Part 76
So, given this background, we would expect the sea here to be the source of evil as it is in 11:1; Dan 7:3; and Rev 13:1 (also rewriting Daniel). That is why v. 3 comes as such a surprise for, instead of the chaos monster, it is the eschatological hero, the Man, who rises out of the sea. The continuation of the verse makes it quite clear that this figure is being equated with the figure of the Son of Man in Dan 7:13—14; cf. also i Enoch 37—71. But what can it mean that he rises 'out of the heart of the sea'? The best explanation is that it symbolizes the victory of the Man over the sea, the image of chaos in the OT This would parallel YHWH's defeat of Leviathan (Ps 74:12-17; 89:9-10). The subsequent 'flying with the clouds of heaven' also aligns this figure with YHWH, the 'rider on the clouds' (Ps 68:4; 104:3; 18:6-11; Isa 19:1). v. 4 is likewise drawn from the standard imagery used to depict the theophany of YHWH in the OT (Ps 68:2; 97:5; 104:32; Mic 1:4). But the imagery here has deeper roots in ancient Canaanite mythology. 'Rider on the clouds' is Baal's title in the Ugaritic texts, and one of the important roles of Baal is to defeat and trample on Yam (Sea). 4 Ezra 13:1—4 represents the resurgence of myth at the heart of apocalyptic. But here the Man's victory lies before him, not behind him. The great battle against the forces of evil has still to take place. This is precisely the shift discernible as we move from Ps 74 to Isa 27:1. Jews such as the author of our text believed that the forces of chaos had not been defeated at the time of creation; they had come back and ruined God's world. The battle would have to be fought once again but this time with a definitive result.
(13:5—11) Armageddon/The Last Battle The final battle of the forces of evil against the Divine Warrior is an idea as old as the Gog and Magog narrative in Ezek 38-9; cf. Ps 2:1-2; Joel 2:1n; and Zech 14. w. 8—n are full of allusions to the OT traditions of the Holy War and of YHWH's theophany. The effortlessness with which the Man defeats his enemies, the stream of fire he emits, the great storm, etc. are all conventional elements of this tradition; see Ps 97:3; 2 Sam 22:9 || Ps 18:9; Is 11:4. The cosmic mountain (w. 6—7) is, on one level, an allusion to Dan 2:34, 45. But although the author intended it as a reference to Mt. Zion (13:35-6), behind it lies the ancient Near-Eastern idea of the cosmic mountain, the centre of the earth, the home of the gods. In the Ugaritic texts it is called ZaphonasZionisinPs48:2. Baal has a house built for him on
2 ESDRAS 788
Zaphon after his victory over Yam. In ancient Israel the king sits on this mountain (Ps 2:6), but in Isa 31:4/7 the Man's eschatological role here is assigned to the Lord of Hosts. (13:12-130) Salvation for the People of God This is the final act in the eschatological drama and it corresponds to Dan 7:22, 27; Rev 20:4. v. 13 picks up some elements of Isaiah which were taken into the apocalyptic tradition; cf. Isa 11:10—12; 49:22-3; 66:18-20, and also Hos 11:10-11. There in v. 130 the original vision ends. It is a crucial text for confirming the correctness of the view that the Son of Man figure in Dan 7 and the NT represents the continuation in another form of a very old Israelite way of picturing YHWH, the Divine Warrior
along with Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The author has adapted this legend to further his own purposes of stressing the equal antiquity, inspiration, and authority of the secret apocalyptic writings alongside the publicly known and accepted books of the Old Testament. The chapter divides into three main sections: (i) A theophany of God to Ezra out of a bush which is deliberately modelled on the experience of Moses (14:1-26); (2) Ezra's last address to the people (14:2736); and (3) the climax of the book recording Ezra's supernatural inspiration which enables him to dictate, to five scribes over a period of forty days, ninety-four books, of which twenty-four are the canonical books of the Old Testament and seventy the corpus of apocalyptic writings (14:27-48).
(Emerton 1958; Hayman 1991; 1998). (i3:i3fe-58) Ezra's Response and the Interpretation of the Dream After a paragraph recording Ezra's response to the dream (for w. 18—20 see 2 BSD 5:41) there follows a lengthy interpretation extending to the end of the chapter. But the interpretation greatly expands on the dream; it both ignores parts of it and reads into it elements such as the return of the lost ten tribes which have only a very tenuous basis in the original vision. Moreover it is clear that the author does not understand parts of the dream. He has three unsatisfactory attempts to explain why the Man arises from the sea (w. 25—6, 32, 51—2). All the cosmic phenomena which accompany the Man are reduced to not much more than symbols of the law (v. 38). Hence it looks as though he has incorporated in his work a much older text closer to the world of Daniel and then provided a kind of midrash or expansionary exegesis of it, both updating it and infusing it with his own concerns (Stone 1990: 396-400, and contra Casey 1979: 124-9). m me interpretation the supernatural and mythological overtones of the Man are downplayed and he looks more like the Messiah pictured in chs. 7, n, and 12. However, he is never called the Messiah in this chapter; rather he has the title son/servant of God like the Israelite king (w. 32, 37, 52: cf. Ps 2:7; 89:26-7; and see 2 BSD 7:28).
The theophany in 14:1—26 divides into an introduction setting the scene (w. 1—2), the address to Ezra (w. 3—18), Ezra's response (w. 19-22), and God's instructions to Ezra (w. 23-6). (14:1-18) The parallel with Moses is sustained by describing what happens here as a waking experience in which God deals directly with Ezra; Uriel has disappeared from the scene (w. i— 2). Inw. 3—6 the author rewrites Ex 3 and locates Moses within the esoteric tradition to which he clearly feels that he himself belongs. This picture of Moses as a secret apocalyptist appears elsewhere in such earlier works as Jubilees and the Assumption of Moses. The author of 4 Ezra traces the tradition as far back as Abraham (v. 14); other authors took it back to Enoch or even as far as Adam (Adam and Eve, 50:1-2; 51:3-9). Other references in 4 Ezra to this esoteric tradition are 9:4; 12:37—8; and 14:26. Ch. 14 of 4 Ezra is the clearest statement we have of how the 'wise men' who wrote and preserved the apocalyptic texts saw their undertaking in relation to the overt biblical tradition, w. 8 and 13 show our author aligning his book with this esoteric tradition. For the reference to the pre-existent Messiah in v. 9 see 2 BSD 7:28.
w. 10-12 set out a kind of eschatological timetable. It is not certain that they were originally part of the text since the Syriac and Armenian versions leave out w. 11—12 entirely. Even if they were there originally, the text has suffered badly from scribal attempts to revise the timetable. Violet (1924: 192) has argued convincingly that the Ethiopic has preserved the original division of the times into ten parts with nine and a half already passed. For the veiled hint here and especially in v. i8fc that the world will soon come to an end see 2 BSD 4:26. w. 14—15 provide reinforcement from the mouth of God himself for the injunctions of the angel in 6:34 and 7:16. Through them the reader is addressed: ignore the inglorious past and the dismal present; look to the future for hope! (14:19-26) develop the claim for Ezra's authority based on the parallel with Moses. Like Moses he has to separate himself from the people for forty days (Ex 24:18) while the command in v. 26 parallels that to Moses in v. 6. The forty-day period is crucial for understanding what is going on in this chapter. If we add up all the indications of time for the events recorded from the beginning of the book to this point it comes to forty days (Stone 1990: 373-4). The reader thereby receives a hint that 4 Ezra itself is part of the secret revelation. Jesus' forty-day sojourn in the wilderness represents the same sort of claim to an authority like that of Moses (Mk 1:13 and par.). Ezra's claim to authority is also bolstered by the reference to inspiration by the holy spirit in v. 22. Two images are used to illustrate the
v. 24 refers, like w. 48-9, to the 4OO-year messianic era; see 2 BSD 7:28. w. 37-8 refer to the denunciation of the Messiah's enemies already mentioned in 12:32-3, not the Last Judgement which God conducts (7:33). The purpose of spinning out the long tale of the lost ten tribes (w. 39—47), which has sucha tenuous base in the dream (13:12-13), is to set them up as a model for the author's contemporaries (w. 41-2). Josephus, writing at about the same time as 4 Ezra, also knows of this legend (Ant. n f133). The figure of nine and a half tribes in the oriental versions of v. 40 is found also in 2 Apoc. Bar. The variant readings derive from disagreements as to how much of, or whether, the tribe of Levi went into exile with the other northern tribes. 'Arzereth' (v. 45) is derived from the Hebrew for 'another land'; see end of v. 40. w. 57-8 show how the revelation of the visions in chs. 11-13 has transformed the anguished Ezra of the first three visions in the way that, presumably, the author hoped his work would impact on his contemporaries.
