The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology 9783666539329, 3727810025, 3525539320, 9783525539323

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ΝΤΟΑ 30 Jarl E. Possum The Image of the Invisible God

NOVUM TESTAMENTUM ET ORBIS ANTIOUUS (ΝΤΟΑ) Im Auftrag des Biblischen Instituts der Universität Freiburg Schweiz herausgegeben von Max Küchler in Zusammenarbeit mit Gerd Theissen

Zum Autor: Dr. Jarl E. Fossum, b. 1946 in Oslo, Norway. M. Α. University of Bergen, Norway (1971). Th. D. University of Utrecht, The Netherlands (1982). 1988-95 Associate Professor and since 1995 Professor of New Testament Studies at the University of Michigan, USA. Author of The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord (WUNT 36 ; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985) and numerous contributions to scholarly books and journals. Member of Studioram Novi Testamenti Societas, Société d'Etudes Samaritaines, and other learned societies.

NOVUM TESTAMENTUM ET ORBIS ANTIQUUS

Jarl E. Fossum

The Image of the Invisible God Essays on the influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology

UNIVERSITÄTSVERLAG FREIBURG SCHWEIZ VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT GÖTTINGEN 1995

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Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Elnheitsaufnahme

Fossum, Jarl E.: The image of invisible God: essays on the influence of Jewish mysticism on early Christology/Jarl E. Fossum. - Freiburg, Schweiz: Univ.-Verl.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1995 (Novum t e s t a m e n t u m et orbis antiquus ; 30) ISBN 3 - 7 2 7 8 - 1 0 0 2 - 5 (Univ.-Verl.) ISBN 3 - 5 2 5 - 5 3 9 3 2 - 0 (Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht)

NE: GT

Veröffentlicht mit Unterstützung des Hochschulrates der Universität Freiburg Schweiz und der Universität Michigan Die Druckvorlagen wurden vom Verfasser als reprofertige Dokumente zur Verfügung gestellt © 1995 by UniversitätsVerlag Freiburg Schweiz Paulusdruckerei Freiburg Schweiz ISBN 3-7278-1002-5 (Universitätsverlag) ISBN 3-525-53932-0 (Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht)

To April Phil Charles Mark and even Grant

FOREWORD The present book purposes to shed light on some early Christian passages by drawing on Jewish mystical texts. All the pericopes except one are taken from the New Testament. The version of the 'transfiguration' of Jesus in the Acts of John has been included because the discussion of the 'transfiguration' in the Gospels suggests that there is more in the Synoptic accounts than meets the eye. This is of course not to say that the version of the apocryphal Acts is earlier than the Synoptic accounts, but it would seem that it represents a development of the kind of tradition which can be seen benind the 'transfiguration' story in the Gospels. Two of the following essays, 'The Image of the Invisible God' and 'Kyrios Jesus', are expansions of articles having appeared in NTS (35 [1989] and 33 [1987] respectively). The other essays in this book have not been published in any form, but earlier versions of all of them have been read in various scholarly fora. The two essays on the 'transfiguration' of Jesus were combined in different ways and read at the 1991 Midwest Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Wheaton College, and at the 1991 International Meeting of the same Society, Rome. Different versions of 'In the Beginning was the Name' were read at the Theology Faculty Centre, University of Oxford, 1992, and at the 1994 International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Leuven. The essay entitled 'The Son of Man's Alter Ego' was read at a Symposium on Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism held at the University of Michigan in 1994. It is scheduled to be read again at the February meeting of the Chicago Society of Biblical Research in 1995. The abbreviations employed follow the essentially identical style manuals of NTS and JBL, supplemented by the lists of abbreviations in RGG and TDNT. In transliterations of Semitic words, lengths of vowels are as a rule not indicated. Alan Scoboria efficiently processed my typescripts, longhand drafts, and ideas through the computer. This collection of essays is dedicated to the individuals who have written their Ph.D. Dissertation under my guidance during my first seven years at the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor Epiphany, 1995

Jarl Fossum

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction The New Testament and Early Jewish Mysticism

1

The Image of the Invisible God Col 1.15-18a, Jewish Mysticism and Gnosticism

13

Kyrios Jesus Angel Christology in Jude 5-7

41

Ascensio, Metamorphosis The 'Transfiguration' of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels

71

Partes posteriores dei The 'Transfiguration' of Jesus in the Acts of John

95

In the Beginning Was the Name Onomanology as the Key to Johannine Christology Bibliography

109 153

The Son Man's Alter Ego and Jewish Mysticism John 1.51,ofTargumic Tradition

135

INTRODUCTION THE NEW TESTAMENT AND EARLY JEWISH MYSTICISM

Mysticism is 'vertical' apocalypticism. It supplements eschatology, 'linear' apocalypticism, by dealing with the mysteries of the heavenly world and the ways in which man can gain knowledge of those mysteries J A most recondite part of Jewish mysticism concerns God's Glory, the 'likeness as the appearance of man' upon the throne-chariot, the Merkabah, first seen by the prophet Ezekiel.^ The mystics performed journeys to heaven and gazed on the Glory.^ 1 C. Rowland, The Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 1982 and reprints), has shown successfully that eschatology is not the only subject of apocalypticism. See already C.K. Barrett, 'New Testament Eschatology', SJT 6 (1953) 138-9; 'The Eschatology of the Epistle to the Hebrews', The Background to the New Testament and Its Eschatology. Studies in Honour of C.H. Dodd (ed. W.D. Davies & D. Daube; Cambridge: University Press, 1956) 363-93. Cf. now the succinct statement by Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (2nd ed.; San Francisco, Harper & Row, 1989): 'To live in communion with the secrets of heaven is mysticism, and [...] it is never far from apocalypticism, in which the secrets of the upper world [...] are revealed [...]. To some extent this intercourse with the heavenly world was a literary convention, but it was not wholly so; much of apocalyptic was based on sincere [...] religious experience' (344). For this use of 'mysticism', cf. Rowland, Heaven 212 et passim. 2 1.26-28. п з э ю , 'chariot', is a later term for the throne. ^ G. Scholem argued that there was a tradition-historical connection between the idea of heavenly ascent in the apocalyptic literature and in the later Merkabah and Hekhalot texts, the connective link being detectable in some of the traditions ascribed to the Tannaim in the Rabbinic literature. See Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1941; 3rd ed.; New York: Schocken, 1954) 40-79; Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (2nd ed.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965); Origins of the Kabbalah (ed. R.J. Zwi Werblowsky; Princeton: Jewish Publication Society, 1987) 18-24. Scholem's thesis was developed by I. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkabah Mysticism (AGAJU 4; Leiden: Brill, 1980), who stressed the pervasive influence of apocalypticism. Some scholars have challenged this theory by arguing that the Rabbinic Merkabah speculation was purely speculative exegesis of the Scripture and that the later mystical texts reflected the ecstatic practice of circles having

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INTRODUCTION

Furthermore, the one who ascended to heaven was transformed and assimilated to the Glory; he could even be mystically identified with the man-like figure on the throne.^ Finally, the Glory could appear on earth, as he did already to Ezekiel.^ Given the fact that early Christianity is far from devoid of mysticism, it is rather strange that Jewish mysticism has not been the subject of more attention in modern New Testament scholarship.^ In 1916 G.H. Box published an article, 'The Jewish Environment of Early Christianity',^ in which he argued that Christianity should not be studied in relation only to the teachings of the Rabbis, since Rabbinism was only one among the many religious currents in the Jewish world in which Christianity was bom. Box' student, H. Odeberg, who had edited the so-called Third Book of Enoch and furnished it with a comprehensive introduction and a massive commentary, followed up his teacher's program by writing a commentary on the discourses in John chs. 1-12.^ Odeberg noted: 'Whereas the early Jewish mysticism, of course, lives within the environment of Rabbinical Judaism, and uses the language and general phraseology of the latter [...]', there was 'a little or no connection with the Rabbinic movement. See especially D.J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot (TSAJ 16; Tübingen, Mohr, 1988); P. Schäfer, Hekhalot-Studien (TSAJ 19; Tübingen: Mohr, 1988) 8-16. However, C.R.A. Morray-Jones, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (Diss.; Cambridge, 1988), would seem to have vindicated the view of Scholem and Gruenwald. See further below, pp. 10-11. ^ See now C.R.A. Morray-Jones, 'Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Tradition', 7У5 43 (1992) 1-31. 5 8.2. See also the description of the appearance of the Glory in the temple (9.3-4; cf. 11.22-3; 43.1-5). ° The importance of Jewish mysticism was not disregarded by Christian scholars in previous centuries. The following examples must suffice: Chr. Knorr von Rosenroth, Kabbala Denudata (2 vols.; Sulzbach & Frankfurt a.M., 1677/84) identified the Kabbalistic figure of Adam Kadmon with Paul's 'Man from heaven' and 'Life-Giving Spirit' {anima Messiae, quem Paulus ad I Corinth. 15, vers. 45-49 indigitat [2/3.244]); A. Pfeiffer, 'Exercitatio de Henocho', Omnia opera (Ultrajecti, 1704) 519-25, saw Enoch-Metatron as a type of Christ; J. Fr. von Meyer in Blätter für höhere Wahrheit 4 (Frankfurt a.M., 1823) explained the name of Metatron as ό μ έ τ ο χ ο ς τοΟ θ ρ ό ν ο υ and cited Rev 3.21 as a parallel. Exp 42 (1916) 1-25. 8 The Fourth Gospel (1929; Amsterdam: Grüner, 1974).

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strangely close correspondence between the Jewish mystical sources and certain strata of the Mandaean literature, a correspondence that was not restricted to similarity of ideas but included identity of technical terms and e x p r e s s i o n s ' T h e case with the Fourth Gospel seemed to the writer to be the same, mutatis mutandis, as with early Jewish m y s t i c i s m . A c c o r d i n g to Odeberg, the contemporaneous religious currents of the Hellenistic world, such as the Mandean religion and Hermetism, provide the wider framework for the inteφretation of John, but the root of Johannine Christianity is to be found in the fruitful soil of Jewish mysticism, evidenced by a writing such as the Third Book of Enoch and certain esoteric traditions found here and there in the Rabbinic corpus.'' Some forty-plus years after Odeberg wrote his commentary, M. Hengel complained: Odeberg's exegesis of the Gospel of John has remained a torso [...]', and 'the great work of Scholem is still used too little for New Testament e x e g e s i s ' . N o w , in an article published in 1957, G. Quispel, inspired by the work of G. Scholem, had elucidated the relationship among the Christology of John, the teaching about Metatron, the principal angel in the Third Book of Enoch, and Valentinian C h r i s t o l o g y . M a n y statements about Jesus in the Gospel according to John can be paralleled by what is said about Metatron in 3 Enoch and the Son in Valentinian Gnosticism. Perhaps the most striking similarity is that they all are represented as the possessor of the Name of God, the concept of which plays an enormous role in Judaism. As the figure of Metatron appears to be some sort of systematization of and elaboration upon everything that was said about the principal angel in older sources, works outdating even John, it would seem 9 Gospel 5. Ό

Ibid.

' ' Note the sub-title of his commentary: '[The Fourth Gospel] Inteφreted in Its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic World'. '2 The Son of God (Philadelphia: Fortress: 1976) 89 with n. 151. Hengel does not cite N.A. Dahl, 'The Johannine Church and History', Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation. Essays in Honor of Otto A. Piper (ed. W. Klassen & G.F. Snyder; New York: Harper, 1962) 124-42, who tried to link John closer to Merkabah mysticism than what had been done by Odeberg. 'Het Johannesevangelie en de Gnosis', Ned TTs 11 (1956/57) 173-202.

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INTRODUCTION

that both Johannine and Gnostic Christology owe to mystical Judaism. Quispel's article seems to have had little influence (partly, perhaps, due to the fact that it was written in Dutch),!'^ and Hengel's assessment appears to be generally justified. For a long period of time Billerbeck's monumental work exerted such an overwhelming impact on New Testament scholars that they appeared to believe that 'what is not in Billerbeck is not in existence' (as Scholem complained with reference to research on Gnosticism). It is entirely apt that we have a commentary on the New Testament made up of quotations from Rabbinic sources, but is must be borne in mind that the Rabbinic religion was not the only or even the common form of Judaism in the first century C.E. Nor must we assume that Rabbinism was the only legitimate form of Judaism in that c e n t u r y . T h i s impression was fostered by G.F. Moore who, at about the same time as Billerbeck, wrote a great work on Judaism in the first centuries of the common era based on Rabbinic s o u r c e s . I n the first paragraph of his Preface, Moore states that his aim is to represent Jewish religion of this period as 'it presents itself in the tradition which it has always regarded as a u t h e n t i c M o o r e goes on to assert that the methodological Quispel addressed the question of the relationship between the New Testament and Jewish mysticism also in other articles, most of which focus on Gnosticism; see, e.g., 'L'Evangile de Jean et la Gnose', L'Evangile de Jean. Etudes et problèmes (Rech Bib 3; Bruges, 1958) 197-208; 'Gnosticism and the New Testament', Vig Chr 19 (1965) 65-85. ' 5 Scholem, Gnosticism 2. Reference to the Merkabah in Str-B (six parts in 7 vols.; Munich: Beck, 1922-28) is found in 2.603 (on Acts 2.1) and 3.798 (on Rev 4.6). Cf. also 4.1247. This obviously needs to be pointed out, for E.E. Urbach, The Sages (Cambridge, Mass., & London: Harvard University, 1987) criticizes W. Bousset's classical study. Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (HNT 21; 3rd. ed. H. Gressmann; Tübingen: Mohr, 1926 and reprints), on the ground that Bousset describes Judaism 'primarily on the basis of external sources [j/c!?] - the apocryphal literature and the Hellenistic literature - and relies only to a small extent on Rabbinic literature [...] without sufficient knowledge' (6). Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (3 vols.; 1927/30; 2 vols.; New York: Schocken, 1971). ^^ Judaism 1.6.

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principal to be heeded when describing any religion must be to describe the religion in question as it is represented by teachers and writings regarded as being in the line of the catholic or orthodox tradition. This approach is anachronistic. ^^ It regards the earlier period through the glasses of the later codifiers of the party that prevailed in the end. Orthodoxy, however, is the outcome of a lengthy dialectical process in which various views work upon each other. What W. Bauer has demonstrated for Christianity^o also holds true for Judaism: heterodoxy preceded orthodoxy - both concepts being here used anachronistically, since there can be no heresy if there is no orthodoxy, but the reader will hopefully see the point. Now already at the time when Hengel deplored the situation in New Testament studies, there were signs to the effect that the tide was about to tum. The discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library were very important. The so-called 'Angelic Liturgy' from Qumran published by J. Strugnell showed that occupation with the Merkabah throne reached back into preChristian times.2i Moreover, the Hypostasis of the Archons and On the Origin of the World from Nag Hammadi were seen to contain descriptions of a heavenly throne-chariot which could only have originated in Jewish mystical circles.22 The H Q fragment on

^^ Moore was criticized already by F.C. Porter, 'Judaism in New Testament Times', JR 8 (1928), 30-62, who suggested that Moore's work should have been entitled 'The Judaism of the Tannaim'. This is a change of Moore's sub-title, 'The Age of the Tannaim'. ^^ Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (2nd ed. with appendices by G. Strecker; ed. R.A. Kraft & G. Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971). 'Angelic Liturgy at Qumran', VTSup 6 (Leiden: Brill, 1959) 318-45. See now C. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985); 'Merkabah Exegesis in the Qumran Sabbath Shirot', JSJ 38 (1987) 11-30. A reference to the Merkabah is also found in Sir 49.8. J. Doresse, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics (1960; New York: AMS, 1970) 177. The Merkabah in the two Gnostic texts has been studied in some detail by I. Gruenwald, 'Jewish Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism', Studies in Jewish Mysticism (ed. J. Dan & F. Talmage; Cambridge, Mass.: Association for Jewish Studies, 1982) 41-55.

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INTRODUCTION

Melchizedek showed that the Qumran sectaries saw an exalted angel in D-'nbx as described in Ps 82.1.23 The Qumran texts and the Nag Hammadi writings sparked a general interest in the so-called apocryphal and pseudepigraphic books.24 The process of editing and translating those writings was crowned by the publication of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha under the editorship of J.H. Charlesworth.25 Another impetus for the realization of the diversity of Judaism around the tum of our era came from E.R. Goodenough's study of Hellenistic Judaism, consummated by the publication of the thirteenth volume of Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period in 1968.26 Goodenough argued for the existence among Hellenistic Jews of a mystical religion in which the human being was able to overcome the world of matter and passions and climb the ladder of light-stream to God. According to Goodenough, Philo provides prime evidence for this form of religion.27 Goodenough was acquainted with the work of Scholem and complained that Scholem 'treats these [Jewish mystical texts in Hebrew and Aramaic] with little reference to P h i l o D o i n g nothing by way of such a treatment himself, Goodenough prophesied that that would become a task for the next generation of scholars. Philo was already a well-known source in New Testament scholarship, and the connection between Philo and the Merkabah texts opened up new perspectives for New Testament exegetes. P. Borgen pointed out that Jewish mysticism and Philo share the idea of a heavenly figure by the name of Israel, interpreted as the one A.S. van der Woude, 'Melchizedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neugefundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle ΧΓ, OTS 14 (ed. P.A.H. de Boer; Leiden: Brill, 1965) 354-73. J.C. Greenfield, Prolegomenon to H. Odeberg, 3 Enoch (New York: Ktav, 1973) XIV-V. 25 OTP (2 vols.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1983/85). ^^ Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Bollingen Series 37; 13 vols.; Princeton: University Press, 1953-68). 2^ By Light, Light: The Mystic Gospel of Hellenistic Judaism (New Haven: Yale University, 1935). 2^ Symbols 1.8. Cf. pp. 19-20. Influence from Merkabah mysticism on Philo was suggested already by K. Kohler, 'Merkabah', Jewish Encyclopedia (10 vols.; New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901) 8.500.

