Biblical Studies – Page 7

New Orthodox Study Bible Review

Chris Orr brought to my attention an extremely useful review of the new full Orthodox Study Bible, written by R. Grant Jones: Notes on the Orthodox Study Bible (2008 Edition) [defunct link]. He focuses on the quality of the translation as representative of the underlying Greek, providing an excellent chart presenting the differences. It’s a topic I’ve touched on in my own review (Two Septuagints), but not in such substantial depth and detail as Mr Jones has done. His review is only beginning, but a point that has been clearly demonstrated in his detailed examination is that the OSB Old Testament relies too heavily on the NKJV as its base text, to the extent that it cannot honestly be called a translation of the Septuagint. For this reason, when I’ve been asked for a good, contemporary, complete English Septuagint translation, I can only recommend the New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS). Various ongoing translation projects are nearing completion, so there will be more options soon. A very important point advocating for accuracy in translation is one that Mr Jones expresses very well in his notes: important patristic theological discussions were based on particular readings of the Septuagint text which are not present in the Hebrew. By opting for the latter’s readings, important didactic opportunities are missed with direct connections to patristic commentary, something that should have been the motivating goal of the annotations.

I look forward to the continuation of Mr Jones’ review.

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The Eastern Orthodox and the RSV

As I mentioned in my last post regarding the reception of the New Revised Standard Version by Anglophone Eastern Orthodox Christians, the Revised Standard Version has long been the only modern translation other than the NRSV to include all the books of the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Old Testaments (the two differ in the former including 4 Maccabees, and the latter including 2 Esdras, also known as 4 Ezra; both also include 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151 in addition to all the Roman Catholic deuterocanonical books). Of course, the text underlying the proto-canon of the RSV and NRSV is the Hebrew Masoretic text, while the Orthodox Christian Bibles are the Septuagint in the Greek Orthodox Church, or derivative translations of it in other jurisdictions, and these texts do differ extensively on occasion. Thus it is really the availability of the extended set of apocrypha/deuterocanonical books which was of such value to Orthodox readers. The last translation of a Bible to include them all was that of Sir Lancelot Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint in the late nineteenth century. The story of the extension of the Revised Standard Version, which initially only included the books of the Protestant canon, is very interesting, and we are fortunate to have various accounts of its development written by one of those people most involved in the work of both the Revised Standard Version and the New Revised Standard Version, the late Bruce Manning Metzger.

Someone fortunately conviced Professor Metzger to write an autobiography, entitled Reminiscences of an Octogenarian (Hendrickson, 1997). He has told the story of the work behind the RSV and NRSV in numerous articles and even in a short book on The Making of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, along with the other chief editors Robert Dentan and Walter Harrelson, which consists of several reworked articles. The information that follows is mostly drawn from Chapter 7 of Metzger’s Reminiscences…, “Translating the Bible: The Revised Standard Version” (pp 76-88).

The initial publication of the Revised Standard Version included only the New Testament, on 11 February 1946. The Old Testament (Protestant canon only) was then published 30 September 1952, fittingly on the festal day of St Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate. Shortly thereafter, the Protestant Episcopal Church (the Anglican Church in the United States) requested that a new translation of the Apocrypha be done. The Anglican and Roman Catholic Biblical canons are nearly identical. Whereas the former includes 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh, these books are in an appendix to the Old Testament in the Roman Catholic tradition (as 3 Ezra, 4 Ezra and Prayer of Manasses), as they were not named explicitly in the fourth session of the Council of Trent, held 8 April 1546, which decided the Roman Catholic canon, although they were typically included in Latin Bibles. All of these books were translated by a small committee, and the Revised Standard Version Apocrypha were published in 1957. The Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, in which the deuterocanonical books are interspersed among the protocanonical books in the Old Testament as in the Latin Vulgate Bible, was first published in 1966, though excluding 3-4 Ezra and the Prayer of Manasseh. Advances in the field of New Testament textual criticism led to the publication of a Second Edition of the Revised Standard Version New Testament in 1971. The Common Bible Revised Standard Version, which included all the Roman Catholic canon and then an appendix with a note regarding the status of 1 & 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, was published in 1973 as the first explicitly ecumenically-intended Bible. On May 9th of that year, Bruce Metzger and others, including the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Athenagoras of Thyateira and Great Britain, were granted a private audience in Rome with Pope Paul VI, during which he was presented with a specially bound copy of the Common Bible. It was after this meeting that Archbishop Athenagoras made a point of noting to Professor Metzger that the Common Bible was not truly ecumenical in that it lacked 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees and Psalm 151, and his hope that this would be rectified in future. In fact, those books had already begun to be translated the previous year by another subcommittee, in answer to general growing interest in the apocrypha. The texts of these translations were released in 1976 to the various authorized publishers of the RSV. The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, Expanded Edition was the first to include them, published 19 May 1977. Professor Metzger presented a copy of this new edition to Patriarch Demetrios of Constantinople 18 December 1977, after nearly losing the volume by leaving it on the counter in the Istanbul airport after changing some money! It was this Bible that was the first to include all the books contained in Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox Bibles (though with the proviso that the textual base of the protocanonical books of the Old Testament were often quite different, as noted above). It was thus partly a result of general growing interest in the apocrypha, and the gracious accomodation of the requests of an Orthodox hierarch which led to the production of this first modern scholarly edition of the full Orthodox apocrypha.

Of importance is not just the quality of the translation of the books themselves, which is certainly very high, but there was also the feeling among Eastern Orthodox Christians in Anglophone countries that they had finally been recognized as equal partners in their “new” homes at last–they had finally “made it.” In those days, there were very few converts into the Orthodox churches. There was often a perception (from within as from without) that there was an ethnic barrier to their acceptance in various efforts, as though they weren’t even Christian. However, from the time of this gesture by the Standard Bible Committee in producing the Expanded Edition of the RSV Apocrypha the Orthodox Church has continued to be recognized in all various ecumenical endeavours as a witness not just to the ancient Church, but as a living and dynamic presence in the world with its own witness to share with others, whatever the merits or demerits of those ecumenical endeavours may actually be.

