{"title":"A New Approach to the Apocryphal Ladder of Jacob*","authors":"Christfried Böttrich","doi":"10.1177/0951820719832428","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820719832428","url":null,"abstract":"For a long time the apocryphal Ladder of Jacob was accessible only in arbitrarily selected translations. Without a critical edition and a comprehensive study of the whole textual segment, scholars were unable to evaluate its significance for Early Jewish and Christian literature. Since 2015/17, with the publication of a new critical edition and German translation (accompanied by a detailed introduction, footnote commentaries and appendices with related texts), a new approach to this important but hitherto widely unknown text has been made possible. This approach verifies the different layers or strata in the text, which are: a supposed Jewish apocalypse (mid-second century), a Christian expansion of the angels speech in light of the praeparatio evangelica tradition (fourth–seventh centuries), a Jewish mystical prayer (eleventh century) and the incorporation of this narrative block into the Tolkovaja Paleja together with a series of exegetical commentaries (end of the thirteenth century). In the light of the new approach, it can be said that the Ladder of Jacob is most of all an outstanding example of mutual relations between Jewish and Christian theology.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"171 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820719832428","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47150279","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Two Covenants: An Interpretation of the 4Q158 Fragments","authors":"Cana Werman","doi":"10.1177/0951820719832431","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820719832431","url":null,"abstract":"The underlying assumption of this article is that fragments 1–4 and 14 of 4Q158 represent an independent composition, not related to fragments 5–12 of 4Q158, where Exodus 19–22 in its proto-Samaritan version is copied. Identification of a common denominator for fragments 1–4 and 14 (labelled here as 4Q158b) is the main task of this article. This study shows that 4Q158b expresses a particular exegetical understanding of the biblical covenants and that its author's intentions and exegetical processes are best clarified in light of the book of Jubilees. According to Jubilees, two covenants were made by God at the creation of the world: one with humanity and another with the people of Israel. 4Q158b collects biblical passages (Gen. 31–32; Exod. 3–4; Exod. 24) in which it discerns hints of various expressions of commitment to these two covenants between the period of Abraham and the events at Sinai. The author of the text rewrites these passages with the intent of revealing to the reader these covenantal references only hinted at in the Bible.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"183 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820719832431","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48072501","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘She Made Herself up Provocatively for the Charming of the Eyes of Men’ (Jdt. 10.4): Cosmetics and Body Adornment in the Stories of Judith and Susanna","authors":"L. Quick","doi":"10.1177/0951820719832449","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820719832449","url":null,"abstract":"The use of cosmetics and body adornment in order to decorate and beautify oneself is an almost universal part of the human experience. This was also true of the ancient Palestinian culture that gave rise to the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish literature. Despite this, cosmetics and their function in the narratives in which they feature is an understudied subject within the academic scholarship of biblical literature. This article discusses the use of cosmetics in biblical and Jewish-Hellenistic texts, demonstrating that cosmetics were associated with immoral behavior and illicit sexual practices. Nevertheless, in the stories of Judith and Susanna, these characters apparently receive no such censure for applying cosmetic oil. By considering the use of cosmetics akin to a speech act, able to communicate something specific about one's social or sexual status, this article provides a new access to understanding these narratives and the characterisations of their female heroines.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"215 - 236"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2019-06-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820719832449","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44134343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Homeland and the Legitimation of the Diaspora: Egyptian Jewish Origin Stories in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods","authors":"J. Trotter","doi":"10.1177/0951820718823394","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718823394","url":null,"abstract":"How diasporans tell the story of their origin in the homeland and how they came to their new home abroad is just as important as the historical context(s) in which the diaspora community was created. This study draws attention to one common strategy employed by Egyptian Jews in the Hellenistic and Roman periods (in the Letter of Aristeas, the writings of Philo of Alexandria, and 3 Maccabees) when remembering and (re)creating accounts of their origins in the diaspora in ways that legitimized life abroad: the use of diaspora-homeland connections and comparisons.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"122 - 91"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718823394","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44571817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Son of Man and the Angel of the Lord: Daniel 7.13–14 and Israel's Angel Traditions","authors":"P. Muñoa","doi":"10.1177/0951820718823392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718823392","url":null,"abstract":"Interpreters wrestle with Dan. 7.13–14 and its account of the ‘one like a human being’, traditionally known as ‘the Son of Man’. This figure is subject to two competing interpretations: symbol (suffering Jews) and individual (Michael). These positions draw upon Daniel 7's interpretation and Daniel's later chapters, but interpreters need to consider the Hebrew Bible's angel of the Lord tradition and more fully engage Dan. 7.13–14, the angelic interests of Daniel 2–6, the later Additions to Daniel, and Second Temple interpretations of Daniel 7. These materials are consistent with this angel's portrayal in the Hebrew Bible and indicate a growing interest in this angel's saving intervention on behalf of Israel. When Dan. 7.13–14 is read in light of this angelic tradition, a long-overlooked reading that argues for an angel of the Lord merits serious consideration.