The Old Testament in the New:
A Jewish Perspective

I—
Outline

The New Testament frequently cites the Old, from centuries before. Now whenever people base on an ancient text, for a comprehension of their drift it matters little what that text means or, to put it more humbly, what we suppose it to mean; the key lies in what it means to them, which may be quite different. To some extent, this is true even where the text is contemporaneous. Say, you form an opinion or take action inspired by an item in today's San Francisco Chronicle . If it is you I am out to understand, I must concentrate not on what the article says but on what it says to you. Even in such a case, the discrepancy now and

then will be enormous. However, the likelihood of its being so is less.

Here is an example unrelated to the Bible. To make sense of the itineraries chosen in the age of Columbus by the seekers of Atlantis, the lost island figuring in the Arabian geographers, we must proceed not from where the latter place it but from where the Renaissance voyagers believed they did. Next, for a complaint about the Old Testament by Hamlet, who wishes God had promulgated no law against suicide. Shakespeare has in mind 'Thou shalt not murder', assumed in his time to extend to self-killing.^[1] Few scholars nowadays go along with this range of the commandment but, as far as an appreciation of the monologue in question is concerned, this is beside the point. Noah's three sons offer further illustrations. Dutch Reformed churchmen in South Africa, in defence of racial oppression, adduce his curse dubbing Ham-Canaan a servant of servants to Shem and Japheth.^[2] Fairly logical, given their view that from the one wicked brother are descended the present blacks and from the decent pair of Shem and Japheth the present whites, that the pronouncement is designed to punish all the former and reward all the latter, and so forth. The craziness of their view does not make it any less the explanation of their reliance on this passage. In the first half of the second century A.D., Simon ben Gamaliel II, permitting the writing of the Torah in Greek, appeals to another portion of Noah's oracle: 'Japheth shall dwell in the tents of Shem'.^[3] The force of the quotation emerges when we remember that, for the Rabbis, Japheth stood for Hellas and

[1] Shakespeare, Hamlet , 1.2.132, Exodus 20.13, Deuteronomy 5.17.

[2] Genesis 9.25.

[3] Palestinian Megillah 71c, Genesis 9.26.

Shem for Jewry. To follow Simon, it is this that we need to know, while how far the identifications coincide with the original meaning is of secondary interest.^[4]

My proposition, then—far from novel but too readily neglected—is that, when dealing with the Old Testament in the New, we ought to read it as it was read by the Jews of that era. The references without exception come from their midst, are founded on their interpretation. If this often clashes with the pristine sense (or what we take to be such) it cannot be helped. We must still stick to it. Unless we do, we may miss parts—from relatively minor to very major—of the New Testament message conveyed by means of the reference.

In passing, the chief reason for the widespread disregard of this strategy is that it requires being steeped in the Rabbinic modes of exegesis, and few Christian theologians are. The most excellent collections of Talmudic material bearing on the New Testament cannot fully make up for this shortcoming. Luckily, owing to a variety of factors—one of them, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls—the situation is improving; and at least the number of those explicitly minimizing the importance of what went on among the Jews of the period seems in decline. But I have no illusions. As we know from the fable of the fox and the grapes, to pooh-pooh what we cannot tackle is a natural—and, up to a point, healthy—defence mechanism. I have confessed

[4] Jan Vetter, when I told him of this essay, drew my attention to a 1977 Supreme Court decision in St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Co. v. Barry , written by Powell J. and approving of a remark by Mr. Justice Cardozo in 1935, that 'words or phrases in a statute come freighted with the meaning imparted to them by the mischief to be remedied and by contemporaneous discussion. In such conditions history is a teacher that is not to be ignored'. I am grateful to Walter Pakter for helping me locate these opinions.

elsewhere that when, some time ago, a colleague from Sofia sent me his manual on Roman law, in Bulgarian, I laid it aside, comforting myself with the thought that it was unlikely to contain much that was radically new.

II—
God of Our Fathers

Perhaps I had best begin with a quotation most scholars do treat as distorting the genuine tenor, Rabbi-wise: a clause from the Book of Exodus which Jesus thinks confirms resurrection.^[1] More carefully, is represented as thinking; but I shall submit grounds for crediting the report. The reason the incongruity in this instance is widely admitted is that the ratiocination, the 'logic'—fancy to us—turning the clause into a proof of resurrection, is offered in full.

Resurrection, a fundamental tenet of the Pharisees, is nowhere mentioned in the Pentateuch—to their grave embarrassment vis-à-vis Samaritans and Sadducees for whom Mosaic directives alone were binding and who rejected this dogma of later provenance. Its upholders, in consequence, were driven to all sorts of twistings of holy writ to convict their opponents of error even by their own standard. For example, Deuteronomy speaks of 'the land which the Lord swore to your Fathers to give to them and to their seed'. But, the Pharisees argued, the Fathers died before their seed reached Canaan; how, then, could God give the land to them as well as to the latter? Answer: because they will return. Mosaic evidence.^[2] It was taken seriously enough for the Samaritans to excise 'to them' from their version. Nor

[1] Matthew 22.31f., Mark 12.26f., Luke 20.37f., Exodus 3.6.

[2] Babylonian Sanhedrin 90b, Deuteronomy 11.9, 21.

must they be labelled as fraudulent.^[3] They believed they were throwing out an intrusion no less honestly than the Pharisaic masters believed they were uncovering its true contents. The same Gamaliel II in whose name this proof is transmitted, as well as his contemporary Joshua ben Hananiah—around A.D. 100—made use of a grammar-defying method to produce further testimony. Towards the close of Deuteronomy, God tells Moses: 'You will be resting with your Fathers, and there will be rising this people and be whoring after the gods of the strangers'. The two asserted that 'and there will be rising' attached to both the preceding part and the following part, so we obtain (1) 'you will be resting with your Fathers and there will be rising'—resurrection, (2) 'and there will be rising this people and be whoring'—Israel's lapse.^[4]

Jesus confronts the Sadducees with God's self-revelation to Moses: 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob'. The incident takes place long after the days of the Patriarchs. But plainly, Jesus argues, God must be a God of the living. It follows that they are not departed for ever: they will come back. Mosaic evidence of the same character as Gamaliel's.^[5] To do justice to the New Testament

[3] As they are by Eliezer ben Jose, around A.D. 150, in Babylonian Sanhedrin 90b. For further details, see my comments in Jewish Journal of Sociology 3 (1961): 23.

[4] Babylonian Sanhedrin 90b, Deuteronomy 31.16. The method is discussed by me in Festschrift Hans Lewald , 1953, pp. 34ff. Classical specimens reached the Elizabethans and, if B. Everett, writing in the London Review of Books , 18 December 1986, p. 7, is right, 'wisheth' in the dedication of Shakespeare's Sonnets faces in two directions.

[5] Virtually conceded on all hands. Still, not a few authorities, believing Jesus to be the originator of this proof, are at pains to elevate it. Thus, K. H. Rengstorf, Das Evangelium nach Lukas ,9th ed., 1962, p. 229, greatly refines its message, while E. Klostermann, Das Markusevangelium , 4th ed., 1950, deems it geistreicher , 'more ingenious', than the ordinary run.

sense of the line, no use looking at it from the standpoint of the composer of Exodus; we have to put on Rabbinic spectacles.

This is all that is essential to my thesis. The subject matter is of such weight, however, as to deserve an excursus.

