Our Beans

The OT as Christian Scripture

2011-01-23T20:36:00.003-06:00

Ernst Axel Knauf has issued a review of the commentary on Joshua written by J. Gordon McConville and Stephen Williams for the Two Horizons Old Testament Commentary Series published by Eerdmans.

The review is rather negative, and quite brief, and I will leave aside Knauf’s comments on the book itself. My interest was peaked, however, by a comment toward the close of the review. As Knauf explains how he would read Joshua as scripture, he writes the following.

If I want to read Joshua as part of a Bible that also contains a New Testament, I turn to the Vulgate as the first Bible that did that. If I read the Hebrew text, I read it as part of the Prophets that comment on Torah.

This comment interests me mainly because I don’t know what it means. Let’s take it one sentence at a time.

So, the Vulgate is the first Bible that put Joshua (and, no doubt, any other OT book) together with the NT. Um, how did it do that? Why wouldn’t you say the Greek Bible did this before the Vulgate? (And the Old Latin, for that matter.) I mean, after all, we have actual manuscripts of the Greek Bible, such as Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, that have (or originally had) the entire Greek OT and entire (more-or-less) Greek NT, and that preceded chronologically the earliest parts of the Vulgate by several decades.

Perhaps Knauf would say that the Greek translations of the OT were translated by Jews, and piecemeal at that, so these translations were not created with a view to the NT, and they were only joined with the NT sometimes many centuries after the original translation. But, Jerome is the translator we typically associate with the Vulgate, and he failed to translate (probably) the majority of the NT, working only on the Gospels before turning to the OT. So, the Vulgate too was translated only piecemeal, and put together, OT with NT, only at a later time, much the like the Greek Bible.

Again, Knauf may respond that Jerome was the first one who translated the OT as a Christian, at least, whose translation is extant (since the Old Latin is not completely extant). This may be true, and it may not be (see Peshitta), but Jerome certainly used his Christianity as an argument to his contemporaries that his translation would be better than others. On the other hand, Jerome was convinced that he was revealing the Hebrew text in his translations, and that it was the Hebrew Bible, rather than the Greek LXX, that really testified to Christ, and that the apostles themselves attest this by quoting the Hebrew rather than the Greek (so Jerome argued). So, saying that his Vulgate is somehow more Christian than the Hebrew text is actually a repudiation of the principles behind the Vulgate. I don’t mean to say that it is wrong, but I don’t think that Jerome would have agreed with it.

Now for the second sentence:

If I read the Hebrew text, I read it as part of the Prophets that comment on Torah.

When Knauf speaks of Joshua as “part of the Prophets”, I assume he must be talking about the divisions of the Hebrew Bible into three parts: Law (Torah), Prophets, and Writings. Otherwise, I’m not sure how you could classify Joshua as a prophetic book. So, when reading Joshua in Hebrew, one should read it according to the divisions defined in a later age, perhaps as late as the third or fourth century CE. I guess this is what he means at the very end of his review when he urges us to read the Old Testament not only as Christian scripture but also as Jewish scripture. He seems to mean: “scripture in terms of how it was received in what became normative Judaism.”

But, then I’m back to asking, “Why do Christians have to read the Vulgate, and not the LXX?”

LXX Article in the Reif Festschrift

2010-11-18T10:01:00.002-06:00

A festschrift for Stefan Reif is about to be published:

'From a Sacred Source': Genizah Studies in Honour of Professor Stefan C. Reif. Cambridge Genizah Studies Series, Volume 1. Edited by B.M. Outhwaite and S. Bhayro. Leiden: Brill, 2011.

I mention it here because one of the articles deals with a subject of continuing interest for this blog.

Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, "An Early Palimpsest Scroll of the Book of Kings from the Cairo Genizah."

For previous posts on the LXX materials from the Cairo Genizah, see here, and follow the links back. I assume the article by Olszowy-Schlanger deals with the Aquila fragments of Kings first published by F. C. Burkitt.

Hendel Responds to Williamson

2010-09-09T11:17:00.002-05:00

A while back, several blogs noted the critique of the Oxford Hebrew Bible published by H.G.M. Williamson.

I have just noticed that Ron Hendel, the editor-in-chief of the OHB (who has received some attention recently for other things), has written a response to Williamson. It is not in print yet--it is labeled as "forthcoming", but I don't see which journal will publish it. Nevertheless, you can read it, along with a few other articles about the project, here.

As a side note ("in the interest of full disclosure"), Hendel informs us that he had asked Williamson to edit Isaiah for OHB, but Williamson had "politely declined" (p. 1 n. 1). The editors of Isaiah listed here are J.J.M. Roberts and Eugene Ulrich.

The Same Thing Again, but This Time, Hengel

2010-09-02T16:08:00.002-05:00

I'm still stuck on the same issue, and I just want to add a brief comment from a distinguished NT scholar.

Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon (Baker, 2002), p. 44:

"In contrast, only fragments of Aquila were found in the Cairo Geniza."

The context of this statement makes it clear that Hengel is thinking of these Aquilanic fragments as Jewish.

Religious Provenance of Genizah Palimpsests, again

2010-06-25T21:01:00.002-05:00

In my previous post, I mentioned this article by Natalie Tchernetska, Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, and Nicholas de Lange on a Hebrew-Greek glossary from the Cairo Genizah. I may have more to say about this excellent and fascinating article some other time, but for now I want to continue the topic I was on before.

Particularly, I had said that Tchernetska supported the Jewish origin of the Aquila fragments, which seemed to be the case based on a statement made in her 2002 article: "Recent evidence from previously un-deciphered texts seems to contradict assumptions made in the theory of the Christian association and to support the Jewish origin of the Greek lower text" (p. 251). In the context of her article, this statement seems to apply to all of the palimpsests.

However, in Tchernetska's newer article with de Lange and Olszowy-Schlanger (2007), we find this statement: "Unlike the majority of the palimpsests from the Cairo Genizah, whose lower texts contain Christian works [here they cite Burkitt, Taylor, and Tchernetska's earlier article], this bilingual glossary is the work of a Jewish compiler. The Hebrew entries are written in Hebrew characters, while their Greek translations are in a form of Greek majuscule found in other manuscripts written by Greek-speaking Jews; the text of the glossary is arranged from right to left like a Hebrew codex" (p. 92).

Since Tchernetska, Olszowy-Schlanger, and de Lange cite the publications by Burkitt and Taylor for those Christian palimpsests, they must be thinking of the Aquila fragments as originally Christian, since the only thing Burkitt published were Aquila fragments of Kings, and Aquila formed a large part of Taylor's publication, as well.

However, it is strange that Burkitt and Taylor would be cited for this view, without comment, since both Burkitt and Taylor actually believed that the Aquila fragments were originally Jewish, and Tchernetska understood this in her 2002 article (p. 250 n. 55). In fact, the three publications cited to support the Christian identification of the genizah palimpsests (Burkitt, Taylor, Tchernetska 2002) actually all seem to favor a Jewish origin.

Furthermore, the contents of this new article on the Hebrew-Greek glossary make clear that a Jewish origin for the Aquila fragments cannot be ruled out, as the glossary exhibits strong indications of Aquila's influence within this Jewish context. But, as I say, perhaps I will be able to address some of these issues in a later post.

The Religious Provenance of the Cairo Geniza Aquila Fragments

2010-06-15T16:26:00.008-05:00

More than a hundred years ago, the Cairo Geniza yielded palimpsest fragments with the Greek text of Aquila written under a later Hebrew work. (For publication, see Burkitt and Taylor.) The script used for the Aquila fragments has been dated to the fifth or sixth century CE. (See now this article by Natalie Tchernetska.)

But the question remains, did these fragments of Aquila belong to Jews or Christians? In a previous post, I assumed that the fragments belonged to Jews. This seems to be the general assumption among LXX scholars: Burkitt (p. 9), Munnich (p. 147), Fernández Marcos (p. 113).

However, Stefan Reif (pp. 105-6) points out that the presence of NT fragments among the palimpsests recovered in the Geniza indicates possibly that all of the palimpsests were originally Christian. Indeed, this is the theory of Michael Sokoloff and Joseph Yahalom, as the title of their article indicates: "Christian Palimpsests from the Cairo Geniza," Revue d'Histoire des Textes 8 (1978): 109-32. They argue that all of the Greek material was Christian, and was sold as scrap to the Jews, who then re-used it for Hebrew compositions. This is also the assumption of Stemberger (p. 37).

On the other hand, Tchernetska (p. 251) has recently supported the Jewish origin of these fragments based on the presence of "a bilingual Greek and Hebrew list of words, apparently a glossary" as the underwriting of one of the previously unidentified palimpsests. "Such a glossary was almost certainly copied by a Jew," she says. Tchernetska (with Nicholas de Lange and Judith Olszowy-Schlanger) has now published this glossary (see the link for an abstract).

I have not yet seen this full publication of the fragment, but even were I fully convinced that a Jew must have composed this glossary, a scenario I do find highly likely, I'm not sure that would settle the matter for the other palimpsest fragments. Indeed, along with Reif, I am highly dubious that the New Testament materials published by Taylor originated in a Jewish context.

So, we have one palimpsest that probably originated among Jews (the glossary) and one small group of palimpsests that probably originated among Christians and were later sold as scrap to Jews (the NT mss; probably also the fragments of the Hexapla published by Taylor). Where does this put the Aquila fragments? Is it more likely that they originated among Jews or Christians?

Perhaps a Jewish origin for the Aquila fragments is indicated by the use of a form of paleo-Hebrew script for the tretragrammaton. But is this decisive in favor of a Jewish origin? Burkitt (pp. 15-16) discusses the peculiarities of the paleo-Hebrew script in his fragment, and says, "To the scribe of our MS the Tetragrammaton must have been a mere symbol, blindly copied from the model." Couldn't this be as true (or truer) of a Christian scribe as of a Jewish one? The Divine Name in the Aquila fragments published by Taylor (see pp. vi and 72) also seems to be written by a scribe more familiar with writing Greek than Hebrew. (My impression: it looks like backwards lambda's for the yod and waw, and backwards epsilon's for the he's.) If Christians made copies of the Greek Bible that included Hebrew letters, I imagine that it would look something like this. (Some Christians butchered the Hebrew letters even further, and represented them with Greek letters, with the result that they spelled out PIPI in Greek; see Burkitt, p. 15; Taylor, p. vi.)

As far as I can tell right now, then, the question about the religious provenance of these Aquila fragments comes down to whether it would be more likely that Jews or Christians produced and/or used Aquila's translation. At present, however, that is a debated topic.

SBL Program Book

2010-06-10T16:00:00.002-05:00

The online program for this Fall's SBL in Atlanta is available here. I thought I'd highlight the sessions in which I'll be participating.

Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity
11/20/2010
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM

Theme: Perhaps Outside the Canon, But Not Off the Shelves: Contributions of Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha to the Formation of Early Judiasm and Christianity

David A. deSilva, Ashland Theological Seminary, Presiding

Francis Borchardt, University of Helsinki
Why was 2 Maccabees Read in the Ancient World? (30 min)

D. Jeffrey Bingham, Dallas Theological Seminary
Irenaeus and the Other Books: Non-Canonical Christian Texts in His Polemic (30 min)

Edmon Gallagher, Heritage Christian University
The “Apocrypha” in Jerome’s Canonical Theory (30 min)

Rebecca Rine, University of Virginia
Canon Lists Are Not Just Lists (30 min)

Loren L. Johns, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary
When Pseudepigrapha Become Canonical: Rethinking Canon and Textual Criticism (30 min)

Discussion (30 min)

Early Jewish Christian Relations
11/22/2010
9:00 AM to 11:30 AM

Theme: Open Session

Andrew Jacobs, Scripps College, Presiding

Edmon Gallagher, Heritage Christian University
The Jews and the Old Testament according to Julius Africanus and Origen (30 min)

James McLaren, Australian Catholic University
Eusebius on the capture of Jerusalem and the flight to Pella story (30 min)

Tracy Thorpe, Harvard University
Anti-Judaism 'In the Round' (30 min)

Ari Finkelstein, Harvard University
Sleeping among tombs for the sake of Dream Visions: A Discourse of Incubation among Jews in Emperor Julian’s works (30 min)

Susan L. Graham, Saint Peter's College
Mount Sion and the Christian Construction of a Sacred Space (30 min)

Alexander on Rabbinic Textual Theory

2010-06-10T15:55:00.002-05:00

I've read this article several times and thought it was great each time, but I always seem to forget what it says. I thought maybe blogging about it would help me remember.

