The Significance of Sinai THEMES IN BIBLICAL NARRATIVE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN TRADITIONS Editorial Board GEORGE H. VAN KOOTEN, Groningen ROBERT A. KUGLER, Portland, Oregon LOREN T. STUCKENBRUCK, Durham Assistant Editor FREEK VAN DER STEEN Advisory Board REINHARD FELDMEIER, Göttingen – JUDITH LIEU, Cambridge FLORENTINO GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ, Groningen-Leuven HINDY NAJMAN, Toronto MARTTI NISSINEN, Helsinki – ED NOORT, Groningen VOLUME 12 The Significance of Sinai Traditions about Sinai and Divine Revelation in Judaism and Christianity Edited by George J. Brooke, Hindy Najman and Loren T. Stuckenbruck Editorial Assistance Eva Mroczek, Brauna Doidge and Nathalie LaCoste LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 Cover illustration from: Simon Levi Ginzburg’s Illustrated Custumal, Minhagim-Book of Venice, 1593. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data LC Control No.: 2008038904 ISSN 1388-3909 ISBN 978 90 04 17018 6 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Editorial Statement ..................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................ ix Some Unanticipated Consequences of the Sinai Revelation: A Religion of Laws ................................................................. 1 James L. Kugel “Fire, Cloud, and Deep Darkness” (Deuteronomy 5:22): Deuteronomy’s Recasting of Revelation ................................ 15 Marc Zvi Brettler Priestly Prophets at Qumran: Summoning Sinai through the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice ...................................................... 29 Judith H. Newman Moving Mountains: From Sinai to Jerusalem ............................ 73 George J. Brooke Moses, David and Scribal Revelation: Preservation and Renewal in Second Temple Jewish Textual Traditions ......... 91 Eva Mroczek The Giving of the Torah at Sinai and the Ethics of the Qumran Community .............................................................. 117 Marcus Tso Josephus’ “Theokratia” and Mosaic Discourse: The Actualization of the Revelation at Sinai ................................ 129 Zuleika Rodgers Why did Paul include an Exegesis of Moses’ Shining Face (Exod 34) in 2 Cor 3? ............................................................. 149 Moses’ Strength, Well-being and (Transitory) Glory, according to Philo, Josephus, Paul, and the Corinthian Sophists George H. van Kooten vi contents In the Mirror of the Divine Face: The Enochic Features of the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian ................................ 183 Andrei Orlov Torah and Eschatology in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch .......... 201 Matthias Henze Can the Homilists Cross the Sea Again? Revelation in Mekilta Shirata .......................................................................... 217 Ishay Rosen-Zvi Hearing and Seeing at Sinai: Interpretive Trajectories ............ 247 Steven D. Fraade The Giving of the Torah: Targumic Perspectives .................... 269 Charles Thomas Robert Hayward God’s Back! What did Moses see on Sinai? .............................. 287 Diana Lipton Sinai in Art and Architecture .................................................... 313 David Brown Sinai since Spinoza: Reflections on Revelation in Modern Jewish Thought ....................................................................... 333 Paul Franks Index of Modern Authors ......................................................... 355 Subject Index .............................................................................. 363 Index of Primary Texts .............................................................. 368 EDITORIAL STATEMENT Themes in Biblical Narrative publishes studies dealing with early inter- pretations of Biblical narrative materials. The series includes congress volumes and monographs. Publications are usually the result of a reworking of papers pre- sented during a TBN-conference on a particular narrative, e.g. the Balaam story, or a specific theme, for instance: ‘clean and unclean’ in the Hebrew Bible, or: ‘the ru’ah adonai and anthropological models of humanity’. Having treated the basic texts for this narrative or theme, other contributions follow its earliest interpretations and receptions through- out the subsequent phases of ancient Judaism, early Christianity, and if appropriate Islam. Also studies which illuminate the successive inculturations into the various Umwelts—the Ancient Near East, the Graeco-Roman World—are included. Extensions to modern Bible receptions and discussions of hermeneutical questions are welcomed, if they are related explicitly to the study of early receptions of Biblical texts and traditions. Contributions to the series are written by specialists in the relevant literary corpora. The series is intended for scholars and advanced students of theology, linguistics and literature. The series is published in co-operation with the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), Durham University (United Kingdom), and Lewis & Clark College (USA). It includes monographs and congress volumes in the English language, and is intended for international distribution on a scholarly level. More information on the series http://www.xs4all.nl/~fvds/tbn/ INTRODUCTION In July 2007 a group of us gathered at the Department of Theology and Religion in the University of Durham to discuss “The Giving of the Torah at Sinai.” Contributors had been solicited to investigate the centrality of the theme in biblical, extra-biblical, rabbinic, early Christian, artistic and later philosophical depictions. Many of the con- ference participants anticipated a three-day long discussion of Sinai as the paradigm for all other revelation. The assumption was that Sinai would then come to be seen all the more clearly as the exclusive and normative model for subsequent revelation in Judaism, whether as the basis for the authoritative extrapolation of what had taken place there or as the touchstone for any claim to revelatory experience of the divine. For non-Jewish traditions one could well expect that Sinai was the defining moment for revelation and covenant-making. Thus we imagined that our conference in Durham and our subsequent volume would be a work that would discuss Sinai as a paradigm for imagining all subsequent revelations in Judaism and Christianity. However, somewhat to the surprise of the editors of this volume, the papers that were delivered at the conference and that have eventu- ally been revised for inclusion in this volume did not focus exclusively on the centrality of Sinai. Neither did they all argue that Sinai was the paradigmatic revelatory event. Instead, what emerged were very nuanced discussions of the various ways in which Sinai was not cen- tral or privileged, but rather relativized amongst many other examples of revelation in the history of ancient Judaism and beyond. This was true in discussions of Qumran literature, in analyses of the writings of Philo and Josephus, in expositions of tannaitic midrash, in fresh readings of the targums, and so on. The openness and willingness of the participants in the symposium to reconsider longstanding presup- positions is what intrigued many of us and will probably surprise our readers as well. The essays presented here provide glimpses of how in antiquity and more recently some Jews and Christians sought to rewrite or even replace the moment of Sinai with other important moments of revela- tion and communication with the divine. In this it seems in particular that the location of revelation was seen as less and less significant; until
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