The Great Shift
Page 35
Perhaps the most striking element in the book is that Koheleth the man (and here, I think, it is proper to identify the book’s speaker with its flesh-and-blood author) is, even more than Job, a doubter of wisdom’s clichés about God. There really doesn’t seem to him to be any great ordering Hand in the world; taking the long view, life seems to this author to consist of a series of actions and opposite actions, so that everything cancels itself out:
So futile, says Koheleth, everything’s so futile.
What does a person ever net from all the efforts he expends under the sun?
One generation goes out and another comes in, but the earth stays the same forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets, then rushing back to its place, it rises again.
The wind blows to the south, then turns to the north; it turns and turns as it goes—the wind—and goes back again by its turning.
All the rivers flow to the sea, but the sea is never full,
[because] to the source of the river’s flowing, there they flow back again.
Though all words grow tiresome, people never stop speaking;
the eye never takes in enough, nor is the ear filled up with hearing.
What has been is what will be, and what has been done will be done again,
for there’s nothing new under the sun.
Sometimes there’s something about which it’s said, “Look at this! This is new!”
But long ago it existed, in the ages that came well before us.
There’s no remembrance of former things, just as, with regard to the things that come later, they will likewise have no remembrance with those who come after them. (Eccles 1:2–11)
Koheleth’s ideas and affiliations have been much discussed, but what is of interest here (as with Job) is how he seems to conceive of himself and his fitting into the world. Perhaps the first point to be made is that examining his own life is important to him. This is something that one does not find earlier in biblical texts.30 In fact, his book is a kind of intellectual autobiography, and he therefore spends not a little time telling the reader about himself. Of course, a great many scholars have suggested that this “autobiography” is pure fiction: this is the work of some philosophically inclined sage pretending that he is King Solomon, the better to investigate life from the standpoint of someone with unlimited access to wealth and power. This may be the case, though the book’s strange language, the name Koheleth, and the absence of any overt attempt to connect this figure with Solomon (by saying, for example: “I am Solomon” instead of “I am Koheleth”) might well lead one to believe that this is a Persian-period governor’s first-person account of his own life. Whichever the case, however, what is striking is that the speaker of this book begins with a lengthy account of how he used his abundant resources to test whether it is better to be a “fool” (not an idiot so much as a hedonist) or “wise” (the opposite of a fool).
I, Koheleth was a king in Jerusalem over Israel. So [being a king], I set my mind to searching out and examining through wisdom everything that is done under heaven. Oh, what a miserable task it is that God has given to human beings with which to busy themselves!
I observed all the things that are done under the sun, and everything seemed futile and a chasing after the wind [that is, a fruitless waste of time].
That which is twisted cannot become straight,
just as that which is absent can never be counted.* [. . .]
I said to myself, “Let me test you with pleasure and enjoyment”—but this as well proved futile . . . I acquired many possessions: I constructed houses for myself, I planted vineyards, I got gardens and orchards and planted in them all manner of fruit trees. I had pools of water made for me, to irrigate a forest burgeoning with trees. I acquired slaves and servant girls, and had home-born servants as well; likewise many herds of cattle and sheep were mine, more than any other’s I had seen in Jerusalem. I stored up silver and gold, and with these the treasuries of the provincial rulers. I acquired male and female singers, and those delights of mankind, a concubine, nay many. I got more and more of all that was before me in Jerusalem—but all the while, my [pursuit of] wisdom was at my side. Anything that my eyes desired I did not withhold from them; I did not refuse them any sort of pleasure, and my heart rejoiced in all my wealth—for such was my lot from all my wealth. Then I turned to assess all the possessions that I had acquired and all the wealth that I had gotten and kept. And I saw that everything was futile and a chasing after the wind, since there is no net gain under the sun. (Eccles 1:12–15, 2:1, 4–11)
As we have seen, there are many autobiographical monuments that Phoenician and other kings have set up to their own glory, some of them preceding by centuries the Persian period in which Koheleth’s book was probably written. A lot of them actually turn out to be royal invention.31 Koheleth, too, may be exaggerating his wealth, but to make a different point; he is not boasting but recounting a serious undertaking, his own search for the best way to live one’s life. And so it is important to say how he intended to do this: not by asking for God’s help or prophetic inspiration or anything of the kind, but through considering his own experiences, using all the great resources at his disposal to try things out, since “What can someone else do who comes after the king? Only that which has been done before.” (Eccles 2:12)
Then I turned to consider all the oppression that is done under the sun, and indeed, here are the tears of the oppressed, who have no one on their side. The oppressors have the power, but they [the oppressed] have no one on their side. So I rate the dead,32 since they are already dead, higher than the living, because these still have to remain alive. But better off than both of these is the one who has not yet been, because he has not experienced the evil that is done under the sun. (Eccles 4:1–2)
This is not all there is to Koheleth, by any means. His concern with his own life continues throughout the book, extending even to the epitaph he creates for himself at the end of the last chapter. Apparently, he would like to be remembered most of all as a maker of wise sayings, someone who “weighed and studied and created many proverbs; Koheleth sought to find fitting words, written down squarely—truthful sayings” (Eccles 12:9–10). But as he scrutinizes his own life, what emerges is no great, single theme but a series of contradictory statements: “Wisdom’s advantage over folly is like the advantage light has over darkness” (Eccles 2:13), yet, “What will befall the fool will befall me as well [i.e., death], so why should I seek to accrue more wisdom [than him]?” (2:15); “More bitter than death is a woman: she is all traps, her hands are fetters and her heart is snares” (7:26), and yet, “Enjoy life with a woman whom you love” (huh? 9:9). More generally, time itself is full of opposing actions: “There is a time to give birth33 and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted” (etc., 3:1–11). Such contradictions are apparently not the result of sloppiness, but rather reflect the author’s attempt to record, and honor, the contradictory things that he has concluded at various stages of life. To him well applies the French saying Il se contredit pour avoir tout dit, “He contradicts himself in order to have said everything.”