Philip S. Alexander, “Why No Textual Criticism in Rabbinic Midrash? Reflections on the Textual Culture of the Rabbis,” in Jewish Ways of Reading the Bible (JSSSup 11; ed. George J. Brook; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 175–90.

In this paper, Alexander first explains that rabbinic literature lacks any discussion of text critical issues related to scripture. This absence of text-critical reflection is not due to their doctrine of the inspiration of the text, because the similar doctrine in Christianity allows for corruption in the text subsequent to the autographs (p. 176).

Neither is it due to rabbinic ignorance of text-critical principles (pp. 176–81). In fact, sophisticated forms of textual criticism were developed in Alexandria, Egypt, beginning in the third century BCE, and these were inherited and applied to the Bible by the likes of Origen and Jerome (pp. 176–77). The Rabbis knew of differences in manuscripts: the reading of Gen. 3:21 in R. Meir’s Torah as reported in Gen. Rab. 20:12; the different readings to be found in Christian and Samaritan copies of the Torah; the changes introduced by the translators of the LXX (cf. b. Meg. 9a–b); the traditions of the tiqqunei soferim; and the development of the ketiv/qerei apparatus; the textual plurality attested by the Dead Sea Scrolls; the lemmata in rabbinic literature which diverge from the MT; the variants to be found in the different MT manuscripts themselves; the rabbinic awareness of superior manuscripts such as the three scrolls in the Temple (pp. 177–78). The Masorah would seem to be a first step toward textual criticism, but actually serves the opposite purpose—the preservation of inconsistencies and oddities of the biblical text. Nevertheless, the Masorah evidences signs of an earlier stage of textual scholarship: ketiv/qerei; the extraordinary points (nequdot); the inverted nuns; the suspended letters; all of which may have indicated textual variants but have now become part of the immutable divine text (pp. 179–80). On the other hand, the Rabbis did practice textual criticism on rabbinic texts, such as the Talmud (pp. 180–81). Thus, the absence of biblical textual criticism in rabbinic literature demands an explanation.

Alexander suggests three possible responses to the obvious textual divergences in the Jewish scriptures. First, the Rabbis may have viewed all textual variants as inspired. This is a problematic position (how can every scribal alteration be the word of God?), but something like it seems to have been held at Qumran and, perhaps, by the Apostle Paul. Alexander compares the al tiqrei passages in rabbinic literature (pp. 181–82).

A second response would be to produce an eclectic text (pp. 182–83). This is apparently how the proto-Masoretic Text came to be, during the Maccabean Age (says Alexander)—the creation of an authoritative text based on “heavy editorial intervention”.

But, Alexander says the Rabbis largely followed a third path: they merely chose a single textual tradition and deemed it alone authoritative and inspired. “Textual variants could and did arise in the copying of the Masoretic text, and these had, of course, to be corrected, but once the ‘original’ Masoretic text had been recovered the process of correction abruptly stopped. That Masoretic text, itself, with all its inherent textual problems which were carefully noted in Midrash and Masorah, was regarded as absolutely fixed and inviolable” (p. 183).

[Alexander does not here address how this choosing of one textual tradition would actually have taken place. Why did they choose this particular text? Was this text a unit even before the Rabbis chose it? In other words, we think of the MT of Genesis as textually similar to the MT of Daniel because they are both found in the MT. But, would a prerabbinic sage have had any reason to relate these two scrolls (a particular textual form of Genesis and a particular textual form of Daniel) together as of similar textual type? Perhaps they were both housed in the Temple? Or were they of distinct textual types, so that the Rabbis had to choose a textual type for the Torah, another for Proverbs, another for Psalms, another for…every biblical book? Would this choosing have practically amounted to the election of one particular manuscript of each biblical book from which all subsequent rabbinic biblical texts should be copied?]

Alexander discusses three reasons for choosing one textual type (pp. 184–187). (1) Tradition—the [proto-] Masoretic text [of most biblical books] was already widely accepted as authoritative prior to the rabbinic movement. (2) Apologetic—it is easier to “sell” an ancient text than to win approval for a newly edited text. (3) Theology—the rabbinic doctrine of scripture rested on an understanding of the biblical text as immutable and divine. “Was it the rabbinic doctrine of Scripture that led the rabbis to declare the Masoretic text as authoritative and unchangeable? Or was the doctrine, at least in part, a working out of the implications of that declaration? Or was there some sort of mutually reinforcing dialectic between the doctrine and the declaration? As it developed the rabbinic doctrine of Scripture located inspiration ever more precisely in the graphic form of the consonantal text as it is found in the Synagogue Sifrei Torah” (p. 186). This textual position became extreme in the later rabbinic period with an emphasis on the cosmic significance of the Torah.

“It is no accident that textual criticism is absent from Midrash. Its absence was one of a range of strategies which together constitute the textual culture of the rabbis. Its absence is inextricably linked to the very essence of the midrashic enterprise” (p. 187).

Alexander closes (pp. 187–90) with a series of observations that summarize the main points of the paper. (1) The Rabbis picked one form of the “Torah of Moses” as true and correct. (2) Theological and apologetic reasons and especially tradition contributed to this decision. (3) The divine status of the Torah came to be attributed to every facet of the written text, including the script, orthography, scribal notations (e.g., inverted nuns), etc. (4) The Masorah developed in order to ensure the preservation (not the elimination) of anomalies in the manuscripts. (5) Although the MT in theory represented the authentic Torah of Moses, in practice it was still impossible to make exact copies of this ideal MT, so textual criticism to a limited extent was still necessary for the elimination of errors in the MT manuscripts. [Alexander (p. 189 n. 22) identifies Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865) as the first Jew to practice true textual criticism on the MT.] (6) Textual anomalies were theologized midrashically rather than correct text-critically. (7) The signs within the MT of previous textual criticism (e.g., ketiv/qerei, nequdot, etc.) were explained away or theologized so that the inviolability of the MT was preserved.

Septuagint and Reception

2009-10-27T16:11:00.001-05:00

A new book on the LXX:

Johann Cook, ed. Septuagint and Reception: essays prepared for the Association for the Study of the Septuagint in South Africa. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

Apparently, it was published in July, but I’ve only just now learned of it. Here’s the description of the book:

A new association for the study of the Septuagint was formed in South Africa recently. The present collection is a compilation of papers delivered at the first conference of this association, as well as other contributions. The volume addresses issues touching on the Septuagint in the broad sense of the word. This includes the Old Greek text (Daniel, Proverbs, Psalms and Lamentations) as well as the reception of the LXX (NT, Augustine and Jerome, etc.). A few contributions that may be regarded as miscellanea are nevertheless related to matters Septuagintal (Aristeas, Peshitta, Eunochos).

It’s published by Brill, so naturally its expensive ($200). I haven’t seen a copy yet, but I was able to see the table of contents through Harvard’s library catalogue, and there are certainly some interesting titles. Here it is in a cleaned-up version.

Jan Joosten, “The prayer of Azariah (DanLXX 3) : sources and origin”

Johann Cook, “On the role of external traditions in the Septuagint”

Peter Arzt-Grabner, “Psalms as magic? : P. Vindob. G 39205 revisited”

Randall X. Gauthier, “Examining the ’pluses’ in the Greek Psalter : a study of the Septuagint translation qua communication”

Gideon Kotzé, “The Greek translation of Lamentations : towards a more nuanced view of its ’literal’ character”

Wolfgang Kraus, “Hab 2:3-4 in the Hebrew tradition and in the Septuagint, with its reception in the New Testament”

Gert J. Steyn, “Quotations from the Minor Prophets in Hebrews”

Annette Evans, “Ancient Egyptian elements in Hebrews 1?”

Ronald H. van der Bergh, “Differences between the MT and LXX contexts of Old Testament quotations in the New Testament : Isaiah 45:18-25 as a case study”

Lawrence Ronald Lincoln, “The use of names as evidence of the Septuagint as a source for Josephus’ Antiquities in books 1 to 5”

Johan C. Thom, “Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon and Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus”

William Loader, “The strange woman in Proverbs, LXX Proverbs and Aseneth”

Chris L. de Wet, “The reception of the Susanna narrative (Dan. XIII) in early Christianity”

Annemaré Kotzé, “Augustine, Jerome and the Septuagint”

Harry F. van Rooy, “The treatment of Hapax Legomena in MT Ezekiel, in the LXX Ezekiel and Peshitta : a comparative study”

Jacobus A. Naudé, “The role of metatexts in the translations of sacred texts : the case of the Book of Aristeas and the Septuagint”

Jonathan More, “Kingship ideology : a neglected element in Aristeas’ charter myth for Alexandrian Judaism”

Sakkie Cornelius, “‘Eunuchs?’ : the ancient background of Eunouchos in the Septuagint”

Pierre Johan Jordaan, “Reading Judith as therapeutic narrative”

Eugene Coetzer, “Performing Susanna : speech acts and other performative elements in Susanna”

Dichk M. Kanonge, “Reading narratives in the Septuagint : a discourse on method”

I’ll be very interested to see the papers by de Wet on the reception of Susanna among the Fathers and by Kotzé on “Augusitne, Jerome and the Septuagint”. Those two topics feature prominently in my dissertation, which I am now concluding. Perhaps I’ll post some reflections on these articles when I’ve had a chance to read them.

Did Late Antique Jews Use Aquila's Translation?

2009-10-23T15:53:00.003-05:00

There is a new article about Aquila’s translation.

Jenny R. Labendz, “Aquila’s Bible Translation in Late Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Perspectives,” Harvard Theological Review 102.3 (2009): 353–388.

Labendz, of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, makes it her goal “to develop a more nuanced understanding of the history of Aquila’s Bible translation in Late Antiquity” (p. 353). If you are not immediately familiar with who Aquila is, learn more here.

Labendz first discusses the rabbinic sources for Aquila (pp. 355–370) before moving to the patristic sources (pp. 370–386). Labendz is obviously (and by her own admission) more comfortable in the Jewish sources than among the Fathers, and it is in her analysis of the rabbinic tradition of Aquila that I found her most helpful. (Her comments on the Church Fathers are not innovative, as far as I could tell.) I will let you read for yourself what she has to say. I suppose the take-away point for me is that rabbinic literature may indicate only that the Rabbis encountered Aquila’s translations as something like “oral targums” (which word, תרגם, they do use in connection with him). Still, I’m not sure how this would be the easiest way to explain all of the evidence.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to point out that, strangely, Labendz repeatedly makes the erroneous assertion that the rabbinic evidence is the only extant Jewish evidence related to Aquila.

“The only ancient Jewish sources that mention Aquila or use his translation are rabbinic […]” (p. 353).

Speaking of Origen in his Letter to Africanus, when he says that Jews use Aquila: “If Origen is referring to the rabbis, then the evidence of rabbinic literature confirms this, as we have seen. But if he is referring rather, or in addition, to a wider Greek-speaking Jewish community, then we lack corroborating evidence of this claim” (p. 373).

