethar. And R. Eleazar of Modi’in sat wearing sackcloth and ashes and praying: “Lord of the Universe, do not sit in judgment today, do not sit in judgment today.” As Hadrian could not conquer the city, he considered withdrawing. A Cuthean was with him, and he said [to Hadrian]: “Be patient today and I will help you subdue it. But as long as this hen sits on the hatchling, on the sackcloth, and on the ashes, you cannot conquer it.” After the apostate had said what he said, he entered the city. He found R. Eleazar standing and praying. He pretended to whisper in his ear, and R. Eleazar did not notice him. People went and told Bar Kozbah: “Your friend asked to surrender the city.” He sent for the apostate and said to him: “What did you say to him?” He replied: “If I tell you, I divulge the king’s secrets, and if I do not tell you, you will kill me. Better you should kill me than the king, and the king’s secrets should not be known.” Nevertheless, Ben Kozbah believed that R. Eleazar had intended to surrender the city. When R. Eleazar finished praying, Ben Kozbah sent for him and asked: “What did the Cuthean say to you?” Said he: “I did not see the man.” Ben Kozbah kicked him and killed him.

K‫שלש שנים ומחצה עשה אדריינוס‬ ‫ והיה ר‘ אלעזר המודעי‬,‫מקיף בביתר‬ ‫יושב בשק ובאפר ומתפלל ואומר רבון‬ ‫ אל‬.‫כל העולמים אל תשב בדין היום‬ ‫ כיון שלא היה יכול‬,‫תשב בדין היום‬ ‫ הוה עימיה‬,‫ ביקש לחזור לו‬,‫לכבשה‬ ‫חד כותי א“ל הארך רוחך יומא הדין‬ ‫ אלא כל יומא‬,‫ואנא עביד לך כביש ליה‬ ‫דתרנגולתא יתבא על פרחיא ועל שקא‬ ,‫ועל קיטמא לית את יכיל כביש לה‬ ‫אמר ההוא שמדיה מה דאמר ובא ועל‬ ‫ אשכח ר‘ אלעזר קאים‬,‫ליה למדינתא‬ ,‫ עבד גרמיה לחיש ליה באודניה‬,‫מצלי‬ ‫ אזלו ואמ־‬,‫ולא ארגיש ביה ר‘ אלעזר‬ ‫רון ליה לבר כוזבא חבירתך בעא‬ ‫ שלח ואייתי ההוא‬,‫ממסר מדינתא‬ ‫ אמר אי‬,‫ א“ל מאי אמרת ליה‬,‫שמדיה‬ ‫אנא אימא לך אנא מפרסם מיסטורון‬ ‫ ואי אנא לא אימא לך את קטיל‬,‫דמלכא‬ ‫ טב דתקטל יתי מדקטלנני מלכא‬,‫יתי‬ ‫ אעפ“כ‬,‫ולא נפרסם מיסטרין דמלכותא‬ ‫ כיון‬,‫סבר בדעתיה ממסר מדינתא‬ ‫ שלח ואייתי־‬,‫דחסל ר‘ אלעזר מצלי‬ ‫ א“ל לא‬,‫ א“ל מה אמר לך הדין‬,‫תיה‬ ‫ בעטו והרגו‬,‫חמיתי בר נש הדין‬K

5

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Haim Weiss

Translation Text A heavenly voice [Bat-qol] then issued forth and declared: “Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! May his arm be completely withered, his right eye totally blinded” (Zech 11:17). Said the Holy One, blessed be He: “You have broken the arm of Israel and blinded its right eye; therefore, that man’s arm will wither and his right eye will dim.”

K‫באותה שעה יצתה בת קול והיתה‬ ‫מכרזת ואומרת “הוי רועי האליל עוזבי‬ ‫הצאן חרב על זרועו ועל עין ימינו‬ ‫זרועו יבוש תיבש ועין ימינו כהה‬ ‫ אמר הקדוש‬,)‫תכהה” (זכריה יא יז‬ ‫ברוך הוא שברת זרוען של ישראל‬ ‫ לפיכך האיש ההוא‬,‫וסימית עין ימינו‬ ‫ ועין ימינו כהה‬,‫זרועו יבוש תיבש‬ ‫תכהה‬K

6

Forthwith, Bethar was conquered and Ben Kozbah was killed. His head was taken to Hadrian, who asked: “Who killed him?” “A soldier killed him,” they replied. Hadrian did not believe them and ordered: “Go and bring his body to me.” They went and brought his body, and found a snake curled on his knees.

K.‫מיד נכבשה ביתר ונהרג בן כוזבא‬ ‫ אמר‬,‫אזלין טעינין ראשו גבי אדריינוס‬ ‫ אמרין חד גונתיי‬,‫מאן קטיל הדין‬ ‫ אמר להון‬,‫ לא האמין להון‬,‫קטליה‬ ‫ אזלון ואייתון‬,‫אזלון אייתון לי פטומי‬ ]‫ליה פטומי ואשכח (חבינא) [חכינא‬ ‫כריכא על ארכובתיה‬K

7

Said he: “Had his God not slain him, who could have beaten him? To fulfill the verse: ‘Unless their Rock had sold them, unless the Lord had given them up’ (Deut 32:30).”

K‫אמר אילולי אלהא דהדין קטליה מאן‬ ‫ לקיים מה שנאמר “אם‬,‫הוה יכיל ליה‬ ”‫לא כי צורם מכרם וה‘ הסגירם‬ .)‫(דברים לב ל‬K

8

The unit shows a mixed and highly charged disposition toward the revolt, and especially toward its leader, Bar Kosibah. It starts off with extremely inflated numbers: it claims that 80 thousand myriads of soldiers (about 800 million) participated in the battle of Bethar, and that Bar Kosibah himself had at least 400,000 men under his command, half of them with amputated fingers, while the other half were so strong they could pull up Lebanon cedars. Bar Kosibah himself is portrayed as boastful towards the heavens, for as he goes into battle he asks God not to interfere and not to come to his aid. At the same time, R. Akiva calls Bar Kosibah the King Messiah. Bar Kosibah is further depicted as a man of immense physical strength: as someone who can hurl catapult stones with his knees, and who uses those same legs to kick R. Eleazar Ha-Moddai to death in an outburst of rage and without any due process to speak of. It is not merely the contents of the unit that point to the complicated attitude of the Sages towards the revolt and its leader; this attitude is indicated by the literary structure as well. The unit is divided into eight sections alternating between descriptive sections concerning Bar Kosibah, his army, and the stages of the revolt, and what one might call reflective sections, devoted to religious or theological themes. These convey the views of four central figures in the story of the revolt: first, Bar Kosibah himself, then R. Akiva, then a heavenly voice (bat-qol), and finally the theological insight of Emperor Hadrian himself about the surprising demise of Bar Kosibah. In order to demonstrate the workings of this alternating structure, this calculated, precise dialogue between military, physical descriptions, and theological responses,

The Bodily Images of Shimon Bar Kosibah in Rabbinic Literature

125

I would like to dedicate the rest of this article to a close reading of the first four sections. I will try to show how they build a narrative and symbolic system that intends to depict Bar Kosibah as an arrogant leader, whose exceptional physical strength is understood both by himself and by R. Akiva as having theological ramifications. The following four sections, which will not be dealt with in this article, serve as a kind of inverted reflection of the first four, depicting the demise of the same Messiah. The first section opens with an exaggerated description of the battle in Bethar. The generous numbers are not meant, of course, to give an accurate estimate of the actual number of participants, but rather to underscore the magnitude of the killing and devastation. This statement adds to other rabbinic, Christian, and Roman sources, all stressing the horrific death toll after the crushing of the revolt.6 I would like to focus on the depiction of Bar Kosibah’s army, and particularly the strange trial of courage he puts his warriors through: Bar Kosibah asks each of his men to amputate a finger and thus prove their loyalty. Trials of pain and mutilation are familiar elements in rites of passage, whereby adolescents are initiated into societies of men. In the writings of Greek and Roman historians we also find tales of warriors aggravating their own injuries in order to return from the battlefield bearing more respectable and more heroic scars. But Bar Kosibah’s trial of courage in this case is unusual, because when he asks his men to mutilate their fingers he hurts their effectiveness in battle, turning them into cripples – “ba’alei mumin” as the Sages call them. Armando Favazza has argued that the self-mutilation of limbs, and especially the amputating of fingers, is an act of self-castration, symbolizing the willingness to relinquish one’s individual identity in order to become part of the group to which one belongs.7 What Bar Kosibah demands of his men is to go through a symbolic circumcision (Hebrew: Brith), meant to demonstrate their loyalty to him and to his army, much the same way as the circumcision and the injury to the male organ symbolize a boy’s initiation into the Jewish community. I would like to reinforce this argument with a short quote from Genesis Rabbah, a parable making the analogy between an injury to the finger and circumcision: [“Walk before me faithfully and be blameless”] R. Levi said: “This may be illustrated by a noble lady whom the king commanded, ‘Walk before me.’ She walked before him and her face 6   The use of hyperbolic figures suggests that, rather than providing the exact number of participants in the battles, they serve as a tool to emphasize the enormity of the destruction. This description coincides with numerous other accounts in the Talmud and Midrashim, as well as in Roman and Christian sources, which recount the horrors of death and intensity of slaughter in Bethar and throughout the Land of Israel following the suppression of the revolt. See, for instance, Dio Cassius’s account of the rebellion outcome: “Fifty of their most important outpost and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate, a result of which the people had had forewarning before the war” (Roman History 69.14.1– 2, trans. LCL). 7   See Armando R. Favazza, Bodies Under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 132 – 35.

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went pale, for, thought she, ‘Who knows but that some defect may have been found in me?’ Said the king to her, ‘You have no defect, but that the nail of your little finger is slightly too long; pare it and the defect will be gone.’ Similarly, God said to Abraham, ‘You have no other defect but this foreskin: remove it and the defect will be gone’.” (Gen Rab. 46.4)

At the heart of the second section stands Bar Kosibah’s strange prayer. He opens with the well-known formula “Lord of the Universe,” but then asks the Lord not to interfere in the battle itself, for He cannot be relied upon: there is no telling whether the Lord would aid his men in battle or shame himself and them alike. The narrator attaches to Bar Kosibah’s strange prayer a verse from Psalms 60, “Is it not you, God, you who have now rejected us and no longer go out with our armies.” But in contrast to the biblical narrator, who goes on to ask the Lord for future protection and help in battle – “Give us aid against the enemy, for human help is worthless” – in Bar Kosibah’s case, the narrator seems to turn things around and actually favor help by man.8 Bar Kosibah’s prayer goes against the very theological foundations of prayer, for prayer is founded on acknowledging God’s might, on recognizing his ability to help the supplicant and provide what he requests; but in this case Bar Kosibah asks of God not to help. Bar Kosibah uses the formula “Lord of the Universe,” but then frames that same Master of the World as someone who cannot be trusted, a fickle God whose intervention in battle should be avoided, relying instead on the physical prowess of Bar Kosibah and his men. Bar Kosibah’s arrogance toward God is closely related to his exceptional strength, as depicted in the next section: “When going into battle, he caught the catapults with one of his knees and hurled them back, killing several people.”9 As Israel Shatzman shows, the catapult was one of the strongest and most effective siege weapons that the Roman army – or any other regular army of the period – had at its disposal.10 It was a cumbersome weapon, big and complicated to maintain and operate, requiring large crews. It was used by regular armies, not by guerilla forces of rebels. When Josephus writes about the Great Revolt, he makes it quite clear that this sort of weapon was much dreaded by rebels under siege (War 4.17 – 20). However, in rabbinic literature, the catapult is usually not mentioned as a concrete weapon used in actual battle; rather, it serves as a metaphor for the great power of mythical creatures or for the strength of God or his proxies in fighting their enemies. The catapult as a metaphor for God’s strength is frequently used in accounts of the Plagues of Egypt. Here is one example, from a tannaitic source, depicting the plague of darkness: . . . for the Egyptians who were enshrouded in darkness saw the Israelites who were in the light eating and drinking and rejoicing and they flung darts and catapult stones at them, but the angel and the cloud would absorb them, as it says: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward” (Gen 15:1). (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Be-Shalah. 4)  8

  For a similar use of this verse see b. Gittin 57a.   This section is absent from the parallel version of the tale in Palestinian Talmud. 10   Israel Shatzman, “Stone-Balls from Tel Dor and the Artillery of the Hellenistic World,” Scripta Classica Israelica 14 (1995): 52 – 72.  9

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It seems that our story about the great strength of Bar Kosibah uses this image of the catapult. The immense body of Bar Kosibah, limitless and unbounded, becomes a representation of godlike power. In this case, it is not God or one of his proxies who catches the catapult stones thrown at the people of Israel, but rather Bar Kosibah. And he not only passively catches or deflects the stones; he also becomes a sort of human catapult himself, using his knee to shoot back every stone thrown at them, and killing a number of Romans. As Shimon Fogel has shown with regard to the case of Samson, whose physical dominance relates to his Messianic identity, so it is with Bar Kosibah: his strength is superhuman, and enters the sphere of divine might.11 But if Bar Kosibah stands for God, then there is no need to thank the Lord for his help; in that case one may as well tell God that his presence on the battle field is unnecessary, for Bar Kosibah is filling God’s place and defending the people against the catapult stones. The fourth section, which is perhaps the most famous mention of Bar Kosibah in all of Rabbinic literature. This is R. Akiva’s statement about Bar Kosibah, and R. Yoh.anan b. Toratha’s less-familiar dissent:12 Said R. Yoh.anan: “When R. Akiva looked at Ben Kozbah he said, ‘A star will come out of Jacob’ (Num 24:17). ‘A star of Jacob,’ this refers to the king Messiah.” R. Yoh.anan b. Toratha said: “Akiva, grass will grow on your cheeks and still the son of David will not have come.”

This statement from R. Akiva, viewing Bar Kosibah as the King Messiah, has been much discussed in halakhic literature as well as in the vast scholarly literature dealing with the support for the revolt and its leader given by R. Akiva and the rest of the Sages of that generation.13 Following Aharon Oppenheimer’s observations, I wish to argue that there is a spectrum of alternatives in understanding the messianic nature of Bar Kosibah, ranging from theological messianism to merely an earthly messianism, taking Bar Kosibah to be a military and political leader.14 In order understand this spectrum of messianism two other sources should be considered. In both of these, the grounds for both acknowledging and rejecting Bar Kosibah’s messiahship, are clearly theological. The Babylonian Talmud presents Bar Kosibah as a self-appointed Messiah. But far from endorsing him, the Sages reject Bar Kosibah’s messiahship, condemning him as a false Messiah and then executing him: Bar Kozeva reigned two and a half years, and then said to the rabbis: “I am [the] Messiah.” They said to him: “Of Messiah it is written that he smells and judges: let us see whether he 11   Shimon Fogel, “‘Samson’s Shoulders were Sixty Cubits’: Three Issues about Samson’s Image in the Eyes of the Rabbis” (M. A. Thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2009), 89 –130 [Hebrew]. 12   It should be noted that both the Palestinian Talmud and Vilna edition of Lamentations Rabbah place this section differently – there it opens the succession of sections that we are discussing here, lending extra authority to it. 13   Bar-Kosibah’s messiahship lies outside the scope of this short essay, and will be discussed at length in my upcoming book on the image of Bar Kosibah in Jewish culture. For further discussion see Richard G. Marks, The Image of Bar-Kokhba in Traditional Jewish Literature: False Messiah and National Hero (University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1994) and the bibliography there. 14   Aharon Oppenheimer, “Bar Kokhba’s Messianism,” in Messianism and Eschatology: A Collection of Essays, ed. Zvi Baras (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 1983), 153 – 65 [Hebrew].

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[Bar Kozeva] can do so.” When they saw that he was unable to judge by the scent, they slew him. (b. Sanh. 93b)

Even without elaborating upon the meaning of the strange smell test that the Sages had Bar Kosibah undertake, it seems that they disqualify Bar Kosibah and execute him because he does not fit their theological model of messianism – he is unable to work wonders or judge by smell.15 As some scholars suggest, it might be that the Babylonian Sages wished to contradict the Palestinian messianic narrative by picturing Bar Kosibah as an arrogant and self-appointed messiah that the Sages themselves, not the Romans, execute.16 A second relevant source outside of rabbinic literature is Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History, written at the beginning of the fourth century and directly addressing Bar Kosibah’s messianism: The Jews were at that time led by a certain Bar Chochebas, which means “star,” a man who was murderous and a bandit, but relied on his name, as if dealing with slaves, and claimed to be a luminary who had come down to them from heaven and was magically enlightening those who were in misery. (Ecclesiastical History 4.6; trans. LCL)

Eusebius’s intention is clear. Significantly for our purposes, his interpretation of Bar Kosibah’s name resembles R. Akiva’s. He calls him Bar Chochebas (K‫בר כוכבא‬K), a name unmentioned anywhere in rabbinic literature, and claims that the man thought himself to be a Messiah descended from the heavens to shine a light for the wretched of the earth. It seems important for Eusebius to present Bar Kosibah as a man who genuinely thought of himself as a Messiah come to save the world, and he therefore uses familiar Christian terminology about the Messiah. Eusebius emphasizes the theological aspect of Bar Kosibah’s messianism in order to contrast him to the true Messiah, Jesus Christ. He sees Bar Kosibah as a false Messiah whose failure becomes all the more clear when contrasted with the true Savior – the one who actually did help and save humanity. The two latter sources, as well as the literary unit from Lamentations Rabbah, emphasize the complexity of Bar Kosibah’s messianic image. The sources reveal the tension between two extreme possibilities: on the one hand, the physical otherness of Bar Kosibah, which has been depicted by Daniel Boyarin as a non-Jewish corporeality; and on the other hand, the messianic-theological hopes attached to his name.17 In reading the literature on Bar Kosibah’s messianic image, it seems that many scholars have tried to resolve this tension by writing off the theological element in Bar Kosibah’s messianic identity. Gedaliah Alon, Efraim Elimelech Urbach, Yigael 15   On the connection with messianism, see Suzanne Evans, “The Scent of a Martyr,” Numen 49 (2002): 193 – 211. 16   See Gedaliah Alon, The Jews in Their Land in the Talmudic Age (70 – 640 c. e.), trans. Gershon Levi (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1984), 630­ – 31; Peter Schäfer, “Bar Kokhba and the Rabbis,” The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome, TSAJ 100 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 1– 22 (5); Oppenheimer, “Bar Kokhba’s Messianism,” 157; Marks, The Image of Bar-Kokhba, 21– 22. 17   Daniel Boyarin, “Tricksters, Martyrs, and Appeasers: ‘Hidden Transcripts’ and the Diaspora Art of Resistance,” Theory and Criticism 10 (1997): 145 – 62.

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Yadin, Shmuel Safrai, Shmuel Abramski, Aharon Oppenheimer, Galit Hasan-Rokem, and to some extent Richard Marks as well, have all rejected the premise that R. Akiva viewed Bar Kosibah as a Messiah in the theological sense.18 They have all argued that R. Akiva’s definition of messianism merely reflected earthly, political, and military aspirations. As with other questions relating to Bar Kosibah’s enigmatic figure it may be that emphasizing the military and political elements of his messianic image, while deemphasizing the theological element, uncovers an underlying tendency to cultivate a messianic-historical model with national and territorial features. Such a Messiah would bring about a political redemption devoid of any heavenly intervention, thereby preventing exile and de-territorialization. In essence this is a messianic model connecting redemption and territory: the Messiah’s prime purpose, on this view, is to redeem the land. In order to bring Bar Kosibah into the heart of the Zionist ethos, as an iconic warrior and liberator, one must minimize the theological aspects of his actions, and highlight the military and political elements. These elements make it possible to identify with a brave and resourceful military leader who has led his people’s resistance of foreign rule. In order to demonstrate my argument about the importance of Bar Kosibah’s image in the Zionist discourse, not as a theological Messiah but rather as a military leader, I will conclude this article with a picture, one that is literally worth a thousand words.

Photographer: Yaakov Saar (Government’s Press Office, State of Israel) 18  Alon, The Jews in Their Land, 630 – 31; Shmuel Safrai, Rabbi Akiva Ben Yosef: His Life and Teachings (Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1970), 29 [Hebrew]; Shmuel Avramsky, Bar-Kokhbah Nesi Yisrael (Tel Aviv: Masada, 1961), 55 – 56 [Hebrew]; Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1975), 673 – 74; Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life, 163; Joshua Efron, “Bar-Kokhva in the Light of the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmudic Traditions,” in The Bar-Kokhva Revolt: A New Approach, ed. Aharon Oppenheimer and Uriel Rappaport (Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, 1984), 47 –105 (55) [Hebrew]; Marks, The Image of Bar-Kokhba, 14 –15.

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This is a picture of a military funeral held at Nahal Hever in the Judean Desert, in May 1982. This is no ordinary military funeral, but rather a national, symbolic event: the burial of the remains of Bar Kosibah’s warriors, found and excavated from Nahal Hever by Yigael Yadin in 1960, as if they were IDF soldiers. The funeral was attended by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, President Yitzhak Navon, the IDF Chief of Staff, and other dignitaries. This full military funeral ceremony was conducted by the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Shlomo Goren, who insisted that the remains of Bar Kosibah’s warriors would be buried exactly as Israeli soldiers in military caskets wrapped in Israeli flags and carried by IDF officers.19 This ceremony implicitly transformed the IDF from an army serving a modern nation state into a timeless Jewish army. And it transformed Bar Kosibah himself from the leader of a concrete, failed military revolt, who had, perhaps, served some messianic-theological hopes (which also had failed), into a prototype for a new Messiah: the modern, Zionist, Hebrew warrior. Bar Kosibah’s physical otherness ceases to be out of the ordinary when it converges with the new Jew, who was created to a large extent in Bar Kosibah’s own image.

19  For detailed discussion of the political and cultural meaning of this funeral see Yael Zerubavel, Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 185 – 91, and Haim Weiss, “From Secular to Religious Archeology: The Case of Bar-Kosibah, Yigael Yadin and Shlomo Goren,” Theory and Criticism 46 (2016): 143 – 67 [Hebrew].

