The Great Shift
Page 52
[back]
8. Krüger (2009). My thanks to Carol Newsom for this reference.
[back]
9. I have insisted on this point because it is still being missed by some contemporary scholars; they readily assert that the biblical soul was different from the Greek soul—the biblical soul was not separate from, nor opposed to, the body as the Greek soul was. But it is important for what follows in this chapter to take the next step and admit that in fact there simply is no reason to define nefesh, ruaḥ, or neshamah in most usages as any kind of soul at all. While he does not quite get to this point, Jacob Licht’s survey of the subject is excellent: s.v. “nefesh” in Mazar et al. (1968), 898–904.
[back]
10. The “upon” (‘al) in these expressions seems designed to imply that while the spirit empowers or impels the person to do things that he or she was previously unable to do, the spirit remains an external controller; see Newsom (2012a), 11.
[back]
11. This of course does not mean that ancient Israelites themselves conceived of a ruaḥ being responsible for such transformations “in those earlier days” but not later on; clearly, the books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings are the product of a great literary project, the Deuteronomistic history, which combined various oral and written source material culled from here and there and then reworked it (several times, in fact) into our present biblical text.
[back]
12. Note also the apparently independent “spirit of whoredom” in Hos 4:12, 5:4, or the “spirit of jealousy” that enters the mind of the suspicious husband in Num 5:14.
[back]
13. Levison (2009) poses the question clearly (pp. 11–12): “What is the relationship between the spirit that human beings possess by dint of birth—the life principle or breath within—and the spirit [of God—JK] that exhibits awesome effects?” Levison’s answer, which he calls an “unapologetically alternative point of view,” is that the distinction of the two is an “artificial, anachronistic, and decidedly unnecessary division that serves to obscure the relationship that exists in Israelite literature between God’s initial gift of the spirit and a subsequent endowment of the spirit.” I’m afraid I can’t agree; see below.
[back]
14. Robert Di Vito writes: “One of the most striking manifestations of the modern sense of inwardness is the conviction that every person has ‘inner depths,’ which mark that person as unique . . . This conviction is completely foreign to the thought world of the OT, where identity is given with one’s social role and the status it offers, whether one is a lay person or a cleric, a master or a slave, rich or poor. In a way foreign to modernity, one simply is one’s social role in the OT”: di Vito (1999). His point about socially defined identity is important, but perhaps too sweeping, as we shall see below; “inner depths” is precisely what we encounter in some (especially later) biblical texts. On the social construction of identity in general: Berger and Luckman (1967); also Lieu (2004).
[back]
15. Reading aḥuzot, as suggested by the Old Greek and Syriac translations.
[back]
16. Reminiscent of God’s promise of a “new heart and a new spirit” in Ezek 11:19, replacing the “heart of stone” with a “heart of flesh”; cf. Ezek 36:26–27.
[back]
17. This is S. Mowinckel’s category of “non-cultic poems,” including alphabetical acrostics, which he holds in rather low esteem: Mowinckel (1962), vol. 2, 111–12. The “anytime, anywhere” character of these psalms is well exemplified in Ps 34:2, “Let me bless the LORD at all times, let His praise be in My mouth continuously,” or the opening of Ps 145: “O King, my God, let me exalt You, and bless Your name forever and ever; Let me bless You every day, and praise Your name forever and ever” (145:1–2), discussed below in greater detail, chapter 15. Note that this wording later gave rise to the midrashic assurance that anyone who recites this psalm once a day (subsequently revised to three times a day) is guaranteed a portion in the world to come. This promise is actually a reinterpretation of the psalm’s second line as: “If I bless You every day, then I will praise Your name forever and ever [that is, in the world to come].” By the time of the Babylonian Talmud, the origin of this midrash was no longer recognized; see b. Ber. 4b. On prayer without ceasing: 1 Thess. 5:17, Rom 12:12, and the later Christian laus perennis.
[back]
18. Note Pss 34 and 145, mentioned in the preceding note, are likewise alphabetical acrostics, and this may be one of several indications (along with syntax, lexis, ideology) that these psalms, along with Ps 119, belong to the latest stage of biblical psalm composition; on the date of Ps 119, see Hurvitz (1972), 131–51; cf. Freedman (1999), 29; Prinsloo (2003), 422; Reynolds (2010), 50–51.