After summarizing the evidence from rabbinic sources: “Other Jewish sources are silent” (p. 388).

In fact, we do have (admittedly, very limited) Jewish evidence outside rabbinic literature for the Jewish use of Aquila’s translation. First, there is an inscription in third century Rome that follows Aquila’s translation of Prov. 10:7. It has most recently been published as inscription 112 in vol. 2 of David Noy, ed. Jewish Inscriptions of Western Europe, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993–1995).

Second, the Cairo Genizah yielded some fragments of Aquila. To be sure, these fragments post-date the chronological limit Labendz set on herself (p. 354), but they must have been copied from earlier manuscripts, and these later fragments attest a continuing use of Aquila among some Jews.

The whole question of which Greek Bible text Greek-speaking Jews might have used is quite vexed. We can see now the collection of studies edited by Nicholas de Lange, Julia Krivoruchko, and Cameron Boyd-Taylor, Jewish Reception of Greek Bible Versions (Mohr Siebeck, 2009). In the introduction (p. 6), de Lange highlights the continuing importance of Aquila among Byzantine Jews as one of the major conclusions arising from the papers presented in the volume.

Jerome's View of Double Inspiration

2008-09-29T11:58:00.000-05:00

A student asked me a question about the LXX addition to Gen. 46:20, which has led to a day’s worth of research on the number of Israelites who descended into Egypt according to the various textual witnesses.

Just a quick survey: the MT of Gen. 46:27 says that 70 individuals went, as also Exod. 1:5 and Deut. 10:22. The LXX has the number 75 in the first two passages, though it maintains the 70 in the Deut. passage. The number 75 is also found in 2 fragments of Exod. 1:5 found at Qumran: 4QGen-Exod^a (fr. 17 line 2) and 4QExod^b (fr. 1 line 5), for which see DJD 12. The extra 5 people in the LXX are presented in an expansion of Gen. 46:20, which reads in The New English Translation of the Septuagint,

And to Ioseph in the land of Egypt were born sons, Manasse and Ephraim, whom Asenneth daughter of Petephres, priest of Heliopolis bore to him. [Here the MT ends.] And to Manasse were born sons, whom the Syrian concubine bore to him: Machir, and Machir became the father of Galaad. And the sons of Manasse’s brother Ephraim: Southalaam and Taam. And the sons of Southalaam: Edem.

Naturally, Jerome prefers the MT reading 70, and he argues that the extra 5 people included in the LXX addition to Gen. 46:20 are obviously secondary additions because Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Manasseh would not have been old enough at the time to have children, much less grandchildren. “Therefore it is clear that all of Jacob’s descendents who entered Egypt totaled 70, though 66 of these came later and found 3 already in Egypt, namely Joseph and his two sons; the 70^th person is Jacob himself.”

A problem arises in that Stephen cites the number 75 in his speech in Acts 7:14. To this Jerome responds: “the answer is easy. Saint Luke, who is the author of that history, in publishing a book of the Acts of the Apostles for the gentiles, ought not to have written anything contrary to the Bible (scriptura) commonly accepted by the gentiles.”

This last comment is interesting for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Jerome here imagines that Luke did not give a literal presentation of Stephen’s words. Jerome probably envisioned Stephen speaking to the Jewish leadership in Hebrew or Aramaic (“Syriac”), and so of course Luke would have had to translate this into Greek. However, Luke’s editorial activity included even conforming Stephen’s speech to the expectations of a Gentile audience. Jerome seems to be saying that Stephen would have cited the number 70 in his actual speech, because it is the correct number in the Hebrew tradition. Luke changed this number to 75 in order to match the expectations of his readers. Both Stephen and Luke were inspired, in Jerome’s mind. This implies that the same Holy Spirit can inspire two inharmonious accounts of one incident. This is very reminiscent of Augustine’s discussion of Jonah’s prophecy within his defense of the LXX (City of God, book 18, chapter 44).

I’m not sure what to think of Jerome’s comment here. He seems close to conceding the position he elsewhere attacks so vigorously, and thereby he slackens somewhat on his commitment to the original (veritas). I’m sure that he didn’t think about the implications of his statement here as I have done, but I wonder whether he would have been better off, and more consistent, by allowing Stephen himself to cite the number 75. Yet, that option comes with its own problems.

Jerome’s discussion is found in his Hebrew Questions in Genesis at 46:26. I have used the Migne edition (PL 23.2, cols. 1051−1053).

Chaldean Truth

2008-08-29T17:04:00.000-05:00

This post is designed merely to help people locate Jerome’s phrase “Chaldean truth”. I spent about twenty minutes Googling it in every variation I could think of (e.g. “Chaldee verity” etc.), all in vain. Finally, I noticed that I had already cited it in a paper I wrote several months ago.

As readers of Jerome will know, he speaks constantly of the Hebrew truth (Hebraica veritas) as his rallying cry to return to the original language of the OT. He does the same for the NT, speaking of the “Greek truth” in his preface to the Gospels (cf. Stuttgart Vulgate, ed. Weber, p. 1515, line 4), but Greek is not so often associated with Jerome because he did so little work on the NT compared with the OT. Scholars have, in fact, failed to find traces of his revision activity in the NT outside of the Gospels; the rest of the NT was revised, but by an anonymous editor, whom some modern scholars identify as Rufinus the Syrian (not Rufinus of Aquileia).

Since part of the Bible is written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew, Jerome naturally does not apply the phrase Hebraica veritas to this portion. Here is his Commentary on Daniel 5:11; the lemma is underlined.

Est vir in regno tuo qui spiritum deorum sanctorum habet in se. Praeter Symmachum, qui chaldaicam veritatem secutus est, ceteri ‘spiritum Dei’ interpretati sunt.

Jerome says that Symmachus alone among Greek translators follows the “Chaldean truth” by using the plural “gods” rather than the singular “God.”

At any rate, my interest in this comment is in the phrase chaldaica veritas. I hope that if anyone wants to find Jerome’s statement about it, this post will make it easier to locate.

The Jews, the Canon, and the Hebrew Alphabet

2008-07-04T20:34:00.002-05:00

There are several items I could clarify from my previous post. Maybe I’ll turn such clarifications into a series, though if you’ve read enough of this blog, you know that I’m very bad about finishing series. (I do plan to return to Zechariah, though I doubt I’ll get back to Calvin).

For now, I’ll just note that, as I previously wrote, Origen does not say that he derived the connection between the Hebrew alphabet and the Jewish canon from the Jews. Or, at least, he does not say so in the fragment of his commentary on the first psalm as preserved in Eusebius (HE 6.25). This is correctly perceived by Martin Hengel (Septuagint as Christian Scripture (2002), 62 n. 12).

However, in Fragment 3 of his Homilies on Lamentations, Origen does report that this tradition derives from the Jews. (See here for the 1901 GCS edition by Erich Klostermann, Origenes Werke 3, p. 236. And you better download it while you can. Next time you might not be able to find it.) Only the first paragraph is relevant. This is my translation.

Therefore the Hebrews say the books of the Old Testament are equal in number to the letters, so that they are an introduction to all divine knowledge, just as the letters are [an introduction] to all wisdom for those who learn. Therefore, they are quadrupled, perhaps because the elements of bodies are four.

The last sentence is a little confusing. My guess is that it refers to the four acrostic poems that make up the first four chapters of the Book of Lamentations (the last chapter, though containing 22 verses, is not an acrostic). Since these four acrostics each proceed through the entire Hebrew alphabet, Origen says that Lamentations has quadrupled the alphabet. He thinks the reason for quadrupling the alphabet (i.e. letters = “elements”) is to maintain an analogy with the four physical elements (earth, water, air, fire).

In any case, my point here is that this fragment definitely affirms that the connection between the 22 letters of the alphabet and the 22 books of the OT is current in the Judaism of Origen’s day. This should be considered when one tries to determine the chronological development of the Jewish canon. As Peter Katz showed long ago, and as, e.g., Gilles Dorival has emphasized of late (see references below), the 22-book canon has much better and earlier attestation than the 24-book canon. However, the 24-book canon appears already in 4 Ezra 14:45 and the Gospel of Thomas 52, so they must have co-existed in Judaism for several centuries. Much investigation has been done in this area, but more could be done.

References:

Peter Katz, “The Old Testament Canon in Palestine and Alexandria,” ZNW 47 (1956): 191–217; repr. in S.Z. Leiman (ed.), The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible (New York: Ktav, 1974), 72–98.

Gilles Dorival, “L’apport des Pères de l’Église à la question de la clôture du canon de l’Ancien Testament,” in J.-M. Auwers and H.J. De Jonge (eds.), The Biblical Canons, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 163 (Louvain: University Press, 2003), 81–110.

The 22 Books of the OT

2008-06-30T11:30:00.002-05:00

Almost all the early Christian canonical lists of OT books limited the number to 22, which more or less equals the modern Protestant reckoning of 39 books. For how 22 = 39, see this good handout prepared by Tyler Williams and follow these steps: (1) start with the Protestant canon of 39 books; (2) note that it contains the same books as the Jewish canon of 24 books, just arranged differently; (3) using the Jewish canon of 24 books, count Lamentations with Jeremiah and Ruth with Judges; (4) notice that you now have 22 books.

The number 22 is first attested in Josephus (CA 1.37–41), although R.H. Charles argued for its presence already in Jubilees about 2 ½ centuries earlier (see his The Book of Jubilees, 1902; also see the criticism by James VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon, 2000, pp. 18–19). I should note that Josephus does not tell us which books he includes, leaving scholars to debate whether his 22 books equals what Christians later called the 22 books.

The Hebrew alphabet has 22 letters, and the Fathers often saw a connection between the 22 letters that serve as an introduction to learning and the 22 books that serve as an introduction to piety. The connection between the OT and the Hebrew alphabet is first attested in Origen’s commentary on the first Psalm (preserved by Eusebius, HE 6.25).

It is possible that Origen learned of this connection from a Jewish source, though he does not say so. The Jewish sources other than Josephus unanimously (as far as I know) count their books as 24, and this number is attested almost as early as Josephus’s 22, being found already in 4 Ezra 14:45 and the Gospel of Thomas 52. The number 24 is also assumed in the famous passage from the Babylonian Talmud, Baba Bathra 14b. Again, the 24 books are the same as the 22 books, just counted differently.

While the early Fathers usually limited the OT to 22 books, and thus the books of the Jewish canon, two caveats should be kept in mind. (1) The Greek form of the book sometimes differed radically from the Hebrew/Jewish form. This is apparent especially in, e.g., the Book of Jeremiah, which almost always in Christian reckoning included Lamentations, Baruch, and the Letter of Jeremiah, the latter two being completely absent from the Jewish Bible, the first being present but not counted with Jeremiah. Of course, the Book of Jeremiah itself is quite different in its Hebrew and Greek forms. Other obvious examples would be Daniel and Esther, less obvious examples abound.

(2) Even Fathers that seem to limit their OT canon to the Jewish Bible sometimes limit it even more, excluding the book of Esther. Those that omit Esther include Melito, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Amphilochus. Athanasius includes Esther as one of the “other books” to be read but not used for doctrine. Amphilochus appends a note to his list saying that some people include Esther.

Those Fathers who mention a connection between the number of OT books and the letters of the Hebrew alphabet include:

Origen, as cited above. (Though I agree with Dominique Barthélemy that the canon list Origen gives does not represent his own OT canon, but merely that of the “Hebrews”; see Études d’histoire du texte de l’Ancien Testament, 1978, p. 114.)
Athanasius of Alexandria in his 39th Festal Letter.
Epiphanius of Salamis in three separate lists: Panarion 8.6.1-4; De mens. et pond. 4; 22-23. In each of these lists, Epiphanius mentions also the number 27, which is simply a different way of counting the 22 books, in accordance with the five doubled letters of the Hebrew alphabet which bring the number of Hebrew letters to 27. Jerome also mentions the number 27 and the five doubled letters/books (Prologus Galeatus).
Gregory of Nazianzus, Carmen 1.12.
Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus super Psalmos 15. (See here)
Jerome, Prologus Galeatus.

