Volume 23 number 1 September 2013 CONTENTS
ATAR LIVNEH
Not at First Sight:
Gender Love in Jubilees 3-20 DAVID A. DESILVA
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs as Witnesses to Pre-Christian Judaism:
A Re-Assessment 21-68
FRANCIS M.MACATANGAY
Acts of Charity as Acts of Remembrance
in the Book of Tobit 69-84
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Volume 23 number 3 March 2014 CONTENTS
RALPH LEE
The Ethiopic ‘AndΩmta’ Commentary on Ethiopic Enoch 2
(1 Enoch 6–9) 179-200
ARIEL FELDMAN
Moses’ Farewell Address according to 1QWords
of Moses (1Q22) 201-214
ARYE EDREI AND DORON MENDELS
Preliminary Thoughts on Structures of ‘Sovereignty’ and the Deepening Gap between Judaism and Christianity
in the First Centuries CE 215-238
SHIFRA SZNOL
Traces of the Targum Sources in Greek Bible Translations
in the Hebrew Alphabet 239-256
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Volume 23 number 4 June 2014 CONTENTS
ILARIA L.E.RAMELLI
A Pseudepigraphon Inside a Pseudepigraphon? The Seneca–Paul Correspondence
and the Letters Added Afterwards 259-289
CHRISTFRIED BÖTTRICH
Apocalyptic Tradition and Mystical Prayer
in the Ladder of Jacob 290-306 CHRIS H.KNIGHTS
The Rechabites Revisited:
The History of the Rechabites Twenty-Five Years On 307-320
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© The Author(s), 2013. Reprints and Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/JournalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0951820713502410
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Not at First Sight:
Gender Love in Jubilees
ATAR LIVNEH
Department of Bible, Archeology, and Ancient Near Eastern Studies,
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 8410501, Israel
Abstract
This article examines the theme of love in Jubilees, suggesting that the author distin-guishes between two types of love: ‘eye-appeal’ and ‘moral-appeal’—that is, that based on a person’s attributes as expressed through ethical conduct. The ¿rst consists of a three-stage cause and effect process in which a person’s outward appearance elicits erotic feelings that frequently lead to transgression of the law. In systematically depicting this sin as a violation of a recorded authoritative instruction Jubilees high-lights the gravity of love/desire kindled by eyesight, which threatens the social order. In contrast, love based on moral-appeal is depicted as Àourishing within the marriage bond and grounding familial harmony. The scheme is exempli¿ed in the Jubilean reworking of the Jacob–Rachel–Leah triad and Reuben’s relation with Bilhah, together with other references to love introduced by the Jubilean author.
Keywords:Jubilees, love, eye-appeal, virtuous wife, family relations, gender.
1. Introduction
The study of the ‘rewritten Bible’ texts discovered at Qumran has become a burgeoning ¿eld within academia over the last twenty years (cf. Falk 2007; White Crawford 2008; Zahn 2011). Among the texts
falling in this category, Jubilees—represented by 14 Hebrew manu-scripts found at Qumran as well as a complete version in Ge!ez—has drawn a signi¿cant measure of scholarly attention.1 Despite the fact
that the theme of ‘brotherly love’ has been investigated in depth (cf. Albeck 1930: 45-46; Doran 1989: 5-11; Lambert 2004: 88-91, 99-101; Livneh 2011; van Ruiten 2012: 263-69), other aspects of ‘love’ (fqr) have remained largely unexamined.2 The following comments
regard-ing the love between men and women in Jubilees are presented as a modest contribution to the discussion of the meaning(s) attributed to the phenomenon by the author and the ideology they reÀect.3
Before turning to a detailed analysis of the relevant passages, a few general remarks are in order. Firstly, while Jubilees—like its primary biblical source—only makes occasional reference to love between men and women,its ‘love stories’ frequently differ quite substantially from the Pentateuchal narratives.Thus, for example, Jubilees passes over Isaac’s love for Rebecca in silence, likewise omitting any men-tion of Shechem’s love for Dinah. Conversely, it states that Reuben ‘loved’ Bilhah (Jub. 33.2) and that Potiphar’s wife ‘loved’ Joseph (Jub. 39.5). Likewise, while the pseudepigraphic author follows Genesis in depicting Jacob’s love for Rachel, he also portrays Jacob as ‘loving’ Leah (Jub. 28.1–32.24; 36.21-24).
1. In addition to the Ge!ez, a Latin translation of a substantial number of verses from Jubilees has also survived, together with citations—or close parallels—from Jubilees embedded in the Greek and Syriac editions. For a detailed discussion of the various versions of Jubilees, together with an English translation, see VanderKam 1989. For its date and provenance, see VanderKam 1997: 3-24. Cf. also the recent bibliographies to Jubilees in Oliver and Bachman 2009: 123-64 and Bachman and Oliver 2009: 441-68.
2. While 3"9 occurs 16 times in Genesis–Exodus, fqr (‘to love’) is employed 57 times in Jubilees. (No concordance for Jubilees exists for Ge!ez, the statistical data are derived from a manual count of the occurrences of fqr in VanderKam’s critical edition [1989, I].) The equivalence between fqr and 3"9 is apparent from 4Q223– 224 2 ii 5, 18, 22 (= Jub. 35.13, 20, 22 respectively)—fqr also regularly rendering 3"9 in the Ge!ez translation of Genesis. As VanderKam notes (1977: 91-95), the Ge!ez translation of Jubilees closely reflects the Hebrew original. Although Grossman (2009) notes the centrality of ‘love’ in Jubilees, she does not examine all the occur-rences of the term and/or determine its meaning(s).
3. While Halpern-Amaru (1999) does not discuss gender love directly, she provides important insights into the Jubilean ‘love stories’.
The Jubilean narratives imply that love derives either from the visual appearance of the ‘beloved’—thus bearing a sexual signi¿ca-tion—or is a result of his/her moral conduct.4 The three ‘love stories’
which fall into the ¿rst category involve a man and a woman with whom—according to Jubilees—the former is legally prohibited from having relations. The ‘eyeing’ of a wo/man and the ‘love’ this act elicits thus lead to transgression against the cardinal laws regulating illicit marriage/sexual relations. In contrast, Jacob’s love for Leah— which develops after their marriage and is due to her ‘perfect ways’— is intimately linked to Leah’s and Jacob’s performance of familial duties and maintenance of familial harmony. Thus, while ‘eye-appeal’ love based on outward appearance threatens the socio-legal order, ‘moral-appeal’ love deriving from a wife’s righteous behavior fosters a well-ordered society.5
Let me begin by examining those Jubilean texts which exemplify ‘eye-appeal’ love, after which I shall discuss Jubilee’s depiction of Jacob’s love for Leah.
2. Love Based on Outward Appearance
This group of texts contains three instances of love: Jacob’s love for Rachel, Reuben’s love for Bilhah, and Potiphar’s wife’s love for Joseph (Loader 2007: 201).6
2.1. Jacob’s Love for Rachel (Jubilees 28.1–32.34)
The Jubilean account of Jacob, Rachel, and Leah begins long before Jacob encounters the two sisters.7 While Rebecca and Isaac perceive 4. As in the Hebrew Bible, ‘love’ thus carries a wide range of meanings in Jubilees. For a discussion of 3"9 and related roots expressing love/sexual desire between a man and a woman in the Hebrew Bible, see TDOT, I: 99-118 and Brenner 1997: 8-30.