Seventh Vision (14:1-48)
This chapter is based upon the Jewish legend, well-known to the early Christian fathers, that Ezra, like a kind of second Moses, restored the law to Israel after it had been destroyed
789 2 ESDRAS
while took advantage of Roman weakness to establish Palmyrene hegemony over the eastern empire. These allusions are the strongest evidence we have for dating 6 Ezra sometime after 268 CE. (16:1^78) Like most of the material in ch. 15, the apocalyptic woes in w. 1-34 consist mainly of a mosaic of material taken from the OT prophets. Similar material can be found in the 'messianicwoes' sections 014 Ezra (5:1—13; 6:18—34) andinthe NT (Mk 13 and par.). The exhortation section in w. 35-78 has a marked tone of apocalyptic urgency (v. 52). Not much compassion is expressed for those who fail to meet the test (w. 77—8), just as in the earlier section the rule of 'an eye for an eye' prevails (15:21).
experience of inspiration: lighting the lamp of understanding' in Ezra's heart (v. 25) and the cup of fiery liquid (14:38— 40). See the excursus on inspiration in Stone (1990: 119—24). (14:27-36) For the function of this speech in the book as a whole see above on 9:38-10:28; cf 12:40-51. The contrast with the way Ezra depicts the salvation history in ch. 3 could not be more clear.
(14:37—48) Here we come to the climax of the book. The commands given in 14:23-6 are carried out. The five scribes, like Ezra inspired by God, copy out all the ninety-four books
(12:42). The phrase 'using characters that they did not know' refers to the square Aramaic script which replaced the old Hebrew (Phoenician) script after the Exile (b. Sank. 2ib). At the end of the forty days Ezra is told to make public the twentyfour books but to keep back the seventy to be read only by the wise. The scale of the author's claims for the authority of the esoteric books is noteworthy—'for in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge' (v. 47). Only the wise understand these books and only they really explain what the overt biblical tradition is about and what God is doing and will do in the world. By implication their authority exceeds that of the publicly known and acknowledged biblical books. Beneath the cover of his pseudonym our author is claiming greater authority for what he says than for any other biblical figure. We have already seen in 12:12 a striking example of his assumed superiority over biblical figures when he blithely tells us that Daniel misunderstood his vision of the four world empires.
Bensley, R. L. (1875), The Missing Fragment of the Latin Translation of the
Fourth Book of Ezra (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
(1895), The Fourth Book of Ezra, with an introduction by M. R. James, Texts and Studies, 3/2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Bergren, T. A. (1990), Fifth Ezra: The Text, Origin and Early History,
Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 25 (Atlanta: Scholars Press). Box, G. H. (1912), The Ezra Apocalypse (London: Isaac Pitman & Sons). Breech, E. (1973), These Fragments I Have Shored Against My Ruins:
The Form and Function of 4 Ezra', JBL 92: 267—74. Casey, M. (1979), Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel
7 (London: SPCK). Coggins, R. J., and Knibb, M. A. (1979), The First and Second Books of
The chapter concludes with an account of Ezra's assumption to heaven which was cut out of the Latin version when chs. 15 and 16 were added, but preserved in the oriental versions. 14:9 shows that something like the Syriac text in the margin of the NRSV originally concluded the book. But this too is an overt claim to inspired authority. The Bible states that Enoch and Elijah were assumed into heaven and by the first century this was claimed also for Moses. A far more important figure such as our author makes of Ezra must also have been assumed intoheaven. So we are assured thathe was.
Esdras, Cambridge Bible Commentary on the NEB (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Collins, J. J. (1995), The Scepter and the Star: The Messiahs of the Dead
Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Literature, B. Reference Library (New York: Doubleday). Eissfeldt, O. (1966), The Old Testament: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil
Blackwell). Emerton, J. A. (1958), The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery', JTS
9:225-42. Essler, P. F. (1994), "The Social Function of 4 Ezra', JSNTft: 99-123. Grabbe, L. L. (1981), 'Chronography in 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch', SBL
Seminar Papers, ed. K. H. Richards (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press), 49-63.
2 Esdras 15-16 (= 6 Ezra)
(1989) The Social Setting of Early Jewish Apocalypticism', JSP^: 27-47Hayman, A. P. (1973), The Disputation of Sergius the Stylite Against a
These chapters are composed of two main types of material:
(i) apocalyptic predictions of political, social, and natural upheavals and disasters (15:1-16:34); and (2) exhortation of the righteous to remain faithful in the face of persecution
Jew, CSCO 338-9.
(1975), The Problem of Pseudonymity in the Ezra Apocalypse', JSJ 6: 47-56.
(16:35-78).
(1976), 'Rabbinic Judaism and the Problem of Evil', SJT2g: 46176. (1984), 'The Fall, Freewill and Human Responsibility in Rabbinic Judaism', SJT^j: 13-22.
(15:1—63) The text begins with the commission of the prophet who, being unnamed, must be presumed to be Ezra (w. 1—4). Behind the long denunciation that follows scholars have seen allusions in w. 12-13 to a great famine in Alexandria at the time of the Emperor Gallienus (260—8 CE), and in w. 28—341° the political upheavals of the period 259—67 in Asia. In the latter section the 'dragons of Arabia' have been identified as the Palmyrenes under Odenathus who prevented the Sassanian King Shapur i (the Carmonians of v. 30) from detaching Asia from the Roman empire. The name Carmonians comes from Carmania (Kirman), the southern province of the Parthian empire, v. 33 could be an allusion to the death of Odenathus in 267. w. 46—63 are seen by Myers (1974: 351—2) as a denunciation of Odenathus's wife Zenobia who for a brief
(1991), 'Monotheism—A Misused Word in Jewish Studies', JJS 42:1-15. (1998), "The Man from the Sea in 4 Ezra 13', JJS 49: 1—17. Humphrey, E. M. (1995), The Ladies and the Cities: Transformation and
Apocalyptic Identity in Joseph and Asenath, 4 Ezra, the Apocalypse and the Shepherd of Hermas, JSP Suppl. Ser. 17 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Kraft, R. A. (1986), 'Towards Assessing the Latin Text of "5 Ezra": The
"Christian" Connection', HTR 79: 158—69. Longenecker, B. W. (1991), Eschatology and the Covenant: A Comparison
of 4 Ezra and Romans 1-11 (JSNTSup 57 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press).
4 MACCABEES 79°
(1995), 2 Esdras (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). Martinez, F. G. (1994), The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran
Segal, A. F. (1977), Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports About
Christianity and Gnosticism, SJLA (Leiden: Brill). Simon, M. (1986), Verus Israel, trans. H. McKeating, Littman Library
Texts in English (Leiden: Brill). Moore, G. F. (1927), Judaism (2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
(Oxford: Oxford University Press); original edn. (Paris: 1964). Stanton, G. N. (1977), '5 Ezra and Matthean Christianity in the Second
University Press). Myers, J. M. (1974), I and II Esdras, AB 42. O'Neill, J. C. (1991), "The Desolate House and the New Kingdom of
Century', JTS 28: 67-83. Stone, M. E. (1990), Fourth Ezra, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical
Israel: Jewish Oracles of Ezra in 2 Esdras 1—2', in Templum Amicitae: Essays on the Second Temple presented to Ernst Bammel, ed. W. Horbury, JSOTSup 48 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 226-36. Rosenbaum, I. J. (1976), The Holocaust and Halakah (New York: Ktav).
Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress). Thompson, A. L. (1977), Responsibility for Evil in the Theodicy of IV
Ezra, SBL dissertation series 29 (Missoula, Mont: Scholars Press). Violet, B. (1924), Die Apokalypsen des Esra und des Baruch in deutscher
Gestalt, GCS 32 (Leipzig: Hinrichs).
54. 4 Maccabees DAVID J. ELLIOTT
A. Introduction. 4 Maccabees is a Jewish book vehemently opposed to the oppression and suppression of Jews in the Graeco-Roman world whilst simultaneously exhibiting some of the latter's most distinctive features. The work was well established in Christian circles some time before Eusebius wrote his Church History, where he refers to it under the title 'On the Supremacy of Reason' (Hist. eccl. 3.10.6). It can be divided into three main sections: a prologue (1:1—3:19), a narrative of the martyrdoms of the priest Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother, and finally a third section from 17:2 that is a eulogy for the martyrs. This last section ends at 17:22, and the remainder of the book appears to be an addition to the original.
illustrative narrative to the introduction. Without these two devices the narrative in 4 Maccabees would even more closely resemble that of 2 Maccabees.
2. The second major source is Plato's Gorgias. When 4 Maccabees embroidered the martyrdom of Eleazar he equated it to the death of Socrates. Eleazar, like Socrates, is controlled by his allegiance to his previous career and refuses to be swayed by an ultimate weakness. As in the case of Socrates, there are no supernatural interventions at the end. Both are old men revered as teachers by their followers, and for that reason mistrusted by the authorities who regard their teachings as suspect. They cling to their systems of thought and treat with disdain the option of extending their lives by denying their prior teachings.
B. Outline. Introduction and the Purpose for Writing (i:i—j:ig)
D. Authorship, Provenance, Date, and Occasion. 1. Authorship. 4 Maccabees is clearly a Jewish book written by a Jew for Jews. There are not only several references to figures from the OT
Outline of the Author's Intentions (1:1-12) Discourse on Reason (1:13-35) Reason and the Law (2:1—24) The Ability of Reason to Conquer Emotions (3:1—19) Narrative of the Martyrdoms (3:20—17:1)
(e.g. 2:2, 17, 19; 14:20; 16:3, 20—i), but in 4:20 there is an explicit reference to the citadel in Jerusalem, 'of our native land'. Whether the book was read orally, or by individuals in private, the book assumes the reader will have previous knowledge of its author's work. The author implies the existence of such works when he says in i:i2fc 'as my custom is, I shall begin by stating my main principle, and then I shall turn to their story, giving glory to the all-wise God'. This appears to indicate that the recipients can be assured the book is authentic because it exhibits the same style as his previous works.
Punishment and Deliverance of Apollonius (3:20-4:14) Antiochus' Treatment of the Jews (4:15—26) Antiochus' Conversation with the Priest Eleazar (5:1—38) Eleazar's Steadfastness under Torture (6:1—35) Panegyric on Eleazar (7:1-23) Antiochus' Conversation with the Seven Brothers (8:1—9:9) The Torture of the Seven Brothers (9:10—12:19) Panegyric on the Seven Brothers (13:1—14:10) The Mother Unwaveringly Sacrifices Herself (14:11-17:1) The Martyrs as Examples (17:2-22)
2. Provenance. The reference in 4:20 to 'our native land' rules out Palestine as a place of composition. Other centres such as Alexandria and Athens are possible, but the strongest candidate is Antioch. The most immediate indicator is the person of the arch-villain Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who naturally had a close connection with his capital city of Antioch. John Chrysostom testifies that the Christians believed the tomb of the Maccabean martyrs to be situated at Antioch, in the quarter of the Kerateion, near the synagogue (Fourth
Panegyric on the Mother (17:2—6) The Importance of the Martyrs' Sacrifice (17:6-22) The Martyrs' Faith is at One with the Faith of their Forefathers
(17:23-18:23)
C. Sources. 1. Two major sources can be cited for the book of4 Maccabees. The narrative part is clearly an embellishment on 2 Maccabees. 4 Mace 5-7 is an expanded version of 2 Mace 6:18—31; the same can be said of 4 Mace 8—12 in relation to 2 Mace 7, while the historical preamble in 2 Mace 3:6—11 has been expanded in 4 Mace 3:20-4:26. These transformations have been achieved in two main ways: as Breitenstein (1976) has noticed, by means of characterization via the construction of speeches; secondly by didactic insertions to link the main
Homily on the Maccabean Martyrs).
3. Ignatius of Antioch sent seven epistles from Antioch en route to Rome where he was martyred in 107 CE. He thought in the same sacrificial terms as the Jew responsible for 4 Maccabees. Perhaps the most striking example is his use of the Greek word antipsychon. Ignatius uses the word (Smyrn. 1.2; Eph. 21.i) to express the idea of ransom, which is mirrored in its use in 4 Maccabees. The word is exceptionally rare, and
791 4 MACCABEES
ition Josephus reports Tiberius' incitement of Jewish feelings in Jerusalem itself, when through Pilate he introduced effigies of the Caesar (J.W. 2.9.2). It is clear that Tiberius had an axe to grind against the Jews and other so-called mystery cults. The reign of Tiberius therefore may provide the most congenial backdrop to the writing of 4 Maccabees.
appears in neither the LXX nor the NT, though it does appear twice in 4 Maccabees (6:29; 7:21). It is not unlikely that the Ignatian letters and 4 Maccabees are related. Both are concerned with the idea of martyrdom, use the rare word antipsychon, and display a direct and vivid style. Due to the rifts in Antioch between Jews and Christians, and the fact that none of Ignatius' letters remained in Antioch, a common source may be the best solution. This may also explain the abundance of sea imagery found in 7:1; 13:6-7; and 15:31.
6. Occasion. The majority opinion prefers the idea that 4 Maccabees was written for oral delivery at an annual festival in memory of the deaths of the Maccabean martyrs, probably at the site of their tombs. However the book is of such a philosophical nature that it makes more sense if it were read in private where the terms could be inwardly digested rather than speedily passed over in speech. Commentators have pointed to 3:19 and 1:10 as the best proof that it was prepared for oral delivery on a day of commemoration. The Greek text of 3:19 reads: cdc dc kai ho kairos hemas epi ten apoddxin Us historias ton. sophronos logismou. Hadas (1954) translated this passage: 'But the season now summons us to the demonstration of the theme of temperate reason.' Hadas claimed that 'the season' refers to a specific time of the year, but a better rendering of kairos may be 'time', referring to contemporary events. Whichever view is accepted will dictate the importance attributed to difficult parts of the book's narrative. The natural corollary of the commemoration theory is that the arguments put forward in 1:1-3:19 and 17:2-22 are subordinate to the narrative describing the martyrdoms. However, the author claims the narrative is an illustration of his ideas, and is subsidiary to the rest of the book: T could prove to you from many and various examples that reason is dominant over the emotions, but I can demonstrate it best from the noble bravery of those who died for the sake of virtue, Eleazar and the seven brothers and their mother' (1:7-8). By the author's own admission the narrative supplements the argument and not vice versa. If the argument is the main focus, it is unwise to assume that the book was written for an annual commemoration of the martyrs.
4. Date. For Christians to have appropriated the work from Judaism, the book must have been extant in Jewish circles at a time when the two groups had cordial relations. The most desirable date would be a time when the majority of Christians still formed a Jewish sect. Incidentally, nowhere in the ancient world would the Christians be in a better position to appropriate the work than in Antioch. Acts 11:19-20 states that the church in Antioch was second only to Jerusalem. The main evidence for dating the book is the title assigned to Apollonius in 4:2: 'governor of Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia'
(Bickerman 1945). There was only a single short period in early imperial Rome when Cilicia was associated with Syria for administrative purposes: 18—54 CEThgre is no convincing reason why this title should be given to Apollonius rather than the one given in 2 Mace 4:4: 'governor of Coelesyria and Phoenicia', unless it was written in these years. Within this period there are two particular moments when the book may have been written. Three sources tell of angry Jewish reaction to Caligula's reign (38-41 CE), especially concerning the proposed erection of his statue in the Jerusalem Temple. Malalas chronicled in 39—40 that the animosity between Jews and Greeks in Antioch was at flashpoint (see also Philo, Leg. ad Gaium, and Jos. Ant. 18.8). The initial impetus for protests was probably at the seat of the governor himself: Antioch. The narrative of 4 Maccabees would have been quite pertinent at this juncture. The Jews are here exhorted not to compromise their faith, but to imitate their forefathers in defying the oppressive power.