That Jesus invented the syllogism is a priori implausible, surely. Fortunately, it can be shown that he did not. It definitely underlies, for example, the doctrine of IV Maccabees, on which a little more presently; and almost certainly the proofs from Deuteronomy—also with the Fathers in a prototypal role—are offshoots, weaker than the model 'I am the God of' etc. which centers on the very opening of the Almighty's decisive intervention in Exodus. It is demonstrable, too, that one had to be no academic to be acquainted with it: that is why I have no qualms as to historicity. It was in fact by his time deeply embedded in the central daily prayer, the Eighteen Benedictions.

As pointed out by Herbert Loewe (in whose home I had my first meal at Cambridge in the thirties), when the Sadducees are declared in this debate 'to know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God', the latter term denotes the Second Benediction, aimed against them and carrying the appellation 'Powers'.^[6] The First Benediction, with the appellation 'Fathers', addresses 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob'—from the Book of

[6] See C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology , 1938; rept. with prolegomenon by R. Loewe, 1974, p. 369. The idea is taken up by R. Loewe, Journal of Theological Studies , n.s. 32 (1981): 358. But he assumes that the evangelists are no longer aware of Jesus's meaning—which, at least as far as Mark is concerned, seems unwarranted.

Exodus. The Second extols him as 'powerful' and 'Lord of powers' in reviving the dead and also, significantly, as the giver of rain.^[7] Clearly, the sequence is determined by that notion that the formulation in Exodus guarantees resurrection. Whether this Benediction was coined in its entirety during the fierce struggles between the sects in the second century B.C. or whether, as has been suggested, the bulk of it dates from before and only the contested principle was inserted in that period, we may leave open. Here, by the time of Jesus, was the Pharisaic case, accessible to everybody. The Sadducees, he is saying, ignore a vital teaching of the Torah, as explicated in the Second Benediction. Luke has cut out this somewhat parochial reprimand, preserved in Matthew and Mark.^[8]

Various considerations supporting this approach may be

[7] Cf. Isaiah 26.19. I shall return to the mention of rain at the end of II.

[8] Here is a translation (which, sorry to say, does not convey the beauty, strength and depth of the Hebrew): Blessed are you, O Lord our God and God of our Fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob, great, powerful and awesome God, God the Highest, who bestows beneficent kindnesses and possesses all and remembers the kindnesses of the Fathers and brings a redeemer to their children's children for his name's sake in love; King, Helper and Saviour and Shield; Blessed are you, O Lord, the Shield of Abraham. —Second Benediction: You are powerful for ever, O Lord, who revives the dead, you are mighty to save; who causes the wind to blow and the rain to descend; who sustains the living in kindness, who revives the dead with much mercy, who supports the falling and heals the sick and looses the bound and keeps his faith to those sleeping in the dust; who is like you, O Lord of powers, and who resembles you? King who kills and revives and causes salvation to spring forth; and faithful you are to revive the dead; Blessed are you, O Lord, who revives the dead.

added. For a start, let me dispose of a possible objection: Jesus employs the singular, 'power of God', the Talmud the plural, 'Powers'. Not a serious stumbling block. The plural embraces the several powers appearing in the Benediction—resurrection, rain, provision of good, healing, salvation, even killing—while Jesus concentrates on the first. There is plenty of evidence that singular and plural are not kept rigidly separate in this province, and no doubt the earlier the date, the more fluidity. In the third century still, the question why, traditionally, one speaks of 'powers of rains' in discussing the Second Benediction, is answered: 'Because they come down by the power [of God]'.^[9]

Now for a more positive input. It was usual then to cite important divisions of sacred works by means of conventional, pregnant designations. As it happens, Jesus on the same occasion avails himself of this mode not only for the Second Benediction, 'Powers', but also for the verse from Exodus: 'Have you not read in the Book of Moses, at the Bush'. 'The Bush' figures in Rabbinic material as the appellation of the pericope recounting God's first appearance to Moses.^[10] In this case, Matthew—against Mark and Luke—has dropped the technical detail, along with 'the Book of Moses', to replace it by his favourite 'that which is said'.^[11]

To go by Mark, throughout the debate, both Sadducees and Jesus speak of 'a rising' (noun) or 'to rise' (verb); once

[9] Johanan bar Nappaha in Babylonian Taanith 2a.

[10] See H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch , 4 vols., 1924–1929, rept. 1969, 2:28.

[11] To disentangle the various New Testament writers' systems of citation cannot be my task here. I am content to observe that 'that which is said' or 'it has been said' is never met in Mark and that whenever Matthew puts it without specifying the source, he is citing the Pentateuch.

only, in interpreting 'I am the God of' etc., he substitutes the dead 'being waked'. Some scholars who have noticed the switch justly attribute it to the idea, well attested in the Talmud, of death as not final annihilation but temporary sleep. The Fathers are alive, just sleeping, waiting to be resummoned.^[12] According to IV Maccabees, the martyrs are convinced that 'unto God, they die not, as our Fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died not, but that they live unto God'.^[13] In the Qumran hymns, at Judgment time, 'all the sons of his truth will awake' and 'those that rest in the dust' will hoist the banner.^[14] What is significant for us is that the so-called Babylonian rescension of the Second Benediction (so-called—it seems to be a product of Palestine just as much as the Palestinian version)^[15] explicitly glorifies God as 'keeping his faith to them that sleep in the dust'. Indeed, it borrows the image from the Book of Daniel where we also meet the verb 'to awake': 'And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake'.^[16]

The famous pronouncement in I Corinthians 15 stands foursquare in this tradition: 'Some of them [that saw Christ after his burial] are fallen asleep', 'Christ has been awakened from the dead, the first-fruits of them that slept', 'we shall not all sleep'.^[17] Nor is the key word 'power' missing: 'Sown in weakness, awakened in [or by] power'.^[18] Of the many other contributions—direct or indirect—to this concern, some concur, some deviate, slightly or markedly. It is a

[12] See Klostermann, Markusevangelium , pp. 126, 180.

[13] IV Maccabees 7.19, similarly 16.25. This is not to affirm absolute identity with the attitude of Jesus.

[14] I Qumran Hodayoth 6.29f., 34.

[15] See Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar , 4, pt. 1: 211.

[16] Daniel 12.2.

[17] I Corinthians 15.6, 20, 51.

[18] I Corinthians 15.43; cf. 6.14, II Corinthians 13.4

quest touching on the most diverse facets of the infant Church.

English translations, not excepting the most meticulous ones, as a rule put 'to rise' or 'to raise' even where the Greek has 'to be awakened' or 'to awake' (transitive). One cause—repeat: one of a dozen—is surely the far greater convenience of the former pair; my parenthesis (transitive) illustrates a drawback of the latter. In German, there is no awkwardness about auferweckt werden or auferwecken , hence these two are fairly frequent. Actually, German has some difficulty with 'to raise': auferstehen lassen is clumsy. So in German renderings, it is this term which is apt to be pushed out—by auferwecken .^[19] Admittedly, the mix-up is provided with a justification—to wit, that, in Greek literature, 'to be awakened' not seldom has the sense of 'to rise' and 'to awaken' (transitive) that of 'to raise'. However, this happens only in special conditions and a metaphorical flavour nearly always persists. As for the New Testament, though here and there synonymity of the two verbs is reached, in the vast majority of cases it is not, small as the difference may at times be. It is wrong to postulate that the adoption of the noun anastasis , 'resurrection', 'rising', as the chief heading in this domain spells the end of nuances. Roughly, 'to be awakened' and 'to awake' do remain narrower, evoke a definite mode of coming back. A friend of mine has enrolled in a class on 'cooking' in order to learn 'to bake'. Furthermore, quite apart from any substantive distinction, the verb opted for almost invariably points to a certain historical filiation—which, indeed, can still influence the mood, the aura, of a passage. Helen often uses 'to block out' or 'to repress' instead of my pedestrian 'to forget'. She has long given up the axiom that any lapse of memory is due to unwillingness to remember. So the for-

[19] E.g. Acts 2.24.

mer verbs continue (1) meaningfully, in a few situations where she does assume such a mechanism, (2) as a habit of speech, where it may or may not be at work or even, on occasion, where it most probably is not. No matter what the circumstances, her idiom links her historically to a movement to which I, belonging to an earlier generation and growing up in good, old Freiburg, was not exposed in my formative years. Moral: even where 'rising' and 'awaking' are equivalent, the choice of one or the other will very likely be a clue to antecedents of the statement.

