Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 125, No. 2 (Summer 2006)

125 2 2006

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Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible T. M. Lemos 225–241 The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt and Yahweh’s Answer to Job Michael B. Dick 243–270 The Significance of Jesus’ Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience Sharyn Dowd and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon 271–297 Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative, and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext David M. Moffitt 299–320 Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy Ross S. Kraemer 321–349 The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith Scott G. Brown 351–383 A Woman at Prayer: A Critical Note on Psalm 131:2b Melody D. Knowles 385–389 Small Change: Saul to Paul, Again Sean M. McDonough 390–391

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Term Expiring 2006: THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 PAUL B. DUFF, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 CAROLE R. FONTAINE, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 JUDITH LIEU, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom MARTTI NISSINEN, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Finland KATHLEEN M. O’CONNOR, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 EUNG CHUN PARK, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60645 VINCENT L. WIMBUSH, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711 2007: MOSHE BERNSTEIN, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 JO ANN HACKETT, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 ROBERT KUGLER, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219 TIMOTHY LIM, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 2LX Scotland STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 STEPHEN PATTERSON, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO 63119 EMERSON POWERY, Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37312 ADELE REINHARTZ, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada RICHARD STEINER, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 SZE-KAR WAN, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 2008: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 TERENCE L. DONALDSON, Wycliffe College, Toronto, ON M5S 1H7 Canada STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214 A. KATHERINE GRIEB, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA 22304 ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR DANIEL MARGUERAT, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3RS United Kingdom PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 225–241

Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible t. m. lemos [email protected] Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511

Mutilating enemies’ bodies was a common wartime practice in the ancient Near East. One finds in Mesopotamian and Egyptian art many examples of the mutilation of enemies by both these powers, and the Hebrew Bible and Apocrypha, too, attest the widespread nature of the practice.1 According to biblical narratives, the Israelites both experienced said mutilation and practiced it against others, sometimes even against other Israelites when the fighting was not against a foreign group but internal. At first glance, these narratives are striking merely for their brutality, but when one looks further, it becomes apparent that violently altering the bodies of one’s enemies was not a random act of sadistic aggression in ancient Israel but was in fact one that functioned in certain striking and important ways. One of these was that mutilation signaled a newly established power A version of this paper was presented to the Warfare in Ancient Israel consultation at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 2004 in San Antonio, Texas. I thank Saul M. Olyan for his mentorship of this project in its various stages. 1 See, e.g., ANEP, nos. 318, 319, 340, 348, and 451; and Jutta Börker-Klähn, Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen und Vergleichbare Felsreliefs (Baghdader Forschungen bd. 4; Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Phillip von Zabern, 1982), bd. 2, photo no. 172. One may find enlargements of some of these photos in Erika Bleibtreu, “Grisly Assyrian Record of Torture and Death,” BAR 17, no. 1 (1991): 52–61, 75. The practice of mutilating enemies is also described in various Assyrian royal inscriptions. See COS 2:113A:262, 2:115B:280; ANET, 288, 295, 302; ARI 2:124, 126; Daniel David Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib (University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications 2; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924), 45–46, etc. The practice is indirectly attested in extrabiblical narrative texts, as well, e.g., CTU 1.3, col. 1, lines 5-13, where Anat fastens the heads of enemy warriors to her back and their hands to her belt. I include apocryphal texts in this analysis because, as will become apparent, the mutilations described within them are in many ways continuous with ancient Near Eastern practice both in symbolism and in manner of execution. The ways in which they are not continuous will also be briefly addressed.

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dynamic between the victim and the aggressor. Another, as we shall see, was that mutilation served to bring shame upon the victim and their community by associating the victim with a lower-status group and/or by effecting an actual status change in the victim.2

I. “Mutilation” and “Shame” Defined Before moving to an examination of biblical texts that describe the practice of mutilating enemies, two key terms merit definition. The first of these is the word “mutilation” itself. This term, as I define it, refers to a negatively constructed somatic alteration. As the phrase “negatively constructed” should imply, conceptions of what qualifies as a mutilation vary from society to society. For example, what an American would consider mutilating is not necessarily what a Pacific Islander or a Nepalese tribesman would consider mutilating; such a construction is dependent on one’s social and cultural norms. Even within a single culture, however, what would be considered normative behavior for one individual is not necessarily what would be considered acceptable for another, for a society’s notions of normativity are often contingent on the age, and especially the gender, of the individual.3 Because constructions of mutilation vary in these ways, this treatment will not be limited to particular acts that we as Americans, or as modern Westerners perhaps, see as mutilating or disfiguring,4 but will instead treat those physical changes which the biblical texts themselves construct as such. The second part of the above definition, that mutilations are “somatic alterations,” refers to the fact that a mutilation is always a result of some physical change, whether by removal of some part of the body, by marking the body, or by manipulating parts of the body. The word mutilation, then, is not synonymous with the word “blemish” in my usage, though both refer to negatively constructed physical attributes, for the word “blemish” (or “defect”) signifies any somatic deviation. Thus, blemishes may be congenital (being born with one eye, for example); they may develop over time (e.g., a skin disease); or they may be caused by an external agent. Mutilations, on the other hand, are always brought about by an external agent or force. They are created; they do not merely arise or spontaneously appear, as a blemish could. To put the matter succinctly: all mutilations are blemishes, but not all blemishes are mutilations. 2 Wolfgang Zwickel also notes that mutilation has the ability to make power relations manifest, but he does not discuss the connection between mutilation and shame, nor does he go far enough in explicating the relationship between mutilation and power. See Zwickel, “Dagons Abgeschlagener Kopf,” VT 44, no. 2 (1994): 238–49. 3 For example, in the United States alteration of the male genitalia (namely, circumcision) is considered by most people to be normal and acceptable while that of the female genitalia is considered barbarous. 4 The words “mutilating” and “disfiguring” will be treated as synonyms here.

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The second term that requires definition is the word “shame.” Much ink has been spilled by anthropologists and psychologists alike in attempting to define what shame is exactly and in contesting the definitions of others.5 In the past decade various biblicists have also devoted energy to applying these definitions to the Hebrew Bible.6 This treatment, like some of those by the latter group of scholars, will not focus on the theoretical issues surrounding the study of shame but will center instead on describing shame in specific contexts in ancient Israel as it relates to mutilation. Thus, I will turn only briefly to a theoretical discussion of shame in order to ground the treatment that follows. Benjamin Kilborne has written that shame “relates: (1) The (internal) experience of disgrace together with fear that . . . others will see how we have 5 For anthropological treatments of shame, see J. G. Peristiany, ed., Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965); Julian Pitt-Rivers, The Fate of Shechem: or, The Politics of Sex: Essays in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean (Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 19; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); David D. Gilmore, ed., Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean (American Anthropological Association ser. 22; Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association, 1987); and idem, Aggression and Community: Paradoxes of Andalusian Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 162–66; Rosemary J. Coombe, “Barren Ground: Re-conceiving Honour and Shame in the Field of Mediterranean Ethnography,” Anthropologica 32 (1990): 221–38; Millie R. Creighton, “Revisiting Shame and Guilt Cultures: A Forty-year Pilgrimage,” Ethos 18 (1990): 279–307; J. G. Peristiany and Julian Pitt-Rivers, eds., Honor and Grace in Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Gideon M. Kressel, “Shame and Gender,” Anthropological Quarterly 65, no. 1 (1992): 34–46; and the various articles in Social Research 70, no. 4 (2003), among others. More psychological treatments may be found in Carl D. Schneider, Shame, Exposure, and Privacy (Boston: Beacon, 1977); John Deigh, “Shame and Self-Esteem: A Critique,” Ethics 93 (1983): 225–45; Michael Lewis, Shame: The Exposed Self (New York: Free Press, 1992); etc., though some of the discussions cited above have psychological aspects, e.g., those of Creighton or Gilmore. Richard A. Shweder also combines anthropological and psychological approaches (“Toward a Deep Cultural Psychology of Shame,” Social Research 70, no. 4 [2003]: 1109–30). 6 Lyn M. Bechtel, “Shame as a Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel: Judicial, Political, and Social Shaming,” JSOT 49 (1991): 47–76; Lillian R. Klein, “Honor and Shame in Esther,” in Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 149–75; Saul M. Olyan, “Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations in Ancient Israel and Its Environment,” JBL 115, no. 2 (1996): 201–18; Ken Stone, Sex, Honor, and Power in the Deuteronomistic History (JSOTSup 234; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996); Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin, eds., Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible (Semeia 68; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); David A. DeSilva, “The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture,” CBQ 58 (1996): 433–55; T. Raymond Hobbs, “Reflections on Honor, Shame, and Covenant Relations,” JBL 116 (1997): 501–3; Timothy S. Laniak, Shame and Honor in the Book of Esther (SBLDS 165; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); Johanna Stiebert, The Construction of Shame in the Hebrew Bible: The Prophetic Contribution (JSOTSup 346; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); etc. There were a few earlier discussions of shame by biblicists, but these did not utilize anthropological research. See, e.g., Simon J. DeVries, “Shame,” IDB 24:305–6; Martin A. Klopfenstein, Scham und Schande nach dem Alten Testament (ATANT 62; Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1972); S. Seebass, “#wb,” TDOT 2:50–60; J. Gamberoni, “rpx,” TDOT 5:107–11; E. Kutsch, “Prx,” TDOT 5:203–9.

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dishonored ourselves; (2) The feeling that others are looking on with contempt and scorn at everything we do and don’t do; and (3) A preventative attitude (I must hide or disappear in order not to be disgraced).”7 Although one might contest certain aspects of this definition, it is useful overall because it points to two important characteristics of shame: that it has to do with one’s relation to an other, and particularly with an observing other, and that it is generally seen as relating to honor, or the lack thereof. Relating to the first characteristic, David D. Gilmore writes, “. . . shame is above all visual and public. Unlike guilt, shame requires an audience: the watchful community. In the psychic mechanism of shaming, it is the ‘eye’ of the community and the related sense of paranoic observation that are assimilated to worldview and personality.”8 As was just stated, many researchers have seen shame as being related to honor, and honor as being tied clearly to reputation. In fact, they have seen honor as being almost synonymous with having a good reputation. In the classic formulations of honor put forth by such anthropologists as Julian Pitt-Rivers and J. G. Peristiany, shame was viewed largely as an absence of honor, its binary opposite. More recently, the placing of shame in strict binary opposition to honor has been problematized9—as have been binary oppositions in general10—but this fact does not greatly affect the argument being putting forth here. What is important is that shame, like honor, is inextricably linked to what others think of one, as well as to one’s own perceptions of what others think of one. In the case of shame, it is harm to one’s reputation that elicits a sense of shame. Reputation is, in a sense, an abstracted seeing by others. As Gilmore’s statement makes clear, however, shame 7 Benjamin

Kilborne, “Fields of Shame: Anthropologists Abroad,” Ethos 20 (1992): 231. D. Gilmore, “Honor, Honesty, Shame: Male Status in Contemporary Andalusia,” in Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean, 101. 9 See Michael Herzfeld, “Honour and Shame: Problems in the Comparative Analysis of Moral Systems,” Man 15 (1980): 339–51; Unni Wikan, “Shame and Honour: A Contestable Pair,” Man 19, no. 4 (1984): 635–52; etc. 10 Various poststructuralists have in different ways called into question the usefulness of binary oppositions as analytical tools. See, e.g., Jacques Derrida’s concept of deconstruction, outlined in Of Grammatology (trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) and Writing and Difference (trans. Alan Bass; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978); the critiques of the opposition subject/object put forth by Gilles Deleuze, in Nietzsche and Philosophy (trans. Hugh Tomlinson; New York: Columbia University Press, 1983) and AntiOedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, written in collaboration with Félix Guattari (trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane; New York: Viking, 1977); Michel Foucault’s ideas regarding medicalization and normalization in, especially, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (trans. Richard Howard; New York: Vintage, 1973), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (trans. Alan Sheridan; New York: Vintage, 1979), and The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction (trans. Robert Hurley; New York: Vintage, 1980); Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of hybridity in The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994); and Judith Butler’s critiques of “gender” and biological “sex” as distinct constructs in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London: Routledge, 1990) and Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (New York: Routledge, 1993). 8 David

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is elicited also by literal gaze, the scornful gaze of one’s community, or, as will become apparent, of one’s enemies.

II. 1 Samuel 10:27–11:11: Mutilation as Shaming Blemish Turning away from shame in the abstract to shame in the more specific setting of ancient Israel, one finds numerous cases of wartime mutilation in biblical texts, many of them explicitly making a connection between shame and this practice. Most of these texts are found in the books of the so-called Deuteronomistic History. A noteworthy example is 1 Sam 10:27b–11:11, which deals with the trouble stirred up by Nahash the Ammonite. 1 Samuel 10:27 relates that Nahash had been abusing the members of the Transjordanian tribes of Gad and Reuben, gouging out the right eye of every Israelite belonging to those groups. The text notes, however, that seven thousand of these Israelites had escaped to Jabesh-Gilead.11 A month later, Nahash besieges the latter city and, upon their request that he make a vassal treaty with them, he says, “With this will I cut [a covenant] with you, with the boring out of all of your right eyes, so that I may put shame upon all Israel” (11:2).12 The elders then send word to Gibeah, the city of Saul, whose residents begin to weep when they hear of the horrible plight of their brethren. Luckily, Saul takes this opportunity to prove himself as a leader and musters the various Israelite tribes against the Ammonite. This text explicitly states that it is a desire to shame the Israelites that moves Nahash to mutilate them. The word found here is hprx, which is a term used quite commonly in the Hebrew Bible to denote “shame,” though it is by no means the only word thus used.13 The mutilation and shaming of the Transjordanians and Jabesh-Gileadites are apparently no small matter, for the people of Gibeah, who are in no direct danger from the Ammonite, weep over the lot of these groups. It seems likely, too, that they weep over their own potential feeling of shame. After all, the Ammonite’s motive in disfiguring the Jabesh-Gileadites, as he expressly states, is a desire to bring shame upon “all Israel,” not just those mutilated. 11 The entire portion of v. 27 that speaks of Nahash’s actions against these groups is absent from the MT. As P. Kyle McCarter writes: “We read the text of a long passage that is unique to 4QSama among the surviving witnesses, though it was present also in the Greek text used by Josephus (see Ant. 6.68–71). It cannot be regarded as secondary, for it introduces completely new material with no epexegetical or apologetic motive” (I Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 8; New York: Doubleday, 1980], 199). See Antony F. Campbell, 1 Samuel (FOTL 7; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 110–11, for a summary of the debate regarding the originality of this passage. As is apparent from my citation of it above, I agree with McCarter and others that the passage is most likely authentic. 12 All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 13 Other terms used to refer to shame are #wb and t#b, rpx, Prh in its verbal form, and Mlk, among others.

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But how would the mutilation function in this way? Why would it shame all Israel—why would it even shame the Jabesh-Gileadites? First of all, Nahash is clearly establishing a certain power relationship with the groups he is disfiguring or threatening to disfigure. His actions function to assert his domination over them, a domination that reaches its apex when the Jabesh-Gileadites implore him, saying, “Cut a covenant with us, and we will serve you” (11:1). Certainly the mutilation of the Transjordanian tribes brings the power differential between Nahash and these groups into very sharp relief, for it makes their subjugation clear to anyone who sees them even from afar. The threatened mutilation of the JabeshGileadites, had it been carried out, would have functioned in such a manner, as well. This latter mutilation would have even damaged the status of Israelites not in any danger from Nahash, for it would have implied that they were too weak to come to the aid of their brethren. Aside from signifying a newly established power dynamic—and one in which the mutilated party was of inferior status—the mutilation here in all likelihood elicited shame for other reasons, as well. These relate to the Israelite conception of wholeness, a conception that affected notions of beauty and, in some cases, even fitness to participate in cultic activities.14 There are several biblical texts that discuss the relationship between blemishes and physical appearance. The most important of these are Cant 4:7; Dan 1:4; and 2 Sam 14:25, the last of which describes the beauty of David’s son Absalom. It reads: “And there was no man as exceedingly praised for his beauty as Absalom in all of Israel; from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was not a blemish (Mwm) in him.” This text makes clear that beauty was related to an absence of physical defects and, conversely, implies that unattractiveness was due at least in part to the presence of such defects. But what qualified as a “defect” or a “blemish”? Saul M. Olyan writes: Somatic alterations constructed as blemishes in biblical texts include blindness, lameness, genital damage, various other physical injuries or defects (for example, broken bones, overgrown limbs), skin afflictions (scabs, sores), and other abnormalities caused by disease (an eye defect). Most, if not all, of these conditions are visible to the eye. A number of them are clearly characterized by an unappealing somatic asymmetry of some kind (for example, limbs of uneven length). Some of these conditions are permanent; others may be temporary. In all cases, a body with a blemish has lost its quality of wholeness and completeness.15

This category then includes both congenital attributes and those caused by external agents, and it certainly would have included having one’s right eye gouged 14 For

a discussion of the relationship between wholeness and holiness, see Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York: Routledge, 1966), 52–58. 15 Saul M. Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 103.

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out, which would be problematic not only for being a defect but also for being one that was asymmetrical. Thus, the mutilation of the Gadites and Reubenites and the threatened mutilation of the Jabesh-Gileadites would have rendered the disfigured individuals physically incomplete and, in their cultural context, quite unattractive. What’s more, their lack of wholeness may have even affected their ability to participate in the cult. In addition to certain texts that discuss the prohibition on offering blemished animals as sacrifice,16 there are several that deal with the cultic status of blemished humans. Leviticus 21:16–23, a passage concerned with the status of priests with physical defects, states explicitly that such priests are barred from performing some of the most important rites in the Israelite sacrificial system, including approaching the altar of burnt offerings, and thus all of the activities associated with that area. In the case of the high priest, the prohibition also includes entering the holy of holies. The blemished priest is allowed to remain in the sanctuary, though, making clear that his “blemish is not constructed as generally profaning to holy space and holy items.”17 Although mutilating a member of the priesthood, this text makes clear, would greatly limit his ability to take part in the cult, mutilating a nonpriestly Israelite would limit his cultic participation only in certain cases, according to Deut 23:2 (Eng. 23:1), a text that bans only the genitally mutilated Israelite from “entering the assembly of Yahweh,”18 that is, participating in temple worship.19 2 Samuel 5:8 may also attest to the ability of blemishes to limit a person’s cultic participation, though the text is problematic for many reasons. It reads: “David had said on that day, ‘Whoever strikes down the Jebusites, let him strike at the windpipe,20 for David hates the lame and the blind.’ Therefore, they say, ‘The blind and the lame shall not come into the house.’” The word tyb is often used to refer to temples, and so some commentators feel that this text is further evidence for a prohibition on people with certain blemishes—or all blemishes if the phrase “the blind and the lame” is a merismus—entering sacred precincts.21 16 See

Lev 1:3, 10; 3:1; 4:32; 22:17–25; Deut 15:21–22, 17:1; and Malachi 1. Rites, 105. 18 For a discussion of the meaning of the phrase “to enter the assembly of Yahweh,” see Olyan, Rites, 107–8. 19 Isaiah 56:3–5, too, presupposes the inability of those with damaged genitals—in this case eunuchs—to take part in cultic activities, though it rejects such a ban. 20 The meaning of the term rwnc in this context is disputed. See P. Kyle McCarter, II Samuel: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 9; New York: Doubleday, 1984), 135, 139–40, for a discussion of the various possibilities. McCarter himself settles on the translation “let him strike at the windpipe,” which I have adopted here. 21 Olyan suggests that the phrase may be synecdochic, representing all blemished individuals (Rites, 109). For an extended discussion of the passage, see Olyan, Rites, 106–11; and idem, “‘Anyone Blind or Lame Shall Not Enter the House’: On the Interpretation of Second Samuel 5:8b,” CBQ 60 (1998): 218–27. 17 Olyan,

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Obviously one can only speculate on the exact meaning of this verse. What is certain is that the existence of such an adage attests to a strong dislike, even a hatred, for the blemished, a category into which all mutilated individuals would fall. For members of the priesthood, such mutilations would have been a major social and religiocultic impairment, for they would have drastically limited one’s ability to function as a priest according to Leviticus.22

III. 2 Samuel 10 and Judith 13–14: Mutilation and Gender The texts just examined clue us in to why the loss of an eye was so problematic, and why Nahash would choose gouging out his enemies’ eyes as a way to manifest his domination over them. 2 Samuel 10 is another text that discusses wartime mutilation, though the mutilation there draws its shaming power from something other than potential cultic disenfranchisement.23 In this text, David sends envoys to Hanun the Ammonite to “console” him over the death of his father, Nahash. David, who had apparently been in a covenantal relationship with Nahash, was merely acting in a manner befitting a treaty partner, who was expected to send “comforters” to mourn along with the family of the deceased.24 The Ammonites, however, misinterpret the Israelite’s actions, thinking that David had sent the envoys to “search” and “overthrow” the city (v. 3).25 In retaliation, “Hanun took the servants of David and shaved off half of their beards, and he cut their garments in half up to their buttocks and sent them away” (v. 4). Verse 5 continues: “When 22 There are also several texts from Qumran that negatively construct physical blemishes. See 11QTa 45:12–14; CD 15:15–18; 1QSa 2:3–10; 1QM 7:4–7; 4QFlor 1:3–5, etc. For treatments of this material, see Aharon Shemesh, “‘The Holy Angels Are in Their Council’: The Exclusion of Deformed Persons from Holy Places in Qumranic and Rabbinic Literature,” DSD 4, no. 2 (1997): 179–206; and Saul M. Olyan, “The Exegetical Dimensions of Restrictions on the Blind and the Lame in Texts from Qumran,” DSD 8, no. 1 (2001): 38–50. Shemesh also treats discussions of blemishes in rabbinic texts, including m. H ̣ ag. 1:1, m. Kel. 1:8–9, and m. Bek. 7. 23 2 Samuel 10, unlike the texts above, describes a somatic alteration that few Westerners would consider mutilating, for it involves neither bloodletting nor pain nor any permanent disfigurement. The alterations are certainly negatively constructed by the text, however, and so my decision to include them here. 24 See also 1 Kgs 5:15, where Hiram of Tyre sends servants to Jerusalem upon hearing of the death of David. For more on “comforters,” see Olyan, “Honor, Shame,” 212–13 for a brief discussion; and Gary A. Anderson, A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: The Expression of Grief and Joy in Israelite Religion (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), for a detailed treatment of Israelite practices of mourning and rejoicing. 25 Gary Stansell attributes their behavior to the agonistic nature of ancient Israelite society. See Stansell, “Honor and Shame in the David Narratives,” in Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible, 68–69.

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David was informed, he sent to meet them, for the men were greatly shamed (d)m Mymlkn My#n)h wyh yk). And the king said, ‘Remain at Jericho until your beards have grown, then return.’” In the next few lines, a war ensues between the two parties. The acts described in v. 4 thus work on two levels. Politically, they serve as a way effectively to end the covenantal relationship between David and Hanun. This is accomplished on a personal level by the humiliation of the envoys, David’s representatives before the Ammonites.26 The act of shaving off half of the men’s beards fulfills its aim by ridiculing the masculinity of the envoys, a fact that has been pointed out by Ken Stone and P. Kyle McCarter.27 Reliefs and biblical and other ancient texts strongly suggest that it was normative for ancient Near Eastern men, including Israelites, to wear full beards. This text itself implies such a fact, because if being clean-shaven were an option for a man in ancient Israel, the men would not have had to stay at Jericho until their beards had grown. Thus, the partial shaving effects a lowering of status by removing that which visibly separates one status group from another, that is, men from women. In addition, the shaving off of only half of their beards, while probably best explained by the ancient Israelite dislike for asymmetry, seems also to express the male/female dichotomy and to communicate with which side of that dichotomy—and with which set of opposing characteristics—the Ammonites have symbolically associated the envoys, and thus David, whom they represent. In addition to ridiculing the masculinity of these envoys, the act of shaving off half of their beards is likely meant to make a mockery of a fairly commonplace gesture of mourning, that of shaving part or all of the beard.28 The second act of humiliation performed upon the men, that of exposing their buttocks and/or genitalia, is one known from other texts to have been particularly shameful. In Isa 20:4, Yahweh states that the Egyptians would go into exile naked and barefoot, buttocks exposed, “for the shame of Egypt.”29 In 26 Olyan,

“Honor, Shame,” 213. Sex, Honor, 122–23; McCarter, II Samuel, 270. Stansell also writes that the “shaving of the beard is an assault on their masculinity, for the beard is a symbol of their honor,” though the biblical texts he cites in support of this have more to do with the removal of hair and beard as mourning custom than as shameful act (“Honor and Shame,” 69). This is the case also with the texts cited by McCarter. As Olyan notes, there exists in some texts a relationship between mourning and shame, but the mourning behaviors are secondary to the experience of shame in those instances (Biblical Mourning: Ritual and Social Dimensions [New York: Oxford University Press, 2004], 98– 104). Stone provides better evidence than McCarter or Stansell for the beard as a “gender signifier” and site of “gender-based prestige” (Sex, Honor, 122), as does Cynthia R. Chapman (The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter [HSM 62; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004], 26 and 39). 28 Olyan, “Honor, Shame,” 213. 29 The Hebrew is Myrcm twr( and may also be translated more literally as “the nakedness of Egypt.” If the latter, the phrase is redundant in the verse. Many have in fact seen it as a gloss. Joseph Blenkinsopp writes: “‘ervat misirāyim since it is not linked by conjunction with šēt it may be 27 Stone,

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addition, the incident in Genesis 9, where Japheth and Shem walk backwards with a garment in hand in order to cover their naked father Noah without actually seeing his body, demonstrates just how shameful exposure of one’s genitals was considered to be by the ancient Israelites. McCarter goes so far as to say that the combination of shaving and exposure in this passage “suggests symbolic castration, a peculiarly appropriate punishment for presumed spies in view of the widespread analogue of eyeballs and testicles in myth and folklore.”30 Cynthia R. Chapman, in a newly published work, examines in detail representations of nudity in Assyrian reliefs and suggests that exposing the enemy was an act of feminization.31 If she is correct, then both the shaving and the exposure shame the envoys by associating them with a lower-status group, namely, women. Thus, the shame caused by the mutilation in 2 Samuel 10 was related not only to subjugation and the reframing of power relations, as it had been in 1 Samuel 10–11, but also to gender norms and gender-ascribed status. The book of Judith, despite its Hellenistic date and its language of composition, contains an example of mutilation that also draws its shaming power from a manipulation of these norms and that is in many ways similar to other biblical and ancient Near Eastern cases of disfigurement. In Judith 13, the heroine is left alone with the very drunk general Holofernes, and she cuts off his head with his own sword. The text itself emphasizes that gender norms are at issue in 13:15, where Judith displays the head to her fellow Israelites and says: “Look, the head of Holofernes, the commander of the Assyrian army, and here is the canopy beneath which he lay in his drunkenness. The Lord has struck him down by the hand of a female (qhleiva").” Bagoas, Holofernes’ steward, upon finding the man’s headless body, exclaims in 14:18, “The slaves have tricked us! One Hebrew woman has brought shame (aijscuvnhn) on the house of King Nebuchadnezzar.” Unlike in 2 Samuel 10, the shame here is elicited not by the removal of a physical mark of Holofernes’ masculinity but by his defeat at the hands of a woman, a fact which calls that masculinity into question.32 Yet it is not only his masculinity that is impugned but that of the entire regime he had served. We see here, then, that the shaming force of mutilation is not always one that affects the actual person whose body has been altered or disfigured. Holofernes was dead, after all, but the removal and display a gloss with the purpose of replacing dorsal with frontal nudity . . . which has slipped into the text, though the phrase is in 1QIsaa and apparently also 4QIsab” (Isaiah 1–19: A NewTranslation with Introduction and Commentary [AB 19; New York: Doubleday, 2000], 321). Regardless of which stance one takes on the matter, there is ample Egyptian and Assyrian evidence for the practice of forcing the conquered to go into exile naked. See ANEP nos. 332, 358, and 359, and Börker-Klähn, Altvorderasiatische Bildstelen, 31. 30 McCarter, II Samuel, 270, though he unfortunately provides no evidence for this analogue. 31 Chapman, Gendered Language, 220. 32 Judith also emphasizes the gender dimension of her act in 9:10 and 13:15.

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of his head still had efficacy, shaming his entire army and even the very house of Nebuchadnezzar. The above act of mutilation has much in common with Israelite and ancient Near Eastern practice and norms. Like 2 Samuel 10, the mutilation in Judith 13– 14 is explicitly constructed as shaming, and in a manner that is tied to genderascribed status. Though the clarity with which Judith 13 expresses the latter point may be a Hellenistic feature—Greek texts on the whole are more likely to discuss ajndreiva or a man’s lack thereof than are Israelite—it is not necessarily thus.33 Unsurprisingly, 2 Samuel 10 is not the only biblical text that points to aspects of a normative, and socially privileged, Israelite masculinity. The most obvious example of another text that does the same is Judges 4. There, after Barak states to Deborah that he will battle Sisera only on the condition that she come with him, she replies: “I will surely go with you; however, your glory will not come on the path which you are about to walk, for Yahweh will sell Sisera into the hand of a woman (v. 9).” In Judges 4, then, one sees a reference to gender norms that is quite similar to that in Judith 13. Among the other biblical texts noteworthy for their references, whether explicit or implicit, to gender-ascribed status are Jer 50:37 and 51:30; Nah 3:13; and 2 Sam 3:29, which negatively constructs men who hold a spindle-whorl, presumably because it was considered effeminate to do so.34 Both the latter verse and Jer 50:37 bring to mind one of the curses of the succession treaty of Esarhaddon,35 which reads: “May all the gods who are called by name in this treaty tablet spin you around like a spindle-whorl, may they make you like a woman before your enemy” (line 616).36 As Chapman’s recent study makes abundantly clear, the latter is merely one of many Assyrian texts both written and visual that 33 A great deal has been written of late on gender, and masculinity specifically, in ancient Greek texts and society. See, e.g., John J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sex and Gender in Ancient Greece (New York: Routledge, 1990); Brit Berggreen and Nanno Marinatos, eds., Greece and Gender (Papers from the Norwegian Institute at Athens 2; Bergen, Norway: Norwegian Institute at Athens, 1995); Karen Bassi, Acting like Men: Gender, Drama, and Desire in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998); and Ralph M. Rosen and Ineke Sluiter, eds., Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity (Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica batava; Leiden: Brill, 2003). Also germane to the topics of both gender construction and shame is Douglas L. Cairns, Aidōs: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). 34 The prayer to Ištar of Nineveh says this explicitly: “Take from (their) men masculinity. . . . Place in their hands the spindle and mirror of a woman!” Quoted in Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., “Symbols for Masculinity and Feminity: Their Use in Ancient Near Eastern Sympathetic Magic Rituals,” JBL 85 (1966): 331. 35 This text was referred to as the Esarhaddon vassal-treaties by D. J. Wiseman in his editio princeps. See Wiseman, The Vassal-Treaties of Esarhaddon (repr. Iraq 20 [1958] part 1; London: British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 1958); and Simo Parpola and Kazuko Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties and Loyalty Oaths (SAS 2; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1988), XIXX–XXX. 36 Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, 56. See also Wiseman, Vassal-Treaties, 76.

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show a preoccupation with gender and masculinity.37 She goes so far as to say that “the curse sections of these treaties revel in the use of gendered literary tropes.”38 This can only lead one to the conclusion that the explicit manner in which Judith 13 connects shame and emasculation marks the continuity of that text not only with Israelite constructions but with a pre-Hellenistic discourse concerning gender that was more broadly ancient Near Eastern. Another feature of the passage that links it with Israelite and ancient Near Eastern texts and practices is found in the postmortem decapitation of Holofernes and in the use of his head as evidence of his death and vanquishment.39 One sees this also in 1 Sam 17:41-57, where David removes the head of Goliath and presents it to Saul; 2 Sam 4:7-8, where the head of the Saulide heir Eshbaal is presented to David; 2 Sam 20:21-22, where the head of the rebel leader Sheba is used to evidence his death; and 2 Kgs 10:6-11, where Jehu has the heads of the Omride heirs piled up for the same reason.40 One finds another example of this practice in an Assyrian relief in which the head of the Elamite king Te’umman hangs from a tree with Aššurbanipal lying on a divan and feasting nearby.41 In the latter relief, as well as in Judith 14 and many of the other biblical passages, public display of the decapitated head is involved. This fact, and its relationship to mutilation’s ability to shame, will be discussed in more detail below, along with the role of such displays in manifesting shifts in power relations.

IV. Judges 1: Mutilation and Dehumanization Judges 1:1–7 contains another striking case of mutilation, the shame of which is related not to gender but to another kind of status. In this pericope, the Israelites are led by Joshua’s successor, Judah, and his brother Simeon in battle against the Canaanites and Perizzites and defeat them at Bezek. Though their leader, the appropriately named Adoni-Bezek, flees, the Israelites overtake him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. He says to them, “Seventy kings, their thumbs 37 Chapman,

Gendered Language, 20–59. 40. 39 I do not assume here the existence of a homogeneous ancient Near Eastern culture, encompassing every society in the region, nor the passing on of Assyrian and Babylonian cultural features to the other groups in the area à la diffusionism, only that there were certain similarities and continuities between these societies. Naturally, there were ways in which these cultures differed from one another as well. For a brief but useful discussion of the comparative method in biblical and Assyriological studies, see Chapman, Gendered Language, 14. 40 1 Chronicles 10:8–12 most likely attests to the same practice. 41 ANEP, no. 451. See also Zwickel, “Dagons,” 241. I do not imply here that such a practice is limited to the ancient Near Eastern sphere, only that it is well-attested and well-established in this sphere. 38 Ibid.,

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and big toes cut off, used to pick up (scraps) under my table. Just as I have done, thus God has paid me back” (v. 7). Adoni-Bezek’s treatment of his enemies is striking because it so clearly relegates them to a subhuman status. By forcing the kings to await scraps beneath his table, the Canaanite is treating them like dogs, who also sit at their master’s knee, hoping for some choice morcel to be thrown down to them. And, as if this act of degradation were not enough, Adoni-Bezek also removes from these men their thumbs and big toes—the parts of the body that most clearly distinguish humans from the members of the animal kingdom. Although this text does not speak explicitly of shame, one may reasonably infer that Adoni-Bezek’s aim in mutilating his enemies and forcing them to act in such a fashion was to shame them. While one might also posit that the dismemberment of the victims’ thumbs and big toes may have been carried out to cause pain, certainly making men who had formerly been kings—or any human beings, for that matter—pick up scraps beneath one’s table could only be a way of shaming those men. In eliciting shame through dehumanization, the mutilation and behavior in this text function in a manner similar to many of the curses that one finds in ancient Near Eastern treaties, as well as in biblical covenantal texts.42 For example, the treaty between Aššurnerai V and Mati
42 That many covenantal curses have as their goal the shaming of the vassal and those connected with him is largely implicit. Since many curses threaten neither physical pain nor death, one is left to infer that it is shame or embarrassment that gives them their force. The curse from the Esarhaddon succession treaty cited above may serve as an example of this, as do the following: “[And just as] a [har]lot is stripped naked] [sic], so may the wives of Mati>el be stripped naked, and the wives of his offspring, and the wives of [his] no[bles!” (Sefire inscriptions, translated by Joseph A. Fitzmyer, COS 2:82:214) and, quite dramatically, “Just as (this) bug stinks, so may your breath stink before god and king (and) mankind” (Esarhaddon succession treaty, lines 603–5; Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, 55). While most treaty curses do threaten pain, serious discomfort, or death, curses such as those just cited, as well as the content and wording of those that we would consider more serious, imply that shame in some way underlies virtually all treaty curses. Chapman assumes as much in her treatment, connecting this shame to the Assyrian construction of masculinity. She says of the many curses threatening cannibalism: “These images of royal families reduced to cannibalism were designed to shame the vassal king, who would have understood his masculine responsibility to provide for his family and for his subjects” (Gendered Language, 44).

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Jeremiah 34:18–20 similarly states: And the men who transgressed my covenant, who did not carry out the terms of the covenant which they made before me, I shall make [like] the calf which they cut into two and between whose parts they passed. As for the officials of Judah and the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, and the priests, and all of the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf, I shall give them into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those that seek their lives. And their corpses shall be food for the birds of the heavens and for the wild beasts of the earth.44

In these texts, covenanters are symbolically equated with mutilated animals, a representation that communicates to them not only the pain they will endure if they break the treaty but also the dehumanizing loss of status. Treaty curses that threaten lack of burial, one of which is found in the text from Jeremiah quoted above, communicate the same thing: that the person who breaks the covenant will be reduced to a status no better than that of an animal, lying as carrion upon the land for scavengers to pick at.45 Thus, the actions of Adoni-Bezek, while unique in their particular details, are not unique in their symbolism among mutilations 43 Parpola and Watanabe, Neo-Assyrian Treaties, 9. See also Dennis J. McCarthy, Treaty and Covenant: A Study in the Form in the Ancient Oriental Documents and the Old Testament (AnBib 21; Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1963), 195. The treaty between Bar-gael be cut in two, and may his nobles be cut in two!” (COS 2:82:214). Lines 547–54 of the Esarhaddon succession treaty contain similar curses, as well. Assyrian royal inscriptions also occasionally compare victims of mutilation or massacre to animals, but in a less detailed fashion. See COS 2:115B:280; Luckenbill, Annals, 51; etc. 44 Textually, Jeremiah 34 is not without its problems. For one thing, there are major differences between the MT and the LXX (Jeremiah 34 = chap. 41 in the LXX). Of most importance, the Greek lacks wyrtb Nyb wrb(yw Myn#l, but instead reads: ejrgavzesqai aujtw/'. Wilhelm Rudolph blamed this not on the different Hebrew Vorlage on which the LXX was based, but on the version’s translator himself. William McKane writes in his commentary: “Rudolph . . . supposes that the Greek translator has departed from his Hebrew Vorlage so as to suppress the mention of a ritual which he did not understand or regarded as objectionable. However this may be, it is clear that Sept. has no text-critical value, except in so far as it confirms lg(h. . . .” See McKane, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Jeremiah (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), 2:873. McKane is referring here to another textual problem with Jeremiah 34: For the word lg(h in v. 18, one would expect lg(k. As was stated in the quotation, this wording was not emended in the LXX, nor was it in the Vulgate, the Targum, or the Peshitta. Nonetheless, in order to make sense of the verse, scholars have generally added the preposition. See McKane for a list of those who have made this emendation (Jeremiah, 873) and BHS, 854 n.18a. 45 Also see, e.g., Deut 28:26 and Jer 7:33; as well as the Esarhaddon succession treaty, lines 481–84, and perhaps 637–40.

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that were performed or at least threatened in ancient Near Eastern and biblical texts.46

V. Mutilation and the Seeing Other In addition to functioning in the ways discussed thus far, the shame of wartime mutilations is almost always tied also to their public nature. As David D. Gilmore states, “Shame is above all visual and public.”47 One sees the public nature of shame very clearly in 2 Samuel 10, where David’s envoys are allowed or perhaps commanded to stay outside of Jerusalem, out of sight essentially, until their beards have grown back. Naturally, the gouging out of the various Israelite groups’ right eyes in 1 Samuel 10–11 is also extremely visual and public, as are the mutilations discussed in Judges 1. Even in Judith, where the heroine decapitates Holofernes in private, the mutilating act takes on a very public nature when his head is hung upon the parapet of Bethulia’s wall. Other examples of mutilations that are either publicly performed or involve public display of some kind include the following: Judges 16, where the Philistines gouge out the eyes of Samson and make him stand between the pillars of Dagon’s temple; 1 Samuel 31, where the Philistines come upon the dead body of Saul, cut off his head, and hang his headless torso on the wall of Beth-Shean; and 2 Samuel 4, where David has the sons of Rimmon executed for killing Saul’s successor, Eshbaal, has their hands and feet cut off, and has their bodies hung beside the pool at Hebron. A connection between shame and the gaze of others need not be assumed merely on the basis of comparative ethnographic data; it is expressed quite clearly in various biblical texts. This connection is most explicit in the book of Ezekiel, arguably the most shame-obsessed of Israel’s prophets. Ezekiel refers to shame at least a dozen times, with several of these occurrences appearing in ch. 16, his metaphorical diatribe against the adulterous Jerusalem (see 16:27, 52, 54, 61, 63). Juxtaposed with an emphasis on the shameful behavior of Jerusalem is an emphasis on gaze. The punishment of Jerusalem must be performed before the eyes of others, for just as Jerusalem profaned the great and holy name of Yahweh before the nations (see 20:41, 44; 36:21–23; etc.), so must the city be chastened before them in order for Yahweh to restore that great name—to restore his honor, 46 The biblical corpus contains various texts that describe what seems to be the carrying out of treaty curses. See especially 2 Kgs 25:7; Jer 39:6–7; and 2 Samuel 21. The dismemberments in 1 Samuel 11 and the gruesome Judges 19 seem to function as reminders of covenantal oaths and responsibilities, though to be such one must posit that the Israelite tribes were in some manner covenant-bound to one another. See Robert Polzin, “HWQY> and Covenantal Institutions in Early Israel,” HTR 62 (1969): 227–40, where he also argues that Num 25:4 and 2 Samuel 21 describe the execution of covenantal curses. His discussion is dated in several respects, however. 47 See above, p. 216.

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as it were. Ezekiel states in 16:36–37 that Yahweh, as part of Jerusalem’s punishment for “whoring” with other lovers/gods and for performing child sacrifice, will expose her nakedness before her lovers, who will “see all” her “nakedness.”48 Verse 41 says: “They shall burn your houses with fire and execute judgements on you in the sight of many women” (twbr My#n yny(l). Chapter 23, the other infamous diatribe against the “whore” Jerusalem, uses similar language and even describes the mutilation of this allegorical woman, declaring that she will have her nose and ears cut off and will be left naked, exposed (Kynwnz twr( hlgnw), before those whom she hates (vv. 25, 28–29). Yahweh also commands that a mob be assembled to punish her, so that other women might see this and take warning not to act in a similar fashion (vv. 46–48). While there are certainly problems with using Ezekiel as evidence for what was normatively Israelite, his statements make explicit what was implicit above: that shame has a very visual component and that mutilations, which are carried out to elicit shame in the mutilated party, also have a visual component.

VI. Implications and Conclusions Connected to the visual component just described is the relationship between mutilation and power. Wartime mutilation and the display of war trophies often have the function of signaling a change in power relations. The examples of this are numerous. One need look only to the mutilation of the Gadites and Reubenites in 1 Sam 10:27–11:11, which made horrifically clear that Nahash the Ammonite was the dominant party in the shifting relationship of domination and subordination in which the two sides were involved. Further, in Judith 13–14, the display of Holofernes’ head is an act of resistance on the part of the Israelites toward the Assyrians who dominated them. In 2 Samuel 10, Hanun’s mutilation of David’s envoys signifies his intention to shift the relationship of treaty-established parity between the Ammonites and Israelites to one of unevenness and control. Among the other biblical examples of this phenomenon are 2 Kgs 25:7//Jer 39:6–7, where Nebuchadnezzar’s disfigurement of Zedekiah is not only an execution of a treaty curse but also a manifestation of the former’s reassertion of superiority over the attempted resistance of the Israelites.49 In addition, in 1 Sam 31:8–13 and 1 Sam 17:41–57, the taking and displaying of war trophies signify the frequently shifting power relations between the Israelites and the Philistines. Even in the relatively late texts of 1 Macc 7:47 and 2 Macc 15:30–35, the display of the Seleucid general text is addressed to Jerusalem: Ktwr(-lk-t) w)rw. neither of the texts states explicitly that the Babylonian king had made a treaty with the Judean, two other biblical texts, 2 Chr 36:13 and Ezek 17:13-16, do refer to an oath sworn to the Babylonian by Zedekiah, and the latter also refers to a covenant made between the two. 48 The

49 Although

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Nicanor’s body parts signals a shift in power relations, in that case one involving the resistance of the Judeans against the domination of the Seleucid Greeks. These examples are certainly not exhaustive of the biblical texts that attest to mutilation serving this function. Mutilation does not relate only to the shifting of power relations in the political sphere, however. As we have seen, it was typical in cases where mutilation was carried out against a still living victim for the disfigured individual to be shamed before the eyes of his or her enemies, as were the Gadites and Reubenites, the vanquished kings in Judges 1, and the envoys in 2 Samuel 10. In the case of the envoys, however, and in all likelihood the Transjordanian tribes as well, the victims were shamed before the eyes of their own people—or feared being thus shamed. 2 Samuel 10 strongly suggests that the envoys did not want to be physically seen by their comrades at David’s court in Jerusalem, or perhaps even by people on the road or in the market, who would have stared at them and known that they had been overpowered and humiliated by another. This fact was most likely the driving force behind their enemies’ decision to mutilate them, for if their enemy sought to shame them, which 1 Samuel 10–11 states explicitly was so, surely it was because they knew what the contours and realities of shame were in the society of those over whom they sought to assert their domination. Thus, in all likelihood the actions that in these texts both display and even effect a change in the political power structure draw their symbolic force from the microrelations of power that are negotiated in the mundane, nonpolitical sphere. It is by now clear that negotiations of power and status lie at the heart of mutilation’s efficacy. Mutilation of enemies in ancient Israel functioned to shame the victim or his community, and it did this in various ways: by effecting a change of status in the victim by transferring him or her from the status of “whole” to that of “blemished”; by associating them with a lower-status group, namely, women or animals; and lastly, by signaling the newly subjugated status of the victim and/or their community. While not every text that describes wartime mutilation makes explicit the connection between mutilation and shame, such a connection can be reasonably inferred in virtually every case that one finds in the biblical corpus. Strikingly, no text in the Hebrew Bible mentions pain as a reason for disfiguring a victim. It is only in 2 Maccabees 6–7 that we find clear cases of physical torture, and there it is at the hands of the Seleucids. Even in 1 Sam 10:27–11:11, where living victims have their right eyes gouged out, the reason stated for this is shame, not physical pain. This provides us, perhaps, with the clearest indication of the importance in ancient Israel of avoiding shame and of maintaining status. Mutilation, being tied in such variegated fashion to status and to its loss, not only had the ability to shape power relations of the most grandiose and the most quotidian kinds but also to threaten what many Israelites seem to have valued most, their standing in the eyes of others. Thus, what appears at first glance to be brutish and meaningless violence was anything but that.

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 243–270

The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt and Yahweh’s Answer to Job michael b. dick [email protected] Siena College, Loudonville, NY 12211

The ancients were quite aware of the contrast between the center and the periphery, the inner versus outer territory.1 The social archaeologist Ian Hodder detects these antipodes, domus and ager, as early as neolithic European settlements.2 Agriculture is the attempt to domesticate the ager, a “culturing of the wild.” Hunting and warfare, which were conceptually linked, were also an attempt to effect the domus by domesticating nature and the wild. Neolithic societies sought to create monumental walls and dirt around their long houses to exclude the wild; at the same time they sought to bring the outside under the control of the cultural by hunting.3 The contrast between the domus and foris (“outside the gate”) recalls the importance of the city walls as a limen. So many Mesopotamian rituals of passage exploit the liminality of the s\ēru, the wilderness, as a place of transition. In such varied rituals as akītu, mīs pî, bīt rimki, maqlu, šurpu, namburbi, the s\ēru can receive the evil that must be disposed of away from the ālu, “the city,” civilization (fig. 1a).4 The classic treatment of this polarity is the story of the “civilizing” of Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic.5 In the Erra Epic, when Erra wishes to universalize his rule, he boasts: 1 M. Liverani, International Relations in the Ancient Near East, 1600–1100 BC (Studies in Diplomacy; Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2001), 18. 2 Ian Hodder, The Domestication of Europe: Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies (Social Archaeology; Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 85–86. 3 Ibid., 86, 164, 177. 4 See D. P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (SBLDS 101; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 26, for the wilderness in Israelite purification rituals, similarities as well as differences. 5 This polarity seems more a feature of the Akkadian Gilgamesh stories than the Sumerian (Chikako E. Watanabe, Animal Symbolism in Mesopotamia: A Contextual Approach [Wiener Offene Orientalistik 1; Vienna: Institut für Orientalistik der Universität Wien, 2002], 152).

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Figure 1a. Worldview (adapted from Pongratz-Leisten)

ina an-e re-ma-ku ina ki-tim lab-ba-ku ina kur šar-ru-ku (I: 109–110) In the heavens I am a wild bull; in the land (ers\etu) I am a lion; in the homeland (mātu) I am king . . . . The gods shared their cosmogonic control of the wilderness with the Assyrian king, who was delegated “to expand his rule.”6 As we shall see, however, such a divine–royal synergy, though at home with the Priestly writer in Gen 1:27 and Psalm 8, was quite at odds with the view of the author of the Yhwh speeches in the book of Job.

I. The Neo-Assyrian Lion Hunt By his lion hunt th e Neo-Assyrian king identifies himself symbiotically with his victim and thus, like Erra, becomes the lion, extending his rule beyond the city to the ers\etu/s\ēru.7 The king as identified with the lion (or with the wild bull) is then a “creature of nature” who rules over his (domesticated people), as a shepherd (Sumerian sipad; Akkadian rē<û).8 Because of this identification,

6 B. Oded, War, Peace, and Empire: Justifications for War in Assyrian Royal Inscriptions (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1992), 101–20. 7 “En définitive, par le truchement de 1e comparaison du roi avec le lion, on cherche toujours à exprimer 1e même aspiration à une souveraineté universelle” (E. Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” RHR 198, no. 4 [1981]: 400). 8 Watanabe, Animal Symbolism, 15, 65, 67.

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the defeated lion is never mutilated but is treated with respect, unlike the fate of the king’s human foes.9 Until the twentieth century, Panthera leo persica (the Asiatic lion) inspired both awe and fear in the inhabitants of Mesopotamia.10 Now limited to around 250 animals Figure 1. Mesilim Mace Head (AO 2340; on a game preserve in the northwest Indian drawing from RIA s.v. Mesilim) Gir Forest, the Asiatic lion is a pathetic survivor of its noble feline predecessors. From our earliest artistic and textual evidence the Asiatic lion has been linked with kingship. The famed mace head of Mesilim, the twenty-sixth-century b.c.e. king of Kiš (AO 2340; see fig. 1), found at a possible Ningirsu shrine in Girsu, bears six intertwined lions on its sides and the lion-eagle Anzû (Imdugud) on its top.11 Its inscription clearly links it with kingship: “Mesilim king of Kiš, builder of the temple of the God Ningirsu. . . .” The Assyrian ruler gradually progressed from rubā
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reliefs of the lion hunt have far greater centrality than they are afforded in the corresponding royal annals.13 The royal lion hunt was in fact so central to the Neo-Assyrian monarchy that its motif formed the royal seal from the time of Figure 2. Relief 23 from room B of NW Palace at Nimrud Shalmaneser III (859–824 (drawing by Richard P. Sobolewski and Halina Lewakowa; b.c.e.) to that of Aššurcopyrighted by and reproduced with permission of the NW et\el-ilāni (627–612 b.c.e.).14 Palace Archives; material scanned by Learning Sites, Inc. Although the 104 examples listed by S. Herbordt differ in such details as the dress of the king, whether the king is bearded or unbearded, and the stance and size of the lion, they all show a profile of the Assyrian monarch in combat with a rampant lion (see fig. 3).15 Das neuassyrische Königssiegel mit dem königlichen Helden symbolisierte ganz offensichtlich die königliche Autorität an sich.16

Figure 3. Drawing of royal seal impression (drawn by D. Collon and used with permission of Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus)

Interestingly, the scenario in this seal is depicted in Assurbanipal’s North Palace on Kouyunjik, room S 1, slab C (Louvre AO 19903; top register Barnett plate LVII; see fig. 4). The royal hunt also played an important role in the north palace on Kouyunjik in Nineveh. The lion hunt was a central theme in rooms C, ascending passage R, western portal S, and upper room S1 (see fig. 5), which are arranged in a paratactical pattern that provides us

13 I. J. Winter, “Royal Rhetoric and the Developments of Historical Narrative in NeoAssyrian Reliefs,” Studies in Visual Communication 7, no. 2 (1981): 17–19; idem, “The Program of the Throneroom of Assurnasirpal II,” in Essays on Near Eastern Art and Archaeology in Honor of Charles Kyrle Wilkinson (ed. P. O. Harper and H. Pittman; New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983). Also see Watanabe, Animal Symbolism, 70. 14 S. Herbordt, Neuassyrische Glyptik des 8.–7. Jh. v. Chr. (SAA 1; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 1992), 123–45; S. Maul, “Das ‘dreifache Königtum’: Überlegungen zu einer Sonderform des neuassyrischen Königssiegels,” in Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte Vorderasiens: Festschrift für Rainer Michael Boehmer (ed. U. Finkbeiner et al.; Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1995), 395–402. 15 Herbordt, Neuassyrische Glyptik, 124–26. Perhaps this portrays the pirig šu zi-ga (“lion with raised paw”) and pirig3 ka duh…-h…a (“lion with open mouth”) of the šulgi royal hymns. See G. R. Castellino, Two Shulgi Hymns (BC) (Studi Semitici 42; Rome: Istituto di Studi del Vicino Oriente, 1972) and E. Unger, “Über zwei Jagdreliefs Assurbanipals und über die Stele Assarhaddons aus Sendschirli,” Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und vorderasiatische Archäologie 31 (1917/1918): 231–39. 16 Maul, “Das ‘dreifache Königtum,’” 396.

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with a hermeneutical key to their interpretation.17 The rooms show the various stages of the hunt from preparation to its conclusion in libation and royal repose.18 Room S1 is the most significant portrayal, since it presents two series: (1) a lion hunt, and (2) Assurbanipal’s final Elamite campaign of 647–646 b.c.e. including the surrender of Ummanaldas.19 The centerpiece of this room is the Banquet Scene,20 the three registers of which will be discussed below. On one hand, the role of the king as lion hunter suited his title as rē<û (“shepherd”), since the prime role of the shep- Figure 4. Louvre AO 19903; top register. herd is to protect the flock from rapacious Barnett plate LVII beasts such as the lion.21 The tablet K2867 + 1904-10-9,11 (BM 98982)22 describing Assurbanipal’s hunt would seem to reinforce this. At his accession, Adad and Ea had so blessed the land with abundance of water that vegetation increased and encroached on cultivated fields. This bounty created the perfect habitat for lions, which then increased to plague

17 R. D. Barnett, Sculptures from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668–627 B.C.) (London: British Museum Publications, 1976). The names for the rooms stem from Sir Austen Henry Layard’s excavations in the nineteenth century. The northwest side of ascending room R shows the return from the hunt, while the opposite southeast side showed the journey to the hunting grounds. Room S, to which R leads, is actually almost six meters below the elevation of the main palace; so-called upper room S1 is actually at the elevation of the rest of the palace and formed a bīt h…ilāni. The portal of S might well have led out to the actual ambassu (“park”) for the hunt. E. Unger had already noticed this almost cinematographic pattern of Assyrian bas-reliefs (“Über zwei Jagdreliefs Assurbanipals,” 235). Hormuzd Rassam’s enthusiasm at excavating the hunt in room C (his “Saloon” ) is conveyed in his letter to Layard of January 1, 1854. The letter appears in Barnett, Sculptures, 11. 18 Room E (Barnett, Sculptures, plate XIV) shows a tamed lion with musicians. Plate XV (room E) displays a lion and lioness at repose in an ambassu. 19 For the dating of this campaign, see A. Winitzer, “Assurbanipal’s ‘Garden Scene’: An Interpretation,” paper presented July 10, 2003, at the 49th Rencontre assyriologique internationale, London. 20 Barnett, Sculptures, plates LXIII–LXV. 21 The šibirru (shepherd’s staff) was a symbol of Assyrian kingship and nāqidūtu (“pastorate”) (RlA, s.v. “Hirte”). 22 T. Bauer, Das Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals: Vervollständigt und neu bearbeitet (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1933), 87–89; M. Streck, Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Könige bis zum Untergange Niniveh’s (VAB 7; Leipzig, 1916), 210–14; R. Borger and A. Fuchs, Beiträge zum Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals: Die Prismenklassen A,B,C = K,D,E,F,G,H,J und T Sowie Andere Inschriften (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996), 330–31.

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levels (rev 7 ki-ma dab-di-e dEr-ra). 23 These predators fed on domesticated animals and humans (rev. 4) until the lamentations of the villagers and shepherds (rev. 9) motivate the king to intervene and restore peace (rev. 13) i-na mul-ta-
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Ninurta and Nergal (digi.du) who loved my priesthood (ša šanga-ti i-ra-am-mu) gave me wild animals of the wilderness and commanded me to hunt.28

The inscriptions of Assurbanipal29 also attribute the hunt to the order of Nergal, who is significantly written digi.du (dPalil), “he who goes before,” and honored as lugal edin, “king of the wilderness.”30 The lion too is described as ez-zu šá edin- Figure 6. North Palace room S šú, “ferocious creature of the wilderness.”31 (Barnett plate L). Ninurta is often paired with his brother Nergal as ordering Assurbanipal’s hunts.32 As Cassin states, “Le bas-relief est dans un sens une ‘rite fixé sur les pierres.’”33 The royal lion hunt was a cultic act.34 The king is represented in priestly ceremonial attire for the hunt (fig. 6).35 S|ilulu, one of the earliest Assyrian rulers,36 in his seal calls himself the ensi2 (iššakku) a-šur3ki, which Ursula Magen translates Priesterfürst.37 In the Tākultu–ritual of Aššur-et\el-ilāni (620s b.c.e.), one of the last 28 IM 54669, IV 40–42 in G. G. Cameron, “The Annals of Shalmaneser III, King of Assyria: A New Text,” Sumer 6 (1950): 18; see M. Elat, “Mesopotamische Kriegsrituale,” BO 39 (1982): 18 n. 6. For similar statements from Tiglath-Pileser I, Assurnasirpal II, see Vieyra, Les Assyriens, 115–17. It is ironic that Nergal and Ninurta gave the command for the lion hunt, since they (together with Ištar) are themselves described as the leonine gods (Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 388). Like these gods, the king himself is a lion (so portrayed since the third millennium), but he also fulfills the royal prerogative of the lion hunt. This is Cassin’s “dialectique du chasseur et du chassé que le rapport entre le roi et le lion nous apparaît sous un jour different” (Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 388). 29 Streck, Assurbanipal, 308 δ; and Barnett, Sculptures, 53. 30 For the writing digi.du for Nergal, see Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 391 n. 157; and RlA IX “Nergal A,” 216. It would seem, then, that dPalil was sharing his “kingship of the wilderness (šar s\êri)” with the Assyrian king. See Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 123 n. 343a. 31 Streck, Assurbanipal, 309 line 1. 32 Ibid., 306; Barnett, Sculptures, 54. 33 Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 394. 34 U. Magen, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen—Aspekte der Herrschaft: Eine Typologie (Baghdader Forschungen 9; Mainz am Rhein: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1986), 34–35; and Elat, “Mesopotamische Kriegsrituale,” 18 and n. 6. If the king is portrayed in S1 as killing a lion with the h…utpalû-mace, this would fit in with the prominent role of that weapon in Elat’s “Mesopotamische Kriegsrituale.” 35 Vieyra, Les Assyriens, 57: “Le roi d’Assyrie est, à l’origine, un prêtre, qui possède aussi des pouvoirs militaries.” 36 His reign is probably to be positioned between the end of Ur III and the beginning of the dynasty of Puzur-Aššur I. He is the twenty-seventh ruler on the king list. For a discussion of this figure, see Magen, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen, 9 and n. 7. 37 To read sanga in Assyrian royal epithets, see Seux, Épithètes royales, 110 n. 21; Magen, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen, 9.

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Assyrian monarchs, a prayer implores both šangûtu (“priesthood”) and šarrûtu (“kingship”) for the ruler (KAR 214 IV 13ʹ–14ʹ). Throughout the history of the Assyrian monarchy, the ruler was both priest and (actually only later) king.38 All Neo-Assyrian kings with the exception of Sennacherib and Tiglath-Pileser III used the epithet iššakû/šangû, “priest” of the god(s) Aššur/Enlil.39 This was not just an empty title but part of the actual sacral activity of the Assyrian king.40 The portrayals of Assurbanipal’s lion hunt in rooms S and the fallen terrace S1 of the North Palace in Nineveh represent him wearing the kulūlu-turban of the Assyrian king as priest.41 In almost one-third of the hunting scenes of the Assyrian kings Assurnasirpal II and Assurbanipal, the monarch wears this sacerdotal kulūlu-turban without the fez.42 This kulūlu-turban was part of the Middle Assyrian coronation rite through which the monarch was consecrated as šangû (“priest”).43 In the Middle Assyrian coronation rite we read:44

38 S. M. Maul, “Der assyrische König—Hüter der Weltordnung,” in Priests and Officials in the Ancient Near East: Papers of the Second Colloquium on the Ancient Near East, The City and Its Life, Held at the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan (Mitaka, Tokyo) (ed. K. Watanabe; Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1999), 207. 39 Seux, Épithètes royales, 110–16. Ninurta was also iššak Enlil (K. L. Tallqvist, Akkadische Götterepitheta [StudOr 7; Helsinki: Societas orientalis fennica, 1938], 423; and Maul, “Der assyrische König,” 212). 40 B. Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, Band 1, Untersuchungen zu Kult, Administration, und Personal; vol. 2, Anmerkungen, Textbuch, Tabellen, und Indices (Studia Pohl [Series Major] 8; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1981), 1:130-74; Maul, “Der assyrische König,” 212. 41 Magen, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen, 25. Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 389: “Assurbanipal porte la robe royale étoilée qui lui descend jusqu’aux pieds lorsqu’il affronte dans un combat singulier le lion. Son attitude est calme, presque hiératique. Il est coiffé de la haute tiare. Ses prises, qu’il saisisse la patte ou la queue du lion ou qu’il bande son arc, semblent faire partie d’un cérémonial réglé longtemps à l’avance, de même que la libation qu’il verse sur les corps des lions gisant morts à ses pieds.” 42 Magen, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen, 26, 128. 43 Ibid., 16, 35. “Erst danach erfolgt die Bestätigung oder die Bekräftigung seines Priestertums durch Ansetzen der kulūlu-Kopfbinde und das Anflehen von Assurs Wohlwollen” (K. F. Müller, Das assyrische Ritual: Teil 1, Texte zum assyrischen Konigsritual [MVAG 41.2; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1937), 33. 44 Ibid. [MVAG 41.3], 12, 34-35). Menzel dates this ritual to around the time of TukultiNinurta I because of the relative importance of the city of Kār Tukulti-Ninurta in the rite (Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, 1:41). See Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, 2:n. 2138: “So ist also die Krönung des Königs identisch mit seiner Priesterweihe. Hinzuweisen ist ferner auf KAR 214 Rs IV 13', wo das šangûtu des Königs vor dem šarrūtu genannt ist. Aufgrund dieser Tatsachen ist ernsthaft in Frage zu stellen, ob lúsanga Aššur als Königstitulatur in nA Zeit durchgängig als *išši
Dick: The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt 30 ma-a ku-lu-li ša qaqqadi-ka ma-a Aššur dNin-líl bēlē meš ša 31 ku-lu-li-ka 100 šanāte meš li-ip-pi-ru-ka 32 šēp-ka ina é.kur ù qātē-ka i-na irat Aššur ili-ka lu t\ab 33 i-na ma-h…ar Aššur ili-ka ša-an-gu-utka ù ša-an-gu-ta 34 ša marē meš-ka lu t\a-ba-at i-na e-šar-te 35

gišh…at\ti\ -ka māt-ka ra-piš qa-ba-a šema-a ma-ga-ra

36 ki-it-ta ù sa-li-ma Aššur lid-di-na-ku (KAR 135)

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May Ashur (and) Ninlil, the lords of your “kulūlu -turban,” put the “kulūlu-turban” on your head for a hundred years (CAD K 527a). May your foot in the Ekur and your hands before Ashur your god be favorable. Before Ashur your god may your priesthood and the priesthood Of your sons be favorable. With your righteous scepter expand your land!45 The quality to give orders and to be listened to and obeyed and justice and peace may Ashur grant you.

The complex of lion hunting scenes in rooms S probably led out of the palace to that the special ambassu– park discussed below and portrayed in the lion hunts in room C.46 The peculiar libation scenes in the reliefs of both Assurnasirpal II and Assurbanipal (fig. 7) highlight the sacral nature of the lion hunt. The libation scenes of Assurnasirpal II and Assurbanipal,47 in which they pour Figure 7. Assurbanipal’s lion hunt and libation wine over the bodies of slain lions, scene from Northern Palace room S1 both portray the kings as priests; fur- (Barnett plate LIX) thermore, Assurbanipal’s libation scene displays some interesting peculiarities in the placement of the cultic apparatus.48 The offering table is always placed on the side of the object/person being 45 “Das

Töten des Löwen bedeutet hier nichts anderes als das Ausdehnen des Kulturlandes (zugunsten der ‘Herde’) und wird damit zum geradezu wörtlichen Umsetzen der im Krönungsritual an den assyrischen König gerichteten Forderung: mātka ruppiš, ‘erweitere dein Land!’” (Maul, “Das ‘dreifache Königtum,’” 399). 46 The reliefs in the North Palace Room E (Barnett, Sculptures) possibly portray a lion and lioness in just such a park (plate XIV-XV). See Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 384 n. 129. 47 For Assurnasirpal II: Nimrud NWP room B, 19 bottom register. See Meuszynski, Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen, 23, Tafel 1. For Assurbanipal, see Barnett, Sculptures, plate LVII. 48 Chikako E. Watanabe, “A Problem in the Libation Scene of Ashurbanipal,” in Cult and Ritual in the Ancient Near East (ed. H. P. T. Mikasa; Bulletin of the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan 6; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1992), 91–104.