So it seems apparent that Eastern Orthodox appreciation of the RSV is twofold: 1.) it is the first modern English translation to include all Orthodox deuterocanonical books; and 2.) by being the first to do so, it gained a certain amount of prestige in Orthodox circles. With the publication of the NRSV, however, its apocrypha are now also available for the use of Orthodox Christians, though the texts of the Old Testament and New Testament are, from the Orthodox perspective, disfigured by a senseless accomodation to a requirement for gender neutrality of language. Orthodox exegesis rooted in the Church Fathers reads many of the generic singular masculine references throughout the Old Testament in particuar as prophecies of Christ. The NRSV has cut itself off from this ancient tradition, has cut itself off from Christianity itself some would say, in preference for the allaying of individual neuroses over Tradition. The RSV, however, does not suffer from any such accomodation, and so is still perceived as a non-ideologically motivated and useful reference, and is indeed used in Orthodox Bible studies in parishes throughout the English-speaking world.

Another note of Orthodox appreciation of the RSV is found in its being the base text of the large Greek-English Gospel lectionary commonly found in US Greek Orthodox churches (Holy and Sacred Gospel ΘΕΙΟΝ ΚΑΙ ΙΕΡΟΝ ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ The Complete Text, published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline, Massachusetts, 1993). The text was altered where necessary to match the Greek lectionary text and to provide pericope openings, but it is by and large the RSV.

With the appearance now of the New English Translation of the Septuagint (or NETS), we now have a very exceedingly well-done scholarly translation of the ancient Old Testament of Greek Orthodox Christians. Although Orthodox find it is not without its problems in certain spots, it is still a translation based on the best texts available for the Septuagint, and will certainly make a useful addition to Orthodox Christian personal and group Bible studies.

I hope this has been a useful exposition.

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Eastern Orthodox Blessing of the NRSV

A while ago now, Iyov brought up some interesting points in a discussion on the merits or demerits of another blogger’s description of the ecumenically popular New Revised Standard Version (henceforth NRSV).

Now, one of the great claims to fame of the NRSV, as seen on the About the NRSV web page, is that ‘[The NRSV] received the blessing of a leader of the Greek Orthodox Church.’ Now, this claim was certainly surprising to me, as I was (like other Orthodox Bible readers) familiar with Bishop Tikhon’s pastoral letter regarding the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America (or as a certain beloved friend calls it, the Metropolia) deciding ‘not to permit the use of the NRSV in liturgical services and in bible study.’ This decision was made in October 1990, roughly a year after the publication of the NRSV. Because of this oddity, I decided to track down the source of this apparent contradition, that an Orthodox synod of bishops could advise against the use of a Bible, while another bishop would actual bless it.

I can’t recall the precise chain of events that led me to the solution, but it involved email, telephone and library drudgery in some tedious combination. Yet at last, I reaped the fruits of such dreary labor, preserved in two somewhat tatty photocopied pages now. In the Introduction to the 1989 edition of the NRSV Common Bible, one of the first NRSV editions to be printed, we read the following from the late Archbishop IAKOVOS of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America (p. iii):

I wish to express my gratitude for the NRSV and my appreciation of the forthcoming Common Bible. The inclusion of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant biblical scholars assures an ecumenical integrity in this work. Further, the common arrangement of the text provides another important bridge for our learning from one another among our various Christian communities. The Orthodox faithful have my encouragement and blessing in making full use of the NRSV Common Bible. The translation and study of Scripture together is an precious gift in the service of Christian unity.

Several things leap out from this short statement. This ‘blessing’ is obviously the source of the claim noted in About the NRSV above. However, notice the careful wording of Archbishop Iakovos’ statement. The Archbishop grants his blessing to the people, not the NRSV—a distinction that isn’t merely rhetorically adept, but one that intentionnally avoids giving the impression that he is blessing the NRSV. The other is that Archbishop Iakovos apparently had not yet read the NRSV Common Bible, as he notes it to be ‘forthcoming,’ so it is not a stretch to understand that he hadn’t read it yet when writing this statement, but was perhaps reacting to a press release of some kind which solicited his statement (a not uncommon occurrence for Archbishop Iakovos).

There are some more subtle nuances of the Archbishop’s note that would fail to be appreciated by non-Orthodox, which I think are worth explaining. First, note that he places Orthodox first in the list of biblical scholars, though only one of the scholars involved in the project was Orthodox (Fr Demetrios Constantelos, who worked on both the New Testament and Apocrypha), obviously emphasizing the Orthodox role in the production of the NRSV, not too surprisingly. Second, there is the strange formulation “ecumenical integrity.” In Orthodox circles, ecumenism (as generally understood) is derided, in some circles more strongly than in others. This is because Orthodox ecclesiology declares the Eastern Orthodox Church to be The Church; there is no other, therefore Orthodox Christians can only be a witness to others in such “ecumenical” settings in order to draw them to The Church. It is to be understood, therefore, that without an Orthodox scholar, this ecumenical project will have had no integrity from an Orthodox standpoint, of course. This subtext is present even here in Archbishop Iakovos’ endorsement of the NRSV Common Bible, where we read that ‘translation and study of Scripture together is a precious gift in the service of Christian unity.’ His Eminence uses the phrase ‘in the service of Christian unity,’ that is, leading toward a Christian unity, not ‘in the expression of Christian unity,’ for that surely does not exist; but the witness of the Orthodox in a shared environment of Bible study may further that unity, so that others might be drawn to The Church. Such subtleties must be appreciated.

In the end, however, we are still left with Archbishop Iakovos’ ‘encouragement and blessing’ for Orthodox faithful to use the NRSV Common Bible, which seems to contradict the OCA Synod’s later decision noted above. The NRSV Common Bible is essentially just a full NRSV, including all the NRSV apocryphal/deuterocanonical books in a section between the Old Testament and New Testament (this same ‘common arrangement’ of books is found in all editions of the NRSV which include the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books), and with a few Study Articles prepended to the volume, namely: ‘The Transmission and Translation of the Bible’ by Bruce M. Metzger; ‘The Bible in the Church’ by J. Stephen Freeman; ‘Major Themes in the Bible’ by Gina Hens-Piazza; ‘Archaeology and Bible Study’ by Marsha A. Ellis Smith; and ‘How to Study a Bible Passage’ by John O. Gooch). I think Archbishop Iakovos was particularly impressed by the inclusion of the full number of the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books (as in the 1977 full edition of the RSV) which appear in the Greek Orthodox Old Testament (the Septuagint), and their potential to be a witness to Orthodoxy, as well as sustaining Orthodox faithful. Until the NRSV, of all the modern translations only the RSV included all those books (there is now also the NETS), so any new translation of these neglected books would naturally be celebrated by a pastor whose flock had been deprived of grass from the best meadow. In view of this, it seems appropriate to question whether Archbishop Iakovos had read the entire translation; it is very likely not the case that he did. The gender-related language issues with the NRSV, as noted by the OCA Synod, are a serious drawback for more traditional Christians, as the Orthodox surely are. If the Archbishop had spent time with the NRSV to familiarize himself better with its text, he may have come to give a less ringing endorsement, or declined the honor altogether. As he terms the NRSV Common Bible ‘forthcoming,’ it is safe to conclude that he had not seen the full text, and knew only of the plan to include the apocrypha/deuterocanonicals. In any case, the above quotation from the NRSV Common Bible is the source of the NRSV’s claim to ‘the blessing of a leader of the Greek Orthodox Church.’