Those that obviously count 22 OT books, but do not mention the alphabet include:

Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lecture 4.35), who stresses the number 22 for the OT books, but does not mention the alphabet.
The Council of Laodicea, canon 60. Two notes: (1) Though the total number of books is not given, each book is assigned a number, with the last book, Daniel, being given number 22. (2) It is not certain that this list originated with the council, or whether it was added later.
Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostle's Creed, 37. Notes: it is clear that Rufinus is aiming for the number 22 because he counts Ruth with Judges, and reports that the Hebrews count the four books of Kings (i.e. our Samuel and Kings) as two, etc. The only reason to do this is to preserve the number 22. I am aware of Meinrad Stenzel’s objection to this view (“Der Bibelkanon des Rufin von Aquileja,” Biblica 23 (1942): 43–61 (45)), but I find his argument unpersuasive.

Some canon lists contain only the books accepted by the Jews (with allowance for variations between the Greek and Hebrew forms of those books), but do not seem to count them as 22. These include:

Melito of Sardis (preserved in Eusebius, HE 4.26). I assume with Albert Sundberg that Melito does not include the Wisdom of Solomon (see The Old Testament of the Early Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1964), 133–134 n. 10). Some scholars have attempted to count Melito’s books as 22 (e.g. Sundberg, 133–134), but others more simply count 25 (e.g. R.T. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, 1985, 184–185).
Hierosolymitanus 54 (= the Bryennios list), a list of OT canonical books found in the same manuscript which yielded the Didache. The manuscript was discovered in Jerusalem (hence Hierosolymitanus) by Philotheos Bryennios. The list counts 27 books, which is reminiscent of Epiphanius (see above). This canon list was studied by J.-P. Audet, “A Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books of the Old Testament in Greek Transcription,” JThS 1 (1950): 135–154; reprinted in S.Z. Leiman (ed.), Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible, 1974, 52–71.
Amphilochus of Iconium, Iambi ad Seleucum 251–319. Amphilocus may count 22 books, but he does not say, nor does he assign numbers to the individual books.
The Apostolic Canons, canon 85. I follow the text of P.-P. Joannou, Discipline générale antique, 3 vols., Fonti codificazione canonica orientale 9 (Grottaferrata (Rome): Tipografia Italo-Orientale “S. Nilo,” 1961–64), 1.2.51–52. The text of F.X. Funk includes after Eshter, “Judith and three books of Maccabees,” which is an interpolation from the Latin (Didascalia Constitutiones Apostolorum, 2 vols. (Paderborn: Schoeningh, 1905), 1.590–592).

Some late 4^th-century Latin lists incorporate the “Apocrypha” (as they are called by Protestants; “deuterocanonicals” among Roman Catholics; “ecclesiastical books” according to Rufinus, in the work cited above, section 38). Thus, they include more books than any of those mentioned already. These longer lists include:

The Mommsen Catalogue (= the Cheltenham List, from North Africa ca. 359).
Council of Hippo in 393, the canons of which were not preserved, but the scriptural canon was reaffirmed at Carthage in 397.
Council of Carthage in 397, canon 26.
Augustine’s list in On Christian Doctrine 2.13.
The list of Pope Innocent I given in his letter to Exsuperius, section 7. This list actually comes from the early 5^th century (ca. 405), and is the first pronouncement of Rome on the issue.

Each of these five sources (except, perhaps, the Mommsen Catalogue) provides a list including the same six books rejected by the Jews: Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, and 1 and 2 Maccabees. While the Mommsen Catalogue does list the latter four books, it is uncertain whether its title “Salomonis” includes Wisdom and Sirach, though the given stichometry makes this probable. See T. Zahn, Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons, 2 vols. (1888–92; repr. New York: Georg Olms, 1975), 2.151. These 6 “deuterocanonical“ books are the same as those listed by Jerome (Preaf. in lib. Sal.) and Rufinus (see citation above) as books to be read, but not for the confirmation of doctrine. Athanasius included a similar list of “books to be read” outside the canon, but his list omits reference to the Maccabees, and includes Esther.

Now I have something on this blog to show for the month of June.

Quote of the Day

2008-05-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

From Werner Jaeger, Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1961), p. 33, speaking of the difference between the Greek and Latin forms of early Christianity.

The Greeks always welcome the support of reason, whereas the Roman mind stresses throughout (1) the factor of personality in the acceptance of the Christian faith and (2) the suprapersonal factor of authority.

That is a good way of putting it, and fits very well with the concept of the early Christian canon on which I am working.

The Title of the “Minor Prophets”

2008-04-25T15:21:00.001-05:00

I have been harping on the need to check the original sources in order to confirm the accuracy of statements in modern books. Reading Hilary’s Tractatus super Psalmos § 15 for my previous post had the unexpected side benefit of demolishing another scholarly myth, one that I was not expecting.

I have previously reported on this blog that the first ancient author to use the phrase “Minor Prophets” was Augustine, in his City of God 18.29. Before Augustine, so I thought, authors used the title “The Twelve” to refer to these prophets, which title is standard in Judaism and derives at least from the early second century BC work Sirach (49:10).

The attribution of the title “Minor Prophets” to Augustine is rather common (see a, b, c). The following scholarly articles that perpetuate this attribution are merely a sampling.

Peter Mommer, “Minor Prophets,” in E. Fahlbusch, et al., The Encyclopedia of Christianity, 4 vols. (Eerdmans and Brill, 2003), 3.544.

John William Rogerson, “Dodekapropheton,” in TRE 9 (De Gruyter, 1982), 18.

Marvin Sweeney is admirably cautious in saying: “The term ‘Minor Prophets,’ Prophetae minores in Latin, first appears in Latin Christian Patristic sources, such as the work of Augustine (City of G–d 18:29)” (The Twelve Prophets, 2 vols. [Liturgical Press, 2000], 1.xvi).

It turns out that Augustine is not the first author on record to use the title “Minor Prophets”. As seen in my preceding post, Hilary already used the term in the introduction to his “tracts” on the psalms. Manlio Simonetti dates this work to the last decade of Hilary’s life, which ended in 367 (see Simonetti’s discussion of Hilary in A. di Berardino, Patrology, vol. 4 (1978; ET 1986), 33–61).

Hilary’s use of the term thus preceded that of Augustine by several decades. The eighteenth book of Augustine’s City of God was probably written ca. 426. His words at chapter 29 that the twelve prophets “are called minor” implies that this is a somewhat common designation.

Hilary on the OT Canon

2008-04-25T11:41:00.002-05:00

I do apologize for continuing my rant, but I am writing a dissertation on a topic that would be aided by a trustworthy book on the OT canon. Unfortunately, Lee McDonald’s recent release, The Biblical Canon (Hendrickson, 2007), is not it. For previous complaints against the material contained therein, see here, with links to other posts.

In the midst of his survey of patristic sources for the Old Testament canon, McDonald comes to Hilary of Poitiers. McDonald writes:

Hilary of Poitiers appears to follow Origen’s example, but adds two extra books to his canon, namely, Tobit and Judith, in order to make a twenty-four-book biblical canon, which he wrongly believed followed the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet! (Biblical Canon, 204)

The second edition of McDonald’s book, which then went under the title The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Hendrickson, 1995), contains the exact same sentence, except that the last clause reads, “which he believed followed the Hebrew alphabet” (113).

For the third edition, McDonald strengthened his assertion by adding the adverb “wrongly” and the exclamation point, aside from inserting the clarifying phrase “the number of letters in”.

But McDonald is WRONG! Allow me to translate Hilary.[1] The passage comes from his Tractatus super Psalmos, § 15. You can read the Latin in the CSEL edition by A. Zingerle (Vienna, 1891).

And this is the reason that the law of the Old Testament is reckoned in 22 books, so that they correspond with the number of the letters. They are reckoned according to the traditions of the elders, so that there are five books of Moses, Joshua son of Nun is the sixth, Judges and Ruth are the seventh, the first and second books of Reigns [i.e., 1 and 2 Samuel] are eighth, the third and fourth books [of Reigns, i.e., 1 and 2 Kings] are ninth, two books of Leftovers [Paralipomenon, the Greek name for Chronicles] are the tenth, the chronicles[2] of Ezra is eleventh, the book of Psalms is twelfth, of Solomon the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs are the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth, and the twelve Minor Prophets are the sixteenth, then Isaiah, Jeremiah with Lamentations and the epistle [i.e., the deuterocanonical Letter of Jeremiah], but also Daniel and Ezekiel and Job and Esther complete the number of 22 books. But it appears good to some, with Tobit and Judith added, to count 24 books according to the number of Greek letters.

Hilary contradicts every major assertion that McDonald makes about him, except that he probably follows Origen. Hilary knows that the Hebrews have only 22 letters, and he gives his OT canon list in accordance with this number. He says that some people add Judith and Tobit, not that he himself agrees with this. Hilary says that by adding these two extra books, these people obtain a number that corresponds to the Greek alphabet.

I don’t know how to explain McDonald’s error. He obviously has not spent much time looking at Hilary. I am most disturbed that McDonald actually strengthened his erroneous assertions in his third edition without checking his facts in the intervening twelve years.

Aside from this, McDonald provides no citation of the original text, or of secondary literature, for that matter. The student is left with no help to check the source for accuracy, which is especially problematic when the analysis provided is so inaccurate.

[1] My translation is admittedly inconsistent in rendering ad litteram versus ad sensum.

[2] I translate sermones dierum (lit., “words of the days”) as “Chronicles” because the Latin phrase reminds me of the Hebrew title of Chronicles. Note Jerome in his Prologus Galeatus: Dabreiamin, id est Verba dierum, quod significantius χρονικον totius divinae historiae possumus appellare, qui liber apud nos Paralipomenon primus et secundus scribitur, “Dabreiamin, that is ‘words of the days’, which we can more clearly call a chronicle of all divine history, which book is titled among us first and second Paralipomenon.” Whether Hilary was thinking something along these lines for his title of the book of Ezra, I don’t know. I am not familiar with this title for Ezra elsewhere. The question deserves more research.

Jerome Omits Esther?

2008-04-23T14:32:00.002-05:00

I was struck by a strange statement from Lee Martin McDonald in his The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Hendrickson, 2007), the recent third edition of his book that previously went under the title The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (1^st ed. 1988; 2^nd ed. 1995).

McDonald writes:

Jerome omits the book of Esther from the canonical collection but includes it, along with Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, Didache, and Shepherd of Hermas, in the edifying category that could be read in the churches. (p. 205)

Where does McDonald get such an idea? He has just cited Jerome’s Prologus Galeatus (i.e. the Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings), so presumably he is drawing on the canon list found therein. Yet, Jerome very clearly includes Esther as the last book of the third section of the canon. (Jerome follows the Jewish division of the OT into three sections of Law, Prophets, and Writings.) He lists all of the books of this section, concluding with nonus Hester = “ninth, Esther”. Nothing could be clearer.

The section of the Prol. Gal. that McDonald actually quotes is the one just after Jerome’s presentation of the (in his view) authentic OT canon. There, Jerome says the following:

Whatever falls outside these must be set apart among the Apocrypha. Therefore Wisdom, which is commonly entitled Solomon’s, with the book of Jesus the son of Sirach, Judith, Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the first book of Maccabees in Hebrew; the second is in Greek, as may be proved from the language itself.¹

Immediately after quoting this paragraph, McDonald offers the summary statement that I have cited at the beginning of this post. How does he fail to perceive the difference between his own list of “apocryphal” books and that of Jerome? McDonald has inexplicably added Esther and the Didache to Jerome’s “apocrypha”.