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worshiped, and the incense burner on the side of the worshiper. The two top registers read as a narrative from right to left; however, the bottom register differs in reading from left to right. Notice the attendants on the far left bringing in the lion carcasses, which will later occupy the center of the bottom register. The king stands in the position of the sacred object that is usually worshiped in all similar scenes.50 The accompanying inscription in that bottom register also lacks any mention of the deity before whom the libation is made.51 The lion hunt mimicked Ninurta’s defeat of leonine Anzû (an.im.dugudmušen), the threat to cosmic order.52 Mesopotamian literature preserves several versions of Ninurta’s struggles with an external (“foreign”) opponent at the behest of the gods, especially of his father (Enlil). These myths come from different times and places but contain a shared core: As a result of combat the victorious young warrior is generally raised in stature.53 Both the king’s use of the chariot and his battles on foot were fashioned to allude to Ninurta’s cosmic conflict with Anzû. The king hunting from his chariot could be reminiscent of Ninurta’s return from combat by chariot into the Ekur Temple celebrated in such Sumerian epics as Angin7.54 The Anzû-bird hung as a trophy from the front guard of Ninurta’s chariot: mušen Anzû gaba-gal2-la bi2-in-

49 Ibid., 100. 50 Ibid., 103; Watanabe, Animal Symbolism,

77. “A Problem in the Libation Scene of Ashurbanipal,” 104: “Rather it [the libation scene] could be a sort of ceremony of kingship or that of šangûtu in which the political power of ‘kingship’ includes ‘priestship’ as a religious function of the king as well. The difficulty lies in the point that neither the iconography nor the text refers to the deity, even though the king is in a gesture of offering, and that the absence of the deity agrees both in the iconographical and textual descriptions.” 52 Ninurta, Nabû, Nergal (Erra) and Ištar all order the royal lion hunt and are leonine in appearance and description (Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 387–88): they are both lions and killers of lions, as is the king himself. They occupy a link between city and wilderness. Anzû is likewise leonine (Watanabe, Animal Symbolism, 95, 126–33). See B. Batto, “The Divine Sovereign: The Image of God in the Priestly Creation Account,” in David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts (ed. Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004), 182. For a current study on Ninurta, see A. Annus, The God Ninurta in the Mythology and Royal Ideology of Ancient Mesopotamia (SAA 14; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002). 53 In Lugale-e, Ninurta seems to begin with a loftier status: he already has a throne, a boat, a wife, a palace, and a great name. See M. E. Vogelzang, Din šar dadmê: Edition and Analysis of the Akkadian Anzû Poem (Groningen: Styx, 1988), 172. This myth is undoubtedly the prototype for Marduk’s cosmogonic victory in the Enuma Eliš (see W. G. Lambert, “Ninurta Mythology in the Babylonian Epic of Creation,” in Keilschriftliche Literaturen: Ausgewählte Vorträge der XXXIII Rencontre assyriologique internationale [Berliner Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient 6; Berlin: D. Reimer, 1986], 55–60). 54 Jerrold S. Cooper, The Return of Ninurta to Nippur: An-gim dim-ma (AnOr 52; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum, 1978), 9 n. 6, for bibliography; T. Jacobsen, “Religious Drama in Ancient Mesopotamia,” in Unity and Diversity: Essays in the History, Literature, and Religion of the Ancient Near East (ed. H. Goedicke; JHNES; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 73. 51 Watanabe,

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la2 (61 of An-gin7).55 Clearly the god’s victory was to redound to the king, for at Ninkarnunna’s request (Angin7 186) Ninurta expresses to his wife Nin-Nibru:56 inim dug3 lugal-la su3ra2-še3 mu-un-na-ab-be2 “he made an enduring favorable pronouncement to her for the king (Akk. version: ‘For kingship’)” (An-gin7 198, also see line 186). The royal Assyrian lion hunt Figure 8. Ninurta fights leonine Anzû (Nimrud) took place either by chariot, by ship, or “on foot” ina gìrII-ia; the latter is often described as la-sa-ma-te, “running, swift.”57 This use of lassamātu recalls the rite of Ninurta’s footrace (lismu).58 The running posture of Ninurta in Neo-Assyrian iconography surely intends to recall that race (see fig. 8). The theomachy results in the establishment of Ninurta’s kingship. In An-gin7 Ninurta returns from the battle as en (“lord”) (125) or as lugal (“king”) in K38. And ultimately he proclaims: 166. nam-lugal-g̃u10 zag an ki-še3 pa h…e2-em-ma-ni-[ib2]-ôe3û Let, therefore, my kingship be manifest unto the ends of the universe!59

In Lugal-e after his victory, the gods yield to Ninurta, and his father, Enlil, cedes to Ninurta the power of heaven (usu an-na [697]): 695. 696. 697. 695. 696.

šita2 an-na bal sag9-ga nu-kur2-ru ti ud su3-ra2 g̃iškim den-lil2-la2 lugal usu an-na nig̃2-ba-zu h…e2-a A celestial mace, a prosperous and unchanging rule, eternal life, the good favor of Enlil,

697. O King, and the strength of An: these shall be your reward.

55 Lugal-e 128–134. I have cited all Sumerian texts from the on-line Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature at Oxford University (http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/). At times the line numbers differ from the published editio princeps. This also leads to an inconsistency in my writing of signs, e.g., nig2 and elsewhere níg. 56 On the appearance here of the obscure Nin-Nibru rather than Baba, see J. van Dijk, Lugal ud me-lám-bi nir-gál. Le récit épique et didactique des Travaux de Ninurta, du Déluge et de la Nouvelle Création (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1983) I, 4). 57 Watanabe, Animal Symbolism. 58 Ibid., 80; A. Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea (SAA 3; Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 1989), 85 n. 34, lines 57–58. 59 Cooper, Return of Ninurta to Nippur, 91. However, I cite these texts from the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL) electronic data base using their line numbering. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations also come from ETCSL.

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Although the ending of the Akkadian bin šar dadmē (Anzû) is missing, the implication is that after his victory Ninurta will share the “kingship of all habitations”: for his name will be exalted i-na kul-lat da-ád-me, “in the entirety of the inhabited world” (I 90-91).60 In the here and now on earth, the Assyrian king embodies the heroic Ninurta; and, like his divine model, the king preserves his world from the threats of chaos.61 Like the warrior god Ninurta, Esarhaddon wields the divine weapons, šar2-ur3 (“the one who lays low multitudes”) and šar2-gaz (“the one who slays a multitude”).62 If the Assyrian king strikes his enemies as the flood (abûbiš),63 it is because his hero Ninurta bears the epithet abûb Enlil ša ina šadī lā immah…h…aru, “flood of Enlil which cannot be faced in the mountains.”64 The hero Ninurta is likened to the flood in the Ninurta-Eršemma.65 If the king is portrayed in S1 as killing a lion with the ceremonial h…utpalû-mace,66 this would fit with the prominent role of that weapon in Elat’s Kriegsrituale.67 The CAD entry for the h…utpalûmace (s.v.) calls it “a ceremonial mace.” At his coronation Assurbanipal is given Ninurta’s weapon, which might well be this mace: 6' dnun.urta it-ta-din giš.tukul-šú Ninurta has given (the king) his weapon.68

The “mystical” Neo-Assyrian ritual commentary KAR no. 307 (VAT 8917) makes the relationship between the Assyrian king and the divine hero Ninurta explicit:69 25. lugal šá ina šà giš.gigir gub-zu 26. lugal qar-ra-du en ôdûmaš šu-u

25. The king who stands in the chariot is the warrior king, the lord Ninurta.

60 Vogelzang, Bin Šar Dadmē, 199. 61 Maul, “Das assyrische König,” 210. 62 Riekele Borger, Die Inschriften Asarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien (AfO Beiheft 9; Graz: Im Selbstverlage des Herausgebers, E. Weidner, 1956), 65, Nin. E, col. 2, 6-13. See Maul, “Das assyrische König,” 211. 63 CAD AI 77a. 64 Tallqvist, Akkadische Götterepitheta, 424. 65 S. M. Maul, “‘Wenn der Held (zum Kampfe) auszieht . . .’: Ein Ninurta-Eršemma,” Orientalia Nova Series 60 (1991): 329. 66 The picture is on slab D and E (BM 124886 & 124887) in Barnett, Sculptures, plate LVII; the accompanying text, which is found on the middle register, can be found in Streck, Assurbanipal, 2:306γ. In other inscriptions the mace used to kill lions by the Assyrian king is at times called gišnar
Dick: The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt Rev. 20 lugal ša ta qí-rib é.kur aga kug.gi ina šag.du-šú íl-šu-ma 21 ina giš.gu.za tuš-bu u ina-áš-šú-ma ana é.gal du-ku 22 dmaš šá šuII ad-šú ú-tir dingir.meš ad.meš-šú ina qî-rib é.kur téš.meššu 23 giš.pa giš.gu.za bala sum-šú 24 me.lám lugal-u-ti ú-za-
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Rev 20 The king, who wears on his head a golden tiara from the inside of the temple and sits on a sedan chair, while they carry him and go to the palace, is Ninurta, who avenged his father. The gods, his fathers, decorated him inside the Ekur, gave him the scepter, throne, and the staff, adorned him with the splendour of kingship, and he went out to the mountain.

Assurbanipal’s lion hunt took place in a special garden (ambassu) at the base of a hill full of citizen spectators (fig. 9).70 The portrayals of Assurbanipal’s hunt in room C of the North Palace in Nineveh situate him in an ambassu-park71 wearing the kulūlu-headband of the Assyrian king as priest.72 The bīt h…ilāni rooms S and the fallen terrace S 1 with their portrayal of the lion hunt probably led out of the palace to that very ambassu.73 In both rooms C and S1 a lion is released from a cage (gišnabārti); in S1 the epigraph on slabs C (AO 19903), D (BM 124886), and E (BM 124887) the two upper inscriptions (Barnett plate LVII) stress that—despite being released from a cage in a controlled hunt within an ambassu—the lion Figure 9. Room C, slabs 9–10 BM 120860-3 killed is still ur.mah… ez-zu šà edin- (Barnett plate VI) šú, “a raging (wild) lion of the wilderness.”74 The king was fulfilling his coronation requirement to extend the kingdom75 beyond the ālu (“city”) to include the s\ēru (“wilderness”). The lion epitomized the bûl s\ēri (“animal of the wilderness”).

70 Watanabe, Animal Symbolism,

78.

71 Jean-Jacques Glassner, “A propos des jardins mésopotamiens,” Res Orientales 3 (1991): 10. 72 Magen, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen,

35. divine rituals involving a hunt took place in the ambassu (Menzel, Assyrische Tempel, 1:100, for reference to a ritual involving Nabû and the hunt of a rīmu, “wild bull”). The garden, with its plants from all over the empire, symbolized the universality of Assyria; its trees could also recall the combats of Gilgamesh (Glassner, “A propos des jardins mésopotamiens,” 17). Lions could be kept in the ambassu-park. 74 Weissert, “Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph,” in Assyria 1995, 351 n. 53; Streck, Assurbanipal, 2:306. 75 Ana ruppuš māti u nišīšu LKA 31:17. 73 Several

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Figure 11. Assurbanipal’s banquet scene in S1 (Barnett plate LXIII)

Here the Assyrian king is reminiscent of such biblical “wild men” as Samson76 who—like the savage Enkidu before his inculturation—lived in the mountains (Rock of Etam), knew no beer (Judg 13:7), and was as hairy as a lah…mu-monster; Samson also killed a lion with his bare hands (Judg 14:5–6).77 Unfortunately Samson’s eventual urbanization with Delilah was his undoing—an interesting contrast with Enkidu in the Gilgamesh Epic.

The Weinlaube Scene in Northern Palace Room S1 The Weinlaube Scene in Northern Palace room S1 (fig. 10) from the upper room of the bīt-h…ilāni functions as the culmination of the lion hunt. Although it is impossible to reconstruct the arrangement of the fallen upper bas-reliefs, Albenda’s attempts are quite plausible:78 To the left of the banquet scene were the Elamite battle scenes; to the right beyond K. Deller’s kikkisu-fence,79 seen in the top two registers, lay the lion hunt. The repose of the king (and Queen Ašuršurrat) in the qirsu (Weinlaube) is on the upper register of three. Each of the lower two tiers shows a progressively more organized (less chaotic) terrain (moving from bottom to top).80 Wild marsh Î Arbor Scene Î Royal Garden (Weinlaube) 76 Gregory

Mobley, “The Wild Man in the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” JBL 116 (1997):

230–33. 77 Ibid., 231–32. 78 Pauline Albenda, “Landscape Bas-Reliefs in the Bīt Hilani of Ashurbanipal,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 225 (1977): 29–48. 79 K. Deller, “Assurbanipal in der Gartenlaube,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 18 (1987): 236. 80 As can be seen from BM 124922 (Barnett, Sculptures, slab E on pl. LXIV). See the remarks of Winitzer, “Assurbanipal’s Garden Scene,” 6: “With reference to a proposed hierarchical structure, the passing from the chaotic marsh scene of the bottom register to the orderly gardens above is regarded, from the Assyrian perspective, as an evolution not merely in ecology but also in culture.”

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The king thus has acquired repose by dominating the “wild” both of nature and of political foes, one of whose heads hangs to the left of the scene of repose.81 This upper room, which had fallen into entrance room S, combines the defeat of political enemies with the lion hunt, together with the libation scene already discussed. The hunt and warfare are clearly conflated in this Figure 10. Neo-Assyrian relief from Gezer scene, as they are on a cylinder seal (fig. showing god/king on horseback fighting both 10) found at Gezer showing the king(?) on a mythological creature and a human enemy (far left). (Used with permission of the horseback pursuing prey (the hunt) as well Palestinian Exploration Quarterly) as a fleeing human foe (warfare).82 In the Weinlaube scene, the king rests after overcoming all powers of chaos.83 This bas-relief could graphically portray the text K992384 for the cessation of war, after which the king enjoys himself in the qirsu (šarru ih…addu [line 48]). Several texts relate (or contrast) the couch and the marital bliss with the hunt and the gods. Assyrian letter ABL 366 from Nergal-šarrāni85 acquaints the Assyrian king Esarhaddon with the eleven-day ritual whereby Nabû leaves the couch where he reclines and dines86 with his spouse Tašmētu to go to the ambassu-park for the hunt, where he kills wild bulls. The deity then blesses the king.87 In the Erra Epic, 81 For an insightful treatment of BM 124920 and the lower two tiers, see Winitzer, “Assurbanipal’s Garden Scene.” Winitzer would identify the hanging head as that of Nabû-bêl-šumāti, the grandson of the infamous Merodach-Baladan, and not that of Elamite Teumann, as is generally claimed. 82 R. Riech and B. Brandl, “Gezer under Assyrian Rule,” PEQ 117 (1985): 46. For a comment on this seal, see Othmar Keel and Christoph Uehlinger, Göttinnen, Götter, und Gottessymbole: Neue Erkenntnisse zur Religionsgeschichte Kanaans und Israels aufgrund bislang unerschlossener ikonographischer Quellen (QD 134; Freiburg: Herder, 1995), 330 n. 293. 83 Assyrian kings can refer to defeat of both lions and human enemies as dabdãšunu (written ši.ši, which sumerogram can also be read dīktu, “military defeat” ), “their defeat.” See Bauer, Das Inschriftenwerk Assurbanipals, 88 line 11. Likewise the activities of the lion are called epištu, usually reserved for humans or gods (Cassin, “Le roi et le lion,” 385). Significantly, however, although human enemies can be mutilated and beheaded in their defeat, the lion is always treated with respect; this may stem from the identification of lion and king (Watanabe, Animal Symbolism, 145). 84 K. Deller, “2. Neuassyrische Rituale für den Einsatz der Götterstreitwagen,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 23 (1992): 341–46 (+ plates). On the back of K9923 there is reference to a hunt ritual involving a libation before a lion (rs 1'–5'). 85 On this Nabû-priest and his relation to Esarhaddon, see G. W. V. Chamaza, Die Omnipotenz Assurs: Entwicklung in der Assur-Theologie unter den Sargoniden Sargon II., Sanherib, und Asarhaddon (AOAT 295; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2002), 208–9, 210 n. 1727. 86 As part of the repast, servants bring the divine pair (line 11) a sag.du ur.mah… (probably a lion-shaped rhyton). 87 Chamaza, Die Omnipotenz Assurs, 46 ; A. L. Oppenheim, Letters from Mesopotamia

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Figure 12. Room B in the NW Palace at Nimrud (drawing by Richard P. Sobolewski and Halina Lewakowa; copyrighted by and reproduced with permission of the NW Palace Archives; material scanned by Learning Sites, Inc.)

Erra is cajoled to leave his marriage couch for battle so that chaos in the fields can be reversed.88 The sebetti-demons shame Erra to put aside the comfort of the ālu (“city”) for battle in the wilderness (Erra I:15–91). In our room S1, the king seems to have returned from the lion hunt in the ambassu-park to his couch (as does Nabû—often identified with Ninurta in Assyria—in ABL 366).

The Relationship of the Royal Lion Hunt to the Akītu-Festivals As was mentioned earlier, in Assurnasirpal II’s Northwest Palace the lion and bull hunts were portrayed on stone slabs in the throne room (room B, figs. 12 and 13) to the side of the king at the sacred tree (see fig. 2). On both sides of it were scenes depicting his military exploits. The hunts then constituted a graphic intermezzo between military campaigns and the royal duty at the sacred tree. A prism text (82-5-22,2) recently published by E. Weissert provides an example of the hunt as a textual intermezzo between a military triumph (erāb āli)89 and the celebration of Ištar of Arbela’s akītu in Milqiya during mid-Addar,90 a fortnight before the akītu of the god Aššur at Aššur.91 What is the connection? We must therefore ask (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 168–69. In Neo-Assyrian texts Nabû is often identified with Ninurta (RlA 9:21, 518). 88 In a sense every warrior becomes a wild man (an Enkidu) in battle (Mobley, “Wild Man in the Bible,” 226 n. 40). 89 Weissert, “Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph,” 357. 90 Her house was called é.gal.edin “the palace of the wilderness” (VAB 7, 248:6). 91 Weissert suggests that K 6085 was the archival Vorlage to the inscription carved on the stele depicted on the top of the hill in the lion hunt in room C of the Northern Palace of Assurbanipal (“Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph,” 351). K 6085 stated that the field (eqlu) where the lion hunt had

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Figure 13. Northwest Palace reliefs from room B in Nimrud (drawing by Richard P. Sobolewski and Halina Lewakowa; copyrighted by and reproduced with permission of the NW Palace Archives; material scanned by Learning Sites, Inc.)

whether this proximity is incidental, or whether there exists an inherent affinity between royal lion hunts and the akītu celebrations in Arbela and in Ashur, on the one hand, and between royal lion hunts and triumphs that were carried out in these cities, on the other.92 The Assyrian akītu-house, like its Babylonian prototype, was in the wilderness (ša s\ēri).93 As Beate Pongratz-Leisten has so ably documented, the procession to the bīt akīti ša s\ēri (“the wilderness akītu-house”)94 and the return to the city marked the transit of a liminality,95 the overcoming of the wilderness and the return to civilization (the ālu). Regardless of whether there was an actual cult drama or performance during the New Year’s festival or not,96 the procession was certainly liturgical and cultic, thus involving the dramatic. Both Assyria’s enemies and the powers of Chaos ruled the s\ēru, the sacred landscape where the akītu was taken place was dedicated to Ištar. Perhaps this is related to Ištar of Arbela’s portrayal in a hymn as riding a lion she had subjugated (Livingstone, Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, 22, n. 8: Rev. 5ʹ f.). In this hymn Ištar of Arbela has subjugated not only the lions but the lugal.meš kur “the kings of the hill-country” as well. 92Weissert, “Royal Hunt and Royal Triumph,” 348. For a comprehensive study of Ninurta theology and the akītu, see Annus, God Ninurta, 51–76. 93 B. Pongratz-Leisten, Ina šulmi īrub: Eine kulttopographische und ideologische Programmatik der akitu Prozession in Babylonien und Assyrien im I. Jahrtausend v. Chr. (Mainz am Rhein: Phillip von Zabern, 1994), 71 nn. 178, 179. 94 The New Year’s house of Ištar of Arbela was restored twice between 680 and 645, once in connection with Esarhaddon’s defeat of Egypt, the other time because of Aššurbanipal’s defeat of Elam. The house was clearly connected with royal triumphs over the māt nukurti (“hostile country”) (Pongratz-Leisten, Ina šulmi īrub, 80). It may have even played an earlier role during the victories of Šalmaneser III (859–824 b.c.e.) over Urartu, if we accept Livingstone’s (Court Poetry and Literary Miscellanea, 47) restoration of n. 17 Rs. 28. Interestingly, line 29 recalls that the king performed a lion hunt in Aššur. 95 V. Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Actions in Human Society (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974), 196. 96 Karel van der Toorn, “The Babylonian New Year Festival: New Insights from the Cuneiform Texts and Their Bearing on Old Testament Study,” in Congress Volume: Leuven 1989 (ed. J. A. Emerton; VTSup 43; Leiden: Brill, 1991), 331–44.

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built. The New Year’s festival brought this Periphery again under the control of the Center.97 In both Assurnasirpal II’s Northwest Palace (room B98) and in Assurbanipal’s hunt in North Palace in Nineveh (room S) the hunt scenes are accompanied by scenes of the king defeating political foes; both topoi form a unity.99

The Hunt ina mēlulti According to the texts of Assurbanipal’s hunts, they were done ina multa<ûti and ina mēlulti, “for sport(?).”100 This is not, however, a mere “big game hunt” for the casual amusement of the Assyrian monarch. As the CAD points out, the term is often used of battles (meaning b). Perhaps it Figure 14. Lion-skinned mime approximates the semantic range of the French word joute (English joust) from jouir. The Assyrian mēlultu and the verb mēlulu are also used of the cultic activity of the kurgarrû-priest. The essence of the root would appear to be “to play (publicly); perform at a spectacle”101 rather than simply “to amuse,” as is apparent in the ritual K9923,102 where in line 15 the kurgarrû-priests sing their victory song (jarûrûtu), “battle is my delight (mi-lu-li qab-lu-ú).” Perhaps the leonine mimes portrayed frequently in Neo-Assyrian art (fig. 14) represent just such kurgarrû-priests.103 In the Barton Cylinder (ca. 2400 b.c.e.) Ninurta wearing a lion’s skin (vi 11: kuš-ôpirigû bar nam-mi-mu4) helps provide food for Nippur.104

97 Pongratz-Leisten, Ina šulmi īrub, 78. 98 Meuszynski, Die Rekonstruktion der Reliefdarstellungen,

Tafel 1 (see B 17-18). Pongratz-Leisten, Ina šulmi īrub, 18: “Im Gegensatz zu dem Raumverständnis des modernen Zeitalters ist die mesopotamische Vorstellung von einer starken Differenzierung zwischen Innen und Außen, Sakralem und Profanem, eigenem Land und Ausland, Fremdland, Feindesland Wüste und kultiviertem Land, geordnetem und ungeordnetem Bereich geprägt, ähnlich dem urbs und ager des frühen Rom. Die Stadt ist gleichbedeutend mit einer Zone der Sicherheit, die die Kultivierung menschlichen Verhaltens und Leistungsvermögens, die Zivilisation, ermöglicht.” 100 Found in Streck, Assurbanipal, 306, 308, 392. See CAD MII p. 16. 101 Mēlulû means “actor.” See C. H. Toy, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Proverbs (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1977), 178n. 102 Deller, “2. Neuassyrische Rituale.” 103 See Pongratz-Leisten, Ina šulmi īrub, 82. 104 Bendt Alster and A. Westenholz, “The Barton Cylinder,” Acta Sumerologica [Japan] 16 (1994): 15–46; Annus, God Ninurta, 12–13. 99

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In 2 Sam 2:14 the Hebrew semantic parallel to Akkadian mēlulu, qx#o,105 is used of a combat for public display, a veritable joust. In 2 Sam 6:5 David and all Israel walked alongside the ark on its way to Jerusalem and hwhy ynpl Myqx#om, “were reveling before Yhwh.” The word seems at home in cosmogonies. In the Enûma Eliš (I 106) Anu gives the four winds to young Marduk that they might play before him, as does wisdom before Yhwh in Prov 8:30: .t(-lkb wynpl tqx#om Mwy Mwy My(#$(#$ hyh)w And I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always.106

As we shall see later in the book of Job, the animals of the wilderness also sport before Yhwh.

Summary of Assyriological Evidence The function of the royal lion hunt may therefore be regarded as transforming destructive violence into something positive and productive, thereby restoring cultural order in society.107

In nuce the gods designated the Assyrian king as “Herr der Tiere.” An Assyrian seal from Tell H… alaf shows the Assyrian king—instead of the regular Genius—with a caprid on one side and an ostrich on the other (see figure 15).108 As Othmar Keel has indicated, representations of this Master of the Beasts is frequently accompanied by symbols such as the sacred tree, which show the intimate relationship between control of the wild animals and maintenance of world order.109 In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Jeremiah recognized the Mesopotamian king’s (in this case Nebuchadnezzar II) divinely mandated domination over both enemies and the wild animals of the field (Jer 27:6; 28:14). Ironically, when the Hebrew prophet Zephaniah cursed Assyria and Nineveh, he specifically threatened that the world-organizing role of the Assyrian king would be countered; God would let the s\ēru overwhelm Nineveh and the wild beasts occupy it: And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria; and he will make Nineveh a desolation, a dry waste like the desert. Herds shall lie down in it, every wild animal; the desert owl and the screech owl shall lodge on its capitals; the owl shall hoot at the window, the raven croak on the threshold; for its cedar work will be laid bare. Is this the exultant city that lived secure, that said to itself, “I am, and there is no one else”? What a desolation it has become, a lair for wild animals! (Zeph 2:13–15) 105 This is an alloform of qxc. 106 Unless otherwise indicated, all biblical translations are taken from the NRSV. 107 Watanabe, Animal Symbolism,

83.

108 Herbordt, Neuassyrische Glyptik, 94. 109 See the Middle Assyrian seal in fig. 12 from Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 120 Abb. 67; also see 125.

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II. The Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible presents several views about God, humans, and the world. One view, found in royal Psalms 2, 89, and 110, portrays the king along lines similar to those of the Assyrian monarch as viceroy of the deity, co-creator of the world. Psalm 8 and the Priestly view in Genesis 1 posFigure 15. Middle Assyrian seal sibly reflect an adjusted, postexilic position (Keel 1978:122) that has become skeptical of monarchy: humanity rather than the monarch is God’s viceroy and co-creator. In the view of the Priestly writer, humans are virtually royal figures (“Herr der Tiere,” as in fig. 15) in the image of the deity himself: .Mt) )rb hbqnw rkz wt) )rb Myhl) Mlcb wmlcb Md)h-t) Myhl) )rbyw wdrw h#$bkw Cr)h-t) w)lmw wbrw wrp Myhl) Mhl rm)yw Myhl) Mt) Krbyw (Gen 1:27–28) .Cr)h-l( t#omrh hyx-lkbw Mym#$h Pw(bw Myh tgdb So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

The roots of the divine charge to Md)h in Gen 1:27 are complex, as detailed in Claus Westermann’s commentary on Genesis.110 Many scholars claim royal origins, similar to the command to the Neo-Assyrian monarch at his coronation;111 however, in Egypt and Mesopotamia this royal prerogative was never democratized.112 Other scholars derive Gen 1:27 from anthropogonies where the human is often “theomorphic,” bearing the image of the deity, as in Atra-Hasis.113 At times the Assyrian king could also be called “the image of the god” s\alam DN (CAD S| 85 2ʹ f). The biblical proto-human in Genesis has dominion over the animals of creation, expressed emphatically by the divine imperatives wdrw and h#$bkw.114 Humans in this perspective are empowered much as the Assyrian mon110 Claus

Westermann, Genesis (BKAT 1; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1974),

209–27. 111 Ibid., 209–11, 218–19, 222. 112 Ibid., 222. 113 Ibid., 212–13. 114 On the royal significance of the verb hdr, see Ps 72:8 (H.-J. Zobel, in TDOT, 13:333). For #$bk, see S. Wagner, in TDOT, 7: 52–57. See Batto, “Divine Sovereign,” 179 n. 77. The Akkadian cognate kabāsu (“to trample”) is frequently used of the god Ninurta and of the Assyrian king, who both “ trample” on their enemies to assure their kingship (Annus, God Ninurta, 97).

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arch to serve as the image of the divinity and to order the earth; this represents a distinct democratization of that theologoumenon. In Gen 1:27, Md)h, not the king, is divinely empowered as “Herr der Tiere.” As we shall soon see, however, the author of the two Yhwh speeches in the book of Job does not share this expanded view. The book of Job presents a deity whose control over evil and wild powers is no less than Ninurta’s; nevertheless, unlike in Genesis 1, here Yhwh does not invite the human to participate in that domination, as Ninurta, Palil, and Horus do their king. In the book of Job, humans can only marvel!

The Book of Job Causality in the ethical sphere is called “the doctrine of retribution,” wherein rules the principle of quid pro quo. The infringement of this reciprocity is considered justiciable. Almost everybody in the book of Job operates from this principle of retribution: the Satan, because he claims that Job’s piety is occasioned by God’s material bounty (do ut des); the three friends; Elihu; and certainly Job himself. They may all reach different conclusions, but they start from that identical premise. Only Yhwh, as we shall see, demurs; when the deity implies that the relationship between Job and himself is gratuitous/gratis (Mnx), he denies that the doctrine of retribution is applicable and thereby rejects the position of the Satan: Job 1:9–10

(t))-)lh .Myhl) bwy) )ry Mnxh rm)yw hwhy-t) N+#oh N(yw h#o(m bybsm wl-r#$)-lk d(bw wtyb-d(bw wd(b tk#$ [ht)]a .Cr)b Crp whnqmw tkrb wydy

Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

The principle Mnx is diametrically opposed to the doctrine of retribution, since it denies the pro in quid pro quo. The reader knows that the relationship between the deity and Job is Mnx and that Job’s tribulations are not punishments/ retribution for sin, but no one else does.115 In Job 3, Job berates his world, which merits a return to original chaos. God’s cry in Gen 1:3, rw)-yhyw rw) yhy, is countered in 3:4a by Job’s K#$x yhy. In 3:8 Job even intimates that the primal beast Leviathan himself should be bestirred. As D. Cox observed: “Those who are prepared to do this are reckless beyond measure, for they are ready to undo the work of creation.”116 Such chaos extends to the 115 Matitiahu Tsevat, “The Meaning of the Book of Job,” in Sitting with Job: Selected Studies on the Book of Job (ed. R. B. Zuck; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 189–218. 116 D. Cox, “The Desire for Oblivion in Job 3,” SBFLA 23 (1973): 42.

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human realm, especially in 3:13–19, where Job fails to see any advantage of the good over the (#$r. Since violations of +p#$m are justiciable, Job eventually longs for “his day in court,” and much of the book, especially after ch. 9, exploits this legal metaphor.117 In 9:24 Job had even implied that God himself is wicked ((#$r)—or better, “guilty.” In 16:11–14 Job portrays God as a sadist! Job insists that his legal complaint is against God himself (12:9; 19:6–12). God has hunted him as if he were a lion (10:16). He wishes he could compel God into court, so the deity could explain and justify his apparent charges against Job: Job 10:2

.ynbyrt-hm l( yn(ydwh yn(#$rt-l) hwl)-l) rm)

“I will say to God, ‘Do not declare me guilty; let me know why you leveled charges against me.’ ” (author’s translation)

As we can see in ch. 9, Job is fully aware of the difficulties inherent in trying to compel God into a judicial hearing. Nevertheless, he continues his demands and gradually turns away from his three erstwhile friends, who counsel Job’s submission, because he must be a sinner based on the doctrine of quid pro quo. In his soliloquy in chs. 29–31 the defendant seeks legally to compel his adversary’s appearance before a magistrate by swearing an oath of innocence: Job 31:35

.ybyr #$y) btk rpsw ynn(y yd#$ ywt-Nh yl (m#$ yl-Nty ym

Oh, that I had one to hear me! (Here is my signature! let the Almighty answer me!) Oh, that I had the indictment written by my adversary!

Yhwh’s Two Speeches Yhwh gives two speeches in response to Job: 38:1–39:30 and 40:1–41:34.118 In these divine responses, Job is addressed twice by Yhwh with a series of rhe117 The bibliography on the legal language in the book of Job is extensive. I wrote on this topic

years ago: M. B. Dick, “The Legal Metaphor in Job 31,” CBQ 41 (1979): 37–50; idem, “Job 31, the Oath of Innocence, and the Sage,” ZAW 95 (1983): 31–53. See also H. Strauss, “Juridisches im Buch Hiob,” in Recht und Ethos im alten Testament—Gestalt und Wirkung: Festschrift für Horst Seebass zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Stefan Beyerle, Günter Mayer, and Hans Strauss; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1999), 83–90; R. Egger-Wenzel, Von der Freiheit Gottes anders zu sein: Die zentrale Rolle der Kapitel 9 und 10 für das Ijobbuch (FB 83; Würzburg: Echter, 1998); S. H. Scholnick, “The Meaning of Mishpat in the Book of Job,” JBL 101 (1982): 521–29; idem, “Poetry in the Courtroom: Job 38–41,” in Sitting with Job, 421–39; J. J. M. Roberts, “Job’s Summons to Yahweh: Exploitation of a Legal Metaphor,” ResQ 16 (1973): 159–65. J. B. Frye, “The Legal Language of the Book of Job” (diss., University of London, 1973); B. Gemser, “The rīb- or Controversy-pattern in Hebrew Mentality,” in Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East (ed. M. Noth and D. W. Thomas; VTSup 3; Leiden: Brill, 1955), 120–37; H. Richter, Studien zu Hiob (Berlin: Evangelische Verlaganstalt, 1959). Strauss, whose work is more recent but lacks awareness of the non-German literature on the topic, wisely cautions against reducing the entire book of Job to the legal. 118 For a bibliography on the Yhwh speeches, see J. Lévêque, “L’interprétation des discours de

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torical questions that point out Job’s limited perspective.119 It has become commonplace in biblical exegesis to dismiss these speeches with their “carnival of the animals” as irrelevant: “It appears to be a huge irrelevance; it is like waving a rattle before a crying infant, to distract him from his hunger.”120 D. R ob er ts on s e es t he Yhwh speeches as essentially ironic;121 with his irrelevant questions, many of which had supposedly been anticipated by Job himself in ch. 9, Yhwh appears as a buffoon, whom Job need not fear. For Robertson, Behemoth and Leviathan are self-parodies of Yhwh himself, who is powerful Figure 16. Middle Assyrian seal showing hero but unaware—“clueless” in the contempo- fighting three animals from Job 38 rary vernacular.122 (Keel 1978:74) Nevertheless, these two speeches are germane, for they vigorously defend both Yhwh’s hc( (38:2) and his +p#$m (40:8), which had been assaulted by Job—although in a fashion unanticipated by Job.123 Yhwh first addresses Job’s characterization of the cosmos as chaotic (Job 3), and then, second, contests Job’s suggestion that Yhwh is guilty (Job 9). Yhwh’s First Speech. The first group of questions in the dispute centers on Job’s nonparticipation in creation; the second group queries Job about his knowledge of the world’s management. This section establishes Job’s limited knowledge on the vertical plane. Job altogether lacks the requisite t(d, “know-how,” for con-

Yhwh (Job 38,1–42,6),” in The Book of Job (ed. W. A. M. Beuken; BETL 114; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994), 203–22. It is interesting to note that in these speeches the earlier legal vocabulary is missing: qdc, r#$y, Mmt (Tsevat, “Meaning of the Book of Job,” 212). 119 See Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 30 n. 84, for a survey of the literature and views on Yhwh’s speeches in the book of Job; also see P. J. Nel, “Cosmos and Chaos: A Reappraisal of the Divine Discourses in the Book of Job,” OTE 4 (1991): 206–26; J. Van Oorschot, Gott als Grenze: Eine literar– und redaktionsgeschichtliche Studien zu den Gottesreden des Hiobbuches (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1987); A. Van Selms, Job: Een praktische bijbelverklaring (Kampen: Kok, 1984); Veronika Kubina, Die Gottesreden im Buche Hiob: Ein Beitrag zur Diskussion um die Einheit von Hiob 38,1–42,6 (Freiburger theologische Studien 115; Freiburg: Herder, 1979). N. Habel presents a good analysis of Yhwh’s speeches and their balanced literary structure (N. C. Habel, The Book of Job: A Commentary [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985], 526–27). 120 R. A. F. MacKenzie, “The Purpose of the Yahweh Speeches in the Book of Job,” Bib 40 (1959): 436. 121 D. Robertson, “The Book of Job: A Literary Study,” Soundings 56 (1973): 462. 122 Ibid., 468. 123 See Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 54 n. 188. Gene M. Tucker, “Rain on a Land Where No One Lives: The Hebrew Bible on the Environment,” JBL 116 (1997): 13; Scholnick, “Poetry in the Courtroom,” 422 n. 1.

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trol.124 Third, and to our special interest, Yhwh challenges Job about his knowledge of the animal world (38:39–39:30): lion, raven, mountain goat, deer, wild donkey, ostrich, warhorse, hawk, and eagle. These animals not only resist human control but even inhabit the ruins of cities, which have been brought back to chaos (Lev 26:22; Deut 32:24; Isa 32:9–4; Hos 2:14; Jer 5:6).125 As Keel has pointed out, these same animals were objects of royal Assyrian hunts in the divinely ordered royal attempts to incorporate civilization within the Neo-Assyrian city.126 In Job they function in exactly the opposite way. The hermeneutical key to understanding this list was presented in 38:26–27: Job 38:26 .wb Md)-)l rbdm #$y)-)l Cr)-l( ry+mhl to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life.

The universe does not receive its intelligibility from a human perspective. But this passage does more than merely stress that nature is not anthropocentric; God’s watering the dry land recalls Gen 2:5–6; it is an act of creation. As D. J. A. Clines has stated: “The subject here is wild animals, the purpose of whose existence is unintelligible to humans.127 “Here, Yhwh alone is the ‘Herr der Tiere.’ Yhwh does not annihilate chaos, but rather maintains it in that tense balance symbolized by carnivores, herbivores, and scavengers,128 who prosper even in chaos (Job 39:19–22; 39:27–30).

124 Dale Patrick, “Divine Creative Power and the Decentering of Creation: The Subtext of the Lord’s Addresses to Job,” in The Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions (ed. N. C. Habel and S. Wurst; Earth Bible 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 111. 125Isaiah 32:14: “For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill and the watchtower will become dens forever, the joy of wild asses, a pasture for flocks. . . .” “Häufig erscheinen hier Tiere, die als typische Exponenten einer gegenmenschlichen, menschen-bedrohenden Welt anzûsehen und als soche dem Bereich des Dämonischen zuzuordnen sind” (P. Riede, “‘Ich bin ein Bruder der Schakale’ [Hi 30,29]: Tiere als Exponenten der gegen-menschlichen Welt in der Bildsprache der Hiobdialoge,” in Die Dämonen: Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt (ed. A. Lange and H. Lichtenberger; Römheld/ Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 292). 126See fig. 16, a Middle Assyrian seal (Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 74), showing a hero fighting three of the animals mentioned in Job 38: deer, lion, and ostrich. See ibid., 85: “eine Gegenwelt zur menschlichen.” Also see I. Spangenberg, “Who Cares? Reflections on the Story of the Ostrich (Job 39.13-18),” in Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions, 97. 127 D. J. A. Clines, “The Shape and Argument of the Book of Job,” in Sitting with Job, 137. 128 For the seemingly surprising presence of the war horse on this list, see Keel’s cogent treatment of the horse in the Hebrew Bible (Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 108). The r#$n of 39:27 is not the eagle (pace NRSV) but the vulture (Gyps fulvus or Neophron percnopterus) feeding on human blood and carrion (v. 30). See Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 69 n. 234.

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Mit dem Bilderbogen vom “Herrn der Tiere” korrigiert Jahwe beide Auffassungen [of Job’s]. Es fehlt in der Welt nicht an chaotischen Mächten, von eindrücklicher Wildheit und gewaltiger zerstörerischer Kraft. Aber die Welt ist doch nicht ohne Plan, ohne Ordnung. Jahwe hält das Chaos im Zaum, ohne es in eine langweilige, starre Ordnung zu verwandeln.

Job lacks insight even on the horizontal plane. YHWH’s Second Speech. The second divine address focuses on the Behemoth and Leviathan. Scholarship has long debated whether these are mythological beasts or “merely” the hippopotamus and Nile crocodile.130 I suspect our modern need for a choice here is as misplaced as it is to ask whether Assurbanipal battles Panthera leo persica or Anzû.131 Both of these animals, Behemoth and Leviathan, scoff at any human attempt to control them and even threaten human order itself: hyrq Nwmhl qx#oy, “It scorns the tumult of the city” (39:7). The hippopotamus (Behemoth) especially symbolizes evil and chaos (Egyptian Seth), and it is beyond human capability to defeat it— in Egypt only the god of kingship, Horus, and the divine Pharaoh could over- Figure 17. King (with Horus) overcomes Hippo and Crocodile (Seth) (from Edfu) come it.132 Unlike the Assyrian lion hunts (mēlultu), the Leviathan defies any attempt at human conquest/sport (qx#o): wb-qx#oth .Kytwr(nl wnr#$qtw rwpck, “Will you play with it as with a bird, or will you put it on leash for your girls?” (40:29). Job is unable to hook (v. 25), harpoon (v. 31), combat (v. 32), or carve up (v. 30) Leviathan—unlike the powers delegated to the Assyrian (or Egyptian) king, of course.133 As we have said, just as the Egyptian god Horus defeats the hippopotaFigure 18. Scarab with “Herr der Tiere” motif and crocodiles 129 Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 125. 130 See a survey of opinions in Marvin H. Pope, Job: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 15; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973), 320–34; Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 127–56. 131 Many of the beasts that flank the “Herr der Tiere” on seals transmogrify into demons (Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 114). In Keel’s Abb. 59 the lion has become a winged lion dragon representing chaos. 132 Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 132. See fig. 17. 133 As we see in fig. 18 on a Gaza scarab recalling the “Herr der Tiere” motif, “der Herr” is flanked by two defeated crocodiles (Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 147 n. 406). Scarabs with this motif are frequent finds in MB Palestine.

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mus and Nile crocodile (see fig. 18), who symbolize Seth (evil),134 so Yhwh overcomes evil. Unlike Horus in fig. 17, however, Yhwh does not share this control with any humans, king or commoner. God in Job 38–41 is king, not Job!135 +p#$m. In 40:8 Yhwh seems to use forensic language: y+p#$m rpt P)h .qdct N(ml yn(y#$rt, “Would you refuse to acknowledge my right? Would you condemn me that you may be justified?” (NAB). However, Yhwh has significantly changed the context of +p#$m in this sole occurrence of the word in the Yhwh speeches. Here I have found the treatment of S. H. Scholnick, both in her Ph.D. dissertation (Brandeis, 1975) and in articles to be most persuasive;136 +p#$m has lost its limited (Joban) forensic meaning and here approximates “world order,” a meaning we see also in Second Isaiah (40:14). As with the Akkadian šutēšuru (Št2stem), Hebrew +p#$ embraces both the limited “juridical” justice of the city courts and the broader “cosmic” maintenance of world order.137 The book of Job in the Hebrew Bible pivots around these two meanings of “justice” (forensic and executive rule). Years ago I (and many others) wrote about the centrality of this leitmotif throughout the book culminating in Job 31.138 These two meanings of +p#$m, a word used twenty-three times in Job,139 arise both from the very root itself and from the ancient Near Eastern view of order. As can be seen in Ugaritic, the root TPT| can be used in both senses: Forensic:

l.tdn/ dn. almnt. lttpt\/ tpt\. qsr\ (KTU 1.16 VI 45–47) µ µ You (Kirta) do not hear the widow’s case; you do not judge the claim of the poor

Executive rule:

l ys > . [a]lt [.] tb[t]k [.] l y[hpk]/ [ksa .] mlkk lytbr . h…t \ [.] µ mtpt\k (KTU 1.2µ III 17–8) µ Surely he will remove the supports of your seat Surely he will overturn the throne of your kingship Surely he will break the scepter of your rule.

134 Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 127. See fig. 16 (= ibid., Abb. 93) from Edfu. 135 Scholnick, “Poetry in the Courtroom,” 423, 428. 136 See Scholnick’s treatment in the Excursus in Egger-Wenzel, Von der Freiheit Gottes anders zu sein, 69. 137 Maul, “Der assyrische König—Hüter der Weltordnung,” 203: “Recht und Gerechtigkeit im Sinne einer politisch-sozialen Ordnung, die zu erhalten und wiederherzustellen Aufgabe des Königs ist, sind nur dann möglich, wenn sie im Einklang stehen mit der Ordnung des Kosmos, wie sie im Schöpfungsakt errichtet wurde. Die Ordnung und ‘Rechtmäßigkeit’ im Kosmos ist ein Zeichen des Wohlwollens der Götter und Grundvoraussetzung für das Funktionieren des irdischen politisch-sozialen Gefüges.” 138 Dick, “Legal Metaphor in Job 31,” 37–50; Scholnick, “Meaning of Mishpat,” 521–29. 139 And it is used by every speaker except Zophar.

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In Job 38–41 Yhwh describes himself more as king than as judge; and God responds to Job by making his accusers acknowledge the primacy of God’s administrative (kingly) role over any juridical one.140

Summary Evil is not to be attributed to God, as Job had done, nor to humans, as the three friends had insisted; there are independent evil forces, symbolized by the undomesticated animals of the wilderness, but they are held in a balanced check (+p#$m) by Yhwh, though not annihilated.141 By divine command, the Assyrian king might actively dominate these forces in royal ritual (mēlultu), as in the royal lion hunt, wherein the lion symbolizes chaos and the wild in all its forms.142 However, Job can only stand by and marvel as the untamed animals of the wilderness “sport” (qx#o). Yhwh does not invite Job to hdr and #$bk, as he had Md)h in Gen 1:26-27. M. Tsevat, whose article “The Meaning of the Book of Job” (1966) is among the most insightful, argued: But the Book of Job does more than demythologize the world; it also “demoralizes” it, which is to say, makes it amoral. It completes the process whose first phase is known to the reader of the Bible from the opening pages of Genesis the removal from the conceptual world of an order of superhuman beings independent of the Deity. And it extends it by the denial of the realization of moral values—values deriving from the Deity, to be sure—other than realization effected by man. This new world is as harsh as it is simple, for in it man is deprived of the protection he enjoyed in a world saturated with myth and morality and populated with powers to which he might turn with a view to rendering them favorable to his well-being, foremost by his leading of a meritorious life.144

This position, however, goes too far—almost in the direction of Epicurean ethics, in which the deity is not only transcendent but removed. The position 140 Scholnick, “Poetry in the Courtroom,” 430. 141 Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 157. 142 The lion serves a similar role in early Christian writings about Paul. In a Coptic papyrus about St. Paul’s stay in Ephesus, he encounters a “great and terrible lion out of the valley of the burying ground.” Paul converts the lion and then proceeds to a nearby river: “I took by his mane and in the name of Jesus Christ immersed him three times” (W. Schneemelcher, “Acts of Paul,” trans. R. M. Wilson, in New Testament Apocrypha vol. 2, Writings Related to the Apostles; Apocalypses and Related Subjects [ed. W. Schneemelcher; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965], 389). Here as in the lion hunt, the lion represents the savage and wild, whose conversions and baptism signify the spread of Christian faith to all elements of the cosmos. 143 N. C. Habel, “Earth First: Inverse Cosmology in Job,” in Earth Story in Wisdom Traditions, 77; J. G. Williams, “The Theophany of Job,” in Sitting with Job, 369. 144 Tsevat, “Meaning of the Book of Job,” 215.

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of Yhwh in the book of Job seems rather between the mythology of the NeoAssyrian lion hunt, in which the king, at the divine command, expanded control over the wilderness with its animals, enemies, and demons, and that of Epicurean ethics, in which God has withdrawn from human ethics. Job’s Yhwh, may cede to humans neither knowledge nor control over the wilderness; his wilderness may contain violence and predation (38:23, 39–41; 39:16, 23–25, 30); and the very mythic symbols of chaos, Leviathan and Behemoth, may remain untamable by humans. Nonetheless, the wilderness remains a source of joy and birth (see especially 38:8–11), and God’s restraining +p#$m holds all in balance. God’s rains descend on a land where no human lives, on the desert that is empty of humans (38:26), and this is creative and re-creative.145 In response to Yhwh’s speeches, Job can only withdraw his legal case: Therefore being but dust and ashes, I withdraw and retract my case. (42:6)146 145 Tsevat had seen Job 38:26 as a sign of this demoralization, since rain had been used in the Hebrew Bible to reward and punish humans (“Meaning of the Book of Job,” 213). However, I believe Keel’s understanding of this key verse is more cogent: rain on the wilderness is a cosmogonic act: “Das Bewässern der dürren Erde ist im Alten Orient gelegentlich als Akt der Besamung und Befruchtung verstanden worden” (Keel, Jahwes Entgegnung an Ijob, 57–58). In Deut 32:10, rbdm (of Job 38:26) is parallel with the whto of Gen 1:1 (ibid., 58 n. 208). 146 For the justification of this different translation, see Scholnick, “The Meaning of Mishpat in the Book of Job,” 528.

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The Significance of Jesus’ Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience sharyn dowd [email protected] Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798 and

elizabeth struthers malbon [email protected] Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061

One of the several New Testament interpretations of the death of Jesus is that Jesus was a sin offering whose death effected the forgiveness of the sins of humankind. But the Gospel of Mark makes no explicit connection between the death of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins. The “ransom saying” in 10:45 is best translated a ransom “in substitution for many,”1 implying that the problem overcome by Jesus’ “giving his life” was captivity or slavery rather than guilt. A first-century Greekspeaking audience would probably have understood that, although the “service” of the Markan Jesus does involve forgiving sins (2:1–12), the narrative taken as a whole suggests that the death of the Markan Jesus performs “for many” the service of liberation from bondage to oppression for membership in the covenant community that constitutes a “house of prayer for all the nations” (11:17). The “cup saying” in 14:24 alludes to Exod 24:8, where the blood is that of a covenant-sealing sacrifice, not that of a sin or guilt offering. Because Matt 26:28 makes the connection by adding “for the forgiveness of sins” to the cup saying, some scholars believe that Matthew’s reading must have been implicit in Mark. Arguments for an emphasis on forgiveness may be found in the work of Adela Yarbro Collins, Rikki E. Watts, and others.2 However, this question is usually addressed by inter1 Robert H. Gundry, Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 590. 2 Adela Yarbro Collins, “Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus,” JR 78 (1998): 175–96; Rikki E. Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark (WUNT 2/88; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 349–62.

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textual arguments somewhat to the neglect of intratextual or narrative analysis. It is the latter that we add to the conversation in the hope of enriching it. In terms of contextual foci, our look at the narrative context falls in the category of the internal literary context (the interrelations of elements of the text), and our look at the cultural context of the authorial audience includes both the internal historical context (the interrelations of the text with other texts) and the external historical context (the broader societal/cultural situation of the text).3 Most of the present article comments on the Markan Gospel in sequence, attending to signals of the significance of Jesus’ death in narrative context. Because of the importance of dealing explicitly with those readings that do argue for a connection between the Markan Jesus’ death and the forgiveness of sins, however, sustained comments on the cultural context of the Markan authorial audience with reference to 10:45 and 14:24 are intercalated at those points. As with Markan intercalations, it is hoped that center and frame will enrich each other in the act of interpretation.

I. Hearing Mark’s Story Mark’s Gospel is a story, a sequential narration of events with a beginning, middle, and end designed to be heard in that order.4 Despite its later liturgical and academic fragmentation, Mark’s story works as a whole, and it is the whole Gospel we are regarding as the narrative context of Mark’s story of Jesus’ death. 3 See Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “Text and Contexts: Interpreting the Disciples in Mark,” Semeia 62 (1993): 81-102, republished in In the Company of Jesus: Characters in Mark’s Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 100–130. For the distinction between the “implied audience,” used throughout our literary analysis, and the “authorial audience,” used when we are commenting on the cultural context, see Peter J. Rabinowitz, “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences,” Critical Inquiry 4 (1977): 121–42. Different individuals within the Markan audience would have been attuned to hear allusions to different texts, depending on their cultural and religious formation. We will be pointing out references and allusions that would have been heard differently by Jews and Gentiles in the Christian communities that heard Mark read aloud. For a discussion of the internal historical context (the immediate societal/cultural situation of the text, especially its origin or preservation) of the Markan passion narrative, see Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Passion Narrative of Mark,” in eadem, The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 92–118; also eadem, “From Noble Death to Crucified Messiah,” NTS 40 (1994): 481–503. 4 See David Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (2nd ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999); and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “Narrative Criticism: How Does the Story Mean?” in Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (ed. Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen D. Moore; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 23–49, republished in In the Company of Jesus, 1–40.

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In addition, Mark’s story is designed not for the eye but for the ear.5 Because the first-century context of this whole Gospel was oral, we will listen for echoes (to use an oral metaphor) of earlier scenes in the story of Jesus’ death, or (resorting to a visual metaphor) we will be on the lookout for earlier foreshadowings of the death story in the stories that lead up to it.6 Martin Kähler’s assertion that “one could call the Gospels passion narratives with extended introductions,”7 while reflecting form-critical presuppositions that we reject, nevertheless suggests that Mark’s “extended introduction” prepares the audience to hear the significance of the story of Jesus’ death in a particular way.

Kingdom (Mark 1:1–4:34)8 Mark’s story of “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1; NRSV, here and throughout unless otherwise indicated) opens at a rapid pace, with “Isaiah” pointing to John the baptizer, who points to Jesus of Nazareth. But as soon as the audience is given reason to share the narrator’s (1:1) elevated view of Jesus—through the words of the prophet “Isaiah” (1:2–3), the baptizer John (1:7–8), and even God (1:11: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased”)—the audience is also signaled that being God’s son is no easy task. Indeed, the first death omen can be heard by those with sensitive scriptural ears in the words of the voice from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved,” which echo the words of God to Abraham in Gen 22:2: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love . . .” (LXX: to;n uiJovn sou to;n ajgaphtovn, o}n hjgavphsa"; Mark: oJ uiJov" mou oJ ajgaphtov", ejn soi; eujdovkhsa").9 5 See Joanna Dewey, “Oral Methods of Structuring Narrative in Mark,” Int 53 (1989): 32–44; also eadem, “From Storytelling to Written Text: The Loss of Early Christian Women’s Voices,” BTB 26 (1996): 71–78; eadem, “The Survival of Mark’s Gospel: A Good Story?” JBL 123 (2004): 495–507; Christopher Bryan, “Was Mark Written to Be Read Aloud?” Part 2 of A Preface to Mark: Notes on the Gospel in Its Literary and Cultural Settings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, Hearing Mark: A Listener’s Guide (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 2002). 6 On Markan echoes and foreshadowings more generally, see Joanna Dewey, “Mark as Interwoven Tapestry: Forecasts and Echoes for a Listening Audience,” CBQ 53 (1991): 221–36; Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “Echoes and Foreshadowings in Mark 4–8: Reading and Rereading,” JBL 112 (1993): 211–30; and Alberto de Mingo Kaminouchi, ‘But It Is Not So among You’: Echoes of Power in Mark 10.32–45 (JSNTSup 249; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2003), esp. ch. 3, “The Echo Principle,” 42–71. 7 Martin Kähler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ (German original, 1896; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), 80 n. 11. 8 In this article we follow the outline in Malbon, Hearing Mark. 9 Pointed out by Sharyn Dowd, Reading Mark: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Second Gospel (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2000), 12, following James Swetnam, “On the Identity of Jesus,” Bib 65 (1984): 412–16. The most obvious allusion is to Ps 2:7, “‘You are my son;

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The Genesis narrative interprets God’s requirement that Abraham sacrifice his “beloved son” as a “test” (oJ qeo;" ejpeivrazen to;n Abraam [LXX Gen 22:1]) of Abraham’s loyalty to God; Abraham is not told to make a sin offering.10 So the very first hint of jeopardy to the life of the Markan Jesus alludes to the sacrifice of a beloved son made by a father to demonstrate commitment to God. The fact that the voice is “from heaven” transforms the allusion to Genesis 22 into an amazing claim: The God who demanded the sacrifice of Abraham’s son but then provided a substitute is now prepared to demonstrate God’s own commitment to humankind by allowing God’s own son to “give his life a ransom for many”—and for God’s son there will be no last-minute reprieve. This allusion to Genesis 22 is important, because other passages that indicate that Jesus’ suffering and death are incorporated into the will and purpose of God do not make explicit the cost to God as clearly as does this introduction of the theme in the baptism scene. Anyone with ears to hear will remember this threat to the “beloved son” when that son prays in Gethsemane, “Abba, Father, . . . not what I want, but what you want” (14:36). Another ominous narrative warning follows closely, in the next verse: “And the Spirit”—that is, the Spirit that just descended upon Jesus like a dove at his baptism—“immediately drove him out (ejkbavllei) into the wilderness” (1:12). Not only will the story of Jesus incorporate struggle and suffering (the wilderness is not a place where humans easily survive; the “wild beasts” usually eat them up), but Jesus is thrown into such struggle and suffering not by human antagonists but by the Spirit of God. This testing in the wilderness, whose forty days echo the forty years of Israel’s testing in the wilderness,11 is, to be sure, carried out “by Satan,” head of the cosmic forces opposed to God, but the experience is framed by the action of agents of God: the Spirit’s initiative and the angels’ ministering. The peirasmov" of Abraham is echoed by the peirasmov" of Jesus. This whisper of a theme in the beginning of Jesus’ ministry will be played fortissimo at its end. Next, as John both echoes and enacts “Isaiah’s” prophecy—preparing the way of the Lord Jesus—John’s ministry and its results are echoed by Jesus. John’s being “handed over,” mentioned obliquely in 1:14 (“Now after John was arrested today I have begotten you.’” Psalm 89:26–27 also mentions the Davidic monarch as God’s son, and Ps 44:3 includes “delighted” or “pleased” (cf. Isa 42:1, which, however, in the LXX has no overlapping vocabulary with Mark 1:11), but none of these passages includes “beloved” as Gen 22:2 does. Joel Marcus argues that the “echo of the Aqedah story in Mark 1:11 . . . is very faint if present at all” and that the “best alternative seems to be to see ajgaphtov" as a reflection of Isa. 42:1 that has been interpolated into the text of Ps. 2:7 . . .” (The Way of the Lord: Christological Exegesis of the Old Testament in the Gospel of Mark [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992], 52). As John R. Donahue, S.J., notes of 1:11, “This text contains a ‘surplus of meaning’ . . .” (Donahue and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Mark [SP 2; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002], 65). 10 The word in LXX Gen 22:2 is oJlokavrpwsin. 11 This parallel reinforces the motif of the new exodus introduced by the quotation from Deutero-Isaiah in Mark 1:3.

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[paradoqh'ai] . . .”), is later echoed in Jesus’ being “handed over” (paradidovnai, 3:19; 9:31; 10:33 bis; 14:10, 11, 18, 21, 41, 42, 44; 15:1, 10, 15; cf. 13:9, 11, 12, where the “handing over” of Jesus’ followers is predicted; cf. also 4:29, where the [ripe] grain is handed over or yielded up). In fact, John’s being handed over is narrated as the introduction to Jesus’ initial proclaiming: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (1:15), which echoes John’s earlier “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (1:4). (This, the first mention of sin in Mark’s Gospel, suggests that the remedy for sin is repentance and John’s baptism.) John foreshadows Jesus, the “more powerful” one; John’s proclaiming is not welcomed by the powerful, which leads to his being handed over and killed (6:14–29). Jesus echoes John, proclaiming a challenging message that leads to his own death at the hands of the powerful. And the audience is not halfway through chapter 1! The second half of ch. 1 and the first half of ch. 2 include intriguing foreshadowings of other important aspects of Mark’s Gospel that bear on the story of Jesus’ death: Jesus’ difficulties with the religious officials (1:22; 2:6–8, 16-17), recognition of Jesus by nonhuman forces (1:24), misunderstanding of Jesus by his own disciples (1:36-37), and Jesus’ request for silence about his healing activity (1:34, 43–44). But the next obvious allusion to Jesus’ death12 is presented by the Markan Jesus in a metaphor he offers in a controversy over the failure of his disciples to fast, as do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees. “Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day” (2:19–20). It is difficult to imagine anyone in Mark’s first-century audience missing this reference to Jesus’ death and the community’s remembrance of it with fasting. The passive voice of the verb (ajparqh', “is taken away”) suggests divine action;13 the bridegroom does not run away but submits to being taken. The metaphor of the bridegroom and the accompanying metaphors of new cloth/new wineskins occur in the chiastic center of five controversy stories (2:1–3:6). Here at the pivot point of the human controversies, divine agency of the eventual outcome 12 The healing of the paralytic (2:1–12) foreshadows the Markan Jesus’ “trial” before the Sanhedrin with its reference to blasphemy (2:7; 14:64); the healing of the withered hand (3:1–6) foreshadows the “trial” before Pilate in its function of establishing Jesus’ innocence by means of rhetorical questions having to do with “evil” (3:4; 15:14) (so Dowd, Reading Mark, 24, following Joanna Dewey, Markan Public Debate: Literary Technique, Concentric Structure, and Theology in Mark 2:1–3:6 [SBLDS 48; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980], 189). 13 “Impersonal third person singular verbs, passive verbs, and sometimes indefinite third person plural verbs were often used in Jewish and Christian literature of the period to refer to the activity of God” (Collins, “Suffering and Healing in the Gospel of Mark,” in Beginning of the Gospel, 64).

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is stressed. Whatever human conflicts occur in the story of Jesus are incorporated into the larger story of God’s action, the coming of the reign of God. At the close of the series of five controversy stories, which, as Joanna Dewey has shown, manifest linear development as well as chiastic structure,14 human agency comes into focus: “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him” (3:6). “In order for God to reign, all other powers must abdicate or be defeated, even the powers that claim to represent God. In Mark, not only Rome, but also the Jewish leaders stand to lose when Jesus announces God’s reign, so they oppose Jesus.”15 But, as was the case earlier when the divine Spirit threw Jesus out into the wilderness to be tested by the cosmically evil Satan, so here the divine agency of the one who takes away the bridegroom precedes the human agency of the religious and political officials who conspire against him. Furthermore, in this series of five controversy stories, in which Jesus’ death is foreshadowed once in the center and again at the end, the Markan Jesus makes it plain that forgiving sins is part of his healing ministry and is apparently not dependent on the cross, the shadow of which hangs over the narrative. Rather, “the Son of Man has [present indicative] authority on earth to forgive sins” (2:10). In Mark 3 the audience learns that not only are the religious and political officials implicated in the plot that leads to the Markan Jesus’ death, but so is one of Jesus’ own disciples. At the very appointing of the “twelve” the narrator concludes the list with “and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him [or handed him over]” (3:19). At this, Judas’ only mention prior to his handing over of Jesus, his epithet is “who betrayed him.” Once the process of handing over has begun, Judas’ epithet becomes “one of the twelve” (14:10, 43). The hearers of Mark’s story are never allowed to forget this ironically fateful and tragically fatal connection. Although the betrayal by Judas, like the plotting of the religious and political officials, is framed by divine agency, it is no less tragic in Mark’s plot, and, as a failure of friendship rather than a consequence of deeply felt opposition, it is more pathetic.

Community (Mark 4:35–8:26) Chapters 4–8 stress the powerful words and deeds of the Markan Jesus— among Jews and Gentiles16—and thus offer a brief respite from foreshadowings of his death.17 Opposition, both demonic and human, is never far from the surface 14

Dewey, Markan Public Debate. Dowd, Reading Mark, 24. Dowd continues with this comment, “This is not Christian antisemitism; it is typical of Israelite prophetic rhetoric.” 16 See Malbon, “Echoes and Foreshadowings in Mark 4-8.” 17 Although there is a foreshadowing of the “persecution” of the Markan Jesus’ followers in the allegorical explanation of what happens to the seed that falls on rocky soil (4:16–17), as Collins 15

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of the story, however (see also 3:20–35); yet the audience has already heard the divine theme of which this is a variation. The intercalated stories of the mission of Jesus’ disciples and the beheading of John in ch. 6 intrude into the narration of Jesus’ powerful words and deeds to sound again the tones of (1) going out to preach (and heal), (2) being rejected and handed over, and (3) being killed—for John the baptizer now reaches stage 3; Jesus has entered stage 2 (with the rejection in his patriv" in 6:1–6, to say nothing of earlier allusions to being handed over); and Jesus’ disciples are at stage 1.18 But eventually those “who, like John and Jesus, insist on relativizing the claims of human rulers will necessarily find themselves at risk from those rulers who must protect their own right to reign.”19 Thus, Jesus parallels John in death, but as Adela Yarbro Collins points out, it is ironically not John who is raised from the dead (as Herod thinks, 6:16) but Jesus.20 The fact that John’s disciples come and bury John’s body is a presumed foreshadowing of what Jesus’ disciples might be expected to do when Jesus reaches stage 3; however, this echo is never heard in Mark’s Gospel. Rather, the disciples having long since fled the scene, Jesus is buried by one of those who condemned him to death.21

Discipleship (Mark 8:22–10:52) The blindness of the disciples as the Markan Jesus attempts to prepare them for his death is striking. The two-stage healing of the blind man of Bethsaida, unique to Mark’s Gospel, works in two stages itself: it concludes 4:35–8:26, in which Jesus journeys to, teaches, heals, and feeds both Jews and Gentiles; and it introduces 8:22–10:52, framing, with the story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus outside Jericho, the section that is structured by three passion predictions given “on the way” to Jerusalem. As the disciples are slow to perceive the depth of Jesus’ power (“Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” 4:41) and the breadth of his outreach (at 6:45, 53 they fail to go ahead of him to Gentile Bethsaida as requested) in chs. 4–8, so in chs. 8–10 they only “half see” the type of mespoints out (Beginning of the Gospel, 66). So also Dowd, Reading Mark, 50: “The Markan Jesus is not warning the disciples to be good soil; rather, he is warning them (and the overhearing audience) that even as the reign of God takes root and flourishes in some quarters, it will provoke opposition, persecution, and seduction from the forces of evil. It is the nature of the reign of God to provoke opposition; it cannot be otherwise.” For an application of the allegorical explanation as central to Mark’s Gospel as a whole, see Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in LiteraryHistorical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). 18 See Malbon, “Narrative Criticism,” 40–41; eadem, “Echoes and Foreshadowings,” 222–23. 19 Dowd, Reading Mark, 67. 20 Collins, Beginning of the Gospel, 62. 21 Raymond E. Brown, “The Burial of Jesus (Mark 15:42–47),” CBQ 50 (1988): 233–45. We do not intend to imply agreement with Brown’s historical conclusions.