E. Theological Points of Interest. 1. The author of 4 Maccabees uses philosophy to further his arguments. If philosophical Jewish texts of this period were graded on a line of philosophical sophistication with Philo Judaeus at one end and the Wisdom of Solomon at the other, 4 Maccabees would sit half-way along. Whilst much of the theology of 4 Maccabees is inextricably bound up with its philosophy, certain areas remain untouched. These are the classical theological areas of eschatology, salvation, and atonement, the latter being the linchpin for the whole narrative. Atonement in ancient Jewish and Christian literature is occasionally dominated by the debate between propitiation and expiation, and 4 Maccabees has much to offer in this area. Three short texts in 4 Maccabees provide the best way to understand the theology of the author as a whole.
5. Another contemporary allusion may be found in 4:15: 'When King Seleucus died, his son Antiochus Epiphanes succeeded to the throne, an arrogant and terrible man'. The author's source, 2 Maccabees, states correctly that Antiochus was Seleucus' brother. This is usually dismissed as an authorial error, but it is more likely that an author who is not afraid to use allusions is employing the same device again, perhaps with reference to the Roman emperor of his own time. In the period 18—54
CE> there were four emperors. Neither Caligula nor Claudius was the son of his predecessor, but Tiberius and Nero were. Both their predecessors had adopted them, and were their stepfathers. In Nero's case he came to the throne late in 54 CE, the year in which the governor's title reverted. Besides this, the case for Tiberius' reign is very strong. His predecessor Augustus was tolerant towards the Jews, as is demonstrated by the edict he promulgated, recorded by Josephus (Ant. 16.6.2). Tacitus and Suetonius similarly maintain his benevolence towards Jews (see e.g. Suetonius' Augustus, 2.93). In a striking contrast the same three authors describe how Tiberius disliked the Jews. The first persecution of Jews began when the Jews in Rome were expelled in 19 CE: four thousand were shipped to Sardinia where they were 'employed in suppressing brigandage' (Tac. Ann. 2.85). In add-
2. (4:10-14) A Case of Gentile Propitiation. This passage is essentially derived from 2 Mace 3:22-34. The starkest change is that the account in 4 Maccabees is considerably shorter and concerns Apollonius, not Heliodorus. Despite this, the eschatological element is still present and this is essential to the episode as a whole for it ushers in the manifestation of God's power to earth in order to confront Israel's enemy. Apollonius is all but dead at the hands of the heavenly host when he begs
POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH LITERATURE 792
along the lines of the Day of Atonement ritual. Eleazar says, 'make my blood their purification, and take my life in exchange for theirs' (v. 29). It is the shedding of blood that seems to be the guarantee of the Jews' purification and expiation.
'the Hebrews to pray for him and propitiate the wrath of the heavenly army' (v. n). The idea of propitiation expressed here is important for the theology of 4 Maccabees. Of primary significance is the Greek word used to describe this form of atonement: exeumenisontai, from the verb eumenizo (cf the Eumenides, Latin Furies). This form of the verb is in the third person plural (to agree with the plural Hebrews) aorist subjunctive. With hopos, it is clearly a purpose clause, but the voice used is middle. It is apparent from the narrative that in the process of propitiation, Apollonius can play no part but must ask the Hebrews to propitiate the wrath of their God on his behalf. In the author's view, the Gentiles have no means of contact with the Jewish God, but rather any petition must come from the Jews. By using exeumenisontai the author is diverging from the mother passage in 2 Mace 3:33 where the common word hilasmos is used. 4 Mace reserves the concept of hilasterion for 17:22 (see 4 MACC 1.4). Here is a distinct dichotomy between Jew and Gentile in the mind of the author; these two groups are respectively represented by expiation and propitiation. It is clear that in Jewish thought the word hilastlrion was not synonymous with exeumenisontai. The author of 4 Maccabees is making a distinction between propitiation that pertains to Gentiles, and expiation that is reserved for Jews. Another observation on this passage reveals that in comparison to 2 Mace 3:32, Onias does not sacrifice but prays for the life of the Greek. This points towards practice in the Diaspora rather than the homeland.
4. (17:20-2) Martyrdom and Expiation. As in 6:29 antipsychon is used in v. 21 to express the idea of'ransom'. The blood motif reappears here in connection with 'their death as an atoning (hilasterion) sacrifice' (v. 22). Through their deaths the martyrs were able to pardon the sins of all Israel as well as themselves. They achieved this by not compromising their faith, but instead living their lives according to the law and by reasoning through divine wisdom. Encapsulated in these three verses is the kernel of the author's earlier assertion: 'reason is sovereign over the emotions' (i:ib). These verses, with 6:27—9, also
express the three essential tenets of Judaism: the Jewish belief in God, their election, and their partaking of the covenant. While they are elect, Apollonius must ask the Jews to intercede for him. Even when they do intervene he does not receive the full pardon of God, but merely a temporary reprieve. The Jews propitiated the wrath of God for Apollonius, but they themselves were able to effect expiation through these acts of vicarious suffering.
Bickerman, E. (1945), "The Date of the Fourth Book of Maccabees', in
3. (6:27—9) Eleazar's Atonement for the Nation. In this deathscene of Eleazar, attention is drawn to the salvific nature of the shedding of blood. This is reminiscent of the sacrificial language found throughout the HB where blood played such an important part (Isa 52:13—53:12; Lev 23:27—8). The portrayal of the martyrdom of Eleazar was intended as a vicarious sacrifice
Louis Ginzberg: Jubilee Volume on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research). Breitenstein, U. (1976), Beobachtungen zu Sprache: Stil und Gedanken-
gut des Vierten Makkabaerbuchs (Basle: Schwabe). Hadas, M. (1954), The Third and Fourth Books of Maccabees (New York:
Harper).
55Essay with Commentary on Post-Biblical Jewish Literature P H I L I P S. A L E X A N D E R
precedes the Anthology: a system of cross-references leads the reader from one section to the other.
This anthology offers selections from post-biblical Jewish texts which are not dealt with elsewhere in the Commentary. The Jewish texts that were accepted as canonical or deuterocanonical by the synagogue and the church are only a portion of the Jewish literature that has survived from antiquity. The non-canonical literature is of the utmost importance in understanding early Judaism and in putting the Bible into its historical context.
Most of the texts included in the anthology were written in the Second Temple period, but not all. Also found here are selections from early rabbinic literature, composed mainly between the third and sixth centuries CE. This literature has been included because, though written later, it contains early material and is often cited in discussions of the earlier texts. Students of the OT, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and the NT should have at least a nodding acquaintance with the rich and important rabbinic texts, while bearing their later date and the dangers of anachronism in mind. They should also bear in mind that many Second Temple period texts survive only in much later versions, often translated into other languages. Even when there are good grounds for believing that a given text originated in Second Temple times, it may be well-nigh impossible to be sure of its Second Temple form.