Well, let me try to explicate the reason. Perhaps McDonald confounded Jerome with someone like Athanasius, who actually did omit Esther from his list of canonical books. In fact, in his 39th Festal Letter, Athanasius lists the books of the OT, then the NT, and then edifying books not included in the canon. This last list runs as follows:

The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit, and that which is called the Teaching [= Didachē] of the Apostles, and the Shepherd.

This list is remarkably similar to the one that McDonald attributes to Jerome. In fact, it is identical.

But why does McDonald confuse Athanasius with Jerome? The answer is that he is reliant on F.F. Bruce’s discussion,² and has simply misread Bruce’s argument. (See my previous post about McDonald’s habit of accessing ancient sources only secondarily.) Bruce quotes the passage from Jerome’s Prol. Gal. that lists the apocryphal books (i.e., Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, Shepherd), and then writes in his The Canon of Scripture (IVP, 1988):

It is strange to find the Shepherd listed among the Old Testament Apocrypha. But Jerome’s use od the term ‘Apocrypha’ calls for comment. Athanasius had distinguished three categories of books: canonical, edifying (but not canonical) and apocryphal. The ‘edifying’ books (the Wisdom of Solomon, and of Ben Sira, Esther, Judith and Tobit, with the Didachē and the Shepherd from the New Testament age) might be read in church; the ‘apocryphal books were to be avoided altogether. This threefold distinction was maintained, among the Latin fathers, by Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 345–410), who referred to the second category as ‘ecclesiastical’ books. But those ‘ecclesiastical’ books are designated ‘apocryphal’ by Jerome. (90–91).

When McDonald read these words in the context of Jerome’s views on canon, he failed to realize that the list of edifying books actually derived from Athanasius, not Jerome. Of course, this would not have happened if McDonald had worked from the original sources.

For other complaints about McDonald’s book, see here and here. McDonald himself has said that he is unhappy with the book (see here). He attributes some of the erros to an incompetent editor, and says a revised edition was due in March. I doubt that an editor was responsible for the mistake discussed here, especially since the exact same mistake appears in the second edition of McDonald’s book, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Hendrickson, 1995), p. 113. He had twelve years to correct it.

As a final note of complaint (at least, for this post), I cannot locate the statement by Bruce which McDonald attributes to him as follows: “[Bruce] claims that Origen practiced a double standard by including apocryphal books in the canon because the Jews included them” (McDonald, Biblical Canon, 202 n. 34). This is certainly a ridiculous assertion, for the Jews did not include the apocrypha in their canon, and Origen knew that better than anyone (see, e.g., his Letter to Africanus). McDonald cites Bruce’s Canon of Scripture, pp. 76–77, which includes nothing close to the words McDonald says should be there. I have no hypothesis for how this error arose. I am baffled.

The bottom line is that it is disappointing to see such a poor handling of the evidence in a book that will no doubt become widely used among students, who have not the resources or information (or skepticism) necessary to check the sources for themselves.

[1] This translation is taken directly from McDonald, who himself got it from F.F. Bruce. Regarding McDonald’s reliance on Bruce, see below.

[2] After quoting the Prol. Gal., McDonald actually cites it as “Prologue to Daniel, Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 90”. Of course, the citation is to the Prol. Gal., not the Prologue to Daniel. Here, the mistake seems to have arisen from McDonald’s misreading of his own footnotes in his second edition of his book, then called The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (Hendrickson, 1995), p. 113. Alternatively, he may have misread Bruce’s footnotes.

Jesus and the Flat Earth

2008-04-16T14:05:00.003-05:00

I do not have time to respond to all the points of interest in Chris Tilling’s recent post concerning the limitations of Jesus’ knowledge, but I would like to say a few things. First, let me make it clear that these comments will not address the larger issue of whether Jesus could be wrong about certain matters. I will here merely note some inadequacies in the examples used in Chris' post.

Before exploring the idea of the flat earth, I point out some statements with which I take issue.

He was fully a first century man. This is why Jesus didn't tell the world about a cure for cancer, or instruct people on basic sanctity in relation to bacteria and such like, or detail the way to make penicillin, projects that would have saved thousands upon thousands of lives, many more than hundreds of his miracles put together.

This is certainly a strange thing to say. “Jesus would have cured cancer if he had known how.” Such an argument ignores the entire discussion about God’s righteousness in the face of suffering. It is generally thought by Christians that God could now obliterate cancer from the human condition, but he doesn’t want to, for whatever reason. I’m not sure how this wouldn’t apply to Jesus in his earthly life.

I affirm the orthodox teaching of the incarnation, that Christ is fully God and fully man.

While Tilling says that he affirms the orthodox teaching of the incarnation, it seems rather that he maintains the orthodox terminology, while applying that terminology to concepts that would not have been acceptable to those who first developed the doctrine. I’m thinking especially about Jesus’ ~~ignorance~~ nescience. I find it doubtful that many of the Fathers would have allowed this concept much leeway outside the specific context to which Matthew 24:36 restricts it. But see the next point.

Origen and some of the other Fathers would say Jesus is 'ignorant' on certain matters, but they really mean that he was nescient.

I have not researched the history of exegesis for Matthew 24:36, so I cannot speak with authority on this point. I reiterate that a priori I am doubtful that the orthodox Fathers would have found much that Jesus didn’t know. Jerome, for one, rejects even the explicit statement of the verse, and says that Jesus did in fact know just as much as God the Father regarding the coming day.

Finally, did Jesus think the earth was flat?

There are three points I’d like to make. But before getting to them, let’s just change the perspective by asking whether an average first-century Palestinian Jew (A1PJ) would have thought that the earth was flat. Since some say that Jesus was an A1PJ, this will answer their question, and since some say that Jesus was decidedly not an A1PJ, phrasing the question in this way will avoid having to discuss the special knowledge that Jesus himself may have possessed.

First, according to the "authoritative" Wikipedia article on the idea of a Flat Earth, very few educated people have ever believed in a flat earth, at least since Hellenistic times. Eratosthenes, already in the 3^rd century BC, calculated the circumference of the earth amazingly close to the correct measurement. This was done in Alexandria, the major location of diaspora Jews in Hellenistic and Roman times. It is debatable whether an A1PJ would have been exposed to this knowledge, so we must look for sources that indicate the cosmology current in Palestine.

Second, does Matthew 4:8 imply a flat earth? I am not a NT scholar, so I’m not up-to-date on scholarship regarding the formation of the Gospels, but I do think the parallel in Luke is worth reading.

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. (Matthew 4:8)

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. (Luke 4:5)

In my view, the Lukan account does not at all imply a flat earth, but rather some sort of a visionary experience, and this despite the devil’s taking Jesus “up”. Perhaps some say that this is exactly why Luke made the change from Matthew, i.e., because he knew that there was no mountain that could give a view of the entire world, and maybe this was due to Luke’s more sophisticated cosmology. In any case, it will not be agreed by all that Luke’s version should be taken into account when interpreting Matthew.

I admit that the following argument is speculative, but I think Luke’s insight would have been readily apparent to any A1PJ. In other words, anyone would know that there was no mountain that could give a view of all the kingdoms of the world, simply because such a mountain could not be seen from Palestine. In other words, if a mountain could overlook every kingdom, then every kingdom could also see that mountain. But no such mountain could be seen from Palestine. Surely the Evangelists had scaled the local mountains and perceived that the views offered were not nearly extensive enough to see the whole world (even if we take “all the kingdoms of the world” to include only the Roman Empire and the various other known kingdoms on the outskirts of the Roman Empire). So I don’t think we need to understand Matthew’s account in the sense that the “very high mountain” offered a view of the world to Jesus that could be seen also by anyone else. I also find it significant that the mountain is not named—an indication that Matthew does not intend any physical mountain?

The difficulty with this interpretation, then, is why the devil took Jesus to a very high mountain. As often noted, Jesus had quite a few “spiritual” experiences on mountains, so that is not so unusual in this case. But why does the writer specify that the mountain was “very high”? It is possible that Matthew uses the adverb and adjective to indicate the spiritual nature of the experience. Luke’s version does support this reading, though I understand that that evidence is not admissible by all. In any event, I do regard it unlikely that any educated A1PJ actually thought that a mountain, no matter how high, could provide the required view. (I qualify the author of the First Gospel with the adjective “educated” exactly because he was an author—he could write, after all.)

Third, does Second Temple Jewish literature support the idea of a flat earth? The suggestion has been made that 1 Enoch does so. I haven’t the time to read through 1 Enoch right now, but I’ll simply say that the passages used by some to establish the point do not convince. In any case, 1 Enoch was certainly not looked on by all, least of all the Jerusalem establishment, as authoritative, and is associated most closely with sectarian groups like the Qumran community. So would an A1PJ take his cosmology from 1 Enoch? I guess some would and some wouldn’t.

The Death of Zechariah, Part 1

2008-04-14T11:32:00.001-05:00

More than a year ago, Kevin Wilson posted on what he considered a strange statement by Jesus in Luke 13:33–34, which describes Jerusalem as the city that kills the prophets. Kevin thought this was strange because there is very little in the OT that would justify this description of Jerusalem.

The tradition of the “killing of the prophets” is found in other passages in the Gospels (and the NT as a whole), notably Matthew 23:35 // Luke 11:51, which speaks of the righteous blood from Abel to Zechariah. The identification of Abel is quite easy—he is the first person killed in the Bible (Gen 4:8). Scholars have long (since the Patristic era) debated who exactly this Zechariah is.

The statement as recorded in Matthew 23:35 identifies Zechariah as the son of Berachiah, though this patronym is not given in the Lukan version. Jesus further said (in both versions) that Zechariah was killed between the sanctuary and the altar. These details, far from clearing up matters, have actually contributed to greater confusion, because they point to two separate individuals.

(1) Zechariah son of Berachiah son of Iddo (eleventh in canonical order of “Minor Prophets”) is the obvious candidate based on the patronym, but his death is unrelated in the Bible.

(2) Zechariah son of Jehoiada is the obvious candidate based on the description of the death, since 2 Chronicles 24:20-21 says that he was killed in the temple court. But his father’s name was not Berachiah.

It would seem as if these two Zechariahs were confounded, and this is exactly what happened in several rabbinic texts. For example, Targum Lamentations 2:20 (which is cited in Chris Brady’s comment to Kevin’s post, mentioned above) says that one of the reasons for Jewish woes is their murder of “Zechariah the son of Iddo,[1] the high priest and faithful prophet, in the House of the Sanctuary of the Lord on the Day of Atonement, because he admonished you not to do that which was evil before the Lord” (translation by Philip S. Alexander, The Targum of Lamentations, Aramaic Bible 17B [Liturgical Press, 2008], 141).[2] In the footnote (p. 141 n. 73), Alexander translates Lamentations Rabba 2:20 §23, which has a very similar comment, but speaks instead of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada.

That Jesus would have Zechariah son of Jehoiada in mind is supported by the many rabbinic passages attributing the destruction of the temple, in part, to this Zechariah’s murder. These include, from the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 57b and Sanhedrin 96b, from the Jerusalem Talmud, Taanit 4, as well as Pesikta de Rav Kahana 15 and Targum Esther 12. This reproduces Chris Brady’s list (in his The Rabbinic Targum of Lamentations [Brill, 2003], 57 n. 114; or see his D.Phil. dissertation, p. 118 n. 393); for more rabbinic citations, see Alexander’s translation of the targum, p. 141 n. 73.

Naturally, not all would agree that Jesus intended to speak of Zechariah son of Jehoiada, nor do I think this is the best interpretation of the passage. In the next post, I will present the various possibilities that have been discussed for the identification of the Zechariah in Matthew 23:35.