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siah the Markan Jesus understands himself to be. No sooner has Peter correctly confirmed the narrator’s (1:1) identification of Jesus as the Messiah (Christ, 8:29), than Peter incorrectly—and dramatically—objects to Jesus’ first passion prediction (8:31), which focuses on the suffering the Son of Man (clearly the Markan Jesus as the Christ) “must” undergo. “Must” (dei' ) is generally interpreted as a signal of divine agency. The audience has been prepared for this divine agency from early on in the narrative—with the allusion to the binding of Isaac in the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism and the Spirit’s initiative in “throwing” Jesus into the wilderness, but, for the disciples within the narrative, 8:22–10:52 is a direct tutorial. Yet, since the narrative exists for the sake of the audience and not for the sake of its characters, the disciples’ tutorial is actually the audience’s tutorial. It is a signal of the evangelist’s dramatic success that some latter-day commentators have assumed that he must have had a vendetta against the “historical disciples” or those represented by them in the early Christian community. Like the Markan Jesus he portrays, the Markan implied author is trying to teach a challenging lesson and to heal blindness to the unexpected. The careful structuring of 8:22–10:52 was one of the first observations that led scholarly commentators to a renewed appreciation of the Markan author’s literary control over his material. The development of this section clearly involves more than stringing pearls. Each passion prediction (8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34) has been elaborated into a passion prediction unit by the addition of misunderstanding by the disciples and Jesus’ discipleship instruction in response. The three resulting passion prediction units offer Mark’s most explicit advice on how to understand the meaning or significance of Jesus’ death. First and foremost, Jesus’ death is not to be understood as beyond the knowledge and purpose of God. At work here is a passion apologetic more than a soteriology of the cross: even Jesus’ death does not negate his role as God’s Messiah or his proclamation of the in-breaking reign of God.22 Second, Jesus’ suffering and death show what may also happen to any who take up his proclamation; the teacher’s life (and death) manifest the pattern for his followers. Third, it is not suffering or death for its own sake that is being advocated for Jesus or for his followers (the Markan Jesus has no martyr complex)23 but rather the strength to serve others, especially those lowest in the evaluation of conventional society, even if such service may result in suffering or death at the hands of the powerful of that society. 22 See Morna Hooker, Not Ashamed of the Gospel: New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 48. 23 Adela Collins states: “Violent death is not valued in itself. Jesus’ death is not to be imitated for the sake of being like Jesus. Rather, such a death may be necessary because of loyalty to Jesus and to the Gospel (8:35) in the face of opposition” (Beginning of the Gospel, 67). Collins does not mention how service to the powerless may contribute to opposition.

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These three points are presented repeatedly—like the Markan Jesus’ healing action toward the blind man of Bethsaida. In the first passion prediction unit (8:31–9:1), (1) God’s presence in Jesus’ death is manifested in Jesus’ rebuke of Peter’s “setting [his] mind not on divine things but on human things” (8:33);24 (2) the necessity of followers to be prepared to endure the fate of their teacher is made explicit in the admonition to “take up their cross and follow me” (8:34); and (3) the primacy not of suffering but of service is heard in the phrase “let them deny themselves” (8:34).25 The second passion prediction unit (9:30–50) stresses this third point, the primacy of service: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (9:35). Such service is to be rendered to those undervalued in society, for example, powerless children (9:36–37) and “little ones” (9:42). Also stressed in the second passion prediction unit is an implication of the second point (that followers must emulate their teacher): All those who follow Jesus are to “be at peace with one another” (9:50). In response to the report of the disciple John that the disciples have tried to stop an exorcist not in their small group, the Markan Jesus says, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us” (9:39–40). The third passion prediction unit (10:32–45) opens with the most detailed passion prediction, a virtual preview of the Markan passion narrative, but it closes 24 There is a parallel between the Markan Jesus’ human opponents and his demonic ones in relation to power, but the connection is made with Peter, not with the religious authorities. It is natural to associate the demons and unclean spirits with Satan, since unclean spirits seem to recognize Jesus as “the Holy One of God” who has “come to destroy” them (1:24). But the Markan Jesus associates his most prominent disciple, Peter, with Satan at the point of Peter’s failure to understand the centrality of service to the powerless and the inevitability of suffering at the hands of the powerful (8:33). That all-too-human desire of “lording over” is satanic, that is, opposed to the desire of God. 25 Denying oneself (8:34), which is prescribed in the first discipleship instruction, is the opposite of lording it over others (10:42), which is proscribed in the third discipleship instruction. Collins points out that the “notion of ‘denying oneself ’ calls to mind the dangers of wealth and desires for various things mentioned” in the interpretation of the parable of the Sower (4:19; Beginning of the Gospel, 67). But see also Dowd (Reading Mark, 89) on interpreting denying oneself as denying the false self imposed by others and being the self that is in line with one’s commission from God, as Jesus does in the “trial” before the Sanhedrin. Cf. Joanna Dewey, “‘Let Them Renounce Themselves and Take Up Their Cross’: A Feminist Reading of Mark 8:34 in Mark’s Social and Narrative World,” in A Feminist Companion to Mark (ed. Amy-Jill Levine; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 23–36. Clearly “self denial” has been interpreted in ways dangerous to women, a sad irony given that the early tradition seems to have been intended as a challenge to men who were lording it over (among others) women. As Joanna Dewey notes, “The instruction is addressed to the Twelve, not to women, children, and slaves, those whose social role is already to serve. . . . The narrator is not presenting universal teaching applicable to all regardless of social status and access to power” (“The Gospel of Mark,” in Searching the Scriptures, vol. 2, A Feminist Commentary [ed. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza; New York: Crossroad, 1994], 494).

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with a relatively short yet dramatically powerful discipleship instruction section stressing service and thereby contrasting the community of Jesus’ followers with conventional society. In response to the unenlightened request of James and John to have places of honor along the lines of conventional society, and in response to the anger of the other ten at these two, “Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (10:42–45). Oddly enough—even though the so-called ransom statement is presented as parallel to “came not to be served but to serve,” and in an immediate context stressing service in contrast to the usual “lording over” in society at large, and in a larger context (the three passion prediction units) also stressing service to society’s undervalued, even if such service should challenge the authorities and lead to suffering and death—interpreters have often read the statement as if it meant Jesus’ death ransomed all people from sin.26 Wherever the connection between Jesus’ death and the forgiveness of sin is coming from—whether other NT texts,27 26 Two recent exceptions to the ignoring of the narrative contexts of the luvtron statement are the narrative and feminist commentary on Mark’s Gospel by Joanna Dewey in Searching the Scriptures (pp. 494–96; see n. 25 above) and the published dissertation of Alberto de Mingo Kaminouchi, ‘But It Is Not So among You’ (see n. 6 above). Although Kaminouchi does not deny the possibility of a Markan implication of “ransom” from sin at 10:45 (p. 53), he does not find any reason to argue for this reading from his literary analysis of 10:32–45 in its Markan context. Rather, his “proposal is that luvtron can be interpreted as liberation from the ideologies and relationships of power in which the world, including its rulers, is entrapped” (p. 154). Kaminouchi provides intriguing illustration of this entrapment in his literary analysis—with “social-scientific sensitivity” (p. 3)—of the portrayal of Herod (6:14–29) and Pilate (15:1–15) as supposedly powerful leaders “unable to do their will” (p. 196) in contrast to the Markan Jesus, who, when approached by James and John “as if he were a royal figure able to grant positions of privilege” (p. 197), is able to do his will because of his freedom from entangling networks of hierarchical power, his freedom to serve (10:32-45). The classic argument against overreading the influence of Isaiah 52–53 and thus importing a theology of vicarious atonement, not only in Mark but in the NT generally, is forcefully presented by Morna D. Hooker, Jesus and the Servant: The Influence of the Servant Concept of Deutero-Isaiah in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1959). 27 Although the particular term used in Mark 10:45, luvtron (“ransom”), appears only here and in the Matthean parallel (20:28) in the NT, a term for ransom (ajntivlutron, not luvtron) appears in 1 Tim 2:6, but not in conjunction with sin. Interpreters are more likely to cite or allude to Gal 1:4; Rom 5:8; or especially 1 Cor 15:3. For example, Collins concludes a detailed study of the pre-Markan and Markan passion narratives with a unlabeled quotation of 1 Cor 15:3, thus making a connection between Jesus’ death and sin for which she has not argued explicitly in this article: “For the author of the earliest passion narrative and for Mark, the death of Jesus is admirable, not because he faced it bravely and thus became an example for others, but because it was ‘for our sins’ and ‘according to the Scriptures’” (“From Noble Death,” 502). The assumed connection between

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or rereadings of the Hebrew Bible,28 or ancient Greco-Roman culture,29 or later Christian formulations—it is not coming from the Markan narrative context of this ransom statement. Interpreters are right to focus on 10:45; it is, as Adela Collins notes, the “most explicit statement in the Gospel of Mark about the meaning of the death of Jesus.” “This is the clearest such statement in Mark,” Collins continues, “but that does not imply that it is actually clear!”30 Some clarity comes with attention to the statement’s narrative context. In narrative context, what “the many” need—and, in fact, what the Markan Jesus urges his followers to provide—is ransoming from “their great ones who are tyrants over them” and “those whom they recognize as their rulers [who] lord it over them” (10:42).31 As Ched Myers notes, “The phrase ‘as a ransom (lutron) for many’ appears to be an allusion back to ‘slave’ [at 10:43–44]. The term referred to the price required to redeem captives or purchase freedom for indentured servants. Jesus promises that the way of ‘servanthood’ has been transformed by the Human One into the way of liberation.”32 It is true that 10:45 is a crucial statement in a climactic position,33 but it is an encapsulation of the teaching of 8:22–10:52: Service to others, especially those undervalued and “lorded over” by the powerful, is central to the ministry of Jesus (point 3) and thus to his followers (point 2), even if such service provokes a response from the powerful that leads to suffering 1 Cor 15:3 and Mark (see ibid., 488–94) seems to be that Mark’s passion story is rich in allusions to Scripture, and Isaiah 53 (which, unlike Mark’s Gospel, does mention dying for sins) is part of the general scriptural background of Mark’s passion narrative. Morna Hooker argued clearly and strongly against such harmonization years ago: “Although forgiveness is part of the gospel message, it is expressed in the whole ministry of Christ, and it is only later, in the writings of Paul [Rom 4:25, 1 Cor 15:3], in the Epistle to the Hebrews [9:26] and in I Peter [2:24; see also 1 John 1:7], that the association with his sufferings is made” (Jesus and the Servant, 153). 28 See Kaminouchi, ‘But It Is Not So,’ 142–46. 29 Ibid., 147–51. On the significance of Greco-Roman epigraphical evidence of the word group luvw for interpreting Mark 10:45, see Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Signification of Mark 10:45 among Gentile Christians,” HTR 90 (1997): 371–82. 30 Collins, Beginning of the Gospel, 68; cf. Hooker, Not Ashamed, 17: [the evangelists] “attribute [Jesus’ death] to the wickedness of men and the will of God, but rarely do they spell out what it achieved.” 31 Cf. Exod 6:6: “Say therefore to the Israelites, ‘I am the LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem [LXX lutrwvsomai, the verbal form of luvtron] you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.” See the discussion of 10:45 and 14:24 below. See also Kaminouchi, ‘But It Is Not So,’ ch. 5, for a careful analysis of Mark 10:32–45. 32 Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 279. 33 Dowd (Reading Mark, 112): “The saying looks both backward and forward in the Markan narrative. All that Jesus has done so far falls into the category of serving. His teaching, preaching, exorcizing, and healing were done not to call attention to himself, but as examples of his service to others. In the upcoming passion narrative Jesus’ service will take an additional form: giving his life lutron anti pollōn.”

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and/or death.34 In serving others, God is present, and God remains present in whatever results from such service—life, suffering, even death (point 1).35

34 As Dewey comments on Mark 10:41–45, “The opposite of being powerful is being oppressed, and Mark has taught his audience that persecution is to be expected for following Jesus. Thus one might expect Mark to contrast domination over others with weakness or suffering as the way of God. But Mark contrasts power not with suffering but with service (diakonia; see 9:35)” (Searching the Scriptures, 2:494). As Hooker notes, “The whole passage [10:45] takes the common form of antithesis, contrasting the rule exercised among the Gentiles and in the flock of Jesus” (Jesus and the Servant, 75). 35 Collins also seeks to interpret 10:45 in its context, but she attends not to the immediate narrative context of the demand for service to those undervalued in society but to the broader Markan context against its rich background of OT texts (Beginning of the Gospel, 68-71). “Jesus as the agent of the kingdom of God is plundering the kingdom of Satan [3:23-27]. Just as his exorcisms and healings free people from bondage to demons, so his death ransoms many from the power of Satan” (pp. 70–71). Without attention to the Markan narrative context of human service to the powerless challenging the powerful, Collins’s conclusion is somewhat overstated (and, in the hands of other interpreters, can become theologically problematic): “Although Jesus is the agent of God and shares in the power of God, his suffering was intended [our emphasis] by the will of God, according to Mark” (p. 70). On the contrary, all we know from Mark’s narrative is that Jesus’ death, for which humans are accountable (as Collins, of course, recognizes; see p. 65), is not stopped (or removed; see 14:36) by God for whom “all things are possible” (10:27; 14:36). Projecting the “intention” of God back behind the story is a step beyond the one the Markan implied narrator takes in suggesting that Jesus’ death does not negate the larger purpose of God; that is, God’s purpose can prevail even through Jesus’ death at the hands of the powerful. Collins concludes her essay “Suffering and Healing in the Gospel of Mark” with a double proposition: “Thus Mark’s solution to the problem of theodicy is a narrative one. [1] All things are possible for God, but God allows evil to be part of the cosmic drama in which every creature has a role to play. [2] The Gospel of Mark and the biblical tradition in which it stands impel us to go further and say that God not only allows what seems to us to be evil but even wills it in order to accomplish a larger purpose— the redemption of all creation” (p. 72). We see only the first proposition in Mark’s narrative, and a desire to avoid committing the intentional fallacy theologically on Mark’s behalf impels us to go no further. See also the conclusion to Collins’s essay entitled “The Passion Narrative of Mark,” in which she contrasts a pre-Markan source “narrating it in terms of the traditional type of the suffering just person” and the Markan redaction that presents “an atoning or sacrificial interpretation of Jesus’ death” (Beginning of the Gospel, 118). We concur with Collins’s conclusion in “Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus” (p. 193): “Many exegetes and theologians find the notion of sacrificial death offensive. Some deal with their distaste for the idea by arguing that it does not actually occur in the New Testament or by minimizing its presence.” However, we also note that many exegetes and theologians find the notion of sacrificial death central and essential; some deal with their affirmation of the idea by arguing that it occurs everywhere in the NT or by maximizing its presence. With our reading compare that of Howard Clark Kee: “In keeping with his view of history as determined by God, and with the blueprint of the divine plan embodied in scripture, it was essential for Mark to show that the suffering and death of Jesus as well as the impending martyrdom of the elect were not to be regarded as occurring outside the divine plan, but that the suffering involved was an essential factor in the fulfillment of that plan. This conviction has not been developed by Mark into a doctrine of atonement, allegedly implied in 10:45 and based on Isa. 53; rather there is throughout Mark the unexplicated assertion that suffering is a necessary pre-condition for the coming of the

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Excursus: The Cultural Context of the Markan Authorial Audience with Reference to Mark 10:45 Many attempts have been made to interpret Mark 10:45 as an allusion to the sin-canceling death of the servant of Isa 52:13–53:12.36 But these arguments (whether or not the scholars making the arguments acknowledge this) depend on one of two presuppositions: (1) The saying goes back to the historical Jesus, who had in mind the Hebrew text; or (2) the author of the Gospel was interpreting the Hebrew text. Presupposition 1 can be neither proved nor disproved, but it speaks to a meaning in the mind of Jesus that would have been unavailable to the Markan audience, who were hearing the Gospel read in Greek. Presupposition 2 is not likely, since many studies have argued Mark’s reliance on the LXX, but again not only the author but the audience as well would have to make a connection to the Hebrew text of Isaiah 52–53 for this meaning to be communicated. This conclusion is reached because neither the verb lutrovw nor the nouns luvtron, luvtra appear in LXX Isa 52:13–53:12. In fact, there is nothing to link Mark 10:45 to this particular passage in LXX Isaiah except two phrases: “hJ yuch; aujtou' was handed over to death” (LXX Isa 53:12; cf. “to give th;n yuch;n aujtou',” Mark 10:45) and “he bore the sins pollw'n” (LXX Isa 53:12, cf. “a ransom ajnti; pollw'n,” Mark 10:45). Our argument is simple: the former “parallel” simply establishes that both the Isaian servant and the Markan Jesus lost their lives; the latter “parallel” establishes that this was a benefit to “many.” But of course the issue is the nature of that benefit, which is different in Isaiah and in Mark.37 As all parties to the discussion admit, the word group lutrovw, luvtron, luvtra relates to the necessity of setting free those being held captive or enslaved by another. In the biblical tradition, Israel may be God’s pai'" (“servant/child”; cf. LXX Isa 42:1), but this is so because of God’s election of Israel, not because Israel is enslaved to God on account of sin. When Israel is taken captive because of its Age of Deliverance (Mk 8:31; 9:11; 13:7; 14:31 etc.)” (“The Function of Scriptural Quotations and Allusions in Mark 11-16,” in Jesus und Paulus: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 70. Geburtstag [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975], 174). On the broader issue of sacrifice, see Joanna Dewey, “Sacrifice No More,” in Distant Voices Drawing Near: Essays in Honor of Antoinette Clark Wire (ed. Holly E. Hearon; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004), 159–70. 36 Recently, R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 419–21; Watts, Isaiah’s New Exodus and Mark, 270–84. Joel Marcus argues that “Mark 10:45 and 14:24 imply the atoning value of Jesus’ death through allusions to Isaiah 53” without explicit discussion of the forgiveness of sin (Way of the Lord, 195). Not forgiveness of sin but apocalyptic transformation is Mark’s focus, according to Marcus, who argues that “Mark sets his entire story in the context of Deutero-Isaiah’s picture of apocalyptic holy war (1:1–3)” (p. 163). 37 Compare Hooker: “Nowhere here [in Isa 53:11–12], apart from the use of the word poluv, is there any connection, either in thought or in language, with Mark 10.45” (Jesus and the Servant, 78).

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sin, Israel is always the captive of an enemy, not of God. And that captivity is a temporary discipline from which, in Deutero-Isaiah, Israel expects liberation from God. This reading accords with the social contexts of redemption/ransom in Greek and later in Roman culture. Prisoners of war, or the corpses of important military heroes, are always ransomed from the enemy, not from a neutral party who is merely being compensated for a loss, as is the case regarding the redemption/ransom of a slave. Similarly, those taken captive by pirates have to be ransomed from the criminals who are holding them against their will. Thus, “the many” for whom the Markan Jesus gives his life as a luvtron are captives of the enemies of God.38 In the Gospel of Mark, the enemies fall into two groups: human beings and spiritual beings. From the humans who wield power, Jesus’ death ransoms not “many” but only one: Barabbas. One “son of the father” goes free and the “beloved son” of “Abba” is led away to be crucified. In the apocalyptic dualism characteristic of some strains of Hellenistic Judaism and of the Gospel of Mark, God’s reign is opposed by the “unclean spirits” and “demons,” of whom the “ruler” is thought to be “Beelzebul” or “Satan” (3:20–30 and passim).39 In Mark, these powers control individual victims. Jesus expels every demon he encounters. But the ransom saying may have suggested to the audience that for the power of evil to be overcome, a terrible price would have to be paid for the freedom of many. In the cultural context of the Markan audience, enemies did not let their captives go without payment. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus, God’s “beloved son,” “gives his life a ransom for many”—but not without questioning his father (14:36; cf. 38 In “The Signification of Mark 10:45 among Gentile Christians,” Collins makes the following points about luvtron, luvtra in pagan inscriptions. Our responses follow each point: 1. Some of these inscriptions connect luvtron with a transaction with the gods. But if the inscriptions contain any references to sin, Collins does not mention them. 2. The ritual usage of luvtron likely derives from the social practice of slave manumission and prisoner ransom. About slavery, Collins writes, “. . . the practice implies that human beings, by committing offenses against the gods, make themselves slaves of the gods and must pay a sum or perform a ritual act to free themselves. Thereafter they can resume good relations with the deity” (p. 377). About prisoners of war, “. . . human beings who have committed offenses are captives of the gods, suffering disease or other punishment, and . . . they must pay a sum or perform a ritual act to move the gods to free them from this captivity” (p. 378). But in the apocalyptic dualism characteristic of Hellenistic Judaism and Christianity, these enslaving functions have been transferred to the demons. Though pagans would not have known this, Gentile Christians would have been taught monotheism as part of their catechesis (1 Thess 1:9–10). 3. The Didache uses luvtrwsin in conjunction with sins. But the Didache has been influenced by Matthew’s reading of Mark. 4. The verb luvw appears in the magical papyri in the context of loosing spells. But loosing spells and forgiving sins cannot be regarded as identical actions. 39 On “the new designation of the enemy whose defeat must take place before the Rule of God is established” as “the demonic powers” in Mark (with precedents in Daniel, the later parts of Israel’s prophetic tradition, and the War Scroll), see Kee, “Function of Scriptural Quotations,” 184-85.

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Isaac in Gen 22:7). But the death of the one given in exchange for many is a temporary victory for the forces that oppose God’s reign, both cosmic and human. By raising Jesus from the dead, God vindicates him as Messiah and cheats God’s enemies, leaving them empty-handed, as they deserve. This understanding of the ransom language continued among Christian theologians from Irenaeus to John of Damascus, including Origen, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Cyril of Alexandria, and John Chrysostom. These theologians maintained that God became human in Jesus and became the ransom payment or exchange for humankind. The ransom was understood as paid to Satan, or to Death personified. But in the resurrection, Christ was snatched back, thus cheating the devil.40 Only with Anselm do we find fully developed the notion that the ransom is paid to God (by God incarnate). This is, in Anselm’s view, Cur Deus Homo: because humans owed a debt they could not pay but one Jesus as human could pay because as God he had the resources to pay.41 Even today, Anselm’s view is often read back into interpretations of Mark’s ransom statement in 10:45.

II. Hearing Mark’s Story (continued) In following the presentation of the three passion prediction units in 8:22– 10:52, ending with the “ransom” statement, we skipped over three sections of embedded material: the transfiguration and the accompanying Elijah conversation (9:2–13), the immediately following healing story of the so-called epileptic boy (9:14–29), and the linked teachings on marriage and divorce, children, and wealth (10:1–31).42 These segments are interspersed among the three passion prediction units in the “way” section, 8:22-10:52, with its multiple references to Jesus and his disciples being “on the way” to Jerusalem. Each of the three embedded segments also contributes to the audience’s preparation for understanding the Markan Jesus’ death. As Peter’s so-called confession at Caesarea Philippi confirms the narrator’s application of “Christ” to Jesus (1:1; 8:29), so the transfiguration story, with its 40

Gustaf Aulén, Christus Victor (trans. A. G. Hebert; London: SPCK, 1953), 52–71. Aulén points out that the patristic writers did not ignore the role of sin and the need for forgiveness, and, of course, neither did Mark. All we argue is that forgiveness is not connected in Mark with the death of Jesus. 41 Ibid., 100. 42 Although Dowd (Reading Mark), includes the transfiguration and Elijah statement (9:2– 13) as part of the first passion prediction unit, and the teaching segment in ch. 10 as part of the second passion prediction unit, Malbon defines the passion prediction units more narrowly and treats these materials as intervening, along with the so-called confession of Peter (8:27–30); in addition, Malbon treats the framing 8:22–26 and also 8:27–30 with the first passion prediction unit, 9:2–13 with the second passion prediction unit, and 10:1–31 with the third passion prediction unit (see Hearing Mark, chapter entitled “Discipleship”).

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voice from heaven echoing the earlier voice at Jesus’ baptism, confirms the narrator’s application of “Son of God” (1:1; 9:7).43 Jesus’ comment to Peter, James, and John44 on the way down the mountain sets the limit to the messianic secret: they are “to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead” (9:9). But it is the discussion about Elijah, also narrated during the descent, that reminds the audience of how Jesus’ suffering and death as the Son of Man echo the suffering and death of John the baptizer as the embodiment of Elijah. Jesus and John were suggestively linked in this way as early as 1:14, when reference to John’s being handed over introduced Jesus’ initial proclaiming. The fuller development of the link occurred in ch. 6 with the intertwining of Jesus’ rejection in his patriv", the mission of Jesus’ disciples, and the beheading of John. The discussion of Elijah in 9:9–13 is the final reverberation of this echo, which cues the audience how to hear Mark’s story of Jesus’ death as isolated neither from previous events nor from their own possibilities. The second of the three segments intervening within the passion prediction units of the “way” section follows immediately: the healing of the boy with a spirit, the so-called epileptic boy (9:14–29). Most of the Markan Jesus’ healings are narrated in the first half of the Gospel; the three exceptions occur in the “way” section, and each has a significant symbolic dimension. Two of these three are stories of the healing of blindness (8:22–26 and 10:46–52) that frame the “way” section, where blindness is a metaphor for not perceiving that Jesus’ messiahship includes service to the powerless and thus suffering and death at the hands of the powerful. The symbolic aspect of the healing of the boy under the power of the (unclean) spirit, so much under its power that the spirit throws him around, is seen in its foreshadowing of Jesus’ death—and resurrection. The Markan Jesus, who had himself been thrown around by the most clean (Holy) Spirit, asks in frustration in response to his disciples’ failure to exorcise this particular spirit, “How much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you?” (9:19). Not much longer, the implied audience answers with a sigh. Then Jesus rebukes the “spirit that keeps this boy from speaking and hearing” (9:25), as the Markan narrator would rebuke the spirit that keeps the implied audience from hearing and speaking. First the boy becomes “like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead’” (9:26). So later Jesus. Then Jesus takes him by the hand and raises him up (ajnevsth, 9:27). So later Jesus. What facilitates such movement from death to life? 43 On the textual difficulties with “Son of God” in 1:1, see Adela Yarbro Collins, “Establishing the Text: Mark 1:1,” in Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman (ed. Tord Fomberg and David Hellholm; Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 111–27. 44 As Dowd notes, “Jesus selects only Peter, James, and John to accompany him, not because they are his favorites, but because in this Gospel they are singled out as having special difficulty understanding the point he has just made in 8:31–9:1 about the necessity of suffering” (Reading Mark, 89).

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the disciples want to know (9:28). Prayer (9:29). So also for the implied audience (see 11:12–25). The third intervening segment occurs between the second and third passion prediction units and comprises the linked teachings about marriage and divorce, children, and wealth (10:1–31). This is not a random sample of the teachings of the Markan Jesus but a focused portrayal of teaching that challenges the status quo of first-century society. It is not so surprising that someone who challenges the status quo to this extent is challenged back—even to the point of suffering and death. In brief, what the Markan audience hears as Jesus makes his way to Jerusalem is a teaching about divorce that says men are not to be valued above women, a teaching about children that says adults are not to be valued above children, and a teaching about wealth that says the rich are not to be valued above the poor.45 Since in the dominant culture of the first century (and even the twenty-first?) all of these formulations run in the opposite direction, the teachings reflected in Mark 10 turn households upside down. It is not surprising that the discipleship instruction of the third and final passion prediction unit that follows this segment contrasts the (Gentile) societal norm of “those whom they recognize as their rulers” (10:42)—rich, married fathers—lording it over others—the poor, women, and children—with the Markan Jesus’ norm for himself and his followers: serving rather than being served, and thus ransoming the majority from the tyranny of the elite (10:45).46 Are the Markan disciples able to see all this? And, more important for the Markan implied author, is the Markan implied audience able to see? The story of the healing of blind Bartimaeus just outside Jericho, Jesus’ final stop “on the way” to Jerusalem, closes the “way” section with hope, for Bartimaeus “immediately . . . regained his sight and followed him on the way” (10:52).

Suffering (Mark 11:1–16:8) It is not our present goal to present a full-scale narrative analysis of Mark’s passion story; rather we seek to highlight narrative aspects that seem to guide the implied audience to hear (and understand) the story of Jesus’ death in a way that suggests its meaning or significance. For example, what the reader/hearer who has just listened attentively to the Markan Jesus’ three passion predictions notices at the beginning of ch. 11 is that this character Jesus is reliable at predicting the future—at least the near future—since the circumstances he predicts concerning 45

See Malbon, Hearing Mark, 68; see 66–68 for a slightly fuller explication. The contrast between the elite tyrants and lords and the majority whom they overpower helps make sense of the Markan expression “many” (pollw'n) at this point rather than “all” used elsewhere (e.g., 13:37, pa'sin). 46

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the procurement of a colt for his entry into Jerusalem are fulfilled immediately (11:1–7). Surely the implied audience is meant to understand that the Markan Jesus’ predictions of his suffering and death are equally inevitable. It is not just prediction of the future but influence of it through faith in God and through prayer (11:22–24) that is manifest in the following episode of the cursing of the fig tree, which is narratively intercalated and symbolically linked with the clearing (not cleansing) of the temple (11:12–14/15–19/20–25). It is prayer that is the focus of these intertwined stories,47 and it is prayer that is linked with forgiveness (11:25) in Mark’s Gospel, not Jesus’ death.48 The next series of stories, 11:27–12:40, echoes the series of controversy stories in 2:1–3:6. In the first series, set in Galilee, the opponents of the Markan Jesus were Pharisees and scribes (with Herodians joining them at 3:6); in the second series, set in the Jerusalem temple, the opponents are chief priests, scribes, and elders, Pharisees and Herodians, and Sadducees. Even though he is in his opponents’ space, the temple, the Markan Jesus seems even more in charge of the situation: various groups of leaders come to him. Just as the metaphors of the bridegroom taken away and the new cloth/new wineskins were central to the earlier series of controversy stories, so the metaphors of the slain son of the vineyard owner and the stone that the builders rejected are crucial to the second series of controversy stories. All these metaphors cue the implied audience to hear the story of Jesus’ death as embedded in a larger story of God’s ongoing relationship with the people of God. The echo of Isaiah’s allegory of the vineyard (Isa 5:1–7) is hard not to hear, and Ps 118:22–23 is quoted explicitly in Mark 12:10–11. Thus, the human opposition from established religious leaders in the second series of controversy stories, like that in the first, is portrayed as within the knowledge and purpose of God in relation to the people of God.49 In addition, just as the Markan 47

See Sharyn Echols Dowd, Prayer, Power, and the Problem of Suffering: Mark 11:22–25 in the Context of Markan Theology (SBLDS 105; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 48 Although the ministry of the Markan Jesus includes many exorcisms and healings, only once is Jesus shown forgiving sins (2:1–12). In fact, most of the Markan Jesus’ comments about the forgiveness of sins have to do with people’s sins not being forgiven. In 3:28–29 we learn that attributing Jesus’ powerful acts to Beelzebul will not be forgiven. In 4:10–12 Jesus says (following Isaiah, and ironically?) that the purpose of his teaching in parables is to prevent forgiveness. In 11:25 the disciples are urged to forgive when they pray, so that the Father may forgive them. This clause apparently prompted the scribal harmonization with Matthew’s threat that appears in some manuscripts as 11:26. Mark makes forgiveness appear to be both limited to “insiders” and conditional upon not committing the “eternal sin” and on forgiving others. Forgiveness in Mark is also linked with repentance and baptism (see 1:4) and with resurrection (see the reference to “and Peter” at 16:7, referred to below). 49 Where Adela Collins sees “ambiguity in [Jesus’] relationship to God” (“Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus,” 192), we see paradox in the overdetermination of the causes of the Markan Jesus’ death, with the forces of both demonic and human opponents being neither willed nor blocked by God but somehow surrounded and subverted by God. The Ph.D. dissertation of Ira Brent Driggers,

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Jesus’ threefold prediction of his death is echoed in the slain son and rejected stone metaphors, so his threefold prediction of his resurrection is echoed in the stone’s becoming the cornerstone and in his reply to the Sadducee’s trick question: God “is God not of the dead, but of the living” (12:27).50 The final question asked of the Markan Jesus by a religious leader in the temple is not a trick question. “One of the scribes,” who, as the Markan narrator reports, saw that Jesus “answered them well,” asks, “Which commandment is the first of all?” (12:28). The Markan Jesus replies with the Shema, “Hear, O Israel . . .” (12:29–30), central to the Jewish understanding of the active relationship between God and Israel, and the narrator now notes that “Jesus saw that [the scribe] answered wisely” (12:34). The Markan Jesus’ direct reply to the scribe is even more complimentary, “You are not far from the kingdom of God” (12:34). In the midst of all these controversies with religious leaders, controversies that play a role in the movement toward Jesus’ suffering and death, one thing remains central: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. . . .” Even Jesus’ suffering and death are not beyond the knowledge and purpose of God and God’s ongoing relationship with the people of God, which is the larger story that gives meaning to a story that might otherwise seem meaningless—the story of Jesus’ death. “Disciples at the Mercy of God: The Tension of Markan Theology” (Princeton Theological Seminary, 2004) captures this paradox well: “Stated simply, the Gospel [of Mark] presents the audience with two divergent theological explanations for the Messiah’s death. On the one hand, Mark suggests that Jesus’ execution stems, through a kind of divine initiative, from the logical unfolding of earthly events. This dynamic reflects what I call the ‘invasion logic’ of Mark’s discourse: God invades the world through Jesus; the threatened religious establishment resolves to stop that invasion; and the disciples, upon Jesus’ arrest, abandon Jesus to the cross. On the other hand, Mark’s many scriptural allusions, increasing with frequency as Jesus nears the cross, suggest that those same events stem from the long established will of God. This is what I call the ‘transcendent logic’ of Mark’s discourse: the destruction and vindication of Jesus as God’s emissary (Isa 5:1–7; Ps 118:22–3), the desertion of Jesus’ disciples (Zech 13:7), and the crucifixion itself (Ps 22:1, 7, 18) stem from ancient promises that reach fulfillment in the story. Even Jesus’ predictions about the destruction of the temple (13:1–8, 14) and the persecution of his disciples (13:9–13), though existing beyond the narrative, factor into the apocalyptic end times as ordained by God. In the end, then, the Gospel asserts an irresolvable tension I call Mark’s ‘theologic,’ according to which the cross results both from the opposition of powerful people to God’s eschatological invasion and, at the same time, from God himself. Between these two forces hangs Jesus, the ‘victim of humanity’s lack of imagination’ [quoting Nick Cave, introduction to The Gospel According to Mark (Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1998), xi], as well as the mysterious locus of God’s faithfulness” (pp. 176–77). 50 Since 3:6 the Pharisees and Herodians have been conspiring to “destroy” (ajpovllumi) Jesus, and he is accused by the false witnesses of threatening to “destroy” (kataluvw) the temple (14:58). At his death, the temple is indeed destroyed symbolically by the tearing of the veil (15:38). It becomes clear, then, that Jesus’ human opponents are “blindly” taking precisely the wrong course of action. Like the tenants, the religious leaders think that killing Jesus will leave the vineyard in their unchallenged possession. Instead, the Markan Jesus’ death is proleptically linked to the destruction of the very symbol of their power.

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Since, after the question of the one scribe, “no one dared to ask him any question” (12:34), the Markan Jesus brings the series of controversy stories to a close with his own question (12:35–37) and critique (12:38–40) of scribes in general. Then the scene of Jesus “walking in the temple” (11:27), where these controversies are engaged, is brought to a close with Jesus’ observation of and comment on the gift of the poor widow (12:41–44). Here the NRSV does its contemporary readers a disservice by blunting the force of the final phrase, o{lon to;n bivon aujth'", with the translation, “all she had to live on” (12:44). By adding to the first phrase, “but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had,” the second, “her whole life,” the implied author has moved the story from exemplum to metaphor (although, admittedly, many readers and commentators, frequently led astray by translators, neither see nor hear the transformation).51 In this, his final scene in the temple, the Markan Jesus sees what lies before him: giving his whole life. Do the disciples see? Does the audience see? The Markan implied author hopes that the implied audience sees more than the disciples do as he moves on with his story. Chapter 13 marks a narrative shift with a change of scene—not walking in the temple but “sitting [the authoritative position of rabbis while teaching] on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple” (13:3)—and a change of characters, not Jesus and the Twelve but Jesus and the four: Peter, James, John, and Andrew (13:3). Our present concern is not with the eschatological discourse in itself,52 but with its narrative implications for understanding the significance of the Markan Jesus’ death. In this regard, two subsections are most relevant: 13:9–13 and 13:32–37. In 13:9–13 the Markan Jesus warns the four, and through them the Twelve, and through them the implied audience, that his followers too (like John the baptizer and Jesus himself) will experience rejection by and handing over to religious and political authorities (councils and synagogues/governors and kings). Like Jesus, his followers will face trials, but the Markan Jesus assumes their divine strengthening through the words given to them by the Holy Spirit (13:11). Their future will be as challenging as that of Jesus, “But the one who endures to the end will be saved” (13:13), an echo of the discipleship instruction of the first passion prediction unit: “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (8:35). As the 51 See Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “The Poor Widow in Mark and Her Poor Rich Readers,” CBQ 53 (1991): 589–604, republished in In the Company of Jesus, 166–88. See also Dowd, Reading Mark, 134, who comments that “in Mark [as opposed to Luke 21:4] the separate phrases are complementary rather than synonymous.” 52 See Dowd, Reading Mark, 135–37; Malbon, Hearing Mark, 84–88; and eadem, “The Literary Context of Mark 13,” in Biblical and Humane: A Festschrift for John F. Priest (ed. Linda Bennett Elder, David L. Barr, Elizabeth Struthers Malbon; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 105–24. Cf. Collins, “Mark 13: An Apocalyptic Discourse,” in The Beginning of the Gospel, 73–91, who discusses the redaction of pre-Markan sources in Mark 13.

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Markan Jesus has three times predicted his own passion, so here he predicts the passion of the community of his followers, which had already been foreshadowed by reference to “trouble or persecution . . . on account of the word” (4:17) in the interpretation of the parable of the sower.53 Here, at the chiastic center of the eschatological discourse,54 the Markan Jesus reaffirms a central teaching of the “way” section (8:22–10:52): Jesus’ suffering and death shows what may also happen to any who take up his proclamation. Let anyone with ears to hear hear—and be ready. Being ready is the thrust of the second subsection of the eschatological discourse that has special relevance for the significance of the story of Jesus’ death, and, since 13:32–37 is the final subsection of the eschatological discourse, being ready—“Keep awake”—is its final thrust. Two observations are essential. First, as is often noted, the four times of the night mentioned in the parable of the doorkeeper (13:34–36) are also four significant times in the story of Jesus’ passion, and the Markan Jesus, of course, has been “lord [NRSV master] of the house” (13:35). In addition, the Markan Jesus’ request of Peter, James, and John at Gethsemane (“keep awake” or watch, grhgorei'te, 14:34), echoes what he says here to Peter, James, John, and Andrew—and “to all”: “Keep awake” or watch (grhgorei'te, 13:37). Thus, there is an analogy between Jesus’ death and the eschaton; what is needed by Jesus’ followers in both cases is readiness, wakefulness, watchfulness. Second, although the Markan narrator has given the implied audience confidence in the Markan Jesus’ ability to predict the future successfully, here the Markan Jesus puts a limit on that very ability. While he can predict the procuring of the colt for his entry into Jerusalem (and later the securing of an upper room for the Passover meal), as well as his own suffering and death and the suffering of his followers, the Markan Jesus states plainly that “only the Father,” that is, God, knows about the eschatological “day or hour” (13:32). Central to the ministry of the Markan Jesus has been his proclamation (by word and deed) of the in-breaking reign of God; thus, God provides the frame or background for all that happens. Again a teaching central to the “way” section—and to the entire Gospel—is reaffirmed: the larger story, into which the story of Jesus’ suffering and death and that of the suffering of his followers must be fit, is the story of God’s relationship with the people of God, the story of God’s unfolding purpose. Mark’s passion story proper begins at ch. 14, chs. 11–12 having been a prelude to the passion of Jesus and ch. 13 having been an interlude focused on the passion 53 See Dowd, Reading Mark, 135, citing John R. Donahue, S.J., The Gospel in Parable (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 61. See also Collins, Beginning of the Gospel, 66–67. 54 So Dowd, Reading Mark, 135. Dowd also argues that the interpretation of the parable of the sower (4:13–20), with its clear reference to “persecution,” is in the chiastic center of the parables discourse (4:1–34), thus making reference to the suffering of his followers central to both of the Markan Jesus’ longer speeches (ibid., 39).

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of the community.55 Mark 14:1–2 stresses the human agency that leads to the Markan Jesus’ death: opposition by religious leaders. But 14:3–9, the story of the woman who anoints Jesus, stresses the divine context in which Jesus’ death is to be seen as meaningful. Her anointing is for burial; the Markan Jesus is the anointed one, that is, the Messiah, the Christ, even though he suffers and dies. God’s presence with Jesus is not undermined by his death. The coming reign of God that the Markan Jesus announces and makes known in his life does not retreat at his death. Thus the woman’s anointing of Jesus beforehand for burial is—and will continue to be—part of the telling of the good news in the whole world (14:8–9). The human agency of a follower complements the human agency of opponents as Judas’ betrayal (14:10–11) enables the plot of the religious leaders (14:1– 2) to be carried out, despite the supportive crowds during Passover. The Markan Jesus’ preparations for the Passover meal with his disciples (14:12–16) contrast with the preparations of the religious leaders and one of his disciples for his death. Jesus’ words at the feast link the two: This Passover bread is “my body”; a Passover cup of wine is “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (14:22– 24). The final phrase, “for many” (uJpe;r pollw'n, 14:24) echoes the final phrase of the Markan Jesus’ discipleship instruction in the third and final passion prediction unit, “and to give his life a ransom for many” (ajnti; pollw'n, 10:45). As the majority is in need of ransoming from the tyranny of the elite, so the majority is in need of a renewal of the covenant of God with the people of God. Such freeing, such renewal is possible only because the reign of God is breaking in. The Markan Jesus’ death is incorporated into that larger story; thus, the Markan Jesus will next drink wine when he drinks it “new in the kingdom of God” (14:25). Jesus’ death does not negate his proclamation of the in-breaking reign of God; rather Jesus’ proclamation gives meaning to his death.

Excursus: The Cultural Context of the Markan Authorial Audience with Reference to Mark 14:24 The “blood of the covenant” in Mark 14:24 is a reference to Exod 24:8, the only place in the Scripture of Israel where “blood” and “covenant” are connected in a text. The full meaning of diaqhvkh (covenant) as relationship of the people to their God would have been available only to those members of the audience familiar with the LXX. They would have understood that those whom God had liberated were in covenant relationship with God, not because their sins had been forgiven, but because God had liberated them. Their sins would have to be for-

55 See Malbon, Hearing Mark, 75–88; eadem, Narrative Space and Mythic Meaning in Mark (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 151-52.

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given many times, just as Israel’s had to be, but that was not accomplished by the “blood of the covenant.”56 Robert Fowler has shown that the history of interpretation of the Gospel of Mark has been controlled by Matthew’s “strong reading” of his source (according to the prevailing source theory).57 This situation is quite obvious in the interpretation of Jesus’ death. The implied author of Matthew corrects the potential misapprehension of the baptism scene that Jesus, like the rest of the crowd, was “baptized by [John] in the river Jordan, confessing [his] sins” (cf. 3:6), by inserting the objection of John the baptizer (3:14–15).58 This prepares for the Matthean Jesus’ explanation of his death in the Last Supper scene, “ . . . this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (26:28). Jesus is the unblemished (3:14–15) sacrifice for sin (26:28). This addition to Mark makes it unnecessary for the audience to reflect on the meaning of diaqhvkh and its connection with blood. They are told that Jesus’ blood is poured out for the forgiveness of sins, and that is all they need to know. This framing device overwhelms the ambiguity of the ransom saying (20:28). It should be noted, however, that even Matthew does not redact the ransom saying to include forgiveness of sins. He does not replace Mark’s luvtron with the LXX’s aJmartiva, perhaps (but not certainly) because the “ransom saying” was known to have originated with Jesus. Nor does he add to the saying, as he does not hesitate to do in 26:28. The implied author of Matthew seems to know that luvtron simply has nothing to do with forgiveness of sin and so counts on its meaning being controlled by the frame with which he surrounds it. 56 Again, we hold that the prepositional phrases shared by 10:45 (ajnti; pollw'n) and 14:24 (uJpe;r pollw'n) connect the two metaphors for the purpose of Jesus’ death but are not enough to connect them with LXX Isaiah 52–53, where we find “sins of many” but not “for” or “on behalf of ” many. Contra Marcus, who sees in 14:24 a reflection of both Zechariah 9–11 and the Hebrew text (not the LXX) of Isa 53:12, the latter also being alluded to, so Marcus argues, in 10:45 (Way of the Lord, 187). But with Kee, who affirms with regard to the Markan passion narrative, “There are no sure references to Isa 53 and none of the distinctive language of the Suffering Servant is evident. . . . There is no explicit doctrine of atonement . . . in the Markan passion narrative” (“Function of Scriptural Quotations,” 183). See also Hooker, who concludes, “Any exegesis which sees a fundamental connection with Isa. 53 can only arise from reading Mark 14.24 in the light of an already accepted doctrine of the Atonement” (Jesus and the Servant, 82–83). More broadly, on the perils and promises of various NT metaphors of atonement, see John T. Carroll and Joel B. Green, The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), ch. 13, “The Death of Jesus and the Meaning of the Atonement.” 57 Robert M. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). 58 Even in John’s preaching, Matthew weakens the link between baptism and forgiveness in general (cf. Mark 1:4, “John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” with Matt 3:1–2, “. . . John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’”). Thus, Matthew’s parallel with Mark concerning all the others who “were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mark 1:5; Matt 3:5) bears implications not for Jesus’ baptism by John but only for the baptisms of the people of Jerusalem and Judea, who had, of course, sins to confess.

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We do not deny that the forgiveness of sins was an early and influential interpretation of the meaning of the death of Jesus, nor that Isa 52:13–53:12 was appealed to in support of this interpretation.59 We argue that the case for this being the interpretation that would have been apparent to Mark’s audience has not been made and cannot be made because it relies on unsupportable presuppositions. Further, we argue that the Markan narrative pulls the interpretation of Jesus’ death in the direction of liberation from both demonic powers and human tyrants, seeming to regard the forgiveness of sins as part of the good news, but not necessarily connected with the death of Jesus.

III. Hearing Mark’s Story (continued) The Markan Jesus’ death is incorporated into the larger story of the in-breaking reign of God. Thus, at his final meal with his disciples, Jesus proclaims not only that the Passover cup of wine is “my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (14:24) but also that he will next drink wine when he drinks it “new in the kingdom of God” (14:25). Not only does Jesus’ death not negate his proclamation of the in-breaking reign of God, but Jesus’ proclamation gives meaning to his death. Yet this larger story is hard to hear, for Mark’s implied audience as for the Markan Jesus’ explicit audience—his disciples. Although Peter by this time has heard that a disciple must follow his teacher—in both life and death, and Peter voices (even boasts) his intention to do so, the implied audience by this time has heard that the disciples, especially Peter, are often bolder in word than in deed and that what the Markan Jesus predicts will come to pass (14:26–31). Jesus’ request to Peter, James, and John to “keep awake” (14:34) at Gethsemane echoes his command “to all” at the close of the eschatological discourse: “Keep awake” (13:37). The implied audience is given little room to feel smug about Peter’s failure to “keep awake” and plenty of reason to be concerned for its own wakefulness. Jesus’ suffering and death mean that similar suffering and death may be in store for any and all of Jesus’ followers. As expected, as predicted, the betrayal of Judas, “one of the twelve” (14:43), enables the opposition of the religious leaders to culminate in Jesus’ arrest apart from the Passover crowds. As expected, as predicted, Jesus’ followers all desert him and flee (14:50), even an unnamed follower whose desperate 59

Although perhaps not so very early! Hooker concludes her thorough study: “The influence of the Servant Songs upon early Christian thought has, in fact, been greatly overestimated, as the paucity of genuine references has shown. In the light of Christian belief in the atoning death of Christ, commentators have been quick to see the relevance of Isa. 53, not only to the facts of the Passion story, but also to their significance: this connection was well established by the time of Origen, but there is no evidence that it was made during the early years of the Church” (Jesus and the Servant, 154–55).

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running right out of his garment (14:51–52) stands as a striking visual metaphor of abandonment for the implied audience. The words of the Markan Jesus in response to the high priest’s question give the implied audience another reminder of the larger story. The high priest’s final question, “Are you the Messiah [Christ], the Son of the Blessed One?” (14:61), echoes the narrator’s initial assertion, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). The Markan Jesus’ response, “I am” (14:62), first echoes again the divine response to Moses from the burning bush (Exod 3:14; cf. Mark 6:50), bringing the implied audience back into a central story of God and God’s covenanted people. Then the Markan Jesus’ response, “and ‘you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power,’ and ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’” (14:62; cf. Dan 7:13–14; see also Ps 110:1), moves on to a Danielic echo of the eschatological story of the coming reign of God. How is the death of Jesus to be understood? What is its meaning? It can be understood only as part of the ongoing story of God and the people of God, begun long ago, not yet finished. Is this meaning easy to hear? Of course not—no easier to hear than the implication that Jesus’ followers may need to follow his suffering and death as well as his preaching and healing. As expected, as predicted, Peter denies this implication three times (14:66–72). As expected, as predicted, the Markan Jesus is handed “over to the Gentiles,” who “mock him, and spit upon him, and flog him, and kill him” (10:33–34—the third passion prediction, echoed in 15:1–41). This story, of course, is full of ironies: Jesus of Nazareth, recognized by God (the Father) as “my Son” (1:11; 9:7), is to be crucified, while Barabbas (literally “son of the father”) is released; Jesus is taunted and crucified as “King of the Jews,” while the implied audience hears another truth in that title. Remember that our present task is not to present a full-scale narrative analysis of Mark’s passion story but to highlight narrative aspects that seem to guide the implied audience to hear (and understand) the story of Jesus’ death in a way that suggests its meaning or significance. Two details narrated just after the Markan Jesus’ death do just that: the splitting of the temple curtain (15:38) and the centurion’s statement, “Truly this man was Son of God [NRSV God’s Son]!” (15:39). Turning to the second detail first, we note that, although there are significant differences among contemporary interpreters on how far the irony of the centurion’s remark is to be taken, at least two aspects of its irony are generally accepted: the irony that it is Jesus’ death that makes plain his status as obedient Son of God, not his wonder-working power, and the irony that the first human character to call Jesus “Son of God,” thus confirming the narrator’s initial ascription (1:1),60 is not only a Gentile but one of the Roman soldiers carrying out the crucifixion. What is not universally agreed upon is whether there is an additional irony that the centurion, like Pilate when he calls Jesus “King of the Jews,” does not understand the truth of what he is saying. However, the phrase “King of the Jews” 60

See n. 43 above.

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itself shows a negative attitude, since the phrase “King of Israel” (although used derogatorily by the chief priests and scribes at 15:32) would be proper in Jewish usage. In addition, the implied audience is given other indications of the Markan Pilate’s negative view of the Markan Jesus—and, in fact, of the Markan Jewish leaders as well. There is no such indication of the centurion’s attitude to clarify whether seeing how Jesus dies changes his view as a Roman soldier or whether his acclamation is sarcastic, like the earlier Roman soldiers’ mocking with the purple cloak and the crown of thorns (15:16-20). What is clear for the implied audience is the connection between Jesus’ death and his role as Son of God. The very aspect of the story of Jesus that might be expected, from both Jewish and Gentile points of view, to discredit him as Messiah or Son of God serves to confirm him as such. The meaning of Jesus’ death is first and foremost that it does not cancel the meaning of his life—that the reign of God has begun, that God has come near to the people of God once again. At the Markan Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit went into him (1:10, to pneuma . . . eis auton), and “the dying Jesus expels his spirit (15:37, 39, exepneusen) with a loud cry”;61 the Holy Spirit will be available to the followers of the Markan Jesus as they too face their arrests and trials (13:11), and possibly their deaths. Jesus’ death does not negate the in-breaking reign of God nor God’s presence with those who participate in it. Second, interpreters also find a certain ambiguity in the Markan narrator’s statement that “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (15:38) at Jesus’ death. Since the temple had two significant curtains—one at the entrance of the temple itself, another at the entrance of the Holy of Holies—it is not entirely clear which curtain is intended in Mark’s story.62 It is clear, however, that the “splitting” (ejscivsqh, 15:38) of the enormous curtain “from top to bottom” is a divine act, like the “splitting” (scizomevnou" [1:10, the only other Markan use of scivzw63]) of the heavens at the Markan Jesus’ baptism. Thus most interpreters concur that “the destruction of the veil is the proleptic destruction of the temple, the cancellation of the cult that had been prophetically enacted by the Markan Jesus in 11:15–16 and explicitly predicted by him in 13:2. . . . The positive aspect of the tearing of the curtain is the release of the divine presence into the world.”64 What does the Markan Jesus’ death mean? It means not the end of God’s presence on earth but its outward expansion. For Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ death means the release of the divine presence into the world—into the whole world, to be recognized by Gentiles as well as Jews. The strong yet unstated message of the implied author to the implied audience at this point is soon echoed by the explicit message of the young man at the empty tomb to the three women: “Go, tell” (16:7). 61

Dowd, Reading Mark, 162. Dowd (Reading Mark, 162) assumes the outer curtain (see David Ulansey, “The Heavenly Veil Torn: Mark’s Cosmic Inclusio,” JBL 110 [1991]: 123–25); Malbon assumes the inner curtain (Hearing Mark, 97; and Narrative Space, 108–9). 63 On scivzw, see Malbon, Narrative Space, 187 n. 93. 64 Dowd, Reading Mark, 162. 62

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The final signal to the implied audience of the meaningfulness of Jesus’ death is his resurrection, narrated only indirectly in the story of the empty tomb. There are significant surprises in the closing of Mark’s Gospel even before the final surprise of the women’s fear and silence in 16:8. Given the Markan Jesus’ teaching his disciples to take up their cross and follow him (8:34), it is surprising that none of the twelve men but only women followers observe the crucifixion of the Markan Jesus (15:40–41). Given that John’s disciples buried him (6:29), it is surprising that the Markan Jesus is buried only by Joseph of Arimathea, intriguingly described as “a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God” (15:43),65 with three women followers coming the third morning, “[w]hen the sabbath was over” (16:1), with the spices to anoint his body. Given that the Markan Jesus really suffered and really died, the greatest surprise— even after three predictions of his passion and resurrection—is his absence from the tomb and his announced presence on the way to Galilee (16:7)—Galilee where his proclamation of the in-breaking reign of God began, Galilee where his fearful and discouraged disciples could be expected to gather. He is going to Galilee to see those who have fled from his death; Peter is mentioned by name. According to Mark’s Gospel, it is in the resurrection of Jesus, not in his death, that forgiveness is experienced. What does the Markan narrative context suggest about the meaning of Jesus’ death? That Jesus’ death is not the end of the story. That Jesus’ death is part of the larger—and ongoing—story of God and the covenanted people of God, who have been ransomed from captivity and set free to follow Jesus in his march toward the reign of God. That the reign of God really is breaking into history—thus the power of evil is being overthrown. That those who follow Jesus are, like him, called to serve rather than be served, and especially to free the many from the tyranny of the few. That such serving of the powerless will challenge the powerful. That any suffering or death that might result from such service is not the end of the story of God’s reign. That fear and cowardice are also not the end of the story and can be forgiven by God—through prayer and mutual forgiveness. Mark’s story of Jesus does not link Jesus’ death with the forgiveness of sins, but it proclaims perhaps a more powerful message: God is present in the world, even in the face of evil, for God is stronger than evil. God is present in healing those bound by sickness, in serving those whom society neglects or mistreats, in being good news in the whole world. And God remains present in whatever results from such service—both life and death. 65

On Joseph of Arimathea as “portrayed as caring nothing for Jesus, but caring a great deal about the requirements of Torah,” see Dowd, Reading Mark, 164–65 (quotation from 164), following Brown, “Burial.” On Joseph of Arimathea as an exceptional religious leader whose portrayal blocks absolute stereotyping, see Malbon, Hearing Mark, 98; and eadem, “The Jewish Leaders in the Gospel of Mark: A Literary Study of Marcan Characterization,” JBL 108 (1989): 259–81, republished in In the Company of Jesus, 131–65.

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Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative, and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext david m. moffitt [email protected] Duke University, Durham, NC 27708

Jesus’ so-called cry of dereliction in Matt 27:46 serves as the climactic finale for a series of clear allusions to and citations of Psalm 22 in Matthew’s passion narrative. This psalm’s extensive presence throughout Matthew’s depiction of the crucifixion often leads scholars to conclude that Matthew’s use of the phrase “wagging the head” in 27:39 also derives from Psalm 22 (v. 7). Yet this same derisive idiom occurs at several other points in Jewish Scripture,1 most notably in Lam 2:15, a verse that contains language remarkably similar to Matt 27:39. While many commentators note the resemblance between Matthew and Lamentations at this point,2 demonstrating an allusion to Lamentations here has proven elusive. I wish to express special thanks to Richard B. Hays and Bart D. Ehrman for their encouragement with respect to various stages of this project and their thoughtful critiques of this article. A version of this paper was presented in the Matthew section of the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, Texas, November 2004. I am appreciative of those attendees who offered encouragement and critical advice. I also want to thank J. R. Daniel Kirk and my wife, Heather, for her support and willingness to employ her editorial skills proofreading versions of this manuscript. 1 See LXX 4 Kgdms 19:21; Pss 21:8; 43:14; Job 16:4; Sir 12:18; 13:7; Isa 37:22; Jer 18:16; Lam 2:15. 2 For example, W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison think that an allusion to Lamentations here is “probable” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew [3 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997], 3:618). Douglas J. Moo discusses the allusion but thinks that the primary background is Psalm 22. In fact, Moo argues that Psalm 22 aligns so well with the context of Lam 2:15 that Mark’s and Matthew’s use of the psalm probably led them to include “those who pass by” from Lam 2:15 (The Old Testament in the Gospel Passion Narratives [Sheffield: Almond, 1983], 258).

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Relatively few scholars posit any actual influence from Lamentations, and even fewer have attempted to explore the implications of such an allusion.3 In this article I will argue that Matt 27:39 does in fact allude to Lam 2:15.4 I hope to show, moreover, that Matthew explicitly draws on Lamentations in his account of the events leading up to the crucifixion in order to portray Jesus’ death as the primary act of righteous bloodshed by the hands of the religious authorities in Jerusalem that results in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. To see this, it will be necessary to demonstrate the way in which Matthew employs Lamentations as an important and relatively pervasive intertext5 in his depiction of Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem, trial, and passion (especially in chs. 23 and 27). If it can be shown that Matthew utilizes Lamentations in this way, then this observation suggests first that the textual variants in Matt 27:4 and 27:24 in which various manuscripts apply the adjective divkaio" (“righteous”) to Jesus need to be reassessed. Second, and more importantly, recognizing Matthew’s use of Lamentations in passages related to and including his passion narrative calls into question the commonly held view that these portions of Matthew represent early Christian anti-Judaism and further corroborates the work of those who have 3 Susan L. Graham suggests that the term “passersby” may be an allusion to Lam 2:15 that calls attention to the “wickedness of those in power [who] caused the [temple’s] destruction” (“A Strange Salvation: Intertextual Allusion in Mt 27,39-44,” in The Scriptures in the Gospels [ed. C. M. Tuckett; BETL 131; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1997], 504). Michael Knowles argues more confidently for the Lamentations allusion, claiming that Matthew’s use of the allusion “highlights the mocking of Jesus . . . as having ironic reference to the impending fate of the vaticid[al] Jerusalem” (Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: The Rejected-Prophet Motif in Matthean Redaction [JSNTSup 68; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993], 204). As will become clear, I think Graham and Knowles are correct to see the allusion to Lam 2:15 here, though neither of them presents a sustained argument for the allusion or for the more extensive role Lamentations itself plays in Matthew’s passion narrative. 4 In making this claim I am not suggesting that an allusion to Lam 2:15 excludes the possibility of an allusion to Ps 22:7. Matthew may have skillfully crafted a double allusion. For the purposes of this article, however, I wish to make a case for the generally overlooked allusion to Lamentations. 5 Susan Graham argues that the term “intertext” goes beyond the term “allusion” in that an intertextual study will note the effects of the recontextualization of an allusion. Methodologically this means that by “thinking intertextually . . . we may be able to see how Matthew appropriates a text, for which Jewish Scriptures provide an important intertext, and turns it to Christian polemical use” (“Strange Salvation,” 501–2). This use of the word “intertextuality,” as Ulrich Luz has recently pointed out, represents only one of the many ways it can be employed (see especially Luz’s very helpful delineation of the various models of intertextual analysis in “Intertexts in the Gospel of Matthew,” HTR 97 [2004]: 119–37). The kind of intertextual thinking Graham calls for seeks, to use Luz’s terms, to identify and analyze “intertexts that are consciously invoked by an author and that are part of the rhetorical strategy of the text” and part of “a specific historical and cultural situation” (p. 122). I will here engage in this kind of descriptive, textually oriented study. Thus, by suggesting that Matthew uses Lamentations as an intertext, I mean to say that his allusions function polemically. That is, Matthew finds in Lamentations scriptural warrant for drawing clear connections between the crucifixion of Jesus, the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, and the destruction of the temple.

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cautioned against jumping too quickly to such an interpretation.6 Rather than anti-Judaism, Matthew’s appeal to Lamentations and thus also to Jeremiah to explain the link between the temple’s destruction and Jesus’ crucifixion is better characterized as an instance of intra-Jewish polemic deliberately modeled on the prophetic tradition in Jewish Scripture.7

II. Lamentations and the Destruction of Jerusalem in 70 c.e. If Lamentations formed a significant part of the “cultural framework” or “encyclopedia”8 for the Jewish community during the time that Matthew penned 6 See, e.g., Amy-Jill Levine, The Social and Ethnic Dimensions of Matthean Salvation History (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 14; Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1988). In a later essay on the subject of Matthew and anti-Judaism, Levine states that while the “Gospel of Matthew need not be . . . read as anti-Jewish,” the text’s christocentric reorientation of Jewish symbols and its orientation toward both Jews and Gentiles, leads her to conclude that it represents “more than prophetic polemic” and must ultimately, in her reading, be considered “anti-Jewish” (“Anti-Judaism and the Gospel of Matthew,” in Anti-Judaism and the Gospels [ed. William R. Farmer; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999], 36). As will become apparent, I differ with Levine on this point. In keeping with her persuasive conclusion that Matthew’s polemic is aimed primarily at figures in positions of authority (see Social and Ethnic Dimensions and, to a lesser degree, “AntiJudaism,” 27–35), I hope to demonstrate that Matthew’s constant critique of the religious leadership of his day follows directly from his understanding of prophetic polemic. Jewish prophecy provides him with a scriptural paradigm for criticizing Jewish religious leadership, particularly in the face of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. Naturally this critique places him at odds with some forms of Judaism, but it seems to me to make more sense to locate the logic of this polemic within the framework of Jewish prophetic discourse than to suggest that Matthew has moved beyond the bounds of Judaism as he knows it. 7 E. P. Sanders points out that the Psalms of Solomon provides one example of Jews criticizing other Jews, and especially Jewish religious authorities, in the Second Temple period (“Reflections on Anti-Judaism in the New Testament and in Christianity,” in Anti-Judaism and the Gospels, 268– 69). Sanders highlights Ps. Sol. 8:9–22 and labels the critique found there “intra-Jewish sectarian polemic” (p. 269). I would also draw attention to Ps. Sol. 2, which establishes links between the sins of religious leaders in Jerusalem and the temple’s desecration (2:3–4) and, intriguingly, appears to echo Lamentations (compare 2:11, 19–21 with Lam 2:15 and 2:1–4 respectively). In any event, I suggest that Matthew’s polemic against the religious leadership, and especially the links he makes between what he takes to be the sins of those leaders and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, makes the most sense when read as a variation on this kind of intra-Jewish polemic. 8 I have taken these terms from Umberto Eco (see A Theory of Semiotics [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979]). With the word “encyclopedia” Eco attempts to capture the kind of competent signification that occurs in the concrete day-to-day environment of a culturally constructed code of meaning (see pp. 98–100). Competent use of such a code could include, but is certainly not limited to, activities such as making an appropriate utterance in a given language and a given context. In such instances the speaker can rightfully expect others who are also competent in the code to understand the utterance precisely because the code is a cultural convention. That is,

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his gospel, then the likelihood increases that Matthew—and those to whom he wrote—could have known this text well enough for meaningful allusions to the book to be recognized and understood. Since Matthew probably wrote his Gospel for Jewish Christians after the momentous events of 70 c.e.,9 there is good reason to think that Lamentations would have been a prominent part of the “encyclopedia” of Matthew’s community. After the destruction of the temple in 70 c.e., one would expect mourning Jews to turn to Lamentations with renewed interest. It would likely be in the religious cultural “air.”10 Two observations support this expectation. First, Josephus provides evidence that after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, people connected that event the meaning of the utterance is dependent on, among other things, the contextual, circumstantial, and semantic presuppositions that competent users of the code share owing to what are, in terms of statistical probability, the common experiences, events, facts, beliefs, and so on, that make up the culture in which they all participate (pp. 105–12). This “encyclopedia” model or theory of codes envisions the phenomena of signification in terms of a “cultural framework” (pp. 111–14). For example, a competent user of the English language living in America in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century can rightfully expect others in her cultural context to understand her when she speaks of “the events of September the eleventh.” This example helpfully illustrates Eco’s point, since the phrase “September the eleventh” is meaningful in the specified social setting because it occurs within a “cultural framework” shaped, in part, by the events that occurred on that day in 2001. The location or meaning of the phrase within the “encyclopedia” as it exists on September the twelfth, 2001, is radically different from what it was on September the tenth, 2001. In the latter case, the phrase most probably denoted the next day in the calendar year (though within a more localized context it could have denoted the speaker’s birthday, dental appointment, etc.). After September 11, 2001, the place of the phrase “September the eleventh” (or even simply 9/11) in the “cultural framework” shifts such that it takes on all manner of associations with such previously unrelated things as airplanes, terrorism, New York City, the World Trade Center, fear, loss, xenophobia, and so on. The term “encyclopedia,” then, nicely captures what, in terms of statistical probability, a competent individual in a given culture at a given time might be expected to know and thus also to mean when utilizing the code of her social location. 9 See Davies and Allison, Gospel According to Saint Matthew, 1:127–33. 10 Eco provides a helpful thought experiment that illustrates how this might work (Theory of Semiotics, 124–26). He describes a box of magnetically charged marbles, where the box represents the “Global Semantic Universe” (or “encyclopedia”), each marble represents a meaningful unit, and the charges represent the ordered relationships (or “cultural framework”) pertaining among the units. If the box were to be shaken, the relative positions of the marbles would be altered more or less dramatically depending on the force with which the box is shaken. I suggest that Lamentations and the temple are two of the “marbles” that one can rightly expect to have been present within the “box” that existed for most Jews in Matthew’s time (and perhaps for almost any Jew living at any point after Lamentations was penned). These two marbles were likely to have already been strongly attracted to each other and so probably lay relatively close to each other within the imagined box. I suggest that the destruction of the temple in 70 c.e. is exactly the kind of event that would have shaken the box in such a way that these marbles would be brought into the closest semantic proximity (along with a good many others—e.g., Rome, Titus, and so on—that were, prior to that point, much “farther away”).