“The Best of Them Is like a Brier”: On b. ‘Eruvin 101a and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue in the Babylonian Talmud Michal Bar-Asher Siegal

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Introduction: Minim Stories in the Babylonian Talmud Stories portraying minim (“heretics”; sing. min) in rabbinic literature are a central site of rabbinic engagement with the “other.” These stories typically portray interactions between a rabbinic figure and a min and frequently involve a conflict surrounding the interpretation of a biblical verse.1 The rabbinic figure always comes out victorious in the face of a challenge presented by the min. The vast majority of these stories are found in the Babylonian Talmud (redacted in the Persian Empire in or around the seventh century ce). Interestingly, they almost always feature a Palestinian rabbi, generally a tanna (an early rabbinic figure), despite appearing in the Babylonian corpus. In other words, the Talmudic stories portray rabbis who lived before the time of the codification of the Talmud in the neighboring Roman empire – in the land of Israel. Scholars have long attempted to identify these minim, proposing many different possible referents: Christians – Jewish or gentile, members of one of the Greco-Roman religions, Gnostics, Samaritans, Sadducees, or supporters of Roman rule. However, most now agree that the term min in rabbinic literature cannot easily be mapped onto a specific non-rabbinic group.2 Different rabbinic works reflect different uses of this term, which can sometimes be defined more specifically within a particular literary context, while at other times it remains vague. My own recent research project focuses on several of the minim narratives in the Babylonian Talmud in which I believe we can more safely determine that the min figure is meant to be understood in light of a Christian context. My primary concern is to understand the purpose and nature of these stories: What is their role in the Talmudic narrative? And what can we glean from them in retrospect? That 1   For a survey of these sources, see, for example, Daniel Sperber, “Min,” EncJud 14:263 – 64, and Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism, SJLA 25 (Leiden: Brill, 1977). 2   Much of the scholarship focuses on identifying these minim: Adolph Büchler, Studies in Jewish History: The Adolph Büchler Memorial Volume, ed. I. Brodie and J. Rabbinowitz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 245 – 74; Stuart S. Miller, “The Minim of Sepphoris Reconsidered,” HTR 86 (1993): 377 – 402; Steven T. Katz, “The Rabbinic Response to Christianity,” in CHJ 4:287 – 93; Adiel Schremer, Brothers Estranged: Heresy, Christianity, and Jewish Identity in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

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is, what sort of evidence do they provide of rabbinic attitudes toward the other? Richard Kalmin and Shai Secunda have both recently addressed these questions and both view such stories as providing historical evidence regarding interactions between Jews and non-Jews. Kalmin reads the Babylonian stories as reflecting an actual historical situation, though in Palestine rather than in Babylonia.3 Secunda agrees that the stories “partially reflect polemical realities in Roman Palestine,” but he sees the abundance of minim stories in the Bavli as evidence of such polemical interactions in the Persian Empire itself.4 Christine Hayes, on the other hand, has suggested that we read the minim in these stories as articulations of inner rabbinic attitudes and not as evidence of historical realities.5 She identifies in these texts evidence of rabbinic anxiety about the rabbinic project itself. The rabbis express anxiety about both their own advanced methods of midrashic biblical interpretation and the extent of their authority as interpreters of the biblical text, and put these views in the mouths of non-rabbis in stories such as the minim narratives. This literary technique shows the rabbis’ ability to internalize the critiques of their own work. According to Hayes, dialogues between rabbinic Jews and minim are fabricated stories through which we can glean insights into the rabbis’ own mindset. I suggest a third approach, which I will demonstrate through a close reading of one of these texts. I offer a reading of rabbinic dialogues with minim as an intellectual exercise on the part of the rabbis, a fabricated dialogue composed to express rabbinic thoughts. In this way, I side with Hayes’s non-historical approach to these texts, which do not, in my view, represent actual Jewish-Christian dialogues and should not be read as such. However, I will propose that these fictional literary creations are rooted in historical realities. Here, I come closer to Secunda and Kalmin, but I will not attempt to understand the stories in light of historical Jewish-Christian polemics. Rather, I read them in the context of intra-Christian discussions of scripture. I will suggest reading these dialogues as an attempt by the rabbis to take part in the broader conversation occurring outside their community. The rabbinic texts reflect, to my mind, the thought processes of the small group of rabbis looking at the conversation around biblical interpretation taking place in the Christian world and imagining how they might participate. The term “historical debates,” then, needs to be defined more subtly here. We are no longer looking for two historical figures meeting and debating in a specific time and place, which is then recorded for posterity in the Talmudic narrative. We are reading a fabricated story, but one which is a reaction to a historical debate of the time. In a sense, the imagination of the rab3   Richard Kalmin, “Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,” HTR 87 (1994): 155 – 69. 4   Shai Secunda, “Reading the Bavli in Iran,” JQR 100 (2010): 310 – 42 (334). 5   Christine E. Hayes, “Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of minim and Romans in b. Sanhedrin 90b – 91a,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine, ed. Hayim Lapin (Bethesda, MD: University Press of Maryland, 1998), 249 – 89.

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bis is historical, since it happens due to historical circumstances. The historicity of the passages is not only measured in the events themselves – did a min and a rabbi argue over this? – but also in the reflective acts that followed, in this case biblical interpretations and their ramifications, as preserved in one side’s religious textual corpus.6 I will try to show that we can better understand how the biblical verses at the center of some of these rabbi-min dialogues are employed if we read them in light of outside, non-rabbinic, literary material. When read through the lens of Christian writings, the Talmudic stories are more readily understood. Furthermore, such a reading demonstrates that the actual debate being depicted is not centered only around Jewish-Christian disputes, but, in some cases, around a broader argument found in non-rabbinic sources. When we read the specific biblical text at the center of the Talmudic dialogue as it was read in widely-known discussions within Christianity, the Talmudic story no longer needs to be read solely as a reflection of Jewish-Christian polemic. Rather, I suggest viewing the Talmudic texts as intellectual exercises in which the rabbis ask: if we were to participate in this larger conversation, how would we respond? If the broader argument made by Christian writers concerning the verse is read in connection with the Talmudic passage, it should now be read as part of this larger discussion. These dialogues are “guided imagery” of sorts, in which the rabbis imagine playing a part in wider discussions actually happening outside their study houses and in the broader world in which they live. The example I have chosen to discuss is part of a set of Talmudic rabbi-min dialogues which share a specific structure, including the key phrase, “Fool, look to the end of the verse.” In these stories, a min approaches a rabbinic figure with a question about a biblical verse. In each case, the rabbi’s response contains two parts, the second of which is explicitly hostile. In the first part, each response includes this formula, which demands that the min read the biblical passage in its context. Aside from one case (b. H.ullin 87a), all of the passages end with this two-part response from the rabbi. Only in b. H.ullin does the story go on to discuss the min’s reaction and its aftermath.7 Given the brief nature of these rabbi-min dialogues – only a few short, and often enigmatic sentences – the claim made in this article might seem sweeping. However, as mentioned above, this story is just one of several such minim stories and in my larger research project I will base my broader historical argument on a reading of all of the sources as a whole. Ultimately, my proposed reading of one such source is strengthened by the collective reading of all the stories together.

6

  I am grateful to Haim Weiss for his help with conceptualizing and phrasing of this point.   On this story, see Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, “‘Fool, Look to the End of the Verse’: B. H.ullin 87a and its Christian Background,” in The Aggada of the Bavli and its Cultural World, ed. Geoffrey Herman and Jeffrey L. Rubenstein, Brown Judaic Studies (Atlanta: SBL Press, forthcoming) 7

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Babylonian Talmud ‘Eruvin 101a The following story is found in b. ‘Eruvin 101a8: .‫ אמ‘ ליה‬12.)‫ד‬,‫ דכת‘ בהו “טובם כחדק” (מיכה ז‬11.‫ חידקא‬.‫ לר‘ יהושע בר‘ חנניה‬10‫ ההוא מינא‬9‫אמ‘ ליה‬ ‫ על‬15‫ הללו מגינין‬14‫ כשם שחדקין‬.”‫ אלא מאי “טובם כחדק‬.”‫ שפיל לסיפיה דקרא “וישר ממסוכה‬13.‫שטיא‬ ‫ אומות‬21‫ את‬20‫ שמהדקין‬19.”‫ “טובם כחדק‬18.‘‫ דב‘ אח‬.‫ עלינו‬17‫ כך טובים שבנו מגינין‬16‫פירצה שבפרדס‬ ‫ כי קרנך אשים ברזל ופרסותייך אשים נחשת והדיקות עמים‬23‫ שנ‘ “קומי ודושי בת ציון‬. ‫ בגיהנם‬22‫העולם‬ )‫יג‬,‫” (מיכה ד‬.‫רבים והחרמתי לייי בצעם וחילם לאדון כל הארץ‬ A min said to R. Joshua b. R. H.ananiah: “You are a brier, since it is written of you, ‘The best of them is like a brier’” (Micah 7:4). He said to him: “Fool, look to the end of the verse, where it is written, ‘The most upright [is worse] than a thorn hedge.’ What then was meant by, ‘The best of them is like a brier’? Just as briers protect a gap in a grove, so do the best among us protect us. Another interpretation: ‘The best of them is like a brier’ – they crush [from the Hebrew, K ‫הדק‬K] the nations of the world in gehenna. As it is said, ‘Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves brass; and you shall crush many peoples, and you shall dedicate their riches to the Lord and their wealth to the Master of all the earth’.” (Micah 4:13)

In this story, a min approaches R. Joshua b. R. H.ananiah, a tanna who appears in several traditions in conversation with Roman figures and minim. Most famously, in b. H.agigah 5b, just before his death, his fellow sages even worry, “What will now [= once you are dead] become of us, [because] of these heretics?”

 8

  According to MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica ebr., 109, as found in Ma’agarim: The Historical Dictionary Project of the Academy of the Hebrew Language. http://maagarim.hebrew-academy. org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx. MS variants were taken from the Friedberg Project for Talmud Bavli Variants http://www.genizah.org/onlineFGP.htm?type=Bavli&lang=eng and The Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank in the Saul Lieberman Institute for Talmudic Research website http:// www.lieberman-institute.com/Home.  9   In MS Vatican there is a deleted K‫להו‬K here. 10   The Vilna print has K‫צדוקי‬K. 11   MS Oxford Opp. Add. fol. 23 has K‫הדקאה‬K. 12   Instead of K”‫ דכת‘ בהו “טובם כחדק‬.‫חידקא‬K “You are a brier, since it is written of you, ‘The best of them is like a brier’ ” MS Munich 95 has K‫מאי דכתי‘ טובם כחדק‬K: “why does is say ‘The best of them is like a brier’.” 13   MS Munich 95 has K‫שיא‬K while MS Oxford is missing this word all together. 14   MS Oxford: K‫שהדקין‬K; MS Munich K‫שחדק‬K. 15   MS Munich: K‫מגינים‬K. 16   This word is missing in Pesaro, Venice, and Vilna prints. 17   MS Munich and the prints: K‫מגינים‬K. 18   MS Oxford: K‘‫ר‘ אמ‬K “Rabbi said”; and Pesaro print: K‘‫דכתיב אח‬K. 19   Both words are missing in MS Munich. 20   Thus in MSS Munich, Vatican, and Vilna print. In MS Oxford and in the Pesaro and Venice prints: K‫שמחדקין‬K. 21   This word is missing in MS Munich. 22   The Vilna print replaces K‫אומות העולם‬K (“the nations of the world”) with K‫הרשעים‬K (“the evil ones”). 23   MS Munich stops the biblical quotation here, while all other variants have a longer quotation.

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Here in b. ‘Eruvin, according to most manuscripts, a min says to R. Joshua that he is a brier, quoting Micah 7:4, in which the prophet criticizes Israel’s leadership. The word for brier is K‫חדק‬K a word used in the Bible for a thorny plant which is used for creating hedges.24 The Hebrew words used in Micah are K‫טובם כחדק‬K, which can be translated either as, “The good in them is like a brier,”25 or, “The best of them is like a brier”.26 The sentence in context is negative: the best aspect of Israel’s leadership, or the best men among those leaders, is equated to a kind of a thorn. The rest of the verse explains K‫וישר ממסוכה‬K. Biblical scholars agree that the precise meaning of the verse is unclear. It can mean “their most upright one is a hedge,”27 or “the most upright is worse than a hedge.”28 But the general sense seems to be that even the good in them is like, or worse than, a thorny obstacle.29 The Talmudic story puts an insult in the mouth of the min: you, R. Joshua, are like a brier. In MS Munich the text reads: K‫מאי דכתי‘ טובם כחדק‬K – “What does scripture mean by ‘their good is like a brier’?”, i. e., not as an insult but rather as a question. R. Joshua’s response, calling the min a fool, is that he must read the rest of the verse in order to understand Micah’s meaning. “The best of them is like a brier” should be read in a positive sense: “Just as briers protect a gap in a grove, so do the best men among us protect us.” R. Joshua then offers a second explanation: “‘The best of them is like a brier’ – they crush the nations of the world in gehenna.” This reading is based on the verb K‫להדק‬K, from the root K‫דקק‬K, “to crush, pulverize, thresh,” which appears in Micah 4:13.30 There is an obvious wordplay here, based on the known interchange31 between the guttural K‫ה‬K and the pharyngeal K‫ח‬K: K‫חדק‬K, “brier,” turns into K‫הדק‬K, “to crush.” R. Joshua’s first answer seems like a reasonable scholastic interpretation, which can be read into the verse. He calls for an understanding of the words in light of the context of the entire verse. The second answer raises the stakes significantly by bringing gehenna and an existential conflict and vengeance between Jews and gentiles into the conversation. It also employs a more complex midrashic technique, which is not easily read into the local verse: both a use of another Micah verse and the reliance on the K‫ח‬K/K‫ה‬K interchange. A careful reading of the story, however short and lacking in additional details, shows an added step in R. Joshua’s response. Notice that when the min says, “You are

24

  See Yehuda Feliks, Plant World of the Bible (Ramat Gan: Masadah, 1968), 230 [Hebrew].   For example, Sifre ha-Mik.ra, commentary by E. S. Hartom, ed. Moses D. Kassuto, 15 vols. (Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1956 –1961), v. 10. 26   For example, Targum Jonathan: “K‫טבא דבהו‬K”; and also Shmuel Vargon, The Book of Micah: A Study and Commentary (Ramat-Gan : Bar Ilan University, 1994), 205 – 6 (Hebrew). 27   BDB, p. 692. 28   Where the K‫מ‬K is used for a superlative. See GKC § 133e3 (p. 431). 29   See Vargon, Book of Micah, 206, and the reference he gives in nn. 44 and 45. 30   See BDB K‫דקק‬K, p. 200. 31   See Shimʻon Sharviṭ, “The Gutturals,” in Studies in Mishnaic Hebrew (Jerusalem: Mosad ­Bialik, 2008), 91–112 (Hebrew). I thank Moshe Bar-Asher for this reference. 25

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a brier,” R. Joshua responds, “Look to the end of the verse, where it is written, ‘The most upright [is worse] than a thorn hedge.’” Upon closer inspection, this answer does not make a great deal of sense. In other Talmudic stories which use the phrase, “Look to the end of the verse,” a contextual reading changes the meaning of the word that the min uses. In b. H.ullin 87a the end of the verse in Amos 4:13, “The Lord of hosts is His name,” stresses the unity of the creation process being challenged by the min using the verse’s first words: “For, lo, He who forms the mountains and creates the wind.” In b. Berakhot 10a, Bruria explains that the “barren one” in Isa 54:1 should rejoice, not because she bore no child, as the min proclaims, but rather, as the rest of the verse makes clear, because “the children of the desolate shall be more than the children of the espoused.” However, reading Micah 7:4 in its full context does not actually change its meaning. Israel, or Israel’s leadership, is still likened to a brier. Indeed, R. Joshua’s explanation of the verse rereads Micah’s negative words in a positive way, reinterpreting what it means to be called a brier. However, the actual words of the rest of the verse do not add any new information supporting this interpretation. “The best” is parallel to “the most upright,” and “brier” is parallel to “a thorn hedge.” Reading the verse in its entirety only serves to stress the basic meaning of the words, not their positive or negative purpose. In fact, the story could have omitted this sentence altogether without changing its meaning. The min would have said, “You are a brier,” and the rabbi would have answered by challenging the implication of this comparison and suggesting that a thorn either defends a gap or implies the crushing of the nations in the next world. The harsh language of R. Joshua’s second answer and the logical difficulty presented by his first response suggest that something else may be going on here. As I try to show in other Talmudic min narratives that share this structure and use the formula, “Fool, look to the end of the verse,” the key to understanding the story can be found in non-rabbinic sources.32 Thus, I want to offer a reading of this story based on Christian readings of Micah 7:4 and other, related verses that use the same imagery.

Micah 7:4 In our story, the min challenges R. Joshua based on Micah 7:4. The Masoretic version of this verse indeed includes the word “brier.” However, the Septuagint reflects a different version altogether: 32   Bar-Asher Siegal, “‘Fool, look to the end of the verse’,” and eadem, “Inner-Christian Scriptural Debates through the Eyes of the Talmud: b. Yevamot 102b,” in The Talmud and Christianity: Rabbinic Judaism after Constantine (forthcoming); and Michal Bar-Asher Siegal with Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, “‘Rejoice, O Barren One who Bore No Child’: Beruria and the Jewish-Christian Conversation in the Babylonian Talmud,” in The Faces of Torah: Studies in the Texts and Contexts of Ancient Judaism in Honor of Steven Fraade, ed. Christine Hayes, Tzvi Novick, and Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, JAJSup 22 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, forthcoming 2017).

On b. ‘Eruvin 101a and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue in the Babylonian Talmud

Micah 7:4 (LXX)

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Micah 7:4 (MT)

ὡς σὴς ἐκτρώγων καὶ βαδίζων ἐπὶ κανόνος ἐν ἡμέρᾳ σκοπιᾶς οὐαὶ οὐαί αἱ ἐκδικήσεις σου ἥκασιν νῦν ἔσονται κλαυθμοὶ αὐτῶν Like a moth larva devouring and crawling upon a weaver’s rod in the day of your keeping watch. Woe! Woe! Your punishment has come; now shall be their lamentations.33

K‫באה‬

‫טובם כחדק ישר ממסוכה יום מצפיך פקדתך‬ ‫עתה תהיה מבוכתם‬K

The best of them is like a brier; the most upright [is worse] than a thorn hedge. The day God visits you has come; the day your watchmen sound the alarm. Now is the time of your confusion.

Most scholars agree that the Septuagint’s translation of the Twelve Prophets is the work of one translator who worked in the middle of the second century bce.34 As is evident, the translation of this verse diverges significantly from the (admittedly difficult) Masoretic Text, mainly through the addition of the moth larva (σής) and its actions. W. Edward Glenny suggests that the Hebrew K‫חדק‬K was read as the Aramaic K ‫חרק‬K, meaning “to cut or gnash,”35 which led to the addition of the moth larva as the subject and its action: ἐκτρώγω (“devouring”).36 He also proposes that “the mention of caterpillars, locusts, and locust larvae in Joel 1, which immediately follows this chapter in the LXX, influenced the translator to include the noun σής.”37

Micah in Christian writings Whatever the origin of this version of the verse in the Septuagint, the entire passage from Micah was used by Christian writers of Late Antiquity, such as Cyril of Jerusalem,38 to refer to the downfall of church leadership. Likewise, Origen39 and Ambrose40 use this Micah section to address bad influences on their churches, while Ambrose draws on Micah in a call against the Novatian heretics to “correct our backslidings and amend our faults.”41 More importantly, the image of the moth larva devouring cloth as a symbol of utter destruction of one’s enemies is known from other biblical verses. For example, Isa 50:9: K‫ עש יאכלם‬,‫הן כלם כבגד יבלו‬K: “They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up”; or Isa 51:8: 33

  Translation follows W. Edward Glenny, Micah: A Commentary based on Micah in Codex Vaticanus, Septuagint Commentary Series (Leiden: Brill 2015), 33. 34  Glenny, Micah, p. 14, and see his references there. 35   See Jastrow, K‫חרק‬K, p. 506. 36  Glenny, Micah, 191. 37  Glenny, Micah, 191. 38   Oration II, 58. 39   Homilies on Jeremiah 1, 15.3.2. 40   The Prayer of Job and David 2.5.18. 41   Selected Works and Letters, VII, 52.

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,‫ כי כבגד יאכלם עש‬.‫תחתו‬-‫ ומגדפתם אל‬,‫תיראו חרפת אנוש‬-‫ אל‬.‫ עם תורתי בלבם‬,‫שמעו אלי ידעי צדק‬ ‫ וישועתי לדור דורים‬,‫ וצדקתי לעולם תהיה‬.‫יאכלם סס‬K

Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart: Do not fear the reproach of mere mortals or be terrified by their insults. For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations.

In these biblical references the moth is specifically used as a symbol for the destruction brought on one’s enemies. The destruction caused by the moth is also widely known in Hellenistic literature, such as in the Greek poet Pindar: “gold is the child of Zeus: neither moth nor rust can consume it.”42 The moth-eating metaphor also appears in two prominent New Testament passages. In these passages, it does not deal with the destruction of the enemies, but rather with the possible destruction of treasures collected by humans. The first is Matt 6:19 – 21:43 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust ruin [them] and where thieves break in and steal [them]. Rather, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust ruin [them] and where thieves neither break in nor steal [them]. For where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.

In Matthew, we are called to store only heavenly treasures, as opposed to earthly ones, which can be destroyed by moths or thieves. Similar to the moth eating symbol of destruction, thieves are also known in ancient sources to break through walls in order to steal things hidden in various places.44 In this passage materialism is underscored as a major concern.45 The passage comes right after Matthew’s rejection of manifesting one’s suffering while fasting and publicly displaying excessive asceticism (6:16 –18). As Hans Dieter Betz remarks, these verses are carefully structured: “verses 19 – 20 form an antithetical isocolon (parallel lines) in symmetrical juxtaposition,” and v. 21 is “a sententia, stated as an isocolon (parallel lines) using antapodosis (parallel in comparisons) and the form ‘where . . . there’.”46 The criticism of material wealth is obviously not a new concept in antiquity, and ancient writers from the pre-Socratics, through Socrates and Plato, and ending with contemporary writers such as Psalms of Solomon and Philo, stress that true wealth is not dependent upon material possessions.47

42

  Pindar, Fgm. 209 [OxfT = 222 Sch./M.]. See BDAG σής for other references.   Translation according to Hans Dieter Betz, The Sermon on the Mount: A Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, including the Sermon on the Plain (Matthew 5:3 – 7:27 and Luke 6:20 – 49), Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 428. 44   See references in BDAG for διορύσσω. 45   But see François Bovon (Luke 2: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 9:51–19:27, trans. Donald S. Deer, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013], 222) on Luke here: “Luke does not set up a communist program, however.” 46  Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 428. 47   See discussion and references in Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 429 – 31. 43

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The comparison of Matthew to the parallel in Luke (12:32 – 34) shows a theological addition in Luke’s version: Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In Luke, the earthly treasures that should not be stored are to be given to the poor. This is not part of the Matthean passage, which focuses instead on the importance of storing heavenly treasures, and not the use of the earthly ones.48 Another difference is the sequence of the thieves and moths, as well as the singular treasure in Luke compared to the plural treasures in Matthew. Scholars debate the exact relation between the two versions and their relationship to the Q tradition.49 Other scholars have pointed out that Matthew differs from Luke (and other passage in Mark) since he seems to suggest that one can enjoy the fruits of the heavenly treasures only after the return of the Son of Man, and the “settling of accounts,” while the other writers contain passages in which it is stated that one can benefit from the heavenly treasures during this life.50 In a tradition related to both of these New Testament texts (and their possible Q origin), Gospel of Thomas 76 states: Jesus said, “The kingdom of the father is like a merchant who had a consignment of merchandise and who discovered a pearl. That merchant was shrewd. He sold the merchandise and bought the pearl alone for himself. You too, seek his unfailing and enduring treasure where no moth comes near to devour and no worm destroys.”51

Here too the heavenly treasure is protected specifically from moth and worm.