5. ‘The physicality and emotional intensity of the love in Jubilees has a destabi-lizing potential’ (Grossman 2009: 94-95). For the way in which the social context determines whether love bears a positive or negative valence in the Hebrew Bible, see Blyth 2008: 8-10.
6. Both Loader (2007: 201) and Halpern-Amaru (1999: 110-11) also note that the Jubilean author adduces the element of ‘love’ in his reworking of the stories of Reuben and Joseph precisely before sexual relations are about to take place.
7. For detailed studies of this narrative, see Endres 1987: 73-77, 100-11; Halpern-Amaru 1999: 42-46, 64-73, 90-102; and Loader 2007: 262-73.
Jacob’s journey to Haran as an appropriate solution to Jacob’s bachelorhood (Jub. 25.3; 27.8-11; cf. Gen. 27.46–28.9)—in line with the Genesis narrative—the Jubilean author presents it as a plan conceived by Jacob ¿ve years prior to his stealing of the birthright:
Mother, I am now nine weeks of years [= 63 years] and have known no woman. I have neither touched (one) nor have I even considered marrying any women [sic] of all the descendants of Canaan’s daughters. For I recall, mother, what our father Abraham ordered me—that I should not marry anyone from all the descendants of Canaan’s house. For I will marry (someone) from the descendants of my father’s house and from my family. Earlier I heard, mother, that daughters had been born to your brother Laban. I have set my mind on them for the purpose of marrying one of them. (Jub. 25.4-6)8
This extra-biblical passage, which introduces the theme of Jacob’s marriage to Laban’s daughters, emphasizes the importance of endogamy—an idea that informs the Jacob–Leah–Rachel narrative.9
The latter text states that Jacob ‘set out on foot and came to the eastern land, to Laban, Rebecca’s brother. He remained with him and served him in exchange for his daughter Rachel for one week’ (Jub. 28.1; cf. Gen. 29.1-20). Jubilees omits the scene by the well when Jacob lays his eyes on—and opens his mouth to—an unfamiliar lass.10 At this
juncture of the Jubilean story, Jacob thus appears to be guided by legal considerations rather than love/desire (Halpern-Amaru 1999: 42), going directly to Laban’s house and arranging a marriage contract— seven years of service in exchange for Rachel. Without explaining why Jacob—who undertakes the long journey in order to marry one of Laban’s daughters—chooses Rachel, the Jubilean story then proceeds to the consummation of the marriage at the end of the seven years.
8. Unless otherwise is noted, English citations from Jubilees follow VanderKam (1989). Scriptural quotations are taken from the NJPS.
9. This accentuates a notion highlighted in Gen. 29 itself, of course. For the central place of endogamy in Jubilees, see Jub. 20.4; 22.16-20, 30; 34.20-21 (Werman 1997; Hayes 2002: 68-91).
10. This elision corresponds to the earlier Jubilean portrait of Jacob as refraining from touching any woman possibly legally prohibited to him. Jacob’s avoidance of illicit sexual relations in order to obey the law echoes Joseph’s conduct (Jub. 39.1-11; cf. Gen. 39.9-19): see Section 2.3 below. Endres (1987: 100) notes that Jubilees also omits other betrothal scenes by the well (see Gen. 24; Exod. 2.15-22) that suggest that Isaac’s and Moses’ marriages (in Moses’ case to a Midianite, no less) are the result of ‘eyeing’ women, thereby adducing legal considerations—and endogamy in particular—as the primary criteria for wedlock; see also below.
Ignoring the notation that the seven years seemed to Jacob ‘but a few days because of his love’ (cf. Gen. 29.20), it proceeds to describe Jacob’s asking for the wife for whom he has served—subsequently noting that Laban took ‘his older daughter Leah’ and gave her ‘to Jacob as a wife’ (Jub. 28.3).11
As in Genesis, after ‘coming in’ to his bride, Jacob discovers her identity and objects to the subterfuge (Jub. 28.4; cf. Gen. 29.25). Only at this juncture does the narrator ¿nally reveal why Jacob had speci¿cally requested Rachel: ‘For Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah because Leah’s eyes were weak, though her ¿gure was very lovely; but Rachel’s eyes were beautiful, her ¿gure was lovely, and she was very pretty’ (Jub. 28.5).12 This passage conjoins Gen.
29.17-18a—‘Leah had weak eyes; Rachel was shapely and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel’—with Gen. 29.30: ‘He loved Rachel more than Leah’—albeit altering some of the details.13
The Jubilean expansion explains that the sisters’ beauty is a matter not of contrast but of degree: both Leah and Rachel possess lovely ¿gures—but Rachel is more beautiful.14 The Jubilean author also
explicitly correlates the degree of the sisters’ ‘good looks’ with the measure of Jacob’s love: ‘For Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah
because Leah’s eyes were weak…’ (my italics). Hereby, he reinforces
the idea of ‘eye appeal’ as arousing the love/desire implied in the biblical story (Gen. 29.17-18).15 The link between eyesight and love is
further stressed by the expansion of the motif of Leah’s ‘weak eyes’
11. Gregory’s (2008: 104) statement that ‘… the author of Jubilees never seems to undermine the biblical motif of Jacob’s intense love for Rachel’ is therefore inaccu-rate. The second section of Jacob’s demand—‘…that I may cohabit with her’ (Gen. 29.21)—is omitted in the Jubilean retelling, in accord with the earlier portrayal of Jacob as modest (cf. Gen. R. 70.18) (Rothstein 2007: 100).
12. ‘Weak eyes’ renders the Hebrew phrase EH<C )J?J . Cf. LXX Gen. 29.17
(Endres 1987: 102; Kugel1998: 380-38, 391).
13. Following Endres (1987: 102-103) and contra Halpern-Amaru’s claim (1999: 46) that the Jubilean reworking does not retain the words ‘he loved Rachel more than Leah’ (Gen. 29.30).
14. The fact that both possess a ‘lovely ¿gure’ forms one of the details creating an analogy between them in the reworked story: see Halpern-Amaru 1999: 44, 66-73, and Section 3 below.
15. Cf. the explicit casual connection between Rachel’s beauty and Jacob’s love in Josephus’ retelling of the scene (Ant. 1.288). Notably, the latter repeatedly signi¿es Jacob’s love to Rachel by the term FSXUJ, thus expressing its sexual connotation (Feldman 2000: 111 n. 846).
(EH<C )J?J ) by way of contrast. In explaining that Jacob’s love was aroused by Rachel’s beautiful eyes, the Jubilean author suggests that the eyes of both the love-subject and the love-object play a role in the kindling of love.16
While in the Hebrew Bible the notation of Rachel’s beauty and Jacob’s consequent love precedes the marriage contract, the Jubilean storytelling narrates the arrangement and ful¿llment of Jacob’s mar-riage ¿rst (Endres 1987: 100; Halpern-Amaru 1999: 43-44). In this way, all mention of ‘eyesight’ and ‘love’ is delayed until the author has safely married the patriarch to an appropriate woman from his extended family. ‘Eye-appeal’ and ‘love’ affairs are—quite literally— put second.
