Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation from Second Temple Literature Through Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity: Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Li

409 Pages·2015·2.68 MB·English

by  Menahem Kister

Tradition, Transmission, and Transformation from Second Temple
Literature through Judaism and Christianity in Late Antiquity
Studies on the Texts of the
Desert of Judah
Edited by
George J. Brooke
Associate Editors
Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar
Jonathan Ben-Dov
Alison Schofield
volume 113
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/stdj
Tradition, Transmission, and
Transformation from
Second Temple Literature
through Judaism and
Christianity in Late Antiquity
Proceedings of the Thirteenth International
Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the
Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature
Jointly Sponsored by the Hebrew University Center for
the Study of Christianity, 22–24 February, 2011
Edited by
Menahem Kister, Hillel I. Newman, Michael Segal,
and Ruth A. Clements
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature. International Symposium
(13th : 2011)
 Tradition, transmission, and transformation from Second Temple literature through Judaism and
Christianity in late antiquity : proceedings of the Thirteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center
for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, jointly sponsored by the Hebrew University
Center for the Study of Christianity, 22–24 February, 2011 / by Menahem Kister, Hillel Newman, Michael
Segal, and Ruth A. Clements.
  pages cm. — (Studies on the texts of the desert of Judah, ISSN 0169-9962)
 Includes indexes.
 ISBN 978-90-04-27408-2 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-29913-9 (e-book) 1. Judaism—
History—Post-exilic period, 586 BC–210 AD—Congresses. 2. Judaism—History—Talmudic period,
10–425—Congresses. 3. Church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30–600—Congresses.
4. Civilization, Greco-Roman—Congresses. 5. Apocryphal books—Criticism, interpretation, etc.—
Congresses. 6. Rabbinical literature—History and criticism—Congresses. 7. Dead Sea scrolls—Congresses.
I. Kister, Menahem, editor. II. Newman, Hillel, editor. III. Segal, Michael , editor. IV. Clements, Ruth, editor.
V. Title.
 BM176.O75 2015
 296.1—dc23
2015016654
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issn 0169-9962
isbn 978-90-04-27408-2 (hardback)
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Contents
Preface vii
Abbreviations xiii
Parabiblical Traditions and Their Use in the Palaea Historica 1
William Adler
Outsider Impurity: Trajectories of Second Temple Separation Traditions
in Tannaitic Literature 40
Yair Furstenberg
No Angels before the World? A Preexistence Tradition and
Its Transformations from Second Temple Literature to Early Piyyuṭ 69
Yehoshua Granat
Pious Long-Sleepers in Greek, Jewish, and Christian Antiquity 93
Pieter W. van der Horst
Remnants of a Pharisaic Apologetic Source in Josephus and in the
Babylonian Talmud 112
Tal Ilan and Vered Noam
Windy and Fiery Angels: Prerabbinic and Rabbinic Interpretations of
Psalm 104:4 134
Yaakov Kaduri
Hellenistic Jewish Writers and Palestinian Traditions: Early and Late 150
Menahem Kister
The Severus Scroll Variant List in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls 179
Armin Lange
Where is the Lost Ark of the Covenant? The True History
(of the Ancient Traditions) 208
Chaim Milikowsky
vi contents
Satan’s Refusal to Worship Adam: A Jewish Motif and Its Reception in
Syriac Christian Tradition 230
Sergey Minov
Stars of the Messiah 272
Hillel I. Newman
Retelling Biblical Retellings: Epiphanius, the Pseudo-Clementines,
and the Reception-History of Jubilees 304
Annette Yoshiko Reed
Why is “A” Placed Next to “B”? Juxtaposition in the Bible and Beyond 322
Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch
The Reception and Reworking of Abraham Traditions in Armenian 343
Michael E. Stone
Index of Ancient Texts 361
Index of Modern Authors 387
Preface
The Second Temple period was crucial to the formation of both rabbinic
Judaism and early Christianity, which share common roots in that semi-
nal era. The origins of many literary genres, modes and traditions of biblical
exegesis, halakhic rulings, and theological notions found in later Jewish and
Christian writings can be traced back to that formative period. The Thirteenth
International Orion Symposium (February 22–24, 2011) was convened in order
to explore the dynamics by which some of these earlier texts and traditions
were transmitted to later generations and taken up in other contexts, where
they were both preserved and adapted to new cultural and religious settings.
The fruits of that symposium are presented in this volume. These explorations
span the period from biblical and Second Temple times to the Middle Ages.
The papers address compositions ranging from Second Temple Apocrypha and
Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Hellenistic Jewish writings, to rab-
binic midrash, halakhic texts, piyyuṭ, and patristic literature; some deal as well
with medieval works of Jews, Christians, and Moslems. In many senses these
rich and diverse worlds must be seen as parts of a larger continuum, but at the
same time we must not blur distinctions or fail to acknowledge the unique
features of each culture and corpus of material.
Many works that originated in the Second Temple period (such as the books
of the Apocrypha and the so-called Pseudepigrapha, the oeuvres of Philo and
Josephus, and fragments of Hellenistic Jewish authors) continued to be trans-
mitted in Christian circles and cited by Christian authorities; however, these
works were generally unknown to Jewish literature of late antiquity and the
early Middle Ages. With few exceptions (notably Ben Sira, the Aramaic Levi
Document and the Damascus Document, medieval fragments of which have
been discovered in the Cairo Genizah), direct transmission of texts among Jews
of works from the Second Temple period is extremely rare. On the other hand,
classical rabbinic literature (and to a lesser extent medieval rabbinic literature)
often contains traditions that originated in the Second Temple period. Such
traditions can likewise be found in early Christianity. Therefore, in order to