Moth and Thieves Interestingly, the two elements singled out as causes for the destruction of earthly treasures, moths and thieves,52 are closely related in rabbinic literature. In b. Berakhot 18b, Samuel is looking for money, which his father had hidden before he died, but that was to be given to orphans: Come and hear: The father of Samuel had some money belonging to orphans deposited with him. When he died, Samuel was not with him, and they called him “the son who consumes 48   Betz (Sermon on the Mount, 431– 32) assumes that this unstated theological precept, though not spelled out in Matthew, is implied nonetheless. 49  Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 432 – 33. Cf. Bovon, Luke 2, 210 –12. 50   Nathan Eubank, “Storing Up Treasure with God in the Heavens: Celestial Investments in Matthew  6:1– 21,” CBQ 76 (2014): 77 – 92 (87 – 88). 51   Translation taken from Thomas O. Lambdin’s translation from The Nag Hammadi Library website. On this passage see Bovon, Luke 2, 214. 52   Bovon (Luke 2, 223) suggests that the thieves in Luke and Matthew stand for “harmful animals.”

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the money of orphans.” So he went after his father to the cemetery . . . He then said to him: “Where is the money of the orphans?” He replied: “in the case of the millstones. The money at the top and the bottom is mine, that in the middle is the orphans. So that if thieves come, they should take mine, and if the earth destroys any, it should destroy mine.”53

By wrapping the orphans’ money with his own money on both sides, Samuel’s father was protecting the orphans’ money from the perils of the earth (rust and moth) and that of thieves. These passages in the New Testament and the rabbinic story testify to common fears in late antiquity about the factors responsible for the destruction of possessions. Rather than fire or water damage, the two that are singled out are earth related (such as moth and rust) and thieves.

“Heavenly Treasures” in Second Temple Literature If we turn back to the New Testament passages, the theological notion of “treasures stored in heaven” seems to be drawing from a known concept in contemporary Jewish wisdom literature.54 In fact, the idea of heavenly treasures is a logical conclusion for those seeking ethical distribution of punishment and rewards for deeds committed on earth. As Betz puts it, “perishability” of good and bad deeds is not ethical: “Without this assumption [= of a storage in the next world], no accountability or responsibility would exist.”55 So we find, for example, the following sentiment in Tobit 4:8 – 9: If you have many possessions, make your gift from them in proportion; if few, do not be afraid to give according to the little you have. So you will be laying up a good treasure for yourself against the day of necessity.

Similarly, Philo states: For those who possess stored up in Heaven the true wealth whose adornment is wisdom and godliness have also wealth of earthly riches in abundance. For under the providence and good care of God their storehouses are ever filled. (Rewards 104)56

These Second Temple passages all contain the concept of a future heavenly treasure that will repay earthly good deeds, similar to Matthew 6, and often specify almsgiving, similar to Luke 12. 53   On this story and an interesting parallel (talking to the dead to discover hidden deposits, in order to help orphans) in the Apophthegmata Patrum, Macarius the Great 7 (PG 65:265), see Michal Bar-Asher Siegal, Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 110 –12. 54   See the many references in Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 433 – 34 n. 87; Arthur Marmorstein, “The Treasures in Heaven and upon Earth,” London Quarterly Review 132 (1919): 216 – 28; idem, The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinic Literature (London: Jew’s College, 1920), 20 – 24; Ephraim E. Urbach, “Treasure Above,” in Hommage à Georges Vajda: études d’histoire et de pensée juives, ed. Gerard Nahon and Charles Touati (Louvain: Peeters, 1980), 117 – 24; Bradley C. Gregory, Like an Everlasting Signet Ring: Generosity in the Book of Sirach, DCLS 2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 204 –13; and Eubank, “Storing Up Treasure with God.” 55  Betz, Sermon on the Mount, 434. 56   See Gregory, Like an Everlasting Signet Ring, 205.

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In later rabbinic sources we also find the notion of “heavenly treasures.” For example, in Tosefta Peah 4:18, King Monbaz is said to have squandered his treasures by giving it to those suffering from famine, and in reply to his sons’ reproach, he answers: K‫ אבותי גנזו אוצרות מקום‬.”‫ שנ‘ “אמת מארץ תצמח‬.‫ אבותי גנזו אוצרו‘ למטה ואני גנזתי למעלה‬.‫אמ‘ להם‬ ‫ אבותי גנזו אוצ־‬.‘‫ “צדק ומשפט מכון כסאך” וגו‬.‘‫ שנ‬.‫ ואני גנזתי מקום שאין היד שולטת בו‬.‫שהיד שולטת בו‬ ‫ אבותי גנזו אוצרות‬.‘‫רות שאין עושין פירות ואני גנזתי אוצרות שעושין פירות שנ‘ “אמרו צדיק כי טוב” וגו‬ ‫ אבותי גנזו אוצרות לאחרים‬.‘‫ממון ואני גנזתי אוצרות של נפשות שנ‘ “פרי צדיק עץ חיים ולוקח נפש‘” וגו‬ .‫ אבותי גנזו אוצרות בעולם הזה ואני גנזתי לעצמי לעולם הבא‬.‘‫ שנ‘ “ולך תהיה צדקה” וגו‬.‫ואני גנזתי לעצמי‬ .”‫שנ‘ “והלך לפניך צדקיך‬K

Monbazos replied: “My fathers laid up treasures for below, but I have laid up treasures for above . . . They laid up treasures in a place over which the hand [of a man] may prevail; I in a place over which no hand can prevail. My fathers laid up treasures which bear no fruit; I have laid up treasures that bear fruit . . . My fathers laid up the treasures of money, I have laid up treasures of souls . . . My fathers laid up treasures for others, I for myself. My fathers laid up treasures useful in this world, I for the world to come.”57

Monbaz talks about accumulating treasures in heaven. There are treasures that will bear fruit and are saved from the hand of humans. When compared to what we read in the New Testament passages, as Nathan Eubank summarizes, “there is little here that would have been surprising to anyone in the milieus of Tobit, Sirach, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, and the Deutero-Pauline epistles, not to mention the later rabbis.”58 In addition, Ephraim E. Urbach mentions that storing treasures of good deeds in heaven is an idea that is also present in Persian Pahlavi literature. For example: “Be thou diligent in making a store of good works, in order that it may come to thy succor in the spiritual world.”59 However, Urbach also suggests that in rabbinic literature we can find an antithetical approach to the one promoting a heavenly treasure as reward for earthly good deeds.60 He cites the following passage in b. Berakhot 33b: 61 K‫אוצרו‬

‫והא"ר יוחנן אין לו להק‘ב‘ה‘ בבית גנזיו אלא יראת שמים שנ‘ יראת יי היא‬K

R. Yohanan said: The Holy One, blessed be He, has in His treasury nought except a store of the fear of heaven, as it says, “The fear of the Lord is His treasure.”

According to Urbach, this passage stresses that “the only reward for good deeds are the good deeds themselves. The ‘Treasure above’ does not contain any other good than that of the fear of the Lord, which is completely dependent upon man and his conduct.” Indeed, the reference to God’s treasury and the stress on the negative phrasing of having “nought but a store of the fear of heaven” seem to suggest a polemical stand against the other, prevalent view of the heavenly treasury. Urbach 57

  Translation taken from Urbach, “Treasure Above,” 117.   Eubank, “Storing Up Treasure with God,” 92. 59   Datustan e. Xrat (2,96 – 97). See Urbach, “Treasures Above,” 120, quoting J. S. Pavry, The Zoroastrian Doctrine of a Future Life: From Death to the Individual Judgment, Indo-Iranian Series 11 (New York: AMS, 1929), 72 – 77. 60   Urbach, “Treasure Above,” 122 – 25. 61   According to MS Munich. MS Paris (used by Maagarim here) does not have this sentence. 58

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goes even further, arguing that the Matthean saying, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,” is directly challenged in this rabbinic saying. It is, claims Urbach, “quasi-changed into ‘For where your heart is, there will thy treasure be’.” In other words, Urbach identifies in rabbinic writings a polemical stand against the belief in accumulating heavenly treasures through earthly good deeds.

The Moth Element in Matt 6 and Luke 12 The unique concept found in the NT passages, Matt 6 and Luke 12, however, is the belief that the heavenly storage is reliable in comparison to the earthly one. Moreover, it is safe specifically from moth and thieves. In other words, Matthew and Luke combine the well-known motif of the superior heavenly treasure to the fear of these two known earthly agents of destruction. It now suggests that good deeds, whether it be almsgiving (Luke) or general good deeds (Matthew), will secure treasures in heaven.62 The heavenly treasure is not only better in its benefits, but is also safe from these two elements. The closest parallel to the combination of these elements, the fear of destruction of the earthly treasures and the safe keeping of the treasure in heaven, is found in the Tosefta passage above, where the “hand of a man” (that is, thieves) was mentioned. In addition, there is an illuminating passage in Sirach 29:8 –13: However, with the poor person be patient and do not keep him waiting for alms. For the sake of the commandment help the poor and according to his need do not turn him away empty-handed. Lose (your) money for a kinsman or a friend and do not place it under a stone to go to ruin. Lay up your treasure according to the commandments of the Most High and it will profit you more than gold. Store up almsgiving in your treasury and it will deliver you from every calamity. More than a strong shield and a robust spear it will fight for you against an enemy.63

Here Ben Sira urges people to give charity. He mentions the possible destruction of the earthly treasure, if hidden in the earth, under a stone. And he talks about the better profit from a heavenly treasure. This passage demonstrates, therefore, that the New Testament passages are rooted in earlier and contemporary traditions. Ben Sira is closest since it too combines the fear of destruction of the earthly treasure with the benefits of the heavenly one.64 However, and this is important for my point, none of these other traditions, including Ben Sira and even the Tosefta passage, mentions the moth as the destructive factor of the earthly treasure. Only Matthew and Luke (and Thomas) specifically men62   It seems that there is a tendency in later sources to focus on good deeds, rather than only almsgiving, as the main source for heavenly treasures. See Eubank, “Storing Up Treasure with God,” 82. 63   Translation according to Gregory, Like an Everlasting Signet Ring, 181. 64   He also seems to suggest that the heavenly treasure offers better future payment as opposed, for example, to passages such as the Testament of Zebulon 6.4 – 7, where the future payment corresponds to the almsgiving. See Gregory, Like an Everlasting Signet Ring, 205.

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tion that the heavenly treasure is safe from both thieves and moth. I think that the moth element is a central key in understanding the Talmudic passage in b. ‘Eruvin.

The Moth and b. ‘Eruvin I wish to claim that this brief, enigmatic passage in b. ‘Eruvin should be read in light of the Septuagint’s version of the Micah verse and the moth imagery in the famous passages in Matthew and Luke. I would also suggest that the rabbinic tradition is aware of the Greek version of the text and presents a fictional scenario in which the rabbis imagine a conversation about this verse.65 It is not a discussion about the actual textual variants. The rabbis acknowledge only the Masoretic tradition as the true biblical text, and it would have been simple to refute a claim relying on a different version by saying, “But our text says differently.” However, given the widespread knowledge of the different readings of Micah 7:4 and, more importantly, the well-known use of the moth imagery in the Christian world, I think the rabbis depict a conflict between rabbi and min over the interpretation of this verse for a very specific reason. I have identified a similar pattern in other rabbinic “minim passages” with the exact same literary structure: the min argues with a rabbinic figure about a verse, and the rabbinic figure comes out victorious. In all of these other cases, as in this case here, the verse under discussion is interpreted differently in the Christian world, mostly due to a different version found in the Septuagint. In these stories, the rabbis engage with this contrary interpretation, but only on their own playing field: the Masoretic Text. In other words, the rabbinic tradition is saying: we know that there are different versions here, and that the alternate imagery has a well-known meaning in the Christian world. So let us imagine what would happen if a representative of such a tradition were to walk into our study house and discuss this verse with us, but using the Masoretic version. I will mention only briefly a few of the parallel passages elsewhere in the Bavli. In b. H.ullin 87a, a min asks R. Judah the Prince about Amos 4:13, and the discussion soon turns hostile. The Septuagint version of this verse is vastly different from the Masoretic text, substituting the hapax legomenon K‫מה שחו‬K (“his thoughts”) with the Greek equivalent of K‫משיחו‬K, “his anointed.” As one can imagine, this verse stood at the center of Christian debates and this realization sheds light on the local Talmudic dialogue between rabbi and min.66 Elsewhere, in b. Berakhot 10a, the verse at the center of a debate between Beruriah and a min is Isa 54:1, “Rejoice, O barren one who bore no child.” In this case, the Hebrew word K‫בעולה‬K carries a dual meaning: both “one who has a husband” and “one who is not a virgin.” On this basis, the verse becomes the center of Late Antique interpretations, most famously in Galatians 4 65   On the Septuagint in Babylonia and the Babylonian Talmud, see Richard Kalmin, Migrating Tales: The Talmud’s Narratives and Their Historical Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 80 – 94. 66   Bar-Asher Siegal, “‘Fool, Look to the End of the Verse’.”

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and Paul’s discussion of Hagar and Sarah. An awareness of this non-rabbinic background sheds light on the Talmudic passage and informs our understanding of the conflict between Beruriah and the min.67 Going back to our short dialogue in b. ‘Eruvin, I believe that here, too, like the rabbinic dialogues just discussed, the different version of the biblical text found in the Septuagint and the well-known use of the moth metaphor in the New Testament stand in the background of the creation of the Talmudic passage. To be more specific, I think that the Talmudic dialogue should be read as follows. A min asks: you are a brier? Even according to your text, God accuses you of being a brier? Or in the clearer version of MS Munich: what does it mean to be called a brier? How does this imagery work for Micah? R. Joshua retorts: “Fool, look to the end of the verse!” If you read the next few words you will see that this should certainly be read as a brier. The parallelism makes this absolutely clear. Reading until the end of the verse does not give the correct meaning of the words (is a brier a good thing or not?), but rather affirms the words themselves, the correct version (brier and not moth). R. Joshua goes on to say: not only is our reading of a brier correct, it is not even an insult. In fact, the image should be read in a positive light: briers help protect gaps in hedges. The insistence on the reading of the words in the verse’s context is needed only to stress that “brier,” not “moth” is the better reading here, since the context does not help in the basic understanding of the words themselves. R. Joshua then offers a second interpretation. This is also the case in all other minim-dialogues that follow this literary model: there is always a second, more hostile explanation, and it is always a more “advanced” interpretation than the initial, simpler reading of the verse. The use of gehenna is also familiar in these second answers. For example, Beruriah says to the min in b. Berakhot, paraphrasing Isaiah, “But rejoice, O community of Israel, who resemble a barren woman, that you have not borne children for gehenna.” It is worth noting that Jesus is one of the most famous figures rumored to dwell in gehenna, according to b. Gittin 57a. In this case, the second answer rereads h.edek not as a thorn, but rather from the root hedek, “to crush or eliminate.” This latter root appears in Micah 4:13, just a few chapters earlier: “Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion, for I will make your horn iron, and I will make your hooves brass; and you shall crush many peoples, and you shall dedicate their riches to the Lord and their wealth to the Master of all the earth.” There Jerusalem is promised total salvation from its enemies, who will be utterly destroyed at her hands. R. Joshua says: what does hedek signify? That Israel will crush the nations of the world in gehenna. In the printed version of the Talmud, R. Joshua’s phrase is, “They crush the nations of the world to gehenna,” probably meaning that Israel will vanquish its enemies in this world and send them to gehenna. However, the manuscripts’ version of this story situates the crushing in gehenna itself. 67   Bar-Asher Siegal and Bar-Asher Siegal, “‘Rejoice, O Barren One’,” and Michal Bar-Asher Siegal and Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal, “The Hebrew-based Traditions in Paul’s use of kata pneuma in Galatians 4:21– 31,” forthcoming.

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If this is indeed a straightforward biblical debate between the min and R. Joshua over the meaning of Micah 7:4 – whether Israel is likened to a brier and what that image means – it is hard to understand the harsh, polemical turn of R. Joshua’s second response. Here he pointedly moves away from a simple reading of the verse and pivots toward strong “us-versus-them” language. Moreover, if we have in mind the Septuagint version and the moth imagery associated with this verse in Christian writings, then R. Joshua’s second answer can be read in a new light. According to the manuscript version, R. Joshua is telling the min that Israel will crush the nations in the world to come, that is, in gehenna. Given that the moth metaphor is used in the New Testament precisely to encourage Christians to accumulate deeds that will be safe from moth in the world to come, R. Joshua’s answer is fittingly polemical. In fact, he says to the min: Israel will act as Micah’s moth and will be responsible for your destruction in the world to come. It will do so despite your accumulation of the types of Christian deeds that you thought would be safe from the moth. There will indeed be a destruction, but not by a moth of the earthly possessions, but of the gentiles themselves, and in the next world where they thought themselves to be safe from destruction. R. Joshua thus responds to the min as follows. First of all, the verse talks about a brier, not a moth. This is clear from the end of the verse and from the intended meaning of the brier image (that the best in Israel is a source of protection). But even if you do not accept this reading, let me suggest yet a third interpretation, and one which turns your moth image on its head. The verse compares Israel’s leaders to those who crush and destroy. R. Joshua draws on another verse from Micah for the word play and situates the destruction of the nations in gehenna. This subverts the Christian reading of the verse, which assures believers that their deeds will secure them a treasure in the next world that will be safe from the moth. I want to stress that the moth itself is indeed neither mentioned in the Talmudic passage, nor in the version of the verse which the passage uses. There is an unstated gap between the Talmudic text and the Septuagint version, and the uses of the moth metaphor in prominent New Testament passages. This gap needs to be completed in order to understand the short Talmudic passage. In support of this assertion I have, first, demonstrated the polemical use of Micah 4, which specifically talks about the killing of the nations of the world, and the transfer of this earthly killing to the heavenly realm. Second, I have stressed the superfluous sentence of R. Joshua b. R. H.ananiah underscoring the need to read the verse in its context. This sentence is only needed when understood as part of a discussion about the correct way to read this verse, in light of alternative readings/ versions. The stress here is on making clear that the verse is indeed talking about a brier and not a moth. Third, my reading in this case is strengthened by the other minim stories in the Babylonian Talmud, where the different version/understanding of the Septuagint stands in the background of the Talmudic passage. And finally, Matthew and Luke are crucial since they are the only passages that explicitly stress the possibility that moths might damage earthly treasures. The unique combination of keeping treasures safe in heaven and protecting from moths can serve as back-

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ground for understanding the harsh polemical tones surrounding the Micah verses in the Talmudic short tale.

Conclusion To conclude: I argue in this essay that the Septuagint version of Micah 7:4 and the New Testament passages that employ the moth metaphor illuminate the brief interaction between R. Joshua b. R. H.ananiah and the min in b. ‘Eruvin 101a. These readings shed light on the possible Christian references in these passages and highlight elements of irony and satire that would otherwise go unnoticed. As I and others have repeatedly claimed, scholars of the Babylonian Talmud can no longer be satisfied with learning the Talmud from within the rabbinic sources alone. We must be armed with contemporary Christian and other non-Jewish sources in order to better understand the rabbinic text. This conclusion is aided by research on the literary connections between the Babylonian Talmud and other Christian sources, such as patristic writings and monastic literature.68 In these corpora we can find a wealth of new and exciting information that helps us better understand both bodies of literature from a different perspective, doing so in ways that will alert us to possible historical connections between the two religious communities in the Persian Empire. With this essay’s analysis, then, we add one more piece to the important historical puzzle: how much Christianity is there in the Talmud? What can we learn about the rabbinic composers of these traditions and their knowledge of, and familiarity with, the Christian world around them? The Talmudic narrative does not make our lives easy here. The minim-stories in the Talmud are almost always very short, as is the case here. While this essay focused on one short passage, I propose to strengthen it through an analysis of the larger corpus of minim-stories that share a parallel literary structure and at whose heart lie biblical verses whose interpretation within and outside of the rabbinic milieu carries the key to understanding the dialogues themselves. All of these narratives when read together affirm the need to draw on non-rabbinic biblical interpretation as a background for understanding rabbinic stories. In order to answer the historical question of the connections between the Babylonian Talmud and the broader Christian world surrounding it, we will have to advance one small step at a time. Hopefully, we get closer with each and every example we undertake to study.

68

  See references in Bar-Asher Siegal, Early Christian Monastic Literature, 1– 25.

The Complicated Goy in Classical Rabbinic Sources Christine Hayes Yale University

Introduction Human communities are predicated on generalized concepts of identity and alterity, of self and other, which enable a community to inscribe and police its boundaries. Encounters with particular others, however, can contest a community’s generalized concepts of self and other and destabilize community boundaries. Ancient Israelite or Jewish community was predicated on the maintenance of a generalized and abstract distinction between Israelite (or Jewish) identity and non-Israelite (or non-Jewish) alterity. And yet, encounters with particular others complicated and destabilized these generalized concepts resulting in hybrid identities and shifting community boundaries. This essay explores the way in which generalized or macro-level concepts of the other and particular or micro-level encounters with the other work together in the literature of Jewish antiquity both to establish and to contest the identity of Jews and others. In their recent work,1 Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi have set forth two critically important concepts operative in the Jewish construction of alterity. The first concept is that of the undifferentiated, uniform, and generalized other indicated by the term Goy. They write: “The concept of the Goy divides humanity in a binary manner, separating Jews from all non-Jews, lumping the latter together into one group.”2 This generalized other contains no internal diversity – every Goy is the same and every Goy is conceived as the fixed polar opposite of the Israelite or Jew. The concept of the generalized other enables the construction of a stable Jewish identity and the elimination of hybrid identities.3 The second concept is that of the differentiated, pluriform, and particular other (often indicated by the plural goyim, or “nations”). This pluriform other encompasses a diverse range of ethnic or religious sub-identities rather than a single uniform non-Jewish identity. This pluriform other is different from, but not the fixed polar opposite of, the Israelite/Jew.4 The concept of the pluriform other facilitates the contestation and destabilization of Jewish identity because points of commonality between self and other open up the possibility of fluid and hybrid identities (combining elements of both self and other). 1

  Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “Goy: Toward a Genealogy,” Dine Israel 28 (2011): 69 –122.   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 69. 3   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 79 – 80. 4   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 77 – 78. 2

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Ophir and Rosen-Zvi give a diachronic account of the development of these two conceptions of the other: biblical and Second Temple period texts feature a pluriform concept of non-Jews as a collection of diverse peoples who are different from, but not the polar opposite of, the Jew.5 These texts allow for hybrid identities and the blurring of community boundaries. An example is the biblical ger who, according to Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, is a non-Jewish member of the covenant community.6 On the diachronic account of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, the second concept – that of the generalized, uniform other (Goy) that lumps all non-Jews into a single entity without ethnic and religious differentiation and that stands as the polar opposite of the Jew – is the invention of the tannaitic rabbis of the first to early third century ce (with a little help from Paul). They write, “[I]t is our claim that the conceptual grid allowing for a stable, inclusive and exclusive opposition between a universalized Goy and a particularized Jew first appeared in its crystallized form only in tannaitic literature.”7 Ophir and Rosen-Zvi build their argument on a shift in the meaning of the term goy. In biblical and Second Temple literature the word goy meant nation, usually a foreign nation but Israel too was a goy; and the grammatically plural term goyim referred to a plurality of differentiated nations. By contrast, they note, the rabbis, were the first to use the grammatically singular term goy as a reference to a single non-Jewish individual of fixed character (Goy, capitalized by Ophir and Rosen-Zvi to indicate this concept of a generalized other). The shift from the biblical goy – meaning a nation among many national groups or goyim – to the rabbinic Goy8 – meaning an individual non-Jew who is the polar opposite of the Jew – created a strict binary and eliminated hybrid identities. One was either Jew or Goy, a fact that led to a need for, and generated the creation of, a clear process of conversion that could move a person from one side of the binary to the other. If one is interested in tracing the history of the term goy, then the conclusion that the rabbis use the term goy in a manner unattested in earlier literature is unimpeachable.9 However, as a history of the concept of an undifferentiated and generalized other (the “Goy”), and the dichotomy that this concept constructs, the argument is not entirely persuasive. In this essay, I argue that the two conceptions of the other outlined by Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, while heuristically invaluable, are not consecutive stages in a diachronic development (one pre-rabbinic and the other

5

  Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 82.   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 77. For examples from post-biblical and pre-rabbinic literature, see Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 82 – 89. 7   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 69. Also “the rabbinic Goy is a new concept, grouping for the first time all humans in the world in a binary manner” (81). For Paul’s role, see Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 90 – 93, and Adi Ophir and Ishay Rosen-Zvi, “The Invention of the Goy,” Leshonenu  76 (2014): 497 – 509 (505) [Hebrew]. 8   Capitalization will be used to signal this second concept. 9   The shift from biblical goy to rabbinic Goy is well documented. On this point see Yohanan Glucker, “Who Invented the Goy?” Leshonenu 76 (2014): 227 – 238 (230 – 31) [Hebrew]. For a critique of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s claims regarding Paul’s use of the Greek ethnē, see Glucker, “Who Invented,” 232 – 35. See also the response of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi in “The Invention of the Goy.” 6

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rabbinic). Rather they are synchronic phenomena evident, albeit with differences in detail and emphasis, in both biblical and rabbinic literature.