While this reconstruction reÀects the Jubilean author’s value system—namely, that marriage should be endogamous rather than based on ‘eye appeal’—it also juxtaposes Jacob’s love with Laban’s excuse for giving Leah to Jacob. Although Jubilees cites Laban’s pretext for deceiving Jacob—‘It is not customary in our country to give the younger daughter before the older one’ (Jub. 28.6; Gen. 29.26)—it also pointedly states that this prohibition is not merely a local custom but a divine law ‘ordained and written on the heavenly tablets’.17 According to the Jubilean author, the Israelites are thus
‘neither to take nor give the younger before giving precedence to the older because it is very wicked’ (Jub. 28.6-7). Had it not been for Laban’s deception, Jacob would therefore in fact have entered into an illicit marriage. As suggested by the syntax and sequence of events, the root of this (almost-committed) violation is ‘eye-appeal’ love—a type of passion clearly possessing a negative valence. The juxtaposi-tion of the notajuxtaposi-tion of Jacob’s love for Rachel with the prohibijuxtaposi-tion against marrying the younger sister thus implies a three-stage process
16. Kugel (2012: 139-40) notes that Leah is portrayed as ‘very lovely’ while Rachel is merely ‘lovely’—thereby suggesting that Jacob was attracted to Rachel purely on the grounds of appearance. For eyes as signifying beauty, see 1 Sam. 16.12. For a woman’s eyes as arousing a man’s love, see, e.g., Cant. 1.15; 6.5; 7.5. Cf. also the seductive role played by women’s eyes in Prov. 6.25, Sir. 26.9, and 4Q184 1.13— wherein, unlike Rachel in Jubilees, the female ¿gures are portrayed as actively tempting men (Kister 1999: 172-73).
17. This designation typically underscores the status and authority of the law in Jubilees (García Martínez 1997; Najman 1998: 389-400). Additional prohibitions relating to illicit marriage/sexual relations are also inscribed on the heavenly tablets: see Jub. 30.9; 33.10 (cf. 39.6). See Sections 2.2 and 2.3 below.
of cause and effect: ‘eyeing’ a woman elicits ‘love/desire’, which in turn potentially engenders ‘transgression of the law’.18
Although this threefold scheme is not biblical, the link between eyesight and love—as between seeing and offending—is evident in the biblical texts themselves, not surprisingly commonly occurring in the context of eyeing a wo/man. The original Jacob–Leah–Rachel narrative links ‘eye appeal’ and ‘love’, Joseph’s lithe body and Bathsheba’s ‘eye appeal’ leading their ‘beholders’ to commit adultery (Gen. 39.9-19; 2 Sam. 11).19 While the Jubilean view that this type of
love leads to violation of the law may be inÀuenced by the story of Amnon and Tamar—according to which Amnon’s love for his sister ultimately ends in ‘a vile thing’ (2 Sam. 13.12)—Jubilees’ detailed presentation of the wrongdoing in legal terms is unique, particularly in its reference to the heavenly tablets.20
2.2. Reuben’s love for Bilhah (Jubilees 33.1-20)
Although the biblical narrative concerning Reuben and Bilhah only consists of a single verse—‘While Israel lived in that land, Reuben went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, and Jacob heard of it’ (Gen. 35.22)—Reuben’s deed is also alluded to in Jacob’s blessings (Gen. 49.3-4) and 1 Chron. 5.1. In both these cases, the reference is characteristically negative.
18. In light of this conclusion, it is dif¿cult to accept Loader’s claim (2007: 268-69) that ‘Jubilees shares with Genesis a positive stance towards female beauty. There is nothing here [i.e., in Jacob’s story] of the dangers of sexual attraction’ (p. 201). While Jubilees does not admonish fe/male good looks per se, it indubitably points to the potentially destructive results of ‘eyeing’ them—thus introducing into the Jacob narrative a view attested in such texts as Gen. 39.6-20 and 2 Sam. 11. See also below. 19. For the causal link between eying a woman and taking her as a wife, see Gen. 6.2; Deut. 21.11. The motif of the eyes as instigators of wrongdoing is common in the Bible and Second Temple Jewish writings: see Num. 15.39; Deut. 4.19; Ezek. 6.9; CD 2.7; 1QpHab 5.7; 11Q19 59.14. In some cases, eyesight is speci¿cally associated with sexual misdeeds: see Gen. 34; Judg. 14.1-4; Sir. 9.8; 26.9; 41.20-21; T. Reub. 3.10– 4.2; 5.6; T. Jud. 17.1-2; T. Iss. 7.2; L.A.B. 18.13-14; 43.5; cf. Mt. 5.27-30; 6.22-23; 18.9; Mk 9.47-48; Lk. 11.34-36 (Lachs 1987: 97-98; Loader 2010: 65-67).
20. The three-stage pattern resembles the reworking of the account of the sons of heaven and daughters of men in the Book of Watchers (1 En. 1–36). There, the beholding of the ‘beautiful and comely’ daughters of men is said to elicit the angels’ ‘desire’—in turn causing them to commit ‘a great sin’ (1 En. 6.1–3; cf. T. Reub. 5.6). Jubilees is unique, however, in depicting this as the violation of a recorded authorita-tive instruction.
The Jubilean author expands these short passages, adding—among other details—the fact that ‘When Reuben saw Bilhah, Rachel’s maid—his father’s concubine—bathing in water in a private place, he loved her’ (Jub. 33.2).21 As scholars noted early on (e.g. Heinemann
1954: 24), the motif of beholding a woman in the process of her ablutions most likely reÀects the story of David’s adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11).22 The Jubilean author, however, uniquely
attributes ‘love’ to Reuben and Bilhah’s relationship.23 Interposing the
reference to Reuben’s ardor between his initial view of her bare Àesh and his entrance to her ‘lying alone in her bed and sleeping in her tent’ (Jub. 33.3), he thereby indicates that ‘love’ here signi¿es desire stimulated by (e)spying. In similarfashion, he portrays Reuben as the catalyst for the chain of subsequent events.24
Accentuating the critical attitude towards Reuben’s deed evident in both Jacob’s blessing in Genesis 49 and 1 Chronicles 5, he then proceeds to depict Reuben’s relations with Bilhah via legal terms taken from Leviticus and Deuteronomy—such as ‘uncovering the covering of a father’s wife’ (Jub. 33.10; cf. Lev. 20.11; Deut. 23.1).25
The prohibition against having relations with one’s father’s wife— which Reuben violates—being ‘written and ordained on the heavenly tablets’ (Jub. 33.10; cf. 33.11) whose contents were revealed to and written down by Moses (Jub. 33.18)—the ordinance is thus related both to earthly and heavenly writing, thereby underscoring its signi-¿cance and authority.
The Jubilean retelling of the Reuben narrative consequently shares similar features with its reworking of the biblical account of Jacob and Rachel. In both episodes, eyesight elicits love, which (almost) leads to sexual misconduct.26 Both stories depict the misdeed in legal terms,
speci¿cally linking the law in question with the heavenly tablets.