study the afterlife of Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, one must
confront two distinct phenomena: the transmission of texts on the one hand;
and the transmission and transformation of traditions on the other. These are
not discrete processes, but complementary ones. Scrutiny of both phenomena
is crucial for exploring the roots of rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity:
rabbinic traditions often provide the key to understanding obscure passages in
viii preface
works of the Second Temple period, just as the earlier texts often demonstrate
the pre-Christian origins of those traditions.
The studies included here analyze different aspects of numerous compositions
from diverse periods and contexts; nevertheless, they may be broadly catego-
rized according to their content and methodology. Many focus on traditions
and their transformation in subsequent contexts, particularly within rabbinic
literature. Some of these traditions emerged from the exegesis of particular
biblical verses, both narrative and halakhic; others are historical or quasi-his-
torical in nature, though even these latter may be colored by biblical exege-
sis. Several of the papers highlight the role of shared or contrasting exegetical
principles and methods. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that the
rabbinic corpus, together with Christian and extrarabbinic Jewish sources, fre-
quently attests to much earlier traditions. That is, many of the traditions found
in the later texts were neither created by the rabbis and their contemporaries,
nor did they necessarily emerge from the milieux of the specific sages to whom
they are attributed or necessarily originate in the place and period of the redac-
tion of the individual compilations. Of course, these traditions did continue to
evolve in the course of their transmission; new meanings continued to accrue
even for old traditions when put into new cultural and literary contexts.
Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch contend that biblical interpretation
must be seen as a continuum extending from passages within the Bible itself
to the midrash, and that the implicit methods of inner-biblical exegesis can be
illuminated by the more explicit techniques of later material. They investigate
a specific exegetical practice: the attribution of significance to literary juxtapo-
sition with the biblical text. Beginning with the explicit usage of this technique
in rabbinic literature, they trace it back to implicit occurrences in the writings
of the Second Temple period; they ultimately find the roots of this practice in
the literary structure of the biblical texts themselves.
Yaakov Kaduri (James L. Kugel) analyzes both explicit and implicit exegesis
of a biblical verse (Ps 104:4) found in ancient Jewish sources. He demonstrates
the continuity of the perception of the nature of angels which is derived from
the interpretation of this verse, from the Pseudepigrapha and Qumran through
rabbinic literature.
Menahem Kister offers an “integrative study” of Hellenistic Jewish texts
dealing with creation (that is, texts written in Greek and preserved in citations
by the Church Fathers) and parallels in Hebrew and Aramaic from both Jewish
(rabbinic midrash, piyyuṭ) and Samaritan sources. He seeks to demonstrate
preface ix
that common traditions and motifs underlie the divergent sources, and that,
in spite of the essential differences and chronological disparities between the
corpora, they are mutually illuminating.
Yehoshua Granat, in a paper that is thematically connected to the contri-
butions of Kaduri and Kister, examines traditions about the creation of the
angels that are found in several Palestinian piyyuṭim and may be traced back
to Second Temple literature. These traditions do not accord with mainstream
rabbinic interpretation, with which they are contemporary.
Chaim Milikowsky explores the history of motifs surrounding the disap-
pearance of the Ark of the Covenant in apocryphal, pseudepigraphic, and rab-
binic sources. He notes that although the problem of the disappearance of the
Ark is itself exegetically derived, and although all of the traditions surrounding
this issue share the same concerns, rabbinic sources offer solutions that differ
from those of earlier, nonrabbinic texts. He suggests that this stems from fun-
damentally different approaches to biblical interpretation.
Tal Ilan and Vered Noam discuss the origins of and relationships between
parallel historical traditions found in Josephus and the Babylonian Talmud.
They contend that two aggadot in the Babylonian Talmud depicting historical
events in the time of Alexander Jannaeus are rooted in traditions of the Second
Temple period, and are in fact passages of Pharisaic origin (possibly from a
common Pharisaic source). In this case, rabbinic traditions in later works may
shed light on the earlier material
Hillel Newman discusses the eschatological motif of stars as omens of salva-
tion, examining the origins of this motif in biblical exegesis, its development
in apocalyptic tradition, and its manifestation in various historical circum-
stances. The sources considered range from Qumran literature and the New
Testament to medieval midrash and Christian works of late antiquity. Special
attention is devoted to the messianic significance of the star in the Bar Kokhba
revolt. In addition to literary sources, the paper deals with numismatic evi-
dence from the Bar Kokhba period and with later iconographic material.
Turning to halakhic traditions and conceptions, Yair Furstenberg identifies
an early stratum of rabbinic halakhah concerning purity which is similar to the
laws of separation from impurity in Qumran legal texts. The paper raises the
question of continuity and discontinuity between halakhic views of various
groups in the Second Temple period and rabbinic literature.
Armin Lange looks at a unique medieval rabbinic document: a brief list
of textual variants to the Torah, attributed in its introduction to a Torah
scroll originating in pre-Destruction Jerusalem. In an attempt to assess the
textual type of this scroll and its relationship to the Masoretic text, he com-
pares this list to readings found in the Dead Sea documents and in other
biblical versions.