The anthology is arranged according to very broad genres, Bible interpretation, law, apocalyptic, wisdom, hymns and prayers, rules of religious associations, and hagiography, which often cut across the extant texts, so that some texts will be found quoted under more than one genre. The comments appended to the extracts in the Anthology proper are intended to elucidate only the passage quoted. More general discussion of the texts from which the passages have been taken is given in the discussion of the Major Genres which
793 POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH LITERATURE
£.50 CE), however, a major representative of Hellenistic Judaism, the key to Scripture lay in the writings of Plato. Moses and Plato, he believed, were fundamentally saying the same thing: Plato had almost the status of an inspired prophet; he was 'Moses writing in Attic Greek'. Philo, who seems to have known the Bible only in Greek translation, composed in highly sophisticated Greek two great series of interpretations of the Torah of Moses, the Exposition and the Allegory, in which he expounded the text in the light of Platonic philosophy. Neither of these is now complete and their original extent is unclear. The Allegory is largely in the lemma plus comment form, whereas the Exposition comprises a series of discursive exegetical essays, which may go back to the style of lecturing that Philo used in his school. In addition he seems to have written a series of notes on Scripture in the catechetical form of question and answer (his Questions on Genesis and Exodus have been preserved in Armenian). This was a type of exegesis widely practised in the Greek schools. In order to achieve his exegetical ends, Philo, like the Qumran Pesharists, had to treat the text of Scripture as being, at times, in code: there is a deeper meaning than appears on the surface. This method of reading texts, which was well known in the Greek world (where it was applied especially to Homer), was called allegoresis, and the reading which resulted from it allegoria. ANTH A. 2 quotes an extract from Philo's On the Creation of the World. For text and tr. see Colson and Whitaker (1971: i. 6—137); ^ralone: Yonge (1993: 3—24). For introductions to Philo see Sandmel
Strictly speaking the only absolutely primary evidence for Jewish religious literature of the Second Temple period is the Dead Sea scrolls, but it would be extreme to confine our study to the scrolls and ignore the other Jewish texts that have survived from antiquity, however problematic their transmission.
The Introduction to the Apocrypha (INTRO.APOC) provides the wider historical setting of the texts excerpted in the anthology. Bibliographical information on the texts will be indicated at the appropriate points and expanded in the References. A more general bibliography on the literature will be found in the Main Bibliography.
The texts have all been newly translated for the anthology (though existing renderings were gratefully consulted) in order to embody the latest research, and to ensure maximum intelligibility and evenness of style.
MAJOR GENRES
A. Bible Interpretation. 1. All texts require interpretation, but
Scripture, since it contains the words of the living God, requires it more than most. Scripture is created by canonization which inevitably engenders a secondary literature of commentary. Much of the literature of Second-Temple Judaism can be loosely classified as interpretation of Scripture. The interpretation was presented in a variety of literary forms.
Commentary
(1979); Runia (1990); Siegert (1996: 162-89).
2. There were commentaries in the strict sense of the term, which took a section of Scripture and worked more or less systematically through it, quoting phrases or verses and glossing them with explanations. The earliest representatives of this subgenre, whose basic form is lemma (i.e. biblical quotation) followed by comment, are the Qumran Pesharim (Anthology (ANTH A.I) ). Written in Hebrew, the Pesharim take certain biblical texts and find in them predictions of events in the Pesharist's own times, particularly events affecting his own religious community. He treats the words of the biblical prophets as a code which can be deciphered only by inspired exegesis (iQpHab 2:8—10; 7:4—5). Hence his description of this mode of interpretation as pesher—a technical term derived from the interpretation of enigmatic dreams (cf. Akkadian pasaru, 'to interpret a dream'; Dan 4:6, 9). This type of fulfilment-exegesis was adopted by the early Christians and probably also by other eschatologically oriented groups in early Judaism. The 'searching of the Scriptures', undertaken by the post-Resurrection church in order to integrate the death of Jesus, and the events that followed it, into God's purposes as revealed by the prophets was largely a programme of pesher-exegesis (cf. Lk 24:25-7, 44-8). Pesherstyle exegesis sometimes occurs also in the later rabbinic Midrashim. The Pesher Habakkuk, though palaeographically dating from the late first century BCE (comparatively late in the history of the Dead Sea community), is probably one of the earliest of the Qumran Pesharim. (Text Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997: i. 11—21); tr.: Vermes (1997: 478-85); commentaries: Brownlee (1979); Horgan (1979: IQ-55)-)
4. The most extensive and intellectually impressive corpus of Bible commentary in early Judaism emerged from the rabbinic schools of Palestine between the third and seventh centuries CE. This corpus, written in rabbinic Hebrew, embodies a close and endlessly inventive engagement with the biblical text, the purpose of which was to demonstrate that the Bible supported the rabbinic world-view, particularly as expressed in the Mishnah (c.2OO CE), the law-code which served as the manifesto of the rabbinic party (see further Major Genres (MAJ GEN B.II) ). The most general term for this style of exegesis is 'midrash', and the commentaries that embody it are known as Midrashim. The rabbis, to a degree unparalleled in early Judaism, believed that the text of Scripture is polysemic, that is to say, it contains multiple levels of meaning, all of which are simultaneously true. Thus they will sometimes interpret a text according to its simple, surface meaning; at other times they will find hidden in it allegorical, or homiletic, or even mystical senses. They divided the text of Scripture into two broad categories: aggadah (narrative) and halakah (law). Midrash aggadah could be freer and more fanciful than midrash halakah, though there was a strong tendency to insist that the simple sense (the pesat) should always be given primacy, and that no one should attempt to disclose meanings in Scripture that are contrary to halakah.
5. By the early Middle Ages the rabbinic schools had produced commentaries on almost the whole of the HB. The most worked parts of the Scripture are the Pentateuch, and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the Song of Songs. A classic example of a rabbinic Midrash is the Mekilta of Rabbi Ishmael (ANTH A.3), a commentary on Exodus that dates in its present form to no earlier than the 3rd century CE, but which traditionally is attributed to the school of the early 2nd century CE
3. For the Pesharists the key to biblical prophecy lay in the history of their own times. For Philo of Alexandria (c.2O BCE—
POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH LITERATURE 794 Palestinian scholar Rabbi Ishmael. (Text and tr.: Lauterbach (1933—5); introduction: Stemberger (1996: 251—7); see further Neusner (1988).) Though the Midrashim were produced long after the biblical period, they are of immense importance for the understanding of the Bible. The exegetical reasoning which they explicitly express often appears to be implicit in earlier interpretations of the Bible, and a knowledge of rabbinic Midrash is essential for an understanding of the whole tradition of Jewish Bible exegesis. Midrashic methods have been found operating within the HB itself in the reinterpretation of earlier layers of tradition, and they throw light on the use of the Old Testament in the New.
is rich in Rewritten Bible, i Enoch incorporates not only different sources, but also different genres: it includes apocalyptic and wisdom material (ANTH 0.2—5, D-5)> as W£U as Rewritten Bible. It claims to go back to revelations granted to the antediluvian sage Enoch, to whom only brief and enigmatic reference is made in the Bible (Gen 5:18—24). In choosing as a patron for their teachings a figure who lived well before the time of Moses and the revelation at Sinai, the original Enochic circles may have been quite deliberately challenging the primacy of Moses and of the Mosaic paradigm of Judaism.