21. For a detailed discussion of the story of Reuben and Bilhah in Jubilees, see Shinan and Zakovitch 1983; Kugel 1995; Halpern-Amaru 1999: 108-12; Rothstein 2004: 371-79; Loader 2007: 196-200; Segal 2007: 73-82.
22. For a different interpretation of this detail, see Kugel 1995: 528-31.
23. While a similar depiction of Bilhah appears in T. Reub. 3.11, this contains no mention of Reuben’s love for her.
24. Wintermute (1985: 119) and Halpern-Amaru (1999: 110-11 n. 22) both render afqara (‘to love’) here as ‘desire’ (cf. Rosen-Zvi 2006: 71). For the negative valence of the term ‘love’ here, see Loader 2007: 196.
25. Cf. also Lev. 18.8; Deut. 22.22; 27.20.
26. As suggested above with respect to the Jacob–Rachel narrative (Section 2.1), this presentation has clear biblical roots. As Rosen-Zvi (2006: 71) remarks, ‘The
2.3. Potiphar’s wife’s love for Joseph (Jubilees 39.1-11)
As is well known, sight/vision constitutes a central theme in the biblical narrative concerning Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. The textual sequence indicates that the eyes serve as the inÀamers of sexual desire, the portrayal of Joseph as ‘well built and handsome’ being followed by the statement: ‘And after a time his master’s wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said “Lie with me”’ (Gen. 39.6-7).
Jubilees introduces a number of changes and additions into this
passage: ‘Now Joseph was well formed and very handsome. The wife of his master looked up, saw Joseph, loved him, and pleaded with him to lie with her’ (Jub. 39.5). In omitting the formula ‘and after a time’ (9= 9 )JC359 CI J9JH), the author juxtaposes the depiction of Joseph’s beauty with Potiphar’s wife’s act of ‘beholding’, thereby reinforcing the link between the two phenomena.27
While the biblical narrative assumes that outward appearance evokes desire, it does not make this presumption explicit. By inserting the reference to Potiphar’s wife’s ‘love’ for Joseph between her ‘seeing’ and ‘pleading’, the Jubilean author directly links love with eyes/sight.28 This connection is also attested in the biblical story of
Jacob, in which Rachel’s ‘eye appeal’—portrayed in very similar fashion to Joseph’s—is juxtaposed with an allusion to Jacob’s love (cf. Gen. 29.17-18; 39.6). The af¿nity between love and the feminine entreaty to ‘lie with me’ in Jubilees may reÀect the story of Amnon and Tamar, Amnon’s love for his sister resulting in the solicitation: ‘Come, lie with me, sister’ (2 Sam. 13.11).29 Here, too, the extra-format found in Jubilees is thus faithful, mutatis mutandis, to the typical biblical narrative of sexual sin: a man “sees” a woman, “desires” or “loves” her beauty, and acts on this desire…’
27. As Kugel (1990: 41) demonstrates, the biblical sequence—namely, the description of Joseph’s beauty followed by the phrase ‘and after a time’ and then the notation of Potiphar’s wife’s eyeing Joseph—constitutes a ‘small irregularity…that… seemed to require an explanation’ (cf. Kugel 1990: 28-93; Niehoff 1992: 126-28). Unlike some Jewish sources (cf. Gen. R. 87.1) that elucidate the phrase CI J9JH 9= 9 )JC359 via an aggadic midrash, the author of Jubilees simply omits them, thereby smoothing out the narratival sequence.
28. Goldmann (1956: II, 296) renders the verb afqara by the Hebrew 5>I, thereby suggesting an erotic connotation (cf. Wintermute 1985: 128; Halpern-Amaru 1999: 110-11 n. 22). Like Jubilees, Josephus’ rewriting of the story makes Potiphar’s wife’s drive explicit: ‘For his master’s wife was disposed amorously to him because of his handsomeness…’ (Ant. 2.41 [trans. Feldman]).
29. The story of Amnon and Tamar (2 Sam. 13) does not juxtapose the themes of love and pleading, however.
biblical insertion of the term ‘love’ thus demonstrates the inÀuence of various biblical texts.
Although the biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife’s solicita-tion is followed by Joseph’s refusal to engage in any sexual relasolicita-tions, it also portrays Joseph’s principal concern as lying with his master’s ingratitude—his words concluding with the statement that sleeping with Potiphar’s wife would be a sin against God (Gen. 39.8-9).
Jubilees focuses exclusively upon the latter theme: (A) But he did not surrender himself.
(B) He remembered the Lord and what his father Jacob would read to him from the words of Abraham—
(C) that no one is to commit adultery with a woman who has a husband; that there is a death penalty which has been ordained for him in heaven before the most high Lord. The sin will be entered regarding him in the eternal books forever before the Lord.
(Bƍ) Joseph remembered what he had said (Aƍ) and refused to lie with her. (Jub. 39.6-8)
As indicated by the above arrangement, Joseph’s reply is structured chiastically, his ‘remembering’ of Abraham’s words (B, Bƍ) being framed by his refusal to lie with Potiphar’s wife (A, Aƍ). At the center (C) lies Abraham’s instruction—namely, that adultery is forbidden, the sinner being ordained to death and the transgression being entered in ‘the eternal books…before the Lord’.This con¿guration stresses the legal prohibition against adultery as the reason for Joseph’s absti-nence—the importance of this injunction being highlighted via its association with the earthly and heavenly writings.30
While the juxtaposition of Potiphar’s wife’s wiles and Joseph’s response in both Genesis and Jubilees underscores the difference between the two ¿gures, the Jubilean reworking of this text places particular emphasis on the disparity between ‘following one’s eyes’ and ‘remembering the law’. The latter theme appears to derive from Num. 15.39: ‘…You will remember all the commandments of the
30. Cf. Endres 1987: 183-84. While the love stories relating to Jacob–Rachel and Reuben–Bilhah depict the heavenly tablets as records of the laws, here they also serve as a registry of human deeds. See the references in n. 17 above. As in Jubilees, the brief reference to Joseph in 1 Macc. 2.53 also describes his experience in Potiphar’s house in terms of ful¿lling the law: ‘Joseph in his distress kept the commandment’.
LORD and do them, and not follow the lust of your heart and of your own eyes’.31
This analysis demonstrates that the three-stage process reÀected in the Jubilean accounts of Jacob–Rachel and Reuben–Bilhah is also evident in the Joseph story: ‘eye appeal’ elicits love, which in turn induces grave transgression of the written law.
3. Love based on feminine righteousness
Jacob’s love for Leah (Jub. 36.21-24) differs from the three cases discussed above. Firstly, this love is between a married couple. While the author of Jubilees retains the designation of Leah as ‘hated’ in his retelling of the Jacob–Rachel–Leah account (Jub. 28.12; cf. Gen. 29.31, 33), in his subsequent description of Leah’s burial he states that Jacob ‘loved her very much from the time when her sister Rachel died’ (Jub. 36.23).32 Secondly, despite the fact that—according to Jubilees—Leah possessed a ‘very lovely’ ¿gure (Jub. 28.5), Jacob
loves her because of her ‘perfect ways’.