Rewriting Biblical Stories
One last phenomenon belongs in this chapter, although it is as difficult to pin down as some of the material already seen. In general, in any case, Second Temple period texts seem to show an interest in the role that individual people may play in determining their own destiny.* The roots of this interest may go back as early as Ezekiel’s stress (examined above) on the way that a person’s turning aside from sin may stave off the divine punishment that he himself deserved. Much later, as we have seen, Ben Sira argued that the source of human sinfulness was not some external “spirit” dispatched by a wicked angel, but:
God created mankind in the beginning, and gave him over to the power of his own disposition.
If you wish, you will keep a commandment, and faithfully do God’s will.
If you trust in Him, you too may live.
Fire and water are set before you; extend your hand to whichever you choose.
Life and death are before a person: whichever he chooses will be given to him. (Sir 15:14–17)
But this same interest in the human side of things finds one of its most dramatic expressions in the way later authors sometimes retold earlier biblical stories in their own words. For example, the Book of Jubilees goes over many of the narratives in the book of Genesis; often, the author changes the story so as to have it fit with his own ideology and/or the interpretive traditions he has inherited. But sometimes, he seems to change the narrative in order to flesh out the character of one or another figure mentioned in the narrative. This is perhaps most clearly shown in the person of Isaac’s wife Rebekah.
It may be said of the portrayal of Rebekah in Genesis what was said earlier of the portrayal of Abraham and his descendants; in fact, of most of the biblical prophets as well: she is a kind of literary cipher, barely mentioned and utterly lacking in any kind of characterization or personal depth. The author of Jubilees seems determined to set things aright.34 In his retelling, Rebekah suddenly becomes a real person,35 a mother who, when her time has come to die, does all she can to prevent her two sons—who have long been on bad terms—from descending into actual violence. She first goes to her husband Isaac and asks him to make Esau swear that he will not harm Jacob (Jub 35:9–17). Of course, there is not a word of any of this in Genesis. But the author of Jubilees apparently felt that Rebekah-the-person, foreseeing her own death, ought to have done something to smooth things over between her two sons. In the process, she and her two sons become real people, whereas in Genesis they were little more than etiological stick figures, Jacob representing the future people of Israel and Esau the people of Edom, while Rebekah was no more than the biologically necessary mother of both.36
In fact, Jubilees’ author was not content with merely having Rebekah ask her husband to restrain Esau. She herself then goes to speak to Esau directly:
Then Rebekah sent and summoned Esau. When he had come to her, she said to him: “I have a request that I wish to make of you, my son. Say that you will do it, my son.” He said: “I will do whatever you tell me; I will not refuse your request.” She said to him: “I ask of you that on the day I die you bring me and bury me next to your father’s mother Sarah; and that you and Jacob love one another, so that neither [of you] will seek anything bad for his brother, but that you will only love one another. Then you will be prosperous, my sons, and be honored on the earth. No enemy [of yours] will triumph over you. You will become a blessing and a [source of] kindness in the eyes of all who love you.” And he said: “I will do everything that you have told me.” (Jub 35:18–21)
Even recognizing the concern of Jubilees’ author to portray Rebekah as a real-life mother, we might think that the above conversation with Esau would have ended the matter (especially since, in the end, Esau goes back on his promise—Jub 37:7–9). But for Jubilees, even this is not enough. So Rebekah then goes to Jacob, her other son, to make sure that he is onboard with this new era of fraternal good will:
Then she summoned Jacob in Esau’s presence and gave him orders in keeping with what she had said to Esau. He said, “I will do whatever pleases you. Trust me that nothing bad towards Esau will come from me or my sons. I will seek only to love him.” She and her sons ate and drank that night. She died that very night, at the age of three jubilees, one week, and one year [= 155 years]. Her two sons Esau and Jacob buried her in the Cave of Machpelah, next to their father’s mother Sarah. (Jub 35:25–27)
The transformation of Rebekah in the Book of Jubilees is certainly striking, but hardly unique. Take, for another example, the story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. We have already seen that the biblical account tells us very little about Abraham’s reaction to this demand of God’s; he gets up early in the morning, apparently a token of his unquestioning obedience to God, and sets out on a journey to kill his son.