8. Another text which can be classified basically as Rewritten Bible is the Book of Jubilees (ANTH A.5), which retells the story of Genesis and part of Exodus. (Ethiopic text: Charles (1895); Gk. text: Denis (1970: 70-102); Heb. text and tr. (iQiy18, 2Qig-2O, 3Qj, 4Q1/6, 4(^216-24, nQi2): Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997, i. 22-5, 214-15, 226-7, 360-3. 458-79; ii. 1204—7); trs-: Vermes (1997: 507—10); Charles, APOTii. i— 82, rev. ch. C. Rabin, in Sparks (1984: 1-140); O. S. Wintermute, OTP ii. 35-142; commentary: Charles (1902); see further: VanderKam, (1977); Alexander (1997: 147-58) on the Jubilees' Mappa Mundi). Jubilees, like i Enoch, survives in its entirety only in an Ethiopic version, which was translated from the Greek. Although it seems to have been popular among Greek-speaking Christians, who knew it as The Little Genesis, only portions of the Greek version now survive in the form of citations in patristic authors. That this Greek version, as scholars long ago postulated, was a translation of a Hebrew work written in the Second Temple period has been confirmed beyond any doubt by the discovery of fragments of the original Hebrew, surviving from multiple copies, among the Dead Sea scrolls. Though the Qumran community regarded Jubilees as important (they were influenced by its advocacy of a solar calendar: cf ANTH 0.5), there is general agreement that, like i Enoch and the Aramaic Genesis Apocryphon (another retelling of Genesis found among the Scrolls; text Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997: i. 28-49); tr: Vermes (1997:448—59)), itwas not composed by the Qumran sect. It is usually dated to the mid-second century BCE, to the time of the Hasmonean revolution. Jubilees gets its name from the fact that it imposes on the biblical narrative a schematic chronology that divides it into a series of 49-year periods or jubilees, each comprising seven 'weeks of years'. Of all the Rewritten Bible texts, Jubilees defines most clearly its relationship to the Scripture. It claims to be a second Torah written by an angel, or rather (alternatively) dictated by him to Moses on Sinai, the first Torah being the well-known canonic text, which was written by God himself (Jub. 1:4-6, 26-9; 6:22). Thus it claims high authority for itself. Jubilees' doctrine of the two Torahs recalls the latter rabbinic doctrine of the dual Torah
Rewritten Bible
6. Another well-represented subgenre of Bible interpretation is 'Rewritten Bible'. In Rewritten Bible the interpreter retells the biblical story in his own words with explanatory insertions and additions, some of which can be very extensive. Rewritten Bible mirrors the literary form of the Bible itself, so that, without comparing the retelling with the original the reader will usually be unable to discover what is actually found in the Bible and what has been added by the interpreter. Thus Rewritten Bible differs from Commentary proper, in that in the latter the interpretation is clearly demarcated from the biblical text, whereas in the former it is not. Rewritten Bible is also selective: it emphasizes through expansion certain episodes in the Bible, and totally omits others, and it sometimes rearranges the order of the narrative. It spins a new story out of the Bible, one with its own distinctive message. It can, therefore, appear to be challenging or even replacing the Bible. However, this was probably not the intention. All the Rewritten Bible texts indicate in subtle ways their dependence on the Bible and were meant to be read in dialogue with it.
7. There are important elements of Rewritten Bible in i Enoch, perhaps the single most important non-canonical Jewish text to have survived from Second Temple times. This has been preserved more or less intact only in Ge'ez, the liturgical language of the Ethiopian church. The Ethiopic version, which was made probably in the sixth century CE, was derived from a Greek version that is partially extant in MS fragments and quotations. The Greek was in turn translated (possibly in the ist cent. CE) from an Aramaic original, substantial fragments of which, from multiple copies, have now been found among the Dead Sea scrolls. (Ethiopic text: Knibb (1978); Gk. text: Black (1970); Aram, text: Milik (1976); trs.: Knibb (1978); Milik (1976); see also Charles, APOTii. 163-281; Knibb, in Sparks (1984: 169-320); Isaac, OTP i. 5-89; commentaries: Charles (1912); Black (1985).) However, i Enoch was not composed by the Qumran sect. Rather, it was a non-Qumranian work which the Qumran community held in high esteem. It has long been recognized that the current i Enoch is a highly composite work made up of separate treatises originating at very different periods. The earliest of these, the Book of the
(which effectively raised rabbinic Bible interpretation to the level of inspired Scripture), save for one significant difference: the Second Torah in rabbinic teaching was, at least in principle, an Oral Torah, that is to say, one transmitted by word of mouth down through an accredited line of tradents from Moses (cf. Mishnah 'Abot, 1:15), whereas Jubilees seems to have envisaged the Second Torah as having been written down from the very beginning.
Heavenly Luminaries (chs. 72—82; ANTH 0.5), probably goes back to the Persian period (early 4th cent. BCE). The latest, the Similitudes of Enoch (chs. 37-71; ANTH 0.3), which is unattested at Qumran, probably dates from the late first century CE. The Book of the Watchers (chs. 1—36; ANTH A.4, c.2), dating probably to the second half of the third century BCE,
9. An extensive retelling of the biblical story can also be found in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews (ANTH A.6). Josephus
795 POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH LITERATURE
Translation
(c-37-c.ioo CE) was a Palestinian Jew of priestly family who went over to the Roman side during the First Jewish War against Rome (66—74 CE)- Later in life he lived in Rome, where he enjoyed imperial patronage. He adopted the role of apologist for the Jews and attempted to explain Jewish history, belief, and practice to the educated Gentile world of his day. His Jewish Antiquities is modelled on the great history of Rome—the Roman Antiquities—by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Written in very competent Greek, the Antiquities of the Jews was probably composed in Rome in the go's of the first
11. In the Second Temple period the use of Hebrew as a Jewish vernacular steadily declined. Large numbers of Jews in the Greek-speaking Diaspora seem to have had at best a minimal knowledge of the language, and even in Palestine more and more Jews went over to speaking a cognate, but quite distinct language, Aramaic. This created the need for translations of the Bible. The earliest of these was the Septuagint, a Greek version of the Torah, sponsored according to Jewish tradition by the Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt (285-246 BCE), who wanted a copy of the Jewish law for his famous library in Alexandria. Aramaic renderings were also produced. Small fragments of an Aramaic translation of Leviticus have been found among the Dead Sea scrolls, as well as substantial remains of an Aramaic version of Job. Aramaic translations, known as Targumim, covering the whole of the HB (with the exception of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Daniel, which are already substantially in Aramaic) are found in medieval Jewish MSS. These Targumim are of various dates, but some at least go back to the Talmudic era and are derived from the translations used then in synagogue simultaneously to render the biblical lections into the vernacular. This practice of rendering the public reading from Scripture simultaneously into Aramaic is well attested in the Talmudic period, but when it originated is still debated. That it goes back in some shape or form to the Second Temple times is probable. Though the extant MSS of the Targumim are all late, many have been shown to contain very early traditions. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to the Pentateuch (so called because it was mistakenly attributed to Jonathan ben 'Uzzi'el the putative author of the 'official' Targum of the Prophets), is a case in point (ANTH A. 7). (Text: Clarke (1984); tr: Maher (1992); introduction to the Targumim:?. S.Alexander, in Mulder (1988: 217-53)). In its present form it cannot have been composed earlier than the seventh century CE, yet it contains material dating from Second Temple times. The Targumim are invaluable repositories of early Jewish Bible interpretation, which have been used successfully to illuminate early Christian use of the OT All translations are interpretations, but the Targumim contain more interpretation than most, since they are often very paraphrastic and incorporate additions reminiscent of the Rewritten Bible type of exegesis. Unlike the Rewritten Bible texts, however, the Targumim, as translations, cannot be selective but must include the whole of the original, and follow the original order.
century CE. Like the works of Philo, Josephus' writings were preserved by the church, which found them of inestimable value for apologetic purposes, and, indeed, interpolated them with a famous testimony to the more-than-human status of Jesus (Ant. 18.63—4). (Text and tr.: Thackeray et al. (1965: iv-ix); tr. Whiston (1737); introduction: Rajak (1983); see further Feldman (1998).)
Testimonia
10. In the Second Temple period the standard form of the book was the skin or papyrus scroll. Scrolls, however, are bulky: a complete copy of the Bible amounted to 22 or 24 scrolls, and, as the copy of the Isaiah3 scroll from Qumran shows, just one of those scrolls could be well over 20 ft. long. Scrolls are also inconvenient to use: if one is looking for a particular passage, it can be hard to find in a scroll. It was probably a combination of these factors that led from the second century CE onwards to an ever-increasing use of the codex, the forerunner of the modern book, as an alternative to the scroll. It is possible to pack more writing into a codex
(since both sides of the skin or papyrus are used), and in general codices are easier than scrolls to handle and consult. A complete Bible in the form of a set of scrolls would have represented a very considerable outlay of money, and few individuals in antiquity, even scholars, are likely to have possessed one. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that anthologies of biblical texts were produced. The existence of such anthologies is well known from later Christian practice, and some had deduced from the recurrence of certain key proof-texts in the NT that they were used by the first Christians (note e.g. the quotation of Ps 118:22 in Mt 21:42; Mk 12:10; Lk 20:17; Acts 4:11; Eph 2:20; i Pet 2:7). But it was only when actual examples of biblical anthologies were discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls that their existence in Second Temple times was finally proved. The anthologies consist of verses from Scripture, with or without commentary, grouped around a theme or motif. A good example, dated palaeographically to the early first century CE, is 4Qi7J, which contains a collection of messianic testimonia (Deut 18:18-19; Num 24:15-17; Deut 33:8-11). Another example, 4(3:174, dated palaeographically to the late first century BCE, contains a collection of verses on the theme of the last days, drawn from 2 Samuel and the Psalms. 4Qi74 offers an interpretation of the selected verses, but even where commentary is absent, the simple juxtaposition of different texts from different parts of the Bible involves illuminating Scripture from Scripture and constitutes in itself a kind of elementary commentary. (Text: Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997: i. 352-7); tr.: Vermes (1997: 493—6); see further: Brooke (1985); Lim
B. Law. 1. Within the domain of Bible interpretation law constitutes a special case and deserves separate treatment. The canon of Scripture which emerged as authoritative in
Second Temple Judaism had at its heart a body of law, the Torah of Moses, which had become universally regarded as the foundation of the Jewish polity. Zealots and other renewal movements and sects exerted unrelenting pressure to maximize the application of this law to everyday Jewish life.