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who 'sees God'.29 Borgen takes this angel as an important clue to the Christology and soteriology of the Fourth Gospel, where the Son mediates the redemptory vision of God. Both W.A. Meeks and Borgen have shown that Philo's ideas of heavenly ascent, which is associated with rebirth and gaining of kingship, are related to Jewish mysticism and are important for the exegesis of John's Gospel.30 H. Chadwick has argued that there are far-reaching but independent agreements between Philo and Paul which may be explicable against a common background in mystical Judaism.^i As for Paul, already W. Bousset related him to Jewish mysticism by comparing the ascent to the paradise in the third heaven described in 2 Cor 12.1-6 to the well-known story about the four Rabbis who entered 0"ΓΊ2 where Metatron was seen enthroned.32 G. Scholem took up Bousset's pointer and used Paul as a witness to the high age of Jewish mysticism.33 J.W. Bowker compared the accounts of the Damascus vision as well as 2 Cor ch. 12 to the Merkabah visions, and suggested that Paul was familiar with Merkabah mysticism and mediated upon Ezek chs. 1-2 on the road to Damascus.^^ In his Dissertation on the influence of Ezek ch. 1 upon early Jewish and Christian literature, C.C. Rowland took up a thread from O. Procksch.35 The latter argued that the description of the Glory of YHWH in Ezek 1.26-8 was the derivation of both the 'one like a Bread from Heaven (NovT Sup 10; Leiden: Brill, 1965) 177; 'God's Agent in the Fourth Gospel', Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough {Numen Sup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1968) 137-48. 30 Meeks, The Prophet-King (NovT Sup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967) 192-5 et passim; 'Moses as God and King', Religions in Antiquity 354-71; Borgen, 'Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions as Background for Son of Man Sayings in John's Gospel', ETL 53 (1977) 243-58. 31 'St Paul and Philo of Alexandria', BJRL 48 (1966) 286-307. 32 'Die Himmelreise der Seele', ARW 4 (1901) 147-8. See also H. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief (Meyer К 6; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924) 375-6; H. Bietenhard, Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum und Spätjudentum (WUNT 2; Tübingen: Mohr, 1951) 91-5, 161-8. 33 Gnosticism 14-19. 34 ' "Merkabah" Visions and the Visions of Paul', JSS 16 (1971) 157-73. 3^ Rowland, The Influence of the First Chapter of Ezekiel on Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Diss.; Cambridge, 1974).

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son of man' in Dan 7.13 and certain representations of Christ in the Pauline corpus. What Ezekiel saw, according to Procksch, was the mirror-image of God.^^ The 'one like a son of man' in Dan ch. 7 is this 'mirror-image' having become hypostasized. When Christ is called the 'image of God',37 he is conceived of in like manner.38 Rowland points out the similarity between the description of the Glory in Ezek 1.26-28 and 8.2 on the one hand and that of the exalted angel in Dan 10.5-6 on the other. This 'exalted divine angelic figure' can be traced in different texts, one of which is the description of the 'one like a son of man' in Rev 1.13-17.39 Rowland also tries to explain the false teaching in Colossae and Paul's response to it in light of Merkabah mysticism. In Col chs. 23 he finds evidence for the idea that Christ upon his ascent had triumphed over the cosmic powers and that the believers could participate in this ascent."·^ Rowland connects the phrase in 2.9, where it is said that 'all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily' in Christ, with the Christological hymn in 1.15-20, where Christ is called the 'image of God' and said to be the one in whom all the cosmic powers dwell. By means of a comparison of the portrayal of Christ in Col 1.15-20 with the description of Christ in the Book of Revelation, Rowland finds the derivation of the Christ figure in the hymn in Ezekiel's description of the Glory.^' 'Die Berufungsvision Hesekiels', Beiträge zur alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft. Karl Budde Festschrift (BZAW 34; Giessen; Töpelmann, 1920) 142, n. 1. 2 Cor 4.4; Col 1.15. 'Berufungsvision', 149-50. 39 Influence 102-140. See now also 'The Vision of the Risen Christ in Rev.i. 13 ff.: The Debt of an Early Christology to an Aspect of Jewish Angelology', JTS 31 (1980) 1-11. For a consideration of all the New Testament texts where Jesus may be identified as the Glory, see J. Fossum, 'Glory', Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (ed. К. van der Toom et al.; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). ^^ Influence 248-71. Cf. already M. Smith, Observations on Hekhalot Rabbati', Biblical and Other Studies (Brandeis University Studies and Texts 1; ed. A. Altmann; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1963) 142-60. Influence 287-95. In his book. The Open Heaven 358-86, Rowland deals with the visions in the New Testament. He points out that the description of the 'transfigured' Jesus in the Synoptics is not unlike the representations of the enthroned Adam and Abel in the Testament of

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In 1980 G. Quispel published an article in which he argued that Paul was familiar with Jewish mystical speculations on Ezekiel ch. 1 and the Shicur Qomah, the 'Measure of the Body', namely the enormous body of God.'^^ Echoing Bowker, Quispel points out that there are 'some clear allusions to the visionary experience of Ezekiel' in the story of Paul's conversion experience on the road to Damascus. 'As the kabod appeared to the prophet in Babylonia in 593 B.C., so the kabod appeared to Saul near Damascus in A.D. 32.'43 Quispel regards Christ as being represented as the Glory in the beginning of the hymn in Phil 2.6-11, where it is said that Christ existed 'in the form of God'. Quispel compares this to the Jewish Christian idea that God has a 'form'.44 In order to explain Paul's equation of Christ and the Churches and the idea that the 'fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily' in Christ,46 Quispel cites the Shi^ur Qomah traditions. That the Church is the body of Christ is an adaptation of the mystical doctrine that God's body was one of cosmic dimensions. In a paper on Metatron and Christ from the early eighties, G.G. Stroumsa made some highly intriguing r e m a r k s . C i t i n g Scholem's random suggestion that Paul's notion of Christ's 'body of glory' (σώμα τή^ δόξηζ) might reflect the term т з э п or ПГЭЕ7П ηΌ, which we find in the Shicur Qomah texts,48 Stroumsa Abraham. Moreover, there are five terms in tlie Synoptic accounts which also occur in the description of the 'Great Glory' in 1 Enoch 14.20-21. 42 'Ezekiel 1:26 in Jewish Mysticism and Gnosis', Vig Chr 34 (1980) 113. This article is some kind of summary of the monograph, Hermetism and the New Testament, especially Paul, written for ANRW (Berlin & New York: Gruyter) during the summer of '79. The volume, 11.22, is not published yet. 43 'Ezekiel 1:26', 8. Quispel apparently did not know Bowker's article. 44 Quispel, 'Ezekiel 1:26', 9, cites Ps.-Clem Нот III.7.2 and XVII.7. 45 Quispel, 'Ezekiel 1:26', 11, cites 1 Cor 12.12-3 and Gal 3.28. 46 Col 2.9. 47 'Form(s) of God: Some Notes on Metatron and Christ', HTR 76 (1983) 269-88. Based on a paper read at the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 1981, the article was published in '85. Stroumsa was not familiar with Quispel's article cited in n. 42. 48 See now Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead (New York: Schocken, 1991) 278, η. 19, citing Phil 3.21.

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asks why scholars have not considered whether Paul's idea of the Church as the body of Christ is an adaptation of the 'cosmic body of the divine hypostasis Stroumsa deals very briefly with the Christ hymn in Col 1.1520.50 He points out that Christ's title, the 'image of the invisible God' (είκών τ ο υ θεοΰ ά ο ρ ά τ ο υ ) , actually makes him God's 'body', since είκών is 'very close to μ ο ρ φ ή ' . Since the hymn represents Christ, the 'first-born of all creation', as a giant makranthropos and a demiurgic being , Stroumsa wonders whether it reflects mystical ideas about 'the First Adam and the Yoser Bereshif, that is, the 'Creator in the beginning', a term found in the ShicurQomah texts. Also, Stroumsa offers the intriguing suggestion that the kenosis of Christ in Phil 2.7 should be taken l i t e r a l l y C h r i s t , who was 'in the form of God', 'emptied himself, that is, gave up his cosmic size when becoming incarnated. A parallel may be found in Od Sol 7.3, where it is said that the saviour's 'kindness diminished his к т з п ' . The context is clearly incamational: the following verses state that the saviour assumed human x m a t and ΚΓΙΊ2. The last years have seen more thorough and systematic attempts to understand Paul against the background of Jewish mysticism.52 Not surprisingly, 2 Cor 12.1-6 remains a central text. The comparison of Paul's report to the story about the Rabbis of the second century who ascended to paradise has also met with c r i t i c i s m , b u t C.R.A. Morray-Jones now appears to have vindicated the Bousset-Scholem hypothesis.^^ By a careful Stroumsa, 'Form(s)', 281-2, cites 1 Cor 12.12-26 and Rom 12.4. 50 'Form(s)', 284. 5' 'Form(s)', 283-4. 52 E.g., J.D. Tabor, Things Unutterable: Paul's Ascent to Paradise in Its Greco-Roman, Judaic and Early Christian Contexts (Lanham: University Press of America, 1986); B.H. Young, "The Ascension Motif of 2 Corinthians in Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Texts', Grace Theological Journal 9 (1988) 73-103); A.F. Segal, Paul the Convert (New Haven & London: Yale University, 1990) 34-71. 53 E.g., Halperin, Faces 34-7, 199-208; Schäfer, Hekhalot-Studien 234-49. Young, 'Ascension', 77-80, contains a critical response to Schäfer. 5·^ 'Paradise Revisited (2 Cor 12:1-12): The Jewish Mystical Background of Paul's Apostolate', HTR 86 (1993) 177-217 ('Part 1: The Jewish

INTRODUCTION

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argument Morray-Jones shows that there are detailed correspondences between Paul's account and the earliest layer of the Rabbinic tradition. The event to which Paul refers in 2 Cor ch. 12 finds its historical context in his temple vision and the ensuing events as related in Acts 22,17-29, which, in tum, provides additional correspondences to the tradition about the Rabbis who entered 'paradise'.

Sources') and 265-92 ('Part 2: nificance').

Paul's Heavenly Ascent and its Sig-

THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD COLOSSIANS 1.15-18a IN THE LIGHT OF JEWISH MYSTICISM AND GNOSTICISM

Emst Käsemann's theory that the Christ hymn in Col 1.15-20 is an adapted pre-Christian hymn about the Gnostic Urmensch-Erlöser, who had both a cosmological and a soteriological significance, has not fared well.i Even with the deletion of the words δι à τοΟ αίματος τοΟ σταυρού αύτοΟ in ν.20,2 the sentiment persists that the second part of the hymn— which is soteriological — cannot speak of anyone else than Christ.^ More importantly, evidence for the existence of a Gnostic Urmensch-Erlöser is lacking until Mani's time.4 As a matter of fact, even pre-Manichean Gnosticism, ^'Eine urchristliche Taufliturgie', Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen (2 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960) 1.34-51. Käsemann is followed by U.Wilckens.WeiíAe/í und Torheit (ΒΗΤ 26; Tübingen: Mohr, 1959) 200-2. Already E. Lohmeyer, Die Briefe an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon (Meyer 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1930) 46-7, thought that the figure of the Urmensch had influenced the representation of Christ in Col 1. 15-20. M. Dibelius, An die Kolosser, Epheser. An Philemon (HNT 12; 3rd ed. Η. Greeven; Tübingen: Mohr, 1953) 16, would see an influence from an amalgam of the Gnostic Urmensch and the Jewish Sophia. An echo of this view is found in the commentary of H. Conzelmann, 'Der Brief an die Kolosser', in J. Becker, H. Conzelmann and G. Friedrich, Die Briefe an die Galater, Epheser, Philipper, Kolosser, Thessalonicher und Philemon (NTD 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976) 183-5. 2 J. Gnilka, Der Kolosserbrief (HTKNT 10/1; Freiburg-Basel-Vienna: Herder, 1980) 54, n.22, enumerates seven scholars who want to delete the phrase. He could have added R. P. Martin, Colossians and Philemon (NCB; London: Attic Press, 1974) 56-7, 61, 63, and Conzelmann, 'Kolosser', 183, 185. Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 58, also wants to delete the words. See now also A. Lindemann, Der Kolosserbrief (Zürcher Bibelkommentare 10; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1983) 25, 27, 29. Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 54, n. 21, counts six additional scholars who consider the preceding word, ΕΪρηνοποιήσας, was part of the gloss. ^ E.g., E. Lohse, Die Briefe an die Kolosser und an Philemon Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1968) 83.

(Meyer 9/2;

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THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD

in which we find both various Urmensch figures and redeemers, cannot be proven to antedate Christianity.^ However, the importance of the question whether or not there was a pre-Christian Gnosticism has been highly overrated. 'It is widely acknowledged that Gnosticism, especially in its earliest forms, displays a fundamental indebtedness to Jewish concepts and traditions.Thus, Gnosticism was not only roughly contemporary with infant Christianity; it also had arisen out of the same matrix."' It thus stands to reason that the New Testament is found to contain terms and motifs which have equivalents in Gnostic texts. These similarities should as often as not be regarded as stemming from the The myth of a pre-Christian Urmensch-Erlöser of eastern origin was exposed as a scholarly phantasm by C. Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule (FRLANT 87; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961). See also H.-M. Schenke, Der Gott 'Mensch'in der Gnosis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962). In an important article in EranosJahrbuch 22 (1953), G. Quispel turned against the History of Religions School and tried to derive the Gnostic Urmensch figure from Jewish traditions about Adam and Sophia; see 'Der gnostische Anthropos und die jüdische Tradition', Gnostic Studies (2 vols.; Uitgaven van het Nederlands historisch-archaeologisch instituut te Istanbul 34/1-2; Istanbul, 1974) 1.17395. See already C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935) 141, n.l, 147, et passim. ^ E.g., R. Bergmeier, 'Quellen vorchristlicher Gnosis?', Tradition und Glaube. Festgabe ßr К. G. Kuhn zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. G. Jeremias; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971) 200-20; E. Yamauchi, P r e Christian Gnosticism. A Survey of the Proposed Evidences (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans & London: Tyndale, 1973). As a counterbalance to these rather apologetic works, see the sober considerations of G. W. MacRae, 'Nag Hammadi and the New Testament', Gnosis. Festschrift für Hans Jonas (ed. В. Aland et al.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978) 144-57. See also the review of Yamauchi's book by G. Quispel, BO 32 (1975) 260-2. ^ B. A. Pearson, 'Jewish Sources in Gnostic Literature', Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (Compendia Rerum Judaicarum ad Novum Testamentum, Section II/2; ed. M. Stone; Philadelphia: Fortress & Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984) 443. The article is reprinted in Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Paper Series 25 (ed. К. H. Richards; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986), where the quotation can be found on p. 422. ^ The fact that Gnosticism and Christianity had the same parentage goes a good part of the way in explaining the rivalry which developed between them and occasioned the vehement attacks by the Church Fathers upon the Gnostics.

THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD

15

common underlying tradition rather than being the result of an influence either way. A comparison of Col 1. 15-18a with certain Jewish and Gnostic texts appears to provide a case in point.^ Whether or not this part of the hymn, which is cosmological, has been adapted from a foreign source by the author of the letter (who may or may not have been Paul) is not relevant to the following discussion, the aim of which is to flesh out the historical context for the terms and motifs used to describe Christ.

I The description of Christ as the 'image of the invisible God' in Col 1. 15 has often been compared to the account of the creation of Adam and seen as part of Paul's Adam-Christology.9 T h e r e certainly would seem to be a connection between the two texts, but Adam is said to have been made in or after God's image; he is not

^ Following E. Norden, Agnostos Theos (1913; reprinted Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1956) 250-4, the vast majority of scholars arrange the hymn under two heads. Cf. already F. Schleiermacher, 'Über Koloss. 1,15-20', TSK 5 (1832) 502-3, who pointed out the parallelism between v. 15 and v.18b, both beginning with ος έ σ τ ι ν ... π ρ ω τ ό τ ο κ ο ς and being followed by a ö τ ι - s e n t e n c e (v. 16 and v. 19). If v. 18c is a later addition, the last öτι-sentence in the original hymn would have followed immediately upon the sentence beginning with os έ σ τ ι ν , as in vv. 15-16. Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 53, n. 19, enumerates nine scholars who propose to delete v. 18c. See also now Lindemann, Kolosserbrief 25, 27, 29. Some take vv. 17-18a as a kind of middle stanza, while W. Pöhlmann, 'Die hymnischen All-Prädikationen in Kol 1,15-20', ZNW 64 (1973) 56, even finds three strophes in vv. 15—18a. In either case it is realized that something new begins with v. 18b. With the exception of the words 'the Church' in v. 18a, no words or phrases in vv. 15-18a can positively be identified as additions to the original hymn; see Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 57-8. A rearrangement of the text cannot but be a subjective undertaking and is actually not necessary; see Lohse, Briefe 81-2. ^ E.g., A. Schlatter, Die Theologie der Apostel (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1922) 299; G. Kittel, ' ε Ι κ ώ ν ' , TDNT 2.395-6-, M. Black, 'The Pauline Doctrine of the Second A d a m ' , SJT 7 (1954) 174-9; R. Scroggs, The Last Adam (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966) 97-9.

16

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that image. ^^ Here Gnostic traditions may put us on the right track. A succinct specimen of the Gnostic exposition of Gen 1.26 is ascribed to Satomil, who is reported to have come from the school of Simon Magus, the alleged fountain-head of Gnosticism: ' i The world and everything in it came into being from seven angels, and man also was a creation of the angels. When from the Supreme Power above a shining image (φωτεινής εΙκόνος) appeared, which they were not able to detain, he [i.e. Satomil] says, because it immediately sped back upwards, they exhorted one another, saying: 'Let us make man after the image and likeness (κατ' εικόνα και καθ' όμοίωσιν).''^

The 'shining' 'image' or 'likeness' of God, after which the body of the earthly man was fashioned, appears here as a separate entity, even some form of hypostasis: it manifests itself to the demiurgic angels, and it withdraws from them when they try to detain it. In order to understand how the Gnostics conceived of this hypostasis, it is useful to look at some passages from On the Origin of the World from the Nag Hammadi Library. In this tract we find the familiar picture of the demiurge who boasts that he is the only God: 'If someone exists before me, let him appear, so that we might see his light.' Immediately a light shines forth out of the highest heaven: 'When this light (ογοβιΝ) appeared, a likeness (eiNe) of man, which was very beautiful, was manifested within it.'^^ This 'likeness of man' is said to be an angel and called 'Light Adam' ( λ Λ λ Μ Ñ o y o e i N ) , ' L i g h t - M a n L a t e r on in the tractate we find the following statements: '[...] he [i.e. Light-Adam] appeared on the first day [...]'; '[...] the first Adam of the Light It is true that there are some texts which describe Adam as the divine image itself, but this conception has the same derivation as the idea of Christ as the image of God; see below, p. 140 and p. 142, n. 23. Cf. pp. SCSI. " Irenaeus, Adv haer 1.24.1, says that Satomil took his inspiration from Simon and his successor, Menander, and that he taught similarly to the latter. If we assume that Simon and Menander were active until about 60 or 70 C.E., we should not date Satomil later than around the tum of the century. '2 Hippolytus, Ref omn haer VII.28.2, where the Greek original of Irenaeus has been preserved. •3NHC II.5, 108.7-9. • The text reads OYoeiN, which must be emended.