Diachronic vs Synchronic Models The central claim of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi is that the fully crystallized conception of the Goy which entails “the lumping together of all non-Jews into one category”10 and “the discourse of separation of which it is a key element”11 makes its debut in rabbinic literature. They build their case primarily on the shift in the meaning and use of the word goy.12 However, the focus on terminology is misleading. In order to elucidate a text’s concept of the non-Jew one would do better to ask: does the text represent non-Jews, by whatever name, as a single universalized class even when diverse ethnic or religious sub-groups are recognized? Or does the text represent different non-Jews in different ways based on a recognition of their internal ethnic or religious diversity? In other words, while terminology is helpful, the rhetorical representation and treatment of the non-Jew, again by whatever name, is a more reliable index of the presence or absence of a Jew/Goy binary and of the concept of a universalized, undifferentiated, and generalized other.13 When the rhetorical representation of the non-Jew, rather than specific terminology, is placed front and center, a very different picture emerges: the two concepts of the other so helpfully outlined by Ophir and Rosen-Zvi co-occur in ancient Jewish 10

  Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 73.   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 73. 12   Certainly, Ophir and Rosen-Zvi (“The Invention of the Goy,” 504 – 5) state that the semantic shift is only one piece of evidence for their claim, but it is clearly the primary piece of evidence. Moreover, some of the other proofs flow from the terminological shift by which the word goy comes to designate an individual non-Jew as the polar opposite of the Jew. 13   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi are obviously on to something when they say that a shift in a word’s meaning can signal an altogether new concept. However, this is not inevitably so and language shifts do not tell the whole story. Concepts can remain constant while the linguistic indicators for those concepts shift. Thus, when Jane Austen wrote Sense and Sensibility in 1811, the word “sensible” meant susceptible to emotion – a concept denoted today by the word “sensitive.” Indeed, the word “sensible” has undergone a shift and has taken on a nearly opposite meaning, referring to one who is guided by common sense and precisely not given to excesses of emotion. There is no question that Jane Austen had a clear concept of the two categories today denoted by the terms “sensible” and “sensitive” (indeed, this conceptual binary defines the two central characters in the book) even though she did not employ the term “sensitive” for the latter concept and instead employed the former term (“sensible”) which bears the opposite meaning today. Furthermore, Ishay Rosen-Zvi (“What if We Got Rid of the Goy? Rereading Ancient Jewish Distinctions,” JSJ 47 [2016]: 149 – 82 [149]) claims that scholarship focusing on historical attitudes towards the goy or on the ways in which a goy can become a Jew is not relevant to the question of the very constitution of the concept of the Goy and the dichotomy it constructs. However, one cannot dismiss counterarguments by so narrowly defining the field of acceptable evidence. Insofar as such studies may examine linguistic terms and their rhetorical function, they can have direct relevance for understanding the construction of the “Goy” as the polar opposite of the Jew. Nevertheless, the argument here is discursive rather than historical. 11

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texts and function in tandem to define and redefine Jewish identity and community boundaries. In this respect, of course, ancient Jews were not unique. As noted above, all human groups generate a generalized, macro-level concept of the other when establishing the boundaries of their community. Different ancient Jewish sources might generate different macro-level concepts of the other (some more positive than others) and these differences can be fruitfully compared. More germane to the present discussion, however, is the fact that these static, macro-level constructions are continually contested and destabilized by micro-level constructions that feature direct cognizance of particular others. These micro-level constructions add an element of dynamism to the defining and defending of community boundaries.14 To be clear about the terminology employed: macro-level and micro-level do not here refer to national groups/communities on the one hand and private individuals on the other, but to generalized versus particularized renderings of both. Both national groups and private individuals are susceptible to macro-level and microlevel renderings. Thus, a national group can be discursively rendered in terms of the fixed characteristics of a broad category without regard to specific characteristics (a macro-level rendering), or in terms of characteristics specific to that national group (a micro-level rendering). For example, the Phoenicians may be treated as possessing the fixed characteristics of a generalized and undifferentiated national “other” (a macro-level treatment) or as a particular national “other” with distinct traits that contest the generalized category of national other (a micro-level treatment). Similarly, a private individual can be discursively rendered in terms of the fixed characteristics of a broad category without regard to specific characteristics (a macro-level rendering of that individual), or in terms of characteristics specific to that private person (a micro-level rendering). For example, Hiram of Tyre can be treated as possessing the fixed characteristics of a generalized and undifferentiated individual “other” (a macro-level treatment) or as a particular individual “other” with distinct traits that contest the generalized category of individual other (a micro-level treatment). To demonstrate the difficulties that attend the diachronic account offered by Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, I will show (a) that both biblical and rabbinic literature contain macro-level concepts of an undifferentiated and generalized other, even when the term Goy is not employed, and (b) that in both biblical and rabbinic literature, these macro-level concepts are contested and destabilized by co-occurring micro14

  In “What if We Got Rid of the Goy?,” Rosen-Zvi (152) concedes that there are biblical and pre-rabbinic “roots” of the later rabbinic Goy, but he levels a charge of anachronism against scholars who find evidence of a binary distinction in biblical and pre-rabbinic texts (179). This strikes me as begging the question (i. e., asserting that which is to be proven). One cannot assert that no binary existed prior to the rabbinic sources and then dismiss evidence of a pre-rabbinic binary by saying that the identification is anachronistic because the binary did not exist before the rabbinic period. I argue here that there have always been binary and non-binary conceptions of the non-Jewish other (albeit variously configured, differently emphasized, more and less sharply drawn), that have stood in dialectic tension with one another from the biblical period through the rabbinic period (and, one might as well say, into the present).

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level constructions of differentiated and particularized others. Certainly Ophir and Rosen-Zvi are correct when they say that there are important differences between the biblical and rabbinic sources, but these are differences in emphasis and degree rather than differences in kind.

The Test Case of Intermarriage Before presenting my evidence for the tandem operation of both macro-level and micro-level concepts of the non-Jew in both biblical and rabbinic literature, I begin with a test case that illustrates the dangers of too narrow a focus on terminology in adjudicating these matters. The test case involves a series of biblical, Second Temple, and rabbinic texts on the question of intermarriage. As Ophir and Rosen-Zvi correctly point out, Deuteronomy’s references to nonJews do not “erase the specific distinctions between various peoples and categories . . . There are different peoples surrounding Israel, and Deuteronomy’s interest in each of them is differential and specific.”15 We see this in Deuteronomy’s approach to intermarriage, which, in keeping with the Torah books in general, is variegated depending on the foreign group in question. Some foreign groups are banned, others are not, while still others are banned only temporarily. Thus, while Deut 7:2b – 4 declares an absolute ban on intermarriage with the seven Canaanite nations lest the Israelites be led to join in the idolatry of their foreign spouses, Deuteronomy 20 permits the Israelites to take women from more distant nations as booty in wartime. When you draw near to a town to fight against it, offer it terms of peace. If it accepts your terms of peace and surrenders to you, then all the people in it shall serve you at forced labor. If it does not submit to you peacefully, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, livestock, and everything else in the town, all its spoil. You may enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you. Thus you shall treat all the towns that are very far from you, which are not towns of the nations here. But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them – the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites – just as the Lord your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God. Deut 20:10 –18 (NRSV)16

Deuteronomy 23:3 – 8 makes the following distinctions among ethnic groups: No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord, because they did not meet you with food and water on your journey out of Egypt, and because they hired against you Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor of Mesopotamia, to curse you. (Yet the 15

  Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 77 – 78.   See also Deut 21:10 –14 which permits marriage to a beautiful captive woman.

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Lord your God refused to heed Balaam; the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.) You shall never promote their welfare or their prosperity as long as you live. You shall not abhor any of the Edomites, for they are your kin. You shall not abhor any of the Egyptians, because you were an alien residing in their land. The children of the third generation that are born to them may be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. (NRSV)

In this passage, Ammonites and Moabites are singled out for complete exclusion from the congregation of the Lord (i. e., marriage) on the explicit and particular historical grounds that they treated the Israelites cruelly during their trek to the Promised Land. Egyptians and Edomites are excluded but only as a temporary measure lasting for three generations, again for reasons pertaining to Israel’s specific historical experience with them. Marriage with many other non-Israelites (e. g., Phoenicians, Midianites, Ishmaelites) is nowhere prohibited in Deuteronomy, and this is consistent with narratives in the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History depicting intermarriage between various Israelites (including kings) and non-Israelites.17 In general, the Pentateuchal rules regarding intermarriage are highly differentiated and grounded in particular historical interactions; foreigners are not treated as one abstract, universalized mass, and the Torah does not contain a universal prohibition of marriage with all foreigners: indeed, rather than a universal prohibition of marriage with all foreigners, the Torah has different kinds of bans on a limited number of particular peoples. Intermarriage is a critical concern in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. According to Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, non-Jews are still conceived as a plurality in these books and are not cast as a single entity in opposition to the Jew. They maintain that in his prohibition of intermarriage, Ezra “assumes a plurality of goyim . . . and not simply a generalized other. In Nehemiah, too, every character of the ‘enemies of Judah’ is named using an ethnicity: ‘Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite slave, and Geshem the Arab’ (2:19) with no collective unified name.”18 There are two problems with this assertion. First, a mere listing of ethnic labels does not signal a pluriform conception of the other; if the ethnic groups listed are then treated in a uniform manner it signals quite the opposite – that despite their diverse ethnic labels, foreigners are a single entity vis-à-vis entering the Jewish community through marriage. Second, the absence of the term “Goy” does not necessarily mean the absence of the concept of the generalized, uniform non-Jew since this concept can be expressed in other ways. If we look at the rhetorical function of non-Jews in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, we see that for the purposes of intermarriage they function as a single uniform entity. 17   This is not to say that these permitted exogamous unions are viewed favorably in biblical sources. Many biblical narratives in the Pentateuch and beyond reveal a preference for endogamy and register strong disapproval of exogamy (Gen 24; 26:34, 36:2; Num 12:1; Judg 14 –16). Nevertheless, many others report exogamous unions in neutral or even positive terms (Gen 41:45; Exod 2:21) and more than one Israelite king was the offspring of a non-Israelite mother (e. g., Solomon, Rehoboam). 18   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 82.

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After these things had been done, the officials approached me and said, ”The people of Israel, the priests, and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands with their abominations, from the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. 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 (ma’al) the officials and leaders have led the way. Ezra 9:1– 2 (NRSV)

Where Deuteronomy contained different intermarriage rules for different foreigners depending on Israel’s differentiated historical experience with them, Ezra declares a universal prohibition of intermarriage that lists and then lumps together all foreign groups under the rubric of abhorrent persons of profane seed whose mixture with the holy seed of Israel constitutes sacrilege. Ophir and Rosen-Zvi assume that the list of nations in Ezra 9:1 resembles the list of nations in Deut 23. Certainly, both books list a plurality of foreign groups. Rhetorically speaking, however, the two lists function in precisely opposite manners. In Deut 23, nations are mentioned by name in order to be differentiated – Ammonites and Moabites are singled out as permanently prohibited in marriage, while Edomites and Egyptians are singled out as only temporarily prohibited in marriage and all because of particular experiences with the Israelites. In Ezra, however, the foreign nations found in Deuteronomy are artfully invoked (alongside other foreign groups) precisely in order to erase their distinct identities. Instead of treating these groups as different entities subject to different marriage laws, Ezra homogenizes the list by assigning all members without distinction to the single uniform category of non-holy (profane) seed. As profane seed, they stand in polar opposition to the holy seed of Israel, and intermarriage with any of them – without distinction – profanes the holy seed of Israel. Ezra can make this move because, for him, the boundary around the Israelite community is predicated on God-given and therefore fixed and immutable essences that are not subject to human modification. The boundary between holy and nonholy seed is utterly impermeable; it is categorical, it is binary, and it allows neither for border crossing through conversion or intermarriage nor for hybrid identities. For Ezra, membership in the community of Israel requires two fully native parents with no admixture of non-native genealogy. Thus, while it is true that the singular term “Goy” does not appear in the book of Ezra, it is equally true that the book does what Ophir and Rosen-Zvi claim is not done until the rabbinic period: it “divides humanity in a binary manner, separating Jews from all non-Jews, lumping the latter together into one group.”19 In other words, as regards marriage, foreigners in Ezra 19   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 69. To be sure, how the binary categories are populated (i. e., which social groups are assigned to which category in the binary) is a separate question. In the category “Israel,” Ezra evidently included only Judeans who returned from the exile in Babylonia; and in the category “peoples of the land,” he included Judeans who had remained in the land during the exile and had intermarried with surrounding nations, thereby profaning – in his eyes – their holy seed. What is important for our purposes is not the actual social make-up of the binary categories, but Ezra’s rhetoric of two groups – an Israelite in-group and a non-Israelite out-group – that must remain absolutely separate.

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are treated as a generalized and uniform other, as the Goy, which Ophir and Rosen-Zvi claim is absent from biblical and Second Temple literature and crystallizes only in the rabbinic period. This concept of the generalized and categorical other vis-à-vis marriage into the community continues in the Second Temple book of Jubilees and the sectarian literature at Qumran. Here again, Ophir and Rosen-Zvi interpret the mere listing of ethnic groups and the lack of a single name for all “others” as proof of a variegated and pluriform conception of the other,20 when an analysis of the rhetorical function of foreigners in Jubilees and sectarian literature indicates precisely the opposite. As in Ezra, ethnic designations are invoked in Jubilees and then subverted, as foreigners – despite their recognized ethnic variety – are treated as a single and undifferentiated mass as regards assimilation into the community. As in Ezra, all foreigners, regardless of their ethnic designations, belong to the ontologically distinct category of profane seed and are treated in identical fashion vis-à-vis marriage. Indeed, Jubilees goes so far as to read its inviolable binary division of humanity into the Pentateuch itself. By interpreting Leviticus 18’s prohibition against delivering one’s seed to Molech on pain of death as a prohibition against handing over (leha’abir) one’s offspring for sexual intercourse with a gentile, Jubilees locates a universal ban on intermarriage with all foreigners, as an undifferentiated mass, in the Pentateuch.21 The rape of Dinah in Gen 34 is also mobilized for Jubilees’s extreme and inviolable binary division of humanity. In its retelling of the story, Jubilees omits a significant detail: the circumcision of the males in Shechem as a condition for enabling intermarriage (Gen 34:13 – 24).22 For Jubilees, there is no legal way to contract marriage with a gentile; the distinction between and separation of the profane seed of gentiles and the holy seed of the Israelites is an unalterable fact of the divinely ordained natural order, immune to the remedy of circumcision. Circumcision does not convert profane seed into holy seed, and thus intermarriage is forever and always a sin. Similarly, the sectarian halakhic document 4QMMT contains a prohibition on intermarriage with all gentiles.23 This prohibition is based not only on the holy-seed rationale of Ezra and Jubilees but also on the biblical prohibition of agricultural hybridism.24 In other words, the elimination of both border-crossing and hybrid identities that Ophir and Rosen-Zvi see as a tannaitic innovation is explicit already in Ezra, Jubilees, and 4QMMT. Even though these Second Temple texts do not have a single convenient term for the generalized “other” and even though they sometimes enumerate various ethnic groups, it is clear that they are capable of “thinking” in macro-level binary terms. Because these binary statuses are viewed as ontologically real (i. e., divinely determined and not constructed by human agents and therefore not subject to modi20

  Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 84.   Christine Hayes, “Intermarriage and Impurity in Ancient Jewish Sources,” HTR 92 (1999): 3 – 36; esp. pp.  17 –18. 22   Hayes, “Intermarriage,” 21– 22. 23   For a full discussion of the nature and scope of 4QMMT’s prohibition see Hayes, “Intermarriage,” 25 – 35. 24   Hayes, “Intermarriage,” 26 – 35. 21

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fication), both border crossing and hybrid statuses (i. e., intermarriage and “conversion”) are impossible. To be clear, my argument is not that these texts (Ezra, Nehemiah, Jubilees, 4QMMT) contain only a macro-level generalized conception of the other. I accept the evidence detailed by Rosen-Zvi relying on Cana Werman25 for differentiation of different others. For example, Ishmael and Laban are more positively portrayed than are other “others” in Jubilees. But this rhetoric of differentiation supports my larger claim that Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s two conceptions of the other are co-occurring phenomena throughout ancient Jewish literature. Ancient Jewish texts from the Bible on contain both a rhetoric and a conception of the abstract generalized other who is the polar opposite of the Jew in some contexts, and a competing rhetoric and pluriform conception of particular others (whether collective or individual) in other contexts. Thus, despite numerous passages in which the other is conceived and rhetorically treated in specific and differentiated terms, it remains the case that in many passages in Jubilees, for example, Israel and the nations are represented as polar opposites – one holy seed and one profane seed. Yet Ophir and Rosen-Zvi claim that this polar opposition and its elimination of hybrid statuses appears for the first time only in rabbinic texts. Consider now the following rabbinic source. On that day, an Ammonite convert came and stood before them in the house of study. He said to them: “May I enter the assembly [i. e., marry an Israelite woman]?”26 Rabban Gamliel said to him, “You are forbidden.” R. Joshua said to him: “You are permitted.” Rabban Gamliel said to him: “The scriptural verse says ‘An Ammonite and a Moabite shall not enter into the assembly of the Lord, even to the tenth generation’” (Deut 23:4). R. Joshua said to him, “But are the Ammonites and Moabites still in their own territory? Sennacherib, the King of Assyria, has long since come up and mingled all the nations, as it is said, ‘In that I have removed the bounds of the peoples, and have robbed their treasures, and have brought down the inhabitants as one mighty’ (Isa 10:13).” R. Gamliel said to him: The verse says, ‘But afterward I will bring back the captivity of the Children of Ammon’ (Jer 49:6) [proving that they have already returned and are therefore an identifiable national group].“ R. Joshua said to him: “The verse says ‘I will turn the captivity of my people Israel and Judah’ (Jer 30:3), yet they have not already returned [implying that the prophecy of the Ammonites’ return may also remain unfulfilled)!” So they permitted him to enter the assembly. (m. Yad. 4.4)

Ophir and Rosen-Zvi interpret this text as “deliberately erasing the distinction between various groups in favor of the construction of a single, unified Goy,”27 but the text does no such thing. This particular individual’s conversion and marriage are allowed not because the distinction between prohibited Ammonites and other 25   Cana Werman, “Ha-yahas la-goyim le-sefer ha-Yovlim uve-sifrut Kumran be-hashva’ah la-halakhah ha-Tana’it ha-kedumah ule-sifrut hitsonit bat ha-tekufah” (PhD diss., The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1995), 333 – 38, as cited in Rosen-Zvi, “What if We Got Rid of the Goy?,” 153 – 54. 26   The phrase “to enter the assembly of . . .” echoes the language of Deuteronomy 23, which is explicitly cited in the continuation of the passage and clearly refers to entering the assembly through marriage. See this usage of “labo’ baqahal” in m. Qidd. 4.3; t. Qidd. 5.1, b. B. Bat. 121a, b. Yebam. 76b, b. Nid. 49b, b. Sanh. 36b, and b. Qidd. 74a. 27   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 78.

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permitted foreigners has been erased, but because in R. Joshua’s view this distinction cannot be applied to the particular case in question. According to R. Joshua, national groups have been sufficiently confused by the wars of antiquity to cast doubt on the identity of any particular so-called Ammonite or Moabite. Since the identity of this particular individual as a pureblood Ammonite cannot be determined with certainty, R. Joshua is prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and place him in the class of foreigners who are permitted to convert and intermarry. In other words, the biblical differentiation of various foreign groups to whom different marriage rules apply (some prohibited and some permitted) remains intact even as the ability to apply those rules is compromised by historical developments that have created ethnic ambiguity in particular cases. That the categories remain intact and operative is seen by the fact that there is a dispute about whether or not they should be applied to this specific individual. R. Gamliel’s response to the epistemological uncertainty of the case is to err on the side of caution, to apply the category and its prohibition as if the man’s status were that of an Ammonite. R. Joshua’s response to the epistemological uncertainty is to err on the side of leniency: not to apply the category of prohibition since the man’s status is indeterminable. It is the latter opportunistic (and clever) response that wins the day, and the boundary-crossing event – conversion – is allowed.28 The rabbinic construction of conversion as a way to enable and manage boundary crossing is distinctive precisely because it enables boundary crossing without erasing distinctions (pace Ophir and Rosen-Zvi). M. Yad. 4.4 can be fruitfully contrasted with the approach of Paul. The rabbis do not, for example, engage in the kind of erasure of ethnic difference that later Christian readers would see in Gal 3:28, where Paul asserts, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free 28   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi view the rabbinic embrace of conversion as symptomatic of a stark Jew-Goy binary and the elimination of biblically tolerated hybrid statuses (“The Invention of the Goy,” 498). They hold that, with the rabbinic invention of conversion, one is either a Goy or a Jew and thus movement from one status to the other requires a clear-cut ceremony of complete transformation indicating that the hybrid status exemplified by the biblical ger is no longer tolerated. While I agree that a hybrid status assumes the prior existence of a clear binary, I would argue that the basic binary of Israelite/non-Israelite or Jew/non-Jew is present in the Pentateuch no less than in rabbinic sources, and that the biblical ger assumes the prior existence of that binary in precisely the way that Ophir and Rosen-Zvi claim is true of the rabbinic convert. Moreover, if the biblical ger occupies a hybrid status in the view of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, then the rabbinic convert also occupies a hybrid status because, for all their differences in content (and there are many!), the two are structurally parallel. In both cases, a binary division of humanity into two basic categories is assumed (Israelite-foreigner; Jew-Goy); in both cases a particular human individual possesses features characteristic of both categories. The biblical ger combines features of the foreigner (non-native birth) and the Israelite (such as co-residence, certain legal entitlements and obligations). The rabbinic convert is also not fully one or the other. Certainly, the rabbinic convert is much more fully assimilated to the category of Jew than the biblical ger is to the category of Israelite; nevertheless, the convert is not treated as a Jew in every respect (primarily, the convert does not enjoy the same marriage rights as a native-born Israelite; see m. Qidd. 4.1, 4.6 – 7, y. Qidd. 4.6, 66a, b. Qidd. 64b) and is thus also a hybrid. The difference between the hybrid status of the biblical ger and the hybrid status of the rabbinic convert is a difference of degree, certainly, but not a difference of kind in that it assumes a basic binary. For a similar point, see Glucker, “Who Invented,” 229.