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with the writings of Jeremiah. In his Jewish Antiquities (10.79), Josephus writes of Jeremiah, ou|to" oJ profhvth" kai; ta; mevllonta th'/ povlei deina; proekhvruxen, ejn gravmmasi katalipw;n kai; th;n nu'n ejf! hJmw'n genomevnhn a{lwsin thvn te Babulw'no" ai{resin. This prophet also publicly proclaimed the sufferings to come to the city [Jerusalem], by leaving behind in writings both the capture [of Jerusalem] that has come about in our time, and the taking [of it] by Babylon. (My translation)

Josephus probably refers here to the book of Lamentations.11 Yet even if his reference looks more generally to the corpus of Jeremiah, this comment clearly establishes that links were being made between Jeremiah/the first destruction of Jerusalem and the second destruction in 70 c.e. Second, while dating traditions found in post-70 c.e. Jewish literature (e.g., the Targumim, Talmud) is difficult, it is worth noting that in this literature Lamentations is often connected with both the first and second destructions of Jerusalem. The Targum for Lamentations, for example, identifies clear parallels between Lamentations and the Romans’ sack of Jerusalem. In the Targum for Lamentations 1:19 one finds explicit links between the first destruction of Jerusalem and the second.12 The pertinent section of the verse reads: When she was delivered into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, Jerusalem said, “I called to my friends among the nations, those with whom I had established treaties, to support me. But they deceived me, and turned to destroy me.” These are the Romans who came up with Titus and Vespasian the wicked, and erected siege works against Jerusalem.13

As with Josephus, the Targum is illustrative of an interpretive move that juxtaposes the first and second destructions of Jerusalem. Additionally, the Targum clearly utilizes Lamentations to facilitate this connection. Passages such as these exemplify the kinds of readings of Lamentations one would expect after the events of 70 c.e., and while these sources do not allow for a conclusive judgment regarding how early the association was made, it seems reasonable to assume that such a correlation would have arisen during the immediate aftermath of the Romans’ razing of Jerusalem. Indeed, it seems likely that neither 11 In the immediate context Josephus has just spoken of the lament Jeremiah composed concerning the death of Josiah. According to Ralph Marcus, the translator of Ant. 10 in the Loeb series, this lament is commonly associated with the book of Lamentations (see notes b and c in Ant. 10.78–79). 12 Similar connections between Lamentations/Jeremiah, the first destruction of Jerusalem and the second may be found in Lam. Rab. 39.i.2–4 and Pesiq. Rab. 29. 13 Etan Levine, The Aramaic Version of Lamentations (New York: Hermon Press, 1976), 65.

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Josephus nor the Targum makes original linkages at this point. Rather, both probably reflect a connection made by Jews struggling to understand the fall of Jerusalem relatively shortly after its devastation. In both cases Lamentations provides Jews reflecting on Jerusalem’s demise with a scriptural resource for a theological interpretation of these momentous events.

II. Lamentations in Matthew’s Textual Universe Having briefly considered the plausibility that Lamentations could have been a significant part of Matthew’s cultural encyclopedia, I will now turn to the heart of this project—showing that Lamentations forms a significant part of Matthew’s textual “universe.”14 First, I note that, of all the Synoptics, only Matthew refers to Jeremiah by name.15 As Michael Knowles has pointed out, this suggests prima facie the importance of Jeremiah for Matthew, particularly when one considers that his references to the prophet are unique to his redaction of the Jesus traditions.16 Indeed, in his book Jeremiah in Matthew’s Gospel: The Rejected-Prophet Motif in Matthean Redaction, Knowles makes a compelling case that one of the many figures Matthew patterns his narrative on is Jeremiah.17 The observation that Matthew partially patterns his Gospel on Jeremiah does not by itself prove that he also alludes to Lamentations or uses the book intertextually. Yet the fact that Lamentations was assumed during the Second Temple

14 Stefan Alkier, developing a concept he finds in the work of C. S. Pierce, describes the “syntagmatics, semantics and pragmatics of a given text as a world for itself, a possible world” (“From Text to Intertext—Intertextuality as a Paradigm for Reading Matthew,” HvTSt 61 [2005]: 3). He labels this possible world the text’s “universe of discourse” (ibid.). To speak of Matthew’s “textual universe,” then, is to make reference to the knowledge of Matthew that one has primarily from a text-internal analysis. The reader of Matthew, for example, can be expected to know, or at least strongly anticipate—even before coming to ch. 28—that Jesus will rise from the dead, because Jesus’ resurrection has been predicted at several earlier points in the text (see 16:21; 17:9, 22; 20:18; 26:32). That is, within the universe of Matthew, the reader learns of Jesus’ resurrection well before the event occurs in the narrated world of the text. 15 In fact, Matthew is the only book in the NT to mention Jeremiah by name; see Matt 2:17; 16:14; and 27:9. 16 In the first chapter of his book, Knowles argues persuasively that these three references to Jeremiah betray a “unitary redactional purpose” (Jeremiah, 95). 17 Interestingly, Knowles discusses several allusions to Lamentations (especially in Matt 27:34 and 27:39). Although his arguments are brief and primarily redaction-critical, his conclusions in favor of the presence of allusions to Lamentations in Matthew 27 agree with my own. Lamentations, though, is only a subpoint to his larger concern—showing that Matthew patterns Jesus’ life on Jeremiah in order to portray his death as yet another example of Jerusalem killing the prophets and therefore falling under judgment.

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period to be one of several works written by Jeremiah,18 coupled with Matthew’s explicit use of the Jeremian motif, further increases the likelihood that he knew and could have utilized Lamentations in his Gospel.

III. Lamentations as an Intertext in Matthew: Matthew 23 and 27 With these points in mind, I will now examine some specific texts in Matthew in order to demonstrate that Matthew both alludes specifically to Lamentations and employs the book intertextually in order to establish biblically his conviction that Jesus’ crucifixion led to the temple’s destruction. One of Matthew’s clearest allusions to Lamentations occurs at the end of his account of Jesus’ pronouncement of woes on the religious authorities of Jerusalem in ch. 23. Matthew 23:35 reads: o{pw" e[lqh/ ejf! uJma'" pa'n ai|ma divkaion ejkcunnovmenon ejpi; th'" gh'" ajpo; tou' ai{mato" #Abel tou' dikaivou e{w" tou' ai{mato" Zacarivou uiJou' Baracivou o}n ejfoneuvsate metaxu; tou' naou' kai; tou' qusiasthrivou. So that all the righteous blood that has been shed upon the land may come upon you from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. (My translation)

The comment pa'n ai|ma divkaion ejkcunnovmenon (“all the righteous blood that has been shed”) is particularly interesting for the purposes of this article. The exact phrase ai|ma divkaion occurs three times in the LXX: Joel 4:19; Jonah 1:14; and Lam 4:13. Curiously, the marginal cross reference list for this phrase in the 27th edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece fails to note Lam 4:13 as a possible allusion.19 This is a striking oversight in light of the fact that not only do Matt 23:35 and Lam 4:13 share exact lexical and formal correspondence (i.e., the phrase ai|ma divkaion), but both texts also collocate ai|ma divkaion with a form of the verb ejkcevw/ejkcuvnnw. Of the three LXX texts I have noted, only Joel 4:19 and Lam 4:13 contain this collocation.20 If, however, Matthew alludes to the Jewish Scriptures at all in 23:35, one would hope to find more than lexical and formal correspondence with the suspected source of the allusion. Interestingly, of these two passages, Lam 4:13 also shares themes that align closely with the context of chs. 23–24 of Matthew. 18 See, e.g., the LXX’s explicit identification of Jeremiah as the author of Lamentations, an identification not found in our extant Hebrew manuscripts of Lam 1:1. 19 All of the prior editions also fail to make any mention in the marginal notes of the similarity between Lam 4:13 and Matt 23:35. 20 Though see also Prov 6:17, which contains the very similar phrase ejkcevousai ai|ma dikaivou.

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Lamentations 4:13 addresses one of the main issues that the book is so concerned to deal with—the reason for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The answer offered in 4:13 is: ejx aJmartiw'n profhtw'n aujth'" ajdikiw'n iJerevwn aujth'" tw'n ejkceovntwn ai|ma divkaion ejn mevsw/ aujth'" because of the sins of her prophets and her unrighteous priests, those who shed righteous blood in her midst. (My translation)

By placing the phrase tw'n ejkceovntwn ai|ma divkaion (“those who shed righteous blood”) in apposition to ajdikiw'n iJerevwn aujth'" (“her unrighteous priests”), the Greek translation of Lamentations singles out the act of shedding righteous blood, particularly on the part of the religious leadership, as one of the primary reasons that judgment fell upon Jerusalem in 586 b.c.e. In Matt 23:1–24:2 Jesus, while in the temple, pronounces a series of woes upon the religious leaders in Jerusalem that culminate in his declaration that all the righteous blood shed from Abel to Zechariah would come upon that generation. That this pronouncement of judgment has the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple behind it becomes clear when Jesus (who, in the context of Matthew, is Immanuel/“God with us”; see 1:23) “laments” over Jerusalem in 23:37, claims that the temple will be left desolate in 23:38, and then embodies the departure of the Shekinah from “that house” by walking out of the temple in 24:1.21 The import of this episode is immediately explained in 24:2—the temple, and by implication the city in which it sits, will be destroyed. There are, then, three themes in this context that align remarkably well with Lam 4:13: the condemnation of the religious leadership of Jerusalem, the accusation that the religious authorities have shed righteous blood, and the connection between the shedding of that blood and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. This means that Matt 23:35 and Lam 4:13 share not only lexical and formal agreement but also thematic agreement. Yet, beyond the thematic and lexical similarities, a third factor points to an allusion to Lam 4:13 in Matt 23:35. Specifically, Jewish interpretive traditions of Lamentations also link the story of the murder of Zechariah with the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem. For example, Lamentations Rabbah makes this association at various places throughout the book of Lamentations. Intriguingly, one of the passages where Zechariah receives special mention is Lam 4:13. At one point (see Lam. Rab. 113.i.1–2) the comments on 4:13 center on where in the temple Zechariah was killed. It is important to point out that Lamentations Rabbah consistently identifies this Zechariah with Zechariah son of Jehoiada, whose stoning in the temple is 21 So David B. Howell, Matthew’s Inclusive Story: A Study in the Narrative Rhetoric of the First Gospel (JSNTSup 42; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 153.

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related in 2 Chr 24:21. At first glance this would seem to be a different individual from the Zechariah mentioned in Matt 23:35, since Matthew identifies him as the uiJou' Baracivou, “son of Barachiah” (an apparent reference to the postexilic prophet of the book of Zechariah, who is identified in the LXX of Zech 1:1 as to;n tou' Baracivou uiJovn, “the son of Barachiah”). Additionally, while Lamentations Rabbah does at times mention the destruction of both the first and second temples (e.g., Lam. Rab. 39.i.2–4), the account of Zechariah’s death is always associated with Nebuchadnezzar’s destruction of the first temple. Thus, Lamentations Rabbah appears to refer to a different Zechariah from the one mentioned in Matthew. Nevertheless, the confusion evident in Jewish traditions surrounding the identity of the Zechariah who was stoned in the temple is well known,22 and other interpretations of Lamentations that mention Zechariah’s death appear to make the same identification of Zechariah as the postexilic prophet that Matthew does. For instance, at one point in the Targum of Lamentations the speaker challenges Yhwh to consider whether it is right for him to bring such suffering on his people as has been brought upon them during the siege and sack of Jerusalem (see Tg. Lam. 2:20). Yhwh’s “Attribute of Justice” replies, “Is it right to kill priest and prophet in the Temple of Yhwh, as you killed Zechariah son of Iddo (hyrkz )wd( rb), the High Priest and faithful prophet, in the temple of Yhwh on the Day of Atonement, because he reproached you, that you refrain from evil before Yhwh?”23 The name )wd( rb hyrkz is clearly the Aramaic for the postexilic prophet named wd(-Nb hyrkz (Zech. 1:1). But Zech 1:1 describes this prophet as both the son of Berechiah and the son of Iddo. The Targum of Lamentations, then, apparently identifies Zechariah as the postexilic prophet just as Matthew does. Based on the way the Targum conflates the first and second destructions of the Jerusalem temple (Tg. Lam. 1:19), it likely refers here to the destruction of the second temple, since Zechariah son of Iddo was a postexilic prophet. If this is the case, then both Matthew and the Targum of Lamentations connect the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 c.e. with the death of the same Zechariah, the postexilic prophet. Yet, regardless of whether the Targum has 586 b.c.e. or 70 c.e. in mind, the main point of interest is that its interpretive tradition exemplifies the same connections between the death of a Zechariah, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, and the book of Lamentations that are also evident in Lamentations Rabbah. Although dating the traditions in this literature is difficult, it seems likely that these links go back at least to the first century c.e., since the connection 22 Davies and Allison point out that Zechariah the priest (2 Chronicles 24) and Zechariah the prophet (Zech 1:1) tend to be conflated in Jewish tradition (Matthew, 3:318–19). 23 Levine, Aramaic Version, 68.

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between the motifs of Zechariah’s death and the destruction of the temple also finds attestation in the Gospel of Matthew. Moreover, it seems unlikely that the linkages made in the Targum of Lamentations and in Lamentations Rabbah stem from a dependence on the Gospel of Matthew. It is more probable that the Targum, Lamentations Rabbah, and Matthew give incidental witness to a tradition of Jewish exegetical commentary that linked Lamentations, the story of Zechariah’s death, and the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple prior to and independently of all of them. If this is the case, then the combination in Matt 23:35–24:2 of the mention of Zechariah’s death; the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple; and the lexical, formal, and thematic links with Lamentations make it virtually certain that Matthew is actually alluding to Lam 4:13 in 23:35. This is significant, given that in the context of chs. 23–24 of Matthew, the allusion to Lamentations serves to provide scriptural warrant and general justification for the predicted judgment—namely, the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple—that will come upon the religious authorities of Jerusalem whom Jesus addresses. Yet, as Matthew’s story develops (especially in ch. 27), he clearly uses Lam 4:13 as an intertext to further this broader agenda. He employs the themes introduced by the Lamentations allusion in 23:35 to frame the crucifixion of Jesus so as to present this moment as the act of righteous bloodshed par excellence. At three key points in ch. 27, Matthew clearly uses language reminiscent of 23:35 and the allusion to Lam 4:13. In this way, Matthew employs the themes and warnings evoked by the Lamentations allusion to portray Jesus as a righteous individual whose death, by implication, will bring judgment upon Jerusalem and the temple. The first of these points occurs in Matt 27:19 when Pilate’s wife urges him to have nothing to do with tw'/ dikaivw/ ejkeivnw/ (“that righteous man”). Here Jesus is explicitly described with the same terms used to describe Abel and the blood that was shed in 23:35—divkaio" (“righteous”). Through his account of Pilate’s wife’s dream, Matthew informs his readers that Pilate’s wife saw more than those calling for Jesus’ crucifixion—shedding the blood of this righteous man will have disastrous consequences. The second point in ch. 27 that echoes 23:35 occurs during Pilate’s show of washing his hands in order to distance himself from the act of crucifying Jesus. Here Pilate claims, ajqw'/ov" eijmi ajpo; tou' ai{mato" touvtou (“I am innocent of the blood of this man” [27:24]). Again the idea of Jesus’ blood, particularly in a context where Jesus has been described as “righteous,” effectively brings 23:35 back to the reader’s mind. The third point in ch. 27 that looks back to 23:35 is found in the people’s response to Pilate in 27:25. While Pilate claims no responsibility for Jesus’ death, Matthew comments that all the people replied, to; ai|ma aujtou' ejf! hJma'" kai; ejpi; ta; tevkna hJmw'n (“his blood be upon us and upon our children”). The language

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of “blood” coming “upon” those who are in Jerusalem seems to echo plainly the language of Matt 23:35. The reader who has already perceived the resonance of 23:35–24:2 earlier in ch. 27 cannot fail to see the point here—Jesus’ death is the kind of act that Lamentations suggests brings God’s judgment against Jerusalem and its temple. Thus, the statement of Matt 27:25 brings to a climax a motif that has run right through this chapter24—Jesus’ death is an act of shedding righteous blood. With the background of Lamentations in mind, it is clear that this act will result in the desolation of Jerusalem and the temple. The point is driven home when, in what in this context must prefigure the coming judgment, the temple veil is ripped in two when Jesus dies (Matt 27:51).25 By portraying Jesus as a righteous man in ch. 27, Matthew recalls the themes of 23:35–24:2. In this way he further employs his earlier allusion to Lamentations in 23:35 to suggest that the shedding of Jesus’ blood at the crucifixion becomes the primary reason for the temple’s destruction. It is within this framework that Matthew’s account of the crucifixion occurs. With this in mind, I propose that Matthew introduces two more allusions to Lamentations during his passion account—one in 27:34 and another in 27:39. The common understanding of Matt 27:34 takes the comment that the soldiers offer Jesus gall to drink as an allusion to Ps 69:22 (LXX 68:22). Joel Marcus provides a good example of the way the case is argued when he speaks of Matthew “embellishing” Mark’s account.26 Here, for instance, Matthew shows his awareness of the broader context of Psalm 69 by “doubling” the allusion to the psalm introduced in Mark’s passion narrative in 15:36.27 In other words, Matthew understands that Mark’s comment that Jesus is offered vinegar to drink (Mark 15:36) alludes to Ps 69:22. This leads him to flesh out Mark’s reading by changing the Marcan wine mixed with myrrh (Mark 15:23) to wine mixed with gall (Matt 24 Following Donald Senior, David Garland suggests that “innocent blood” is the theme of ch. 27 (Intention, 185). The only point at which I would quibble with this assessment is the deference shown to the form of the text found in NA27 by favoring ajqw'/o" (“innocent”) over divkaio" (“righteous”). I believe it would be more accurate to speak of the chapter’s theme as that of “righteous blood.” 25 Raymond E. Brown also links the rending of the veil with the judgment pronounced in Matt 23:37–38, though he does not draw attention to the Lamentations allusion in Matt 23:35 (The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave; A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels [2 vols.; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1994], 2:1102). 26 Joel Marcus, “The Old Testament and the Death of Jesus: The Role of Scripture in the Gospel Passion Narratives,” in The Death of Jesus in Early Christianity (by John T. Carroll and Joel B. Green, with Robert E. Van Voorst, Joel Marcus, and Donald Senior; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 226. Similarly, Davies and Allision, Matthew, 3:612–13; and, Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church under Persecution (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 569. 27 Marcus, “Death of Jesus,” 226–27.

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27:34). Matthew thereby adds yet another allusion to Ps 69:22 to his passion narrative. This is a compelling argument, particularly in light of the fact that Matthew makes similar embellishments of Mark’s citations of Psalm 22. For example, the words of the onlookers in Matt 27:43, “he trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him” (RSV), are not found in Mark and are clearly an additional Matthean citation from Psalm 22. Thus, Matthew undoubtedly does at times embellish Mark’s account by adding additional scriptural citations from passages Mark cites. Yet good reasons may be adduced for concluding that Matthew does not here primarily bring Mark’s account more closely in line with Psalm 69, but rather further alludes to Lamentations. First, while Ps 68:22 LXX does use the word colhv, or “gall,” it is interesting that this same word occurs twice in Lamentations (3:15, 19). Second, it is perhaps noteworthy that the form of colhv, in Lam 3:15 and 19 is the same as the form in Matthew (i.e., genitive singular). Psalm 68:22, on the other hand, uses the accusative singular form. Matthew may well have composed his text in such a way that, from a visual and auditory perspective, the very form of the word used in 27:34 would resonate with those who knew the Greek translation of Lamentations well. Third, although such arguments would do little by themselves to establish an allusion, the fact that Lamentations has played such a significant role in the context of Matthew just prior to his passion account suggests that this lexical and formal correspondence is indicative of another allusion to Lamentations.28 Fourth, the case for this allusion grows stronger in light of the fact that there appears to be yet another allusion to Lamentations just four verses later in 27:39. In the introduction to this article I drew attention to the scholarly consensus that Matt 27:39 alludes to Ps 22:7. The general arguments in favor of this conclusion are (1) there are three other very clear references to Psalm 22 in Matthew’s 28 Additionally, the fact that Matthew may have already alluded to ch. 3 of Lamentations earlier in his Gospel should be considered. Lamentations 3:30 reads: dwvsei tw'/ paivonti aujto;n siagovna cortasqhvsetai ojneidismw'n (“he will give the cheek to the one who strikes him, he will be sated with insults”). Matthew 5:39 advances a similar idea when Jesus exhorts: o{sti" se rJapivzei eij" th;n dexia;n siagovna [sou], strevyon aujtw'/ kai; th;n a[llhn (“[if] anyone strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him also the other”). Davies and Allison point out that the parallel between these two texts was noted at least as early as Origen (Matthew, 1:543). If this is an allusion to Lam 3:30, then it strengthens the case for an allusion to 3:30 at Matt 27:34 in two ways. First, it shows that Matthew is aware of at least part of Lamentations 3 and, particularly in light of his knowledge of Lam 4:13, it is safe to conclude that he knows more of the chapter. Second, as with Lam 4:13, Lam 3:30 may be echoed again later in Matthew when Jesus stands before the Sanhedrin. Matthew’s description of Jesus being hit, especially in the face (26:67–68), is highly evocative of Matt 5:39 and thus also of Lam 3:30 (interestingly, both Lam 3:30 and Matt 26:68 use a form of the verb paivw). If Lam 3:30 is echoed here, then there is yet another instance of Lamentations playing a role in the context immediately prior to the passion account.

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passion narrative (Matt 27:35, 43, 46), and (2) Ps 22:7 contains the derisive idiom kinei'n kefalhvn (“to wag the head”). Several factors, however, suggest that Matthew alludes primarily to Lam 2:15 in v. 39, rather than to Ps 22:7 (21:8 LXX). First, Matt 27:39 has more verbal overlap with Lam 2:15 than with Ps 22:7. In the following comparison, exact agreements between Matthew and Lamentations are underlined in both texts. Similarities between Matthew and Lamentations are italicized. Exact agreement between Lamentations and LXX Psalm 21 are italicized and underlined. Matthew 27:39

oiJ de; paraporeuovmenoi ejblasfhvmoun aujto;n kinou'nte" ta;" kefala;" aujtw'n

Lamentations 2:15 ejkrovthsan ejpi; se; cei'ra" pavnte" oiJ paraporeuovmenoi oJdovn ejsuvrisan kai; ejkivnhsan th;n kefalh;n aujtw'n ejpi; th;n qugatevra Ierousalhm h\ au{th hJ povli" h}n ejrou'sin stevfano" dovxh" eujfrosuvnh pavsh" th'" gh'"

Psalm 21:8

pavnte" oiJ qewrou'ntev" me ejxemukthvrisavn me ejlavlhsan ejn ceivlesin ejkivnhsan kefalhvn

By placing these passages side by side, one can see clearly that Matt 27:39 has far more in common with Lam 2:15 lexically and formally than with Ps 21:8 LXX. Specifically, both use the plural participle oiJ paraporeuovmenoi (“those who pass by”), as well as a form of the idiom kinei'n kefalhvn (“to wag the head”), where kefalhv (“head”) is modified by both the article and the plural pronoun aujtw'n (“their”).29 Second, beyond mere verbal agreement, the contexts of Matt 27:39 and Lam 2:15 share a theme that is not found in Psalm 22—the destruction of the temple. The book of Lamentations tends to speak generally about the destruction of Jerusalem. There are, however, a handful of places that specifically address the temple’s desolation. Lamentations 2 contains two such passages (cf. Lam 2:7, 20). For example, 2:7 reads: ajpwvsato kuvrio" qusiasthvrion aujtou' ajpetivnaxen aJgivasma aujtou' sunevtriyen ejn ceiri; ejcqrou' tei'co" bavrewn aujth'" fwnh;n e[dwkan ejn oi[kw/ kurivou wJ" ejn hJmevra/ eJorth'". 29 The verbal agreement between Lam 2:15 and Ps 21:8 LXX (note ejkivnhsan kefalhvn) may suggest that Lamentations may allude to Psalm 22 (the Hebrew is also nearly identical). Thus, if there is any cross-pollination between Matt 27:35 and Ps 22:7, it may well be present via an allusion to Psalm 22 on the part of Lam 2:15.

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Journal of Biblical Literature 125, no. 2 (2006) The Lord rejected his altar, he cast off his sanctuary, he shattered the wall of her palaces by the hand of an enemy, they made a sound in the house of the Lord as on a festival day. (My translation)

In short, while 2:15 speaks about the destruction of Jerusalem in general, the temple’s demise is clearly in the immediate context. Additionally, the comments spoken in Matt 27:40 by “those who pass by” and “wag their heads” do not derive from Psalm 22. This is somewhat strange, since Ps 22:7–8 appears to provide a ready-made unit that would fit the context of Matt 27:39–40 perfectly. Those who are mocking, hurling insults, and “wagging their heads” in Ps 22:7 are the very ones who immediately go on in 22:8 to say, “he trusted in God, let God now rescue him if he desires him.” Matthew clearly does quote Ps 22:8, but this citation comes three verses later in Matt 27:43, where he places the words of Ps 22:8 in the mouths of the chief priests, scribes, and elders. If Matthew alludes to Psalm 22 in 27:39, it is odd that he de-couples this allusion from his obvious quotation of Ps 22:8. It would seem more natural to have those who “pass by” and “wag their heads” in 27:39 say in v. 40 exactly what those who “wag their heads” in Ps 22:7 say in 22:8. On the other hand, what the “passersby” do say in Matt 27:40 picks up the very theme present in the context of Lam 2:15—the destruction of the temple. Those who pass by and wag their heads at Jesus state: oJ kataluvwn to;n nao;n kai; ejn trisi;n hJmevrai" oijkodomw'n, sw'son seautovn, eij uiJo;" ei\ tou' qeou' [kai;] katavbhqi ajpo; tou' staurou'. The one who destroys the temple and in three days rebuilds [it], save yourself, if you are the son of God, and come down from the cross. (My translation)

This comment, which shares nothing with Psalm 22, coheres perfectly with the context of Lam 2:15. Finally, one should consider that the theme of the temple’s destruction fits together well both with the role the allusion to Lam 4:13 played in Matt 23:35– 24:2 and with the Matthean context immediately prior to the account of Jesus’ crucifixion. Earlier I argued that Matthew uses the theme of righteous bloodshed, and especially the shedding of Jesus’ blood, to link the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple with the crucifixion of Jesus. Here the allusion to Lam 2:15 reinforces the same point. Unbeknownst to “those who pass by” and “wag their heads” at Jesus, his death, from Matthew’s point of view, will lead to the temple’s destruction. When the texts are taken together, the overlap of language between Matt 27:39 and Lam 2:15, the shared theme of the temple’s destruction in the contexts of these verses, and the role Lamentations plays in Matthew just prior to his passion narrative establish the presence of an allusion to Lam 2:15 in Matt 27:39.

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IV. Reexamining the Texts of Matthew 27:4 and 27:24 Thus far I have been laying out a case that Matthew anticipates (see 23:35– 24:2) and frames his account of Jesus’ passion ( 27:19, 34, and 39) with allusions to Lamentations in order to make the point that Jesus’ death at the instigation of the religious establishment stands as the act of righteous bloodshed that becomes the cause of the disastrous events of 70 c.e. If this case is generally sound, then the presence of variants in the manuscript tradition that use language amenable to the overall argument Matthew has constructed is tantalizing. Indeed, a reference to ai|ma divkiaon (“righteous blood”) at the very beginning of the passion account would serve Matthew’s polemic perfectly, since it would effectively recall to his readers’ minds the ominous predictions that were made in chs. 23–24, predictions mediated through the connection in Lamentations of righteous bloodshed by the religious leadership with God’s judgment on Jerusalem and the temple. I have previously highlighted the fact that divkaio" language indisputably appears in this portion of Matthew’s narrative (see 27:19). This observation, particularly when taken together with the presence of other allusions to Lamentations throughout his passion account and the echo of 23:35 in the language of 27:24-25, suggests that Matthew effectively reminds his readers of the earlier allusion to Lamentations and encourages them to connect that allusion with the death of Jesus. It would not, then, be surprising to find him explicitly again using language that would connect the passion narrative with Matt 23:35–24:2 and thus with Lamentations. In fact, the manuscript tradition contains two more instances in Matthew 27—v. 4 and v. 24—where language highly evocative of Matt 23:35 occurs. In Matt 27:4 the NA27 and UBS4 texts have Judas state, h{marton paradou;" ai|ma ajqw'/on (“I have sinned by handing over innocent blood”). There is an interesting variant, however, in which Judas says, h{marton paradou;" ai|ma divkaion (“I have sinned by handing over righteous blood”). Explaining the choice of the UBS4 committee to favor ajqw'/on over divkaion, Bruce Metzger comments, “[T]he weight of the external evidence here is strongly in support of ajqw'/on.”30 He goes on to add that on transcriptional terms a scribe would be more likely to make a change in the direction of harmonizing Matt 27:4 with 23:35 and thus change ajqw'/on to divkaion, rather than shift away from divkaion to ajqw'/on.31 30 Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994), 55. 31 Ibid.; so also Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (WBC 33b; Dallas: Word Books, 1995), 811.

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Metzger is correct that the bulk of the external evidence supports the UBS4 reading. In fact, the only majuscules that support the presence of divkaion are the first corrector of B, L, and Q. These are joined by five of six quotations by Origen,32 the Latin versions, several Latin fathers33 and a handful of other versions all of whose renderings suggest that the Greek Vorlage on which their translations were based read ai|ma divkaion. On the other hand, numerous majuscules (e.g., ),, A, B, C, W, D, E, F, G, H, and S), minuscules, versions, and Greek fathers34 attest ajqw'/on. In short, while divkaion seems clearly to have prevailed in the Latin tradition, ajqw'/on has much broader and stronger support in terms of numbers of manuscripts and of geographic distribution. Yet in spite of this external evidence, good reasons can be adduced in support of reading divkaion instead of ajqw'/on at Matt 27:4. First, Origen’s Contra Celsum provides the earliest external attestation, and it is clear that, in this text at least, Origen knows ai|ma divkaion in Matt 27:4.35 This places the reading in Palestine not later than the middle of the third century. When coupled with the attestation of the Latin witnesses, the reading is shown to carry some significant support both in terms of age and geographic distribution. Second, it should be noted that Matthew uses divkaio" with relative fre32 I found six instances where Origen clearly quotes or alludes to Matt 27:4. The verse is referenced twice in Contra Celsum, and the quotations support ai|ma divkaion both times (see Marcel Borret, Origène Contre Celse [SC 132; Paris: Latour-Maubourg, 1967], 312). The Latin version of Origen’s commentary on Matthew contains four quotations of the verse. Three of these are attested only in Latin and read iustum (thereby supporting divkaion), while the fourth is found in both the Latin translation and in a Greek fragment. This latter quotation is particularly interesting, since the Latin translation reads iustum, while the corresponding Greek fragment reads ai|ma ajqw'/on (see Erich Klostermann, Origenes Matthäuserklärung: II, Die lateinische Übersetzung der Commentariorum Series [Origenes Werke 11; GCS 38; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1933], 247). Given that lemmata are frequently subject to scribal alteration, the discrepancy between the Latin and the Greek is almost certainly indicative of a shift toward a known and preferred reading of the scriptural text in the transmission history of Origen’s commentary. It would be difficult to say with certainty whether the shift occurred in the Latin or the Greek version of the commentary. Yet, given the total dominance of the divkaion variant (in the form of iustum) in the Latin tradition (see n. 34 below for more information), one would be justified in being more suspicious of the Latin translation here than of the Greek fragment. 33 The Latin fathers who clearly quote or allude to Matt 27:4 (see Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Novatian, Hilary of Poitiers, and Jerome) along with the Latin versions unanimously read sanguinem iustum. This suggests that the Latin tradition is based on a Vorlage that read divkaion rather than ajqw'/on. 34 The UBS4 apparatus lists Origen 1/4, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Chrysostom, Hesychius, and Maximus. I was unable to find any reference to the verse in Hesychius, but I have personally confirmed the presence of ajqw'/o" in the other fathers listed in the UBS4 apparatus (the four references in Origen, however, should be modified to six, where divkaio" is attested twice in Greek and four times in Latin with the corresponding Greek fragment of one of the Latin citations reading ajqw'/on—see n. 33 above). 35 See n. 33 above.

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quency.36 Excluding 27:4, ajqw'/o" only occurs once in Matthew (27:24). Matthew, then, is more likely to have used divkaio" than ajqw'/o". Third, when one stops to consider what a scribe might have been likely to do, it is surely significant that the collocation of a form of ai|ma and a form of ajqw'/o" is more common biblical language than the collocation of ai|ma and divkaio". Both phrases occur in the LXX, but the former collocation outnumbers the latter by more than five to one.37 Given the relatively low number of occurrences of ai|ma together with divkaio", it seems more likely that a scribe familiar with biblical language would gravitate toward the more common phrasing of ai|ma plus ajqw'/o". The probability that this happened in Matt 27:4 increases dramatically when one considers the attribution to Jeremiah of the account of Judas’s returning the money with its biblical citation in Matt 27:9–10. Davies and Allison point out that there are a number of points of contact between Matt 27:3–10 and passages such as Zech 11:12–14 as well as chs. 18, 19, and 32 of Jeremiah.38 Interestingly, of the twenty-one instances of the collocation of ai|ma and ajqw'/o" in the LXX, six of them occur in Jeremiah (2:34; 7:6; 19:4; 22:3, 17; 33:15). In view of the attribution of the biblical quotation in Matt 27:9 to Jeremiah, it seems entirely possible that a scribe might attempt to harmonize the relatively rare ai|ma divkaion of 27:4 with the better known and more frequent language in Jeremiah. Since the entire story of Judas returning the money to the religious authorities is attributed by Matthew to Jeremiah, one can well understand why an early scribe might gravitate toward the more common phrasing in Jeremiah (i.e., ai|ma ajqw'/on) and effectively bring the account more closely in line with the language of the Matthean attribution. Fourth, bearing all these points in mind, it is surely significant that the presence of divkaio" language at exactly this place in Matthew’s narrative makes excellent sense in the light of the connections I have shown above between Lamentations, righteous bloodshed by the hands of the Jewish religious leadership, Jesus’ crucifixion, and the temple’s destruction. In Matt 27:1–9 Judas seeks to return the money he received from the religious leaders for betraying Jesus. The mention of blood in 27:4, the emphasis placed on the religious leadership, and the reference to Jeremiah in 27:9 all serve to bring the warnings of chs. 23–24, and especially the allusion to Lamentations in 23:35, back to mind. Given this apparent echo of 23:35, it seems on the whole more likely that the harmony evident between the variant reading ai|ma divkaion 36 In addition to the verses in question, Matthew uses the adjective seventeen times: 1:19; 5:45; 9:13; 10:41(3x); 13:17, 43, 49; 20:4; 23:28, 29, 35(2x); 25:37, 46; 27:19. 37 The collocation of ai|ma and ajqw'/o" shows up a total of twenty-one times in the following LXX texts: Deut 27:25; 1 Sam 19:5; 25:26, 31; 1 Kgs 2:5; 2 Kgs 21:16; 24:4 (2x); 2 Chr 36:5 (2x); Esth 8:12; 1 Macc 1:37; 2 Macc 1:8; Pss 93:21; 105:38; Jer 2:34; 7:6; 19:4; 22:3, 17; 33:15. As previously noted, the collocation of ai|ma and divkaio" occurs only four times in the LXX: Prov 6:17; Joel 4:19; Jonah 1:14; and Lam 4:13. 38 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:558–59.

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of 27:4 and the ai|ma divkaion of 23:35 was in fact what Matthew wrote and, contra Metzger, not the result of scribal ingenuity.39 Additionally, it would make good sense in 27:4 for Matthew to have Judas use the very language of 23:35. The presence of ai|ma divkaion in 27:4 would serve at least two functions. First, since this is toward the beginning of the passion narrative, it provides a clear point of contact between the warning given in chs. 23–24 and the act of killing Jesus. Since Matthew continues to make references to Lamentations throughout his passion narrative, such a move prompts readers to begin thinking again of 23:35 and thus also of Lamentations. Second, Judas’s comments would serve as an obvious warning to the religious leaders that the course they are embarking upon will bring about the temple’s destruction. In other words, this is a polemic. Such a warning, with its implicit appeal to the very themes from Lamentations that Matthew has previously stressed, leads the reader to view the leaders as being without excuse. Yet, instead of taking this warning seriously, Matthew has them curtly respond to Judas, su; o[yh/ (“you see [to it]”). In sum, when viewed in light of the case I have laid out in support of Matthew’s use of Lamentations as an intertext to portray Jesus’ death as the shedding of righteous blood par excellence, the evidence from intrinsic probability strongly suggests that, in spite of the external evidence, good warrant exists for concluding that the variant attested by the corrector of B, L, Q and the Latin tradition is the original reading of Matt 27:4. Given that (1) the effect of the variant is both to connect the death of Jesus with the prediction/warning of Matt 23:35–24:2 and thus with the allusion to Lamentations and to implicate the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem in the shedding of this righteous blood and thus lay the blame for the temple’s destruction at their feet; and that (2) these effects cohere perfectly with the broader argument Matthew is constructing both before (see 23:35) and during his passion narrative (see 27:19, 25, 34, and 39), it seems much more likely that this variant belonged to Matthew’s original text than that a scribe modified the text in such a way that these connections were further emphasized. 39 This point is bolstered somewhat by the lack of evidence that the fathers were making connections between Matt 23:35 and 27:4, or between Matthew 27 and Lamentations. I found no references to Lam 4:13 in relation to Matthew 27 in the Biblia Patristica. Nor did any of my work in the fathers’ quotations of Matthew suggest that they were making links to Lamentations. I found only one instance in which a father connects chs. 27 and 23 of Matthew. Hilary of Poitiers—whose text is among the few that, like L, demonstrably attests the presence of divkaio"/iustus in Matt 27:4 and 27:24 (see also Ambrose and Jerome)—links Matt 27:24 and 23:35 while commenting on Psalm 57. Hilary writes: Adeo autem hi uiri sanguinum sunt, ut omnium ab Abel usque ad Zachariam interfectorum ab his sanguis sit reposcendu et abluente manus suas Pilato super se suosque esse iusti sanguinem sint professi (see Antonius Zingerle, S. Hilarii Episcopi Pictauiensis: Tractatus Super Psalmos [CSEL 22; Leipzig: G. Freytag, 1891], 180). The mention of Pilate’s hand washing as a testimony regarding Jesus’ just blood (found only in Matt 27:24) and the collocation of the just blood of Abel and Zechariah (found only in Matt 23:35) demonstrates that Hilary is reading these two texts together.

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Similar points may be made with respect to the variant found in Matt 27:24. Here the NA27 and UBS4 texts have Pilate respond to the request that Jesus be crucified by stating, ajqw'/ov" eijmi ajpo; tou' ai{mato" touvtou: uJmei'" o[yesqe (“I am innocent of the blood of this one, you see [to it]”). There is, however, solid manuscript evidence for Pilate’s reply, ajqw'/ov" eijmi ajpo; tou' ai{mato" tou' dikaivou touvtou: uJmei'" o[yesqe (“I am innocent of the blood of this righteous one, you see [to it]”). As with 27:4, the editors of the NA27 and UBS4 chose not to include the variant for two main reasons. First, some early and strong external evidence excludes the phrase tou' dikaivou. For example, B, D, and Q, as well as some of the Latin manuscripts and other versions exemplify a text without this variant. Additionally, the earliest witnesses such as Eusebius and Novatian, as well as several later fathers like Ambrosiaster, Basil the Great, and Chrysostom show no knowledge of the qualifier divkaio".40 Metzger also points out that “the best representatives of the Alexandrian and Western texts” do not attest the variant.41 Second, at the transcriptional level, Metzger judges that the textual plus is probably “an accretion intended to accentuate Pilate’s protestation of Jesus’ innocence.”42 Nevertheless, several points can be put forward that, especially when taken together, tip the balance in favor of the original status of tou' dikaivou in Matt 27:24. First, this longer variant is not without strong external support. The phrase tou' dikaivou touvtou is read in the majuscules ), L (the only majuscule to have a form of divkaio" in both v. 4 and v. 24), W, E, F, G, H, and S. Multiple minuscules including f 1, f 13, 33 and a host of representatives from the majority text also support its presence. Additionally, several Greek and Latin fathers such as Ambrose, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, Maximus of Turin, and Hilary of Poitiers attest this variant.43 Finally, a similar variant involving a simple transposition reads touvtou tou' dikaivou and is attested by A, D, and some Latin witnesses.44 40 For Eusebius, see Joannes Baptista Pitra, Analecta Sacra Spicilegio Solemensi Parata (III; Venice: Mechitartistorum Sancti Lazari, 1883; repr., Farnborough: Gregg Press Ltd., 1966), 415; for Novatian, see G. F. Diercks, Novatiani Opera (CCL 4; Turnholt: Brepols, 1972), 269; for Ambrosiaster, see Heinrich Joseph Vogels, Ambrosiastri Qui Dicitur Commentarius in Epistulas Paulinas: In Epistulas ad Corinthios (CSEL 81.2; Vienna: Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky Kg., 1968), 25; for Basil, see Yves Courtonne, Saint Basile: Lettres, vol. 3 (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1966), 64; for Chrysostom, see PG 58:765. 41 Metzger, Textual Commentary, 56–57. 42 Ibid., 57. 43 For Ambrose, see M. Petschenig, Sancti Ambrosii Opera: Explanatio Psalmorum XII (CSEL 64; Leipzig: G. Freytag, 1919), 393; for Cyril of Jerusalem, see W. C. Reischl and J. Rupp, Cyrilli Hierosolymarum Archiepiscopi Opera Quae Supersunt Omnia, vol. 2 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967), 54; for Jerome, see D. Hurst and M. Adriaen, S. Hieronumi Presbuteri Opera, 1.7 (CCL 77; Turnholt: Brepols, 1969), 266; for Maximus of Turin, see Almut Mutzenbecher, Maximi Episcopi Taurinensis (CCL 23; Turnholt: Brepols, 1962), 228; for Hilary of Poitiers, see Zingerle, Hilarii, 180. 44 The fuller list of witnesses found in the NA27 apparatus shows the reading supported by )

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Second, the omission of tou' dikaivou in Matt 27:24 can be easily accounted for as an instance of parablepsis occasioned either by homoioteleuton or homoioarcton. If the original text read ajpo; tou' ai{mato" tou' dikaivou touvtou, one can see how the string of genitive endings in tou' dikaivou touvtou might have led to the accidental loss of tou' dikaivou by way of homoioteleuton. On the other hand, one can just as easily see how the presence of the initial tou' and the touvtou might have led a scribe to skip the phrase inadvertently by way of homoioarcton. In either case, the shorter reading adopted by NA27 (i.e., ajpo; tou' ai{mato" touvtou) is easily explained. Indeed, such a hypothesis would well explain the data one finds in the manuscript tradition. The longer reading found in ) and L more readily explains the existence of both the manuscripts that contain the elements tou' dikaivou and touvtou in inverted order and the manuscripts that read only tou' dikaivou,45 than does the hypothesis that the shorter reading is original. Third, a few points regarding internal evidence stand in favor of the presence of tou' dikaivou in Matt 27:24.46 As previously noted, the term divkaio" is not uncommon in Matthew.47 Yet this point proves even more poignant here, since the term fits the immediate context so well. In 27:19, Pilate’s wife has just described Jesus as “that righteous man.” There is, then, good internal justification for Pilate to refer to Jesus in the same terms, that is, as tou' dikaivou touvtou, “this righteous man.” Fourth, intrinsic probability once again suggests that this variant is not, contra Metzger, a scribal accretion heightening Jesus’ cachet, but rather an original part of Matthew’s Gospel. In 27:24 Pilate washes his hands to indicate his innocence with regard to Jesus’ death. He then lays the responsibility for crucifying Jesus squarely on the religious authorities by using the very words they spoke to Judas in 27:4 against them, uJmei'" o[yesqe (“you see [to it]”). In view of the connection made in ch. 27 between v. 4 and v. 27 by having Pilate mimic the words of the Jewish religious authorities, and the larger argument linking righteous bloodshed and the temple’s destruction in Matthew, it would make perfect sense for Matthew to have Pilate describe Jesus as “divkaio".” If Matthew originally did have Pilate speak of Jesus as a “righteous” man, then, in light of Matthew’s allusions to Lamentations, the implication of Pilate’s comments is perfectly clear—Jesus’ death will result in the temple’s destruction. Again, such a warning serves to heighten the culpability of the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem in the eyes of the reader. L W f 1,13 33 M lat syp,h samss mae bo. Additionally the reading touvtou tou' dikaivou occurs in A D pc aur f and h, while tou' dikaivou is read in 1010 pc and boms. 45 See n. 45 above for a summary of the manuscript tradition for these readings. 46 Garland comments that the internal evidence is strong enough to conclude that the phrase is original, though he fails to mount an argument (Intention, 185). 47 Gundry, who also thinks that divkaio" belongs in the text sums all this up nicely when he states, “Matthew has a penchant for divkaio"” (Matthew, 565).

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I would add that it is surely no accident that in the face of this second warning Matthew presents the response of the people in 27:25 not only in terms reminiscent of 23:35 and the allusion to Lamentations found there but also in terms of full culpability in the death of Jesus.48 To summarize: if, as I have tried to show, Matthew employs Lamentations to construct an argument that (1) links the shedding of righteous blood on the part of the religious leaders with the destruction of the temple, and (2) presents Jesus’ crucifixion as the act of shedding righteous blood par exellence, then it would make perfect sense for him to utilize “divkaio"” language precisely at points like 27:4 and 27:24, where one or more of these very elements is being emphasized.

V. Conclusions In this article I have argued that Matthew alludes to Lamentations three times in chs. 23 and 27 of his Gospel (23:35; 27:34; and 27:39). The fact that these allusions come from chs. 2, 3, and 4 of Lamentations, that the allusion to Lam 4:13 resonates throughout the scenes that immediately precede the crucifixion (see Matt 27:19, 24-25), and that the allusion to Lam 2:15 is so closely related thematically to the way Matthew uses Lam 4:13, all suggest that Matthew has employed Lamentations as a significant intertext. The allusions to Lamentations function as scriptural warrant for interpreting certain historical events theologically and polemically—namely, for understanding Jesus’ crucifixion as the act of righteous bloodshed par excellence that directly results in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. If these arguments are basically sound, I suggest further that the variants in the textual tradition in Matt 27:4 and 27:24 that contain divkaio" should, mainly on the grounds of intrinsic probability, be considered original and thus be restored to our eclectic text. The reading of L, while singular among the majuscules, attests 48 One might object that Matthew has all Jews in view here, not only the religious leaders of Jerusalem. The link, though, between 27:24 and 27:4, coupled with the fact that Matthew explicitly blames the religious leaders for agitating the crowd (27:20) suggests that even here Matthew still has the leaders squarely in mind. On this point see especially Amy-Jill Levine, who argues persuasively that the key contrasts and tensions in Matthew’s Gospel run along the social axis and not the ethnic axis. She points out, for example, that the common people are described as being like sheep without a shepherd (Matt 9:36). Part of the tension in the Gospel, then, turns on who will be the rightful shepherd of the people. Thus, one of the main points of conflict in Matthew is between the leaders, who are attempting to lead the people, and Jesus, who, as the Messiah, is the one appointed by prophecy (Matt 2:6) to shepherd the people (Social and Ethnic Dimensions, 94–104, 215–22, and 261–71).

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the reading that both coheres well with Lamentations’ role in Matthew’s passion narrative and best explains the existence of the variants in 27:4 and 27:24. More significantly, though, it follows from my argument that Matthew’s link between Jesus’ crucifixion and the temple’s destruction cannot simply be assumed to reflect anti-Judaism in Matthew. Too often Matthew has been read anachronistically such that later uses of this Gospel in anti-Jewish polemic are simply assumed to be in keeping with the original meaning of the text. Yet Matthew’s intertextual use of Lamentations, particularly as his appeal to this text both focuses the blame for the shedding of Jesus’ righteous blood on the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and provides a scriptural paradigm for interpreting and explaining the events of 70 c.e., suggests that one cannot simply assume that Matthew’s claims are anti-Jewish. Matthew’s appeal to Lamentations makes it far more likely that he envisions himself speaking a prophetic word. In chs. 23 and 27, Matthew engages in intra-Jewish conversation and polemic patterning his critique of the Jewish religious leadership in Jerusalem on the Jewish prophetic tradition—an interpretive move that bears remarkable resemblance to the one made in the Targum for Lamentations. Matthew’s claim that the death of Jesus at the instigation of the religious leaders led to the temple’s destruction is no more an invective against Judaism than is the similar accusation made in the Targum. Like the Targum, Matthew has creatively applied a theological paradigm for interpreting the destruction of the temple provided in Jewish prophetic Scriptures (specifically, that the sin and failure of Jewish religious leadership have catastrophic results for Jerusalem and the temple) to a contemporary situation he finds strikingly similar to the one found in Lamentations. In this way, Matthew, albeit in light of his conviction that Jesus is the Messiah, is, like so many of the prophets before him, calling his kinsfolk to repent if they would truly possess the kingdom.

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Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy? ross s. kraemer [email protected] Brown University, Providence, RI 02912

Our earliest ancient narratives of the death of John the Baptizer are found in Mark 6:14–29; Matt 14:1–12; and Josephus, Ant. 18.116–19. Interestingly, the Gospel according to John contains no account of the Baptizer’s death, nor does the Gospel according to Luke, which does note, more or less in passing, that Herod acknowledged having beheaded John (9:9). Q appears to lack an account of John’s death, which is also, if unsurprisingly, absent from the Gospel of Thomas and from the extant portions of the Gospel of Peter. While both the Gospel narratives and Josephus’s account appear relatively straightforward, there are serious, long-noted discrepancies between Josephus, on the one hand, and the Gospels, on the other, as well as striking if subtle differences between Mark and Matthew. Further, and less well noted, aspects of Josephus’s narrative are egregiously and perhaps irresolvably at odds with claims he makes elsewhere about Herod Antipas and his wife, Herodias. Unsurprisingly, then, there is an extensive secondary literature on the death of John, so much so that one might wonder what else remains to be said on the The origins of this project lie in several entries I wrote—“Herodias 1,” “Herodias 2,” “Salome 2,” “Young Dancer Who Asks for the Head of John the Baptist (Matt 14.6–11)”—for Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books and the New Testament (ed. Carol Meyers, Toni Craven, and Ross S. Kraemer; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 92–94, 94–95, 148–49, 411, respectively. I am grateful to colleagues at Middlebury College, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Canadian Society for Biblical Studies, and the Judaic Studies Faculty Seminar at Brown for allowing me to present various stages of this project in process, and to Luke Meier, my undergraduate research assistant on this project. I also wish to thank the anonymous reader at JBL for particularly helpful organizational suggestions.

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subject.1 Understanding that the nature of the evidence does not allow us to know with absolute certainty that this is the case, I argue in this article that the extant accounts in Josephus and the Gospels are best regarded as separate narratives that both cannot and should not be amalgamated, with the conclusion that the assignment of blame to a young dancer, commonly taken to be Salome, and her mother, Herodias, is historically suspect and highly unlikely. While my argument to segregate Josephus and the Gospels is unusual, numerous scholars concur that the banquet story, and thus the role of the daughter, at least is likely to be fictitious, but they rarely then go on to pursue in any detail the origins, motivations, and functions of the Gospel accounts. I, however, argue that the implication of women in the death of John the Baptist is a “Christian” fabrication and that, in assigning women the primary responsibility not just for the death of John but for the particular means of his execution, namely, decapitation, the Gospel narratives have their function, and probably also their beginning. They are, in my view, a response to early “Christian” concerns about the vexing relationship between John and Jesus, most particularly the unnerving possibility that Jesus might have been John raised from the dead. The basis for my argument is in part the significant discrepancies between Josephus and the Gospels, not merely on the details of John’s death but also on the likelihood that Herodias (or even, in some manuscript traditions, Herod) had a daughter who could have been the koravsion described as the dancer. These discrepancies, which I will lay out in some detail, are helpful to my argument, and they are what led me to it; but they are not, ironically, the logical crux of my argument. By themselves, these discrepancies do not necessarily demonstrate that the Gospels are wrong: hypothetically Josephus might have it wrong: Mark, at least, might have it right. Furthermore, while Josephus’s report happens, in this case, to alert us to difficulties in the Markan and Matthean narratives, the absence of 1 I will refer to select recent studies as they are constructive. Relatively recent bibliography may be found in Michael Hartmann, Der Tod Johannes’ des Täufers: Eine exegetische und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Studie auf dem Hintergrund narrativer, intertextueller und kulturanthropologischer Zugänge (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2001), which I came across only after this project was substantially complete, and in Joan E. Taylor, The Immerser: John the Baptist within Second Temple Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997). For a convenient survey of work prior to the late 1960s, see Harold Hoehner, Herod Antipas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), ch. 7, “Antipas and John the Baptist,” 110–71. Also useful for bibliography are Gerd Theissen, “The Legend of the Baptizer’s Death: A Popular Tradition Told from the Perspective of Those Nearby?” in his The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (trans. Linda Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 81–97; Robert L. Webb, “John the Baptist and His Relationship to Jesus,” in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans; Leiden/New York: Brill, 1994), 179–230; Walter Wink, John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) is also useful for older references; erratically useful for bibliography is Edmondo Lupieri, “John the Baptist in New Testament Traditions and History,” ANRW 26.1:430–61.

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such conflicting accounts would not warrant our assuming the truthfulness of the Gospel account. A fabricated narrative might not necessarily contain the evidence of its own fabrication. As I shall demonstrate, however, in actual fact, Mark’s story is made less probable by Josephus’s contrary account, by these other, less immediately apparent conflicts between the Markan account and Josephus’s accounts of the Herodian period, as well as by the fact that Josephus appears to have less motivation to fabricate in this case (or even to have erroneous information). Matthew’s revisions of Mark and the absence of the story in Luke, John, and other perhaps early Christian Gospels may raise further red flags. This, however, would lead us only to the conclusion that the story as we have it in the Gospels is unlikely to be true: it would not account for the form in which we have it in the Gospels. This, I argue, is actually perceptible in the Gospel texts themselves, in the narrative frame of the story, whose connection scholars have largely overlooked. To build my argument, I first summarize and compare the ancient accounts of the death of John. Next, I lay out some of the more salient difficulties scholars have identified in attempting to reconstruct the circumstances of John’s death. I then consider some of the numerous scholarly proposals for their resolution, none of which has proved sufficiently satisfactory. My own proposal follows, elaborating the views I have summarized here, together with a brief consideration of the role played by ancient constructions of gender in the extant narratives and some implications of my arguments for larger questions about canonical representations of the relationship between Jesus and John. Responses to earlier drafts of this article and to public lecture presentations regularly reminded me that the problems associated with the death of John are daunting and difficult to present in their full complexity. In the interests of improved organization and clarity of argument, more technical details are often treated in the notes. Readers wishing to pursue these questions to the fullest will want to consult the extensive scholarly literature.

I. The Ancient Narratives In both Mark and Matthew, the death of John the Baptizer is told in flashback. Jesus’ activities have attracted attention, and there has been speculation as to his identity, with some proposing that Jesus is John the Baptizer redivivus. Herod Antipas (hereafter generally just Antipas), too, has heard this news and appears to believe that Jesus is indeed John, whom he had beheaded, raised from the dead, although I will return to this particular translation later. This mention of John’s death appears to prompt the Markan author, with whose account I begin, and subsequently the Matthean author, to narrate the specifics. John had criticized Antipas for marrying Herodias, who had previously been married to Antipas’s brother, whose name Mark gives as Philip. In response, Antipas had John impris-

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oned (where is not specified). Although Herodias resented John and wished to kill him, she was initially prevented by Antipas’s fear of John’s righteousness and holiness. At Antipas’s birthday banquet, however, an opportunity presented itself to Herodias. Antipas, entranced by the dancing of Herodias’s daughter, offered this daughter anything she wished, even to half his kingdom.2 The unnamed daughter goes and asks her mother what to request: at her mother’s behest, she returns and asks for the head of John the Baptizer on a platter. A dismayed Antipas complies in order to keep his oath and preserve his honor before his guests. At the end of the scene, John’s head is brought to the daughter, who gives it to her mother; at the end of the story, John’s disciples retrieve the body of John and lay it in a tomb. Although similar to Mark’s account, Matthew’s version differs in some significant ways. Both concur that it is ultimately Antipas who orders John’s execution, but in Mark it is only because of Herodias that he does so: Mark’s Antipas has no desire to kill John. By contrast, Matthew’s Antipas himself desires to be rid of John (Matt 14:5) and refrains only because he fears the people, who regard John as a prophet. Matthew’s account lacks the Markan claim that Antipas thought well of John and found his speeches pleasing. In Matthew, Herodias does not appear as a player until the end of the episode, where, as in Mark, she capitalizes on Antipas’s excessive offer. Further, in Mark, Herodias’s motivation is John’s criticism of her marriage, a motive not ascribed to Antipas himself. In both Mark and Matthew, Antipas grieves at the women’s request: only out of respect for his own oath and regard for his guests does he acquiesce. In Mark, Antipas has been totally manipulated by Herodias and her daughter; in Matthew, he has merely been enabled to do what he had wished all along but was too frightened, or too weak, to do. Additionally, in Mark, before making her request to Antipas, the daughter goes out to consult with her mother, who is therefore portrayed as absent from the banqueting men. In Matthew, this is all elided, so that it appears that Herodias is present at the banquet, or at least this is now unclear.3 In Josephus’s narrative, John’s execution is only one element of a larger complex set of events involving Herod Antipas and Herodias, related mostly in Ant. 18.109ff. According to Josephus, Antipas was first married to the daughter of the Nabatean king Aretas IV,4 while Herodias, a granddaughter of Herod the Great and the daughter of Aristobulus I and Mariamme, was first married to her father’s 2 This language appears to evoke Esth 5:3 and 7:2, where the Persian king Ahasueros offers his Jewish wife, Esther, anything she wishes, even to half his kingdom.. See also n. 42 below. 3 In Matthew, the daughter has been “prompted” by her mother: probibasqei'sa uJpo; th;" mhtro;" aujth'". 4 Josephus does not tell us her name, but Nikos Kokkinos thinks, by process of elimination, that she may have been Aretas’s daughter Phasaelis, born no later than about 18 b.c.e. and married to Antipas in 7/6 b.c.e. Her name appears on coins of her father for this year, and Kokkinos speculates that it commemorates not her birth but her wedding (see Nikos Kokkinos, The Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse [JSPSup 30; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998]), 230–33.

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brother, whom Josephus says was also named Herod and with whom she had a daughter, Salome (Ant. 18.136–37). Sometime after the birth of Salome, Antipas stayed with Herodias and his brother while en route to Rome and became enamored of his sister-in-law, proposing marriage. Herodias agreed, provided that Antipas throw out his prior wife (Ant. 18.109–10). Before, however, Antipas could divorce the daughter of Aretas, she learned of his plans and escaped home to her father, who, outraged at the behavior of his son-in-law, sent his troops successfully against Herod’s army. Josephus observes, almost parenthetically, that some Jews took the destruction of Antipas’s army as divine retribution for the death of John the Baptizer, whom Josephus has not mentioned in the Antiquities up until this point. At this juncture, then, Josephus’s narrative contains a brief digressive flashback on John and the circumstances of his death, according to which Herod feared John’s popularity would lead to an uprising, so he had John brought in chains to the fortress of Machaerus (on the border between the territory of Aretas and Antipas) and there executed him. Josephus says nothing whatsoever about the manner in which John died, nor anything about the involvement of Herodias and Salome. It is not impossible that this passage represents a Christian interpolation into the text of Josephus, since Josephus is transmitted by Christians, not Jews, but most scholars seem to consider it more or less authentic.5 Josephus then returns to the Aretas affair. Antipas, in response, enlisted the emperor Tiberius’s support against Aretas, and imperial troops marched against the Nabateans under the command of Vitellius, governor of Syria. Before the conflict was resolved, however, Tiberius died and Vitellius withdrew his troops. In the midst of all this, Antipas and Herodias were married, a marriage Josephus considered a confounding of ancestral traditions (Ant. 18.136), and Antipas had John the Baptizer executed (by what means is not specified). Interestingly, in his account of the conflict between Antipas and Aretas, Josephus claims that when drawn into the conflict, Tiberius sent word to Vitellius that Aretas should either be brought back in chains, or, if killed, that Aretas’s head should be sent to him (Tiberius) (Ant. 18. 115).

II. The Problems Ancient accounts of John’s death contain numerous differences. As I noted earlier, these discrepancies are in some ways the starting point of my argument, because, the considerable efforts of many scholars to reconcile Josephus and the Gospels notwithstanding, they provide support for the thesis that the Gospels’ 5 For some discussion and notes, see John C. Meier, “John the Baptist in Josephus: Philology and Exegesis,” JBL 111 (1992): 225–37. That the passage in Josephus does not blame Salome and Herodias might argue in favor of its authenticity, since it is hard to imagine why a Christian harmonizing Josephus with the Gospels would have left that out.

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accounts are unreliable, at least in their assignment of responsibility for John’s death to Herodias and the daughter. In the absence of Josephus’s account, many difficulties with the Markan and Matthean narratives might elude us. This, of course, is true for much if not all of the material in the Gospels or, for that matter, in any narrative for which we possess no contrary or conflicting versions. I wish to make clear, however, that even in the absence of these discrepancies, my thesis might well still be correct: it just might be harder to detect the fictional, constructed, and ideological nature of the Markan (and Matthean) text(s). While all three narratives ultimately concur that Antipas put John to death (as does the Gospel of Luke), in the Josephan narrative Herodias and her daughter play no role whatsoever. Josephus and Matthew actually concur in seeing Herod as always desiring John’s death, although for different motivations: in Matthew, as in Mark, it is John’s criticism of the marriage of Antipas and Herodias that leads to his imprisonment and eventual death. By contrast, although Josephus blames both Herodias (Ant. 18.136) and Antipas (Ant. 8.110) for a marriage he sees as irregular (he accuses Herodias of flouting Jewish tradition by marrying Antipas— although he does not say what specifically is transgressive about the marriage),6 6 Part of the traditional scholarly argument made for the illegality of the marriage between Herodias and Antipas is that it violated Levitical prohibitions against a man “having” his brother’s wife, and both Mark and Matthew couch John’s objections in such language: oujk e[xestivn soi e[cein th;n gunai'ka tou' ajdelfou' aujtou' (Mark 6:18); oujk e[xestivn soi e[cein aujth;n [th;n gunai'ka Filivppou tou' ajdelfou' aujtou'] (Matt 14:4). Many interpreters invoke a violation of Lev 18:15 (Ben Witherington III [“Herodias,” ABD 3:175–76] cites also Lev 20:21 and 18:16), which prohibits “uncovering the nakedness of your brother’s wife.” See also the lengthy, although outdated, discussion in Hoehner, Herod Antipas, 137–38 n. 4. Although many interpreters presume that Josephus’s concern is the Levitical regulations, he appears far more troubled by the fact that Herodias left Herod, and thus appears to have inappropriately instigated the termination of a marriage, than by the question of prohibited kinship relations with the subsequent spouse. Taylor suggests that Josephus may know of the incest issue, but omit it because such marriages were licit in Rome (Immerser, 239). The question may be, more precisely, whether a man can marry his brother’s divorced wife. Josephus’s own emphasis on the fact that Herodias married the brother of her first husband while that first husband was still living suggests that Josephus thought the answer was no. Some of this discussion depends on whether Josephus’s language intentionally distinguishes such violations of ancestral tradition (sugcuvsei" tw'n patrivwn) from violations according to law. It also relies to some degree on Josephus’s critique of other Herodian women for divorcing their husbands contrary to Jewish law; his phrasing in Ant. 20.143, concerning Drusilla’s illicit divorce of Azizus, is parabh'nai te ta; pavtria novmima. Berenice, he says, “deserted” (“divorced”? kataleivpei) Polemo of Cilicia (Ant. 20.146). For some discussion of the problem of women instigating divorce, see Bernadette J. Brooten, “Divorced Woman: Mark 10:2-10,” in Women in Scripture, 428-30; David Instone Brewer, “Jewish Women Divorcing Their Husbands in Early Judaism: The Background to Papyrus Se<elim 13,” HTR 92 (1999): 349–57; Tal Ilan, “Notes and Observations on a Newly Published Divorce Bill from the Judaean Desert,” HTR 89 (1996):195–202; J.T. Milik, “Le travail d’édition des manuscrits du Désert de Juda,” in Volume du congrès: Strasbourg 1956 (VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1956), 17–26; Michael Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); A. Schremer, “Divorce in Papyrus Se’elim Once Again: A Reply to Tal Ilan,” HTR 91 (1998): 193–204 (with response from Ilan).