The latter theme is developed over three verses:
All her sons and his sons came to mourn with him for his wife Leah and to comfort him regarding her because he was lamenting her. For he loved her very much from the time when her sister Rachel died because she was perfect and right in all her ways33 and honored Jacob. In all the time that
31. Num. 15.39 is also reworked in Abraham’s last testament: ‘They are not to commit sexual offences (by) following their eyes and their hearts…’ (Jub. 20.4). 32. While portraying Leah as ‘hated’, the Jubilean author utilizes various strategies to elevate her status within the marriage bond even prior to Rachel’s death (Halpern-Amaru 1999: 42-46, 64-73, 97-99). Although Tamar is also depicted in Jubilees as the object of her husband’s ‘hatred’—‘He hated (her) and did not lie with her because his mother was a Canaanite woman and he wanted to marry someone from his mother’s tribe’ (Jub. 41.2)—the grounds are different in these cases. Jacob’s hatred is related to his wives’ outward appearance, while Er’s derives from his (evil) wish to marry a Canaanite. Likewise, whereas Er’s hatred leads to his abstention from sexual relations with Tamar, Jacob’s hatred of Leah does not prevent him from ful¿lling his spousal duty. The parallelism between the hating ‘husbands’ thus presents Jacob in a positive light.
33. VanderKam: ‘behavior’. The designation ‘perfect’ has been partially pre-served in 4Q223–224 2 III 18: 9>J]>+E (VanderKam and Milik 1994: 95-140). Cf. the portrayal ‘perfect and right in all her ways’ with (J<C53 9E )J>E (Ezek. 28.15) and (C5 )J>E (e.g. Ps. 119.1; Prov. 11.20; this phrase is also common in the sectarian
she lived with him he did not hear a harsh word from her mouth because she was gentle and possessed (the virtues of) peace, righteousness,34 and honor. As he recalled all the things that she had done in her lifetime, he greatly lamented her because he loved her with all his heart and with all his person. (Jub. 36.22-24)35
This account is striking ¿rst of all in its deviation from the biblical characterization of Leah. Rather than portraying her as a quiet, respect-ful wife, she willrespect-fully commands Jacob: ‘You are to sleep with me, for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes’ (Gen. 30.16). Genesis likewise never explicitly states that Leah was loved by her husband, nor does it mention any mourning for Jacob’s wives (cf. Gen. 35.19-20; 48.7; 49.31)—and certainly none of a familial lamenting by Jacob and all his sons. Jubilees’ insertion of these themes into his account— and their intertwining—is unique to this reworking.
The theme of Jacob’s mourning of Leah because of his great love for her is stressed by its repetition in the opening and conclusion of the report. In between these two verses, the reasons why Jacob loved Leah so deeply are adduced. Unlike his love for Rachel, Jacob’s love for Leah is due not to her ‘eye appeal’ but to her conduct—in particu-lar, her exemplary comportment within the family. Two chains of adjectives/nouns describe her deportment, both sealed with the theme of ‘honour’: ‘she was perfect, and right…and honored Jacob’ and ‘she was gentle and possessed (the virtues of) peacefulness, righteousness, and honor’. Sandwiched between these encomia is the declaration: ‘He [Jacob] did not hear a harsh word from her mouth’, which elucidates the two general statements.
This portrayal echoes wisdom sayings regarding the good/bad wife—‘It is better to live in the desert than with a contentious, vexa-tious wife’ (Prov. 21.19; cf. 25.24) or ‘The woman who respects her
writings from Qumran: e.g. 1QS 8.10, 9.2; 1QSa 1.28; 1QM 14.7). Leah’s depiction parallels the Jubilean portrayal of Jacob: ‘…he is righteous in his way. He is perfect; he is a true man’ (Jub. 27.17; cf. 19.13) (Berger 1981: 504).
34. VanderKam: ‘truthfulness’.
35. Cf. the encomium of Sarah at her burial in Philo (Abr. 245–54). Unlike Leah’s depiction in Jub. 36.21-24, however, Philo portrays Sarah as ‘loving’ her husband—a virtue exhibited by the good wife, as attested in Greco-Roman literature and epitaphs: cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. IV 82.1; Pliny the Younger, Letters 4.19; CIL 12.1211; CIL 12.1221.
husband will be seen by everyone as wise… But a loud-mouthed, scolding wife can be recognized as a battle trumpet signaling attack’ (Sir. 26.26-27) (Skehan and Di Lella 1987: 345). In the context of the
Jubilean literary setting, this observation implicitly contrasts Leah’s
behaviour with Rachel’s. While Jubilees represents the barren Leah as being jealous of her sister (Jub. 28.20)—in parallel to Rachel’s jealousy of Leah (Jub. 28.16; cf. Gen. 30.1)—it highlights the diver-gent consequences. Her jealousy leading Rachel to quarrel with Jacob—‘Give me children’ (Jub. 28.16; cf. Gen. 30.1)—only at this point does she present him with her maid.36 Leah, on the other hand,
gives ‘her maid Zilpah to Jacob as a wife’ without any word of com-plaint (Jub. 28.20). Jubilees likewise omits the mandrake story— including Leah’s harsh words therein.37 Thus, according to the
Jubilean Jacob–Rachel–Leah narrative, Rachel in no sense rivalled Leah’s achievements in maintaining the cardinal Jubilean virtue of familial harmony.38
Signi¿cantly, the Jubilean text posits an implicit correlation between the two sisters’ respective conduct and the depth of Jacob’s love towards each of them. While both Leah and Rachel are said to be ‘loved’—in different stages of Jacob’s life—Jacob loves Leah ‘very much’ and ‘with all his heart and with all his person’ (Jub. 36.22, 24), in contrast to merely ‘loving’ Rachel (Jub. 28.5, 12).39 The lack of any
indication in Jubilees of Jacob’s lamenting Rachel when she dies (cf.
Jub. 32.34) also contrasts with the two references to Jacob’s mourning
36. The Jubilean reworking of Rachel’s complaint omitting the words ‘or I shall die’ (Gen. 30.1), her objection is thereby softened in line with the author’s tendency to depict the patriarchs/matriarchs in a positive light and their familial relations as harmonious (cf. Halpern-Amaru 1999: 64-65). While the author thus implicitly hints that Rachel is worse than Leah in some aspects, he does not seek to portray her as a bad wife—as is also evident from his treatment of the story of the theft of the teraphim (Jub. 29.1; 31.2); see Endres 1987: 110.
37. Following Endres (1987: 106), Halpern-Amaru (1999: 67 and n. 52) notes that the Jubilean author regards the mandrake scene as offensive.
38. Cf. Loader’s suggestion (2007: 269) that the effect of Rachel’s complaint in Jubilees ‘is to bring Rachel down from having a favoured status in Jacob’s eyes’. 39. Gregory (2008: 108) notes the Jubilean utilization of the Deuteronomistic formula ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul’
(Deut. 6.5) in the context of Jacob–Leah’s relations. For a similar reworking of this formula in the context of maternal love, see Jub. 19.31.