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17

(πφορπ λΛλΜ Пте πογοείΝ) is spiritual. He appeared on the first day.'15 Thus, the light which enclosed the heavenly Man is the light which was created on the first day according to Gen 1.3: 'And God said: "Let there be light!" And there was light.' The word for 'light' in the LXX is phos, which significantly also means 'man' ( τ ό φ ώ ξ , 'light'; ó φώς, 'man'). In our Gnostic text it is related that before this Man of Light withdrew from the lower parts of the universe, the demiurgic powers created the body of the earthly man after his l i k e n e s s , a s was the case in the teaching of Satomil. That the divine image after which man was created was a hypostasis is an idea known from Kabbalism: 'The Godhead thus had [...] a mystical form of manifestation, [...] the form of Man upon the throne which represents that highest Urbild, in whose Ebenbild man was created.'!'^ This refers to the vision of the prophet Ezekiel of a throne with 'a likeness as the appearance of a man upon it a b o v e T h i s 'likeness as the appearance of a man' upon the heavenly throne is identified by the prophet as follows: "Ibis was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of the Lord.' Kabbalism can be viewed as a revival of mythology on Jewish s o i l . I n this respect, however, Kabbalism was preceded by Gnosticism by centuries, for in Gnosticism, too, the mythology which was suppressed by Pharisaic Rabbinism crops up again. The same mythology would seem to have played a role in the formation NHC II.5, 111.29-30; 117.28-30. NHC II.5, 112.25-113.10. The alchemist Zosimus (who apparently lived in the beginning of the fourth century C.E.) says that the 'First Man' or 'Man of Light', whose 'common name is φ ω ς [Man], which is φ ώ ς [light]', was exploited by the archons in their creation of the first material man {On the Letter Omega §§ 6-7). G. Scholem, Von der mystischen Gestalt der Gottheit (Zürich: Rhein, 1962) 21. Cf. L. Ginzberg, 'Adam Kadmon', Jewish Encyclopedia (10 vols.; New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901) 1.183, col. a; G. Scholem, 'Adam Kadmon', Encyclopaedia Judaica (17 vols.; Jerusalem: Keter, 1971) 2.248. '^Ezek 1.26. Ezek 1. 28. Cf. below, p. 20, n. 30. E.g., G. Scholem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken, 1965; paperback 1969 and reprints) 96-100.

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of certain New Testament terms and themes,21 and it may be right to relate the conception of Christ as the 'image of the invisible God' to the Gnostic (and Jewish mystical) hypostatization of the divine image in Gen 1. 26. However, the Christ hymn in Col 1 is usually taken to evidence Sophia-Christology, and in order to explain the idea of Christ as the image of God, exegetes point to Wis 7.26.22 But Sophia is here said to be an image of God's (perfect) goodness ([...] εΙκών της ά γ α θ ό τ η τ ο ς αύτοϋ), which is not the same thing. It is true that the commentators parallel this representation with the descriptions of Sophia and the Logos as the image of God himself in the work of Philo,23 but Philo's intermediary is recognized to be a highly complex figure, and so we would have to ask whether Philo actually testifies to the same tradition as that found in the Gnostic texts. It is interesting that 'Man' is one of the appellations which Philo bestows

21 MacRae, 'Nag Hammadi and the New Testament', 153-5, finds 'an example of Gnostic influence on Christology itself in 1 Cor 2. 6-8, where it is related that 'the rulers of this age' did not know the true identity of the saviour and therefore had him killed. The same motif is found in a couple of Nag Hammadi texts completely devoid of Christian influence, thus suggesting 'strongly that in 1 Cor 2:8 Paul is picking up a theme widely used in Gnosticism and applying it to the passion and death of Jesus'. What claims our special interest in this connection is that Paul here calls Jesus 'the Lord of the Glory' as well as 'the Hidden Wisdom of God'. In 1.24 Jesus is called 'the Power of God and the Wisdom of God', the former name being a synonym of 'the Glory of God'; see below, pp. 25-7. In the 'Similitudes of Enoch' it is God himself who is 'the Lord of Glory' (40.3) and even 'the Lord of Glory and the Lord of Wisdom' (63.2). While God became more and more transcendent, his functions and epithets were given to his agents. In 3 Enoch, the angel Metatron is said to have a throne 'like the Throne of Glory' (10.1; cf. ch.l6; 48 [C].5) and is called 'the Prince of Wisdom' (48[D].6). 22 E.g., F.-W. Ehester, Eikon im Neuen Testament (BZNW 23; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1958) 76 et passim; Lohse, Briefe 86; E. Schweizer, Der Brief an die Kolosser (EKK 12; Zürich-Einsiedeln-Köln: Benzinger & NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener, 1976) 57. 23 In Leg all 1.43 Sophia is called the image of God. For the Logos as the divine image, see Conf ling 147; Det pot ins 83-4; Fug et invent 101; Somn 1.115; 239; 11.45.

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19

upon the intermediary, and that he even can say that the Man is 'no other than the divine image'. Philo often discerns the heavenly or, rather, ideal Man in the man whose creation is narrated in Gen 1. 26-7, while he takes Gen 2. 7 to speak of the creation of the material man.25 But the Jewish philosopher can also take Gen 1. 26-7 to relate the creation of the earthly man, and when he does so, he frequently identifies the divine image after which man was created as the Logos.26 The impression to be gained from this is that the former inteφretation is secondary and to be accounted for by the concern to explain the two different stories of the creation of man. It would seem demonstrable that the idea of Man in Hellenistic Judaism did not derive from Gen 1. The only place where Plato uses the phrase, 'idea of Man', is Parmenides 130 C, where Socrates is asked: 'And is there an idea of Man (εΤδος

Conf ling 62-3. For 'Man of God' as a name of the Logos, see Conf ling 41. Käsemann, 'Taufliturgie', 40-1, and others take these texts and Conf ling 146 (see next note) as evidence for a merger of the Gnostic Anthropos and the Logos. This theory goes back to the History of Religions School, according to which Philo's Logos was explained as an echo of the Gnostic Anthropos; see already R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres (Leipzig; Teubner, 1904) 110. Although we have to dismiss the theory on chronological grounds, we cannot simply reverse the argument and see Philo's intermediary as the ancestor of the Gnostic Anthropos, as has been conjectured by E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums (3 vols.; Stuttgart: Cotta, 1921-3) 2.377, and others. Philo's Logos, although often described in personal metaphors (e.g. being called G o d ' s ' S o n ' ) , is a philosophical concept and cannot account for the development of the Gnostic Anthropos, who is a mythological figure of considerable plasticity and vitality. 25 Op mundi 134; Leg all 1.31; 53-5; 88-94; II.4; Quaest in Gen 11.54. In Conf ling 146 the Logos is called ó κ α τ ' είκόυα ά ν θ ρ ω π ο ς . In Quaest in Gen 1.4 the 'Man made in accordance with God's eidos' is a copy of the Logos and the incorporeal model of the earthly man whose creation is related in Gen 2. 7. 26 Op mundi 25; 69; 139; Leg all 111.96; Quis rer 230-1; Quaest in Gen 11.62. For reference of Gen 1. 26-7 to the earthly man without mention of the Logos-Image, see Conf ling 175; Mut nom 30-1. In Fug et invent 68-71 Philo takes Gen 1. 26 to refer to the earthly man and the next verse to speak of the Logos.

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ά ν θ ρ ω π ο υ ) , apart from us and all others such as we are The same phrase recurs in the Greek text of Ezek 1. 26, ο μ ο ί ω μ α εΤδος άνθρώπου.^δ Thus, Alexandrian Jews long before Philo found the idea of Man in the description of the Glory upon the heavenly throne. When having to account for the two different stories of man's creation in Gen 1-2, however, the idea of Man was found in Gen 1. 26-7. But it is of course totally illogical that the ideal Man should have been made after a prototype, an idea. Philo is sensible when taking the statement that man was made after the image of God to mean that the earthly man was made after a divine prototype. The LXX itself may assume the Platonic thought of eidos and copy in this place ( κ α τ ' εικόνα [...] και καθ' όμοίωσιν). Το Philo, the likeness of man to God through the Logos is to be found in the mind,29 while the Gnostics continued the genuinely Jewish tradition that the divine likeness of man was to be found in the body. The image after which the body of man was formed was a heavenly man, even the Glory .^o Furthermore, this Man could be identified with the phos in Gen 1. 3. There is evidence to the effect that the Gnostics also in this respect continued Jewish traditions which were Platonized by philosophers such as Philo. In the second century B.C.E. the

Socrates answers that he is not sure, but later Platonists affirmed the belief in the idea of Man; see e.g. Seneca, Epist mor 65.7; Ps.-Justin, Cohort ad Graec 30. G. Quispel, Review of J. Frickei, Hellenistische Erlösung in christlicher Deutung (NHS 19; Leiden: Brill, 1984), VigChr 39 (1985) 198. Quaest in Gen 11.62; Op mundi 69. Traces of this idea appear in different Jewish quarters. A text from Qumran reads: 'You have fashioned Adam, our father, in the likeness of [Your] Glory' (4Q 504, frag. 8). In Tanhuma the creation of man in God's aba is explained as his creation in God's Л1зэ {Pequde 2). In the Talmud we read that God has made man 'in the image of the likeness of His Form (1П133П m m йЬзз)' (b Keth 8a). This implies that 'Adam was created after the image of a God-created type (n-ijan)' (Ginzberg, 'Adam Kadmon', 183, col. a). The term tabenith belongs to the same semantic field as selem and demuth; see J. Barr, 'The image of God in the Book of Genesis - À Study of Terminology', BJRL 51 (1968) 15-26. Cf. below, p. 29, n. 65, and p. 35, n. 83.

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21

Alexandrian playwright Ezekiel wrote in his drama Exagoge that Moses once had a dream in which he ascended Mt. Sinai, which apparently is conceived of as situated in a celestial sphere: Ί dreamed that on the summit of Mt. Sinai stood a great throne reaching to the comers of heaven. On it was seated a noble Man ( φ ώ τ α γ ε ν ν α ΐ ο ν ) , with a diadem [on his head] and holding a great sceptre in his left hand.' ^^ Now the grammatical construction, φ ώ τ α γ ε ν ν α ΐ ο ν , can not carry the meaning, 'noble Light', but there can be little doubt that phos as the term for 'Man' was not chosen at random. In a strange speculation on the Sabbath as the birthday of the world, Aristobulus - who wrote at the same time and place as Ezekiel the Tragedian says: This [i.e. the seventh day] could actually be called the first [day], the generation of the light [cf. Gen 1.3 and 5] through which everything can be comprehended. The same may also be said of Wisdom, since all light derives from her. [...] One of our ancestors, Solomon, has said that Wisdom existed before heaven and earth [Prov 8.22-30].^^

The primordial light, phos, which is called 'day' in Gen 1.5 ('And God called the light "day"'), refers to Sophia, who - according to Prov ch. 8 - was brought into being before everything.33 Thus,

Lines 68-72; quoted by Eusebius, Praep ev IX.28.2. G. Quispel, 'Gnosis', Die orientalischen Religionen im Römerreich (EPRO 93; ed. M. J. Vermaseren; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 417, takes this text to be an allusion to Ezekiel's vision of the Glory. Certain elaborations upon the theophany vouchsafed to Moses and the elders in Exod 24.10 were also apparently important antecedents of the throne vision in Ezekiel the Dramatist; see below, pp. 105-6. Fragment 5; quoted by Eusebius, Praep ev ΧΙΠ.12.9-11. For a discussion of creation and Wisdom in Aristobulus, see M. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus (WUNT 10; 3rd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1988) 295-307. Philo, Somn 1.75, identifies the light in Gen 1.3 as the Logos. He goes on to say that 'as the sun divides day and night,' so 'God made a division between the light and the darkness' (Gen 1.4). This statement might reflect the idea that the intermediary was known as Hemera as well as Phos. In Leg all 1.19-22 Philo even calls the demiurgic Logos ή μ ε ρ α , but the Scriptural reference is Gen 2.4. In Op mundi the primordial light is the 'seventh thing made' (29) and the 'image' of the Logos (31).

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there were Hellenistic Jews who identified the phos in Gen 1.3 as the intermediary. In Aristobulus the phos is Sophia, while in Ezekiel the Dramatist the phos is Phos, 'Man'. The Alexandrian playwright was not the only Jew who saw Phos as a masculine figure.^^ In Joseph and Asenath, a work of Egyptian provenance which cannot have been written later than the Hadrianic w a r , t h e heroine receives a revelation: '[...] the heaven was torn apart, and a great and ineffable Phos appeared. And Asenath saw it and fell on (her) face on the ashes. And a Man of Light from heaven (άνθρωπος φωτός έκ τοΟ ούρανοΰ) came to her' (14.34).3б The 'Man of Light', who imparts a revelation to Asenath, apparently is identified with the 'great and ineffable Light' appearing when the heaven was torn apart.^^ The text is thus similar to On the On 'Day' as a Christological title, see J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964) 168-72. It is puzzling that there is no clear association with Gen 1.3-5. Now Clement of Alexandria says that the eighth day, which is the Lord's Day, is really 'the primordial day' and 'the creation of the true light' (Strom VL 138.1). This would seem to be a reinteφretation of Aristobulus and may presuppose the Christian idea that 'the Day' is a name of the Son. In Pesikta Rabbati 36.1 the primordial light in Gen 1.3-4 is said to be the 'light of the Messiah'. An identification between the light and the Messiah is in view, for the continuation speaks alternatively of the light and the Messiah being concealed under God's throne. 35 See C. Burchard, in OTP 2.187-88. 'Man of Light' is read by what seems to be the earliest MS, which stems from the 11th cent. Burchard translates 'man' on the basis of an 11th12th cent. MS with support in a later MS and a couple of Latin versions. The Armenian version, which appears to be older than the Greek MSS, interestingly reads '(one) similar to a man', obviously alluding to Ezek 1.26 (and Dan 7.13). One of the later MSS identifies the heavenly being as an 'angel', and in the versions we also find the readings, 'bright angel' and 'Angel of the Lord'. In the subsequent chapters the heavenly figure is called 'the Man from heaven'. The same title is given to Christ in 1 Cor 15.47. Cf. the representation of the Messiah in Sib Or V. 414-5; see below, n. 39. Cf. also Sib Or W.256. 3^ In the Testament of Abraham, which is probably also of Egyptian origin, the patriarch reports that he 'saw heaven opened, and [...] a light-bearing ( φ ω τ ο φ ό ρ ο ς ) Man coming out of heaven, flashing more than seven suns' (Ree. A, 7.3). The luminous Man, described in the next verse as

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Origin of the World, where the Phos coming out of heaven is said to be a 'Man of Light' who remains on earth for a w h i l e . ^ s In Joseph and Asenath the 'Man of Light' is a heavenly ruler, for Asenath begins her description of him by noting 'the robe, and the crown, and the royal staff (14.9). His enthronement in heaven is obviously assumed. He is thus similar to Phos (and later Moses) in Exagoge}^

It appears that Hellenistic Jews could weld the Glory of God upon the heavenly throne with the Phos in Gen 1.3. This Man was no ideal form. When Christ in Col 1.15 is said to be the 'image of the invisible God', the same identification apparently is purported. Christ is here the physical embodiment of God. This conception is different from the idea of Sophia or the Logos as the divine i m a g e , ' ' ^ ή λ ι ό μ ο ρ φ ο ξ , converses with Abraham. In Ree. В he is represented as 'an enormous Man, shining exceedingly from heaven, as [the] light which is called the father of light ( π α τ ή ρ τ ο υ φ ω τ ό ξ ) ' (7.5). Describing a post-resurrectional appearance of Jesus, Pistis Sophia recounts that 'the heavens opened' and the disciples 'saw Jesus coming down emitting light exceedingly, and there was no measure to the light in which he was' (1.4). In the Apocryphon of John the visionary sees the heavens opened and the whole creation bathed in a light in which also Jesus appears (NHC II. 1, 1.31-2.2). In both cases a revelation follows. F. Lentzen-Deis, Die Taufe Jesu nach den Synoptikern (FTS 4; Frankfurt a.M.: Knecht, 1970) 123-4, regards these two accounts as ramifications of the literary 'Gattung der "Vision" '. Interestingly, the motif of the light coming out of heaven is not found in the texts which Lentzen-Deis cites as primary examples of the 'Gattung'. This may indicate that it does not belong organically in vision descriptions but derives from Gen ch. 1. The 'light from heaven' in the descriptions of Paul's call may be understood to encompass the man-like figure of the Glory. In Acts 9.5 Paul asks: 'Who are you. Lord?' In the explanation of Paul's call in ch. 22, it is said that Paul was appointed 'to see the Righteous One and hear a voice out of his mouth' (v. 14). A similar statement is found in the third report on Paul's call (26.16), but the text may here be corrupt. ^^ The Testament of Abraham assumes the enthronement of the luminous Man descending from heaven, for he is said to have a crown and a royal staff (Ree. A, 7.9). In Sib Or V.414-5 the Man who 'comes from heaven' has 'a sceptre in his hand which God has given him'. In Apoc Abr 11.3 the angel Yahoel, who appears on earth and is said to be 'in the likeness of a man', possesses a golden sceptre. The description of Christ in Col 1. 15a is usually taken to mean that he is the locus of revelation, as is Wisdom; see e.g. Lohse, Briefe 87, who

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but it is not unlike the notion of the image of God in Gnosticism, where the image was hypostasized as a heavenly Man.