In the meantime, the following works might prove helpful.

David Satran, Biblical Prophets in Byzantine Palestine: Reassessing the Lives of the Prophets (Leiden: Brill, 1995). There is a helpful survey of scholarship on the tradition of the “death of the Prophets” on pp. 25–28.

Betsy Halpern Amaru, “The Killing of the Prophets: Unraveling a Midrash,” Hebrew Union College Annual 54 (1983): 155–180.

Sheldon H. Blank, “The Death of Zechariah in Rabbinic Literature,” Hebrew Union College Annual 12–13 (1937–38): 327–46.

[1] Zechariah the “Minor Prophet” is called “son of Iddo” in Ezra 5:1 and 6:14, apparently in reference to his grandfather.

[2] Amazon.com lists Kevin Cathcart as the translator, but Alexander’s preface makes it clear that he did the translating. Cathcart is, in fact, not mentioned on the title page or in the preface. It appears to be Amazon’s error.

Greek Etymology in Susanna

2008-04-03T10:47:00.003-05:00

If you’re keeping tabs on who among the ancients recognized that the Greek etymologies in the Story of Susanna (one of the Greek additions to Daniel) precluded its original composition in Hebrew, I have compiled a list of those I have found.

Origen seems to have been the first. He writes in his Letter to Africanus (§6, or §10 in the most recent critical edition by Nicholas de Lange in SC 302) that he previously recognized the difficulty. His acknowledgment of this point is found in book 10 of his Stromata, preserved by Jerome in his Commentary on Daniel 13:54-59 (available here in Gleason Archer’s translation).
Africanus raises the point about the etymologies in his Letter to Origen (§1, or §5 in the edition by de Lange) as one of seven arguments against the authenticity of Susanna.
Porphyry, the neo-Platonic philosopher and anti-Christian writer, recognized the Greek etymologies and used it apparently as an argument that the entire Book of Daniel had been originally composed in Greek. This is how Porphyry’s position is related by Jerome in the preface to his Commentary on Daniel. (Again, Gleason Archer’s translation is available here. Note P.M. Casey's caution [p. 19] about deciphering Porphyry’s precise position from Jerome.) Robert M. Grant showed long ago that it is unlikely that Porphyry was dependent on Africanus or Origen, specifically because Porphyry thought the whole Book of Daniel was composed in Greek, whereas it would have been difficult for him to gain this impression from these earlier Christian writers. See Grant’s “Historical Criticism in the Ancient Church,” Journal of Religion 25 (1945): 183–96 (194). This is in contrast to other scholars who think that Porphyry was dependent on Africanus (e.g. de Lange, on p. 490 of his edition of the letters = SC 302).
A Jewish teacher is said by Jerome to have brought this objection against the story. This is related in Jerome’s preface to his translation of Daniel (available here in Fremantle’s old translation, or here in Kevin Edgecomb’s recent translation).

Those are all the testimonia I have found. Of course, after Jerome wrote about the etymologies in his preface to the Vulgate (as it was later known) version of Daniel, it would have become common knowledge (to those who could and would read), as these prefaces were transmitted in almost all manuscripts of the Vulgate. If you know of other references to these etymologies before Jerome, please leave a comment.

By the way, modern critics are less sure than their ancient counterparts that the Greek etymologies prove that Susanna was originally written in Greek, and in this way follow Origen, who also had doubts (see his Letter §6 [10 in de Lange] and §12 [18 in de Lange]). A good discussion with an inconclusive result may be found in the new Schürer, 3/2 p. 724.

Benedictio contra sternumenta

2008-03-27T09:19:00.002-05:00

The Blessing Against Sneezes

My four-year-old daughter recently asked why one of our relatives responds to someone’s sneeze with the expression, “God bless you,” while my wife and I are in the habit of saying merely, “Bless you.” I replied that the sayings were equivalent, and that our habit was to leave the divine agent unexpressed, but assumed.

This started me thinking how one might expand the Benedictio contra sternumenta (or is there a better name for it?), i.e., what else might be assumed, even in the fuller three-word version, “God bless you.”

I think the following is about as detailed as you would want to get. I may use it the next time I hear someone sneeze. I assume it will make the sneezer feel like I’ve put some thought into my blessing, instead of making a merely customary comment that really has no significance.

Here is my new Benedictio contra sternumenta:

May the Lord our God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and His Son Jesus Christ who has redeemed us from all our transgressions, and Their Holy Spirit, who has inspired the divine scriptures, bless thee that this sneeze not portend any descent from that measure of bodily health that thou dost now enjoy, so that thou wilt be strong in body, mind, and spirit, both now and through eternity, Amen and Amen.

I believe the archaic second person singular pronouns are essential in such situations.

Suggestions for improvements?

The Profundity of St. Anselm

2008-03-19T09:20:00.001-05:00

I remember the first time I heard one of my undergraduate professors declare that he was no theologian, only a biblical scholar. I was confused, for I had thought that those two occupations were quite identical. Now, when I make the same statement to my students, I see the same confusion written on their faces.

I do long for a more adequate understanding of classical Christian theology. Recently, a chance to sample some came to me as I was asked to teach an apologetics class to the high school students of my local church. Of course, we don’t get too deep in the class, but our discussion of the existence of God led me to seek out more information about the ontological argument.

I am now slowly making my way through a collection of extracts from those who have discussed the ontological argument through the ages (The Ontological Argument: from St. Anselm to Contemporary Philosophers, ed. Alvin Plantinga, with an introduction by Richard Taylor [New York: Doubleday, 1965]). I am still reading extracts from Anselm, so you can tell that I have not made it far.

I’m not sure what to make of the ontological argument. But the following from St. Anselm certainly brings humor, not to mention despair, to my quest for deeper theological understanding.

This is taken from chapter 2 of St. Anselm’s Reply to Gaunilo, p. 16 of the aforementioned collection.

But you will say that although it is in the understanding, it does not follow that it is understood. But observe that the fact of its being understood does necessitate its being in the understanding. For as what is conceived, is conceived by conception, and what is conceived by conception, as it is conceived, so is in conception; so what is understood, is understood by understanding, and what is understood by understanding, as it is understood, so is in the understanding. What can be more clear than this?

I think I’m beginning to understand this, though I’m not sure if it is understood in the understanding, or by understanding, or whatever. What can be more clear than this?

Scholarship 101: Cite Your Sources

2008-03-06T16:39:00.001-06:00

I was rather annoyed upon seeing that Lee McDonald cited no ancient sources for his statement that “[t]he Apostolic Fathers, the closest Christian writings to the time of the NT, quote, refer, or allude to 2 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Esdras, and 1 Enoch—but not to the canonical books of Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations, Obadiah, Micah, and Haggai” (The Biblical Canon [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007], p. 221).

Instead of citing passages from the Apostolic Fathers, he cites Arthur Jeffrey’s article, “Canon of the Old Testament,” in The Interpreter’s Bible (12 vols. [Nashville: Abindgon, 1952–1957], 1.40). So I walked all the way to the library to check Jeffrey’s article, only to find that he doesn’t cite any ancient witnesses either!

Perhaps, you will say, McDonald discusses the use made of the Apocrypha in the Apostolic Fathers elsewhere in his book. Well, you are wrong. Such a discussion is not indicated in his Table of Contents, nor does he have any citations of Tobit, Judith, or 2 Esdras in his index. I checked all 6 of his references to 2 Maccabees, as listed in his index, and none of them dealt with the Apostolic Fathers.

I know that I can look in the index to any edition of the Apostolic Fathers to see where biblical and apocryphal passages are cited. But, McDonald (and Jeffrey) should have done that work for me. Since McDonald cites as authoritative a work that does not cite the ancient sources, I am left to wonder whether McDonald has actually looked through the Apostolic Fathers to determine for himself how they make use of the apocrypha, or if he has just taken Jeffrey's word for it.

Annoyance Part 2: In order to support his contention that the Qumran group believed that prophecy was still active in their day, McDonald (Biblical Canon, p. 172 n. 11) cites p. 50 of the book by E.E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991).

I just so happened to have this book in my office, so I quickly retrieved it and turned to p. 50. There I found that Ellis cites no ancient fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but instead references his earlier book, Prophecy and Hermeneutic in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), pp. 45–62.

So, I walked back to the library to procure this book, and found the relevant information on pp. 57–59. There, Ellis cites 1QpHab 7.4f.; 1QH 12.11ff.; 2.13-14; 1QS 4.20-22.

Again, McDonald does not cite ancient passages in support of his assertion. He does not even cite the book by Ellis that cites the ancient passages. Instead, McDonald cites the book by Ellis that references the other book by Ellis that does cite the ancient passages.

McDonald’s scholarship has been poured into the third jar, as Jerome would say (in tertium vas transfusa; Praef. in lib. Sal., line 24). I expect more from a scholar of McDonald’s stature, especially when it comes to his specialty—the biblical canon.

Jerome's Preface to the Twelve Prophets

2008-02-08T14:12:00.000-06:00

Jerome translated the Twelve Prophets (i.e., “Minor Prophets”) around AD 394.[1] As was his custom, he prefixed this brief note to his translation, dedicating it to two of his friends (Paula and Eustochium).

The order of the Twelve Prophets is not the same among the Hebrews as it is among us. Hence, according to that which is read there [in the Hebrew], here [in my version] also they are set down. Hosea is broken up into clauses, and speaks as if in aphorisms.[2] Joel is clear at the beginning, quite obscure at the end. And the individual [prophets] have their own characteristics all the way to Malachi, which the Hebrews assert to be Ezra, the scribe and teacher of the law. And because it would take too long now to speak concerning all of them, this alone, O Paula and Eustochium, I wish you to take to heart, that the Twelve Prophets are one book, and Hosea is a contemporary of Isaiah, but Malachi lived in the times of Haggai and Zechariah. But when no date is given in the title, that prophet prophesied under the same kings as the preceding prophet that does have a date in the title.[3]

The old NPNF translation of Jerome's prefaces does not contain this preface, but merely the following brief note:

This Preface, dedicated to Paula and Eustochium in A.D. 392, contains nothing of importance, merely mentioning the dates of a few of the prophets, and the fact that the Twelve Prophets were counted by the Hebrews as forming a single book.

On the contrary, I find this preface to be a helpful introduction to the reception of the Minor Prophets among early Christians. Jerome crams a lot of interesting tidbits into this brief introduction.

First, he names them the Twelve Prophets, rather than the title more traditional for Western Christians, viz., “Minor Prophets”. This is because this latter title was apparently not yet coined by the time Jerome published his translation. The earliest attestation for the designation “Minor Prophets” is found in Augustine’s City of God, book 18, published in the early to mid-420s.[4] Before Augustine, everyone called these books “The Twelve”, going back as early as Ben Sira (49:10) in the early second century BC. This is the unanimous testimony of the early Jewish and Christian canonical lists,[5] and is still the custom among Jews.

These same sources also provide testimony for the custom of counting the Twelve Prophets as one book, a matter stressed by Jerome in this preface. Again, Augustine seems to be the first writer to count the Twelve as twelve instead of as one, and his numbering system became standard in western Christianity.[6] All Christians before Augustine, and Jews up to the present day, counted the Twelve as a single book.

One thing further on this point: it is interesting that Jerome is so insistent in this preface that the Twelve count as one book, and in his translation he does not provide prologues for each prophet. In other words, he treats them as one book in his translation. However, in his commentary on the Twelve, which he would begin to publish shortly after this translation, and which would be complete in 406, he does not at all treat them as one book. There, he offers no general preface for the entire corpus, but instead writes introductions for each prophet separately. In this, he does not differ from his contemporaries or predecessors. Despite this preface, Jerome was not, after all, a forerunner of the recent scholarly attempts to read the Twelve as a single book.

The second point of interest in this preface is that Jerome points out the divergence in order of the Twelve Prophets between the Septuagint (LXX) and Jewish tradition. We are familiar with the Hebrew order, thanks to Jerome’s reliance on the Hebraica veritas (“Hebrew truth”) in his Vulgate translation of the OT. The LXX differs from it in the first half of the Twelve, giving the following order: Hosea, Amos, Micah, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah. The order for the rest of the books is identical.

It is unclear how early the internal order of the Twelve was fixed in the Hebrew tradition, though many scholars assume that Ben Sira’s reference to the twelve prophets (49:10), and most of the evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, confirms that it was fixed by the early second century BC. It is equally unclear what principles governed the arrangement of the books, though they are assembled roughly chronologically. The books that don’t fit this paradigm are Joel and Obadiah, though they do not explicitly indicate a time period and are notoriously difficult to date, so they may in fact fit this schema, at least in the mind of their ancient editor.

It is generally assumed that the LXX order was determined by the length of the books, so that Joel and Obadiah follow the longer books of Hosea, Amos, and Micah. Jonah is set by itself because it is unique in not offering prophetic oracles, but instead a story about a prophet. Why these principles were not carried through the entire corpus, but only affected the first half, is, again, unclear. The reader can judge for himself how convincing is this line of reasoning, and he is also invited to propose a better solution.

These comments on Jerome’s preface to the Twelve cover only the first sentence. Perhaps in the future I will have something to say about the rest.

[1] The translation of this preface by Kevin P. Edgecomb may be viewed at his site or here. I offer in the present post my own translation. The differences are mostly stylistic.

[2] This phrase is translated thus by A.A. Macintosh, Hosea, ICC (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1997), p. lxiv. Macintosh considers Jerome’s evaluation of Hosea’s style “entirely apposite”.

[3] This is a loose translation of Jerome’s much more complicated syntax. A more literal translation runs as follows: “But in those for which the time is not displayed in the title, they prophesied under those kings under whom also they prophesied who have titles before them.”

[4] The first sentence of ch. 29 runs as follows in the NPNF translation: “The prophecy of Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who are called the minor from the brevity of their writings, as compared with those who are called the greater prophets because they published larger volumes.”

[5] See the lists provided by H.B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek² (1914), pp. 198ff.

[6] See On Christian Doctrine 2.13 . Augustine does say that the Twelve are counted as one, but later in the same paragraph he asserts that the books of the OT total 44, a number which assumes that the Twelve count as twelve. Augustine also includes the Apocrypha, of course.

John Barton on the OT Canon

2008-01-09T15:30:00.000-06:00

John Barton’s Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile has recently been reissued after 21 years (Oxford: University Press, 2007). Though called a “New Edition” on the title page, it is new only by including a “Preface to the Second Edition” by Barton, in which he says that this is a reprint (except for errors) of the 1986 edition.

Last year also saw a special article of The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures dedicated to the reissue of the book, with contributions by Ehud Ben Zvi (as the editor), Philip R. Davies, James Kugel, Hindy Najman, and Barton himself, whose response to the other scholars here comprises the aforementioned “Preface to the Second Edition” in the book, with only minor changes.

Barton’s book is clearly important, though as he says in his new preface, it has not impacted scholarship on the reception of the prophets as much as he had hoped. It has had more influence in discussions of the canon, for which it is often cited as an early articulation of the view that the formula “The Law and the Prophets”, which appears often in literature of NT times, references the entirety of Scripture, and not just the first two sections of the Hebrew Bible, which is now divided into Law, Prophets, and Writings. In other words, the “Prophets” in this formulation constituted not just the second section of the Hebrew Bible (as it is now divided), but all non-Pentateuchal literature, including all the literature now found in the Writings (e.g. Psalms, Chronicles, etc.). Though the traditional theory of OT canon formation connects the three sections of the Hebrew Bible to three periods of canonization, with the Law canonized first, then the Prophets, then the Writings, Barton says this is anachronistic. The canon was bipartite, not tripartite, in NT times, as witnessed by the formula, “The Law and the Prophets”.

If this is so, how did it come about that the Hebrew Bible is now tripartite, as it has been at least since Talmudic times (see Baba Bathra 14b–15a)? Barton’s answer is that the creation of the third section, the Writings, is connected to the development of the liturgy (see Oracles, pp. 75–82). In synagogues today, there is regularly a public reading of the Torah, followed by a reading from the Prophets, i.e., the second division of the modern Hebrew Bible. These readings from the Prophets are called haftaroth. Barton’s suggestion for the development of the tripartite Bible is that all those books that were not included as haftaroth were relegated to the newly formed third section of the Bible, the Writings. This leaves only what we now think of as “The Prophets” (in the Hebrew Bible) in this section which formerly encompassed all non-Torah literature. Barton is able to cite (p. 78) as precedent for this view Sid Leiman’s The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture (1976; p. 168 n. 287).

But Leiman and Barton give different answers to the question: “On what basis were certain books chosen for haftaroth readings?” Leiman says that those books that tell of Jewish national history were included in the weekly readings, an explanation Barton dismisses rather easily (p. 79). Barton’s own solution is to suppose that the haftaroth readings were taken from books that were more commonly available in local synagogues, and those books that hadn’t quite established themselves as sufficiently important to possess were left aside. He writes on p. 79:

By New Testament times the scrolls of the ‘Deuteronomistic History’ and of the three great prophets and the Twelve were, we may suppose, widely known, and all synagogues would aspire to possess copies. Later books, such as Chronicles or Daniel, were becoming known but were not yet common property.

He gives a similar explanation as to why early Christians quoted so often from particular books, such as the Psalms and Isaiah. From p. 148:

The horribly simple explanation that their preference had something to do with the distribution of scrolls of these two books—worse still, that these were the only two non-Torah scrolls that happened to be in the book-cupboard of the synagogue at Nazareth or Capernaum—cannot be discounted.

I cannot now evaluate Barton’s position in full, and it may well be that the distribution of particular scrolls had something to do with the development of the haftaroth readings and with Christian preference for Isaiah and the Psalms, but I would be hesitant to say that this was a significant factor for at least two reasons.

First of all, as the second quotation from Barton above makes clear, the Psalms were widely known and used in early Judaism. Why would they not, then, be included in the haftaroth readings, if the decisive factor for inclusion in these readings was the availability of the scroll? The inadequacy of Barton’s explanation with regard to the Psalms is the more apparent since the psalms themselves are so clearly “liturgical”, and they were regarded in some ways as prophetic (see Barton, p. 40), meaning that they could legitimately stand among the Prophets, at least as legitimately as the Book of Judges.

Secondly, the evidence available for book distribution in the first century indicates that none, or very few, of the documents now in the Writings were unavailable to large numbers of Jews. David Goodblatt has recently examined the distribution of biblical scrolls in first century Judah, and has arrived at results that are startling, even to him. (See his Elements of Ancient Jewish Nationalism [2006], chapter 2: “Constructing Jewish Nationalism: The Role of Scripture,” pp. 28–48.)

Goodblatt’s evidence includes the scrolls found in the Judaean Desert (mostly in the caves around Qumran) analyzed according to the survival ratio of ancient texts. A survival ratio allows us to estimate the number of texts that would have existed in a particular time and place based on the number of texts that we now possess from that time and place. Goodblatt says that a survival ratio for first century Judah of 1:5000 (one extant text representing 5000 that did not survive) would be rather conservative. Given that we have about 900 scrolls from the Qumran library, we can estimate that tens of thousands of biblical scrolls circulated in first century Judah. “Even taking into account the fact that these copies span three centuries of production, these are still astronomical numbers” (Goodblatt, p. 45).

These results make Goodblatt somewhat uncomfortable, but not enough to dismiss them. “These extraordinary results suggest that the survival ratio we are using must be off kilter. But unless we are willing to assume that the Qumran collection constitutes a large percentage of all the scrolls in circulation in first-century Judah, as the Golb thesis might allow, then these findings suggest the existence of thousands of scrolls in the country” (p. 45).

This indicates that Barton’s proposal for the reason that certain documents were chosen for the haftaroth is inaccurate. Since every book of the current Hebrew Bible was found at Qumran (except for Esther and Nehemiah), we can estimate that thousands of copies of these books would have existed in first century Judah. To say that certain books were relegated to the Writings because they were not widely available, as Barton does, fails to take account of these data.

This is the more true if one accepts Goodblatt’s explanation for the large number of texts:

And such a large number in a small, predominantly nonliterate population would make widespread public recitation much more likely. (pp. 45–46)

The archaeological evidence from late first century (Qumran and Masada) and early second century (caves with refugees from the Bar Kokhba revolt) Judah thus suggests that biblical scrolls were fairly plentiful and widely diffused. Why were so many texts needed in an overwhelmingly nonliterate society? The most probable explanation is that many of these manuscripts, like many or most ancient books, were performance texts. (p. 47)

Goodblatt proposes that the large number of scrolls is indicative of their use in the public reading of Judaean synagogues. This is obviously the case not only for those books now included in the Prophets, but also for those now included in the Writings. If these documents really were so widely available as Goodblatt’s evidence suggests, and used in the way Goodblatt suggests, then Barton’s idea that the haftaroth were chosen based on availability is shown to be false.

This does not entail that Barton is wrong in thinking that the tripartite canon arose in connection with the liturgy, which I am inclined to accept.[*]

[*] I appreciate the comments of my colleague Michael Jackson regarding this post.

C.S. Lewis on Old Books

2008-01-03T14:14:00.000-06:00

C.S. Lewis makes his case for reading old books in his introduction to St. Athanasius on the Incarnation: The Treatise De Incarnatione Verbi Dei (London: Mowbray, 1944), 3–10. The full text of the book is available here.

His arguments are:

Old books are easier to understand than modern commentaries on those old books.
The content of old books is assumed in much modern writing, so that if you read only the modern works, you are clueless as to the basis of the work you are reading.
Since we are a product of modern times, recent books share our modern perspective, thus reinforcing our own beliefs, even wrong ones. Old books provide a corrective to this.
Regarding Christian books in particular, reading the classics allows one to see that “mere Christianity” which runs through writers of all Christian divisions.

Lewis then sings the praises of St. Athanasius, and his De Incarnatione in particular. Here follows some of his more interesting and eloquent observations. The first three passages concern the value of old books. The fourth passage continues this topic, but is interesting primarily for Lewis’ views on Christian divisions. The last passage articulates a stuggle common to earnest Christians eager to “devote” their minds to God but unable to extract any insight or emotion from “devotional” literature.

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about “isms” and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that first-hand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than second-hand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire (p. 3)

[…]

It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones (p. 4).

[…]

Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us (p. 5).

[…]

We are all rightly distressed, and ashamed also, at the divisions of Christendom. But those who have always lived within the Christian fold may be too easily dispirited by them. They are bad, but such people do not know what it looks like from without. Seen from there, what is left intact despite all the divisions, still appears (as it truly is) an immensely formidable unity. I know, for I saw it; and well our enemies know it. That unity any of us can find by going out of his own age. (p. 7).

[…]

For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that “nothing happens” when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand (p. 8).