Leah because of his love for her (Jub. 36.22, 24).40 The respect Leah
demonstrates towards Jacob is thus rewarded by her husband’s love.41
This reworking of the biblical text clearly reÀects the Jubilean author’s preference of ‘moral appeal’ over ‘eye appeal’, outward appearance representing an illegitimate criterion for choosing a bride—who might transpire to be a disrespectful wife (cf. Prov. 11.22). In line with the portrayal of the ‘virtuous wife’ of Proverbs, the author of Jubilees implies that countenance is deceptive and beauty illusory: a woman is truly to be praised and valued for her righteousness (cf. Prov. 31.30).
4. Conclusion
This analysis of examples of the theme of ‘love’ in Jubilees demon-strates that the author makes an initial distinction between love deriv-ing from ‘eye appeal’ on the one hand and ‘moral appeal’ on the other—subsequently differentiating between the love between an unmarried couple and that between man and wife. These two determi-nations are interrelated, ‘eye-appeal’ love only occurring between men and women not married to one other and ‘moral-appeal’ love Àourish-ing exclusively within the marriage bond. A third—related—disparity relates to the gender of the love-subject: while both men and women may love on the basis of beauty, ‘moral-appeal’ love belongs predominantly to the male realm, wives customarily being expected to ‘honor their husbands’ without necessarily loving them.
‘Eye-appeal’ love—that is, desire—is consistently related to grave transgression of the law; it bears a characteristically negative valence. While this is unsurprising in the context of Reuben’s lying with his
40. According to the Jubilean chronology, Jacob loved Leah for 24 years and Rachel only 21; see Jub. 28.2, 10; 32.33; 36.21 (Halpern-Amaru 1999: 71-72; Gregory 2008: 109-10).
41. Women in the Hebrew Bible are customarily not portrayed as loving their husbands, this phenomenon being far more common among the male ¿gures (Brenner 1997). While Jubilees follows this tendency, it also imputes ‘honour’ to the women. The relationship between a wife and her husband therefore parallels that between chil-dren and parents: parents are expected to love their chilchil-dren, chilchil-dren to honour and respect their parents. Cf. the interpretation of Exod. 20.12 in m. Ker. 6.9: ‘But: Sages have stated: The father comes before the mother under all circumstances, because both he and his mother are liable to pay honor to his father’ (Neusner 1988: 581).
father’s concubine or Potiphar’s wife’s attempt to seduce Joseph— incidents which are subject to criticism already in the Hebrew Bible— the sympathetic biblical portrayal of Jacob’s love for Rachel is upended in Jubilees. Although not ignoring Jacob’s love for Rachel, the Jubilean author omits the story of their encounter by the well, reduces the number of occurrences in which Jacob expresses his love for Rachel, and postpones the ¿rst allusion to ‘love’ between them until Jacob has already married an appropriate bride from his family line. Hereby, he indicates that legal considerations—especially endog-amy—rather than spontaneous love elicited by ‘eye appeal’ constitute the only proper grounds for marriage. The implicit analogy between Leah and Rachel further points to ‘eye-appeal’ love as an illegitimate criterion for wedlock, the beautiful Rachel transpiring to be a some-what disrespectful wife. Finally, according to Jubilees, Jacob’s love for Rachel almost leads him to violate a divine law by entering into an illicit marriage with a younger sister. The implications of Jacob’s love for Rachel thus parallel those of Reuben and Potiphar’s wife, all three stories exhibiting the same three-fold cause-and-effect scheme of ‘eyeing’ a wo/man, ‘loving’ him/her, and (almost) violating a written statute. While the three-stage pattern is based on various biblical texts that link appearance with love and/or depict ‘looking’ as leading to sin, Jubilees is unique in its systematic de¿nition of transgression as violation of a recorded authoritative instruction. The gravity of love/desire kindled by eyesight is thereby accentuated by the fact that it is condemned by the ‘heavenly law’.
As these examples illustrate, Jubilees embodies the view that the socio-legal order is threatened when the eyes form the principal instru-ments of love. This conclusion—which emerges from the narratives of ‘eye-appeal’ love—is further stressed by their contrast with the passage depicting Jacob’s love for Leah as deriving from her ‘perfect ways’. This type of spousal love is deep and, drawing in its wake the analogous observance of the familial duty of mourning, consolidates the existing social order. Jacob’s lamenting over Leah’s death and his memories of ‘all the things that she had done in her lifetime’ thus jointly demonstrate the ideal relationship between man and wife. A wife is to honour her husband and maintain domestic peace by refraining from contention. When she acts thus, she ensures that her husband will love her ‘with all his heart and with all his person’.
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The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
as Witnesses to Pre-Christian Judaism:
A Re-Assessment
*DAVID A. DESILVA
Ashland Theological Seminary, 910 Center Street, Ashland, OH 44805, USA
Abstract
In regard to the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the pendulum of scholarship has been swinging in the direction of treating these texts as Christian compositions that, therefore, cannot be used to illumine pre-Christian Judaism. This article reassesses this movement in light, ¿rst, of recent methodological propositions regarding deter-mining the faith community in which a text had its origin and, second, of traditional methodological approaches to the question of the Christian material found in extant manuscripts of the Testaments. It also challenges the hyper-Christianization of the Testaments in modern scholarship, arguing that, in many cases, material is being designated as distinctively Christian simply because interpreters are not suf¿ciently aware of how their own lenses are coloring their readings. The Testaments remain an important witness to Hasmonean Jewish readings of Genesis, developments in ethical thought, and re-articulations of Israel’s hope.
Keywords: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Second Temple Judaism, Messianism, textual criticism, literary criticism, tradition criticism.
* An earlier version of this material was published in The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
1. Introduction
Our understanding of early Judaism is dependent almost entirely on our reading of those texts deemed to represent a voice of early Judaism. There is no doubt that Ben Sira, Tobit, and 1 Enoch repre-sent such voices (rather than Christian voices) since manuscript dis-coveries place these writings in Judea centuries before Jesus. Locating the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, however, is far more prob-lematic, since all extant manuscripts come from well into the Common Era, produced by Christian scribes. The problem is com-pounded insofar as there is clearly Christian material in the
Testa-ments as preserved in these manuscripts. Are the TestaTesta-ments a Jewish
composition that has been edited by Christian copyists over the centuries? Or do they represent a Christian composition that makes extensive use of Jewish traditions and even Jewish sources?1
This study engages recent proposals by Robert Kraft and James Davila for introducing greater methodological rigor into the determi-nation of whether a particular pseudepigraphon preserved primarily through Christian scribal activity should be treated as a Jewish or Christian document, arguing that Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs stands up admirably against their criteria. It also engages the debates concerning the origin of the Testaments from both text-critical and literary-critical grounds, also introducing a number of tradition-critical considerations into the discussion. While the ipsissima verba of a Jew-ish original may continue to elude us, particularly in a few eschatolo-gical passages, there remain solid grounds for reading the Testaments
1. Scholars arguing in favor of a Jewish original include Charles, Conybeare, Dupont-Sommer, Becker, Hultgård, Ulrichsen, Kee, and Jervell. Before the eighteenth century, the Testaments were generally viewed as Christian pseudepigrapha, a view that has been forcefully defended by Marinus de Jonge, Harm Hollander, and Robert Kugler. André Dupont-Sommer had linked the Testaments with the Qumran com-munity and its history too con¿dently (see, e.g., his essay on ‘The Testament of Levi and the Teacher of Righteousness’, in The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes [London: Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1954]), a view that Jürgen Becker (Unter-suchungen zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Testamente der Zwölf Patriarchen [AGAJU, 8; Leiden: Brill, 1970], pp. 149-51) effectively debunked. Nevertheless, Dupont-Sommer helpfully demonstrated that much more of the messianism of the Testaments could be at home in pre-Christian Judaism than some scholars tend to allow with their own overly con¿dent claims about what must refer to Jesus and therefore could not derive from the pre-Christian era.