II In Col 1. 15 Christ is also called π ρ ω τ ό τ ο κ ο ς π ά σ η ς κτίσεως. Many scholars want to see this as an allusion to Prov 8. 22, but Wisdom is neither here nor elsewhere called 'firstborn'. It is true that the intermediary in Philo's works often is called π ρ ω τ ό γ ο ν ο ς , b u t the closest parallel to the phrase in Col 1.15b is found in a fragment of the Prayer of Joseph preserved by Origen.'^^ In the fragment from this Jewish aprocryphon, the angel Israel - who is represented as having descended to earth and taken human form in the patriarch Jacob - describes himself in the following manner: I, Jacob, who am speaking to you, am also Israel, and angel of God and a principal spirit ( π ν ε ύ μ α ά ρ χ ι κ ό ν ) . Abraham and Isaac were created before any work, but I, Jacob, whom men call Jacob, but whose [true] name is Israel, am he whom God called Israel, that is, a man seeing God, because I am the firstborn of every living thing ( π ρ ω τ ό γ ο ν ο ξ π α ν τ ό ς ζ φ ο υ ) that receives its life from God. [...] [Am I not] Israel, the archangel of the Power of the Lord ( ά ρ χ ά γ γ ε λ ο ξ δ υ ν ά μ ε ω ς κυρίου) and the chief captain among

dismisses as 'obsolete' the discussion in the early Church as to whether the image of an invisible God is visible or not. But it must be underlined that 'image' in the Bible and the literature related to it has a distinctly material connotation and even can be used in association with or as synonymous with 'glory', especially in descriptions of an epiphany vision; see the survey by S. Kim, The Origin of Paul's Gospel (WUNT 2/4; Tübingen: Mohr, 1981) 195222. A scholar who has sensed that Col 1. 15a implies that Christ is the divine Glory is C. C. Rowland, The Influence of the First Chapter of Ezekiel on Jewish and Early Christian Literature (Diss.; Cambridge, 1974) 291-2. See also below, p. 29, n. 65, and cf. p. 35, n. 83. Confling 62-3, 146; Agr 51; Somn 1.215. Already H. Windisch, 'Die göttliche Weisheit der Juden und die paulinische Christologie', Neutestamentliche Studien ßr G. Heinrici (UNT 6; Leipzig, 1914) 225, n. 1, saw the significance of this text for the interpretation of Col 1. 15b, but he took it as revealing influence from Sophianology.

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the sons of God? Am I not Israel, the first of those who serve before the face of the Lord?43

The angelic name 'Israel' was known to both Philo and Justin Martyr. In a well-known passage Philo predicates the following of 'God's Firstborn ( π ρ ω τ ό γ ο ν ο $ ) , the Logos, who holds the eldership among the angels, their ruler as it were': 'Many names are his, for he is called "Beginning" (άρχή), and "God's Name", and "Logos", and "Man after the image", and "He who sees", "Israel"."^ Justin, who identifies the angel Israel as the Son, says that he really 'is God, inasmuch as he is the Firstborn of all creation ( π ρ ω τ ό τ ο κ ο ν τ ω ν öXcov κ τ ι σ μ ά τ ω ν ) [...], and Israel was his name from the b e g i n n i n g ' ^ ^ It is noteworthy that Israel's epithets denote his priority in both time and order of importance, 'and it is difficult to avoid understanding by them something more than an a n g e l A closer look at the title 'archangel of the Power of the Lord' in the Prayer of Joseph may provide us with a clue to the identity of this figure. This title is parallel in construction to the name 'angel of the Holy Spirit' which is found in several passages in the Ascension of Isaiah. The latter name designates the Holy Spirit in person, and we should therefore understand the former term to be equivalent in meaning to the 'Power of the Lord'.^'^ This inference can be corroborated by the representation of Jesus in a Coptic magical papyrus, where the Son again appears as identical with the angel Israel. Jesus here says: Ί am Israel-El, the Power (δύναμις) of lao Sabaoth, the Great Power (NO6 ÑÓOM) of Barbaraoth."^ A few lines above it is said that 'the Great Power of Barbaraoth' is 'the Power (δύναμις) that stands before the face of the Father', a description which corresponds to the representation of Comm in Joh II.31. "^Confling 146. Dial 125.3. Daniélou, Theology 133. Daniélou, Theology 134. A. M. Kropp, Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte (3 vols.; Bruxelles: Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1930/1) 1. 48. 'Barbaraoth' appears as a name of the highest God also in the Greek magical papyri {PGM IV. 1008-10).

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Israel in the Prayer of Joseph as ' the first of those who serve before the face of the Lord'. Now 'Power' was used interchangeably with 'Glory' in Jewish mysticism. In the Visions of Ezekiel we read: 'When Ezekiel was looking, the Holy One, blessed be He, opened to him the seven heavens, and he beheld the Power A few lines below the sentence is repeated with the following variation: '[...] and he beheld the Holy Glory ([©ijipn т з э ) ' . In Ma^'aseh Merkabah the following statement is put into the mouth of R. Aqiba, who here appears as a type of the mystics who undertook journeys to heaven with the aim of gazing on the figure who had been seen by Moses and Ezekiel: 'When I ascended and beheld the Power (ΠΊΐηη), I saw all the creatures that are to be found in the pathways of h e a v e n . ' 5 0 The Jewish mystical texts are rather late, but they apparently draw on old traditions, for both the Jewish Christians and the Gnostics can be seen to use the term 'Power' as an alternate of 'Glory'. In the Teachings of Silvanas, a non-Gnostic writing from the Nag ^^ S. A. Wertheimer, rno-nn ·ιπ3 (2 vols.; 2nd ed. A. J. Wertheimer; Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Cook, 1954) 2.129. 50 P. Schäfer, Synapse zur Hekhalot-Literatur (TSAJ 2; Tübingen: Mohr, 1981) 201, §545. G. G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1960) 67, suggests that Matt 26.64 and Mark 14. 62, '[...] you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right of the Power', allude to a vision of the Son of Man at the right hand of the Glory. The addition of the genitive 'of God' in the Lukan parallel is commonly taken to be an elucidation of 'the Power', in which case, however, it must be said to obscure the meaning which it intends to convey; see e.g. E. Klostermann, Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; 2nd ed.; Tübingen: Mohr, 1929) 220. J. Fitzmyer tries to overcome the difficulty by arguing that the genitive eliminates the personification, and that 'the Power' is 'something with which the Son of Man will be invested' {The Gospel according to Luke [2 vols.; AB 28 and 28A; New York: Doubleday, 1981-5] 2.1467). But in Acts 8. 10, the only other place in LukeActs where we find this phrase, there is a real personification of 'the (Great) Power' (see below, p. 27, n. 57). That 'the Power' in Rabbinism is no mere circumlocution for the proper Name of God has been shown by A. M. Goldberg, 'Sitzend zur Rechten der K r a f t ' , BZ 8 (1964) 284-93 (note especially the pertinent remarks on p. 291), and it is thus possible that the genitive in Luke 22. 69 is possessive and meant to indicate that 'the Power' is a divine hypostasis. In the Ascension of Isaiah the visionary says that he 'saw him [i.e. Christ] sit down at the right hand of the Great Glory' (11. 32).

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Hammadi libary saturated with Jewish Christian terms and concepts,5 ' it is said: Ά Great Power (NO6 м л м д ^ т е ) and Great Glory (NO6 ÑeooY) has made the universe k n o w n . T h i s refers to Jesus, whom the Jewish Christians actually regarded as the Glory of God.53 The non-Christian Letter of Eugnostos reads : 'In the beginning he [i.e. God] decided to have His likeness (eiNe) come into being as a Great Power (NO6 Ñ6OM). Immediately the ά ρ χ ή of that light (oYoeiN) was manifested as an immortal, androgynous Man.'^^ The 'image' or 'likeness' of God, which is identical with the 'light' or 'Man' brought forth 'in the beginning', is here called a 'Great Power'. It thus can be concluded that the description of the angel Israel as 'the Power' or 'the Great Power' implies that he is the Glory of G o d . T h a t the Prayer of Joseph teaches that this figure had appeared on earth is not so strange. Already in the Book of Ezekiel the Glory is seen by the prophet also on earth.56 In the first century C.E. Simon Magus claimed - or was claimed - to be 'the Great Power of God'.57 At the very beginning of the second century the 51 J. Zandee, " T h e Teachings of Silvanus" (NHC VII,4) and Jewish Christianity', Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions presented to Gilles Quispel on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday (EPRO 91; ed. R. van den Broek and M. J. Vermaseren; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 498-584. 52 NHC VII.4, 112.8-10. 53 J. Possum, 'Jewish-Christian Christology and Jewish Mysticism', VigChr 37 (1983) 260-87. 54 NHC 111.3,76.19-47. 55 On the heavenly Jacob, see also below, pp. 140-44, 147-49. 56 3.23; 8.4. 57 Acts 8.10. The genitive τ ο υ θεοΰ is frequently taken as genitivas appositivus, in which case, however, it must be regarded as 'misleading' (E. H a e n c h e n , Die Apostelgeschichte [Meyer 3; 7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977] 293). But the genitive may be possessive here as well as in Luke 22. 69 (see above, n. 50). The only phrase in LukeActs which corresponds to the description of Simon as ή δύναμίξ т о й θεού ή κ α λ ο ύ μ ε ν η μ ε γ ά λ η is found in Acts 3. 2, τ η ν θ ύ ρ α ν τοΟ ίεροΰ τ η ν λ ε γ ο μ έ ν η ν ώ ρ α ί α ν . Here the genitive 'of the temple' has been added to the name 'the beautiful gate', so that people who did not know so much about the temple should understand that the gate referred to was a certain gate of the temple. On this analogy, it would seem right to take the genitive in

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Jewish Christian sect leader Elchasai - whose name actually means the 'Hidden P o w e r ' 5 8 - took himself to be the final manifestation of Christ, who in Jewish Christianity was seen as the Glory and believed to have appeared on earth many times throughout the ages.5^ Since the angel Israel in the Prayer of Joseph apparently is conceived of as the Glory, his name 'Firstborn of every living thing' would seem to allude to the light which was brought into being on the very first day and which could be construed as a heavenly Man, even the Glory. Since Christ in Col 1. 15b is given a quite similar title,60 it would not be implausible to take this as another piece of evidence to the effect that the first part of the hymn regards him as the Glory of God. Ill V. 16 represents the Son as a demiurgic figure.^^ This is seen as strong evidence for the Sophia-Christology of the hymn, but it should be pointed out that evidence for the demiurgic function of the heavenly Man is not lacking. In the fragmentary text of the Gospel of the Egyptians from Nag Hammadi, we find a heavenly Man who is described as follows: 'For this one. Adamas, is a light which radiated from the Light. For this is the first Man, he through whom and for whom everything became, and without whom nothing b e c a m e . j j j j s is reminiscent of the representation of Christ in Col 1. 16: 'all things' were created 'in' - or perhaps 'by' - him,63 'through' him, and 'for' him. Acts 8 . 1 0 to be possessive and indicate that 'the Power' is not God himself, but a divine hypostasis. "They [i.e. the Elchasaites] hold illusory ideas, calling him [i.e. Elxai or Elchasai] "Hidden Power" ( δ ύ ν α μ ι ν ά τ τ ο κ ε κ α λ υ μ μ ε ν η ν ) , since ή λ means "power" and ξ α ϊ "hidden" ' (Epiphanius, Pan XIX.2.10). Possum, 'Christology'. The phrase in the Peshitta reads 'Firstborn of all creatures', thus offering an even closer parallel to the expression in the Prayer of Joseph. Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 5 3 , n. 13, counts twelve scholars w h o want to delete v. 16c, 'whether thrones or lordships or rulers or authorities'. 62 NHC IV.2, 61.8-11 and III.2, 49.10-12. The N e w Testament often uses the preposition έν with the dative case to express instrument. The passive does not have to mean that God is the

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It is of course possible that the Gospel of the Egyptians here is dependent upon Col 1.16, but it should be noted that although the Gnostic 'Gospel' knows the Jewish Christian trinity of Father, Mother and Son, it does not attribute to the Son the work of creation. The Poimandres, the first tract of the Corpus Hermeticum, is of interest for this discussion. This writing, which is from the beginning of the second century C.E. and completely devoid of Christian influence, tells us that God brought forth a 'Man' in the heavenly world: Nous, the Father of all, who is Life and Light, brought forth Man like unto Himself, whom he loved as His own child, for he was very beautiful and wore his Father's image ( ε ι κ ό ν α ) . Even God indeed loved His own form ( μ ο ρ φ ή ξ ) and handed over to him all His works. And Man, beholding what the demiurge had fashioned in the fire [i.e. the celestial spheres], wished himself to create and was permitted to do so by the Father.^

The heavenly Man ( ά ν θ ρ ω π ο ς ) , who wears God's 'image' and even is his 'form', is obviously another Gnostic version of the Glory, for 'form' is not only synonymous with 'image', but can also be used interchangeably with ' g l o r y x ^ a t the Man is said to have wished to create is strange, for the entire universe has already been made, and the continuation of the myth does not pick up the point at all. This suggests that the myth has preserved traces of a cosmogonie function of the celestial Man.^^ The idea that the Man had a demiurgic function was of Jewish origin. The Rabbis had to combat certain Minim who asserted that a real creator; see the passive constructions in Rom 11. 36 and Heb 2. 10, where God is the direct creator. 64 §§12-13. For the equivalence of Dbs/elKcóv and μ ο ρ φ ή , see the survey by Kim, Origin 195-8. In Greek Old Testament texts μ ο ρ φ ή is used interchangeably with δ ό ξ α , the translation of n i a s , 'glory'. In Job 4. 16 the пзюп, 'form' or 'appearance', of the divine spirit which revealed itself to Eliphaz is rendered by μ ο ρ φ ή in the LXX. In Num 12. 8, however, the LXX translates God's п з т л , which is seen by Moses, by δ ό ξ α . In Isa 52.14 the ι κ η , 'form' or 'shape', of the Servant is rendered by μ ο ρ φ ή by Aquila and by δ ό ξ α by the LXX. See also Fossum, 'Christology', 263-4, 265, 267-9; The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord (WUNT 36; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985) 283-4. Η. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (2nd ed.; Boston: Beacon, 1963) 156.

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certain Man figure had helped God in his work of creation: 'Our Rabbis taught: "Adam was created on the eve of the Sabbath." And why? Lest the Minim should say: "The Holy One, blessed be He, had an associate in the work of c r e a t i o n . T h i s Man must have been pre-existent or brough into being on the first day, the day before God created heaven. As will be remembered, the light which was brought into being on the first day was construed as a heavenly Man. The Rabbis, however, maintained that there was only one man, namely the one who was created on the sixth day, 'the eve of the Sabbath'. Still, the idea of a demiurgic Man figure crops up even in Rabbinic sources, for in Aboth de R. Nathan we read that heaven and earth were created by a 'likeness ( m m ) on high'.^s view of the texts examined above, there can be little doubt that this figure is the hypostasized divine image, that is, the Glory of God. The concept of a demiurgic Man appears to be pre-Christian, for the Book of Wisdom has preserved traces of a strange myth assuming this idea: 'Wisdom guarded to the end the Firstformed Father of the world ( π ρ ω τ ό π λ α σ τ ο ν π α τ έ ρ α κόσμου) who was created alone, and delivered him out of his transgression and gave him power to get dominion over all t h i n g s . T h i s text names Adam 'the Firstformed Father of the world', which was a name of the creator in the Hellenistic age. We find the term in the writings of Philo and the Corpus Hermeticum, works from about the same time and provenance as the Book of W i s d o m . ^ o Our text also says that Adam was 'created alone', and this may be taken to mean that it is not the man who was created together with Eve who is being described. The Man who had created the world naturally would have to have been brought into being prior to everything. This is also what is predicated of Christ in Col 1.15b and 17a. Now our text also speaks about Adam's 'transgression', and thus presupposes the Biblical myth of the fall of the first man, but this is t Sank 8.7; b Sank 38a. Ch. 39 (S. Schechter, ]пз ·>3-π m a x л э о о [1887; reprinted New York: Philipp Feldheim, 1945] 111).

69 10. 1-2. A. Dupont-Sommer, 'Adam. "Père du Monde" dans la Sagesse de Solomon (10, \ .2)\RHR 119 (1939) 182-91.

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an instance of the rapprochement between the heavenly Man and the earthly Adam which developed in Judaism and Judaized Christianity. This reconcilement caused a restitution and glorification of Adam.''! Thus, our text says that he was 'delivered' out of his transgression and given 'dominion over all things'. Something new has clearly been added to the Biblical myth. Wis 10. 1-2 has obviously merged the figure of the first man on earth with that of the heavenly Man. Another instance of the demiurgic role of the heavenly Man, the Glory, in Judaism is furnished by the evidence concerning the allegedly pre-Christian sect of the Magharians.''^ These people believed that all the anthropomorphic descriptions of God in Scripture really referred to a special angel, who even had created the world: '[...] they did not profess anthropomoφhisms, yet at the same time did not deprive these descriptions [of God] of their literal meaning, but asserted instead that these descriptions refer to one of the angels, namely to the one who had created Üie w o r l d The angel's property of being the anthropoid form of God is reminiscent of the description of Christ as the 'image of the invisible God' in the Colossian hymn. It is therefore not surprising to leam that this angel is no one else than the man-like figure upon the heavenly throne: They [i.e. the Magharians] refer everything which stands in the Torah about the wish to see God to this angel, and further phrases such as, 'God came'; 'God ascended into the clouds'; 'He has written the Law with His hand'; 'He

For the assimilation of Adam to the heavenly Man, see Fossum, 'Christology', 276-9; Name 271-8. For the Magharians, see now the full discussion in my article, 'The Magharians: A Pre-Christian Jewish Sect and Its Significance for the Study of Gnosticism and Christianity', Henoch 9 (1987) 303-44. ^^ L. Nemoy, 'Al-Qirqisani's Account of Jewish Sects and Christianity', ни СA 1 (1930) 364. Both Philo, Somn 1.236, and Justin Martyr, Dial ch. 114, attack Jews who aver that God has a body. Philo and Justin assert that all the anthropomorphisms in Scripture are to be referred to the Angel of the Lord (whom, of course, they identify differently). The angel in the Magharian teaching was also the Angel of the Lord; see F o s s u m , 'Magharians', 328-33.

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sits on His throne'; 'He has the appearance of man' [cf. Ezek 1.26]; 'He has curly hair and black hair on His head' [cf. Cant 5.11];

The Magharians referred the throne visions in Scripture to the angel, even citing specifically Ezek 1. 26. Their demiurgic angel is thus the divine Glory, the celestial Man.