Jerome's Prologue to the Books of Solomon

2007-12-10T10:44:00.000-06:00

Jerome completed his translation of the Books of Solomon over a three day period during the summer of 398.[1] He apologizes for not being able to fulfill the request of Bishops Cromatius and Heliodorus for commentaries on Hosea, Amos, Zechariah, and Malachi, and he blames this on a recent illness. Instead of the commentaries, he offers a translation of the three books of Solomon. He would finally complete his commentaries on the requested books in 406,[2] which year marks the completion of Jerome’s commentaries on the Minor Prophets, and his turn toward the Major Prophets.[3]

The following preface is especially interesting for the comments on the deuterocanonical books of Ecclesiasticus (a.k.a Ben Sira, a.k.a Sirach), and Wisdom of Solomon, which temper somewhat the remarks made earlier in Jerome’s preface to the Books of Kings. In that preface, he gave no indication that Jewish books outside the Jewish canon should be used by the church, but termed all these outside books “apocrypha”, thus anticipating modern Protestant use of the term. In this preface, he allows for continued use in the church of at least some of these “apocrypha”, and he explicitly names here Judith, Tobit, the books of Maccabees (presumably just the first and second books of Maccabees), Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon. (The modern Catholic canon includes all six of these books as deuterocanonicals, along with Baruch and the longer forms of Esther and Daniel.)

Jerome’s view articulated here parallels that of his bosom-buddy Rufinus (Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed 36–37), and that of the great Alexandrian bishop Athanasius (in his famed 39^th Festal Letter). Of course, these latter two Fathers did consider canonical the LXX text form of the OT books, whereas Jerome definitely favors the Hebrew text.[4] This mediating view, though, contradicts that of Cyril of Jerusalem, who leaves no room for Christian use of the deuterocanonicals (in theory, though not in practice; Catechesis 4.33–36), and also that of Augustine of Hippo, who includes all the aforementioned books in his canon with equal authority (On Christian Doctrine 2.13).

Jerome to the bishops Cromatius and Heliodorus,

Let the epistle join those whom the priesthood joins; nay indeed, let not a page divide those whom the love of Christ binds together. You request commentaries on Hosea, Amos, Zechariah, and Malachi; I would have written them if I had been healthy. You send compensation for expenses, you sustain our stenographers and scribes, so that our ablest ingenuity may sweat for you. And behold from the side a crowded and diverse mob of requesters, as if either it would be fair for me to labor for others while you are hungry, or I would be liable to others more than you in the matter of giving and receiving. Therefore, though weakened by a long illness, lest I should be silent within this year and be mute among you, I have dedicated to your name a work of three days, viz. a translation of the three volumes of Solomon: Masloth, which the Hebrews call Parables, but the common edition calls Proverbs, Coeleth, which in Greek is Ecclesiastes, and in Latin we can say Speaker, and Sirassirim, which is rendered in our language as Song of Songs.

There is also the ever-virtuous book of Jesus son of Sirach, and another which is a pseudepigraph, inscribed Wisdom of Solomon. The first of these I have found also in Hebrew, not titled Ecclesiasticus as among the Latins, but Parables; to which were joined Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, so that it equaled the resemblance of Solomon not only in the number of books, but also in the type of material. The second book is nowhere among the Hebrews, but even the very style smells of Greek eloquence; and several old writers affirm that it is from the Jew Philo. Therefore, just as the church reads Judith and Tobit and the books of the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical scriptures, so also let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogma.

If the edition of the seventy translators pleases anyone more, he has it from us previously emended; for we do not establish new things so that we might destroy the old. And also, when he reads most diligently, let him know that our things are better understood, which have not been corrupted by being poured into the third jar, but, having been entrusted to the purest jar straight from the wine-press, preserve their own flavor.

Explicit prologus.

[1] Jean Gribemont, “The Translations: Jerome and Rufinus,” in A. DiBerardino (ed.), Patrology, vol. 4 (Italian, 1978; ET Westminster, MD: Christian Classics, 1986), 195–254 (225). This is a continuation of the Patrology begun by Johannes Quasten.

[2] See Gribemont, p. 234.

[3] It is doubtful whether Jerome was familiar with this terminology. He always called the Minor Prophets “The Twelve” or similar (e.g. see his prefaces to the Twelve Prophets and to the Books of Kings). In fact, most Christian writers thought of these prophets as a group under the designation Book of the Twelve (see the canon lists cited by H.B. Swete in his An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek² [Cambridge: University Press, 1914], 203–14, or available online here). The term “Minor Prophets” is not recorded for another few years, by Jerome’s contemporary Augustine (City of God 18.29, available here), though it appears that Augustine is citing common usage.

[4] Though see his Apology against Rufinus 2.33, where he does defend his use of the LXX additions to Daniel. This is probably just a matter of politics in his heated rivalry with Rufinus. On the whole question of Jerome’s attitude toward the Hebrew text, see Adam Kamesar, Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993).

Incipit prologus Iudith

2007-10-24T10:59:00.000-05:00

St. Jerome translated the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, like Tobit, from Aramaic into Latin during the first decade of the fifth century. The following is my translation of Jerome’s preface to his version of Judith. It is based on the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate (ed. R. Weber, 4^th edition, 1994, p. 691).

Among the Hebrews the book of Judith is read among the Agiografa; whose authority is considered less suitable for the confirmation of those things that come into contention. Nevertheless, having been written in Chaldean speech, it is reckoned among the histories. But because the Nicene Synod is read to have reckoned this book in the number of holy Scriptures, I have assented to your request, nay, demand, and having set aside occupations by which I was being violently squeezed, I have given to this one a single night, translating sense for sense rather than word for word. I have eradicated the terrible variety of the many codices; only that which I could find in Chaldean words with complete comprehension did I express in Latin words.

Take up the widow Judith, an example of chastity, and with perpetual proclamations acclaim her in triumphal praise. For he has given her as a model not only to women, but also to men, and he, the rewarder of her chastity, has provided such power that she overcame the one not overcome by anyone, and conquered the unconquerable.

Explicit prologus

Incipit prologus Tobiae

2007-10-24T09:30:00.000-05:00

St. Jerome (ca. 347-420 AD) translated the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit from Aramaic into Latin during the first decade of the fifth century. Here follows my English translation of Jerome's preface to his version of Tobit. It is based on the Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate (ed. R. Weber, 4th edition, 1994, p. 676).

Jerome to Cromatius and Heliodorus, bishops, greetings in the Lord.

I do not cease to marvel at the urgency of your demand. For you demand that I bring into Latin style a book composed in Chaldean speech, namely, the book of Tobit, which the Hebrews, excising [it] from the catalogue of divine Scriptures, transfer to those which they term Agiografa. I have satisfied your desire, but not with my own enthusiasm (studium). For Hebrew studies (Hebraeorum studia) accuse us and charge us with transferring them for Latin ears contrary to their own canon. But considering (iudicans) it better to displease the opinion (iudicium) of Pharisees and to be subject to the commands of bishops, I have done as well as I can, and because the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech, finding a speaker expert in both languages, I set aside (arripui, lit. “seized”) the labor of a single day and whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, these things I related in Latin speech to the scribe that I had summoned.

I will consider your utterances (or “prayers”; orationes) the wages for this work, when I will have learned that I have completed in a manner pleasing to you what you saw fit to command.

Explicit prologus

Calvin on the 70 Weeks

2007-09-20T10:50:00.000-05:00

John Calvin (1509–1564) wrote his commentary on Daniel in 1561. It was quickly translated into English, with a second English translation by Thomas Myers published in 1853 in two volumes (Smith, n.p.). Below is a summary of Calvin’s interpretation of the seventy weeks of Daniel 9:24–27.

I should make clear that I am not a Calvin scholar. That will probably become clear by reading the postings.

The passage from Daniel in the Latin translation included with Calvin’s commentary runs thus:

(24) Septuaginta hebdomades finitae sunt super populum tuum, et super urbem tuam sanctam, ad claudendum scelus, et obsignandum peccatum, et expiandam iniquitatem, et adducendam justitiam aeternam, et obsignandam visionem, et prophetiam, et ungendum sanctum sanctorum. (25) Cognosces ergo et intelliges, ab exitu verbi de reditu, et de aedificanda Jerosolyma usque ad Christum ducem hebdomadas septem, et hebdomadas sexaginta duas, et reducetur, et re-aedificabitur platea, et murus, idque in angustia temporum. (26) Et post hebdomadas sexaginta duas excidetur Christus, et nihil erit, et urbem et sanctuarium perdet populus ducis venientis, et finis ejus cum inundatione erit, vel, in diluvio, et ad finem belli definitio desolationum. (27) Et roborabit foedus multis, hebdomade una : et dimidia hebdomade quiescere faciet sacrificium, et oblationem : et super extensionem abominationum obstupescet, et ad finem, et ad determinationem stillabit super stupentem.

This paragraph comes at the end of a chapter in which Daniel has prayed to God on behalf of his people, after having read the words of Jeremiah about the exile. The reference is to Jeremiah’s prophecy of the 70 years that Israel would be exiled from their own land by the Babylonians: “This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years” (Jer. 25:11). The text says that Daniel, who himself was one of these exiles, had read this passage and discerned that the 70-year period was nearing completion (Dan. 9:2). He, therefore, called on God to forgive his people and restore them to their land. In response, God sent to Daniel an angel with a message about a 70-week period (9:24–27).

Calvin’s comments on this passage appear in the second volume of Myers’ translation, pp. 195–231. They occupy parts of four separate lectures, numbers 49–52. Calvin relies explicitly on St. Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, and he seems to access patristic interpretation largely through Jerome, who made it his habit to survey opinion, sometimes without even giving his own. Calvin also tries to interact with, and mostly refute, contemporary Jewish opinion, especially as represented by, to use Calvin’s expression, “that impure and obstinate Rabbi, Barbinel” (p. 206). Calvin mostly comments on the Latin, but does consult the Hebrew and even cites some Hebrew words in Hebrew characters (see especially the beginning of lecture 52, pp. 225–31). I don’t know anything about how proficient Calvin was at Hebrew, but Blacketer’s new book on Calvin’s OT exegesis should provide some help, especially page 11.

This post is the first in a series that will give the gist of what Calvin says about the 70 weeks. For now, I will cover the latter part of lecture 49, with references to the page numbers of the second volume of Myers’ translation. Of course, like most Christian interpreters throughout history, Calvin understands the 70 weeks to be a true prophecy about an actual chronological period that would follow the time of the prophet.

Calvin first encounters our passage at the middle of his 49^th lecture, and spends his time here refuting Jewish opinion (pp. 195–202). He points to Lev. 25:8 to justify his taking these “weeks” as “weeks of years,” and admits that the Jews do likewise, counting a total of 490 years (pp. 196–97). Why does Daniel not say 490 years, but rather 70 weeks? He wanted to draw an analogy with Jeremiah’s prophecy. “The Prophet’s language must be interpreted as follows,--Sorrowful darkness has brooded over you for seventy years, but God will now follow up this period by one of favour of sevenfold duration, because by lightening your cares and moderating your sorrows, he will not cease to prove himself propitious to you even to the advent of Christ” (p. 200).

He says that the Jews view the 70 weeks as a period of God’s wrath, which is completely wrong, according to Calvin, since it is instead a period of consolation following upon the 70-year long exile. Calvin further alleges that the Jews count the 70 weeks from the destruction of the first temple to the destruction of the second temple. “The Jews again include the years which occurred from the ruin of the former Temple to the advent of Christ, and the final overthrow of their city” (p. 197). This is easy to refute, since, as Calvin says, this time period exceeds 600 years.

In my next post, I will look at lecture 50, where Calvin really begins to deal with the chronology of the 70 weeks.

Works Cited

Calvin, John, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, 1561, trans. Thomas Myers, 2 vols. (1853; reprint: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948).

Smith, Wilbur M., “Introduction,” in John Calvin, Commentaries on the Book of the Prophet Daniel, trans. Thomas Myers (reprint: Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948), vol. 1, n.p.

Blacketer, Raymond A., The School of God: Pedagogy and Rhetoric in Calvin's Interpretation of Deuteronomy, Studies in Early Modern Religious Reforms (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2006).

Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, trans. Gleason L. Archer, Jr. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1958).

New Blog

2007-09-20T10:47:00.000-05:00

I have created a new blog, as you can see. Hopefully I will start posting on it.