Papers

Winter Meeting, 4th-6th January 2005, at the Manor House, University of Birmingham under the presidency of Professor Robert Hayward.

Professor Robert Hayward (Durham): Presidential Address: Targum, Biblia Hebraica Quinta, and Jewish Biblical Interpretation (presidential paper)

Dr Jeremy Corley (Durham): Biblical Allusion and the Characterization of Judith

Dr Sarah Pearce (Southampton): Philo and the Greek Bible: Egyptian Atheism and Nile Veneration

Mr Renato Lings (Birmingham): The Fusion of ‘Knowing’ and ‘Rape’: A Critical Reflection on Judges 19

Dr Helen Leneman (Rome): Music as Midrash: The Love Duets of Ruth and Boaz

Dr Walter Moberly (Durham): The Mark of Cain — Revealed at Last?

Dr Willem Smelik (London): Adam in Eden: Notes on the Complexity of Scriptural Interpretation in the Talmud

Professor Nicolas Wyatt (Edinburgh): Og and his Ilk

Dr Stuart Weeks (Durham): The Limits of Form Criticism

Dr Robert Murray (London): How Was Jerome So Convinced that Rachel Died in Springtime?

Abstracts

Professor Robert Hayward (Durham): Presidential Address: Targum, Biblia Hebraica Quinta, and Jewish Biblical Interpretation (presidential address)

Recent publication of the first fascicle of Biblia Hebraica Quinta containing the Megilloth allows a preliminary assessment of the editors’ engagement with the Targumim. In general, these editors show familiarity not only with the most recent critical editions of Targum texts, but also with the latest advances in research into Targumic genre, translation techniques, and exegetical comprehension of the Hebrew text they seek to expound. Consequently, the critical apparatus in BHQ Megilloth is replete with references to Targum, which massively outnumber such references in earlier critical editions of the Hebrew Bible. While some of the editors’ evaluations of Targumic readings in individual verses might be challenged (for example, descriptions of methods of dealing with divine titles as ‘indeterminate’ renderings of the Hebrew), decisions to include so much Targumic material may generally be justified. In particular, the apparatus of BHQ allows the student immediate access to points where Targumic material appears to agree with Hebrew readings extant in Qumran biblical manuscripts, which agreement can be of crucial significance not only for text-critical purposes; and the juxtaposition of Targumic translations with those of other versions, not at all easily obtainable from earlier editions of the Hebrew Bible, permits a relatively straightforward reconstruction of Jewish exegesis of the passages in question. Given the nature of the Megilloth, the editorial decision to include a measure of traditional Jewish interpretation of the books may prove far-sighted and imaginative.

Dr Jeremy Corley (Durham): Biblical Allusion and the Characterization of Judith

Although the book of Judith is a Hellenistic-Jewish novella rather than a Greek tragedy, Aristotle’s theory of characterization can usefully be applied to shed light on the portrayal of Judith’s character. Much of the characterization in the book of Judith is achieved through allusion to biblical models. Judith herself resembles heroic female figures from Israel’s history (Miriam, Jael, Deborah, Esther). She also exhibits similarities to male Israelite leaders (Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel). After discussion of the characterization, the paper considered whether the book was written to glorify Queen Alexandra Salome, who reigned 76-67 BCE in Jerusalem.

Dr Sarah Pearce (Southampton): Philo and the Greek Bible: Egyptian Atheism and Nile Veneration

The works of Philo of Alexandria have great potential as an entry into the world of first-century Alexandria and its religious life. Because of the nature of the very fragmentary documentation and buried archaeology for this period in Alexandria’s history, it is remarkably rare to have — as we have in Philo — an insider witness to that world. This paper focused on Philo’s construction of the veneration of the Nile and activity which, like Egyptian animal worship, Philo associates with the unprecedented title of ‘the Egyptian atheism’ (ἡ Αἰγυπτιακή ἀθεότης). Perhaps because what he says about the Nile is found mainly in one of his most neglected works (De Vita Mosis), there seems to have been little discussion of Philo’s attitude to the veneration of the Nile. Compared with what we know of earlier traditions about Nile veneration, however, Philo’s view looks very original — in both a Graeco-Roman and a Jewish context. Taking his starting point from passages in the Greek Pentateuch (the birth of Moses, the first plague, and the half-Egyptian blasphemer), Philo evaluates Nile veneration as the expression of materialist atheism, marking a clear boundary between the practices of Judaism and practices opposed to it.