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man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”29 For the rabbis, the functional equivalent of faith in Jesus is acceptance of the Torah, but even this would not erase all differences. It is clear from m. Yad. 4.4 that even the lenient R. Joshua would not admit an Ammonite who wished to accept the Torah into the congregation. R. Joshua is able to accept the putative Ammonite in this story only because he casts doubt on his status as a genuine Ammonite. Positioned between Ezra/Jubilees and Paul, the rabbis distinguish themselves from both by maintaining difference (like Ezra/Jubilees and unlike Paul), even as they allow the difference to be overcome (like Paul and unlike Ezra/Jubilees) through adoption of the Torah. Theirs is a nuanced and heavily negotiated middle between these two extremes of maximal exclusion and maximal inclusion. This test case has shown that, on the important question of the permeability of community boundaries, Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s evolutionary account of the concept of the Goy – the generalized and undifferentiated other – is difficult to sustain. On the one hand, and contrary to their hypothesis, a generalized and undifferentiated concept of the other that foreswears boundary crossing and hybrid identities is found already in some biblical and Second Temple literature. On the other hand, and contrary to their hypothesis, the rabbinic source cited here assumes that the distinctions among different foreign groups and how they are to be treated remain, even if these distinctions can no longer be applied in practice, opening a window for a more permissive approach on the question of border crossing.

The Co-occurrence of Macro-level and Micro-level Constructions of the Other in the Bible I propose an alternative account of the relationship between the two concepts outlined by Ophir and Rosen-Zvi. The two concepts are not consecutive as Ophir and Rosen-Zvi suggest but co-occurring. In short: there is a dialectical tension between generalized and particular, between macro-level and micro-level constructions of identity and alterity in both biblical and rabbinic literature. Below, I make the following claims: first, pace Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, a generalized binary conception of Israelites and non-Israelites is a fundamental feature of the Bible’s macro-level construction of Israelite identity; second, this generalized binary conception is repeatedly destabilized and contested at the micro-level by differentiated others, hybrid identities and boundary crossings; third, the same macro-level and micro-level dialectic – albeit with different emphasis and character – is found in rabbinic literature. First, we consider the macro-level construction of an Israelite/non-Israelite binary in biblical sources. In several key texts, Israelite identity is defined in oppo29   It is important to distinguish between Paul’s meaning and the interpretation given to his words by later readers since, as I have argued elsewhere (see Christine Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015], 141– 51), Paul believes in the maintenance of ethnic distinctions. See further n. 36.

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sition to the other nations as a single collective. This is achieved through separation – and is discursively marked by the root q.d.š., translated as “holy” in this sense of separate, set apart, or withdrawn from ordinary use. The biblical sources point to two primary modes of holiness which may be referred to as covenantal holiness and designated holiness. The earliest articulation of covenantal holiness is found in Exod  19:3b – 6a: The Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, “Thus shall you say to the house of Jacob and declare to the children of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to me. Now then, if you will obey me faithfully and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. Indeed, all the earth is mine, but you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”

If Israel obeys Yhwh’s covenant, then Israel will be a holy nation, meaning a nation separated out from all other nations to Yhwh (“you shall be to me . . .”). Identity is explicitly predicated on a binary opposition between Israel and the other nations (“you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples”). Israel is the nation that has separated from all other nations in order to covenant with Yhwh and observe his laws. For the purposes of establishing this covenantal identity, other nations, despite their ethnic variety, are essentially lumped together under one generalized category – that mass of humanity who is not in covenant with Yhwh – a clear binary of my people and all other peoples. However, despite this clear and static conceptual binary, in sociological terms, the composition of each community is dynamic because movement in and out of these two categories is possible. Precisely because Exodus 19’s criterion for membership in the holy nation is aspirational (something to be achieved by accepting the terms of the covenant) and non-biological,30 the boundary around the community is permeable and border crossings are permitted. The earliest articulation of designated holiness is found in Deuteronomy 7: For you are a people consecrated (am qadoš) to the Lord your God: of all the peoples on earth the Lord your God chose you to be His treasured people. It is not because you are the most numerous of peoples that the Lord set His heart on you and chose you – indeed, you are the smallest of peoples; but it was because the Lord favored you and kept the oath He made to your fathers that the Lord freed you with a mighty hand and rescued you from the house of bondage, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Deut 7:6 – 8, emphasis added)

Deuteronomy’s account of Israel’s holiness is different from that of Exodus 19. Here, Israel is designated by the deity as a holy nation. Rather than an aspirational status 30   Despite Yhwh’s promises to Abraham and his seed, membership in the nation that originated with Abraham was never determined by biology alone. The patriarchs and even Moses produced children with foreign wives (Hagar, Tamar, Tsipporah, the Cushite woman), Abraham “acquired souls” in Haran, and a mixed multitude (erev rav, which is not clearly pejorative in its biblical context) came out of Egypt with the Israelites. The Pentateuchal narratives tell of non-Hebrews joining this collective and in the Deuteronomistic history foreign women give birth to kings over Israel. Not only is there movement into the community, there is movement out of the community. Despite their direct biological connections to Abraham, Ishmael and Esau will become separate nations.

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achieved though observance of the Torah, in Deuteronomy the holiness of Israel is a fixed status conferred at the moment of selection and separation. It precedes the covenant and is the justification for it. Here, as in Exodus, the term qadoš is part of a discourse of separation which presupposes a basic binary between those with whom one may mix – one’s own community – and those with whom one may not mix – the generalized mass of humanity outside one’s community. This amixia is conceived in at least two ways in Deuteronomy. According to Deuteronomy 7:1– 6, the imperative of qedušah, or holy separation, is moral-religious in character. Israel is to separate from those who practice idolatry and behave immorally. A qedušah, or holy separateness based on religious and moral grounds is binary – one is either an idolater or an Israelite.31 In Deut 14, qedušah, or holy separateness, is explicitly associated with dietary laws observed precisely and only by Israel. These and other arbitrary ritual practices particular to Israel (particular precisely because they do not arise from universal rationality) are explicitly intended to keep Israel “holy,” i. e., distinct from all those who do not observe these practices (see also Lev 11:41– 45). Israelites are people who, unlike everyone else, do not eat pork, circumcise their males on the eighth day of life, do not have sex with menstruants, and so on. This qedušah, or holy separation based on nonrational, arbitrary ritual practices like those in Lev 11 and Deut 14, is clearly binary: Israel observes these non-rational rules and other nations do not. A third conception of holy separateness appears in biblical books from the Second Temple period. Expanding on the Deuteronomic notion of a designated holiness, Mal 2:11–12 and Ezra 9:1– 2, as we have seen, configure Israel’s holiness genealogically (as holy seed – a divinely bestowed ontological status that cannot be altered in any way by humans), with negative implications for mixing or mingling with non-holy seed (in marriage). Holy-seed ideology comes in hard and soft versions. In the softest version, the presence of some holy seed (in early times, that of the father) confers Israelite identity. The hardest version of holy-seed ideology innovated by Ezra requires pure Israelite genealogy – i. e., descent from two fully native Israelite parents – as both a sufficient and necessary condition for claiming Israelite identity and membership in the community. According to this view (maintained by Ezra, Jubilees, and later sectarian circles), the children of foreign spouses cannot claim Israelite identity because of the admixture of non-holy seed. A separation based on a biologically realist32 holy-seed ideology like Ezra’s is strictly binary. No genealogically mixed person can enter the community; no genealogically pure person will 31   This idea is summed up by Sifre Deut. 54 and parallels: “All who accept idolatry reject the whole Torah and all who reject idolatry accept the whole Torah.” 32   I use “realist” in the strict philosophical sense of a mind-independent or objective reality immune to human intervention or modification and not as it is used (in contrast to this longstanding philosophical tradition) in contemporary legal theory to refer to that which is subjective, contingent, or historicized or as it is used in colloquial English to refer to that which exists. Everyone believes that concepts such as holiness exist (i. e., are real); but not everyone believes that concepts such as holiness have an independent existence outside of particular objects and conceiving minds, in something like the Platonic realm of forms (i. e., are realist).

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ever be expelled from the community. Boundary crossings and hybrid statuses are illegitimate. In short, separation and amixia are a significant and fundamental dimension of Jewish identity already in the Bible – whether that identity is defined in terms of Exodus’s covenantal holiness or Deuteronomy’s designated holiness. In either case, the Israelite community is separated out from other nations – as the keepers of the covenant, as non-idolaters, as observers of particular distinguishing ritual practices, or as a genealogical line (holy seed). Insofar as all of these modes of identity are predicated on the existence of a non-Israelite collective from which one must remain separate, a generalized and undifferentiated Israelite/non-Israelite binary is fundamental to the construction and maintenance of Israelite identity in the Hebrew Bible. Alongside these macro-level constructions of Jewish identity and Jewish community, however, are micro-level contestations of identity and alterity that destabilize the macro-level binaries that define Jewish community. As noted earlier, the ger is just such a micro-level contestation. The ger is a foreigner who resides within Israel, observes many but not all of Israel’s laws, participates in some cultic rites, and is guaranteed civic equality. Not fully assimilated, the ger occupies a hybrid status as a foreigner (nokhri) who resides among the Israelites without becoming an Israelite. In biblical narratives, the Israelite/non-Israelite binary is destabilized (1) by non-Israelite characters who cross the boundary and are incorporated into the community, such as Tamar, a Canaanite who outperforms Judah in fulfilling the obligation to continue her dead Israelite husband’s line (Gen 38), or (2) by non-Israelite characters who retain their foreign status but possess traits of character expected of Israelites, such as Jethro the Midianite who praises the god of the Israelites, counsels and aids them, gives his daughter to them in marriage, but is then said to “return to his own country” (Exod 18), or (3) by non-Israelite characters who occupy a hybrid status, retaining their ethnic label even as they are grafted into the community, such as Ruth who, in defiance of Deut 23’s prohibition of Moabites, marries into the community and becomes the great-grandmother of King David (Ruth 4:17) but in the closing verses of the book of Ruth is still referred to as Ruth the Moabite. Rabbinic midrash will declare both Jethro and Ruth to be converts33 but this is an anachronistic reading of the biblical narratives. As this brief survey reveals, and pace Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, the Hebrew Bible contains a concept of the non-Israelite as the fixed polar opposite of an Israelite. When considered at the macro-level, the internal diversity of non-Israelites (as collectives or as individuals) is of no relevance, and the division of Israel and non-Israel is generalized and binary. However, the Hebrew Bible also contains micro-level rep33   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi (“Goy,” 80 – 81) are correct in noting that the rabbis prefer to locate people closer to one end or the other of the Israelite-Goy binary, but not in asserting that the rabbis eliminate hybridity altogether, as there is an element of hybridity even in the rabbinic convert (see n. 28 above) and a micro-level discourse in rabbinic literature that contests the binary, as will be demonstrated further below.

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resentations of non-Israelites as different from but not the polar opposite of Israelites. Non-Israelites can adopt behaviors or possess qualities of character that resemble the (idealized) behaviors and character of Israelites, creating hybrid identities. And, at times, they can cross the boundary between communities entirely.34

The Co-occurrence of Macro-level and Micro-level Constructions of the Other in Rabbinic Literature Rabbinic literature also contains macro-level concepts of the non-Jew as the polar opposite of the Jew, as Ophir and Rosen-Zvi have shown. While the generalized and undifferentiated non-Jew of rabbinic literature acquires the convenient label of Goy, and while the Goy of rabbinic literature has a more extreme and polarized character than its structural equivalent in the Bible (and Ophir and Rosen-Zvi are right to point out these facts), it is not in itself a new phenomenon. Moreover, the macro-level concept of a generalized and undifferentiated Goy is accompanied in rabbinic literature, as in biblical literature, by micro-level contestations of the binary. The halakhic convert is just such a micro-level contestation because the ability of persons to cross the identity boundary exposes the artificial, non-ontological, and therefore unstable character of the boundary and the binary identities it policies. Ophir and Rosen-Zvi do not accept this characterization of the rabbinic understanding of identity as non-ontological. They argue that, for the rabbis, the Jew/ Goy opposition is metaphysical and ontological because it is anchored in the very different relation between God and the Jew on the one hand and God and the Goy on the other hand.35 But the conclusion does not follow from the premise. Certainly, the deity has a different relation to the Jew and to the non-Jew, but it does not follow from this fact that Jewish identity and non-Jewish identity are ontological in the rabbinic view. The term “ontological” is both commonly and technically understood to denote an attribute or quality that is immutable and inalienable. The very fact that the rabbinic system allows a non-Jew to become a Jew demonstrates that the Jew/Goy polarity is not conceived by the rabbis as ontological (i. e., immutable and inalienable); thus, to describe the rabbinic understanding of identity as ontological while recognizing that the rabbis allow non-Jews to adopt Jewish identity – as Ophir and Rosen-Zvi do – is to engage in a contradiction. The rabbis’ constructivist approach to identity becomes even clearer when contrasted with the approach of other ancient Jews who did conceive of the Jew/Goy polarity as ontological – Ezra-Nehemiah, Jubilees, and 4QMMT.36 In these works, the inability of persons to cross the identity boundary 34

  If not for themselves, then for their offspring, as in the case of Ruth.   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 109 –110; Rosen-Zvi, “The Invention of the Goy,” 509. 36   We may add Paul to this list, as I have argued in What’s Divine about Divine Law?, 141– 51. For a similar argument that Paul was an essentialist, or primordialist, and not a constructivist about identity, see Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 35

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is predicated on the ontological character of the boundary and the binary identities it marks. No ritual, no legal pronouncement, no human deed can alter the identity of a non-Jew, because that identity is ontological, which means ipso facto that it is immutable and inalienable. As noted, in the face of macro-level (undifferentiated) assertions of the Jew/Goy polarity, the rabbinic convert stands as a micro-level (differentiated) instance of near-complete boundary crossing (like the biblical ger, for all their many differences). However, it is not only the rabbinic convert whose hybridity destabilizes polar identities; in rabbinic literature, the macro-level Jew-Goy binary is destabilized also by non-Jewish characters who adopt behaviors and possess traits expected of Israelites. These characters occupy positions of hybrid identity even when they are not imagined as undergoing a formal rabbinic conversion. To be clear, my claim is not that the conceptual distinction between Jew and Goy is overthrown or even blurred by these contestations. The rabbinic macro-level distinction, like the biblical macro-level distinction of Israelite and non-Israelite, is sharp and clear.37 My claim is that, as in the Bible, the rabbinic presentation of 2016), 23. For Paul, identities are given not made. As Thiessen writes, “for Paul, nomos does not overcome physis or genos” (70), which means that gentile conversion is an impossibility. According to Thiessen (14), it is not just that Paul thought gentiles need not or should not convert to Judaism in order to be acceptable to the god of Israel, but rather that they could not. 37   Indeed, as Ophir and Rosen-Zvi rightly point out, the distinction is sharper and clearer in rabbinic texts than in most biblical texts (though I would exclude Ezra from this claim). However, we may question Rosen-Zvi’s assertion (“What if We Got Rid of the Goy?,” 156) that the otherness of the Goy is nowhere more apparent than in the rabbinic explanation of the need to purify gentile vessels: “Due to the gentileness of gentiles” (K‫מפני גיּות גוים‬K; Sifre Num 158, ed. Horowitz, 214). The sentence is deliberately tautological, as if saying: do not look for external reasons for the impurity of things that were touched by goyim. It is the gentileness itself that is the cause; no additional explanation is needed. Despite clear evidence that rabbinic halakhah does not generally understand gentiles to bear an inherent ritual impurity (such as numerous laws that allow interactions that an inherent impurity would prohibit, and explicit statements that exclude living gentiles from the biblical system of ritual impurity), Rosen-Zvi relies on this rare phrase (K‫גיּות גוים‬K), found only here, to posit a rabbinic conception of inherent gentile ritual impurity, following Vered Noam, “‘The Gentileness of the Gentiles’: Two Approaches to the Impurity of Non Jews,” in Halakha in Light of Epigraphy, ed. Albert I. Baumgarten et al., JAJSup 3 (Göttingen; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010), 27 – 41. However, the same lack of clarity regarding essential or ontological attributes appears in Noam’s study. Noam states that ritual impurity was viewed as “an essential quality of gentiles” and then in the very next sentence that “this impurity was explained, right at the outset, as resulting from idolatry” (41). A quality cannot be both essential (primordial, immutable, inalienable) and derived. What Noam appears to mean then is that in Jewish antiquity gentiles were considered derivatively impure (because of their idolatry) and precisely not inherently impure. If this is Noam’s claim then it is consistent with the following claim, which I have argued at length: neither biblical nor rabbinic sources articulate a principle of inherent (i. e., primordial, immutable, inalienable) gentile ritual impurity, i. e., a ritual impurity that is not derived from some other source. There is no principle of inherent gentile ritual impurity analogous to the ritual impurity of, for example, semen, which is immutable, inalienable, does not derive from some other source of impurity, inheres in the semen and cannot be cleansed. Certainly, in biblical and rabbinic sources, gentiles, like Jews, are susceptible to moral impurity (derivatively and not inherently), and in some circles interethnic sexual unions create genealogical impurity in the mixed offspring of the union. But it is quite clear that the prevailing

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particular instances of the other (collective or individual) that deviate from the macro-level characterization of the other, serves to expose and underscore the constructed and artificial nature of the distinction, rendering it unstable and suspect as a way to organize identity. An excellent analysis of the dialectic tension between macro-level and microlevel representations of the non-Jew in rabbinic literature is found in a recent dissertation by Mira Beth Wasserman on Bavli tractate ‘Abodah Zarah38 – a tractate concerned with interactions between Jews and non-Jews. Wasserman’s description of the third-century Mishnaic tractate that lies at the core of b. ‘Abodah Zarah largely conforms to Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s basic claim that in rabbinic literature “all nonJews receive one unified, negative name, both as individuals and as nations.”39 The laws in this mishnaic tractate, by and large, erect social boundaries between Jews and non-Jews based on a harsh and relatively uniform characterization of the nonJew as prone to sexually depravity, violence, and deception. How much this may be attributed to the tendency of law as a general human practice to speak at the macro-level of generalized abstractions is a matter of debate. Nevertheless, according to the general legal statements in m. ‘Abodah Zarah, a Jew must not leave his animals in the keeping of a non-Jew because the non-Jew is suspected of bestiality; a Jew must not patronize a non-Jewish barber since the non-Jew is suspected of bloodshed; a Jew must not sell certain items to a non-Jew because the items will be used for idolatrous purposes. Such legal norms posit a simple and highly polarized binary of virtuous Jew and depraved, violent non-Jew. But alongside the negative macro-level generalization that underpins much of the halakhah in this tractate, rabbinic literature contains micro-level portrayals that push in a different direction. While these contestations do not erase the generalized vilification of the gentile, they certainly destabilize it by exposing its constructed rather than essential nature. We see this nowhere so clearly as in the Babylonian Talmud’s commentary on m. ‘Abodah Zarah, where the negative and positive traditions are brought side by side and subjected to further interrogation. In its discussion of Mishnah ‘Abodah Zarah, the Talmud brings the Mishnah’s macro-level generalizations about non-Jews into conversation with tannaitic and post-tannaitic traditions about particular others that destabilize them by showing that they do not map reality so much as shape it. As Wasserman notes,40 in the Talmud we find some passages that “affirm commonalities among all people, and some that emphasize the absolute otherness of non-Jews” equating them with animals. She writes: view in biblical texts (including the Priestly source) and much rabbinic halakhah is that a living gentile does not bear an inherent, primordial, non-derivative, immutable, and inalienable ritual impurity qua gentile. See Christine Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), passim. 38   Mira Beth Wasserman, “The Humanity of the Talmud: Reading for Ethics in Bavli ‘Avoda Zara” (PhD diss., The University of California at Berkeley, 2014). 39   Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 77. 40   Wasserman, “Humanity,” 14.

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Telling stories about non-Jews, or debating how Jewish law addresses them, the Bavli presses beyond “the four cubits” governed by halakha, and reveals an interest in human experience which cuts across the Jewish-Gentile divide . . . the Talmud forges relationships, staging conversations across difference.41

Wasserman traces the dialectic tension that shapes the tractate’s presentation of the non-Jew and by extension its mapping of the boundary between Jew and nonJew: b. ‘Abodah Zarah begins with a well-known eschatological narrative in which the nations are uniformly condemned for their failure to busy themselves with Torah; but the tractate ends, more than seventy folio pages later, with the story of a non-Jewish king familiar with Jewish dietary law shaming a particular Jew for “not busying himself with Torah.” Between the first and last story are a number of other stories in which particular non-Jews disrupt the generalized negative Goy that permeates the halakhah of the Mishnah. We turn first to the opening eschatological passage in b. ‘Abod. Zar. 2a – 3b (and here I follow the brilliant analysis offered by Jeffrey Rubenstein42): The story progresses in several scenes. In scene 1, the Holy One judges the nations in the final eschaton. He sits with a Torah in his lap and invites all who have busied themselves with the Torah to come and take their reward. The nations crowd around him – the Romans, the Persians, and others – and boast of their achievements, but the Holy One rejects them all in a blanket condemnation that ignores their distinct characteristics and relegates all to the generalized or macro-level category of “other” from which no particular nation can differentiate itself and escape.43 Certainly, as Rubenstein notes, the story is a condemnation of the nations, justifying their exclusion from the world to come. But as Wasserman points out, the story’s message is subverted not only in its depiction of the deity as unfairly sabotaging the nations’ attempt to prove their merit, but also in its momentary digression to discuss a tannaitic teaching that equates a non-Jew who studies Torah with the high priest. The subversions continue as the tractate progresses. Wasserman points to a set of three stories of redemptive death that appear later in the tractate. One story, found on b. ‘Abod. Zar. 16b –18b, involves the Roman executioner of R. H.anina ben Teradyon. The executioner is moved by his encounter with the pious R. H.anina to hasten the martyr’s execution and then jump into the fire himself, after which a heavenly voice announces that both R. H.anina and his Roman executioner have attained the world to come.44 As Wasserman points out, in 41   Wasserman, “Humanity,” 24. Again, the argument is not that rabbinic sources seek to dissolve or transcend difference in the manner of Gal 3:28 cited above. The binary remains but its constructed nature is revealed by cases of hybridity and border crossing. 42   Jeffrey Rubenstein, Talmudic Stories: Narrative Art, Composition, and Culture (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), chapter 7. 43   Here, I concur with Rosen-Zvi, who sees in this text an erasure of the distinctions among particular nations. 44   I note in passing the similarity between this story and Mark 15:39: “And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God.’” Here, too, a Roman involved in the execution of the story’s hero is moved to a “saving” recognition by witnessing the hero’s martyrdom.

