"Torah (Early Reception)"

14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) Link Tables List of contents Torah (Early Reception) Metadata Name Metadata Value Word Count 3274 Character Count 21273 Torah (Early Reception) The Torah (also called the five books of Moses or Pentateuch, the first part of the Hebrew Bible), was the shared heritage of both post-biblical Judaism and early Christianity. Except for Marcion of Sinope (c. 85-160 CE) and his followers, the Marcionites, who created a dualist system that separated the God of the Hebrew Bible from Jesus and the God Jesus was understood to reveal, all ancient Jewish and Christian groups valued the Torah as a holy book that constituted the basis of their own interpretations, practices and beliefs. While the Torah constituted the base-text of Hellenistic and Rabbinic Judaism, the gospels, Paul, and the church fathers, the ways in which it was interpreted, adapted, and appropriated varied considerably within the respective religious traditions. In both Judaism and Christianity, a second body of traditions gained major importance in the first centuries CE. Ancient rabbis distinguished their own traditions, the so-called “Oral Torah” compiled in the Mishnah and later Talmuds, from the “Written Torah” of the Pentateuch. Early Christians compiled their own canonical writings in the New Testament. By calling the Hebrew Bible the “Old” Testament, a term coined by Melito, bishop of Sardis, in the second century CE, the Jewish Bible received the status of a forerunner to the “New” Testament, which Christians believed to contain new revelations. Eventually, the Rabbinic Oral Torah and the New Testament obtained the status of sacred scriptures in the respective religious communities and came to be studied alongside the Torah in subsequent centuries. The Talmud and New Testament rather than the Torah were https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 1/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) the basis of distinctive Jewish and Christian identities. Whereas classical Rabbinic Judaism, represented in the Mishnah and Talmud, stressed the importance of Torah study and observance and developed a detailed halakhic system of religious law, Pauline Christianity and the church fathers emphasized the importance of belief in Jesus Christ and doctrine. They based their teachings more on the prophetic books of the Bible than on the Pentateuch, which maintained central significance in Judaism. Distinct Jewish and Christian adaptations of biblical narratives are also evident in the emerging Jewish and Christian figurative art of late antiquity (3rd to 6th cent CE). Jewish and Christian iconography indicates an indirect dialogue and competition in the reception and use of biblical figures, narratives, and motifs. Propagating the Torah in a Hellenistic Context From the time of Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Near East onwards (late 4th cent. BCE), all forms of Judaism developed in a Hellenistic context in which Greek was the language of the dominating culture and Hellenism the conceptual framework. Post-biblical Jewish literature in Greek, including Philo of Alexandria’s writings as well as the gospels and letters of the Greek New Testament, were created within this cultural sphere. The Greek-speaking authors would have used Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible (e.g., the Septuagint = LXX) or quoted them from memory. Their readers would have been Hellenized Jews and non-Jews. The authors, editors, and some of their readers would have been familiar with Hellenistic philosophical ideas, especially those of the Stoa, from reading or hearsay. Their goal was to make biblical traditions palatable to an audience whose frame of reference was very different from that of the biblical tradents and editors of earlier centuries. One way of catering to this new audience was the focus on a common ethic, shared with non-Jews, rather than on distinctive Torah laws. According to Collins, “[t]he characteristic feature of this ethic was that it emphasized those aspects of Jewish law which were likely to get a sympathetic hearing from enlightened gentiles—chiefly monotheism and the prohibition of idolatry, and various sexual laws [...]” (Collins 1986, 142), such as the prohibition of adultery (e.g., Pseudo-Phocylides 3.177-178) and of intercourse with a betrothed virgin (Josephus, Against Apion 2.25); the ideal of virginity (Joseph and Aseneth 1:6-7; in 4:9 also claimed for the biblical Joseph), marriage for the procreation