Once in process, the painting out of shades goes on and on. 'Some of them are fallen asleep' etc., adverted to above, in the New English Bible and Anchor Bible runs 'some have died', 'the first-fruits of them that have died', 'we shall not all die'. Standardization. I shall not heap excursus on excursus to document my claim but be content with remarking that the trend is demonstrable from very early on. A fragment from the Gospel according to the Hebrews, preserved in Latin by Jerome, has James vow at the end of the Last Supper that he will not eat till he sees Jesus 'rise from the sleeping', and Jesus, returned from the grave, breaks bread, hands him a piece and assures him that he has indeed 'risen from the sleeping': resurgere a dormientibus .^[20] The Greek translation of Jerome gives us 'from the dead', ek nekron , and in Latin writers using Jerome we also come across a mortuis . Curiously, whereas Jerome twice speaks of 'to rise', resurgere , the Greek version puts anistamai only the first time and then goes over to 'to be awakened', egeiro . The impact of a dormientibus , it appears, was strong enough to evoke this image in the translator even though he gave up 'to sleep' in favour of the less specific 'dead'.

[20] The Gospel according to the Hebrews 8, from Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 2. On a different aspect of the passage, see my Wine in the Bible , 1974, p. 14.

I submit that if, for an experimental period of twenty years, scholars Englished, Germaned, Frenched etc. the texts in strict compliance with the Greek, it would lead to worthwhile results. Nabakov, I am confident, would have backed me. Far be it from me to recommend this pedantry for Bible lovers not engaged in research. Take Jesus's forecast in John that he will 'awaken' the destroyed temple in three days, thinking of his body.^[21] Any popular edition must substitute something like 'rebuild'. Yet scholars even here ought not to slur over the evangelist's selection. I am aware that egeiro can denote 'to erect a building' without any allusion to sleep. In fact, it may have been commoner in this sense than one might suppose from extant evidence: the corresponding Latin excito , met in Cicero and Caesar, is, I guess, an imitation. (The Vulgate avails itself of it in this pericope.) Nevertheless, it is decidedly not the most obvious verb in the field. John, in preferring it, conveys a particular notion of resurrection. As for 'to die' in lieu of 'to fall asleep', perhaps a modern audience likes the blunter word. I would have thought that 'first-fruits' was more antiquated. Gretchen's brother, in Goethe's Faust ,^[22] let us note, conceives of death as a sleep to end (at least for the just ones) by being allowed into the presence of God: Ich gehe durch den Todesschlaf zu Gott ein als Soldat und brav , 'I go in to God, through the sleep of death, as a soldier and a good fellow'.

It is just conceivable that even Jesus's portrayal of the risen ones as of the nature of angels falls within the orbit of the Eighteen Benedictions. A number of Jewish parallels have been collected; those in Enoch particularly impressive^[23]

[21] John 2.19ff.

[22] Goethe, Faust , Part One, Scene: Street in front of Gretchen's house.

[23] See Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar , 1:891.

since this corpus was influential at the very inception of Christianity. Here I have in mind the Third Benediction, 'Sanctification', which at least when recited in public includes the Thrice-Holy of Isaiah's seraphim.^[24] The earthly community, that is, after 'Fathers' and 'Powers', worships in the manner of the celestial one—maybe in anticipation of the ultimate transfiguration. The first Three Benedictions, it is worth recalling, were seen as belonging together, devoted to praise, the subsequent clusters being petitions and thanks.^[25] The implication: the first three do not ask God to exert his might and mercy but acknowledge him as possessed of them.^[26]

A few thoughts about Acts. Twice we find Peter and his companions proclaim that 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and

[24] Isaiah 6.3. Translation: We will sanctify your name in the world as they sanctify it in the heavens above, as it is written by the hand of your prophet, And they called one to the other and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory; those over against them would say Blessed; Blessed is the glory of the Lord from his place; and in your Holy Words it is written, saying, The Lord shall reign for ever, your God, O Zion, from generation to generation, Praise the Lord; from generation to generation we will proclaim your greatness and to the eternity of eternities your Holiness we will sanctify, and your exaltation shall not depart from our mouth for ever and ever, for a great and holy God and King you are; Blessed are you, O Lord, the Holy God.

[25] See Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar , 4, pt. 1: 214ff. The petitions are for Understanding, Repentance, Forgiveness and so on, the thanks for benefactions throughout the ages and in the present.

[26] Oh that we had been spared the Freudians. Today, when your wife compliments you, 'You are sweeter than any of the five hubbies I have had before', you suspect that she wants something special.

Jacob' or 'the God of our Fathers' has awakened Jesus^[27] —doubtless harking back to the stand Jesus took when assailed by the Sadducees. That episode, it will be remembered, is incorporated in all Synoptic Gospels, including that of Luke, author of Acts. Jesus, the choice of language is conveying, placed his trust in the assurance enshrined in this particular self-revelation of God; and the God who had thus revealed himself did prove him right and restore him to eternal life.

In a subsequent section, focusing on Paul, we hear of the Sadducees averring 'that there is no resurrection neither angel nor spirit'.^[28] It is universally agreed that this represents them as dismissing angelology. One half of the literature accepts the allegation though it is corroborated in not a single other source and though angels are accredited by the Pentateuch. The other half assumes a blunder, though how that could occur on a topic of such popular interest is hard to imagine. In actual fact, the statement has to do not with angelology as a whole but with the Jesuanic concept of the risen ones as akin to angels. 'Resurrection and angel' equals 'rising and donning an angel's existence'. It is this peculiar species of angel the Sadducees deny—which, indeed, shows them fully at ease with angelology as such. The dissension between Pharisees and Sadducees depicted in this chapter is stirred up by Paul in order to get the former on his side: he protests that those who raged against his sermon on the previous day did so because it expressed faith in resurrection. Perfectly true, no deception: already in the preceding portion about Peter and John, just inspected, we learn that the Sadducees resented 'their preaching through Jesus the resurrection of the dead'.^[29] At any rate, no need

[27] Acts 3.13ff., 5.30.

[28] Acts 23.8.

[29] Acts 4.2.

whatever for the narrator to drag in angelology in general, while a reminder of the superior understanding of resurrection, by disclosing which Jesus repulsed the Sadducees, is highly appropriate.