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he nowhere suggests that John the Baptizer did so. Rather, Josephus understands Antipas to have been motivated by fear that John’s popularity might incite an uprising (Ant. 18.116–19). In Mark, the primary motivation for John’s death is ascribed to Herodias’s anger at John’s critique of her marriage, although she must utilize Antipas’s power and authority to accomplish this desire. Matthew’s revision of Mark’s narrative to emphasize Antipas’s desire all along to have John executed could be taken to suggest that on this point Matthew knows what Josephus knows and deliberately recasts the Markan narrative to reflect this. In any case, in Mark, Herodias and the daughter bear the greatest responsibility for the death of John. It can be argued further that in both Gospels Herodias is primarily responsible and the daughter her unwitting instrument. It has also long been noted that John’s preaching in Josephus lacks any messianic, apocalyptic, or eschatological component, in contrast to the presentation of the Baptizer in the Gospels.7 Josephus’s narrative on the death of John may appear fairly straightforward. John was a righteous preacher whose popularity threatened the stability of Herod’s domain, so Herod preemptively had him executed. In fact, however, as scholars have long noted, there are some serious discrepancies, chronological and otherwise, between the passage in which Josephus recounts John’s death and various claims that he makes elsewhere in the Antiquities.8 As Josephus narrates them, these events must have taken place within the few years before Tiberius’s death in the spring of 37 c.e., placing the marriage of Herod and Herodias around 34 c.e. Likewise, the death of John would seem to have taken place in this same relatively brief period, given Josephus’s report that Herod’s defeat by Aretas in 36 c.e. was seen by some Jews as a divine response to John’s death (Ant. 18.116).9 Elsewhere in the Antiquities (18.145–60ff.), however, Josephus relates that Antipas and Herodias were already married (although for how long is not clear) when Herodias’s brother, Agrippa I, returned destitute to Palestine from Rome and sought financial assistance from them. Agrippa’s departure from Rome was prompted in part by the death of Drusus, his close childhood friend and son of the emperor Tiberius, in 23 c.e. Josephus claims that the grief-stricken emperor was 7 E.g., Steven Mason, who notes that “Josephus has a well-known tendency to suppress apocalyptic themes that he finds in his sources” (“Fire, Water and Spirit: John the Baptist and the Tyranny of Canon,” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 21 [1992]: 163–80, here 179). 8 Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 265–71, esp. 266 n. 8; Christine Saulnier, “Herode Antipas et Jean le Baptiste: Quelques remarques sue les confusions chronologiques de Flavius Josèphe,” RB 91 (1984): 362–76; see below for further discussion. 9 Hoehner dismisses this fairly quickly (Herod Antipas, 126), proferring various instances when Jews saw long intervals between an event and its divinely authorized consequences, for example, the death of Antiochus Epiphanes three years after his desecration of the temple; Pompey’s death fifteen years after his violation of the holy of holies, and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 as retribution for the murder of Jonathan the high priest (Ant. 20.160–67). Hoehner consistently attempts to mitigate any conflicts in these accounts.

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pained by the sight of his son’s friends, prompting Agrippa’s travel.10 If Agrippa left relatively soon after the funeral of Drusus on Sept. 14, 23 c.e., he would have left in, perhaps, 24 or 25 c.e. Hence, if Agrippa returned to Palestine around 24 or 25 c.e. and sought assistance shortly from Herodias and Antipas, they must have been married by this date, in contradiction to the chronology implied by Ant. 18.109ff. After Agrippa’s wife, Cypros, asked her sister-in-law for help, Antipas set up Agrippa as the agoranomos in Tiberias. When Agrippa failed at this post he sought help from Flaccus, proconsul of Syria from 32–35 c.e. This arrangement also eventually soured, and Agrippa took refuge in Ptolemais, hoping to go from there to Italy. Ultimately, he went to Alexandria, where he begged for a loan from Alexander the alabarch (the brother of Philo). Alexander refused Agrippa, but ultimately agreed to make the loan to Cypros, expressing admiration for her selfless devotion to her husband. Cypros sent Agrippa on to Rome, and returned herself to Judea. By the middle of 36 c.e., Agrippa had been back in Italy for some time. If, as Josephus seems to imply in the account of the Aretas affair, Antipas and Herodias were married ca. 34 c.e., it is more or less impossible to fit all of Agrippa’s travels and travails into the relatively short period between their marriage and his reestablishment in Rome, nor does the Aretas narrative reconcile easily with the apparent report that Agrippa left Rome shortly after the death of Drusus. Even if all of Agrippa’s journey could be fit into a relatively brief time, we cannot account for how he spent the seemingly missing years between ca. 24 and ca. 34 c.e. Although much effort has been devoted to solving this problem, it is important to note that, strictly speaking, Josephus never locates the death of John in any chronological sequence, except to place it before the war with Aretas, which, he claims, some people took as divine vengeance for John’s death. Although Josephus may in fact provide somewhat conflicting evidence for dating the marriage of Antipas and Herodias, in Josephus the death of John need not postdate that marriage, and Josephus says only that Antipas executed John because of his potentially seditious popularity. Thus, in Josephus, the dating of these two events may be related, but need not be. Another potential problem comes from Josephus’s account that Herodias’s daughter Salome was first married to Philip the Tetrarch (her paternal uncle, and yet another son of Herod the Great), who died in 33 c.e. (Ant. 18:136–37).11 Josephus also claims that Salome later married her cousin, Aristobulus, who seems to have been born around the same time Philip died.12 Unfortunately, 10 However, Suetonius claims that Tiberius hardly grieved for Drusus, for whom he had little affection (Tib. 52; cited in Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 273). 11 For arguments dating Philip’s death precisely to September 33 c.e., see Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 237. 12 Kokkinos argues that Aristobulus was three to five years younger than his cousin,

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Josephus does not say when this second marriage occurred, but he does add that it produced three sons (Ant. 18.137). That Aristobulus had a wife named Salome seems confirmed by a coin from Chalcis dated to 54 c.e., the year when Aristobulus ascended to the throne, showing Aristobulus on one side and a woman named Salome on the other. (A coin of Aristobulus from 61 c.e. shows only Aristobulus, suggesting, although not demonstrating, that Salome had died in the interim.)13 According to Josephus, then, Herodias’s daughter Salome was apparently old enough to have been married to Philip before his death in 33 c.e., yet young enough to have married Aristobulus and had three sons with him some twenty years later. Some scholars have found odd both the age discrepancy between Aristobulus and Salome (who appears to have been between ten and twentythree years his senior, depending on when we date her birth) and the fact that she seems to have had three sons relatively late in life.14 Such a marriage, although not impossible, also contravenes much of what we know about marriages in this

Agrippa II, who was born in 27/28 c.e. (Herodian Dynasty, 305 n. 147; also 309ff.). The discussion by Geza Vermes and Matthew Black in Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.–A.D. 135) (ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, Matthew Black, and Pamela Vermes; London: T&T Clark, 1973–87), 1:348–49 n. 28, is unaware of the connection Kokkinos establishes and offers a different analysis, but Kokkinos’s argument would seem to vitiate theirs. 13 The coin is presently in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; a photo of it may be found in Grace H. Macurdy, Hellenistic Queens: A Study of Women in Power in Macedonia, Seleucid Syria and Ptolemaic Egypt (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1932; repr., Chicago: Ares Press, 1993), and in Women in Scripture, 148. 14 As I will consider further below, Kokkinos comes to the conclusion that Josephus was wrong in saying that Salome was married to Philip and then to Aristobulus, precisely because he assumes that it would have been virtually impossible for Salome to have had children in her late forties or early fifties. His dating of the birth of Salome relatively early (to which I will return) produces at least part of his dilemma about her marriage to Aristobulus and seems to disregard the possibility that Herodias could have had Salome relatively late (and could, perhaps, have miscarried and/or born other children in the interim who died). Similarly, his slight discomfort with his own suggestion that the “real” dancer in the Synoptic story was not Salome but an otherwise unattested daughter of Antipas and Phasaelis named Herodias (on which, see below) is that Phasaelis would have been in her forties when she had this child (Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 233). However, the limited but significant demographic evidence from Roman Egypt suggests that some women in the Roman Mediterranean did bear children right up through menopause, in their forties and fifties, as in the case of a census document listing a 54-year-old woman who had eight surviving children, born when she was 25, 28, 31, 37, 45, and 47. See Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); also Frier, “Roman Demography,” in Life, Death and Entertainment in the Roman Empire (ed. D. S. Potter and D. J. Mattingly; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 85–112. Kokkinos is aware of Bagnall and Frier’s study, since he cites it in another connection (Herodian Dynasty, 309 n. 157, on Aristobulus III), but he does not appear to see its relevance for his arguments about sexuality and fertility in antiquity. Kokkinos also disbelieves Josephus’s claim that sexual desire drove Herod Antipas to leave his Nabatean wife for Herodias, apparently because he doubts that a woman of her (estimated) age could have inspired such desire (Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 267, where he just remarks that she would have been forty-eight).

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period, royal and otherwise; it was not uncommon for husbands to be ten or fifteen years older than their wives, but not vice versa.15 This potential data must be factored into discussions concerning the dating of the marriage of Herod and Herodias and its possible connections to the death of John. This problem is important because it speaks to the historical plausibility of the Gospels’ claim that Herodias and her daughter (presumed to be Salome) played some role in the death of John, prompted by John’s critique of Herodias’s marriage to Herod. If the Gospels’ claim is meritorious, it must be consistent with what we know about the chronology of all these events: at the time of John’s death, Herodias must be married to Herod Antipas; her daughter, Salome, must be of an age to dance before Antipas; Salome must also be of an age that allows her to be married to Philip before he dies in 33 c.e., and subsequently married to Aristobulus in the early 50s c.e., and to have borne him three sons. And this is without even considering the potential implications of all this for dating the deaths of John and Jesus. Further, Josephus also says that Herodias left her first husband, Herod, son of Herod the Great, after the birth of Salome, which seems to mean relatively soon after Salome’s birth, rather than many years later (Ant. 18.136).16 If this is what Josephus means, it has several implications. At the very least, it means that Salome was more or less a toddler when Antipas and Herodias were married. If she was born shortly after Herodias and Herod were married, it means that Herodias and Antipas were already married in the early 20s c.e., a date that works better with Josephus’s report about Agrippa I seeking assistance from the couple after the death of Drusus, but that poses problems for the late chronology suggested in the chronicling of the Aretas affair and the death of John. Second, it means Antipas and Herodias might even have been married many years earlier, if Salome was born relatively soon after the marriage of Herodias and her first husband, Herod. This, however, seems difficult to reconcile with the evidence for the long duration of Antipas’s marriage to his first wife, the Nabatean princess. Alternatively, it makes Salome born extremely late, when her mother would herself have been something like forty.17 Various other problems have engaged scholars, some of which have more

15 Nevertheless, we know of at least one other sexual attraction between a significantly older woman and a younger man in the same social circles: the affair of Berenike and Titus, who was about eleven years her junior. Further, again contradicting Kokkinos’s assumptions (see prior note), Berenike had already been married three times, had at least two sons, and was probably around forty when she met Titus. Although that date is not known, she went to Rome with him after the war, hoping, so Roman sources report, to marry him: born in ca. 28 c.e., she would have been about forty-two in 70 c.e. 16 kai; aujtoi'" Salwvmh givnetai, meq! h|" ta;" gona;" @Hrwdia;" . . . @Hrwvdh/ gamei'tai. 17 See n. 14 above on the fertility issues here.

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implications for the reliability of the Gospels than others, including the plausibility that a Herodian daughter would have performed a dance at a banquet that appears to have been a typical all-male affair; the identity of the dancer in Mark and Matthew; the identity of the husband whom Herodias left to marry Antipas; and the possible dates of the death of John.18 Numerous scholars have questioned the plausibility of the dance. For some, this element of the Gospel narrative is sufficient to discredit the entire story.19 They cite the considerable ancient evidence that “respectable” women, elite or otherwise, did not dine with men in public.20 Only “disreputable” women would have done so, and only “disreputable” women would have danced for male consumption. By the first century c.e., though, it was becoming acceptable for respectable Roman women to dine in male company, so that the issue is really more about the performance of the dance than the mere presence of women at the banquet, and in any case, numerous commentators point out that, at least in 18 One additional issue involves Antipas’s correct title. According to Josephus, Antipas’s title was tetravrch": he spent much of his life pursuing the title basileuv", and his attempts to obtain it ultimately led to his downfall. There is a helpful discussion of this in Peter Richardson, Herod: King of the Jews and Friend of the Romans (Studies on Personalities of the New Testament; Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996), 305–13 (on Antipas). In the Markan narrative, Antipas is called basileuv". Luke and Matthew both correctly call Antipas tetravrch", although Matt 14:9 does once follow Mark in calling Antipas basileuv". All manuscripts of Matt 14:9 seem to contain this reading: if it is an instance of harmonization with Mark, there is no manuscript evidence for it. Some scholars are also bothered by the fact that in the Gospel narratives, Antipas offers the daughter anything she wishes, even up to half of his basileiva, something he does not actually have (e.g., Taylor, Immerser, 246–47). Another issue concerns the status of the fortress at Machaerus. In Ant. 18.112, Josephus suggests that Aretas controlled Machaerus, while in Ant. 18.119, it appears to be under Antipas’s control. 19 E.g., Theissen, “Legend”; Kathleen Corley, Private Women, Public Meals: Social Conflict in the Synoptic Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993); Alice Bach, “Calling the Shots: Directing Salome’s Dance of Death,” Semeia 74 (1996): 103–26; Jennifer A. Glancy, “Unveiling Masculinity: The Construction of Gender in Mark 6:17–29,” BibInt 2 (1994): 34–50, who thinks that even though women’s presence at banquets was becoming acceptable in some circles, women who performed at banquets would still have been seen as unrespectable (p. 39 n. 17). 20 Theissen’s evidence for this is a story in Cicero (Verr. 2.1.26.66) which says that “it was not the Greek custom for women to be present at a men’s dinner party” [negavit moris esse Graecorum ut in convivio virorum accumberent mulieres] (“Legend,” 91) and various older stories that do not really bear at all on first-century perceptions or practices. However, that this is “Greek” practice is not really the point unless he can argue that Greek customs in this regard prevailed—or at least were taken for granted by the circles in which the story arose. Theissen’s book was published prior to Corley’s, Private Women, Public Meals, with its lengthy chapter entitled “Women in the Context of Greco-Roman Meals” (pp. 24–79). Hartmann thinks that the daughter’s dance is historically plausible, if understood not as an ordinary practice but as a special practice warranted by the birthday and functioning, at least literarily, to prompt Herod’s response (Tod, 162–68, esp. 166; restated on 366). He tends to think that the entire banquet scene is fictitious, but concedes that its historicity cannot be known (e.g., Tod, 239).

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Mark, Herodias appears not to be present for the dance, since the daughter has to “go out” and ask her mother what to request.21 Neither Mark nor Matthew calls the dancer Salome: were it not for Josephus’s report that Herodias had a daughter named Salome by her first husband (Ant. 18.136), there would be no way to identify the dancer. But the problem is more complex. Virtually all the important ancient manuscripts of Matthew call the dancer the daughter of Herodias and do not name her father specifically.22 In some ancient manuscripts of Mark, including Alexandrinus (and other witnesses), the dancer is called th'" qugatro;" aujth'" th'" @Hrwdiavdo" (“the daughter of Herodias herself,” alternatively translated as “the daughter of this same Herodias”). But Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and the bilingual Codex Bezae name the dancer Herodias and identify her as the daughter of Herod (qugatro;" aujtou' @Hrwdiavdo"). Influenced by Josephus, many editions of the Greek NT have preferred the manuscripts that call the dancer the daughter of Herodias. The most recent critical editions of the NT (UBS4 and Nestle-Aland27), however, now prefer the reading “his [Herod’s] daughter, Herodias,” and the NRSV of Mark 6:22 now follows them.23 Regardless of the text-critical reasoning for this choice,24 both Mark 21 Theissen argues that “it is simply taken for granted, in Mk. 6:17ff also, that women (and young girls) are not present at men’s banquets. The dancing girl has to leave the room in order to speak to her mother” (Gospels in Context, 92–93). More interestingly, Janice Anderson suggests that the tendency to believe that the Herodians would have engaged in such practices is itself a feature of Western exoticizing of the “Orient,” reified and constructed as “Other” (“Feminist Criticism: The Dancing Daughter,” in Mark and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies [ed. Janice Capel Anderson and Stephen Moore; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992], 124–25). Anderson herself ultimately concurs that the dance is plausibly interpreted as innocent (p. 121), for which Glancy (“Unveiling Masculinity,” 39 n. 17) takes her to task. At issue here is still the context of women’s presence and performance at Roman banquets. 22 Only Codex Bezae has a more problematic reading, shared with Mark 6:22, calling the dancer “Herodias, his daughter,” as it does also for Mark 6:22. 23 The Revised English Bible (1989) reads “Her daughter came in . . .”; the New American Bible (1986) reads “Herodias’ own daughter came in . . .”; the New Jerusalem Bible (1985) reads “when the daughter of this same Herodias came in,” all from The Complete Parallel Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993). 24 This follows the text-critical principle of preferring the more difficult reading: it seems easier to understand why ancient copyists would change “his daughter, Herodias” to “the daughter of Herodias,” than vice versa, perhaps because internally, it is clear that the dancer is Herodias’s daughter, but also perhaps because they are influenced by the report of Josephus. The UBS editors do, however, designate this reading as a highly dubious choice, giving it their least confident designation {D}. For an explanation of the decision of the committee, see Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (2nd ed.; Stuttgart: German Bible Society, 1994), 77. Interestingly, in the midsecond century c.e., Justin Martyr, retelling this story, names neither the mother nor the daughter, but does identify the dancer as the niece (ejxadevlfh) of Antipas (Dial. 49:4–5). If this reading represents an accurate transmission of Justin, we may conclude that by this Justin understood her to

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and Matthew clearly assume that the mother of this dancer is Herodias, wife of Antipas. Josephus and the Gospel writers provide different names for the husband whom Herodias left to marry Antipas. Josephus says quite clearly that Herodias left Antipas’s own brother, another son of Herod the Great and Mariamme, who was also named Herod, while Mark and Matthew say that the prior husband was named Philip. All manuscripts of Mark and most of the major ancient witnesses for Matthew attribute the name of Philip to the brother of Herod Antipas.25 Major witnesses to Luke also lack the name of Philip.26 Various explanations have been proposed for this apparent discrepancy. Scholars seeking to harmonize Josephus and the Gospels have sometimes postulated a person known both as Herod and as Philip.27 Others have taken Mark’s ascription of the name Philip to be erroneous and an indication that the entire account is improbable.28 Although he seems to have no a priori commitment to the reliability of the Gospels, Kokkinos accepts the Markan claim that Herodias’s husband prior to Antipas was named Philip, but thinks this Philip was not the otherwise unattested “Herod Philip” but rather the well-attested Philip the Tetrarch.29

be the daughter of Herod’s brother, which in turn suggests that Justin knew a version of the story in which the dancer was the daughter of Herod’s wife and her first husband. 25 Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus, and Vaticanus all preserve this reading for Matt 14:3 as well, although Codex Bezae, the Vg, and various Latin manuscripts lack it. Aland, Black, et al., the editors of the UBS3, print the reading with a {B}. 26 Its presence in the “textus receptus” may explain why Grace H. Macurdy claims that all three Gospel writers attribute the name Philip to Herodias’s first husband, Herod (“Royal Women in Judaea,” in Vassal Queens and Some Contemporary Women in the Roman Empire [Johns Hopkins University Studies in Archaeology 22; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press; London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, 1937; repr., Chicago: Ares Press, 1993], 78 and n. 75). Macurdy also notes that only the Synoptic Gospels call Herod Philip. 27 E.g., Hoehner, Herod Antipas, 134, who is explicit that for the Gospels to have erred on this historical fact would be troubling: “it seems incredible that the evangelists who had access to reliable sources would have made so many gross historical errors.” He conjectures that Herod was known as Philip in Galilee, although his “official” name was Herod, and that when Herod became “a dynastic” title, he became known as Philip (pp. 132–36). Here he offers the example of Archelaus, who was officially “Herod” (apparently from Dio 55.27.6); and also the example of Agrippa I, whom Luke calls King Herod in Acts 12:1. David Braund’s entry “Philip (5),” in ABD 5:310–11 fails to identify this problem (and considers Salome the daughter of Herodias and Herod Antipas). Braund’s entry “Herodian Dynasty” (ABD 3:173–74) also claims that Herodias’s husbands were Herod Philip and Herod Antipas, apparently simply following Mark. Yet the entry by Gary A. Herion, “Herod Philip” (ABD 3:160–61), notes rightly that there is no ancient attestation for a person named Herod Philip, whom Herion considers most likely a construct to reconcile Josephus and the Gospels. 28 E.g., Lester Grabbe, The Jews from Cyrus to Hadrian, vol. 2, The Roman Period (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1992), 427. 29 See pp. 337–38 below.

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The date of John’s death has, potentially, significant ramifications for the involvement of Herodias’s daughter, Salome (although not for that of Herodias herself). Josephus never says when exactly John dies. As laid out earlier, following the chronology of the Aretas affair (Ant. 18.109ff.), it would seem to be sometime after ca. 34 c.e. but before 37 c.e.; but following Ant. 18.145–60ff., after ca. 25 c.e. None of the Gospels provides a specific date for John’s death, but all three Synoptic Gospels agree on a basic chronology of John’s life. John baptizes Jesus (except perhaps in Luke, who is coyly ambiguous on this point); John criticizes the marriage of Antipas and Herodias; Antipas imprisons John; John dies, while Jesus is still alive. The Gospels lack dates for these particular events; the Gospel of Luke alone provides some chronological parameters. According to Luke, John begins to preach his baptism of repentence in the fifteenth year of Tiberius (ca. 28 c.e.);30 Jesus was born sometime before the death of Herod the Great (which Luke does not date, but which, from Josephus, is dated to 4 b.c.e.);31 was “about thirty” when he began to preach (Luke 3:23); and died during the reign of Pontius Pilate, whose term as prefect of Judea terminated shortly before the death of Tiberius in March of 37 c.e.32 Since in all three Synoptic Gospels, Jesus’ ministry appears to last no more than about a year, the Gospel of Luke implicitly places the death of Jesus sometime between 25 c.e. and 28 or perhaps 29 c.e., with only the upper end of this range compatible with Luke’s claim that John began preaching ca. 28 c.e. Since in the Synoptics John clearly dies before Jesus, in a Lukan chronology the death of John cannot be any later than about 29 c.e.33 30 As Taylor notes, there is disagreement about how to calculate the years of Tiberius’s reign, with calculations between 27 c.e. and 29 c.e. (Immerser, 255, citing Hoehner, Herod Antipas, 313–66). 31 Luke 1:5; Josephus, Ant. 17.168–323; War 1.656–73; see Richardson, Herod, 18–20. Because Matthew explicitly refers to Archelaus, son of Herod the Great, as his father's successor (Matt 2:22), scholars generally presume not only that Matthew places Jesus’ birth during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 b.c.e., but that Luke’s reference to Herod the king is also to Herod the Great, bolstered by the view that this Herod appears to be the only Herod known to have been called by the title basileuv". For the view, however, that Luke’s Herod is the son of Herod the Great who was simply named Herod, see Gerard Mussies, “The Date of Jesus’ Birth in Jewish and Samaritan Sources,” JSJ 39, no. 4 (1998): 416–37, esp. 417–19. Mussies also queries how long John baptized before Jesus came to him. 32 The precise parameters of Pilate’s term of office are much debated: for a review of the issues, see Daniel L. Schwartz, “Pontius Pilate,” ABD 5:395–401. As with the problem of the dating of the marriage of Herodias and Antipas, Josephus provides chronologically inconsistent reports in Ant. 18.89–90 and 18.112–24. 33 The range given here is based on adding 30–31 (given the vagueness of Luke’s phrase) to the three-year range of 6–4 b.c.e. for the birth of Jesus, presuming that Luke refers to Herod the Great. If, as Mussies suggests (above, n. 31), Luke means Herod’s son Herod, this would be more consistent with Luke’s dating of Jesus’ birth around the time of a census under Quirinius that appears, according to Josephus, to date to ca. 6 c.e.: in Luke, then, Jesus’ ministry would appear to take place in

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The Gospels do, however, make one crucial claim that Josephus, for all his extensive detail, never explicitly states or even necessarily implies, namely, that John’s death postdates the marriage of Herod and Herodias by some time. Mark and Matthew, further, implicitly provide some clues to the apparent date of John’s death with their claim that the impetus for John’s death was the captivating performance of the daughter, and with their designation of her as a koravsion—a diminutive that ordinarily designates a child older than a toddler but not yet a fully adult woman.34 The identity, age, and date of birth of the dancer are then potentially helpful in determining with more precision the date of John’s death, at least in the Gospels. None of this, though, can be determined from the Gospels themselves, and, ironically and conversely, the date of John’s death has serious implications for the identity of the dancing daughter.

36–37 c.e. and the death of John could be as late as about 36 c.e. See also Nikos Kokkinos, “Crucifixion in A.D. 36: The Keystone for Dating the Birth of Jesus,” in Chronos, Kairos, Christos: Nativity and Chronological Studies Presented to Jack Finegan (ed. J. Vardaman and E. M. Yamauchi; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1989), 133–43. None of this, of course, addresses the problem of whether Luke’s dates are reliable, nor the fact that in John 8:57, !Ioudai'oi disputing with Jesus say, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” This apparent challenge to Luke’s claim has been taken more seriously by some scholars than others. Ernst Haenchen suggests that this characterization of Jesus is derived from John 2:20, where Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple, and !Ioudai'oi respond, “this temple has been under construction for 46 years, and will you raise it up in 3 days?” (John: A Commentary on The Gospel of John [2 vols.; trans. Robert W. Funk; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984] 29–30). This prompts the conclusion that since Jesus’ body was identified with the temple, he too must have been forty-six. Haenchen points to a similar tradition in Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 2.22.5) and appears to think that the Johannine representation may be closer to the historical reality (1:184–85). In the second edition of his Anchor Bible commentary on John, Raymond E. Brown took the position that while forty-six should not be taken as an exact statement of Jesus’ age, it was possible that Jesus was significantly older than Luke’s “about thirty” (The Gospel According to John 1–12: Introduction, Translation, and Notes [AB 29; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980], 116). Others, however, have been more dismissive of the Johannine dating. Rudolph Bultmann dismissed it, apparently precisely because of its contradiction of Luke, and considered merely an expression of Jesus’ adulthood (The Gospel of John: A Commentary [trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare, and J. K. Riches; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971], 327). See also the recent discounting of this as a meaningful contradiction to Luke in the note by David K. Rensberger in the HarperCollins Study Bible (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993) 2031. 34 It is the diminutive of the more common kovrh: the standard lexical resources do not give extensive citations for its usage. Based on his observation that in the LXX koravsion twice translates hdly and fourteen times translates hr(n, Hoehner argues that while it could mean a small child, it is more characteristically “a young girl at or near marriageable age” (Herod Antipas, 156). He does not note that koravsion also occurs in the Greek Esther as a term for Esther and the other candidates for the king’s favor, perhaps because he wished to avoid the implication that the story of John’s death is derived in some fashion from Esther (on which, see n. 41 below). Nor does he comment on the fact that Justin Martyr (Dial. 49.4–5) calls the dancer by the gender-neutral term for a child (pai'"), which suggests that the story seems to have been understood early on to describe a relatively young child and may even suggest how koravsion was understood by readers of Mark (and Matthew). In any case, its meaning probably requires more work.

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III. Some Earlier Solutions Much scholarly ink has been spilled over these discrepancies.35 Some solutions, often proposed by theologically conservative (and mostly but not exclusively Christian) scholars, attempt to explain away the differences while preserving the essential reliability of all the sources;36 others are more skeptical about the veracity of at least parts of the ancient reports.37 Rarely does anyone question the basic reliability of Josephus, who tends mostly to be accused of the crime of omission (of John’s eschatological preaching, his critique of the marriage, and perhaps also of the role of the women).38 Some consider the Gospel narratives essentially historically reliable.39 Others consider the divergent portion of the Gospel narratives a fabrication, sometimes in the form of an existing legend (often assumed, although not always explicitly, to circulate in Jewish circles);40 others in the form of a Markan creation, or embellishment on an existing tradition.41 35 My

discussion of the various possible explanations proposed by scholars for the divergent extant narratives, which I have located as much as possible in the notes, is necessarily representative rather than exhaustive. 36 E.g., Hoehner, Herod Antipas; Braund, “Herodian Dynasty”; Witherington, “Herodias”; Louis Feldman, Josephus, vol. 9 (LCL; London: Heinemann, 1965), 83 n. e. 37 E.g., Rudolph Bultmann, A History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. John Marsh; New York: Harper & Row, 1963); Corley, Private Women, Public Meals; John Dominic Crossan, Jesus, A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1995); Hartmann, Tod; Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty; idem, “Which Salome Did Aristobulus Marry?” PEQ 118 (1986): 33–50; Saulnier, “Herode Antipas”; Theissen, “Legend”; and Wink, John the Baptist. E. P. Sanders argues for combining the motives for John’s execution in Josephus and the Gospels and notes in passing that Herodias might have egged Antipas on, but he says nothing one way or the other about the banquet and the dancer (The Historical Figure of Jesus [London: Penguin, 1993], 92–93). Macurdy hints at scholarly suspicions that the episode was fabricated but thinks Herodias’s role plausible (“Royal Women in Judaea,” 80–81). She does not address the problem of the implausibility of the banquet dance. She also writes, earlier, that given Jewish hostility to the marriage (for which, of course, her only source must be Josephus), “the story of John’s preaching . . . is entirely credible” (p. 80). 38 As Hoehner notes (Herod Antipas, 123), however, Wilfred L. Knox considered Josephus highly unreliable here and to be drawing on an anti-Antipas, pro-Agrippan “History of the Herods” (The Sources of the Synoptic Gospels [ed. H. Chadwick; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953], 1:50–51). Knox ultimately opines that although the Markan story might have been a bazaar rumor, such rumor might have been considerably “nearer to the truth than the story of Josephus” (refuting A. E. J. Rawlinson, St. Mark [Westminster Commentaries; London, 1942], 82). 39 E.g., Braund, Hoehner, Witherington, and, for somewhat different reasons, Kokkinos, at least for certain portions. Kokkinos thinks that the dancer could not have been Herodias’s daughter Salome, but was rather an otherwise unattested daughter of Antipas and his Nabatean wife, which means that he apparently thinks such a dance took place. 40 Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition; Corley, Private Women, Public Meals; Crossan, Jesus; Grabbe, Judaism; Theissen, Gospels. 41 E.g., Crossan (Jesus), who was dubious that John’s criticism of Herod’s marriage would have been the basis of his death, suggesting that the author of Mark created the narrative of John’s death,

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Some scholars have proposed that the Herodias story, or at least portions of it, has been constructed out of prior narratives. In Jewish Scripture, the candidates include the Esther story and the death of Elijah at the hands of Ahab and Jezebel.42 Of particular interest has been a story circulating in Livy (d. 17 c.e.), Cicero, and Seneca (d. 40 c.e.)43 about one Lucius Quinctius Flaminius, who was expelled from the Roman Senate in 184 b.c.e., allegedly for beheading a condemned man at a dinner party at the request of a courtesan with whom he was in love, and who had expressed a desire to see such an act performed.44 Most recently, Michael Hartmann has offered a complex form-critical analysis, in which the core of the story, John’s death at the hands of Antipas and his subsequent burial, originates with John’s own disciples and eventually acquires both the court setting and then a Markan theological overlay.45

modeled on the death of Jesus, so that even in death, John is the precursor of Jesus. Hans-Martin Schenke, too, thought that the author of Mark made it up out of legends and fables (“Gefangenschaft und Tod des Täufers: Erwägungen zur Chronologie und ihren Konsequenzen,” NTS 29 [1983]: 468–70), cited in Taylor, Immerser, 248 n. 67. 42 For a detailed recent exploration of possible intertextualities, particularly regarding Esther, see Hartmann, Tod, esp. 199-228; see also Taylor, Immerser, 246, on Esther and on the Ahab/Jezebel story; and R. Aus, Water into Wine and the Beheading of John the Baptist: Early Jewish-Christian Interpretation of Esther 1 in John 2:1–11 and Mark 6:17–29 (BJS 150; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). 43 Bultmann suggested Herodotus 9.108–13; Livy 39.43; and Plutarch, Art. 17 (History of the Synoptic Tradition, 301 n. 5). Bultmann (301 n. 4) also cites the view of W. Bussmann (Synoptische Studien [3 vols.; Halle: Waisenhaus, 1925–31], 1:30–34) that Ur-Markus lacked the entire account, but it is not entirely clear that Bultmann agrees. 44 The version here is from Livy 39.43:3–4; as quoted, with discussion, in Crossan, Jesus, 35–37: At Placentia a notorious woman, with whom Flaminius was desperately in love, had been invited to dinner. There he was boasting to the courtesan, among other things, about his severity in the prosecution of cases and how many persons he had in chains, under sentence, whom he intended to behead. Then the woman, reclining below him, said that she had never seen a person beheaded and was very anxious to behold the sight. Hereupon, he says, the generous lover, ordering one of the wretches to be brought to him, cut off his head with his sword. This deed . . . was savage and cruel: in the midst of drinking and feasting, where it was the custom to pour libations to the gods and to pray for blessings, as a spectacle for a shameless harlot, reclining in the bosom of a consul, a human victim sacrificed and bespattering the table with his blood!” It is interesting that Crossan’s concern is only with the death of John, and he pays no attention to the implications of his argument for the vindication of Herodias and Salome. Kathleen Corley also associates the Flaminius narrative with the Gospels, but makes no claim for any direct connection. Rather, she considers the Gospel story “stock and stereotypical for the first century: an official performs an execution in the context of a banquet at the request of a courtesan” (Private Women, Public Meals, 94). Corley also suggests that the banquet scene is used here to impugn the Herodians specifically and to contrast their disgusting behavior with the sober meals and banquet practices of the Jesus movement (pp. 93–94). 45 Hartmann, Tod.

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A particularly complex and imaginative thesis concerning the Herodians associated with John’s death has come, as I have already noted, from Kokkinos’s extensive treatment of the Herodian family.46 In Kokkinos’s reconstruction, Herodias was born around 15 b.c.e. and betrothed by her grandfather, Herod the Great, to her paternal uncle Herod around 8/7 b.c.e. The marriage itself would have taken place around 1 b.c.e., when she would have been fourteen or so and Herod would have been about twenty-seven (he was born in 28 b.c.e.). Herod was disinherited by his father in 7 b.c.e, something that in Kokkinos’s view would have made him a much less desirable husband, with the result that Herodias would not have wanted to remain married to him. After their daughter, Salome, was born (presumably in the very early years of the first century c.e.), Herodias did part from a living husband, flouting the ancestral laws, not to marry Herod Antipas but to marry the other brother, Philip the Tetrarch. Kokkinos dismisses as simply inaccurate Josephus’s claim that it was Salome who married Philip47 and argues that when Philip died, childless, in September of 33,48 Antipas saw an opportunity to acquire the estate of his now deceased and heirless brother. But Philip’s widow, Herodias, was a potential fly in the ointment, so Antipas proposed marriage to her, a proposal that Kokkinos takes (as do some other interpreters, including Hoehner) to be for a bigamous marriage. Herodias accepted on the condition that Antipas divorce his wife. But, as we have already seen, Antipas’s plans went awry and the Aretas affair ensued. Kokkinos is well aware that for this scenario to hold, the dancer of the Gospel narratives cannot have been Herodias’s daughter, Salome, for she would have been in her thirties when John died, far too old to qualify as the koravsion dancer. To this, he offers a particularly speculative, if ingenious, solution: following the Markan readings from Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, and Codex Bezae, he takes the dancer to be “his daughter, Herodias,” that is, a daughter of Herod Antipas, presumably by his earlier Nabataean wife, a daughter who “must have been a younger princess called Herodias II or perhaps Herodias II-Salome.”49 He also contends that Herodias’s daughter, Salome, would have been far too old to have been the wife of 46 Laid

out particularly in Herodian Dynasty, 264–71 and 271–304 on Agrippa I, although pieces of it are scattered throughout his book and several articles, particularly “Which Salome?” 33–50. Despite the relatively early publication of that article, few subsequent discussions of John’s death take account of Kokkinos’s work, which was not available in its full form until 1998. This is obvious in Taylor’s brief discussion (Immerser, 257) of the date of John’s death, the age of Salome, and so on. Kokkinos’s book (but not the article) appears in Hartmann’s bibliography, but Hartmann’s discussion of Josephus’s account of John’s death, and of the historical issues in general, does not refer to Kokkinos’s work. Taylor’s brief discussion of the date of John’s death does not engage the complex problems raised by Kokkinos. 47 Kokkinos, Herodian Dynasty, 237. 48 Ibid.; for the larger treatment of Philip, see 236–40. 49 Ibid., 270.

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Aristobulus and that Josephus has confused her with yet another Salome.50 In this reconstruction, John’s death (and by implication that of Jesus) takes place between 34 and 36 c.e., but Kokkinos is not particularly troubled by the challenge this poses to the traditional chronology derived from Luke.51 While some more recent work, particularly that by Kokkinos, Theissen, and Hartmann, makes constructive contributions to various particular issues, no serious engagement of the divergent accounts results in a coherent and conflict-free reconstruction. One cannot, for example, reconcile the apparent chronology of the Aretas affair and Josephus’s claims about the interval between Salome’s birth and her parents’ separation with the Gospels. If we accept Josephus’s claim that Herodias married Antipas shortly after the birth of Salome and (following his narration of the Aretas affair) date the marriage to ca. 34 c.e., Salome would have been born closer to 30 c.e., and would thus have married Philip (before his death in 33 c.e.) as a toddler, more or less, something that seems highly implausible, and in no way consistent with the tone of Josephus’s report. Furthermore, if Salome was born around 30 c.e., she may not even have been born when John died according to the chronology implicit in Luke.52 If one is willing to date the death of John (and thus also the death of Jesus) at the very end of the chronology of the Aretas affair, but still within the reign of Pilate, that is, no later than 35–36 c.e., a Salome born around 30 c.e. might qualify as the koravsion, but she would still then be quite young and no longer terribly amenable to interpretations that rely on a particular understanding of her sexual appeal to Herod.53 Additionally, if John dies in 34 c.e. or later, Salome would have been married to Philip before the 50 Ibid., 305 (also 309–13); see also “Which Salome?” 51 Sanders critiques Kokkinos’s arguments dating the death of Jesus and John in his appendix to Historical Figure of Jesus (pp. 282–90), where he argues that Kokkinos is wrong because Josephus does not necessarily write in order (an observation various scholars have made), and thus the death of John could have been years before the Aretas affair. Sanders would appear to miss the point that if one aggregates the Gospels and Josephus, John’s death has to come after the marriage, which cannot be too much earlier than Aretas’s attack; Sanders seems also to miss many other interwoven issues, including the identification and age of Salome; the return of Agrippa from Rome; and so on. Sanders also relied on an earlier article by Kokkinos on the death of Jesus and not on the more extensive arguments of the Herodian Dynasty. In any case, Sanders takes the position that it is desirable in this instance to amalgamate the accounts of Josephus and the Gospels concerning John’s death (p. 92). And see above, n. 33. 52 It would be interesting to argue that this conflict is one of the reasons the story is missing in Luke, but there seems to be no way to determine this. 53 I do not personally find this devastating on its face, but it is an unacceptable conclusion to many interpreters of these texts, who presume, as we have seen, that only an erotic dance would have rendered Antipas sufficiently pliant; see n. 19 above; see also Theissen, Gospels, 93 n. 80. Although one might not want to rule out the possibility that the erotic appeal of children is at work here, for various reasons, I think this less likely, and an explanation that one would think to offer only in order to resolve some of these problems.

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death of John, at least if Josephus’s report on their union is correct, something that makes her appearance at the banquet highly suspect. Yet since Herodias and her first husband appear to have married very early in the first century, if Salome was born as late as ca. 30 c.e., she was born to Herodias after many years of otherwise childless marriage—not impossible, but certainly unusual. Further, if Salome was born within a few years of the marriage, she would have been far too old to be the koravsion dancer, and probably too old to have had three sons with Aristobulus.54 In other words, Josephus’s implication that Salome was quite young when Herodias left Herod to marry Antipas is not necessarily compatible with a chronology that is itself consistent with the Gospels. All this suggests that, on balance, it might be wiser to regard the reports in Josephus and the Gospels as separate narratives that cannot and should not be amalgamated. Abandoning the attempt to reconcile Josephus and the Gospels does not, however resolve the question of which if any of these stories, or their constituent elements, is historically factual. For instance, treating these as separate accounts will not resolve the seemingly disparate evidence in Josephus concerning the date of the marriage of Antipas and Herodias, but it does enable us to separate out the dating of the marriage from the dating of John’s death, a linkage that is necessitated only by reading Josephus and the Gospels together. Further, hypothetically, it is still possible that Herodias and her daughter did, indeed, play a determining role in the death and dismemberment of John, although both because of the discrepancies analyzed above and for additional reasons laid out at the onset of this article and developed below, I find this highly untenable. It is, of course, conceivable that there is no truth to the Josephan narrative either, but to some extent this is beside the point. My position is that the Gospel narratives seem unlikely to be true and require explanation, which may be more fruitfully sought in a consideration of what particular “Christian” interests might be served by them.

IV. An Alternative Analysis It is then my contention that the entire narrative in the Gospels is a fabrication designed to respond to a particular internal dilemma, whose only probable historical veracity lies in its report that Herod Antipas had John the Baptizer executed. One possible Christian interest is the suppression of any suggestion that Herodian rulers found a figure associated with Jesus to be potentially seditious, or a messianic contender, or both. Another is the desire both to conform and to subordinate John’s biography to Jesus. Such concerns may well affect the shaping of the present Gospel narratives. But such arguments at best may explain why 54 But

see n. 14 above; at least some women did continue to bear children up to menopause in their late forties.

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the Gospels do not concur with Josephus’s explanation and cannot, on their own, account for the implication of Herodias and her daughter. Even scholars who consider the Gospel narrative(s) to be legends, such as Bultmann, rarely devote much consideration to why such legends implicate Herodias and her daughter.55 My own proposal proceeds in part from the narrative frame found both in Mark and in Matthew, according to which the story of John’s death is presented in the context of speculation about the identity of Jesus. In Mark, hearing reports of the miraculous doings of Jesus and his disciples, and speculation, which the Gospel writers clearly consider false, that Jesus might be John raised from the dead, Antipas too seemingly says, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised” (6:16). Matthew here lacks the recitation of options for Jesus’ identity,56 but contains Herod’s conclusion that Jesus is John raised from the dead. Since Jesus could only be the resurrected John if John is now dead, the story of John’s death is introduced. In my view, these narratives respond to early Christian anxieties and contestations about the relationship between Jesus and John: they are fashioned to refute not simply the suggestion that John the Baptist has been resurrected but more precisely the possibility that Jesus is John raised from the dead by telling a narrative in which the body of John is desecrated in a manner that makes it impossible to resurrect it, at least physically, by severing the head from the body, and by leaving the head with Herodias while burying the corpse.57 55

Taylor devotes only a few pages of her long chapter entitled “Opposition and Death” (Immerser, 213–58) to the implication of Herodias and her daughter, and is content to explain Herodias’s role as the result of “a characterization of Herodias as a manipulative woman and Antipas as a man who was pushed around by his wife” citing Josephus, Ant. 18.240–55 (Immerser, 247). A similar treatment occurs in Hartmann, who, having decided that Herodias’s role cannot be determined with certainty, notes that it is consistent with the representation of Herodias in Josephus as a single-minded, determined woman (Tod, 239). Theissen offers no explanation for why Herodias in particular would have been blamed and does appear to see it as an instance of general anti-Herodian sentiment in the Galilee. He also points out that implicating Herodias would have been consistent both with a “popular” perception that “Herodian women influenced court processes and executions” (Gospels, 88) and with “the body of malicious gossip that pursued a number of Herodian women in the first century” (Gospels, 93–94). For Theissen, this was simply an upperclass phenomenon in general: Herodian women were no more “corrupt” than other members of their class. See also Hartmann’s quotation (p. 134 n. 278) of a similar argument in the dissertation of Irene Dannemann, “Aus dem Rahmen fallen: Frauen im Markusevangelium. Eine feministiche Re-Vision” (Berlin, 1996). 56 It does occur in Mark 8:27–29; Luke 9:19–20; and Matt 16:13–16, where Jesus asks his disciples various forms of the question “Who do people say I am/the Son of Man is,” and the responses include John the Baptist, Elijah, and the prophets. 57 My argument thus shares something with Martin Dibelius’s view that Mark was trying to counter the claim that John had been revived from the dead (Die urchristliche Überlieferung von Johannes der Taüfer [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1911], 85ff., cited in Wink, John the Baptist, 11). Wink suggests that Mark 6:14–16 and 8:28 undercut this reading of Mark, and thus Dibelius. In attempting to refute Dibelius, Wink appears disconcerted by the possibility that

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Although it might initially seem that Antipas’s assessment of John’s identity in Mark 6:16 contradicts this thesis, in fact I think it supports it. First, although Antipas’s response is usually taken to be declarative: “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised,” it might just as easily be read as a question—“Has John, whom I beheaded, been raised?” This, interestingly, appears to be exactly how Luke understands it, for in 9:7–9, responding to rumors of Jesus’ actions and the claim that Jesus is John redivivus, Luke reads: “But [over and against these other options] Herod said, ‘I beheaded John: who is this one about whom I hear such things?’” The author of Luke thus implies that Antipas thinks that Jesus cannot be John, because Antipas had previously beheaded him. Further implicit in Antipas’s objection is precisely the notion that something about beheading John makes it impossible for him to be resurrected in the body of Jesus. My reading of Mark is further supported by the fact that if Antipas is saying Jesus must be John, this view is identical with that set forth in Mark 6:14 and seems unnecessary; it is also hard to understand why it is counterposed to the other explanations, since it is essentially the same. Finally, regardless of what Antipas thinks, he is wrong. This point is emphasized especially in Matthew (who may be concerned with the ambiguity of Mark 6:16)—for Matthew alters Mark to say that the body was buried (e[qayan), not placed or laid (e[qhkan) in a tomb, and that the disciples then told Jesus about it, further emphasizing that Jesus is already active when John dies.58 In much of my work, I have found it constructive to analyze the composition of narrative components by asking how they answer particular questions59 (or what I sometimes describe to my students as the “Jeopardy” method of exegesis —namely: To what question is this passage the answer?). Here I propose that the story of Antipas, Herodias, and her daughter is constructed to provide a compelling answer to the question not of why John was executed but of why John was executed by decapitation, or why, following his execution by some other means, his head was then severed from his body.60 Mark and Matthew tell a tale whose specific elements answer a progressive set of questions: ancient persons might actually have thought that John had been raised by God in a manner comparable to the resurrection of Jesus, and he insists that any rumors about John’s resurrection would actually have envisioned him merely “raised from the grave,” not “brought back from heaven” (John the Baptist, 10). In a note, Wink (p. 13) discusses the possibility that the underlying structure of the story comes from the story of Ahab and Jezebel against Elijah but otherwise says nothing about the women. In any case, apart from Wink, I have seen no consideration of Dibelius’s view. 58 Taylor thinks that the reference to the disposition of John’s body reflects knowledge of an actual tomb of John (Immerser, 249), but I think this is not necessary to account for this element, which I see as not so much historical as critically functional to the narrative. 59 See, e.g., my analysis of the story of Joseph and Aseneth, in When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 3–50. 60 Taylor thinks that this may come from Antipas’s desire to see the head as proof of John’s death (Immerser, 248–49), noting Josephus’s report that Vitellius had orders to send back the head

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Why is Jesus not John resurrected from the dead? The Gospel narratives are clear that this identification has been suggested. It would seem to be troubling to followers of Jesus for obvious reasons, namely, that it obscures distinctions between Jesus and John and may even subordinate the former to the latter. The account of John’s death in the Gospels, but not in Josephus, provides a functional response to this question. Jesus is not John raised from the dead because John’s body and head were severed: only his body was buried by his disciples, while the whereabouts of his head, given to Herodias, are unknown, thus, implicitly, making his bodily resurrection impossible.61 I recognize that this also implies a particular understanding of resurrection, in which the state of the dead body is somehow related to its capacity for resurrection.62

of Antipas (Ant. 18.115). In my view, though, this misses the theological utility of severing John’s head. 61 The idea that a desecrated body is at least difficult, if not impossible, to resurrect informs contemporary Orthodox Jewish practices, but its origins are uncertain. 62 See also n. 57 above. I am well aware that there appears to be little if any external corroborating evidence that anyone in this period thought that the major desecration of a dead body rendered it incapable of physical resurrection. The absence of such evidence is reflected in the relatively little discussion of the precise nature of expectations about bodily resurrection in a collection of recent essays on ancient Jewish conceptions of resurrection, life after death, and the world to come: Judaism in Late Antiquity, part 4, Death, Life-after-death, Resurrection, and the World-to-come in the Judaisms of Antiquity (ed. Jacob Neusner, Alan J. Avery-Peck, and Bruce Chilton [Leiden: Brill, 2000]). John Collins notes briefly 2 Bar. 49:2, where the dead will be raised “with no change in their form,” in order to facilitate their identification for proper judgment (“The Afterlife in Apocalyptic Literature,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity, part 4, 119–40, here 131). A headless body would presumably pose a problem for such postmortem identification, but in any case the context of the passage is postmortem judgment, and it sheds no meaningful light on beliefs about the possibility of resurrecting a person whose head had been severed from the body and disposed of separately. Speculation about Jesus as John or some other ancient prophet resurrected seems closer to Josephus’s apparent references to expectations not of resurrection but of reincarnation, or metempsychosis, in War 2.163 and Ant. 18.14. (Here I concur completely with Lester Grabbe’s position that Josephus both ascribes such beliefs to the Pharisees and may have held them himself as well (“Eschatology in Philo and Josephus,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity, part 4, 163–88, here 175–76). In the War, Josephus recounts his speech to the Zealots, opposing their plan to commit mass suicide because it would, in fact, make it impossible for those who did so to be reincarnated. Still, in the Synoptics, Antipas clearly takes his own execution of John to mean that Jesus cannot be John. Either he cannot here be envisioning the possibility of reincarnation, or he thinks, as perhaps Josephus would have, that certain kinds of death and dismemberment would preclude such a possibility. Conceivably, Jesus’ predictions in Mark 13:6||Matt 24:5||Luke 21:8 that “many will come and say, I am (he),” also allude to notions either of bodily resurrection or of reincarnation (even while Jesus admonishes his followers that these claims will be false). Again, though, they do not speak to the resurrection of a deficient body. The traditions about Nero redivivus, while fascinating on their own, do not contribute to a resolution of this question, although it is interesting that Nero, too, was said to have committed suicide: for recent discussion, see Hans-Josef Klauck, “Do They Never Come Back? Nero Redivivus and the Apocalypse of John,” CBQ 63 (2001), 683–98.

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How did John’s body come to be desecrated in this particular manner—by decapitation? Accounting for this particular manner of John’s execution requires an explanation beyond a simple desire for his death. The Markan and Matthean narratives attribute this to Herodias’s desire not merely for John’s death but for the specific presentation of John’s head on a platter. Why did Herodias want John’s head on a platter? What motivated her? Herodias’s (and/or Salome’s) desire for John’s head has been explained in highly sexualized terms by interpreters who either take it as a reliable historical datum or examine it within the confines of the literary narrative.63 Clearly it comes to be read this way, but in my view, such readings miss the original function of the claim in the ancient narratives, even if ancient audiences themselves might have found the sexualized motivation compelling. The Gospels themselves do not provide any indication of why Herodias wanted John’s actual head: they claim only that she was incensed at John’s criticism of her marriage to Antipas. Perhaps it is sufficient for the purposes of the narrative to attribute this desire to her, without being explicit about her motivations. How did Herodias accomplish this (craven) desire? If the Gospels do not seem to need to explain why Herodias wanted John’s head, on a platter, they do seem quite concerned to explain how she maneuvered Antipas not merely into executing John but into decapitating him. By capitalizing on Antipas’s weaknesses regarding her daughter, she seized on the opportunity to make a request Antipas could not refuse. This, then, explains the introduction of Herodias and her daughter into the story of John’s death, but it also suggests that their role is historically unlikely and attributable, instead, to the needs of the story itself. It also suggests why, if Mark or his source borrowed from the Flaminius tale in particular (something I think cannot be demonstrated) it was precisely because it provided the requisite narrative of decapitation.64 63 So, for example, Anderson has a lengthy discussion of the history of interpretation of decapitation as castration, and of Herodias’s and her daughter’s actions as only a temporary defeat of male power (“Dancing Daughter,” 126–27). See also Glancy, “Unveiling Masculinity,” 47–50; she critiques readers such as Frank Kermode who construe Herodias’s desire for John’s head as sexual, equating John’s head with his genitals, suggesting that the problem lies more with Mark’s readers, for whom “[g]azing at the spectacle of voracious femininity proves easier than gazing at masculinity and unveiling it as masquerade.” Glancy (“Unveiling Masculinity,” 37) relies substantially on the psychoanalytic theories of Karen Horney that “men’s anxieties about masculinity shape their perceptions of women” for her analysis of the Markan narrative, Notwithstanding Glancy’s considerable insights, the use of such a universalizing psychological theory raises methodological and theoretical difficulties. 64 Although the Flaminius tale seems to have been widespread—if its presence in at least three contemporaneous writers is any indication—and has some of the same elements as the Markan account of John’s death (a banquet, a beheading, a display of the head, and so forth), I doubt that the tale itself generated the Markan narrative. I do, however, think it possible that it played some role in

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It is my argument, then, that the Gospels of Mark and Matthew tell us nothing reliable about the participation of two Herodian Jewish princesses, a mother and her daughter, in the death of John the Baptizer, who was most probably put to death by Herod Antipas for precisely the political reasons offered by Josephus and, in somewhat condensed form, by the author of Matthew. Whether Herodias played some role cannot, I recognize, be entirely ruled out, but if she did, such an assessment cannot be based on the narrative in the Gospels. Furthermore, I find its absence from Josephus somewhat inexplicable had he known of it, given his willingness to portray her quite negatively in his account of her separation from her first husband, Herod, and her manipulative role in Antipas’s attempt to gain the title basileus. Given the numerous debates about whether the Markan narrative originates with its author or incorporates an existing story, I need to say something about my own views, or at least about the models implicit in my argument. It should be clear that I do not think the Gospel writers, or early followers of Jesus, are responsible for the basic datum that Antipas executed John, which I think historically likely. I do not, however, presently have strong views about whether the remainder of the narrative is a Markan fabrication or something that its author had, conveniently, ready to hand. While I find helpful Hartmann’s conclusion that it is no longer possible to disentangle the Markan sources from their final form, for my purposes, it matters most that the story is a fabrication and one that serves clear theological interests of early followers of Jesus. As I have already made clear, I find the framing of the story, namely, the reports of rumors or speculation that Jesus is John raised from the dead, to be central to the story in Mark and Matthew. Implicit in this argument is the claim either that the author of Mark inherited the framing from a prior source, or that the framing and the account of John’s death are a joint Markan construction. It is tempting to argue that concerns about Jesus’ identity in relationship to John are quite early, if not contemporaneous with their respective careers, which might then suggest that the narrative is not a Markan creation, but this remains merely a possibility, if a reasonable one. Yet another factor may be at work in the construction of the narrative now in Mark, whether on the part of the evangelist or an earlier formulation, namely, an interest in (further) emphasizing the gendered nature of Herod’s actions with regard to John. This could function simultaneously to feminize Herod and heighten the representation of John as properly masculine in the face of the apparently contradictory evidence of his dishonorable (and un-masculine) death. Not inconceivably, an interest in refashioning the death of Jesus also underlies such an effort, but this is not central to my argument here and would require further discussion. providing a convenient scenario for how a high-ranking official could be manipulated into decapitating someone. In my view, though, the need for the decapitation produces interest in the Flaminius story, and not vice versa.

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In an intriguing and often insightful article, Jennifer Glancy has argued that the Markan narrative relies on a construction of femininity as “to-be-lookedat-ness” and of masculinity as active voyeurism and carries with it the further presumption that looking at women causes men to do things.65 There is, however, more to be said regarding the Markan deployment of gender constructions. In Mark, Antipas’s execution of John is represented as the intentional choice not of a ruler whose decisions are grounded in the judgment and self-control appropriate to masculinity but of a man fallen victim to his own appetites and desires, something many ancient writers understood as a feminine frailty. His lack of selfmastery renders him vulnerable to the manipulations of his wife, which heightens the critique: unable to control himself, Antipas acquiesces to the unjust, if not evil, desires of his wife, inverting the appropriate power relationship that should exist between them. Mark’s slim excuse for Antipas’s acquiescence (that it would have been worse for him to renege on his promise than to grant the dancer’s horrific request) does little to undercut the basic critique. Glancy suggests that when Herodias and her daughter compel Herod to act against his will, they reveal Herodian masculinity to be an artifice, briefly (but fleetingly) becoming actors and agents themselves.66 In Mark, listening to a woman as well as looking at one costs a man dearly. Looking at the dancer may cause Antipas to swear a rash and catastrophic oath: listening to the dancer voice her mother’s request causes Antipas to do something he apparently otherwise would not have done. I think it likely that here we have an intertextual invocation of Gen 3:17: “to the Adam he said: because you have listened to the voice of your wife. . . .” Focusing her analysis entirely on the Markan text, Glancy offers no comment on the ways in which at least one ancient reader apparently read Mark, namely, the author of Matthew.67 From my perspective, Matthew’s recasting of the Markan narrative actually remasculinizes Herod a little, in that (listening to) Herodias 65 Glancy,

“Unveiling Masculinity,” 39–40. Glancy offers a brief discussion of the historical context of the Markan narrative that does not really engage the complex historical problems in this article. She offers no discussion of the problems with the real historical Salome, and while she would no doubt claim that they are irrelevant for a literary analysis of the Markan narrative, it seems to me that the historical problems here cannot but condition our readings. I find problematic, if not also disturbing, some of the literary readings of the story, largely detached from any historical moorings, that have been published in scholarly venues in recent years: e.g., Renee Girard, “Scandal and the Dance: Salome in the Gospel of Mark,” New Literary History 15 (1984): 311–24; Camille Focant, “La tête du prophète sur un plat ou, l’anti-repas d’alliance (Mc 6.14–29),” NTS 47 (2001): 334–53. For a more general discussion of femaleness constructed as the object of the male gaze, see Pierre Bourdieu, Masculine Domination (trans. Richard Nice; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). 66 She concludes that the women in the scene have no power apart from that with which Herod invests them (Glancy, “Unveiling Masculinity,” 42). 67 Nor, for the same reason, does Anderson.

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merely enables him to do what he had always wished to do, making them both more evenly culpable. My primary purpose here is to suggest that concerns about gender may play some additional role in the formation of a narrative that implicates Herodias and her daughter in the death of John, through their exercise of indirect power and the manipulation of a weak, emasculate ruler whose lack of sufficient masculine self-control enables Herodias to accomplish her destructive (female) desires. To devote any significant consideration to constructions of gender in Josephus would seem to be somewhat digressive. Yet it is interesting to note that similar constructions of gender figure prominently in Josephus. He is harshly critical of Herodias when she violates pervasive ancient understandings of appropriate behavior for women (taking an active role, for instance, in terminating her marriage to her first husband, Herod, rather than a natural appropriately passive role), but he paints a somewhat more sympathetic portrait of Herodias when she demonstrates her loyalty to her second husband, Herod Antipas. The specific motif of the dangers of a man listening to the speech of his wife also occurs in Josephus, although not, of course, in the narrative of John’s death. Instead, it occurs in Josephus’s account of Antipas’s failed attempt to get himself elevated to the rank of king, which culminated in the banishment of both Herodias and Antipas and the confiscation of their property.68 Perhaps what particularly offended ancient writers about Herodias, including Josephus, Mark, and Matthew was precisely her autonomy and her attempts to exercise control over her life, something women were not generally expected to do. If her complicity in the death of the Baptizer is, in fact, manufactured, it is all the more interesting to consider that such blame functions as a telling critique of autonomous women.69 The uses of gender in the narratives of John’s death, as well as in the narratives of the Herodian players associated with his death, vastly complicate efforts to engage in historical reconstruction. Perhaps precisely because gender construction figures so strongly in these narratives, it compels us to reconsider their historicity and supports my thesis that these stories about women, perhaps like many others,70 are stories about something else—in this particular case, stories about the competition between John and Jesus. 68 In Josephus’s view, God himself, through the agency of the Roman emperor, Gaius, enforces a system of gendered power relations. He comments: “And so God meted out this judgment to Herodias for her envy of her brother and to Herod for listening to women’s light speech” (Ant. 18.255). This is a fairly literal translation of this last phrase. Feldman’s translation, “a woman’s frivolous chatter,” for gunaikevwn . . . koufologiw'n makes me slightly uncomfortable. It is difficult to convey what I think Josephus means yet not assent to the characterization. 69 This is a very different argument from that made by Theissen (above, n. 55), who sees the Gospel stories as a kind of generalized hostility toward Herodian women. 70 See, e.g., Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph, ch. 7, “Why Is Aseneth a Woman? The Use and Significance of Gender in the Aseneth Stories”; Ross S. Kraemer and Shira L. Lander, “Perpetua

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V. Concluding Observations I close with two observations. First, this project has implications for the presentation of the relationship between John and Jesus in early Christian narratives. The need to refute the view that Jesus was John redivivus drives more than the story of John’s death.71 It may well also drive other narratives about John, most crucially the narrative about John’s baptism of Jesus. Scholars have long recognized that the story of John’s baptism of Jesus was problematic. This is apparent in everything from Luke’s somewhat tortuous omission of it, to Matthew’s apparent reworking to provide Jesus’ explicit authorization, to the most explicit version in the Gospel of the Nazarenes, where Jesus’ mother and brothers propose that they all go to be baptized by John and Jesus responds: “Wherein have I sinned that I should go and be baptized by him?”72 Using the so-called criterion of dissimilarity, the story of Jesus’ baptism has generally been taken as factual, on the grounds that its obvious difficulties guarantee that it would not have been fabricated by followers of Jesus.73 My analysis here suggests that, on the contrary, there is an excellent reason to have Jesus baptized by John; it guarantees that Jesus cannot then be John raised from the dead. Indeed, all the exchanges between Jesus’ disciples and John or John’s disciples serve the same function; they illustrate that Jesus and John were alive, if not also active and preaching at one and the same time, and even met, at least once, when John baptized Jesus. To argue this at length, of course, is a complex project far beyond the scope of this study. Here my concern has been largely to rehabilitate both the historical Salome, who is likely to have played no role in the death of John, and probably also her mother, Herodias, who, if she played any role, is unlikely to have played the particularly craven role assigned to her—I have proposed here—out of Christian desire to refute claims that Jesus was John raised from the dead. and Felicitas,” in The Early Christian World (ed. Philip Esler; London: Routledge, 2000), 2:1048–68. Kate Cooper (The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996]) and Elizabeth A. Clark (most recently in History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004]) have both argued that many, if not all, ancient literary representations of women should be understood as male writers using women as a heuristic device with which “to think” (borrowing from a phrase of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology [New York: Basic Books, 1963], 61). In my present view, the questions are extremely complex. 71 The possibility recurs, and is refuted again in Mark 8:27-29 and parallels. 72 Jerome, Against Pelagius 3.2, from New Gospel Parallels (ed. Robert W. Funk; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 1:22. 73 Interestingly, in a footnote to his supplemental discussion of Mark 6:14 and parallels, Bultmann put forth the view that it was John’s performance of multiple miracles that prompted speculation that Jesus was John resurrected, from which he concludes that “in contrast to the presentation in John, the ministry of Jesus did not begin until after the death of John” (Synoptic Tradition, 302 n. 1).

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Second, that this thus rehabilitates two Jewish women (or perhaps more accurately, a Herodian princess and her daughter, who may or may not have been a grown woman at the time) is not insignificant, but not necessarily for the obvious reasons. Unquestionably, these Gospel narratives have implications for the problems of Christian anti-Judaism. Both Herodias and her daughter have been vilified in countless works.74 Salome has figured prominently in Christian imagination about the death of John the Baptizer. Western European painting has featured her relishing John’s head displayed on a platter, while Oscar Wilde’s play (and Richard Strauss’s opera based on that play) has imprinted in modern Western Christian culture the vivid image of a voluptuous woman dancing seductively before her besotted stepfather in order to satisfy her own craven sexual desires for the head of the righteous John.75 Twentieth-century Western cinema has reinforced these representations.76 Yet there is no particular reason to think that anti-Judaism accounts either for the Markan narrative or its revisions in Matthew. From an early Christian perspective, even presuming that perspective to be itself somehow not Jewish, Herodias and her daughter were no more or less “Jewish” than Herod Antipas. The willingness of subsequent Christian tradition to ignore the divergent accounts in Mark and Matthew, to expand these narratives and to vilify these women far beyond anything in the Gospels themselves is another matter, of course, and suggests that subsequent Christians have been particularly fond of the representation of voluptuous, seductive, evil Jewish women, who may serve, perhaps, as a counterpoint to the virtuous and generally chaste women who attend Jesus at the cross and at his burial, and witness to his resurrection.77 74 E.g.,

Edith Deen, All of the Women of the Bible (New York: Harper & Row, 1955; paperback reprint, 1988), who calls Herodias “the most striking example in the NT of how far reaching can be the evil influence of a heartless, determined woman in a high position.” Deen likens Herodias to Jezebel and attributes to her not only the death of John, but perhaps a hastening of the crucifixion (p. 184). Descended from a line of “wicked people,” the daughter, too, is tainted with the familial wickedness. Deen claims that “we are told she excelled in sensuous dancing” (p. 185) although the Gospels say nothing of the sort. Apparently familiar with Josephus, Deen offers her own psychologizing explanation of Herodias’s second marriage, attributing her actions to the desire for power which she could not satisfy through her first husband. Herbert Lockyer’s [1886–1984] The Women of the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967; reprinted with a title virtually identical to that of Deen, All the Women of the Bible: The Life and Times of All the Women of the Bible, 1976, 1996), calls Herodias “one of the most vile and vicious” of the portrait gallery of wicked women, and a female hyena (p. 68). Lockyer, too, compares her to Jezebel. 75 For a helpful summary of the history of such interpretation, see Glancy, “Unveiling Masculinity”; Anderson, “Dancing Daughter”; and Hartmann, Tod, 356–64, all with additional references. 76 E.g., Nicolas Ray and Samuel Bronston’s King of Kings (1961); Martin Scorsese’s 1988 adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel The Last Temptation of Christ; and compare the more moderate interpretation in Pier Pasolini’s Gospel According to (Saint) Matthew (1964). 77 There is helpful discussion of lurid Christian interest in the exoticized figure of the Jewish woman in Anderson, “Dancing Daughter”; and Glancy, “Unveiling Masculinity.”