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contrast to the opening eschatological story and its macro-level condemnation of all others, including Romans, this story makes a differentiation and confirms that some non-Jews, including a Roman executioner, can achieve eternal life no less than the most pious martyred rabbi. A second dramatic death, found in a story on b. ‘Abod. Zar. 10b, also shifts our focus from a macro-level characterization of the other to a micro-level characterization. In this story, the non-Jew Keti’ah bar Shalom is condemned to death for resisting the king’s evil intentions regarding the Jews. At the last moment he circumcises himself, in what Wasserman refers to as “an intrepid, passionate act of identification with the Jewish people,”45 and a heavenly voice announces that he has attained life in the world to come. In a third story, on b. ‘Abod. Zar. 17a, a thoroughly depraved Jew, Elazar ben Dordya, who has committed every conceivable and heinous sin (placing him on the “Goy” side of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s Jew/Goy binary) repents at the last moment before death and is also welcomed into the world to come. These three stories have structural similarities – each features dramatic death, a heavenly voice announcing the person’s acceptance, and R. Judah’s observation that some attain eternal life in a moment and others over the course of a lifetime. These similarities invite us to consider the protaganists as a group – the pious rabbi H.anina ben Teradyon and the debauched Jew Elazar ben Dordya, the righteous Gentile Keti’a bar Shalom and the Roman executioner. Wasserman concludes: Pious rabbi, righteous Gentile, and debauched Jew are a disparate group by any measure, but especially against the backdrop of a tractate that ostensibly aims to erect boundaries between Jews and Gentiles, and that opens with a vision of the non-Jewish nations as utterly irredeemable. This network of stories accentuates the commonalities among rabbis and sinners, Jews and Gentiles.46

The micro-level contestations of the macro-level negative characterization of nonJews continue on b. ‘Abod. Zar. 23b – 24a with the story of Dama ben Natina, a nonJew extolled as a model of filial piety because he chose to sacrifice a tremendous fortune rather than disturb his sleeping father, and he was willing to endure public humiliation at the hands of his mother without complaint. And in the final story of the tractate, King Shapur embarrasses Bati bar Tuvi, one of two Jewish visitors, by casting aspersions on his Jewishness.47 He does this by purifying the knife used to cut the food of Mar Yehuda but conspicuously choosing not to do so for Bati bar Tuvi on the grounds that the latter’s identity as a Jew has been thrown into question by an unspecified sin.48 According to Wasserman, King Shapur, as a “non-Jew who respects the social and religious boundaries that divide Jew and Gentile”49 is portrayed more positively than the Jew who fails to observe these distinctions. Here, the non-Jew “aligns himself with the rabbis in upholding Jewish ritual distinctions. In 45

  Wasserman, “Humanity,” 75.   Wasserman, “Humanity,” 80. 47   Wasserman, “Humanity,” 217. 48   The king alludes to some violation but the nature of the violation is unclear. 49   Wasserman, “Humanity,” 217. 46

166

Christine Hayes

this story, Gentile authority joins rabbinic authority in castigating Jews who undermine Jewish difference.”50 Thus, while in the opening eschatological scene, the Holy One rejects the claim of the Romans and Persians that they established the conditions for Jews to observe Torah, in the final story the Persian King Shapur is represented as doing exactly this – chastising a Jew who has failed to observe the Torah. It is not only aggadic texts that entertain destabilizing micro-level contestations of the macro-level characterization of the other. Halakhic texts also differentiate Jews and non-Jews of various stripes in a manner that violates the simple Jew/Goy binary and reveals its non-ontological character. Thus, while t. H.ul. 1.1 deems the slaughtered animal of a gentile to be non-kosher, that of a Samaritan (ethnically non-Jewish) is deemed kosher. In its expansion on this baraita in b. H.ul. 2a – 4b, the gemara justifies the differentiation of Samaritans from other non-Jews by declaring that the former are more punctilious in the observance of commandments than are Jews! On the Jewish side, the gemara also differentiates among Jewish apostates: specifically, while the incidental apostate is capable of kosher slaughter, the thorough-going apostate who has essentially renounced the Torah is not.51 The halakhic result is that one kind of ethnic non-Jew (the Samaritan) is capable of kosher slaughter while one kind of ethnic Jew (the full apostate) is not. The misalignment of particular, differentiated others and the generalized conception of the other does not erase the generalized conception. It does, however, expose its non-ontological nature, rendering it less stable and controlling. Yair Furstenberg’s recent work on the status of the Samaritan in rabbinic halakhah52 reinforces the conclusions reached here: specifically, Furstenberg also argues that although the Jew/Goy binary is certainly found in rabbinic literature it is (a) not uncontested and (b) not ontological. Indeed, he concurs that the second point follows from the first. The test case for Furstenberg’s exploration of rabbinic constructions of community identity is the Samaritan. In Second Temple literature, the Samaritans are figured as an excluded ethnic other and are treated with enmity. However, drawing upon the model of Roman citizenship, which allowed the formation of citizenship communities that cut across ethnic and cultural identities, the rabbis break with Second Temple precedent and annex Samaritans into a system of graded citizenship – a truly hybrid status.53 The advantage of Furstenberg’s Roman citizenship model for understanding rabbinic discourses of the other is its ability to identify and account for hybrid identities like that of the Samaritan. Because the ontological model of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi entails the elimination of hybrids, it cannot account for the rabbinic construction of the Samaritan as a hybrid being, or for 50

  Wasserman, “Humanity.”   I thank Elana Stein Hain for bringing these sources to my attention. 52   Yair Furstenberg, “The Rabbis and the Roman Citizenship Model: The Case of the Samaritans,” in Citizenship(s) and Self-Definition(s) in the Roman Empire: Roman, Greek, Jewish and Christian Perspectives, ed. Katell Bertholet and Jonathan J. Price (Leuven: Peeters), forthcoming. 53   For a related consideration of the influence of Roman citizenship models on the construction of community identity in New Testament sources see David Kaden, Matthew, Paul, and the Anthropology of Law WUNT 2/424 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016). 51

The Complicated Goy in Classical Rabbinic Sources

167

repeated rabbinic representations of ethnic others whose behavior runs counter to the abstract conception of the Goy.

Conclusion To sum up, the assertion of Ophir and Rosen-Zvi that a clear Jew-Goy binary featuring a generalized and undifferentiated “Goy” is absent from biblical and pre-rabbinic Jewish literature is difficult to sustain. Their assertion that rabbinic literature is characterized by an absolute and ontological Jew-Goy binary that eliminates hybrid identities and brooks no serious challenge54 is equally difficult to sustain. With or without the word “goy,” both biblical and rabbinic literature feature a dialectic tension between the macro-level representation of the non-Jew as a universalized and undifferentiated other who is the polar opposite of the Jew (Ophir and Rosen-Zvi’s Goy), and micro-level representations of non-Jews as particular others who exhibit points of similarity to and difference from the Jew. These micro-level representations do not displace the binary; they contest it and expose its non-ontological character by attributing to non-Jews some of the qualities characteristic of Jews. Non-Jews are positioned at various points along the scale from sympathizer to full convert, from moral equal to moral superior. The question for future research is not which representation – the macro-level or the micro-level – occurs in the literature but rather, since the two are co-occurring in both biblical and rabbinic literature, when and why one is employed in any given instance. Are abstract generalizations about collective or individual non-Jews employed more frequently in legal sources? When does a narrative employ a stock stereotype of non-Jews and when does it depict a particularized portrait of non-Jews that contests the stock stereotype? The co-occurrence of the two modes of representation of the other is, I submit, inevitable; it is simply impossible to have one without the other. Identity formation requires the construction of an “other” – usually in stock generalized terms that simply do not map onto the messy reality in which human beings live. But the very construction of a macro-level identity binary makes it possible to imagine and perform the binary’s violation through intra-group differentiation, border crossings and hybridity at the micro-level. Paradoxically, these micro-level disruptions make visible and reinforce the macro-level binary, reaffirming it in the very act of exposing its non-ontological and fully constructed character. This dialectic interplay of macro-level and micro-level conceptions of the other is found throughout ancient Jewish literature.

54

  Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, “Goy,” 106.

Contributors Michal Bar-Asher Siegal holds the Rosen Family Career Development Chair in Judaic Studies at The Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. She is the author of Early Christian Monastic Literature and the Babylonian Talmud. Albert I. Baumgarten is Professor Emeritus, Department of Jewish History, Bar Ilan University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation and Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews: A Twentieth Century Tale. Katell Berthelot is Professor at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). She is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Gift of the Land and the Fate of the Canaanites in Jewish Thought and L’ “humanité de l’autre homme” dans la pensée juive ancienne. She is the principal investigator of the ERC project “Judaism and Rome,” which seeks to reevaluate the impact of Roman imperialism on the formation of Ancient Judaism (judaism-and-rome.cnrs.fr). Patricia A. Duncan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at Texas Christian University. She is the author of Novel Hermeneutics in the Greek ­PseudoClementine Romance. Nathan Eubank is the Clarendon-Laing Associate Professor in New Testament, Keble College, University of Oxford. He is the author of Wages of Cross-Bearing and Debt of Sin: The Economy of Heaven in Matthew’s Gospel. Isaiah M. Gafni is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and President of Shalem College in Jerusalem. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including The Jews of Babylonia in the Talmudic Era: A Social and Cultural History and Land, Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity. Wolfgang Grünstäudl is Assistant Professor of Biblical and Historical Theology at the University of Wuppertal. He is the author of Petrus Alexandrinus: Studien zum historischen und theologischen Ort des zweiten Petrusbriefes. Christine Hayes is the Robert F. and Patricia Ross Weis Professor of Religious Studies at Yale University. She is the author of numerous books, including Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud and What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives.

170

Contributors

Tobias Nicklas is Professor of New Testament Exegesis and Hermeneutics at the University of Regensburg. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including Ablösung und Verstrickung: “Juden” und Jüngergestalten als Charaktere der erzählten Welt des Johannesevangeliums und ihre Wirkung auf den impliziten Leser and Jews and Christians? Second Century “Christian” Perspectives on the “Parting of the Ways”. Matthew Thiessen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at McMaster University. He is the author of Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity and Paul and the Gentile Problem. Haim Weiss is Associate Professor of Hebrew Literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is the author and editor of numerous books, including Dreams In Rabbinic Literature and “All Dreams Follow the Mouth”? A Literary and Cultural Reading in the Talmudic “Dream Tractate”.

Index of Sources Old Testament Genesis 1:1 65 1:31 105 10 31 12:1 – 3 106 15:1 126 17:12 29 17:14 29 19 78 21:21 98 24 152 26:34 152 28:12 65, 108 32:3 98 33:14 98 33:16 98 34 154 34:13 – 24 154 36:2 152 36:8 – 9 98 38 160 41:45 152 Exodus 2:21 152 14:31 88 – 9 18 160 19 158 19:3b – 6a 158 19:9 89 22:32 31 32:6 42 Leviticus 11 159 11:41 – 45 159 12:3 29 18 154 21:4 27

Numbers 12:1 152 21 42 24:17 123, 127 24:17 – 19 97 24:18 97 – 8 24:19 97 25 42 Deuteronomy 151 – 2 2:4 98 7 158 7:1 – 6 159 7:2b – 4 151 7:6 – 8 158 14 159 14:21 31 20 151 20:10 – 18 NRSV 151 21:10 – 14 151 23 153, 160 23:3 – 8 151 23:4 155 32:30 124 33:2 98 Judges 14 – 16

152

Ruth 4:17 160 1 Samuel 17:43 26 24:14 26 2 Samuel 3:8 26 9:8 26 16:9 26

172

Index of Sources

1 Kings 18:28 27 2 Kings 8:13 26 Ezra 152 – 155, 157, 161 – 2 9:1 153 9:1 – 2 153, 159

50:9 137 51:8 137 54:1 136, 143 60 106 Jeremiah 30:3 155 49:6 155 Lamentations 1:17 117

Nehemiah

152, 155, 161

Tobit 4:8 – 9

Ezekiel 99

140

Daniel 7 106 11:35 44

Judith 8:27 45 1 Maccabees 100 8:14 100 2 Maccabees 15 6:12 – 16 45 7:23 15 7:9 15 12:39 – 45 45 Jubilees

99, 154 – 5, 157, 161

Psalms 8:3 LXX 91 50:16 113 60 123, 126 Wisdom 12:22 45 Isaiah 106 10:13 155 11:1 – 10 106 11:2 102 15:2 27 33:6 102 45:12 105

Hosea 7:14 27 Joel 1 137 Amos 4:13

136, 143

Obadiah 96 Micah 143, 145 4 145 4:13 134 – 5, 144 7:4 134 – 136, 143, 145 – 6 Zechariah 3:1 – 5 76 11:17 124 Malachi 2:11 – 12 159 3 44

Early Jewish Writings 1 Enoch

68, 73, 75 – 6, 80

173

Index of Sources

85 – 90 31 89:10 – 12 31 89:42 – 49 31 90:4 31 90:37 – 38 32

Qumran 1QS 34 4Q246 frag.  1, col.  ii, 1 – 9

106

2 Baruch 95

4QMMT

154, 161

Sirach 29:8 – 13

142

Apocalypse of Zephaniah 10 – 11 45 Josephus 96, 103 Against Apion 1.60 103 1.212 103 2.146 103 2.170 – 171 103 2.181 103 2.291 103 Jewish War 96 4.17 – 20 126 4.224 96 4.229 96 4.566 – 576 96 5.248 – 249 96 6.288 – 315 103 6.378 – 383 96 7.218 107 Philo De Praemiis et Poeniis 163 – 171 106 Rewards 104 140 Legatio ad Gaium 104 146 – 147 104 Quaestiones in Exodum 2.76 106 Psalms of Solomon 138 13:6 – 11 45

Testament of Abraham 13 44 14 45 Testament of Zebulun 6.4 – 7 142

New Testament Mark

14, 19 – 26, 33, 71, 76, 139 1:23 – 27 20 1:39 20 1:41 22 3:5 22 3:15 20 3:22 20 4:34 – 5:43 11 5:1 – 20 20 5:41 23 6:7 20 6:13 20 6:14 – 16 10 – 1, 13 6:29 11 6:47 – 8:27a 24 7:3 23 7:24 – 30 20 7:27 20 7:34 23 8:22 – 26 22 8:27 – 30 92 10:14 22 10:23 – 24 90 13:10 21 14:36 23 15:34 23 15:39 164

174 Matthew

Index of Sources

12, 14, 19, 22 – 26, 33, 40, 46 – 7, 71, 86, 138 – 9, 143 1:21 38, 47 3:7 – 10 34, 38 3:8 35 3:11 – 12 34 4:1 – 11 53 5:43 – 48 47 6 140, 142 6:9 – 13 2 6:16 – 18 138 6:19 – 21 138 7:6 19 7:13 – 14 36 7:13 – 27 36 7:15 – 20 36 7:21 88 7:21 – 23 36 7:24 – 27 36 8:3 22 8:11 86 9:37 – 38 87 11:2 – 6 16 11:11 16 11:25 89 – 91 12:13 22 13:21 37 13:24 – 30 37 13:36 – 43 37 13:52 90 14:1 – 2 10 – 12 14:12 9 – 10 15:8 34 15:21 – 28 22 15:22 23 15:24 23 16:18 35 16:27 37 19:14 22 19:23 – 24 90 20:16 86 21:16 91 21:23 34 21:28 – 32 34 21:28 – 46 34 21:32 34 21:33 – 44 35 21:45 34

22:1 – 14 35 22:2 35 22:10 35 22:13 35 22:14 86, 88 23:3 34 24:14 – 30 37 24:36 – 40 37 24:36 – 25:46 37 24:45 – 51 37 24:45 – 25:13 37 25:1 – 12 37 25:31 – 46 37 – 8 25:40 37 26:28 37 28:16 – 17 37 28:19 22 Luke

12, 19, 23 – 26, 33, 71, 76, 139, 143 3:7 – 9 34 4:1 – 13 53 6:46 88, 90 7:18 – 28 16 7:28 16 7:29 – 30 34 9:7 13 9:7 – 9 10 – 12 10:2 87 10:21 89 – 91 11:1 2 11:1 – 4 2 12 140, 142 12:32 – 34 139 13:28 – 29 86 13:29 86 16:19 – 21 90 16:22 86 18:23 90 18:24 – 25 90 24:7 – 9 15 John 3, 47, 49 – 66, 71 1:1 65 1:3 65 1:7 64 1:8 64 1:10 51

Index of Sources

1:12 63 1:14a 65 1:17a 65 1:18 64 1:19 50, 56 1:21 64 1:26 64 1:27 64 1:29 65 1:30 64 1:35 64 1:37 64 1:38 51 1:44 51 1:45 65 1:45 – 46 55 1:46 51, 64 1:51 65 2:6 55 – 6 2:13 51, 54, 56 2:16 65 2:17 65 2:18 56 2:18 – 22 55 – 6 2:21 65 2:22 56 3:1 52, 56 3:2 51 – 2, 59 3:10 52 3:13 15 3:18 – 19 44 3:22 – 24 4 3:25 56 3:27 – 36 64 3:28 1 3:30 1, 4 3 – 4 4 4:1 4 4:1 – 2 4 4:7 – 9 64 4:9 51, 55 – 6 4:19 64 4:20 64 4:21 – 23 64 4:22 51, 55 – 6 4:31 51 5:1 51, 54, 56 5:2 57 5:10 56 5:15 56

5:16 56 5:16 – 18 51 5:18 56 5:45 65 5:46 65 6:4 51, 54 – 56 6:25 51 6:41 56 6:42 51 6:52 56 7:1 54, 56 7:2 51, 56 7:11 56 7:13 51, 56 7:15 56 7:35 56 7:52 55, 59 8:22 56 8:30 – 31 55 8:31 51, 56, 62 8:44 49, 51, 53, 63 8:48 56 8:52 56 8:57 56 8:58 64 9 50, 58 9:2 51 9:7 57 9:13 – 34 51 9:18 56 9:22 51, 56, 58 9:28 65 9:29 55 9:34 58 10:19 56 10:24 56 10:31 56 10:33 56 10:41 12 – 3 11:8 51, 56 11:18 56 11:19 56 11:31 56 11:33 56 11:36 56 11:45 56 11:47 51 11:49 51 11:54 56 11:55 51, 54, 56

175

176

Index of Sources

12:9 56 12:11 56 12:14 56 12:20 55 12:31 56 12:36 56 12:38 56 12:42 51, 58 13:33 56 16:2 51, 58 18:1 57 18:13 51 18:14 51 18:20 56 18:24 51 18:28 51 18:31 56 18:33 54, 56 18:35 56 18:38 56 18:39 54, 56 19:3 54, 56 19:7 56 19:12 56 19:14 56 19:19 54 19:20 56 19:21 54, 56 19:31 56 19:36 53, 65 19:38 51 – 2, 56 19:40 56 19:42 56 20:19 51, 56 20:31 65 21:2 51 21:24 64 Acts

7 – 10, 13, 23 – 25, 71, 104 10 24 – 5 10:11 – 16 24 10:14 24 10:28 25 10:44 – 47 25 15:20 24 15:29 24 18 9 18 – 19 7 – 10

18:15 – 17 36 18:25 7 – 8 18:28 8 18:33 51 18:35 51 18:39 51 19 9 19:2 51 19:19 51 21:25 24 24:2 – 3 NRSV 105 24:9 – 14 36 24:13 36 Romans 44, 71 2:28 – 29 29 3:1 28 4:12 28 5 44 5:8 – 9 44 6:23 39 8:1 44 8:29 – 30 44 9:1 – 5 46, 66 9 – 11 66 11 30, 39, 46 11:16 – 24 39 11:20 39 11:21 – 22 39 11:26 46 11:32 46 14:10 39 1 Corinthians 41, 45, 71 1:12 9 1:14 – 17 8 1:23 17 3:4 – 5 9 3:8 44 3:10 – 15 39 3:12 – 15 44 3:14 44 4:6 9 5 44 5:1 – 13 42 6:9 – 11 39 6:10 40 6:12 – 20 42

177

Index of Sources

6:15 – 19 41 7:2 – 5 42 7:14 46 7:16 46 7:18 28 7:19 29, 43 8:1 – 4 42 8:6 42 8:7 – 13 42 9:27 39 10 42 10:1 – 4 42 10:5 42 10:6 42 10:7 – 10 42 11:19 39 11:27 45 11:27 – 31 45 11:32 45 12 42 15:1 – 2 39 15:12 – 19 13 15:20 13 15:29 45 2 Corinthians 71 5:10 39 6:1 39 9:13 41 11:1 – 4 39 13:5 39 Galatians 42 – 3, 71 1:6 – 9 39 2:7 29 3:28 156, 164 4:8 – 11 39 5:2 – 4 39 5:4 46 5:5 – 6 43 5:6 29 5:13 – 6:10 42 – 3 5:21 42 5:22 – 23 43 6:7 43 6:7 – 10 43 6:8 39, 42 6:8 – 9 43 6:15 29, 43

Ephesians 71 2:8 – 9 89 2:11 29 Philippians 71 26 1:1 28 1:2 28 3 27, 30 3:2 26 – 7 3:3 28 – 9 3:4 – 8 29 3:5 28 – 30 3:17 28 3:20 28 3:21 28 4:20 28 Colossians 2:18

69, 71 – 2 69, 71

1 Thessalonians 41, 71 1:4 44 2:14 – 16 66 3:5 39 3:13 47 4 43 4:1 41 4:3 – 8 41 4,4 – 6 41 4:6 41 4:8 46 5:9 42, 44 2 Thessalonians 71 1:5 – 10 39 1:7 – 9 41 1 Timothy 71 1:20 45 2:4 47 2 Timothy 71

178

Index of Sources

Titus 71 Philemon 71 Hebrews 71 6:4 – 6 33 12:5 – 6 45 James 71 – 2 1:1 63 1:25 63 2:8 63 2:12 63 2:20 – 26 71 Jude 67 – 69, 71 – 73, 75 – 81 1 73 1 – 2 67 2 76 1 – 4 68 3 67, 76 4 68 5 67, 72, 76, 78 5 – 7 68 5 – 8 68 6 – 7 73 7 78 8 77, 79 8 – 10 69 8 – 11 71 8 – 16 79 9 68, 76 9 – 10 68 10 77 11 68, 78 11 – 13 68 12 77, 80 14 68 14 – 15 68, 73 14 – 16 68 16 77, 79 17 67 17 – 18 68, 76 – 7 17 – 19 68 18 76