[back]
19. I must acknowledge here that some Jewish communities do make a practice of reciting Ps 119 in synagogue toward the end of Shabbat (usually with different members of the congregation taking turns reading stanzas), but the purpose is clearly to fill up the time between the afternoon and evening prayers.
[back]
20. Among other views, see those of J. D. Levenson (1987).
[back]
21. Sh. Holtz, “Seeking Torah, Seeking God,” on the website TheTorah.com.
[back]
22. In fact, see Kugel (1999a), 239–70.
[back]
23. Ps 119 is widely recognized as a late biblical psalm; see the discussion by A. Hurvitz (1972), 131–51. If so, its chronological closeness to the Qumran Hodayot may help explain their shared focus on “me.”
[back]
24. A group within the Thanksgiving Hymns, namely, those found in 1QHa columns 10–17, have been argued to refer to (and indeed, to be spoken by) a specific, historical figure, the “Teacher of Righteousness” who is mentioned elsewhere in the Qumran corpus. In particular, the speaker of 1QHa 12:9–10 says of his enemies: “They do not take account of me, though You show Your strength in me, for they drive me away from my land like a bird from her nest.” This seems to tally with Pesher Habakkuk, which at one point refers to the Teacher of Righteousness having been driven into exile: “Its interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest who pursued the Teacher of Righteousness to swallow him up with the fury of his anger in the place of his exile.” The idea that this subgroup from within the Thanksgiving Hymns were spoken by, or referred to, the Teacher of Righteousness was first proposed by G. Jeremias (1963) and has attracted a number of supporters; see recently M. O. Wise (2010). For our purposes, it makes little difference if the “I” of these hymns is the Teacher’s or not (or if, originally having come from the Teacher, these hymns became part of the liturgy of the Qumran community)—it is, in any case, indisputably “all about me.” In this connection, see the various articles by C. Newsom: (1992), (2012a), and (2012b); as well as Newsom (2004). Note also Harkins (2012).
[back]
25. The numbering of lines in the Thanksgiving Hymns follows that of Stegemann and Schuller (2009), which usually differs by a few lines from the edition of Garcia Martinez and Tigchelaar (1997) and other preliminary editions.
[back]
26. See further on starkness: Kugel (2003), 137–68 and (2007a), 89–114.
[back]
27. For this and other reasons, I am skeptical about the claim that this and others of the Hymns refer specifically to the life of the Teacher of Righteousness; see above, n. 24.
[back]
28. Newsom notes the frequency of reference to God’s having placed the spirit within me (Hodayot 4:29, 5:36; 8:29; 20:15; 21:34); see Newsom (2012b), 349.
[back]
29. This assertion must be qualified somewhat: while the inward explanation grew to wide acceptance, the “outside source” understanding was far from dead. Surely any reader of the New Testament, or of post-biblical Jewish and Christian writings, knows that Satan was still an exterior, dynamic power who could gain control of a human being from the outside. Indeed, in rabbinic writings the altogether interio
r yetzer (ha-’ra) came to be re-personified and exteriorized, as Rosen-Zvi has demonstrated: see Rosen-Zvi (2011) and n. 34 below. Even today, Satan is still very much alive: many contemporary Christians in the modern West will still insist that the Devil made them do this or that. Let one pungent example stand for many: the hit record of the Louvin Brothers (a gospel duo that clearly influenced the ultimately better known Everly Brothers) entitled “Satan Is Real” (1958). The chorus is as follows:
Satan is real, working in spirit,
You can see him and hear him in this world every day.
Satan is real, working with power,
He can tempt you and lead you astray.
In between choruses, a man relates his sad story in church. He once had a happy home and was “loved and respected by my family,” indeed, “looked upon as a leader in my community.” But then “Satan came into my life. I grew selfish and un-neighborly. My friends turned against me, and finally, my home was broken apart. My children took their paths into a world of sin. So yes, preacher, it is sweet to know that God is real and that in Him all things are possible, and we know that Heaven is a real place, where joy shall never end. But sinner friend, if you’re here today, Satan is real too, and hell is a real place, a place of everlasting punishment.”