Mr Renato Lings (Birmingham): The Fusion of ‘Knowing’ and ‘Rape’: A Critical Reflection on Judges 19

From the outset Judges 19 has been a text of terror. In biblical times it served as a scathing attack on Saul and his tribe Benjamin. Post-biblical interpreters have used it against gay men, and in recent decades it has been reread by feminist scholars. This paper addressed a major linguistic problem in the pericope 19:22-25. The role of the Hebrew verb ידע ‘to know’ is under-researched. According to the current consensus, ידע is to be taken in a sexual sense. Two other verbs in the same passage clearly describe sexual violence: ענה ‘to oppress, humiliate’ (19:24) and עלל ‘to abuse, make sport of’ (19:25). This raises a major question: does ידע lose the connotation of ‘knowing’ in a context of sexual violence? Put differently, is it justified to make ‘knowing’ interchangeable with ‘rape’? The paper examined the approaches taken to ידע by thirty-two contemporary English Bible versions. Only one-third retains the notion of ‘knowing’ in their renderings while two-thirds opt for sexual terminology. Within the latter group more than half turns ידע into an active carrier of violence in 19:25, and five do so in 19:22. The brutality of the context seems to have impacted upon the translators. They have lost sight of the fundamentally non-violent nature of ידע in the Qal Conjugation. The Hebrew verbal paradigm admits intensification of ידע, cf. וידע in 8:16 (Hiphil, possibly ‘taught’). However, transforming a peaceful verb operating in the simple Qal Conjugation into an agent of violence is difficult to justify from a linguistic perspective.

Dr Helen Leneman (Rome): Music as Midrash: The Love Duets of Ruth and Boaz

The extensive amount of dialogue in the scroll of Ruth makes it very adaptable to dramatic and musical treatment. The librettist and composer may use several approaches to a biblical text: altering particular passages; juxtaposing several different biblical passages; using non-biblical texts as commentary on the biblical text; specifically highlighting individual words or phrases by various musical techniques. All of these approaches are seen in Ruth oratorios and operas. Investigation of a dozen musical works based on the scroll of Ruth reveals that each librettist reflected his own preconceptions and agenda by omitting, expanding, or altering scenes found in the scroll. Some librettos foreground the Ruth–Boaz relationship; others, the Ruth–Naomi friendship. The composers reinforced these choices with a range of musical techniques. The thesis was presented that music can be considered midrash because it retells the story in a different language. Music has the power not only to read between the lines of a text and fill in the gaps, but to create an inner world of the heart and mind. While librettos fill in various gaps from the original story, the music continually, but wordlessly, fills in the gaps of how people are feeling and reacting. One significant alteration found in many musical settings of the scroll of Ruth is the addition of a love interest between Ruth and Boaz, represented by a love duet. The paper described this gap-filling midrash in the librettos and music of several works, illustrated with short musical excerpts.

Dr Walter Moberly (Durham): The Mark of Cain — Revealed at Last?

Most interpreters of Genesis 4:15 assume that the text does not specify the nature of Cain’s mark, so that one must make intelligent guesses. The thesis of this paper was that the mark is specified within the biblical text, and is the words of the LORD addressed to Cain: ‘Whoever kills Cain will suffer sevenfold vengeance’. There are three prime reasons for this. First, the preposition depicting the relation of the mark to Cain is not ‘al, which would be the idiom for a bodily mark (cf. Deuteronomy 6:8, Ezekiel 9:4), but l^e, which implies that the mark is non-corporeal, ‘for’ Cain. Secondly, the LORD, though addressing Cain, says ‘whoever kills Cain…’ rather than ‘whoever kills you…’, which implies that the LORD is using words that will be spoken about Cain by others. Thirdly, the idiom kol-horeg is an idiom naturally implying a plurality of agents (cf. kol-makkeh-nephesh, Numbers 35:15, 30); if a plurality of killings of Cain is envisaged, then Cain here represents a group of whom he is the eponymous ancestor. This group’s fearsome reputation is specified by the LORD to be that which protects them. It is suggested that the LORD speaks thus because Cain embodies over-reaction (the preferential treatment of Abel receives killing, killing receives multiple killing). His situation can be seen in the light of Genesis 4:7 to be consumed by sin and resentment, an archetypal degradation of human life. Contemporary appropriation of the LORD’s mark/sign to Cain might best think in terms of its intensification by Lamech (Genesis 4:24) and its inversion by Jesus (Matthew 18:22).

Dr Willem Smelik (London): Adam in Eden: Notes on the Complexity of Scriptural Interpretation in the Talmud

In tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud we find four traditions attributed to Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav, about the First Adam. These four traditions follow loosely in the wake of an extensive discussion of Adam’s creation in Sanhedrin, triggered by the claim in Misnah Sanhedrin that man was created alone. Whilst they are introduced by a mnemonic marker, it is not at all obvious what these four traditions are doing here, and why they are here instead of somewhere else. They prompt the questions whether they belong together at some level and how they fit in with the Bavli’s deployment of scriptural interpretation. The importance of foreknowledge for the rabbinic act of interpretation emerges from the brief way in which the interpreted text is quoted; a word is enough to the wise. Without chapter and verse numbers, a reference was not easy to find. Written texts were not always around. Scrolls had to be rolled forth and back, hence did not lend themselves easily to explain Scripture by Scripture; anyone wanting to participate in the debate would need a memorised version of the Torah. Ready knowledge of any biblical verse is only a first requirement to follow the intricacies of the discussion; any scholar would also need a thorough knowledge of traditional exegesis on the one hand, and of halakhic concepts and terminology on the other hand. Sages quoted from a vast array of traditions, and selected those parts which proved useful for their arguments. In many instances, the relevant part of the reference is not even quoted, but must be supplemented to make sense of the argument. The Talmud is not, by default, a commentary of the Bible, taking its cue from biblical verses; rather, it follows its own logic which determines the selection of quotations. The Torah, then, would circulate, and so would its interpretation, and interpretative traditions and motifs lent themselves to be reused in new discursive contexts. An example of such reapplication of traditions may well be found in Sanhedrin 38b, where we find four traditions about the First Adam attributed to Rav Yehudah in the name of Rav. These short passages demonstrate how richly layered and allusive the interpretation of Scripture in the Talmud can be. In many quotations, what has not been said is at least as important as what has been stated explicitly. And even where verses are stated explicitly, their interpretation is brief to the point of being esoterical. But the series of interpretations in Sanhedrin 38b were not a cardboard box of indexes turned upside down on the face of the page. Here we have a midrash in four parts, commenting upon the creation of humanity in the light of m. San. 4.5, and humanity’s solitary creation in particular. It carefully explores humanity’s creation in the image and likeness of God, touching upon sensitive issues, all along retaining the universalistic implications of the First Adam.

Professor Nicolas Wyatt (Edinburgh): Og and his Ilk

The biblical Og, king of Bashan, is an elusive legendary figure, repre¬senting the past swept aside as Israel enters into its allotted territories. Talmudic sources tell us that he was a survivor of the flood. The additional information we have about him, that he was ‘the last survivor of the Rephaim, who reigned in Ashtarot and Edrei’, points us to the Ugaritic texts, which speak of the god Rapiu ‘reigning in Athtarat and ruling in Edrei’, suggesting that Og and Rapiu are to be seen as one original person. The latter serves as the eponym of the Rapiuma, a community of divinized dead kings involved in the Ugaritian royal cultus. They are known collectively as ‘the assembly of Ditanu’. Following clues which lead in two directions, to the Ditanu or Didanu who appears in the Assyrian and Babylonian royal genealogies, and to Greek tradition, where the flood-hero Ogygos, a reflex of Og, was a king of the Titans and founder of Thebes, we can reconstruct a hypothetical biography of Og. Now seemingly reduced somewhat dismissively to human and royal status in the Bible, he appears rather to have been originally of divine status, one of the primordial gods, indeed the embodiment of the primaeval cosmic ocean. Thus the war against him appears to have been a version of the Chaoskampf tradition.

Dr Stuart Weeks (Durham): The Limits of Form Criticism

Increasingly, form criticism is being called on to serve as an interpretative, literary-critical tool, rather than as the essentially diachronic, historical method which it was originally designed to be. It is true that many of the presuppositions which informed early form criticism have been brought into question, especially with regard to assumptions about the relationship between oral and written materials. The approach has also faced practical difficulties, both in terms of faulty application and, more fundamentally, in dealing with the transfer of forms to secondary contexts. As an approach to historical questions, however, there is a theoretical legitimacy in the form-critical emphasis on extracting and delineating ‘basic forms’, even if it offers informed speculation more often than secure data. When transferred to the literary-critical sphere, however, this approach aligns form criticism with classic, Aristotelian assumptions, the serious limitations of which have long been recognised by literary theorists. The re-application of form criticism in this way involves a confusion of aims and categories which does few favours either to form criticism or to any serious study of genre and convention in the biblical texts.

Dr Robert Murray (London): How Was Jerome So Convinced that Rachel Died in Springtime?

The account of Rachel’s death in Genesis 35:16-20 and Jacob’s reminiscence in Genesis 48:7 both use the word כברת followed by ארץ. The only other instance is in 2 Kings 5:19. Both parsing and meaning of כברת are ancient ‘cruces’. The contexts in Genesis and 2 Kings suggest that it is a spatial term, implicitly a short distance. Rashi affirms this, and probably all subsequent exegetes and translators agree. Yet before him, the Peshitta alone has a spatial term, the Syriac form of ‘parasang’; the LXX translator simply floundered. A temporal interpretation of כברת, specifically evoking spring, is first urged by Jerome. In Hebraicae Quaestiones in Genesim he argues for ‘a choice time’ (as if related to בחר), and explains this as ‘springtime’; in his version of Genesis he gives this both times. He cites no rabbinical authority for this, but could have found it in Palestinian targums and in tannaitic readings cited in Genesis Rabba. The fragment targums, Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan all have, in the place of כברת, either אישון or אשון, which refer to a special time, like καιρός. A Genizah fragment inserts (perhaps by metathesis?) בוכרה, ‘first fruits’, and this seems to lead the way to the dicta in Genesis Rabba alluding to Song of Songs 2:11 and the spring barley harvest (with a hint of Naomi and Ruth?). The paper was followed by a poetic expansion of Jacob’s words, inspired by the hauntingly emotive power of the ‘springtime’ theme.