{"title":"Heavenly writing and the authority of rewritten scripture: Reevaluating explicit references to the Pentateuch in Jubilees","authors":"Matthew J. Klem","doi":"10.1177/09518207221137068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221137068","url":null,"abstract":"Interpreters commonly designate two phrases in Jubilees, “the book of the first law” (6:22) and “the words of the law” (30:12), as explicit references to the already written Pentateuch that thus transparently acknowledge the historical context of its own production. However, these supposedly earthly writings are penned by the angel, and interpreters identifying them as already existing Torah seem to equivocate about whether they belong to an earthly or heavenly corpus. Supplementing the work of David Lambert, this article argues that the phrases can be coherently construed as references to heavenly writing, the archetype based on which Moses writes Torah. They therefore harmonize with the putative context of Sinai revelation, rather than compromising it. And the resulting absence of any explicit reference to the Pentateuch can be comprehended in light of Jubilees’s strategies for claiming authority. Determining the referents of these two phrases is consequential for our understanding of Mosaic pseudepigraphy more broadly.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"285 - 299"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43816373","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":"Middle Platonism in the Wisdom of Solomon: A comparison of Wisdom to Plutarch of Chaeroneia","authors":"J. Barrier","doi":"10.1177/09518207221140559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221140559","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines the conjecture that the Wisdom of Solomon was heavily influenced by Greek philosophy most notably in the form of Middle Platonism. In stating it this way, an argument is being made that “Middle Platonism” is a better description for the philosophical thought patterns in Wisdom than, for instance, “Greek philosophical thought” generally, or even “Stoicism.” Therefore, the similarities of philosophical thought between Wisdom and the Middle Platonist Plutarch of Chaeroneia are considered, especially in regard to ethics and physics. No efforts have been made to argue that the naïve level of philosophical development within Wisdom is in any way approachable to the advanced level of philosophical development within Plutarch. However, scholars should feel certain in describing Wisdom as a Jewish writing that evinces Middle Platonic thought patterns.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"244 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48267337","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":"Whether and whence preexistence in 1 Enoch? Isa 49:1–2 and the preexistent servant as the background for 1 En. 48:3, 6; 62:7","authors":"M. W. Martin","doi":"10.1177/09518207221116199","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221116199","url":null,"abstract":"The study examines the debated questions of whether and whence preexistence is affirmed of the Son of Man in the parables of Enoch. With regard to the first question, I argue an old thesis on new grounds. Augmenting Johannes Theisohn’s analysis, I highlight the parallel intertextual engagement of Isa 49:1–2 evident in 1 En. 48:3, 6; 62:7. Then on the basis of this parallel intertextuality, I demonstrate how the strong dichotomy necessary to the argument against preexistence cannot be drawn between 1 En. 48:3, 6, on one hand, as affirming preexistence in the mind of God and 1 En. 62:7, on the other hand, as affirming real existence within history, as the verses in question are parallel expressions depicting the same set of events from Isaiah. With regard to the study’s second question, whence preexistence, I argue an altogether new thesis that Isa 49:1–2—and not Prov 8—is the true source. On one hand, there are no linguistic links in 1 En. 48:3, 5; 62:7 to Prov 8 and the parables clearly distinguish the Son of Man from Wisdom in other passages. On the other hand, the spatial and temporal markers in 1 En. 48:3, 6; 62:7 designating the Son of Man’s naming/hiding as occurring, respectively, in God’s heavenly presence and before creation correspond formally to spatial and temporal markers in Isa 49:1–2 attached to the naming/hiding of the servant and, for reasons we explore, should be seen as interpretations of those markers.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"270 - 284"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42079891","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":"Intertext and allusion in Jewish-Greek literature: An introduction","authors":"Marieke Dhont","doi":"10.1177/09518207221137933","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221137933","url":null,"abstract":"In the introduction to this special volume, Dhont reflects on Jewish literature in Greek as a research topic and contextualizes the primary research question that lies at the heart of the volume, namely, how did Greek-speaking Jews in the Hellenistic period navigate the multicultural encounter between Jewish and Greek traditions? The study of intertextuality and allusion provides a philological entry point into looking at the ways in which Jewish-Greek authors expressed their position in the cultural matrix of the ancient Mediterranean.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"101 - 109"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48899650","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":"Memory as overt allusion trigger in ancient literature","authors":"S. Adams","doi":"10.1177/09518207221137062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221137062","url":null,"abstract":"This paper begins with a brief definition of allusion. The majority of the paper investigates the ways that memory language was used by ancient authors (Jewish, Greek, and Latin) as a literary technique to signal overt intertextual and intratextual allusions. I argue that this is a recognized, intentional, and cross-cultural phenomenon with varied practices and that scholars need to consider this in future studies of intertextuality.