IV The last citation in our text echoes Cant 5. 11, 'His head is as most fine gold; His locks are curled and black as the raven.' This verse is quoted as a kind of Scriptural warrant for the validity of anthropomoφhic mysticism in the Jewish mystical work known as the Shi^ur QomahP^ which can be drawn upon in inteφreting Col 1. 17b, 'and all things consist in him', and Col 1. 18a, 'And he is the head of the body'. With these statements we should compare v. 16a, 'because all things were created in him' (if the preposition is not to be understood in an instrumental sense). In the original hymn, the 'body' of which Christ is the 'head' was the cosmos, 'the Church' being clearly identifiable as a gloss.^^ The ultimate background for the idea that Christ is the head of the cosmos, which, in tum, is his body, is the Indo-European notion of

T. Haarbrücker, Abu-'l-Fath Muhammad asch-Schahrastâni's Religionspartheien und Philosophenschulen (2 vols.; Halle: Schwetschke, 1850/51) 1.256. ^^ M. S. Cohen, The Shi^ur Qomah. Liturgy and Theurgy in Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish Mysticism (Lanham-New York-London: University Press of America, 1983) 111. ^^ Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 53, n. 18, counts fifteen scholars who delete 'the Church'. He could have added M.-A. Wagenführer, Die Bedeutung Christi fìir Welt und Kirche. Studien zum Kolosser- und Epheserbrief (Leipzig, 1941) 66-7; J. L. Houlden, Paul's Letters from Prison (Pelican New Testament Commentaries; Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970) 171; Martin, Colossians, 56, 59, 64; and Conzelmann, 'Brief, 183. Gnilka, Kolosserbrief 58, also wants to delete the words. See also now Lindemann, Kolosserbrief 25, 26, 29. The Letter to the Ephesians would also seem to have appropriated the idea of the cosmic body of Christ in the descriptions of the Church as the body of Christ (1.22-23; 4.7-16; 5.21-33).

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the universe as the body of God.^"' No commentator on the Letter to the Colossians seems to have noted that this concept was adopted by certain JewsJ^ The idea that the divine body was one of vast dimensions is found in different mystical works and elaborated upon in the Shicur Qomah, the 'Measure of the [divine] Body'. A typical excerpt from the Shicur Qomah, put into the mouth of R. Ishmael, a pillar of orthodoxy, runs as follows: I have seen the King of kings over kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, sitting on a high and elevated throne [...]. What is the measure of the body of the Holy One, blessed be He, which is hidden from all men? The soles of His feet fill the entire universe, as it is said: 'The heavens are My seat and the earth My footstool' [Isa 66.1]. The height of His soles is 30,000,000 parasangs

The text goes on to list the fantastic measurements of each and every part of the divine body, which is of cosmic proportions, as is implied by the Scriptural passage quoted: seated in heaven, God rests his feet upon the earth.^o See Lohse, Briefe 93-4; Schweizer, Brief 53, 60, 62, 125, η. 415. ^^ But see G.G. Stroumsa, 'Form(s) of God: Some Notes on Metatron and Christ', HTR 76 (1983) 284. ^^ M.S. Cohen, The Shicur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (TSAJ 9; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985) 87, lines 94-96 and 98-102. A parasang is a Persian mile, ca. 3/4 of an English mile. Origen, Нот in Gen 1.13, says that some Jews in substantiation of their doctrine that God has a body cite Isa 66.1. This would seem to be a piece of evidence for the high age of the Shicur Qomah traditions. See now Cohen, The Shicur Qomah. Liturgy and Theurgy 40, n. 65. Discussing God's immeasurable greatness, Irenaeus refers to Eph 3.18-19, which speaks of the saints' comprehension of 'the breadth and length and height and depth' {Adv haer IV. 19.2). Irenaeus' discussion does not exclude a cosmic connotation. The same has been argued for the Ephesian passage itself by N.A. Dahl, 'Cosmic Dimensions and Religious Knowledge (Eph 3:18)', Jesus und Paulus. Festschriftßr W.G. Kümmel (ed. E. Earle Ellis and E. Grässner; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 57-75. Pointing to the occurrence of the four terms in the same order m PGM IV.964-74 and 979-85, C.E. Arnold, Ephesians. Magic and Power (SNTSMS 63; Cambridge: University Press, 1989; reprinted Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992) 89-93, argues that the spatial terms in Eph 3.18 are to be understood as 'expression for magical power,' perhaps even as 'spiritual hypostases'. This interpretation is not incongruent with viewing Eph 3.18 against the

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Now the Shicur Qomah speaks of the body of God, while the Colossian hymn speaks of the body of the intermediary. However, we must note [...] that the Shiur Komah referred not to the 'dimensions' of the divinity, but to those of its corporeal appearance. This is clearly the interpretation of the original texts. Already the 'Lesser Hekhaloth' interpret the anthropomorphosis of the Shiur Komah as a representation of the 'hidden glory'. Thus, for example. Rabbi Akiba says: 'He is like us, as it were, but greater than everything, and that is His glory which is hidden from us [ППОЗЕ? 1П13Э

Thus, the divine body is really that of the G l o r y . 8 2 This throws further light on the idea of Christ as the 'image of the invisible God'

background of Shi3 (LXX, γ ί γ α ν τ ε ξ ) in Gen 6.4 would seem to be the offspring of the 'sons of God' and the 'daughters of men'. However, the 'sons of God' and the 'giants' were identified. Sir 16.7 says the 'giants' revolted; they are thus identical with the angels who transgressed God's command. In Targum Pseudo-Jonathan the name Di'?S''3 is translated by the names of the leaders of the fallen angels in 1 Enoch. Stating that the fallen angels were 'cast down', 2 Pet 2.4 apparently assumes a derivation of •''Ьа·': from the Hiphil form of the basic verb. For the giant size of the fallen angels, cf. T. Reub 5.6. ^^ Nor did the giants (if the distinction between the two bands be insisted upon): Wis 14.6 and 3 Масс 2.4 say that the giants perished by the Flood. 8^ A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910) 258, n. 12, cites Sir 16.7-8; 3 Масс 2.4-5; Jub 20.5. A collocation of two of the divine acts in Jude 5-6 is found in a fragmentary papyrus text published by P. Benoit, 'Fragment d'une prière contre les Esprits impurs?', RB 58 (1951) 549-65. The text begins by urging God to send the Angel who led the people through the desert and later appeared to Joshua. Thereupon the prayer mentions the fate of the fallen souls, alluding to the tradition found in the passages from / Enoch ch. 10 which have been quoted above. The text is difficult to interpret at this point, but Benoit considers it likely that it is the Angel, probably Michael, who is attributed with the act of flinging the evil ones into the underworld.

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Canaanites) to the annihilation of the giants and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.^^ The spell appears to have been composed before 70 C. E., for at the end it reads: Ί conjure [you] by the one in holy Jerusalem, before whom the unquenchable fire bums all the time.'®^ It might be presumptuous to claim that the incantation is one of the earliest Christian texts at hand; it would seem more prudent to regard the reference to Jesus at the beginning as an insertion by a later scribe. On the other hand, it would be wrong to think that 'no Christian, still less a Jew, would have called Jesus "the god of the H e b r e w s " I n the Pseudo-Clementine literature, which stems from a Jewish Christian group, it is said that God 'gave to his Son, who is called "Lord" [...], the Hebrews as his portion, and appointed him to be god of gods, that is, of the gods who received the other nations as their portions'.^· Clearly, the Son is the 'god' of the Hebrews. In the Pseudo-Clementines, the term 'god' is equivalent to 'angel'. In the parallel passage it is said: Every nation has an angel to whom God has assigned the government of that nation. [...] To one among the archangels who is greatest was assigned the government of those who, before all others, received the worship and knowledge of the Most High God. [...] The princes of the nations are called 'gods', but Christ is god of princes.^^

Christ can here be seen to be a Jewish Christian substitution for Michael, the guardian angel of Israel. The War Scroll from Qumran says that God 'has exalted among the gods (•••'PK) the ministry of Michael and the dominion of Israel over all fleshThe 'gods', a Sir 16.10 alludes to Num 14.35 and 16.11 (as well as Exod 12.37, giving the number of the entire desert generation). The undying light of the menorah in the Jerusalem temple was legendary. Some references can be found in Betz, Papyri 97, n. 407. After the destruction of the city, the lines would have been understood as speaking about the heavenly Jerusalem. Deissmann, Light 256, n.4. Jesus may be the Jewish 'god' also in PGM IV. 1231-5. Horn XVIII.4. 92 Ree 11.42. 93 1 Q M 17.6.

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synonym of 'angels' in the Bible as well as in Qumran, are of course the angels of the nations.^'^ When PGM IV.3019 calls Jesus 'god of the Hebrews', we should understand this to mean that he is regarded as the guardian angel of Israel. The name 'the great god Sabaoth' is also to be understood as a name of the chief angel, even Christ. A Jewish Christian writing, the Threefold Fruit of the Christian Life, attributed to Cyprian, says that when God created the seven angels, 'He determined to make one of them His Son. He it is whom Isaiah declares to be the Lord Sabaoth'.95 Again the Christians may be seen to adopt and adapt Jewish teachings, for Sabaoth occurs as an angelic name also in Judaism.96 PGM IV.3007-86 can thus be read as a Christian text. In the light of this charm the reading 'Jesus' in Jude 5 does not appear singular. Three - if not all four - of the acts attributed to Jesus in Jude 5-7 are ascribed to the 'god of the Hebrews, Jesus' in the magical papyrus.

VII We can thus conclude that the reading 'Jesus' in Jude 5 implies that the Son is modelled on an intermediary figure whose basic constituent is the Angel of the Lord. If 'Kyrios' was the original reading, a copyist apparently took this to indicate the Son on the ground that vv. 5-7 describe acts which could be attributed to the Angel of the Lord, who was said to share God's Name and could even be designated by the Tetragrammaton or its Greek equivalent In Satomil's Gnostic system, as reported by Irenaeus, Adv haer 1.24.2, the 'god of the Jews' was the first among the angels and the opponent of Satan. This was of course traditionally Michael's role (Rev 12.7; et al.). De cent 216-9. In the Testament of Solomon (which is hardly a Christian writing since there is no mention of Christ or his work), one of the heavenly benefactors is invoked as follows: 'Angel, Eaë, leö. Sabaoth' (18.15). See further the references given by J. Barbel, Christos Angelos (Theophaneia 3; Bonn: Peter Hansten) 193, n. 57. The portrayals of Sabaoth in Gnosticism show that the figure is modelled upon the vicegerent of God in Judaism; see Fossum, Name 302-4.

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'Kyrios'. Since v. 4 ends with the phrase 'our only Master and Lord (κύριον), Jesus C h r i s t ' , i t may even be that this was a correct inteφretation.^8 On external evidence, however, 'critical principles seem to require the adoption of Ί η σ ο ΰ ς , which admittedly is the best attested reading among Greek and versional witnesses'.99 Cf. vv. 17 and 21, 'our Lord Jesus Christ', and v. 25, 'Jesus Christ, our Loixi'. It is true that 'Kyrios' always appears with the article when it is accompanied by the words 'Jesus Christ', whereas the article before 'Kyrios' in V. 5 is probably secondary. However, as pointed out by A. Tyrrell Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (London; SPCK, 1965), who thinks that even if 'Jesus' is not the original reading, 'it may well be a correct gloss' (137), the two other occurrences of 'Kyrios' without the article are in quotations, viz. in vv. 9 and 14. Moreover, as has been seen above, the Kyrios in v. 14 is apparently the Son. Accepting the reading ' K y r i o s ' , Th. Zahn, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (2 vols.; Leipzig: Deichert, 1899) 2. 82-3, 98, felt able to inteφret this as a name of Jesus by taking τ ο δ ε ύ τ ε ρ ο ν to refer to a second act of destruction, namely that of Jerusalem, and assuming that the first as well as the second act of punishment (with their respective preceding acts of redemption) had been effected by the same 'Lord', even Jesus. For a refutation of Zahn's laborious exegesis, see F. Maier, 'Zur Erklärung des Judasbriefes (Jud 5)', BZ 2 (1904) 396-7. Some commentators - e.g. Schelkle, Petrusbriefe 154, η. 2 - think that the reading 'Jesus' may imply that the destruction of Jerusalem is hinted at, but - even if this might be right - the origination of the reading cannot be explained by this construal. It is generally agreed that τ ο δ ε ύ τ ε ρ ο ν means 'the next time', 'afterwards'. C. Bigg, The Epistle of St. Peter and St. Jude (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1901 and reprints), who chooses the reading 'Kyrios', says: 'By "the Lord" is no doubt meant Christ' (328). He refers to 1 Cor 10. 4, 9, where, however, the Son is not called 'Kyrios'. Tyrrell Hanson, Jesus Christ 137-8, refers to Heb chs. 3-4 as well as to 1 Cor ch. 10; but, even if we would be justified in taking Heb 3. 3, 6 to mean that the Son was 'envisaged as active' in the events of the wilderness period in a similar way to what is the case in 1 Cor ch. 10, it must be pointed out that the author of Hebrews does not call the Son 'Kyrios' in this context. Grundmann, Brief ЪЗ, also considers it possible that 'Kyrios' in Jude 5 denotes the pre-existent Son. Metzger and Wikgren, in Metzger et al., Commentary 726. The reading was espoused by J. J. Griesbach in the second half of the eighteenth century and adopted by K. Lachmann in his edition of 1831. The first and second edition of the Greek New Testament of the United Bible Societies also represent this reading.

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Considering the internal evidence, we may begin with noting that this undoubtedly is the lectio difficilior and thus should be regarded as original. Many scholars, however, think that the reading is 'difficult to the point of impossibility',^^ but we have now seen that it can be accounted for by the identification of Jesus with the Angel of the Lord.'®· Furthermore, this explains the variants 'Kyrios' and 'Theos' as having been substituted by a copyist not familiar with the idea of Jesus the Angel of the Lord.102 it is true that Jude elsewhere writes '(Lord) Jesus Christ', but, weighing all the evidence, it would seem that Jude some fifty years before Justin Martyr was the first to use 'Jesus' as a name of the Son also in his pre-existence.

Metzger et al., Commentary 726. In the previous century, there were some scholars who defended the reading 'Jesus' by explaining τ ό δ ε ύ τ ε ρ ο ν as alluding to a second deliverance, namely that through Jesus, and ά π ώ λ ε σ ε ν as referring to the ensuing destruction of Jerusalem. For a refutation of this exegesis, see Spitta, ß n e / 3 2 0 . Cf. also above, η. 98. D. G. Wohlenberg, Der erste und zweite Petrusbrief und der Judasbrief ( K N T 15; Leipzig: Deichert, 1915) 291, asserts that 'Kyrios' can be explained as an inteφretation of the reading 'Jesus', which faultily might have been taken to denote Joshua. But in that case we should expect 'Kyrios Jesus', as is read by both Didymus and Origen; see above, p. 42, n. 7.

ASCENSIO, METAMORPHOSIS THE 'TRANSFIGURATION' OF JESUS IN THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS The so-called 'transfiguration' of Jesus is a puzzling story which has challenged the ingenuity of scholars for quite some time. In this chapter I shall seek its religio-historical derivation in traditions of heavenly ascent and transformation. This is not an entirely new theory;! j^ost recently it has been argued by M. Smith,^ However, while Smith thinks the story has some historical basis in Jesus' use of magic, this chapter seeks the background in lore about heroes of old, most notably Moses.^ Withal, it is not to be excluded that the story also reflects faintly the ritual practice of obtaining a vision of the glorified Jesus.'^ Source-critical attempts have been made to dissect the 'transfiguration' story and recover its original form (or forms, if it is deemed that the text is composed of two sources). I shall proceed on the methodological assumption that if there seems to be no prima facie break in the continuity, the text should be inteφreted as it stands. Another question is whether the text is corrupt or the Evangelist has reproduced his source or tradition inadequately I The story begins with the information that 'after six days Jesus takes Peter, James, and John, and leads them up into a high

' A limited essay was made by W. Gerber, 'Die Metamoφhose Jesu, Mark. 9,2 f. par.', 7Z 23 (1967) 388-9, 391-5. See below, pp. 82-3. 2 Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1973) 237-44; 'The Origin and History of the Transfiguration Story', USQR 36 (1980) 39-44; 'Ascent to the Heavens and the Beginnings of Christianity', Eranos 50 (1981) 403-29. ^ Recently J. Marcus, The Way of the Lord (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992) 80-93, has found a 'Moses typology' in Mark 9.2-8. However, his distinctive perspectives and conclusions are rather different from mine. See especially pp. 79-81. 5 See below, pp. 84-5.

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mountain apart, by t h e m s e l v e s T h e significance of the 'high mountain' has been explained by statements to the effect that it is 'the nearest earthly place to the divine sphere',^ and that it 'to the naïve cosmology of the time almost certainly meant to take the person on its summit into or near to heaven'.^ These remarks are pertinent when interpreting the version of the 'transfiguration' in the Apocalypse of Peter, where the mountain is a stopover place whence the cloud brings Jesus, Moses and Elijah into heaven.9 The mountain as a point of departure for the heavenly journey is found in Jewish texts. In the Ascension of Isaiah it is said that 'many of the faithful who believed in the ascension to heaven withdrew and dwelt on the mountain'.·о The disciples of Isaiah apparently expected to be taken up to heaven from the mountain. In the Testament of Levi, the patriarch recounts the following dream: 'I beheld a high mountain, and I was on it. And behold, the heavens were opened, and an angel of the Lord spoke to me: "Levi, Levi, enter!" And I entered the first heaven.' · · These texts are not of immediate relevance to the exegesis of Mark 9.2, for in both cases the mountain is seen as a half-way house between earth and heaven. In the Synoptic story the transformation of Jesus takes place on the mountain. Significantly, in the Apocalypse of Peter there is no transformation of Jesus on the mountain. The tradition of Moses' ascent of Mt. Sinai provides a better background to the Synoptic account, for Moses could be understood to ascend directly into the highest heaven. Quoting Exod 24.12a ('The Lord said to Moses: "Come up to Me on the mountain" '), 6 Mark 9.2. C.E. Carlston, 'Transfiguration and Resurrection', JBL 80 (1961) 237, with reference to Matt 4.8 and Rev 21.10. ® A.R.C. Leaney, The Christ of the Synoptic Gospels (Supplements to the New Zealand Theological Review: The Selwyn Lectures, 1966) 22. 9 Ch. 17. 2.8, Ethiopie text. The Greek text refers to the ascension of the prophet Isaiah, which makes no sense. It is not necessary to assume that the passage is a Christian inteφolation in the basically Jewish 'Martyrdom of Isaiah' (chs. 1-5) which refers to Jesus' ascension. 112.5-7.