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 351–383

The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith scott g. brown [email protected] 20 Summerset Drive, Barrie, ON L4N 9L7 Canada

If there is one thing almost every NT scholar knows about the “secret” Gospel of Mark, it is the talk of forgery. Ever since Quentin Quesnell suggested the hypothetical possibility of modern forgery in 1975, those in the know have debated whether the late Morton Smith himself forged the evidence for this Gospel, a manuscript of a letter by Clement of Alexandria “to Theodore” that Smith catalogued and photographed at the monastery of Mar Saba in 1958.1 The evidence for and against the letter’s authenticity has been assessed in two new books, my own Mark’s Other Gospel, which sides with authenticity, and Stephen C. Carlson’s The Gospel Hoax, which accuses Smith of fraud.2 For the case against Smith to merit serious consideration, it must meet the standards of legal prosecution, which means the “prosecutors” must establish beyond reasonable doubt that the letter is a forgery, offer evidence connecting Smith with the manuscript, and demonstrate that the accused had the ability, opportunity, and motive to produce it. In cases of fraud, motive tends to be the principal issue. A variety of people might have the ability or opportunity to produce a forgery, but very few will have a compelling reason to produce the document in question. Fortunately for us, the question of motive in the case against Smith is the subject for which we have the most evidence. 1 Quentin

Quesnell, “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence,” CBQ 37 (1975):

48–67. 2 Scott G. Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel: Rethinking Morton Smith’s Controversial Discovery (Études sur le christianisme et le judaïsme 15; Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005); Stephen C. Carlson, The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith’s Invention of Secret Mark (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2005). None of Carlson’s evidence tying the document to Smith bears scrutiny. I will address that evidence and Carlson’s arguments against the letter’s authenticity in later publications. For now, see Scott G. Brown, “Reply to Stephen Carlson,” ExpTim 117, no. 4 (2006): 144–49.

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Three general hypotheses of motive have emerged during the last thirty years: (1) Smith forged the letter in order to discredit Christianity with evidence that Jesus was a homosexual; (2) he forged it as a hoax or joke for the personal satisfaction of duping his colleagues; and (3) he forged it as a controlled experiment in order to study how scholars respond to new evidence. The various conjectures that appear in the secondary literature normally fit into one of these three categories but sometimes involve elements from the other two. The present article will compare these hypotheses against the evidence they purport to explain, namely, the Letter to Theodore and Smith’s scholarship on this subject. I will begin by reproducing the verses in question from the “secret” Gospel, as Smith translated them in his scholarly book Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark and in his more accessible book The Secret Gospel (hereafter CA and SG).3 I prefer to use Smith’s alternative description “the longer Gospel of Mark” (LGM), because the word he translated as “secret” (mustikov" in 2.6, 12) meant something different in Clement’s usage; a mustiko;n eujaggevlion would refer to a Gospel whose essential truths are conveyed figuratively and therefore revealed through allegorical or symbolic exegesis; “mystic Gospel” is a better translation, but conveys the wrong connotations: LGM 1: (After Mark 10:34.) 1 And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. 2 And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” 3 But the disciples rebuked her. 4 And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, 5 and straightway a great cry was heard from the tomb. 6 And going near Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the tomb. 7 And straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. 8 But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. 9 And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. 10 And after six days Jesus told him what to do 11 and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. 12 And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. 13 And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan. LGM 2: (Within Mark 10:46.) 10:46a And he comes into Jericho. 1 And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, 2 and Jesus did not receive them. 10:46b And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples . . .

3 Morton

Smith, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 447; idem, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), 16–17. The versification used in this quotation is from The Complete Gospels: Annotated Scholars Version (ed. Robert J. Miller; Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1992), 405.

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I. The Gay Gospel Hypothesis The most popular theory of motive is what I call the Gay Gospel Hypothesis. The suspicion that justifies this premise has been explained in various ways. Robert M. Price recently proposed that “Smith, once an Episcopal priest, had a poisonous hatred for the Christian religion, especially for its historic homophobia, and . . . The Secret Gospel was an attempt toward evening the score.”4 Craig A. Evans remarked, “That this epistle apparently (and conveniently) lends a measure of support to Smith’s controversial contention that Jesus was a magician, perhaps even a homosexual, only adds to the suspicion that this Clementine epistle may well be a fake.”5 Evans took his cue from Jacob Neusner’s allegation that Smith “chose to believe everything bad he could about Jesus, perhaps making up what he could not read into the sources.”6 These statements reveal that this theory of motive is built on three premises: (1) Smith had a score to settle with Christianity; (2) Smith used the manuscript to convince people that Jesus was gay; and (3) the manuscript’s Gospel quotations clearly support this conclusion. The variation on this hypothesis elaborated by Donald Akenson presupposes only the third point. In his view, the pericope about the young man is “a nice ironic gay joke at the expense of all of the self-important scholars” who take it seriously; Smith composed it for the personal satisfaction of duping other scholars.7 Thus, Akenson’s version of the Gay Gospel Hypothesis is really a form of the Hoax Hypothesis. Our first task, 4 Robert

M. Price, “Second Thoughts on the Secret Gospel,” BBR 14 (2004): 127.

5 James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in the Agrapha and Apocryphal Gospels,”

in Studying the Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research (ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans; NTTS 19; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 526–27. Elsewhere Evans defended Smith but argued that the “secret” Gospel is a second-century forgery, that is, an apocryphal Gospel; see Craig A. Evans, “The Need for the ‘Historical Jesus’: A Response to Jacob Neusner’s Review of Crossan and Meier,” BBR 4 (1994): 129. 6 Jacob Neusner, Rabbinic Literature and the New Testament: What We Cannot Show, We Do Not Know (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994), 5. Neusner elaborated the Gay Gospel Hypothesis in his Are There Really Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels? A Refutation of Morton Smith (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 80; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 27–31, which he also published as “Who Needs ‘the Historical Jesus’? Two Elegant Works Rehabilitate a Field Disgraced by Fraud,” in his Ancient Judaism: Debates and Disputes; Third Series (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 83; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 171–84, here 173–76, and republished as “Who Needs ‘the Historical Jesus’? An Essay-Review,” BBR 4 (1994): 113–26, here 115–18, and in Rabbinic Literature, 172–74. The same accusation appears in the foreword Neusner wrote for the reprint he commissioned of Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity, with Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity (1961 and 1964; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), xxvii, xxxi. On Neusner’s personal motives for alleging fraud, see Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 39–45. 7 Donald Harman Akenson, Saint Saul: A Skeleton Key to the Historical Jesus (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 88.

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then, is to determine whether these three premises bear scrutiny, particularly the second and the third. For if Smith did not use the Letter to Theodore to support the contention that Jesus was gay, and if the Gospel quotations are more plausibly interpreted without reference to homosexuality, then the theory that Smith created the manuscript as a gay proof text is untenable. To save space, I will simply grant the assertion that Smith had a score to settle with Christianity. I have no doubt that his book Jesus the Magician was meant to reflect poorly on the church. I cannot decide whether Smith had an issue with Christian homophobia in particular because I found no reference to it in his published writings.8 That claim needs to be substantiated by evidence.

Did Smith Use Longer Mark as Evidence That Jesus Was Gay? Proponents of the Gay Gospel Hypothesis take it for granted that “gay magician” conveys the essence of Jesus the Magician and the thesis Smith presented in his two books on longer Mark. Price, for instance, summarized Smith’s thesis as “the Gay Jesus hypothesis,” and Neusner as “Jesus was ‘really’ a homosexual magician.”9 Some eighteen references to Smith’s homosexual magician appear in six of Neusner’s “post-Morton” publications, creating the distinct impression that Smith wrote as much about Jesus’ sexual orientation as he did about Jesus’ resemblance to ancient magicians.10 This impression is bolstered by the footnote attached to Neusner’s description of Smith’s thesis, which cites the entirety of the three books just mentioned (i.e., no page numbers).11 But proper documentation might seem unnecessary for a notion that is ubiquitous among Jesus scholars. It is not that unusual to read comments such as that Smith’s Jesus was “the leader of a gay Judean underground” whose members included “a drag queen” and engaged in “an orgiastic rite with overtones of cannibalism,”12 or that Smith construed 8 Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978). Smith expressed some (inconsistent) opinions about homosexuality in his book Hope and History, an Exploration (World Perspectives 54; New York: Harper & Row, 1980), 10, 18, 151–52, 185. 9 Price, “Second Thoughts,” 128; Neusner, Refutation, 28. 10 Five references to Smith’s homosexual magician appear in Neusner, Refutation, 27, 28 (3x), 31. Three of these references are repeated in “Disgraced by Fraud” and in the reprint of that book review in BBR; additional references occur in Refutation, 3, 16, 21, 25; Rabbinic Literature, 172; foreword to Memory and Manuscript, xxvii; and Jacob Neusner and Noam M. M. Neusner, The Price of Excellence: Universities in Conflict during the Cold War Era (New York: Continuum, 1995), 78. 11 Neusner, Refutation, 28 n. 10. 12 Quoting Charlotte Allen, The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus (New York: Free Press, 1998), 266, 267. Her “drag queen” is the man carrying a jar of water (Mark 14:13), whom Smith likened to a man wearing lipstick because carrying water in jars was what women did (SG, 80). Smith thought that the jar was a prearranged sign that would confirm the identity of this man to Jesus’ disciples, a precaution necessitated by Jesus’ fear of being arrested in Jerusalem

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the words “see how he loved him” in John 11:36 as evidence that “Jesus’ love for Lazarus too was homosexual (Smith’s word).”13 Such statements are bereft of truth. However, they show that even the people who have read Smith’s books have difficulty differentiating between what he argued and the straw-man caricature of his argument that incensed reviewers used to discredit Smith’s research without engaging in argument.14 The occasional scholar concedes that the Gay Gospel Hypothesis is based on one statement that appears in different forms in Smith’s two books on longer Mark, but even then we are told that “much of Smith’s entire work on the Secret Gospel does indeed move towards the homoerotic aspects of the historical ‘facts’ he has uncovered about Jesus, his explication of which, coming at the end of his long story of discovery, is the denouement of the entire argument.”15 Given the propensity of scholars “to project onto Smith’s entire interpretive work an imaginary emphasis on Jesus being a homosexual,”16 it is necessary to summarize what Smith did argue about Jesus vis-à-vis the longer Gospel of Mark before we consider the two statements in question. Smith reasoned that the final four verses of LGM 1 adumbrate a mystery initiation that Jesus offered his closest disciples, a special baptism requiring six days of preparation, a linen sheet to facilitate disrobing for immersion, and a on the night of the Passover. It is Allen’s proclivity to read homosexuality into Smith’s scholarship that turned this man into a transsexual. As for the “orgiastic rite,” Smith (Jesus the Magician, 65–67, 183/66) noted that non-Christians living at the end of the second century commonly thought that Jesus had been involved in sexual promiscuity, incest, and cannibalism. Smith did not give their opinions any credence, since he recognized that they were projections of misunderstood Christian practices back onto the founder of the religion, specifically, the practice of holding all things in common, the Christian tendency to call each other brother and sister, and the eucharistic equation of bread and wine with Jesus’ body and blood. Smith reasoned that because magicians were thought to practice such things, these misunderstood Christian practices reinforced the impression among critics of Christianity that Jesus was a magician. 13 Pierson Parker, “An Early Christian Cover-up?” New York Times Book Review (July 22, 1973): 5. What Smith actually wrote was that the bystanders’ words “see how he loved him!” were “perhaps intended to show how the Jews twisted Jesus’ innocent sorrow into evidence for a charge of homosexuality” (CA, 154). 14 These reviewers gave the impression that Smith’s entire theory had homosexual overtones. In Germany: Hans Conzelmann, “Literaturbericht zu den Synoptischen Evangelien (Fortsetzung),” TRu n.s. 43 (1978): 23; Helmut Merkel, “Auf den Spuren des Urmarkus? Ein neuer Fund und seine Beurteilung,” ZTK 71 (1974): 124; Werner Georg Kümmel, “Ein Jahrzehnt Jesusforschung (1965– 1975),” TRu n.s. 40 (1975): 303. In the United States: Parker, “Early Christian Cover-up?” 5; Patrick W. Skehan, CHR 60 (1974–75): 452. A lengthy “reminiscence” of Skehan’s straw-man rhetoric (about one hundred words) found its way into Bruce M. Metzger, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), 129–30, without reference to Skehan. 15 Bart D. Ehrman, “Response to Charles Hedrick’s Stalemate,” JECS 11 (2003): 156. 16 Shawn Eyer, “The Strange Case of the Secret Gospel According to Mark: How Morton Smith’s Discovery of a Lost Letter of Clement of Alexandria Scandalized Biblical Scholarship,” Alexandria 3 (1995): 109; online: http://www-user.uni-bremen.de/~wie/Secret/secmark-engl .html.

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nocturnal setting. In the course of this baptism the initiate united with Jesus’ spirit, whereupon the two ascended mystically to the heavens. This shared hallucination was achieved through hypnosis-inducing procedures not described in the pericope.17 The “mystery of the kingdom of God,” then, was really a mystery rite that allowed the initiate to enter God’s heavenly kingdom. There, the disciple was set free from the Mosaic Law, which applies only in the lower world. Through this process Jesus and his closest disciples became “libertines.” Although it is tempting to treat this word as a synonym for immorality or promiscuity, in Smith’s usage, “libertines” denotes Jews (and Gentile Christians) who did not feel constrained to keep the Mosaic Law. Accordingly, Smith characterized Paul’s gospel as libertine but Paul himself as a moralist and “a reluctant and sanctimonious libertine.”18 Smith’s indisputable evidence of Jesus’ own libertinism puts the matter in perspective: “He broke the sabbath, he neglected the purity rules, he refused to fast, made friends with publicans and sinners, and was known as a gluttonous man and a winebibber.”19 In Smith’s view, the postulate that Jesus offered a mystery rite of ascent into God’s kingdom that freed Jews from the Law of Moses explains the fact that Jesus’ legal pronouncements take two forms: one group presumes that the Law is fully in force (e.g., Matt 5:17–20; 23:2–3, 23; Mark 10:19); the other, that the Law ended with John the Baptist and that a new age, radically different from the old, has begun (e.g., Luke 16:16; Mark 2:21–22). The former sayings were directed to the uninitiated, who were obligated to keep the Law. The latter sayings were directed to Jesus’ baptized followers.20 Smith speculated that after Jesus’ death the mystery was offered to new converts, but the unanticipated phenomenon of mass conversion necessitated simplification of the procedure, and the ceremony became a simple baptism that permitted entry into the church, not entry into the heavenly kingdom.21 The baptism still imparted Jesus’ spirit, and with it, the ecstatic manifestations of spirit possession sought by magicians (e.g., the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12). Eventually, Jesus’ spirit became “the spirit, . . . an entity separate from Jesus, not directly experienced, but supposed to be present in the Church.” The Law-abiding, 17 In

a footnote, Smith speculated that the rite involved “repetitive, hypnotic prayers and hymns . . . , interference with breathing,” and “manipulation,” noting that “the stories of Jesus’ miracles give a very large place to the use of his hands” (SG, 113 n. 12). 18 Smith, SG, 141, 111; idem, “The Reason for the Persecution of Paul and the Obscurity of Acts,” in Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, vol. 2, New Testament, Early Christianity, and Magic (ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen; Leiden: Brill, 1996), 88; the quotation is from idem, “Paul’s Arguments as Evidence of the Christianity from Which He Diverged,” in ibid., 106. As Paul reasoned in 1 Cor 6:12–13 and 10:23, those who are not under the Jewish Law need not behave immorally. 19 Smith, CA, 262; SG, 130; the same evidence is given in Jesus the Magician, 43. 20 Morton Smith, “Jesus’ Attitude towards the Law,” in Papers of the Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies (ed. World Congress of Jewish Studies; Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1968), 1:241–44; CA, 248–51. 21 Smith, SG, 119–20; CA, 253–54.

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exoteric tradition flourished in Jerusalem under James, the brother of Jesus, who had not been initiated into the mystery because he “had not believed during Jesus’ lifetime, but had come into the church after Jesus’ death.” The Law-free, esoteric tradition was taken up by Paul and the Hellenists, and by the 50s “had produced some extremely embarrassing libertine consequences . . . (Rom 3:8; 6:1–23; 1 Cor 4:14–5:13, etc.).”22 What does this theory have to do with homosexuality? In both CA and SG, Smith made one comment about physical union as a conceivable aspect of the baptismal ritual that he perceived in LGM 1:11–12. The statements should be examined individually, because the comment in SG was written at least six years after the following comment in CA, and there are notable differences between them: “the mystery of the kingdom of God” . . . was a baptism administered by Jesus to chosen disciples, singly, and by night. In this baptism the disciple was united with Jesus. The union may have been physical (see above, commentary on III.13 and pp. 185f—there is no telling how far symbolism went in Jesus’ rite), but the essential thing was that the disciple was possessed by Jesus’ spirit. One with Jesus, he participated in Jesus’ ascent into the heavens; he entered the kingdom of God and was thereby set free from the laws ordained for and in the lower world.23

The statement about physical union is presented as a tentative conjecture, and Smith stressed that “the essential thing was that the disciple was possessed by Jesus’ spirit,” which was the point Smith actually argued. Smith devoted eightythree pages to arguing the elements of his reconstructed mystery rite, such as that Jesus baptized, that he had secret teachings, that he held contradictory positions on the Law, that the rite in LGM 1:12 was magical, that it united the participant with Jesus’ spirit, and that it involved an ascent to the heavens resulting in liberation from the Mosaic Law. By contrast, Smith’s conjecture about physical symbolism of union was not supported with arguments or evidence that Jesus was a homosexual. Certainly a scholar who was capable of reading Matthew’s story of the adoration of the magi as propaganda that “Jesus is the supreme magus and master of the art”24 could have cited the verses that refer to Jesus’ love for a particular man as evidence of homosexuality had he wished to prove that notion (i.e., Mark 10:21; John 11:3, 36; 13:23–25; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). Smith’s own statement suggests that he did not believe that a defensible argument could be made for the existence of eroticism in LGM 1 and did not wish this speculation to detract from his actual thesis. The notion that the baptism might have had an erotic element was a hunch, founded not so much on LGM 1 22 Quoting Smith, SG, 120, 122; idem, “Persecution of Paul,” 93. Cf. SG, 131; CA, 252–53, 256, 263. 23 Smith, CA, 251. 24 Smith, Jesus the Magician, 96.

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itself as on Jesus’ other rite of spiritual union, the Eucharist. Concerning the latter, Smith noted (1) that the Eucharist produces spiritual union with Christ through physical symbolism of union with Jesus’ body, namely, the ingestion of substances representing his body and blood; and (2) that the Eucharist finds its closest parallels in rituals of erotic magic. Since baptism likewise produces spiritual union with Christ through the reception of his spirit (e.g., 1 Cor 12:13), Smith wondered whether some form of physical symbolism of union with Jesus’ body might have existed in Jesus’ baptism rite as well. This reasoning is apparent in Smith’s response to Joseph Fitzmyer’s objection, “It is simply willful eisegesis to read the reference to the nocturnal meeting of the youth and Jesus, ‘who taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God,’ . . . as a rite of erotic magic practiced by Jesus.”25 Smith replied, “One of the most important elements in my argument is the (purely factual) observation that the closest ancient parallels to the ritual and words of institution of the Mass are found in erotic magical texts.”26 Smith also took note of the letter’s indication that the revision of longer Mark by the heretic Carpocrates had the words “naked man with naked man” (3.13). But Smith was hesitant to conclude from this that the Carpocratians understood the initiation in a sexual way; in his view, “the one thing certain about the Carpocratian text [i.e., that it involved nudity] is also the one thing most important for our present purpose: it is fully compatible with the interpretation of the secret ceremony as a baptism.”27 The parallel statement in SG reflects a change in conception: . . . The cloth was probably removed for the baptism proper, the immersion in water, which [in comparison with John’s baptism] was now reduced to a preparatory purification. After that, by unknown ceremonies [see n. 17, above], the disciple was possessed by Jesus’ spirit and so united with Jesus. One with him, he participated by hallucination in Jesus’ ascent into the heavens, he entered the kingdom of God, and was thereby set free from the laws ordained for and in the lower world. Freedom from the law may have resulted in completion of the spiritual union by physical union. This certainly occurred in many forms of gnostic Christianity; how early it began there is no telling.28

The final sentences are equally tentative. Smith acknowledged that there is no way of knowing whether gnostic sexual libertinism can be traced as far back as Jesus. 25 Joseph

A. Fitzmyer, “How to Exploit a Secret Gospel,” America 128 (June 23, 1973): 572.

26 Morton Smith, “Mark’s ‘Secret Gospel’?” America 129 (August 4, 1973): 65. See also Morton

Smith, “How Magic Was Changed by the Triumph of Christianity,” in Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, ed. Cohen, 2:210–11. 27 Smith, CA, 186. On p. 282 Smith suggested that the phrase “naked man with naked man” was originally part of the longer text and that it was eventually removed from the copy in Clement’s church so that it could not become “an occasion of sin.” So Smith did not think that these words offered a strong indication that the original rite had a sexual dimension, but he saw them as capable of being read that way. 28 Smith, SG, 113–14.

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On the other hand, this statement brings the chapter on “The Secret Baptism” to a close on a provocative note. And an interesting change has occurred here. In CA, the concept of physical union with Jesus is construed as ritual symbolism of the spiritual union that makes participation in Jesus’ ascent possible. In SG, the possibility of some unspecified manipulation comparable to Jesus’ use of his hands in healing stories takes the place of the physical symbolism of union prior to the ascent, and the conjecture about sexual union is moved to the period after the ascent—that is, after the hallucination of entering the heavenly kingdom frees the initiate from the obligation to keep the Torah, which explicitly prohibits such union. In other words, after writing CA, Smith apparently realized that sexual symbolism of spiritual union would not make sense prior to the initiate’s experience of freedom from the Law. But in this revised scenario, the spiritual union has already been achieved, so the rationale for physical symbolism of union is greatly attenuated. Sexual intercourse becomes a ritual affirmation of freedom from the Torah, a notion that seems gratuitous and sensationalistic. Smith’s theories about the longer Gospel continued to evolve through the 1970s and 1980s, but the speculation about physical union never reappeared in his published work. Contrary to popular opinion, his 1978 book Jesus the Magician contains no suggestion that Jesus engaged in sexual libertinism and makes scant reference to LGM 1 (approximately twelve lines of discussion spread out on pp. 134, 135, 138, 203, 207, 210). Smith’s thesis that Jesus fit a distinct social type that allies called a divine man and enemies called a magician is supported mostly by parallels between the canonical Gospels and the magical papyri. Smith discerned parallels to magic everywhere in the canonical Gospels, so the story of the raising and initiation of the young man added very little to his argument. Smith’s speculations about a ritual connected with LGM 1 are noticeably more reserved in Jesus the Magician: the longer text of Mark tells of a young man coming to Jesus by night, in the standard costume of an initiate, for instruction in the mystery. Canonical Mark (14.51) hints at a similar initiation by reporting that a young man in the same scanty costume was with Jesus on the night of his arrest. John (3.2ff.) has a similar story of a man coming to Jesus by night for secret instruction on how to enter the kingdom. He also reports that Jesus (or his disciples) baptized, and that Jesus instituted a rite of footwashing that cleansed his disciples and gave them a share in his lot. These are the data; as to what the ceremony—more likely, the sequence of ceremonies—was, we have no direct information.29

Rather than elaborate these elements into a hypothetical ritual, Smith drew the vague conclusion, “It is . . . possible that ‘the mystery of the kingdom’ was a magical rite, by which initiates were made to believe that they had entered the kingdom and so escaped from the realm of Mosaic Law.”30 The same vague emphasis on 29 Smith, 30 Ibid.,

Jesus the Magician, 138. 135.

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magical initiation appeared in Smith’s second reply to Frank Kermode’s review of Jesus the Magician in the New York Review of Books the following year. With reference to the young man who appears in Gethsemane in Mark 14:51–52, Smith wrote: The question, “What was Jesus doing alone, late at night, with a young man wearing only a sheet?” is apt to elicit a snigger from the modern reader, but the answer implied by the snigger cannot be the one the evangelists [sic, pl.] intended to suggest. What did they want the reader to think was going on? Kermode has no answer; he has not yet seen the problem. The correct answer is indicated by the use of the sindon, over the naked body, for the above[-mentioned] magical rites and, by the evangelists’ time, for Christian baptism. It, too, “gives the Holy Ghost.”31

Here we are told quite simply that the linen sheet is a magical garment associated with Christian baptism. Of more importance for our purposes is the rationale Smith offered Kermode for reading the linen sheet ritualistically: the homoerotic overtones that a modern reader might infer from the information “Holy man arrested . . . naked youth escapes”32 cannot explain why this potentially embarrassing information was preserved and included in a Gospel. Mark must have thought he was describing something else. Smith’s conclusion that the sheet had a magical purpose that was connected with Christian baptism is an alternative to the homosexual explanation. Smith could himself chuckle at the young man’s naked flight, and in lectures would sometimes caption this pericope “Cops Arrest Rabbi in Park with Naked Teenager.”33 But as a scholar Smith demanded an explanation that is historically plausible. It appears that by the time Smith wrote Jesus the Magician he had conceded the frequent complaint made by reviewers of SG and CA that he read far too much into LGM 1:12, for his discussions of LGM 1 and Mark 14:51–52 were now framed in general terms of magical instruction and hypnotic ascent with no emphasis on spiritual union and no reference to physical union and manipulations. As for the 31 Morton Smith, “Under the Sheet,” New York Review of Books (February 8, 1979); online: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/7916. Cf. Morton Smith, response to Reginald Fuller, in Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition? (ed. Wilhelm H. Wuellner; Protocol of the Eighteenth Colloquy: 7 December 1975; Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture, 1976), 14. 32 Citing Morton Smith, “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade,” HTR 75 (1982): 458 n. 19. 33 A private e-mail correspondence from William M. Calder III, who was a close friend of Smith (July 12, 2002). Calder recollected to me that Smith suggested in lectures that both Jesus and Paul were gay. Edward C. Hobbs recollected to me that Smith speculated about homosexuality in a draft of Jesus the Magician that Hobbs critiqued (November 30, 2001). If Hobbs’s memory is correct (I would not trust my own memory of books I read twenty-five years ago), it tells us when Smith decided that this idea was not defensible on the basis of the evidence, including longer Mark.

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Eucharist, its purpose was now construed as an attempt “to unite the recipients with Jesus, and thus with each other, in love.”34 Smith was still trying to find the rationale for this rite of union in its parallels with magical meals meant to produce love for the magician. But his focus was shifting to the function of love within this group, and he made a point of rejecting the idea that Jesus intended this “magical rite of union” to be “a ritual expression of his libertine teaching”—finally giving a verdict on a question he first contemplated in 1961. Smith’s observation that the Gospel of John replaced the Eucharist with a discourse on the necessity of loving one another suggests that Smith now perceived the Eucharist to be the basis of the Christian emphasis on loving other Christians.35 However, his explanation for why Jesus sought to unite his disciples with himself in a bond of “brotherly love” is not very clear. Smith briefly speculated that Jesus initiated his disciples into his two rituals of spiritual union as a means of reasserting his influence over them when his authority was being undermined by scribes who were disseminating “discreditable stories about him.” But Smith also discussed the baptism as if it were a commodity Jesus peddled to support himself and his followers.36 Smith continued to consider the matter and offered a clearer explanation in “Pauline Worship as Seen by Pagans” (1980). Here, Smith again mentioned the parallel to “love magic” and suggested that Jesus intended the Eucharist “to bind his followers to himself when persecution seemed imminent,” but he also drew an analogy to the ritual “drinking [of] human blood . . . in primitive societies all over the world to establish alliances.”37 The new analogy makes it clearer that Smith himself was not convinced that the bond of love associated with the baptism (LGM 2:1) and the Eucharist (John 13–17) had an erotic dimension. It seemed more likely to him that Jesus wanted to ensure his disciples’ loyalty in the face of mounting opposition. A few years later Smith took steps to counter the misconception that he had discovered proof that Jesus was gay. On July 29, 1984, Smith typed a cordial twopage letter to Ian Wilson, asking if he would correct “a number of small errors I noticed in your treatment of my work . . . in future printings” of Jesus: The Evidence (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984). These inaccurate statements included an endnote on p. 192, which reads, “Suggestion of Jesus as libertine: 34 Smith,

Jesus the Magician, 123; cf. 138. cf. 152, 162. In a letter Smith wrote to Gershom Scholem in 1961, Smith asked, “Do you think the body and blood eaten and drunk can be a ritual expression of libertinism? (Eating a human sacrifice was a way of binding conspirators together, Apollonius of Tyana was charged with it). I talked about it with [Elias] Bickerman . . . the other day and he was rather enthusiastic, saying this background would explain the reaction to the crucifixion, which I think it would.” This excerpt is from Guy G. Stroumsa, “Comments on Charles Hedrick’s Article: A Testimony,” JECS 11 (2003): 150. 36 Smith, Jesus the Magician, 138, 133–34; cf. SG, 81. The discreditable stories, which are preserved in the canonical Gospels, are described in Jesus the Magician, 43. 37 Morton Smith, “Pauline Worship as Seen by Pagans,” in Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, ed. Cohen, 2:101 and n. 25. 35 Ibid.;

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For Morton Smith on this angle, see The Secret Gospel, pp. 114, 140, in which he imputes a sexual element to Jesus’ secret baptism. This would appear to be pure mischief-making on Smith’s part, with no serious evidence to support it.” Smith asked Wilson to revise the subordinate clause so that it reads “in which he suggests that there may have been a sexual element in Jesus’ secret baptism,” adding, “I was careful to leave the question open.” And he asked Wilson to “[d]elete the last sentence” because, in Smith’s view, “there are three serious pieces of evidence”: (1) “Paul’s insistence that in baptism one is united to Jesus and thereby set free from the law”; (2) “the many passages in the Gospels, teaching that Jesus neglected or invalidated the law and spoke of the kingdom of God as already accessible”; and (3) “the fact that the eucharistic formula, ‘this is my body, this is my blood’ is certainly taken from erotic magic, intended to unite the recipient with the magician in love. The magical parallels are very close, and there are no close parallels anywhere else.” Smith concluded, “I think the question has to be recognized, but can’t be answered from the preserved evidence.”38 In the same year Smith objected to the following comments in the 1983 (first English) edition of Per Beskow’s Strange Tales about Jesus: Over the years, it has been suggested from time to time in the world press, that there exists a Gospel fragment showing that Jesus was a homosexual. Moreover, this suggestion did not originate with just anybody, but comes from an internationally famous scholar, Professor Morton Smith of Columbia University, New York.

Beskow then described the contents of LGM 1 and 2 and added, “We do not see much of the alleged homosexuality.”39 In the context of a one-page rejoinder paid for by Beskow’s publisher, Smith replied: Beskow alleges that it was Smith who suggested that the secret text of Mark showed that Jesus was a homosexual (p. 96). In point of fact, conservative critics were the first to claim that the new text’s report of Jesus’ night with a young man in a sheet suggested homosexuality. Smith’s identification of the costume as one required for mystery initiations, and his suggestion that this mystery was a baptism, were advanced to provide an alternative explanation.40

Smith did not name these conservative scholars, but his claim is correct. The report that Pierson Parker gave at the SBL meeting in 1960 when Smith publicly 38 Cited with permission of Ian Wilson. I found this letter and Wilson’s reply taped to the map at the back of Smith’s copy of Jesus: The Evidence on March 10, 2006, in the Morton Smith collection of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City and brought them to the attention of the archivist. Wilson removed all references to the “secret” gospel in his heavily revised 1994 edition in order to make room for newer “archaeological findings” that he considered “altogether more worthwhile.” Private e-mail correspondence, April 27, 2006. 39 Per Beskow, Strange Tales about Jesus: A Survey of Unfamiliar Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 96, 98. These statements were removed from the corrected (1985) edition. 40 Morton Smith, “Regarding Secret Mark: A Response by Morton Smith to the Account by Per Beskow,” JBL 103 (1984): 624.

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announced his discovery of the letter includes that very sentiment: “As to the content of the quotations, . . . if they do not openly endorse a moral perversion, they are at least patient of a perverted interpretation. This again sounds like a strange thing to have come from the hand of our Second Evangelist.”41 Smith’s own theories based on the premise that LGM 1:12 represents a baptism developed after this meeting, in response to a hypothesis mailed to him by Cyril C. Richardson, who was one of the scholars in attendance.42 According to Smith, in the two years prior to this meeting, he had researched the relationship between the letter and Clement’s undisputed writings in an effort to determine whether the letter was authentic.43 The basically magical characterization of the nocturnal encounter in Jesus the Magician and “Pauline Worship as Seen by Pagans”44 was not Smith’s final statement on the subject. In his posthumous article “Two Ascended to Heaven— Jesus and the Author of 4Q491” (1992), Smith shifted his interpretive framework from magical instruction to mystery cult: The key to this meaning is the linen cloth worn as the sole garment. This was a common costume for ancient religious, especially mystery, ceremonies; it was customary for magically induced visions, and it became the standard costume for Christian baptism, the initiatory mystery of the church. A quarter of a century before Mark wrote, baptism and the Eucharist had been classed by Paul among the “mysteries of God” which he administered (1 Cor 4:1). Therefore, given the characteristic costume, the nocturnal setting (mysteries were commonly celebrated at night), and the concluding explanation (that Jesus “taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God”), it seems the reader was expected to understand that Jesus administered a mystery. If the reader were a Christian, he would also understand that the initiatory rite of this mystery was baptism.45

As early as CA, Smith had noted that mystery cults were sometimes thought to have been instituted by magicians,46 so, to his way of seeing things, this description of LGM 1 marked a shift in emphasis rather than a shift in conception. None of the elements in this description are new, but the lack of emphasis on magic is different. The brief comment that linen cloth “was customary for magically 41 Pierson

Parker, “On Professor Morton Smith’s Find at Mar-Saba,” ATR 56 (1974): 54. SG, 63–77; Cyril C. Richardson, review of CA and SG, TS 35 (1974): 572, 574. Richardson suggested that Mark 10:13–45, the section in which LGM 1 appears, was composed as a baptismal lection. 43 Smith, SG, 26. 44 Longer Mark is mentioned in passing in Smith, “Pauline Worship,” 102: “Mark 4:11, now supported by the secret text of Mark used in Clement’s church in Alexandria, makes it seem more likely that Jesus himself called at least one of his magical rites ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God.’ Mysteries and magic cannot be sharply distinguished. . . .” 45 Morton Smith, “Two Ascended to Heaven—Jesus and the Author of 4Q491,” in Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, ed. Cohen, 2:69. 46 Smith, CA, 218. 42 Smith,

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induced visions” is more precise than the statement Smith made in Jesus the Magician that “a linen cloth over [the] naked body . . . was standard for participants in magical rites [i.e., magical rites in general], especially for boys to be possessed by spirits and made to see the gods.”47 That comment was a bone of contention between Smith and Kermode in 1979. Kermode questioned Smith’s assumption that the linen sheet was an integral element in the magical rites Smith had cited, and rejected any suggestion that “the use of the word [sindwvn] may always, even when there is no other indication (as in Mark 14.51), be taken to mean that something magical is going on.”48 I suspect that Smith’s decision in “Two Ascended” to situate the linen sheet within the more general framework of “ancient religious, especially mystery, ceremonies” accedes to this criticism. Whatever Smith’s reason for emphasizing mystery over magic, the change resulted in a more compelling argument, for the resemblances between the pagan mystery initiations and the Christian sacraments of baptism and Eucharist are well established, and the elements of nocturnal setting and linen covering a naked body, which appear in both LGM 1 and Mark 14:51–52, are certainly reminiscent of the mysteries. In this final discussion of longer Mark, Smith’s inferences about the nature of the baptism are again very restrained and based exclusively on NT passages, whereas his main evidence for the practice of ritual ascents to the heavens in first-century Judaism is a fragmentary poem from Qumran in which the speaker claims “to have done just what I [Smith] conjectured Jesus claimed, that is, entered the heavenly kingdom and secured a chair with tenure, while yet commuting to earth and carrying on his teaching here.”49 Although some elements in Smith’s chain of reasoning remain problematic, this is the most plausible, and least objectionable, statement of his thesis. Another unpublished piece of evidence is worth noting. In a marginal annotation that appears on p. 244 of Smith’s personal copy of CA, which is kept in the Rare Book Room of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Smith reasoned that the women who were the first recipients of resurrection visions “must have been initiated by Jesus during his lifetime” because, according to his thesis, “the resurrection visions were reflexes of the initiation experience.” This comment shows that Smith did not presume that Jesus initiated only males. This review of Smith’s discussions of longer Mark demonstrates that he was constantly rethinking the evidence and modifying his positions. When he wrote his books on longer Mark, Smith raised the possibility that Jesus’ baptism involved physical symbolism of spiritual union and perhaps realized that a 47 Smith,

Jesus the Magician, 134. reply to Morton Smith, “In Quest of Jesus,” New York Review of Books (December 21, 1978); online: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/7956; Kermode, reply to Smith, “Under the Sheet,” New York Review of Books (February 8, 1979); online: https://www.ny books.com/articles/7916. 49 Smith, “Two Ascended,” 73. 48 Kermode,

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gratuitous suggestion of homosexuality in the popular book would add to the intrigue of his discovery as well as to the sales. But he was not committed to an erotic interpretation of the spiritual union with Christ effected by the baptism and tacitly acceded to his critics’ position that longer Mark’s vague reference to the mystery of the kingdom of God could not support any detailed reconstruction of a ritual. Smith apparently realized that the uproar over his speculation about physical union was eclipsing his actual theory and consequently was not worth repeating. Eventually, his twin conclusions that Jesus’ other rite of spiritual union was meant to produce loyalty in the form of brotherly love and was not a ritual expression of Jesus’ libertinism left him with little reason to suppose that the baptism had a sexual dimension. He continued to defend the cogency of his initial speculation, at least in private correspondence, but acknowledged that this matter is impossible to decide and actively corrected claims that he thought that longer Mark proved that Jesus was gay.

Do the Gospel Quotations Depict Jesus as a Homosexual? What kind of support do the Gospel quotations lend to the notion that Smith might have fabricated the Letter to Theodore in order to convince people that Jesus was a homosexual? The episode does refer to the young man’s love for Jesus and Jesus’ love for the young man. Yet it does so using phrases that are paralleled elsewhere in Mark and in the Gospel of John. “Looking upon him, loved him” describes Jesus’ response to the man with many possessions in Mark 10:21. “Began to beg him that he might be with him” is the response of the (formerly naked) demoniac Legion to the departure of his demons (5:18 [D text], 15). The seemingly suggestive phrase “linen cloth over his naked body” likewise has an exact parallel in Mark 14:51–52, where “a certain young man” appears so attired in Gethsemane, again at night. The observation that the anonymous young man “remained with him that night” (kai; e[meine su;n aujtw/' th;n nuvkta ejkeivnhn) resembles John 1:35–40, where two would-be disciples (one Andrew, the other anonymous) “remained with him that day” (kai; par! aujtw/' e[meinan th;n hJmevran ejkeivnhn) because “it was about four in the afternoon.” In other words, they stayed overnight with Jesus because they had not secured other lodging.50 This resemblance to LGM 1:12 is unlikely to be a coincidence because in both cases the setting is an otherwise unattested “Bethany” east of the Jordan River (John 1:28; LGM 1:1).51 The phrase “the sister of the young man whom Jesus loved” resembles 50 On the translation of John 1:39b, see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (2nd ed.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980), 75; Andreas J. Köstenberger, John (ECNT; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 74–76. 51 In LGM 1:1, Jesus arrives at “Bethany” while he is still traveling through Peraea; hence, the raising and teaching occur east of the Jordan, at the same place where the Gospel of John depicts Jesus receiving word from Mary and Martha of their brother’s illness (10:40; 1:28); only in John’s

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the reference to Lazarus in John 11:3 (“Lord, he whom you love is ill”) and the five references to the unnamed “disciple whom Jesus loved” in the same Gospel (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20); John’s “disciple whom Jesus loved” might actually be the unnamed disciple who remains overnight with Jesus in John 1:35–40 and is probably the unnamed disciple who still follows Jesus, along with Peter, after Jesus’ arrest in 18:15–16 (cf. the young man in Mark 14:51–54).52 The raising of Lazarus is the canonical version of the miracle depicted in LGM 1, so it is noteworthy that Jesus’ love for the man he returned to life is an important feature of that story (John 11:3, 35–36). Some openly gay writers read some of these canonical parallels as implying that Jesus was gay and find support for that view in LGM 1, which they usually take to be a censored part of the original Markan Gospel.53 The majority of NT scholars read these canonical phrases in a nonsexual way, presuming, as a matter of habit, that a canonical author would not have intended his words to have sexual connotations of any sort. And perhaps in light of what these phrases appear to mean in canonical Mark and John, various scholars of all theological persuasions have described the longer Gospel’s raising and initiation story as benign.54 The majority of scholars who have commented on the young man’s linen sheet agree with Cyril C. Richardson’s initial suggestion (he later changed his mind) that LGM 1:10–12 depicts ordinary Christian baptism.55 Scholars such as Pierson Parker who are certain that longer Mark’s phrases are “patient of a perverted interpretation” may be in the habit of supposing that noncanonical Gospels are the products of deviant version does Jesus travel to another Bethany in order to raise the dead man. Previous scholars, including Smith, erroneously supposed that LGM 1:1–12 takes places in Judea. See Scott G. Brown, “Bethany beyond the Jordan: John 1:28 and the Longer Gospel of Mark,” RB 110 (2003): 497–516. 52 See Marie-Émile Boismard, “Le disciple que Jésus aimait d’après Jn 21,1ss et 1,35ss,” RB 105 (1998): 76–80; Frans Neirynck, “The ‘Other Disciple’ in Jn. 18,15–16,” ETL 51 (1975): 113–41. 53 E.g., Robert Williams, Just as I Am: A Practical Guide to Being Out, Proud, and Christian (New York: Crown, 1992), 116–23; Robert E. Goss, Queering Christ: Beyond Jesus Acted Up (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2002), 120–22. See also Theodore W. Jennings, Jr., The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament (Cleveland: Pilgrim, 2003), 105–30. 54 Paul J. Achtemeier, review of CA and SG, JBL 93 (1974): 626; Fitzmyer, “Exploit,” 572; Ronald J. Sider, “Unfounded ‘Secret,’” Christianity Today 18, no. 3 (November 9, 1973): 26 (160); Quentin Quesnell, “A Reply to Morton Smith,” CBQ 38 (1976): 201; Reginald H. Fuller, “Longer Mark: Forgery, Interpolation, or Old Tradition?” in Longer Mark, ed. Wuellner, 11; Beskow, Strange Tales, 98; John Dominic Crossan, Four Other Gospels: Shadows on the Contours of Canon (Minneapolis: Winston, 1985), 118; Saul Levin, “The Early History of Christianity, in Light of the ‘Secret Gospel’ of Mark,” ANRW 2.25.6 (1988): 4281, 4290; Robert H. Gundry, “Excursus on the Secret Gospel of Mark,” in his Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 622, 623; and Graham Stanton, Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995), 95. 55 Twenty-three scholars who concurred that the linen sheet is baptismal are noted in Scott G. Brown, “The More Spiritual Gospel: Markan Literary Techniques in the Longer Gospel of Mark” (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1999), 197 n. 1. To these names may now be added Arkadi Choufrine, Brenda Deen Schildgen, and John Dart.

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thinking. As it happens, most scholars who perceive immorality in the longer text believe that it belongs with the second-century apocryphal Gospels or is a modern forgery.56 But regardless of what biases lie behind these divergent assessments, the fact that interpreters disagree on whether there are sexual overtones in LGM 1 and 2 shows that the evidence can be construed either way. The ambiguous, gapladen narration, which is a feature of Mark’s style, allows these verses to function like Rorschach inkblots, taking on whatever form the reader is inclined to see in them. Be that as it may, we can still ask whether the homoerotic interpretation is the most natural explanation of what is taking place in LGM 1 and 2. The letter divulges not only the exact contents of these passages but also their purported author (Mark) and their precise settings within his Gospel. LGM 1 is situated after the third passion prediction (10:32–34) and before the request of James and John for places of honor (10:35–45), and LGM 2 is situated after Jesus’ arrival in Jericho (= 10:46a; see Letter to Theodore 2.21–22; 3.11–16). These facts beckon us to read these passages as incidents within the larger story of the Gospel of Mark. So contextualized, the repetitions of Markan phrases in LGM 1 and 2 and the utilization of Markan literary techniques direct us to a more plausible interpretation. The homoerotic reading of LGM 1 begins with the impression that Jesus’ stay at the young man’s house was motivated by physical attraction. The words oJ de; neanivsko" ejmblevya" aujtw/' hjgavphsen aujto;n kai; h[rxato parakalei'n aujto;n i{na met! aujtou' h/\ (1:8) are presumably interpreted something like “but the young man, having gazed upon him, desired him, and began to beg him that he might be with him.”57 The answer to whether the young man loves Jesus for how he looks or for the fact that he saved him depends on the meaning of the request that flows from this love, his imploring “to be with him.” This expression has already occurred twice within the larger story. When the man who identified himself as Legion “began to beg him [Jesus] that he might be with him,” it is clear from the ensuing narrative that this man was asking to be a disciple: “But he [Jesus] refused, and said to him, ‘Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.’ And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and all men marveled” (5:18–20). The elements of discipleship and proclamation likewise occur when the phrase “to be with him” is used to describe the men Jesus 56 Parker, “Smith’s Find,” 54; Walter Wink, “Jesus as Magician,” USQR 30 (1974): 7, 9; Charles E. Murgia, “Secret Mark: Real or Fake?” in Longer Mark, ed. Wuellner, 39; Walter Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 3, 134 n. 12; Howard Clark Kee, What Can We Know about Jesus? (Understanding Jesus Today; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 36; Akenson, Saint Saul, 87–88; James R. Edwards, “Appendix: The Secret Gospel of Mark,” in his The Gospel According to Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 511–12; Price, “Second Thoughts,” 129; Carlson, Gospel Hoax. 57 Cf. the way Jennings reads Mark 10:21 in Man Jesus Loved, 106–9.

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chose to be his closest disciples: “And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons” (3:14–15). Given these connotations, the young man’s request “to be with him” is a request to be a disciple. The same is true of the parallel in John 1:38–39: “Jesus turned, and saw [the two disciples of John] following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek?’ And they said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’” That Jesus accepts the young man as a disciple is confirmed by the presence of Markan discipleship language and motifs throughout the remainder of the incident. Removal to a house followed by private teaching is a Markan discipleship motif (cf. Mark 7:17–23; 9:28–29, 33–50; 10:10). The phrase “for he was teaching” in LGM 1:12 also introduced the second passion-and-resurrection prediction (9:31), which Jesus offered in private to his disciples (9:30). “The mystery of the kingdom of God” is reserved for “those who were about him with the twelve” (4:10–12), that is, the twelve, who were chosen to be with him, and other disciples, like the young man, who are part of a larger circle of people who do the will of God (3:31–35). The concluding observation that Jesus got up and went away to a different geopolitical region (LGM 1:13) parallels the transitional statements used in 7:24 and 10:1 to conclude instances of Jesus privately teaching his disciples in a house.58 Given the strong literary connotations of discipleship, there is no exegetical justification for interpreting LGM 1:8 as sexually suggestive or as communicating something very different from what its component phrases mean in Mark 10:21 and 5:18. Considering that the young man owes Jesus his life, the statement that he loved Jesus might denote a gesture of intense gratitude, such as an embrace, although it could just as readily denote profound admiration. Whatever the exact meaning, it is evident that the young man responded the same way Legion responded to being released from the power of death: he implored Jesus to let him be a disciple. The main difference is that Jesus granted the request. Yet there is something unusual here. Jesus remains with the young man at his house for a whole week, delaying his journey to Jerusalem and, presumably, inconveniencing the twelve, his other devoted followers, and the “great multitude” traveling with them (see 10:32, 46; 15:40–41). The incident is highly irregular within Mark’s story, but we must consider the realities of Mark’s story world, which is the world of first-century Palestine. Notice the words immediately preceding the shift of setting to the young man’s house: “and going out of the tomb. . . .” According to the Torah, tombs and corpses are sources of a virulent form of ritual impurity that lasts until sunset on the seventh day (Num 19:11, 16, 19). Because a minor (one-day) form of this impurity is transmitted to other people and things through contact with the corpse-impure (v. 22), persons bearing the major form 58 Brown,

Mark’s Other Gospel, 52–53, 157.

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of this impurity were obliged to seclude themselves until the seven days were completed.59 As David P. Wright noted, the logical reason for secluding persons bearing communicable ritual impurities was to reduce the chance of impurity spreading to people who might enter the temple and defile sancta.60 Since longer Mark’s Jesus will arrive at the temple on the evening of the day that he leaves the young man’s house,61 the week-long interlude at Bethany is as necessary as it is normal. Around sunset on the seventh day, the young man returns to Jesus wearing “a linen sheet over his naked body” (peribeblhmevno" sindovna ejpi; gumnou'). This is where some readers start to snicker, but those who contemplate this incident as part of the Gospel of Mark might notice that on the evening of the crucifixion, Jesus’ (naked) body is likewise wrapped in “a linen sheet” (sindwvn, 15:46). The implication of this parallelism is not hard to figure out: Jesus had commanded the young man to put on his former burial wrapping (LGM 1:10).62 The heart of the Gay Gospel Hypothesis is the matter of what transpires between Jesus and the young man that night. Scholars who detect immorality in this scene often translate the phrase e[meine su;n aujtw/' th;n nuvkta ejkeivnhn as “he spent the night with him,” exploiting the fact that this English expression doubles as a euphemism for sexual intercourse.63 But the statement that the young man remained with Jesus that night (not “the night”) is followed by an explanation of what precisely took place: “for Jesus was teaching him the mystery of the kingdom of God” (ejdivdaske ga;r aujto;n oJ !Ihsou'" to; musthvrion th'" basileiva" tou' qeou'). As Robert Gundry pointed out, “The conjunction gavr, ‘for,’ and the imperfect tense of ejdivdaske, ‘was teaching,’ define the activity of ‘that night’ didactically rather than sexually or baptismally.”64 The broader literary context of LGM 1, moreover, has established that “the kingdom of God” refers to God’s impending reign (1:14; 9:1) and the offer of eternal life that accompanies it (“kingdom of God” is used 59 Josephus

referred to this practice in Ant. 3.261–62. For discussion of this passage, see Thomas Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah: Was Jesus Indifferent to Impurity? (ConBNT 38; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2002), 156–61. 60 David P. Wright, The Disposal of Impurity: Elimination Rites in the Bible and in Hittite and Mesopotamian Literature (SBLDS 101; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 227–28. 61 See Brown, “Bethany beyond the Jordan,” 509–10. 62 Cf. Eckhard Rau, “Zwischen Gemeindechristentum und christlicher Gnosis: Das geheimen Markusevangelium und das Geheimnis des Reiches Gottes,” NTS 52 (2005): 490. 63 E.g., Parker, “Early Christian Cover-up?” 5; Akenson, Saint Saul, 88; Bart D. Ehrman, “The Forgery of an Ancient Discovery? Morton Smith and the Secret Gospel of Mark,” in his Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 74; Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 65–68; Howard Clark Kee, “A Century of Quests for the Culturally Compatible Jesus,” ThTo 52 (1995): 27: “The clear implication of the fragment Smith alleged to have found is that the Jesus movement was among homosexuals, as is evident when Jesus reportedly spent the night with a naked [sic] young man to teach him ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God.’” The sheet does not actually come off until Mark 14:52. 64 Gundry, “Excursus on the Secret Gospel of Mark,” 622.

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interchangeably with “life” and “eternal life” in 9:43, 45, 47; 10:23–31; entering the kingdom is the alternative to being “thrown into hell”). Given the eschatological nature of the subject matter, it is difficult to imagine how “the mystery of the kingdom of God” could be construed sexually. Yet it is no less difficult to imagine how this mystery could be a ritual, for as Smith himself acknowledged, mystery rites were normally described as performed rather than taught. Smith initially resolved this problem by arguing that the verb “was teaching” (ejdivdaske) in 1:12 must be a scribal corruption of the verb “gave” (e[dwken). Naturally, numerous reviewers of Smith’s books charged him with changing the evidence to suit his theory, so Smith retracted this suggestion in Jesus the Magician, citing evidence that mystery rites were sometimes described as taught.65 The literary context, however, favors a cognitive meaning for musthvrion, for private instruction in “the mystery of the kingdom of God” already occurred in this story. In the parable discourse, this phrase denotes an insight into the nature of God’s rule, the attainment of which is a prerequisite for salvation. This mystery is deliberately concealed from “those outside” (the crowds), to whom “everything happens in parables,” with the consequence that they see (what Jesus does) and hear (what he says), but do not really perceive and understand; hence, they do not turn and receive forgiveness (4:10–12). The situation is different for “those who were about him with the twelve.” They receive private teachings intended to aid their comprehension of this mystery (4:13–20, 33–34). The nighttime encounter between Jesus and the young man in LGM 1 makes sense within this framework as another instance of private instruction in an eschatological mystery. Because the young man asked to be a disciple and was accepted into this privileged group, he too receives private instruction in the mystery of the kingdom of God, the secret that is presumably concealed in the parables of Mark 4. As in the parable discourse, the content of this mystery is not directly disclosed to the reader. The most obvious clue to its substance is the detail that the young man is dressed as he was inside the tomb. The costume is symbolic rather than suggestive. It signifies that the mystery of the kingdom of God has something to do with dying and rising. That connection is apparent also from the fact that the instruction occurs inside a house. Private instruction in Mark usually relates to something that immediately preceded it in the story (e.g., 4:10–20; 7:17– 23; 8:14–21; 9:28–29, 33–37; 10:10–12; 13:3–37). This is invariably the case when it occurs inside a house. The raising of the young man therefore functions as “an acted parable, or allegory” of the kingdom, requiring explanation, the way the parable of the sower (4:3–9) functions in relation to the private instruction given to Jesus’ inner circle (4:10–20).66 In typical Markan fashion, the significance of the young man’s odd attire 65 Smith,

CA, 183; SG, 79; Jesus the Magician, 207. Munro, “Women Disciples: Light from Secret Mark,” JFSR 8 (1992): 54.

66 Winsome

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is further clarified by the episode that is now sandwiched between LGM 1 and 2, the request of James and John for positions of honor (10:35–45). The author of the canonical Gospel juxtaposed independent episodes in this manner as a way of implying that the incidents are mutually interpretive.67 In this case, the metaphorical use of the word “baptism/baptized” (six times) within the bracketed episode suggests that the young man’s burial costume is indeed baptismal, a visual expression (symbol) of the figurative baptism that Jesus extended to James and John (10:38–39). Smith was right about the baptismal function of the linen sheet, but wrong to imagine a literal ritual. Jesus, rather, is teaching the young man what he told the sons of Zebedee, namely, that anyone who aspires to the positions of greatest honor must be prepared “to drink the cup that I must drink and to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized.” The baptismal garment symbolizes the way of martyrdom exemplified in Jesus’ passion. The symbolism implied by the longer text’s use of intercalation provides a viable solution to the age-old enigma of Mark 14:51–52. There, “a certain young man” donning naught but a linen sheet appears in Gethsemane at the onset of the passion and attempts unsuccessfully to accompany Jesus back to Jerusalem. Noting the similarity between Mark’s description of this man’s attire and his description of Jesus’ interment in a linen sheet, a few scholars have remarked that this young man is dressed for his own burial.68 His odd attire and the fact that he kept “following with” (sunhkolouvqei) Jesus after the twelve had fled (v. 50) signify his resolve to die with Jesus if need be. In light of LGM 1, it becomes apparent that the young man in Gethsemane is wearing his former burial sheet as a baptismal garment, a ceremonial representation of the old self that dies (“drowns”) in baptism. This is not the Pauline conception that a Christian shares in Jesus’ death and resurrection vicariously by ritually dying and rising with Christ (Romans 6),69 but the Markan conception that one saves one’s life by losing it (8:34–35). Like the symbolic death of baptism, the actual death of martyrdom is a rite of passage leading to a new quality of life, the eternal life of which the baptized condition is but a foretaste. Thus the baptismal imagery of the anonymous young man in a linen sheet signifies 67 See, e.g., Robert M. Fowler, Let the Reader Understand: Reader-Response Criticism and the Gospel of Mark (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 142–44; James R. Edwards, “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives,” NovT 31 (1989): 193–216; Tom Shepherd, “The Narrative Function of Markan Intercalation,” NTS 41 (1995): 522–40. For a demonstration that the structure produced by the addition of LGM 1 and 2 to Mark 10 constitutes an intercalation, see Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 165–79. 68 Robert C. Tannehill, “The Disciples in Mark: The Function of a Narrative Role,” in The Interpretation of Mark (ed. William R. Telford; Studies in New Testament Interpretation; 2nd ed.; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), 194 n. 38; Andrew T. Lincoln, “The Promise and the Failure: Mark 16:7, 8,” JBL 108 (1989): 288; Michael J. Haren, “The Naked Young Man: A Historian’s Hypothesis on Mark 14,51–52,” Bib 79 (1998): 530–31. 69 As argued in Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff, “Baptism in Mark: Dying and Rising with Christ,” JBL 92 (1973): 531–48.

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the same thing as the cup that Jesus struggled to accept in Gethsemane (14:35–36, 39), literal death at “the hands of men.” But whereas Jesus ultimately embraced this cup, the young man abandoned the symbol of his commitment in the hands of his would-be persecutors and fled naked. The statement in LGM 2 that Jesus did not receive “the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome” when he arrived in Jericho has a vital literary function as the closing “bracket” of an intercalation, but had no relevance to Smith’s theory about Jesus and is usually ignored in homoerotic readings. Two exceptions are worth mentioning. Howard Clark Kee characterized this passage as “an account of the disapproval of Jesus by the boy’s mother and a friend of hers. The implication . . . is that they resented the homosexual relations Jesus was having with his male associates.”70 This is a highly tendentious interpretation, considering that the text gives no indication of what the women think about Jesus. There is surely an element of disapproval expressed by the verb “did not receive.” But it is Jesus who does not welcome the women; the women are apparently seeking an audience with him. Donald Akenson, rather differently, saw in this incident “about as explicit a rejection of the heterosexual world as the writer could get away with, without winking too broadly.”71 This interpretation might seem plausible were it not for the fact that gay men often have close female friends. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation, not an aversion to the opposite sex. On the face of it, the nonencounter between Jesus and these three women is as opaque as the incident of nocturnal instruction, but once again we need to consider the larger narrative context. On one earlier occasion Jesus refused to receive relatives who sought an audience with him, indeed, his own mother and siblings, who came to Capernaum “to seize him” when they heard that he was “beside himself ” (Mark 3:19b–21, 31–35). Apparently aware of their intention, Jesus left them waiting outside his house while he declared to those sitting around him that his true family consists of those who do the will of God. A reader who encounters LGM 2 within Mark 10:46 might infer from the earlier incident in Capernaum that the mother and sister of the young man sought to take him back home but Jesus refused to acknowledge familial claims on his followers. (It is not clear whether Salome is related to the young man’s mother and sister.) The naked flight of the young man from Gethsemane has also found a place within a gay reading of “secret” Mark. In The Gospel Hoax, Carlson argued that Smith devised LGM 1 in part to influence the way people interpret Mark 14:51– 52: The sexually charged climax of the Secret Mark means that what these [two different] young men were seeking was, to use the words of the New York statute, 70 Kee,

What Can We Know about Jesus? 36. Saint Saul, 88; cf. Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 68.

71 Akenson,

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“a crime against nature or other lewdness.” In other words, Secret Mark easily conjures up to the twentieth-century reader the image that Jesus was arrested for soliciting a homoerotic encounter in a public garden.72

The sheer novelty of Carlson’s interpretation of 14:51–52 belies its obviousness to the twentieth-century reader. Few real readers could make this inference while reading Mark 14, for it conflicts with this Gospel’s plot. The reader knows well in advance of 14:51 that Jesus’ arrest happens as a confluence of divine necessity and the ideological opposition of the Sanhedrin. It is not the NYPD vice squad that shows up in Gethsemane but “a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders” led by the disciple who earlier arranged to betray Jesus for money. They evidently do not expect to catch Jesus doing something illegal when they arrive, since Judas instructed them to arrest the man whom he greets with a kiss. The subsequent trial focuses on allegations that Jesus threatened the temple. Given this information, how can the implied reader of longer Mark suppose that Jesus’ arrest has anything to do with the young man who suddenly reappears as Jesus is being brought back to Jerusalem? Homoerotic readings of LGM 1 and 2 have paid little attention to the way these verses interact with the literary context specified by the letter, echoing and foreshowing Mark’s phrases and utilizing the Gospel’s distinctive literary techniques. Literary matters like these should guide the interpretation of sentences situated within a narrative.

II. The Hoax Hypothesis The notion that Smith might have fabricated the letter to prove that Jesus was gay is controverted by the facts that it is supposed to explain. Is it any likelier that Smith might have fabricated the letter as a private joke on his peers? Let us consider what scholars have imagined. Bart D. Ehrman conjectured that Smith forged the letter as “a mystification for the sake of mystification,” which is to say, a way of proving—at least to himself—his superiority over his peers: “But maybe Smith forged it. Few others in the late [sic] twentieth century had the skill to pull it off. Few others had enough disdain of other scholars to want to bamboozle them. Few others would have enjoyed so immensely the sheer pleasure of having pulled the wool over the eyes of so many ‘experts,’ demonstrating once and for all one’s own superiority.”73 Donald Akenson, as I noted, proposed that the “secret” 72 Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 70. This claim is part of Carlson’s attempt to establish that longer Mark anachronistically presupposes the situation of gay men in the 1950s when “many American cities . . . intensified enforcement of municipal disorderly conduct offences to arrest gay men for seeking each other in public parks.” 73 Ehrman, “Forgery,” 88, 89.

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Gospel is a private “gay joke at the expense of all of the self-important scholars.” He supposed that Smith found it “diverting” to watch “front-edge scholars build Secret Mark into their theories of the life of Yeshua and of the early history of New Testament texts.”74 Stephen Carlson conjectured that Smith devised “secret” Mark “to test the establishment, whether to expose flaws in the gatekeepers of authenticity, to exhibit [his] skill and cunning, or to take pleasure in the failure of self-appointed experts to pass the test.” The notion that Smith was testing the guild is a form of the Controlled Experiment Hypothesis and cannot really account for the fact that Smith’s popular account of his discovery is aimed at people who do not have the tools to defend themselves from a hoax (SG). The latter two scenarios fit the category of a hoax.75 What distinguishes hoax or joke hypotheses like these from other hypotheses of forgery is the premise that the forger was motivated by the challenge and devious pleasure of deceiving experts. If the letter is a hoax or a joke, then Smith was not seriously trying to change people’s views about Jesus or early Christianity but merely gratifying his ego at the expense of others. He never revealed the hoax, so if he had a point to prove, it was only to himself. The Hoax Hypothesis is very hard to disprove, because it can account for almost anything. Any behavior that could attest to Smith’s integrity is ascribed to deception, whereas any behavior that could be construed as suspicious is deemed incriminating. A theory of motive that can explain any behavior and its opposite, however, has nothing to commend it. Useful theories must be refutable in principle, which means they must have testable implications. The Hoax Hypothesis does have clear implications. One implication is that Smith did not really take the letter or his research on it seriously; these things constituted an elaborate hoax, and a hoaxer does not take his own hoax seriously. A second implication is that Smith thought very little of the people he duped. He was gratifying his ego at their expense. Presumably, he had more respect for the people who did not “take the bait.”76 These are two natural implications of the Hoax Hypothesis. How well are they substantiated by Smith’s own writings and behavior? We begin with the matter of how seriously Smith himself took the subject. The five years he spent studying the letter in preparation for its publication are not what we would expect for a joke. Smith could have launched a hoax simply by publishing a short book (like SG) or a paper in an academic journal. NT scholars have rightly pointed to Paul R. Coleman-Norton’s article “An Amusing Agraphon” as an example of how one of their own produced a highly technical analysis as part of a hoax, but the differences between this article and Smith’s work are more instructive.77 Coleman-Norton did not offer pictures of the manuscript he claimed 74 Akenson,

Saint Saul, 88. Gospel Hoax, 78. 76 Akenson, Saint Saul, 89. 77 Paul R. Coleman-Norton, “An Amusing Agraphon,” CBQ 12 (1950): 439–49. Scholars have 75 Carlson,

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to have seen in Morocco and did not produce a monumental work of analysis comparable to Smith’s 450-page book; the labor involved in devising a passable forgery and preparing a monographic analysis would be overkill for someone who is playing a practical joke. Moreover, in a footnote, Coleman-Norton all but acknowledged that his discovery was a joke: After I had read this paper to the Classics Club of Princeton University in February 1950, one of my auditors kindly supplied me with the notation that this agraphon appears mutatis mutandis in Lewis Copeland’s The World’s Best Jokes (Garden City, N.Y., 1941), p. 221. Well, my sole comment on this coincidence can be that here then we have another proof of the antiquity of the present and the modernity of the past.78

This humorous ten-page article is what we would expect of a hoax. The years of work Smith put into CA thus tell against the Hoax Hypothesis, although such labor is compatible with the hypothesis of a serious forgery and, of course, with honest research. There is also the problem of explaining Smith’s other writings on this subject, which extend the appearance of serious investigation for three decades. During the 1960s, after working on the letter, Smith published intelligent articles on libertinism in early Christianity that grew out of this research.79 In the late 1970s Smith published a philological study supporting the authenticity of the manuscript and a study of the parallels between Mark 6:32–15:47 and John 6:1– 19:42 that elaborated an observation made in Pierson Parker’s initial study of the longer Gospel.80 While his peers lampooned “Smith’s homosexual magician,” he continued to argue his actual, relatively inoffensive thesis that Jesus engaged in mystical rites of ascent. Like any scholar seeking the truth, Smith kept refining this theory in response to valid criticism and new insights. He conceded crucial points to his critics, such as the illegitimacy of revising the verb “to teach” in LGM 1:12 and of any attempt to reconstruct an elaborate ritual from this terse statement. He garnered more support for his premise that rites of ascent were known to Jews also mentioned Christoph Matthäus Pfaff ’s forgery and authentication of four fragments of Irenaeus as a conceivable analogy to Smith’s CA, but Pfaff ’s fragments were not a hoax; they were a serious forgery intended to support “his own pietist belief that the core of Christianity was the simple teachings of Christ, while ‘quarrels’ and ‘schisms’ arose chiefly from a misguided belief in the vital importance of particular dogmas or observances” (Anthony Grafton, Forgers and Critics: Creativity and Duplicity in Western Scholarship [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990], 32). 78 Coleman-Norton, “An Amusing Agraphon,” 444 n. 21. 79 Smith, “Jesus’ Attitude towards the Law”; idem, “Persecution of Paul.” 80 Morton Smith, “A Rare Sense of Prokovptw and the Authenticity of the Letter of Clement of Alexandria,” in God’s Christ and His People: Studies in Honour of Nils Alstrup Dahl (ed. Jacob Jervell and Wayne A. Meeks; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1977), 261–64; idem, “Mark 6:32–15:47 and John 6:1–19:42,” in SBL Seminar Papers 1978 (SBLSP 17; Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1978), 2:281–87. Parker’s observation that LGM 1 appears in the same place as the raising of Lazarus in the chronologies of those two Gospels appears in Parker, “Morton Smith’s Find,” 54.