as a witness to the ethical, traditional, and even eschatological devel-opments in Second Temple Judaism, and therefore also as a legitimate background to the emergence of early Christianity and its writings. 2. Recent Methodological Challenges
Scholars have typically moved from observing that a text lacks dis-tinctively Christian content, or has a few lines of Christian content that can be easily excised, to concluding that the work is therefore of Jewish origin (lightly edited by Christians, in the latter case).2 Robert
Kraft and James Davila have objected to this line of reasoning on numerous grounds, suggesting that it has led to the skewing of our understanding of early Judaism by allowing non-Jewish (i.e. later Christian) writings to slip into the corpus of witnesses to early Judaism through a lack of methodological rigor.
Robert Kraft has argued that when a text survives only in manu-scripts transmitted by Christian scribes, dating from centuries into the Common Era, in languages used by the Christian churches (e.g. Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, etc., as opposed to Hebrew and Aramaic), the ¿rst task is to understand the texts as they functioned within Christian circles at the time of those manuscripts, and to work backwards from there only as the evidence of the text necessitates.3
This burden of proof falls upon those who would argue for a Jew- ish origin, especially an origin in the pre-Christian era; the assumption of a Jewish origin unless the work is proven to have been composed by a Christian would no longer be allowed. In the case of the
Testaments, our earliest manuscript evidence comes from the tenth
century CE, a Greek manuscript written by Christian scribes. However,
another kind of external evidence—quotation or reference by other known authors4—pushes this date back to the third century CE, as 2. James Davila, The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other? (JSJSup, 105; Leiden: Brill, 2005), pp. 3-4.
3. Robert A. Kraft, ‘The Pseudepigrapha in Christianity’, in John C. Reeves (ed.), Tracing the Threads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (SBLEJL, 6; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 55-86; idem, ‘The Pseudepigrapha and Christianity Revisited: Setting the Stage and Framing Some Central Questions’, JSJ 32 (2001), pp. 371-95.
4. Davila (Provenance, p. 5 n. 7) stresses that ‘where the earliest attestation of a pseudepigraphon is an undoubted quotation in another work’, the period of that quotation becomes the starting point for analysis of the text in question.
Origen refers to these Testaments in his Homilies on Joshua (15.6). Jerome appears to refer to T. Naph. 2.8 less than a century later (Tract.
De Ps. 15.7).5
These scholars raise a crucial question: Are the Testaments best treated solely as Christian texts functioning in the early-third century, or can they also be read as sources for investigating pre-Christian Judaism? Scholars turn to a number of methods in an attempt to answer this question, whether af¿rming the Christian origin of the
Testaments or arguing in favor of Christian editing of the Jewish Testaments.
3. Manuscript Evidence
The Testaments survive largely in two families of Greek manuscripts, the oldest manuscript (b) dating from the tenth century CE, and several Armenian manuscripts. Other translations (the Slavonic, Serbian, and ‘New Greek’) do not play any important role in textual criticism. Distinctively Christian material pervades all the existing Greek manu-scripts, but there is notably less of this material in the principal Armenian manuscripts. This raises two salient questions: Was the Armenian version translated from a Greek text of the Testaments that predates the extant Greek manuscripts, bearing witness to a less Christianized form of these texts? To what extent can we rely on the Armenian version for help in the restoration of the original text of the
Testaments?
R.H. Charles regarded the Armenian version as an important witness to the original wording, relying heavily upon it in his reconstruction of the pre-Christian Testaments. More recent research by Michael Stone con¿rmed that the Armenian version may well depend ultimately upon a Greek manuscript from the ¿fth or sixth century CE.6 Stone
also observed, however, that, while the Armenian translation seems to follow the Greek text tradition closely in the opening testaments, it provides increasingly abbreviated readings as the testaments progress,
5. Marinus de Jonge, ‘Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, in H.F.D. Sparks (ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), pp. 505-600 (505).
6. Michael Stone, Selected Studies in Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha with Special Reference to the Armenian Tradition (SVTP, 9; Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 145-83, esp. 152-53.
especially in the ethical sections.7 Con¿dence in the Armenian version
has been eroded by such studies showing the overall tendency of the Armenian version to omit material.8 Hollander and de Jonge have
found little value in it for their own text-critical work.9
Nevertheless, the Armenian manuscripts may still provide important evidence for the incremental Christianization of the Testaments in the history of its transmission at the hands of Christian scribes. Granted that the Armenian translator appears to have wearied of the task of translating this lengthy document, and therefore introduces omissions that appear to result more from indolence than the wording of his or her Greek text, I ¿nd it implausible that the translator would elect to omit precisely those verses or passages that would have been of most immediate relevance to the Christian readers for which he or she was preparing the translation. Christianizing passages would have perked up his or her attention as he or she went about the task. Stone had, moreover, observed that the omissions were most glaring in the lengthy sections of ethical instruction—that is, those parts that neither spun out the tale of the patriarch nor spoke of God’s future interven-tions. The distinctively Christian material, to the extent that it is present, is almost wholly present in the eschatological sections—a part that should therefore tend to show less in the way of careless or dis-interested omission in the Armenian, with the result that omissions in these sections may in fact be due to the absence of this Christianizing material in its underlying Greek text. (Nor can it be said that the Armenian translator sought intentionally to de-Christianize the
Testa-ments, for some distinctively Christian material remains.)
On balance, then, while the Armenian versions overall may not have the value for reconstructing the exact wording of the pre-Chris-tian Testaments with which Charles had invested them, they still bear
7. Michael E. Stone, ‘New Evidence for the Armenian Version of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, RB 84 (1977), pp. 94-107, esp. 104.
8. See the review of research in H. Dixon Slingerland, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical History of Research (SBLMS, 21; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1977). Jürgen Becker and Anders Hultgård continued to value the Armenian version as a witness to an earlier, less fully Christianized Greek text. 9. Harm W. Hollander and Marinus de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), p. 13; so also J.J. Collins, ‘Testaments’, in Michael Stone (ed.), Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (CRINT 2.2; Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), pp. 325-55 (332).
witness to a stage in the development of the Testaments that contained fewer Christian interpolations. The most logical explanation for the absence of explicitly Christian material is the absence of such material in the Greek manuscript he or she used. Decisive in this regard is the Armenian Testament of Joseph, which actually includes substantially more pre-Christian Jewish material than our extant Greek texts (we are entirely reliant on the Armenian for T. Jos. 19.3-7) while also including substantially less distinctively Christian material (notably in the very next paragraph, T. Jos. 19.10-12). The shorter text found throughout the Armenian version may be explained in part by the translator’s waning degree of enthusiasm for the task and in part by his Greek exemplar’s lack of some of the Christian material known from the later Greek manuscripts.