2. One obvious way of applying the law was through the Jewish courts. The legal system in Palestine throughout the Second Temple period was complicated and is not well understood. The Jews there found themselves living under different political regimes. Sometimes they were ruled directly by foreign powers—Persians, Greeks, and Romans. Sometimes
(!997)-)
POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH LITERATURE 796
all) cases were referred to the higher courts, and what system of enforcement backed the decisions of the courts, are all fundamental questions to which we have few answers. The Mishnah provides some information. It suggests that local sessions required a bench of three judges, regional sessions a bench of twenty-three, and sessions of the Great Sanhedrin a bench of seventy-one, and it attempts to differentiate the jurisdictions of the different courts, but it leaves many points obscure, and it is probably to some extent prescriptive rather than descriptive of actual practice.
they enjoyed independence, or quasi-independence, under their own native rulers—the Hasmoneans, and Herod and his sons. The change in the overall political authority, however, probably did not fundamentally affect the administration of Jewish law or the functioning of the Jewish courts. No state authority had either the political will, the bureaucracy, or the police force to impose a unified legal system throughout its domains. Most seem to have been willing to allow the separate ethnic groups to dispense their own law in their own courts— while reserving for state adjudication the most serious cases, e.g. those involving state security or capital offences. Under Roman rule (and almost certainly earlier), in addition to the Roman tribunals, there existed parallel networks of overlapping ethnic courts administering various systems of ethnic law—Jewish, Nabatean, Greek, and Samaritan.
5. In principle the Jewish courts would have claimed that they applied the Torah of Moses, but in practice they cannot have done so in any very direct way. For a number of compelling reasons it is highly unlikely that judges in a court would have unrolled a scroll of the Torah, consulted the relevant section and passed their judgement. In the first place the form in which the Torah is cast makes it very inconvenient for everyday legal purposes. It combines strictly legal material (halakah) with large quantities of legally irrelevant narrative (aggadah). It mixes together commandments that fell within the jurisdiction of the courts and were enforceable through them, with commandments that belonged more to the domain of one's conscience and personal relationship with God, and whose enforcement was left 'in the hands of heaven'. Important rulings on the same subject are scattered in different parts of the text, and, when they are compared, they do not always tally. Though, as modern literary analysis has shown, the Pentateuch embodies earlier law-codes, it is not a law-code itself, and its direct usefulness in a court of law would have been severely limited.
3. On the face of it the legal system was somewhat chaotic, but, in fact, it probably functioned fairly efficiently. The ethnic courts were basically courts of conciliation which attempted to promote agreement between litigating parties. Any skilled conciliator could play this role, provided both parties to the dispute agreed to submit their case to him and to abide by his decision. There is evidence to suggest that within a given region the various ethnic courts may have influenced each other's practice and, perhaps, even inclined towards the creation of a local common law, so that the justice anyone received in the courts of one ethnic group might not have differed much from what one would have received in the courts of another ethnic group. However, the existence of parallel courts may have tempted people to 'shop around' for justice, and to present their cases in the court which they felt would be most favourable to them. This practice was frowned upon in later rabbinic law, and probably earlier as well. Though the rabbis acknowledged that 'the law of the state is the law', they encouraged Jews to keep their legal disputes within the Jewish community and to submit them to Jewish courts. The Talmud stipulates that 'any place wherein you find court sessions in the market-place, even though their laws are like the laws of Israel, you are not permitted to rely on them' (b. Git. ySb). Thus by exercising communal selfdiscipline the Jews had the possibility of running a largely autonomous Jewish legal system, whoever was in overall political control.
6. A second problem with using the Pentateuch as a body of practical law to be applied in the courts is that it is incomplete. Important areas of law—laws of contract, marriage and divorce, and inheritance—are either touched upon only sketchily or not at all. It is thin on evidence and procedure. All this is the very stuff of the law, and the courts, if they functioned at all, must have formulated ways of dealing with these matters. The Torah of Moses, if it constituted the law of the community, must have been heavily supplemented in practice. These supplements would have come from a variety of sources. One source was probably the decisions of the courts themselves, which would have created precedent. Another would have been the custom of the community. Custom (minhag) was recognized by later rabbinic jurisprudence as an important source of law, and there is no reason to think that the same would not have been true in Second Temple times. Indeed, it is possible that there was considerable variation in the detailed application of the law across the country, owing to the force of local custom.
4. By late Second Temple times there were probably three levels of court within the Jewish legal system in Palestine. The highest court was the Great Sanhedrin. It convened in Jerusalem in the Chamber of Hewn Stone (Lishkat ha-Gazit), which was located somewhere on or near the Temple Mount
(ANTH B.I). Functioning both as the supreme court and the supreme legislative assembly of the Jews, it would have reserved to itself cases which were politically sensitive, such as the trial of Jesus. The country was divided, according to Josephus, into eleven regions (J.W. 3.54-5), and the regional capitals probably contained regional courts. Finally, scattered throughout the major rural settlements were local courts which met on Mondays and Thursdays, the two market-days in the week. Much remains deeply obscure about even the most basic features of these arrangements. How the courts functioned, what their respective jurisdictions were, who appointed the judges, what qualifications and training judges were required to have, how the courts were financed, how (if at
7. All law in practice requires interpretation. This would have been as true of the Pentateuch as of any other legal text, even of those parts which are reasonably full and clear. With the passage of time much of this interpretation would have become traditional: lawyers and judges would have reached a consensus as to how certain terms and clauses were to be understood, though, as we shall see, there was always room for disagreement. Ancient law tended to be conservative: innovation was not encouraged, at least in the practice of the law. There must have been a body of traditional interpretation which stood side by side with the Pentateuch, without which
797 POST-BIBLICAL JEWISH LITERATURE
(ANTH 8.5). Its sabbath code is found in the section of laws which forms the second, major part of this work, and it integrates both Torah and sectarian law. (On the Damascus Document see MAJ GEN F.3.)
it could not have been applied. This too, like custom and case law, would have supplemented the Torah and created law.
8. The process of clarifying and extending the law of Moses is well attested in the Second Temple Jewish legal literature that has survived. The texts from Wadi Murabba'at near the Dead Sea illustrate legal documentary forms, such as marriage contracts (ketubbot) and bills of divorce (gittin), which though not given in the Torah itself, would have been necessary for the implementation of the law. We find similar documents embedded in the Mishnah. A case in point is the famous Prosbul of Hillel, which, arguably, was not so much intended to implement the biblical law of the sabbatical year as to ameliorate it (or at least one aspect of it) to the point of circumventing it (ANTH 8.3). The bill of divorce from Wadi Murabba'at (ANTH 8.2; text with Fr. tr: Benoit, Milik, and de Vaux (1961: 104-9)) is in Aramaic and dates to the early second century CE, but there is every reason to think that its legal forms are much older. And although the Mishnah was not edited till around 200 CE (see MAJ GEN B.II), there are no solid grounds for denying that the legal instrument of the Prosbul is accurately attributed to Hillel, the great Pharisaic scholar of the early first century CE.