of children (Josephus, Against Apion 2.25), and wives’ obedience to their husbands (ibid.; see also Eph 5:22-24). Another set of moral guidelines concerned social behaviours and attitudes towards others. These are especially emphasized in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, where pride, arrogance, jealousy (T. Reu. 3.5-6), hatred (T. Dan 2.5), and anger (ibid. 1.3) are singled out as destructive character traits. Particularly strict moral principles are attributed to Jesus in the synoptic gospels (cf. Mt 5:31-32: everyone who divorces his wife, except for reasons of her own sexual misconduct, turns her into an adulteress; Lk 6:27: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you”; cf. the variant in Mt 5:44). In the so-called pastoral epistles, “love out of a pure heart and a good conscience” is presented as a Christian ideal (1 Tim 1:5). https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 2/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) Another important way of demonstrating the relevance of the biblical tradition to a Greekspeaking Jewish (and possibly also a gentile) audience was the use of Hellenistic literary genres, forms, and motifs. One such form was the novel that focused on specific characters and followed a certain plot line. Its main function was probably moral instruction (Wills 2015, 187). The post-biblical Jewish novels of Tobit, Susannah, Judith, and Joseph and Aseneth all fall into this category (see Wills 2015). They deal with issues of marriage (Tobit), sexual morality (Susannah), monotheism versus idolatry (Joseph and Aseneth), and perseverance under foreign rule (Judith). With their focus on a particular “hero” (Jesus), a narrative plot structure, moral instruction, and the assumption of divine guidance and intervention, the gospels may also follow this literary model. Another related model were the more biographically oriented literary lives of philosophers and “divine men” (cf. Diogenes Laertius, Pseudo-Kallistenes, Lucian, mentioned by Thorsteinsson 2018, 27, n.56). Within these larger genres, the smaller literary forms of the apophthegma, parable, and fable are used. In the Jewish and Christian versions these Hellenistic forms are combined with biblical quotations and paraphrases, wise sayings, and miracle stories. Such a combination is typical for all Jewish and Christian texts created in this time period. Thirdly, biblical and post-biblical Jewish religious figures are presented in the guise of Hellenistic super-heroes. In his Life of Moses Philo of Alexandria ventures far beyond the Torah’s portrayal of Moses as a law-giver and communal intermediary. Philo’s Moses is the ideal Hellenistic philosopher who learnt hieroglyphs from Egyptian scholars: “all the other branches of the encyclical education he learnt from Greeks; and the philosophers from the adjacent countries taught him” (1.5.23). His authority was based on his universal knowledge in which he exceeded all other sages of the ancient world. In the Enochic tradition the biblical Enoch is turned into a heavenly visionary and counter-figure to the Watchers or fallen angels who, like the gods of Greek mythology, engaged in relationships with human women (1 Enoch 9:8-9; 12:4). While using a biblical figure as its hero, the text is based on Greek mythology, astrology, and cosmology (cf. Koester 1995, 240-1). In the gospels of the New Testament a rural Jewish preacher is associated with aspects of “imperial masculinity” (Convey 2008, 178). He is called “king” and his alleged resurrection resembles the idea of the apotheosis of Graeco-Roman rulers: “If presentations of ideal men such as Caesar Augustus, Philo’s Moses, and Philostratus’s Apollonius all include some language of apotheosis, it is no wonder that early Christian presentations of Jesus would do the same” (ibid., 81). Such procedures served to elevate Jewish role models to the level of Hellenistic heroes to maintain their relevance in the Graeco-Roman cultural environment in which the authors and editors lived. A perhaps hoped for by-product of this procedure was to also make the Jewish tradition attractive to non-Jews, who could now gain access to it in their own language (Momigliano 1993, 8). Rabbinic Midrash and Patristic Exegesis In late Roman and early Byzantine times rabbis and church fathers commented on biblical texts and interpreted them from their specific religious perspectives. In Rabbinic Judaism https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 3/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) biblical