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in the time of Jesus.81 He wrote approximately seventy-five addenda and twentyfive corrigenda in the margins of his personal copy of CA as well as three pages (over two thousand words) summarizing the “objections” raised in the “important reviews.” And he privately critiqued other people’s theories about longer Mark in personal letters and in annotations he wrote while reading other scholars’ books, including John Dominic Crossan’s Four Other Gospels. An honest scholar who believed in the legitimacy of his discovery would do these things. A forger with an important agenda might engage in public gestures of deception that spanned his career, but not private ones that might never become known. A prankster would not get that involved, for that long, in his own charade. The fun in perpetrating a hoax is in watching how people respond to it and then exposing the fact that they were had. How much fun is a hoax if you have to elaborate a complicated lie for thirty-three years in order to deceive people and never reveal what you did to them? I concur with Shaye J. D. Cohen’s remark on the extensive notes in Smith’s copy of CA: “if it was a hoax, Smith seems to have forgotten it.”82 The nature of Smith’s engagement of the secondary literature on this subject likewise does not fit the pattern we would expect of a hoax. His replies to the analyses of other scholars took various forms. When they misdescribed his complicated theories, Smith clarified his positions.83 When they published contrary assessments of the evidence, Smith astutely critiqued their theories, always arguing that his own theories better explained the relevant evidence.84 When they set out to discredit his research on the longer Gospel, Smith became irate.85 This was particularly the case when the scholars mocking his theories also insisted that the Gospel excerpt on which they were based was a fake tradition from the latter half of the second century, a mere pastiche of canonical Gospel phrases. For instance, when Edward C. Hobbs wrote a colloquium paper that mocked “Smith’s ‘theory that Jack built’ reconstruction of the origins of Christianity,” likened Smith’s methodology to “historical fiction,” and offered a synopsis of canonical Gospel parallels as proof of longer Mark’s origin as a late-second-century pastiche, Smith sent Hobbs three private letters, which Hobbs described to me as “unbelievably nasty, in no way inviting a reply, but denouncing me for having produced the 81 See Morton Smith, “Ascent to the Heavens and the Beginning of Christianity,” in Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, ed. Cohen, 2:47–67; idem, “Two Ascended.” 82 Private e-mail correspondence, September 12, 2005. 83 Smith, response to Reginald Fuller, in Longer Mark, ed. Wuellner, 12–13; idem, “Merkel on the Longer Text of Mark,” ZTK 72 (1975): 135–36, 142; idem, “Score,” 452–53. 84 See, e.g., Smith, response to Reginald Fuller, in Longer Mark, ed. Wuellner, 13–15; idem, “Score,” 454 n. 13, 457–58 n. 19, which describe the weaknesses of the theories developed by Raymond E. Brown, Robin Scroggs and Kent I. Groff, and Frans Neirynck. 85 E.g., Smith, “Mark’s ‘Secret Gospel’?” 64–65, which responds to Fitzmyer, “Exploit,” 570–72. See also Smith, postscript to his The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (1973; repr., Clearlake, CA: Dawn Horse Press, 1982), 149, 150 n. 7.

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‘synopsis’ showing how the [longer-Gospel] passage could be a pastiche, and thus a [second-century] forgery.”86 Likewise, Helmut Merkel’s condescending and specious arguments in ZTK demonstrating longer Mark’s dependence on all four canonical Gospels elicited an angry and devastating critique of Merkel’s “attack” upon CA, which was published in the same journal.87 On the other hand, when Raymond E. Brown offered intelligent and dispassionate arguments in favor of longer Mark’s dependence on John, Smith privately sent Brown an intelligent and dispassionate critique and later cited Brown’s essay as an “outstanding exception” to the illogical scholarship supporting the pastiche theory, declaring it “one of the most important” contributions on the longer text because of “the clarity with which Brown saw the problem.”88 As these examples illustrate, the respect Smith showed his colleagues in relation to this subject depended on the respect they showed for the relevant evidence and his own scholarship. It mattered to Smith that his theories about the longer Gospel accord with all of the facts and be respected by his peers. It bothered him when scholars distorted the evidence of the longer text or dismissed it as irrelevant to the study of first-century Christianity. Why would he care about these things if he had in fact invented “secret” Mark as a joke? Whereas Smith was hostile to the people who did not take his discovery seriously, he was exceptionally generous to the people who conducted original research on the longer text. Our knowledge of these private discussions is naturally limited. We know from incidental comments in the secondary literature that Smith consulted with Thomas Talley, Helmut Koester, Winsome Munro, and John Dart as they developed their theories. Munro thanked Smith for “his detailed comments” on a paper she presented on longer Mark.89 Dart’s recollections about Smith’s efforts to assist his research on longer Mark are available in Decoding 86 Private e-mail correspondence, September 27, 2001. Hobbs’s paper appears in Longer Mark, ed. Wuellner, 19–25. I quoted from pp. 22, 20. 87 Morton Smith, “Merkel,” 133–50 (citing p. 133), which responds to Helmut Merkel, “Auf den Spuren des Urmarkus?” Similarly, Smith never forgave Pierson Parker for his stinging review of SG (“Early Christian Cover-up?” 5), which questioned the integrity of Smith’s interpretations of the evidence and dismissed longer Mark as typifying the “late and spurious gospel tracts” for which “Alexandria was a breeding ground.” Smith’s displeasure with this review is apparent nine years later in Smith, postscript to SG, 149. In 1979 Smith shamefully reproached Parker during a session of the SBL annual meeting, branding him an Episcopal apologist for Rome. 88 Smith, “Score,” 454 n. 13, which quotes part of Smith’s written reply to Raymond E. Brown, “The Relation of ‘The Secret Gospel of Mark’ to the Fourth Gospel,” CBQ 36 (1974): 466–85. 89 References to Smith’s correspondence with Thomas Talley and Helmut Koester while they studied the text in the early 1980s appear in Smith, “Score,” 458–59; idem, “On the Secret Gospel,” interview by Saniel Bonder, The Laughing Man 2, no. 2 (1981), online: http://www.dabase. net/smith,m.htm. Some relevant comments about Smith’s reaction to Talley’s research are included in Charles W. Hedrick, “The Secret Gospel of Mark: Stalemate in the Academy,” JECS 11 (2003): 137–38 n. 14. Winsome Munro’s thanks are expressed in “Women Disciples,” 47.

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Mark.90 Dart detected large-scale chiasms in Mark’s Gospel, some of which are spoiled by the absence of LGM 1 and 2; he concluded that “secret” Mark must have been part of the original Gospel. In 1989, Smith critiqued a sixty-page prototype of this book, which Dart was kind enough to send me. Because Smith received no remuneration for this critique and had no reason to imagine that it might become public, it gives us invaluable insight into how Smith actually viewed the people who took “secret” Mark seriously. Using a red pencil, Smith made numerous improvements to Dart’s wording and corrected inaccurate statements. He added notations in the margins explaining why he disagreed with particular statements. He drew Dart’s attention to relevant scriptural passages and checked a few Greek terms to see whether they supported Dart’s claims. He crossed out sentences and paragraphs that were unnecessary, confusing, erroneous, or uncompelling. He wrote some lengthy asides on complicated issues (e.g., whether Mark 7:31 reflects geographical ignorance) when he thought Dart’s position was mistaken. He wrote three-quarters of a page on why the word “sea” is a “Hebraism or Aramaism” when applied to Lake Gennesaret and not, as Dart argued, evidence of a redactor’s ignorance. He took issue with most of the ideas that Dart derived from Paul J. Achtemeier and Joseph A. Fitzmyer (two scholars who trashed SG), explaining why he considered these ideas to be “ignorant” or “apologetic crap.” He offered his own observations that could strengthen Dart’s case. He suggested that the words “and Jesus did not receive them” in LGM 2 are the work of a later editor. And he pointed out what he believed to be errors in sequence in Dart’s diagrams. Afterward he typed a 680-word letter in which he stated what did and did not impress him in the draft, expressed strong reservations about the degree of literary competence Dart attributed to Mark, noted that a particular book on Homer that made a similar case was not well received by scholars, asked what motive Mark might have had for developing complicated structures that are not readily perceptible, and noted that some of Dart’s chiasms did not seem to be “precisely correspondent or opposed.” Smith was impressed by Joanna Dewey’s demonstration that Mark 2:1– 3:6 forms a chiasm and by Dart’s demonstration that this chiasm actually extends from 1:35 to 3:19. He was also impressed by Dart’s “first chiasm,” which I think refers to Dart’s demonstration that the opening and closing pericopae of Mark are balanced like a chiasm. But Smith was dubious about the other chiastic structures adduced by Dart and concluded, “The best thing may be to put out the evidence and let people judge.” He therefore wrote a postscript in his own hand giving Dart permission to show this letter to publishers who wanted to know Smith’s opinion on this project. The next day Smith wrote by hand a second, 275-word postscript on two sides of a piece of notepaper, which I quote in full: 90 John

Dart, Decoding Mark (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003), 132–34.

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PS. Thinking this over, I continue to be bothered by the weakness of many of the parallels/antitheses you have to rely on to work out the chiastic structures to such length. The details found to be similar (or opposed) are often slight, incidental, not closely similar (or, clearly opposite) etc. These will certainly be targets for attack, and, since the attacks will (of course) be unfair, they will be held up as examples of “the sort of evidence on which his argument is based.” Therefore I think you should: first, demonstrate that Mark does use chiasm as a literary device, and does so repeatedly. The proof of this should be just two or three chiasms and only the clearest, strongest, central parts of these, so that the evidence would be as nearly undeniable as possible. Second. Argue: Since Mark used chiasms in this way, we must suppose that, for him, they were noticeable and important. Evidently in his society this was the thing to do, and people noticed when you did it; they were alive to the possibility and looking for the evidence. We do not have this sort of sensitivity, so we do not notice what they would have seen, and relations of this sort, which to them would have been obvious, to us seem far fetched. Third: We must, therefore, consider the possibility that Mark is using chiastic structure in many passages where it is not obvious to us. When there are traits that can be understood as chiastic, the probability is that they should be; since that was Mark’s way of writing. For example: Then produce your dubious and more extended cases. Best, M.S.

This postscript shows that Smith continued to contemplate Dart’s theory until he saw the problems clearly and could offer his best advice. Smith critiqued Dart’s work on longer Mark as a teacher would, congratulating him “for having seen something new,” sparing him the embarrassment of mistakes, explaining how to make a compelling argument, and showing him how to avoid unfair criticism. The Hoax Hypothesis tells us that Smith was amused that Dart had incorporated LGM 1 and 2 into his study of the original form of Mark and was having a private laugh at Dart’s expense. I cannot fathom the cynicism required to maintain that view. Smith conscientiously assessed the work of an acquaintance who was interested in his discovery—a newspaper religion writer whom Smith had met only once. What we know about Smith’s actual behavior from the time of his discovery is irreconcilable with the idea that he did not really take longer Mark seriously and was privately mocking the people who did. Whereas Akenson envisions a prankster sitting back and enjoying the spectacle he created, the secondary literature reveals an embattled scholar routing attacks on the longer text and his theories, assessing alternative theories, rethinking the evidence, and generously assisting anyone who sought his opinion on the subject.91 Proponents of the Hoax 91 For Smith’s descriptions of his battle with religiously committed scholars, see Smith, “Score,” 449, 455; idem, postscript to SG, 149; idem, “On the Secret Gospel.” For a third-person perspective, see Eyer, “Strange Case,” 103–29; Hedrick, “Stalemate,” 135–38.

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Hypothesis might reply, “Of course Smith appeared to care about the integrity of his theories and to believe in the manuscript’s importance and even to respect the people he duped the most. He had to in order to keep fooling people with his joke.” But pure duplicity is never indistinguishable from intellectual integrity. If Smith was systematically deceiving his friends and peers for over three decades, there should be ample, incontrovertible proof of that.

III. The Controlled Experiment Hypothesis What remains to be explored is the notion that Smith forged the letter as a controlled study of how scholars react to new evidence. That was Quentin Quesnell’s operative assumption when he began working on his famous article “The Mar Saba Clementine: A Question of Evidence” in 1973. In a précis Quesnell sent to NTS on December 27, 1973, he wrote, “Perhaps if a serious scholar became convinced that a controlled study of diverging apologetic interpretations was needed for the improvement of scientific method, he might consider that adequate justification for creating one strictly controllable piece of evidence with which to get the study under way.”92 This position is the most difficult one to maintain in the face of Smith’s subsequent writings on the subject. Had this document been devised as an experiment, Smith should have revealed that fact when his study was complete so that he could publish the results and disabuse the highly embarrassed test subjects of the notion that there really was a “secret” Gospel. The publication of SG also tells against this theory: How could Smith have rationalized deceiving a much wider audience in order to study the reactions of his peers? Deception on that scale would certainly have got him fired if he acknowledged it. Further, Smith’s angry rebuttals and attempts to prove that his own theories were the best ones are inconsistent with the notion of a controlled study, for a person conducting an experiment would avoid influencing the results by telling the test subjects how they ought to be responding. It would in fact be counterproductive for Smith to publish his own thorough analysis of the evidence in the first place. Certainly Smith was very interested in what other scholars thought about this document, and his essay “Clement of Alexandria and Secret Mark: The Score at the End of the First Decade” did survey the range of scholarly opinion on a variety of topics.93 But again, his objective was not so much to elucidate why scholars responded in different ways (is there any real mystery about that?) as to demonstrate that his own 92 Private letter to author. That scenario was eventually outlined on pp. 57–58 of the article Quesnell published in CBQ. 93 Cf. Smith, postscript to SG, 149–54. Smith’s interest in other scholars’ opinions is reflected in CA, x; and SG, 23–25.

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views were more sensible than the alternatives others proposed; he was keeping score, as the title of the article suggests. Finally, as Stevan L. Davies pointed out, Smith would not have needed to invent and authenticate a new document in order to conduct such an experiment, since the then-recent discovery at Nag Hammadi offered Smith all sorts of newly rediscovered Christian texts, including complete Gospels. Why would Smith spend years preparing to examine his peers’ reactions to a fake new Gospel when he could have been studying the initial reactions of scholars to the Gospel of Thomas, which was published in 1959?94

IV. Conclusions None of the three general hypotheses of motive bears scrutiny. The Gay Gospel Hypothesis is the bitter fruit of a widespread polemical distortion of Smith’s thesis that still poisons discussions of this subject. The Hoax Hypothesis requires us to ignore or disbelieve the abundant evidence that Smith took this text very seriously and generously assisted anyone who studied it. The Controlled Experiment Hypothesis was untenable even before Quesnell devised it, for had Smith been studying how scholars react to new evidence he would not have published his own theories about the text. The facts we have considered are most readily explained by the hypothesis that Smith was not engaged in an elaborate deception and really did believe that the letter was authentic and important. Any viable alternative to this conclusion would have to account for the private evidence of Smith’s sincerity, the large investment in time required to plan out and produce a compelling forgery of Clement, and the years of work that Smith devoted to the authentication and defense of this document. The Hoax Hypothesis cannot explain these things. It would make much more sense for proponents of forgery to propose that this text is a serious forgery designed to promote a pressing personal or ideological agenda. As Anthony Grafton observed, “Most forgeries of any scale and depth strive not only to advance the career of their creator but to support his beliefs and opinions.”95 I doubt that a man who had just earned a second doctorate would 94 Stevan L. Davies, <[email protected]>, “REPLY: Secret Mark,” in IOUDAIOS-L, , 30 June 1995. Archived at: ftp://ftp.lehigh.edu/pub/listserv/ioudaios-l/archives/9506e.Z. Davies was not defending the letter’s authenticity. 95 Grafton, Forgers and Critics, 40–41, cited by Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 80, who does not appear to realize that this scenario could not describe a hoax. Hoaxes that support particular beliefs do so for the purpose of ridicule or social critique by making dupes of the people who are liable to accept such things (e.g., Piltdown Man, the Sokal Hoax). If Smith devised a hoax that supports his own beliefs, he would have been targeting himself and the like-minded people he respected, whose opinions on this and other subjects he actively sought out. Hence, Carlson’s descriptions of how “secret” Mark supports Smith’s positions (pp. 80–84), besides being largely unintelligible, make no

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resort to fraud in order to “jump-start his career.” Smith had too much going for him.96 Still, it is conceivable that he sought the fame and prestige that comes from being the discoverer of an important document, support for his theories about Jesus, or both. In either case, Smith would have to have worked backward from explanation to document. Rather than creating the document first and then figuring out what it proved, he would have started with his theories about Jesus and devised the Gospel quotations so that they give credence to these theories; then he would have devised the letter so that it authenticates the Gospel quotations and validates his interpretation. What we should be considering, therefore, is the connection between the Letter to Theodore and the actual agenda Smith used it to support. Smith always claimed that the letter’s significance lay in the historical conclusions he derived from it. In 1962 he commented on the letter’s value to Gershom Scholem: the edition of Clement on the Carpocratians creeps along by inches, but quite wonderful things keep turning up. I am really beginning to think that Carpocrates and the sort of things he represented (and especially the ascent through the heavens) were far closer to Jesus than has ever been supposed. What’s more, I have the evidence. I wish you were here so that I could discuss it with you.97

Here Smith, if I understand him correctly, was telling Scholem that he viewed his discovery as evidence that libertinism and mystical ascent might have a connection to Jesus. In his 1973 reply to Fitzmyer, Smith explained that the letter supplied an essential component of his theory about Jesus because “[i]t is only the letter that tells us that Jesus administered a secret, nocturnal initiation, and that he taught the initiate ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God.’”98 When interviewed eight years later by Saniel Bonder, Smith opined that someday scholars will stop evading longer Mark and the magical papyri and confront the reality of esotericism and magic in earliest Christianity.99 A few years later in his response to Per Beskow, Smith added, “Perhaps the most important consequence of the new text is the vindication of Paul’s teaching of freedom from the law.”100 If Smith had a motive to forge this text, it should be here, in the views he argued using this text as support. Accordingly, in Mark’s Other Gospel I examined whether, prior to 1958, Smith already expressed the beliefs about Jesus that he later claimed to have been led to by the Gospel excerpt and whether this excerpt seems tailor-made to support these beliefs.101 In both cases, the answer is no. sense within Carlson’s thesis that this Gospel was a joke intended to suggest that Jesus was arrested and crucified for seeking a homosexual encounter in a public park (pp. 66–71, 85). 96 Carlson, Gospel Hoax, 79–80. 97 Cited in Stroumsa, “Comments,” 150. 98 Smith, “Mark’s ‘Secret Gospel’?” 64. 99 Smith, “On the Secret Gospel.” 100 Smith, “Regarding Secret Mark,” 624. 101 See Brown, Mark’s Other Gospel, 49–54; idem, “More Spiritual Gospel,” 106–14. Carlson’s

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Smith’s association of Jesus with magic, hypnosis, mystical ascent, and libertinism first appears in his publications and extant private correspondence after 1958. More importantly, the letter itself provides tenuous support for these elements of Smith’s theory. The raising of the young man in Bethany is no more magical than the miracles in canonical Mark, and less magical than the healings in 7:32–37 and 8:22–26. Smith was able to perceive magic and mystery initiation in the young man’s linen sheet and “the mystery of the kingdom of God” because his training as a form critic during the 1930s and 1940s led him to strip these elements from their literary context and interpret them within real-world settings that they resembled. In the literary context specified by the letter, however, the sindwvn is not a magical garment but a burial wrapping (Mark 15:46), and the musthvrion is not a cultic rite but a perplexing facet of God’s plan for salvation (4:11–12). Smith most likely perceived mystical ascent in LGM 1 because he subconsciously associated the manuscript with the mystical experiences he had during his first visit to Mar Saba in 1941. In the opening pages of SG, he recollected how the nocturnal worship service—endless hypnotic chanting between midnight and dawn in an “enormous church” lit by small flames that mimicked the stars—produced the experience of participating “in the perpetual worship of heaven.” Smith also noted that around the time of his first visit to the monastery, he had learned from Gershom Scholem about Jewish rites of ascent that involved “the recitation of long rhythmical prayers and hymns and lists of angels with terrific, resonant names, like Seganzagael.” He naturally wondered whether these experiences influenced his interpretation of LGM 1. Of course they did. Where else could Smith have derived the notion that LGM 1:12 adumbrates Jesus’ use of “repetitive, hypnotic prayers and hymns” at night in order to produce the experience of being in God’s heavenly kingdom?102 Like every other explanation of LGM 1, Smith’s theory bears the unmistakable imprint of his personal experiences and research interests, especially his willingness to imagine how the pagan aspects of Galilean culture could have influenced Jesus and his followers. After three decades of speculation, Smith’s prosecutors have failed to demonstrate motive, a vital element in any case of forgery that is based on circumstantial evidence.

counterclaim that the theories Smith argued in CA and SG are irrelevant to the question of motive because those books are “fifteen years too late” is ill-considered (Gospel Hoax, 80). Smith did not develop those theories in 1973, when his books were published, but during the years 1960 to 1963, as he recounted in SG (pp. 63–77). The first draft of CA was finished sometime after the summer of 1963; a revised draft was accepted for publication in 1964 (SG, 76). Smith’s letter correspondence with Gershom Scholem during the early 1960s corroborates Smith’s account. So we are not dealing with theories that are “fifteen years too late.” Carlson’s additional claim that the so-called later theories espoused in CA and SG (and elaborated over the rest of Smith’s career) are “a trap for the unwary, designed to obscure what the text supports” exemplifies how the Hoax Hypothesis disposes of evidence it cannot explain by labeling it deception (Gospel Hoax, 81). 102 Smith, SG, 5–8, 113 n. 12.

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 385–391

Critical Notes A Woman at Prayer: A Critical Note on Psalm 131:2b

In Psalm 131, the speaker initially tries to convince Yhwh that he or she has not been arrogant or haughty: the speaker’s heart is not “lifted up,” nor the eyes “raised too high,” nor has he or she been occupied with thoughts “too great and marvelous for me” (v. 1). In the next verse, the negative protest changes to a positive one: “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child . . .” (v. 2).1 Based on this image, the speaker then exhorts the nation to hope in God: “O Israel, hope in Yhwh, from this time on and forevermore” (v. 3). The precise translation of v. 2b is a notorious crux. This has more to do with the problematic syntax than with any major textual variant.2 The disputed phrase compares a weaned child with its mother to the author’s soul: y#$ip;=nA yla(f lmug%Fk%a w$m%)i yl'(j lmugFk%; In the scholarly discussion, two major emendations have been proposed—one to modify the second occurrence of lmgk, and one to delete the second part of the phrase entirely. According to Sigmund Mowinckel, the second lmgk should be changed to lmgt.3 I would like to thank Prof. Patrick Miller, Jr., for his advice and encouragement, and the two anonymous reviewers of earlier drafts of this note for their helpful comments. 1 The interpretation of this metaphor is itself an issue of discussion. See P. A. H. de Boer, “Psalm CXXI 2,” VT 16, no. 3 (1966): 287–92: “I have made myself without resistance or movement . . .” (p. 292); Willem A. VanGemeren (“Psalm 131:2–kegamul: The Problems of Meaning and Metaphor,” HS 23 [1982]: 51–57) prefers to translate “like a contented/satisfied child [suckling or infant])” and argues that the metaphor is “an image of quietness and rest” (p. 56). See also Klaus Seybold, “Zwei Bemerkungen zu lmg/lwmg,” VT 22 (1972): 112-17; idem, “lmg,” TDOT 3:23–33. 2 The only significant variant is the LXX’s translation of the two appearances of lmgk: first as ajpogegalaktismevnon (“de-milked one”), then as ajntapovdosi" (“wages”; LXXA reads ajntapovdosei"; LXXS reads ajntapovdwsei"). Although these are possible translations of the Hebrew radicals, it is more likely that the identical Hebrew terms gave rise to the different Greek terms rather than the other way around. 3 Sigmund Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien I (Kristiania: Jacob Dybwad, 1921), 165 n. 3, followed by, among others, Artur Weiser, The Psalms (trans. Herbert Hartwell; OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), 776. Mowinckel later interpreted Ps 131:2c (i.e., Ps 131:2bβ) as simple dittography (Real and Apparent Tricola in Hebrew Psalm Poetry [Oslo: Hos H. Aschehoug (W. Nygaard), 1957], 69;

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Thus, Hans-Joachim Kraus translates the phrase, “Like a quieted child with its mother, so is quieted (lmgt) my soul within me.”4 Other scholars claim that the repetition indicates a scribal error and delete the phrase.5 In opposition to both of these suggestions, Gottfried Quell has argued that parallelism in the text is deliberate, and thus the phrase (with the two appearances of lmgk) must be retained.6 The parallelism should also guide the translation such that, since yl( is read with lmgk in v. 2bα (“as a weaned child with/on its mother”), in v. 2bβ the term should not be read with y#$pn (“my soul with me is like a weaned child”), but rather with lmgk as it is in the previous cola (“like a weaned child with/on me am I [literally, ‘is my soul’]”). On the basis of parallelism with the preceding line, and in accordance with the text and pointing in the Leningrad Codex, Quell translates the colon as follows: As a weaned child on its mother; As the weaned child on me am I.7 According to Patrick D. Miller, the point of the simile that this translation emphasizes is not just that the author’s soul is like a weaned child, but rather that it is “like a weaned child on/with its mother” (emphasis Miller’s).8 Quell’s translation is followed by most recent commentators.9 Significantly, all of the various interpretations named above follow the pointing in the Leningrad Codex with regard to the two appearances of yl(: first as yl'(j (usually and idem, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship [trans. D. R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962], 2:129). 4 Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60–150 (trans. Hilton C. Oswald: Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989; German original, 1978), 469. See also Charles Augustus Briggs and Emilie Grace Briggs, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Book of Psalms (ICC 13.2; New York: Scribner, 1907), 466–67: “As a weaned child upon his mother, so is bountiful dealing unto my soul.” 5 C. Budde, “Das hebräische Klageleid,” ZAW 2 (1882): 1–52, esp. 42; Patrick W. Skehan considers Ps 131:2bβ an “accidental repetition” and deletes it from his translation (Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom [CBQMS 1; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1971], 61–62). See also Walter Beyerlin, Wider die Hybris des Geistes: Studien zum 131. Psalm (SBS 108; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982). One other emendation is the addition of a noun such as ybl after ytyw# in v. 2a, argued for by Oswald Loretz, “Zur Parallelität zwischen KTU 1.6 II 28-30 und Ps 131,2b,” UF 17 (1986): 183–87. Although the resulting meter is more regular, the proposal has not met with widespread acceptance. 6 Gottfried Quell, “Struktur und Sinn des Psalms 131,” in Das Ferne und Nahe Wort: Festschrift Leonhard Rost (BZAW 105; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1967), 173–85. 7 “Wie ein Kind auf seiner Mutter, // wie das Kind auf mir bin ich” (Quell, “Struktur und Sinn,” 173). 8 Patrick D. Miller, Jr., “Things Too Wonderful: Prayers of Women in the Old Testament,” in Biblische Theologie und gesellschaftlicher Wandel für Norbert Lohfink SJ (ed. Georg Braulik, Walter Gross, and Sean McEvenue; Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 237–51, esp. 244–45 n. 15. See also in the same footnote a detailed analysis of this reading. 9 Klaus Seybold, Die Wallfahrtspsalmen: Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte von Psalm 120–134 (Biblisch-Theologische Studien 3: Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1978), 37–38; Miller, “Things Too Wonderful,” 244–49; Loren Crow, The Songs of Ascents (Psalms 120–134): Their Place in Israelite History and Religion (SBLDS 148; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 92.

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understood as a form of the preposition l(a, found in poetic contexts and translated as something similar to “upon”),10 then as yla(f (usually understood as the preposition l(a, with the first common singular suffixed pronoun and translated as something similar to “upon me”).11 The problem with this reading is that, regardless of the poetic examples, yl'(j is rare in the Hebrew Bible, and one expects simply l(a to denote the spatial relationship (so Isa 49:22: “your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders” (Pt'k%f-l(a); and 2 Kgs 4:20: “and he [i.e., the child] sat on her lap [hfyIk%er:b%i-l(a] until noon”).12 Since yl'(j is sometimes used in poetic contexts to indicate this spatial relationship, the distinctive pointing is not illegitimate. Yet it could also be argued that the parallel structure of the two lines (with the two occurrences of yl( standing in identical places in both cola of v. 2b) leads one to expect a similar pointing. Regardless of the poetic examples, it does not strain the text to repoint the first occurrence of yl( as yla(f (“on/with me”) in parallel with v. 2bβ. This repointing not only makes logical sense in the line, it also renders parallel the two appearances of yl( in v. 2b: Like a weaned child on me (yla(f) its mother, Like the weaned child on me (yla(f) is my soul. If the above emendation of yl'(j to yla(f represents the original pointing, then the pointing of the Leningrad Codex can be explained. Assuming that the speaker of the text was not a woman (in view of the masculine voice of most of the psalter13 and the attribution “to David” in the superscription), the scribes vocalized the text in an unusual but permissible fashion. Disregarding the parallelism with the next part of the verse, they made an interpretive decision regarding the sex of the speaker and obfuscated the female voice in the text. 10 For this form, see Joüon §103m. Examples include Gen 49:17 (2x), 22 (2x); Deut 32:2 (2x); and Ps 49:12. 11 Scholars who prefer to understand yl( as something other than an indication of spatial proximity include De Boer (“Psalm CXXXI 2,” 290–92), who translates v. 2b, “just as one does with his mother, thus I have made myself content,” arguing that a local sense of l( “occurs nearly always in connection with places, rivers, and the like” (and thus is excluded in this text). In addition, he argues that when l( is preceded by lmg, the sense is “to do something to another person, to deal with someone, to give him what is coming to him, in malam et bonam partem”; he thus prefers the sense of “against, up, upon, over.” 12 See also 2 Sam 13:5: “Lie down on your bed” (K1b;k%f#$;mi-l(a); 2 Kgs 4:21; and Isa 11:8. 13 In an unpublished article, David J. A. Clines argues that both the implied speakers and the implied hearers of the Psalms are predominantly male. See “The Book of Psalms, Where Men Are Men: On the Gender of Hebrew Piety,” http://www.shef.ac.uk/~biblst/Department/Staff/Bibs Research/DJACcurrres/GenderPiety.html, accessed Dec. 29, 2003; used with permission of the author). See also Marc Zvi Brettler, “Women and Psalms: Toward an Understanding of the Role of Women’s Prayer in the Israelite Cult,” in Gender and Law in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (ed. Victor H. Matthews, Bernard M. Levinson, and Tikva Frymer-Kensky; JSOTSup 262; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 25–56; and Erhard S. Gerstenberger, “Weibliche Spiritualität in Psalmen und Hauskult,” in Ein Gott allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte (ed. Walter Dietrich and Martin A. Klopfenstein; OBO 139; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994), 349–63.

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Such a reading has implications for the identity of the speaker. On the basis of Quell’s reading, some scholars have interpreted this text (or this particular verse at least) as a text sung by a woman.14 The repointing for which I am arguing in this note solidifies the identification of a female voice in this text, a voice that was later embedded in a text associated with male authorship (dwdl in the superscription) and obliterated in the vowel pointing. Yet does this female voice, incorporating within it the metaphor of a weaned child with his or her mother, necessarily indicate that this text was written by a woman? Is there enough information in Psalm 131 to distinguish between actual female authorship and the attribution of a quotation to a female?15 The specific details linked with the speaker’s experience (the avoidance of “high matters,” the affirmation of humility, and sitting with a weaned child) could be considered stereotypical and public enough to be written about by either a male or a female author. One might also argue that, in its valorization of humility, docility, and childlikeness, the text could have been written by someone (either a man or a woman) intent on teaching women such behavior. No evidence rules out such a possibility. Thus, the portrayal of a woman’s prayer in Psalm 131 is not necessarily, though it could be, a record of such a prayer. According to this reading, the text is open enough to include both men and women as authors, and this same openness can extend to its subsequent readers and pray-ers. Throughout the Hebrew Bible parts of pre-extant formalized prayers are “bracketed” by the one who recites them: included in Hannah’s prayer about a barren woman giving birth to seven children (1 Sam 2:5) is the affirmation that “The adversaries of Yhwh shall be shattered. . . . He will give strength to his king” (1 Sam 2:10). Although it may very well be that Hannah was concerned about Yhwh’s enemies and Yhwh’s king, there is not a single hint of this in the prose narrative (in fact, there is not a king reigning over Israel at this point in the narrative). Adopting pre-extant prayers on the basis of a conceptual link may also entail bracketing concepts that do not immediately pertain. In terms of the reuse of Psalm 131, just as Hannah could pray for the strength of a king (not yet enthroned), so men could incorporate the voice of a mother with her child in Psalm 131 into their own prayer.16 14 Quell believes that the content and rhythm of v. 2 create an image of a mother holding her child and pacing to the rhythm of this song and was likely sung by a female worshiper (Quell, “Struktur und Sinn,” 178). Seybold and Miller extend the possible female voice into v. 1 as well. According to Miller, the text reflects “the quiet voice of a woman . . . [who] has learned from the child who has sought security in trust on her breast” (Miller, “Things Too Wonderful,” 245; see also Seybold, Wallfahrtspsalmen, 37–38, 54). 15 For a discussion about the distinction between female authorship and the attribution of female authorship, see Athalya Brenner and Fokkelien van Dijk-Hemmes, On Gendering Texts: Female and Male Voices in the Hebrew Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series 1; Leiden: Brill, 1993), 6–11. 16 If, as I am arguing, members of the congregation had to sing poems that contained verses not precisely appropriate to their situation, then Bernard P. Robinson’s objection (“Form and Meaning in Psalm 131,” Bib 79, no. 2 [1988]: 180–97) to Quell’s identification of a woman’s voice in v. 2 seems much less persuasive. Robinson writes, “I find it hard to believe that a poem would have found its way into the Psalter if it could have been sung only by a minority of the congregation”

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Added to these dynamics of formalized prayer is the nature of metaphor itself. As descriptive and evocative patterns of speech (made even more so in a poetic context), metaphors are not strictly confined to the experience of the author. Even if the text is written from the point of view of a woman, this does not eliminate its recitation or even authorship by men, since metaphors can reflect the experience of a larger community. In addition, if women and children were participants in public worship (as Deut 31:12 indicates), then the sight of a mother with her child might not have been outside the immediate experience of the praying community.17 Thus, while the text may reflect female authorship, it does not necessitate such attribution. Yet regardless of authorship, the text shows that female imagery was not out of place in the public worship of the temple cult and that the experience of a woman and her child (authentic or stereotyped) was not out of place in psalmic piety. Indeed, in the final line of the text (“O Israel, hope in Yhwh, from this time on and forevermore,” v. 3), the author commends to the nation the daily disciplines of a real or stylized woman (“no high looks”) and the contentment of a weaned child as seen from its mother’s perspective as a model of piety. Like the story of Hannah and her sacrifice, the experience of a woman pertains to the corporate well-being of the entire nation.18 Melody D. Knowles [email protected] McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago, IL 60615 (p. 189)—yet congregations routinely sing poems (or parts of them at least) that may not reflect their experience. 17 For a discussion of Deut 31:12 with its explicit reference to women and children participating in the hearing of the Torah read at the festival in booths, and its interpretation in rabbinic texts, see Mayer I. Gruber, “Breast-Feeding Practices in Biblical Israel and in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia,” JANES 19 (1989): 61–83, esp. 67–68. Gerstenberger has also pointed to a possible origin of this text in “domestic cult rituals,” wherein the participation of women may have been even more familiar (Psalms, Part 2, and Lamentations [FOTL 15; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001], 361). For other discussions about women in the Israelite cult, see the articles by Phyllis A. Bird gathered in Missing Persons and Mistaken Identities (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997); Mayer I. Gruber, “Women in the Cult According to the Priestly Code,” in Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (ed. Jacob Neusner, Baruch A. Levine, and Ernest S. Frerichs; literary editor, Caroline McCrackenFlesher; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 35–48; Judith Romney Wegner, “‘Coming Before the LORD’: lpny yhwh and the Exclusion of Women from the Divine Presence,” in Hesed ve-emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (ed. Jodi Magness and Seymour Gitin; BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 81–91; and eadem, “‘Coming before the Lord’: The Exclusion of Women from the Public Domain of the Israelite Priestly Cult,” in The Book of Leviticus: Composition and Reception (ed. Rolf Rendtorff and Robert A. Kugler, with Sarah Smith Bartel; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 451–65. For a list of women’s prayers recorded in the Hebrew Bible, see Miller, “Things Too Wonderful,” 237 n. 2. 18 See the article (and especially the concluding paragraph) by Carol Meyers, “Hannah and Her Sacrifice: Reclaiming Female Agency,” in A Feminist Companion to Samuel and Kings (ed. Athalya Brenner; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994), 93–104.

Small Change: Saul to Paul, Again

The change in names from Saul to Paul in Acts has long intrigued commentators. Suggestions for the shift have included the salacious connotations of sau'lo" in Greek; Paul’s desire to honor Sergius Paulus; or Paul’s wish to have a Gentile name for the Gentile mission.1 One neglected clue, however, lies hidden in Acts 13 itself. Although it may not solve the historical problems related to the name change, it does give us insight into what the author of Acts may have been thinking in this regard. The transition from Saul to Paul comes in 13:9: Sau'lo" dev, oJ kai; Pau'lo". A few verses later (13:16–41), Paul speaks to the synagogue leaders in Antioch in Pisidia. He begins with a typical recitation of Israel’s history leading up to the present day. It bears resemblance to Peter’s early speeches in Acts, and especially to Stephen’s lengthy speech in Acts 7. Not surprisingly, Paul’s scriptural discussion climaxes with King David, from whom came the Messiah. What is unusual, however, is the inclusion of Saul son of Kish (Saou;l uiJo;n Kiv") in the sacred history (v. 21). This is the only time in the entire NT that (the OT) Saul appears. It seems unusual that this sole occurrence should come just after the Apostle’s name change in 13:9. Two explanations present themselves. On the one hand, it is surely relevant that Saul son of Kish was the chief persecutor of the Messiah’s forebear David (1 Samuel 18–31). Such a name might seem ill-fitting, given Paul’s activities on behalf of David’s descendant.2 (One might feel that the name change would have been more appropriate earlier in the narrative, but ch. 13 does present readers with the author’s first extended portrayal of Paul preaching in a synagogue.) The ominous note about God’s removal of Saul in 13:22 (metasthvsa" aujtovn) hints at the negative role Saul plays in Paul’s speech. But a more precise connection also suggests itself. Paulus, of course, means “small” or “little” in Latin. Saul son of Kish was notorious for his physical stature: on two occasions he is described as being literally “head and shoulders” above his fellow Israelites (1 Sam 9:2; 10:23: kai; uJywvqh uJpe;r pavnta to;n lao;n uJpe;r wjmivan kai; ejpavnw). Just prior to David’s anointing, by contrast, Samuel is enjoined by God not to look at physical stat1

Most of the options adopted by modern commentators were laid out as early as 1869 by Philip Schaff, in “Biblical Monographs: Saul and Paul,” Methodist Quarterly Review 51 (1869): 422–24 (with thanks to Jonathan Moo for pointing out this and other relevant references to me). Another dated but still very useful treatment is G. A. Harrer, “Saul who is also called Paul,” HTR 33 (1940): 19–34. For a more recent survey, see T. J. Leary, “Paul’s Improper Name,” NTS 38 (1992): 467–69. 2 This would argue against Paul’s inclusion of Saul here as a point of pride. See, e.g., C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), 1:635.

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ure or appearance (1 Sam 16:7: mh; ejpiblevyh/" ejpi; th;n o[yin aujtou' mhde; eij" th;n e{xin megevqou" aujtou'). More pointedly for our purposes, David is introduced in 1 Sam 16:11 as (literally) “the little one” (LXX oJ mikrov"; MT N+fq%fha; Vg parvulus).3 The emphasis on the respective stature of these two figures is heightened by the repeated comments on David’s youth (1 Sam 16:11; 17:33, 42) culminating in Goliath’s dismissive remarks in 17:43.4 In light of the above, I would suggest that the name change in Acts 13 serves for the author of Acts as a vivid illustration of Paul’s transformation from the proud “big man” who persecuted the church, to the servant of “little” David’s messianic offspring.5 The introduction of Saul into a NT narrative of Israel’s story is unique; the tension between Saul and David in 1 Samuel is one of the most dominant themes in that book; and the amount of Latin needed to pick up on the wordplay is very small indeed. This does not preclude other explanations for the transition from Saul to Paul, nor does it necessitate that Paul himself consciously initiated the change in light of the wordplay.6 But it does give us one interesting perspective on the matter from within the text of Acts itself. Sean M. McDonough [email protected] Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA 01982 3 Note also Ps 151:1 LXX, where David, speaking in the first person, declares mikro;" h[mhn ejn toi'" ajdelfoi'" mou kai; newvtero" ejn tw'/ oi[kw/ tou' patrov" mou. On the Vg reference, note that paulus and parvulus are related forms, both being akin to the Greek pau'ro", as noted in Lewis and Short (A Latin Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879]). 4 In 1 Sam 15:17 Samuel chastises Saul, telling him that prior to his ascension to the throne Saul had considered himself “small in his own eyes” (LXX mikrov"; MT N+ooqf; Vg parvulus). 5 Something like this (though without reference to the context in Acts) was offered by Augustine in Spir. et litt. 12, where he contends that Paul adopted this name to show that he considered himself little, the least of the apostles. For the reference and discussion, see F. J. Foakes-Jackson and Kirsopp Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, part 1, The Acts of the Apostles (5 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1920–33), 4:146. 6 See Augustine, who despite the explanation offered above from De Spiritu et Littera, offers another view in Conf. 8.4. Here he contends that Saul adopted the name Paul as a tribute to the conversion of Sergius Paulus.

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 393–419

Book Reviews Book reviews are also published online at the Society of Biblical Literature’s WWW site http://www.bookreviews.org. For a list of books received by the Journal, see http://www.bookreviews.org/books-received.html

From time to time, the JBL book review section offers differing (and sometimes innovative) formats for the review of recent materials in the field of biblical and cognate studies. We are pleased to open this volume with a fairly well known genre—the book review essay.

New Testament Theology: The Revival of a Discipline A Review of Recent Contributions to the Field C. Kavin Rowe The Divinity School, Duke University Durham, NC 27708

The New Testament theology will never be written. It can never be written, because in principle the discipline . . . New Testament theology is never a finally closed book but constitutes a task that continues with us all our days. —Gerhard Ebeling, “The Meaning of ‘Biblical Theology’,” in Word and Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963), 94 [emphasis original]. It has often been thought that since Bultmann’s monumental Theology of the New Testament New Testament Theology (NTT) has become a sterile discipline. It is true that, despite periods of activity after Bultmann, a glance at the state of research over the past fifty years does raise the question of whether or not NTT has ever left its cul-de-sac. In the last decade or so, however, there has been a determined attempt to move forward (see recently Frank J. Matera, “New Testament Theology: History, Method, and Identity,” CBQ 67 [2005]: 1–21 [6–15]). Thus it is the purpose of this article to review the most significant current work in the field (I) and, on this basis, to identify briefly several areas that offer a sense of the shape and movement of the discipline (II).

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The grandest of the complete NTTs is Ferdinand Hahn’s nearly 2000 page Theologie des Neuen Testaments (2 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001, 2005 [1st ed. 2002]). Indeed, in terms of its critical sophistication and attempt at theological synthesis, Hahn’s work is the most significant Theologie to emerge since Bultmann’s. Hahn begins by distinguishing the NT theological task from theology more broadly conceived: “Theologie ist Nachdenken über den Glauben und damit Nachdenken über den als gültig anerkannten Wahrheitsanspruch der christlichen Botschaft. Theologie des Neuen Testaments konzentriert sich auf das Glaubenszeugnis des Urchristentums, das als solches Grundlage aller christlichen Verkündigung und Theologie ist” (1:1, emphasis added). In order best to encompass the scope of “das Glaubenszeugnis des Urchristentums,” Hahn divides his TdNT into two volumes. The first volume, Die Vielfalt des Neuen Testaments: Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums, represents a diachronic investigation of the manifold and theologically diverse layers of tradition within the NT. The second volume, Die Einheit des Neuen Testaments: Thematische Darstellung, provides a systematic ordering and presentation of the contents of vol. 1. Volume 1 is structured around the “Jesustradition und deren Rezeption seitens der nachösterlichen Gemeinde” (1:vii). In contrast to Bultmann, Hahn argues that close attention to early NT traditions reveals the interpretive necessity of a “Rückfrage nach Jesus”: insofar as the NT texts themselves exhibit a deep concern to relate the “Christusverkündigung” to the “Geschichte Jesu,” a theology of the NT must take seriously this movement toward the Jesus of history (esp. 1:30–32, 40–43). Hahn thus sees the probing of the space between the Proclaimer and the Proclaimed as an essential task of NTT. Indeed, it is only in light of the “Rückfrage” that the NT kerygma can be seen in its complexity and depth. The significance of Easter not only entails the outward movement of the message about Jesus but also the backward movement toward his earthly life and preaching. Hence, the first volume moves in (fairly standard) chronological order from the “Verkündigung und Wirken Jesu” through its multifaceted reception in the earliest Christian communities (Aramaic and Greek speaking), to Paul, the Pauline school, the non-Pauline Hellenistic-Jewish writings (James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation), the Synoptics (Acts is treated with Luke), the Johannine literature, and finally, the “transition to the second century” (Jude, 2 Peter, and the Apostolic Fathers). The exegetical attempt with each of these textual groups is to discern the diversity in the theological concepts and ecclesial practices that are a response to the Christ-event. This investigation yields a vast variety within NT Christianity in both practice and belief, to the extent that the reader is reminded of—and ultimately referred to—Käsemann’s famous thesis regarding the concomitance between the diversity in the NT canon and later church confessions: the “Vielfalt enthält durchaus die Tendenz zu divergierender Ausbildung christlicher Identität und konnte gegebenfalls zu unterschiedlichen konfessionelle Ausprägungen führen (vgl. Ernst Käsemann)” (1:763). Methodologically speaking, the chronological orientation and conceptual telos of Hahn’s Theologiegeschichte are hardly original, as displaying resolutely the diversity in the various “Traditionslinien” has long played a vital role in the history of the discipline

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(see recently Klaus Berger, Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums: Theologie des Neuen Testaments [Tübingen: Francke, 1994]). Yet for Hahn, what is significant is not the diversity per se, but rather the constructive character of such diversity for the question of the NT’s unity: “[d]ie Einheit des Neuen Testaments darf keinesfalls einfach vorausgesetzt werden; sie muß Kritisch erarbeitet werden aufgrund der Analyse der verschiedenen Traditionen” (1:26). That is, the diversity of the NT is inherent to its unity. Here Käsemann is reversed: the radical diversity of the NT does not preclude but instead discloses its unity. In this way, the thematic presentation and argument for unity in vol. 2 arise out of the technical tradition-history work in vol. 1 (e.g., esp. 1:27), as the diversity of the NT demonstrated in the first volume determines materially the kind of unity exhibited in the second. The overall arrangement of Hahn’s TdNT is thus hermeneutically significant in that it moves beyond a mere juxtaposition of two separate projects toward the structural and logical interpenetration of a truly synthetic account. Moreover, for Hahn the synthetic nature of the NT theological enterprise is necessary sensu stricto. An authentic NTT must pursue the question of the unity of the NT: “Eine Theologie des Neuen Testaments muß sich, wenn sie ihrem theologischen Anspruch gerecht werden will, neben der Vielfalt der Schriften auch mit der Frage nach der Einheit des urchristlichen Zeugnisses befassen” (1:xv). But it is insufficient to address this complex question in the customary final chapter; rather, “es muß anhand der zentralen Themen aufgezeigt werden, wie sich die Einheit bestimmen läßt” (1:xv). Volume 2, therefore, offers a thematization of the unity of the NT. The overarching rubric under which Hahn constructs vol. 2 is the revelation-act of God (Offenbarungshandeln Gottes): in the light of vol. 1, God’s act of self-revelation emerges as that which constitutes the unity in the various lines of tradition in the NT and thus enables them to be organized into a coherent thematic presentation: “Neutestamentliche Theologie ist Theologie der Offenbarung Gottes” (2:167; cf. 2:27, 161). The NT’s account of God’s revelation, however, is unintelligible apart from the OT (contra Hans Hübner, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments [3 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990–93], per se and not simply in novo receptum). With respect to the God who reveals God’s self in the OT, there is with the NT a “heilsgeschichtliche Kontinuität, die für das Verständnis des christlichen Glaubens konstitutiv ist” (2:85; cf. 2:86–87). Thus does a discussion of “Das Alte Testament als Bibel des Urchristentums” (Teil I) precede the thematic ordering of the unity of God’s revelation in the NT. The center of God’s revelation in the NT is, of course, the person of Jesus Christ (part 2). In this way “christology” provides the particular unifying force for the rest of vol. 2, for it allows the most significant aspects of God’s self-revelation to be related coherently to one center (cf. 2:259). The further traditional distinction between the person and work of Christ proves valuable descriptively in that the various exegetical data of vol. 1 can be coordinated with “Das Offenbarungshandeln Gottes in Jesus Christus” on the one hand (part 2), and the effects of this revelation on the other: Die soteriologische Dimension des Offenbarungshandelns Gottes (part 3), Die ekklesiologische Dimension des Offenbarungshandelns Gottes (part 4), and Die eschatologische Dimension des Offenbarungshandelns Gottes (part 5). Thus, the unity of the NT is, strictly speaking,

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theological: the NT traditions point in all their variety to the reality of the God of Israel’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ. Unity, however, is not uniformity (2:805). To affirm the former rather than the latter is to allow tensions and even basic contradictions to remain. The many views of the Torah, for example, are “höchst spannungsreich” (2:364–65), and “zwischen den Aussagen des Paulus über die total verlorene Gotteserkenntnis und der Aufassung des Lukas, daß alle Menschen trotz ihrer Sünde und Gottlosigkeit über eine bedingte Gotteserkenntnis verfügen, ist keine Brücke zu schlagen” (2:804). Even within NT eschatology—an area treated as a dimension of the unity of God’s self-revelation—it may be said that the “eschatologischen Aussagen des Neuen Testaments sind höchst unterschiedlich und in ihrem Erwartungshorizont nicht miteinander zu vereinen” (2:804). In Hahn’s sense, then, unity is not to be mistaken for an easy harmonization of the NT’s theological diversity. Rather, “[d]ie Einheit des Neuen Testaments besteht . . . in einer vielgestaltigen Entfaltung der urchristlichen Botschaft” (2:805). Thus “[kann] die Einheit . . . nur Einheit in der Vielfalt sein” (1:770). But let there be no mistake: “Einheit in der Vielfalt” is a real, substantive unity. Contra William Wrede, Heikki Räisänen, and other skeptics, Hahn affirms that the theological gauntlet thrown down by the collection of twenty-seven different documents has been taken up: one can write not only a Theologiegeschichte but also a Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Ulrich Wilckens would agree. Already in his retirement, Wilckens began a threevolume TdNT (Theologie des Neuen Testaments [4 vols.; Neukirchener-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2002–5]). Because it is presently incomplete, however, Wilckens’s project is difficult to evaluate comprehensively (vol. 1, Geschichte der urchristlichen Theologie, has appeared in four parts: Teilband 1: Geschichte des Wirkens Jesu in Galiläa [2002; 2nd ed. 2005]; Teilband 2: Jesu Tod und Auferstehung und die Entstehung der Kirche aus Juden und Heiden [2003]; Teilband 3: Die Briefe des Urchristentums: Paulus und seine Schüler, Theologen aus dem Bereich judenchristlicher Heidenmission [2005]; Teilband 4: Die Evangelien, die Apostelgeschichte, die Johannesbriefe, die Offenbarung und die Entstehung des Kanons [2005]). On the basis of his work in vol. 1, it is nevertheless worthwhile to note some of the leading themes and methodological decisions, not least of all because they represent substantive convergence with Hahn. First, with respect to the overall structure of the work, vols. 1 and 2 of Wilckens’s TdNT deal with the “historische Darstellung der Geschichte Jesu und des Urchristentums” and the “systematisch-theologische Darstellung des Ganzen dieser Geschichte,” respectively (1:1.50–51; vol. 3 offers a “kritische Darstellung der Geschichte der historisch-kritischen Bibelwissenschaft” [1:1.51], and gives the methodological justification for the procedure in vols. 1 and 2). Like Hahn, Wilckens avers that the diversity of the NT writings must be respected. To understand the theological unity of the NT is to work through, not against, the contingency of the individual compositions. “Jede Schrift,” argues Wilckens, “soll zunächst so gehört werden, wie sie an je ihrem Ort in der Geschichte des Urchristentums entstanden ist und von ihren Adressaten gehört werden sollte” (1:3.v). Thus, for example, with respect to the Gospels, the presentation in vol. 1 follows a historical rather than a canonical order: Gospel material is of course used

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in part 1 to reconstruct crucial moments in the early history, but the treatment of the Gospels as whole compositions is reserved until part 4. Moreover, Wilckens takes “Jede Schrift” seriously: part 3, for example, treats individually every letter in the Pauline corpus (in “chronological” order), Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, Jude, and 2 Peter. Yet Wilckens is careful to underscore the point that every historical presentation of the diversity or individuality of the NT writings involves a larger schematized perception of the overall history and development that surround the particular NT documents: “[I]m historischen Teil [werden] entscheidende Aspekte vorausgesetzt, die erst im systematischen Teil thematisch zusammenhängen dargestellt. Diese Verwurzelung des Historischen im Systematischen bestimmt aber bereits die Methode von Bd. I.” (1:1.51). This critical awareness of method prevents one from taking vol. 1 in isolation, as if it could be viewed simply as the “historical” component of the TdNT (with vol. 2 as the “theological” component). Instead, at least if it is carried through, there is a substantive interpenetration of vols. 1 and 2. For Wilckens as for Hahn, diachronic investigation and systematic presentation are not two separate ventures but rather two movements in one interpretive enterprise. Second, Wilckens argues that the “historical Jesus” is integral to NTT. Here, however, Wilckens labors to redefine critically the way in which the historical Jesus has been conceived. Rather than a figure who is best accessed in abstraction from his resurrection (1:1.29), the historical Jesus is the Jesus known through an examination of the essential continuity between the pre- and post-Easter period. If initially one is not committed to an understanding of reality that precludes resurrection (esp. 1:1.21–29), then “eröffnet sich eine faszinierende Möglichkeit, das Zentralproblem der historisch-kritischen neutestamentlichen Forschung: die Kluft zwischen dem historischen Jesus und dem verkündigten Christus historisch so zu lösen, daß sich ein theologischer Zusammenhang zeigt, der ebenso sinnvoll wie der historische Zusammenhang plausibel ist” (1:1.35; emphasis original). Wilckens admits that securing a theologically discerned historical continuity between the “Selbstverständnis Jesu” and the “urchristlichen Christusverkündigung” will involve “das ganze Geschichtsbild der historisch-kritischen Forschung in einer historischen wie theologischen Revision von Grund auf ” (1:1.35). But, in his view, such a christological revision of modern conceptuality is nothing less than the task of NTT. Third, the unity exhibited through the diversity of the NT is ultimately a profoundly theological one: “Die Einheit und Gemeinsamkeit urchristlichen Glaubens und urchristlicher Theologie hat in der Wirklichkeit Gottes ihren eigentlichen Grund” (1:1.55). In contrast to the old “Lehrbegriff ” model, Wilckens is at pains throughout vol. 1 to make clear that it is not the idea or doctrine of God that unifies the testimonies of the NT but “God” in the sense of a reality outside the text. “Der Konzeption der hier vorgelegten ‘Theologie des Neuen Testaments’ . . . liegt das Urteil zugrunde, daß alle Schriften des neutestamentlichen Kanons die Wirklichkeit des lebendigen Gottes selbst voraussetzen und bezeugen, der sich in der Geschichte seines Handelns mit den Menschen offenbart” (1:.4.vi [emphasis original]; cf. 1:1.11). Lest the NT scholar fret over the encroachment of systematic theology, it is important to note that such an explicitly theological claim functions also to ground Wilckens’s conviction that NTT must engage in rigorous historical inquiry. Because “[d]ie Wirklich-

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keit Gottes ist selbst geschichtlich,” the NT theologian who seeks to explore this reality must do so historically. Thus the theological character of the NT provides the necessity for historical investigation: “[F]ür die Notwendigkeit historischer Exegese biblischer Texte [gibt es] vor allem theologische Gründe” (1:1.23; emphasis original). In this way, for Wilckens, the unity of the NT texts (the reality of God) commits the exegete simultaneously to the diversity of the NT (the revelation of God’s reality in history). Finally, to locate the unity of the NT in the identity of God is also to point to the importance of the OT for the NT: “Daß im Alten wie im Neuen Testament der eine und selbe Gott bezeugt wird, ist die Grundvoraussetzung jeder Theologie des Neuen Testaments, die dessen Inhalt gerecht werden will” (1:1.2). Wilckens’s “Einführung in das Gesamtwerk” in 1:1, therefore, begins not with the NT but with the OT. With Hahn, moreover, Wilckens rejects Hübner’s more narrow focus on the OT’s reception in the New and maintains that “[d]as Alte Testament als ganzes ständig im Blick stehen [muß]” (1:1.13; emphasis added). The OT is not a set of proof texts from which the NT writers draw carefully (or willy-nilly) to suit the occasion. To the contrary, the OT informs the theology of the NT in a far-reaching and significant sense. For example, both the christology and ecclesiology “des Urchristentums [haben] ihre Wurzel in der Heilsgeschichte Israels” (1:1.56). The NT’s construction of the identity of Jesus and the church is inseparably bound to the history of Israel and its God. Thus, to come full circle, NTT is embedded in the OT because of the continuity in divine identity and act: “Christliche Gemeinden leben mit dem Gott Israels. Deswegen ist das Alte Testament ihre Heilige Schrift” (1:1.55; emphasis original). Even Peter Stuhlmacher could not have put it more strongly. Stuhlmacher’s second volume of his much discussed Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (BThdNT) appeared in 1999 (Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments, Band 1: Grundlegung: Von Jesus zu Paulus [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991]; Band 2: Von der Paulusschule bis zur Johannesoffenbarung: Der Kanon und seine Auslegung [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999]). For the purposes of this review, Stuhlmacher’s project need not be covered in full. It will instead suffice to note three cardinal areas of similarity with Hahn and Wilckens. First, the title of Stuhlmacher’s work makes the importance of the OT immediately clear. By situating his NT investigations within the larger framework of “biblical” theology, Stuhlmacher is able to characterize his NT theological endeavor as “eine vom Alten Testament herkommende und zu ihm hin offene Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments.” NTT itself, that is, does not exist as a self-contained discipline; it is instead always and only a “Teildisziplin einer Altes und Neues Testament gemeinsam betrachtenden Biblischen Theologie” (1:5). Like Hahn and Wilckens, Stuhlmacher affirms that the importance of the OT for the NT is far greater than the significance attached to citations and allusions alone (1:36–38). Indeed, “Das Neue Testament is ohne das Alte nicht zu denken” (2:288). Where Stuhlmacher differs somewhat from Hahn and Wilckens, however, is in the amount of weight he places upon Kanonsgeschichte. Adopting the thesis of Hartmut Gese, Stuhlmacher grounds the unity of the OT with the NT in the (debatable) fact that the “closing” of the OT and NT canon was actually one historical process, not two separate events. Around the time of the NT, that is, the OT canon was not closed

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but remained open to further developments. In point of fact, the open OT went in two observable directions: that of rabbinic Judaism with the Mishnah, and that of early Christianity with the NT texts. Thus, in Stuhlmacher’s account, neither the OT nor the NT existed in final form independently. In the historical trajectory of the Christian tradition, there is really only one book: “Altes und Neues Testament lassen sich darum zwar als erster und zweiter Teil des biblischen Kanons unterscheiden, aber nicht trennen. Trennt man sie, versteht man das Neue Testament sowohl historisch als auch theologisch falsch” (1:5; emphasis added). The primary way in which a separation of the Old from the NT is “theologisch falsch” joins Stuhlmacher closely again with Hahn and Wilckens. The God who is revealed in the OT and the NT is one and the same God. At bottom, then, the historicalcanonical process has its meaning in the revelation of God: “Die Entscheidung der Kirche für den zweiteiligen christlichen Kanon war die konsequente Reaktion auf die Traditions- und Offenbarungsgeschichte, der sie sich verdankt” (2:303). Second, Stuhlmacher affirms that NTT must give an explanation for the unity of the NT, why, that is, “gerade die 27 neutestamentlichen Bücher zum zweiten Teil des Kanons zusammengefaßt werden konnten” (1:34). Rather than an entire volume of systematic presentation, however, Stuhlmacher structures his BThdNT differently. The overall work is divided into two parts: (1) Entstehung und Eigenart der neutestamentlichen Verkündigung (2) Das Problem des Kanons und die Mitte der Schrift. But one should note that vols. 1 and 2 do not correspond exactly to these two parts. (Indeed, Part 1 comprises the majority of vol. 2 as well.) Instead, vol. 1—von Jesus zu Paulus—presents the “Grundlegung” of a biblical theology of the NT. Stuhlmacher begins with the message and life of Jesus, moves to the preaching of primitive Christian community, and finally to Paul. Volume 2 presents the rest of the NT as the building upon this foundation (the Pauline school, the “catholic letters,” the Synoptics with Acts, and the Johannine literature). In the final 62 pages (out of ca. 750 total text pages in the two volumes), Stuhlmacher turns to part 2 of his project and grapples with issues of canon and the center of Scripture. Stuhlmacher’s attempt to establish the unity of the NT could be caricatured as the “final chapter” statement against which Hahn warns. Such a caricature, however, would not do justice to the conceptual significance of the work’s structure or to Stuhlmacher’s resolute effort throughout part 1 to locate the points of continuity which then fund the construal of the NT’s unity in part 2. The structure and approach of the project together make a strong argument for the unity of the NT in traditionsgeschichtliche terms. There is a continuity in history between Jesus’ life and message and the response thereto: “die christliche Missions- und Gemeinde-Predigt [ist] geschichtlich legitimerweise Predigt von Jesus als dem Christus Gottes, oder mit A. Schlatter formuliert: Der irdische Jesus war kein anderer als der Christus des Glaubens” (1:157; emphasis original). For Stuhlmacher, this continuity is understandable only within the larger theological context of God’s relation to the world as narrated in the OT. Thus is the theology of the NT a biblical theology of the NT: “Die Biblische Theologie des (Alten und) Neuen Testaments wird konstituiert durch das kerygmatische Zeugnis von dem einen Gott, der die Welt geschaffen, Israel zu seinem Eigentumsvolk erwählt und in der Sendung Jesu als Christus für das Heil von Juden und Heiden genug getan hat” (1:38; cf. 1:34; 2:311–13).