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Philo says: 'This signifies that a holy soul is divinized by ascending not to the air or to the ether or to heaven [which is] higher than all, but to [a region] above the heavens. And beyond the world there is no place but God. Philo sees Moses' ascent as an ascension and divinization of the prophet's soul, but this is undoubtedly a spiritualization of the tradition that Moses ascended to heaven in his body. The bodily ascent of Moses into heaven is found in several texts. The Targumic interpretation of Ps 69.19 reads: 'You ascended the firmament prophet Moses; you took captivity captive; you learned the words of the Law; you gave them as gifts to the sons of men.' Moses does not ascend Mt. Sinai but the firmament. According to an inteφretation of Deut 34.5 forthcoming in some Rabbinic texts, Moses ascended to perform service to God in the heavenly sanctuary: Others declare that Moses never died. It is written here: 'So Moses died there' [Deut 34.5]. But elsewhere it is written: 'And he was there with his Lord' [Exod 34.28]. As in the latter passage it means standing and serving, so also in the former it means standing and serving. ' ^

Moses' ascension at the end of his earthly life, described in Deut 34.5, is inteφreted by means of Exod 34.28, which relates to his ascension of Mt. Sinai. The connection between the two ascents is made by means of the word DE7, 'there', which is common to the two texts. By an obscure exegesis, the word is taken to mean, 'standing and serving'. Moses did not die, but now stands on high and serves God in the heavenly sanctuary. Actually, he did so already when he ascended to receive the Law. That Moses ascended to heaven when he received the Law is an idea often found in Samaritan t e x t s . I n this literature there is also to be found the idea of a glorification of Moses. In a text from the Quaest in Exod 11.40. Sipre Deut § 357; b Sota 13b; Yal Shimoni on Deut §§ 962, 965. ' ^ G. Widengren, The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book (UU 1950: 7; Uppsala: Almqvist, 1950) 40-7; W.A. Meeks, The ProphetKing (NovTSup 16; Leiden: Brill, 1967) 232-41; J. Fossum, 'Reminisenser av det "konglige mönstret" i samaritanismen'. Religion och Bibel. Nathan Söderblom- sällskapets Arsbok 42-43 (1983-84) 45-62.

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third century hymn cycle known as the Defter (from δ ι φ θ έ ρ α , 'book'), we read: Great God, whose like there is not! Great assembly [i.e. the angelic host] without compeer! Great Prophet the like of whom there has never arisen! They gathered on Mt. Sinai on the day when Scripture came down. The shofar began to sound, and the voice of the prophet rose. The Goodness [name of God] spoke: 'Exalted be the Prophet, and exalted be his prophethood! He be beautiful; he grow; he attain to the thick cloud!' Verily he was clothed with a garment with which no king can clothe himself. Verily he was covered by the cloud and his face was clothed with a ray of light, so all nations should know that Moses was the Servant of God and His Faithful One. 15

There can be little doubt that this is a description of the installation of Moses as king in heaven. It is based on the Biblical text according to which Moses is covered by the cloud and descends from the mount with a shining face, but the super-royal robe with which Moses is clothed is not derived from the Bible. In other Samaritan texts it is said that Moses was 'clothed with a ray of light (]Пр ЮзЬ πΊΊΧ)'.'^ Here it is obviously not thought of his face only. This portrayal of Moses is found already in a Hellenistic Jewish text from the first century C.E. After a midrash on several Biblical texts describing Moses' activities on Mt. Sinai, Pseudo-Philo says: 'And Moses came down. And when he had been bathed with invisible light, he went down to the place where the sun and the moon are Here it is seen quite clearly that Mt. Sinai is conceived of as a heavenly locale, situated even above the sun and the moon. Already in the oldest non-Biblical text describing Moses' ascent of Mt. Sinai, we find the idea that the ascent was really an ascent to heaven. Ezekiel the Playwright, an Alexandrian Jewish author who lived in the second century B.C.E., relates in his drama Exagoge that Moses once had the following dream:

A.E. Cowley, The Samaritan Liturgy (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1909) 1.40 (line 28) - 41 (line 4). Cowley, Liturgy 1.32 (line 10); 1.61 (line 21); 1.62 (line 6); Memar Marqah IV.6. See Possum, 'Reminisenser', 53. ^^ Bibl ant 12.1.

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[...] on the summit of mount Sinai was a great throne which reached to the comers of heaven. On it was seated a noble Man, who had a diadem (on his head) and a great sceptre in his left hand. And with his right hand he beckoned me, and I took my stand before the throne. He handed me the sceptre, and he summoned me to sit upon the great throne. And he also gave me the royal diadem, and he himself descended from the throne. And I saw the full circle of the earth, and what was below the earth and above heaven. And a multitude of heavenly bodies fell on their knees before me, and I counted all of them. And they moved past me like a host of morals. ' ®

Although the author here speaks about ascending Mt. Sinai, it is clear that the locale described is a heavenly one. The throne of the 'noble Man' is enormous, reaching to the 'comers of heaven'. From its place Moses can see everything. The 'heavenly bodies', which in Israelite-Jewish religion are identical with the angels,20 fall down and worship him. The notion of a person ascending and being enthroned on a high mountain, which stands for heaven, is found already in the Bible. Ezek ch. 28 contains two oracles against the king of Tyre. The king boasts that he is divine: 'I am a god; I sit on the seat of God (D''nbK/9eós).'2' Because of his arrogance, he is cast down from 'the holy mountain of God (α·'π'ρί03, 'prince') is like him. When Moses fled Pharaoh, he was aided by an angel who 'descended in the likeness of Moses (πσο т о т з ι ί " · -[кЬо)'.4б In this tradition, ascribed to Bar Kappara (early 3rd cent.), another familiar word for the heavenly double is used. There was also a tradition to the effect that on a certain occasion an angel in the likeness (mD~i) of Solomon descended and sat on his throne.4'7 Again m o t is found used for the guardian angel.

De gen Socr 585E. ^^ Deut R. 4.4. See Str-B 2.707 for parallel texts and discussion. Thus к-'-'Зчр-'Х, corresponding to Hebrew р т р ж ; the singular derives from ε ί κ ώ ν . But since also was used as a singular, from είκόνιον, κ·'3ΐρ·'κ too may be taken as a singular. In the parallel in Midr Ps ad 17.8 we read: 'Make way for the χ-'зрж of God.' 45 Gen R. П.Ъ and 78.3, quoting Gen 33.10. Gen 32.24-25 says that a 'man' wrestled with Jacob, but v. 31 implies that the 'man' was 'Elohim'. Hos 12.3-4 calls him both 'Elohim' and 'angel'. 46 Deut R. 2.26-27; у Ber ch. 9, 13a. 47 Qoh R. 11.2, §3.

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In one of the versions of the Legend of the Ten Martyrs, the angel Metatron is R. Ishmael's heavenly counteφart. God praises R. Ishmael before Metatron: Ί have a servant (ТЗУ) on earth, as you are My servant on high. His glory (гт) is like your glory, and his appearance (nxnD) is like your a p p e a r a n c e . H e r e we find still another word belonging to the same semantic field as 'glory' and 'likeness' (cf. the description of God's п з э as απκ пкппэ т о п in Ezek 1.26). The Jewish tradition about a guardian angel can be shown to be quite old. In the Acts of the Apostles there is to be found a story about Peter's miraculous escape from prison. Arriving at the house of Mary the mother of John Mark, Peter is recognized by the maid, who announces his arrival to the others being present. They cannot believe that Peter is out of jail and offer the following explanation: 'It is his angel.''^9 Jacob's 'image' or 'likeness' in heaven apparently was regarded as his guardian angel. While R. Hama took the DTibK who fought with Jacob to be Esau's guardian angel, others regarded the angel who named the patriarch 'Israel' as Jacob's own angel. In Jewish tradition, the name Israel was even the name of the angel himself. The earliest Jewish text where this is found would seem to be the Ladder of Jacob, where the angel Sariel says: 'Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but your name shall be similar to my name, Israel.'50 ^^ A. Jellinek, ο τ ι η π п-'З (6 vols, in two: Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1938) 6.21. R. Ishmael is the seventh in a chain of saints: Adam, Jacob, Joseph, Saul, Absalom, R. Abbahu, and R. Ishmael (23). Usually, Enoch is the seventh son of Adam (e.g.. Gen 5.1-18; Jub 7.39; 1 Enoch 60.8; 93.3; Jude 14). Enoch was said to have ascended and become identical with the Son of Man (7 Enoch) or Metatron (5 Enoch). 12.15. Recently D. Daube, O n Acts 23: Sadducees and Angels', JBL 109 (1990) 495-6, has suggested that the passage witnesses to the idea that people after death enter into an interim state as angels or spirits. Although Daube would seem to be right that this attested idea explains the Sadducean statement that 'there is no resurrection nor angel nor spirit' (Acts 23.8), Acts 12.15 appears to witness to the idea of the angelic с о и ш е ф а п of human beings. In the second century, this idea is found in different quarters of Christianity; see the works cited above, p. 145, n. 40. 4.3. With transposition of one letter, the name Ьк-'-to becomes bx-ie?·'.

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The Jewish groundwork of the Ladder of Jacob has been dated tentatively to the first century C.E. This is a plausible date, for in the following century Justin Martyr witnesses to the tradition that the angel who fought with Jacob was called 'Israel' and designated the patriarch with the same name: He was called 'Israel', and Jacob's name was changed to this also; Israel was his name from the beginning, to which he altered the name of the blessed Jacob when he blessed him with his own name [...]; Jacob was called 'Israel', and Israel has been demonstrated to be the Christ, who is, and is called, Jesus.^ ^

Justin apparently knows a tradition to the effect that Israel is the principal angel, and he appropriates this name for the Son.52 γ ^ ς apologist even claims that 'Jacob' is a name of Christ.53 This obviously presupposes the mystical identity of Jacob with his heavenly counteφaгt, even Israel. This identification would also seem to be found in the Prayer of Joseph, where the Angel and Glory of the Lord appearing on earth says: Ί , Jacob, who am speaking to you, am also Israel [...] I, whom men call "Jacob", but whose name is "Israel" [...J'.^'^ As is suggested by the evidence of the Ladder of Jacob and Justin, this statement should not simply be taken to mean that Israel has become incarnated as Jacob. Rather, the text would appear to assume a mystical identity between two beings, one heavenly and one earthly.55 That Jacob is said to share the name of his guardian angel is a concomitant of the idea that the latter is his 'image' or 'likeness 51 Dial 75.2; 125.5; 134.6. Cf. ch. 58. 52 Cf. above, p. 25. Dial 114.2; 130.9; ch. 135. See also Novatian, Contra Noet 5. Origen, Comm in Joh II.31. 55 Guided by his intuition, Ashton, Fourth Gospel, says that the author 'is more concerned to establish the identity of the two figures than to arbitrate between them' (345). However, Ashton does not provide any religiohistorical material to support his insight. 56 In the magical papyri, the celebrant is united with the deity through 'name' and 'image': 'For You are I, and I am You. Your name is mine, and mine is Yours. For I am Your image (ειδώλου)' (PGM VIII.37-8). See also

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However, the heavenly 'image' of Jacob is no ordinary guardian angel; it is the Angel Israel, even the Glory of God.^^

Finally coming back to John 1.51, we now have to ask if the Gospel contains the idea that Jesus, like Jacob-Israel, is both in heaven and on earth at the same time. It would seem that this actually is an aspect of John's Christology which has gone rather unappreciated. John 1.18 says: 'No one has ever seen God; the Only-Begotten, the one being in the bosom of the Father (ó ώ ν щ τόν κόλπου τοΰ πατρός), has revealed him.' It is not improbable that ώυ denotes the continuous timeless existence of the revealer with God: even when he is on earth and brings the revelation, the Son is in the Father's bosom.^s The original text of 3.13 would seem to have read: 'No one has gone up into heaven except the one having come down from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven (ó ώυ ευ τ φ oùpαυφ).'5^ In this statement, which is uttered by Jesus, we again find the suggestion of the revealer's timeless existence with God.

PGM IV.216-7, where μορφή is the concomitant of ό ν ο μ α . In Sefer Raziel 6b the 'face' of Jacob on the throne is considered to be that of Israel. As the ancestor of the nation, Jacob incoφorates in his person the people of Israel, whose heavenly representative in other traditions was said to be the Son of Man (Dan ch. 7) or Michael (e.g., 1 QM 17.6). See U.B. Müller, Messias und Menschensohn in jüdischen Apokalypsen und in der Offenbarung des Johannes (SNT 6; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1972) 27-9, 48-51. According to Origen, Christ is the guardian angel of the mature believer; see now J.W. Trigg, 'The Angel of Great Counsel: Christ and the Angelic Hierarchy in Origen's Theology', JTS 42 (1991) 35-51. ^^ In 8.58 Jesus claims to share the divine Name ó "CJv, which in Exod 3.14 denotes the eternal self-existence of God; see above, p. 127. V.13a-b has been the subject of much discussion. V. 13a does not speak of Jesus' ascent at the end of his life on earth, but denies that anyone has ascended to heaven and come down with revelations about 'heavenly things' (v. 12). If ει μή, introducing v. 13b, is not allowed to carry the sense of ά λ λ ά , the text would seem to say that Jesus actually has ascended to heaven on at least one prior occasion. V.13a-b appears to rework material

150

THE SON OF MAN'S ALTER EGO

Although the last clause is lacking in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, it has impressive support, including Western authorities, the Peshitta, Syr·^, the Itala versions, Cop'^, and an array of Patristic evidence. Since it makes a most difficult saying in the mouth of Jesus, one wonders what the reason would be for its addition if the original did not include it. As a matter of fact, we would seem to have evidence to the effect that it was part of the original and found so difficult that it had to be changed. Syr^ reads: 'who was in heaven'; Syr^ has: 'who was from heaven'. Another way of dealing with the difficulty was simply to omit the clause. Time and again Jesus says that he is not alone, but together with the Father who has sent him.^o Jesus belongs inseparably to the sphere of τ α ävco.^i The author of the Fourth Gospel would even appear to go as far as saying that Jesus was in heaven at the same time as he was on earth. His imagination may have been sparked by the tradition that Jacob had a heavenly counterpart, who was even the Glory of God, the man-like figure on the heavenly throne, with whom the patriarch was united in a mystical way. In John 1.51 the author clearly adapts an exegesis of Gen 28.12 to the effect that the angels ascended and gazed on the Glory upon the heavenly throne, and then descended and looked at Jacob. This furnishes the inteφretative key to the statement that the angels ascended as well as descended on the Son of Man.

VI The Jewish inteφretation of Gen 28.12 relating that Jacob had an image which was 'engraved' on the throne of glory has clouded the interpretation of John 1.51. The earliest version of the Jewish tradition held that Jacob's heavenly 'image' or 'likeness' actually was identical with the body of the Glory seated upon the throne. The angels ascended to look at the Glory and descended to look at the patriarch. from different traditions and weld 'pre-existent' Christology and 'transformation' Christology. For the latter, see above, pp. 71-108. 60 E.g., 8.16, 29; 10.30; 16.32. 61 8.23.

THE SON OF MAN'S ALTER EGO

151

The doubling of Jacob-Israel can be explained by the idea of a heavenly guardian angel who looked like the human being to whom he was allotted. There was a mystical identity between the two, as is evidenced also by the fact that the heavenly being and the human shared the same name. The Gospel according to John teaches that the Son of Man is in heaven at the same time as he is on earth.^^ Adapting the tradition about the angels ascending to the Glory and descending to Jacob, the author promises his readers a spiritual vision of the heavenly Glory of God in the Son of Man on earth.^3

Τ g Ezek 1.26 reads 'likeness as the appearance of Adam'. The prophet is addressed as 'son of Adam' throughout the Targum. Since ' A d a m ' in Aramaic does not mean 'man' but is a proper name, S.H. Levey, The Targum to Ezekiel (The Aramaic Bible 13; Wilmington: Glazier, 1987) 6-9, takes Ezekiel as a ' c o u n t e φ a r t of Adam', who had been vouchsafed heavenly mysteries including a vision of the Merkabah throne (e.g., Adam and Eve ch. 25). This may be right, but Ezekiel's sobriquet, 'son of Adam', obviously also implies some mystical association with the figure on the heavenly throne with the 'likeness as the appearance of Adam'. Although Jesus in the preceding verses has spoken to Nathanael in the singular, V.51 uses the plural pronoun 'you'.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

SELECT PRIMARY

SOURCES

Bible Aland, K., et al., The Greek New Testament (lst-3rd ed.; Stuttgart: United Bible Societies, 1966-75). Cramer, J.A., Catenae Graecorum Patrum in Novum Testamentum (8 vols.; 1840; Hildesheim: Olm, 1967). Ellinger, К., and W. Rudolph, Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1967-77). Nestle, E., and К. Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece (26th ed.; Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1979). Ralphs, Α., Septuaginta, (2 vols.; Stuttgart: Bibelanstalt, 1935 and reprints).

Württembergische

Targumim Clarke, E.G., Targum Pesudo-Jonathan (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 1984).

of the

Pentateuch

Diez Macho, Α., Neophiti I. Palestinese MS de la Biblioteca Vaticana (6 vols.; Textos у Estudios 7-11 and 20; Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1968-79), vol. 1.

Klein, M., The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch according to Their Extant Sources (AnBib 76; 2 vols.; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1980). Levey, S.H., The Targum to Ezekiel (The Aramaic Bible 13; Wilmington: Glazier, 1987). MS Montefiore No. 7 (Jews' College, London), containing the Prophets, Psalms, Job, and Proverbs.

154 Sperber, Α., The Bible in Aramaic (5 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 19591973). Walton(us), В., The London Polyglot (6 vols.; London: Roycroft, 1655-57), containing, inter alia, Tg Ρseudo-Jonathan and the Fragmentary Tg (vol. 4).

Jewish Pseudepigrapha Black, M., The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (SVTP 7; Leiden: Brill, 1985). Charlesworth, J.H., The History of the Rechabites, I: The Greek Recension (SBLTT 17; Pseudepigrapha Series 10; Chico: Scholars, 1982). Delcor, M., Le Testament d'Abraham (SVTP 2; Leiden: Brill, 1973). de Jonge, M., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (PVTG 1/2; Leiden: Brill, 1978). Knibb, M.A. (in consultation with E. Ullendorff), The Ethiopie Book of Enoch (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978). OTP (2 vols.; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1983/85). Philonenko, M.Joseph etAsénath (SPB 13; Leiden: Brill, 1968). Philonenko, M., and B. Philonenko-Sayar, d'Abraham', 31 (1981).