19 76 – 7 19 – 23 73, 76, 80 20 67 20 – 23 76 20 – 25 68 22 76 22 – 23 76, 78 24 76 24 – 25 67 25 76 1 Peter

71, 77

2 Peter 71 – 73, 75 – 78, 80, 82 1:1 – 2 73 1:2 76 1:3 – 4 76 1:5 76 1:6 – 11 76 1:12 76 1:13 – 21 76 1:19 – 21 75 2 76 2:1 73, 76 2:4 73 2:5 76 2:6 78 2:7 – 9 76 2:12 76 2:14 76 2:17 76 2:19 – 3:1 76 2:22 19, 76 3:1 77 3:2 – 3 76 – 7 3:3 76 3:4 75 – 6 3:4 – 13 76 3:13 – 16 77 3:14 76 3:14 – 16 75 3:15 – 17 3:18 76 1 John 71 2:18 – 19 33 2:19 40

Index of Sources

2 John 71

De paenitentia 37

3 John 71

Clement of Alexandria Excerpta ex Theodoto 1.3,6 79

Revelation 69 3:19 45 19:8 35 22:15 19

Early Christian Literature 2 Clement 4.1 – 2

36

4 Ezra 6:7 – 10

95, 98 98

Acts of John 60 Apocalypse of Peter

73, 75, 77

Apocryphon of John 60 Ascension of Isaiah 63 3.23 – 27 63 Augustine De doctrina christiana 3.32 36 Sermones 40.3 – 4

35

Ambrose Selected Works and Letters VII, 52 137 The Prayer of Job and David 2.5.18 137 Chrysostom Homilies on Philippians 10 26, 30

Paedagogus 78 3.43 – 45 78 3.44:1 – 3 78 3.44:4 78 3.45:1 78 Stromateis 79 I  85, 1 – 2 53 3.5 – 11 78 3.11:2 79 25.5 78 54.1 – 2 78 Cyrill of Jerusalem Oration II 58 137 Didache 16,5 44 Ephrem Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron 16 Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica 2:23:24 – 5 71 4:6 128 Gospel of Peter 53 14 53 Gospel of Thomas 76 139 Ignatius Magnesians 8 62 10 62 – 3

179

180 Irenaeus Adversus haereses 4.36.5 35 5.22.2 53 5.23.2 53 Jerome De viris illustribus 1 77 Justin Apologia i 16.9 36 Dialogus cum Tryphone 63, 72, 76 82.1 73, 76 Martyrdom of Polycarp 63 Origen Commentarii in Romanos 8.11 39 8.12.8 47 Contra Celsum 1.68 14 5.14 13 Epistula ad Africanum 20 (14) 107 Homiliae in Genesim 3.4 28 Homiliae in Jeremiam 1 137 15.3.2 137 Polycarp Philippians 7.1 53 Pseudo-Clementines 2, 83 – 4 Epistula Clementis 1.1 88

Index of Sources

Homilies / Klementia 83 – 93 1.9.1 88 2.6.4 90 3.32.1 90 3.50.2 90 4.7.2 84 7.4.3 – 5 90 8 – 11 84 8.1.1 86 8.1.2 85 8.2.1 84 8.4 – 7 88 8.4.1 – 4 86 8.5 – 7 85 8.5.1 88 – 9 8.5.2 89 8.5.3 88 – 9 8.5.4 90 8.6 90 8.6.1 90 8.6.2 90 8.6.4 90 8.6.5 90 8.7 91 8.7.1 – 2 92 8.7.5 92 8.22 86 10.26.3 88 11.35.4 88 13.7.3 84 13.7.4 84 17.18 92 18.4.3 – 4 88 20.22.2 84 Recognitions / Recognition 15, 83 – 93 1.54 15 1.60 16 4 – 6 84 4.2.1 85 4.4.1 – 6 87 4.4.3 87 4.4.6 88 – 9 4.5 85 4.5.1 – 2 88 4.5.2 88 – 9 4.5.3 – 4 89 – 90 4.5.4 88

181

Index of Sources

4.5.5. – 6 89 4.5.7 – 8 90 4.5.9 90 4.35 86

Livy Ab Urbe Condita Libri / History of Rome 5.7.8 108 21.62.9 101

Shepherd of Hermas Visions 4.3.4 44

Ovid Fasti 2.684 99 3.71 – 72 108

Tertullian Adversus Praxean 1.3 53 De cultu feminarum 1.3 80

Ancient Greek and Roman Literature Aelius Aristides Roman Oration 28 – 29 108 108 108 Appian Historia Romana 8 108 Augustus Res Gestae divi Augusti 100 26.1 100 26.4 100 Cassius Dio Historia Romana 65.7.2 107 69.12.1 – 2 107 69.14.1 – 2 125 Cicero De haruspicum responsis 19 103 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities 1.2.1 108 1.3.3 – 5 108 Horace Odes 3.6.5 – 6

102

Polybius Histories 6.56 102 Tibullus Elegies 2.5.23 108 2.5.39 – 2.5.62 102 Virgil Aeneid 1.278 – 279 6.847 – 853 6.851 – 853

104, 108 102, 108 104 102

Rabbinic Literature Mishnah m. Avodah Zarah 163 m. Avot 1.3 2 3.2 105 m. Bekhorot 5:6 31 m. Ketubbot 13.11 115 m. Nedarim 4.3 31 m. Qiddushin 4.1 156 4.3 155 4.6 – 7 156

182

Index of Sources

m. Sanhedrin 10.1 46 m. Yadayim 4.4

155 – 157

Tosefta t. Avodah Zarah 3.9 117 t. Hagigah 2.3 112 t. Hullin 1.1 166 t. Pe’ah 4.15 114 4.18 141 t. Qiddushin 5.1 155 t. Sanhedrin 12.10 22 13.3 44 – 5 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Be-Shalah ˙ 4 126 Pisha (Bo) 14

98

Jerusalem Talmud y. Hagigah 2.1 77b

111 – 113

y. Megillah 3.2 74a

114

y. Mo’ed Qatan 3.1 81c.

115

y. Qiddushin 4.6 156 66a 156 y. Ta’anit 4.5 122 4.8 97 68d 97

Genesis Rabbah 97 9.13 105 46.4 126 Leviticus Rabbah 29.2 108 Canticles Rabbah 8.10 118 Lamentations Rabbah 1.17 117 2.2 122, 127 – 8 Sifre Deuteronomy 54 159 343 98 – 9 Babylonian Talmud b. Avodah Zarah 163 – 4 2a – 3b 164 10b 165 16b – 18b 164 17a 165 23b – 24a 165 b. Bava Batra 8b 114 121a 155 b. Bava Metzi’a 85a 115 b. Berakhot 10a 136, 143 18b 139 28b – 29a 59 33b 141 b. Eruvin 101a

131, 143 – 4, 146

b. Gittin 57a

118, 144

b. Hagigah 5b 134 13a 19

183

Index of Sources

14b – 15b 111 – 2 15a – 15b 113 16b 114 b. Horayot 12a 116 13b – 14a. 112 b. Hullin 2a – 4b 166 7a 113 87a 133, 136, 143 127a 116 b. Yoma 19b 116 57a 115 b. Ketubbot 54a 116 65a 116 75a 115 110b 115 111a 115 – 6, 118 b. Megillah 21a 114 27b 114 b. Niddah 49b 155 b. Pesahim 34b 115 49a – 49b 117 49b 114, 117

b. Qiddusin 64b 156 70b 116 71a 118 72b 117 74a 155 b. Sanhedrin 36b 155 93b 128 b. Sukkah 20a 118 b. Ta’anit 26a 116 b. Yevamot 16b 117 76b 155 b. Zevahim 60b. 115

Other Sources Secret Gospel of Mark 79 Ginza II, 1.151 – 152

18

Corpus Papyrorum Judaicorum 2:204 – 208 no.  421 107

Index of Authors Abramski, S.  121, 129 Adams, E.  75 Adamson, G.  91 Aichele, G.  69, 77, 81 Allen, W. C.  12 Allison Jr., D. C.  12, 14, 17, 21, 34 Alon, G.  106, 128 – 9 Altmann, A.  98 Ameling, W.  73 Aminoff, I.  96 Amir, Y.  106 Amsler, F.  83 Ando, C.  100, 105 Appel, K.  65 Appelbaum, A.  96 Ashton, J.  54 Augustin, P.  53 Austen, J.  149 Avemarie, F.  96 Avramsky, S. 129 Backhaus, K.  40 Bacon, B. W.  8, 15 Baden, J.  72 Baker, C. A.  95 Bakhos, C.  96 Baldensperger, W.  3, 5, 8, 15 Bammel, E.  9, 14 Bar-Asher Siegal, E.  136, 144 Bar-Asher Siegal, M.  121, 133, 136, 140, 143 – 4, 146 Baras, Z.  127 Baratte, F.  101 Barclay, J. M. G.  27, 39 – 40, 43, 47, 103 Barraclough, R.  106 Barth, F.  25 Baruch, E.  107 Bateman, H. W.  26 Bauckham, R.  67, 73, 76 Baumgarten, A. I.  7, 9, 64, 93, 162 Baur, F. C.  19, 26, 29 Be’eri, N.  111 – 114 Becker, A. H.  5, 91

Bedenbender, A.  32 Beer, M.  113 Belayche, N.  107 Belle, G. van  58 Bennema, C.  51 Béranger, J.  100 Berthelot, K.  104 Betz, H.  D.  138 – 140 Betz, O.  71 Bickerman, E. J.  2 Bieringer, R.  50, 52 Billerbeck, P.  61 Black, M.  61 Bloch, M.  1, 14 Blumenthal, C.  68 Bock, D. L.  23 Bockmuehl, M.  26 – 28 Boer, M. C. de  43 Bonnard, P.  28 Borgen, P.  106 Bornkamm, G.  36 Bottini, G. C.  107 Bovon, F.  12 – 3, 23 – 4, 138 – 9 Boyancé, P.  102 Boyarin, D.  62, 128 Bremmer, J. N.  63 Brennecke, H. C.  79 Brodie, I.  131 Brodie, T. L.  55 Brosend, W.  67 Brown, R. E.  23, 59 Brown, S.  22 Bryan, D.  31 Buber, M.  5, 117 Buchholz, D. D.  75 Büchler, A.  131 Buell, D. K.  19 Bultmann, R.  54 Burkill, T. A.  20 Caird, G. B.  23 Callan, T.  73, 78 Campbell, D. A.  40

186 Cappelletti, S.  107 Carleton Paget, J.  83 Carroll, J. T.  24 Carter, W.  34, 95 Charlesworth, J. H.  106 Chibici-Revneanu, N.  55 Chilton, B.  7 Chrupcała, L. D.  107 Clark, E.  91 Clark, K.  23 Clements, R. A.  106 Coblentz Bautch, K.  91 Cohen, G.  D.  96 – 7, 101 – 2, 109 Cohen, S. J. D.  4, 98, 103, 118 Conzelmann, H.  7 Crawford, M. H.  101 Crossan, J. D.  21 Crouch, J. E.  12, 35 Cullmann, O.  38 Culpepper, R. A.  52, 66 Dainese, D.  78 Daniélou, J.  3 – 4, 6 – 7,  9 Davids, P. H.  68 Davies, M.  21 Davies, W. D.  12, 14, 17, 34 DeConick, A. D.  91 Dennert, B. C.  64 Dettwiler, A.  53 – 4 Devillers, L.  58 Dibelius, M.  5, 8, 10 – 1, 14 Dirscherl, E.  65 Dobbeler, A. von  22 Dodd, B.  27 Donaldson, T. L.  32 Dragutinovic, P.  63 Ducrey, P.  100 Dunn, J. D. G.  19, 30 Eastman, S. G.  43 Eck, W.  121 Eckhardt, B.  109 Eckstein, H.‑J.  40 Edmondson, J.  107 Efron, J.  129 Ehrman, B.  22 Elliott, M. W.  40 Engberg-Pedersen, T.  43 Eph’al, I.  99 Erskine, A.  100

Index of Authors

Eubank, N.  37, 43, 139 – 142 Evans, C. A.  7, 23 Evans, S.  128 Fander, M.  21 Faust, A.  107 Favazza, A. R.  125 Fears, J. R.  101 Fee, G. D.  28 Feldmeier, R.  21, 96 Feliks, Y.  135 Fenske, W.  49 Filson, F. V.  21, 44 Finkelstein, L.  98 – 9 Fitzmyer, J. A.  7 Flusser, D.  17 Fogel, S.  127 Fonrobert, C. E.  111 Fornet-Ponse, T.  49 Först, J.  50 Fortna, R. T.  55 Fossum, J.  72 France, R. T.  23, 38 Frayer-Griggs, D.  44 Frerichs, E. S.  3 Frey, J.  52, 55, 57, 60, 62, 64 – 5, 68 – 9, 72 – 3, 76, 79 Frisch, A.  34 Funk, R. W.  21 Furstenberg, Y.  166 Gafni, I. M.  114, 116, 119 Gardner, G. E.  113 Garnsey, P.  96 Gathercole, S. J.  40 Gebauer, R.  40 Gebhardt, J.  16 Gil-White, F. J.  25 Ginzberg, L.  96 Givens, T.  35 Glenny, W. E.  137 Glucker, Y.  148, 156 Goguel, M.  3 – 7, 10, 13, 15, 17, 38 Goodenough, E. R.  106 Goodman, M.  107, 118 Gordon, B. D.  39 Goshen-Gottstein, A.  111 – 2 Gould, E. P.  12 Grasmück, E.  79 Grayston, K.  26

Index of Authors

Green, J.  38 Greenhut, Z.  107 Gregory, B. C.  140, 142 Gridheim, S.  38 Gruen, E. S.  99 Grünstäudl, W.  67, 71 – 73, 75 – 77, 121 Gundry, R. H.  19, 35 – 37 Gundry Volf, J. M.  39 – 40, 42 Hadas-Lebel, M.  96 Hakola, R.  63 Harnisch, W.  58 Hartom, E. S.  135 Hasan-Rokem, G.  122, 129 Hassler, I.  21 Hawthorne, G. F.  28 – 9, 71 Hayes, C. E.  32, 41, 98, 111, 117 – 8, 132, 136, 154, 157, 163 Hays, R. B.  42 Heckel, U.  21, 69 Heemstra, M.  107 Heiligenthal, R.  67, 69 Hengel, M.  71 Henning, M.  63 Herman, G.  133 Herr, M. D.  106 Heschel, S.  49 Hoek, A.  van den  77 – 8 Holmes, M. E.  62 Hoover, R. W.  21 Horovitz-Rabin  98 Houtman, A.  69 Hubbard, B. J.  22 Hunt, S. A.  50 – 1, 52, 64 Hvalvik, R.  83 Inglebert, H.  104 Jackson-McCabe, M.  83 Jaffee, M. S.  111 Janowski, B.  65 Jeremias, J.  38 Jervell, J.  31 Johnson Hodge, C.  29 – 30 Jones, B. C.  80 Jones, F. S.  83, 85, 90 Jones, K. R.  95 Kaden, D.  166 Kalmin, R.  114, 119, 132, 143

Karakolis, C.  66 Karmann, T.  63 Kasher, A.  96 Kassuto, M. D.  135 Katz, S. T.  131 Keith, C.  21 Kelley, N.  87 Kierspel, L.  50 Klausner, J.  20 Kline, L. L.  86 Kloner, A.  107 Kohler, K.  66 Köhn, A.  5 Konradt, M.  22 Kraeling, C.  H.  4 – 5 Kraft, R.  5 Kraus, T. J.  53, 76 Kraus, W.  69 Krause, M.  69 Kümmel, W. G.  23 Kunckel, H.  101 Labahn, M.  30, 57 – 8, 92 Lake, K.  72 Lang, M.  57 Lang, T. J.  46 Lange, N. de  96 Lapin, H.  132 Le Donne, A.  21 Levi, G.  106, 128 Levine, L. I.  93, 99, 119 Lévi-Strauss, C.  25 Lichtenberger, H.  9 Lieb, M.  49 Liebes, Y.  111 – 2 Löhr, W. H.  79 Lohmeyer, E.  2, 5, 9 – 10, 14 – 5, 26 Lovering, J. H.  106 Lowe, M.  F.  54 – 5 Lüdemann, G.  92 Luomanen, P.  36 – 7 Luz, U.  12, 35 Lyons, W. J.  52 Marcus, J.  6, 11 – 2, 14, 23, 29, 60 Marguerat, D.  35, 38 Marks, R.  G.  127 – 129 Markschies, C.  79 Maritz, P.  58 Marmorstein, A.  140

187

188

Index of Authors

Marshall, H.  26 Marshall, M.  34 Martin, R.  P.  28 – 9 Martin, T. W.  68 Martyn, J. L.  43, 58 – 61 Mason, E.  49 Mason, E. F.  68 Mason, S.  54, 107 Masuzawa, T.  19 Mattingly, H.  108 McCarthy, C.  17 McGlothlin, T.  47 Meier, J. P.  22 Meinertz, M.  28 Meiser, M.  40 Mell, U.  26, 67, 72 Menoud, P.  38 Metzger, B. M.  72 Michel, O.  19 Millar, F.  61, 99 Miller, C. D.  40 Miller, G. D.  20 Miller, S. S.  131 Milne, H. J. M.  67 Mitford, T. B.  108 Moore, G. F.  61, 97 Mor, M.  121 Moser, M.  65 Moses, R. E.  45 Müller, K.  32 Müller, P.  67 – 69 Müller, U. B.  26 Munck, J.  27 Murray, M.  26 – 27 Nahon, G.  140 Nanos, M. D.  26, 31, 33 Nasrallah, L.  41 Nepper-Christensen, P.  23 Netzer, A.  116 Neubert, L.  75 Neusner, J.  3, 97 – 8, 106 New, S.  72 Newman, H.  107 Nickelsburg, G. W. E.  32 Nicklas, T.  49 – 50, 52 – 61, 63, 65, 73, 75, 80 Niebuhr, K.‑W.  63, 69 Niehoff, M.  104 Nienhuis, D.  71 Noam, V.  113, 162

Notley, R. S.  17 Novick, T.  136 Oliver, I. W.  24, 31, 35 Olson, D. C.  32 Ophir, A.  147 – 157, 160 – 163, 165 – 167 Oppenheimer, A.  61, 116, 121, 127 – 129 Oropeza, B. J.  40, 42 Overman, J. A.  23 Oyen, G. van  69, 80 – 1 Paschoud, F.  100 Patrich, J.  107 Pavry, J. S.  141 Perdue, L. G.  95 Pettem, M.  24 Plummer, A.  13, 23 Pokorný, P.  69 Pollefeyt, D.  50, 52 Popkes, E. E.  65 Poplutz, U.  50, 53, 65, 75 Pouderon, B.  84 Preuss, J.  22 Price, J. J.  166 Propp, W. H.  29 Rabbinowitz, J.  131 Rabens, V.  40 Rappaport, U.  129 Rau, E.  79 Reed, A. Y.  5, 91 Reese, G.  32 Reese, R. A.  68 Rehm, B.  86 – 7 Reicke, B.  38 Reinhartz, A.  51 Reumann, J.  28 Rhees, R.  3 – 4, 6, 10 Richardson, J. S.  100 Richardson, P.  27 Rissi, M.  55 Rives, J.  107 Roberts, J.  49 Robinson, D. W. B.  28 – 9 Rodríguez, R.  21, 26 – 7 Ronen, I.  96 Rosenberg, A.  49 Rosen-Zvi, I.  147 – 157, 160 – 167 Rubenstein, J. L.  112, 114, 133, 164 Ruf, M. G.  73, 77 Runesson, A.  32 – 3, 35

Index of Authors

Safrai, S.  129 Saldarini, A. J.  23 Sanders, E. P.  21, 26, 40 Sasson, J. M.  29 Savignac, J. de  106 Schäfer, P.  6, 121, 128 Scheid, J.  100, 102 Schiffman, L. H.  34 Schlosser, J.  73 Schlund, C.  53, 65 Schmidt, K. M.  77 Schmithals, W.  23 Schmitz, B.  50 Schnackenburg, R.  56 Schnelle, U.  40, 57, 66, 76 Scholtissek, K.  54 Schrage, W.  45 Schreiber, S.  20 Schremer, A.  97, 106, 131 Schröter, J.  79 Schürer, E.  61 Schwartz, D. R.  99, 106, 119 Schwartz, J.  7 Schwartz, S.  98, 106 Scornaienchi, L.  67 Scott, J. M.  106 Secunda, S.  132 Segal, A. F.  29, 131 Sellin, G.  67, 69 Setzer, C.  13 Shaked, S.  116 Shanks, H.  118 Shanor, J.  44 Sharvit, S.  135 Shatzman, I.  126 Siikavirta, S.  40 Sim, D. C.  19, 21, 23 Skarsaune, O.  83 Skeat, T. C.  67 Smallwood, E. M.  107 Smith, B. T. D.  8 Smith, D. R.  45 Smith, J. Z.  3, 10 Snodgrass, K. R.  36 Snowden, J.  85 Sorensen, E.  20 Sperber, D.  131 Stanton, G. N.  35, 83 Stein, H. J.  69 Steinmann, J.  11, 14

Stemberger, G.  61 Stone, M.  98 Strack, H. L.  61 Strecker, G.  86 – 88, 92 Taylor, J. E.  6, 14 Thiessen, M.  25 – 27, 29 – 30, 32, 39, 121, 161, 162 Thomas, C. M.  12, 41 Thorsteinsson, R. M.  27 Thurén, L.  73 Tiller, P. A.  32 Tillmann, F.  28 Tilly, M.  67, 72, 75 Tolmie, D. F.  50 – 52, 64 Tomson, P. J.  7 Touati, C.  140 Trobisch, D.  71 Urbach, E.  E.  61, 128 – 9, 140 – 142 Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, F.  50, 52 Vargon, S.  135 Verheyden, J.  58 Vermes, G.  61 Vielhauer, P.  26 Viviano, B. T.  23 Vögtle, A.  67 Wahlde, U. C. von  50, 56 – 7 Wahlen, C.  20, 24 Wald, S.  G.  117 – 8 Wallace, J. B.  63 Wasserman, M.  B.  163 – 166 Wasserman, T.  73 Watt, J. G. van der  64, 66 Webb, R. L.  7, 10 Weder, H.  38 Wehnert, J.  92 Weidemann, H.‑U.  52 Weinfeld, M.  99, 102 Weiss, H.  121, 130, 133 Weiss, Z.  106 Wengst, K.  59 Werman, C.  155 Westenholz, J. G.  99 White, B. L.  22 Whittaker, C. R.  96 Wilker, J.  109

189

190 Williams, C. H.  64 Wink, W.  2, 9, 14 Wischmeyer, O.  67 Wisse, F.  69 Yarbro Collins, A.  11, 45 Yevin, S.  121 Yinger, K.  40 Yuval, I. J.  97

Index of Authors

Zamfir, K.  52 Zangenberg, J.  92 Zanker, P.  103 Zeichmann, C. B.  107 Zerubavel, Y.  130 Zetterholm, M.  33 Zimmermann, R.  50 – 52, 57, 64 Zoccali, C.  46 Zumstein, J.  54