There is yet a bit more to it. Remarkable stress is laid in this account on Pharisaic approval of his concept: 'the Pharisees confess both',^[30] i.e., not only resurrection but also radical transmutation. Tying in with the concession by some of their scribes that 'if a spirit or angel has spoken to him . . .'.^[31] Once more, by no means a reference to angels at large. It takes up exclusively the two visions of the risen Jesus detailed by Paul the day before, the first of them in light so overwhelming that no earthly being could dwell in it unblinded.^[32] That this momentous aspect of his experience, a direct manifestation of the wholly different makeup of the new body—'we shall be changed' in I Corinthians^[33] —should have an impact on his listeners is scarcely surprising. But there is absolutely no indication of the scribes going on to wider, unconnected questions. It looks to me as if a rare, specific contact between Acts and the Third Gospel might now gain in import. As in Matthew and Mark, so in Luke, Jesus's view of resurrection obtains Pharisaic assent, but in Luke alone it comes from 'certain of the scribes'—the same phrasing as in Acts.^[34] We may well be moving in the realm of prefiguring and re-enacting.

It may be asked why, whereas Jesus likened the risen

[30] Acts 23.8.

[31] Acts 23.9.

[32] Acts 22.6ff.

[33] I Corinthians 15.51.

[34] This is wholly compatible with the view of J. M. Creed, The Gospel According to St. Luke , 1930, p. 250, that the verse has been suggested by Mark 12.28. What is of interest here is precisely the subtle deviation from the latter in position and formulation.

ones to angels, in Acts it is 'angel or spirit' or 'spirit or angel'. 'Spirit' would be a legitimate accommodation to an educated public of the period.^[35] It alone figures in I Corinthians 15. Also towards the end of Luke, where Jesus, risen from the grave but not yet carried up into heaven, still has flesh and bones—in contradistinction to 'a spirit'.^[36] ('A ghost'—even in the New English Bible—is sadly misleading and, indeed, vulgarizing.^[37] It would be—significantly—an acceptable rendering of eidolon in a scene from The Life of Apollonius .^[38] ) In Romans 8, there is much to and fro^[39] between God's or Christ's life-giving 'Spirit' and the Christian raised by it to become 'spirit'. Which enables me to end with the bee in my bonnet. Hebrew ruah , 'breath', 'wind', 'spirit', has life-giving force in a clause of the Second Benediction briefly introduced towards the beginning of this discussion. During the months between the Feast of Tabernacles and that of Passover, there is inserted into this Benediction the acknowledgment of God as 'causing the wind to blow and the rain to fall'.

[35] The chapter on Lord of the Spirit in W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism , 1948, rept. 1958, pp. 177ff., is invaluable for this and related problems.

[36] Luke 24.37, 39.

[37] So is Rengstorf's treatment of the scene, Evangelium nach Lukas , p. 285, as analogous to the Walking on the Water in Matthew 24.22ff., Mark 6.45ff.—where we hear not of pneuma at all but of phantasma . Creed, Gospel According to Luke , p. 298f., does not bring in that incident.

[38] Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana 8.12 towards the beginning.

[39] Sensitively annotated by C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans , 1932, pp. 116ff.

III—
Male and Female

According to Matthew and Mark, the Pharisees question Jesus concerning divorce, in the hope of cornering him:^[1] they know that he is opposed but, should he say so, he will be spurning the law of Deuteronomy where it is permitted. Jesus triumphs by showing that Scripture itself, in two texts, classes that law as a pis aller , tailored to a depraved people. My main business is with the first, which to begin with certainly stood alone: 'Male and female created he them'.^[2]

Why ever should this have borne him out? So God made two species: does this impose an indissoluble bond? From the plain wording, the contrary inference would be almost more plausible. In Isaiah, God speaks of himself as 'making peace and creating evil'.^[3] One would not deduce that an irenic person ought never to give up vice.

The solution lies in the then cherished, esoteric teaching, preserved in Midrash and Philo,^[4] that the verse envisages the Ur -Adam, androgynous, male and female in one. A variant of the Septuagint mentioned by the Rabbis in fact rendered it: 'Male and female genitals of his created he him'. Obviously, taken thus, it is a tremendous weapon against divorce, as also, let us note, against polygamy. The

[1] Matthew 19.3ff., Mark 10.2ff. See my The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism , 1956, rept. 1973, pp. 71ff., and my oration in Journal of Jewish Studies 10 (1959): 1ff. A similar attempt will be inspected below, under VII.

[2] Genesis 1.27, 5.2.

[3] Isaiah 45.7.

[4] Genesis Rabba on 1.26f., Mekhilta on Exodus 12.40, Philo, On the Creation 24.76, Allegorical Interpretation of the Laws 2.4.13, Who Is the Heir 33.164.

first human, formed in the image of God, constituted a lasting union of the two sexes. The Zadokite Fragments, in combating polygamy and divorce, give pride of place to this very line, calling it 'a fundamental principle of the creation'.^[5] Just so, Jesus demands that this ideal 'from the beginning of the creation' guide the community now starting out afresh. In my opinion, at one time, the conclusion followed immediately on this first text: 'What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder'—the creature may not dare disdain the pattern set up by the creator.

How the exegetes came to peg the androgynous shape of the pristine Adam onto this specific verse I have explained elsewhere.^[6] Their doctrine, of course, is reminiscent of Aristophanes's in Plato's Symposium .^[7] My hunch is that its core hails from the Orient. The Greeks took it over, like many other myths, and elaborated it in their way—achieving a brilliant complexity. Jewish probers into the divine scheme must have found the idea alluring as soon as they reflected deeply on that Adam from whose side God removed Eve; which does not exclude the possibility of their speculations being refertilized by Greek ones in the Hellenistic epoch.

The second text, culminating in 'and the twain shall be one flesh', looks far more to the point;^[8] indeed, it is its presence which has, so to speak, carried the first, saved it from being a puzzle. It, too, however, as I have tried to show, in the mind of whoever originally affixed it—Jesus himself or an early expositor—exhorts a mankind not yet perverted to aspire to that initial wholeness. This, irrespective of what we may deem the authentic drift in Genesis,

[5] Zadokite Fragments 7.1ff.

[6] See the works cited in footnote 1.

[7] Plato, Symposium 189C ff.

[8] Genesis 2.24.

gives it its special force in Mark—though probably no longer in Matthew, but I shall not pursue this change.

Why was it added? Because the first text was an argument from example—how God fashioned the world. But the Pharisaic leaders more and more insisted that, in putting forward binding regulations, you must argue from precept. 'The two shall be one flesh' had the requisite style. The Zadokite Fragments contain three quotations. The first two, examples: 'Male and female created he them' and 'The animals went in two by two'. The third—definitely a supplement—a precept: 'The king shall not multiply wives to himself'.^[9]

IV—
Eye for Eye

The Sermon on the Mount opposes to the maxim 'eye for eye' and so on non-resistance and turning the other cheek.^[1] Commentators, oblivious of the amazing change in meaning an Old Testament rule might undergo in the course of a thousand years or so, think of an attack on physical talion.^[2] However, this practice had long disappeared; not one in-

[9] Genesis 1.27, 5.2, 7.9, Deuteronomy 17.17.

[1] Matthew 5.38 (cf. Luke 6.29), Exodus 21.24. On what follows, see my The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism , pp. 254ff., Civil Disobedience in Antiquity , 1972, pp. 109f., and Ancient Jewish Law , 1981, pp. 86ff.

[2] See e.g. W.F. Albright and C. S. Mann, Matthew (Anchor Bible), 1971, p. 68. Belonging to a breed of New Testament students who have no desire to run down Judaism, they are distinctly uncomfortable and add a plea that came up around the turn of the century: retaliation acted as a check on blood feud. But, at best, it had done so in the distant past.

stance is traceable in the pertinent sources. Nor need we rely on external evidence alone: the Sermon itself militates against the facile handling. For one thing, it is not into law reform; its aim is to direct its listeners away from literal ordinance towards ethical and spiritual understanding. For another, suppose the intention were to abolish a regime under which a thug guilty of mutilation has his eye gouged out, his leg cut off or the like: to summarize the new way of doing things by meekness when slapped would be utterly incongruous. The subsequent counsels—if someone sues you for your shirt or bids you accompany him for one mile, let him have your coat as well or go with him two miles, give and lend whenever asked—would be even remoter. No doubt they may be later elaborations. If so, at least the interpolator knows of no connection with talion.

A solid explanation must recognize that, by the time of the Sermon, he who hurt a person was liable to monetary damages, more precisely, five kinds, not, of course, all of them operative in each case: for permanent impairment, for temporary incapacity, for healing expenses, for pain and for shaming. Pain and shaming were relative newcomers in this array, not really—i.e. by our lights—the subject of any Scriptural provision. Indeed, very likely, they came in not long before the New Testament era. Here is how the sages brought pain under the talion formula. The formula ends: 'burning wound for burning wound, crushing wound for crushing wound, bruising wound for bruising wound'.^[3] They held that this enumeration of several ways of wounding must add something of consequence to the basic precept of redress—amends for pain, which varies according to the mode in which an injury is inflicted.^[4] As for sham-

[3] The lex Aquilia contemplates urere, frangere, rumpere .

[4] This line of reasoning is presupposed in Mekhilta on Exodus 21.35, where the duty of reparation is extended to the mere causing of pain, without a wound.

ing—an even more refined item than pain—the final Rabbinic system derives compensation for it in a, to us, phantastic fashion from an injunction in Deuteronomy, decreeing that a woman who, in order to save her husband fighting with another man, takes hold of the latter's genitals, have her hand cut off.^[5] There is good reason to assume, however, that originally (and in the popular view perhaps for a long time) it, like pain, was deemed to be covered by the talion edict. Anyhow, as in many ancient laws, so in the Jewish one, it was a slap and suchlike actions that typified a shaming assault. I cannot here go into why the slap comes to be so widely adopted as a standard example, except to note that one factor is precisely the absence of bodily harm outlasting the moment. If you cut off your enemy's ear or nose, however enormous the indignity resulting, it is to some extent overshadowed by the crude, corporeal atrocity. The offensive thing about a slap is just the indignity—hence when a law gets around to enforcing compensation on this ground, it is a most suitable illustration.^[6] The Mishnah, under the head of shaming, lays down: 'If a man slapped his fellow, he gives him 200 zuz ; if with the back of his hand, 400 zuz '.^[7]

The Sermon takes off from this development of the maxim. Within the new community, if an evildoer humiliates you, far from insisting on the exact amends due to you, you should be ready to suffer yet again. As soon, then, as we take account of how the Old Testament quotation would strike a Jewish audience of the first century A.D., instead of clinging to a stage that had lost all relevance, there is nothing absurd in meekness when slapped as its contrast.

[5] Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 25.11, Mishnah Baba Quamma 8.1.

[6] This, au fond, is but another facet of the phenomenon I describe in Studi in onore di Siro Solazzi , 1948, pp. 139ff.

[7] Mishnah Baba Qamma 8.6.

'Eye for eye' etc. had been the breeder of an ever more extensive claim in the case of a hurt, with, in the end, redress even for a cuff; it was to this that 'turn the other cheek' opposed an alternative route to go. What is more, the following admonition—if sued for your shirt, give up your coat as well—fits, is a natural expansion. I am not at all sure it is the work of a second hand. Should it be, it still remains comforting that the by far earliest annotator of 'whoever shall smite you' etc. manifestly takes it as I do.

(Readers under the spell of our modern legal system may find it difficult to understand how damages for battery could be disapproved of as an excessive standing on one's rights. As just explained, however, this application of 'an eye for an eye' etc. was a novelty in Jewish law at that time. Whatever its merits, it was bound to interfere with old-accustomed social ease. As a somewhat comparable action looming on the horizon today we might think of, say, that of a ten-year-old child against a parent who has boxed his or her ears; or, to stray a little afield, that of a child aged twenty against a parent who chose an inferior school for him or her or against one whose race or economic condition was from the outset likely to restrict the choice.)

There is a riddle, happily not affecting my main presentation. The Sermon throughout implies that, if only you explore the Sinaitic commandments in depth, advancing from letter to spirit, they will turn out already to contain the new ideals in nuce . For example, 'you shall not murder', if only we take it in fully, already condemns anger. But how could it possibly be maintained that 'eye for eye' and so on inculcates meekness? (This problem, nota bene , would be even harder if the quotation were still related to actual talion.) One conceivable answer is that, as the Exodus provision runs 'you shall give eye for eye' etc., adepts in Rabbinic exposition, when it came to a slap in the face, were able to treat the victim as the addressee: you, the one who

has been slapped, shall give cheek for cheek. They might invoke in support such snatches from the prophets as 'I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that plucked off my hair; I hid not my face from affronts and spitting', or 'He gives his cheek to him that smites him, he is sated with indignity'.^[8] Too bold a construction? Not bolder than some of those in behalf of resurrection or, if it be objected that less freedom was allowed in interpreting legal texts (halakhah ) than historical and doctrinal ones (haggadhah ), not bolder than the recycling of the statute, just mentioned, concerning an interfering wife. Alas, I see no way of getting beyond speculation.

V—
Glutton and Winebibber

So far I have attempted to persuade you that ignorance of what Jewish exegetes made of their material may blunt our insight into the New Testament quotations from it. I now go on to cases where it has resulted in downright failure to recognize the presence of a quotation.

All three Synoptics record strictures on Jesus for his unworthy meal company and on his disciples for not fasting like those of the Baptist and other Pharisees.^[1] In a section confined to Matthew and Luke—Q, for short—Jesus chides the people for having equally scorned John who did not eat and drink and him who did; of John they said he had a malign spirit (presumably, of melancholy^[2] ) and of him that he was 'a man who is a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of

[8] Isaiah 50.6, Lamentations 3.30.

[1] Matthew 9.10ff., Mark 2.15ff., Luke 5.29ff., 7.36ff., 15.1ff. On the varying addressees of the strictures, see my article in New Testament Studies 19 (1972): 1ff.

[2] Palestinian Gittin 48c.

publicans and sinners'.^[3] It is this strange combination of apparently separate charges which is here of interest.

Let us observe, to begin with, that in its primary thrust at least, the criticism can hardly have been directed against his deviating from John: the latter is never represented as hostile to publicans and sinners. Next, as for the first charge, in two respects it goes substantially beyond that of lack of penance among Jesus's followers adverted to above. For one thing, it is levelled not against them but against himself. For another, to be a glutton and winebibber is far worse, on an entirely different level, than not to fast or, for that matter, than to eat and drink, the phrasing employed in this pericope. Gluttony and winebibbing are vices.

Now while the Book of Proverbs and Sirach impress on us their ruinous nature, Deuteronomy actually gives them a niche in the criminal process: the capital indictment of a depraved son by his parents culminates in 'he is a feaster and a drunkard'.^[4] That Jesus's enemies are not just resorting to a ready-to-hand term of abuse but are citing this law be-

[3] Matthew 11.19, Luke 7.34.

[4] Deuteronomy 21.20, Proverbs 23.20f., Sirach 9.9, 18.33. The Gospels put phagos kai oinopotes . The LXX in Deuteronomy 21.20 puts symbolokopon oinophlygei , and in Proverbs 23.20 ekteinesthai symbolais for 'to be a feaster', esthai oinopotes for 'to be a drunkard'. In Proverbs 23.21 the Hebrew 'feaster' becomes a pornokopos , 'a fornicator', while 'the drunkard' is retained as methysos . Greek Sirach 9.9 warns against symbolokopein en oinoi , 'feasting at wine' with another man's wife, 18.33 against being a symbolokopon ek daneismou , 'a feaster upon borrowing'. Philo, On Drunkenness 4.14.359, faithfully quotes the LXX for Deuteronomy 21.20 (following it up with the noun oinophlygia in On the Change of Names 37.206.609). Mostly, he uses the root methys for 'drunkenness'. But there is variety, e.g. polyoinia in 6.22.360. 'Feasting', too, is represented by diverse expressions; in this paragraph we find aplestia gastros , 'insatiability of the belly'.

comes plain if we consider its then accepted exposition—to the effect that the clause designates, not a mere reveller, but a reveller surrounding himself with godless associates. For Philo, the worst about such a person is that 'he is not only out to do wrong but to join with others in doing wrong'.^[5] By around A.D. 300, Abbahu goes as far as to declare that not unless he consorts exclusively with dissolute fellows does the legislator's severity apply.^[6] It is in view of this line of interpretation that 'a glutton and a winebibber' is supplemented by 'a friend of publicans and sinners'.

The features noted above now fall into place. The focus is not on the contrast with John. The target of the attack is Jesus and not his disciples. He is not rebuked for neglect of self-mortification nor, indeed, for excessive indulgence in the literal sense: it is difficult to imagine that anyone could ever have thought of this. He is characterized as the stubborn and rebellious son of the code whose crime consists in a general, calculated, incorrigible defiance of those in authority, the feasting and drinking being only its most visible mark. It has been argued that Talmudic jurisprudence defines this son much as psychiatrists since Philippe Pinel define the sociopath, morally deranged though not insane in a way that exempts from culpability.^[7] If this is correct—and I think it is—it furnishes strong support to my proposition. The saying as a whole turns out very pointed: John was rejected as giving in to a devil of melancholy, Jesus, the son out of control, as giving in to a devil of disorder.

What conclusions, if any, are to be drawn from this as to the provenance of the invective is beyond the scope of my topic. I will, however, draw attention to a peculiar notice

[5] Philo, On Drunkenness 7.25.361.

[6] Babylonian Sanhedrin 70b.

[7] See M. Rotenberg and B. L. Diamond, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 7 (1971): 29ff.

which may be relevant to further enquiry. The general insult that he is possessed, that he is with Beelzebub or the like, occurs in all four Gospels. But only Mark briefly introduces his family coming to seize him, on the ground that he is beside himself.^[8] This does sound like parents taking the first steps against a rabid son: according to Deuteronomy, before proceeding to a public trial, they must seek to put things right by chastening him—and Philo expressly lists physical restraint as appropriate at this stage.^[9]

VI—
For Their Generation

Luke tells us of a tycoon's agent who, about to be dismissed, forgives all debtors a portion of what they owe;^[1] and the laudatory treatment he receives for this is justified by the argument that 'the children of this age are wiser than the children of the light for their generation'. The dictum has given enormous difficulty. It disappears as soon as we

[8] Mark 3.21. Klostermann, Markusevangelium , 36f., rightly regards existemi here as a medical term for sick excitement—'ecstasy'. He adds that, as is well known, it can also denote genuine religious enthusiasm. Maybe this range rendered it particularly attractive to the author of the notice: some kind of double meaning. On a probably second-century Hebrew translation of exo einai or exo gignesthai in the positive sense, see my note in Niv Hamidrashia , 1972, pp. 60ff.

[9] Philo, The Special Laws 2.41.232. On some connection between the Deuteronomic law and the story of Eli's misbegotten sons in I Samuel 1.12ff., see my Sons and Strangers , 1984, pp. 13ff.

[1] Luke 16.1ff. In what follows, I draw heavily on my essay 'Neglected Nuances of Exposition in Luke-Acts', in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt , ed. H. Temporini and W. Haase, 1985, pt. II, Principat, vol. 25.3, Religion, pp. 2329ff.

realize that 'for their generation' echoes Noah's description as 'just and perfect in his generation'^[2] —taking it the way it was taken by first-century A.D. Jews.

There went on then a struggle between purists and realists, one of their disagreements relating to behaviour externally meritorious but tied up with questionable concerns: the purists deemed it worthless, the realists—within limits—a second-best.^[3] Three Lucan parables contain traces of this problem.^[4] The Helper at Midnight satisfies his insistent petitioner not from friendship—this is stated in so many words—but because he cannot bear the undignified scene. The Unjust Steward comes to the debtors' help not from compassion but in order to be saved by them from a degrading life. The Unjust Judge takes up the clamorous widow's case though—as is made crystal clear—still caring about neither God nor man, afraid of public humiliation. Basically, in all three cases, the proper conduct is inspired not by moral virtue but by fear of disgrace. Elsewhere I have connected the prominence of this particular motive with the Third Gospel's shame-cultural affiliation.^[5] We are in touch here, I suggest, with Wisdom circles of the time between Jesus and the evangelist. For the purpose in hand it is enough to remark that the verdict is realist. What the Helper, the Steward and the Judge end up doing, while definitely flawed, is none the less an outcome deserving commendation.

[2] Genesis 6.9.

[3] Philo, in his discussion of historical relativity to which I shall return presently, does speak of 'a second prize in the contest'.

[4] Luke 11.5ff., 16.1ff., 18.1ff.

[5] See my 'Shame Culture in Luke', in Paul and Paulinism, Essays in Honour of C. K. Barrett , ed. M. D. Hooker and S. G. Wilson, 1982, pp. 360f.

However, in addition to the conundrum of the right action with an ulterior aim, the two schools debated that of the person who, living in a degenerate period of history, is unable, despite endeavours in the right direction, to come up to the desirable standard. The realists considered their attitude, making allowance for his environment, to be sanctioned by the line about Noah, splendid 'in his generation'—which signified, they maintained, 'by comparison with his generation': though not the equal of many later saints, he is given generous credit by Scripture for his relative excellence. It is in precisely this application—found in both Philo and the Midrash^[6] —that the phrase serves to explain the praise extended to the agent; and, quite likely, the minuscule change^[7] of the original 'in his generation' into 'for [sic ] their generation' is designed to ensure the proper understanding—'for' denoting 'measured against', 'if account is taken of'. Those still belonging to the present aeon, of whom he is one, considering their surroundings, rank higher when making such an inadequate effort than the members of the new community.

The substitution of 'wise' for 'just and perfect' reflects the central values of the circles to whom we owe this expansion of the parable. It is noteworthy that, with all their additional speculation, they do remain alive to the authentic message: the urgent need, in the endtime crisis that has arrived, of seizing the only chance of escape. Noah in both Testaments is the archetype of such salvation,^[8] so an appeal to his precedent would be highly effective.

There is, of course, a reason the problem of historical relativity, in contradistinction to that of dubiously motivated services, is brought up only in connection with the

[6] Philo, On Abraham 7.36ff., Genesis Rabba on 6.9.

[7] Of which I made nothing in my essay 'Neglected Nuances'.

[8] E.g. Q, Matthew 24.37f., Luke 17.26f.

Unjust Steward. This parable alone deals with the transition of one age into another, the hero setting an example of successful coping. The theme of the other two parables is the force of prayer, the responses of the earthly Helper and earthly Judge providing an inkling of how heaven will respond. No occasion here, as in the parable about transition, for pondering the different standards of different epochs.

Here is the New English Bible's version of the saying, as good an illustration as any of the helplessness resulting when no heed is paid to what the Rabbis made of the ancient texts. 'For the worldly are more astute than the otherworldly in dealing with their own kind'. In the first place, this is not what we find in the Greek. In the second place, read as part of the New English Bible's overall presentation of the parable,^[9] it makes the principal, who has just given notice to the bailiff for squandering his property, express admiration for a final downright villainy. Incredible and, in addition, completely divorced from primitive Christian concerns.

VII—
He That Is Without Sin

When Jesus confounds the would-be executioners of an adulteress, 'He that is sinless among you, let him be the first to cast a stone at her',^[1] he is citing the Book of Numbers. In it, a wife her husband suspects of infidelity is subjected to an ordeal which, should she be guilty, will make her rot away in the most gruesome manner. The statute

[9] Which, like all presentations since Jerome, is mistaken; see my 'Neglected Nuances'.

[1] John 8.7. For details, see my lecture in Juridical Review n.s. 23 (1978): 177ff.

closes: 'And the priest shall execute upon her all this law, and the man shall be clear of sin and the woman shall bear her sin'.^[2] The Rabbis were troubled by the crass inequality between the sexes in this area. They resorted to the following rendering of the final passage, just defensible in Hebrew on over-rigid grammatical grounds: 'And if the man is clear of sin, then the woman shall bear her sin'.^[3] So she is liable to punishment only if her accuser leads a blameless life. In due course, the more sensitive sages concluded that even where the individual husband's morals were unexceptionable, it was unjust to come down hard on an erring woman while the male world as a whole, man as a species, was given to hedonism; and in the sixties A.D., the most eminent of them, Johanan ben Zaccai, abolished the ordeal altogether.^[4] Throughout this evolution, the progressives invoked the prophet Hosea for their cause: 'I will not wreak vengeance on your daughters when they commit whoredom or on your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, for you yourselves make off with whores and sacrifice with harlots'.^[5]

Jesus, then, quotes the verse from Numbers in its current interpretation—at the time the subject of much debate, there being a good deal of resistance—and he extends the principle to the treatment of an adulteress caught in the act, with not a shred of doubt as to her crime. It should be observed that Johanan, too, advocated leniency even in fully proven cases. A simile of his thoroughly approves of a king who, having divorced his adulterous wife, is reminded

[2] Numbers 5.30f.

[3] Siphre on Numbers 5.31. As in their treatment of Deuteronomy 31.16, about resurrection—see above, under II—so here the desired meaning is attained by wangling collocatio , division.

[4] Mishnah Sotah 9.9.

[5] Hosea 4.14.

by her friends of her lowly origins where she could not learn right from wrong, and who thereupon remarries her.^[6] The excuse, incidentally, is realistic, in line with the pleading of historical conditions we came across under VI: it pleads what we nowadays call social ones.

To Jesus, on this occasion, a Scriptural basis is indispensable. His opponents, as quite a few variants expressly inform us, are out to trap him. They reckon, of course, that he will not condone a stoning; but how can he set himself against an ordinance of the Torah? A mere appeal to fairness—which his words have commonly been thought to constitute—would not have been enough to defeat the schemers. He does stir their conscience but only because he is armed with a text in which their luminaries find fairness demanded for a similar situation. Essentially, he beats them on their own ground, much as that other time—discussed above, under III—when he is asked about divorce, again with a view to trapping him. The questioners know his attitude and hope he will get into difficulty seeing that the Torah permits this measure. Here also he prevails, adducing chapter and verse—in the then accepted sense—for the teaching that indissoluble union befits the ideal kingdom.

It may be worth pointing out that the method resorted to against Jesus—a question meant to embarrass you whichever way you answer it—is extremely old both in popular application and in rhetorical art.^[7] Jesus himself uses it in the controversy about his authority, when he counter-asks whether the Baptist's activity was from heaven or men. His foes, of course, deem it from men, but if they say so, they will incur the wrath of the populace. Unlike Jesus, they find no way out: 'we cannot tell'.^[8]

[6] Deuteronomy Rabba on 10.1.

[7] Aristotle, Art of Rhetoric 2.23.16.1399a, Sophistical Refutations 2.12.173a, Ad Herennium 2.24.38.

[8] Matthew 21.23ff., Mark 11.27ff., Luke 20.1ff.

VIII—
They Ate and Were Satisfied and Took up What Was Left Over

According to the Synoptics, the multitude fed by Jesus—if we discount minor variations—'ate and were satisfied and took up what was left over . . .'. John expands this but still reflects the original summation.^[1] Commentators rightly note the influence of Elisha's feeding of a hundred men who 'ate and left over'.^[2] However, this ending contains only two members—eating and leaving over—in contrast to three in the Gospels—eating, being satisfied and leaving over. There is a second Old Testament text in the background: when Boaz first meets Ruth in the field, at mealtime he hands her corn and 'she ate and was satisfied and left over'.^[3]

This source has gone unremarked because, to appreciate its relevance, we have to be aware of what was seen in it by the Rabbis. A typical interpretation which seems to be quite early runs: 'She ate, in this world; and was satisfied, for the days of the Messiah; and left over, for the Age to

[1] Matthew 14.20, 15.37, Mark 6.42f., 8.8, Luke 9.17, John 6.11ff. See my New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism , pp. 36ff.

[2] II Kings 4.42.

[3] Ruth 2.14. The LXX here puts its habitual rendering of sabha^[*] , 'to be satisfied': pimplemi . Occasionally, however, we do find chortazo , e.g. Psalms 17.15 (in LXX 16.15). The latter, incidentally, no doubt represents sabha^[*] also in Tobit 12.9—where a revised version prefers pimplemi . (This version is published by O. F. Fritzsche, Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch zu den Apokryphen des Alten Testamentes, Zweite Lieferung , 1853, pp. 71ff.) Matthew, Mark and Luke all offer chortazo while John uses pimplemi . In Matthew 14.20, 15.37, Mark 6.43, the root pleres is met in connection with the baskets 'heaped' with the remains. John 6.13 employs gemizo . This much less frequent verb occurs twice in 2.7, which reinforces my suggestion (New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism , p. 45) as to a profoundly thought-out approxi-mation by John of the bread in the episode under notice and the wine at Cana.

Come'.^[4] In some expositions, Boaz stands for God and Ruth for her descendant David or the Messiah himself. Again, the word for 'corn', qali , is equated with qalil , which means 'slight'. So Boaz gives her a slight portion only but miraculously it suffices for her 'to eat, be satisfied and leave over'.^[5] For the Jews of the first century, then, the two feedings by Elisha and Boaz belonged closely together, were largely interchangeable, supplemented one another: they both exhibited the same deeply significant kind of wonder wrought by God through and for his elect at various stages of salvation. We must not indeed forget that, to minds untouched by higher criticism, a testimony from the Book of Ruth, far older than one centering on Elisha, would appear particularly venerable and reassuring.

It is a rich tapestry the evangelists have woven: to the extent that the passage from Ruth plays a role in their narrative, Boaz, the widow's redeemer, becomes Jesus and Ruth he redeems becomes the Messianic community.

IX—
The Handmaid of the Lord

Lastly, the annunciation: 'And the angel said . . . The Power of the Highest shall overshadow you . . . and Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord'.^[1] This exchange assumes yet further depth when we perceive its evocation of Ruth, the Messiah's ancestress. She pays a nocturnal visit to

[4] Babylonian Shabbath 113b.

[5] Ruth Rabba on 2.14.

[1] Luke 1.35ff. See my New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism , pp. 26ff.

Boaz, to whom she is not yet married, offering to become his wife: 'I am Ruth your handmaid, spread therefore your skirt over your handmaid, for you are a redeemer'.^[2] In Hebrew and Aramaic, the mysterious verb is closely related to 'to overshadow'. They then spend a symbolical wedding night together, without consummation. What it all means in the ancient saga, I have set out elsewhere.^[3] For the present discussion, two links with the Lucan chapter are of importance. One, Ruth, in the offer just quoted, is displaying unbounded faith in Boaz: far from taking advantage of her, he will bring about redemption, guide her to her ultimate, exalted fortune. As Naomi put it when she advised the visit: 'He will tell you what you shall do'.^[4] The other, while Goethe, romantically and arrogantly thinking of those primitives as children, admired their doings as idyllic, the Jewish sages, more squeamish yet equally unhistorical in their way, were disturbed by an at-first-sight grave breach of modesty on Ruth's part.^[5] By dint of their interpretative art, they proved to their satisfaction not only that she committed no such infraction but, indeed, that she was the purest of all women; and, significantly, the phrasing used by her plays a major part in their deliberations. 'I am Ruth your handmaid, spread therefore your skirt over [overshadow] your handmaid' is contrasted, as expressive of the most sublime chastity, with the shameless invitation the wife of Potiphar extends to Joseph: 'Lie with me'.^[6] By choosing Ruth's words for the climax of his recital, the New Testament author depicts her as prefiguring Mary.

[2] Ruth 3.9.

[3] See my Ancient Jewish Law , pp. 33ff.

[4] Ruth 3.4.

[5] Not denying that each has a point; neither claiming that children are necessarily idyls.

[6] Genesis Rabba on 39.7.

Let me in conclusion touch on an aspect not directly falling under my topic and yet neither quite without relevance. It has to do with style which here, however, more clearly than in many other instances, has been moulded by profound beliefs and feelings. I am referring to the Gospel's masterly, beautiful delicacy of presentation. We may assume that the miraculous birth from the first moment provoked nasty and mocking comments on the part of unbelievers; and that the introduction of Ruth, recognized as above reproach though with appearances equally against her, was in large part calculated to rebut them. Yet there is not a single mention of those low aspersions. It is not as if their existence were denied: that would defeat the purpose. They are relegated into the background, implied instead of spelled out, guardedly alluded to by the in themselves lofty terms 'to overshadow' and 'handmaid'. Thus the readers—or, to be precise, those of them familiar with the heroes and heroines of tradition—would grasp the contention without being confronted by crude ugliness. Matthew, it should be noted, is not so reticent: he relates that Joseph, before being enlightened by a vision, intended to divorce Mary.^[7] In Luke, the angelic mood of the annunciation scene is never broken; nothing openly mars the picture; the focus is throughout on the positive, the Spirit's descent and the Virgin's perfect submission in trust. So successfully is this achieved that, in the roughly eighteen centuries of the legend's circulation in a gentile world, the polemical point has stayed totally submerged.

This mode of shaping the material has a long history. Two pieces from Genesis and Second Samuel come to mind. Jacob serves seven years for Rachel. But then, after the wedding feast, at night, her father substitutes her elder and less comely sister Leah and it is to her that the bride-

[7] Matthew 1.18ff.

groom finds himself joined in the morning.^[8] Not a word is said about her participation in the fraud. Obviously, the most docile daughter could not execute that assignment without a considerable contribution of her own. Once more, the troublesome facts are not negated: it would be difficult to do so. They are pushed out of sight. Certainly, we do come across some acute Rabbinic observations^[9] and, of course, modern, psychology-oriented reworkers of the story have a ball. None the less, on the whole, the Biblical author manages to deflect our interest, she remains apart, untouched, we just do not think of her—or, for that matter, Rachel's—active involvement. The feat becomes all the more remarkable when we compare the accounts of Sarah's induction into the harems of the kings of Egypt and Gerar.^[10] Here it is fully brought out that she cooperates with Abraham in concealing her married status.

Again, David commits adultery with Bathsheba while her husband Uriah is at the front.^[11] Pregnancy results, so the king summons him home to bring news of the campaign and, having received his report, suggests he visit his wife before returning to the army. The child would then have appeared to be Uriah's. The latter, however, refuses to indulge in pleasure at a time his comrades are in the field. Whereupon David sends him back, with a sealed letter to the general requesting that Uriah be so placed in battle as to be sure to fall. The text contains no hint at Bathsheba's complicity in the duping scheme. Indeed, somehow, with supreme skill, our mind is kept off that datum. It is by no means denied—it simply does not occur to us. The odious

[8] Genesis 29.21ff.

[9] Genesis Rabba on 29.22.

[10] Genesis 12.11ff., 20.2ff.

[11] II Samuel 11. See my article in Novum Testamentum 24 (1982): 275ff.

reality is that the king could not possibly have encouraged her husband to spend a night with her without first initiating her and being assured of her utmost support.

No doubt there are all sorts of differences between these episodes. To name only one, Mary is innocent, Leah and Bathsheba are guilty. But this does not affect what I am talking about: the veiling of anything base. In the case of Leah and Bathsheba, our attention is directed away from their doings, in that of Mary, even from a suspicion: essentially, the same concern—to protect the holy. It is hardly accidental that the three most striking Scriptural examples have regard to sexual relations and, furthermore, show women as recipients of the reverential treatment. It is in the realm of sex that solicitude about the look of things, shame, originates in hoary antiquity;^[12] and at a certain stage of civilisation, definitely reached in the Near East by the second millennium B.C., it is women—those you care for at least—who may be endowed with a sanctity so special as to require dissociation from impurity not only in life but also in speech and writing. As for the Third Gospel in particular, I have already—under VI—cited my thesis^[13] that it is far more imbued with refined shame culture than the other Synoptics. The way Mary is defended is typical of this component.

I agree with the avant-garde among the young generation that a cover-up remains a cover-up however nobly motivated. Also that, on closer scrutiny, the motives leading to women being placed on a pedestal turn out to include distinctly ignoble elements. Unless we heed these insights, often neglected, we are apt to caricature the past and

[12] See my papers in Orita 3 (1969): 33, 40, and 'Shame Culture in Luke', p. 363.

[13] In 'Shame Culture in Luke', pp. 355ff.

bungle more than we have a right to in the present. Still, a number of extremists seem to go too far. For one thing, they fail to allow for the individual circumstances of each epoch, its needs, its means, its inevitable limitations. Our own—not excepting our radicals who, paradoxically, remind me a little of the Rabbinic purists^[14] —had better hope for this kind of understanding from future critics. For another thing, too much faith is put in simplistic new formulas: to let it all hang out and complete, unselfish equality of male and female. There is no vision that does not conflict with another, there is nothing entirely good or entirely evil, we must weigh and choose at every step. To me, those ancient, basically truthful records of the interaction between the human—frequently, all-too-human—and the divine are a continuous source of inspiration.

Two ironies. First, a pattern similar to that outlined dominates a far from sacred genre: the detective novel which, from beginning to end, is strewn with heavily disguised occurrences. True, the object is not to prevent an image being stained but to test the reader's intelligence: can he spot the clues? In the end, they will all be brought into the open. As one would expect, the fundamental discrepancy in purpose influences not a few details of the technique;^[15] but I shall not enlarge.

Second, what demon moves me, who so treasures the devout considerateness of these tales, to undo it by ruthless analysis?

[14] See above, under VI.

[15] On rereading this paragraph, I notice that I have slipped from style, with regard to Biblical writers, to technique when coming to the Krimi .