[back]
30. Defined as “soul, spirit, strong feeling, strength, desire, inclination” etc. For all these, Liddell and Scott (1953), 810.
[back]
31. Dodds (1951), 138–39.
[back]
32. “Homer’s conception of thymos, noos, and psyche still depended to a large extent on an analogy with physical organs . . . The first writer to feature the new concept of the soul is [the sixth century philosopher] Heraclitus. He calls the soul of living man psyche; in his view man consists of body and soul, and the soul is endowed with qualities which differ radically from those of the body and the physical organs . . . Heraclitus says (fr. 45) ‘You could not find the ends of the soul though you travelled every road, so deep is its logos.’ This notion of the depth or profundity of the soul is not unfamiliar to us, but it involves a dimension which is foreign to a physical organ or its function.” Snell (1960), 16–18.
[back]
33. Apart from Phaedo, the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus is likewise well known for its depiction of the immortal soul as a charioteer and two winged horses. Further: Werner (2012), 59–64.
[back]
34. It is not at all clear that the rabbinic yetzer (inclination to evil) is the product of Greek ideas of the “lower” (specifically sexual) impulses. After a thorough search of the rabbinic material, I. Rosen-Zvi has concluded that the rabbinic yetzer is far closer to Persian demonology: “The yetzer, as shown above, is never identified with the body, and is not modeled on the body-soul dichotomy. Rather, it creates multiplicity in one’s heart and therefore must be cut off (‘circumcised’) in order to allow people to become ‘single-minded’ in the service of God . . . The yetzer is anything but an integral part of the ‘self.’ The rabbis took pains time and again to distinguish ‘me’ from ‘my yetzer.’ . . . In fact, the yetzer discourse seems to be an important tool of constructing the very notion of ‘self’ in rabbinic literature—the true ‘me,’ set against other parts in ‘me’ that are nonetheless not really ‘me.’ In this sense the yetzer is a result of a double, and somewhat contradictory, motion; the source of evil was inserted into humans (unlike ancient demonology) but remained a separate agent (in stark contrast to the biblical monism), . . . thus creating both duplication and hierarchy in the person.” Rosen-Zvi (2011), 129.
[back]
35. J. Barr (1993) sought to argue the case for the opposition of soul and body within the Hebrew Bible, but the evidence is unconvincing.
[back]
36. Among others, see Kugel (1989).
[back]
37. See above, note 34.
[back]
38. Shaked, (1984), vol. 1, 308–25; Garcia Martinez (2003), 37–49.
[back]
39. See on this Feldman et al. (2013), vol. 2, 1697–1703.
[back]
40. Cf. 2 Bar 42:8, 1 En 51:1, Sib Or. 1:82, etc.
[back]
41. See below and 4 Ezra 4:41, 7:32, 7:85, 7:95, 101; also. 2 Bar 21:23; Ps.-Philo 32:13 as well as Stone (1990), 96, 99.
[back]
42. Barresi and Marten (2013), 51.
[back]
43. Dan Zahavi, citing Miri Albahari in Zahavi (2011), 316–35.
[back]
12. REMEMBERING GOD
1. It would be tedious to list all the different explanations that have been offered; see briefly Milgrom (1990) 448–49. Also: Propp (1988); Helfgot (1993); Beck (2003).
[back]
2. To be sure, this looks like a classic “doublet” of Source Criticism, that is, two versions of the same “water in the wilderness” story, the first as told by E and the second by P: see Friedman (1989), 189, 251, 253. This notwithstanding, there is an obvious difference between the two versions—the first altogether positive, the second quite the opposite (at least insofar as vv. 12–13 are concerned); it would probably be more accurate to say that in its final form, the second version is quite consciously contrasting its version to the first and thereby offering its own justification for Moses’s having died before the entry into Canaan.
[back]
3. Hebrew he’emin b- generally has the sense of “put one’s trust in,” “believe in.” But while this is the usual sense of the hiph’il form of this verb, here it refers to showing one’s trust and thereby causing someone else to believe. This is made clear in the continuation of this sentence, “Since you did not show your trust in Me, sanctifying Me in the Israelites’ sight . . .” A similar usage occurs with the hiph’il form hbyn: while it usually refers to the verb’s subject understanding something, it sometimes refers to the subject causing someone else to understand, thus Neh 8:7 “The Levites who were explaining (hmbynym) the Torah to the people” (cf. Neh 8:9, Ezr 8:16). Similarly in our passage, Moses’s fault was that he did not he’emin b- in the sense of causing others to put their trust in, or believe in, God.
[back]
4. O’Connor (1979); also Longman (1990).
[back]
5. Presumably the name of his mother.
[back]
6. That is, I was their exclusive support. Text from Donner and Röllig (1962), 4–5. For aspects of this translation, see the review of scholarship and translations cited in Green (2010), 136–54.
[back]
7. Miller (1974), 12.
[back]
8. Among others, see: Deut 8:19; Jud 3:7; 1 Sam 12:9; Isa 17:10, 51:13; Jer 3:21, 13:25, 23:27; Ezek 22:12, 23:35.
[back]
9. Particularly revealing is Ps 44:14, “If we forgot the name of our God and spread out hands to a foreign god . . .” Taken at face value, this would suggest that the poor Israelites (apparently during the Babylonian exile) just couldn’t remember the name of their God, so they started worshiping some other deity. Obviously, the “forgetting” here refers to willful abandonment embodied in the act specified, worshiping a foreign god. (This verse was later interpreted as referring to a god whose name was Zar [“foreign”].) See further Kugel (1990a), 195–97.
[back]
10. Greenfield (1969).
[back]
11. See also Kugel (1986a).
[back]
12. Claus Westermann has put the case nicely: “Lamentation has no meaning in and of itself. That it functions as an appeal is evident in its structure. What the lament is concerned with is not a description of one’s own suffering or with self-pity, but with the removal of suffering itself”: Westermann (1981), 266.
[back]
13. Mark the Deacon (2000), 65.
[back]
14. The latter form perhaps was preferred by students of Virgil, where the phrase is found in the Aeneid 1:303.
[back]
15. Ruchames (1971).
[back]
16. Along with its opposite, à Dieu ne plaise (that is, “May this not happen”).
[back]
17. Rabelais (2009), 256.
[back]
18. Two landmark studies: Watts (1992) and Weitzman (1997).
[back]
19. Initially, the expectation was that praise to God on such occasions was to be sung, as these inserted songs attest. See further Kugel (1982a) and (2000). Scholars generally agree that these songs are later insertions of thanksgiving into the biblical narrative; see e.g., Watts (1992) 11, 47, 69, 85, 118, 141, 143. One exception, I believe, is Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the whale, where this psalm seems to have created the preceding narrative of Jonah’s attempted flight to Tarshish. That is, the core story began in what is now chapter 3; to it was added the (already extant) psalm that is now chapter 2 along with the flight narrative to provide a narrative context for the prayer. See further Kugel (2007a), 630–31.
[back]
20. As many scholars have argued; see Kugel (2007a), 392–96.
[back]
21. Ibid.
[back]
22. Cross and Freedman (1955); also Cross (1973), 112–44; cf. Wolters (1990).
[back]
23. Watts (1992) and Weitzman (1997).
[back]
24. Ibid.
[back]
25. Cf. Joel 2:26.
[back]
26. It seems likely that in this case, as so often in Jubilees, a particular event in the life of one of Israel’s forefathers is being presented as a precedent for what was later to become a commandment of the Torah, in this case, that of Deut 8:10. In other words, even at this early date, what might otherwise be seen as a generalized biblical encomium of the land of Israel was already being understood by the author of Jubilees as requiring a specific, external act to be performed after eating a festive meal (cf. Jub 2:21). Such a hypothesis is backed up by some of Jubilees’ contemporaries, for example, Ben Sira’s assertion: “Like a sealing-clasp on a purse of gold, so is the praise of God after a wine feast” (35:5 [ms. B]). Here, “sealing-clasp” is meant to imply the act of sealing or ending the evening with praise. From only a slightly later period, several texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls—4QDeutn, the so-called “All Souls Deuteronomy,” 4QDeutj, and 4Q434a—suggest that the same passage ending in Deut 8:10 was being copied for liturgical use, in all likelihood as part of a fixed practice of reciting a blessing after the meal.