exegesis was transmitted in the form of Midrash, from Hebrew darash, “to search, to interpret” (see Mandel 2017, 222-39 on this term). As a small literary form Midrash could be integrated into talmudic discussions or compiled into the larger literary genre of Midrash. Classical Rabbinic Midrash collections exist on the books of the Torah only, whereas Midrash collections on the prophetic books of the Bible and on the so-called Writings are nowadays considered to have been edited in medieval times. One reason for this phenomenon may be rabbis’ attribution of greater value to the Torah, which contains legal traditions, than to the other books of the Bible. Another reason may have been the Christian emphasis on the Prophets as announcers of the Christian message, from which rabbis distinguished themselves. As far as the so-called “Old Testament” is concerned, church fathers wrote commentaries, homilies, and orations on Genesis, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Psalms (see the ACCS series). For example, the biblical Isaac is presented as a prefiguration of Christ (see already Hebr 11:17-19; Origen, In Genesis Homiliae 8; for a discussion see Hezser 2018, 31-80; on the Aqedah in Jewish and Christian interpretation see also the contributions in Noord and Tigchellar 2002), and Isaiah was believed to predict Jesus as the messiah (on Jewish and Christian interpretations of Isaiah 53 see the contributions in Bock and Glaser 2012). Biblical figures and prophecies were appropriated and used to justify Christian beliefs. Most patristic commentaries deal with the writings of the New Testament only. Rabbinic Midrash collections are pluralistic in the sense of presenting many alternative, diverse, and sometimes even contradictory interpretations side by side, in accordance with the tannaitic principle, mentioned in connection with disputes between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, that all Rabbinic views are divinely inspired: “ All these words have been given by a single shepherd, one God made them, one Provider gave them, the Lord of all deeds [...] So you, open many chambers in your heart and bring into it the words of the house of Shammai and the words of the house of Hillel, the words of those who declare unclean and the words of those who declare clean (tSotah 7:12). This principle, which the Tosefta mentions in connection with halakhic disputes, governed Rabbinic exegesis as well, as the very structure of midrashic proems and homilies indicates (Moore 2018: 205; see also Boyarin 2006: 311-12, who warns against the creation of a dichotomy between logocentric Christianity and Rabbinic indeterminacy, though). The biblical commentaries of the church fathers are usually attributed to specific authors. One might argue that, at least in the West, late antique Christian biblical exegesis functioned under the umbrella of the “orthodox” Catholic Church, whose clergy usually were the church fathers. What is absent in Rabbinic hermeneutics is the kind of dogmatism that developed in fourth and fifth century Christian circles. Occasional Rabbinic references to so-called minim or “heretics,” especially if they occur in late documents such as the https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 4/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) Babylonian Talmud, do not amount to a Rabbinic analogy to Christian heresiological discourse (Bar-Asher Siegal 2019, 6). Early Byzantine Christian heresiology was directed against Christian views that differed from the views of those who considered themselves “orthodox.” The views associated with minim in Rabbinic texts, on the other hand, are very diverse, reflecting pagan, Christian, non-Rabbinic Jewish, and other Rabbinic views, depending on the specific contexts in which they are mentioned. There was no common “orthodox” front to which they could be juxtaposed (against Boyarin 2004, 45). Unlike 4th and 5th-cent. CE Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism was not a belief system with fixed dogmas. Therefore, Rabbinic Torah interpretation could remain more flexible and adaptable to diverse and changing circumstances. An important aspect of both Rabbinic Midrash and patristic exegesis is their intertextuality. For rabbis the main intertext and foundation was the Torah, on which Rabbinic Midrash is based (Boyarin 1994, 16). For the church fathers the New Testament was the main intertext. These base texts are themselves already intertextual, functioning within the larger signifying practices