Index of Subjects Abraham  34, 64, 85, 87, 102, 105, 126, 158 Aeneas  102, 104, 108 allegorical  35 alterity (cf. identity)  3, 10, 93, 147, 157, 160 am ha-aretz  57 Amalek  96 anachronism  58, 60, 150 angel  65, 69, 71, 108, 126 – angelomorphic Christology  72 – Michael  76 animal – animal imagery  31 – animal language  20, 26 – bull  31 – 2 – dog (cf. gentile)  19, 20, 22 – 8, 30 – 1, 112 – doggish identity (cf. identity)  30 – donkey  113, 117 – horse  112 – 3 – impure animals  19, 25, 31 – impure animal imagery  19, 31 – 2 – lamb of God  1 – 2 – paschal lamb (cf. Passover)  53, 65 – sheep  22 – 3, 25, 27, 30 – 2, 36 – violent animal behavior  117 – wolf  31, 36 Annas  50 apostasy  41, 46, 112 apostate  114 apostle (cf. disciple) authority  14, 56, 80 – 1, 92, 118, 127, 132, 166 Babylon / Babylonia  95, 111 – 2, 114 – 9, 132, 143 – Babylonian Empire  100 – Babylonian Exile  153 – Babylonian other  112, 114, 116 – 7, 119 – Babylonian Talmud (cf. Talmud) Baptism  5 – 10, 15, 18, 34, 45 Bar Kokhba  97, 106, 112, 121 belief  2 – 3, 5 – 8, 10, 13 – 5, 17, 40, 42, 51, 66, 75, 88 – 90, 103, 111, 113, 142 – unbelief  39

binary opposition  158 blood  24, 44 – 5 – bloodshet  163 – bloody  11, 112 – pureblood (Ammonite)  156 body  13, 21, 36, 41, 45, 55, 65, 124, 127 border crossing  153 – 5, 157 – 8, 164, 167 borderline  62 – 4 boundary  33, 38, 48, 84, 99, 113, 153, 156, 158, 160 – 2, 164 – boundary crossing  156 – 7, 160, 162 brier  131, 134 – 7, 144 – 5 Caiaphas  51 canon – canon awareness  73 – canonical gospels (cf. gospel) – canonical reading of the New Testament  82 – canonical rearrangement  69 – Christian canon  66, 75, 80 Carpocratians  78 – 9 Catholic Epistles  71 characterization (derogatory)  116 charity  114, 142 chastity  79 – chastisement  44 – 5 child / children  18, 20, 22 – 3, 25 – 6, 34, 46, 83, 89 – 90, 97, 103, 113, 136, 138, 143 – 4, 151 – 2, 158 – 9 – children of God  63, 66 – children of the devil  53, 63, 66 Christian art  1, 4 – Caravaggio  11 – Grünewald Isenheim altarpiece  1 – El Greco  2 Christianity (cf. Judaism)  3, 5, 7, 13, 19, 26, 27, 47, 62 – 3, 67, 77, 80, 90, 97 – 8, 133, 146 – Christian community  4 – Christianization  97, 99 – Christian Jews  63, 83 – Johannine Christianity  4,  7 – Krypto-Christians  59

192

Index of Subjects

circumcision  27 – 30, 43, 121, 125, 154, 165 – symbolic circumcision  125 citation  86 – 91 coin  101 – 2, 108 collaborator  9 commands of God  35 condemnation  42, 44 – 5, 164 – 5 conflict  4, 9, 11, 35, 58, 60, 63, 69, 72 – 3, 80 – 2, 106, 131, 135, 144 – conflict between disciples  4, 9 – conflict between rabbi and min  143 – conflict between the Johannine community and “the Jews”  58 – Galilean-Judean conflict  55 Constantine  97 context  6, 10, 15, 17, 19, 24, 26, 39, 43, 53 – 5, 57 – 8, 68, 78 – 81, 86, 95, 98, 101, 103 – 5, 111 – 2, 118, 121, 132 – 3, 135 – 6, 144 – 5, 155, 158 – Christian context  69, 132 – historical context  78, 95, 109 – literary context  112, 131 conversion  8, 24, 27, 40, 86, 97, 148, 153, 155 – 6, 162 Corpus Paulinum  71 Council of Jabne / Jamnia  61 crisis  63, 80 damnation  35, 40 Day of the Lord (cf. Eschatology)  44 – 45 death  3, 8 – 9, 11, 13 – 5, 17, 38, 43 – 5, 107 – 8, 116, 124 – 5, 134, 154, 164 – 5 debate  1 – 5, 9 – 10, 15, 40, 55, 67, 72, 98, 121, 132 – 3, 139, 143, 145, 163 deity  158, 161, 164 demon (cf. spirit)  14, 20, 22, 84 demotion  10 determinism  113 devil  51, 53 – Children of devil  53, 63, 66 – liar  51, 53 – Satan  39, 45, 80 – sons of the devil  51, 66 diaspora  9 – 10, 61 – diaspora synagogue  9 – 10 dichotomy  38, 40, 42, 117 – 8, 148 – 9 diet  24 – dietary laws  159, 164 – dietary restriction  24 – kosher vs. non-kosher  166

difference  7, 10, 32 – 3, 46 – 7, 63, 77, 81, 84, 88 – 91, 112, 114, 139, 149 – 51, 156 – 7, 162, 164, 166 – 7 disciple  1 – 11, 15 – 8, 22, 33, 36 – 9, 58, 62, 64 – 5, 85, 90, 112, 115 – 6 – apostle  9, 29, 46, 85, 86, 92 – Apostle Peter  84 – 5 – beloved disciple  64 – disciples of Jesus  2, 4 – 5, 7 – 8, 10 – 1, 15 – 6, 52, 64 – disciples of John the Baptist  2 – 11, 14 – 8, 64 – disciples of Moses  65 – twelve disciples  7, 85 disobedience  46 – 7 Edom (cf. Esau)  95 – 9, 105, 108 – Edomite  95 – 6, 152 – 3 – identification of Rome with Edom  95 – 9 ekklesia  2, 33, 35 – 7, 39 – 40, 45 – 7 elder  34, 91, 105 election  86, 100 – 1, 103, 159 Elijah  11 – 4, 64, 116 embarrassment  21 – 3 – criterion of embarrassment  21 empire  95, 97, 99 – 104, 108 – Macedonian Empire  100 – Persian Empire  131 – 2, 146 – Roman Empire (cf. Rome)  95, 97 – 9, 105, 108 – 9, 131 enemy  57, 95, 126, 142 Esau (cf. Edom)  95 – 9, 109, 158 – identification of Rome with Esau  95 – 9, 109 eschatology  64 – coming wrath  34, 44 – Day of Judgement  38, 44 – eschatological concepts  75 – final judgement  33, 39, 44, 81 – imminent judgement  80 – parousia  37, 47, 75, 90 eternal life  37, 42 – 4, 47, 165 ethnocentrism / ethnocentricity  19 – 21, 23 – 4 exclusion (cf. inclusion)  33, 45 – 6, 152, 157, 164 exclusivism  19, 32 exile  11, 98, 118, 129, 153 expulsion  45

Index of Subjects

faith  5, 8, 15, 18, 28, 39, 43, 88 – 90, 157 – faithful  26, 36, 46, 85 – 6, 93, 125, 158 – faithfulness  37, 89 – faithlessness  153 feast / feasting  51, 54 – 5, 69, 86 Fiscus Iudaicus  62, 106 – 7 flesh (cf. spirit)  18, 28, 43, 45, 65 – 6, 84 Galilee (cf. Judea)  51, 54 – 5 Gamaliel II  59 – Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel II  112 gentile  10, 19, 21, 23 – 33, 39, 45 – 6, 84 – 5, 87 – 92, 111, 113 – 4, 117 – 9, 131, 135, 145, 154, 162 – 6 – circumcised gentile  30, 43 – genealogical gentile  28 – gentile Christians  39, 90 – gentile followers of Christ  23 – 4, 29 – gentile identity  25, 27, 29 – 30 – gentile inclusion (cf. exclusion, inclusion)  32 – gentile mission  19, 21 – 2, 26 – gentile woman  20 – 4 – Judaizing gentiles  27, 29 – the nations / τὰ ἔθνη  21 – 2, 31, 37 – 8, 41, 99, 102, 104 – 5, 118, 134 – 6, 144 – 5, 147 – 8, 151, 153, 155, 158 – 60, 163 – 5 ger  148, 156, 160, 162 gift  5, 8, 39, 44, 87 – 90, 140 gnostic  78 – 9, 131 God’s people  45, 49 good deed  34 – 8, 86, 88 – 9, 140 – 2 gospel (cf. index of sources)  1 – 11, 14, 17, 20 – 2, 24 – 6, 29, 36, 39, 41, 44, 46 – 7, 49 –  58, 60 – 2, 64 – 6, 72, 81 – 3, 86 – 8, 92, 139 – canonical gospels  71, 82 – gospel message  39 – 41, 81 – Paul’s gospel  41, 46 – Peter’s gospel  25, 53 – Synoptic Gospels  33, 50, 55, 57 – 8, 83 – Synoptic Gospel writers  25 goy / goyim  147 – 55, 156­ – 7, 160 – 2, 164 – 7 – Jew / Goy binary  149, 165 – 6 greed  13, 26, 40, 69 Hadrian  108, 121 – 4 heaven  13, 15, 24, 35, 65, 89, 102 – 5, 113, 124, 128 – 9, 138 – 43, 145 – heavenly treasures (cf. wealth)  138 – 43 – heavenly voice  24, 124, 164 – 5

193

Hebrew (cf. gentile, Jew)  29, 84, 88 – 92, 98, 102, 125, 130, 134 – 5, 137, 143 – 4 – Hebrew Bible  6, 20, 160 – non-Hebrews  158 hell  38 – 9 – gehenna  134 – 5, 144 – 5 – Jesus in gehenna  144 heretic  53, 59, 111, 131, 134, 137 – Birkat ha Minim  59 – 61 – Elisha ben Avuyah  111 – min / minim  59, 60 – 1, 118, 131 – 6, 143 – 6 – minim stories  131 – 3, 145 – 6 Herod – Herod Antipas  11 – 4 – Herodian  50 – Herod the Great  96 historicity  7, 133 holiness  41, 63, 158 – 60 – covenantal holiness  158, 160 – designated holiness  158 – 60 – holy nation  158 – Holy One  98, 124, 141, 164, 166 – Holy Spirit (cf. spirit) – non-holy seed (cf. seed)  153 hostility / hostile  27, 36, 51, 56 – 57, 66, 133, 143 – 4 hybrid  1, 8 – 9, 154, 156, 160, 162 – hybrid status  155, 156, 160, 166 – 7 identity (cf. alterity)  3, 10, 27, 63, 65 – 6, 84, 92, 113, 125, 127, 147, 156 – 63, 165 – 7 – doggish identity (cf. animal)  30 – gentile identity (cf. gentile)  25, 27, 29 – 30 – hybrid identity  143, 147 – 8, 153 – 4, 157, 161 – 2, 166 – 7 – identification  11, 14 – 5, 23, 95 – 7, 99, 105, 150, 165 – identification formula  68 – Israelite identity  157, 159 – 60 – Jewish identity  29, 147, 150, 160 – 1 – Messianic identity  127 – 8 – religious identity  9, 113 idol  42 – idolater  19, 42, 103, 159 – 60 – idolatry  42 – 3, 113, 151, 159, 162 – 3 illness (cf. death)  45 image  49, 52, 57 – 8, 60 – 3, 77, 87, 111, 114 – 5, 121 – 2, 127 – 30, 137, 144 – 5 – bodily image  121 – guided imagery  133

194

Index of Subjects

– imagery  19, 66, 76, 136, 143 – 4 – moth imagery  143, 145 – paschal imagery  53 impurity (cf. purity)  25, 41, 46, 162 – 3 inclusion (cf. exclusion)  32 – 3, 37, 44 – 6, 61, 71, 81, 157 in-group (cf. out-group)  39, 153 insider (cf. outsider)  33, 35 – 6, 38 – 9, 44, 46 instruction  36, 45, 138 insult  21, 135, 138, 144 interpretation  3 – 4, 32, 38, 45, 50, 53, 55, 57, 97 – 9, 103, 134, 136, 143 – 6, 157 – Biblical exegesis  84 – Biblical interpretation  36, 49, 58, 65  131 – 3, 146 intruder  68 irony  66, 146 Israelite / non-Israelite binary  157, 160 Jerusalem  15, 18, 51, 54 – 5, 57, 59, 64 – 5, 88, 96, 99, 106, 108, 121, 137, 144 – Aelia Capitolina  107, 121 – Jerusalem Talmud (cf. Talmud) – Jerusalem Temple  55, 59, 96, 107 – Jerusalem Temple Mount  64, 107 – 8 Jesus  1 – 5 – Jesus’ disciples (cf. disciples) – Jesus in gehenna  135 – Jesus tradition  68 – saying of Jesus  21, 89 – 91 – stature / status of Jesus  1, 9, 16 – 7 Jew  2 – 8 – anti-Jewish authors  49 – Jewish-Christian Dialogue (cf. Christianity)  131 – Jewish Christianity (cf. Christianity)  63, 83 – Jewish followers of Christ  23 – Jewish identity  29 – Jewish self-definition  119 – Judaism (cf. Judaism) – non-Jews  19, 132 – non-rabbinic Jews  114 John the Baptist  1 – 2, 4, 7, 10 – 2, 14 – 6, 34, 38, 64 Joseph of Arimathea  52, 62 Judaism  6, 62 – diaspora Judaism  61 – Judaizer  63 – tribe of Judah  54

Judea / Judean (cf. Galilee / Galilean)  34, 54 – 6, 96, 103, 121, 130, 153 Justin Martyr  36, 60, 63, 73, 76 juxtaposition  71, 86, 90, 138 land of Israel  95, 111 – 2, 115, 118, 125, 131 law – Jewish law  25, 27, 29, 30, 63, 164 – Torah  19, 63, 68, 98, 102, 114, 118 – 9, 151 – 2, 157, 159, 164, 166 – works of the law  27 – 8, 42 leader  34 – 7, 46, 56, 122, 124 – 5, 127, 129 – 30, 135, 145, 153 – church leadership  137 – communal leadership  114 – Israel’s leadership, 135 – 6 – pattern and leader  13 – 4, 17 Levites  50, 153 libertinism  69 macro-level vs. micro-level (concepts of the goy)  147 – 67 – macro-level and micro-level dialectic  157 – macro-level binaries  154, 160 – macro-level concepts / constructions  147, 150 – 1, 155, 157, 160 – 1 magic  5, 22, 128 marriage  79, 115 – 7, 151 – 6, 159 – 60 – intermarriage  151 – 5 – Levirate marriage  115 – mixed marriage  46 martyr  12, 15, 164 – 5 martyrdom  15, 63, 164 Masoretic Text  137, 143 mercy  15, 22, 37, 38, 46 – 7 message  15 – 6, 27, 39, 41, 81 – 2, 87, 108, 164 Messiah  1, 8, 10, 13, 15 – 7, 64 – 6, 97, 116, 122 – 5, 127 – 30 – false Messiah  127 – 8 – self-appointed Messiah  127 – 8 miracle  5, 11,13 – 4, 17, 36 mirror reading  27 mission  19, 95, 103 – 4, 113 – mission to the gentiles (cf. gentile)  21 – 2, 26 – missionary  26, 44 – 5 money (cf. wealth)  107, 139 – 42 Moses  16, 42, 55, 65, 84, 88 – 93, 158

Index of Subjects

movement  2 – 3, 5, 7, 9 – 10, 24, 33 – 4, 36, 46, 61 – 2, 98, 156, 158 – Jesus movement  2 – 3, 5, 24, 36 – John’s movement  34 – Zealot Movement  61 mutilation  27 – 8, 30, 125 National Socialism  49 Nazareth  49, 51 – 2, 55, 63 – 4, 66 New Way  7 – 8, 43, 62 Nicodemus  51 – 2, 62 notzrim  59, 61 opponent  5 – 6, 26 – 9, 35, 43, 53, 58, 68, 79, 81 orthodoxy  7, 13 – Christian orthodoxy  81 – Jewish orthodoxy  59, 116 other  3 – generalized other  155 – otherness  111 – particular other  155 – Roman other (cf. Rome)  95, 99, 109 out-group (cf. in-group)  153 outsider (cf. insider)  33, 36, 38, 45 – 7, 112, 114 – 5, 118 parable  34 – 5, 37 – 8, 86, 125 parted ways  93 particularism  19, 26 – particularistic language  26 passion  41, 50, 53, 165 Passover  51, 55 – paschal lamb (cf. animal)  53, 65 Pentateuch  152, 154, 156, 158 perfection  40, 90 – perfect Christian  78 perfidiousness  69 permeability (of boundaries)  33, 157 persecution  36 – 7, 112 Pharisees  34 – 5, 50, 58, 65 – Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism (cf. Judaism)  59, 61 piety  34, 84, 102 – 3, 165 Pilate  51, 56 pneuma (cf. spirit)  20, 22, 25, 144 polemic  2 – 4, 14, 34, 67 – 9, 71 – 3, 76, 78 – 80, 132 – 3 – polemical tract  69 possession  97, 138 – 40, 145, 158 prayer  2, 59, 126

195

priest  50, 103, 153, 158 – chief priest  34 – high priest  50 – 1, 104 – 5, 164 priority of Israel  23 prophet  5, 11 – 3, 16 – 7, 53, 62, 64 – 5, 91, 103, 118, 135, 137 – false prophet  36, 53, 63 prophecy  76 – 7, 88, 97, 103, 155 providence  103, 140 purity (cf. impurity)  55, 63, 117 – purification  2 rabbi / rabbinic (cf. sages)  1, 5, 51, 96 – 8, 111, 113 – 8, 122, 127, 130 – 3, 141, 143, 148, 156 – 7, 160 – 1, 165 – Babylonian rabbi  114 – 5 – non-rabbi  111, 114 – 5, 132 – non-rabbinic Jew  111, 113 – 4, 117 – Palestinian rabbi  105, 114, 118 – 9, 131 – Rabbi Akiva  117 – rabbi-min dialogue  133 – rabbinic community  111, 114 – 6, 118 – 9, 146 – rabbinic Jews  61, 93, 113, 132 – rabbinic literature  31, 60 – 1, 95 – 8, 105, 111, 117, 121 – 2, 126 – 8, 131 – 2, 139, 141, 146, 148 – 51, 155, 157, 160 – 3, 166 – 7 – rabbinic source  97, 141, 146, 150 – 1, 155 – 7, 162, 164 reception history  49, 53, 57, 75 relation  4, 7, 19, 25, 32, 56 – 7, 61, 63 – 5, 77, 103, 114, 122, 139, 161 relationship  9, 24, 38, 42, 73, 84, 117 – 8, 139, 157, 164 – John / Jesus relationship  6, 10 – relationship between author and addressees  75 – relationship of gentiles to the gospel  24 – relationship with non-rabbis  114 religious tradition  4, 81 repentance  34, 40 resurrection  10, 12 – 5, 17, 47, 53, 65 revelation  8, 46, 91 – 2, 98 rhetorical strategy  81 rival  9, 17, 26, 46, 99, 106 rivalry  43, 63, 99, 101, 103 Rome / Roman  18, 27 – 8, 39, 46, 54, 71, 84, 95 – 109, 121, 125 – 8, 131 – 2, 134, 164 – 6 – Christian Rome  95, 97 – Genius Populi Romani  101

196 – – – – –

Index of Subjects

pagan Rome  95 Pax Romana  105 Roman Empire (cf. Empire) Roman Palestine  132 Roman people  100 – 2

Sadducees  34, 50, 131 sages (cf. rabbi / rabbinic)  113 – 4, 116 – 9, 122, 124 – 5, 127 – 8, 134 salvation  7, 9, 11, 32, 38 – 42, 44 – 6, 51, 55, 64, 71, 85 – 90, 138, 144 Samaritan  54 – 5, 64, 131, 166 – Samaritan woman  51, 56, 64 sanctity  39, 41, 46 satire  146 schism  81 – schismatic (cf. heretic)  2, 15 scribe  50, 71 – 2, 90 scripture  8, 10, 26, 65, 68, 75 – 6, 82, 88, 95, 103, 117, 132, 135 – intra-Christian discussions of scripture  132 Second Temple period  2, 7, 95, 99, 148, 159 seed  43, 154, 158 – holy seed  153 – 5, 159 – 60 – holy seed ideology  159 – non-holy seed  159 – profane seed  153 – 5 self-mutilation  125 separation  4, 8, 37, 93, 149, 154, 158 – 60 Septuagint  13, 136 – 7, 143 – 6 sexual behavior  79 similarity (cf. alterity, identity)  3, 10, 77, 99, 164, 167 sin  36 – 8, 40 – 2, 45, 47, 76, 78, 114, 151, 154, 165 – sinful  39, 76, 79 – sinner  34, 44, 112, 116, 165 Son of David  22, 123, 127 Son of God  65, 164 source  1, 5 – 6, 8 – 9, 12, 14, 22, 54, 57 – 8, 76 – 8, 84 – 6, 92 – 3, 97 – 8, 102, 104, 108, 111 – 4, 116 – 7, 121, 125 – 8, 131, 133, 136, 138, 141 – 2, 145 – 7, 150 – 2, 155 – 8, 162 – 4, 166, 177 spirit  8, 17, 28, 39, 41, 43, 45, 64, 66 – God’s spirit  41, 43, 45 – Holy Spirit  8 – 9, 66

– sacred Spirit  41 – spirit vs. flesh  43 subordination  2, 10 substitution  87, 106, 108 – 9 superiority  1, 10, 101, 103 – 4, 115 supersessionism (Christian)  6 synagogue  8, 51, 58 – 61, 113 – 4 – diaspora synagogue (cf. diaspora) Tabernacles  51, 55 Talmud  112, 114, 116, 125, 131, 133, 145 – 6, 163 – 4 – Babylonian Talmud  118, 127, 131, 134, 143, 145 – 6, 163 – Jerusalem / Palestinian Talmud  97, 116, 122, 126 – 7 – Palestinian Midrashic-Talmudic Literature  96 – Talmudic min narratives  133, 136, 143 – Talmudic narrative  131 – 2, 146 – Talmudic rabbi-min dialogues  133, 143 tannaim  117, 131, 134 – Tannaitic literature  97, 117, 148 teacher  16, 20, 51 – 2, 64, 76, 79, 88 – 93 teaching  8, 36 – 7, 42, 77, 79, 84, 87 – 9, 91 – 3, 112, 115, 164 temple  34, 41, 55, 59, 65 – 6, 68, 95, 106 – 7, 118, 140 – First Temple  96 – Second Temple  2, 6, 9, 61, 96, 140, 151, 154, 166 terminology  42, 62, 83 – 4, 128, 149 – 51 theological apologetics  19 tolerance  83 – 4, 92 – 3 Torah (cf. law) Tripolis Discourses  84 – 6, 93 universalism  99 use of force  122 vocation  99, 101, 103 wealth (cf. money)  85, 113, 134, 138, 140, 144, 146 – earthly treasure  139, 142, 145 – heavenly treasure  138 – 43 Zionist discourse  129