In addition, however, to Archbishop Iakovos’ encouragement and blessing, another Eastern Orthodox hierarch provided an endorsement, Metropolitan PHILIP, Primate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (p. iv):

I am delighted to add my name to the endorsers of the NRSV Common Bible. We pray that this edition of the Holy Bible which will include the Deutero-canonical books will be a blessing to all those who read and study the Holy Scriptures.

Again, note that it is the deuterocanonical books which gain a Hierarch’s attention. His Eminence is quite apparently impressed, as was Archbishop Iakovos, by the inclusion in the NRSV Common Bible of all the Eastern Orthodox Old Testament books. The archbishop explicitly equates their presence with a blessing on the reader. It also sounds, however, as though Metropolitan Philip had not actually seen or read the Bible, but is reacting to a statement on its forthcoming release. Perhaps that was the case. In any case, he does not display a deep familiarity with the text outside of a knowledge that it is to include (some? all?) deuterocanonical books.

So, it seems clear that the ‘blessing’ bestowed upon the New Revised Standard Version by these Eastern Orthodox hierarchs was based less on a familiarity with the entire text—or even seeing it at all—and was more related to news of the inclusion of all the deuterocanonical books in the Greek Old Testament, which would be edifying for both Eastern Orthodox readers and for others who may come to understand something more of Eastern Orthodoxy through them. Celebrating this new translation of such books, after such a long time using the stilted translations of Brenton or even the RSV, would have been easy to do, as they are excellently done, and eminently readable. Especially nice in the NRSV is the full translation of the Greek Esther, rather than simply the disjointed Additions, as is the translation of the longer text of Tobit, and the very, very nicely done Sirach, the textual issues with which book are extremely daunting. I myself, on the whole, find the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals in the NRSV to be its best-done section, of better quality overall than either the NRSV Old Testament or New Testament, or even the both together.

Thus endeth the lesson, so to speak.

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Canonical scribblings

The following are some notes that I recently sent to a friend on reading an early draft of the introduction and first chapter of a manuscript he’s working on. I’ll preserve his anonymity, aside from mentioning that the book’s written on the subject of the “apocrypha” and the Biblical canon. I did think that the points I present, however, can stand alone as topics for discussion. Additionally, they inspire some other thoughts that I want to post on soon. And lastly, I don’t want to misplace them! Though reading these notes may seem the equivalent of hearing only one side of a phone conversation, these days we’re all used to that anyway, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to cope with this, too! I think it’s all pretty clear.

1.) I think the intended audience needs to be clarified a bit here. This audience is obviously a Protestant one, to whom these apocryphal/pseudepigraphic books are of little familiarity and generally disparaged. To make that audience explicit would make the arguments for earliest Christian acceptance of these books that much more incisive; it may also, however, give direction to the argumentation, as well.

2.) In the first paragraph, there is a reference to “arguments” being the winning factor in the success of “orthodoxy.” I find this misguided. It is rather the apostolic foundation of the communities and their continuous descendants, and the living faith shared among those communities individually and as a whole (as “the Great Church” or “the Apostolic Church”) that is both the unifier and the cause for that Church’s eventual majority status. While argumentation appears in the second century (especially n the apologetic literature) and even to a degree in the first century (in certain polemical statements in various now-canonical NT books), it was always explicitly secondary to the concern with the apostolic deposit–the authenticity of the individual churches and their beliefs.

3.) Further on #2 above, the first-century writings were not intended as standalone authoritative documents, as they are often considered today. They were expressions of the living faith of the apostolically established communities, and considered therefore to be the only accurate reflection of their beliefes, concerns, and earliest history. In that sense, Ehrman’s Orthodox Corruption of Scripture fails on two points: a.) he, too, bases his work in the assumption that the texts were foundational rather than expressionistic, standalone sources of authority that could somehow fall into other hands and thereby have an effect. This ignores scribal practice and the likelihood of copies being commissioned. b.) Ehrman’s examples are taken almost exclusively from one-off mss, which don’t represent any particular tradition, with him atomistically selecting variants and assigning motivations without controls. Had every of his variants entered every known orthodox textual tradition, he might have an argument, but this is not the case.

4.) We do not precisely know the extent of any individual church’s collection of writings, in either scroll or codex format. Many suppositions are made based on the scanty survival of extremely fragile papyrus docs. Most of the early Church’s territories (including Judea!) were too damp to permit the preservation of papyrus or parchment. It is only in freakishly dry places (non-riverine Egypt and the Dead Sea caves) that any substantial deposits have been recovered from antiquity. We likewise have no explicit listing of groups of volumes (whether scrolls or codices) much less listings of individual documents on which one might solidly base a theory of the holdings of any local church library. With so few data, there’s hardly a basis to say that some churches owned only one gospel, all four, or sixteen, for that matter. It may’ve been the case that the community that commissioned and owned, for instance, Codex Sinaiticus, possessed another volume (or more!) incorporating numerous other books, yet the only one to survive is the one we have, and we don’t even know its origins.

5.) The terminology of canon/apocrypha/etc were not “invented” in the modern period (or even the medieval), but were used anciently in divergent ways from those commonly used now in the academy (which usage is still inconsistent–note the varying references these days to Psalm 151, 3Mac, 4Mac, and others, which, though included in modern churches’ Old Testaments, are still typically referred to as pseudepigrapha, contra the general connotation of “apocrypha” that they are a collection of books included in the OT of a church, but not in the Hebrew Bible). However, it is apparent that it was the Reformation agenda which is here in play, and its tacit acceptance (through either ignorance or arrogance) of the Roman Catholic canon as the only other canon. In particular, this means Luther and his definition of the apocrypha as the Catholic OT books and parts of books supernumerary to the Hebrew. It is the priveleging of this particular perspective which is responsible for our terminological conundrum. Just as the Roman Catholics (post-Luther) applied “deuterocanon” as the label for these items, so the Greek Orthodox utilized anaginōskomena, “readables,” to them, directly basing their term in the recommendations given by St Athanasius the Great in his 39th Festal Letter, the relevant portion of which had been preserved in Greek.