But what of Isaac? He is about to become the actual victim, yet the narrative tells us nothing of his reaction to these events. Even if his father had kept him in the dark until almost the very end (Gen 22:7–8), Abraham ultimately did tie Isaac up and hoist him onto the altar (22:9): surely some words had to have been exchanged at that moment, if not before. And why didn’t Isaac try to resist? We don’t know how old he was, but he was apparently old enough to carry the load of firewood on his own (22:6); let us stipulate that he was at least a young teenager. That would mean that Abraham was 112 years old (or more) at the time of these events (Gen 21:5). Surely the young teenager could outrun his aging dad once he understood what was afoot—unless, of course, he had willingly accepted being sacrificed. Whatever the case, the Bible’s schematic narrative offers no answers; apparently, Abraham was the only important figure in the story. Isaac was just a prop.
When it comes to the Second Temple period retellings of this story, the situation changes dramatically. Now Isaac is indeed a real person, the Bible’s first willing martyr:
And as he [Abraham] was setting out, he said to his son, “Behold now, my son, I am going to offer you as a burnt offering and I am returning you into the hands of Him who gave you to me.” Then the son said to the father, “Hear me, father. If [ordinarily] a lamb of the flocks is accepted as a sacrifice to the Lord with a sweet savor, and if [whole] flocks have been set aside for slaughter [to atone] for human iniquity, while man, on the contrary, has been designated to inherit this world—why should you now be saying to me, ‘Come and inherit eternal life and time without measure’? Why if not that I was indeed born in this world in order to be offered as a sacrifice to Him who made me? In fact, this [sacrifice] will be [the mark of] my blessedness over other men—for no such thing will ever be [again]—and in me the generations will be proclaimed and through me nations will understand how God made a human soul worthy for sacrifice. (Pseudo-Philo, Book of Biblical Antiquities 32:3)37
Josephus retells the crucial exchange between father and son in even greater detail. Here both Abraham and Isaac appear in their human glory:
But after the altar had been prepared and he had put the firewood on it and everything was ready, he said to his son: “My child, in thousands of prayers I begged God for you to be born, and once you had entered this world, I spared nothing to lavish on your upbringing. I could think of nothing that would give me greater happiness than to see you grow to manhood, and at my death to bequeath to you my whole estate. But since it was by God’s will that I became your father, and now it seems best to Him that I give you up, accept bravely this act of consecration. [After all,] I am giving you up to God; He is the one who is demanding this homage in return for the favors that He has granted me as my support and ally . . .”
Isaac, being the son of such a father, could hardly not be brave of heart; and he did indeed accept these words with joy. He said that if he resisted the decision of God and of his father and did not willingly surrender to the will of both, he ought never to have been born in the first place; [in fact,] even if this were his father’s decision alone, it would have been unworthy on his part to disobey—whereupon he rushed to the altar to be slaughtered. The whole thing would have indeed been carried out, if God had not stood in the way, calling Abraham by name and forbidding him to slay the boy. (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 1: 228–33)
Many such instances, whereby a biblical cipher is retrofitted with human character, can be found in Second Temple period writings. But let one more example serve for many, the elaboration of Joseph’s entanglement with the wife of his master Potiphar after Joseph has been sold as a slave. Potiphar’s wife is attracted to the handsome young man, and the Genesis account does not mince words in relating what happened between them.
After a time, [Potiphar’s] wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” But he refused. He said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master gives no thought to anything in this house, and everything that he owns he has entru
sted to me. There is no one more important in this household than me, and he has held back nothing from me—except of course for you, being his wife. So how could I do this great evil and sin against God?” Although she kept speaking to Joseph [like this] day after day, he did not pay her mind, to lie with her or even to be around her. Then, on a certain day, he went to the house to do his work, but none of the household was there in the house. She grabbed him by his garment and said, “Lie with me,” but he left his garment in her hand and got away and fled outside. (Gen 39:7–12)
Here, we are actually allowed to hear Joseph thinking out loud—quite rare in biblical narrative—in fact, in this long speech, it seems Joseph may even be seriously weighing the proposal for a minute or two (as if he were saying, “Look, your husband trusts me implicitly, and none of the household staff would dare report on me, I am the chief slave, so maybe . . .”), before deciding that he really ought to refuse and not “do this great evil and sin against God.”
We thus get a sustained look at Joseph—and this really ought to be enough. But what about Potiphar’s wife? A reteller of these same events could easily have turned her into a stock character, the unattractive harpy, or simpler still, she could have been utterly neglected, as in the biblical story. But the author of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs took the trouble of detailing her thoughts and deeds, as seen by Joseph himself: