Harpalus, An Unfaithful Servant

Alexander the Great had a courtier named Harpalus, whose story is told by various ancient authors. Here is the account in the first-century BC historian Diodorus Siculus (17.108.4–6; LCL edition, pp. 435–37)

Harpalus had been given the custody of the treasury in Babylon and of the revenues which accrued to it, but as soon as the king had carried his campaign into India, he assumed that Alexander would never come back, and gave himself up to comfortable living. Although he had been charged as satrap with the administration of a great country, he first occupied himself with the abuse of women and illegitimate amours with the natives and squandered much of the treasure under his control on incontinent pleasure. He fetched all the long way from the Red Sea a great quantity of fish and introduced an extravagant way of life, so that he came under general criticism. Later, moreover, he sent and brought from Athens the most dazzling courtesan of the day, whose name was Pythonicê. As long as she lived he gave her gifts worthy of a queen, and when she died, he gave her a magnificent funeral and erected over her grave a costly monument of the Attic type. 

After that, he brought out a second Attic courtesan named Glycera and kept her in exceeding luxury, providing her with a way of life which was fantastically expensive. At the same time, with an eye on the uncertainties of fortune, he established himself a place of refuge by benefactions to the Athenians. 

When Alexander did come back from India and put to death many of the satraps who had been charged with neglect of duty, Harpalus became alarmed at the punishment which might befall him. He packed up five thousand talents of silver, enrolled six thousand mercenaries, departed from Asia and sailed across to Attica. 

Diodorus continues the story just a bit longer, showing that Harpalus found himself unwelcome and, pretty soon,  murdered.

This story reminded me of the Parable of the Unfaithful Servant, told in Matthew 24:45–51.

But if that wicked slave says to himself, “My master is delayed,” and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 24:48–51; cf. Luke 12:35–48)

I have long found that last bit of Jesus’ parable to be sort of incredible. Would a master really punish a slave in that way? After reading some ancient histories of Alexander, I am less surprised by the master’s treatment of his slave. Alexander could deal harshly with any hint of insubordination, as you can tell from the passage above about Harpalus, who got scared because Alexander was executing insubordinate servants. I don’t recall a story in which Alexander cut anyone up in little pieces (as in Jesus’ parable), but there are some gruesome things in ancient histories, so while Jesus might be exaggerating for effect (hyperbole), he wasn’t exaggerating much.

The Stilling of the Storm and OT Resonances

Yesterday morning I sat in a Bible class that covered the stilling of the storm pericope from Mark 4:35–41, and it got me thinking about the OT echoes in the story. Of course, I was thinking about this because I recently read Richard Hays' Reading Backwards (as I've mentioned before). As I thought about the story of a person asleep during a raging storm at sea, the narrative of Jonah popped into my head as obviously relevant. I couldn't remember that Hays had mentioned this, and I can now confirm that Jonah does not appear in the index. Hays' discussion of this episode in Mark appears on pp. 22–23, where he emphasizes Psa 107:23–32 as the most prominent echo. In his n. 13 on p. 117, he also mentions Job 26:10–12; 38:8–11; Psa 65:7; 89:9; 104:5–9; 106:8–12; Isa 51:9–11. So, no mention of Jonah, though I wouldn't want to dispute that Hays has correctly identified the most prominent echoes. It does seem to me, however, that the Markan author could have had Jonah in mind--just in terms of the person with the power to end the storm instead sleeping through it, though Jonah's power over the wind and waves is of a much different nature than that of Jesus. Of course, the stories end very differently, but even that might support Hays' overall point (the demonstration of the divine identity of Jesus in the Gospels). In the Jonah story, God obviously controls the wind and waves; Mark shows that Jesus has this authority.

Maybe there's something there. 

Jesus' Literacy and Piano Lessons

I started reading Chris Keith's Jesus' Literacy last week, finally, and I haven't been able to put it down. It is a wonderful piece of scholarship, and a real page-turner. (Apparently it hasn't been reviewed at RBL. Nor any of Chris Keith's books. Peculiar.)

I've only gotten through ch. 3, about 120 pages, so I'm not done yet. Upcoming chapters include an evaluation of the early Christian traditions about Jesus' literacy (ch. 4) and a historical reconstruction of Jesus' literate abilities (ch. 5). Previous chapters have explored the confusion in scholarship on whether Jesus was literate or illiterate (ch. 1)--here I really appreciated Keith's pointing out that for some scholars, Jesus was literate because he was a first-century Jew, meaning that he obviously learned to read the Torah, and for other scholars Jesus was illiterate because he was a first-century Jew, and a peasant to boot, meaning that he was just one of the illiterate masses--and a consideration of method in historical Jesus studies, entailing for Keith a rejection of the criteria of authenticity and an appreciation of social memory for the preservation of traditions about Jesus (ch. 2). I'm not a historical Jesus scholar, but what Keith has written here makes a great deal of sense to me, and it coheres with a larger trend in historical Jesus studies, as Keith points out, that began decades ago.

But the main reason I wanted to read this book was ch. 3, on scribal literacy in first-century Palestine, what that meant and who possessed it. This 50-page chapter is an excellent overview of the evidence and evaluation of that evidence. Keith affirms William Harris' suggestion that only about 10% of ancient people attained a significant degree of literacy. Some scholars argue that ancient Jews possessed unusually high literacy rates. Keith surveys the evidence put forward for this assertion and convincingly interprets it in different ways.

One of the main problems with thinking about ancient literacy is that all scholars who examine the matter grew up themselves in a society in which literacy is assumed for every adult. We assume literacy in the modern west because we assume literacy in the modern west--that is, we have an ideology according to which every person should be able to read and write. Employers demand literate workers. We communicate with each other through writing all the time. And we spend massive amounts of money on public education to make sure that no child is left behind, that everyone learns how to read. And if a person gets to teenage years without being a strong reader, we almost interpret that fact as evidence of societal sin.

But this entire ideology was lacking in antiquity, as Harris showed twenty-five years ago. First of all, there was a lack of a public educational system that instilled in all people the ability to read. Such a system has always been necessary to engender mass literacy, as Keith emphasizes (73–74). Furthermore, there was a lack of diffusion of written texts, lack of ideology that each person should be able to read, and lack of demand for a literate workforce (74n10, citing Harris).

I was reading this chapter while attending a piano competition. (It was an all-day event, and I paid attention when my daughters were playing! But when other kids were up, I read. :) And it got me thinking that perhaps playing the piano (or any musical instrument) might be a good modern analogy to ancient literacy. In the modern west, playing the piano is a highly prized skill that very few people acquire to any significant level. A good number of people learn some very basic things about the piano, and some do so without any formal education, but very few people learn enough about the piano to be able to perform in front of a paying audience. Likewise, in antiquity, very few people could read well enough to read in front of people (such as in synagogue).

Why this lack of knowledge of piano? Because not many people have studied it, and the reason for that is that our society has not deemed knowledge of piano to be such a universally valuable skill that everyone should acquire it (despite studies about its many benefits). So, there is not public education that assures that no child will be left behind in piano knowledge. There is no ideology that each individual should learn the piano. While there is plenty of sheet music around, there are fewer people that can do anything with it. And there is hardly any need for a piano-playing workforce.

That's not to say that when we meet someone who can play piano really well that we are not impressed, and wish that we also could do the same. We recognize it as a coveted skill. And yet, we think to ourselves, we have neither the time or (in some cases) the money to hire a personal tutor to train us in the skill. And we recognize that learning to play the piano well takes a lot of time, many years of constant practice.

There are varying levels of skill at playing piano. If you asked my oldest daughter (age 11) if she can play the piano, she will tell you that she can play some pieces, but not super complicated pieces. But neither can she read super complicated books (though if you asked whether she can read, her reply would be a simple yes). So also in antiquity, as Keith and others have demonstrated, there were varying levels of literacy. Actually this point should be so obvious that it hardly needs proof. Even today there are varying levels of literacy. When my son (age 6) finishes his beginning reading book, we wont say that he now knows how to read and be done with it. Learning to read well is a skill that takes many years of special training. Each school grade has special classes designed to help children progress in their ability to read. But once a person graduates high school, that does not signal that he or she can now read a book such as Keith's Jesus' Literacy. It would take several more years of specialized study to gain the competence to understand Keith's prose. (Keith uses something close to this analogy on p. 120.) For a complicated piano piece, my daughter would be able to identify the individual notes, but she would have trouble putting them together into a comprehensive whole. So also with complicated books. Reading the individual words does not entail comprehension.

The high respect that some people have today for classical music, or other types of music (folk, country, rock, rap, etc.) does not necessarily imply that they will learn to produce such music. If you love Mozart, that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to learn to play Mozart's music on the piano. More likely, you'll just pop in a CD and listen to someone else playing Mozart. (Am I dating myself with a reference to a CD?) So also with ancient Jews, their respect for the Torah does not necessarily imply that they would learn how to read it (despite frequent arguments to the contrary). Going to a symphony concert does not impart the skill of playing the music. (Neither does going to a restaurant impart the skill of cooking, nor going to a synagogue impart the skill of reading.) Even parents who can play the piano often feel they do not have the time to teach their children, or they may even think the skill is not valuable enough to their children to compensate for the hard work on both of their parts necessary for the parent to teach the child.

What would happen today if somehow you got a hold of a piece of sheet music that you needed to read? If you can't read music, you would take it to someone who does and see if they can play it for you. So also with ancient texts. But mostly not knowing how to play the piano does not affect you negatively, aside from the occasional wish that you could. It just doesn't come up very often in our society.

If archaeologists in 2000 years dig up a lot of sheet music from early 21st century America, some of them may conclude that playing the piano was a nearly universal skill. Of course, that would be the wrong interpretation.

Perhaps the analogy could be taken further, but I guess that's enough to make the point. I think this might be a useful pedagogical approach to exploring the lack of literacy in ancient societies.

Article on "The Blood from Abel to Zechariah"

Earlier this week I received notice of the electronic publication of my article in New Testament Studies about the "blood from Abel to Zechariah" (Matt 23:35; cf. Luke 11:51) in the history of interpretation. This is an issue I started researching a few years ago because of a student's question. Since a popular interpretation of this saying of Jesus is that it refers to the borders of the Hebrew Bible (Genesis and 2Chronicles), it has relevance for many of the issues I discuss on this blog. My article is not so much an examination of the saying itself--in my view, H.G.L. Peels effectively rebutted the common interpretation more than a decade ago--but rather I trace the history of interpretation of the verse, trying to determine when the interpretation arose linking it to the Jewish canon.

You can read it here, and here's the abstract:

The saying in the Gospels about the blood ‘from Abel to Zechariah’ has generated a number of theories regarding the identity of Zechariah and why Jesus specifically mentions these two martyrs. While a prominent interpretation today regards the names as pointing to the bookends of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek and Latin Fathers had their own peculiar ways of solving the exegetical puzzles connected to the saying. It seems that the invention of the printing press, and the stable sequence of books it created, exerted an influence on the development of the popular modern view.

Craig Evans on Literacy in the Greco-Roman World

I've been reading through Craig Evans' Jesus and His World: The Archaeological Evidence (WJK, 2012), which I have thought about requiring for a class I'm teaching on the Gospels. It's a pretty good, pretty basic survey of evidence organized according to a few different themes. So far, I have read chapters on Sepphoris (ch. 1), synagogues (ch. 2), and ancient books (ch. 3). There is also a preface that talks some about doing archaeology generally and evidence for the existence of Jesus. Still to come for me are chapters on the Temple and its leadership (ch. 4) and Jewish burial traditions (ch. 5). There are also some appendices: one on the so-called family tomb of Jesus, one on what Jesus may have looked like, and one containing discussion questions.

Just a few comments about the book as a whole before I get to ancient literacy. The chapters are very narrowly focused. The chapter on Sepphoris seeks to demonstrate that it's a Jewish city more than a Greek city; the chapter on synagogues doesn't really explore much about what synagogues were used for (a little of this) or how, but whether synagogues existed as such before 70 CE; the chapter on books is really just concerned with ancient literacy rates to help us determine the probability of whether Jesus could read. In this way, the book so far (again, I've only read the first three chapters) seems strangely apologetic and not entirely helpful as a survey of how archaeological research can illuminate the world of Jesus. 

Now to the third chapter. As I mentioned, the driving question here is, "Could Jesus read?" Evans answers--in his usual scholarly but positive way--that the evidence indicates that this is likely. He deals with this question directly only at the end of the chapter (pp. 80-88), and I think he makes a pretty good case. He mentions a few Gospels passages (Luke 4:16-30; John 8:6; John 7:15)--noting, of course, the problems of interpreting some of this evidence--and evidence for literacy more broadly (nature of the Jewish faith, Philo and Josephus, 4Mac. 18, rabbinic lit.) before highlighting the general character of Jesus as narrated in the Gospels: respected as a rabbi, having disciples, challenging his opponents on their "reading" of scripture (Mark 2:25; 12:10; 12:26; Luke 10:26).

This is all fine, but it's the evidence presented earlier in the chapter (pp. 63-75) for widespread literacy in antiquity, and in ancient Judaism particularly, that has me wondering whether it really shows what Evans supposes. Well, actually, I'm not really sure if he's arguing for widespread literacy or not. He says:

Most agree that literacy rates were somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent (and that most of the literate were male), with perhaps somewhat higher rates among the Jewish people. I do not dispute this conclusion. (p. 66)

But he also says that the Vindolanda tablets "provide dramatic evidence of widespread literacy in the Roman army" (p. 69), and that the Palatine Graffito serves as "one more indication that literacy was fairly widespread and included persons from all walks of life" (p. 73), and that "[n]otwithstanding his uncritical use of rabbinical sources, [Shmuel] Safrai's conclusion that literacy was widespread among Jews may be more correct than not" (p. 84). Also, the blurb from Dale Allison on the back of the book indicates that Allison also took Evans' argument to be that literacy was widespread. I guess it all depends on what we mean by "widespread" literacy. Immediately after the statement I quoted above from p. 66, Evans writes: "if most of the literate were males, then among men literacy rates would be somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent." Maybe Evans would classify 10-20% male literacy rate as "widespread" literacy.

Whatever Evans means by "widespread," in the next post I'll comment on some of the evidence he cites to establish the case for this widespread literacy in antiquity.

And he was with the wild beasts...

Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness. And He was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and He was with the wild beasts, and the angels were ministering to Him. (Mark 1:12-13)

Why does Mark give us this little detail about the wild beasts? Matthew (ch. 4) and Luke (ch. 4) both omit the phrase in their own accounts of the temptation narrative.

Is Mark emphasizing the loneliness of Jesus--"no one was around except for the animals"? Maybe.

I wonder if Mark has Isaiah 11 in mind. The vision in that chapter is one of universal peace, even between man and animals, at the time that the root from Jesse appears. Or even if not this precise chapter, maybe Mark is thinking of this theme of universal peace, which is a feature of other eschatological passages (Hos. 2:18). Jesus in the wilderness, even while he's being tempted by Satan, experiences a foretaste of the messianic peace that his own ministry will usher in.

Jesus Eats with Pharisees

On Sunday mornings I've been teaching a church class about the way the Gospels present the life of Jesus. Over the past couple weeks, we've been exploring his conflicts with the Jewish religious leadership during his ministry. I've made a couple of discoveries that I thought worthy of sharing--though, as I've said many times, I'm not an NT scholar and so these points are probably well-known among those who research such things.