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"110 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43218829","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":"Ezekiel’s Exagoge and the drama of intertextuality","authors":"Maxwell Kramer","doi":"10.1177/09518207221124499","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221124499","url":null,"abstract":"Ezekiel’s Exagoge is unusual as a Greek tragedy not only because it draws on Biblical rather than mythological subject matter but also because it makes such extensive use of an external source for much of its text: the Septuagint. Although the general concept of a Greek tragedy on a Jewish subject has drawn the attention of many scholars, the literary function of the Exagoge’s close relationship with the LXX text remains comparatively unexplored. In this article, I examine in detail several passages which connect the texts. These reveal that Ezekiel’s use of text from the Septuagint is not a symptom of a lack of poetic ingenuity but rather a deliberate literary choice. The intertextual links engage the audience intellectually by encouraging them to consider the ways in which Ezekiel receives, interprets, and occasionally departs from the Biblical text and its associated exegetical traditions. A comparison of Ezekiel’s poetry with that of the Greek poet Callimachus shows that Ezekiel’s engagement with scholarly, interpretational, and literary questions through the medium of poetry reflects the techniques and interests of the so-called Hellenistic poets, the sophisticated non-Jewish writers of his own age.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"147 - 166"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47088813","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 ship of state: Metaphor and intertextuality in Philo of Alexandria","authors":"P. B. Hartog","doi":"10.1177/09518207221133823","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221133823","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses Philo’s use of the well-known state is ship metaphor. After offering a definition of topos and intertextuality, I discuss passages from the Philonic corpus in which this image features. I will argue that Philo’s use of the state is ship metaphor in most of his writings must be attributed to Philo’s familiarity with a literary trope rather than to intertextual borrowing. The exception is Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium where, I intend to show, Philo’s formulation of the metaphor draws an intertextual connection with Plato’s Republic.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"187 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49578364","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":"Jewish Greek allusion in theory and in practice: Aristobulus and the Letter of Aristeas","authors":"M. Leventhal","doi":"10.1177/09518207221124493","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221124493","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines how two Jewish Greek prose writers refer to aspects of the Greek and Jewish literary traditions. The first section studies the fragments of Aristobulus and the multiple models of reading and making meaning that they exhibit and the extent to which this aimed at aligning Greek and Jewish ideas. In the second section, I turn to the Letter of Aristeas. In this text, I propose that an application of Aristobulus’s theorizing can be observed in practice. Through three case studies of under-appreciated and previously unobserved allusions, I demonstrate that the entire range of allusive strategies implied by Aristobulus’s discussions are to be found in the Letter’s narrative and I argue that their use demands a readership able to set Greek and Jewish literary traditions in various configurations. What will emerge is a Jewish Greek literature attuned to the cultural politics of allusion.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"127 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46136776","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":"“Vergil and Homer opened my Books:” The Sibylline Oracles and the non-Jewish canon","authors":"Helen Van Noorden","doi":"10.1177/09518207221115928","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221115928","url":null,"abstract":"The hybrid cultural weave of the Sibylline Oracles is one of the most arresting aspects of a collection which preserves Judaeo-Christian compositions in Greek ranging from c. second century BCE to the seventh century CE. Reviewing world history in the form of prophecy, sketching rewards and punishments due at the end of days, and urging ethical behavior, these oracles in Homerizing hexameters combine Classical and Biblical traditions and are attributed to an ancient Sibyl. This article focuses on a distinctive case of repetition within the Sibylline corpus to highlight how the sense of a Classical canon is updated in the Jewish development of this prophetic genre. The passages triggering both intertextual and intratextual investigation ar Sibylline Oracles 3.419–25, which “predicts” that the blind Homer will be the first to open the Sibylline books and copy her tale of Troy, and the far less studied Sibylline Oracles 11.163–71, where phrases about Homer are revised to produce an emphasis on Vergil’s skill as a poet and discretion in concealing the Sibylline writings until his death. Study of these lines in their immediate and wider narrative contexts reveals the Jewish sibyllists exploiting the literary knowledge of Classically-educated readers, first and foremost in order to build up the Sibylline authority, a priority which is developed through both “combative” and “parasitic” stances in relation to canonical authors. Overall, this study offers new information about modes of allusion in Jewish Greek literature and the relationship between the tracks of Homeric and Vergilian reception in cross-cultural contexts.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"167 - 186"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45208800","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 reconstruction of 4QWords of Ezekiel: Re-assessing 4Q385, 4Q386, and 4Q385b","authors":"Anna Shirav","doi":"10.1177/09518207221115942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09518207221115942","url":null,"abstract":"This article re-examines the material reconstruction of the copies of 4QWords of Ezekiel olim 4QPseudo Ezekiel (4Q385 and 4Q386) via the use of digital tools and the Stegemann method. The findings evince that 4Q385 frgs. 2, 3, and 6 share the same deterioration patterns, suggesting that they originated in consecutive columns. The new sequence of the visions that emerge is as follows: “accelerating time” (4Q385 4), the divine merkabah (4Q385 6), and the resurrection of the dry bones (4Q385 2 + 3). 4Q385b is tentatively identified a replacement sheet. In light of the material differences in the parchment, top-margin height, and orthography, 4Q385b most likely belonged to the beginning of the composition—as per Qimron, although on different grounds. This material proposal establishes the name of the composition as 4QWords of Ezekiel. The reconstruction is followed by a transcription of the discussed fragments.","PeriodicalId":14859,"journal":{"name":"Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha","volume":"32 1","pages":"3 - 17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47557111","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}