As always, however, internalized education trumps prejudice. It is necessary for those with unexamined prejudices against these books to be familiarized first with the books themselves, and secondly with information about those books, and their importance in traditions older and other than their own. This is particularly a Protestant problem, obviously.

One thing I’ve always found interesting is the Protestant unanimity on their OT and NT canons. Without any synod or central authority, it was even so unanimous and still is (except in the anomalous Anglican canon). The root is obviously Luther, “the first Protestant Pope.” Yet Luther’s peculiar recommendations in sequestering some of the NT books wasn’t accepted. What is this mechanism? It also needs to be explored. That is, rather than looking at the majority of the Christian canons (the Roman Catholic and Orthodox comprise roughly 3/4 of the world’s Christians) as containing more, we should be looking at the Protestant minority to determine the historical processes that led to their including less.

6.) Constantine made Christianity legal. By his favor, he also made it popular. But it was not made the official religion of the empire/state until Theodosius the Great made it so. And although the “pagan” religion was deprived of state support, it managed to survive in various temples up to the advent of Islam. It was not banned by Constantine. And though it was certainly to be regretted that many insincere opportunists became Christians in the days of Constantine, such a contingent has never been absent from the Church from the beginning to this day.

7.) There needs to be a tighter distinction in these pages between sub-apostolic writings which have always been considered orthodox (the “Apostolic Fathers” collection, etc.) and those which were unorthodox (“New Testament Apocrypha” proper). Though various of the former have always been considered edifying and were included in the great pandects (Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, etc), they were seldom (if ever) included in later authoritative lists designating books permitted in liturgical reading. There are, of course, exceptions. In both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, excerpts from some of these works appear in manuscripts (and breviaries today) as edifying reading for matins. In the Orthodox Church’s tradition of the reading of hagiographies on the various days of commemoration for different saints, we find that various elements of apocryphal writings have been preserved. There is even the case that some particular NT Apoc have been preserved withinn the setting of a menologion. I think this was the case with the Acts of John (or some other John-related apocryphon). In any case, my point is that there was (and is) a difference in the readings that are liturgically permitted. There is a freedom in the menologion texts that some may find disturbing. They are devotional and intended to instruct regarding morals and so on, but they are not Scripture; that is, their texts have never been frozen, and the details of the stories told about the saints are only required in the wider sense. That is, there are elements of the hagiographies which are recognized as Tradition, yet there is no exact formulation required in their expression. In a way this is the difference between quotation and allusion; that is, Scripture is recognized in a kind of verbatim allegiance, while hagiography suffices with (and perhaps thrives on) the art of allusive expression. It’s only rarely that a particular text becomes “canonical” for a saint’s reading. One case is that of St Athanasius the Great’s Life of Anthony. Another is St Sophronios’ (?) account of the Life of St Mary of Egypt. Even so, in each case, summaries of such stories/writings are entirely common. It’s not so much the wording, but the tale, that’s important. In those cases where there is a widespread well-known text there will be recognizable allusions in summaries. How can we exclude, in the face of this, that other lost “standard” texts may have existed for the commemorations of various saints? Like present, like past? It’s hard to say. But it’s certainly the case that apocryphal writings have been preserved in menologia, wholesale. That tropes or elements thereof have also been preserved is also beyond doubt. Note that the framework and even details of the Protevangelium Jacobi are all considered truth in the Orthodox Church. Relatedly, though many elements are found in common in unorthodox apocrypha and orthodox hagiographa, we cannot automatically assume that simply because a given apocryphon contains the earliest preserved attestation (taking into account the exigencies of manuscript preservation, etc) of any hagiographical trope, that the source of it is the apocryphon. Such elements of the hagiographa were popular, and necessarily included, as they were expected by the faithful familiar with the lives of the saints. Any apocryphon would be expected to include all the details commonly related in the relevant hagiography, which were then expanded in the apocryphon, whether orthodox or unorthodox.

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Some random thoughts

On the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha
There’s a definite gap in dealing with these writings. The focus so often goes back to a putative Jewish original, although the form in which we have the texts are Christian, and much later. Both the initial Christianization of these writings (if indeed they were not simply originally Christian) and the later use of them as evidenced by the physical characteristics of the manuscripts (e.g., as part of hagiographical menologies, the liturgical texts for saints’ commemorations read in churches) are generally ignored. It appears, for one thing, that much is written on the authoring of various New Testament Apocrypha and Patristic works during the course of the second and third centuries, but that the Christianization (or authoring) of these Old Testament Pseudepigrapha are not included in such accounts, though it was precisely in these centuries that a plurality of these works appeared in their known forms. I know that Jim Davila deals with this in part in his book The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other? (Brill, 2005), which book glares at me, guilt-inducingly, from a pile of others in the To Read category, saying, “Read me…read me….”

On Rebellious Angels
About the Genesis 6 “sons of God” and the Enochian Watchers and the Nephilim. Having recently worked through Jubilees and the Ascension of Isaiah with much reference to parallels in the Genesis Apocryphon and various stray references to New Testament books and letters, I’m convinced that the earliest Christians, including Paul, actually did believe this tale of various angels impregnating women and bearing these hybrid Nephilim. A frequent objection to this has been said to be found in Matthew 22.30 (parr), where we read, “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (NRSV). Reading this as reference to not the nature of angels in general, but as something of a reaffirmation of the goodness of the obedient angels in heaven as opposed to those fallen ones on earth, we might even take this to be a belief of the Master himself. Now, the emphasis in the tradition appears to be not that these angels were incapable of engendering some kind of children with the human women, but rather that they 1.) sullied themselves by doing so and 2.) broke the boundaries of their assigned positions, all because of the beauty of the women. Certainly Paul can be understood to refer to this also in 1 Corinthians 11.10: “For this reason a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” There is likewise the reference in 1 Peter 3.19-20, situating these events in the time of the Flood, which the tradition of the Nephilim also does, and Christ preaching to the imprisoned spirits of the Nephilim. Then of course is the obvious quotation of 1 Enoch in Jude 14-15, indicating a knowledge and acceptance (despite claims to the contrary) of the whole of that book.

On the Prophetic Nature of the Old Testament
It is an archive of the prophets, not the kings, not the priests. Though the latter two groups may have occasionally been the recipients of good press from the prophets, as much as they adhered to the prophetic perspective, it is only the perspective of the prophets, their religion, that stands forth as the sole valid perspective from Genesis to Malachi (or to 2 Chronicles or to Daniel, depending upon your canon!). And that perspective, that religion, eventually became the religion of the Judean people, after the return from the Babylonian Exile, though with an apparently somewhat shaky beginning. The recurrent syncretism and outright foreign worship (presented as adultery and idolatry) of pre-exilic Israel and Judah were finally eliminated, and the ideal of the prophetic worship became everyone else’s standard as well. The oracular nature of much of the (Latter) Prophets is clear, but it is likewise present in the Historical Books (the Former Prophets, namely Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings), where the oracular/prophetic perspective is the filter through which events are interpreted, comprising a prophetic commentary on history itself. In this, they don’t differ from those oracularly-driven perspectives we read of in other ancient Near Eastern texts.

On the Davidic-Messianic Nature of the Old Testament
Tied to the above is the realization of the OT designed by those prophetic voices to reflect the ongoing loyalty of God for His promise to David as given in 2 Samuel 7, through the prophet Nathan, “Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me; your throne shall be established forever” (2 Sam 7.16). Firstly, the genealogies of the various books drill down toward the family of David, from Adam to Noah, from Shem to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to Judah, and so on, to David (as I describe here). In addition to this, that oracular promise was continually on the minds of the prophets, so that they were always in anticipation, generation by generation, of its fulfillment in the birth of a new scion of the House of David, a Son of God in a particular manner. This would explain the strong language found in Isaiah 7 and 11. Every king in that line was viewed not only as the living embodiment of the fulfillment of God’s particular promise to David made through one of their own. Later, the expectation of an ideal Son of David grew (this too, is reflected in Isaiah 7 and 11, and perhaps also in Ezekiel 34 and 37, if “David” there is not to be understood as King David redivivus) as time went on and the prophets were presented with various disappointing (and occasionally murderous) results. This Davidic-Messianic perspective is likewise, in combination with various references to prophetic texts, drawn on in the Gospels in reference to Jesus, a son of David, though the Messiahship there is one quite different than that of a physical kingdom, drawing on further aspects of the Davidic-Messianic tradition which must certainly have been in play in those days in reference to an expected Davidic scion, otherwise they’d’ve been incomprehensible to the original audience. One can only imagine that in the second century that at least some of the same references would have also been in play in reference to Simon bar Kosiba. One wonders if the miraculous healings and such things were likewise expected of bar Kosiba or if they had dropped out of the tradition by then; or perhaps the adherents of that tradition had simply entered into the Christian community, so that it was simply no longer held by other Judeans at the time.

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Out of the mouths of … former vampire novelists

As you did your research, what was your impression of modern biblical scholarship?

As I plunged into modern Bible scholarship, I assumed the skeptics would be right, but I soon discovered that their “late date” theories of gospel creation were flimsy, full of assumptions, and that a dislike of Jesus ran through many of their arrogant and pompous books. The field came across to me as a huge scandal. There were believers and non-believers claiming to be Jesus scholars, and the skeptics, the famous Jesus Seminar, had been throwing out some outrageous nonsense to get the attention of the public. I have never seen sloppier scholarship in any field of study than what I saw in so-called biblical scholarship.

From the Fr Dwight Longenecker First Things interview with novelist Anne Rice.

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The Gospels on the Pharisees VI

Parts I, II, III, IV, and V in this series covered the gospel evidence regarding the Pharisess in nineteen parallel pericopes between the three synoptic gospels primarily, with one pericope included from the Gospel of John. Now I’d like to look at how the gospel evidence regarding the Pharisees has been, intentionally or unintentionally, misunderstood throughout the ages.

First, it is important to understand that the Gospel of Matthew was and is by far the most popular gospel of the four. It received pride of place in Patristic citation from the second century onward. In later established lectionary pericopes as well, much more of Matthew was read during more of the year than was the case with the other gospels. Therefore, even aside from concerns of compositional theory, the Gospel of Matthew appears to have been effectively The Gospel, with the others contributing secondarily. So, even though our focus in the previous contributions to this series was on Matthew as the earliest gospel according to the Griesbach Hypothesis of the compositional history of the synoptic gospels, that perspective of “Matthew first” is upheld in the de facto status of Matthew as the preferred gospel throughout Church history.

Secondly, it is likewise important to understand the disruption of Judean society caused by the Great Revolt of 66-74 and the subsequent severance of proper comprehension of the picture of the Pharisees in the Gospel of Matthew. After the Great Revolt, the old societal structures and institutions were all overturned: the chief-priestly families and other aristocracy were obliterated by the rebels, and those surviving the subsequent Roman onslaught were faced with a society which had no need of them after the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. The surviving Pharisees and others worked at constructing a new societal structure, under more direct oversight from both the Romans and the rabbis. The societal context depicted in the gospels was no longer existent, and relatively quickly faded from memory, with readers culturally further distant losing the original understanding of the context even more quickly, as they had perhaps never had a good grasp on it at all in the first place. The depiction in Matthew of a dialogue between Jesus and the Pharisees, one rooted in different bases for halakhic argumentation but still a generally workable relationship, and the function of the rhetoric in the gospel as part of that argumentation, was all lost. Indeed, as we have seen from the earlier parts of this series, the argumentation was already unimporant to both Luke and Mark in their presentations to gentile audiences. This lack of both interest and comprehension led to statements in Matthew being taken not as part of a rhetorical strategy in argument, but as bald fact, particularly Jesus’ diatribe against the Pharisees and scribes in Matthew 23. But Matthew 23 simply cannot be taken in isolation as a freestanding critique of all scribes and Pharisees in every particular (that is, of the Pharisaic program of halakhic rulings and the personal failings noted of individual unnamed scribes and Pharisees) as it has been and, in some quarters, still is. It is only correctly understood when viewed in the context of the interactions between Jesus and the Pharisees depicted throughout the earlier chapters of Matthew, and particularly only in the view of Jesus’ different focus in admitting the Word of the Lord found amidst the prophetic texts in determining his halakhic rulings. It is only from within Jesus’ own halakhic program that the critique of the Pharisaic halakhic program is properly comprehended. Thus the foundation for the charges of hypocrisy lie within those debates, the subtext of which is determining the will of God in ordinary life. Jesus’ emphasis is on fostering a moral interiority rooted in God’s mercy toward and love for man in addition to maintaining ritual purity; this is the source of the charge for hypocrisy among the Pharisees: their halakhic program is found by Jesus to be only inconsistently guided by the example of the same Divine mercy and love for man, and thus the Pharisees only hypocritically claim to consistently reveal the will of God to man. With the loss of understanding this context, Christian commentators very early on thereby considered the Pharisees to have been one and all personally hypocritical and gulty of the personal failings described in Matthew 23. Thence, whether knowing or not that the Pharisees were the source of Rabbinic Judaism, this charge of empty hypocrisy was transferred to all Judaism. And that mistaken perspective was (surprisingly, to a thoughtful and sympathetic reader) maintained throughout the ages until only the last generation.