11. Historically the most important of the early Jewish law codes is the Mishnah. Tradition ascribes the editing of this massive Hebrew work, probably correctly, to Rabbi Judah the Prince, around 200 CE (ANTH 8.3, 6; text: Albeck (1952-8); tr: Danby (1933); introduction: Stemberger (1996: 108—48)). It contains a digest of the debates and discussions on the law which took place within the rabbinic and Pharisaic schools over the previous 150 years. Though it is fuller and more systematic than the Torah, it is not, in fact, a code of decided law. On many issues it gives a range of opinions from competent authorities, together with the arguments deployed to support them. It was cast in this form because it was intended not simply as a cut-and-dried code to be applied in court, but as a manual for training lawyers to think jurisprudentially. The Mishnah became the basic text for study within the rabbinic schools after 200, in Babylonia as well as in Palestine, and two great Aramaic commentaries on it were created—the Jerusalem Talmud (edited £.400 CE) and the Babylonian Talmud (edited £.500 CE). (The standard edns. of the Jerusalem Talmud (often reprinted) are Krotoshin (1866) and Romm (1922); tr. Neusner (1982-94); the standard edn. of the Babylonian Talmud (often reprinted) is Romm (1880— 6); tr. Epstein (1935—52); introduction: Stemberger (1996: 164-224).) 12. The Torah of Moses was applied with greater or lesser rigour in the Jewish courts, and thereby was clarified, modified, and extended. But it was much more than a system of practical law, and was an object of interest to more than the judges and professional lawyers. It was the constitution of Israel and the central religious authority in Judaism. All sects and parties in Judaism cited its support, and claimed to have exclusive insight into its meaning. The Torah formed the battleground in inter-sectarian debates. This function is well illustrated by the so-called Halakic Letter (4QMMT) from Qumran. (Text: Qimron and Strugnell (1994); Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997: ii. 790-805); tr.: Vermes (1997: 220-8); see further Kampen and Bernstein (1996).) Several copies of this intriguing Hebrew document, all dating from the late Hasmonean or Herodian periods, have been identified among the Dead Sea scrolls. Even when all the extant copies are pieced together, the document still remains fragmentary and enigmatic, and, crucially, its opening is missing. However, it has been plausibly suggested that it is the remnants of a letter which was sent by the Teacher of Righteousness, the founder of the Dead Sea sect, to the high priest in Jerusalem, urging him to accept the Essene interpretation of certain moot points of law, rather than the interpretation of the Pharisees (ANTH 8.7). The Halakic letter clearly shows thatwhat was at stake in these inter-sectarian disputes was not simply the truth but political power. Whichever party or sect persuaded the powers that be to adopt its view of the meaning of Torah in effect became part of the government, and could claim to be the real rulers of the state.
9. The surviving legal literature also demonstrates a clear tendency towards codification, that is to say, the rearrangement of the biblical laws in a more systematic, user-friendly way. Significantly all the surviving 'codes' combine, to greater or lesser extent, biblical material with interpretation of the Bible, and with custom, in a more or less seamless whole. The move towards codification is seen most clearly in the great Temple Scroll from Qumran (text: Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997: ii. 1228—307); tr: Vermes (1997: 190—219); commentaries: Yadin (1983); Maier (1985)). Several copies of this Hebrew text seem to have been preserved. The main copy palaeographically dates to the Herodian period, but the text itself was probably composed somewhat earlier, possibly towards the end of the second century BCE. The code, as its name suggests, has largely to do with temple matters, but it also includes sections on procedure, on laws regarding the king (ANTH 8.4) and on family law. The text, unlike Deuteronomy, is put in God's mouth and some have suggested, probably wrongly, that it was meant to replace the Torah. The Temple
Scroll was produced by the Dead Sea sect and represents their view of how the temple and the state should be run. It presents an idealized plan of the temple and its courts that differs fundamentally from the layout of the temple which stood in Jerusalem in the sect's day. It is a plan of the temple that would be erected at the end of history, when the present polluted sanctuary would be destroyed, and its illegitimate priesthood and sacrifices replaced. The Temple Scroll has, therefore, an eschatological orientation. It is, none the less, indicative of interest in codification of the law. The Torah of Moses as stated in the Pentateuch needed clarification and supplementation before it could be applied in the messianic age.
10. There is abundant evidence, both from Jewish and nonJewish sources, that the observance of sabbath was one of the defining practices of Second Temple Judaism. Sabbath is clearly enjoined in the Torah, but the exact laws of sabbath observance are remarkably unclear. The Damascus Document from Qumran illustrates one attempt to codify sabbath law
C. Apocalyptic. 1. Apocalyptic forms a vital part of the literary legacy of Second Temple Judaism. It was the genre that most
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meaning and its details are worked out with great precision and care.
directly challenged the closing of the canon by appealing to new, direct, divine revelation. The apocalyptic texts, and the circles that produced them, indelibly stamped their mark not only on Judaism, but, through their influence on Christianity, profoundly affected Western thought as well. The term 'apocalyptic' is modern: it was coined by Christian scholars to designate a collection of texts that resemble the Apocalypse of John (or book of Revelation) in the NT. Works so designated included Daniel (which found its way into the canon of Scripture), i and 2 Enoch, 4 Ezra (2 Esdras), and 2 Apoc. Bar. The term 'apocalyptic' is doubly useful: not only does it help broadly to define a genre of literature by using the book of Revelation as a yardstick, but it also highlights a fundamental characteristic of that literature: 'apocalypse' comes from the Greek word apokalypsis, meaning 'revelation', 'the disclosure of what is hidden'. The apocalypses above all claim to reveal secrets.
4. There is no standard apocalyptic literary form: the apocalypses combine the basic apocalyptic motifs in a bewildering variety of ways, and apocalyptic material can frequently be found in texts belonging basically to other literary genres such as Bible commentary, wisdom, and liturgy. 2 Enoch, however, will serve to illustrate one pattern, which is particularly common in later texts. 2 Enoch, which now survives in its entirety only in old Slavonic, was popular in the Slavonic church and was reworked several times by medieval editors. There are now two major Slavonic versions of it (the long Recension A and the short Recension B). Its textual history is very complicated, but there is general agreement that in some form or other the Slavonic versions go back to a Jewish apocalypse composed originally in Greek, probably in Alexandria, in the first century CE. (Text: Vaillant (1952); tr: Forbes, APOT ii. 425—69; Pennington, in Sparks (1984: 321—62); Andersen, OTP i. 91-222; commentary: Charles and Morfill
2. The secrets which they disclose are varied, but they fall under three general heads: (i) Theosophy: apocalyptic explores the mysteries of the deity, or more generally, of the heavenly world. It contains vivid, symbolic descriptions of God's throne, his celestial palace, and his retinue of angels. These descriptions provide the setting for the main revelations that the apocalypse conveys. The fact that these are received before the celestial throne of glory gives them solemnity and guarantees their authenticity. (2) Cosmology: apocalyptic is also, in some texts more than in others, concerned with the mysteries of the cosmos, particularly with its basic structure—the seven heavens, the location of the places of reward and punishment for souls after death, the heavenly storehouses in which the natural phenomena are kept, and the motions of the heavenly bodies. This material also tends to be subordinate to the primary concerns of the apocalyptist. Thus it is often incidentally, in the course of his ascent to heaven (whether in the body or in trance), that the hero of the apocalypse discovers the structure of the world. There are, however, cosmological traditions of a more disinterested, scientific character in some apocalypses, notably in i Enoch (see ANTH 0.5). (3) Eschatology: both theosophy and cosmology are, however, on the whole secondary to apocalyptic's main concern—eschatology, the mysteries of the future. The apocalyptists believed that the present world order will culminate in the coming of the Messiah and in the establishment of the kingdom of God. They tried to discover how and when this would happen. They searched for a pattern or rhythm in history that would enable them to tell when the messianic age would dawn. They were also deeply interested in the fate of souls immediately after death, and in the ultimate destiny of the soul after the last judgement.