of the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. On the vertical level, Rabbinic Midrash and patristic exegesis reach out to and are interlinked with other Rabbinic and Christian writings, as parallels and analogies (e.g., parallel passages in Midrash Genesis Rabbah and the Talmud Yerushalmi, see Becker) indicate. If one applies a broader definition of intertextuality beyond the by now outdated positivistic search for direct textual influence, (indirect) connections between Rabbinic and patristic interpretations of the Bible may be detected and evaluated (see Visotzky 1995 and 2003 for examples). Such indirect connections can be based on hearsay (e.g., oral sermons) and artistic depictions (e.g., the Binding of Isaac scene in synagogues and churches). What needs to be avoided, however, is the imposition of a Christian understanding on Rabbinic texts and vice versa, although the latter is rare. As Visotzky has already pointed out, more recent comparisons between Rabbinic and patristic texts have moved beyond traditional biases “and now theorize a more complex interaction among Jews and Christians” (Visotzky 2006, 111). The Torah in Ancient Jewish and Christian Art A more complex assessment of Jewish and Christian biblical reception is also necessary for the interpretation of biblical scenes in late antique Jewish and Christian art. Prominent biblical figures such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, and Noah appear in both Jewish and Christian artistic contexts, either in synagogues and churches or in funerary art (Hachlili 1998, 431; 2013, 428-34). The phenomenon of a shared repertoire of biblical motifs is interesting in and of itself. It may point to a situation of familiarity with the respective “other’s” iconographic choices and to religious competition within the public realm. The choice of the same or similar artistic motifs does not indicate shared meanings, however. On the contrary, biblical scenes such as the Aqedah (the Binding of Isaac in Gen 22) were used to express distinct Jewish and Christian religious values and beliefs (Hezser 2018, 3180). The biblical narratives were appropriated by late antique Jews and Christians to reflect https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 5/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) their religious identities and to claim the respective communities’ continuity with the biblical tradition and religious history. Also important in this regard is the way in which biblical narratives were adapted in art. Rather than being based on a close reading of the biblical text itself, the images seem to have been informed by orally transmitted and interpreted stories and visual models of figural representation (see the discussion of the depiction of the Binding of Isaac in Hezser 2018, 31-80). Since literacy levels were low, few ancient Jews and Christians can be assumed to have read the biblical texts. They would rather have been familiar with the stories from hearsay and from readings and sermons in synagogues and churches. Brown has suggested that in Byzantine times visual depictions increasingly replaced textual narratives in the religious consciousness of the masses (Brown 1999, 15-34). This does not imply that late antique synagogue and church art had educational purposes. The purpose of the images was not the illustration of biblical texts or the guidance of the public toward Bible study but the expression of more general religious beliefs and values that were probably already shared by the members of the respective communities. As far as the story about the Binding of Isaac is concerned, Jewish contexts focus on Abraham as a model of obedience to God, reducing Isaac to a mere medium to express this value, whereas Christian depictions tend to give Isaac a more active role. In early Christian art Isaac is used as a typos and forerunner of the crucified and resurrected Christ. At times, both the “sacrificed” Isaac and the ram as a replacement sacrifice are associated with Christ. In order to properly understand the depictions within the Jewish and Christian religious contexts, they need to be examined alongside Rabbinic and patristic exegesis. These literary texts provide us with a context of meanings that were possible at that time within the respective communities. These meanings should not be considered exclusive, however, since ancient viewers would have understood the visual art from their subjective perspectives. As Zanker and Ewald have pointed out, “the viewer’s specific interest guides the way he sees and the way he reactivates what he sees” (Zanker and Ewald 2012, 8). From the late fourth century onwards and especially in the fifth and sixth centuries, Christian triumphalism determined the ways in which “Old” and “New” Testament scenes and personages were depicted in churches to express a believed Christian superiority over Judaism. In wall paintings scenes from the Hebrew Bible were delegated to the sides of the nave, whereas New Testament figures, foremost among them Mary as the theothokos (“mother of [Jesus as] God”), Jesus flanked by Peter and Paul, and the twelve apostles appeared in the most central parts of the apse. Such an arrangement appears, for example, in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, which was meant to express the “triumph” of Christianity in visual form. The powerful and politically backed papal church “reinterpreted Jewish history and the Jewish people as precursors, shadowy adumbrations, types, and signs of the fulfilment of God’s promise in Christianity” (Miles 1993, 162). Bibliography https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 6/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) ACCS = Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, 29 vols. (ed. T. C. Oden; Downers Grove 1998). Bar-Asher Siegal, M., Jewish-Christian Dialogues on Scripture in Late Antiquity. Heretical Narratives of the Babylonian Talmud (Cambridge 2019). Becker, H.-J., Die grossen rabbinischen Sammelwerke Palästinas. Zur literarischen Genese von Talmud Yerushalmi und Midrash Genesis Rabbah (Tübingen 1999). Bock, D. L. and M. Glaser, (eds), The Gospel According to Isaiah 53: Encountering the Suffering Servant in Jewish and Christian Theology (Grand Rapids 2012). Boyarin, D., Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia 2004). Boyarin, D. “De/Re/Constructing Midrash”, in Current Trends in the Study of Midrash (ed. C. Bakhos; Leiden and Boston 2006) 299-322. Boyarin, D., Intertextuality and the Reading of Midrash (Bloomington and Indianapolis 1994). Brown, P., “Images as a Substitute for Writing”, in East and West: Modes of Communication (ed. E. K. Chrysos/ I. Wood; Leiden and Boston 1999) 15-34. Collins, J. J., Between Athens and Jerusalem. Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (New York 1986). Convey, C. M., Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (Oxford 2008). Hachlili, R., Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Diaspora (Leiden and Boston 1998). Hachlili, R., Ancient Synagogues - Archaeology and Art: New Discoveries and Current Research (Leiden and Boston 2013). Hezser, C., Bild und Kontext. Jüdische und christliche Ikonographie der Spätantike (Tübingen 2018). Koester, H., History, Culture, and Religion of the Hellenistic Age (2nd ed., New York and Berlin 1995). Mandel, P. D., The Origins of Midrash: From Teaching to Text (Leiden and Boston 2017). Miles, M. R., “Santa Maria Maggiore’s Fifth-Century Mosaics: Triumphal Christianity and the Jews,” Harvard Theological Review 86 (1993) 155-76. Moore, F.T., Practicing Midrash: Reading the Bible's Arguments as an Invitation to Conversation (Wipf & Stock 2018). Momigliano, A., Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge 1975; reprinted 1993). Noord, E. and Tigchellar, E. (eds)., The Sacrifice of Isaac: The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and Its Interpretations (Leiden and Boston 2002). Thorsteinssohn, R. M., Jesus as Philosopher: The Moral Sage in the Synoptic Gospels (Oxford 2018). Visotzky, B. L., Fathers of the World: Essays in Rabbinic and Patristric Literatures (Tübingen 1995). Visotzky, B. L., Golden Bells and Pomegranates: Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah (Tübingen 2003). Visotzky, B. L., “Midrash, Christian Exegesis, and Hellenistic Hermeneutic”, in Current Trends in the Study of Midrash (ed C. Bakhos; Leiden and Boston 2006) 111-32. Wills, L. M., The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World (Eugene 2015). Zanker, P., and B. C. Ewald, Living with Myths: The Imagery of Roman Sarcophagi (Oxford and New York 2012). https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 7/8 14/10/2020 Preview: Torah (Early Reception) Title Entry/Asset type ID Current Entry Torah (Early Reception) Article 4416350 Outbound links: Entries Entry title Entry type Entry ID Outbound links: Assets Asset title Asset type Asset ID Inbound links: Entries Entry title Entry type Entry ID https://cms.degruyter.com/rsuite/rest/v2/content/binary/id/4416350?skey=CuTFNI50SCK9OnB0Dwfjkd&transform=html_preview 8/8