'L'Apocalypse

Schmidt, F., Le Testament grec d'Abraham (TSAJ 11; Tübingen: Mohr, 1986). Vaillant, Α., Le livre des secrets d'Hénoch (Textes publiés par l'Institut d'Etudes Slaves 4; 2nd ed.; Paris, 1952).

155 Christian Pseudepigrapha Buchholz, Your Eyes Will Be Opened. A Study of the Greek (Ethiopie) Apocalypse of Peter (SBLDS 97; Atlanta: Scholars, 1988). Charles, R.H., The Ascension of Isaiah (London: Black, 1900). Junod, E., & J.-D. Kaestli, Acta lohannis (2 vols.; CChr, Series Apocryphorum 1-2; Tumhout: Brepols, 1983). Lattke, M., Die Oden Salomos in ihrer Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis (OBO 25; 3 vols.; Freiburg, Schweiz: Universitätsverlag, 1979-86). Lipsius, R.A., & M. Bonnet, Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha (two parts in 3 vols.; 1891-1903; Hildesheim: Olm, 1959). Mara, M.G., Evangile de Pierre (SC 201; Paris: Cerf, 1973). Rehm, В., Die Pseudoklementinen (2 vols.; GCS 42 and 51; Berlin & Leipzig: Akademie-Verlag, 1953/65). Schneemelcher, W., Neutestamentliche Tübingen: Mohr, 1987/89).

Apokryphen

(2 vols.;

Philo, Josephus, Pseudo-Philo, and Qumran Baillet, M., 'Paroles des luminaires (premier exemplaire: Dib Hama)', Qumran Cave 4: III (4Q 482-4P 520) (DJD 7; ed. M. Baillet; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), containing the plates (XLIXLIII) of4Q504. Cazeaux, J., et al., Pseudo-Philon, Les Antiquités Bibliques (2 vols.; SC 229/30; Paris: Cerf, 1976). Colson, F.H., & G.H. Whitaker, Philo (LCL; 10 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University & London: Heinemann, 1929-56). Lohse, E., Die Texte aus Qumran (1964; 2nd ed.; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1971).

156 Marcus, R., Philo, Supplement (LCL; 2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University & London: Heinemann, 1953). Thackeray, H. St. J., et al., Josephus (LCL; 7 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University & London: Heinemann, 1926-65 and reprints). Vermes, G., The Dead Sea Scrolls (3rd ed.; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1987).

Patristic Authors Blanc, C., Commentaire sur saint Jean (4 vols.; SC 120, 157, 222, 290; Paris: Cerí^, 1966-82). Borleffs, Ph., et al., Tertullianus, Opera (4 vols.; CSEL 20, 47, 69, 76; Vienna: Temsky, 1890-1957). Funk, F.X., Didascalia et Constitutiones Apostolorum (Paderborn: Schoenigh, 1905). Goodspeed, E.J., Die ältesten Apologeten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914; reprinted 1950). Hiekel, I.A., Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica (GCS 23; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1913). Holl, К., Epiphanius, Ancoratus und Panarion (3 vols.; GCS 25, 31, 37; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1915, 1922, 1933). Koetschau, P., Origenes, Gegen Celsus (2 vols.; GCS 2 and 3; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899). Lake, К., The Apostolic Fathers (LCL; 2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University & London: Heinemann, 1912/13 and reprints). Lake, K., & J.E.L. Oulton, Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History (LCL; 2 vols; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University & London: Heinemann, 1926/32).

157 Mras, К., Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica (2 vols.; GCS 43/1-2; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1954/56). Rousseau, Α., & L. Doutreleau, Irénée de Lyon, Contre les Hérésies (2 vols.; SC 263/4; Paris: Cerf, 1979). Stählin, О., Clemens Alexandrinus, Opera (3 vols.; GCS 12,15,17; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1936-72, including new editions by L. Früchtel). Wendland, P., Hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium (Philosophumena) (GCS 26; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1916; reprinted Hildesheim: Olm, 1977).

Nag Hammadi Texts Böhlig, Α., et al.. Nag Hammadi Codices III, 2 and IV, 2 (NHS 4; Leiden: Brill, 1975), containing Gos Eg. Janssens, Y., Les leçons de Silvanos (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi, section : "Textes", 13; Québec: Presses de l'Université Laval, 1983). Layton, В., et al.. Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2-7 together with XII,2*, Brit. Lib. Or. 4926(1) and P. Oxy. 1, 654, 655 (NHS 20; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1989), containing Gos Thorn, Gos Phil, Hyp Arch, Orig World, Exeg Soul, and Thom Cont. Mahé, J.-P., Hermès en Haute-Égypte 1: Les textes Hermétiques de Nag Hammadi et leurs parallèles Grecs et Latins (Bibliothèque copte de Nag Hammadi, section: "Textes", 3; Québec: Presses de Г Université Laval, 1978), containing Disc 8-9 and Pr Thanks. Parrott, D.M., Nag Hammadi Codices III, 3-4 and V, 1 (NHS 27; Leiden: Brill, 1991), containing Eugnostos and Soph Jes Chr. Robinson, J., et al., The Nag Hammadi Library in English (3rd. ed.; San Francisco: Нафег 1988).

158 Rabbinic Literature Danby, H., The Mishnah (Oxford: University Press, 1933 and reprints). Epstein, I., et al.. The Babylonian Soncino, 1935-52 and reprints).

Talmud (35 vols.; London:

Finkelstein, L., D-inai by xnso (1939; New York: Theological Seminary of America, 1969).

Jewish

Freedman, H., & M. Simon, Midrash Kabbah (10 vols.; London: Soncino, 1939 and reprints). Friedländer, G., Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (1916; Jerusalem: Sepher Hermon, 1981). Friedmann, M., -»nm κηρ-ΌΒ e / n n (1880; Tel Aviv: Opst, 1963). Glatzer, N.N., The Passover Haggadah (New York: Schocken, 1953). Lauterbach, J.Z., Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (3 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1933/35 and reprints). Margulies, M., η·Έ;χΊ3... Ьтлап ю п о (Jerusalem: 1947; reprinted 1975).

Harav Cook,

Margulies, M., mnü... Ьпзп ю-пп (Jerusalem: Harav Cook, 1956). ••Ьзз rnobn (20 vols.; Vilna: Romm, 1880-86). •ObüTi^ rnobn (7 vols.; 1922; New York: M.P. Press, 1976). Schechter, S., ]Л0 •'З-п т з к пэоп (1887; New York: Philipp Feldheim, 1945). Theodor, J., & C. Albeck, пзп л^юкпз ю п о (1903-36; 3 vols, paginated as one; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1965). -iTiy-'bx -'3-1 p i D (Warsaw, 1852). пз-) ю т п Ί30 (2 vols.; 1884/87; Jerusalem, 1961).

159 Zuckermandel, M.S., клаош (2nd ed., 1937; reprinted with a supplement by S. Liebermann; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1970).

Jewish Mystical Texts Cohen, M.S., The Shi^ur Qomah. Liturgy and Theurgy in PreKabbalistic Jewish Mysticism (Lanham-New York-London: University Press of America, 1983). Cohen, M.S., The Shicur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (TSAJ 9; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985). Jellinek, Α., ю-πηπ n-in (6 vols, in two; Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1938; reprinted 1967), containing, inter alia, different versions of the Legends of the Ten Martyrs (vols. 2 and 6), the Death of Moses (vol. 1) and Massekhet Hekhalot (vol. 2.). Odeberg, H., 3 Enoch (1928; reprinted with a Prolegomenon by J.C. Greenfield; New York: Ktav, 1973). Schäfer, P., Synopse zur Hekhalot-Literatur (TSAJ 2; Tübingen: Mohr, 1981), containing 3 Enoch, Hekhalot Rabbati (the Greater Hekhalot), Hekhalot lutarti (the Lesser Hekhalot), Ma^aseh Merkabah, Merkabah Rabbah, and the Shicur Qomah. Wertheimer, S.-A., т ю т о (2 vols.; 2nd ed. A. J. Wertheimer; Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Cook, 1954), containing, inter alia, the Visions of Ezekiel and two versions of the Alphabet of R. Aqiba (vol. 2).

Samaritan Literature Ben-Hayyim, Z., The Liturgy and Oral Tradition of Hebrew and Aramaic amongst the Samaritans (Academy of the Hebrew Language: Texts and Studies, 6; 5 vols.; Jerusalem, 1957-77), containing, inter alia, the Defter (vol. 3/2). Ben-Hayyim, Z., rrpno пз-^ (Jerusalem: Sciences and Humanities, 1988).

Israel Academy of

160 Cowley, A.E., The Samaritan Liturgy (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1909). Kahle, P., 'Die Zwölf Marka-Hymnen aus dem "Defter" der samaritanischen Liturgie', Or Chr 7 (1932). Macdonald, J., Memar Töpelmann, 1963).

Marqah (BZAW 84; 2 vols.; Berlin:

Hermetic and Related Literature* van den Broek, R., & G. Quispel, Corpus Hermeticum (Texts and Studies Published by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica 2; Amsterdam, 1990 and reprints). Nock, A.D., & A.-J. Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste. Corpus Hermeticum (4 vols.; Paris: Belles Lettres, 1945-54 and reprints), containing also the extracts of Stobaeus (vols. 3 and 4). Scott, W., Hermetica (4 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1924-36), containing also Zosimus' tract. On the Letter Omega (vol. 4).

Magical Papyri Betz, H.D., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (2nd ed.; Chicago University, 1992). Kropp, A.M., Ausgewählte Koptische Zaubertexte (3 vols.; Bruxelles: Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elizabeth, 1930/31). PGM (2 vols.; 1928/31; 3 volume-edition by A. Henrichs; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973/74).

See also J.-P. Mahé as cited under Nag Hammadi

Texts.

161 Miscellaneous Badran, M., Muhammed al-Shahrastani, Kitab al-Milal wa-al-Nihal al-Tabcah (2 vols, paginated as one; Cairo: Matbacat al-Azhar, 1951/55). Barrett, C.K., The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (2nd ed.; San Francisco: Нафег & Row, 1989). Fisher, L., & S. Rummel, Ras Shamra Parallels (3 vols.; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1968-79). Fowler, H.N., Plato II (LCL; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University & London: Heinemann, 1926 and reprints), containing, inter alia, Parmenides. Haarbrücker, T., Abu-'l-Fath Muhammed asch-Schahrastâni's Religionspartheien und Philosophenschulen (2 vols.; Halle: Schwetschke, 1850/51). Jacobson, H., The Exagoge of Ezekiel (Cambridge: Press, 1983).

University

Koenen, L., & C. Römer, Der Kölner Mani-Kodex (Abhandlungen der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Sonderreihe Papyrologica Coloniensia 14; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1988). Lidzbarski, M., Ginza (QRG 13/4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht and Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1925). Nemoy, L., 'Al-Qirqisani's Account of Jewish Sects and Christianity', HUCA 7 (1930). Nemoy, L., Yacqub al-Qirqisani, Kitab al-'Anwar wal-Maraqib (5 vols.; New York: Alexander Kohut Foundation, 1939-43).

162 BIBLIOGRAPHY:

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d'Alès, Α., La théologie de Saint Cyprien (Bibliothèque de théologie historique; Paris: Beauchesne, 1922). Alexander, P.S., 'Jewish Aramaic Translations of Hebrew Scriptures', Mikra (Compendia Rerum ludaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2/1; ed. M.H. Mulder; Assen: Van Gorcum & Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). Arnold, C.E., Ephesians. Magic and Power (SNTSMS 63; Cambridge: University Press 1989; reprinted Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992). Arvedson, T., Das Mysterium Munksgaard, 1937).

Christi (ASNU 7; Copenhagen:

Ashton, J . , Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991). Bacon, B.W., 'After Six Days: A New Clue for Gospel Critics', HTR 8 (1915). BAGD (4th ed.; Chicago University Press, 1957 and reprints). Baltensweiler, H., Die Verklärung Jesu (Zürich: Zwingli, 1959). Barbel, J., Christos Angelos (Theophaneia 3; Bonn: Peter Hansten). Bare, В., 'La taille cosmique d'Adam dans la littérature juive rabbinique des trois premieres siècles après J.C.', RSR 49 (1975). Barr, J., 'The image of God in the Book of Genesis - A Study of Terminology', BJRL 51 (1968). Barrett, C.K., 'The Eschatology of the Epistle to the Hebrews', The Background to the New Testament and Its Eschatology. Studies in Honour of C.H. Dodd (ed. W.D. Davies & D. Daube; Cambridge: University Press, 1956). Barrett, C.K., 'New Testament Eschatology', SJT6 (1953).

163 Bartina, S., ' "Yo soy Yahweh" - Nota exegética a Jn. 18.4-8', Semana Bíblica Española 18 (1959). Bauer, W., Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (2nd ed. with appendices by G. Strecker; ed. R.A. Kraft & G. Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971). Baumgarten, J., 'The Book of Elkesai and Merkabah Mysticism', JSJ 17 (1986). Berger, К., 'Zu "Das Wort Ward Fleisch" Joh. 1 14a', NovT 16 (1974). Bergmeier, R., 'Quellen vorchristlicher Gnosis?', Tradition und Glaube. Festgabe für K. G. Kuhn zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. G. Jeremias; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971). Bernard, J.H., The Gospel according to St. John (ICC; 2 vols,; Edinburgh: Clark, 1928 and reprints). Bernard, H., The Odes of Solomon (Cambridge: University Press, 1912). Bigg, C., The Epistle of St. Peter and St. Jude (ICC; Edinburgh: Clark, 1901 and reprints). Bietenhard, H., Die himmlische Welt im Urchristentum Spätjudentum (WUNT 2; Tübingen: Mohr, 1951).

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Black, M., 'Critical and Exegetical Notes on Three New Testament Texts', Apophoreta. Festschrift für Ernst Haenchen (BZNW 30; Berlin: Gruyter, 1964). Black, M., 'The Maranatha Invocation and Jude 14, 15 (I Enoch 1:9)', Christ and Spirit in the New Testament: Studies in Honour of Charles Francis Digby Moule (ed. B. Lindars and S. S. Smalley; Cambridge: University Press, 1973). Black, M., 'The Pauline Doctrine of the Second Adam', SJT 1 (1954). Blinzler, J., Die neutestamentlichen Berichte über die Verklärung Jesu (NTAbh 17/4; Münster: Aschendorff, 1937).

164 Boobyer, Т.Н., St Mark and the Transfiguration Story (Edinburgh: Clark, 1942). Borgen, P., Breadfi-om Heaven (NovT Sup 10; Leiden: Brill, 1965) 177. Borgen, P., 'God's Agent in the Fourth Gospel', Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough {Numen Sup 14; ed. J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1968). Borgen, P., 'Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions as Background for Son of Man Sayings in John's Gospel', ETL 53 (1977). Bousset, W., 'Die Himmelreise der Seele', ARW 4 (1901). Bousset, W., Jüdisch-Christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria und Rom (FRLANT 23; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1915). Bousset, W., Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (HNT 21; 3rd. ed. H. Gressmann; Tübingen: Mohr, 1926 and reprints). Bowker, J.W., ' "Merkabah" Visions and the Visions of Paul', JSS 16(1971). Box, G.H., 'The Idea of Intermediation in Jewish Theology', JQR 23 (1932). Box, G.H., 'The Jewish Environment of Early Christianity', Exp 42 (1916). Brown, R.E., The Gospel According to John (2 vols.; AB 29/29A; Garden City: Doubleday, 1966/70). Bühner, J.-Α., Der Gesandte und sein Weg im (WUNT2/2; Tübingen: Mohr, 1977).

4.Evangelium

Bultmann, R., 'Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums', ZNW 24 (1925). Bultmann, R., Exegetica (ed. E. Dinkier; Tübingen: Mohr, 1967).

165 Bultmann, R., The Gospel of John (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971). Bultmann, R., 'Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs zum Johannes-Evangelium', Eucharisterion. Festschrift für Hermann Gunkel (FRLANT 37; 2 vols.; ed. H. Schmidt; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1923). Bultmann, R., The Second Letter to the Corinthians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1976). Bumey, C.F., The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922). Cantinant, J., Les Épîtres de Saint Jacques et de Saint Jude (SB; Paris: Gabalda, 1973). Carlston, C.E., 'Transfiguration and Resurrection', 7ßL 80 (1961). Chadwick, H., 'St Paul and Philo of Alexandria', BJRL 48 (1966). Chernus, I., 'Visions of God in Merkabah Mysticism', JSJ 13 (1982). Colpe, е . . Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule (FRLANT 87; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961). Conzelmann, H., Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987). Conzelmann, H., 'Der Brief an die Kolosser', in J. Becker et al., Die Briefe an die Galater, Epheser, Philipper, Kolosser, Thessalonicher und Philemon (NTD 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976). Cranfíeld, C.E.B., The Gospel according to Saint Mark (CGTC; 3rd ed.; Cambridge: University Press, 1966). Dahl, N.A., 'Cosmic Dimensions and Religious Knowledge (Eph 3:18)', Jesus und Paulus. Festschrift fir W.G. Kümmel (ed. E. Earle Ellis and E. Grässner; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975).

166 Dahl, N.A., 'The Johannine Church and History', Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation. Essays in Honor of Otto A. Piper (ed. W. Klassen & G.F. Snyder; New York: Нафег, 1962). Dan, J., 'The Concept of Knowledge in the Shimr Qomah\ Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual History presented to A. Altmann (ed. S. Stein and R. Loewe; University of Alabama, 1979). Daniélou, J., 'Joh. 7, 38 et Ezéch. 47, 1-11 ', SE II (TU 87; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1964). Daniélou, J., The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964). Daube, D., 'On Acts 23: Sadducees and Angels', JBL 109 (1990). De Conick, A.D., ' "Blessed are Those Who Have not Seen" (John 20:29): Johannine Polemic against Ascent and Vision Mysticism', forthcoming paper. De Conick, A.D., "Seek to See Him" : The Influence of Early Jewish Mysticism and Hermeticism on the Gospel of Thomas (Diss.; University of Michigan, 1993). De Conick, A. D., & J. Fossum, 'Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas', Vig Chr 45(1991). Deissmann, Α., Bible reprints).

Studies (Edinburgh: Clark, 1901 and

Deissmann, Α., Light from the Ancient East (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1910). De la Potterie, I., 'De inteφunctione et inteφretatione versum Joh.i, 3.4', VD 33 (1955). Dibelius, M., An die Kolosser, Epheser. An Philemon (HNT 12; 3rd ed. Η. Greeven; Tübingen: Mohr, 1953). Dodd, C.H., 'The Appearances of the Risen Christ', Studies in the Gospels (ed. E.D. Nineham; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955).

167 Dodd, C.H., The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935). Dodd, C.H., The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1953 and reprints). Doresse, J., The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics (1960; New York: AMS, 1970). Drower, E.S., The Secret Adam (Oxford: University Press, 1960). Duhm, В., Das Buch Jesaia (Göttinger Handkommentar zum Alten Testament 3/1; Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1914). Dupont-Sommer, Α., 'Adam. "Père du Monde" dans la Sagesse de Solomon (10, 1.2)', RHR 119 (1939). Eltester, F.-W., Eikon im Neuen Testament (BZNW 23; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1958) 76 Faierstein, M., 'Why Do the Scribes Say that Elijah Must Come First?', m 100(1981). Feuchtwang, D., 'Das Wasseropfer und die damit verbundenen Zeremonien', MGWJ 54 (1910); 55 (1911). Fitzmyer, J., The Gospel according to Luke (2 vols.; AB 28/28A; New York: Doubleday, 1981/5). Fitzmyer, J.A., 'More about Elijah Coming First', JBL 104 (1985) 295-6. Fossum, J., 'Glory', Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (ed. К. van der Toom et al.; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). Fossum, J., 'Jewish-Christian Christology and Jewish Mysticism', WgC/ir 37 (1983). Fossum, J., 'The Magharians: A Pre-Christian Jewish Sect and Its Significance for the Study of Gnosticism and Christiantiy', Henoch 9 (mi). Fossum, J., The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord (WUNT 36; Tübingen: Mohr, 1985).

168 Fossum, J., 'Reminisenser av det "konglige mönstret" i samaritanismen', Religion och Bibel. Nathan SöderblomsällsJcapets Ârsbok 42-43 (1983-84). Fuchs, Е., and P. Reymond, La deuxième épître de Saint Pierre. L'épître de Saint Jude (CNT, deuxième série 13b; Neuchâtel and Paris: Delachaux & Niestlé, 1980). Gärtner, В., The Theology of the Gospel of Thomas (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1961). Gieschen, C., Angelomorphic Christology: Jewish Antecedents and Early Evidence (Diss.; University of Michigan, 1995). Gerber, W., 'Die Metamorphose Jesu, Mark. 9,2 f. par.', TZ 23 (1967). Ginzberg, L., 'Adam Kadmon', Jewish Encyclopedia (10 vols.; New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901), vol. 1. Ginzberg, L. , The Legends of the Jews (6 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909-28 and reprints). Gnilka J., Der Kolosserbrief Vienna: Herder, 1980).

(HTKNT 10/1; Freiburg-Basel-

Goldberg, A.M., 'Sitzend zur Rechten der Kraft', BZ 8 (1964). Goldin, J., 'Not by Means of an Angel and not by Means of a Messenger', Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (Numen Sup 14; ed. J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1968). Goodenough, E. R., Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Bollingen Series 37; 13 vols.; Princeton: University Press, 195368).

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169 Goshen-Gottstein, Α., ΊΙΠΚ"? nm ••'зэЬ поо пезо*? п т nbrnb по, Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, August 16-24,1989 (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1990) Division C, Hebrew Section. Greenfield, J.C., Prolegomenon to H. Odeberg, 3 Enoch (New York: Ktav, 1973). Grether, O., Name und Wort Gottes im Alten Testament (BZAW 64; Glessen: Töpelmann, 1934). Grosheide, F. W., Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953). Grözinger, K.-E., 'Singen und ekstatische Sprache in der frühen jüdischen Mystik',/57 11 (1980). Gruenwald, I., Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (AGAJU 4; Leiden: Brill, 1980). Gruenwald, I., 'Jewish Merkavah Mysticism and Gnosticism', Studies in Jewish Mysticism (ed. J. Dan & F. Talmage; Cambridge, Mass.: Association for Jewish Studies, 1982). Grundmann, W., Der Brief des Judas und der zweite Brief des Petrus (THKNT 15; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1974). Haenchen, E., Die Apostelgeschichte (Meyer 3; 7th ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977). Haenchen, E., Der Weg Jesu (ST 2/6; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1966). Hahn, F., Christologische Hohheitstitel (FRLANT 83; 2nd ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964). Halperin, D., The Faces of the Chariot (TSAJ 16; Tübingen: Mohr 1988). Hamman, Α., 'Sitz im Leben des Actes apocryphes', Studia Patristica Vili (TU 93; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966). Hanson, A.Tyrrel, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (London: SPCK, 1965).

170 Hanson, Α., 'John i. 14-18 and Exod xxxiv', NTS 23 (1976). Harris, J. Rendel, The Origin of the Prologue to St. John's Gospel, (Cambridge: University Press, 1917). Harris, J. Rendel, Testimonies Press, 1916/20).

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171 Kellett, E. E., 'Note on Jude 5', ExpTim 15 (1903/4). Kelly, J. N. D., A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and of Jude (Black's New Testament Commentaries; London: Black, 1969). Kim, S., The Origin of Paul's Gospel (WUNT 2/4; Tübingen: Mohr, 1981). Kittel,G.,'είκών',ΓΟΛΓΓ2. Klein, G., Der älteste christliche Katechismus (Berlin: Reimer, 1909). Klostermann, E., Das Lukasevangelium Tübingen: Mohr, 1929).

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172 Lohmeyer, E., Das Evangelium nach Markus (Meyer 1; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1937). Lohmeyer, E., Die Briefe an die Philipper, an die Kolosser und an Philemon (Meyer 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1930). Lohmeyer, E., ' D i e Verklärung Markusevangelium', ZAW 21 (1922).

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174 Moore, G.F., 'Intermediaries in Jewish Theology', HTR 15 (1922). Müller, U.B., Messias und Menschensohn in jüdischen Apokalypsen und in der Offenbarung des Johannes (SNT 6; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1972). Munoa, P.B., Four Powers in Heaven : The Influence of Daniel Chapter 7 on the Testament of Abraham (Diss.; University of Michigan, 1993). Newsom, C., 'Merkabah Exegesis in the Qumran Sabbath Shirot', 757 38(1987). Newsom, C., Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985). Nöldeke, Th., Mandäische Grammatik (1875; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964). Norden, E., Agnostos Theos (1913; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1956). Nützel, J.M., Die Verklärungserzählung (FBG; Würzburg: Echter, 1973).

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175 Pfeiffer, Α., 'Exercitatio de Henocho', Omnia opera (Ultrajecti, 1704). Pöhlmann, W., 'Die hymnischen All-Prädikationen in Kol 1,1520',ZAW64(1973). Ponthot, J., Le "Nom" dans la thélogie des Pérès (Diss.; Louvain, 1950).

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176 Quispel, G., Review of Frickel, Hellenistische Erlösung, in VigChr 39 (1985). Quispel, G., Review of Yamauchi, Pre-Christian BO 32 (1975).

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179 Spitta, F., Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas (Halle a. S.: Verlag der Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses, 1885). Staerk, W., Die Erlösererwartung in den östlichen (Stuttgart & Berlin: Kohlhammer, 1938).

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180 Trakatellis, D. С., The Pre-Existence of Christ in the Writings of Justin Martyr (HDR 6; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976). Trigg, J.W., 'The Angel of Great Counsel: Christ and the Angelic Hierarchy in Origen's Theology', JTS 42 (1991). Urbach, E.E., The Sages (Cambridge, Mass., & London: Harvard University, 1987). Vanderkam, J., 'The Theophany of Enoch i 3b-7,9', VT23 (1973). Vielhauer, Ph., Oikodome (1939; reprinted as TBü 65; Munich: Beck, 1979). Wagenführer, M.-A., Die Bedeutung Christi för Welt und Kirche. Studien zum Kolosser- und EpheserbriefQjsipzig, 1941). Wand, J. W. C., The General Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude (Westminster Commentaries; London: Westminster, 1934). Werner, M., Der Einfluss paulinischer Theologie Markusevangelium (BZNW 1; Glessen: Töpelmann, 1923).

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Zum vorliegenden Buch This volume contains a collection of essays on the influence of Jewish mysticism on the formulation of early Christology. Some Christian texts portray the Son in a way which reflects certain facets of Judaism which are not well known. In the Jewish texts mustered in this book, there is to be discerned an intermediary who is the bodily form of God seated on the heavenly throne and the possessor of the divine Name. The early Christians could identify this being as Jesus. In addition to describing him in his pre-existence with the aid of these images, the Christians also represented the incarnate Son as able to ascend to heaven and assume the form of his glorious self.

ISBN 3-7278-1002-5 (Universitätsverlag) ISBN 3-525-53932-0 (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht)

NOVUM TESTAMENTUM ET ORBIS ANTIQUUS (ΝΤΟΑ)

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MAX KÜCHLER, Schweigen, Schmuck und Schleier. Drei neutestamentliche Vorschriften zur Verdrängung der Frauen auf dem Hintergrund einer frauenfeindlichen Exegese des Alten Testaments im antiken Judentum. XXII+ 542 Seiten, 1 Abb. 1986. [vergriffen]

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MOSHE WEINFELD, The Organizational Pattern and the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect. A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the Hellenistic-Roman Period. 104 Seiten. 1986.

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ROBERT WENNING, Die Nabatäer - Denkmäler und Geschichte. Eine Bestandesaufnahme des archäologischen Befundes. 360 Seiten, 50 Abb., 19 Karten. 1986. [vergriffen]

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RITA EGGER, Josephus Flavius und die Samaritaner. Eine terminologische Untersuchung zur Identitätsklärung der Samaritaner. 4 + 416 Seiten. 1986.

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EUGEN RUCKSTUHL, Die literarische Einheit des Johannesevangeliums. Der gegenwärtige Stand der einschlägigen Forschungen. Mit einem Vorwort von Martin Hengel. XXX+334 Seiten. 1987.

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MAX KÜCHLER/CHRISTOPH UEHLINGER (Hrsg.), Jerusalem. Texte - Bilder Steine. Im Namen von MitgUedern und Freunden des Biblischen Instituts der Universität Freiburg Schweiz herausgegeben... zum 100. Geburtstag von Hildi + Othmar Keel-Leu. 238 S.; 62 Abb.; 4 Taf.; 2 Farbbilder. 1987.

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DIETER ZELLER (Hrsg.), Menschwerdung schen. 8+228 Seiten, 9 Abb., 1988.

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GERD THEISSEN, Lokalkolorit und Zeitgeschichte in den Evangelien. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition. 10 + 338 Seiten. 1989.

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TAKASHIONUKI, Gnosis und Stoa. Eire Untersuchung zum Apokryphen des Johannes. X+198 Seiten. 1989.

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DAVID TROBISCH, Die Entstehung der Paulusbriefsammlung. Anfängen christlicher PubUzistik. 10+166 Seiten. 1989.

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HELMUT SCHWIER, Tempel und Tempelzerstörung. Untersuchungen zu den theologischen und ideologischen Faktoren im ersten jüdisch-römischen Krieg (66-74 n.Chr.). XII+432 Seiten. 1989.

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Studien zu den

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DANIEL KOSCH, Die eschatologische Тога des Menschensohnes. Untersuchungen zur Rezeption der Stellung Jesu zur Tora in Q. 514 Seiten. 1989.

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JEROME MURPHY-O'CONNOR, O.P., The Ecole Biblique and the New Testament: A Century of Scholarship (1890-1990). With a Contribution by Justin Taylor, S.M. VIII + 210 Seiten. 1990.

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PIETER W. VAN DER HORST, Essays on the Jewish World of Early Christianity. 260 Seiten. 1990.

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CATHERINE HEZSER, Lohnmetaphorik und Arbeitswelt in Mt 20, 1-16. Das Gleichnis von den Arbeitern im Weinberg im Rahmen rabbinischer Lohngleichnisse. 346 Seiten. 1990.

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IRENE TAATZ, Frühjüdische Briefe. Die paulinischen Briefe im Rahmen der offiziellen religiösen Briefe des Frühjudentums. 132 Seiten. 1991.

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EUGEN RUCKSTUHL/PETER DSCHULNIGG, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage Im Johannesevangelium. Die johanneischen Sprachmerkmale auf dem Hintergrund des Neuen Testaments und des zeitgenössischen hellenistischen Schrifttums. 284 Seiten. 1991.

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PETRA VON GEMÜNDEN, Vegetationsmetaphorik im Neuen Testament seiner Umwelt. Eine Bildfelduntersuchung. 558 Seiten. 1993.

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MICHAEL LATTKE, Hymnus. Materialien zu einer Geschichte der antiken Hymnologie. XIV + 510 Seiten. 1991.

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MAJELLA FRANZMANN, The Odes of Solomon. An Analysis of the Poetical Structure and Form. XXVIII + 460 Seiten. 1991.

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LARRY P. HOGAN, Healing in the Second Temple Period. 356 Seiten. 1992.

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KUN-CHUN WONG, Interkulturelle Theologie und multikulturelle Gemeinde im Matthäusevangelium. Zum Verhältnis von Juden- und Heidenchristen im ersten Evangelium. 236 Seiten. 1992.

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JOHANNES THOMAS, Der jüdische Phokylides. Formgeschichtliche Zugänge zu Pseudo-PhokyUdes und Vergleich mit der neutestamentlichen Paränese. XVIII + 538 Seiten. 1992.

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EBERHARD FAUST, Pax Christi et Pax Caesaris. Religionsgeschichtliche, traditionsgeschichtliche und sozialgeschichtliche Studien zum Epheserbrief. 536 Seiten. 1993.

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ANDREAS FELDTKELLER, Identitätssuche des syrischen Urchristentums. Mission, Inkulturation und Pluralität im ältesten Heidenchristentum. 284 Seiten. 1993.

und

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THEA VOGT, Angst und Identität im Markusevangelium. Ein textpsychologischer und sozialgeschichtlicher Beitrag. 288 Seiten. 1993.

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ANDREAS KESSLER/THOMAS RICKLIN/GREGOR WURST (Hrsg.), Peregrina Curiositas. Eine Reise durch den Orbis antiquus. Zu Ehren von Dirk Van Damme. X + 322 Seiten. 1994.

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HELMUT MÖDRITZER, Stigma und Charisma im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt. Zur Soziologie des Urchristentums. 344 Seiten. 1994.

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HANS-JOSEF KLAUCK, Alte Welt und neuer Glaube. Beiträge zur Religionsgeschichte, Forschungsgeschichte und Theologie des Neuen Testaments. 320 Seiten. 1994.

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JARL E. FOSSUM, The Image of the Invisible God. Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology. X- 190.

UNIVERSITÄTSVERLAG FREIBURG SCHWEIZ VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT GÖTTINGEN

ORBIS BIBLICUS ET ORIENTALIS Bd. 10

EDUARDO ARENS: The ΗΑΘΟΝ-Saymgs in the Synoptic Tradition. A Historicocritical Investigation. 370 Seiten. 1976.

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FRANZ SCHNIDER: Die verlorenen Söhne. Strukturanalytische und historischkritische Untersuchungen zu Lk 15. 105 Seiten. 1977.

Bd. 22/3 CESLAS SPICQ : Notes de Lexicographie néo-testamentaire. 1982.

Supplément. 698 pages.

Bd. 25/1 MICHAEL LATTKE: Die Oden Salomos in ihrer Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis. Bmd I. Ausführliche Handschriftenbeschreibung. Edition mit deutscher Parallel-Übersetzung. Hermeneutischer Anhang zur gnostischen Interpretation der Oden Salomos in der Pistis Sophia. XI-237 Seiten. 1979. Bd. 25/la MICHAEL LATTKE: Die Oden Salomos in ihrer Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis. Band la. Der syrische Text der Edition in Estrangela Faksimile des griechischen Papyrus Bodmer XI. 68 Seiten. 1980. Bd. 25/2 MICHAEL LATTKE: Die Oden Salomos in ihrer Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis. Band II. Vollständige Wortkonkordanz zur handschriftlichen, griechischen, koptischen, lateinischen und syrischen Überlieferung der Oden Salomos. Mit einem Faksimile des Kodex N. XVI-201 Seiten. 1979. Bd. 25/3 MICHAEL LATTKE: Die Oden Salomos in ihrer Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis. Band III. XXXIV-478 Seiten. 1986. Bd. 40

JOSEPH HENNINGER: Arabica Sacra. Aufsätze zur Religionsgeschichte Arabiens und seiner Randgebiete. Contributions à l'histoire religieuse de l'Arabie et de ses régions limitrophes. 347 Seiten. 1981.

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DANIEL VON ALLMEN : La famille de Dieu. La symbolique familiale dans le paulinlsme. LXVII-330 pages, 27 planches. 1981.

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PAUL DESELAERS : Das Buch Tobit. Studien zu seiner Entstehung, Komposition und Theologie. 532 Seiten + Übersetzung 16 Seiten. 1982.

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MIRL^M LICHTHEIM : Late Egyptian Wisdom Literature in the International Context. A Study of Demotic Instructions. X-240 Seiten. 1983.

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ODO CAMPONOVO: Königtum, Königsherrschaft Jüdischen Schriften. XVI-492 Seiten. 1984.

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HELMUT ENGEL : Die Susanna-Erzählung. Einleitung, Übersetzung und Kommentar zum Septuaginta-Text imd zur Theodition-Bearbeitung. 205 Seiten + Anhang 11 Seiten. 1985.

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JOZE KRASOVEC: La justice (Sdq) de Dieu dans la Bible hébraïque tation juive et chrétienne. 450 pages. 1988.

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JOSEPH HENNINGER SVD : Arabica varia. Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Arabiens und seiner Randgebiete. Contributions à l'histoire culturelle de l'Arabie et de ses régions Umitrophes. 504 Seiten. 1989.

und Reich Gottes in den Früh-

UNIVERSITÄTSVERLAG FREIBURG SCHWEIZ VANDENHOECK & RUPRECHT GÖTTINGEN

et l'interpré-