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"143 - 167"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718823392","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44264779","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Appeals to an Imperfect past in a Present Future: Remembering the Israelite Wilderness Generation in the Late Second Temple Period","authors":"D. Smith","doi":"10.1177/0951820718823393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718823393","url":null,"abstract":"The Damascus Document explicitly remembers the Israelite wilderness period as a time of disobedience and rebellion, with dire consequences that endured for generations. At the same time, the same text calls for a communal organization that mimics that of the Israelites during their wilderness period (Exod. 18.25; Deut. 1.15). This appeal to an imperfect past in a document that faces an imminent or even present eschaton finds close parallels among other texts from the latter half of the Second Temple period. This article argues that these similar strategies of remembering and re-deploying the past shed light on possible motivations for the Damascus Document's seemingly incoherent approach to Israel's past.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"123 - 142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718823393","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44942927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Israel's First Physician and Apothecary: Noah and the Origins of Medicine in the Book of Jubilees","authors":"Chontel Syfox","doi":"10.1177/0951820718805635","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718805635","url":null,"abstract":"The book of Jubilees paints Noah as the first physician and apothecary, who received knowledge of natural medicine from the angels of God so that he could save his offspring from the ailments being inflicted upon them by evil spirits. This article examines this aspect of the Noah tradition in the book of Jubilees and attempts to identify its origins. The study considers the potential textual and ideological impetuses behind this tradition, and proposes that attributing the beginning of medical knowledge to Noah may have served to create a licit category of medicine for the author of Jubilees’ intended audience.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"23 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718805635","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47037527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Then David Began to Sing this Song’: Composition and Hermeneutics in Pseudo-Philo's Psalm of David (LAB 59.4) *","authors":"Max Botner","doi":"10.1177/0951820718805638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718805638","url":null,"abstract":"Despite burgeoning interest in Pseudo-Philo's use of the Jewish scriptures, little to-date has been said about the writer's psalm of David (LAB 59.4). In fact, outside of Strugnell's reconstruction of the psalm's Vorlage (1965) and Jacobson's two-volume commentary (1996), virtually nothing has been written about this section of Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum. This article demonstrates that LAB 59.4 constitutes a sophisticated piece of scriptural exegesis that fits within the writer's well-established hermeneutical strategies. It identifies plausible intertexts comprising LAB's psalm and traces the hermeneutical techniques that attracted Pseudo-Philo to these passages of scripture.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"69 - 87"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718805638","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45980318","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Terrestrial Paradise in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve","authors":"J. Levison","doi":"10.1177/0951820718805636","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718805636","url":null,"abstract":"The Greek Life of Adam and Eve is dense with more than three dozen references to παράδεισος, yet paradise in the Greek Life has received scant attention. This article, which comprises the first sustained study of paradise in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve, brings to light a distinctive ancient portrait of terrestrial paradise encircled by a wall with openings and a door, flourishing with deciduous trees and fragrant plants, centered around two trees—but not the trees of Eden—and skirted by regions along its outer edge. In short, paradise, conceived in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve primarily as a terrestrial παράδεισος, is not the heavenly paradise that much of modern scholarship would have it be.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"25 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718805636","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46608824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Traditions Shared by Rabbinic Literature and Slavonic Pseudepigrapha *","authors":"A. Kulik","doi":"10.1177/0951820718805637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/0951820718805637","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents motifs shared exclusively by Slavonic minor pseudepigrapha and early rabbinic writings. It is suggested that these cases bear evidence of common early Jewish sources behind both rabbinic and East Christian traditions. This, it is argued, enables a much earlier dating of these rabbinic traditions (otherwise being dated to the period from the third to the twelfth centuries).","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"28 1","pages":"45 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2018-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/0951820718805637","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45944436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}