Degrees of Adaptation in Palestinian Works
Degrees of Adaptation in Palestinian Works
While all these works differ from the Gospels, observations about broader classes of Jewish narrative literature can provide insight into Jewish storytelling methods. In Aramaic and Hebrew as well as in Greek, texts about the distant past could combine both historiographic and novelistic traits without apology, depending on the nature of the text in question. Especially in Palestinian works, biblical narratives were often adapted by later story-tellers and eventually formalized into separate accounts;22 story-tellers especially favored Pentateuchal characters for this sort of development.23
Although these reworkings are not strictly midrash nor targum,24 some midrashic or haggadic principles are sometimes at work in their composition.25 Some works, like Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities, normally follow the biblical text very closely (often virtually quoting the text), though adding many details. 26 Others, like the Assumption of Moses, are more novelistic, having very little to do with the biblical text beyond the characters and a basic story line (quite different from our source-bound Gospels). The degree of freedom depended also on the nature of one’s work: for example, whereas the Septuagint preserves incidents of patriarchal deception, Philo and apocryphal works often played it down, and Josephus took a middle path.27 A continuum existed between historical works and novels composed around historical characters, distinguishable by their measure of fidelity to sources the writers accepted as historically accurate, especially Scripture.
As in other Greco-Roman literature, ancient Jewish literature generally permitted variation in detail; when dealing with the distant past, the variations could become quite significant. Although amplification in matters of halakah was sometimes discouraged,28 the practice was especially frequent in narratives, to answer questions posed by a narrative29 or to heighten the praise of God or the protagonist30 (sometimes by fanciful midrash)31 or to improve the story.32 Sometimes adaptations highlight particular moral or theological perspectives. 33 Sometimes writers added details for literary purposes, to make a better story;34 this could include names,35 sometimes arrived at midrashically or for symbolic value.36 (This practice is hardly surprising; Greeks also elaborated their sacred stories, filling in details over the centuries.)37
One could emphasize a theme already present in one’s source by reiterating it where it appeared and occasionally adding it elsewhere.38 Similarly, negative incidents could be toned down,39 omitted,40 or justified41 in the character’s favor. Such adaptations could range from the sort of “twist” on a narrative acceptable in modern journalism to fabricating details to explain what was not said.
Variations in the tradition and/or its editing in these sources were not seen as problematic;42 a greater degree of freedom in telling the story was permitted then than is standard in historically oriented works today. One scholar notes:
The discrepancies between the descriptions of the tortures administered to the first son and the others six, here [in 4 Maccabees] and in 2 Mac, indicate no more than that the story circulated in different forms or that each writer claimed his freedom to shape up the narrative in his own way.43
There was thus a wide variety of writing techniques available in ancient Jewish as well as broader Greco-Roman writing related to history.
The Gospels as biography and the shorter time of oral transmission informing them differ significantly from these sources. Nevertheless, the permissibility of variation is instructive. Even documents intended to be essentially historical in the events they report could in principle vary in the accuracy of their details.44 Relevant for observations about variation in the Gospels, paraphrase of sayings was standard Greco-Roman rhetorical practice;45 Jewish interpreters also regularly employed paraphrase in communicating what they took to be the biblical text’s meaning.46
The Evangelists made some use of this freedom. We may illustrate with two examples that are not very controversial. One may compare differences among Luke’s three narrations of Paul’s conversion in Acts; Luke obviously did not see a problem telling the story in slightly different ways on each occasion.47 Likewise, in the space of one paragraph the Fourth Gospel paraphrases one sentence in two ways (Jn 13:10-11). These writers were more concerned with the basic substance than the particular wording; indeed, orally oriented cultures were accustomed to such variation and not troubled by it the way that modern readers are.48 Comparing parallel passages in the Gospels underlines this point further, but the differences are within the range we have noted acceptable to ancient biography.