Continue reading “The Gospels on the Pharisees VI”

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The Gospels on the Pharisees V

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15.) Mt 22.15-22 / Lk 20.20-26 / Mk 12.13-17
Taxes to Caesar. Mt presents, at this point, the Pharisees now planning to “entangle [Jesus] in his talk” (22.15), sending some of their own disciples and some Herodians to do so. Lk has the instigators as scribes and chief priests, following from the previous pericope in Lk. Mk retains the Pharisees and Herodians of Mt. It’s interesting that the Herodians appear in Mt only here, involved in a question with overtly political ramifications, while they are utterly absent throughout the rest of Mt. In Mk they appear here, and also in 3.6, curiously, at the end of the incident of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath (see my note 6, above). However, in this case, the outcome in all three parallels is relatively positive: wonder/amazement on the part of hearers at Jesus’ skillful answer, even despite his explicitly calling them hypocrites in Mt, and with this evaluation of them imputed to him by the narrator in Lk and Mk.

16.) Mt 22.34-40 / Lk 10.25-28 / Mk 12.28-34
The Great Commandment. The shortest account is that of Mt, a simple question and answer without commentary on the part of Jesus or his interlocutor. Lk’s account poses a different question (“Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 10.25), and the entire pericope is displaced relative to its position in Mt and Mk. Indeed, the pericope in Lk appears to be a different incident, as the initial question differs, and it is then followed by another question from Jesus, and the scribe then answers with the OT quotations, to which answer Jesus gives an approving response. Mk appears to conflate Mt and Lk, particularly so as to keep the approval of Jesus at the end, though in a different formulation (cf Lk 10.28 and Mk 12.34). Mt and Mk both begin with the scribe’s question (a lawyer from among the Pharisees in Mt, one of the scribes in Mk) which is then answered by Jesus. Mt ends the pericope there, while Mk includes a recapitulating affirmation from the scribe, whose positive response is then in turn affirmed by Jesus. An interesting change in perspective is discernible between Mt and Mk. In Mt, Jesus proclaims “On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (22.40). However, this becomes in Mk part of the scribe’s affirmation “[This pair of laws] is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (12.33). There is a whiff of supersession of the sacrificial system in Mk that is entirely absent from Mt, likely to be attributed to the later, more Gentile context of the audience of Mk.

17.) Mt 22.41-46 / Lk 20.41-44 / Mk 12.35-37
The Question about the Son of David. Here we find some interesting narrative tricks in process amongst the three parallel pericopes. First comes Mt, a pericope immediately following upon the “Great Commandment” pericope described above. The audience is still the Pharisees. In Lk, however, with the displacement of the “Great Commandment” pericope, at the end of the dispute with the Sadducees over the resurrection (not covered in these notes: see Mt 22.23-33; Lk 20.27-40; Mk 12.18-27), Lk inserts a response from the scribes (20.40), following with the “Son of David” pericope in verse 41: “But he said to them…,” thus addressing this pericope to the scribes. Mk, on the other hand, inserted a clean break between the “Great Commandment” pericope and the “Son of David” pericope with 12.34b: “And after that no one dared to ask him any question.” A similar statement occurs at Lk 20.40, and at Mt 22.46. It appears that Lk placed his statement at 20.40 because that is the end of the last pericope in his set in which Jesus is asked a question, as the case is in Mk. Both appear to have found the placement of Mt’s similar statement awkward, as it follows the end of a pericope in which Jesus asks the question. Interesting, too, are the different audiences. In Mt, it is still the Pharisees around whom he asks, and they then answer, followed by Jesus making an objection through a Scriptural citation, an interesting and classically rabbinic practice. This is altered, however, in Lk, who has Jesus ask the scribes, “How can they say…?” (20.41), and Mk follows this format in having Jesus question the crowd “How can the scribes say…?” (12.35). In both, he continues with the same Scriptural citation as an objection, but the argumentation is no longer preserved, the questions having become merely rhetorical. Again, Mt appears more authentic and earlier than Lk and Mk.

18.) Mt 23.1-39 / Lk 20.45-47, etc / Mk 12.37b-40
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” This entire chapter of Mt 23 is devoted to a fascinating list of apparent halakhic rulings of the Pharisees (and those scribes following their lead) with which Jesus vehemently disagrees. As Pickup notes (p. 102), in Mt Jesus addresses the “crowds and his disciples” in that order, which Lk turns into “in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples” (20.45), following with a drastically shortened account of Mt’s pericope, which Lucan abbreviation is then followed by Mk. The halakhic disagreements are displaced by Lk into Lk 11.37-54, where they likewise are presented in a different order, in the narrative setting of dinner at a Pharisee’s house, with the remnants of some halakhic argumentation on handwashing (see my note 9, above). It appeas that Lk wanted to keep the particularly halakhic distraction to a minimum, so he relegated only the more interesting rhetoric in Jesus’ argumentation into the earlier context of Lk 11, keeping the nearly unrecognizable remnants of Mt’s detailed halakhic objections and argumentation in one place. The fragment of this discourse left in place in Lk 20.45-47 and Mk 12.37b-40 is likewise simply a warning about the scribes, not the scribes and Pharisees as in Mt, apparently wishing to focus on the scribes as the official teachers of the law, rather than those responsible for the content of that instruction, which would have been the Pharisees. In addition, Mt 23.37-39, the climactic conclusion of this chapter in Mt, is completely displaced to another context in Lk (13.34-35), again demonstrating a fondness for the arrangement of Jesus’ sayings into discrete gnomic utterances more in keeping with Gentile conceptions of proper rhetoric for a philosopher, rather than the halakhic argumentation of a Judean teacher of the law. But this passage in Mt is tied to its immediately preceding context by the words “prophet” and “blood”, in addition to being the climactic point of this chapter, a hair’s breadth away from explicitly prophesying Jesus’ soon forthcoming death. Such is completely out of place in Lk.

Regarding the very difficult Mt 23.2-3, Pickup says (p. 106):

Is is possible to understand Jesus to be saying that the people should follow the scribes and Pharisees’ teaching of the Scriptures, but just not their behavior or the halakha of their oral traditions? I believe that it is, since this is exactly what we have seen throughout our analysis of Matthew’s gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ objection to the teaching of the scribes and Pharisees was not that their teaching of Scripture per se was wrong, but that their application of it failed to adequately fulfill the principles of the Law. Their level of righteousness (i.e., righteous behavior) was what was inadequate (5:20), not what the people heard from them regarding what Scripture said. Jesus objected to the actions of the scribes and Pharisees. Angry epithets, lustful looks at women, bills of divorcement, vows made in vain, acts of personal vengeance, and unloving behavior all failed to measure up to the moral principles of Scripture that the scribes and Pharisees themselves taught. Thus, Matthew’s Jesus says in the present discourse, “…Do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach” (v. 3).

That is really the only sensible reading in context. Likewise, such a proclamation and such a diatribe would have sealed anyone’s fate: telling the people at large, through popularity with whom the Pharisees gained all their influence in wider affairs, to ignore the Pharisees’ halakhic program would’ve been perceived as a direct attack on their foundational support among the people, mentioned by all sources. And while the Pharisees are not depicted as involved in the arrest, trial, sentencing and execution of Jesus, this may be taken as their response to such confrontational speeches on the part of Jesus: they neither came to his defense nor did they attempt to ameliorate the sentence.

It also seems to me that this chapter Mt 23 would have been most shocking in its indictment of Pharisaic rulings for another reason. The objections are coming not through argumentation, as in Mt 15, but by fiat, from a man who speaks and acts with authority—heavenly authority some believed, but not all. This, I think, would have frightened not a few hearers, and rightly so. It is exactly this confrontation between the prophetic and the professional that is depicted, in various clarities, throughout the gospels.

19.) Mt 26.6-13 / Lk 7.36-50 / Mk 14.3-9 / Jn 12.1-8
In a rather rare case, this particular pericope, The Anointing by the Woman, is present in all four gospels in parallel forms, though there are differences. Mt and Mk are nearly identical, with John close to them, while Lk’s version is so different and so displaced (the other three gospels all place this even late in Jesus’ life, explicitly six days before the crucifixion in Jn, while Lk places it years earlier) as to perhaps indicate a separate incident. In any case, it is only in Lk’s version that there is mention of a Pharisee, Jesus’ host, named Simon. Interestingly, both Mt and Mk also have the host as Simon, but call him a leper (Mt 6.6; Mk 14.3) and place the event in Bethany. Jn places it in Bethany as well, (2.1-2) but in the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, who is the woman who anoints Jesus. The Pharisees Simon in Lk appears to be concerned with the ritual purity status of the woman who is touching Jesus (7.39). Though it is not explicitly stated, and Lk is not as careful with such details as is Mt, the concern of Simon appears to be transmission of uncleanness from the sinful woman to Jesus (perhaps exacerbated through the presence of the liquid medium of her tears and the ointment?). As mention of Pharisees and this theme of uncleanness is lacking in the other parallels, which thereby do appear to reflect a different situation being depicted, there is no further elaboration on the presence of the Pharisees in the parallels.

This concludes the set of parallel pericopes in which Pharisees are mentioned in at least one of the gospels. This was an intersting little project. After a bit more research, I’ll be presenting some information related to the above on how different passages in the gospels have been misread regarding the Pharisees. One thing, I think, is clear from the above: the Gospel according to Matthew preserves a more accurate record of first century proto-halakhic dispute than do either Luke or Mark, both of which show a clear tendency towards altering passages for the benefit of their Gentile audiences. The way that pericopes found in Matthew were edited, being shortened or rearranged or scattered in Luke and Mark, leads to the inescapable conclusion that Matthew was the earliest Gospel and Luke and Mark used it as a source. For an author like Matthew (for lack of any better name) with such sensitivity to the traditions of first century Judean halakhic dispute, there is no way that he would treat Mark and Luke (for it would require knowledge of both) as a kind of halakhic treasury (which they certainly aren’t) to pull random bits of phrases and arguments together and construct whole perfect examples of halakhic argumentation out of them, placing them in the mouth of Jesus. Rather it is more sensible to see the original whole arguments abbreviated by Luke and Mark as later alterations for later, different audiences with later, different interests.

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The Gospels on the Pharisees IV

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9.) Mt 15.1-20 / Lk 11.37-54 / Mk 7.1-23
In Mt the issue is ritual handwashing prior to a meal, something that concerned some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, and is undoubtedly related to the later-attested Rabbinic practice (see Mishnah tractate Yadayim, passim). This would have been a basic issue that apparently would presumably prevent table fellowship between Jesus and his disciples on one side, and the Pharisees and scribes on the other. Jesus’ argument is fascinating. Adducing a presumably Pharisaic and scribal halakhic example regarding vows to the Temple (“Qorban”) and positing a situation in which it would actually break commandments in the Torah rather than preserve them, he follows with a quotation from Isaiah 29.13, a prophetic condemnation of similar behavior. This is then followed by a stunning pronouncement which appears to be related to the Isaiah quotation: what comes from the heart defiles. In Lk the argumentation is completely gone, and the pericope is combined with a Lucan version of the some of the woes of Mt 23. Mk, however, follows Mt more closely, though still not presenting the argumentation in full. Indeed, it appears that in his concern for parenthetical explanation of Jewish customs for his Gentile readers (vv 3-4, 11) and application to their situation (particularly in the parenthesis in v 19: “Thus he declared all foods clean” — patently not the issue in Mt), Mk has taken the pericope in a different direction altogether, one foreign to the argumentation in Mt.

10.) Mt 16.1-4 / Lke 11.16, 29; 12.54-56 / Mk 8.11-13
As noted above in #8, Lk and Mk have harmonized Mt 12.38-42 and Mt 16.1-4, which is most apparent in Mk 8.11 and Lk 11.16 noting that the questioning was in order “to test him,” which is lacking in the parallel in Mt 12.38. Also to be noted is the weather observation saying in Lk 12.54-56, which originates in an appropriate fuller context in Mt 16.1-4.

11.) Mt 16.5-12 / Lk 12.1 / Mk 8.14-21
Lk excerpts only the very beginning of the Matthean pericope on the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, but identifies this leaven as the hypocrisy of the Pharisees alone, rather than the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees as in Mt. (The single excerpt is then followed by a Lucan version of Mt 10.26-33, interestingly implying persecution from the quarter of the Pharisees, though this would’ve been in actuality unlikely due to their position as influential intellectually, but lacking official power as a body themselves.) The version in Mk moves the focus, as elsewhere, to the miracles of the multiplication of loaves on two separate occasions, altogether neglecting to inform the reader what this leaven represents. An interesting change is that of “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” in Mt 16.6 to “the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod” in Mk 8.15. It is perhaps this unusual alteration in Mk that led to omitting the identification of the leaven. What role would the Pharisees and Herod have in common? Certainly not teaching. Mk probably should be taken, however, to understand the leaven as “hypocrisy” with Lk 12.1, contra Mt 6.12.

12.) Mt 19.3-12 / Lk 16.18 / Mk 10.2-12
In both Mt and Mk, it is the Pharisees asking Jesus about divorce, but there is a crucial difference in the two accounts. Mt has the question posed “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” (19.3). Mk has it “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” (10.2). Mt’s question will explain why Jesus’ ruling in 16.9 includes the proviso for adultery as the only legitimate reason for divorce. The unqualified question in Mk leads to an unqualified ban on divorce. Lk and Mk have no parallels to the concluding section of this pericope in Mt regarding not marrying as “eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,” vv 10-12. Such imagery could be construed as distasteful to a Gentile audience, if aversion to circumcision is any guide. Lk and Mk might then simply have avoided presenting this odd saying to their predominantly Gentile audiences.

13.) Mt 21.23-27 / Lk 20.1-8 / Mk 11.27-33
In Mt we find “the chief priests and the elders of the people” (21.23) questioning the source of Jesus’ authority, while in Lk it is “the chief priests and the scribes with the elders” (20.1) and in Mk it is “the chief priests and the scribes and the elders” (11.27). Again, Lk inserts scribes and Mk follows suit, connoting the group against Jesus to be composed of all the rulership of the nation as well as the instructors, while Mt leaves the latter out of this particular episode. Lk and Mt both foster the impression of widespread official opposition to Jesus from the beginning of his teaching, while Mt presents a picture over the course of the gospel of a deteriorating relationship between Jesus and the other parties: Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, et al.

14.) Mt 21.33-46 / Lk 20.9-19 / Mk 12.1-12
This is the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. The three versions are substantially parallel, though Lk omits the removal of the kingdom in Mt 21.43, and Mk omits both that and the following verse regarding being broken on the stone (Mt 21.44; Lk 20.18). The parties who recognize themselves depicted unflatteringly in the parable are “the chief priests and the Pharisees” in Mt 21.45, and “the scribes and the chief priests” in Lk 20.19. In Mk it is simply “they” (12.12), referring back to “the chief priests and the scribes and the elders” of 11.27.

(to be continued)

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The Gospels on the Pharisees III

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6.) Matthew 12.9-14 / Luke 6.6-11 / Mark 3.1-6
Pickup on Mt 12.9-14:

Jesus’ words presume a knowledge of Pharisaic practice—specifically, that they would have granted an exception to the Sabbath restriction in the case of a trapped animal. Jesus is accusing the Pharisees of inconsistency in their application of the Torah. More than that, he sees is as an inconsistency that fails to give proper place to the humanitarian requirements of the Law” (p. 91).

Several differences are apparent in this set of parallel pericopes. First, in Mt it is Pharisees who ask Jesus the question on the legality of healing on the Sabbath, and Jesus answers with a question, using a classic qal va-homer (a fortiori) analogy to establish that saving an animal is permitted, thus so is healing a man. In Lk and Mk, however, Jesus asks a slightly different question, skips the halakhic analogy, and heals the man in a confrontational manner. Both Lk and Mk also present the Pharisees (and scribes in Lk) as already antagonistic, just looking for an excuse to accuse Jesus. On the other hand, in Mt there is no such narrative setup, and their (the Pharisees of 12.3) animosity comes only after he has healed the man, once he is perceived to have committed an offense. So again we see, in Lk’s and Mk’s reuse of the material, Mt’s halakhic argumentation stripped out and the pericope transformed into one focusing on how a good act can paradoxically offend some pre-antagonistic viewers (did they need any excuse?), not too surprisingly. The communication between Jesus and the Pharisees, him addressing them with their own manner of argumentation, according to their own form, is important to understand. His use of such forms of halakhic argumentation indicates that it was not restricted to the Pharisees, precursors to the Rabbis, alone, but was also, as we also know from some allusive examples at Qumran, a form of argumentation that was in general circulation among first century Judeans. Eliminating the level of understanding and rapport changes the depiction of the relationship from that of two parties speaking the same language in the same cultural and intellectual context (as the original situation patently was) to that of haughty superiority on one side and craven antagonism on the other. Matthew therefore presents a picture more in line with reality than either Luke or Mark.

7.) Matthew 12.24 / Mark 3.22
In this case we find Mt depicting the speakers as Pharisees, while Mk has “scribes…from Jerusalem” speaking. Pickup (pp 94-95) notes that the scribes are more often depicted in discussion with Jesus in Mk, while in Mt, the Pharisees predominate. Pickup says (p. 95), “Clearly, the author of Matthew believed that while not every Pharisee was a scribe, certain scribes in Mark’s gospel were in fact Pharisees and these Pharisaic scribes in Mark’s gospel were in fact Pharisees and these Pharisees tended to be the ones who objected to Jesus as a teacher of the Law.” Yet there is another way to view the evidence. With the Griesbach Hypothesis, we have Lk between Mt and Mk, and the evidence viewed in this order shows that Lk introduced the scribes into many of the pericopes, where they were either retained or not by Mk, with no apparent pattern. Lk perhaps differentiated the Pharisees in Mt simply for the reason of increasing the impression of organized opposition to Jesus from Judean leadership. The scribes, however, do not get off easy in Mt. Note the repeated refrain in Mt 23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”

8.) Matthew 12.38 (par 16.1-2a, 4) / Lk 11.16, 29-32 / Mk 8.11-12
Here in Mt, scribes and Pharisees seek a sign (at Mt 16.1 is is “the Pharisees and Sadducees”), while Lk has “some” and “others” in a crowd asking (11.14-16), and Mk has simply “the Pharisees” (8.11) arriving and promptly arguing. Note the change: a respectful request in Mt 12.38 (“Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you”) is harmonized with Mt 16.1 (“And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test him they asked him to show them a sign from heaven”) in first Lk and then Mk. In both, again, Jesus’ initial rapport with the Pharisees and scribes is obscured by this practice of Lk, sustained by Mk, in presenting the Pharisees and Judean leadership as irrationally hostile to Jesus from the beginning. Mt presents a picture of deteriorating relations, which is much more believable, likely, and thereby almost certainly earlier.

(to be continued)

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