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Third, despite the “klare Konturen für eine Glaubenslehre, die über den Differenzen der verschiedenen Traditionszeugen des Neuen Testaments steht,” the unity “[hat] nicht zur Uniformität gezwungen” (2:311). It is therefore incumbent upon the NT exegete to draw out the diversity of the writings under discussion and to treat them in their individual, historical contexts (e.g., 1:10). The logic that undergirds the collection of twenty-seven different documents does not posit a bland theological uniformity but instead, under the conviction of a theologically continuous history, moves freely through the manifest diversity of the individual texts. Read together, the NT theologies of Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher constitute a powerful voice in German NTT today. In multiple and important ways—and regardless of their many differences—their theologies converge to provide a coherent alternative to the larger Bultmannian paradigm in NTT. Where Bultmann famously side-stepped the significance of the OT, Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher all affirm the inseparability of the Old from the New. Where Bultmann refused the historical Jesus a part in the theology of the NT, Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher press for the necessity of Jesus’ earthly life as an essential ingredient of NTT. Where Bultmann saw deep and irreconcilable theological contradiction within the NT (the radical divergences between Paul/John and Frühkatholizismus, for example), Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher argue for a discernible theological unity amidst the obvious and real diversity of the NT writings. And, finally, where Bultmann’s existential interpretation clearly placed the accent on theological anthropology (human “self-understanding”), Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher all insist on the centrality of theology proper: the NT is first of all about God. Recent German NTT, however, is not univocal. Georg Strecker’s posthumously published TdNT (German, 1996) (Theology of the New Testament [ed. F. W. Horn; trans. E. Boring; Berlin: de Gruyter; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000]), for example, continues in the Bultmannian vein with an explicit focus upon the cognitive structures of religious experience, “believing comprehension” (2). Strecker, moreover, does not argue for the unity of the NT. Indeed, he explicitly sets the NT’s diversity over against the possibility of its unity: “the theological unity . . . cannot be presupposed. It is rather the case that in the writings of the New Testament we are met with a multiplicity of theological conceptions. These are to be investigated and presented according to their own structures of thought, in relation to their own historical and literary contexts” (2–3). Joachim Gnilka, too, has offered a recent TdNT which differs significantly from Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher (Theologie des Neuen Testaments [HTKNT Sup 5; Freiburg: Herder, 1994]). The title of the work notwithstanding, Gnilka, like Strecker, makes no concerted attempt to address the question of the theological unity of the NT. In fact, where he identifies the element common to the various “Vorgaben” of the NT documents—the kerygma of the death and resurrection of Jesus—he concurrently precludes the unity of the NT by also asserting that this is the source of manifold diversity (esp. 454–64). In addition, though he begins with Paul, Gnilka agrees with Bultmann with respect to the role of Jesus in a NTT: “In eine Erörterung über die Ursprünge und den Anfang der Kirche gehört Jesus von Nazaret unverzichtbar hinein. Schriebe man eine Theologie des Neuen Testaments, so konnte man auf dieses Kapitel verzichten” (Die

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Frühen Christen: Ursprünge und Anfang der Kirche [HTKNT Sup 7; Freiburg: Herder, 1999], 11–12, with reference to his own TdNT). Despite the uncontestable sophistication of these works, it is difficult to concede that Strecker and Gnilka have written successful Theologies of the NT (so, rightly, Matera, “New Testament Theology,” 8, though his remark that they have presented “reliable accounts of the theologies in the writings of the NT” undercuts his critical move). Although their studies carry forth Bultmann’s perspective in certain important ways and display numerous exegetical insights, in the end they seem not to amount to more than valuable sets of historical- or redaction-critical articles. Yet precisely in this way they are tradents of one side of the history of the discipline, the side in which the extensive diversity of the NT appears to render questionable its existence as a collection. A more creative effort to deal constructively with the NT’s diversity from within the Bultmannian existentialist framework is François Vouga’s Une théologie du Nouveau Testament (MDB 43; Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2001; see 439, 445, etc.; though Swiss-born, Vouga’s institutional home is the Kirchliche Hochschule Bethel in Germany). In contrast to the diachronic methodology of Strecker, for example, Vouga’s work is arranged thematically. The attempt here is not to follow the traditional dogmatic loci or a history of theological development but to let the NT itself suggest the organizing topics (esp. 19–21): “La révélation du temps nouveau,” “La réalité de l’existence nouvelle,” the three theological virtues (foi, espérance, amour) and so on (these larger themes are also further subdivided). The fresh aspect of Vouga’s treatment is the imaginative manner in which he structures debates around these matters from within the NT itself. The NT texts are not pressed or mixed together in order to speak with one voice on a particular topic. The emphasis, rather, is upon letting the relevant NT authors speak with their own voices to a variety of different issues. So, for example, when Vouga treats “La réalité de l’existence nouvelle,” he organizes the dialogue around four different ways in which the NT authors construe “new existence”: Luke and John are employed to address new existence in light of their emphases upon salvation (“salut”), while Hebrews and John are allowed to speak about the images of deliverance and purification (“images de la délivrance et de la purification”); Paul, Matthew, and Luke discuss forgiveness (“pardon”), and, lastly, Paul reappears to reflect with the author of Ephesians upon new existence as reconciliation (“réconciliation”). In this way, Vouga is able to elaborate the distinctive perspectives of the various NT documents from multiple angles of vision. In Vouga’s judgment, the diversity that emerges from this method of reading the NT texts together excludes the kind of final theological unity for which Hahn et al. have argued. The response to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ is deeply pluralistic and cannot be reduced to an overarching theological perspective. In view of this irreducible diversity, NTT becomes dialogue, debate, or finally a conflict of interpretations (442–43). This conflict, however, is fully in accord with earliest Christianity itself, in which there never was an original theological unity (F. C. Baur’s influence is marked); thus does NTT as a conflict of interpretation mirror well the nature of its source (Vouga is aware of course that Acts, e.g., presents a more unified picture of early Christian theol-

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ogy than he does. But this picture, in his view, is a fictive projection of later ecclesiastical authorities/wishes [440]). In light of such radical disagreement within the NT, one might expect Vouga to abandon altogether any attempt at unity. Instead, he presents “la diversité des théologies comme principe d’unité du christianisme” (21). For Vouga, diversity and conflict result in conversation, and it is this dialogical mode of discourse that itself becomes the proper form of unity: “Le christianisme se définit lui-même comme conflit des interprétations de la révélation historique de Dieu en Jésus-Christ, de sorte que le dialogue ouvert est la forme appropriée de l’unité du christianisme” (442; emphasis altered). Or, to state positively the “unity” of NT Christianity in Vouga’s sense: “L’unité . . . consiste nécessairement en un ‘conflit des interpretations’” (443). If there remain structural curiosities and organizational oddities (e.g., the treatment of the historical Jesus in the middle of the book does not evidence a logically necessary relationship to its surrounding material), the overall conceptual proposals in Vouga’s TdNT are remarkably consistent. It is, finally, no small wonder that the only two figures who receive significant discussion are F. C. Baur and Bultmann (380–90, in a digression). If one is convinced in Baur-like fashion that the level of theological conflict in the NT is as substantive as Vouga believes, then it is indubitably convenient to be convinced in Bultmann-like fashion that the thrust of the NT is essentially anthropological (“self-understanding”). This coordination allows Vouga to avoid positing directly an essential conflict in the identity of God (as would be the case if he construed the unity in ultimately theological terms), for God is no longer the primary horizon of the NT. Vouga’s work recalls the unfinished New Testament Theology of George B. Caird (completed and edited by L. D. Hurst; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), who, like Vouga, attempts to bring the NT authors together in conversation with one another. Structurally speaking, Caird rejects the dogmatic loci approach, the developmental or chronological approach, the kerygmatic approach, and the author-by-author approach (5–18). In the place of these defective organizational schemata, Caird sets the “Conference Table Approach.” The methodological presupposition “is simply stated: to write a New Testament theology is to preside at a conference of faith and order. Around the table sit the authors of the New Testament, and it is the presider’s task to engage them in a colloquium about theological matters which they themselves have placed on the agenda” (18). In practice, Caird’s NTT then proceeds thematically, and the NT authors are employed to speak with their own voices to various aspects of “salvation”—the overarching theme to which all others are related. Indeed, six of the eight chapters that comprise the body of the book are essentially about salvation. The eighth chapter concerns “the theology of Jesus.” This reflects Caird’s conviction that Bultmann put “the cart before the horse” (25). Because we have only “the message of Jesus according to Mark, or Luke, or Matthew, or John,” we can only arrive at the “teaching of Jesus” after a thorough study of the NT documents (25–26). Such an approach presupposes that the task of NTT is “modern academic research into the ideas of the New Testament writers,” rather than a reconstruction of the message of Jesus behind the Gospels. Of course, this is precisely Caird’s point. Unlike Vouga, however, Caird displays no postmodern hermeneutical tendencies, affirming resolutely the traditional Wrede/Stendahl line: “New Testament theology is a

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historical discipline. . . . Its purpose is descriptive” (1). Also in contrast to Vouga, Caird holds out for the theological unity of the NT. The model is given by the NT itself in the form of the Jerusalem council (23–24), in which there was presumably unity without homogeneity. By no means, that is to say, is the “music of the New Testament choir . . . written to be sung in unison” (24). The question is not whether the NT texts “all say the same thing, but whether they all bear witness to the same Jesus and through him to the many splendoured wisdom of the one God” (24). Thus, for Caird as for Hahn et al., the unity of the NT is finally a question about the unity of God. Philip Esler (New Testament Theology: Communion and Community [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005]) shares Caird’s conviction that a proper NTT ought to be historical and descriptive. The “normative” role of NTT is rejected in favor of “the valorization of what Stendahl called the descriptive task” (36). Yet for Esler such historical work is theological in scope. Esler begins his “entirely different model” for NTT by stating that his “intention in writing is an avowedly theological one,” by which he means that he intends “to promote a specifically Christian rationale for reading the New Testament” (1). Thus the whole of the descriptive, historical investigations is “set within a theologically and socially constructed framework of persons in communion” (276). These are the two sides of Esler’s proposal: on the one hand, there is the adamant commitment to the historical-critical and social-scientific enterprise, and, on the other, there is the attempt to develop a theological account of personhood. Historical, social-scientific investigation centers the interpreter’s attention upon the oral/aural dynamic of author/audience communication in the ancient world. “Textuality” is largely a modern construct; “scriptality”—despite the awkward neologism—captures better the fact that the author was presumed to be present via his/her written communication (180ff.). That is, communication through written documents was not merely a dispensing of information but was an “interpersonal” affair. In the face of difficulties with authorial intention, textual transmission, and canonical shaping, Esler focuses on Paul and maintains that present-day readers still have direct access to the real (not implied) author through reading his documents. Indeed, this is the purpose of NTT: to commune interpersonally with the authors of the NT. In order to establish this communion as a serious possibility, Esler develops an account of the human person that draws on the thought of systematic theologians ranging from Schleiermacher to John Zizioulas (Orthodox), as well as on current work in genetics, sociology, literary theory, and philosophy. Esler’s theoretical melting pot yields the conclusion that the old ecclesial notion of “communion with the saints” wields sufficient explanatory power as that notion that best brings “the results of historical criticism of the New Testament into fruitful conjunction with the ongoing life and belief of contemporary Christians” (256). In the present climate, Esler’s “new approach” to NTT is novel in the sense that few NT scholars would want to claim that we have “direct” access to the NT authors (282ff.) and probably even fewer that such “interpersonal communication” is a direct result of historical research. Yet the overall concern to bring together exacting historical exegesis and contemporary Christian life is hardly new at all. In fact, such a concern is arguably

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imbedded in the origins of the discipline itself, and one has only to look over to the University of Aberdeen to see massive evidence of precisely this larger program. Howard Marshall’s recent tome (New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004]) is the best example of what divinity students typically think of when they think of NTT: an exegetical and theological map of the NT that shows how all the various lines fit together to make one picture. There are “many witnesses” but only “one Gospel.” In a sense, the question of the unity and diversity of the NT stands at the center of Marshall’s project. In contrast to the separate, systematic treatments of Hahn and Wilckens, however, the methodological manner in which Marshall considers this problem is essentially via the accumulation of descriptive exegesis: the construction of the work is an author-by-author treatment that builds its synthetic case in brief comparative sketches at the end of major textual groups (the Theology of the Synoptic Gospels and Acts; Paul, the Synoptic Gospels and Acts; John, the Synoptic Gospels and Acts, and Paul; Hebrews, James, 1–2 Peter and Jude in the NT). This structure reflects Marshall’s conviction that if there is to be a synthetic NTT, “it must begin with seeing each writer in his own terms” (726). The investigation of the individual witnesses of the NT does not proceed chronologically but, by and large, according to modern canonical groupings (Synoptics and Acts, corpus Paulinum, Johannine literature, the rest of the NT). The “historical Jesus,” however, is not thereby set aside. To the contrary, Marshall relies heavily on the Synoptic traditions and argues that NTT must include “jesusology as well as christology” (46). Here, like the views of Wilckens and Stuhlmacher, Marshall’s view of the historical Jesus is essentially concomitant with that of the figure presented by the Synoptic Gospels. In this way the theological continuity for which Marshall argues is also a historical one, in that the message of the NT (naturally) has its origin in the life and ministry of Jesus. Unity and continuity do not mean, however, that the NT documents are simply identical in theological expression. Indeed, there are significant differences in the way the various NT authors develop the central theme of the Gospel: “[t]he unity is expressed in diversity” (726; see also 21, 731, etc.). Yet, as he candidly admits, Marshall’s construal is weighted heavily toward the side of unity: “I have to admit that I am probably the kind of person whose bias or temptation is to see the likenesses and play down or not notice the differences, and therefore my observations may tend to be one-sided” (185; see esp. the evaluation of the list on 589–90 that compares the Synoptic Gospels with John. Of the nine listed items, four exhibit rather considerable differences between the Synoptics and John [nos. 1, 3, 4, and 5]. But Marshall concludes that the list as a whole indicates “a basic agreement between the Synoptic Gospels and John . . .” [590]). Adopting J. C. Beker’s “coherent/contingent” pattern of analysis for Pauline thought, Marshall argues that the coherence or “core” of the NT is its message of redemption (717). There are four discernible stages to this “religion of redemption . . . common to all the writers”: “(1) the situation of human need understood as sin that places sinners under divine judgment (2) the saving act by God that is accomplished through Jesus Christ . . . whose death and resurrection constitute the saving act that must be proclaimed to the world (3) the new life for those who show faith in God and Jesus Christ (4) the act of God to bring his redemptive action to consummation with the parousia of Christ, final judgment . . . and

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the establishment of the new world” (717–18; Marshall’s formulations are purposefully reminiscent of Kümmel’s articulation of the message of Jesus, Paul, and John: “what Kümmel established for three witnesses can be extended to cover all of them” [715]). Further, in addition to the “main theme” of redemption, all the NT writers share the same larger conceptual structure, or “framework of thought,” which is fundamentally Jewish in shape. The basic importance of the OT, for example, is presupposed (a “divinely authorized and inspired account of God’s dealings with his people”), as are the doctrine of creation and the theological significance of history (718). Finally, though they do so in various ways, all the NT writers develop the main theme of redemption with an emphasis upon what Marshall broadly terms “mission” (the “context of mission,” “center of mission,” “community of mission,” and “consummation of mission”). For Marshall, this is true historically no less than noetically. Not only is the existence of the NT dependent upon the “mission of Jesus”; it is also “worth remembering that people were believers only if they had become believers . . . [I]nevitably, therefore, the church was active in mission, or else there would have been no church” (709). To the objection that Paul’s letters, for example, are hardly tools of evangelism, Marshall has a ready reply. It is “a narrow view of evangelism that confines it to the activity whereby people are brought to faith; the nurture of converts and the establishment of the congregations they comprise are equally important as part of the task” (709). As Marshall defines it, the notion of mission thus encompasses the majority of the NT literature. “New Testament theology is essentially missionary theology” (34). To his own question, then, of whether the diversity in the NT “amounts to significant difference or even contradiction” (726), Marshall has answered with a clear “no.” Paul and the Synoptics (with Acts) are “not identical, but they are recognizably the same” (483). The positions of Paul and James “on the issue of faith and works . . . are harmonious” (691). Though the NT authors may sing different parts, they “are all singing from the same hymnbook” (484); there is “a harmony between the different writers” (483). They all “bear testimony to what is palpably the same complex reality” (726). In contrast to Vouga and Strecker, but like Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher, Marshall obviously posits a substantial level of unity between the various NT documents. Yet, in contrast to Wilckens et al., this unity is not derived from the identity of God as much as it is located in the thought of the particular NT writers (esp., e.g., 28–30). In this sense, Marshall’s version of unity is perhaps best read as a counterpoint to Vouga: where Vouga argues for permanent diversity on the basis of the perspectival differences between the authors of the NT, Marshall maintains that “a descriptive account of the theological thinking of the early Christians” (45) yields an essentially harmonious NTT.

II It is impossible to evaluate individually each of the NTTs treated above. It is also exceedingly difficult to draw together many thousands of pages from conceptually diverse works without reduction and oversimplification. Nevertheless, we may identify

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several areas of the foregoing discussion that help to sketch the development and present contour of the discipline. 1. The Old Testament. In marked contrast to a strong tendency in past scholarship (e.g., Harnack, Bultmann, Baumgärtel, Hirsch), recent work in NTT has reached the point of consensus on the importance of the OT for NTT: readings of the NT that downplay or even erase the fundamental historical and theological significance of the OT for the New contradict the NT itself to such a degree that they cease to be NTT. Whether “soft” or “hard,” Marcionite hermeneutics radically distort the constructive role of the OT in the NT. With varying interpretive strategies, the authors of the NT documents all seek to understand and explicate the meaning of the Christ-event in intimate connection with the OT. Moreover, contra Hübner, there is widespread agreement that the import of the OT extends far beyond citations and/or allusions; the entirety of the OT must be taken into account. 2. The Historical Jesus. There has also been a significant shift in NT theological research with respect to Jesus. Despite his otherwise enthusiastic acceptance of the Bultmannian program, even Vouga maintains that Jesus should occupy a place within NTT. Gnilka demurs, but Hahn, Wilckens, Stuhlmacher, and Marshall all attempt to incorporate the question of continuity between the NT and the figure whose life and teaching generated its documents. By attempting to show that the unity of the NT has its basic origin in Jesus, these scholars argue for a unity that operates at a deeper level than an interpretation of the NT that would avoid asking the historical question. In their view, NTT encompasses rather than brackets out the pre-NT period: there is in fact a “sachliche” continuity between Jesus’ proclamation/life and its reception. However, the question remains as to the definition of the “historical Jesus” and the consequences such definition has for the overall argument. As Martin Kähler might caution, there is a considerable difference between speaking of the “historical Jesus” in the sense of a critically reconstructed figure behind the Gospels, on the one hand, and in the sense of the figure presented by the Gospels, on the other. Where Stuhlmacher, for example, speaks of the “earthly Jesus,” one would do well to interpret this expression primarily in the latter sense, for a “reconstructed Jesus” plays little to no part in his BThdNT. And where Gnilka objects to the place of the “historical Jesus” in a NTT, one should interpret the expression in the former sense. The critical point pertains to the theses of the scholars who locate the “historical Jesus” within their NTTs and thereby argue for continuity between Jesus and the theology of the NT. If by historical or earthly Jesus one means in practice the figure presented by the Gospel narratives, then it is of little wonder—and also of little historical, argumentative value—that this figure is basically continuous with the theology of the NT. Leander Keck’s criticism of Alan Richardson is far overdone for the authors considered here, but it is not without a certain bite: “The Jesus who teaches everything Richardson attributes to him has been pasted together with New Testament texts; he is not a flesh and blood, first century, north Palestinian, Aramaic-speaking Jew. [Richardson’s] Jesus is a Christian theologian, probably an Anglican” (“Problems of a New Testament Theology,” NovT 7 [1964]: 217–41, here 237). That is to say, regardless of the perpetual meth-

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odological problems in so doing, if the attempt is to trace a historical continuity between the life of the Jesus who gave rise to the Gospels and the theology of the NT itself, then one will have to work with a historically reconstructed Jesus—the “historian’s Jesus” (cf. Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971]). In my judgment, current research has not demonstrated that this particular task belongs properly to the discipline of NTT. Bultmann’s methodological manifesto is thus still on the table. 3. NTT and Theologiegeschichte. Stuhlmacher’s response to the repristination of Wrede’s vision by Heikki Räisänen captures well the larger contour of NTT in the present: Räisänen’s project should not bear the name New Testament Theology, for the NT “ist . . . als Buch der Kirche auf uns gekommen” (1:34; emphasis original). To commit oneself to a collection of (at least!) twenty-seven different documents is therefore to position oneself within a particular, ecclesial construal of these texts. Restricting one’s analysis, that is, to the interpretation of the NT is already to adopt a theological posture, as Wrede himself understood well (“The Task and Methods of ‘New Testament Theology’,” in The Nature of New Testament Theology [ed. and trans. R. Morgan; Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1973], 68–116 [71]). Conversely, to reject the demarcation of the NT as an interpretive field is to engage in a different task than that of NTT. Pure (rein) or neutral NTT is a fiction, as is the neutrality of an interpretation that rejects the NT (so Wilckens in particular). Yet the basic Gablerian conviction that NTT must deal with the NT historically continues fundamentally to shape the work of NT theologians. Thus the structure of both Hahn’s and Wilckens’s projects impressively makes the point that diachronic Theologiegeschichte is integral to NTT. And Stuhlmacher’s traditionsgeschichtliche method is shaped by a historical reconstruction of biblical tradition history. Still, the type of Theologiegeschichte advocated by these scholars is different in kind from that of the history-of-religions school or even Klaus Berger, for example. For the former, the NT itself was an obstacle to be overcome on the way to broader historical insight; for the latter, it is a quarry to be mined for a reconstruction of early Christian theology in toto (Theologiegeschichte, v: “die Geschichte der frühchristlicher Theologie im Ganzen . . .”). By contrast, the type of Theologiegeschichte that is associated with the NT theologies covered in this review is methodologically interwoven into the NT theological task itself. Theologiegeschichte in this sense is oriented teleologically toward the understanding of the New Testament, as a distinct textual entity. It is, understood methodologically, Neutestamentliche Theologiegeschichte. In point of fact, the particular emphasis within this kind of reconstructive task is the elucidation of the diversity of the NT. Such diversity, however, is not emphasized for its own sake, but rather for the purpose of working toward unity. Precisely in this way the larger integrative possibilities for NTT proffered by Hahn, Wilckens, and Stuhlmacher move beyond Bultmann’s methodological hybrid (where Wredian Religionsgeschichte and Heideggerian Sachkritik hardly converse). 4. The Unity of the NT. There is complete consensus in terms of the scholarly necessity to respect the diversity and individuality of the NT compositions. It would also not be an overstatement, however, to say that there is an emerging consensus that for a

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work to count as an actual NTT it must address the problem of the NT’s unity. Just how much unity is needed to retain the NT as one book, however, is unresolved. On one side, there is Vouga, who constructs his entire NTT around the idea of theological or interpretive conflict within the NT. Yet Vouga’s attempt is to present a way of taking the NT together as a whole. The form, to be sure, is a highly contentious debate, but the intent is to make it a New Testament debate. On the other side, there is Marshall, who does not shy away from difference within the NT, but clearly thinks that such difference does not amount to actual contradiction. Indeed, it is unclear in Marshall’s NTT whether or not there exists even serious tension within the NT. In the middle of Vouga and Marshall stands Hahn, inter alios, whose entire second volume argues forcefully for the unity of the NT. As we have seen, however, Hahn’s is the kind of unity that allows contradictions to remain (e.g., in the realm of eschatology). Such thorough differences in the accounts of the NT’s unity should give one pause and encourage a more delicate probing of the intersection between the concept of unity, the view of the NT’s subject matter, and the presuppositions about the nature of the biblical text itself. Such an investigation is impossible here. Suffice it to note that if one ultimately sees God as the subject matter of the NT and has a rather “high” view of the Bible, it will be difficult to admit to basic theological contradictions within the biblical texts (e.g., Marshall). If, however, one sees humanity in its self-understanding as the primary subject matter of the NT and views the biblical texts as various expressions of this attempt at religious self-understanding, then one can easily embrace significant contradictions (e.g., Vouga). For scholars such as Hahn or Stuhlmacher, however, the interconnection is not as easy to discern, due primarily to what presents itself as a suppleness in thought. At least on a prima facie account, it appears that the entire process of writing a NTT that argues for unity as Hahn or Stuhlmacher understand it is intrinsically dialectical in that it involves a subtle movement between guiding principles of thought and their confirmation or disconfirmation by the NT itself. At any rate, the status quaestionis in the present makes clear that, against detractors from various quarters, it is possible to make a robust case for the unity of the NT, both historically and theologically. At the same time, the divergent ways in which the case has been made—not to mention the varying outcomes—suggest that the unity of the NT cannot be read off the surface of the texts, as if any scholar who happened to ask the question would receive a clear affirmative answer. Thus does the entire issue need more reflection with respect to theological/philosophical questions (what exactly constitutes the unity?), epistemological questions (how does one know this?), and, for lack of a better term, quantitative/qualitative questions (what is the bar under which the NT cannot pass without forfeiting its unity?). 5. Neglected Factors. Though undoubtedly more could be brought forward, I will close with two issues that should provoke further thought about the discipline of NTT, particularly as they pertain to its future. First, in relation to the problem of unity and diversity, there is a notable absence of reflection on narrative as a possible way to consider the problem. Stuhlmacher’s “regula fidei” construal of the center or unity of the NT is perhaps the closest contemporary analogy in that it is stated in a narrative form, and there is probably an overarching narrative inherent in Hahn’s systematic structure in vol.

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2 (cf. Matera, “New Testament Theology,” 15).Yet neither Stuhlmacher nor Hahn actually works on a sophisticated level with the narratives the NT texts “tell or presuppose” (Matera, “New Testament Theology,” 16; Matera’s suggestions here have much promise). Rather, discerning narrative at the heart of their construals of unity has far more to do with the irreducibly narrative shape of the grammar used to speak about unity. It is precisely this aspect of the problem that remains submerged in the “consciousness” of the discipline and needs to be brought to the surface. This absence of narrative is particularly regrettable since narrative has the inherent structural ability to exhibit considerable diversity and discontinuity within the unity and continuity of one story. In a word, narrative is flexible. The same kerygmatic story can be interpreted and reinterpreted in numerous ways without the abrogation of that which makes the story intelligibly the same story. As a medium for NTT, narrative seems well suited to the task. Second, there remains the remarkable lack of non-European contributions to NTT. Prior to Frank Thielman’s Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), which reached me too late to be considered for this review (it is a cousin to Marshall’s effort), the only substantive North American NTT was written over thirty years ago (George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament [1974; rev. ed.; ed. D. Hagner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993]; the major exception here is by a non-NT specialist and spans both testaments: Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on the Christian Bible [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992]). More specifically, as Hahn repeatedly notes, NTT has been primarily a German affair (TdNT, 1:xiii, xvii, 11, which is also an attempt to justify his almost exclusive concentration on German exegesis). As it stands, a vast amount of significant work in NT scholarship is largely ignored. From the treatments of Pauline theology, for example, one would hardly know that there exist counterproposals to the traditional Lutheran debates over Paul’s Rechtfertigungslehre. Though the names are occasionally mentioned, the signal contributions of E. P. Sanders, J. Louis Martyn, Richard Hays et al. have no substantive impact on the discussion. The problem is more than simply parochialism in German scholarship. It is indicative of a larger phrenic circumscription, in which the shape of human thinking is determined in important ways by deep-seated cultural and intellectual patterns (e.g., the Wirkungsgeschichte of biblical interpretation in Europe), the criticism of which is difficult—if not impossible—from the inside. Indeed, if Hans Frei is correct (The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974]), it is telling that the lack of attention given to narrative and the fact that NTT “ist in der deutschen evangelischen Exegese beheimatet” (Hahn, 1:11) are far from coincidental. Though it has been said that “writing a theology of the Old or New Testament . . . is no longer the ultimate aspiration of most biblical scholars,” this survey offers some European evidence to the contrary (Leander Keck, “The Premodern Bible in Postmodern World,” Int 50 [1996]: 130–41, here 132). In fact, given the recent surge of important works in NTT, we may even be justified in speaking of a revival of the discipline. Nonetheless, if this resurgence is to be of more than passing significance, it must also arouse the interest and response of new communities of thought. Inasmuch as particular con-

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struals of NT theology involve larger—even universalizing—claims, they call for critical testing and reformulation by those who occupy culturally and intellectually different spaces of historical and theological inquiry.

The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, by Ziony Zevit. London/New York: Continuum, 2001. Pp. xxii + 821. $69.95 (paper). ISBN 0826463398. This substantial volume offers an account of Israelite religion during the Iron Age, up to 586 b.c.e., based on a thorough presentation of evidence. Rather than a history of Israelite religion on the order of well-known works by Yehezkel Kaufmann, Helmer Ringgren, and Rainer Albertz or a focused comparative textual treatment like the studies of Frank Moore Cross or Mark S. Smith, Zevit intentionally seeks to offer something different. In so doing, he responds to what he views as a scholarly propensity toward theoretically driven scholarship that is unduly influenced by understandings of religion operative in our contemporary setting, a propensity that, according to Zevit, results in presentations of “the alleged contents of Israel’s belief (as reflected in the Bible)” (xiii). As a correction, Zevit takes a phenomenological approach with two aims: (1) to describe Israelite religion based on an integration of biblical, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence; (2) “to synthesize these within the structure of an Israelite worldview and ethos involving kin, tribes, land, traditional ways and places of worship, and a national deity” (xiv). Chapter 1 locates Zevit’s study philosophically and methodologically within the humanities and social sciences broadly considered and more specifically within the scholarly fields of religion and history. In short, Zevit approaches the matter within a modernist paradigm that includes an awareness of the limits of human knowledge about the past, the inevitable role of subjectivity in the historian’s task, and the constructed and complex nature of knowledge. Early in this discussion, Zevit offers the following definition of his subject: “Israelite religions are the varied, symbolic expressions of, and appropriate responses to, the deities and powers that groups or communities deliberately affirmed as being of unrestricted value to them within their worldview” (15). Apart from the final chapter, the rest of the book is organized largely by evidence categories. In ch. 2, “Of Cult Places and of Israelites,” Zevit challenges the currently prevailing view in the archaeology of Syria-Palestine that Iron Age Israelites in large part descended from the preceding Late Bronze Age “Canaanite” population. Arguing from the same settlement data and ceramic evidence, Zevit concludes, alternatively, that the Israelites entered the land during Iron I as a population of distinct ethnicity. One logical and procedural consequence for the remainder of Zevit’s study is a relative lack of attention to comparative textual religious evidence from the Late Bronze Age, especially from Ugarit—evidence that is regularly invoked in discussions of Israelite religion. In ch. 3, “Architecture Parlante: Israelite Cult Places,” Zevit draws on excavation reports and other published discussion of archaeological sites to give an overview of architectural evidence for religious activity. This chapter deals with the organization of space in various cult places, temples, caves, cultic corners, and shrines. Zevit’s survey begins with four sites that are identified as non-Israelite (Philistine, Edomite, and

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Aramean) but that—because they are located in close proximity to Israelite territory— offer some of the most reliable evidence for cultic space and thus allow one to establish a relatively objective methodological approach and typology for the discussion of Israelite sites. From there he goes on to make an overview of the range of identified cultic spaces at various Israelite sites. Although the data are too sparse and fragmentary to allow for a comprehensive picture, Zevit contends that the heterogeneity of the remains supports the conclusion that there was no single, centralized authority controlling the organization of cultic space for Iron Age Israel. This diversity is in contrast to the situation in the Late Bronze Age, when a certain degree of uniformity prevailed especially in regard to temple architecture. According to Zevit, this difference reinforces his earlier conclusion based on settlement patterns and other material culture that Iron Age Israel represented a new population in the land. Furthermore, some of the evidence—such as the “twoness” or “threeness” of a cult place’s layout or groups of three or five standing stones in sanctuaries or cultic corners—also suggests to Zevit polytheistic worship within single cult places. Chapter 4 is titled “Tangible Belief: The Material and Textual Aspects of Cultic Artifacts” and offers a virtually exhaustive overview of published archaeologically recovered objects whose cultic function and significance is most obvious: figurines, altars, cult stands, shrine models, scarabs, and seals. Zevit’s thorough inventory of the material evidence is matched by a discussion that relates it to biblical and other textual evidence. In ch. 5, “Writ on Rock—Script on Stone,” Zevit focuses on inscriptions preserved in stone on the walls of caves, tombs, and buildings in a Judean desert cave near Ein Gedi and at Khirbet el-Qom, Kuntillet >Ajrud, and Khirbet Beit Lei. He also examines the Beit Lei drawings and the >Ajrud pithoi inscriptions and drawings. Zevit chooses these inscriptions because they come from sites that for the most part seem to have been devoted to cultic or related activity. Zevit attends to these inscriptions’ philology, paleography, and, most extensively, their archaeological context. Zevit’s bent toward social scientific analysis is evident where he invokes as the framework for this discussion the SPEAKING model for ethnographic analysis of communicative acts—Setting, Participants, Ends, Act, Key, Instrumentality, Norms, and Genre. Zevit’s conclusions in this chapter include the recognition that Israelite religion included “the commonality of intercessory prayer, the adoration of El, Baal, YHWH, and Asherah, the notion of divine causality in history, and the use of hymnic snippets in liturgical, cultic, contexts [sic]” (437). Zevit voices his reluctance to assume the homogeneity of these phenomena for ancient Israelites or Judahites generally, or even for those represented by these finds collectively. In ch. 6, “Israelian and Judahite Historiography and Historiosophy,” Zevit discusses the Deuteronomistic History as a written source for Israelite religion. With a brief overview of the scholarly theory of the Deuteronomistic History since Martin Noth, Zevit approaches the biblical documents in question as derived from a religiously motivated historical work created by an editor who used a variety of historical and narrative sources analogous to those recovered in various ancient Near Eastern inscriptions, including most significantly Mesopotamian royal annals. As Zevit asserts, a critical reading of this biblical material may yield information about royal religion in ancient Israel. According to Zevit’s understanding of the Deuteronomistic History’s theology, the Jerusalem

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temple was to have remained the rightful religious center of a “pan-Israel amphictyony” even after the dissolution of the northern and southern kingdoms. Reading the Deuteronomistic History as a historical source, Zevit concludes that in the northern kingdom beginning with Jeroboam I, royal religion amounted to the king’s support of a few sanctuaries (Bethel, Dan, and Samaria’s Baal temple) and that otherwise the influence of the monarchy on religious life was limited. In the southern kingdom of Judah, by contrast, the monarchy exercised fairly strong control over a more extensive royal religious establishment that had a greater influence on national religious life. Chapter 7, “Israelite Mantic Religions in Literary, Social, and Historical Contexts,” examines narrative descriptions of prophetic activity in the Deuteronomistic History, Chronicles, and the prophetic books. For Zevit, the prophets represent a lively and variegated realm of religious activity that was socially complex, “developing patterns of behavior that were acceptable even as they were perceived as marginal” (510). Zevit rejects the conventional distinction between ecstatic and verbal prophetism as religious types. In ch. 8, “Visions of a Foreign Land,” the evidence category consists of polemical statements in prophetic literature directed against allegedly non-Yahwistic cult practices by Israelites. Zevit spends seventy pages citing, translating, and commenting individually on sixty-five short passages from Isaiah 1 to Zechariah 13. Following this mini-anthology, he gives a summary list of practices and institutions thus attested—Baal rituals, bowing to the east, child sacrifice, cult of the dead, marzeah, tophet, etc. These activities generally involve ritual activities that presumably could have been carried out by the general populace without an officially designated priesthood or other leadership, activities that offered the participants a measure of manipulation and control over powers they believed to ensure their own welfare and security. Concluding with a kind of political ideological critique, Zevit characterizes the opposition to these practices voiced in the prophetic sources as a viewpoint that disempowered the general populace in favor of the authority of the prophetic spokesmen and other Yahwistic cult professionals. Chapter 9, “The Names of Israelite Gods,” treats another important source of information about Israelite religion, namely, biblical theophoric anthroponyms and toponyms, specifically non-Yahwistic ones. In an approach similar to that of J. C. de Moor, Zevit locates the personal and place names within certain historical periods and tribal affiliations as indicated by the portrayal of the biblical documents. In his conclusions, Zevit briefly incorporates Jeffrey H. Tigay’s discussion of non-Yahwistic divine elements in Israelite epigraphic personal names (You Shall Have No Other Gods: Israelite Religion in the Light of Hebrew Inscriptions [HSS 31; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986]). While Zevit agrees with Tigay that biblical and epigraphic personal names indicate the dominant worship of Yahweh in Israel during the monarchy, he lends much more significance to the non-Yahwistic names than does Tigay. Based on place names whose establishment Zevit assigns to an Iron I Israelite settlement, Zevit infers a fairly extensive list of deities worshiped by Israelites: ,,,,,,,, ,. He makes a similar conclusion based on anthroponyms, including the deities ,,,,, (Egyptian Amun),  (Isis),  (= Bes), (= Horus). Zevit’s presentation culminates with ch. 10, “Israelite Religions: A Parallactic Synthesis.” Here Zevit seeks to bring together the “parallel and oblique lines of inquiry” from

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the previous chapters, hence the term “parallactic” in the chapter and book titles. Based on narrative and genealogical information from the Deuteronomistic History and from Chronicles, Zevit begins this final chapter with a description of the social context of Israelite religious activity. For Zevit, these sources show Israelite society until 586 b.c.e. to have been primarily tribal in character (with supporting levels of clan and household). The monarchy, which derived its power from the tribes, was relatively limited in its significance for social and religious life. From there, Zevit goes on to discuss ancient Israel’s “gods” and “pantheons,” based on conclusions from earlier chapters. In short, Zevit makes room for a vast number of deities worshiped in ancient Israel, in accordance with a variety of local and tribal systems of identity and practice and with no centralized or systemized authority of any comprehensive range, even in the southern kingdom of Judah. He then brings this larger socio-religious landscape into relationship with archaeological data for cult places presented earlier in the book. Again, the picture is one of heterogeneity and various combinations of deities worshiped at different places. Using earlier conclusions from biblical historical narratives, Zevit describes Levitical and other (mainly, Merarite and Kehathite) priestly family networks as being significant to the limited centralized religious activity that existed under the monarchy. Zevit explains the interrelationships among these levels of religious activity in social scientific terms: “Israelite tribalism comprised a subcritical system, while that of the monarchy and its institutions an essentially supercritical one. . . . Israelite religions were woven into these complexly organized frameworks, acting on them and being acted on by and through them” (648). He speaks of Israel’s deities in similar fashion: “In terms of complexity theory, the Israelite pantheon as described above may be considered a subcritical system with many nodes, decentralized, highly redundant, and capable of manifesting itself in a variety of ways. Yahwism considered independently may have constituted a critical system. Radical Yahweh-alone cults, not dealt with in this study, would have constituted a supercritical system” (652). Still in this final chapter Zevit returns to data already discussed from Israelite inscriptions, architecture, anthroponyms, toponyms, and archaeological information on architecture and furnishings of cult places. In keeping with his conclusions, Zevit argues against the notion of an influential centralized national religion by minimizing the significance of Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s “reforms” as politically expedient measures having little impact on most of the population. Zevit then speaks to various cosmic and social levels of gods and goddesses in Israelite religion, followed by a discussion of biblical psalms as a source of information on Israelite myth. This section includes a novel hypothesis for the Elohistic Psalter based in part on discussion of Papyrus Amherst 63 and its striking parallels to Psalm 20. It is at this point that Zevit considers the meaning of “Canaan” and the relationship of this geographic designation to the origins of Israelite tribes and to the Israelite worship of Yahweh. Zevit suggests that some of the northernmost Israelite tribes probably entered the land from the north and east as ethnic Canaanites, thus leaving room in his analysis for some extent of “Canaanite” influence on a distinct Israelite religion. In conclusion, Zevit notes that the complex social-politicalinstitutional system of Israelite religions that he describes gives way during the exile and Persian period to a widespread and consistent adherence to the Yhwh-alone viewpoint, a view that becomes basic to nascent Judaism.

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Zevit’s study, simply on the basis of its innovative approach and comprehensive presentation of evidence, is nothing less than a scholarly feat and a truly novel and significant contribution to the study of Israelite religion. Nonetheless, its sheer extent and somewhat experimental quality also leave it open to much criticism. The volume entails numerous points and issues that merit response and discussion. The space allotted here allows for comment on a few. While the current state of the field warrants ongoing examination of epistemological foundations and other methodological issues, the introductory chapter is inordinately expansive for the purpose of thus situating Zevit’s work. Zevit’s definition (quoted above) contains a curious irony. Though Zevit prefers to speak of Israelite “religions” in the plural as perpetuated by plural “groups or communities,” he attributes to the latter a single, shared “worldview.” While this inconsistency might have been an oversight, it begs a particular question: if one can speak of a shared “worldview” among Israelites, cannot one speak more confidently of a measure of coherence among Israelite religious ideas and activities more broadly, as incorporating the diversity and complexity that Zevit so effectively describes? A significant degree of overall coherence would seem to be implied by the broad commonality that characterizes Judaism’s emergence and development after 586 b.c.e., a phenomenon that Zevit himself notes to be strikingly at odds with his portrayal of Israelite religion (690). The definition also gives the flavor not only of the disproportionately prolix introduction but of the entire work, that is to say, admirably thorough and yet frustratingly disjointed. A general example is the way in which, partly due to the book’s organization by evidence types, discussion of data treated earlier in the volume is taken up again in the final chapter, with a combination of redundancy and continuing argumentation that would be more suitably developed with the main discussion of the evidence in question. Zevit’s phenomenological approach provides a helpful complement, if not a refreshing alternative, to the typically essentialist genre of history of Israelite religion. At the same time more synthesis and interpretation of the data would have been welcome. Aside from some tentative and overarching conclusions that Zevit draws (as described in the summary above), the coverage of data in this work has an atomistic quality and gives one the sense of having “the trees without the forest,” alles und nichts. In some instances, the book offers questionable analysis or consideration of evidence. One example is the operative assumption in ch. 9 that we can systematically take at face value the biblical documents’ location of specific anthroponyms—and thus the particular divine names or titles they contain—in certain historical periods and tribal affiliations. More extensive utilization of epigraphic personal names might offer the possibility for needed controls in this type of analysis. Similarly in his treatment of theophoric place names in the same chapter, Zevit tends, without adequate justification, to date to the time of an Iron I Israelite settlement the establishment of biblical place names that might well have derived from an earlier time. The resulting identification of various deities worshiped in significant numbers by Israelites, though not problematic in principle and based on other evidence, is in this case not well substantiated. Most importantly, Zevit’s almost total dissociation of Iron Age Israel from the indigenous Late Bronze “Canaanite” population and culture is a starting position quite at odds with the generally recognized indications of philological and archaeological

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evidence. Zevit’s archaeological case for this position in ch. 2 relies largely on: (1) an explanation of what he considers to be obfuscating theological and other professionalideological factors involved in the success of the “native Canaanite hypothesis”; (2) the drastic difference in population between the Late Bronze and Iron I central highlands as indicated by settlement data; (3) an observed east to west movement from Iron I to Iron II in the central hills as indicated by survey results; (4) a renewed case for the collared rim jar as an ethnic marker—in spite of its broad, even if sparse, distribution already during the LB Age; and (5) a decline in quality and style of stamp seals between the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. While some of Zevit’s points along these lines illustrate the need for both caution and refinement in analysis, none of these arguments is sufficiently convincing to support a new conquest model, such as Zevit seems to commend, or to dismiss the prevailing model of a new settlement pattern for the central hills in Iron I, a model that accords well more broadly with what is known of the end of the Late Bronze socio-political pattern in the eastern Mediterranean. As noted above, Zevit frames Israelite distinctiveness from Late Bronze culture in terms of ethnicity, a concept that in recent scholarship has become fairly well defined in sociological terms but that remains nonetheless vexingly elusive with regard to its expressions in material and intellectual culture. In making this move, Zevit relies on a model of ethnicity that minimizes the significance of language as a determining factor (89–90). In any case, definitions of ethnicity and the vital importance of archaeological religious evidence notwithstanding, Zevit’s arguments do not justify overlooking philology as a decisive factor in determining what constitutes evidence relevant to Israelite religion. In so doing, he excludes from his discussion important comparative evidence for deities and phenomena that appear in the other data he examines. Where Zevit does turn to such comparative evidence, the results are illuminating—for example, his brief discussion of Ugaritic texts as evidence of the deity Mot’s relationship to temples (327–28). More comparative analysis on this order would have been profitable to Zevit’s treatment of the Israelite evidence and welcome, especially in view of Zevit’s proclivity throughout the work for free speculation in treating the material evidence (e.g., the suggestion that multiple rooms in a single temple reflect the worship of a corresponding number of deities [132] or the suggestion, informed by reference to biblical texts, that altars low to the ground were for blood offerings to chthonic deities [280–81, 311]). At the same time, Zevit’s work makes many significant and valuable contributions. To reiterate, the phenomenological approach and the rigorous incorporation of archaeological evidence is a needed complement to the philologically based analysis that has tended to dominate the study of this subject. In this respect, Zevit has, at least to some degree, achieved the first of his stated goals (see above). While in my mind the work falls far short of the second goal, that of offering thorough integration and synthesis, such is probably an impossible task, given the encyclopedic scope of the evidence Zevit treats. Incorporating the full breadth of Israelite religious data, textual and archaeological, is a strength of this work not to be underestimated. Despite the odd organization of the book, a thorough bibliography and good topical, authorial, scriptural, and lexical indexes help make it useful as a kind of reference work. Throughout the book, Zevit includes brief and helpful summations of scholarship on evidence categories that are still not widely utilized in the study of Israelite religion,

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especially in regard to shrine models and cult stands in ch. 4 and iconographic evidence from scarabs, seals, statuary, and reliefs as treated most famously by Othmar Keel and the “Fribourg school.” Specific examples of textual and iconographic evidence that are not well known but to which this work gives due attention include the Ein Gedi cave inscription, the carved stele with bovine imagery from Bethsaida-Geshur, and Papyrus Amherst 63. While Zevit’s suggestions about how to interpret some material tend to be by his own admission speculative, they are a useful starting point in surmising what is not apparent from texts or artifacts and for stimulating further exploration and new ideas. With respect to broader developments within the field, recent treatments of Israelite religion such as Karel van der Toorn’s Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria, and Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1996) and Rainer Albertz’s two-volume history (Religionsgeschichte Israels in alttestamentlicher Zeit [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1992]) demonstrate a far greater complexity and diversity to the phenomenon than that implied by the older “official vs. popular” dichotomy (see the framing of discussion in Albertz, Persönliche Frömmigkeit und offizielle Religion: religionsinterner Pluralismus in Israel und Babylon [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1978]). Zevit’s volume is a breakthrough by offering evidence for what studies have increasingly suggested in this regard and illustrating the richness and complexity of Israelite religious life at various social levels. Though much of Zevit’s analysis requires further development and many of the specific points he makes will be disputed, this work as a whole points in the right direction and offers a formidable challenge to those will seek to improve upon it. Zevit’s study is instructive and essential for any student of Israelite religion and should remain so for some time to come. Joel S. Burnett Baylor University, Waco, TX 76798-7284

Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel 1300–1100 b.c.e., by Ann E. Killebrew. SBLABS 9. Leiden: Brill; Atlanta: SBL, 2005. Pp. xx + 372. $164.00 (hardcover)/$39.93 (paper). ISBN 9004130454/1589830970. The question of whether a specific “ethnic identification” of an ancient people can be determined on the basis of material culture remains one of the most difficult and yet urgent issues in archaeology worldwide today (see, e.g., S. Jones, The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing Identities in the Past and Present [London: Routledge, 1997]). Ann Killebrew, an American scholar with a long record of involvement in field archaeology and research in Israel, now at Pennsylvania State University, plunges into this debate with a resounding yes. The introduction (1–19) sets forth the theoretical issues with special reference to the history of American-style “biblical” archaeology, defends a somewhat eclectic methodology for analyzing what is often called nowadays “ethnogenesis”, and briefly

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introduces the rationale for selecting the four “peoples” Killebrew will use as test cases. Killebrew defines her own “neither overly skeptical nor naively optimistic” approach as differing from earlier studies by “presenting a more complete and integrated picture of this multicultural period of time by now focusing mainly on one group or relying too heavily on one discipline” (10). Chapter 1, “The Age of Internationalism: The Eastern Mediterranean during the Thirteenth Century b.c.e. and the ‘Crisis’” (21–49), sets the stage for the appearance and interaction of Killebrew’s four “peoples” in Canaan at the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Canaan. This is one of the most succinct, thoroughly documented, and authoritative discussions of this troubled horizon that I have seen. Chapter 2, “Egypt in Canaan: Empire and Imperialism in the Late Bronze Age” (51–92), is an equally competent and well-documented review of the Egyptian late New Kingdom empire in Canaan. Its unique strength is not only the correlation of textual and archaeological data, but in particular the expert summary of the unpublished, definitive evidence from recent Israeli excavations at the Egyptian outpost of Beth-shan, which Killebrew had full access to in her Hebrew University doctoral dissertation. Her discussion is rather technical, based as some of it is on ceramic analysis, but nonspecialists can quote it with confidence. Chapter 3, “Canaan and Canaanites: An Ethnic Mosaic” (93–148), will have broader appeal for biblical scholars. Again, this discussion adds much new data from Killebrew’s 1999 dissertation, especially a comparative catalog of Late Bronze II pottery. Contrary to the currently fashionable revisionist skepticism about recognizing any historical “Canaanites,” Killebrew argues that such a people can be identified archaeologically, if not as an “ethnic identity” then at least as the bearers of a distinct and unified material culture with clear “social boundaries” (94). Chapter 4 is titled “Early Israel: A Mixed Multitude” (149–96). Here Killebrew proposes to differ from recent quests that focus on Israelite ethnicity and identity by seeing the emergence of ancient Israel as a “process of ethnogenesis, or a gradual emergence of a group identity from a ‘mixed multitude’ of peoples whose origins are largely indigenous and can only be understood in the wider eastern Mediterranean context” (149). She does not present the abundant archaeological data in any detail, referring instead to recent surveys by Israel Finkelstein (The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement [Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1985]), Lawrence E. Stager (“Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel,” in The Oxford History of the Biblical World [ed. Michael D. Coogan; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 123–75), and myself (Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003]), which also adopt models of indigenous origins. Reading this chapter, biblical scholars will understand how outdated are all “conquest, peaceful infiltration, and peasants’ revolt” models. Killebrew’s contribution consists of employing not only data from recent Israeli surface survey (not always published in English), but also an analysis of the early Iron I pottery that is a defining characteristic of the 300 or so highland villages we know (my “Proto-Israelites”). As Killebrew demonstrates (along with others), a model of a “mixed multitude” and a gradual socio-cultural evolution fits well with the narratives in Judges, if not in Joshua. Chapter 5, “The Philistines: Urban Colonists of the Early Iron Age” (197–245),

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introduces the last of Killebrew’s test cases. One of the ironies of current archaeological excavation and research is that we now know more ethnically about the Philistines (and other “Sea Peoples”) of Iron I than we do of our putative “Israelites.” Here Killebrew provides another authoritative summary. She comes down firmly on the side of those who regard the Philistines as immigrant entrepreneurs who gradually introduced Mycenaean-style culture along the coast of Canaan in the twelfth–eleventh centuries b.c.e., probably coming via Cyprus, not as refugees or conquistadors as some diffusionists maintain. Here Killebrew depends heavily on the new archaeological data from the joint American-Israeli excavations at Tel Miqne, biblical “Ekron,” directed for the past twenty years or so by Seymour Gitin and Trude Dothan. Killebrew was a senior staff member and has previously utilized the pottery (in particular) in several groundbreaking studies, summarized here. This chapter is one of the best and most up-to-date syntheses of Philistine material culture now available. Chapter 6, “Identifying the Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, and Early Israel” (247–51), is essentially a brief conclusion. The bibliography (253–334) contains hundreds and hundreds of items, and it alone would justify the purchase of this book by all biblical scholars (that is, historians, if there are many left), students of the ancient Near East, and even professional archaeologists. Indeed, while ostensibly written for nonspecialists, or teachers looking for a reliable textbook, Killebrew’s book will be used widely by her fellow archaeologists. That is because it highlights a number of current and controversial issues, with a comprehensive and balanced discussion, accompanied by exhaustive documentation. This is a superb handbook that in my estimation will have a very long shelf life—quite an achievement by a relatively young archaeologist, and one who, like so many of her generation, might be dismissed as “too specialized.” Such uncommon high praise does not mean that I do not have some reservations. For one thing, it is refreshing to see younger archaeologists so “positivist” in the face of faddish postmodernist denials of ethnicity (confusing ethnicity with “race,” which is, of course, politically very incorrect). Nevertheless, I would have welcomed a bit more explicit defense of Killebrew’s own theoretical stance. The skeptics have a point: “ethnicity” is difficult to establish without contemporary texts—and even with them, since ethnicity is (at least in part) a “social construct.” The question is only whether the construct is entirely fictional, or it is based to some degree on facts. Killebrew assumes the latter— i.e., that archaeological facts can be determinative—as I do. But in today’s revisionist climate it may be necessary to justify optimistic treatment of ethnicity like Killebrew’s. One recalls, for instance, T. L. Thompson’s recent dictum: “Ethnicity, however, is an interpretive historiographical fiction. . . . Ethnicity is hardly a common aspect of human existence at this very early period” (in “Defining History and Ethnicity in the South Levant,” in Can a “History of Israel” Be Written? [ed. L. L. Grabbe; JSOTSup 245; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997], 175). Thus ethnicity, according to the revisionists, is only a modern attempt to describe societal relationships and collective decisions. Yet Thompson insists: “The physical effects of such collective decisions are often arbitrary and are, indeed, always accidental” (emphasis added). Obviously this sort of “know-nothing” epistemology would render archaeology, and in fact all the social sciences, impossible. The “physical effects”—that is, what

Book Reviews

419

archaeologists call “the material correlates of behavior”—are culturally patterned, directly observable, can be quantified, and are capable of being explained by analogy. It is the regularities, not some assumed “arbitrariness,” that make analysis possible. Thompson and some of the other biblical revisionists really are nihilists (for a more extensive critique of biblical revisionism, see my What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?). This is what Killebrew and many of us archaeologists, Israeli and American, are up against. And biblical scholars should be concerned as well, lest the revisionists succeed in what Baruch Halpern calls “erasing Israel from history” (“Erasing History: The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel,” BR 11, no. 6 [1995]: 26–35, 47). Killebrew’s method in defining ethnicity is also a bit simplistic. After duly noting various theoretical approaches, most of them hotly debated in the literature, she opts for a sort of eclectic combination, which she calls “multidisciplinary.” She does allude to the World Systems model of Immanuel Wallerstein and others, but she does not pursue it. She cites the eminent ethnographer Fredrik Barth, but she does not adopt his notion of ethnic “trait lists,” which have been out of favor, but are now gaining renewed respect (although some such “traits” are discussed on 171–81). Critics will surely pick up on this weakness, although in her defense Killebrew makes her conclusions stick reasonably well despite what some might regard as a certain lack of methodological rigor. In conclusion, Killebrew’s study of archaeology and ethnicity is exceptionally timely; and because it succeeds on both the academic and the nonprofessional level, it deserves and will surely find a wide audience. William G. Dever 30 Winding Lane, Bedford Hills, NY 10507

New and Recent Titles THE ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PYRAMID TEXTS James P. Allen The Pyramid Texts are the oldest body of extant literature from ancient Egypt. First carved on the walls of the burial chambers in the pyramids of kings and queens of the Old Kingdom, they provide the earliest comprehensive view of the way in which the ancient Egyptians understood the structure of the universe, the role of the gods, and the fate of human beings after death. Their importance lies in their endurance throughout the entire intellectual history of ancient Egypt. This volume contains the complete translation of the Pyramid Texts, including new texts recently discovered and published. It incorporates full restorations and readings indicated by post-Old Kingdom copies of the texts and is the first translation that presents the texts in the order in which they were meant to be read in each of the original sources. Paper $39.95 1-58983-182-9 484 pages, 2005 Code: 061523 Writings from the Ancient World Hardback edition www.brill.nl

TEXTS FROM THE PYRAMID AGE Nigel C. Strudwick Texts from the Pyramid Age provides ready access to new translations of a representative selection of texts from Old Kingdom Egypt (ca. 2700–2170 B.C.). These royal and private inscriptions, coming from both the secular and religious milieus and from all kinds of physical contexts, not only shed light on the administration, foreign expeditions, and funerary beliefs of the period but also bring to life the Egyptians themselves, revealing how they saw the world and how they wanted the world to see them. Strudwick’s helpful introduction to the history and literature of this seminal period provides important background for reading and understanding these historical texts. Paper $39.95 1-58983-138-1 564 pages, 2005 Code: 061516 Writings from the Ancient World Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Society of Biblical Literature • P.O. Box 2243 • Williston, VT 05495-2243 Phone: 877-725-3334 (toll-free) or 802-864-6185 • Fax: 802-864-7626 Order online at www.sbl-site.org

New and Recent Titles HERACLITUS: HOMERIC PROBLEMS Edited and Translated by Donald A. Russell and David Konstan

“Donald Russell and David Konstan, world-renowned experts in ancient rhetoric, literary theory, philosophy, and later Greek prose, have put us all in their debt by providing what is, on balance, the best Greek text of the treatise that is currently available, a lively and sensitive translation into clear but elegant English, a basic apparatus of textual and explanatory notes, a wide-ranging and up-to-date introduction, and a helpful introductory bibliography. The volume will be of enormous help to students (and their teachers) of classics, comparative literature, biblical studies, and many other fields.”—Glenn W. Most, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and The University of Chicago Paper $20.95 1-58983-122-5 176 pages, 2005 Code: 061614 Writings from the Greco-Roman World Hardback edition www.brill.nl

ANCIENT FICTION The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative Jo-Ann A. Brant, Charles W. Hedrick, and Chris Shea, editors

These essays examine the relationship between ancient fiction in the Greco-Roman world and early Jewish and Christian narratives. Major authors and texts surveyed include Chariton, Shakespeare, Homer, Vergil, Plato, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Daniel, 3 Maccabees, the Testament of Abraham, rabbinic midrash, the Apocryphal Acts, Ezekiel the Tragedian, and the Sophist Aelian. The contributors are Jo-Ann A. Brant, J. R. C. Cousland, Rubén Rene Dupertuis, Noah Hacham, Gerhard van den Heever, Ronald F. Hock, Tawny L. Holm, Sara R. Johnson, Jared W. Ludlow, Dennis R. MacDonald, Chaim Milikowsky, Judith B. Perkins, Richard I. Pervo, Andy Reimer, Gareth Schmeling, and Chris Shea. Paper $39.95 1-58983-166-7 392 pages, 2005 Code: 060732 Symposium Series Hardback edition www.brill.nl

Society of Biblical Literature • P.O. Box 2243 • Williston, VT 05495-2243 Phone: 877-725-3334 (toll-free) or 802-864-6185 • Fax: 802-864-7626 Order online at www.sbl-site.org

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Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies A Guide to the Background Literature CRAIG A. EVANS

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John Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist WARREN CARTER

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A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature MARCUS JASTROW

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1 CHRONICLES Hermeneia series Klein’s deep penetration into the text and meaning of Chronicles...provides the reader all that she or he needs to understand and expound the meaning of the text.” —PATRICK D. MILLER, Princeton Theological Seminary 0-8006-6085-4 jacketed hardcover $55.00

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CROSSCULTURAL PAUL Journeys to Others, Journeys to Ourselves Charles H. Cosgrove, Herold Weiss, and K. K. (Khiok-khng) Yeo

“A creative and often bold example of the value and difficulties of cross-cultural hermeneutics, providing many insights into the manner in which culture affects and enriches biblical interpretation.” — Justo L. Gonzalez ISBN 0-8028-2843-4 301 pages • paperback $25.00

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HOW ON EARTH DID JESUS BECOME A GOD? Historical Questions about Earliest Devotion to Jesus Larry W. Hurtado

“Larry Hurtado is changing the face of New Testament studies through his persistence in searching out the origins of the extraordinary devotion to Jesus by his earliest followers. Here he presents his arguments with force and clarity.” — John Koenig ISBN 0-8028-2861-2 246 pages • paperback $20.00

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LORD JESUS CHRIST Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity Larry W. Hurtado

“A veritable tour de force. . . . Lord Jesus Christ is a book that deserves to appear on the reading list for comprehensive examinations in theology, not to mention that it also deserves to appear on the library shelves of those who consider themselves veterans in NT study.” — Catholic Biblical Quarterly ISBN 0-8028-3167-2 768 pages • paperback $35.00

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By clearly and carefully tracing the literary evolution of the Ten Commandments, David H. Aaron here brilliantly gets to the heart of one of the central problems in biblical studies: the emergence of the Decalogue. His sophisticated model of historical analysis examines how and why the Pentateuch includes multiple versions of the same text and in doing so, sheds light more broadly on the compositional history of the Torah.

Michael Patella here provides a stunning read of the Mithraic cult within the Hellenistic worldview and demonstrates how its influence can be seen in both the Pauline writings and Mark’s Gospel. He shows how Mark resonated in the imperial capital and beyond because of its inherent participationist theology, a theology probably augmented by Paul and possibly introduced by him.

$120.00 / HC 0-567-02791-0 / March 2006 / 240 pages $34.95 / PB 0-567-02971-9 / March 2006 / 240 pages

History and Exegesis New Testament Essays in Honor of Dr. E. Earle Ellis on His Eightieth Birthday S. Aaron Son Published in honor of Dr. Ellis for his eightieth birthday and for his contributions to biblical scholarship, this book contains 21 articles written by internationally renowned New Testament scholars. To read this book is to fully grasp the legacy this influential thinker has had.

$29.95 / 0-567-02532-2 PB / April 2006 / 144 pages $95.00 / 0-567-02522-5 HC / April 2006 / 144 pages

Resurrection The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine James H. Charlesworth with C.D. Elledge, J. Crenshaw, H. Boers and W.W. Ellis “Five outstanding biblical scholars and theologians make in his book a case for their faith in resurrection giving an instructive and critical representation of its historical origin in Judaism and discussing its credibility in our modern world.” — Gerd Theissen, Heidelberg, Germany $59.95 / 0-567-02871-2 HC / March 2006 / 272 pages

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JBL 125, no. 2 (2006): 432

Index of Book Reviews Esler, Philip, New Testament Theology: Communion and Community (C. Kavin Rowe) 403 Gnilka, Joachim, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 400 Hahn, Ferdinand, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 394 Killebrew, Ann E., Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel 1300–1100 b.c.e. (William G. Dever) 416 Marshall, I. Howard, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (C. Kavin Rowe) 404 Strecker, Georg, Theology of the New Testament (C. Kavin Rowe) 400 Stuhlmacher, Peter, Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 398 Vouga, François, Une théologie du Nouveau Testament (C. Kavin Rowe) 401 Wilckens, Ulrich, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (C. Kavin Rowe) 396 Zevit, Ziony, The Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (Joel S. Burnett) 410

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RECENT NEW TESTAMENT BOOKS FROM EERDMANS FOUR GOSPELS, ONE JESUS?

EDITORIAL BOARD

A Symbolic Reading Second Edition Richard A. Burridge

Term Expiring 2006: THOMAS B. DOZEMAN, United Theological Seminary, Dayton, OH 45406 PAUL B. DUFF, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 CAROLE R. FONTAINE, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 JUDITH LIEU, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS United Kingdom MARTTI NISSINEN, University of Helsinki, FIN-00014 Finland KATHLEEN M. O’CONNOR, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA 30031 EUNG CHUN PARK, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA 94960 TURID KARLSEN SEIM, University of Oslo, N-0315 Oslo, Norway BENJAMIN D. SOMMER, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60645 VINCENT L. WIMBUSH, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA 91711 2007: MOSHE BERNSTEIN, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 JOHN ENDRES, Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94709 JO ANN HACKETT, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 MATTHIAS HENZE, Rice University, Houston, TX 77251 ROBERT KUGLER, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219 TIMOTHY LIM, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH1 2LX Scotland STEPHEN MOORE, Drew University, Madison, NJ 07940 STEPHEN PATTERSON, Eden Theological Seminary, St. Louis, MO 63119 EMERSON POWERY, Lee University, Cleveland, TN 37312 ADELE REINHARTZ, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON N2L 3C5 Canada RICHARD STEINER, Yeshiva University, New York, NY 10033-3201 SZE-KAR WAN, Andover Newton Theological School, Newton Centre, MA 02459 2008: ELLEN B. AITKEN, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T5 Canada MICHAEL JOSEPH BROWN, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 TERENCE L. DONALDSON, Wycliffe College, Toronto, ON M5S 1H7 Canada STEVEN FRIESEN, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712 JENNIFER GLANCY, Le Moyne College, Syracuse, New York 13214 A. KATHERINE GRIEB, Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, VA 22304 ARCHIE C. C. LEE, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin New Territories, Hong Kong SAR DANIEL MARGUERAT, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland RICHARD D. NELSON, Perkins School of Theology, So. Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX 75275 DAVID L. PETERSEN, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 YVONNE SHERWOOD, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ United Kingdom LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3RS United Kingdom PATRICIA K. TULL, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY 40205

Incorporates the latest scholarship on the historical Jesus, a new section on how the Gospels have been read throughout history, and an expanded discussion of how to teach and preach the Gospels through the lectionary. Praise for the first edition:

“A rare merger of the very best of modern biblical scholarship with a readable and engaging telling of the Gospel portraits of Jesus.” — Anglican Theological Review ISBN 0-8028-2980-5 • 216 pages • paperback • $16.00

IS JESUS THE ONLY SAVIOR? James R. Edwards “An unusual book on the question of religious pluralism. . . . This valuable contribution from the pen of a New Testament scholar will assist readers looking for a defense of the historical Christian understanding of the person and place of Jesus.” — I. Howard Marshall ISBN 0-8028-0981-2 • 264 pages • paperback • $16.00

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW THE NEW INTERNATIONAL GREEK TESTAMENT COMMENTARY John Nolland Without neglecting the Gospel’s sources or historical background, Nolland places his central focus on the content and method of Matthew’s story. His work explores Matthew’s narrative technique and the inner logic of the unfolding text, giving full weight to the Jewish character of the book and its differences from Mark’s presentation of parallel material.

Editorial Assistant: Christopher B. Hays, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322 President of the Society: Robert A. Kraft, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6304; Vice President: Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ 08542; Chair, Research and Publications Committee: Benjamin G. Wright III, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA 18015; Executive Director: Kent H. Richards, Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. The Journal of Biblical Literature (ISSN 0021– 9231) is published quarterly. The annual subscription price is US$35.00 for members and US$150.00 for nonmembers. Institutional rates are also available. For information regarding subscriptions and membership, contact: Society of Biblical Literature, Customer Service Department, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333. Phone: 866-727-9955 (toll free) or 404-727-9498. FAX: 404-727-2419. E-mail: [email protected]. For information concerning permission to quote, editorial and business matters, please see the Spring issue, p. 2. The Hebrew font used in JBL is SBL Hebrew and is available from www.sbl-site.org/Resources/default.aspx. The Greek and transliteration fonts used in this work are available from www.linguistsoftware.com, 425-775-1130. The JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE (ISSN 0021– 9231) is published quarterly by the Society of Biblical Literature, 825 Houston Mill Road, Suite 350, Atlanta, GA 30329. Periodical postage paid at Atlanta, Georgia, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Society of Biblical Literature, P.O. Box 133158, Atlanta, GA 30333.

ISBN 0-8028-2389-0 • 1579 pages • hardcover • $80.00

At your bookstore, or call 800-253-7521 www.eerdmans.com

5521

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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JOURNAL OF

BIBLICAL LITERATURE SUMMER 2006

Nineteenth-Century Women Writing on Women in Genesis

Marion A. Taylor and Heather Weir, editors This remarkable volume not only fills a painful lacuna in the history of biblical interpretation, but it opens up a new field within the discipline by recovering hundreds of forgotten female voices. - Brevard S. Childs, Yale University $44.95 | 6 x 9, 495 pages | Cloth ISBN 1-932792-53-8

baylorpress.com

1-800-537-5487 ...on the path of faith and understanding

JOURNAL OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

Let Her Speak for Herself

VOLUME 125, NO. 2 Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible T. M. Lemos 225–241 The Neo-Assyrian Royal Lion Hunt and Yahweh’s Answer to Job Michael B. Dick 243–270 The Significance of Jesus’ Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience Sharyn Dowd and Elizabeth Struthers Malbon 271–297 Righteous Bloodshed, Matthew’s Passion Narrative, and the Temple’s Destruction: Lamentations as a Matthean Intertext David M. Moffitt 299–320 Implicating Herodias and Her Daughter in the Death of John the Baptizer: A (Christian) Theological Strategy Ross S. Kraemer 321–349 The Question of Motive in the Case against Morton Smith Scott G. Brown 351–383 A Woman at Prayer: A Critical Note on Psalm 131:2b Melody D. Knowles 385–389 Small Change: Saul to Paul, Again Sean M. McDonough 390–391

Book Reviews

393–419 US ISSN 0021-9231

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