The entire Testament of Zebulon has but a single phrase that would
not be at home in a non-Christian Jewish composition. In the midst of a passage describing the future deliverance that God would bring following upon the repentance of Israel in exile, the author predicts:
Then shall the Lord himself, the light of righteousness, arise for you, and healing and compassion shall be in his wings:10 he shall ransom human-kind from their slavery to Beliar; and every spirit of error shall be trampled underfoot. And he shall convert all the Gentiles, so that they are ¿lled with zeal for him. And you shall see God in human form in the house which the Lord will choose (Jerusalem is its name). (T. Zeb. 9.8, de Jonge translation’s)11
The promise that God shall ‘convert all the Gentiles’ could more neutrally be translated ‘turn all the nations around’, and ¿ts very well within the Jewish eschatological expectation that all nations will come to acknowledge the one God, the God of Israel, at the last. It is only the phrase ‘in human form’ that would be out of place in a Jewish composition. The text as it stands does not make the best of sense, as de Jonge implicitly acknowledges by inserting the phrase ‘in the house’ along with the note ‘some such addition is needed’.12
The phrase in question is only present in three Greek manuscripts (b, d, and g). The remaining Greek manuscripts, together with the Armenian translation, render this entire paragraph quite differently
10. The image is drawn again from Mal. 4.2, as in T. Jud. 24.1.
11. I use boldface in quotations throughout to highlight the possible Christian material introduced into the Testaments.
12. De Jonge, ‘Testaments’, p. 561; see also Hollander and de Jonge, Commentary, p. 271.
and much more simply: ‘The Lord himself shall arise, the light of righteousness, and you will return to your land, and you will see him (or, you will see the Lord) in Jerusalem on account of his holy (or, all-holy) name’. While the textual witnesses for this reading cannot claim to be the oldest (save for the Greek Vorlage of the Armenian), this variant has much to commend it as the original reading. The longer reading in mss. b, d, and g can be explained as the result of scribal expansion, harmonizing the statement of the promised future here with statements in the other Testaments and explaining the promised theophany in terms of the incarnation. It is much harder to explain why Christian scribes responsible for the shorter reading would have abridged the longer reading, stripping this testament of its only distinctively Christian note, and thus its point of greatest relevance to their own social location. ‘In human form’, then, is probably an instance of the kind of explanatory gloss that a Christian scribe might add in the margin of a manuscript, and which would later be copied as if it were part of the text at that point—a common enough phenome-non in textual transmission.
For a second example, we may consider a passage in Gad’s testa-ment, where he instructs his descendants to ‘honor Judah and Levi; for from them will the Lord raise up a savior for Israel’ (T. Gad 8.1). This passage might seem to promote a Christian agenda, suggesting that God’s anointed savior was born from the two tribes of Judah and Levi, even as Hippolytus and others sought to demonstrate Jesus’ descent not only from Judah (which is well attested and unanimously af¿rmed in the New Testament) but also from Levi (which is nowhere af¿rmed in the New Testament). However, it is noteworthy that only one Greek manuscript—the one regarded by Hollander and de Jonge as a fore-most witness (ms. b)—gives this reading. Six Greek manuscripts (mss. l, d, m, e, a, f) read ‘out of them will the Lord arise as a savior’, while ¿ve other Greek manuscripts (k, g, c, h, i), along with the Armenian version, read ‘out of them will the Lord raise up salvation’, notably using the more typical idiom of the Testaments (see T. Sim. 7.1; T. Dan 5.10; T. Naph. 8.2). Both of these readings are quite susceptible to a thoroughly theocentric (as opposed to Christocentric) interpretation, the latter unambiguously so.13
13. Similarly, the vision of God’s intervention to bring deliverance in T. Dan 5.9-11 remains thoroughly theocentric, particularly if the ‘he’ in T. Dan 5.10b-5.9-11 remains ‘the Lord’ (i.e. retains the same referent as the pronoun ‘he’ in T. Dan 5.9b).
Hollander and de Jonge argue in favor of the reading ‘savior’ as the ‘more dif¿cult reading’, over against ‘salvation’ which, they argue, was introduced to harmonize this passage with the many other pas-sages throughout the Testaments that favor speaking of the Lord’s ‘salvation’ rather than a ‘savior’.14 The fact that the verb ‘raise up’
(B OBUFMMFJO) is used only here transitively, against every other use of this verb throughout the Testaments, also suggests to them that this reading be accepted as the lectio dif¿cilior. At this point, however, I ¿nd the lectio dif¿cilior, requiring even a completely uncharacteristic use of a verb, to have become an implausible reading. Moreover, ‘rais-ing up a savior’ could be equally well explained as a Christian scribal harmonization not to other texts in the Testaments, but to general Christian discourse about God’s raising up Jesus as Messiah, and thus a corrupted reading. Far from suggesting Christian composition, the evidence barely suggests Christian tampering in only one stream of the textual tradition.
The Testament of Benjamin is probably the most heavily
Christian-ized text within the collection, though, once again, these editorial expansions are limited to the ‘prophetic’ sections of the text (essen-tially 3.8; 9.2-5; 10.7-9; 11.1-5). Recovery of the wording of a pre-Christian original is, consequently, very dif¿cult in these sections of this testament.15 That there was a pre-Christian original, however,
remains probable on several counts, not least of which is the witness of the Armenian translation, which preserves no distinctively Christian material save for 9.3-5.16 A minor Christian interpolation 14. Hollander and de Jonge, Commentary, pp. 335-36.
15. On this question, see further Becker, Untersuchungen, pp. 48-57; idem, Unter-weisung in lehrhafter Form (JSHRZ, 3; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1974), pp. 132-33, 135-37; Charles, Greek Versions, pp. 202, 209-17; J.H. Ulrichsen, Die Grundschrift der Testamente der Zwölf Patriarchen: Eine Untersuchung zu Umfang, Inhalt und Eigenart der ursprünglichen Schrift (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1991), pp. 136-44.
16. It thus omits the whole chapter that speaks ‘prophetically’ of the ministry of the apostle Paul, himself of the tribe of Benjamin (see Rom. 11.1; Phil. 3.5), the instru-ment of God which would ‘compensate for the de¿ciencies of [my] tribe’ (T. Benj. 11.1-5). This chapter almost certainly represents a later Christian addition, not only on text-critical, but also on literary-critical grounds. The testament had already expressed the elements typical of the closing of these speeches, namely the injunction to ‘keep the law of the Lord and his commands’ (T. Benj. 10.3-4) and the promise that, if the patriarch’s descendants ‘live in holiness in the Lord’s presence’, they would again ‘dwell in security with me, and all Israel will be gathered to the Lord’ (T. Benj. 10.11).