As far as I can tell, the conflicts between Jesus and the Pharisees et al. began, at least according to the Synoptics, with the healing of the paralytic carried by his four friends (Mark 2 / Matt. 9 / Luke 5). Actually, it wasn't the healing that caused problems so much as the offer of forgiveness of sins, which was the first thing Jesus said to this paralytic--"Son, your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5). As soon as they heard that, the scribes (Mark 2:6 / Matt. 9:3) and the Pharisees and teachers of the law (Luke 5:17) began to question how this man could claim to do something only God could do (Mark 2:7).

In all three Synoptics (I leave John aside for now) this story is presented as the initial point of conflict between Jesus and the Jewish religious leadership. Certainly in Mark, nothing happens before this that could remotely be classified as a controversy with religious leaders. But that's not too surprising since only one chapter of Mark comes before this episode. Matthew relates the story at the beginning of ch. 9, so there is much more potential that I'm overlooking something in the first eight chapters, but again I find no controversy. Luke puts the story half-way through ch. 5. Before this point, Luke does relate some trouble that Jesus experienced in a synagogue in Nazareth, and this very possibly involved some 'religious leaders', but in fact none are referenced, and Luke speaks only of 'all in the synagogue' as being filled with rage and wanting to kill Jesus (4:28-29). So, it seems that in all three Synoptics Jesus' offer of forgiveness to the paralytic is to be seen as the instigation of conflict between Jesus and the religious leadership.

[The episode of this paralytic is located at the home of Jesus in Capernaum, where a crowd of people--Pharisees and scribes among them--gathered to hear Jesus teach. One wonders what the Evangelists intend for us to think about why the scribes and Pharisees joined the others in Jesus' home. Were they at this time excited by the prospect of the kingdom of God coming through this one about whom such great things had already been reported as we read about in Mark 1?]

Now, I've been using this class at church as an excuse finally to read N. T. Wright's Jesus and the Victory of God (Fortress, 1996). In the ninth chapter of this book, Wright identifies four major symbols of Judaism--sabbath, food/purity, circumcision, and Temple--and he points out that three of these (not circumcision) featured prominently in controversies between Jesus and the Pharisees (p. 393). The first dispute--about the forgiveness extended to the paralytic--could be interpreted as a response to the symbol of the Temple, where forgiveness of sin was supposed to be offered by God (cf. Mark 2:7--where does God forgive sins?). The Sabbath controversy in Mark is especially prominent in two stories (2:23-28; 3:1-6), and the food/purity laws become the focal point in Mark 7:1-23.

Now, my second discovery. Luke alone among the Synoptics--as far as I can tell--relates three episodes in which Jesus has a meal with Pharisees. Luke 7:37-50 finds Jesus instructing Simon the Pharisee on the relationship between love and forgiveness after a 'sinful' woman wet Jesus' feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. At that time Jesus offered forgiveness to this woman, prompting those with him to ask, "Who is this who even forgives sins?" Thus, this particular meal parallels the controversy surrounding Jesus' offer of forgiveness to the paralytic, which could be interpreted in relation to the symbol of the Temple.

The second meal Jesus takes with a Pharisee in Luke is in 11:37-54. Jesus did not ceremonially wash before the meal, leading to a controversy over the relevance of these purity customs. Thus, this meal corresponds to the episode in Mark 7 (which finds no parallel in Luke).

The third meal is in Luke 14 on the Sabbath. Jesus heals a fellow and thus stirs trouble, corresponding to the other Sabbath controversies related in Mark 2-3.

So, the three meals that Jesus has with Pharisees in Luke each highlights a particular controversy Jesus had with the Pharisees in relation to three symbols of Judaism: Sabbath, Temple, and Purity. These controversies are related in Mark, Matthew, and sometimes Luke in other stories, but they are also concentrated in these meal accounts in Luke.